The impact of organizational structure on knowledge management processes in Egyptian context

Abstract

Knowledge management is recognized as important weapon for sustaining competitive advantage and improving performance. The evaluation of knowledge management (KM) performance has become increasingly important since it provides the reference for directing the organizations to enhance their performance and competitiveness. Also, working together involves interdependence, and people must therefore depend on others in various ways to accomplish their personal and organizational goal. This study aims to investigate the difference between manufacturing sector and service sector in Egypt as regards the impact of Organizational Structure dimensions on Knowledge Management activities. The study is carried out through administering questionnaires to 211 employees (110 employees from manufacturing sector and 101 employees from sector companies) from 7 organizations (4 manufacturing organizationsand 3 service organizations). The questionnaire consists of three parts. First part contains personal information. Second part contains Knowledge Management capabilities such as knowledge creation, sharing and utilization. Third part measures the organizational structure dimensions. The statements are assessed by using Likert scale of five points scale ranging from 1 - “highly agree” to 5 - “highly disagree”. The questionnaire was developed on the basis of some previous studies. In order to assess the reliability, the reliability coefficient was calculated by using Cranbach’s alpha that the values of cronbach’s alpha for the variables under study exceed 0.6, which is an acceptable level for the reliability of the variables. There are two variables in the present study:the independent variable is Organizational Structure dimensions, and the dependent variable is Knowledge Management. This study will find out the effect of Organizational Structure dimensions on Knowledge Management in manufacturing and service sectors. This study has multilevel units of analysis which are organizational structure dimensions and knowledge management activities, while the unit of observation is the employees working in the companies in both sectors. Collecting and analyzing data based on correlation coefficient of Pearson and hierarchal regression showed that there was a direct relationship between organizational structure dimensions and knowledge management more in service sector than the product sector and opened up new questions to be explored by future research. Knowledge management activities in product sector are predicted by centralization and integration dimensions. Also, in service sector, knowledge management activities arehighly predicted by centralization, integration and complexity. For the future research endeavors, it is recommended to investigate the impact of demographic characteristics as control variables and the cultural dimensions on the relationship between organizational structure dimensions and knowledge management activities. It is also recommended to measure the effect of other organizational dimensions such asprofessionalism, personnel ratios

Supportive Drivers of Organizational Knowledge Management: A Case Study from Egypt

“…Human resources are the basic valuable references for knowledge creation in the organization which require to search and combine effectively their heterogeneous valuable knowledge. Wahba (2015) points out three main KM processes as follows:…”

“…There is a crucial role of HRM to explore the tacit knowledge, to guide the best utilization of this knowledge and to ensure the alignment of KM with the business success' directions (Soliman, 2000). To set a strategy, Wahba (2015) identifies main dimensions of KM practices: first is the ability to find and to share the existing knowledge; second is the ability to create new knowledge; third is setting a culture that promotes the KM which involves the managerial activities to acquire, create, store, share, diffuse, develop, and deploy knowledge. Many of the benefits of KM are intangible and hard to be measured.…”

“…There is a significant relationship between organizational structures and KM. Organizational structure can positively enhance KM initiative if organizational structure reflects less centralization, less formalization, and more work integration (Wahba 2015;Sunalai 2015).The availability of advanced technologies also supports the KM initiatives as it assists sharing easily the knowledge as well as the overall implementation of KM programs. The technological infrastructure should be people intensive to manage the knowledge of human resources in the organization.…”

“…Moreover for supporting the implementation of a KM program, the organization should consider creating a position or a leadership role to manage the process as a chief knowledge officer or a KM manager to embed the KM discipline in the organization's culture and structure. Still the HR department should create the job description for the role of KM chief officer or manager, adding to select the right person to implement the KM strategy (Soliman 2000;Wahba 2015). Accordingly the HR department is really crucial to drive successfully the KM processes.…”

“…However, there is still lack of consensus and even confusion that still may exist regarding what can constitute Knowledge Management (KM) concept (Wahba 2015;Tomas, 2003). KM has gained recently a growing attention to enhance and support the knowledge creation and sharing within organizations for achieving better organizational performance (Wu 2013;Chowdhury 2016).…”