Working experience and knowledge transfer among Korean academics: focusing on generational differences

Abstract

This study aims to explore working experience and knowledge transfer among Korean academics in STEM field. It particularly focuses on how academics in different generations develop their working experience and how these working experiences influence their knowledge transfer. The research questions are: (1) To what extent does academics’ working experience and knowledge transfer differ between generations? (2) What factors influence the knowledge transfer of academics and how different are the factors according to generation? The study uses multiple data sources; 1) Korean Researcher Information provided by the Korea Research Foundation (KRF), 2) publication data provided by Korean Citation Index and Web of Science, 3) Korea Intellectual Property Rights Information, 4) Higher Education Information provided by Minister of Education, Korea and 5) international comparative survey, ‘The Changing Academic Profession’. The preliminary results show that academic training system in STEM field has been significantly evolved in Korea during the last four decades. Their working experience has also been diversified including works in industry, research institutes in public and private sector and post-doctoral fellowship in university. Those experiences differ by their generation and its impact on their knowledge transfer also does. The study provides policy implication about research and development, funding policy and postgraduate education and it also provides implication for higher education institution in regard to reward system, academic development program and collaboration with industry.