روابط بین اینرسی دانش، یادگیری سازمانی و نوآوری در سازمان

Both as power and a resource, knowledge is a significant asset both for individuals and organizations. Thus, knowledge management has become one of the important issues for enterprises. However, when facing problems, people generally resort to their prior knowledge and experience for solutions. Such routine problem-solving strategy is termed “knowledge inertia”. This study aims to establish the constructs of knowledge inertia and examine the relationships between knowledge inertia, organizational learning and organizational innovation. Structural equation modeling is employed to discuss the degree of influence each construct has on each other and whether their relationships vary in different organization types. A questionnaire survey was conducted to collect data from government organizations as well as state-run and private enterprises. A total of 485 valid responses were collected. Our results reveal that knowledge inertia comprises both learning inertia and experience inertia. The relationships between the three variables are as follows. First, knowledge inertia exerts a mediating effect on organizational innovation through organizational learning. Second, when a firm's members have either less learning inertia or more experience inertia, the performance of the organizational learning will be better.

Both as power and a resource, knowledge is strategically important for individuals and enterprises. The third industrial revolution is based on knowledge which changes the way an individual, an enterprise or even a nation can create wealth and prosperity. Thus, successful knowledge management can be the chief determinant for the survival of an enterprise in a knowledge-based economy. Since the 1990s, there has been much interest in the exploration of knowledge management and the development of knowledge management theories. Nonaka (1994) proposed a theory of organizational knowledge creation where enterprises are encouraged to adopt novel ideas while reforming old operational procedures and creating new ones. Innovations are the prerequisite of knowledge creation and the essence of knowledge management. Faced with an ever-changing environment, innovations provide an enterprise with flexibility for changes, which is the key to its survival and success. Drucker (1985) considers knowledge the only source of an enterprise's competitive advantage. Hence, to meet current challenges, enterprises should seek ways to strengthen the research and development of knowledge, to manage it efficiently and to utilize it effectively. Nevertheless, hurdles to efficient and effective knowledge management are many. Using the principles of inertia in physics to knowledge management, Liao (2002) states that knowledge inertia may inhibit an organization's capability to learn and solve problems. Often routine problem-solving procedures are adopted to save time and effort as well as to avoid risks. Stagnant knowledge sources and obsolete prior experience result in the same solutions and approaches being employed to deal with problems. Such predictability in management behavior may make an enterprise more risk in a highly vulnerable competitive environment. Inertia not only has negative impact on knowledge utilization, but may also disclose an enterprise's commercial secrets and strategies. In other words, organizations showing inertia in thinking and policy-making may suffer loss and failure. This further highlights the importance of innovations in knowledge management and that enterprises should devote efforts to avoid inertia. The theory of knowledge inertia proposed by Liao (2002) has not been tested empirically. Therefore, this research attempts to establish the constructs of knowledge inertia using principal analysis and examines the relationships between knowledge inertia, organizational learning and organizational innovation with structural equation modeling approach. The sample of organizations studied includes government organizations (officials on central and regional government) as well as state-run and private enterprises (manufacturing and services industry).

This research examines the relationships between knowledge inertia, organizational learning and organizational innovation and the impact of knowledge inertia on organizational learning and organizational behavior. Our findings reveal that knowledge inertia exerts a complete mediating effect on organizational innovation through organization learning. In addition, this study shows that organization members with substantial learning inertia will undermine the organization's commitment to learning, shared vision and open-mindedness. On the other hand, organization members with great experience inertia will enhance the performance of the organization on commitment to learning, shared vision and open-mindedness. According to the above, learning inertia has negative effect on organizational learning while experience inertia has positive influence on organizational learning. Thus, this paper suggest that when assessing and formulating measures for promoting organizational innovation, organizations should consider the mediator variable of organizational learning to avoid misjudgment and achieve better performance. On the other hand, this study finds no evidence of organization type exerting moderating effect on the impact of knowledge inertia on organizational learning. However, the relationship between organization type and organizational learning could merit further exploration on this research issue. The contributions of this study lie in offering new directions of exploration and widening the scope of knowledge management and organization studies.