knowledge management meets economic growth - the south african perspective
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7/27/2019 Knowledge Management Meets Economic Growth - The South African Perspective
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The progressive growth in middle class population in
emerging markets presents an opportunity for
governments to benefit from improved knowledge capital.
Is knowledge management the answer to emerging
markets economic policy implementation?
The notable emerging economies strides made in growing their middle class population in
the past recent years presents a big opportunity. This is because this part of population not
only emerged as theireconomic buying power but also managed to build and grow great
business knowledge that could benefit their country economies if leveraged in the right way.
I believe that if the middle class was able to effectively contribute their business knowledge
in these economies, that knowledge would benefit their countries as an economic
performance driver which could potentially result in economic multiplier effects across thesecountries cross industrial markets. In my view this knowledge is much more superior to the
academic knowledge or formal training and could do these countries a great economic
favour!!
In the past, South Africa has shown great interest in talent building and management
through programmes such as the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa
(ASGISA), after a failure of the South African government to create sustainable jobs from
this strategy it was clear to me that these kinds of programmes only works if people deeply
understand that it is not just about achieving formal trainingbut its also about the ability to
apply this knowledge in practical situations to solve real life problems. This in my view is
compelling evidence that the type of knowledge that would drive REAL economic growth
cannot be just academic; it has to be a combination of formal training and more practical
implementable knowledge. Using South Africa as an example, our economic short comings
are not from our inability to develop economic / business policies and strategies but our
inability to implement these policies and strategies effectively.
I am really convinced to support a view that say governments like South African government
should start thinking of building these knowledge management centre of excellence / hubs
to be able to attract and retain authentic business knowledge - contributions from their
middle class and interested parties.
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7/27/2019 Knowledge Management Meets Economic Growth - The South African Perspective
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If global multinationals can establish and benefit from this type of knowledge management
strategy in the countries they do business in, why not governments
The known benefits of knowledge management drive include:
Ability to provide a more integrated knowledge hub. A ready to implement approaches and solutions.
Ability to build a culture of learning and innovation.
Country institutional Memory Retention.
Ability to track their best contributors, and attract these individuals or organisations in
resolving country economic or business problems. This would encourage consulting
firms to be major contributors to this hub...
Why w ould m iddle class care to contr ibute? I think for these types of models to be
implemented successfully they would have to be integrated with a knowledge contribution
reward systemwhere the best contributions are rewarded. I must also mention that these
hubs would have to build strong risk management processes to manage copyright
regulations compliance within the hub activities. The academism is not the real solution!
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This article was written by Joshua Makena (a South African Management Consultant)
Contact Joshua [email protected] further discussion
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]