Factors Affecting Knowledge Management and Its Effect on Organizational Performance: Mediating the Role of Human Capital

This study aims to investigate and identify the factors affecting the empowerment and implementation of knowledge management in organizations as well as the impact of knowledge management on organizational performance. This study also examines the mediating role of human capital in the relationship between knowledge management and performance of Kabul Steel Plant, which is the largest steel plant in Afghanistan. The research model was developed through the literature review. The initial data were collected through a questionnaire containing 48 questions. Participants were 108 managers and administrative staff of the company. The collected data were analyzed by using the SPSS and SmartPLS software. The hypotheses regarding the impact of strategy and technology on knowledge management were rejected by using correlation analysis and t-test statistic. Finally, the findings showed the positive effects of variables of structure, culture, leadership, and trust on knowledge management in an organization. Also, knowledge management influences the organizational performance, both directly and through the mediating variable of human capital. This research encourages the managers and employees of organizations to use the available organizational resources to implement knowledge management in organizations and improve knowledge management practices and human resources that are the most valuable resources of any organization in order to remain competitive in the markets.

A public goods model of outcomes from online knowledge sharing mediated by mental model processing

Purpose

This study aims to take a public goods approach to understand relationships between collecting and contributing knowledge to an online knowledge sharing portal (KSP), mental model processing and outcomes at the individual and collective levels.

Design/methodology/approach

This study reports on a survey (N = 602) among tax professionals, examining the perceived individual and collective benefits and costs associated with collecting and contributing knowledge. Hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling.

Findings

Collecting and contributing knowledge led to considerable mental model processing of the knowledge. That in turn significantly influenced (primarily) individual and (some) collective costs and benefits. Results varied by the kinds of knowledge sharing. Whether directly from knowledge sharing, or mediated through mental modeling, the perceived costs and benefits may be internalized as an individual good rather than being interpreted at the collective level as a public good.

Research limitations/implications

The study is situated in the early stages of a wiki-type online KSP. A focus on the learning potential of the system could serve to draw in new users and contributors, heightening perceptions of the public goods dimension of a KSP.

Practical implications

A focus on the learning potential of the system could serve to draw in new users, and thus the number of subsequent contributors, heightening perceptions of the collective, public goods dimension of a KSP.

Originality/value

This study explores how knowledge sharing and mental model processing are directly and indirectly associated with individual and collective costs and benefits. As online knowledge sharing is both an individual and public good, costs and benefits must be considered from both perspectives.

The rhetoric of “knowledge hoarding”: a research-based critique

Purpose

This paper responds to a recent trend towards reifying “knowledge hoarding” for purposes of quantitative/deductive research, via a study of information technology (IT) service professionals. A “rhetorical theory” lens is applied to reconsider “knowledge hoarding” as a value-laden rhetoric that directs managers towards addressing assumed worker dysfunctionality.

Design/methodology/approach

A qualitative study of practicing IT service professionals (assumed within IT service management “best practice” to be inclined to hoard knowledge) was conducted over a 34-day period. Twenty workers were closely observed processing IT service incidents, and 26 workers were interviewed about knowledge-sharing practices.

Findings

The study found that IT service practice is characterized more by pro-social collegiality in sharing knowledge/know-how than by self-interested strategic knowledge concealment.

Research limitations/implications

The study concerns a single occupational context. The study indicates that deductive research that reifies “knowledge hoarding” as a naturally occurring phenomenon is flawed, with clear implications for future research.

Practical implications

The study suggests that management concern for productivity might be redirected away from addressing assumed knowledge-hoarding behaviour and towards encouraging knowledge sharing via social interaction in the workplace.

Originality/value

Previous studies have not directly examined the concept of knowledge hoarding using qualitative methods, nor have they considered it as a rhetorical device.

Knowledge management and professional experience: the uneasy dynamics between tacit knowledge and performativity in organizations

Purpose

This paper interrogates the relationships between tacit knowledge (of professionals) and performance measurement regimes (of post-modern organizations). Drawing on Polanyi’s (1958, 1968) ideas about tacit knowledge and Lyotard’s (1984) theory of performativity with regard to criteria such as profit-performance the applicability and relevance of tacit, working knowledge in the internet age is assessed. The paper examines: the effects of context on knowledge management (KM); tacit knowledge and performativity around the production, validation and assessment of knowledge within organizations; KM and the mercantilization of knowledge and critical questions as to how performativity impacts tacit knowledge and KM in the digital era.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper deconstructs popular and fashionable narratives around tacit knowledge and KM to critically appraise approaches to knowledge construction and transfer in contemporary and commercial contexts. The study draws on various specific critical incidents in commercial practice to assess where (and why) things went wrong with KM practices in the aftermath of the global financial crisis and in more recent attempts at large scale corporate fraud.

Findings

KM should not trade exclusively in instrumentalized, performative knowledge. Tacit knowledge involves a sense of what is going on and this is not easily measured or codified. Experiential understanding of what is required when engaging with clients, colleagues, senior partners, other businesses (and cultures) and the political contexts in which employees work is central to tacit knowledge. So too are performance measures and reward systems and herein lies the “uneasy dynamic”. The nature of any transfer of tacit knowledge is problematic, but such employee know-how remains critical to organizational performance and validating the use-value of knowledge for the purposes of KM.

Originality/value

Researchers have used the theories of Polanyi and Lyotard, but rarely combined them to investigate KM practices critically in post-modern organizations. By using the two theories, this paper critically examines the contemporary construction of tacit knowledge from perspectives that include the different discourses and localized practices through which it is produced and consumed.