Lost in Transfer? Exploring the Influence of Culture on the Transfer of Knowledge Categories

ABSTRACT

Supported by an extensive review of four-domains of literature (knowledge management, organizational learning, culture, and retail), this study examines the influence of national culture on transfer of knowledge categories in top supermarkets in Africa and the United Kingdom (UK). Data from in-depth semi-structured interviews with 40 store managers (SMs) were used to examine how the SMs transfer the five sales performance drivers – selling-related knowledge, the degree-of-adaptiveness, role-clarity, cognitive-aptitude, and work-engagement – to their subordinates. The study finds these UK supermarkets’ knowledge transfer (KT) practices as embedded in problem-based learning (PBL) and project-based learning. SMs from African supermarkets exploit various opportunities to build interpersonal relationships and trust with knowledge-holders, thereby facilitating learning and KT. This study links such behaviors to “Ubuntu” – a well-established African philosophy/ethic. The study finds socialization, externalization, and internalization as common knowledge assets in African supermarkets, in contrast to socialization and externalization in their UK counterparts. This study found that, despite these variations in their strategic priorities regarding knowledge assets, these five sales performance drivers are transferred successfully in supermarkets in both continents that participated in the research. This offers a new insight that challenges the extant theorizing that KT praxis varies among diverse cultures.

KEYWORDS:

• knowledge transfer
• knowledge categories
• knowledge assets
• culture
• supermarkets
• Africa
• UK

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on the Contributor

Obinna A. Alo is a lecturer in Leadership and Management in the Business School at Edge Hill University United Kingdom (UK). Dr Alo received his PhD in Human Resource Development from the University of Sunderland, UK. His thesis was titled: A Comparative Evaluation of Human Resource Development (HRD) Processes and Practices in UK and Nigerian Retail Supermarkets. He is a reviewer for many top-ranked international journals such as the International Journal of Human Resource Management, Human Resource Development International, Journal of Knowledge Management, Journal of Management & Organisation, and Africa Journal of Management. He has also taught in many top UK Universities. He is currently an external examiner for Lancaster University and the University of Chester, in the UK.