Proceedings of the 12th European Conference on Knowledge ...

Nasser Easa and Robin Fincham
to share information with managers as that would cause loss <strong>of</strong> face to mangers. This situation
supports <strong>the</strong> top-down decision making and works against sharing <strong>of</strong> knowledge.
For Russia, Andreeva and Ikhilchik (2010) concluded that <strong>the</strong> combination process is applicable in
Russian context. However, this conclusion was also debatable. As mentioned above, Nonaka,
Takeuchi, (1995) consider consultative decision-making as a part <strong>of</strong> leadership style that is inherent to
<strong>the</strong> combination process. However, Andreeva and Ikhilchik suggested that such type <strong>of</strong> leadership is
not widely practiced by Russian managers due to <strong>the</strong> historical heritage <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> leaders’ attitudes to <strong>the</strong>
followers. They also mentioned that <strong>the</strong>re is lack <strong>of</strong> free access <strong>of</strong> employees to corporate information
in Russian companies. This is because Russian companies are known for <strong>the</strong>ir obsession with
secrecy <strong>of</strong> any kind <strong>of</strong> information related to <strong>the</strong>ir business and reluctance to share it both internally
and externally. They commented also that Russian companies provide controversial Application <strong>of</strong>
purposeful overlap <strong>of</strong> functional responsibilities “redundancy”. Many Russian companies have such
an overlap but this typically has not been established intentionally, ra<strong>the</strong>r it developed with <strong>the</strong> growth
<strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> company due to <strong>the</strong> lack <strong>of</strong> attention <strong>of</strong> managers to organisational structuring. Accordingly <strong>the</strong>
unintentional nature <strong>of</strong> such redundancy toge<strong>the</strong>r with a highly competitive environment inside <strong>the</strong>
company usually leads to many conflicts both on individual and interdepartmental level. They
suggested that polychromic time orientation is <strong>the</strong> only combination supporter that existed in both
Japan and <strong>the</strong> Russian culture.
In general, Haag et al. (2010) criticised <strong>the</strong> views <strong>of</strong> Glisby and Holden (2003) and Weir and
Hutchings (2005) that <strong>the</strong> combination mode has powerful roots in a distinctive Japanese culture.
They argued that combination mode focuses on explicit knowledge only and Japanese companies
focus more on tacit knowledge, whereas organisations in Western cultures focus on explicit
knowledge.
3.4 Internalisation
The last stage <strong>of</strong> SECI, internalisation, assumes that employees broaden, extend and reframe <strong>the</strong>ir
own tacit knowledge as <strong>the</strong>y internalize <strong>the</strong> explicit knowledge that is shared throughout <strong>the</strong>
organization (Nonaka, 1991). Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) stress <strong>the</strong> importance <strong>of</strong> learning-by doing
and <strong>the</strong> access <strong>of</strong> following up <strong>the</strong> training programmes documents and databases to support <strong>the</strong>
internalisation process. Glisby and Holden (2003) suggest that <strong>the</strong>re are typical Japanese practices
that create a context for efficient internalisation such as <strong>the</strong> focus on developing generalists ra<strong>the</strong>r
than specialists in one narrow domain, and wide acceptance <strong>of</strong> learning-by-doing. Weir and Hutchings
(2005) agree with Glisby and Holden (2003) that <strong>the</strong> depiction <strong>of</strong> internalisation proposed in <strong>the</strong> SECI
model does not have universal application. They reported that internalisation in <strong>the</strong> context <strong>of</strong> Arab
management is not widely spread and is limited to informal ways. The separation <strong>of</strong> life-spheres is
less distinct, so behaviours which work in one context can become models for o<strong>the</strong>r more formal
situations. Moreover, <strong>the</strong> Arab context is typically not aimed to change <strong>the</strong> employee’s competences
significantly, so <strong>the</strong> focus is still on specialists. Weir and Hutchings (2005) added that people in China
were conditioned no to admit mistakes during <strong>the</strong> communist years and this strong fear considerably
inhibits <strong>the</strong> learning-by-doing process within organisations. The fear <strong>of</strong> mistakes is also one aspect <strong>of</strong>
Russian employees and this makes <strong>of</strong> responsibilities does not work well in many Russian companies
(Andreeva and Ikhilchik, 2010). However, Andreeva and Ikhilchik <strong>the</strong>mselves suggested that <strong>the</strong>re is
a very similar situation between Japan and Russia with generalistic job descriptions – while many
Russian organisations use <strong>the</strong>m, <strong>the</strong>y are usually perceived by employees as a result <strong>of</strong>
mismanagement and potential source <strong>of</strong> conflicts. This argument is also controversial to <strong>the</strong>ir above
conclusion that SECI is applied in <strong>the</strong> Russian context and suggests that externalisation does not
work effectively in Russia relative to Japan.
4. Conclusion
Glisby and Holden (2003) noted that each <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> four modes <strong>of</strong> SECI is strongly interpreted in
reference to <strong>the</strong>ir embeddedness in traditional Japanese values and management practices and <strong>the</strong>y
concluded that <strong>the</strong> applicability <strong>of</strong> this model is not universal. Weir and Hutchings (2005) concurred
with Glisby and Holden’s notes that SECI does not have universal application. However, Weir and
Hutchings controversially suggested that elements <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> SECI model do have application in <strong>the</strong> Arab
world and China. They explained that people in <strong>the</strong> Arab world are naturally more socialised and
accordingly hold tacit knowledge and to this extent <strong>the</strong>y evidence <strong>the</strong> socialisation aspects <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>
Nonaka and Takeuchi model. However, those people differ from <strong>the</strong> externalisation element in that
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