Review of the Use of the Terms ‘Knowledge Transfer’ and ‘Knowledge Exchange’.

Abstract

Knowledge Transfer is a topic taught on MBA courses across the world and recognised as a professional discipline (e.g. the Institute of Knowledge Transfer), an academic discipline (e.g. the Journal of Knowledge Transfer), as an academic qualification (e.g. the Open University/AURIL Post Graduate Certificate in Knowledge Transfer) and as one of a select few key Government funded business support initiatives (e.g. Knowledge Transfer Partnerships – KTPs and Knowledge Transfer Networks - KTNs). Within the public sector there is currently a debate regarding the use of the term Knowledge Transfer as it is considered by some that Knowledge Exchange more correctly describes the multi-directional sharing of knowledge (both explicit knowledge in the form of rules, theories and models and tacit knowledge in the form of skills, experience and understanding). This research investigates the views of UK Universities in an attempt to gauge the feelings of KT Offices involved in the delivery of knowledge transfer based activities.