Knowledge Management in the BRICS

The purpose of this paper is to make sense of the situation of Knowledge Management in the BRICS countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. The question is important because we believe that in the current world economy the emergence of any country will be done first and foremost by using knowledge and by managing knowledge. Using an analogy from the Human Resources national studies we believe there are low, medium and high equilibria regarding the knowledge economy. We analyze the five BRICS according to the following methodology: 1 Context background; 2 Broad KM systems; 3 Institutional actors; 4 Political contexts; 5. KM systems at the national level; 6. Organizational KM; 7. Impact; and 8. Summary. We concluded that KM is a good investment for the BRICS, but it is still a very rare one. South Africa stands a cut above the other countries being benefited by the smaller dimension and the relations with the Western UK, and the USA led investments; also the fact that the regime change happened when the Knowledge economy was beginning, helped. China, Russia, India, and Brazil are four giants that will emerge stronger and faster the more and the better they will use KM. So as implications, we expect a bright future of KM in the 21st century, as bright as the BRICS future! The BRICS emergence will only be consolidated by KM. and KM will dominate the world with the BRICS emergence. The study is only the first step in what could be a major field of research, and that its limitation and suggestion for research.