Knowledge is power; if so, what hidden dynamics interplay during the employee training process between Buddhist male managers and their female subordinates who would potentially be future peers? Using a phenomenological enquiry, we explored hidden forces driving and restraining effective knowledge transfer and managers’ underlying beliefs, attitudes, prejudices, and motives. The findings revealed the societal and individual prejudices towards women as the restraining forces, while Buddhist ideologies and values as the driving forces of knowledge transfer. The results can be interpreted at individual, national, and organizational levels, thus leading to a new conceptualization of knowledge transfer practices in similar religious and ideological contexts. The underlying contradictions between Buddhist beliefs and societal prejudices thwarted knowledge transfer effectiveness. These findings guide practitioners to innovate practical training to initiate a paradigm shift to eliminate the harmful effect of societal ideologies and gender prejudices and integrate Buddhist values’ driving forces into knowledge transfer practices. We concluded that religious doctrines play a vital role in knowledge transfer practices, attitudes, values, and workplace behaviour in native Buddhist societies; however, future research would enhance the generalizability of the findings in similar religious contexts specific to South Asian countries.

This ethnographic study examined the lived experiences of Sri Lankan 3D workers in South Korea. The purpose was to explore the interplay between unskilled Sri Lankan employees and Korean employers to gain a deeper understanding of critical factors that enhance or hinder optimal performance and to propose HRD interventions to engross expatriate labor meaningfully into host country workplace effectively. The research addressed three research questions. First, what is the type of work relationship prevailed between Korean employers and Sri Lankan workers who engage in 3-D work? Second, what cultural elements are more prominent in their interactions between Korean employers and Sri Lankan workers? And third, what other factors influence the performance of Sri Lankan employees who engage in 3-D work? This paper discovered the hidden realities, factors that obstruct the optimal performance, life experience, and the nature of relationships between Korean employers and Sri Lankan employees in Korean industries. Twenty-one participants who had more than three years of working experience in Korean industries provided rich information that reveals the workplace hidden realities. Emerging themes are presented as five constituents: "attitudes towards Korean bosses and their self," "frustration," "discrimination at workplaces," and "performance barriers." While highlighting critical factors that hinder performance in a 3D workplace, the authors discuss research implications and practice while proposing remedial policy and HRD measures that the Korean and Sri Lankan governments, Korean employers and Sri Lankan 3D workers in Korea would be able to benefit from.

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