Supernetwork Model of Intra-organizational Knowledge Transfer

Knowledge transfer has become a hot issue for knowledge management. Nevertheless the application of heterogeneous network model to the analysis of the internal processes of intra-organization knowledge transfer is still rare. In this paper, we propose a super network model of intra-organizational knowledge transfer. The model is composite of a social network and a knowledge network. It consists of individual nodes, knowledge nodes, and the directed or undirected edges among them, which represent the organization members, the organization knowledge and their complex relationship respectively. The results of model simulation on the Net logo platform show that the higher the average degree of nodes is in the knowledge transfer network, the more innovation is created by the organization. Moreover, the results demonstrate that the knowledge of network achieve a specific equilibrium more quickly if the number of initial transfer nodes is higher. The proposed super network model provides a novel thinking and method for further in-depth study of intra-organizational knowledge transfer.