Knowledge management and employee performance in the brewery industry a theoretical

International Journal of Advanced Research in Management (IJARM), ISSN 0976 – 6324 (Print),
ISSN 0976 – 6332 (Online), Volume 5, Issue 4, July- August (2014), pp. 48-59 © IAEME
48
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE
IN THE BREWERY INDUSTRY: A THEORETICAL EXAMINATION
OF CONSOLIDATED BREWERY LTD, MAKURDI-NIGERIA
Stephen I. Dugguh, Ph.D
Centre for Entrepreneurship & Service Learning, Federal University, Kashere,
Gombe State, Nigeria
Jane I. Terzungwe
Department of Business Management, Benue State University, Makurdi,
Benue State, Nigeria
ABSTRACT
The world has now become a knowledge-driven society characterized by rapid
changes. Under this condition, knowledge has to be managed for results. That is the problem
of this paper. The objective of this paper is to provide a theoretical exposition of knowledge
management and determine whether it influences employee and organizational performance.
The paper is descriptive and reviews relevant literature based on knowledge management
dimensions (explicit and tacit) including the benefits and organizational performance. To
achieve this objective, the paper reviews literature and past research findings and case studies
from companies like Analog Devices, Buckman Labs and Ford Motor Company on
knowledge management. Literature findings indicate that both explicit and tacit knowledge
have significant impact on employee performance in the Brewery Industry in Nigeria. The
paper recommends that management should encourage knowledge management activities for
effective and efficient solutions to organizational problems.
Keywords: Knowledge, Knowledge Management, Explicit, Tacit and Employee
Performance.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVANCED RESEARCH
IN MANAGEMENT (IJARM)
ISSN 0976 - 6324 (Print)
ISSN 0976 - 6332 (Online)
Volume 5, Issue 4, July-August (2014), pp. 48-59
© IAEME: www.iaeme.com/ijarm.asp
Journal Impact Factor (2014): 5.4271 (Calculated by GISI)
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1. INTRODUCTION
Organizations are fast searching for more effective and efficient ways to increase
employee performance and remain competitive both at the local and global levels. In
conformity to national and global best practice, dynamic managers and professionals are
constantly seeking for more effective and efficient strategies to increase employee
performance in their various organisations in order to gain competitive advantage. Many
organizations are therefore turning their searchlight to the management of the intellectual
capital: knowledge management. In recent times, there has been a considerable interest
among human resource practitioners and researchers to demonstrate the causal relationship
between knowledge management and employee performance in organizations including the
Brewery industry in particular and manufacturing organisations in general. Research findings
and report from various stakeholders indicate low or declining performance in the Brewery
industry over the years. Other research works also indicate that people simply hang
themselves to organisations as employees without putting their knowledge into practice
thereby decreasing performance in the organisation.
The implication is that performance continues to decline because the knowledge,
skills and abilities of those employees may not be effectively managed and utilized to
enhance best performance. It has now become imperative that those who work in
organisations to accomplish goals and attain high level of performance ought to be effectively
managed since no knowledge is wasted in the organisation (Dugguh, 2011). Managing
intellectual capital (what the employees know) is therefore very intangible that its value
cannot be often adjusted. This has now become one of the challenges faced by organisations
today: to manage not just cash flow, stocks, raw materials etc but also to manage human
skills and knowledge for higher performance.
Knowledge management therefore is a discipline that promotes an integrated
approach to identifying, capturing, evaluating, retrieving, and sharing all of an enterprise’s
information assets. These assets may include databases, documents, policies, procedures, and
previously un-captured expertise and experience in individual workers (Duhon, 1995).
Many industries as well as other organisations, at the global level have now built a
knowledge sharing culture which has contributed greatly to the success of their business.
Such companies and the techniques they used in managing knowledge include: Anolog
Devices, (community of inquiries and initiated a breakdown of functional barriers and
competitive atmosphere to create a collaborative knowledge sharing culture from top. The
company encourages ‘community of inquires’ rather than ‘community of advocates), Boeing
777, the first ‘paperless’ developer of aircraft in digital database (including customers in
design teams and had more than 200 teams with wide range of skills for both design and
construction). Ford Motor Company (used virtual network of vendors and transformed itself
by outsourcing and creating virtual networks of vendors using Information Technology), and
Buckman Labs (used knowledge sharing by establishing a Knowledge Transfer Department
to co-ordinate employee efforts). From these examples, it is clear that employees and
companies that were good at knowledge sharing gain both financial rewards and management
positions (Sveiby, 1996)
In Nigeria however, such knowledge management and sharing culture is rare in the
Brewery and other manufacturing industries. A number of companies currently operate in this
industry and they include the following: Champion Breweries Plc, Golden Guinea Breweries
Plc, Guinness Nigeria Plc, Jos International Breweries Plc, Nigerian Breweries Plc, Premier
Breweries Plc, and Consolidated Brewery plc. Research indicates that these companies do not

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have a culture of knowledge management to inspire and motivate their employees for
performance. Therefore, it becomes difficult measuring employee performance using
knowledge as a variable. The implication is that performance is measured in terms of output,
effectiveness, punctuality, quality and so on while knowledge is hardly use as a factor in
measuring employee performance. It is against this background that the researchers intend to
determine whether the performance of employees is influenced by managing knowledge: tacit
and explicit in the organization.
2. PAPER OBJECTIVE
The general objective of this paper is to determine whether knowledge management
influences employee performance in Consolidated Brewery Ltd Makurdi. Specifically, the
paper aims at determining whether explicit or tacit knowledge management impact on
employee performance in Consolidated Brewery Ltd, Makurdi.
3. CONCEPTUAL CLARIFICATIONS
Knowledge management is now regarded as one of the most important concepts in
human resource management in organisations. This is so because we live in a knowledge-
driven society as earlier stated. If the knowledge employees possess is adequately and
effectively managed, their individual performance and that of the organization at large may
also tend to increase as well. Low level of performance may be associated with inadequate
and ineffective knowledge management in organizations. Conceptually therefore, the
following are captured and clarified
3.1 Knowledge and knowledge Management
Daft (2000), and Addicott, McGivern & Ferlie (2006) state that knowledge is a
conclusion drawn from the information after it is linked to other information compared to
what is already known. Knowledge, as opposed to data, always has a human factor.
Helliriegel Jackson & Slocum (1999) had earlier posited that knowledge refers to tools,
concepts and categories used to create, store, apply and share information. It can be stored in
a book, in a person’s mind, or in a computer programme as a set of instructions that gives
meaning to streams of data (Davenport & Prusak, 1991) Information, on the other hand, is the
knowledge derived from data that people have transformed to make their meaningful and
useful.
KM according to Gupta & Sharma (2004) Ferguson (2005,) and Booker, Bontis &
Serenko (2008) therefore comprises a range of strategies and practices used in an
organization to identify, create, represent, distribute, and enable adoption of insights and
experiences. Such insights and experience comprise knowledge, either embodied in
individuals or embedded in organizations as processes or practices. KM efforts typically
focused on organizational objectives such as improved performance, competitive advantage,
innovation, sharing of learned, integration and continuous improvement of the organization.
According to Addicott, McGivern & Ferlie (2006), many large companies and non-profit
organizations have resources dedicated to internal KM efforts, as part of their business
strategy, information technology, or human resource management departments. KM efforts
do overlap with organizational learning and may be distinguished from the sharing of greater
focus of the management of knowledge as a strategic asset and a focus on encouraging the
sharing of knowledge.

51
Further, knowledge management consists of activities focused on the organisation
gaining knowledge from its own experience and from the experience of others, and on the
judicious application of that knowledge to fulfil the mission of the organisation. It is an audit
of intellectual assets that highlights unique sources, critical functions and potential bottleneck
which hinder knowledge flows to the point of use. It protects intellectual assets from decay,
seeks opportunities to enhance decision, services and products through adding intelligence,
increasing value providing flexibility and so on.
3.2 Evolution of knowledge management
Knowledge management efforts have a long history to include on-the-job discussions,
formal apprenticeship, discussion forums, corporate libraries, professional training and
mentoring programmes. More recently and with increased use of computers in the second
half of the 20th
century, specific adaptations of technologies such knowledge base, expert
systems, knowledge repositions, group decision support systems, intranets, and computer-
supported cooperative work have been introduced to further enhance such efforts
(McInerney, 2002, Sensky, 2002). On his part, Wright (2005) observed that in 1999, the term
personal knowledge management was introduced which refers to the management of
knowledge at the individual level. At the enterprise level, early collection of case studies
recognized the importance of knowledge management dimensions of strategy, process and
measurement. Key lessons learned include people and cultural norms which influence their
behaviours are most critical resources for successful knowledge creation, dissemination and
application, cognitive, social and organizational learning processes are essential to the
success of a knowledge management strategy. In addition, measurement, benchmarking and
incentives are essential to accelerate the learning process and to drive cultural change.
More recently and with the advent of the web 2.0, the concept of knowledge
management has evolved towards a vision more based on people participation and
emergence. This line of evolution, according to Afee (2007) and Devanport (2008) is termed
Enterprise 2.0. Writing on the importance of knowledge management, Coulson Thomas
(1998) emphasized that:
The good news is that given reflection, focus and appropriate and tailored
combination of change and support elements, effective knowledge management can enable
corporate renewal learning and transformation to occur. Substantially, more value can be
created for various stakeholders.
Nonaka (1996) supports the above line of argument by saying that competitive
advantage is found in the ability of companies to create new form of knowledge and translate
this knowledge into innovative action. KM emerged as a scientific discipline in the earlier
1990s. It was supported by practitioners when Skandia hired a Chief Knowledge Officer
(CKO) with the objective of managing and maximizing the intangible assets of the
organization. With increased interest in not only practical but also theoretical aspects of KM,
and the new research field was formed. Since then, KM ideas have been taken up by
academics. Stewart (2001) published articles (especially in Harvard Business Review) to
highlight the importance of intellectual capital of organizations.
3.3 Types of Knowledge Management
Different frameworks for distinguishing between different types of knowledge exist.
One proposed framework for categorizing the dimensions of knowledge distinguishes
between explicit and tacit.

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3.3.1 Explicit knowledge
Nonaka (1995) and Nonaka & Takeuchi (1995) stated that explicit knowledge can be
codified; it is recorded and available and is held in data-based, in corporate intranets and
intellectual property portfolios. Based on the work of Hansen, Nohira & Tierney (1999)
which deals with the collection and sharing of explicit knowledge through the use of
sophisticated information technology system, explicit knowledge provide high quality,
reliable and fast information system for access of codified and reusable knowledge using
such intellectual properties such as patent and license, work process such as policies and
procedures, specific information on customers, markets, suppliers or competitors, competitive
intelligence reports, benchmark data and so on. Managers retrieve and store it in databases
where it can be easily accessed and reused by anyone in the organisation.
In this approach, knowledge is gathered from individuals who process it and
organised into documents that others can access or use. It is a ‘people-to-document approach.
Organisations using this dimension invest heavily in information technology, with a goal of
connecting people with reusable, codified knowledge. The mechanism for explicit knowledge
management therefore includes:
a. Data warehousing and data mining: Data warehousing allows companies to combine all
their data into huge database for easy access while data mining helps make sense of the data
by searching for patterns that can solve organisation problems.
b. Knowledge mapping: these are projects that identify where knowledge is located in the
organisation and how to access it.
c. Electronic libraries: these are database of specific types of information for specific users.
Intranets and other networks are critical tools that give employees access to explicit
knowledge that is stored in databases, electronic libraries and so on throughout the
organisation.
3.3.2 Tacit Knowledge
Tacit knowledge according to Nonaka (1991) and Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995), exist
in people’s minds. It is difficult to articulate in writing and is acquired through personal
experience. As suggested by Nohiria, Hansen & Tierney (1999) tacit knowledge includes
scientific or technological expertise, operational know-how, insights about an industry, and
business judgement. The main challenge in knowledge management is how to turn tacit
knowledge into explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge focuses on leveraging individual
expertise and know-how by connecting people face to face or through interactive media. It
channels individual expertise to provide creative advice on strategic problems. The
knowledge management strategy used in this dimension is the person-to-person approach
where organisations develop networks for linking people so that tacit knowledge can be
shared. Although technology is used, it primarily supports and facilitates conversation and
person-to-person sharing of tacit knowledge. The mechanisms for tacit knowledge
management include:
a. Dialogue: getting people talking face-to-face or at least through video conferencing or
other interactive media. The goal of dialogue is to create a collective intelligence or collective
solution to a problem with the intent to convince others to adopt those solutions. Schein
(1993) emphasized that a dialogue assumes that many people have different pieces of the

53
answer to a problem and that together they can craft a solution. Organisations that excel at
tacit knowledge find ways of encouraging and facilitate continuous dialogue among
employees.
b. Learning histories and storytelling: this is designed to get at a history of how critical
decisions were made and problems were solved (or not solved) so that knowledge is
transferred to others. A learning history is a written narrative of a specific major event or
project, base on the recollections and insights of everyone who participated. In organisations,
those who participated could be managers, secretaries, customers, suppliers and so on.
c. Communities of practise are other mechanisms for tacit knowledge management. This is
made up of individuals who are formally bound to one another through exposure to a similar
set of problems and a common pursuit of solutions (Allee, 1998) and (Stewart, 1998).
Communities of people are similar to professional bodies. People join them and stay in them
by choice because they think they have something to learn and something to contribute.
Through communities of practice cannot be formalised, some organisations use the idea to
amass and concentrate knowledge and intellectual energy related to specific critical issues.
4. BENEFITS OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
A creative approach to knowledge management can result in improved efficiency,
higher productivity, to increased revenues and performance in practically business functions.
Some benefits of knowledge management correlate directly to bottom-line saving, while
others are more difficult to qualify. In today’s information-driven economy, companies
uncover the most opportunities and ultimately derive the most value-from intellectual rather
than physical assets. To get the most value from a company’s intellectual assets, knowledge
management practitioners maintain that knowledge must be shared and serve as the
foundation for collaboration. Yet better collaboration is not an end in itself. Without an
overarching business context, knowledge management is meaningless at best and harmful at
worst. Consequently, an effective knowledge management program should help a company
do one or more of the following: Foster innovation by encouraging the free flow of ideas,
improve decision making, improve customer service by streamlining response time, boost
revenues by getting products and service to market faster, enhance employee retention rates
by recognizing the value of employees’ knowledge and rewarding them for it, streamline
operations and reduce costs by eliminating redundant or unnecessary processes, making
available increase knowledge content in the development and provision of products and
services, achieving shorter new product development cycles, facilitating and managing
innovation and organisational learning, leveraging the expertise of people across the
organisation, increasing network connectivity between internal and external individuals,
managing business environment and allowing employees to obtain relevant insights and ideas
appropriate to their work, solving intractable or wicked problems, managing intellectual
capita and intellectual assets in the workforce (such as the expertise and know-how)
possessed by key individuals)

54
5. CHALLENGES TO THE IMPLEMENTATION OF KNOWLEDGE
MANAGEMENT
Despite the benefits inherent in knowledge management, Sharma (2008) identified
two basic limitations to the implementation of knowledge management in organizations.
First, knowledge management is often defined in terms of inputs such as data, information
technology, best practices etc. That by themselves may be inadequate for effective business
performance. Such definitions tend to be more static in nature and aims at standardizing the
process which often is not possible. Knowledge management is a dynamic concept which is
people oriented and is not an assembly line process where the technology or the mechanistic
components play the major role. Secondly the efficacy of inputs and how they are
strategically deployed are important issues often left unquestionable as expected performance
outcome are achieved, through the dynamics shift in the business and competitive
environment. These enablers and constraint are presented as the seven challenges that need to
be met for successful knowledge management practices. These challenging factors include:
a. Organisational control challenge: This is often base on rules and hence difficult to maintain
in a world where competitive survival often depends upon questioning existing assumptions.
They often act as hindrances in the free flow of knowledge. A system often creates
bottlenecks that are hard to comply with.
b. Business and technology challenges: Most of the times the organisational processes are
repetitive in nature. If we treat the knowledge management as pure plug and play process
then the major emphasis will be on the automation of functions, rationalization or workflow
and redesign of business processes. The critical challenge for most organisations therefore
lies in the ability to redesign and reinvent their business processes and business models for
realizing more interesting customer value propositions, while harvesting the knowledge flow
embodied in the current set up.
c. Knowledge Representation Challenge: Static and pre-defined representation of knowledge
is particularly suited for knowledge re-use and offers an interesting contrast against the
dynamic, affective and active representation of knowledge is non-static component and
requires a constant up gradation, both in terms of its basic content and its probable usage.
d. Information sharing challenge: The challenge of information sharing results from the
potentially competitive nature of various enterprises across the value chains as access to
privileged information may often determine the dominant position in the inter-enterprise
value networks. Similarly access to customer and supplier data residing in database or
networks that are hosted on the infrastructure of outsourcing providers for example, may pose
increased privacy and security challenge. This is a big dilemma for an organization when it’s
planning to implement a knowledge management system.
e. Command and control challenge: Organisational control tend to seek compliance with pre-
defined goals that need to be achieved using predetermined ‘best practices’ and standard
operating procedures. Such organisational control tends to ensure conformity by enforcing
task definition, measurement and control, yet they may inhibit creativity and initiative.
Enforcement of such controls is essentially a negative activity since it defines ‘what cannot
be done’.

55
f. Return on investment challenge: Implementing knowledge management system is capital
investment. Arthur, (1994) argued that the production, and distribution of knowledge based
goods and services should create and sustain increasing returns in contrast to diminishing
return that are characteristic of the industrial goods and services. A knowledge driven
organisation unlike a typical manufacturing organisation has a greater percentage of
knowledge assets which tends to appreciate with time. Typically the knowledge organisation
should have ‘a northward approaching return graph’.
g. Organisation structure challenge: Developing an information-sharing technological
infrastructure is an exercise in engineering design where as enabling the use of that
infrastructure for sharing high quality information. While the former process is characterised
by pre-determination, pre-specification and pre-programming for knowledge harvesting and
exploitation, the later process is typically characterised by creation of organisational cultural
infrastructure to enable continuous information sharing, knowledge renewal, and creation of
new knowledge.
6. APPROACHES TO THE EFFECTIVE USE OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
The term ‘knowledge management’ has now in widespread use. There are, of course,
many ways to slice up the multi-faceted world of knowledge management. Knowledge
management draws its origin form a wide range of disciplines and technologies. However,
there are three main approaches to study of knowledge management. These approaches
include:
a. Mechanistic approach to knowledge management: Mechanistic approaches to knowledge
management are characterized by the application of technology and resources to do more of
the same better. The main assumption of the mechanistic approach include: Better
accessibility to information including enhanced methods of access and reuse of documents
(hypertext linking, database, full text search etc). In general, technology and sheer volume of
information will make it work. Such approaches are relatively easy to implement for
corporate ‘political reasons because the technologies and techniques (although sometimes
advanced in particular areas) are familiar and easily understood. There is a modicum of good
sense here, because enhanced access to corporate intellectual assets is vital. This approach is
similar to the assembly line concept where it’s the machine and not the man that matters. This
approach is easiest to implement but the results are too limited. It often leaves a large portion
of knowledge base untapped and the overemphasis on the technology and physical
infrastructure alienates the tactic components of the knowledge base.
b. Systematic approaches to knowledge management: Knowledge management involves
using systematic approaches to disseminate information and knowledge to the right people at
the right time to create value. A knowledge management initiative combines people,
processes, and technologies to indentify, capture, and share best practices and collective
knowledge that helps organisations in achieving their specific objectives. A knowledge
management system involves the representation, organisation, acquisition, creation, usage,
and evolution of knowledge in its many forms, and the modelling, analysis, and design of
technical systems for supporting all facets of knowledge management. Systematic approach
to knowledge management retain the traditional faith in rational analysis of knowledge
problem: the problem can be solved, but new thinking of many kinds is required. Some basic

56
assumptions: its sustainable results that matter, not the processes or technology or the
definition of knowledge.
A resource cannot be managed unless it is modelled, and many aspects of the
organisation’s knowledge can be modelled as an explicit resource. Solutions can be found in
a variety of disciplines and technologies, and traditional methods of analysis can be used to
re-examine the nature of knowledge work and to solve the knowledge problem. Cultural
issues are important, but they too must be evaluated systematically. Employees may or may
not have to be changed but policies and work practices must certainly be changed, and
technology can be applied successfully to business knowledge problem themselves.
c. Core Competencies approach to knowledge management: Dugguh (2007) posit that one
way to organise a company around knowledge is to develop a knowledge competences
approach. Many people use the terms capability and competency interchangeably. But core
performance capabilities and core knowledge competencies are distinct, though
complementary aspects of organisational identity. Core knowledge capabilities are processes
that enable a company to deliver high-quality products and services with speed, efficiency,
and effective customer service. Core performance capabilities are keys to a company’s
success. Such capabilities include aspects like bringing new products to market quickly,
modifying or customizing products or services quickly, managing logistics, attracting and
recruiting quality employees, sharing learning, insight, and best practice. Core knowledge
competencies are therefore the expertise and technical knowledge unique to a particular
business. They are the content or subject matter, such as 3M’s technical knowledge about
adhesives and Microsoft’s technological knowledge about software.
Each company has a unique organisational identity base on how it combines its
capabilities and competencies. Successful companies develop strengths in both areas. As a
company adapts and changes performance capabilities and knowledge, competencies
combine and recombine in new configurations that enable a flexible response to changing
conditions.
With a competencies focus, employees are generally more empowered to meet
customer’s needs. Employees organize themselves and their work groups to provide rapid
responses and quality service. They are often cross-trained or involved in job-enrichment
approaches that expand their range of skills. Competency-base organisations tend to have a
long term perspective because competencies take time to develop. Such companies focus
their investment and strategies more on strengthening competencies over time than on
immediate financial gain. All knowledge is not alike. Any area of expertise involves multiple
layers of knowledge. As organisation’s become international, their market boundaries began
to blur and new alliances increased competition. In response, they have to develop a
customer-focused strategy and identified core competencies in each market segment to
describe the skills and traits employees would need to deliver the new global strategy.
7. EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE
Recent studies indicate a strong correlation between knowledge management and
employee performance. An employee is a person who is paid to work for somebody or
organisation. This payment could either be wages or salary. Employees are therefore people
who work in an organisation to achieve the organisation’s set goals. According to Dugguh
(2007) employee are viewed as assets. This is because employees and not building and
machinery give a company a competitive advantage. Employees occupy a strategic role and

57
position in any organisation. They are responsible for converting inputs to productive outputs.
The work the employees of an organisation perform in front of the public and behind the
scenes affects the organisation’s reputation in the community and the profitability of a
company.
There are different views on what performance is. It can be regarded as simply the
record of outcomes achieved. On an individual basis, it is a record of the person’s
accomplishments. Looking at individual performance more deeply and relating it to the work
situation. Rao (2009), defined the performance of an individual in an organisational setting
as: ‘’the output delivered by an individual in relation to a given to role during particular
period of time under the set of circumstances operating at that point in time’’
Rao maintains that an individual performs under different circumstances and different
times. Using the above definition he formulates the following equations:
Individual Performance = Ability × Motivation × Organisational Support + or – Chance Factors.
Rao’s equation implies that, ‘any individual’s performance in a given period and in a
given role or job (set of task that constitute the role) is a function of his competence to do that
job or role or set of task associated with that role, multiplied by his interest or motivation to
do that job and the support he gets to do that job during that period. It is moderated by chance
or environment factors’’. Kane (1996) however argues that ‘performance is something that
the person leaves behind and that exist apart from the purpose’’. Bernadin, Kane, Ross, Spina
& Johnson, (1995), suggest that: performance should be defined as ‘the outcomes of work
because they provide the strongest linkage to the strategic goals of the organisation, customer
satisfaction and economic contributions’’. In his study, Cascio (1989) said that performance
refers to an employee’s accomplishment of assigned tasks while Bates and Hulton (1995) see
performance as ‘a multidimensional constraint, the measurement of which varies depending
on a variety of factors.
The above definitions including the Rao equation of individual performance leads to
the conclusion that when managing performance of teams and individuals, inputs
(behaviours) and outputs (results) need to be considered. This is the so called ‘mixed model’
of performance management which covers competency levels and achievements, recognition
and satisfaction as well as objective setting and review (Harte, 1995).
8. METHODOLOGY
The paper draws from past research findings and case studies from Analog Devices
(USA), Buchman Labs USA and Ford Motor Co. The findings were that both tacit and
explicit knowledge has significant statistical impact on employee performance in both
organised private and public sector organisations in Nigeria.
9. EMPIRICAL STUDIES OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
Research cases and findings taken from organisations that are involved in knowledge
management are relevant to this paper. A summary of these cases is presented below:
Anolog Devices used community of inquiries and initiated a breakdown of functional
barriers and competitive atmosphere to create a collaborative knowledge sharing culture from
top. The company encourages ‘community of inquires’ rather than ‘community of advocates’.

58
Boeing 777, the first ‘paperless’ developer of aircraft (digital database) included
customers in design teams and had more than 200 teams with wide range of skills for both
design and construction. Again Ford Motor Co. used virtual network of vendors and
transformed itself by outsourcing and creating virtual networks of vendors using Information
Technology. Buckman Laboratory used knowledge sharing by establishing a Knowledge
Transfer Department to co-ordinate employee efforts. Employees who were good at
knowledge sharing gain both financial rewards and management positions. Based on the
above review and case analyses, the paper found a link between knowledge management and
employee performance. Knowledge management, if properly designed and implemented can
influence employee performance in organisations including the Brewery Industry.
10. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
From the review, cases and results of the findings discussed above, we can
confidently conclude that knowledge management is a necessary parameter for enhancing
employee performance in Brewery Industry in Nigeria. This being the case, there is every
need to ensure adequate management of knowledge not only in the Brewery Industry but in
any other organisation in Nigeria because of its perceived benefits. With proper planning,
knowledge management challenges would be overcome. It is therefore the view of the
researchers that until what people know is effectively managed and recognised as the life
wire of organizations, there can be no meaningful contribution by workers towards improving
their performance and that of the company at large. Therefore, the management should
effectively manage what its employees know just as it manages its raw materials and revenue
to achieve organisational goal and increase profit margins. Based on the preceding, the
researchers recommend that:
Management should encourage explicit knowledge in the organisation. There should
be proper documentation of all the activities and operations of the company. To make this
effective, materials like company folders and other electronic materials like CDs, flash drives
and to some extent e-libraries should be provided for easy documentation. Computers should
also be provided to facilitate documentation and facilities should be provided to enhance the
storage and retrieval of data.
In addition, tacit knowledge with emphasis on dialogue or face-to-face discussions to
collectively solve problems should be encouraged. This would assist in resolving disputes
before they become unmanageable. Case studies should form part of the training program.
Further, communities of practice which exposes employees to similar set of problems and a
common pursuit of solutions should also be encouraged by management. Recognition in the
form of monetary rewards, certificates, plagues etc should be given to those who participate
in all knowledge management activities with positive results.
Other recommendations include periodic training on knowledge management through
seminars, workshops or conferences. To accomplish this, the company should create the
Department of Knowledge Management and appoint a Senior Manager to oversee the
Department. A more conducive environment should also be provided for knowledge
management activities to thrive. Computers and other knowledge management equipment
should be stocked and maintained on regular basis to make knowledge management more
effective in the organization.

59
11. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We wish to acknowledge all those who contributed in making this paper a reality. We
are also appreciative of the authors of the materials and case studies we cited and made
reference to in this paper.
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