The value of reverse knowledge transfer: Case of Austrian Bank subsidiary in Slovakia

Abstract

This research focuses on reverse knowledge transfer from Central Europe to Western Europe by analyzing the contribution of a specific Slovak subsidiary to MNC knowledge. It explores the first digital bank created in Slovakia, its origin, expectations, results, and expertise transmitted from the daughter company to the Austrian headquarters. The paper analyses the situation of Raiffeisen Bank International, headquartered in Vienna, and its digital daughter company ZUNO founded in Slovakia in 2010. It identifies the learnings transferred to the parent in digital banking, marketing, operational, HR, and strategic management. The authors also study subsidiary integration within MNC, alignment of its structure and processes with the parent and conclude that the new knowledge generation was especially valuable in digital banking, at work with new client segments, in implementing new forms of marketing, working with new technologies, creating new structures, and transferring them to the other foreign markets.