Purpose Being mindful of the importance of organizational structure and organizational culture for knowledge management in companies, the purpose of this study is to investigate the organizational prerequisites for creating and sharing knowledge. The goals are to determine whether and to what extent the attributes of organic structure contribute to the creation and sharing of knowledge and to show that an organizational culture which supports knowledge stimulates the processes of knowledge creation and sharing. Design/methodology/approach The data for the empirical study was obtained through a survey of 150 respondents, employed in 30 companies from several industries, in the Republic of Serbia. The questionnaire was adapted to the needs of the study and was developed based on the theoretical knowledge and findings of several previous studies on processes of knowledge creation and knowledge sharing. A regression method was used to test all hypotheses. Findings The results show that both the organic structure and the organizational culture that support knowledge have positive effects on knowledge creation, while knowledge sharing is positively influenced only by the knowledge supporting culture of an organization. Originality/value This study contributes to organization studies and knowledge management theory because of the holistic approach taken with regards to the issue involved and the fact that it takes into account a large number of the significant characteristics of organizational structure and culture that are relevant to knowledge management processes. The findings could prove useful to managers when structuring an organization and shaping its culture to enhance knowledge management.
Research Question: The purpose of this paper is to explore how leadership style and organizational structure characteristics influence employees’ intentions to start their own entrepreneurial ventures, ideas or projects, within an organizational setting. Motivation: The main goal is to learn how to prevent innovativeness declining in a traditional organization and make internal environment friendly for entrepreneurial initiatives and for employees with propensity to develop new ideas, aiming to create sustainable competitive position. Idea: The paper explores how identified leadership variables, initiative, pioneer, proactive behaviour and ability to communicate vision affect employees’ entrepreneurial intentions. We also analyze the organizational structure impact, testing organic design, level of centralization and formalization. For measuring employees’ entrepreneurial intentions, we use a previously validated scale and measurements, innovation, risk propensity and autonomy. Data: The data are collected using a questionnaire on a random sample of 208 respondents employed in nineteen Serbian companies. Tools: A quantitative study methodology was designed and implemented, appropriate statistical methods performed, including correlation and linear regression analyses. Findings: We have found evidence that appropriate leadership style has a positive influence on employees' entrepreneurial intentions. More specifically, there is a positive correlation between the leader’s initiative, pioneer and proactive behaviour, and the employees’ intentions to start innovative entrepreneurial ventures. The employees’ willingness to act autonomously is affected by leader’s initiative and proactive attitude, but also by ability to clearly communicate the vision. The study also reveals that organic organizational structure, decentralization and low formalization have a positive influence on employees' entrepreneurial intentions. Contribution: The study contributes to a significant degree by filling gaps in knowledge base, revealing new perspectives about relevance of both leadership style and organizational structure for encouraging organizational entrepreneurship. The analysis also provides a more fine-grained perspective about characteristics of organizational design and improves understanding of the employees’ actions depending on authority delegation, procedures and overall flexibility of organizational structure. Practical implications represent guidelines for practitioners as to how to set up structure and adjust leadership style in order to foster entrepreneurship among employees.
Knowledge management is necessary in order to face the contemporary challenges in banking industry, related to hyper-competition, market differentiation and improvement of business performance. It involves several phases, and the paper focuses on the knowledge creation and knowledge sharing. Also, a brief insight into the features of an organizational culture that supports knowledge management is provided. The goals of the research are to determine the levels of knowledge creation, knowledge sharing and knowledge-supporting organizational culture, in the Serbian banking sector. After the literature review, a survey was conducted and data was processed with a statistical method. The paper contributes to the literature both in the fields of banking management and knowledge management. The findings may be useful to bank managers, because the importance of knowledge management in banks is highlighted and practical guidelines for the improvement of less developed aspects of knowledge creation and sharing are provided.
The objective of this study is to explore the role and relevance of leaders’ gender in their choice of dominant leadership style in Serbian companies and institutions. The categories we use in our research are based on the two most popular classifications of leadership styles, established in Iowa and Ohio studies (which identified authoritarian, democratic and laissez-faire style and task-oriented or relationship-oriented leadership style respectively). For data collection we used a 31-statement questionnaire, applying the method of proportional stratified random sampling. The sample contained responses of 79 randomly selected respondents (leaders) from randomly selected organizations in Serbia. To determine whether there is statistically significant dependence between the identified dominant leadership styles and leaders’ gender we applied the Chi-square test of independence as a quantitative statistical method. Our results confirmed statistically significant interdependence between the observed pairs of categorical variables. More precisely, they indicated that female leaders incline towards task-oriented and authoritarian leadership styles, while male leaders prefer relationship-oriented and democratic styles.
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