Cross cultural perspectives on knowledge management

List of Figures 1.1 Culture, values, attitudes, and behaviors Adler 2002 8 1.2 Extending Adler’s model to the level of organizations, groups, and teams 9 1.3 KM model emphasizing t

CROSS-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES

ON KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

Cross-Cultural Perspectives

on Knowledge Management

Edited by David J Pauleen

Libraries Unlimited Knowledge Management Series

Danny Wallace, Series Editor

Cross-cultural perspectives on knowledge management / edited by David J Pauleen.

p cm — (Libraries Unlimited knowledge management series)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 1–59158–331–4 (alk paper)

1 Knowledge management 2 Corporate culture I Pauleen, David, 1957– HD30.2.C78 2007

658.4 ʹ 038—dc22 2006028274

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available

Copyright © 2007 by Libraries Unlimited

All rights reserved No portion of this book may be

reproduced, by any process or technique, without the

express written consent of the publisher

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2006028274

ISBN: 1–59158–331–4

First published in 2007

Libraries Unlimited, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881

A Member of the Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc

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Printed in the United States of America

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Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984)

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

1 Exploring the Relationship between National and

Organizational Culture, and Knowledge Management 3

David J Pauleen, Ling-Ling Wu, and Sally Dexter

2 Culture: An Overlooked Key to Unlocking Organizational Knowledge 21

Robert Mason

3 Th e Art of Systems: Th e Cognitive-Aesthetic Culture of Portal Cities

and the Development of Meta-Cultural Advanced Knowledge Economies 35

Peter Murphy

SECTION 2: EFFECTS OF CULTURE ON KEY ASPECTS

O F K N O W L E D G E M A N A G E M E N T 6 5

4 Cultural Stretch: Knowledge Transfer and Disconcerting

Resistance to Absorption and Application 67

Gerhard Fink and Nigel Holden

5 From Concept to Context: Toward Social-Cultural

Awareness and Responsibility in the Organization of Knowledge 81

Chern Li Liew

6 Managing Innovative Knowledge: Cultural Perspectives on Patenting 95

Chad Saunders and Mike Chiasson

7 Th e Infl uence of National Culture on Knowledge Management

Doug Vogel, Anne-Francoise Rutkowski, and Michiel van Genuchten

8 People’s Twist: Th e Cultural Standard of Loyalty and Performance

Gerhard Fink and Maren Lehmann

SECTION 3: RESEARCH AND CASES ON CULTURE

A N D K N O W L E D G E M A N A G E M E N T 1 5 5

9 Institutional and Cultural Infl uences on Knowledge

Kate Hutchings and Snejina Michailova

10 Asian Organizations Meet North American Management Th eory:

Kala S Retna and Jane E Bryson

11 Th e Peruvian Asparagus Cluster: Realizing Profi tability from

Social Capital and Shared Knowledge Management in a Traditionally Low-Trust Environment 195

List of Figures

1.1 Culture, values, attitudes, and behaviors (Adler 2002) 8

1.2 Extending Adler’s model to the level of organizations, groups, and teams 9

1.3 KM model emphasizing the development of knowledge sharing behavior 12

1.4 National culture, organizational culture, and KM 13

5.2 Structure of a cross-contextual knowledge organization system 90

7.1 Signifi cant attitude change between the pre-test and post-test on the item

“Any kind of relationship had to be structured hierarchically to obtain mony” on a 5-point scale (From –2 = Strongly Disagree to +2 =

7.2 Convergence between the pre-test and post-test on the item “How much

is the presence of a leader in the group required?” on a 10-point scale,

from 1 = not at all, to 10 = very much 122

12.2 Indicators of the impact of national culture on knowledge transfer 228

12.3 National cultures of the Netherlands, the United States, and India 233

List of Tables

7.1 Synchronous versus asynchronous communication activities 115

7.2 Experience of HK and Dutch respondents 119

7.4 Pre- and post-test characterization rankings 124

7.5 Between and within nationality comparisons on the item “leadership” 126

12.1 Th e knowledge transfer cultures at Akzo Nobel Car Refi nishes R&D units 235

12.2 Assessment of cultural diff erences and their impact on cross-cultural R&D knowledge transfer at Akzo Nobel Car Refi nishes 237

Foreword

What is knowledge management? To keep it simple, we could say “making sure you

know what you need to,” where you refers to some group or organization that manages

knowledge Usually it is a company, but it could be a scientifi c community, or any other

social entity, so let us use the word organization for now In order to manage

knowl-edge, the organization needs two things: a memory and means of communicating the knowledge

Knowledge management has been used as a synonym for information management

In this case it usually revolves around the use of technology, both “memory” and munication technologies For others, knowledge management means the management

com-of practices—and, by extension, people—in the organization Th is means that learning, rather than technology, takes centre stage Th e emphasis rests on managing organiza-tional practice in such a way that people can learn what they need to know from one another According to either school, communication between people is a crucial aspect

of knowledge management

In its emphasis on communication, knowledge management is similar to culture, if

we defi ne culture as the set of implicit rules for the social game Culture in this sense

would refer to the management of the tacit knowledge of a group of people Th is is the knowledge that specifi es, for instance, when to see others as friends, competitors, ene-mies, or potential loved ones, and how to treat them accordingly Groups that have cul-ture in this sense range from teams to societies Very few people have explicit knowledge

of their culture; they take it for granted Th is can happen even to those who are aware that faraway people have diff erent cultures To accept that we are culturally embedded ourselves can be even more diffi cult than to accept that others are

If we accept that the notions of culture and knowledge management are similar in their focus on communication, there is no escaping the idea that knowledge manage-ment as a conscious activity must build on the sort of implicit rules of the game set by culture Th is book addresses a number of issues that come to the fore when one considers

knowledge management as a culturally contingent activity For instance, the very idea that knowledge can be managed as an asset separate from relationships between people

is alien to most cultures in the world Knowledge is always related to a person you have

a relationship with, and any other knowledge is simply not relevant As a consequence,

to anybody who wishes to be socially visible, knowing people is still far more important than knowing the sort of things that are usually called “knowledge.”

“Making sure you know what you need to” is dependent on culture in many ways

In most countries, some knowledge that might be very relevant is not managed because nobody could profi t by doing so, or because powerful groups might take off ence In some cases the state itself acts as a censor Th ere may be limited communication between groups or between hierarchical levels Organizations all over the world have a tendency

to inherit the knowledge management mechanisms that prevail in other institutions of their society, such as the family and the state Did you learn that it was wise to keep your mouth shut in front of your father? Th is is a lesson about hierarchy You will probably

do the same later, with your boss—despite knowledge sharing programs

Knowledge management is oft en formally undertaken in order to support tion But it is by no means a precondition for innovation that all members of the orga-nization be engaged in knowledge management Asian tiger countries have achieved tremendous growth and innovation while maintaining very authoritarian business models When one looks at knowledge management across cultures, it turns out that one size does not fi t all

Th is volume brings together a very readable collection of chapters that tackle the nections between culture and knowledge management from various perspectives Th ey are very diff erent Some I found creative, others thorough, most of them insightful; but every one was well worth reading Together, they include many parts of the world and illustrate what I have just put forward—that knowledge management in its many facets

con-is intimately connected to culture I am pleased to be able to invite you, the reader, to enjoy this timely and important volume

Professor Gert Jan Hofstede Associate professor of Information Management in International Chains Social Science Group Wageningen University

Acknowledgments

David J Pauleen would like to acknowledge the help of all those involved in the lection and review process of this book, without whose support the project could not have been successfully completed Th ese include, fi rst and foremost, the authors, but also his colleagues at Victoria University of Wellington—in particular, Professor Gary Gorman Special thanks to Jackie Bell, who was instrumental in helping to prepare the manuscript A further note of thanks goes to the staff at Libraries Unlimited, which has made the publication of this book possible

as it goes, but it is limited and represents a form of cultural bias (Pauleen and Murphy 2005; Pauleen et al 2006) And when we step outside a Western frame of reference, we discover that knowledge is a global phenomenon, which may be managed diff erently in diff erent cultural contexts To survive in a global age, we must understand this critical point Th e manifestation of global knowledge occurs in many forms: from how foreign markets and fi nancial systems operate, to why foreign people think and interact in par-ticular ways that we cannot always understand or predict

It is clear that seeing others from our own limited perspective will lead to inadequate understanding and imperfect knowledge, lessening individual and organizational eff ec-tiveness How, then, can we learn to both expand our knowledge assets and eff ectively manage knowledge in a global age?

Th e answer lies partly in perspective taking—the ability to understand other views and to relate this understanding to knowledge management Worldviews under-pin the insight and knowledge generated by a particular community As much of the world’s knowledge is local in nature, we must learn to develop the ability to understand what knowledge is from as many perspectives as possible With perspective taking as

world-our foundation, we can then begin to develop more eff ective ways of managing edge across multiple functional perspectives: engineering, psychology, management, philosophy, religion, and many more

Th is book looks at knowledge and knowledge management from a cultural tive We argue that culture fundamentally infl uences how entities—from individuals

perspec-to countries—understand and interact with information and knowledge Culture has

been defi ned as a “collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members

of one group from another” (Hofstede 1984, 21) Th is programming determines how people think, what they count as knowledge, how they solve problems—indeed, how they know and interact with the world Such programming is rarely explored; yet it is deeply embedded in all of us As they say, “You can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy.”

However, understanding the impact of culture on our daily lives requires signifi cant eff ort, and for this reason the study of culture is problematic in many areas of research and practice As mentioned previously, culture operates at our deepest individual and societal levels and is generally not recognized in either researchers’ or practitioners’ worldviews Some may be aware of the impact of cultural infl uences but place it in the

“too hard” basket, perhaps at best paying it lip service with some off -the-shelf program

or some basic cultural training, possibly in order to meet a prescribed regulation Even for the few who are cognizant of the underlying and oft en overwhelming infl uence of culture on so much of what we do as individuals and organizations, it is a genuine chal-lenge to recognize and learn the lessons of culture and apply them in even-handed and eff ective ways

Th is, then, is the challenge of this book: to introduce knowledge and knowledge agement perspectives from diff erent cultures, in diff erent contexts, using diff erent pro-cesses for diff erent purposes Th e authors, who come from many diff erent countries and cultures, as well as a variety of backgrounds, have done a commendable job Since the iterations of culture and knowledge are nearly limitless, all we can do here is begin the journey to increase awareness among those individuals and organizations wishing to learn from and share with others In the fi nal analysis, it is for the reader to have a mind open to the challenges and opportunities of culture

THE STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK

Th e book is divided into three sections: Conceptual Approaches to Culture and Knowledge Management, Eff ects of Culture on Key Aspects of Knowledge Manage-ment, and Research and Cases on Culture and Knowledge Management Th e reader will soon discover that many of the issues raised in each of the chapters relate to and build upon each other, like parts in a complex but challenging puzzle

CHAPTER SUMMARIES

Chapter 1, “Exploring the Relationship between National and Organizational ture, and Knowledge Management,” discusses and links the concepts of national cul-ture, organizational culture, and leadership Th e authors suggest that not only is culture

Cul-a criticCul-al fCul-actor in the understCul-anding of knowledge mCul-anCul-agement, but thCul-at complex

relationships exist between the diff erent cultural contexts of national, regional/ethnic,

and organizational culture Th ese relationships aff ect knowledge management strategies

and processes at both national and organizational levels Th ey model these relationships

and discuss their implication for research and practice

In Chapter 2, “Culture: An Overlooked Key to Unlocking Organizational

Knowl-edge,” the author argues that the multiple cultures of the people who comprise global

organizations represent a potential knowledge asset that should be managed like any

other organizational asset He maintains that this can be done by understanding the

cultural basis of learning and knowledge Th is chapter outlines the recursive

relation-ship between learning and knowledge, reviews recent research on the cultural

founda-tions of learning and knowledge, and proposes a model of boundary spanning that can

help global organizations meet the challenge of unlocking the knowledge represented

by their diverse membership

Chapter 3, “Th e Art of Systems: Th e Cognitive-Aesthetic Culture of Portal Cities and

the Development of Meta-Cultural Advanced Knowledge Economies” is an essay that

leaps past current views of culture, suggesting new ways to understand the knowledge

dynamics of successful local economies Th e article discusses the role of pattern

think-ing, aesthetics, and design in the rise and sustenance of economically powerful portal

cities, where knowledgeable people—regardless of culture—congregate and form part

of a greater whole

Section 2 begins with a look at cultural factors in global knowledge transfer Chapter

4, “Cultural Stretch: Knowledge Transfer and Disconcerting Resistance to Absorption

and Application” summarizes the fi ndings of a number of case studies to determine

that time constraints and communication problems caused by cultural diff erences have

a negative impact on initially positive expectations between international partners Th e

authors suggest it can take between two and seven years—or even longer—to achieve

a smooth transfer and acceptance of knowledge from one party to another, if ‘the right

people’ are deployed in the ‘right situation’ Th e right people are individuals who are

locally sourced and equipped with appropriate personality characteristics; the right

situation is a society which is open to the application of the knowledge being made

available

Chapter 5, “From Concept to Context: Toward Social-Cultural Awareness and

Responsibility in the Organization of Knowledge” argues that human language—and

by extension information and knowledge—is highly context based As such, it is

det-rimental to cross-cultural information retrieval and knowledge discovery systems if

diverse contexts are forced into a single representational system, as they currently tend

to be Th e author argues that a hermeneutic approach could provide a promising avenue

for developing a more productive framework that would support free and open dialog

across competing heterogeneous contexts in the knowledge discovery environment

Chapter 6, “Managing Innovative Knowledge: Cultural Perspectives on Patenting”

takes a cross-cultural perspective on patenting to explore diff erences and similarities

in the management of innovative knowledge over time Patents operate at the nexus of

individual, legal, political, organizational, and societal interests and as such provide a

useful vantage point for exploring cultural perspectives in the management of

knowl-edge Th e authors explore several interesting and critical tensions in the management

of knowledge across cultures in the global environment, including the ownership of

knowledge, eff ects on innovation and knowledge fl ows, and global enforcement, ticularly in the area of the patentability of new innovations such as computer soft ware, genes, and so on

Chapter 7, “Th e Infl uence of National Culture on Knowledge Management in tual Teams” contends that knowledge management is now clearly a critical factor in both organizational and academic settings in distributed contexts that increasingly engage multiple national cultures Th is chapter explores aspects of national culture with respect to knowledge management in virtual teams based on the HKNET project, which involved participants from three continents and continued for seven years Using their

Vir-fi ndings, the authors develop and present a model of the interaction dynamics ated with national culture, technology choice, and knowledge management processes and outcomes

In Chapter 8, “People’s Twist: Th e Cultural Standard of Loyalty and Performance in Former Socialist Economies,” the authors use knowledge management as a lens to focus

on cultural standards, particularly with regard to issues of loyalty and performance in the former socialist economies of Eastern Europe Th ey explain how people—in order

to survive—developed personal and internal knowledge management approaches in the face of external and hierarchical state controls One result was the concealment and shift

of knowledge from the state into private networks, thus establishing a form of market rationality within the planning rationality of a socialist economy

Section 3, “Research and Cases on Culture and Knowledge Management,” begins with Chapter 9, “Institutional and Cultural Infl uences on Knowledge Sharing in Russia and China.” Th is chapter, following up on the general topic of knowledge transfer intro-duced in Chapter 4, takes an in-depth look at the challenges inherent in transferring knowledge between western industrialized economies and the transition economies of (former) communist nations such as Russia and China, particularly in the context of home nation and subsidiary operations Using interviews conducted with western and local managers in Russia and China between 1996 and 2003, the chapter specifi cally addresses the cultural and institutional factors that impede and facilitate knowledge sharing in Russia and China

Chapter 10, “Asian Organizations Meet North American Management Th eory: Th e Case of Singapore and Senge,” reviews the connection between knowledge manage-ment and the learning organization, and argues that both concepts rely on culturally embedded theories and practices Th e authors present a case study of the use of Senge’s learning organization concepts in one large Singaporean organization and reveal the cultural challenges that emerged in the process of applying essentially Euro-American management theories within an Asian culture Th e chapter includes a discussion of the practical implications of these cross-cultural challenges for Singaporean organizations, multinational organizations, and transnational consulting

Chapter 11, “Th e Peruvian Asparagus Cluster: Realizing Profi tability from Social Capital and Shared Knowledge Management in a Traditionally Low-Trust Environ-ment” tells the story of the Peruvian asparagus cluster and how it became the world’s top exporter of fresh asparagus Th e case focuses on how collective action and a shared knowledge management program tackled the problems of a complex asparagus logistic chain in spite of the historical low levels of trust and social capital in Peru Th e author uses a three-pronged analysis to provide the background to understanding the basis for

cooperation in traditionally noncooperative populations and signals hope for trust and

cooperation building in other clusters and possibly Peruvian society as a whole

Finally, Chapter 12, “Research and Development Knowledge Transfer across

National Cultures” off ers another look at the important topic of knowledge transfer,

this time focusing on the area of multinational corporations’ dispersal of research and

development activities across countries Th e authors contend that the integration of the

dispersed research and development (R&D) knowledge via knowledge transfer across

cultural borders is essential for managing multinationals Th e research confi rms that

cross-cultural knowledge is very oft en problematic, but it also provides a more positive

outlook by showing that cultural diff erences are not just barriers to knowledge transfer;

rather, they can also provide a stimulus to learn from and with others from diff erent

cultures Interestingly, the research also shows that cultural diff erences tend to increase

the diffi culties of transferring explicit knowledge more than that of tacit knowledge

REFERENCES

Drucker, P 1995 Managing in a time of great change New York: Truman Talley Books/Plume

Hofstede, G 1984 Culture ’ s consequences: International diff erences in work related values Beverly

Hills, CA: Sage

Pauleen, D., and Murphy, P 2005 In praise of cultural bias Sloan Management Review 46(2):

21–22

Pauleen, D., Everisto, R., Davison, R., Ang, S., Alanis, M and Klein, S (2006) Cultural Bias in IS

Research and Practice: Are you coming from the same place I am? Communications of the

Association of Information Systems 17(17): 354–72

SECTION 1

Conceptual Approaches to Culture and Knowledge Management

1

Exploring the Relationship between

National and Organizational Culture, and Knowledge Management

David J Pauleen, Ling-Ling Wu, and Sally Dexter

ABSTRACT

Globalization and ICT have opened up opportunities for organizational knowledge to

be shared across national and cultural boundaries both intra- and ally In this context, an understanding of national (societal) culture and its relationship

interorganization-to knowledge management (KM) has become an essential requirement In this ter we discuss the concepts of national culture, organizational culture, and leadership and suggest that not only should culture be an element in the understanding of KM, but that there are complex relationships between the different cultural contexts (na-tional, regional/ethnic, and organizational) and the way in which they relate and inter-relate to affect KM strategies and processes at both a national and an organizational level We then develop a conceptual model that shows the interrelationship of national culture and organizational culture and their mutual infl uence on organizational KM

chap-We conclude with a discussion of implications for research and practice

INTRODUCTION

Th e rise of the global knowledge economy has been greatly driven by rapidly ing information and communication technologies (ICT) Th ese technologies have served to reduce traditional business boundaries and increase opportunities to partici-pate in networks far beyond immediate physical locations (Barker 2000)

In this new economy, knowledge has become an extremely valuable resource (Drucker 1995; Nonaka 1994), and organizations are striving to capitalize on their knowledge assets through eff ective knowledge management (KM) strategies and practices Ini-tial KM strategies relied heavily on ICT-based solutions to store and retrieve explicit organizational knowledge However, these ICT-based strategies oft en failed to deliver meaningful results (Ambrosio 2000) Although technology is still a key component, this

single focus has been eclipsed by an increasing awareness of the importance of the nizational and social aspects of KM

To date, much of the KM literature has focused on corporate and organizational ture, with relatively little attention paid to the implications of national culture However,

cul-KM, which is context embedded, is a particularly culturally dependent process (Glisby and Holden 2003; Nonaka and Toyama 2003) Eff ective KM practices developed by and for one culture may not necessarily be successfully used by other cultures (Pauleen and Murphy 2005) Th is is an important point as cross-cultural knowledge sharing has become more prevalent through the forces of globalization, advances in communica-tions technology, and increasingly culturally diverse workforces (Cox 1991; Nemetz and Christensen 1996), as well as through international mergers and acquisitions, Internet-based e-commerce, and an increasing trend to global outsourcing Meanwhile, domi-nant Western cultural assumptions about knowledge and KM infl uence KM research and development Given these factors, an understanding of the infl uence of national culture is now, arguably, a critical requirement in understanding and implementing successful KM in organizations

Although it has been suggested that globalization will act as an antecedent to cultural homogeneity (Levitt 1983) and that cultural distinctiveness will be lost as global strate-gies displace strategies that revolve around national, regional, and cultural diff erences,

a quick look at current world events may cause one to doubt the validity of this view,

at least for the present Within the international management area in general, as well

as within the KM arena, this implicit culture-free assumption has been seriously lenged (Adler 2002; Glisby and Holden 2003; Holden 2002), and it is argued that cul-tural context is an important KM dynamic

Th is chapter expands on this argument by examining the relationship between national culture, organizational culture, and KM We suggest not only that national culture is a signifi cant factor in the understanding and practice of KM, but that com-plex relationships between the diff erent cultural contexts (national, regional/ethnic, and organizational) and the way in which they relate and interrelate to aff ect KM strate-gies and processes must also be considered Th e role of leadership is also explored, and

we maintain that leaders who embody organizational culture and context may act as mediators in the relationship between national culture and KM

DEFINING CULTURE

Th ere is a seemingly inexhaustible array of defi nitions of culture, with more than 160 defi nitions identifi ed more than 50 years ago (Kroeber and Kluckhohn 1963) Although this range of defi nitions could be interpreted as representative of the complex nature of culture, in fact, the notion of culture is so deeply ingrained that it has become almost synonymous with our identity to the extent that everyone believes they understand cul-ture (Westrup et al 2002)

Culture can be categorized in terms of three main elements: content, construction,

and sustainability In terms of content, culture has been defi ned as “a system of ideas”

(Namenwirth and Weber, 1987, 8), “a distinctive, enduring pattern of behavior and sonality characteristics” (Clark 1990, 66), and “collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group from another” (Hofstede 1984, 21) In essence,

per-the content of culture consists of a set of underlying norms and values of behavior,

shared by a group of people tied together by powerful affi liations or bonds

Th e construction of culture, according to Schein (1985), results from the interaction

of people and their environment In particular, Schein emphasized the aspect of problem

solving in culture, which is considered to be a valid way of thinking in order to respond

to the surrounding environment Th at is, culture is a set of valid knowledge, created and

shared by a group of people, to solve the problems they face in their environment

In terms of sustainability, culture is transmitted by symbols, rituals, and stories, passed

on from one generation to another (Kroeber and Kluckhohn 1963) Th e implicit (or

even tacit) part, as well as the explicit part of cultural knowledge is sustained and

trans-ferred through information expressed in various ways In this vein, Hall and Hall (1990)

view culture as a system for creating, sending, storing, and processing information

However, Barham and Heimer (1998) point out that the standard anthropologically

derived concepts of culture are out of touch with the connectivities and networks of the

modern global economy Recent research highlights the active role of people and the

emergent, contested, and ongoing nature of culture, and people’s reaction to dynamic

contexts (Giddens 1984, 1990; Myers and Tan 2002; Walsham 2002) Holden (2001, 162)

calls for “a paradigmatic shift in the way culture is viewed and suggests that

research-ers reframe culture as infi nitely overlapping and perpetually redistributable habitats of

common knowledge and shared meanings.”

NATIONAL CULTURE

Th ere are a number of theories and models that have informed cross-cultural

research, both methodologically and philosophically Many of these are centered on the

concept of national culture and are based on dichotomies or continuums of values, such

as individualism/collectivism (Hofstede 1984); high and low context (Hall 1976); and

monochronic/polychronic (Lewis 1996) Th ese value-based models predict individual

and group attitudes and behaviors based on national culture However, Corbitt and

colleagues (2004) suggest that such widely accepted structural frameworks may be too

reliant on categorical descriptions that ignore diff erentiation within cultures, as well as

the individual exceptions likely to be found to any general rule

Several studies have identifi ed national culture in terms of work-related attitudes and

values, to distinguish groups of people from other groups (Hofstede, 1984; Ronen and

Shenkar 1985; Smith et al 1996) Hofstede (1984, 1988) proposed fi ve dimensions of

national culture: individualism/collectivism, masculinity/femininity, power distance,

uncertainty avoidance, and long-term versus short-term orientation Some researchers

have used this model to account for KM processes and found that the cultural

dimen-sions of the Hofstede model might play a role in the KM processes (Ford and Chan

2003; Rossen 2003)

Th e legitimacy of the concept of national culture, however, remains in question, as

evidenced by the continuing debate in the literature Scholars argue that globalization

has enabled the emergence of the multicultural society, in which members of diff erent

regional and ethnic groups live and work in the same shared environment Th erefore, an

identity based upon the notion of a nation-state does little to refl ect regional and ethnic

diff erences (Holden 2001; Myers and Tan 2002; Westrup et al 2002) Indeed, McCrone

(1998) asserts that the quest for regional identities and decentralization refl ects the need for the idea of national cultural identities to be challenged and usurped Th e concept of national sovereignty has been linked to the notion of a national cultural identity, and

it has been suggested that as globalization and economic, political, and cultural sures further negate the importance of national sovereignty, this will aff ect the idea of

pres-a npres-ationpres-al culturpres-al identity (Cpres-astells 1996, 1997; Fepres-atherstone 1990; Wpres-aters 2001) Hpres-all (1992) contends that instead of thinking of national cultures as unifi ed, they should rather be regarded as a discursive device representing diff erence as unity or identity Most authors agree that nations may contain diff erent cultures or subcultures within national borders, and that national borders do not necessarily represent culturally homo-geneous populations (Groeschl and Doherty 2000) Rather than emphasize single national cultural identities, the challenge is developing theory that furthers understanding of het-erogeneous cultures (Mercer 1992) Doney, Cannon, and Mullen (1998) stress their view that national culture is not a characteristic of individuals or nation-states but of a large number of people conditioned by similar background, education, and life experiences Weisinger and Trauth (2002), through a combination of theoretical argument and practi-cal research suggest that culture is, in fact, locally situated, behavioral, and embedded in everyday social negotiated work practices—a view also subscribed to by Holden (2001) Based on the social construction of reality theory (Berger and Luckman 1967), Corbitt and colleagues (2004) argue that national culture can be more accurately understood by seek-ing out the dominant social codes that frame a society’s values, attitudes, and behaviors

Th e debate between proponents of national cultural models and those who favor

a more discrete or localized understanding of culture is unlikely to be resolved soon National culture models certainly help to simplify cross-cultural research, whereas a more localized view of culture will more likely refl ect the culture under study An exam-ple of a local description of culture is the fascinating analysis of the factors that shape Taiwan’s character (as a people) by Yu and ChiangLin (2002)

Based on personal observation, a review of secondary sources (e.g., educational tistics), and refl ection, Yu and ChiangLin described fi ve life experiences that together constitute a unique Taiwan experience: motorcycling, a belief in higher education, crisis consciousness, compulsory military service, and studying abroad and returning well-educated Together, these life experiences heavily infl uence individual mental attitudes and behavior and society as a whole

For example, Yu and ChiangLin (2002, 354) argue that the overwhelming use of cycles in Taiwan, which—though oft en causing congestion and chaotic traffi c condi-tions—shapes motorcycle riders’ personalities and skills (including young children riding with their parents) and the greater society in the following ways 1 by training riders:

• to move accurately and swift ly with clear, specifi c goals

• to look for opportunities almost anywhere and anytime

• to be adaptive and fl exible

• to be tough and take risks

• to act individually, with a small scale of vision

• not to strictly obey laws and regulations

Yu and ChiangLin’s fi ve life experiences, although not proven in an tal sense, nevertheless resonate with Taiwan residents and actually do go a long way

experimen-to providing an understanding of the local culture, one that is much more accurate

and relevant than Hofstede’s descriptions, which in the case of Taiwan may no

lon-ger be accurate Two of the life experiences—belief in higher education and studying

abroad—point to a culture supportive of knowledge and knowledge acquisition from

other countries. 2

National Culture and Knowledge

Drawing from psychology and cultural history, Nisbett and colleagues (2001) argue

that the considerable social diff erences that exist among cultures aff ect, among other

things, tacit epistemologies (theories of knowledge, including what counts as knowledge

and degrees of certainly about knowledge) and the nature of cognitive processes (the

ways by which people know the world) Comparing Eastern and Western traditions,

Nisbett and colleagues (2001) group the cognitive diff erences between ancient Chinese

and Greeks under the headings of holistic versus analytical thought Holistic thought

involves an orientation to the “context or fi eld as a whole, including in particular the

relationship between a focal object and the fi eld and a preference for explaining and

predicting events based on the existing relationships” (Nisbett et al 2001, 293) Th ey

defi ne analytic thought as detaching the object from its context, a tendency to focus

on attributes of the object, to assign it to categories, and a preference for using rules

about the categories to explain and predict the objects behaviour” (2001, 293) Nonaka

and Toyama (2003) and Glisby and Holden (2003) state that Eastern people tend to

think about their work in terms of the whole picture, whereas Western people tend to

think of their work from their own individual vantage point Th ese cognitive biases are

a major component of knowledge sharing and knowledge creation processes (Pauleen

and Murphy 2005)

According to Chia (2003), it has been a Western tradition to regard a

knowledge-able person not as someone who has the ability to perform a task, but as one who can

understand and render articulate and explicit—particularly in writing—the underlying

causes of events In contrast, in traditional Chinese culture learning and knowing came

through direct, sustained, experimental practice Chia (2003, 959) goes on to suggest

that “the current preoccupation with explicit knowledge creation and management may

need to be tempered by an equally important emphasis on direct experimental action as

a valuable source of meaning, innovation, productivity and enhanced performance.”

All that has been discussed here converges to support the major contention that

national culture deeply aff ects how people process information in their environment

and strongly suggests that this eff ect should be taken into serious account during the

development and implementation of KM initiatives, especially in global contexts

Culture, Values, Attitudes, and Behaviors

Adler (2002) developed the model in Figure 1.1 to show how national culture infl

u-ences the values of a culture and subsequently its attitudes and the behaviors of its

mem-bers An example of this is the Japanese culture: it values social harmony, which in turn

creates an attitude of cooperation and subsequent behavior in which disagreements are

rarely openly expressed In this model, national culture appears fully fl edged and hence

appears at the top, with values, attitudes, and behaviors following on from it However,

it is clear from the model that culture is infl uenced by the other factors and can change over time Th is is illustrated when, for example, youth (as a subculture) behaviors change and slowly exert change on the overriding national culture Globalization and the increasing pervasiveness of ICT tend to hasten cultural change in at least two ways: through direct exposure to other cultures and by facilitating networks and relationships,

which allow new—and oft en transitory—cultural forms to emerge

The Relationship between National and Organizational Culture

Prior to 1980, organizational culture was largely considered to be independent of national culture (Ford and Chan 2003) Th is was epitomized by multinational compa-nies, which managed national branch offi ces using expatriate managers and head offi ce management techniques Since this time, many studies have compared national and organizational culture, with the majority of the research focused on the link between organizational and national culture and the extent to which one infl uences the other (Clark and Mueller 1996; Morden 1995; Smith 1992) Earlier writers argue that the infl uence of national culture on organizational culture will decline over time (Evan 1975), whereas later researchers suggest that the collective “mental maps” of national culture seem to resist the convergence eff ects of international business practice (Clark and Mueller 1996; Laurent 1983)

Others, in particular, Straub and colleagues (2002) use Social Identity Th eory to explain how diff erent cultures—including professional, ethnic, organizational, and national cultures—can coexist, and have diff erent saliency with individuals at diff erent times Th e focus on culture as a mechanism to produce “relationship to self’” amongst members of an organization, suggests that its deployment as a governance technique

is closely bound up with questions of identity (Hall and du Gay 1996) Beulens, ner, and Kinicki (2002) contend that organizational culture is, in eff ect, a by-product of national or societal culture Th ey assert that culture infl uences organizational behavior

Kreit-in two ways: Employees brKreit-ing their Kreit-individual societal cultures Kreit-in the form of customs and language, and organizational culture in turn aff ects the values/ethics, attitudes, assumptions, and expectations of an individual

Here it is suggested that Adler’s model can apply equally to organizations Within organizations, the interplay of culture, values, attitudes, and behaviors is seen to be occurring in a more time-compressed process Organizational cultures exert a power-ful infl uence on an organization’s values, attitudes, and behaviors, as well as the values,

Figure 1.1 Culture, values, attitudes, and behaviors (Adler 2002).

attitudes, and especially behavior of its employees In organizations that have been

around for a very long time, it might appear that the organizational culture has also

appeared fully fl edged However, it is obvious when we look at organizational histories

that individuals, oft en in the form of founders and powerful leaders, have by the force

of their personalities infl uenced the organizational culture through their own behaviors,

attitude, and values An example of this is how Konosuke Matsushita’s personality and

earlier life experiences greatly infl uenced the organizational culture (values, attitudes,

and behaviors) of the Matsushita company (Holden 2002) It is worth remembering

in this case, however, that a great deal of K Matsushita’s values and attitudes derived

from the larger Japanese culture of which he was a part (We will shortly return to the

importance of this interplay of culture, values, attitudes, and behaviors, and individual

actors.)

Likewise, in the same way that Adler’s model applies to organizations, it can be

fur-ther extended to groups, such as organizational functions (e.g., fi nance, sales),

commu-nities of practice, and even to teams if they exist long enough to form a team culture In

these cases, the time compression is further evident and it can be more clearly seen how

individual actors can have an ever-greater infl uence on the culture of the group or team

and its values, attitudes, and behavior

Finally, with regard to Adler’s model, the relationship between national culture and

organizational culture, as seen in the case of Matsushita, is evident: a relationship that

extends to the cultures of groups and teams, and ultimately, individuals themselves Th is

notion is captured in Figure 1.2

National Culture and the Infl uence of Leadership

in Organizations

As alluded to in the case of Konosuke Matsushita and his eponymous company,

the norms and values in national culture not only aff ect organizational culture, but

Figure 1.2

Extending Adler’s model to the level of organizations, groups, and teams.

can also infl uence leadership and leadership processes in organizations (Ayman, Chemers, and Fiedler 1995; Bass and Avolio 1993; Hofstede, 1984, 1993; Hunt, Boal, and Sorensen 1990; Nikandrou, Apospori, and Papalexandris 2003; Triandis 1993) For instance, clusters of European countries that share similar cultural values also share similar leadership (Brodbeck and Frese 2000; Smith 1997) Th e leaders in Chi-nese organizations tend to use patriarchal leadership, as distinct from the production-oriented leadership or people-oriented leadership found in Western society Brase (2001) has shown that management behaviors have a direct eff ect on workplace respect and cooperation

National culture infl uences organizational leadership through its impacts on the ues and beliefs of both leaders and followers Leaders are more likely to be aff ected and behave in the way that is accepted in their culture Similarly, diff erent expectations toward how a leader should behave could be potentially rooted in cultural beliefs Th at

val-is, followers hold common implicit expectations toward their leaders, which further shape their perception, valuations of the leaders, and hence infl uence the behavior of the leaders in that culture For instance, people in cultures with high power distance are more likely to accept and even expect that leaders have an autocratic leadership style than others in cultures with low power distance Moreover, business leaders in cultures

of higher uncertainty avoidance are more concerned about control than creativity and innovation, and thus might be more likely to become transactional leaders instead of transformational leaders, when compared with leaders in cultures with lower uncer-tainty avoidance (Politis 2001)

Wiig (2004, 115) argues that leaders, and other infl uential people, wield enormous infl uence in organizations by creating powerful reference models that “directly aff ect the attitudes, mentalities, and culture within their organizations.” Employees look to leaders as role models, oft en emulating their behavior Th e mental models that these leaders operate from are oft en unconscious, a result of deep-seated cultural values and life experiences In an empirical study of character traits of American and Taiwanese chief executive offi cers (CEOs), Judge (2001, 63) found “robust diff erences between these two sets of CEOs off ering support for the ‘culture bound’ nature of leadership.” Character traits are strongly linked to leadership credibility, which has an equally strong impact on organizational trust and culture (Judge 2001)

Evidently national culture can have a signifi cant eff ect on leadership, and leaders can have a signifi cant eff ect on attitudes and behavior throughout the organization (Trompenaars 1993)

Knowledge Management, the Organization, and Culture

Knowledge management is the systematic and explicit management of related activities, practices, programs and policies within the enterprise (Wiig 2000) to eff ectively apply an organization’s knowledge to create new knowledge to achieve and maintain competitive advantage (Alavi and Leidner 2001)

Sveiby (2001) identifi es two broad approaches to KM One focuses on the “hard” aspects such as the deployment and use of appropriate technology; the other focuses on the “soft ” aspect: the capture and transformation of knowledge into a corporate asset

Th is second approach includes the management of people and processes

Th e fi rst categorization of KM is the management of information (Sveiby 2001) Th is

approach views knowledge as objects that can be handled by information management

systems Th e key goal of this approach is to increase access to information through

enhanced methods of access and reuse of documents through, for example, hypertext

linking, databases, and full-text search Networking technology in general (especially

intranets), and groupware in particular, are key solutions Th is approach is based on the

idea that technology harnessed to a great volume of information will make KM work

Th e second categorization is the capture and transformation of knowledge into a

cor-porate asset through the management of people (Sveiby 2001) Th is approach views

knowledge as a process: a complex set of dynamic skills and know-how that is constantly

changing Commonly viewed as a management issue, approaches tend to focus more on

innovation and creativity, in the style of the “learning organization,” as advocated by

Senge (1999), where organizational behaviors and culture also need to be changed To

make this approach work, a holistic view is required, and oft en theories of behavior

of large-scale systems are invoked Th e aim here is to get people to share what they

know Processes are more important here than technology Wiig (2004, 218) argues that

a new generation KM (NGKM) is needed that provides guidance “to govern

knowledge-related investments, activities, and support systems that are focused and

people-friendly and frequently supported by IT.”

It is clear that KM is not simply a matter of managing information; it is essentially a

deeply social process, which must take into account human and social factors (Clarke

and Rollo 2001; McDermott 1999; Th omas, Kellogg, and Erickson 2001), as well as

cul-tural issues Th omas, Kellogg, and Erickson (2001) argue that a successful KM system is

one that includes a knowledge community, where people can interact in the discovery,

use, and manipulation of knowledge Fundamental to the notion of community in KM

is the understanding that community involves identifying and engaging in the social

practices and relationships that are operating in a particular context (Rooney 2005)

Nonaka and Toyama (2003) argue that the “knowledge process” occurs at the

intercon-nection between (organizational) structure and agents, and is dynamic and interlinked

from an individual-to-societal level

With regard to organizational KM, Nonaka and Toyama (2003) dispute the notion of

the organization as a machine that solves problems, arguing rather that that the

orga-nization is an entity that creates knowledge through action and interaction within the

organization and with its wider environment Th ey go on to say that in “knowledge

creation, one cannot be free from one’s own context” (2003, 3), which we understand to

mean culture in its widest sense

In terms of cross-cultural research, there are still relatively few studies that

exam-ine the relationship between national culture and KM (a major exception are the case

studies found in Holden 2002), even though the importance of national culture on KM

has recently been recognized In Mason’s study of published reports of KM systems

(2003), he found that national culture and ethnic background of users are rarely

men-tioned with only one case directly discussing the importance of national culture Mason

contrasts this with the attention given to culture in other information science studies

(Walsham 2002) and suggests that KM designers may be implicitly adopting the

“cul-ture-free” hypothesis as a basis for design Th is hypothesis is based on the fundamental

premise that organizations are micro-social entities that exist without reference to the

immediate societal environment, and in contrast to the idea that organizations match their structures to fi t their societal environment

Of existing KM models, the most widely referenced is Nonaka’s SECI model (Nonaka 1994), which has been almost universally acclaimed and used by many organizations worldwide as a starting point for KM practices and which deals with both tacit and explicit knowledge Th is model assumes that knowledge can be transferred through pro-cesses of socialization However, Glisby and Holden (2003) assert that the Japan-specifi c cultural factors tacitly embedded in the model mean that it is not possible for it to be successfully transferred to Western nations in its totality Th ey claim that in order for the model to work in a Western setting, it might be necessary to fi rst introduce Japanese values and management techniques, which would embed the required cultural condi-tions necessary for success of the model Other KM models, including those of Boisot (1987) and Chase (1997), are also bereft of any consideration of cultural issues

Here it is suggested that the fundamental goal of organizational KM should be the development of the individual employee who is willing and able to share knowledge Sharing behavior is what makes knowledge available to other individuals and the orga-nization as a whole With this mind, KM can be divided into two parts, which can be

referenced in current business parlance as the upstream and downstream of

knowledge-sharing behavior (Figure 1.3) Th e upstream management of knowledge can also be thought of as nurturing knowledge sharing It includes commonly accepted prerequi-sites and processes of KM such as developing social capital Th is includes an organiza-tional culture that encourages risk-taking and transparency, allows mistakes, sets up appropriate rewards and motivations that encourage knowledge sharing, and provides the time and space necessary for knowledge sharing, and where leaders champion KM and managers lead by example (e.g., Cohen and Prusak 2001; Davenport and Prusak

Figure 1.3

KM model emphasizing the development of knowledge sharing behavior.

1998; Horwitz et al 2003; Mason and Pauleen 2003; Senge 1999; Th omas, Kellogg,

and Erickson 2001; Wiig 2004) Th e downstream management of knowledge can be

thought of as the harvesting of knowledge sharing From a cultural perspective, this

again includes the time and space for individuals to share knowledge, as well as the

information and communication technologies that facilitate knowledge sharing

behav-iors and allow organizations to capture, hold, and disseminate knowledge (e.g., Alavi

and Leidner 2001; Sveiby 2001)

In this chapter, the concern is not so much with the downstream management of

knowledge, but rather with the development of an organizational culture, which

pro-vides upstream KM values, attitudes, and behaviors that support and encourage

knowl-edge sharing behavior in individuals

Model of National Culture, Organizational Culture, and

Knowledge Management

A model is proposed here to explain the infl uence of national culture on

organiza-tional KM processes, and in particular knowledge sharing behavior (Figure 1.4) Th e

model proposes that national culture aff ects organizational KM processes both directly

and indirectly It is based on the literature presented earlier and acknowledges the

mutual infl uence of organizational culture and individual actors, including leaders and

managers

Th e main propositions of this model state the following:

• National culture will directly aff ect knowledge-sharing behavior in individuals through

its infl uence on the values and attitudes of individuals Th e infl uence of national culture

will be seen in how individuals perceive their roles and responsibilities with regard to

knowledge sharing as they interact in organizations, groups, teams, and dyads

• Organizational culture may mediate the eff ects of national culture on

sharing behavior in individuals through its infl uence on the values and attitudes of

individuals

• Leadership and management values, attitudes, and behaviors with regard to

knowledge-sharing behaviors may have a particularly strong infl uence on both organizational

cul-ture and individual knowledge sharing behaviors

• Purposeful organizational KM may infl uence both organizational culture and

individ-ual knowledge sharing behavior

Figure 1.4

National culture, organizational culture, and KM

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

Th e notion of collective mental maps (Clark and Mueller 1996; Laurent 1983) and the assertion of culturally determined biases regarding KM practices (Chia 2003; Pauleen and Murphy 2005) are based on deep underlying metaphysical assumptions Knowledge and its relationship to decision making and action point to a critical link between shared cultural values and attitudes toward knowledge and KM processes and the development

of successful organizational KM processes Th is link signals the need to develop tive conceptualizations and practical understandings of the strategic priorities, decisional imperatives, and modes of management operating in diverse geographical locations throughout the world (Chia 2003, 957) Th ese alternative conceptualizations may be refl ected in diff ering organizational attitudes toward education, cooperation, innovation, and creativity as well as specifi c practices in learning, training, and teamwork

Th ere is little doubt that cross-cultural research is gaining increasing importance in the business arena Th is derives from two main trends: diverse organizational workforces and globalization More recently, globalization and the increased capacity of ICTs have her-alded the arrival of the new knowledge economy where knowledge is the new rate of cur-rency However, despite an increasing international focus on KM and the importance of cross-cultural considerations in the transfer of knowledge (Wensley 2002a, 2002b, 2002c), there has been relatively little research on KM and cross-cultural issues

Implications for Culture, Practice, and Research

Th e debate on national culture, summarized in this chapter, begins to indicate just how problematic it can be to defi ne culture and its boundaries when factoring in the cul-tural impact on a research or managerial problem Although it is reasonable to conclude that culture will have some impact on how people understand and communicate knowl-edge, and therefore on how knowledge may be eff ectively managed in any given culture, the challenge to management and researcher alike is how to defi ne culture and to deter-mine what measures to use We believe that cultural boundaries between nations are oft en indistinct and that diff erent sub-cultures can exist within a single nation (Fuku-yama 1995) Th us, similar to the concept of national culture defi ned by Doney, Cannon, and Mullen (1998), we do not necessarily equate national culture with the geographical boundaries of a nation We do not assert that all groups in the population of a nation share the same set of values, attitudes, and behavior

We believe that in broad terms culture is transmitted from one generation to another

by learning the information embedded in symbols, rituals, and stories; however, given the reality of the ever increasing interconnectedness of organizations and individuals,

we agree with the view that organizations and individuals can be quite fl uid and able in creating eff ective ‘working’ cultures to suit localized, situated contexts

Knowledge management is acknowledged as a complex fi eld that cannot be conducted with technology alone Rather, integrated approaches that feature organizational, social, and technological emphases have become the trend for organizations who seek to create, use, and share knowledge to gain competitive advantage as well as foster creativity and innovation Most research to date has been predominantly focused on the organization

as the level of analysis in KM studies Th e importance of national culture and its impact

on KM strategies and process is gathering momentum and some researchers are

ques-tioning the culture-free assumption that has long been accepted within KM (Glisby and

Holden 2003) Furthermore, national culture can be seen to have important

implica-tions in concepts closely linked to KM success, including topics such as social capital,

innovation, and creativity Despite recognition of the importance of national culture,

there remains a dearth of research in the area of KM, and almost none that has been

carried out at a grassroots level

In this chapter we have developed an argument that national culture can directly

infl uence organizational culture and KM processes We contend that organizational

culture can mediate the infl uences of national culture on KM processes We also suggest

that actors, such as leaders, also play a part in mediating and changing the structures

of national and organizational culture We developed a model that illustrates both the

direct and indirect relationships between national culture, organizational culture, and

knowledge sharing behaviors It is up to researchers and practitioners to seek to

under-stand and implement eff ective KM strategies that incorporate national cultural infl

u-ences into organizational settings

NOTES

1 Motorcycle riding in Taipei, as in many other large—particularly Asian—cities, is a

phe-nomenon not easily explained; it needs to be experienced Th e authors have had the experience

and can attest to its personality shaping potential

2 Yu and ChiangLin’s analysis provides an excellent description of a country that has

expe-rienced signifi cant cultural change in a relatively short span of time While still retaining many

traditional cultural values, Taiwan has been willing to incorporate many institutions associated

with other cultures, such as democracy, a globally integrated economy, and so on

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