A comprehensive analysis of knowledge management in Indian manufacturing companies

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to ascertain the current status of knowledge management (KM) adoption in the Indian manufacturing organizations and to develop a comprehensive research model to investigate the impact of enabling conditions for KM and the impact of KM on organizational performance through structural equation modelling. Design/methodology/approach A descriptive research design is adopted and primary data are collected through structured questionnaire. In total, 251 responses were obtained from the top- and middle-level managers and the structural relationships in the research model were tested using the partial least squares method. Findings The results revealed a moderate adoption of KM by the manufacturing companies. Also, a significant impact of the enablers on KM processes is observed. It is found that Indian manufacturing is operating in labour-intensive traditional methods and KM is still in its infancy. The impact of KM on the performance is moderate and contradicting the extant literature, the impact of KM on innovation is found to be weak. Research limitations/implications The study is carried out in companies located in India and hence generalizing the findings should be done with caution. The sample is dominated by small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) which may have implications for the findings. Practical implications As manufacturing companies in the developing countries such as India experience a greater competition in the globalized economy, adoption of KM will perk up the performance of the organizations. Practicing managers need to create a culture that facilitates KM adoption. Policy makers shall support SMEs in technology adoption, R&D, skill development and so on. Originality/value Previous KM studies in India are fragmented and analysed KM processes and KM enablers in isolation. Also, the holistic studies on KM literature focussed only on one or two facets of KM. A study which investigates the interactions between KM enablers, KM processes and organizational performance and innovation is scarce. The scarcity of empirical studies on KM and a dearth of understanding of the KM concept led to this maiden attempt to provide a comprehensive understanding of KM framework in the Indian manufacturing sector. A validated structured questionnaire for exploring KM practices in the Indian context is developed. Though the importance of the influence of external factors is theoretically emphasized, an empirical investigation is first of its kind.

Linking knowledge management processes to innovation

“…A number of empirical studies have investigated the relationship between knowledge management and innovation (KM-IN) (Abro et al, 2009;Obeidat et al, 2016;Yusr et al, 2017;Dzenopoljac et al, 2018;Turulja and Bajgori c, 2018). In addition to shedding light on the direct relationship, empirical investigations have tested how contextual factors (Darroch, 2005;Migdadi et al, 2017;Obeidat et al, 2016) and antecedents (Hsu and Sabherwal, 2012;Mageswari et al, 2017;Yusr et al, 2017), moderators (Chen et al, 2010) and mediators (Alegre et al, 2013;Costa and Monteiro, 2016;Shujahat et al, 2019) influence KM-IN.…”

“…Country is controlled based on the premise that national culture influences the behaviour of persons, groups, and entities (Darroch, 2005). Hence, to name but a few, papers have investigated the KM-IN relationship using data from Iran (Shahraki and Keshtegar, 2016), United Kingdom (Abro et al, 2009), France (Alegre et al, 2013), Pakistan (Hassan and Raziq, 2019), Portugal (Costa and Monteiro, 2016), Spain (Fidel et al, 2016), Germany (Pawlowsky and Schmid, 2012), Jordan (Migdadi et al, 2017;Obeidat et al, 2016), Taiwan (Chen and Huang, 2009;Hsu and Sabherwal, 2012), India (Mageswari et al, 2017), Malaysia (Yusr et al, 2017) and New Zealand (Darroch, 2005).…”

The Impact of Knowledge Management on Service Quality of News Researcher in XYZ Television

“…It can be divided into knowledge creation, incorporation and dissemination. Similar to this view, this paper proposes that the KM lifecycle can be divided into four main types [12] Although these types, to some extent, are interrelated and overlapping, they can be distinguished individually because of their different focus. Each of the four KM processes is briefly explained below.…”

Realising the value of knowledge resources and capabilities: an empirical study

“…KM process capabilities refer to the ability of firms in "acquiring knowledge, converting it into a useful form, applying or using it, and protecting it" (Gold et al, 2001, p. 190). Various perspectives of KM processes identified in the literature include discover/generate/create/acquire, capture, codify, coordinate/collaborate, accumulate/integrate, transfer, store, share, access, represent, use/apply and deploy/ exploit (Mageswari et al, 2017;Pentland, 1995;Wu and Chen, 2014;Zaim et al, 2007). However, there is growing consensus in the knowledge management literature that KM process capabilities is a composite construct that captures a firm's ability in four facets: knowledge acquisition, conversion, application and protection (Gold et al, 2001;Mills and Smith, 2011;Granados et al, 2017).…”