Models of Knowledge Transfer. Baek, Liebowitz and Granger (1999)
have identified various models of transfer. They proposed a model in
knowledge-creating organizations where tacit knowledge is trans-
formed into explicit through the interaction of employees and man-
agement in cross-functional teams. The focus here is on interaction
between the individual and organizational knowledge and has been
championed by Nonaka (1991). Further, they refer to the organiza-
tional learning model where competitive advantages are built through
effective management and constant updating. It requires the develop-
ment of structures that stress learning agents within the entity who
respond to and communicate internal and external knowledge to
coworkers (Senge 1990). This relates to one of the oldest forms of
transfer used in tourism and recreation, that of extension (Foster, Nor-
ton, and Brough 1995).
For tourism, the model of absorptive capability is the most relevant
(Awad and Ghaziri 2004). It refers to the fact that organizations have
to respond to inputs and that their ability to do so will depend in part
on their existing knowledge; effectively the greater the stocks, the more
effective will be the assimilation of new knowledge. It will also depend
upon the size, internal structure, division of labor, leadership, and
competency profile of the receiving organization. This is a serious issue
in tourism where many of the users of research lack experience in the
field.
This absorptive capability model includes user-acceptance testing
involving selecting respondents, designing user-acceptance test crite-
ria, and developing test cases. The criteria used for the knowledge to
be transferred can include accuracy, adaptability, adequacy, appeal,
availability, ease of use, performance, and reliability. Testing often
involves the notion of face validation where the knowledge manage-
ment system is evaluated at face value, in terms of ease of use and ap-
peal, while another approach is to run test cases using codification to
judge the effectiveness in solving real problems or situations, the so-
called ground truth approach (Davenport and Prusak 1998).
The absorptive capacity of small and medium sized enterprises is
important for transfer in tourism, as they are critical to destination
competitiveness. For such firms, successful transfer depends upon a
high degree of relevance to their operation. In studies of transfer
among them, peer networks are seen to be more valuable than consul-
tants and other change agents, as they prefer to have contact with other
people who are working in the same field and of whom they can ask
questions freely (Lionberger and Gwin 1991). Clearly, small- and medi-
umsized enterprises can benefit from entering into alliances, clusters,
or franchises to achieve mutually beneficial objectives; or work through
intermediaries such as tourist boards; increasingly, cooperation in
adoption is possible in both destination and industry cluster networks
(Micela et al 2002). Magnusson and Nilsson (2003) identify three types
of small- and mediumsized enterprise networks in the European Union
and appropriate knowledge management strategies for each. For sup-
ply chain networks, there tends to be a low level of integration and
the strategy is one of facilitation; for business networks, the strategy
is one of intervention; while for research networks, use of knowledge
is high and the strategy is to integrate.
In Australia, the Cooperative Research Center for Sustainable Tour-
ism has researched the tourism industry as an adoption environment
for research. The project was based upon the absorptive capability
model of transfer and aimed to identify organizational barriers and
receptiveness to transfer. The project mapped the adoption environ-
ment of tourism by surveying organizations by type, size, and subsector,
with the objective of determining the industry’s use of research, its
sources, and transfer mechanisms. Three primary sub-sectors were tar-
geted: regional organizations and public sector bodies related to tour-
ism, trade associations, and private sector operators/service providers.
A questionnaire was designed and modified following a series of
indepth, face-to-face interviews with senior tourism personnel. A total
of 141 semistructured telephone interviews were achieved out of the
295 organizations contacted, representing an overall response rate of
47.8%.
The results of the mapping exercise confirm many of the elements of
the absorptive capability model, and point the way to the development
of effective mechanisms for transfer in tourism. In particular, the two
dimensions of organization size and sector go the furthest in explaining
differences in reception as might be expected from the literature cited
in this paper. The findings show that the most commonly used research
is tourism statistics (tourist surveys, demographics, and marketing). The
private sector’s use of research is tightly focused on marketing and
demographics, while the trade associations and public sector trawl more
widely. Their research is sourced from the government and other public
bodies. For the private sector, again there is a very tight range of
sources, dominantly government bodies, internal sources, industry
bodies, and trade magazines, while the other organizations have a much
broader range of sources. Increasingly the preference is for electronic
receipt of research, although a number of respondents from the accom-
modation sector also cited hard copy format, and tour operators iden-
tified seminars/workshops. Research is used within the organization to
assist with marketing activities, business management, and product
development; although an earlier survey found that the use of research
was dominantly for marketing purposes (CRCST 1999). For smaller
organizations, tourism statistics and demographics were frequently
cited as the most useful research, with the use of marketing informa-
tion increasing with the size of the organization. In relation to user
acceptance criteria, respondents stated that they were more likely to
adopt research that is relevant, easy to access, and uncomplicated to
read.
The mapping exercise identified clear barriers to research adoption and transfer, including irrelevance of information, access difficulties, and unreliable/inaccurate data (CRCST 1999). The majority of organizations did not use research from academic sources, finding it difficult to access and not relevant to industry. These criticisms were stronger from the trade associations and the public sector.
Barriers to Knowledge Management Application
Cost can be a major barrier to the implementation of a knowledge
management system, particularly if the results are disappointing for
the user. Some have not recognized that this process involves the man-
agement of change, and so needs time. As a result, a number of early
initiatives have failed, sometimes at great expense. There are a range of
other barriers to the effective implementation of knowledge manage-
ment, some generic and some specific to tourism (Davidson and Voss
2002; Guptara 2000; Hayes-Roth and Jacobstein 1994).
Ahmed et al (2002) classify these barriers into four implementation
gaps. First, the technology gap is caused by an overdependence on
information technology, delivering imperfect systems and tending to
manage data rather than knowledge (Applehans et al 1999). Some
tourism data warehousing projects exemplify this point. Complex oper-
ations were developed in the 90s, but as they had poorly designed user
interfaces they remained largely unused by the industry, their intended
audience (Pyo, Uysal and Chang 2002). Second, the implementation
gap is caused by organizations failing to link actions and decisions to
what they know, partly through structures that militate against the cre-
ation of true learning environments. This is a common problem due to
the trait of tacit knowledge hoarding in the industry. Third, a lack of
strategic fit between knowledge management and the rest of the orga-
nization causes the integration gap. This is an issue addressed by
Ritchie (2000) for tourism by mapping different types, from strategic
to operational, onto organizational structures.
Finally, the gap is a failure to transfer research and best practice to
the end user. Sometimes this is also caused by poor absorptive capabil-
ity on the part of the user, but it is also caused by carelessly designed
research projects where the transfer process is not understood, as al-
ready noted in the Cooperative Research Center for Sustainable Tour-
ism example. This is a serious issue in tourism where knowledge
creation, transmission, and use are often unstructured and informal,
with decisions commonly made without the awareness of what is avail-
able. Because tourism is a service industry, its knowledge management
is also handicapped by the fact that statistical reporting is still based
upon the old economies of physical resources, while metrics for the
knowledge economy are still being developed (ABS 2002; Bahra
2001; Jones 2001).
For tourism, barriers to transfer are related to its very nature. It is
dominated by small enterprises, fragmented across a variety of activi-
ties, and has vocational reinforcers such as poor human resource prac-
tices militating against the continuity of absorption. As a result, there is
a lack of trust between the knowledge creators and those who might
use it, due to the different cultures and vocabularies of differing com-
munities of practice (Davenport and Prusak 1998; Hjalager 2002).
CONCLUSION
This paper has shown the potential of applying the theoretical per-
spectives of knowledge management to address issues facing tourism
researchers. These include the recognition of the important role
played by tacit