VINE characterize the whole organization and describe the organizational setting and

38,1 influences and shapes the structural dimensions. Contextual dimensions can be
envisioned as a set of overlapping elements that underline an organization’s structure
and work processes (Daft, 2001).
As we think KM and organizational dimensions are most interdependent and we
can say they influence and affect each other in organizations. For example five main
56 components of KM infrastructure are Organizational Culture, Organizational
Structure, Communities of Practice, Information Technology Infrastructure, and
Common Knowledge (Becerra-Fernandez et al., 2005). As a shown in Figure 1 we
assume that KM and contextual dimensions of organizations interact with each other,
let us explain these interactions.

Size
Size is the organization’s magnitude as reflected in the number of people in the
organization. Because organizations are social systems, size is typically measured by
the number of employees. Other measures such as total sales or total assets also reflect
magnitude, but they do not indicate the size of the human part of the social system
(Daft, 2001).
An interesting result of O’Sullivan’s research was the impact that organization size
had on the analysis of the utilization of KM technologies in managing intellectual
capital. Organizations with more than 10,000 people have success rates for the use of
KM technologies that are different from those of smaller organizations (O’Sullivan,
2005). Nevertheless there is little research about size of organization and its relation
with KM; so as a KM has an impact on organizational culture and structure, thereby it
must be has an indirect impact on size of organization, and we have surveyed this
relation on the questionnaire with KM experts.

Figure 1.
Conceptual framework of
KM and contextual
dimensions of
organizations
Organizational technology Knowledge
Organizational technology refers to the tools, techniques, and action used to transform management
inputs into outputs. It concerns how the organization actually produces the products
and services it provides for customers and includes such things as computer-aided perspective
manufacturing, advanced information systems, and the internet (Daft, 2001).
For over 30 years we have witnessed discussions on the role of computers inside the
knowledge process. Herbert Simon (Blackler, 1995) believes that computer may parallel 57
human thought and thus may produce some knowledge in the future. Dreyfus (1986),
on the contrary, believes otherwise and argues that living beings are the only creators
and holders on knowledge. Blackler (1995) adapts and extends Collins (1993)
knowledge types and suggests that there exists “embrained”, “embodied”,
“encultured”, “embedded”, and “encoded” knowledge. Therefore, he argues,
knowledge may reside in humans but also in groups of people, in organizations, in
routines, and in software (Ferran-Urdaneta, 1999).
The implementation of a KM system (KMS) enables the effective application of
management best practices and information technology tools to deliver the best
available knowledge to the right person, at just the right time, to solve a problem, make
a decision, capture expertise, and so forth, while performing their work. However the
adoption of KM technologies and tools is only a small part of the solution when
considering the desired outcome of the enterprise. A successful KMS involves more
than just implementing a new technology that can be acquired in a “box”; it requires
understanding and integrating its human aspects and the culture in which it operates
(Román-Velázquez, 2005). Also traditional methods and technology are thought as
ineffective to solve the “knowledge problem” and a “holistic” view is called upon
(theories of behavior of large-scale systems are often invoked); although it’s the
processes that matter, not the technology (de Oliveira Barroso and Gomes, 1998).
Some researchers define these critical success factors of KM implementation:
technical and organizational infrastructure; multiple channels for knowledge transfer;
technology (Network) (Trussler, 1999); knowledge repositories of knowledge
(Davenport and Prusak, 1998).
Bixler expresses some of potential impacts of KM on the technological concepts of
organizations, like impact on product/service reliability and maintainability,
product/service ease of use (user friendly), product/service quality, product/service
compatibility and interoperability, ability for the enterprise to identify and assimilate
new technologies, integration of related technologies across the organization, and
impact on the ability to create a legacy database of knowledge, in particular working
knowledge (Bixler, 2005).

Environment
The environment includes all elements outside the boundary of the organization. Key
elements include the industry, government, costumers, suppliers, trading partners,
competitors and the financial community. Environmental elements that affect an
organization the most are often other organizations (Daft, 2001). The new business
enterprise environment is characterized by continuous redefinition of organizational
goals, purposes, and the tried and trusted “ways in which things have always been
done” and imposes the need for two essential elements in KM:
VINE (1) knowledge growth and maturity, development of a well-disciplined “systematic
38,1 and systemic” knowledge maturity system for employees that is continuous,
well disciplined, relevant, value-added, and measurable. It must solve “today’s”
problems; and
(2) knowledge innovation, provide an environment with the physical and
procedural methods of generating and introducing challenging ideas and
58 innovation to existing knowledge bases. Introduce ways to stimulate
continuous improvement within the enterprise (Malhorta, 1998).

For the environmental concept, knowledge capture is defined as the process of

retrieving either explicit or tacit knowledge that resides within people, artifacts, or
organizational entities. Knowledge captured might reside outside the organizational
boundaries, including consultants, competitors, customers, suppliers, and prior
employers of the organization’s new employees. Impact on client satisfaction (repeat
business) and supply chain are the most important impact of KM on the organization’s
environment. An enterprise must provide an environment that enables knowledge
workers to better deal with problem solving in terms of the uncertain and
unpredictable future (Bixler, 2005).

Organizational goals and strategies

Goals and strategy define the purpose and competitive techniques that set it apart from
other organizations. Goals are often written down as an enduring statement of
company intent. A strategy is the plan of action that describes resources allocation and
activities for dealing with the environment and for reaching the organizations goals.
Goals and strategies define the scope of operations and the relationship with
employees, customers, and competitors (Daft, 2001).
More enterprises are now starting to realize that “KM deployment is not an
overnight installation but a complex shift in business strategy and process, one that
requires thorough planning and must involve end users” (Dyer and McDonough, 2001).
On the other hand, not only KM has an impact on the enterprise’s strategic direction
and organizational processes, but also KM can be affected by clear organizational goals
and strategies during the successful implementing of it in the organization. Also some
researchers believe that there are some critical success factors for KM implementation,
there are Clear purposes and language (Davenport et al., 1998; Jennex and Olfman,
2004; Kemp et al., 2001) and Clear and explicit links to business strategy (Skyrme and
Amidon, 1999).

Organizational culture
An organization’s culture is the underlying set of key values, beliefs, understandings,
and norms shared by employees. These underlying values may pertain to ethical
behavior, commitment to employees, efficiency, or customer service, and they provide
the glue to hold organization members together. An organization’s culture is unwritten
but can be observed in its stories, slogans, ceremonies, dress, and office layout (Daft,
2001). And as another point of view, organizational culture is shared values (what is
important) and beliefs (how things work) that interact with an organization’s
structures and control systems to produce behavioral norms. Eisner emphasizes that
the vision and culture of an organization sets the tone for much of what occurs within
the organization, influencing most strategic activities (Eisner, 2000). Kotter and Knowledge
Heskett also point out that, although we usually talk about organizational culture in management
the singular form, all enterprises have multiple cultures associated with different
functional groupings or geographic locations (Kotter and Heskett, 1992). These perspective
definitions clearly indicate that cultural analysis helps us to understand the interaction
of different teams and personnel with different cultures, especially when they must
work together particularly for knowledge sharing (Román-Velázquez, 2005). 59
For an enterprise to achieve the necessary level of adjustment to attain its optimum
performance, it requires the understanding and awareness of the different culture
composition (culture types) operating within its boundaries that comprise its overall
enterprise culture. This awareness is of paramount importance when designing and
implementing effective processes, tools, and technologies across the different culture
types. For example, for the KM system implementation, if that encounters high
organizational friction, undermined by the different cultures interactions, it will not be
successful (Román-Velázquez, 2005).
A good understanding of the enterprise culture and its composition throughout
different hierarchic levels of the enterprise is an essential step for the successful
implementation of KM efforts. Typically, the most important challenges in KM are not
technical in nature and have to do with lack of the above organizational culture
characteristics (Dyer and McDonough, 2001). Less than 10 per cent of companies trying
to implement KM have succeeded in making it part of their culture (estimate by Carla
O’Dell (O’Dell, 2002)).
Also, a survey conducted in 2001 by Knowledge Management Review to gauge the key
concerns of KM practitioners revealed that 38 per cent considered “encouraging cultural
adoption of KM” as the biggest challenge and 28 per cent considered “encouraging people
to share” the next highest challenge, However, because sharing knowledge is part of the
organization’s cultural adoption of KM, the combination of the two comprise 66 per cent of
the respondents. Also, 250 IT executives from the top 500 companies were surveyed and
asked about the difficulties they experienced in bringing about change in their company’s
culture to encourage knowledge sharing and collaboration. A total of 60 percent of
respondents replied that was very difficult or somewhat difficult (Ricadela, 2001).
Some researchers revealed that no matter how strong is the commitment and
approach to KM, the organizational culture is stronger. To break down this barrier,
they recommend the creation of a KM strategy that fits the culture and is linked to core
culture values (McDermott et al., 1999; McDermott and O’Dell, 2001).
Another researcher defines attributes of a KM-enabling organizational culture:
Understanding of the value and benefits of KM practices; Management support for KM
at all levels, including allocation of time and adequate funding resources; Incentives
that reward knowledge sharing, and encouragement of interaction for the creation and
sharing of knowledge; and Willingness to tackle the inability to directly measure the
financial benefits from KM (de Oliveira Barroso and Gomes, 1998).
Cameron and Quinn described four clusters or quadrants with each one
representing a distinct set of organizational culture types (clan, adhocracy, market,
and hierarchy) and each culture type is related to a set of core values, beliefs, and
assumptions that represent the differences within the organization. These core values
and beliefs are also found in the KM literature, and are important organizational traits
for KM efforts in the government and nonprofit sectors. KMS efforts implemented in
VINE organizations with a dominant hierarchy culture have the lowest likelihood of success
38,1 compared to all other culture types – clan, adhocracy, and market organizations and
work units with stronger cultural values have a higher likelihood of implementing
successful KMS efforts independently from their dominant culture type in existence
(Cameron and Quinn, 1999). Results also supported that a personalization approach for
the flow of knowledge is better suited for organizations that have dominant clan or
60 dominant adhocracy cultures. Conversely, a codification approach is better suited for
organizations that have dominant hierarchy or dominant market cultures. Streamlined
organizational structures with strong cultures have higher chance of KM success
(Román-Velázquez, 2005). Some researchers define knowledge friendly culture as a
critical success factor for implementing knowledge management (Davenport et al.,
1998; Jennex and Olfman, 2004; Skyrme and Amidon, 1999).
Bixler expresses some of potential impacts of KM on the cultural concepts of
organizations, like impact on corporate culture, employee morale (employer turnover),
enhancement of employee working knowledge, skills, and talents, and have a impact
on user and management attitudes on KM (Bixler, 2005).

Research methodology
There are three main strategies available for to study organizational culture:
(1) The holistic or qualitative approach.
(2) The metaphoric or language approach.
(3) The quantitative approach in which the investigator uses a questionnaire to
assess particular dimensions of culture.
The lack of consensus on the best approach to analysis is based primarily on the
debate about qualitative versus quantitative research (Román-Velázquez, 2005).
This research used two different research tools for data collection and analysis, with
occasional use of in-depth interviewing and personal discussions and statistical
techniques. In the interviewing part we use Delphi technique and Survey questionnaire.
The Delphi technique used a few KM experts to address the research questions, and
is aimed at reaching consensus in response to these questions. The Delphi technique
uses a group of experts to deliberate a research issue or a problem anonymously (i.e.
without having a direct interaction among the group members). Unfortunately, when
we are searching for the issues and important points about conceptual dimensions and
KM implementation, we realize that there is little research performed about some of
those dimensions like size or environment of organizations; on the other hand, those
experts that we consulted to enrich our questionnaire, suggested some significant
questions and we use them in our questionnaire. So, these are the main reasons for
using Delphi technique in our research.

Data collection
The research targets were members of the various Iranian organizations including
managers, senior experts and effective staff in decision making. In order to understand
the viewpoints on KM from all sectors of the government, private companies, and
universities, questionnaires were sent to different departments including information,
research and development, academic and human resource department. The number of
questionnaires sent out was 300; the number returned was 214, which showed a return