A study of the determinants of executive knowledge management

Abstract

Knowledge as a source of competitive advantage has been discussed by many researchers in recent times. Managing knowledge hence has been considered to be a critical activity of the firm that has to survive in a highly competitive environment. While information technology facilitates search and retrieval of documented knowledge, the individual specific and interpretative nature of knowledge makes management of knowledge a human resource management problem. Literature on knowledge management can be traced from organizational learning literature to case studies in knowledge management. But the focus has hardly been on the individual, especially on the motivation of the individual to learn and to share his/her knowledge. This sharing of the individual‘s knowledge with the group is a more significant activity from the viewpoint of the organization as this activity forms the crucial linkage between individual knowledge and organizational knowledge. The knowledge that is created (in incremental terms and hence termed accretion) has to be utilized to be of any use to the organization. The study focuses on the management of knowledge by an executive, viz. knowledge accretion, and knowledge sharing and knowledge utilization. The study proposes a list of dispositional and situational variables that affect the three processes. While the organizational variables, like openness, trust, willingness to experiment, and the development orientation, performance orientation and teamwork orientation of human resource policies affect the three processes at the organizational level, dispositional variables viz. a learning goal orientation, high managerial aspirations and individual expectations viz. reciprocity, recognition and need to build social networks were also proposed to determine EKM. The determining factors were deduced from literature and authenticated by interviews with executives. An instrument was prepared to measure EKM, and a survey was conducted with 288 executives across six organizations. Bivariate correlations show that the data supports the hypotheses. Multiple regression analysis with the organizational variables and person-related variables as independent variables, and the three components of executive knowledge management as dependent variables, showed multicollinearity problems. The organizational factors had high inter-correlations. To handle the problem of multicollinearity, the independent variables were subjected to a principal component analysis. The PCA extracted three factors, viz. organizational facilitation for KM, learning orientation and managerial aspirations of the executive, all of which were statistically significant, in determining executive knowledge management behavior. For Executive knowledge sharing, expectations from knowledge sharing emerged as an additional factor. The study has implications for research and practice. This study’s significance lies in its effort to establish the relationship between human resource variables and executive knowledge management empirically. The study also throws up dispositional variables that affect EKM. While culture has been discussed as the most significant determinant of knowledge sharing, this study shows that individual expectations from sharing knowledge also play a very significant role in knowledge sharing.