The most important concern in KM is to acquire strategic advantages by performing knowledge effectively. Therefore, KM tends to develop organizational capabilities for achieving effective knowledge sharing. This study reveals that the firms performing a KM program help improve the organizational knowledge capabilities and knowledge sharing.
Since knowledge sharing is the primary object when firms conduct KM program, the result is obvious that a firm implementing KM can lead to more employees participating in the activities of knowledge sharing. Therefore, implementing KM is an effective program to help knowledge exchange in an organization. However, knowledge sharing behavior is affected by a variety of factors, an organization need to discover the better drivers to encourage the behavior of shared knowledge.
The distances in the structural knowledge capability are the most significant and in cultural knowledge capability they are secondary. This shows that businesses conduct more efforts and invest more money to improve organizational structure (i.e. encourage the sharing of knowledge by an incentive system) and organizational culture (i.e. establish friendly and
collaborative surroundings) when firms plan to implement KM. Moreover, the human knowledge capability is also significant. The KM program usually enhances the understanding among employees. Then, it encourages the learning, cooperation, and collaboration, and further creates the organizational profits.
In contrast, the technical knowledge capability does not be improved when implementing KM into a business, but its mean score is higher than the other knowledge capabilities – that is, the technical knowledge capability belongs to firms’ owning mutual skills, which are easy to form and accumulate within organizations. Following the development of information technology, many firms already have established IT-based systems to support business related activities and IT acceptance has been improved increasingly in the past decade. Therefore, the technical knowledge capability is a fundamental necessary skill, but is not a sufficient condition in a knowledge organization.
Consequently, the implementation of KM program is actually contributive to the improvement of knowledge sharing and organizational knowledge capabilities.
Chapter 7 Conclusion
The contribution of this study is to propose an integrated knowledge sharing framework to explore the relationship among IT/IS support, organizational knowledge capability, knowledge sharing, and organizational effectiveness. The framework is based on the theories of RBV, KBV, socio-technical view, organizational capability view, and KM. The proposed framework is tested using the statistics analysis with questionnaire data collected from the different industries and institutions. Consequently, seven hypotheses are fully supported as expected, but one hypothesis is not confirmed and another hypothesis is partial support. The results also provide an important viewpoint for developing organizational knowledge capability in order to acquire the strategic advantage during the implementation of the knowledge activities.
A knowledge-based organization focuses on developing interpersonal, structural, and network relationships to achieve effective knowledge sharing and to further generate new knowledge or capabilities for organizational competitiveness and success. The purpose of this study is to elaborate upon some capability variables which can affect the knowledge sharing behavior and organizational effectiveness through the socio-technical view. By identifying these capability factors as the determinants of shared knowledge, firms can deploy and significantly reorganize their resources and capabilities for the organizational activities of knowledge sharing. Besides, IT/IS support is helpful to improve the technical knowledge capability.
This study emphasizes the importance of social and technical OKC on knowledge sharing, but it does not address the issue of how the organizational knowledge capability should be carried out. In fact, this is a significant organizational and managerial research issue in how to form and create organizational knowledge capability in a firm. An application of this study in the future work may be in identifying the antecedents of organizational knowledge capability (e.g. the effects of various incentives on SKC), constructing the interactions among the knowledge capabilities (e.g. integrating HKC and SKC to create social network), and exploring the other capabilities or competencies dimensions (e.g. taking the influence of process knowledge capability into account or extending the constructs of technical capability).
Furthermore, the other statistics technology (e.g. multivariate analysis) can be applied to an advanced analysis on the relationship among the organizational knowledge capabilities, knowledge sharing, and organizational performance through a detailed model. This study
focuses on the investigation over the intra-organizational capabilities and sharing behaviors.
The future research might be to explore the knowledge activities from knowledge sharing to knowledge creation, or to conduct the behavior of knowledge sharing on the cross-organizational or the multinational corporations.
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Appendix A. The exploratory literature review about KM studies
Outcome
Author(s) Approach Factors
(Enablers/Drivers)
System
(Processes/Activities) KM Organization
Arthur Anderson
& APQC (1995) Conceptual Strategy and leadership / Culture / Technology /
Measurement Identify / Collect / Organize / Share /
Adapt / Use / Create Knowledge
effectiveness ※
Davenport et al.
(1998) Conceptual Linking to economic performance / Infrastructure (tech. & organ.) / Knowledge structure / Friendly culture / Clear purpose / Motivational practices / Channels / Manager support
KM project ※ ※
Meso and Smith
(2000) Conceptual Organizational KMS (Knowledge /
Technological & organizational infrastructure / Human resources / Culture)
Organizational learning New knowledge / Continuous innovation
Sustainable competitive advantage
Yli-Renko et al.
(2001) Empirical Social interaction / Relationship quality /
Customer network ties Knowledge acquisition ※ New product
development / Technical
distinctiveness / Sales costs
Gold et al. (2001) Empirical Technology / Structure / Culture / Acquisition / Conversion / Application / Protection
Knowledge infrastructure capability /
Knowledge process capability ※ Organizational
effectiveness
Choi and Lee (2002)
Empirical KM strategy (System / Human) Knowledge creation process (Socialization / Externalization / Combination / Internalization)
※ ※
Calantone et al.
(2002) Empirical ※ Learning orientation (Commitment to
learning / Shared vision / Open mindedness / Intra-organizational knowledge sharing)
Innovativeness Firm performance
Appendix A. The exploratory literature review about KM studies (Cont.)
Outcome
Author(s) Approach Factors
(Enablers/Drivers)
System
(Processes/Activities) KM Organization
Lee and Choi
(2003) Empirical Culture (Collaboration / Trust / Learning), Structure (Centralization / Formalization), People (T-shaped skills),
IT (support)
Knowledge creation (Socialization / Externalization / Combination / Internalization)
Creativity Organizational performance
Tippins and Shoi
(2003) Empirical IT competency (IT knowledge / IT operations /
IT objects) Organizational Learning (Acquisition / Dissemination / Shared interpretation / Organizational memory)
※ Firm performance
Janz and Prasarnphanich (2003)
Empirical Knowledge-centered culture (Autonomy /
Climate) Corporative learning ※ Work satisfaction / Work
performance
Chuang (2004) Empirical KM resources & capabilities (Structure / Culture / Human / Technology)
※ ※ Competitive advantage
Ritter and Gemunden (2004)
Empirical Business strategy Technological competence / Network competence
Innovation success
※
Lee et al. (2005) Empirical ※ KMPI (Creation / Accumulation /
Sharing / Utilization / Internalization) ※ Stock price / R&D
expenditure / Price earnings ratio (PER)
Ko et al. (2005) Empirical Knowledge factors Communication factors Motivational factors
Knowledge transfer ※ ※
Tanriverdi (2005) Empirical IT relatedness (IT infrastructure / IT strategy making / IT HR management / IT vendor management)
KM capability (Product / Customer / Manager)
※ Corporate performance
Appendix B. Questionnaire Items
Table B1. The items of organizational knowledge capabilities
Questionnaire Items Sources
Social OKC Chuang (2004); Gold et al. (2001)
Cultural Knowledge Capability
Organizational employees are valued for their individual expertise Organizational employees understand the importance of knowledge Organizational employees are encouraged to interact with other groups The benefits of sharing knowledge outweigh the costs
Structural Knowledge Capability
Our organization has a reward system for sharing knowledge
Our organization structure facilitates the discovery of new knowledge Our organization structure facilitates the creation of new knowledge
Our organization facilitates knowledge exchange across functional boundaries Human Knowledge Capability
Organizational employees can make suggestion about others’ tasks.
Organizational employees can communicate not only with their own department members, but also with other department members Organizational employees can understand not only their own tasks, but also others’ tasks
Technical OKC Chuang (2004); Gold et al. (2001)
Organizational employees use technology to search for new knowledge
Organizational employees use technology to retrieve knowledge about its product and process Organizational employees use technology to retrieve knowledge about markets and competition
Organizational employees use technology to cooperate with an inside person OKC: Organizational knowledge Capability
Table B2. The items of IT, Sharing, and Effectiveness
Questionnaire Items Sources
IT / IS Support Lee and Choi (2003)
Our company provides IT/IS for collaborative works regardless of time and place Our company provides IT/IS for communication among organizational members Our company provides IT/IS for searching for and accessing necessary information Our company provides IT/IS for simulation and predication
Our company provides IT/IS for systematic storing
Knowledge Sharing Bock et al. (2005); Lee (2001)
Organizational employees share business proposals and reports with each other
Organizational employees share business manuals, models, and methodologies with each other Organizational employees share each other's success and failure stories
Organizational employees share business knowledge gained from news, magazines, and journals Organizational employees share know-how from work experiences with each other
Organizational employees share each other's know-where and know-whom Organizational employees share expertise obtained from education and training Organizational Effectiveness (compared to competitors)
…more successful overall
Tippins and Shoi (2003); Gold et al.
(2001); Lee and Choi (2003)
… has greater market share
… has faster growth
… has higher profits
… has more innovativeness
… has better quality in products
… has better service for customers