As shown in Figure 4, one of the first steps of a process of knowledge transfer is to identify
the appropriate or valuable knowledge. This is named as ‘‘knowledge awareness’’. The next
step then is to acquire the knowledge, provided that both receiver and source have the
willingness and the ability to do it. This is so-called as knowledge acquisition. It refers to ‘‘an
organisation’s capability to identify and acquire externally generated knowledge that is
critical to its operations’’ (Zahra and George, 2002). Zahra and George introduce three main
attributes that can influence the process of knowledge acquisition, i.e. intensity, speed, and
direction. The intensity and speed of an organisation’s efforts to identify and gather
knowledge can determine the quality of a knowledge acquisition process. The greater the
effort, the more quickly the organisation will build its knowledge-base. However, sometimes,
there are limits to an organisation’s ability to achieve this speed. The direction of
accumulating knowledge can also influence the paths that the organisation follows in
obtaining external knowledge. These activities vary in their richness and complexity.