摘要：When intellectual capital is built “from the scratch” in an effort to move a society’s situation to a sustainablestatus, there is often a need for a catalyst that triggers the endeavor. The “trigger”, in the case that is reported in thispaper, was the installation of a new college in a rural community in Northern Ghana where heretofore, no comprehensivetertiary education had been available. The college established an outreach program which was destined to provide thecommunity with increased opportunities for improving the overall social and economic well-being. This creates an outercircle of engagement through accessing government officials, local businesses, community councils, health workers,traditional leaders (tribal chiefs), religious leaders and heads of NGOs on topics like labor relations, conflict resolution,sustainability management, social responsibility, cultural diversity, and social inclusiveness. At the onset, the members ofthe community contributed their traditional views on these topics and how this would combine with knowledge brought inthrough the new college. Since rural communities in Africa have a very intimate and intense relation to nature, goodhands-on skills and an abundance of indigenous wisdom, it was felt that this combination would result in a rich body ofknowledge and competencies. Ultimately, a valuable base would be developed from this knowledge for an inventory ofintellectual capital that can be transferred to generations of descendants. At the heart of this endeavor was the Center forCross Cultural Ethics and Sustainable Development, an institution created by the college, to move these efforts forward.There are two perspectives which make this case relevant for new developments in knowledge management: One is theissue of what has been called the “fourth mission” of educational institutions (Trencher et al. 2013), moving the institutionsto co-creating sustainability by collaborating with government, industry and civil society to advance sustainabletransformation in their environment. The other is that when two bodies of knowledge co-exist, the question arises howthis co-existence should be approached. This case embeds a variety of systems-thinking constructs. Which would be thebest way to combine indigenous wisdom with new knowledge brought in by the college’s academicians and outsidepractitioners? How can a balance be coalesced between community needs that must often be satisfied short-term andneeds for which long-term solutions are required? How can self-organization and relationality be conjoined? How canintellectual capital from both the traditional and the newly acquired skills and knowledge be generated in the community?The paper reflects on both the knowledge management and the systems-thinking interpretations of the case. community)and processes self-reference and other-reference.
