Handbook of Organizational Learning and Knowledge Management, Second Edition

Implications for Organizational Learning and Knowledge Creation

Thus far, we have discussed some salient institutional and cultural features of Asian business environments and organizational practices, namely the pervasiveness of guanxi networks, knowledge as power symbol, and leader-centric relationships. We have argued that these characteristics reflect an underlying collectivistic orientation and widespread acceptance of the need for unequal power and authority in leader–subordinate relationships. We shall now identify one positive and three negative implications for organizational learning and knowledge creation in Asia.

On the positive side, Asian organizations are more likely than Western ones to have sufficient patience and long-term orientation to nurture and build networks of organizational guanxi, as cooperative resources. Network-based models of knowledge development differ from mainstream knowledge-based theory, which features individual firms as basic units of analysis (Grant, 1996: 114) relying on internal ‘mechanisms for integrating specialized knowledge.’ Pervasive guanxi networks, and the intimate and intense inter-firm linkages that are associated with them, potentially support unique processes of inter-organizational knowledge transfer, combination, and co-creation (Easterby-Smith et al., 2008; Hong and Snell, 2009). Networks of an informal and particularistic nature provide unique opportunities for knowledge sharing, mutual help and knowledge combination between ...