**The CROs tend to emphasize the institutions and rules of transition during employment status shifts to enhance the retention of employees' experiences and knowledge.**

### **Case illustration:**

All four case firms have transition SOPs as guidance when employees either shift to new positions, leave offices, or retire. Their transition SOPs include detailed *Investigating Knowledge Management Activities and Influential Factors of Contract Research… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101881*

rules, checklists, and procedures. The people in charge of the transition will check if the leaving employee passes on their professional knowledge, experiences, and the required documents. Meanwhile, they need to ensure that the followers can come on track quickly and smoothly.

### **Discussion:**

Research in knowledge management has indicated that individuals drive knowledge processes and are the true source and creator of knowledge [20–22]. If industrial firms can develop a KM-based human resource management system, then their employees will be in a better position to fuse old and new knowledge. Thus, we can conclude that the top managers of these four firms pay high attention to human resource management, with a particular focus on managing people exchange.

### **Proposition 4:**
