ORGANIZATIONAL KNOWLEDGE REPLICATION IN FAST FOOD NETWORKS DEVELOPMENT DOI: 10.5585/rai.v6i1.270

Abstract

Organizational knowledge replication is the knowledge transfer accumulated by the company between geographically separate sale points. The replication logic addresses the organizational learning process for the business development model and the model exploitation phase on a large scale. This article is the result of a survey that examined the knowledge replication process like a strategy growth of a fast food network. The study is qualitative and was conducted in a fast food network, of national scope, which has expanded to 23 stores in ten years of foundation. For data collection, a semi-structured interview was applied with the three main leaders of the network. It appeared that the knowledge transfer between the points of the network occurs mainly by the socialization of tacit knowledge, as the displacement of more experienced teams to store newly created. The results showed that the knowledge acquisition by the network follows, in addition to acquiring external sources of knowledge, of experiences and accumulated (tests and experimentation) by leaders throughout the opening of shops and their past experiences. The knowledge acquisition occurred through external consultants and the hiring of experienced staff.