Corporate South Africa: making multicultural knowledge sharing work

Abstract

PurposeKnowledge management in South Africa is still a very new field of management and knowledge managers are experiencing difficulties with the added dimension of multiculturalism. The history of South Africa, along with its current focus on cultural equality, complicates the matter. This research seeks to look at the challenges facing knowledge managers in a multicultural South African corporate environment.Design/methodology/approachAn exploratory study, using in‐depth interviewing and a focus group as information collection methods, was launched to explore South African knowledge‐management practices in a cross‐section of companies in the economy.FindingsResults showed that companies were afraid to acknowledge cultural differences because of major cultural sensitivity and, as a result, corporate culture was seen as the great equaliser of cultural exchanges. Knowledge managers, along with top management's support, must rather create a cooperative knowledge‐sharing environment in which South Africa's diverse cultures can interact, learn from one another and innovate.Research limitations/implicationsServes as a pilot study that aims to explore new territory. From this explorative research, a new and extensive study of the contributing factors should be conducted. This study does not proclaim to be representative of all companies, as only a cross‐section of the South African corporate market was targeted for participation.Practical implicationsCompany management and knowledge workers will see the necessity of incorporating different approaches to knowledge‐management implementation to suit individual needs.Originality/valueVery little research has been done on this subject from a South African corporate‐environment perspective. These researchers hope to make knowledge workers more sensitive to the influence of multiculturalism on potential implementation of a knowledge‐management strategy.