ارزیابی جامع بودن شیوه های مدیریت دانش Assessing the universality of knowledge management practices

Introduction Value creation has shifted from tangible factors, such as financial capital, land, and machinery, to intangible resources of production, such as knowledge (see Penrose, 1959; Barney, 1991; Kogut and Zander, 1992; Grant, 1996; Spender and Grant, 1996; Del Giudice and Maggioni, 2014). The debate surrounding KM has gained momentum during the past two decades, emerging as a significant avenue for management research. KM deals with the practices and processes that enable efficient and effective management of knowledge resources (Alavi and Leidner, 2001; Garrido-Moreno et al., 2014; Chen and Fong, 2015). Empirical, firm-level KM research has focused on two areas: One has examined how generic knowledge processes (e.g. knowledge sharing, acquisition and creation) are linked with firm performance outcomes (Darroch, 2005; Chen et al., 2010; Lee et al., 2013; Del Giudice and Maggioni, 2014; Garrido-Moreno et al., 2014; Ferraris et al., 2017). The other avenue has investigated the interconnection between KM practices and performance outcomes (Singh, 2008; Chen and Huang, 2009; Hsu et al., 2014; Inkinen et al., 2015; Ardito and Messeni Petruzzelli, 2017). In a fundamental divergence from knowledge processes, KM practices are purposeful organizational and managerial activities aimed at managing the organizational knowledge resources (Foss and Michailova, 2009; Foss and Minbaeva, 2009; Andreeva and Kianto, 2012; Kianto and Andreeva, 2014). KM practices range from usage patterns of information technology (IT) tools and media to recruitment principles and non-disclosure agreements. They span organizational functions from human resources (HR) to research and development (R&D) and marketing (see Andreeva and Kianto, 2012; Lin and Kuo, 2007; Hurmelinna-Laukkanen, 2011). Understanding the structure of KM practices in firms enables researchers and practitioners to grasp the constitution of organizational activities related to KM. This understanding helps in designing and implementing development and change activities. Ultimately, researchers have argued that the development and implementation of KM practices increases organizational performance, competitiveness and innovativeness (see Chuang et al., 2013; Garrido-Moreno et al., 2014; Inkinen et al., 2015; Kamhawi, 2012). As managers, organization developers and consultants understand, develop and utilize KM practices, they may be more efficient and effective at designing and implementing interventions and at making decisions to improve the leveraging and utilization of knowledge. While studies have categorized KM practices into several key areas, they have reached no consensus concerning these areas. For example, Heisig (2009) compared 160 KM models and proposed grouping the most-studied KM success factors into human-oriented, organizationoriented, technology-oriented, and management process-oriented categories.