Determinants of Knowledge Management Assimilation: An Empirical Investigation

Abstract

Knowledge management (KM) and its effective assimilation as an interrelated innovation are critical to the success of contemporary organizations, and have recently attracted increasing interest. The sources of influence on successful KM assimilation were explored via a study of Korean firms. A synthesis of previous studies that had utilized various theories to investigate KM variables yields six critical factors (i.e., knowledge worker, technical knowledge infrastructure, external knowledge linkage, knowledge strategy, internal knowledge climate, and knowledge management process), which facilitate KM assimilation. We then evaluated the effects of these critical factors on the level of KM assimilation, using responses from 187 Korean organizations that had already implemented enterprise-wide KM systems. Our findings show that four of the six variables were significantly related to KM assimilation. Interestingly, the KM process was found to be the most critical factor in the proliferation of KM activities across an organization, and knowledge strategy and external knowledge linkage were identified as insignificant ones for KM assimilation. The findings of this paper are expected not only to serve as early groundwork for researchers hoping to understand KM and its effective assimilation in organizations, but also to provide practitioners with guidelines as to how they can enhance their KM assimilation level, thus improving their organizational performance.