Information and Knowledge Management
ٖGolnessa Galyani-Moghaddam; Hosein Tavakoli; Reza Maleki
Abstract
In this study, the feasibility of establishing knowledge management with an Asian productivity approach in Islamic Publicity Organization was discussed. The main purpose of this study is to determine the possibility of establishing knowledge management in Islamic Publicity Organization with the approach ...
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In this study, the feasibility of establishing knowledge management with an Asian productivity approach in Islamic Publicity Organization was discussed. The main purpose of this study is to determine the possibility of establishing knowledge management in Islamic Publicity Organization with the approach of the Asian Productivity Organization (APO). The research method is descriptive survey and applied research. A standard questionnaire was used to collect information related to the assessment of the status of knowledge management implementation. Given that the aforementioned questionnaire has been standardized by the Asian Productivity Organization, its validity and reliability have been confirmed and there is no need to re-evaluate its validity and reliability. The questionnaire includes seven criteria. In the stage of collecting information about the background and theoretical foundations of the research, library studies have been used. The instrument used in this study is the Asian Productivity Organization Knowledge Management Readiness Questionnaire. The statistical population of this study includes all experts and specialists of Islamic Publicity Organization. The sample size in this study was determined using the counting method, which is done by 131 persons. According to the results of the questionnaires, the score of the Islamic Publicity Organization is the sum of the scores of seven indicators of leadership (15.51%), process (15.51%), people (14.54%), technology(17.57%), knowledge processes (15.27%), learning and innovation (15.27%) and knowledge management results (14.34%), 107.49 was obtained which shows this score The level of readiness of the Islamic Publicity Organization in the field of knowledge management is at the beginning level.
Knowledge Management
Reza Maleki; Mahdi Alipour-Hafezi; Sahar Yaghouti Pileroud
Abstract
Introduction
In today's competitive landscape, knowledge is recognized as a critical organizational asset and a key driver of success. Consequently, many organizations invest significantly in Knowledge Management (KM) initiatives. However, the success of these initiatives is not guaranteed by technology ...
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Introduction
In today's competitive landscape, knowledge is recognized as a critical organizational asset and a key driver of success. Consequently, many organizations invest significantly in Knowledge Management (KM) initiatives. However, the success of these initiatives is not guaranteed by technology alone; it is profoundly dependent on establishing a supportive organizational culture. While KM rests on three main pillars technology, processes, and people the human and cultural factors are paramount. A primary obstacle to KM implementation is the tendency for knowledge hoarding, driven by the belief that "knowledge is power." Therefore, fostering a "Knowledge Culture" an environment where creating, sharing, and utilizing knowledge are valued and encouraged as natural behaviors is essential. Experts like Liebowitz and Chen assert that up to 80% of KM success is attributable to people and culture.
The challenge for organizations is not merely implementing KM systems but cultivating this underlying culture. Changing organizational culture to embrace knowledge is often cited as one of the most difficult aspects of KM. Without a deep understanding of the factors that shape a knowledge culture, efforts to implement KM risk failure, leading to wasted resources and employee resistance. This study addresses this critical gap by aiming to systematically identify and prioritize the key factors that influence the development and sustenance of a knowledge culture within organizations. By doing so, it seeks to provide a robust framework to help organizations assess their cultural readiness and strategically enhance their knowledge environment.
Literature Review
Knowledge Management infrastructure is commonly conceptualized through models like Becerra-Fernandez's, which identifies three core components: technology, processes, and people. The "people" layer, encompassing culture, is consistently highlighted as the most critical. Knowledge culture is understood as a specific subset of organizational culture. It is defined as a way of organizational life that enables and motivates people to create, share, and utilize knowledge for the benefit and sustained success of the organization. It reflects the organization's values, beliefs, and behaviors concerning knowledge. Scholars such as Davenport and Prusak, and De Long and Fahey, have emphasized the inseparable link between culture and KM, noting that culture dictates what knowledge is valued, defines the relationship between individual and organizational knowledge, and shapes the social interactions through which knowledge is shared.
Given its importance, numerous studies have explored the factors influencing knowledge culture, though often in a fragmented, case-specific manner. Research by authors like Pahlavani et al. pointed to factors such as information systems, people, processes, and reward systems. Khairandish and Abtahi identified participation, learning, trust, and knowledge leadership. Studies by Niknam and Jafari, utilizing the Sarros et al. organizational culture profile, found significant correlations with KM and factors like performance orientation, competitiveness, and supportiveness. International research, such as that by Oliver and Kandadi, used case studies to identify ten major factors, including leadership, communication, and reward systems. Al-Alawi et al. highlighted trust, communication, and information systems as critical for knowledge sharing.
While these studies provide valuable insights, a comprehensive synthesis that consolidates these findings and provides a generalizable, prioritized list of factors remains absent from the literature. This research addresses this gap by employing a systematic meta-synthesis approach to integrate the findings of previous qualitative and quantitative studies.
Methodology
This applied research was conducted using a qualitative approach and employed the meta-synthesis method. Meta-synthesis is a systematic approach for integrating findings from multiple qualitative studies to develop a more comprehensive and holistic understanding of a phenomenon. This study specifically followed the seven-step model proposed by Sandelowski and Barroso. The research process began with formulating the primary research question regarding the factors affecting knowledge culture in organizations. Subsequently, a systematic literature review was conducted. Key Persian and English scientific databases were searched using keywords such as "knowledge culture," "knowledge-based culture," "organizational culture in knowledge management," and their Persian equivalents. In the initial screening, 95 studies were selected based on title relevance. After reviewing the abstracts, this number was refined. A final, in-depth content analysis of the full texts resulted in the selection of 24 highly relevant primary studies for the meta-synthesis. From these selected studies, data on the factors influencing knowledge culture, along with study characteristics, were extracted and coded. The extracted codes were then analyzed, compared, and synthesized into broader thematic categories representing the key factors. Finally, to prioritize these factors, they were scored based on three indicators: frequency of occurrence across the studies, recency of the studies, and the factor's direct relevance to knowledge culture, organizational culture, and knowledge management.
Results
The meta-synthesis of the 24 selected studies led to the identification of 47 distinct factors that influence knowledge culture in organizations. These factors encompass a wide range of organizational dimensions, from leadership and strategy to individual behaviors and technological infrastructure. Examples include leadership, trust, reward systems, communication, organizational structure, learning, and information technology. To determine the most critical factors, each of the 47 factors was scored based on frequency, recency, and relevance. This prioritization process revealed that 11 factors stood out as having the most significant impact. Topping the list with the highest score was Reward Systems, followed closely by Education, Learning, and Empowerment. Supportiveness and Trust secured the next positions, underscoring the importance of a safe and encouraging environment. Creativity and Innovation, along with Communication, formed the next tier of highly influential factors. Performance Orientation, Stability, and Competitiveness followed, all achieving identical scores that reflect their consistent, albeit slightly less frequent, mention in the literature. Leadership, while often considered paramount, ranked tenth in this specific prioritization, suggesting its influence may be channeled through other factors. Finally, Information and Communication Technology, though essential as an enabler, ranked eleventh, confirming the consensus that technology is a necessary but insufficient condition for KM success.
Discussion
The findings of this meta-synthesis provide a consolidated and prioritized framework for understanding the drivers of knowledge culture. By integrating results from 24 previous studies, it moves beyond single-case insights to offer a more generalizable model. The top-ranked factor, Reward Systems, underscores the fundamental principle that behavior is driven by incentives. Organizations seeking to promote knowledge sharing must align their reward structures to recognize and reinforce such behaviors, moving away from traditional systems that may inadvertently reward knowledge hoarding. The high priority of Education, Learning, and Empowerment highlights that a knowledge culture is not a static state but a dynamic process requiring continuous development. Employees need not only the skills to manage knowledge but also the autonomy and motivation to do so.
This is closely linked to Supportiveness, which implies a managerial and organizational environment that encourages experimentation and views mistakes as learning opportunities. Trust, another top-tier factor, is the social glue that enables open communication and sharing, as without it, employees are unlikely to share their valuable knowledge. Interestingly, while Leadership is often cited as paramount, its ranking suggests that its influence might be channeled through more direct mechanisms like creating supportive structures, building trust, and establishing effective reward systems. The position of ICT confirms that the cultural and human elements are the true differentiators in fostering a successful knowledge culture.
Conclusion
This study successfully identified and prioritized 11 critical factors that significantly influence the development of a knowledge culture in organizations. The findings offer a robust, evidence-based framework for both researchers and practitioners. For managers, this prioritized list provides a clear diagnostic tool. Organizations can assess their current standing on these 11 dimensions to identify strengths and weaknesses, enabling a more focused and strategic approach to fostering a knowledge-conducive environment. By addressing these core factors starting with reward systems, learning opportunities, and building trust organizations can significantly enhance their readiness for successful KM implementation, thereby improving innovation, performance, and competitive advantage. This research contributes to the field by synthesizing fragmented knowledge into a cohesive and prioritized model, offering a foundation for future research to empirically test and refine these relationships in various organizational contexts.
Acknowledgment
The author would like to thank all the researchers whose valuable work formed the basis of this meta-synthesis, and all those who provided support and guidance throughout this study.
Information and Knowledge Management
Reyhaneh Izadian; ٖGolnessa Galyani-Moghaddam; Reza Maleki
Abstract
1.Introduction Knowledge is the axis of value creation in today's organizations. Knowledge management as a strategic capital of an organization is considered the most important organizational advantage. On the other hand, the importance of sharing the experiences of librarians to each other in order ...
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1.Introduction Knowledge is the axis of value creation in today's organizations. Knowledge management as a strategic capital of an organization is considered the most important organizational advantage. On the other hand, the importance of sharing the experiences of librarians to each other in order to perform their professional duties, shows the role of knowledge transfer and sharing methods among librarians. These days, improving the performance of the organization is a response from an organization to face the challenges that arise from the rapid global transformations. From the organization's point of view, this challenge includes responding to the needs of customers and providing goods or services with a high degree of efficiency and in an efficient and effective manner. From the perspective of organizational members, this challenge includes improving the quality of work life. So that the organization is a pleasant and satisfying place for work and effort.This paper examines the state of knowledge sharing among managers and librarians of public libraries in the city of Ahvaz. Every organization has its own culture, which is influenced by the culture of the organization's people. In this research, it has tried to measure the effect of culture on knowledge sharing in the form of components such as competition, motivation, support, cooperation, trust, etc.Research questions are:What is the culture of knowledge sharing among the employees (librarians and managers) of Ahvaz public libraries?What are the different methods of sharing knowledge among the employees (librarians and managers) of public libraries in Ahvaz?What is the status of information and communication technologies for sharing knowledge among public libraries in Ahvaz? Literature Review Literature review shows that there is a positive and significant relationship between organizational culture and knowledge sharing in many studies. For example, a study by Burnette (2017) aims to explore the nature of tacit knowledge (TK) sharing among library colleagues, with a focus on the characteristics of TK and contextual factors such as organizational culture or the mentor/mentee relationship. Three thematic areas emerged. First are the influence of organizational culture and the importance of trust in knowledge sharing behavior. Second, the value of teamwork and the significance of mentor/mentee roles surface as significant drivers of TK exchange. Last but not least is a better understanding of the nature of TK, as it relates to types of knowledge and characterizations of experience and expertise. Methodology This is an applied research and has been done by survey. The statistical population was all employees (managers and librarians) of public libraries in Ahvaz City and the implementation time was 2022. A researcher-made questionnaire was used to collect data, and the content validity of the questionnaire was obtained by experts' opinion and its reliability using Cronbach's alpha (0.90) and dividing it into two halves (0.85). In analyzing the questionnaire data, descriptive statistics techniques were used for demographics, and techniques such as one-sample t-test and Friedman's rank average test were used for the questionnaire's inferential questions. ResultsIn terms of the components of sharing culture, the competition between employees for sharing knowledge with the highest average (3.16) has the best status, and the managers' motivation to share knowledge with other libraries is the lowest with an average of 2.70. Also, the state of knowledge sharing in terms of different methods of knowledge sharing shows that the most favorable state is related to courses and workshops with an average of 3.55, followed by the enterprise resource planning (ERP) with 3.51, as well as the quality of personal communication and informal among librarians with an average of 3.26. The findings show the status of knowledge sharing and communication technology from the point of view of the managers and librarians of public libraries in the city. For instance, while training courses and workshops and personal and informal communication between librarians, as well as administrative automation are good, other things such as employee performance and the culture of knowledge sharing are less favorable. Cases were found where there was a lack of awareness of the importance of knowledge sharing and a lack of organizational support. Conclusion The results of the current research show that information and communication technology and then knowledge-sharing methods are in a more suitable situation than the categories of employee behavior and knowledge-sharing culture. According to the findings regarding the knowledge-sharing methods, where Friedman's test was used, the highest average rating was given to the method of sharing and exchanging knowledge from courses and workshops with an average rating of 9.63 with a deviation of 0.78. The next ranks were administrative automation system with an average rank of 9.43 and personal and informal communication between librarians with an average rank of 8.46. Finally, the knowledge management system with an average rating of 5.36, publications and bulletins with an average rating of 5.30, and public libraries with an average rating of 4.67, have the lowest average, which should be used by examining the problem of the degree of its solution. Overall, this study shows there is a need to improve information technology and the culture of knowledge sharing.
