An Empirical Study of the Impact of Knowledge Management Capabilities on Organizational Performance

지식경영능력이 조직성과에 미치는 영향에 관한 실증적 연구

Knowledge Management (KM) is the systematic, explicit, and deliberate building, renewal, and application of knowledge to maximize an enterprise's knowledge-related effectiveness and performance from its knowledge assets. KM applies systematic approaches to find, understand, and use knowledge to create new capabilities, solve problems, enable superior performance, and encourage innovation. The purpose of this research is to identify the relationship of KM capabilities (KM infrastructures and KM processes) and organizational effectiveness and performance. An empirical research of the relationship of knowledge management capabilities and organizational effectiveness and performance is conducted from the information systems and knowledge management literature in order to access the following questions: (1) Does the knowledge management infrastructure contribute to the organizational effectiveness and peformance? (2) Does the knowledge management process contribute to the organizational effectiveness and peformance? The research design employs a mail survey questionnaire for gathering data from 500 firms in a number of industries. From a mail survey of 61 top managers of knowledge management, the results of empirical analyses provide the following major findings: (1) While the external effectiveness of organization is influenced by the cultural infrastructure of knowledge management, the overall performance of organization is influenced by the structural infrastructure of knowledge management. (2) While the external effectiveness of organization is influenced by the application and protection processes of knowledge management, the overall performance of organization is influenced by the knowledge acquisition process of knowledge management.