“…IJVs provide both MNCs and local partners an appropriate vehicle to facilitate the transfer of organizational knowledge, particularly for knowledge which is hard to be transferred without the setting up of a JV, such as institutional and cultural knowledge [5] . Previous studies on inter-firm knowledge transfer have suggested that: (1) although studies on TT and KT in strategic alliance have contributed many interesting and valuable theories, they remain empirically under-researched [29] , (2) studies on interfirm KT and knowledge acquisition by organizations require more hypothesis development and testing [7] , (3) the cross-border TT and KT from MNCs to local firms have not been extensively researched [34] (4) studies on inter-firm knowledge acquisition in alliance have focused heavily on the supplier's, JV or KT perspective [3,40,41,57] and (5) fewer studies adopt the local firms or recipient's perspective [46] . Based on the underlying knowledge-based view perspective, this paper aims to empirically examine the effect of three critical knowledge characteristics, specifically, tacitness, complexity and specificity on the degree of technology transfer.…”