Global production networks and knowledge transfer mechanisms

This paper aims to examine existing knowledge transfer mechanisms in global production networks within the changing pattern of international trade and industrial upgrading process in several sectors from 1990s to present. East Asian countries constitute the essential interest field of the study. This paper discusses the role of Multinational Companies, advantages of attendance to GPNs, especially in terms of knowledge diffusion and its contributions to local capability creation and how can developing countries get far within these paradigms. Although developments in the field of information and communication technologies has made access and transfer of information and data(mostly codified knowledge) fundamentally easier since 1990s, it remains limited for some knowledge types which involves a certain degree of tacitness. In this paper, different tacit knowledge types will also be discussed and GPN will be taken as an effective knowledge sharing platform where knowledge management practices of MNCs play a key role on knowledge diffusion.