Purpose: The paper aims to investigate the emerging issue of knowledge transfer and organisational
performance. Our purpose is to investigate the importance of knowledge transfer in obtaining high and
positive results in organisations, in particular, studying the role of managers’ skills transfer and which
conditions help to achieve positive performance.
Design/methodology/approach: The research analyses forty-one cases of coaches that managed
clubs competing in the major international leagues in the 2014-2015 season and that moved to a new
club over the past five seasons. We employ a Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) methodology.
According to the research question, the outcome variable used is the team sport performance
improvement. As explanatory variables, we focus on five main variables: the history of coach transfers;
the staff transferred; the players transferred; investments in new players and the competitiveness.
Findings: The overall results show that when specific conditions are realised simultaneously, they allow
team performance improvement, even if the literature states that the coach transfers show a negative
impact on outcomes. Interestingly, this work reaches contrasting results because it shows the need for
the coexistence of combinations of variables to achieve the transferability of managers capabilities and
performance.
Originality/value: The paper is novel because it presents a QCA that tries to understand which
conditions, factors and contexts help knowledge to be transferred and to contribute to the successful
run of organisations.
Keywords: knowledge transfer, team performance, football industry, managers’ capabilities,
Qualitative Comparative Analysis
