Purpose – Organizational culture can significantly promote or hinder the success of knowledge management initiatives. Therefore, this study seeks to develop and test empirically a conceptual framework to investigate the correlation between organizational culture and knowledge conversion on corporate performance.Design/methodology/approach – Questionnaire and statistical analytical techniques were applied to gain best exploration on organizational culture, knowledge conversion and corporate performance.Findings – The results of the questionnaire analyses indicate that an adhocracy culture enables knowledge conversion and enhances corporate performance more than clan and hierarchy cultures.Research limitations/implications – The research investigates the correlation between organizational culture and knowledge conversion on corporate performance under a Chinese‐centric set of societal, cultural and linguistic attitudes and behaviors. However, different countries have different cultures. Future research coul...

The correlation between organizational culture and knowledge conversion on corporate performance

Many scholars and practitioners claim that a supportive organizational culture can enable the successful implementation of knowledge management (KM) technology initiatives. However, little empirical research has been conducted to define the key organizational culture attributes that support more effective application of KM technologies. In this study, the 44 cultural attributes of the organizational culture profile (OCP) and the knowledge management technology profile (KMTP) instruments were used to identify and rank the most critical organizational culture attributes that promote knowledge sharing and KM technology implementation success. Data were collected from 26 US organizations that were implementing KM. The results of the data analysis revealed sufficient evidence to establish a correlation between specific cultural attributes and the successful implementation of knowledge management technology and knowledge sharing.

Critical attributes of organizational culture that promote knowledge management technology implementation success

This paper addresses the critical role leadership plays in the implementation and facilitation of knowledge management activities. Leadership is particularly important for organizations willing to ‘evolve’ their culture to a knowledge-supporting culture. Organizational culture has been identified as the main impediment to knowledge activities, and therefore leaders should model the proper behaviors causing culture to evolve in a way that enables and motivates knowledge workers to create, codify, transfer, and use and leverage knowledge. In the literature this leadership behavior is referred to as ‘leading through a knowledge lens’. Leading through a knowledge lens has some special characteristics since it is dealing with knowledge workers having specialized expertise. Leading them can be done only by intellectual power, conviction, persuasion, and interactive dialog. It requires skills that build confidence and engagement. Therefore, leaders should establish trust and commitment that will help the knowledge organization to achieve its knowledge and business goals.

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1057%2Fpalgrave.kmrp.8500004.pdf

Critical role of leadership in nurturing a knowledge-supporting culture

1. Introduction Rapid and constant advances in information technology have pushed the world in a new economical era. Knowledge management (KM) has been a natural evolution over the first years of the twenty-first century, and a hot topic in several business communities. The ability to manage knowledge is becoming increasingly more crucial in today's knowledge economy. The task of effective and competitive management of organizations becomes necessary, and knowledge management, if understood and applied properly, may be a useful tool for business transformation as well as the key of competitive advantage (Jennex, 2007). Knowledge management enables an organization to gain insight and understanding from its own experience and procedures. One of the key concerns that have emerged related to knowledge management is how to accomplish it successfully. Thus, it is considered crucial to identify the factors that influence the success of knowledge management initiatives. Knowledge management enablers are the mechanism for the organization to develop its knowledge and also stimulate the creation of knowledge within the organization as well as the sharing and protection of it. They are also the necessary building blocks in the improvement of the effectiveness of activities for knowledge management (Ichijo et al., 1998; Stonehouse and Pemberton, 1999). Enabler factors should be clear in an organization, because not only they create knowledge but they also prompt people to share their knowledge and experiences with others (Yeh, Lai, & Ho, 2006). The objective of this study is to empirically investigate and test the most critical factors that influence knowledge management' effectiveness within organizations, which in turn influence positively the total performance of the firm. This research presents the result of a survey which was conducted in 109 Greek companies. This research draws on existing studies, frameworks and models that have already identified the factors that potentially affect knowledge management's success. This paper is structured as follows: Section two refers to the literature and the empirical evidence concerning the various factors that affect the effectiveness of knowledge management process and lead to competitive advantage and thus to firm performance above the industry average. Section three presents the theoretical model and its hypotheses. Section four describes the research method adopted and the characteristics of the companies/respondents. Section five refers to the statistical analysis of the research results. Finally, section six includes the research conclusion and the implications that could be drawn from this research, as well as some proposed future research directions. 2. Literature review 2.1 What Knowledge Management is? Knowledge Management is an impressive, multidisciplinary, and controversial concept. Knowledge Management enables the existing individual knowledge to be captured and transformed into organizational knowledge, which in turn must be diffused and shared by many employees. These employees use this knowledge but they also create new individual, which becomes organizational, and so on. Knowledge Management is also the management of organization's knowledge that can improve many features of organizational performance so as to be more "intelligent acting" (Gupta, Iyer, & Aronson, 2000). Although knowledge management has been extensively studied by researchers and academics there is not exist a generally accepted definition of knowledge management concept. Defining knowledge management is not an easy issue because it is multi-faced and controversially concept and what's more is a mix of strategies, tools, and techniques. Different authors and researchers have presented different definitions of knowledge management. Wiig (1995) proposed that Knowledge Management is a group of clearly defined process or methods used to search important knowledge among different knowledge management operations. …

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Knowledge Management Enabler Factors and Firm Performance: An Empirical Research of the Greek Medium and Large Firms

The purpose of this study is to present and tests the key factors of knowledge sharing behavior of employees in the SMEs in Malaysia. A survey was designed and interview conducted with employees in the manufacturing companies from Melaka and Johor states. Survey questions designed from the literature to examine employee perceptions of all variables were identified. Data from 305 respondents were used to validate the measures and test our research model. The results of the study show that reward system, culture, trust and technology are the four key factors which influencing the knowledge sharing behavior in the firms. Finally, the recommendation for HR executives are discussed in this research may help the firms in guiding their efforts to build knowledge based firms in Malasia.

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Assessing Knowledge Sharing Behaviour among Employees in SMEs: An Empirical Study

The focus of the majority of knowledge management (KM) research to date has been on advanced technology and techniques used to facilitate knowledge sharing (Davenport and Prusak, 1998) A knowledge organization has been defined as “an entity that realizes the importance of its knowledge, internal and external, to the organization, and applies techniques to maximize the use of this knowledge to its employees, shareholders and customers” (Liebowitz and Beckman, 1998) However, any firm interested in making the transition to becoming a knowledge organization has to ensure that its culture is aligned with the requirements for KM success Not to do so risks KM being underutilized, ignored, or abandoned by the firm’s employees As attractive as KM is for enhancing an organization’s operations, many commonly agree that there is an important precondition Davenport (1997) says that twothirds of a firm’s KM efforts should focus upon organizational and cultural issues Rifkin (1996) quotes Bob Buckman as saying “What’s happened here [successful use of KM at Buckman Laboratories] is 90% culture change You have to change the way you relate to one another If you can’t do that, you won’t succeed” Mizumori (1998) reports “The greatest challenge to implementing effective Knowledge Management is to transition Knowledge Hoarders into Knowledge Sharers” Thus, one needs to understand what the culture of the firm is, and one needs to understand whether or not this culture will enable KM or hinder KM Schein (1992) defines corporate culture as “A pattern of shared basic beliefs that the group learned as it solves its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, that has worked well enough to be considered valid, and

/pdf/the-effect-of-organizational-culture-on-the-implementation-37hootb7ep.pdf

Nancy Shaw

Papers

The Effect of Organizational Culture on the Implementation of Knowledge Management