EFFECTIVE KNOWLEDGE-BASED HOMEMA

Notwithstanding what has recently befallen some of the companies that were listed on the Geneva Forum of Learning Organisations there is no doubt that knowledge made a difference in making them product leaders in their areas of operation. It still does. Some countries in Asia once regarded as being at the same level as many African countries are now many kilometres ahead in terms of social and economic development. Knowledge has played a big part in bringing about the difference. Many of these countries embraced and included the knowledge concept in their vision for development. African countries must embrace knowledge management (KM) in the search for homegrown solutions to get out of the poverty-hunger-disease strand. They must educate and equip their people with the necessary skills. They must invest in information and communication technologies. They must improve on the socio-economic-political-technological incentives to attract their talents back. Nobody is going to do it for them. They must take the lead. This, however, is no easy matter. It means honestly accepting and implementing, on a sustainable basis, new paradigms associated with embracing knowledge management. To some leaders, politicians and the like, especially those married to the command type of management this may not be easy to accept. There are not too many choices, though. The alternative is to continue dispensing second hand cars, clothes, fridges, food, medicines, and even ideas.

Many African countries are awash with second hand clothing, cars, fridges and many other items, and may be even second hand ideas. These items are brought into the countries without any regard to standards. In the mind of the so-called developed communities, Africa is characterised by hunger (read David Plotz’s recent dispatch, The Supermarket and the Starving, January 22 2003: “Africa as a whole is in the midst of the worst food crisis in its history: 40 million people go hungry on the continent”),1 disease, poverty, wars and corruption (although what happened recently elsewhere in one of the developed countries is an indication that corruption is not mainly an African disease).

All the same let us compare Africa with the so-called developed countries. The latter earn and enjoy 70% of the world’s income while only 15% of the world’s population live there. Africa contributes only 1.5% of the world’s GDP.2 This is despite the fact that Africa has all the natural resources that any continent would wish to have. Why should the continent be in such a distressful situation? Kabila Junior recently said the Democratic Republic of Congo has all the wealth of resources any country can wish for but it does not have one thing: peace. 3 True, wars are destructive, defocusing, and drain away the energy that would otherwise have been put to good use. Would be investors shy away.

This article, however, is intended to offer that, all things considered, Africa must seriously and honestly embrace, internalise and integrate Knowledge and Knowledge Management in the conduct of her business to be able to get out these doldrums. Indeed, realising that a country’s knowledge resource is its greatest asset might help to reduce wars.

There are thousands of definitions of knowledge and knowledge management. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines Knowledge as being shrewd, cunning, acute, wide-awake. Knowledge, therefore, according to the dictionary, is the fact of knowing a thing, state, person; it is acquaintance, familiarity, intellectual acquaintance with, or perception or truth. Epistemology, on the other hand, is the theory of science of the method or grounds of knowledge; the how to do. This paper is not about epistemology.

Various disciplines have looked at knowledge from various points of view. The philosophers and theologians were interested in understanding the role and nature of knowledge and the permission of the individuals “to think for themselves.” 4 The focus here was on the epistemological aspects of knowledge. The social scientists, in general, wanted to understand the role of knowledge in human behaviour and society. The business world, on the other hand, sought to understand the role of knowledge in work and its organisation. For instance, Peter Drucker, a prolific writer on business and management, defined knowledge as “the ability to apply information to a specific work and performance.” 5 Davenport and Prusak define knowledge as “… a fluid mix of framed experience, values, contextual information, and expert insight that provides a framework for evaluating and incorporating new experiences and information. It originates and is applied in the minds of the knowers. In organisations, it often becomes embedded not only in documents or repositories but also in organisational routines, processes, practices, and norms.” 6 It aims at building and exploiting intellectual assets or capital effectively and profitably.

Bukowitz and Williams define knowledge as an intellectual or knowledge-based asset, “anything valued without physical dimensions that is [embodied] in people or derived from processes, systems, and the culture associated with organisation-brands, individual knowledge, intellectual property, licences, and forms of organisational knowledge (e.g., databases, process know-how, relationships).” 7 To Kunda Dixit information becomes knowledge when it helps people to communicate and make informed decisions 8 He advocates immediate bridging of the knowledge gap between the knows and not-knows as the way to prosperity by the developing countries. The emerging picture here is that beyond data and information there is knowledge, which knowledge exists in systems, processes, procedures and documents, and in human beings.

In the Knowledge Creating Company 10 Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi make a distinction between Explicit and Tacit knowledge. To them the former is knowledge that individuals are able to use through forms of communication such as language, audio-visuals, and body language. The latter, on the other hand, is knowledge that an individual is unable to express or articulate so as to turn it into information. This type of knowledge has not been documented yet. It is a know-how but hidden in the mind. Cope distinguishes between Surface Knowledge and Shadow Knowledge. The former is open and is used day in day out by the public domain. The latter is all the “ important information that does not get identified, discussed and managed in formal decision-making forums.” 11 He cites an example of Rank Xerox. The company sent out technicians accompanied by a researcher. When problems arose with the photocopiers the researcher would ask for a manual. The technicians would pull out the official company manual. These were in very clean form, as if just unpacked. The researcher later on discovered that the technicians were keeping two manuals: the meticulously clean formal one and the informal one. The latter had all sorts of notes in form of reminders etc. This example should spurn management of organisations to ask themselves if their employees, at whatever level, are not keeping two sets of workbooks: a formal one which belongs to the organisation, and an informal one which contains knowledge that is not known to the employer. Would an employee be holding the informal workbook return it to the employing organisation, on separation?

Recognising the Value of Knowledge

A forward looking enterprise must realise that to be viable it has to have not only a competitive quality of knowledge assets but also be able to effectively utilise them assets throughout the various units of the enterprise. There are several organisations that recognised the value of knowledge and the importance of properly using it. Knowledge management became part of their culture. Some of these companies are listed on the Geneva Forum of Learning Organisations. They are still competitive. For example, IBM, Ernest and Young’s Center for Business Knowledge, Hewlett Packard, 3M, Dow Chemical, Skandia, Texas Instruments etc. Some governments too, recognising the importance of the knowledge, have developed strategies to take advantage of the potential of knowledge technologies. Examples of countries that have developed strategies to take advantage of the potential of new technologies 9 include:

Africa has not been short of creativity and innovation. She has had her ‘Nobel’ prizewinners even before the Nobel Prizes were introduced. But over the centuries she has lost a lot of human resources to other continents. First it was the slave trade. This, indeed, was a disaster for Africa. Now it is the brain drain. In a number of African countries the best students at say ‘A’ Level or First Degree are given scholarships to go and study at Oxford, Cambridge, Yale, London School of Economics, Princeton, Harvard etc. No doubt, one of the ways of accessing useful knowledge is through foreign education. But do many of the brilliant young men and women come back to Africa. A good percentage of these may not come back. If the objective of developing a country’s human resources is to build capacity to enable a country make strides in solving some of the poverty-related problems, when will it do that, given the rate at which its human resources is being taken away?

These include internal and external sources. The internal sources include: the knowledge that the knowledge workers and other workers in the organisation possess; the business archives and books on the history of the organisation, memos, journal articles, laboratory notes etc. The external sources include, for instance, outsourcing, visiting speakers, purchase of knowledge, internet sources, other libraries etc.

Gordon in The Whole Enchilada: Intellectual Capital and You 12 defines KM as the capturing of the organisation’s collective experience and wisdom including the ‘tacit’ know-how that exists in people’s heads, and making it accessible and useful to everyone in the enterprise. Essentially, in knowledge management an organisation recognises that its most important asset lies in the people. It, therefore, endeavours to create an environment that will facilitate the leveraging, easy access and effective utilisation of that knowledge for the benefit of the organisation.

Our discussion of this subject will follow the Knowledge Management Cycle in organisations (see diagram below). The knowledge life cycle in an organisation consists of Knowledge Assessment, Knowledge Acquisition, Knowledge Development, Knowledge Sharing, Knowledge Utilisation and Knowledge Retention. In a setting where the power of information, leave alone knowledge, is not very much appreciated it becomes very important for a committed management to facilitate knowledge-worker sensitisation or awareness programmes. Knowledge Assessment enables the organisation to know what it knows. It will be able to align its strategic goals with the available knowledge resources. It involves taking a transparent account of the knowledge resource existing in the organisation. This knowledge mapping exercise is important given that the success of the organisation depends on the available knowledge resources and how easily they are accessed and well utilised. Assessing the available knowledge resources, especially the tacit type, may not be that easy. The knowledge-workers will need to be convinced about the advantages of the employer knowing as much as possible what knowledge exists in the organisation. Therefore, management must come out with a very clear statement on the purpose of the exercise, and do so transparently. The knowledge-workers must be fully involved in the exercise. Once the assessment has been done, the organisation should begin to Acquire missing the knowledge required to fill the gap to enable the organisation achieve its goals. The required knowledge could be sourced through either internal retooling or outsourcing. There is a need for effective library and documentation services for capturing that knowledge which has been documented elsewhere. Closely associated with knowledge acquisition is Knowledge Development. In a competitive environment organisations that wish to retain their leadership positions must continue to develop its knowledge-base through, for instance, research and development. Every effort must be made to facilitate the generation of new ideas in very section of the organisation. A groundbreaking idea could be lying unattended to in the most unlikely unit in the organisation. Management, therefore, must make effort to recognise the individual/group intellectual attributes. Without this there could arise a situation where individuals hoard the knowledge that the organisation requires most. The organisation may have plenty of knowledge embedded in systems and procedures, and embodied in people. But it may not be aware of who knows what and where it is and whether it is being used. Knowledge must be Distributed and Shared to be of use to the organisation. Sharing of ideas through informal conversations, story telling, formal brainstorming sessions, retreats, relevant conferences and professional meetings broadens a knowledge-worker’s knowledge dimension. How would anyone know who knows what if there are no open fora for the various people to trustingly exchange views? Where there is no trust, people may not be willing to give away their last card. The organisation may have a very rich knowledge base. But if it is not being utilised fully, it is as good as no knowledge at all. The organisation must, therefore, ensure that the knowledge existing within and without is fully Utilised. How much of its knowledge resources should it retain? This, of course, depends a great deal on how well the organisation has aligned its knowledge resources to its goals for the present and future. Without a proper Knowledge Retention programme an organisation could end up throwing out through the window some of its highly prized expertise and keeping knowledge that is of little relevance today and in the foreseeable future.

Adapted from Managing Knowledge Building Blocks for Success, by G Probst, S Raub, and Kai Romhardt, (1998) John Wiley, (p.34)

How does an Organisation know that it is Knowledge-based or rather what are the Characteristics of a Knowledge-Driven Organisation?13

v An effective leadership which is visionary, firmly values and believes in the power of knowledge in a competitive environment, is passionate, listens to the people, has a positive attitude and is responsive;

v An enabling environment to encourage creativity and innovation among the employees;

v Knowledge-workers who are enthused by continuing learning and willingly share knowledge;

v An infrastructure that facilitate generation, storage, processing, retrieval and dissemination of knowledge

v Use of knowledge for creating more knowledge through further research, consultancy or training.

v The organisational culture encourages creation, sharing, use of new knowledge and continuing learning

v Encourages the knowledge-worker to define his/her tasks and contribution to the vision, goals and objectives of the employer;

v Realises that the paradigm of ownership of knowledge has changed in that the knowledge-worker now owns quite a big chunk of the knowledge cake;

In order to find out if it is really knowledge-based and to what extent it is, an organisation may want to consider itself the following statements and objectively score by ticking any of the three categories [(S)trong, (M)oderate, (Weak)]. The more Ss the better, of course.

v The organisation allocates to communities of specialities that wish to manage their knowledge (S) (M) (W)

v It has established ways for people to document and share knowledge (S) (M) (W)

v Office space not used as a symbol of status or seniority in the organisation (S) (M) (W)

v We give all promising ideas thorough consideration, no matter who brings them up (S) (M) (W)

v We try to ensure that people have some overlapping responsibilities, so that it is easier to learn from one another (S) (M) (W)

v People would say that sharing knowledge does not diminish the individual’s value to the organisation (S) (M) (W)

v Knowledge-sharing behaviour is built into the performance appraisal system (S) (M) (W)

v Face-to-face interactions are used to transfer difficult to articulate ’tacit’ knowledge (S) (M) (W)

v Our organisation looks for ways to remove barriers to knowledge sharing (S) (M) (W)

v We have been practising knowledge management for sometime without calling it that (S) (M) (W)

v We have mapped the process flow of knowledge management activities (S) (M) (W)

v It does not matter which group came up with an idea or technology, anyone in the organisation can use (S) (M) (W)

v Our decision to acquire knowledge is based on how much we can leverage it (S) (M) (W)

v When we get rid of businesses or groups of people, we treat the people affected with dignity and respect (S) (M) (W)

v Before we terminate people we try to determine if their skills and expertise can be used elsewhere (S) (M) (W)

Victoria Ward in Bukowitz and Williams proposes a programme consisting of the following phases:

v Create an intranet to enable the knowledge team; the intranet would act as a clearinghouse, repository and communication;

v Create a map to establish knowledge focal points and the location of programme cheerleaders;

v Make the library/documentation centre to serve as a physical and skills base from which to extend the knowledge management team’s reach;

v There will be people in the organisation with common interests but conducting duplicate tasks. Forge common interests and create an atmosphere which will enable them to share ideas and consider common solutions to common problems

v Consolidate business skills in the team; these could be useful for reinvesting in other business areas

v Establish formal links wit, partnerships and joint with the business areas, other support functions and external supplier

Þ Values sharing of ideas with others honestly without fear of surrendering the trump card, and regards it as a means of expanding the horizon of knowledge;

Þ Is responsible for defining his/her task in line with the vision and goals of the employing organisation

Being knowledge-based avoids re-inventing the wheel; makes it possible for the organisation to ‘import’ best practices; it facilitates collaboration and sharing of knowledge within and without the organization; and it also promotes creativity and innovation among the knowledge workers.

Adoption of KM in an organisation brings in several changes including the management of change itself. Therefore, organisations must not regard adoption of knowledge as an unnecessary indulgence. Rather, it is intended to make the organisation the product/service leader in its area. The alternative is to maintain the status quo which is another way of planning the organisation’s death or absorption elsewhere. The workers will be empowered because they realise that they own the means of production. This is because the employer/employee knowledge-ownership ratio will have changed. The management style will have to change to allow for a flexible approach to management. The strictly command style of management will no longer apply. In the past workers were content to become corporate slaves as long as they had a job to enable to live. The price for that sacrifice was that they forfeited a lot of freedom and could not be said to have any claim to their intellectual property. In a knowledge-based environment the balance of knowledge ownership is changing from organisation to the individual. This creates a problem to traditional management. Is it ready and prepared to restructure the organisation to become more open and more networked? Is it prepared to loosen the controls, and shift work relationship from “ one of paternalistic dependence to open interdependence?” 13 The organisational structure will become more flatter, thinner and leaner. The interpersonal and organisational communication system will have to change. The knowledge-worker will have to develop a willing to share knowledge rather than hoard it, continue to learn and renegotiate his/her contract. The processes or the way things are done in the organisation will have to change. There is bound to arise informal groups known as Communities of Practices. These are groups that are formed as a result of having similar knowledge interests and work within a common context. Ideally, this should not be imposed on the knowledge workers. It should be out of their own volition. In essence, it means overhauling the organisational culture in terms of attitudes of stakeholders, management and the employees; the organisational structure and the processes.

With the information era there was already a great divide between the developed and developed countries. With knowledge, that divide is becoming even greater, creating what is regarded as the ‘knowledge divide’ leading to further inequalities between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’. In 1994 at the OAU Summit in Tunis the former Southern African President Mandela introduced the concept of Africa Renaissance. To bring about this it was necessary for the continent to develop scientific thinking and innovation. But of course Africa made its contribution to scientific thinking over the centuries and continues to do so, if only it was recognised. Anver Versi14 in African Business of July-August 2001 No. 267 refers to the hundreds of toys that the children in various African countries make out of discarded bottle tops, bits and pieces of wire etc. The toys work. Footballs made out of banana fibres bounce as well as the ones imported from abroad. Indeed there must be a lot of talent hidden in Africa. It is a question of how to tap it, protect it and put it to use. At this juncture we cannot fail to mention the efforts made by South Africa in the area of generation and utilisation of knowledge. In pushing for The New African Initiative that was adopted d by the Organisation of African Unity in July 2001, and later the G8 industrial nations, President Thabo Mbeki emphasised the importance of knowledge and its application. Further more, he would like the “good ideas recognised and rewarded, innovations patented, developed and marketed throughout the world.”[1] South Africa in terms of knowledge management has taken a lead. It is one of the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa that has made a breakthrough. Today she can boast of some inventions that are far superior to those in developed countries. In South Africa the “spirit of science, invention and innovation is alive and well.” The Hidden Edge exhibition held recently in London showed that South Africa is at the cutting edge of the First World technology as reported by Anver Varsi and Graeme Addison. Some of the inventions exhibited include the CAT scan with a Low Dosage X-ray scan, a version of the CAT scan which was invented in South Africa; gearboxes for the Rolls Royce aero engines; Wondafix Putty, Qdrum, Boulder Buster; etc. There are quite a number of other knowledge management-related activities taking place in the country. The Knowledge Management Centre in the USA conducts a number of training programmes within South Africa. The latest meeting of the Standing Conference of Eastern Central and Southern African Librarians (SCECSAL) took place in South Africa. The theme was ‘Indigenous Knowledge…’ In terms of productivity South Africa competes favourably with any other developed country.

We have seen above how South Africa has benefited a lot from recognition of knowledge. It is imperative that other African countries adopt the concept. For instance, globalisation, premature deaths due to scourges such as HIV/AIDs, malaria, the need to reduce the workforce as has been demanded by the World Bank in the past, competition resulting from liberalisation of economies have brought in new dimensions which indeed give the governments little option but to embrace the concept of KM. Not to do so is suicidal. Embracing the KM concept will minimise on firms having to reinvent the wheel, and unnecessary imitations, and it will facilitate transfer of best practices from elsewhere. Besides, it will enable the firms to map out their knowledge resources, and therefore, determine the knowledge gaps existing and find means of bridging those gaps.

The Unexplored Potential

President Mbeki on Friday 23 August 2002 called for original and perhaps defiant ideas for solving problems of the African continent. To him the biggest challenge was finding the ideas for solving Africa’s problems and communicating them so that they are understood. Laura Liswood, advisor to Bank Goldman Sachs Group considers intellectual capital as the most crucial defining competitive advantage. But, as she says, the business community has taken too long to realise the intellectual capital of women in leadership in the business community. The women have been marginalized. So have the artisan and the like. Let us take this little place called Katwe in Kampala, Uganda. It harbours all sorts of artisans, fabricating all sorts of equipment and spare parts for cars, motor cycles etc. Some one in the area has even put up a ‘university of technology.’ The point being made here is that there is a lot of talent, what one would call Tacit Knowledge, in Katwe that is not being turned into explicit knowledge. Of course the owners of the knowledge fear that if their knowledge were made explicit it could be duplicated elsewhere, jeopardising their livelihood. This is their trump card. A similar situation obtains in Kenya in the Jua Kali sector. At a recent East African Jua Kali/Nguvu Kazi Craft Exhibition in Nairobi lack of intellectual protection was seen as one of the factors inhibiting the Jua Kali Growth.15

The Retrenchment Exercise by African Governments

Following the civil service reform exercises in the various countries in Eastern and Southern Africa a lot of civil servants were retrenched. Is it possible that in the process some gold mine was thrown out through the window in the name of appeasing the World Bank and other drivers?

Just like it was said of China16 “Africa’s competitive edge will be determined by its people’s ability to create, acquire and use knowledge effectively.” The importance of a friendly environment to encourage people to invest money and time in research and development, establish centres of excellence, the highest level in the country or in the firm is very important for internalising the culture of knowledge generation, processing, dissemination and utilisation; improve upon the climate for innovation and creativity, and institutions to transform these into practical productive forces. But as long as the current socio-economic-political-technological conditions prevail in Africa most of Africa will continue to go begging from those countries that do not even have 1% of what Africa has. Africa will have to stop talking. Instead she will have to seriously and honestly embrace, develop, implement and sustain knowledge management systems. This will not be easy for most of the leaders given that most of them still think that they are know-it-all, that they are the bastions of knowledge. Knowledge management cannot effectively be nurtured in an environment that is not conducive to free sharing of ideas, that does not accord the knowledge worker independence to generate more knowledge by using existing knowledge; that does not recognise that the employment contract between the employer and the employee (knowledge worker) has to change, given that the ownership of knowledge is not on the prerogative of the employer.

Some of the barriers to knowledge use include leadership, cultural barriers (the efficacy of the elder) and organisational blindness.

Creating a KM culture involves change in an organisation. It means a change in attitude by management and the rest of the workers. Management and the rest of staff must be willing to junk or unlearn old and unworkable ideas and work attitudes. Introducing change will inevitably meet some resistance along the way. Management must create a conducive atmosphere for more useful and honest dialogue; compensatory rewards and other incentives to motivate the people so that they can bring out especially the tacit knowledge which is embodied in them, and show genuine interest in KM. Transparency; genuine recognition by top and senior management of the knowledge contributions made by various individuals, and encouragement of participatory approach to the management of the organisation may over time create a knowledge management culture in an organisation. Short of that people may walk away with that very useful commodity in their heads. They must create an environment that encourages creativity and innovation. The employees must be enabled to continuously think or question what they have done so far with a view to improving upon it. This calls for an effective internal communication system free of traditional barriers. For instance, the culture still being practiced in some organisations of having, for instance, separate canteens for senior staff, middle managers and operational staff will have to be dispensed with. All staff should be encouraged to intermingle. After all, idea generation is not the exclusive province or zone of top management only. The grass cutter out there could have an idea that could save the organisation hundreds of thousands of Pula, Shillings, Emalengeni, Rand, Kwacha, Birr, or whatever currency you use. But does the grass cutter have a means of disseminating that idea? Besides, is management ready and willing to analyse the idea irrespective of the source? Management should understand that the issue is not who is putting across an idea but what the idea is.

They should be encouraged not to be just 0800-1700hrs workers. Would a company think of employing a chief knowledge officer whose job is to source knowledge from within and without and plug it in the company for optimum solutions? There is a need for management to change its management style to one that is flexible and creative, and also encourage team leadership and consensus. There is a need for more freedom and trust.

The Roles of Various Team Players in Instilling Knowledge Management in People in Africa

There are quite a number of key stakeholders and players in this whole business of introducing knowledge culture among the citizens of the individual countries and workers in organisations. They include: political leadership, parents, educational institutions from pre-primary to tertiary level; leaders and managers of various industries and other public institutions, and individual knowledge-workers.

The political establishment must come up with a vision that seriously addresses the centrality of knowledge in the development process. It should go beyond just saying we want to develop the human resources. Everybody should be targeted from top to the lowest level. Universal Primary Education must cease to be a mere political tool. It should aim at instilling in the future leaders the centrality of knowledge in socio-economic-technological development. As a start the political leadership should form a task force consisting of high- ranking managers who are also interested in KM. Their role would be to develop a strategy internalisation and integration of the knowledge culture in the nation.

Parents and schools have a role in developing creativity and innovation, and for that matter a knowledge-based culture, for the future organisations. Parents should encourage their children to be creative and innovative. The toys that a parent buys for US$50 for their children should be more of a learning tool. So, if a parent finds the kid has dismantled the toy, he/she should be proud of his/her child. This is a sign that the child is inquisitive. Using this as a reason for smacking him/her could lead to destroying a future inventor. Pre-primary schools should also be effective team players in instilling creativity in the children. Schools should not overemphasise passing exams as criteria for success in life. Let us look at South Africa again. In South Africa about 30% of the schools have computers. The plan is, however, to put computers in all schools by the year 2010. At the Cape Town Diocesan College computers have brought about a revolution as far as learning and teaching.17

v Ensure that all the staff internalise and integrate the concept of KM in their work,

v Ensure that knowledge is accessible and is frequently transferred or disseminated to those who need it,

v Ensure that new knowledge is created and disseminated to the various people in the organisation,

v Ensure that Knowledge is embedded in the systems, work processes and controls,

v Ensure that the knowledge culture maintained and sustained in the organisation through suitable incentives

v Encourage the inculcation and internalisation of knowledge in the organisation, besides overseeing the creation; representation; refinement and testing; embedment of the knowledge in the systems, processes, and controls; dissemination or transfer of the knowledge, and establishment of organisational structures to support the knowledge activities in the organisation.

v Define the core and secondary competencies of the organisation. This will enable him or her to establish the knowledge gap in the organisation;

v Create an environment that facilitates knowledge sharing. This could be through frequent meetings, discussion groups, attending professional workshops etc.;

v Demonstrate a zeal for learning, and letting the knowledge worker continuously learn;

v Create transparency of knowledge to avoid the knowledge workers hoarding knowledge;

v Provide appropriate and continuous training for the various knowledge workers, and

The knowledge workers, on the other hand, must be prepared to work in an environment where the success of the enterprise depends on free exchange of ideas.

The knowledge worker should widen his/her knowledge-catchment area by establishing effective relationships with others in the organisation, same business, and thus establishing a network of people with similar interests with whom he/she can continue to share ideas. Such a network will provide peer support and, therefore, provide opportunity for confidence building. This, of course, assumes that those who have more knowledge are willing to provide the required peer support. This also forms a means for continuous informal learning and education for the knowledge worker.

Industry could establish centres such as the Centre for the Improvement of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education at the University of South Africa (UNISA) funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The Centre is intended to improve upon the teaching of mathematics, science and technology. Industry could also establish ‘Chairs’ at colleges and universities intended mainly for research in issues related to generation, utilisation and dissemination of knowledge in industry.

REFERENCES

1 David PLotz, (Jan 21 2003) The Supermarket and the Starving in David Plotz in Africa (http://slate.msn.com/

2 P.J Smit and G.J. de Cronje, (1997), Management Principles, A contemporary edition for Africa, 2^nd edition, (Kenywn: Juta and Co., Ltd)

3 As quoted by Nonhlanhla Vilakati in Sunday Times of Swaziland August 26, p.17

4 Charles Despres and Daniele Chauvel, (2000) Knowledge Horizons: The Present and the Promise of Knowledge Management (Oxford: Butterworth Henemann), p.4

5 Peter Drucker, (19640, Managing for Result: Economic Tasks and Risk-Taking, (Oxford: Heinmann Professional Publishing Ltd.), p.

6 T. Davenport and L. Prusak, (1998), Working Knowledge, (Boston: Havard Business School Press), p.

7 Adapted from “Visualising, measuring and managing knowledge” Wendi R. Bukowitz and Gordon P. L. Petrash, Research Technology Management July-August 1997 as quoted in Wendi R. Bukowitz and Ruth L. Williams (2000), The Knowledge Management Fieldbook, (London: Financial Times Prentice Hall) p.2

8 Kunda Dixit, Does IT Promote Knowledge? in Deutschland E6 No. 1/2000 February/March p.45

9 ibid, p.33

10 Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotika Takeuchi , (1991), The Knowledge Creating Company in Harvard Business Review 1991 p.

11 Mick Cope, p. 21

12 Jack Gordon, The Whole Enchilada: Intellectual Capital and You in The Knowledge Management Handbook 2000-2001 ed. by James W. Cortada and John A. Woods, (2000), (Boston: Butterworth-Heinmann), p.159

13 Mick Cope, (2000), Know Your Value: Manage Your Knowledge and Make It Pay, (London: Financial Times Prentice Hall), p.11

14 Anver Versi, The Hidden Edge in African Business July/August 2001,p.18

15 This exhibition brought together a number of fabricators and inventors of cookers, power inverters and transformers, wind turbines, wooden sofas etc. Most of the exhibitors felt that the legal processes and costs of patents and licences was cumbersome, yet they risk their products being duplicated. As reported by the East African No.322 January 1-7 2001, p.19

16 Carl J. Dahlman and Jean-Eric Aubert, (2001), China and the Knowledge Economy: Seizing the 21^st Century, (Washington: World Bank), p.4

17 Corna Pretorius in Sunday Times August 12 2001, p.19

18 Marshall, Prusak and Shpilberg p.251

EFFECTIVE KNOWLEDGE-BASED HOMEMADE SOLUTIONS: THE WAY FORWARD FOR AFRICA.

Recognising the Value of Knowledge

The Unexplored Potential

The Retrenchment Exercise by African Governments