The Complicated Relations to the Adoption of Knowledge Management

Abstract: Knowledge is regarded as an essential asset in organizations. It plays an important role in building organizational core knowledge grounded on competences that give competitive advantages to the organizations to outperform their competitors. However, the adoption of knowledge management is associated to other factors such as the perceived usefulness of knowledge management, environmental uncertainty and organizational structure. In this research, we employ quantitative research methodology particularly using factor analyses and structural equation modeling analyses to investigate the relationships associated with the adoption of knowledge management. Further, we apply Sobel's procedure to explore the mediating role of the perception toward the usefulness of knowledge management. The findings reveal that the adoption of knowledge management is statistically associated with the perceived usefulness of knowledge management, organizational structure and environmental uncertainty. There are statistically significant mediating effects of the perceived usefulness of knowledge management on the relationships of adopting knowledge management with organizational structure as well as with environmental uncertainty. This research has some implications on how the managers, facing different types of organizational structure and different levels of environmental uncertainty should adopt knowledge management in business.