The role of intellectual capital in knowledge transfer

The purpose of this study is to examine the roles of the three distinct aspects of intellectual capital, including human capital, organizational capital, and relational capital, in knowledge transfer. Regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses in a sample of 97 knowledge transfer cases. The results indicate that human capital and organizational capital are positively related to relational capital with partnering firms, which, in turn, has a positive effect on knowledge transfer performance. Our results provide evidences that relational capital plays a mediating role between human capital and organizational capital and knowledge transfer performance. The findings of this study contribute to the theoretical development of a conceptual model for explaining the interrelationships among three aspects of intellectual capital and knowledge transfer performance. The empirical evidences of the Sobel (Sociological Methodology. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1982, pp. 290-312.) test in line with the Baron and Kenny's (J. Pers. Soc. Psychol., vol. 51, pp. 1173-1182, 1986) procedure support the process-oriented view and indicate that relational capital would mediate the effects of human capital and organizational capital on knowledge transfer performance. The empirical evidences of this study fill the gap in the literature that is lack of empirical examination of the roles of intellectual capital in the knowledge transfer contexts. Managerial implications and future research directions are discussed.