Knowledge Transfer Methods between Founder Firms and Corporate Foundations: Upshot on Orientation to Effectiveness

This article investigates a new topic of research on Corporate Foundations (CFs): the relation between knowledge transfer from founder firms to the CFs and the CFs’ effectiveness. Starting from a typology of CF’s effectiveness (Ostrower 2006a), we managed a survey addressed to a sample of Italian CFs to address the impact of different knowledge transfer methods on dimensions of CFs’ effectiveness: proactive orientation, social advocacy and capacity building. The results of a linear regression show different relations among KTM methods and CFs’ effectiveness. The research identified four different methods to transfer knowledge which demonstrates that the methods adopted by founder firms have a significant influence on proactivity, competences, and on social advocacy of CFs, and that some approaches are more preferable than others.