Title : A Research Agenda for the Relationships between Culture and Knowledge Management

Author : William. R. King

Summary

This article explores the relationships between culture and Knowledge Management. The author notes that although the theme culture is very prevalent in KM literature and culture has been recognized to have a very important role to play in organization KM, the various relationships between different aspects of culture has not been empirically tested. This article attempts to integrate the different cultural aspects like national culture, organizational culture, organization climate, sub unit and organizational sub cultures, and team climate and develop a research agenda to explore their composite effect on KM. After clearly establishing the theoretical background by examining all the above mentioned aspects, the author proceeds to examine the role of these cultural aspects on KM and vice versa.
National culture (NC) influences the way people belonging to a particular society behave. This will manifest in the risk taking aptitude of a person and influences knowledge sharing behaviour which is associated with risk taking. Organizational Culture (OC) has cognitive, post-cognitive and behavioural impacts which influence aspects such as willingness to search and notice, searching and noticing, and willingness to form new patterns of cognitive association. According to the author, OC also influences the way rules and understandings of ownership of knowledge are formed within the organization. Finally, OC influences KM by affecting the norms of social interaction. Further, the author also briefly addresses the impact of KM on culture and alerts researchers to avoid neglecting relationships in which KM is the independent variable and culture is the dependant one.
Finally, the author presents a research agenda by tabulating the impact of NC, organizational and sub unit culture or climate (OC) on individuals, teams and the overall organization from which research questions could be developed.


Review

This article is highly structured and organized with clearly laid out headings and sub headings which provide for a logical and coherent reading. The theoretical background is established well through an extensive literature review and the premise is well developed. However, while tying it in with the relationships to KM, it so appears that not all the cultural aspects detailed in the theoretical background are explored well enough. The major cultural aspects discussed are NC and OC. The author more or less uses the umbrella term OC to incorporate organizational culture, climate, sub unit culture, team culture etc. whereas there was a mention in the article that all these would be dealt with separately. But I would think a convincing research agenda was developed and possible research questions that could be explored is presented successfully by the author.

By Githin George for Knowledge Regiment