This paper aims to introduce a new perspective on the controversy about the transferability of administrative knowledge, usually overshadowed by greater contemporary attention to cultural contingentialism. Increased interdependence between nations generated new challenges to knowledge, development needs, and expectations about the opportunity for new ideas. The acquisition of similar habits made the global context increasingly seem a large arena of cultural sharing. The concern about transferability has grown due to faster growth of nations regarded as less advanced, as well as expectations to change management practices. It is assumed that knowledge transfer is a relevant factor for the modernization of public and private institutions. Two currents of thought are opposed in this paper: the first regards administrative knowledge as untransferable to another cultural environment; the second regards it as transferable and needed by another cultural environment. By explaining new theoretical arguments and examples of links to the international managerial practice, it is concluded with many propositions on the transferability of administrative knowledge.
Transferability of knowledge; Administrative knowledge; Intercultural knowledge
