In the Mind of the Beholder: Perceptual (Mis)alignment About Dyadic Knowledge Transfer in Organizations

Knowledge exchange among employees in organizations is critical to employees’ ability to solve problems and innovate. However, the possibility that employees may have different perceptions regarding the existence of exchanges between them and the factors that may reduce these differences have not been considered in the literature. Based on a socio-cognitive approach, we argue that misalignments in perceptions of knowledge transfer are likely to be common in organizations. We also propose that different forms of mutual familiarity with exchange partners will be associated with the alignment of perceptions of dyadic knowledge transfer. Our results show that misalignment in perceptions of complex knowledge transfers is more common than alignment. It is a pervasive phenomenon in the organization we studied. Based on an in-depth sociometric research design and exponential random modelling we further find that only one form of familiarity (mutual trust) contributes to increasing the alignment of dyadic knowledge transfer perceptions. We discuss the implications of our results for practice, highlighting the implications of misalignment in knowledge transfer in organizations. We also suggest actions that managers can take to diminish the risk of misalignments and facilitate the transfer of complex knowledge in their teams.