FEASIBILITY STUDY ON KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT PROCESSES IN EDUCATION ORGANIZATION

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1 FEASIBILITY STUDY ON KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT PROCESSES IN EDUCATION ORGANIZATION SepidehJafari 9 Abbas Abbaspour 10 MostafaAzizishomami 11 Abstract This study has been provided to consider the knowledge management processes implementation from the viewpoint of education dept employees. Demographic questionnaire and Lawson s (2003) knowledge management questionnaire with the reliability equal to 0.94 have been used as data collection tools. The population of this study consists of all education dept employees of Ahvaz (Iran) and the sample size according to Morgan table equaled 175 persons. To analyze the data, descriptive indices including mean value, standard deviation, frequency and inferential statistics, one-way analysis of variance, t test and Tukey s test were used. The results obtained from data analysis indicated that knowledge dissemination has appropriate status and higher than middle level from the viewpoint of education dept employees of Ahvaz. Knowledge organization, knowledge application, knowledge maintenance, and knowledge attraction have a middle level, but knowledge creation is lower than middle. Also, the summary of results indicated that individual factors (gender, educational level and attending the training courses) have no significant effect on the knowledge management process implementation but service record is effective on the knowledge management process. Keywords: Knowledge Management, Education & Training Department Introduction The intensity of world business competition, dynamism, uncertainty and complexity of environmental process has changes the knowledge as one of the valuable assets of organization (Deshpand, Farley & Webster, 1993, quoted by Dursun-kilic, 2005, p 7) so that within the recent decades, the scholars stated that the basis for competition is changing and organizations success is in connection with their emphasis and attention to the knowledge (Afarzeh, 2005, p7). The knowledge is a powerful tool that may make changes in the world and provide the innovations (Mohammadifateh, Sobhani&Mohammadi, 2008, p 19). Within the recent years, concepts such as knowledge work, job knowledge, knowledge management and knowledge organizations used in the organizations and corporations shows the intensification of organizations attention to their knowledge assets. Peter Druker by applying these words explains the establishment of a new type of organizations therein instead of armed force, mind power is ruling. According to this theory, in the future the societies may expect for development and advancement that have higher knowledge. So, benefitting from natural resources may not be important as same as knowledge. The knowledge organization achieves the capabilities that make an enormous power from a little force (Alvani, 1998, p 283). In a knowledge-oriented society, the main resource of economics doesn t include the capital or natural resources or workforce but the knowledge is deemed as the sole economic resource (Druker, 1993, p7). Also, the knowledge has been identified increasingly as a crucial element of organizations (Ciganek, Mao, and Srite, 2010). Today, the knowledge as a strategic and 9. M.A in Educational Administration, AllamehTabataba'i University, Iran. 10.Assistance Professor, AllamehTabataba'i University, Iran. 11. Ph.D. student in Educational Administration,Kharazmi University, Iran. COPY RIGHT 2013 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 228

2 valuable resource and is a prominent asset and offering the products and services with the suitable and economic resource seems to be a difficult and sometimes impossible affair without management and correct use of this valuable resource (Afrazeh, 2005, p 3).Therefore, the current organizations should compile some strategies for creation, sharing, transfer and application of key knowledge in relation to their duty and benefit thereform as a competitive advantage. Competitive advantage is dependent to the capability of an organization in forming and integrating the knowledge in its value-increasing strategies. To maintain the competitive advantage, the organizations should develop the tools for creation, transfer and integration of knowledge; one of tools that may help the organizations for realizing this goal is knowledge management (Mayfield, 2008). The knowledge management is a process that should be implemented in the organizations for dominating over the information and knowledge that is a part of organization s memory and usually is formed in a frame without structure, and the knowledge is a form of capital for the organization success which is necessary as a exchangeable frame and form and extendable throughout the organization (Kelly Rainer, 2007). The integrated definition of knowledge management by Brux in the sustainable and safe systems is referred to an integrated organization that may administrate its vertical, horizontal, foreign and geographic borders at the center of its pivotal values and connect then relying on the trust (Longastaff&Yacovey, 2002). Tan (2000) assumes the knowledge management as a regular and active process of management and influence power of resources of knowledge in an organization. Also, Bhatt defines the knowledge management as the process of creation, confirmation, presentation, distribution and application of knowledge. Loria (2008) assumes the knowledge management as a group of policies and instructions which are able to create, promote and organizing the knowledge for achieving the organization goals. Some researches have been applied on the knowledge management processes implementation so far. Zanjani (2010) applied a study titled Relationship between organizational culture and knowledge management implementation in State Tax Affairs Organization. The summary of his research indicated that knowledge dissemination, knowledge maintenance, knowledge organization, knowledge attraction and knowledge application has an appropriate status from the viewpoint of experts and knowledge creation process has lower mean than the other processes. Tayyebi et al (2010) provided a study under title of Study on the principles of knowledge management in the training hospitals of Iran University of Medical Sciences and concluded that knowledge dissemination, knowledge evaluation, knowledge application, knowledge participation and knowledge creation have obtained the high mean values. Safayi (2006) provided a research on the Application of knowledge management principles for development of high school s first grade physics course s management and understood that knowledge application, knowledge creation, knowledge participation, knowledge performance evaluation and knowledge organization has a fitted status. Fahey (2000) applied a study titled Diagnosis of cultural barriers in knowledge management in more than 50 enterprises and concluded that in these institutes the status of knowledge management processes (creation, acquisition, transfer and application) has been lower than middle. Graffit University (2002) in a research titled knowledge management applied on 100 Indian companies concluded that the effective tools for knowledge management formation in the organizations such as consciousness and training of knowledge management, knowledge acquisition, creation of knowledge management strategies, knowledge map creation, establishment of formal communication networks of knowledge management, reward payment have been used in these Indian companies for increasing the knowledge of agencies, dealing with cultural situations and knowledge-oriented leaders lower than middle level. COPY RIGHT 2013 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 229

3 Considering the importance of knowledge management process implementation in education organization, in this paper we intend to answer the following questions: 1- How much is the knowledge creation in organization, as the viewpoint of Education Organization employees? 2- How much is the knowledge attraction in organization, as the viewpoint of Education Organization employees? 3- How much is the knowledge organization in organization, as the viewpoint of Education Organization employees? 4- How much is the knowledge maintenance in organization, as the viewpoint of Education Organization employees? 5- How much is the knowledge dissemination in organization, as the viewpoint of Education Organization employees? 6- How much is the knowledge application in organization, as the viewpoint of Education Organization employees? 7- Do the adjusting variables (gender, service record, educational level and record of attending the training courses for employees) affect the knowledge management implementation? Method: The extant paper in regard to the objective is an applied survey and descriptive method used for data collection. The population of this study consists of all Education Dept employees in academic year equal to 317 persons in 4 regions of Ahvaz(Iran). The sample size based on Morgan table was calculated equal to 175 persons. In this survey, proportional stratified sampling method has been used for sampling due to the different regions of studied population. Two questionnaires including demographic questionnaire and Lawson (2003) knowledge management questionnaire were used as data collection tools. Knowledge management questionnaire considers the elements of creation, attraction, organization, maintenance, dissemination and application and each element includes four items. Altogether, this questionnaire includes 24 items. 5-point Lickert scale has been used for scoring as too much (5), very much (4), averagely (3), a little (2) and very little (1). Lawson executed the knowledge management questionnaire experimentally in two financial institutes in order to determine its reliability. Reliability coefficient of this questionnaire was calculated respectively for knowledge creation (0.84), knowledge attraction (0.89), knowledge organization (0.86), knowledge maintenance (0.88), knowledge dissemination (0.89) and knowledge application (0.80) (Lawson, 2003, p 56). Reliability coefficient of questionnaire has been obtained based on Cronbach s alpha coefficient equal to To analyze the data, descriptive statistics methods (frequency, rate, mean value and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (analysis of variance, t test and Tukey s test) have been used. COPY RIGHT 2013 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 230

4 Findings After data analysis, the following results were obtained: Table 1: Descriptive indices of knowledge management elements from the viewpoint of employees Knowledge management Mean value Standard deviation Sample size elements Knowledge creation Knowledge attraction Knowledge organization Knowledge maintenance Knowledge dissemination Knowledge application Total According to the results of table 1, the highest mean value of knowledge management implementation is related to the knowledge dissemination equal to and then knowledge organization equal to , knowledge application equal to , knowledge maintenance equal to and knowledge attraction equal to are placed in the next orders and very close to each other that shows the close status of above elements. The lowest mean value obtained for knowledge creation equal to The mean value of total 6 foregoing factors that explain the knowledge management is equal to and shows the lower mean value comparing to the organizational culture elements. Do the adjusting variables (gender, service record, educational level and record of attending the training courses for employees) affect the knowledge management implementation? Table 2: Summary of t test for the viewpoint of woman and man employees about the knowledge management implementation Groups Mean value Standard deviation t value Significance level Woman employees Man employees As it is observed in table 2, the mean woman employees is equal to and mean man employees is and t value equaled 0.83, this value even in level a=0.05 is not significant, thus the difference between opinions of woman and man employees on the knowledge management implementation was not significant. In continue, for considering the effect of employees participation in training courses (independent variable) on their opinions about knowledge management implementation, oneway analysis of variance has been used, because of increasing the means comparison from two cases to 4 cases (for measuring the participation in training courses, 4 elements have been assumed). Table 3: Summary of analysis of variance of employees viewpoint about knowledge management based on the value of participation in training courses Variations Total squares Degree of Mean squares F Significance reference freedom level Between groups In groups Total COPY RIGHT 2013 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 231

5 According to the results extracted from table 3, the difference between mean values based on participation in training courses is not significant, because the calculated F is equal to in significance levelp>0/05, thus F value is not significant; in other word, no significant difference is observed between employees viewpoint about the knowledge management implementation, based on the value of attending the training courses. Table 4: Summary of analysis of variance of employees viewpoint about knowledge management based on the their educational level Variations Total squares Degree of Mean squares F Significance reference freedom level Between groups In groups Total Also, to consider the effect of employees educational level (independent variable) on their opinions on theknowledge management implementation, one-way analysis of variance was used. According to the results extracted from table 4, the difference between mean values of employees based on their educational level is not significant, because the calculated F is equal to in significance level p>0/05, thus F value is not significant; in other word, no significant difference is observed between employees viewpoint about the knowledge management implementation, based on their educational level. To explain the significance and difference between mean values precisely, ad-hoc tests were used. The ad-hoc test used in this study was Tukey s test, the summary of which has been provided in the above table. Table 5: Summary of analysis of variance of employees viewpoint about knowledge management based on the service record Service record Difference Mean differences Sig Below 5 years 6-10 years years 16 to up years years to up years 16 to up According tot the results of table 5, the difference between mean value of employees service record below 5 years with 6-10 years (10.05), below 5 years with 16 years to up (-13.67) and 6-10 years with 16 years to up (-23.72) is significant. But the difference between mean service record of employees below 5 years is not significant with years (-0.63), 6-10 years with years (-10.69) and years with 16 years to up. Discussion and conclusion The findings of first question How much is the knowledge creation in organization, as the viewpoint of Education Organization employees of Ahvaz? show that the knowledge creation in education organization is lower than middle. The summary of this study is consistent with the studies applied by Fahey (2000), Graffit (2002), Dianne (2002), ShamiZanjani (2010), Yousefi&Gholami (2006) and Abzari&Kermanialghoreishi (2005), but is consistent with study applied by Safayi (2006) and Tayyebi et al (2011). Kermanialghoreishi (2005) and Yousefi&Gholami (2006) in their research understood that the knowledge acquisition level is lower than middle. As well as, the results of ShamiZanjani COPY RIGHT 2013 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 232

6 (2010) indicated that the knowledge creation in State Tax Organization is lower than the middle level. Fahey (2000), Graffit (2002) and Dianne (2002) introduced the knowledge acquisition as one of the constituting elements of knowledge management in the organizations but stated that their application in the organization is lower than middle level. The knowledge creation may be acquired through internal and external resources of organization or in other word is performed in different ways in the organization. The individuals appointment in the appropriate positions is important because if the employees are appointed in the appropriate and proper positions, the knowledge may be created conveniently, thus it is to say that the reason for lower than middle level of knowledge creation in organization is non-observation of the said points. The results obtained for second question How much is the knowledge attraction in organization, as the viewpoint of Education Organization employees of Ahvaz? show that the knowledge attraction in education organization has a middle level; in other word, in this organization to meet the current and subsequent needs, the new knowledge is identified and then a logic method is presented to be accessed and shared to the individuals. The summary of this research is in compliance with the study of ShamiZanjani (2010). The results obtained for third question How much is the knowledge organization in organization, as the viewpoint of Education Organization employees of Ahvaz? indicate thatknowledge organization in education organization of Ahvaz has a middle level; in other word, in this organization the knowledge is filtered and organized. The summary of this study is consistent to the results obtained by Safayi (2006), Tayyebi et al (2010) and ShamiZanjani (2010). The results of fourth question How much is the knowledge maintenance in organization, as the viewpoint of Education Organization employees of Ahvaz? show that the knowledge maintenance in education organization of Ahvaz has a middle level; in other word, the information and experiences of key personnel as well as the provided documentations are maintained in the organizational memory. The summary of this study is in compliance with the summary of ShamiZanjani (2010). The results of fifth question How much is the knowledge dissemination in organization, as the viewpoint of Education Organization employees of Ahvaz? show that the knowledge dissemination in education organization of Ahvaz has a level higher than middle; in other word, the knowledge is transferrable due to interaction between employees and their communications in the organization. The summary of this study is in compliance with the researches provided bysafayi (2006), Tayyebi et al (2010) and ShamiZanjani (2010), but is not consistent to the study of Fahey (2000). The results of sixth question How much is the knowledge application in organization, as the viewpoint of Education Organization employees of Ahvaz? show that the knowledge application in education organization of Ahvaz has a middle level; in other word, the organization employees apply the maintained knowledge appropriately in the new situations. The summary of this study is in compliance with the researches provided bysafayi (2006), Tayyebi et al (2010) and ShamiZanjani (2010). In seventh question Do the adjusting variables (gender, service record, educational level and record of attending the training courses for employees) affect the knowledge management implementation? T test indicated that the gender has had no effect on the knowledge management implementation. Also, to consider the effect of educational level and attending the training courses, one-way analysis of variance was used and none of obtained F values was significant. These results indicate that individual factors had no significant effect on the knowledge management implementation. But the results of Tukey s test indicated that service record is effective on the knowledge management processes implementation. COPY RIGHT 2013 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 233

7 In consideration of the summary of this study, it is recommended for prevention of knowledge decrease among the employees of Education Organization to hold training workshops and in-service courses for them proportional to their responsibilities. Also, whereas knowledge creation has a low level, it is recommended to the officials to engage the individuals in the fitted jobs, because if the employees are engaged in the appropriate positions and appointments, the knowledge creation will be performed conveniently. COPY RIGHT 2013 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 234

8 References: Abzari, Mehdi; Kermanialghoreishi, Mohammadreza (2005), Feasibility Study on Knowledge Management Implementation in State Steel Industry: Case study: Esfahan Steel Co, Journal of Faculty of Administrative & Economic Sciences, University of Isfahan, : (3) 17;[in Persian]. Afrazeh, Abbas (2005), Knowledge Management, Amirkabir University of Technology s Publication, Tehran; [in Persian]. Alvani, Mehdi; Ghasemi, Ahmadreza (1998), Social Management and Responsibility of Organization, Public Management Training Center s Publication, Tehran; [in Persian]. Bhatt, G. D.(2001). Knowledge management in organizations: examining the interaction between technologies, techniques and people. Journal of knowledge management, 5(1), Ciganek, A. P., E. Moa, and M. Srite.(2010). Organizational culture for knowledge management systems: a study of corporate users.internationaljournalofknowledge Management. 4 (1): Dianne,E.(2002). Processes and Strategies Knowledge Management. School: floridaatlantice university. Drunker, peter f.(1993). Post- capitalist society- oxford: Butterworth Heinemann. Dursun- kilic, t.(2005). An empirical investigation of the link between market oriention and new product performance: the mediating effects of organizational capabilities. Doctoral dissertation, old dominion university.proquest information and learning company. Fahey, L.(2000). Diagnosing Cultural Barriers to Knowledge management.academy of management executine, 14(4), 113. Graffit University (2000).Knowledge Management. Research report india. Vol 20; Kelly rainer, r, freim turban Richard.E,potter.,(2007), introduction to information systems supporting and transforming business, john wiley and sons, inc. Lawson, s.(2003). Examining the relationship between organizational culture and knowledge management.doctoral dissertation, nova southeastern university.proquest information and cearning company. Longastaff, t and yacovey,h.(2002), education and knowledge management: a requisite for information assurance.it s available on: research/isw. Loria, M. B. (2008). A review of the main approaches to knowledge management. Knowledge Management Research & Practice, 6, Mayfield, Robert.d.(2008). Organizational culture and knowledge management in the electric generation industry.doctoral dissertation, phoenic university. Proquest information and cearning company. Mohammadifateh, Asghar; Mohammadsadegh, Sobhani; Mohammadi, Dariush (1999), Knowledge Management (Integrated Approach), PayamePooya, Tehran; [in Persian]. SafayiFakhri, Leila (2006); Application of Knowledge Management Principles for Development of High School s First Grade Physics Course s Management, M.Sc. Thesis, Islamic Azad University, Science & Research Branch; [in Persian]. ShamiZanjani, Hanieh (2009), Relationship between organizational culture and knowledge management implementation in State Tax Affairs Organization, M.Sc. Thesis of AllamehTabataba i University; [in Persian]. Tan, J (2000) Knowledge management just more buzzwords?, British Journal of AdministrativeManagement, March/April, pp Tayyebi, Jamaleddin; Nasiripoor, Amirashkan; Aghababa, Sara; NabipoorJafarabad, Nasim (2011), Study on the Knowledge Management Principles in Educational Hospitals of Iran University of Medical Sciences, Health Information Management, : (4)8; [in Persian]. COPY RIGHT 2013 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 235

9 Yousefi, Alireza and Gholami, Bahar (2006), The Viewpoints of Woman Teachers of Esfahan about the Knowledge Management Elements Implementation in Education Organization of Esfahan in Academic Year , Knowledge and Research in Educational Sciences, Curricular Planning, Islamic Azad University, Khorasgan Branch (Esfahan), 29-48: (11-10) 20; [in Persian]. COPY RIGHT 2013 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 236