What Is Knowledge Transfer? A Definition for Managers

Knowledge transfer is the work of passing on what one person knows about a job to someone else, so that person can do the job. In a company it matters most when someone leaves, changes role or retires. Done well it covers the written procedures. It also covers the know-how, the contacts and the judgment calls that were never written down.

A working definition

A 2023 summary of Linda Argote's research at Carnegie Mellon describes knowledge transfer as "the process by which one organizational unit learns from or is influenced by another". That unit can be a team, a site or a single person. For a manager the practical version is narrower. Knowledge transfer has happened when the next person can do the job without having to work out again how it is done.

Two parts of that sentence matter. "The next person" means the receiver is the one who decides whether it worked. A full folder that nobody reads has transferred nothing. "Without having to work out again" points to the first months in the role. The successor will learn a lot by doing the work anyway. Knowledge transfer covers the part they would otherwise find out through mistakes.

Explicit and tacit knowledge

The usual split comes from the philosopher Michael Polanyi. In The Tacit Dimension (1966) he wrote that "we can know more than we can tell". Explicit knowledge is the part that can be told and written down. A procedure, a price list, the place where the files are kept. Tacit knowledge is the part a person uses without being able to spell it out. Sensing that a client is about to leave. Seeing at a glance which number in a report is wrong.

Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi built on this in The Knowledge-Creating Company (1995). They described four ways knowledge moves. From tacit to tacit by working together. From tacit to explicit by putting it into words. From explicit to explicit by combining documents. From explicit to tacit by learning on the job. Most handovers only use the third. People pass on documents.

A third layer sits between the two. Many rules in a company were agreed in a corridor and never written. Finance checks every quote above a certain amount. Approvals go to the deputy when the director travels. These are explicit rules. Anyone could write them down, and nobody did. We wrote about the agreements nobody wrote down and why they cause the most confident mistakes after someone leaves.

The four kinds of knowledge that leave with a person

When someone leaves a role, four kinds of knowledge go with them.

• Explicit knowledge. What is written down. Process documents, logins, file locations. The easy part, and often the only part anyone hands over.

• Procedural knowledge. How the work is really done and in what order. This includes the workarounds that never made it into the process document.

• Relational knowledge. Who to call. Which colleague really approves things. Which supplier answers the phone and which one needs a formal email.

• Judgment. How the person decides when the rules run out. Which risks they take, which ones they never take and why.

Our 42 knowledge transfer interview questions are grouped by these four kinds.

What knowledge transfer does not mean

The term is often used for things that are related but smaller.

• A handover document. A document is one possible result. If nobody reads it, or it only lists what was already written down, nothing has been transferred.

• Training. Training teaches a skill that many people need. Knowledge transfer passes on what one person knows about one role.

• An exit interview. An exit interview asks why someone is leaving, to help the company keep others. It does not ask how the job is done.

• Onboarding. Standard onboarding teaches the company: its systems, policies and culture. Knowledge transfer supplies the job itself. The two meet in role-specific onboarding for the successor.

• Technology transfer. Universities and governments use the same words for moving research into industry. That is a separate field.

How knowledge transfer is done

The methods are simple. They differ in how much tacit knowledge they reach.

• Overlap and shadowing. The successor works alongside the person who leaves. This reaches the most tacit knowledge. It needs a successor who is already hired, and that is rare.

• Structured interviews. Someone who knows the work asks questions over several sessions. Follow-up questions bring out examples, exceptions and names. This works without a successor in place.

• Self-documentation. The person who leaves writes down what they know. It is quick. It mainly captures explicit knowledge, because people write down what they can already see.

• Writing it up for the next person. The answers are sorted by situation, checked by the person who leaves and turned into the first weeks of the successor's onboarding.

Timing decides most of the result. The first 72 hours after a resignation are when to book the sessions. The notice period is the only time the person and the work are still together.

Why it often fails

Gabriel Szulanski studied how best practices move between units inside large firms. In 1996 he reported that the main barriers came from the knowledge itself. Lack of motivation mattered less than people assumed. The receiving side could not absorb what it was given. Nobody fully understood why the practice worked. And the relationship between sender and receiver was hard work.

Linda Argote and Paul Ingram added in 2000 that knowledge built into the interplay of people, tasks and tools is the hardest to transfer. That is exactly the knowledge one person carries in a role.

In handovers between people the same causes come back.

It starts too late. The handover is left for the final week. By then the person's attention is on the next job.

People document their own work. Nobody can see the gaps in their own knowledge from the inside. The questions have to come from someone else.

Nobody owns the result. The document goes into a folder. The successor finds it months later, or never.

How to tell it worked

Ask the successor five questions after their first month.

1. What did you have to find out from someone other than the document?

2. Which recurring task or deadline surprised you?

3. Who did you need to call that nobody told you about?

4. Which decision did you make without knowing how it was made before?

5. What would you add to the document for the next person?

If the answers are short, the transfer worked. Every long answer points to something the handover missed. Add those answers to the document, so the next handover starts further ahead.

Frequently asked questions

What is knowledge transfer in simple terms?
Passing on what one person knows about a job, so the next person can do it without working it all out again.

What is the difference between knowledge transfer and knowledge sharing?
Knowledge sharing is ongoing and open to anyone. Think of a wiki or a question in a team channel. Knowledge transfer has a sender, a receiver and a deadline. The deadline is usually a departure or a change of role.

Who is responsible for knowledge transfer?
The manager of the role, or the person who will take over the work. HR can make sure it happens and keep the timeline. Only someone who knows the work can judge whether it is complete.

How long does knowledge transfer take?
For most roles two or three sessions of about 45 minutes, spread over the notice period, plus time to write it up. Roles with many outside contacts or rare decisions need more.

Want the knowledge transfer done for you? See how Rinto interviews the people who leave and turns what they know into onboarding for the next person.

Sources

• New Framework Predicts Success of Knowledge Transfer in Organizations, Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business, 2 November 2023. On Linda Argote's review in the Annual Review of Psychology. Link

• Michael Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension, 1966, p. 4.

• Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi, The Knowledge-Creating Company, Oxford University Press, 1995.

• Gabriel Szulanski, Exploring Internal Stickiness: Impediments to the Transfer of Best Practice Within the Firm, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 17, Winter Special Issue, 1996, pp. 27-43.

• Linda Argote and Paul Ingram, Knowledge Transfer: A Basis for Competitive Advantage in Firms, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, vol. 82, no. 1, 2000, pp. 150-169. Link