The term indigenous knowledge is synonymous with ‘tradition’ and ‘neighbourhood knowledge’ and distinguishes the knowledge created by a particular community from the knowledge framework of the world (Cerchione & Esposito 2017). Indigenous knowledge implies knowledge of indigenous groups and some other distinctive communities (Forutnani et al. 2018; Mali et al. 2018). In addition, local knowledge, or precise knowledge, is extraordinary knowledge of a particular culture or society. The reverse also applies: Knowledge can be created through research and other formal training institutions. Indigenous knowledge is also embedded in people’s day-to-day experience and is sometimes relied upon by decision-makers to address problems related to culture, food security and social improvements (Chendov 2018).

Historically, indigenous Africans lacked the innovative capacity and relied on word of mouth to exchange information (Colnar & Dimovski 2017). Combining with Ologbo’s history, this research in management research classifies queries, interprets, and contextualizes how information has evolved to help the indigenous farmers to improve their practice (Amadi, Ola & Ayoola 2020). To understand the new (contemporary) technique, small and medium-sized palm oil producers in the empirical context are questioned to help uncover how they have transformed their practices. Traditionally, farmers are regarded highly in the community because of the impact of their work in sustaining the livelihood of locals in the Ologbo community. Understanding indigenous knowledge management (KM) practices is essential for organisations today, especially for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), because employees in the empirical context may sometimes have a strong affinity towards their ethnicity. Applying indigenous practices in contemporary organisations may be appreciated by those who strongly value their ethnicity and, thus, result in a display of organisational solidarity behaviour (Pepple & Davies 2019; Pepple 2020).

Palm oil production in Nigeria has scope for massive improvements, regardless of Nigeria’s position as a dominant producer. Palm oil from Nigeria is banned in certain countries because of a lack of standards. The majority of palm oil producers are indigenous farmers who tend to use traditional practices to extract the product. While palm oil production conducted traditionally is cleaner, indigenous farmers need more workforce and mechanized machinery to extract their oil in bulk supply (Bayat et al. 2018). The situation in the Ologbo community is similar to the national experience and indigenous people struggle to access accurate information (Igwe et al. 2018). However, the Nigeria Agriculture Ministry currently supports farmers by providing them information and enabling them to cultivate viable seedlings. This support is provided free of charge to farmers (Jellason et al. 2021).

This study investigates palm oil producers’ indigenous and contemporary KM practices using the Lee and Choi (2003) enabler framework. This area of research is essential as it not only provides a framework to uncover the challenges of indigenous and contemporary KM practice (Yulianti & Surendro 2018) but also identifies areas that can be improved to support indigenous KM. The following research questions are presented in line with this aim:

The article developed its findings in line with the enabler framework to provide insights into how indigenous and current KM practices of palm oil extraction were created (Lee & Chow 2013). This framework is helpful as it enabled the authors to investigate KM effectiveness to support organisational performance, especially among oil palm farmers (see Figure 1).

This section provides insights into the KM practices of indigenous and contemporary farmers based on Lee and Choi’s (2003) enabler framework. Evidence from findings showed that indigenous farmers had no documentary evidence on how knowledge was developed and passed on. This is consistent with extant literature that found a collaborative process involving passing information from one generation to another through word of mouth (John & Oyewobi 2018). Information about seedlings and yields was learned from the parents of indigenous farmers who were palm oil farmers. A possible reason for the lack of documentary evidence is the lack of higher education in agriculture, as the majority of those interviewed were educated at the secondary level (John & Oyewobi 2018).

On the structure and combination, Igwe et al. (2018) suggested that local government authorities were deploying liaison officers to help farmers with the information required to improve their yield. This was consistent with the findings in this research. This lack of organized structure may be the reason why Makate (2019) reported a lack of production models among indigenous farmers compared with contemporary farmers who have developed oil palm farming models to support productivity. Contemporary farmers have the resources to mechanize their practices and introduce the division of labour into their process (Ebu et al. 2021). The lack of formal skills reported in this research may be explained by indigenous farmers’ inability to afford formal training (Zakariyah et al. 2020). While indigenous farmers continue to use skills passed down from their parents, new knowledge about the palm oil process’s mechanisation may help improve their practice.

Findings also corroborate the increasing use of technology to support palm oil production among contemporary farmers. The Agrisoft software mentioned by contemporary farmers provides an example of how technology is helping SMEs and medium-sized farms to improve their yields better than indigenous farmers (Ebu et al. 2021). From an externalisation and/or socialisation stance, indigenous and contemporary farmers acknowledged the support they received from the government. Tharakan (2017) suggested that one such support was access to funding that would support land acquisition for oil palm farming. However, government ministries must go beyond supporting access to funds to providing training on KM software to support palm oil production.

Following the evidence of how KM enablers influence the knowledge creation process of contemporary and indigenous palm oil producers in the empirical context, the intermediate findings further explain why the KM process improves the performance of contemporary farmers more than it does for indigenous farmers. Research shows that incentives and staff recognition motivate employee creativity and performance (Doran & Ryan 2017). Indigenous farmers, in most instances, had no employees as they worked as individuals and family units to run their oil palm farming. The lack of employees may also mean that they lack the opportunity to tap into the knowledge that is available from employees with diverse views. Thus, while there was increased output for both groups of farmers, it is not surprising that contemporary farmers fared better.

The study explored how the enabler framework of Lee and Choi (2003) informs the KM practices and overall performance of indigenous and contemporary palm oil producers in Ologbo Ikpoba-Okha of Edo state. While indigenous farming practices yielded cleaner produce compared with yields produced through mechanized farming, the inability of indigenous farmers to scale up through technology remains a challenge. Consistent with Tume et al. (2019), indigenous and contemporary farmers reported similar experiences in relation to structure, socialisation and externalisation.

The findings using the enabler framework also have differences regarding indigenous and contemporary farmers’ practices. Regarding people skills, most indigenous management practices were passed down from generation through word of mouth and learned by observations compared with contemporary farmers with KM systems software they use in their businesses (Nwafor et al. 2018). The findings also showed that contemporary farmers tend to use KM software in their business when it comes to information technology creation compared with indigenous farmers. Their limited level of education may explain this. More training about technology use may help improve their business as contemporary farmers reflected in the findings. Contemporary farmers had a better organisational performance with an increased profit because of technology adoption. When it comes to organisational creativity, contemporary farmers have staff incentive schemes to support their employee creativity; this was not the case with indigenous farmers, whose businesses mostly comprised family members.

This study is novel as it provides insights into how KM enablers collectively influence organisational outcomes using a qualitative research method (Usman et al. 2021). Investigating the enabler framework qualitatively provides contextual insights into how each framework component is collectively organized to support organisational outcomes. This study also extends the Lee and Choi (2003) enabler framework by exploring it within indigenous knowledge and contemporary KM debate. The investigative approach has highlighted areas such as KM practices of indigenous farmers and those of contemporary palm oil farmers and areas where indigenous knowledge can be improved upon, and how that can improve KM among palm oil farmers in Ologbo Ikpoba-Okha. The empirical context also contributes to the novelty of this research. This study has contributed to KM from a developing context as Nigeria is a developing country, and the study of KM is dominated by Western literature (Abioye & Oluwaniyi 2017).

This article has uncovered critical areas that need attention in the KM practices of palm oil producers in the empirical context. Understanding these problems is an initial step for policymakers and those interested in agro-business to develop targeted strategies for supporting farmers’ KM practices. With palm oil still being barred from some countries, the findings help in some way to develop a framework for supporting the KM practices and overall performance of contemporary and indigenous farmers. Moreover, with the high unemployment in Nigeria, the enabler framework could guide the development of KM policies for local palm oil farmers.

This study presents the following limitations: firstly, the qualitative approach was used in this study and this method has been criticized for needing more validity (Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill 2009). However, care was taken to reduce bias by assuring participants of anonymity and interviewing each participant separately to avoid groupthink. Also, the sample size for this study was small, with 40 participants who are indigenous and contemporary palm oil farmers from the Ologbo Ikpoba-Okha community in Edo State. However, the qualitative approach allowed for an understanding of the research phenomenon. The study is also limited as it focuses only on palm oil extraction, examining indigenous knowledge and contemporary KM practices of the palm oil extraction process (Lawal et al. 2020). Future studies could explore KM in the oil and gas sector, one of Nigeria’s most significant export and source of revenue (Majekodunmi 2018). Lastly, the data collected in this study is limited to Ologbo in Edo state Nigeria; hence the findings may only apply to some countries especially developed countries’ economies. However, Nigeria can represent developing economies with similar cultures and economies. Hence, the findings might be helpful outside of Nigeria among developing countries and economies.