مفاهیم عملکرد فرایندهای مدیریت دانش: بررسی نقش قابلیت های زیربنایی و استراتژی کسب و کار

Knowledge management (KM) has attracted significant attention from researchers and practitioners as a facilitator of firm performance. Even though companies have implemented KM, they offers inconsistent support that KM enhances firm performance. Thus, we examine that KM process is a critical variable through which infrastructure capability and business strategy effect firm performance. Data from 135 firms provide empirical support for this issue. We found the roles of infrastructure capability and business strategy have a positive association with the KM process. We confirmed the relationship between KM and firm performance.

Knowledge is recognized as an important weapon for sustaining competitive advantage and improving performance. The twenty first century is the era of knowledge economy, in which most firms possess knowledge that enables them to improve firm performance. How does the firm enhance organizational capabilities to boost internal performance and external competitiveness through the creation of effective knowledge management is a critical task. Recent research interest in the information systems (IS) literature indicates that infrastructure capability (e.g., structure, culture, etc.) can enhance the knowledge management processes (Gold et al., 2001 and Lee and Choi, 2003). For example, Some enterprises emphasize organizational culture to build supportive knowledge sharing (Grant, 1996a and Grant, 1996b). Other firms improve the knowledge access to make the collect, storage, and exchange knowledge more accessible (Lee & Choi, 2003) and to integrate fragmented flows of knowledge (Gold et al., 2001). Infrastructure capability operates as a two-edged sword. Because organizational culture with traditional thinking tends to value existing relationship with firms or contact point persons as a standard of selecting products in comparison to knowledge-based culture with knowledge thinking focusing on attributes of products, knowledge management processes in knowledge-based culture can be more effective to improve firm performance. Considering the possibility of more powerful influence of knowledge management processes on firm performance in knowledge-based culture, IS research in knowledge-based culture is expected to show the process by which infrastructure capability translates into organization’s outcomes more definitely and to generalize successful knowledge management processes. The research of enterprise internal knowledge management also focuses on the connection of knowledge management and organization performance or the introduction through the effectiveness of knowledge management organization innovation (Andrew, Arvind, & Albert, 2001). Before, less attention is paid to the companies’ implementation of the strategy of knowledge management within the company and the influence of its related activities. On the other hand, the importance and the value of business strategy are highly valued. In contrast less study focuses on knowledge management process. Thus this research hopes, through the exploration of the infrastructure capability and business strategy to understand more deeply these two roles influencing on performance. Thus, the objectives of this paper are to suggest an integrative framework describing how infrastructure capability use translates into firm performance and to make a generalization of the mechanisms involved in the successful knowledge management processes. Specifically, we discussed some antecedents and outcomes of knowledge management processes. In our proposed model, we suggest that business strategy operates as an independent variable. Moreover, this study summarize model from the result of this in-depth case study, and to understand that the next step is to combine the infrastructure capability and business strategy in order to offer many industries to utilize knowledge management process to increase their competitiveness.

5.1. Discussion The advantages that the infrastructure capabilities bring can be described using four categories to reflect knowledge management processes: knowledge-based culture, structure, technology, and human resource. The knowledge-based culture has been proven to be supportive for knowledge-related processes. This structure grants the firm the necessary capability to adapt to a knowledge-intensive environment. Knowledge-based technology is important to establish new knowledge and provide rapid retrieval of knowledge resource. Knowledge-based employees play a very important role in shaping KM activities because they can be more innovative in various tasks. Companies can strictly control the variety of manufacturing costs in management and lower the operational costs so that companies can utilize cost strategy to win their counterparts in the early stage. The difference in which companies run their businesses is derived from cost control strategy. Only the possession of outstanding ability in knowledge management can support the companies to achieve continuing competitive advantages (Liebeskind, 1996). Focus strategy can obtain through market segmentation concentrating on targeted customers, targeted geographic range, and targeted channels to build market survival advantages. Thus, focus strategy is one important task. Also by the execution of knowledge management processes combining with corporate business strategy, companies can enhance their performance efficiency. Through knowledge management processes, companies can have more related information to provide high level of management to select and compare, and come out with more effective strategy to gain the utmost benefits for companies themselves. Besides, flattened organization structure will contribute more in knowledge accumulation and sharing, and makes organizations more flexible to adopt all kinds of different environments. In the process of knowledge integration, it will increase organization efficiency and eventually increase corporate value and competitiveness to help improve firm performance more obviously. 5.2. Implications and limitations Regression analysis used to study the relation of each research aspect to point out and proof previous built assumptions. Questionnaire analysis, is used to investigate the relation of each research aspect individually. After that, through individual case interview, the researcher, therefore, summarized the structure of knowledge management processes to establish the basis of research aspects. Among those aspects, the more flattened the organization is, the higher employees’ loyalty and in turn it helps the process of the sharing of knowledge to speed up. Furthermore, it helps to build a set of information system to store knowledge more effectively. Knowledge management has an advantage in establishing knowledge management processes in greater flexibility through the utilization of information technology and in turn to generate stronger competitive advantages for the firms. Also it will increase the gap from the competitors to catch up. There is partial proof in the influence of the characteristics of corporate management on knowledge management processes. Companies use different business strategy internally with various methods to execute knowledge management and to exhibit the partial influence of corporate business strategy’s on knowledge management processes. Companies obtain effective management system through the use of knowledge. In turn, the companies will benefit the increase of effectiveness in business strategy and therefore, the greater and more desirable performance can be gained. It is obvious that knowledge management processes have positive and outstanding influence on firm performance. Although the results are interesting and promising, they need to be viewed with caution because there are limitations in this research. This study focused on manufacturing firms. Thus, caution should be exercised in generalizing the results to other firms that have a different environment and competitive structure. This study also suggests several promising avenues for future research. First, the researchers should investigate the key factors in determining various type of knowledge management in different aspects. Second, this research’s interview cases are four computer companies and one optical lenses manufacturing firm. To other industries, this research’s result is not sufficient and therefore, not representable. Therefore, it leaves some room for future researchers to conduct future study with subjects from different industries. Third, this research only divides knowledge management processes into choice, access, storage, and sharing are made through those aspects. As to other knowledge management processes, this study does not dig deeply. Thus researchers recommend further research will have a focus on other processes and to investigate accordingly.