Improving knowledge retention in the cross-border mergers of the telecommunications industry of Lesotho

Abstract

This article has been extracted from the larger PhD study which sought to investigate how knowledge retention (KR) may be improved in the context of cross-border mergers of the telecommunication industry of Lesotho. This is a quantitative case study research that triangulated interviews and questionnaires as instruments of data collection. The results for the study indicated that although there were no formal policies in place that guided the retention of knowledge, somehow knowledge was retained during the merger process. On the other hand, a considerable amount of valuable knowledge may have been lost because employees who either left the organisation during the process or those who were apparently forced to resign just left the organisation with no proper KR arrangement. The findings of the study also showed that the Econet Telecom Lesotho (ETL) merger was accompanied by a high staff turnover resulting from both forced and voluntary resignations.