Determinants of knowledge transfer in Turkish textile and apparel industry

Abstract

The knowledge transfer activities in Turkish Textile and Apparel Industries have been explored in this study. The knowledge transfer is undisputedly important subjects as knowledge provides competitive advantage to firms. Only few percentages of the Turkish textile and apparel industries are engaged in knowledge transfer activity although it is recorded as the largest industry in Turkish economy. Turkish textile and apparel industries are mostly run by family and most of them are either unaware or reluctant to involve in the knowledge transfer activities. This study examines the knowledge transfer activities in Turkish SMEs through qualitative research and quantitative analysis by undertaking extensive li terature reviews and present situationin Turkey and proposes hypotheses to test the knowledge transfer activities in Turkish SMEs.T he proposed hypotheses consider various related factors (determinants) such as knowledge sharing, organisational culture, communication channel, knowledge acquisition and IT resource to analyse the overall scenario of knowledge transfer behaviour in Turkish textile and apparel industries. The analysis results indicate that in case of Turkish textile and apparel industries, the pattern of knowledge transfer activities are different from the available literature and mostly affected by local environments. This report points out severalt hought provoking findings and concludes with recommendation for researchers and practitioners. The work presented in this thesis suggests a novel way forward in the development of knowledge transfer activities in Turkish textile and apparel industries and, therefore it is considered that the work constitutes a valuable contribution to knowledge in this area of study. Also, there are a number of ways in which the work presented in this thesis can be extended to many other challenging domains.

Date of Award	2009
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Plymouth