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Organizational culture and knowledge management processes: case study in a public university

Iman M. Adeinat (Department of Business Administration, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia)
Fatheia H. Abdulfatah (Department of Management Information Systems, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia)

VINE Journal of Information and Knowledge Management Systems

ISSN: 2059-5891

Article publication date: 22 January 2019

Issue publication date: 5 March 2019

5400

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine knowledge management interrelationships in higher education institutions and to assess the impact of the university’s culture on knowledge management processes: creation, dissemination, exchange and application.

Design/methodology/approach

The proposed model establishes the relationships between organizational culture (OC) and knowledge management processes in a single framework. The study used the organizational culture assessment instrument to determine the culture type and used structural equation modeling to assess the underlying relationships between knowledge management process and OC.

Findings

The results of the factor analysis used in this study suggest that adhocracy organizational culture, in which an organization is characterized by emphasis on individual initiative and employee empowerment, may not necessarily affect all knowledge management processes equally. In particular, an organization’s culture principally influences the knowledge creation process, followed by knowledge exchange, in a public university setting.

Originality/value

The study provides a comprehensive outlook on the effect of adhocracy culture in higher education on the knowledge management process through the lens of one cultural context. In addition, this is the first study that explores the OC effect on knowledge management process in a Saudi public university.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This Project was funded by the Deanship of Scientific Research (DSR) at King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, under grant no. (G-566-245-37). The authors, therefore, acknowledge with thanks DSR technical and financial support.

Citation

Adeinat, I.M. and Abdulfatah, F.H. (2019), "Organizational culture and knowledge management processes: case study in a public university", VINE Journal of Information and Knowledge Management Systems, Vol. 49 No. 1, pp. 35-53. https://doi.org/10.1108/VJIKMS-05-2018-0041

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited

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