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Over decades, indigenous management practices and their values in Africa have changed from time to time. However, it continued to remain relevant in most business organisations in developing countries. Today in Africa and across the globe, there is a paradigm shift and stiff competition in human resource management practices as a basic element for effective and efficient business organisations’ performance. Effective human resource management practices and performance of organisations rely on the integration of indigenous management practices and sound strategies aligned to cultural values and cores business objectives. The study covers four regions of Africa as a continent. Empirical teachings of the study form a basis for active reforms and innovations, so as to revamp the use of indigenous knowledge, which was deliberately destroyed by colonial masters. Over the years, human resource management practice has evolved in favour of Western strategies and ideologies. Advocates for curriculum reforms in all African countries so as to incorporate indigenous knowledge content, since it is believed to be the future of Africa. An appropriate employees management practice in Africa is a necessary move in today’s business community as it enhances service delivery and performance. The application of indigenous management practices is believed to play a vital role and invokes effective decision-making practices in the business organisation. Therefore, the chapter traces the origin of indigenous wisdom and its fundamental structure in management practices. This chapter attempts to throw light on indigenous management practices and their values in business organisations in Africa.

The purpose of this study is to examine the role of knowledge management practices, organisational commitment and capacity building on employee performance in the hotel industry. This study also investigated the mediating role of organisational commitment and capacity building between knowledge management practices and employee performance.

A quantitative approach and questionnaire survey were used to collect data from hotel employees from Malaysia. Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to collect data from 291 participants, and partial least squares structural equation modelling was used to analyse the hypotheses.

The results of this study confirm that knowledge management practices positively and significantly affect knowledge-employee performance. Employees achieve this performance through the mediating influence of organisational commitment and capacity building culture.

This study offers several implications for Malaysian practitioners and policymakers regarding learning and knowledge management practices in the hospitality industry. The results suggest that organisations can manage knowledge assets and key processes of the organisational environment to create and use knowledge to improve sustainable employee performance through knowledge management practices.

This study sheds light on the knowledge management literature by examining the effect of knowledge management practices on organisational commitment, particularly in the hospitality industry in Malaysia.

This study aims to explore talent retention in knowledge-intensive industries by investigating the mediating processes between the existence and application of human resource management (HRM) and employee turnover. Toward this end, drawing on the conservation of resources and job demands–resources theories, a three-dimensional model is examined, which includes the relationship between HRM, knowledge management (KM) and change management (CM), as well as their relationship with employee engagement and employee turnover intention.

The proposed research model has been studied with a sample of 168 talented employees in over six European countries, using a quantitative approach, involving the structural equation modeling method. All data were gathered by a multidimensional questionnaire via prolific, an academic crowdsourcing platform.

Results indicated that knowledge-intensive services firms may achieve higher talent retention through the interaction of HRM with KM and CM practices, which may lead to enhanced employee engagement.

Possible limitations of the study include the relatively small sample size, the self-rate questions for the collection of data and the use of cross-sectional data.

To retain their talented employees, organizations should identify ways to improve their HRM, CM and KM practices. In addition, HR practitioners ought to include their talented employees in all organizational change and KM processes and create mechanisms that successfully support knowledge acquisition, creation, sharing, retention and codification.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine various factors of retaining talented employees in knowledge-intensive services. Furthermore, the study took place in six European countries, i.e. UK, Poland, Italy, Germany, Portugal and Greece, where the research on talent retention is very limited.

This paper aims to contribute to the emerging discussion on the contextualization of knowledge-oriented research by examining the universality of knowledge management (KM) practices. Knowledge is a firm’s most valuable resource, and KM, or the ability to leverage knowledge resources, constitutes the base for the firm’s competitive advantages.

A theorized ten-fold conceptualization of KM practices is tested on a sample of 622 firms from four countries (Finland, Spain, China and Russia). Confirmatory factor analysis and principal component analysis are used to test the applicability of the concept in various country contexts.

The findings provide interesting evidence of variation in the managerial assessment of KM practices among countries. This shows that KM practices are socially embedded phenomena, affected by the managers’ institutional and cultural contexts.

Researchers and managers are advised to be mindful of the differences in terms of KM practices between the studied countries and to display a certain cultural sensitivity when approaching KM.

The paper is the first to examine the managerially assessed structure of KM practices in a cross-country context with multi-firm datasets. The results will help to determine the similarity of KM practices in four economically and culturally distinct countries. It also adds to the discussion about the potential national peculiarities of KM and provides a novel concept of KM practices, which is tested in a cross-national context. Thus, this study provides an outline for future KM studies and increases managerial understanding about the variety of value-creating KM practices.

Knowledge management (KM) has emerged as one of the most discussed new management methods. Among the most debated areas in KM has been the association between knowledge and firm performance, but a lack of understanding and consensus still remains as a major issue. This paper aims to address the research gap by reviewing the empirical literature and determining how KM-based managerial and organizational practices are related with firm performance.

This study followed a systematic review procedure.

The findings demonstrate that utilization of KM practices is significant driver for innovation. Also, specific leadership characteristics and organizational arrangements are likely to support firm performance through more efficient and effective management of knowledge resources.

This study adds to the discussion on knowledge-based view of the firm by pointing out the key organizational and managerial practices that are associated with firm performance. The results of this study also add structure to the previously scattered discussion on KM practices by synthesizing the relevant literature

Measuring KM performance is characterized by organizational complexity; this study demonstrated that innovation is a likely outcome of utilization of KM practices, but there are numerous other factors that influence the financial performance figures. Also, this study points out that organizations should pay attention to specific KM leadership attributes and organizational arrangements in order to achieve firm performance through KM.

This is the first systematic literature review on KM practices and firm performance. The results increase understanding of efficient and effective management of knowledge resources for organizational benefit.

The purpose of this paper is to present the main barriers, practices, methods and knowledge management tools in startups that are characterized as agile organizations with dynamic capabilities to meet the demands of a business environment of high volatility, uncertainties, complexity and ambiguity.

The conceptual basis of the research focused on the triad: agile organization, dynamic capabilities and knowledge management. Field research began by interviewing experts to identify the barriers, practices, methods and knowledge management tools in startups. Based on the theoretical review, on the desk research and on the result of interviews with experts, a quantitative research was carried out with the leading startups coworking of São Paulo city. The obtained data made it possible to develop descriptive analyses and run linear regressions and cluster analysis for exploratory research.

Startups with higher maturity in innovation level, solution development level, and scalability development level, present a higher degree of utilization of the practices, methods and tools dedicated to knowledge management.

It is expected that results of the research presented in detail will be able to illustrate concrete examples of practices, methods, and knowledge management tools for large established companies seeking the organizational agility of startups.

This study contributes to the identification of barriers, practices, methods and tools of management of knowledge in startups, through the conceptual triad: agile organization, dynamic capabilities and knowledge management.

Knowledge management (KM) is associated with higher performance and innovative culture; KM can help the public sector to be fiscally lean and meet diverse stakeholders’ needs. However, hierarchical structures, bureaucratic culture and rigid processes inhibit KM adoption and generate inertia. This study aims to explore the nature and causes of this inertia within the context of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) public sector.

Using an in-depth case study of a UAE public sector organisation, this study explores how organisational inertia can be countered to enable KM adoption. Semi-structured interviews are conducted with 17 top- and middle-level managers from operational, management and strategic levels. Interview data is triangulated with content analysis from multiple sources, including the UAE Government and case organisation documents.

The results show transformation leadership, external factors and organisational culture mediate the negative effect of inertia on KM practices adoption. We find that information technology plays a key role in enabling knowledge creation, access, adoption and sharing. Furthermore, we uncover a virtuous cycle between organisational culture and KM practices adoption in the public sector. In addition, we develop a new model (the relationship between KM practices, organisational inertia, organisational culture, transformational leadership traits and external factors) and four propositions for empirical testing by future researchers. We also present a cross-case comparison of our results with six private/quasi-private sector cases who have implemented KM practices.

Qualitative data is collected from a single case study.

Inertia in a public section is a result of bureaucracy and authority bounded by the rules and regulations. Adopting a qualitative methodology and case study method, the research explores the phenomena of how inertia impacts KM adoption in public sector environments. Our findings reveal the underlying mechanisms of how internal and external organisational factors impact inertia. Internally, supportive organisational culture and transformational leadership traits positively effect KM adoption, which, in turn, has a positive effect on organisational culture to counter organisational inertia. Externally, a progressive national culture, strategy and policy can support a knowledge-based organisation that embraces change. This study develops a new model (interactions between internal and external factors impacting KM practices in the public sector), four propositions and a new two-stage process model for KM adoption in the public sector. We present a case-comparison of how the constructs interact in a public sector as compared to six private/quasi-private sector cases from the literature.

This paper aims to highlight the degree of diffusion and intensity of use of knowledge management systems (KMSs) among small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Brazil and apply a taxonomy that synthesizes the strategies of use of KMSs by the SMEs. In addition, it seeks to better understand the processes, practices and technologies of KM by SMEs, pointing improvements in the KMS of Brazilian SMEs and contributing to obtain better results in the search for efficiency and innovation.

Based on a literature review on KMSs used by SMEs, an empirical investigation was conceived, developed and conducted through online questionnaires involving 49 selected SMEs operating in several sectors.

This paper reinforces the results of the previous work of Cerchione and Esposito (2017) that point to the existence of a reciprocal relationship between KM-Tools and KM-Practices: one reinforces the other and vice versa. On the other hand, it indicates a difference in the behavior of Brazilian companies in relation to the sample of Italian companies studied by Cerchione and Esposito (2017), which presented a negative correlation between the general differentiation index and the general use intensity index of SMEs, while the Brazilian ones showed a positive correlation.

The study points out the need for greater dissemination of practices and tools to support knowledge management (KM), as well as greater support for the implementation and effective use of these practices and tools within the organizational context of SMEs.

This paper identifies the main practices and tools to support KM used by Brazilian SMEs, indicating the need for investments in employee training and acquisition of tools.

SMEs represent an important part of the generation of jobs and income in Brazil. Initiatives that lead to the successful implementation of tools and practices to support KM can increase the efficiency and productivity of these organizations.

This paper applies in a sample of Brazilian companies the taxonomy proposed by Cerchione and Esposito (2017) combining strategies of SMEs for the use of KMSs.

Knowledge management in the public sector is relatively an ignored avenue of research and practice that has recently been given attention. Knowledge management initiatives in the public sector are now not limited to the developed countries anymore. The public sectors of various developing countries including Pakistan have developed knowledge management functions to address the problems of low organizational commitment (higher turnover rates) and knowledge-workers’ performance. Consequently, the purpose of this paper is to examine the mediation role of organizational commitment in the relationship between knowledge management practices and knowledge-worker performance.

The data were gathered from 341 knowledge workers of the public sector health department of Punjab Province, Pakistan, where knowledge management unit initiative has been taken. It was then analyzed using the structural equation modeling.

Organizational commitment partially mediates the relationship between knowledge management practices and knowledge-work performance.

The public sector policy makers are strongly advised to implement knowledge management units and practices in order to enhance knowledge-work performance as well as organizational commitment.

First, the model on the mediating role of organizational commitment has never been examined before. Second, the data collection from the public Health Department of Pakistan, a developing country, is relatively rare because the public sector knowledge management studies have mostly been conducted in developed countries. Finally, this study extends the literature on knowledge management in the public sector that is the developing theme in knowledge management discipline while adding knowledge management as a toolkit to enhance knowledge-workers’, organizational commitment and knowledge-work performance.

While nowadays an extensive literature promoting knowledge management (KM) exists, there is a worrying shortage of empirical studies demonstrating an actual connection between KM activities and organizational outcomes. To bridge this gap, this paper aims to examine the link between KM practices, firm competitiveness and economic performance.

This paper proposes a framework of KM practices consisting of human resource management (HRM) and information communication technology (ICT). These both are hypothesized to impact competitiveness and economic performance of the firm. Hypotheses are then tested with structural equation modeling by using a survey dataset of 234 companies.

The results show that HRM and ICT practices for managing knowledge are quite strongly correlated and have a statistically significant influence on both financial performance and competitiveness of the firm. The findings also indicate that ICT practices improve financial performance only when they are coupled with HRM practices.

The data are limited to companies from Finland, Russia and China.

The paper contributes to managerial practice by pointing out the importance of utilizing a combination of both social and technical means for KM and illustrating that they do matter for the company bottom line.

This paper contributes to the literature on knowledge‐based organizing by empirically analyzing the performance impact of various areas of KM. It thereby tests the proposition put forth in many previous theoretical and case‐based studies that KM promotes high organizational performance. It also addresses the interaction of social and technical KM practices in producing organizational outcomes.