Ph.D.

PROPOSAL

The growing need of foreign investors to

acquire local tacit knowledge for a sustainable
competitive advantage in the Middle East

Karym Metwally, MBA

Department of Management

Pharos University
Faculty of Economics and Business Administration
Behind Green Plaza
Alexandria
EGYPT
E-mail: bmwclubegypt@yahoo.com

Words: 4.512

Keywords: knowledge, competitive, strategy, resources, work practices, adoption

Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=984533

Extended Abstract

This research came out of frustration.

Most of the research communities tackle Knowledge Management from a Technological point

of view, and neglecting the socio-psychological side of the equation.

This research seeks a deeper understanding of organizational and psychological phenomena

taking place during the adoption and implementation of KM in a cross-cultural context. By the

former we mean the culture of the foreign investor and the culture of the local individuals.

This initiative is to assist the foreign investor in being able to operate in both the tactical and

functional level of the organization previously difficult to access this mainly due to the

heterogeneity of mind mapping. We refer to the heterogeneity especially with regards to the

difficulty of implicit knowledge transfer. Thus, the focus of the research, is to target knowledge

resources requirements both of the functional level, where the clients interact and, and the

tactical-strategic level, where the design and implementation of the new services and

products is taking place.

Knowledge Management is being considered for adoption as a practice that could facilitate

the sustainable development of new products and services and beyond that the transition to a

radically different set of operational arrangements

Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=984533

1. Introduction

Every region has its own set of rules and processes that govern how business is done, the

Middle East and in particular Egypt has its own specific and local way of doing business.

This research shows the way to the potential foreign investor in Egypt on how to acquire

culture-bound tacit knowledge in order to be able to compete in the Middle East.

We tackle two important tools available for the investor, namely learning and outsourcing.

Egypt by definition is an implicit country; unlike its western counterpart business processes

lack the explicit nature. There is no transparency in most of the processes and business

dealings. Despite that the implicit knowledge is embedded in every process, which the local

people calls it “Ser El Mehna” or the secret of the trade.

Westerners wanting to invest in Egypt face a dilemma that is both difficult and tedious by

nature, which is they only get acquainted with the explicit side of the processes in Egypt, and

always have difficulties in getting access to the implicit knowledge of the business processes.

It is important to note that the implicit part is by far more important in Egypt that the explicit

part, and that the former is larger in size.

Acquisitions and Mergers are not enough, the foreign investor must learn to survive.Thus, we

see important to delve in the arena of implicit knowledge in order for the foreign investor to

gain the competitive advantage essential for competing in the Egyptian market.

2. Key Research Questions

2.1 What are the standards, the methods, the concepts and rules for Mind Mapping?
 ß How to draw implicit knowledge into consciousness, using mapping between

intuition and expression that would then give rise to the feeling of understanding?

ß How can we define the “background” (the implicit knowledge and feelings) that

both provides the meaning of the rule and the reason for having it in the first

place?

ß Does all learning presuppose prior learning?

ß How can knowledge be transmitted or reconstructed by the learner in a cross-

cultural context?

ß What are the standards, the methods, the concepts and rules for appraising and

revising personal beliefs and intuitions?

2.2 What are the investor’s priorities in a foreign country?

ß In order to gain a competitive advantage what are the tools available to the

foreign investors?

ß When to use outsourcing and learning?

2.3 As a foreign investor, what to learn or outsource as a business priority?

ß What to learn as a priority?

ß What to outsource as a priority?

ß What is critical to the outsourcing process and what is critical to the business

process?
3. Literature Review

3.1 Importance of Knowledge as a Competitive Advantage

Within the knowledge era, it has become widely recognized that the intangible assets of an

organization will be key to both its ability to create competitive advantage, and to grow at an

accelerated pace [Itami, 1987][Sveiby, 1996].

The shift of traditional production factors, which used to be capital, land or labor, to the only

meaningful resource that can lead to the obtainment of social and economic results, which is

knowledge [Drucker, 1993].

Competitive advantage stems from the firm-specific configuration of its intangible knowledge,

through which it adds value to the final product/service [Schumpeter, 1942][Penrose

1959][Grant, 1996][Coombs and Richards, 1991][Teece, 1982, 1984].

The importance of knowledge as a strategic resource and its role in the firm’s competitiveness

has been widely recognized lately by a large number of scholars [Spender, 1996, 1998]

[Drucker, 1992][Grant, 1996][Davenport and Prusak, 1998] [Teece et al, 1997]

[Teece 1998][Nonaka et al 2000].

Knowledge plays a fundamental role in the formulation of business strategies, as the only

corporate resource that can provide sustainable competitive advantage [Rumelt, 1974]

[Grant, 1996].

Knowledge has a more important role than all the others production factors, like capital and

labor so much as input as output. Examples of companies in this category are law,

accounting firms, management, engineering and computer consultancy companies,

advertising agencies, R&D units, and high-tech companies [Alvesson, 1995].

For many researchers, KM is seen as a strategic business development practice, in which

knowledge and organizational competences are closely interrelated as the source of wealth

creation. [Teece, 1998][Spender, 1996][Prahalad and Hamel, 1990].

3.2 Tacit Knowledge or the “Background”

Implicit knowledge or intuition is what provides the “meaning” of a proposition or expression.

Learning the formal rules and procedures and explicit knowledge of the discipline does not

exhaust or even adequately represent what is implicitly known. To understand an explicit rule

on must capture the intuitions, that is the implicit knowledge and feeling, the “background”

[Searle, 1983] that both provides the meaning for the rule and indicates the reason having

the rule.

Polanyi argue "We know more than we can tell” [1966, p.4]. Tacit knowledge is subjective,

experiential and hard to formalise and communicate.

Tacit knowledge has a personal quality, it is deeply rooted in action and understanding,

involves both cognitive and technical elements, and is non-transferable without personal

contact [Nonaka, 1994][Nonaka et al, 2000][Senker, 1993].

According to Kay [1999, p.13]: tacit knowledge can take many forms… is unique to an

organisation - and therefore cannot be copied...The benefits of such tacit knowledge arise

only through a culture of trust and knowledge sharing.

There is widespread agreement that tacit knowledge is important. Nonaka and his colleagues

regard it as the root of all organizational knowledge [Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995];
3.3 Knowledge Transfer or Cognitive Mapping

In fact the issue of sharing the organizational knowledge, what is called transferability of

knowledge, is one of the most important ones in the knowledge discussion. It seems that

there is a powerful relationship between codification of knowledge and the costs of its

transfer; apparently the more a given item of knowledge or experience has been codified, the

more economical is its transfer [Teece, 1998].

Whether the transferred knowledge will be considered useful or not by its recipients depend

on whether they are familiar with the code chosen as well as the different contexts in which it

is used [Teece, 1998][Shannon and Weaver, 1949].

In fact the marginal cost of knowledge transmission rise very rapidly with "distance" from the

context in which the knowledge was generated [Pavitt, 1987].

This happens mainly because of the tacit dimension of knowledge: tacit knowledge is less

observable in use, more complex and less teachable [Shapiro, 1999].

As a result tacit knowledge transfer is slow, costly and very difficult to take place. Some form

of direct personal interaction (either physical or virtual) is necessary for transferring tacit

knowledge.

Blumentritt and Johnson’s [1999] framework for categorising knowledge puts the primary

emphasis on the degree of difficulty in transferring knowledge. They distinguish four different

categories of knowledge:

ß Codified knowledge, equivalent to information. The knowledge has been made

explicit by a human and it is in a readily transferable form;

ß Common knowledge, knowledge that is accepted as standard without been formally

explicit;
 ß Social knowledge, knowledge about cultural and interpersonal relationships;

Knowledge of social links and shared values

ß Embodied knowledge, tacit knowledge related to experience, background and skills of

a person.

According to this framework, the transfer of codified knowledge involves the smallest degree

of difficulty while the transfer of embodied (Tacit) knowledge is the hardest task.

Learning is never simple acquisition but rather the finding of something in one’s implicit

knowledge or intuition of which the knowledge to be acquired is an expression, extension,

formulation, or reformulation. [Olson, 1994]

We can draw implicit knowledge into consciousness, using mapping between intuition and

expression that would then give rise to the feeling of understanding. The “background” (the

implicit knowledge and feelings) both provides the meaning of the rule and the reason for

having it in the first place. All learning presupposes prior learning. [Olson, 1994]

Indeed as Zhu Z [2004 ] notes, the complexity of understanding how best to understand and

manage knowledge is further broken down by country differences in each geographic area:

being American, Japanese, Chinese and European views, respectively.

In addition, Sharif [2005] argue: These two 'Neuro-Hemispherical' worldviews as I will call

them, clearly represent a schism within the KM literature, being based upon either

Codification or Collaboration concepts.

In the former, largely Western-view of KM, there is a strong emphasis on implementing

processes and systems that capture and store knowledge from individuals. Here, the benefits

of eliciting both primary and secondary sources of knowledge are largely seen as having

immediate or at least short-term impact. By codifying and providing information taxonomies,

within organisational KM systems say, the means for accessing and making use of
knowledge is achieved in a 'pull' sense. In other words, it is up to the seeker of knowledge to

seek and find his/her relevant information, via search and data mining tools.

In the latter Eastern view of KM, there is conversely a strong emphasis on providing means

for individuals and teams with the ability to share knowledge via the concept of communities,

within which the sharing or collaboration of knowledge is encouraged, that is, in a 'push'

sense. This engenders a long-term approach to the realisation of benefits that such a people-

focused view affords. Sharif [2005]

In their studies Deshpande and his colleagues found significant differences in the way

companies operated from one nation to another. “The most successful companies all shared

a competitive, achievement-oriented culture” Deshpande notes.

Lisa Adent Hoecklin discovered the importance of national cultural differences within

organizations and provided practical insights and frameworks to aid successful management

across culture and the strategic value of cultural differences.

Joint venture learning to cooperate and cooperating to learn joint venture management is a

demanding and continuous process in a cross-cultural environment. Relationships between

each side will change over time and problems can arise at different stages of development.

[Gilbert Probst, Bettina S. T. Buchel, Bettina S. Buchel] Probst and his colleagues

emphasizes on learning the Tacit knowledge required for a long term relationship.

Global Competition has paved the way to new corporate combinations – and opened up new

pitfalls along the way. [Bleek, J. & Ernst]

Veiga, Lubatkin, Calori and Very [2000] developed a cultural compatibility index that can

be used to foresee the differences in the two existing cultures.

3.4 Culture Definition

Hofstede [1991] defines culture as the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes

the members of one human group from another. He states that each person as layers of

cultural programming and expands upon this idea of “ mental programming “ in a model.

Cultural Programming is divided into Human nature, Culture learned, and Inherited

Personality.

A study done by Hofstede [1984] discovered a consistent pattern in the tendencies and

attitudes of workers of different nationalities working within the same multinational firm. He

found that all individuals function under certain basic assumptions, values and beliefs which

Hoefstede divides into the following: 1) Individualism and Collectivism 2) Power distance 3)

level of risk avoidance 4) Masculinity and Femininity

Deshpande and Farley coined the tacit knowledge in different countries and had put them in

the form of animals to explain their differences. He divided them into a tiger culture where it

tends to be more achievement-oriented and competitive; Rabbits cultures are more flexible,

creative and entrepreneurial. Monkey and Elephants cultures are more inward focus, with

Monkeys more oriented towards teamwork and loyalty, while elephants respect hierarchy and

order.
DISCUSSION OF LITERARY REVUE

Importance of Knowledge as a Competitive Advantage

Although many researches in the past emphasized on the Importance of Knowledge starting

from the resource-based organization and through the learning organization by Peter Senge

and the latest theories of Knowledge Management.

Only recently however, there has been a widespread agreement that tacit knowledge is

crucial for a long lasting competitive advantage.

Knowledge Transfer or Cognitive Mapping

Psychology and education offered us an invaluable tool namely: the Knowledge Transfer or

Cognitive Mapping. It is a tool available to the foreign investor to help him operate in a Cross-

cultural Knowledge context.

Blumentritt and Johnson set up a framework to measure the degree of difficulty in transferring

knowledge.

Although many researchers talk about acquisition and merger, some like Reich and Mankin

[1984] even argue that alliances and then acquisition is superior to outright acquisition.

However few tackle outsourcing as an entry tool.

Culture Definition

Hoefstede defined culture under 4 different basic assumptions and Deshpande defined

culture in the form of animals.

4. Results

4.1 The foreign investor default knowledge positions:

4.1.1 Knowledge Stagnant Position

Many investors coming to Egypt face the everlasting dilemma of not being able to grasp the

implicit knowledge in Egypt they usually go for the easier more obvious explicit knowledge

that has been codified and indexed. Thus, they take a knowledge stagnant position and stay

at the more explicit corporate level.

Table 4.1

Explicit Corporate Level Language

Information on Culture

Occupational Skills

Factual Knowledge on local cultures

Implicit Business or Attitudes

Tactical
Level Values & Beliefs

Behavioral Responses

Cultural self-awareness

Non-verbal modes of Communication

Functional Level Causal Ambiguity

Routines Complexity

Tacit Knowledge

4.1.2 The Adventurer Position

A more adventurous investor will seek to go and operate within the implicit depth and within

the business level, where he will be confronted with local attitudes values and beliefs.
However, the foreign investor only sees the external shell of the Egyptian interactions; he

cannot see the “background” cultural and intuitive side of the business processes, settings,

and rituals. He will attempt to learn the implicit knowledge of the local market and this is

quite a difficult and daunting task.

4.2 The Local competitive Advantage Formula Components

4.2.1 Foreign vs. Local Competitive Advantage

Although, the foreign investor may have had a competitive advantage in his home country;

however in the local market it becomes a mere core competency, local competitive advantage

is only measured against local competitors.

Some foreign investors because of their stubbornness and their ego insist in considering it a

local competitive advantage and they discover the reality at their own jeopardy.

Actually they are quite wrong, it is only a core competency in the local market, since by

definition competitive advantage is what we do better than the competitors, and since the

foreign investor doesn’t know the local tacit knowledge, he cannot effectively compete in the

local market let alone gain a local competitive advantage.

4.2.2 Critical Local Tacit knowledge

Many foreign investors will attempt to learn the local tacit knowledge. Unfortunately, this part

of the equation is hard to acquire and takes lots of time to comprehend. The foreign investor

is confronted with a challenge either to stay at the corporate level or attempt to learn the local

tacit knowledge.
The local Competitive Advantage Formula

Local Critical Foreign

Competitive = Local Tacit + Core
Advantage Knowledge Competency

Graph 4.1

Local Competitive Advantage Foreign core

Competency

Non critical
Local Tacit
Knowledge

Critical
Local Tacit
Knowledge

Foreign
Non- core
Competency

4.3 The foreign investor suggested knowledge positions:

The Learning Position (LP)

Armed with the notion that tacit knowledge is the only corporate resource that is unique and

therefore can provide competitive advantage. The foreign investor has an inner motive to

move downward from the corporate level, this is because the competitive advantage is

always present in the tactical or functional level and never in the corporate level.
The focus of the research, is to target knowledge resources requirements both of the

functional level, where the clients interact and, and the tactical-strategic level, where the

design and implementation of the new services and products is taking place.

How to learn the implicit

Matching what is known with the knower is the key to transfer implicit knowledge.

By the former I mean the implicit knowledge embedded in Egypt and by the latter I mean the

foreign investor or the knowledge recipient. The Implicit knowledge is then codified and

incorporated in every process thus gaining a sustainable local competitive advantage.

The OCP/BCP Position

Having said that, what knowledge should we learn first? We can clearly differentiate between

two kinds of knowledge or rather it is better to call them two phases: Outsource-Critical

Learning Position (OCP) and Business-Critical Learning Position (BCP).

Learning the tacit knowledge is performed in two distinct phases OCP and BCP. They are

also consecutive phases, thus a foreign investor will adopt an OCP position first, and then

with time he may turn to a BCP Position afterwards. This is why I will write then as OCP/BCP.

Table 4.2

OCP Learn skills critical for the

Outsource-Critical outsourcing process.
learning position

Outsource skills non-critical for the

outsourcing process.

BCP Learn skills critical for the business

Business-Critical
Learning position

Outsource skills non-critical for the

business
4.4 How to gain a local competitive advantage at the OCP phase?

The first phase OCP basically consists of learning the tacit knowledge critical to outsourcing

and incorporates it with the foreign core competency if any.

Local Outsource-critical Foreign

Competitive = Local Tacit Knowledge Core
+
Advantage Competency

At this phase, the investor gain lead time and achieves only a temporary competitive

advantage, this is because the foreign investor has so far only learned the tacit knowledge

critical to outsourcing. He is required in order to succeed on the long term to learn the

Business-critical tacit knowledge as to be able to further measure the performance of the

outsourcing process.

Outsourcing is not about getting our problems off our chest and throwing them to a service

provider, it is a commitment in terms that we have to learn what we have outsourced in order

to efficiently and effectively measure performance.

As previously said OCP (Learning the tacit knowledge critical to outsourcing) provides only a

temporary and artificial competitive advantage, this is why the OCP phase shouldn’t last for

long; may be 2-3 years at the most.

For Example let’s say that the “designing buildings” skill is a business-critical skill and “writing

Legal Contracts” is an outsourcing-critical skill. Let’s assume for simplicity that the foreign

investor has no core competency in the “writing Legal Contracts but has a core competency

and strong ability in “designing buildings”.

During the OCP phase, the foreign investor would be better off to learn the “writing Legal

Contracts” tacit knowledge first even though he would be more compelled to learn the tacit

knowledge of “designing buildings”.

 The Outsourcing-Critical Learning Position (Knowledge Initiation Phase)

Knowledge which is critical to the outsourcing process; we refer to it as the “Outsourcing-

Critical Learning Position” or OCP.

Fig1.1 What to learn as a priority when in Phase I (OCP)?

No No
Critical for
Critical for
outsourcing
Business
Process
Process Outsource
immediately

Yes
Yes

Learn
Learn Later
immediately

Fig1.2 what business skill to outsource as a priority in OCP Phase?

Local
Core Competitive
Competency Advantage
Better than
Do I do it well? Local
Competitors
Yes Yes

No No
May be
outsourced if
Outsource not critical to
Immediately outsourcing
process
4.5 How to gain a local competitive advantage at the BCP phase?

Local Business-Critical Foreign

Competitive = Local Tacit Knowledge Core
+
Advantage Competency

Exactly like the OCP phase, in order to obtain a local competitive advantage it is essential to

mix the foreign core competency with the Business-Critical local tacit knowledge.

The BCP phase should follow in order to learn and codify the business-critical tacit

knowledge. Codifying the business-critical tacit knowledge doesn’t mean that the investor has

an inner intention to take over the outsourcing operations (in sourcing) or to get rid of the

service provider, instead he must learn the tacit knowledge to better measure the service

provider performance and be able to monitor the contracts and the Service Level Agreement

(SLA).

Fig2.1 and Fig2.2 will help the foreign investor sort his skills and knowledge at the BCP

Phase which of them are core competencies, foreign competitive advantage, local

competitive advantages, and which to outsource.

Back to our example, after having learned the outsourcing-critical tacit knowledge, the foreign

investor will see it beneficial to learn the Business-Critical Local Tacit knowledge (“designing

building”) even though he has a core competency in this field or even a competitive

advantage in his home country.

The Business-Critical Learning Position (Knowledge Development Phase)

Knowledge which is basically a critical knowledge for the business purpose; I refer to it as the

“Business-Critical Learning Position” or BCP.

Fig2.1 What to learn as a priority when in Phase I (BCP)?

No Critical for No
Critical for
Business
outsourcing
Process
Process
Outsource
immediately

Yes
Yes

Learn
Improve Immediately

Fig2.2 What business skill to outsource as a priority in the BCP Phase?

Local
Core Competitive
Competency Advantage
Better than
Do I do it well? Local
Competitors
Yes Yes

No No

May be
Outsource outsourced if
Immediately not critical to
Outsourcing
or Business
process
5. Conclusion
Using the OCP/BCP sequence, the foreign investor instead of hiding in the organizational

level to avoid interaction with the implicit side of Egypt will be more inclined to be present in

the tactical or functional level of the organization whether in a business learning or outsource

learning position. The OCP/BCP system benefits stems from

1. measuring the degree of which the investor is operating or learnig the implicit

knowledge of the local market using table 1.

2. strategic prioritizing with regards to knowledge learning using table 2.

3. locating the local competitive advantage using Graph 1.

4. sorting and filtering using Fig1.1, Fig1.2,Fig2.1 and Fig2.2 . They will help the foreign

investor sort his skills and knowledge at the respective OCP or BCP Phase. In order

to filter which of them are core competencies, foreign competitive advantage, local

competitive advantages, and which to outsource.

5. turning a core competency into a local competitive advantage using the competitive

advantage formula.

which consequently saves lots of time and trouble to the foreign investor when operating in

the local market by dividing the process into two consecutive phases OCP/BCP

The investor who fails to take a knowledge position is doomed to failure since he will be

caught at the corporate level forever surrounded by local consultants that may have special

agendas -- the ivory tower that separates him from the local business environment.

We believe the results will be of importance to foreign investors wishing to invest in Egypt. It

will help them acquire the implicit knowledge essential in gaining a sustainable local

competitive advantage.

Despite the research efforts made up to now, knowledge management remains an immature

field lacking integrative initiatives.

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