Handbook of Organizational Learning and Knowledge Management, Second Edition

Towards a Pan-Asian Perspective on Organizational Learning

The previous section has reviewed the conceptual foundations of Nonaka’s knowledge creation theory, along with critiques thereof. It appears that his original SECI model and enabling factors are imbued with assumptions that are derived from the unique socio-cultural characteristics in Japan, thereby constituting a barrier to its applicability across the rest of Asia.

Although Asia is populated by diverse institutional environments, the societies therein tend to have in common the two cultural characteristics of high collectivism and high power distance (Hofstede, 1980). We shall argue that the strong cultural propensity to form extensive social networks in Asia is driven by collectivistic values, and that this, combined with the high power distance evident in most Asian countries, generates a strong tendency for organization members to regard proprietary knowledge as a means for increasing one’s personal power base and an extreme reliance on leaders to resolve problems. Thus it is that three sets of cultural practices or assumptions are especially salient in shaping and channeling organizational learning processes in Asian societies outside Japan (Bhagat et al., 2002). These are: (1) guanxi networks, i.e. personal connections, serving both as pervasive resources and as pervasive barriers; (2) possession of privileged knowledge as a powerful status symbol; and (3) paternalistic leadership.

In this section, we shall characterize ...