Background: The globalization has made organizations knowledge based and knowledge as a key resource in order to keep up with the changing market. Therefore, knowledge management became increasingly important which also was customer-centric throughout the whole supply chain in order to create customer value. With knowledge management being important, transfer barriers arose and as the increased collection of customer data was also evident as a result of organizations becoming tmore customer-centric and the rapid changes in technology. As a result of this, privacy issues about the data of the customer arose which lead to the implementation of GDPR. Research Questions: What are the challenges and possibilities of the processes of customer knowledge transfer between organizations in a distributor-dealer relationship? In what way has the implementation of GDPR affected the transfer of customer knowledge between a distributor and a dealer? Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine how customer knowledge is maintained and transferred between organizations within a distributor-dealer relationship. In addition, the paper aim to investigate what forces affects the processes of transferring customer knowledge within these types of relationships. Furthermore, the study investigates what effects transfer barriers and the implementation of GDPR has on customer knowledge transfer within a distributor-dealer relationship. Method: The paper investigated two cases. One case entailed one distributor and one dealer which had a relationship through a common supply chain. The qualitative data was obtained through 13 semi-structured interviews. Conclusion: This study proves that customer knowledge transfer has both challenges and possibilities in a supply chain with a distributor and dealer relationship. Furthermore, there are several factors that affect this transfer such as communication, customer relationship management and transfer barriers. In addition, GDPR has barely any impact on the customer knowledge transfer. However, it does have an impact on the processes of organizations and can be seen as an opportunity for organizations even if organizations sometimes choose to see the negative aspects.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-15T19:26:50Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Gladys Vignati.pdf: 813132 bytes, checksum: e4d6ae755a9d446ada8d91dbe1c4283c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-02-08 / The consolidation of knowledge economy has driven companies to recognize knowledge assets as their most valuable resources, and learning how to better manage those assets became a competitive advantage. In order to transform knowledge into a valuable organizational asset, experience and expertise must be formalized, disseminated, shared and applied through well-structured and well-founded processes. Considered one of the main processes in knowledge management, knowledge transfer is a complex phenomenon that is always present in an organization - whether managed or not. However, it is necessary to establish transfer knowledge strategies since having an abundance of knowledge in an organization does not in itself ensure its usage. In this context, it would be of interest to make further studies about knowledge transfer linked to a practice within an organization and investigate the barriers listed by Szulanski (1996) relative to transfered knowledge, the source and the receptor of knowledge and the environment and context in which knowledge is transfered. In this study results reveal that, even in a successful transfer, there are elements that point out the incidence of the barriers identified by Szulanski (1996. / A consolidação da economia do conhecimento fez as empresas reconhecerem que os ativos do conhecimento tornaram-se seus recursos mais valiosos, e aprender a gerenciar melhor esses ativos tornou-se uma vantagem competitiva. A fim de se transformar conhecimento em um ativo organizacional de valor, a experiência e o conhecimento especializado devem ser formalizados, distribuídos, compartilhados e aplicados por meio de processos bem estruturados e fundamentados. Considerada um dos processos centrais da gestão do conhecimento, a transferência do conhecimento é um fenômeno complexo que sempre ocorre em uma organização, quer seja de forma gerenciada ou não. Porém, é necessário estabelecer estratégias dessa transferência, pois a existência de conhecimento em profusão em uma organização, por si só, não assegura o seu uso. Nesse cenário, considerou-se oportuno aprofundar os estudos sobre transferência do conhecimento associada a uma prática dentro de uma organização, e investigar as barreiras elencadas por Szulanski (1996), relativas ao conhecimento transferido, à fonte geradora do conhecimento, ao receptor e ao contexto/ambiente em que a transferência está inserida. Neste estudo, os resultados mostraram que, mesmo em uma transferência bem sucedida, há elementos que indicam a incidência das barreiras identificadas por Szulanski (1996).