Ease of knowledge transfer. The dependent variable in this
study is the ease of knowledge transfer from a source to a
recipient. Because knowledge transfer represents a cost to
the source of knowledge, in terms of time and effort spent
helping others to understand the source's knowledge, the
source of knowledge is typically in the best position to evaluate
these costs. A priori, recipients have little basis for
assessing the ease of transfer since they do not yet possess
the knowledge in question. Ease of knowledge transfer was
measured with the items listed in table 1. Each item was
measured with a 7-point Likert scale, ranging from strongly
disagree to strongly agree. The items define a single knowledge
transfer variable. Cronbach's alpha among the items is
.87, and the first principle component from a factor analysis
of the items explains 69.9 percent of the variance. Our indicator
of ease of transfer is the mean of the items shown in
table 1.