The effect of organizational culture and leadership style on knowledge management in selected research organizations

Knowledge management is a comprehensive approach for organizations to achieve organizational effectiveness and is of an increasing importance as the most principal competitive advantage amongst organizations. The successful implementation of the knowledge management process can affect the organization’s performance. In accordance with the theoretical and conceptual issues, organizational culture and leadership style are considered as the factors influencing on the knowledge management activities. The main propose of the current paper is to identify the role of organizational culture and leadership style in the knowledge management process (KMP). To this end, this process as a dependent variable is made up of four dimensions, which can be named as knowledge creation, organization, sharing, and application. On the other side, the organizational culture and leadership style are considered as independent variables. Organizational culture consists of four dimensions, i.e. participatory, innovative, rational, and stability culture, while leadership style comprises of two dimensions, which are supportive and command leadership. This research is a descriptive survey. The sample size was 224 employees in four selected research centers and a questionnaire containing 52 questions was employed. The questionnaire’s reliability coefficients were obtained by Cronbach alpha coefficients and the questionnaire validity was confirmed by knowledge management experts. In each organization, the sample volume was calculated based on the Cochran’s formula. The statistical sample consisted of experts, researchers, and managers from four selected research organizations. It can be claimed that by considering the obtained results and the knowledge management status in these organizations, their competitive advantage can be enhanced. The analysis results indicated the type of organizational culture and it was shown that the leadership style is of a significant effect on the dimensions of knowledge management process. The findings confirmed that participatory culture influences on the knowledge management process. It was also perceived that the stability culture has a positive and significant relationship with knowledge organization. Moreover, based on the findings, the rational culture has a significant positive effect on two dimensions of the knowledge management process. The results demonstrated that command leadership has a great effect on the KM process. In addition, supportive leadership style is positively correlated with the three dimensions of the knowledge management process.