Background: Many state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in South Africa face the serious problem of knowledge-unfriendly organisational cultures, structures and human resource management (HRM) practices that hinder the reduction of the risks associated with tacit knowledge loss.Objective: The article examines the role of HRM in facilitating knowledge-driven organisational cultures and structures for the reduction of tacit knowledge loss in South African SOEs.Methods: The study deployed an exploratory sequential mixed methods research design to examine the role of HRM in facilitating organisational cultures and structures that are supportive of knowledge management (KM). In the qualitative phase, data were collected through interviews with 20 purposively selected HR managers in nine SOEs. In the quantitative phase, a questionnaire was distributed to 585 randomly selected employees in three state-owned companies. The instrument was considered reliable with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.94 and a response rate of 25%.Results: The research findings revealed that a majority of organisational cultures and structures in SOEs did not facilitate or assist to propel and support KM activities, behaviours and practices. On a positive note, human resource managers acknowledge that they have a crucial role to play in influencing culture management and structural designs in their companies to boost KM activities, behaviours and cultures.Conclusion: Numerous SOEs did not exhibit certain knowledge-driven behaviours and cultures because of a lack of structures to drive KM. Human resource managers did not exert their role in driving and influencing such knowledge-based behaviours, cultures and structures to lessen potential tacit knowledge loss.

Objective: This article explores KM practices in the South African SOEs to mitigate the risks inherent in tacit knowledge loss. Methods:The study adopted a mixed methods research strategy using an exploratory sequential design to identify KM practices and their effectiveness in addressing the issue of tacit knowledge loss. The qualitative data was collected through the interviews and document analysis of 2018 annual reports in nine SOEs across five market sectors. A survey questionnaire was distributed to 585 respondents, with a 25% response rate (145) for quantitative data in three SOEs. Results:The results revealed that the majority of the SOEs lacked KM practices in their structures. The lack of KM practices implies that the SOEs are lagging behind in knowledge protective capacities to mitigate the risks inherent in the organisational tacit knowledge loss. With many South African SOEs, facing all these sorts of knowledge loss risks and a lack of KM practices to mitigate them, achieving the objectives of a developmental state remains a farfetched idea. Conclusion:The absence of KM practices negatively affected knowledge transfer and retention in most of the SOEs. A lack of KM practices will negatively affect their performance and their sustainability to deliver on their developmental mandate. Investment in KM practices will assist SOEs to mitigate the risks associated with loss of organisational tacit knowledge.

The chapter demonstrates the lessons learnt from the application of an exploratory sequential design in a mixed methods research project to investigate the integration of knowledge management and human resource management practices for the reduction of knowledge loss in the public-owned entities in context. The research design was considered to be suited for studying a research problem from different perspectives and offers complementarity and diversity in data collection and analysis. The chapter revealed that qualitative data need to be complemented with the statistical or quantitative data to make an informed and complete analysis, conclusions, and recommendations of the research findings because, alone, qualitative data lack completeness and generalisability. The chapter presents a framework to design, apply, and evaluate a mixed methods research study so that information scientists, knowledge management researchers, and scholars from other related fields may play a role in its application and development when researching complex phenomena.