Cross Cultural Learning and the Role of Reverse Knowledge Flows in Vietnam

Abstract

Knowledge transfer has long been a topic within the literature on multinational companies (MNCs), although there has been less focus on non-MNC settings and on transition or developing economies. Here the assumption has been that foreign ‘experts’ offer knowledge, skills and talents to local ‘learners’. Yet cross cultural adaptation and learning may also flow in a reverse direction: from ‘learners’ to ‘experts’. Locals may possess unanticipated pockets of knowledge useful for foreigners. This article tackles the question: what conditions appear to enhance the possibility of knowledge flow from locals to experts and what appears to encourage cultural adaptation and learning by foreigners in transition economies? It proposes a tentative framework relating to reverse flow of knowledge. It concludes that factors like dramatic economic change and increased sophistication of local managers generate conditions that are ripe for reverse flow of knowledge and learning. For foreigners and locals to succeed in meeting joint goals, such cross cultural adaptation, particularly by foreigners, and reverse knowledge flow is likely to become even more crucial in the future. The article seeks to expand the notion of reverse knowledge flow to become a way to facilitate learning by foreigners and argues that locals may increasingly have unanticipated pockets of knowledge that are of value to foreigners, even beyond their on-site specific tasks.