**2. Knowledge management processes and the Chinese hotel industry**

The knowledge management concept has been extolled across multiple disciplines as a control process whereby organisational knowledge is generated, retained and leveraged to enhance competitiveness and organisational growth (see Refs. [11, 15]). Organisational efforts to strategically manage their store of knowledge continue to intensify as the business environment becomes progressively competitive, and new, dynamic markets continue to emerge (see Refs. [14, 16]). The rapid expansion speed of new markets has allowed little time for Western organisations investing in markets such as China to reflect on the applicability of their existing managerial strategies to this emerging-market context (see Ref. [4]). Indeed, current theories related to knowledge management have predominantly been developed in Western markets where business dealings are traditionally transactional based; to date, little consideration has been given to the generalisability of these theories to Western organisations operating in emerging Asian economies where relational based business dealings are the norm (see Refs. [2, 4, 17, 18]). In order to improve our understanding of what constitutes effective knowledge management for Western organisations seeking to enter and compete in the Chinese hotel sector, we felt it appropriate to adopt a knowledge management process model to guide our data gathering and analysis.

For this study, the Knowledge Management Cycle (KMC) model has been chosen; the KMC consists of seven phases: identify and/or create; store; share; use; learn; improve; and create 'organisational knowledge' (see Ref. [1]). If a request for new knowledge is triggered within an organisation, the first stage is to identify if existing codified and encapsulated knowledge assets and subjectively held tacit knowledge exist, or if new knowledge assets need to be created. The KMC model, therefore, suggests that managing the knowledge process is primarily reliant on (a) an organisation's executives' definition of what constitutes relevant 'knowledge' and 'knowledge gaps' in their organisation and (b) their ability to implement efficient and systematic methods to gather and/or communicate new knowledge to employees (see Refs. [18, 19]). Organisational specific rules, cultures and evaluative criteria are able to be used as a lens for interpreting, analysing and applying existing or newly created knowledge to decision making (see Ref. [20]). If deemed valuable, any new knowledge generated is codified and systematically stored in organisational memory from which it can be drawn, shared and protected (see Ref. [1]). Fulfilment of these tasks can embed a learning culture within the organisation (see Ref. [21]); learning cultures enable employees to generate their own internal store of knowledge and leverage their own understanding to make innovative decisions and contribute to their organisation's dynamic capabilities (see Refs. [19, 22]).

Research has determined that the existence of flexible and dynamic organisational networks, or communities of practice, provide the most effective means for encouraging and facilitating the dissemination of explicit and tacit organisational knowledge (see Refs. [14, 18, 20]). Once shared, the value from knowledge assets can be extracted and applied (see Ref. [20]). However, this stage can prove difficult as the ability of employees to extract value from the complex interplay of codified, encapsulated and tacit knowledge may also be influenced by additional factors, such as national culture and the institutional context (see Refs. [2, 14, 23]). The ability to simultaneously engage in continual organisational learning and develop a fluid store of country-specific knowledge (that supports distinctive culture-specific business practices) would seem, therefore, to be critical to Western organisational success in the Chinese market context. The success of knowledge management processes is therefore predicated on an organisation's Human Resource Management (HRM) practices and its ability to recruit, develop and motivate employees (see Refs. [2, 17]). This in itself can prove problematic as studies into the HRM practices of Western firms in China have identified the inability to find talented employees (see Ref. [23]), and the lack of employee initiative and acceptance of responsibility (see Ref. [17]) to be major inhibitors for organisational performance. An additional complication is employee leakage from the industry due to open competition for skilled/Western-trained labour between economic sectors in emerging economic settings (see Ref. [20]). Given these complicating factors, this chapter seeks to contribute to the knowledge management literature by exploring one Western organisation's (i.e. Marriott International's) successful entry into the Chinese hotel industry and provide a discussion of the managerial and theoretical implications emanating from the organisation's experience in assessing and developing its knowledge management practices in this context.
