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Evaluation of Knowledge Management in an Organization

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DOI: 10.1142/S021964921750006X

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Journal of Information & Knowledge Management

Vol. 16, No. 1 (2017) 1750006 (18 pages)
.c World Scienti¯c Publishing Co.
#
DOI: 10.1142/S021964921750006X

Evaluation of Knowledge Management

in an Organisation

Negar Armaghan*
Department of Technology Development Studies
Iranian Research Organization for Science and Technology (IROST)
Enqelab St., Parsa Sq., Ahmadabad Mostou¯ Rd.
Azadegan Highway, P. O. Box 3353-5111, Tehran 3353136846, Iran
armaghan@irost.ir

Jean Renaud
Laboratoire de G
enie de la Conception (LGECO)
Institut National des Sciences Appliqu
ees (INSA) 24
boulevard de la victoire, 67 000 Strasbourg, France
jean.renaud@insa-strasbourg.fr

Published 1 March 2017

Abstract. Implementation of Knowledge Management (KM) brings signi¯cant changes at various

levels of an organisation. Knowledge sharing is one of the aspects that plays a signi¯cant role in the success
of KM. This paper uses empirical research. It will analyse the applicability of KM as a new change in an
organisation, while taking into account the aspects in°uencing knowledge sharing. The research identi¯es
the aspects related to knowledge sharing which will be assessed. This case study has been realised by using
a questionnaire at an Iranian research organisation. The ¯ve factors of trust, commitment, job satisfaction,
learning and organisational communication have been identi¯ed and studied as aspects a®ecting knowl-
edge sharing. The results show that during the implementation of KM there would be a lot of resistance
from people. While people seem to welcome this change and ¯nd it e®ective in organisational growth, the
assessment shows that there is no adequate preparation in terms of knowledge sharing and KM.

Keywords: Knowledge sharing; change management; knowledge management practice.

1. Introduction
Today, the word \change" has become a buzzword and an inevitable reality in
organisations. Leaders regard change as a solution to the evolution of the market,
technology, and laws in the whole organisation (Senge, 1999; Dufourt and Bourrelly,
2010). These changes are aimed at developing individual and organisational skills,
while guiding organisations towards better conditions. Change projects are mainly
enacted in the following cases: creating a product or a service; changing the infor-
mation system; the implementation of a new organisation; developing a new strat-
egy, application or implementation of a new law; or the implementation of a new
management system, etc. (Autissier and Moutot, 2010; Boroumand, 2013).

*Corresponding author.

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Knowledge Management (KM) in organisations can be studied from di®erent per-

spectives: technologies for knowledge creation, knowledge sharing, organisational
culture, leadership, knowledge architecture, organisational learning, etc.
According to the study by Davenport and Prusak (1998), most KM projects have
one of the three aims: (1) to make knowledge visible and show its role in an orga-
nisation, mainly through maps, handbooks, and hypertext tools; (2) to develop a
knowledge-intensive culture by encouraging and aggregating behaviour such
as knowledge sharing and proactively seeking and o®ering knowledge; (3) to build a
knowledge infrastructure: a web of connections among people given space, time,
tools, and encouragement to interact and collaborate (Hsia et al., 2006).
There are fragmented approaches to KM that have been adopted in many
organisations. Some examples are summarized in Table 1. These approaches may be
classi¯ed into two types: soft and hard. The soft approach has mainly investigated
the role of tacit knowledge and the di±culties in sharing it between people. The hard
approach has focused on developing tools for storage and distribution of explicit
knowledge. Various types of information technology, such as video conferencing, can
support KM in a geographically distributed organisation, but there has been some
doubt about their performance (Shin, 2004).
Many researchers (Dennis et al., 1999; Desouza, 2003; Spiegler, 2003, Shin, 2004)
have found that virtual face-to-face interaction through such technology does not
lead to e®ective knowledge-sharing for reasons such as contextual ignorance or
limited cognitive capability. One questionable assumption of the hard approach is
that making information available will automatically make people more knowl-
edgeable. Although many organisations are attempting to exploit technology, for
example, by building an intranet, there is still no concrete way to validate this
argument. An organisation may allege that more than half of its employees access
their intranet but the questions that then need to be answered include: \how many
read the contents?" and \how many understand the contents?" Other questions of
signi¯cance are \how eagerly do employees put their own knowledge on the intranet
or have trust in the organisation?" and \How much valuable knowledge is on the

Table 1. KM approaches (Shin, 2004).

Approaches Main focus

Technological Technologically enhancing KM quality by supplying tools for e®ective storage

and distribution of knowledge
Intellectual asset Enhancing KM quality by evaluating knowledge assets in ¯nancial terms and
re°ecting them in accounting practices
Organisational learning Facilitating knowledge creation and sharing by developing positive work
environments or e®ective reward systems
Process Enhancing KM quality by identifying key processes from which important
knowledge °ows, and managing them formally
Philosophical Gaining a higher understanding of knowledge by asking questions such as \do
we know what we do not know" towards development of new ways of
thinking

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Evaluation of KM in an Organisation

intranet?" So, these two approaches have their own merits: the importance of tac-
itness of knowledge from the soft approach and the importance of hardware infra-
structure from the hard approach. However, these two approaches do not provide
organisations with a comprehensive framework illustrating barriers to and enablers
for successful KM practices. As organisations become aware of barriers and enablers
for successful KM practices, there may be opportunities for them to reap the bene¯ts
when implementing new or re-examining current KM systems. (Shin, 2004).
Therefore, the approach of KM is not limited to a technical and one-dimensional
approach, but also, includes management and behavioural approaches which are
among other aspects that have a signi¯cant role in the implementation of KM. The
important point is that the implementation of a tool or technology does not guar-
antee its success and there are various aspects that play an important role in the
success of a project: choosing the right business model for investments, what changes
result from the implementation of the new model and how these changes should be
identi¯ed and managed. Implementation of KM brings a set of changes in the or-
ganisation level which we need to consider and manage in order to ensure the success
of the project. If these changes are not properly analysed and managed, they will
increase the possibility of project failure.
In the last 20 years, European countries have faced three di®erent generations in
the implementation of KM that is known as 3C (Prax, 2012): Content, Context
and Culture. In the ¯rst generation, Content, KM was seen as a tool and its success
was considered in the creation of successful technique and tools. The problem with
this generation is that KM is seen as content management. Due to this point of view,
its users didnot see any personal bene¯ts in implementing KM, and it was mostly
dominated by its programmers. In the second generation, Context, the context was
taken into account. In this sense, companies and organisations concentrated on
creating knowledge networks. In this scenario, KM was similar to a cupboard full of
boxes containing information which was never used or used correctly. This approach
has not been welcomed by organisations. In the third generation, Culture, KM is
de¯ned as sharing culture and highlights human and cultural issues. In this ap-
proach, KM is perceived as a permanent culture in the organisation which should
always try to promote the development and maintenance of this culture.
The literature review shows that in Iranian companies, the most immediate ap-
proach to KM is that of system establishment and KM technology, which is closer to
the ¯rst or second generation. So for them, if there is access to current software to
implement appropriate technology, KM in the organisation is running properly.
Abtahi and Salavati have categorized the implementation of KM obstacles to human
and cultural, political, technical and technological aspects (Abtahi and Salavati,
2006, 111–114). Besides, according to studies conducted by Rabiee and Maali (2012),
there are various obstacles and challenges in the implementation of KM projects in
Iran, which mainly include cultural barriers, barriers of human resources, leadership
barriers, structural barriers, measurement obstacles, process barriers and technology
obstacles. Therefore, the previous research and studies and experiences in the ¯eld of

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N. Armaghan and J. Renaud

KM implementation reveal that implementation of KM bears several challenges and

multiple aspects should be considered in this regard.
The study of Gold et al. (2015) examines the issue of e®ective KM from the
perspective of organisational capabilities. This perspective suggests that a knowledge
infrastructure consisting of technology, structure, and culture along with knowledge
process architecture of acquisition, conversion, application, and protection are es-
sential organisational capabilities or \preconditions" for e®ective KM. Work expe-
rience, training, intrinsic motivation, job autonomy, location, and management
support in°uence the level of knowledge sharing behaviour, which again a®ects
knowledge exploitation related to safe work conduct (Nesheim and Gressgard, 2014).
Often cited as a signi¯cant challenge in KM practices is the issue of organisational
culture. Although many studies raise the issue of organisational culture's in°uence
on KM success, few investigate the way in which this in°uence manifests itself (Alavi
et al., 2014).
On the one hand, studies carried out by Motavalian et al. (2012) show that
Iranian companies have not achieved much success in the implementation of KM and
so far less than 30% of companies have implemented it. The greatest challenges are
cooperation among experts for knowledge sharing (62%), updating a knowledge base
(59%) and the creation of the link between KM and daily operations of an organi-
sation (59%). This study also shows that a/the human resource problem (62%) is the
¯rst challenge in Iranian organisations. Problems of information technology, use of
appropriate software, and lack of knowledge take the next place. Therefore, this
study shows that the most important challenges ahead in KM are attracting em-
ployee participation in knowledge sharing and integrating KM into the organisa-
tion's current activities.
Therefore, Iranian organisations have still not been able to focus their attention
on the third generation of KM. Before this approach is established, organisations
need to make some changes. That is how Change Management (CM) becomes
pertinent.
CM and its assessment in the organisation are not considered essential in order to
properly execute a KM project. It seems CM is one of the most important issues in
the implementation of KM which is not often considered in Iranian companies. So,
the successful implementation of KM is recognized not only by management of its
known obstacles but also by simultaneous application of CM in order to resolve the
obstacles.
On the other hand, the studies showed that, among all these changes, the orga-
nisational culture is one of the most important aspects in knowledge sharing and the
implementation of KM (Rezaeian, 2001; Abtahi and Salavati, 2006; Adhikari, 2010;
Bordbar and Monfared, 2011; Sou¯ and Taheri, 2012; Rabiee and Maali, 2012).
There are some contextual factors that a®ect knowledge sharing. Organisational and
interpersonal factors should be considered ¯rst. After examining the conditions for
successful knowledge sharing and learning in inter-organisational alliances, Soekijad
and Andriessen (2003) presented several factors that are important for knowledge

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sharing in alliances, suggesting that attention should be paid to conditions at both

inter-organisation and inter-personal levels. In addition, trust and con°ict are in-
herent issues of any organisational arrangement and central to knowledge sharing.
Panteli and Sockalingam (2005) undertook an investigation of both phenomena
within the context of virtual alliances. A generic framework for understanding the
dynamics of trust and con°ict within the context of virtual inter-organisational
arrangements was presented (Du et al., 2007).
As cited in the beginning of this section, knowledge sharing is one of the chal-
lenges in KM process. Assessment of change management and knowledge sharing,
both parts of KM which have been considered unimportant in Iranian organisations,
will be studied in this paper. These approaches are not generally studied in orga-
nisations (Armaghan, 2016). That is one of the reasons for the unsuccessful execu-
tion of KM in Iranian organisations.
Iranian Research Organization for Science and Technology (IROST) is a research
organisation in Tehran which would like to invest in KM seriously. This organisation
was established about 37 years ago, but KM has never been considered seriously in
this organisation. This organisation is examining if KM is feasible in the current
corporate culture. Therefore, the top managers have decided to evaluate CM before
starting the KM process, especially its knowledge sharing aspects. This study was
conducted in IROST during 2014–2015. Hence, the evaluation of CM about KM is
the principal motivation of this research.
Two questions are being raised in this research: Could KM be implemented with
the current culture of the employees? What are the important aspects related to
knowledge sharing in the literature review? This study has two principal objectives:
(1) evaluating the possibility of implanting KM in this research organisation, and
(2) Identifying the cultural aspects which are important in knowledge sharing and
evaluate them in a studied organisation. Therefore, this study intends to discuss the
evaluation of CM in implementation of KM, with respect to cultural aspects related
to knowledge sharing. In Sec. 2, the literature review about CM and people man-
agement will be explained. Section 3 is dedicated to research methodology. Section 4
summarises the ¯ndings of the paper with the conclusion and suggestions for the
studied research organisation.

2. Literature Review
Change management. Changes are among the things that in°uence today's man-
agement models, and as a result, management of these changes has become an
essential and vital knowledge in organisations. Sometimes these changes oblige
organisations to change their policies, approaches and medium-term or long-term
plans. Change only occurs with movement and opposition to stability. Human beings
need stability to be able to create routines and habits to deal with permanent
changes. CM is a systematic and planned way of dealing with changes (Shoham and
Perry, 2009). CM includes determination and establishment of values, attitudes,

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norms and behaviours within an organisation that will support new ways of doing
things which at the same time entails overcoming sta® resistance to change
(Najafbagy, 2009). Change is not only learning something new, but also unlearning
something which is now irrelevant. First, there must be some kind of dissatisfaction
to raise the motivation to change. This displeasure occurs in the form of \survival
anxiety". Lewin (1952) once said \I would lose some of my aspects unless I start to
change"! Lewin calls this process \coming to one's senses" (Schein, 2010); therefore,
the purpose of CM is preparing people for change in order to shorten the learning
time, and hence, accelerate change. CM is made up of several stages: diagnosis of
change, study of change's e®ects, barometer of change, management of people,
and direction and leading of change (Autissier and Moutot, 2010).
The diagnosis stage is considered the ¯rst stage of CM. This step identi¯es the
current status in an organisation, identi¯es the people who are involved in the
project and the importance of their participation in the project, and also identi¯es
the level of risk in accepting or rejecting the change. At this stage, people's car-
tography allows us to get an overview of the organisation, based on their position
and level of attachment they provide to the project. It also allows us to take into
consideration the people who have a substantially more sensitive and important role
in the success of the project.
The study of the e®ects of changes is one of the important stages in CM project.
This stage links analysis, diagnosis and implementation stages. The study of the
e®ects of changes begins when the main point and purpose of the project are de¯ned.
The e®ects of changes have di®erent aspects, such as changes in the human
resource area including positions, culture, behaviour and power, or in systemic and
technical area, such as tools and systems, management, processes and structures
formed. In this paper, based on the purposes of research, cultural aspects in
knowledge sharing will be studied.
People management and resistance are placed in the third level. The last step
consists of direction and leadership, permitting to evaluate and manage the activities
related to the change project, attachment and participation in the change project
and the risk of project in di®erent steps. The fourth and last step will not be studied
in this paper.
People management and resistances: In most projects, project managers mainly
concentrate on the schedule of the project and its budget and think that the concepts
of \acceptance" and \resistance" in the project, while being important, will even-
tually be solved by the passage of time. In fact, this management behaviour is just a
mistake because if project managers fail to convince the project sta® to join the
project, they will never use their full potential and will not consider themselves as a
part of the project. A change project may always face resistance from people. Almost
any change causes fear in people, because it forces them to change their routines and
be prepared for new training (Armaghan, 2014). These two concepts are at the heart
of the phenomenon of resistance to change. People may fear to oppose the project,
but it is likely that they are not convinced about the implementation of the project

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and will only pretend to agree. Thus, the resistance during the project should be
identi¯ed and resolved to prevent them from stopping the project's success. We have
also three common but di®erent behaviours among the project users or bene¯ciaries
(Autissier and Moutot, 2003):
. Pioneer people: Those who are in favour of changing and they encourage change
project. They not only express interest and show a sense of belonging to the
project but also try to share it with other people.
. Inactive people: A group of people who because of fear of accepting responsibility,
or waiting to have the expected results or because of a lack of understanding of the
issue, prefer to show their neutral position. They are the ones who are waiting for
the convincing results. They want to be safe and they are conservative. They do
not show opposition but are in a state of expectation.
. Opposing people: They are opposed to the change project and bring opposite
reasons and arguments regularly and systematically. They are opposed to
implementing the project because of ideological, political or personal con°ict.
Cultural aspects related to knowledge sharing: Schein (2009) is one of the ¯rst people
to have researched the issue of culture, and, the term \organisational culture" was
¯rst introduced by him. According to Schein: \If you do not lead the culture, the
culture will guide you, and you may not even realize what has happened to you" and
recommends that: \never decide to change culture and begin your job by solving a
problem in the organisation".
Hofstede and Hofstede (2005) distinguished six levels of culture: national/re-
gional/ethnic/religious/linguistic, gender, generation, social class and organisational
or corporate. Culture is the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes
the members of one group or category of people from others. It is necessary to explain
two notions, namely \collective" and \programming of the mind". \Collective" is a
joint and shared experience of life within a particular group of people. This group of
people can be family, friends, colleagues, acquaintances, people from the same geo-
graphical region or people from the same country (other groupings are also possible).
\Programming of the mind" can be described as the entirety of an individual's
experiences in life that are interrelated and de¯ne her personal ideals, moral concepts
and how things should be done (Haag et al., 2010).
Culture is an outcome of how people relate to one another. Go®ee and Jones
(1999)1 identify two cultural dimensions as sociability and solidarity. Sociability is
de¯ned as a measure of friendliness among members of community, and solidarity as
a measure of a community's ability to pursue shared objectives. High sociability is
associated with high level of communication and sharing of information, while high
solidarity is associated with high performance and ability to work together or col-
laborate.

1 Seen in Hansen et al. (1999).

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Tacit knowledge as well is considered to be a cultural, emotional and cognitive

background, of which we are just marginally aware (Stenmark, 2001). Nonaka and
Konno (1998) argue that there are two dimensions of tacit knowledge: (1) a technical
dimension which involves personal skills and is referred to as know-how and (2) a
cognitive dimension, which consists of beliefs, ideals, values, schemata and mental
models which we often take for granted.
Studies made at the 12th meeting of the United Nations International Conference
on KM and Human Resources2 (2012) show that a supportive culture of KM is a
culture that can create added value in the following cases: (1) Networks and ex-
tensive contacts outside and inside, (2) people respecting each other, (3) innovation,
(4) trust, (5) exchange of ideas and information, (6) systems and procedures with a
strong base, (7) continuous training and improvement.
There are two main ways to share knowledge: via a person-to-document approach
that underpins the codi¯cation KM strategy, and via a person-to-person approach
also known as personalisation KM strategy (Hansen et al., 1999). Knowledge sharing
attitude is a psychological variable that a®ects individuals' decisions to share or
hoard their knowledge. While attitude theory describes attitude as a multi-
component construct, past research has overlooked the multi-dimensional structure
of the attitude construct in knowledge sharing contexts. Accordingly, the study of
Hasan (2014) focuses on knowledge sharing attitude as a concept with cognitive,
a®ective, and behavioural components. The results provide strong support for the
tertiary structure of knowledge sharing attitude and demonstrate three conceptually
and empirically distinguishable components of knowledge sharing attitudinal. The
results also show that the cognitive and a®ective components of knowledge sharing
attitude have signi¯cant e®ects on behavioural attitude to share knowledge.
An exploratory study was conducted in an Australian consulting ¯rm, Deloitte,
about knowledge sharing culture to examine the extent to which knowledge sharing
behaviour occurs within this ¯rm and its relationships with the ¯rm's core values,
structures and practices. The focus of this study is on the latter, where sharing is
closely aligned with direct personal contact through shared experience, time and
space. The study identi¯ed widespread knowledge sharing behaviour as demon-
strated by a high degree of communication and collaboration activities. It also
identi¯ed the ¯rm's core values and corresponding procedures that cultivated trust,
redundancy, sta®/individual empowerment, motivation and remuneration (Handzic
and Agahari, 2004).
A case study of KM implemented by a number of leading companies shows that
the ¯rst priority in the implementation of KM in an organisation is to build a good
corporate culture based on mutual trust between the people and the organisation.
Thus, the issue of trust is one of the most important challenges of a successful KM

2 Report of United Nation about commerce and development held on July 9–11, 2012 \Gestion des
connaissances et des ressources humaines pour une bonne application du droit de la concurrence". (9–11
juillet 2012). Conf
erences des nations unies sur le commerce et le developpement, rev.1. Genève.

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(Raub and Von Wittch, 2004). If a change program has achieved convincing results,
we often ¯nd that intelligent work has been done on the existing culture of that
organisation. The change will include an understanding of values in the culture.
Implementation of a KM culture through this approach aims to correct the systems
and processes and their functions. Cultural barriers are among problems which
knowledge managers face in the implementation of KM. Studies show that knowl-
edge sharing is among the cases that people have to deal with it in KM. Aspects such
as trust, commitment, job satisfaction, learning and organisational communication
are the most important aspects that a®ect the organisational culture of knowledge
sharing (Raub and Von Wittch, 2004; Seyfollahi and Davari, 2009; Fardoie and
Ghazinoory, 2010; Ghlichlee, 2010; Hasnavi et al., 2011; Ramezan and Hasnavi,
2011; Prax, 2012; Sou¯ and Taheri, 2012).

3. Research Methodology
Research was conducted by using the empirical method and a case study. In this
study, a questionnaire was developed that evaluated CM in the process of imple-
mentation of KM in the organisation in order to analyse its impact and the results of
changes in that area. The data were completed by questionnaires, documentary
analysis (including books, articles, reports and other documents), and observation.
Given that KM is one of the research-executive priorities of IROST; the authors
decided to analyse CM in the implementation of KM in the mentioned organisation.
Measurement tools used in research: In this study, information and ¯ndings from the
survey questionnaire were used as a measurement tool. A part of this questionnaire
was derived from the French model in CM (Autissier and Moutot, 2010, 2013) and
another part which is related to the cultural aspects of knowledge sharing was
designed with regard to the parameters speci¯ed in the literature review. The
questionnaire consists of 89 multiple choice or closed-ended questions. Some of the
responses were scored on Likert scale. Zero means \no importance", one means \very
little importance", two means \little importance", three means \medium
importance", four means \large importance" and ¯ve means \strong/fundamental
importance". The multiple choice questionnaire is designed in ¯ve parts; the ¯rst to
fourth parts cover CM in KM and the ¯fth part covers the cultural aspects in
knowledge sharing. Each section of the questionnaire was designed for a speci¯c
purpose as explained below:
(1) The cartography or map of people shows how di®erent departments in an
organisation were involved in KM (the change project); the degree of in-
volvement is divided into three levels: \little in°uence", \necessary" and
\unavoidable". The level of risk which is the resistance of people against the
project is also assessed in three levels: \acceptance", \modi¯cation" and
\rejection". Data analysis of this part is in two sections: (a) which level

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di®erent departments of the organisation are situated on, (b) what the level of
risk in terms of acceptance or rejection of project is.
(2) The part studying the e®ects of changes; analysing the aspects which will
change under the in°uence of KM project, and their degree of involvement.
(3) In the behavioural questions part, the level of people's involvement in the
project will be speci¯ed as well as the number of the pioneer, compliant, in-
active or opposing people.
(4) The change evaluation part of the research shows how much the KM project
has the potential and feasibility of implementation in the organisation.
(5) This section deals with analysing the cultural aspects related to knowledge
sharing in the implementation of KM project. This section examines the ¯ve
e®ective aspects in knowledge sharing. These factors are trust, commitment,
job satisfaction, organisational learning and communication, respectively. In
designing the questions in this section, various references were studied and
aspects that describe each of these ¯ve dimensions were identi¯ed and derived
(Gharamaleki, 2008; Seyfollahi and Davari, 2009; Schein, 2009; Azari and
Taghvaee Yazdi, 2010; Haag et al., 2010).
Validity and Reliability: To determine the validity of the questionnaire, the face
validity or the experts' opinions were used.
The population and manner of data collection: Since this study is a case study in
IROST, the population of the study, are all faculty members, managers and their
deputies and heads of departments. The method of data collection was through a
questionnaire. The collection consisted of 141 questionnaires, of which 104 were
answered. That means the rate of return for questionnaire was 74%.
Method of data analysis: At this stage, ¯rst the data collected by questionnaires were
prepared, homogenized and classi¯ed. The questionnaires were divided into two
main groups to send to people. The ¯rst group, which included parts one to ¯ve, was
sent to managers, directors and their deputies. The second group, which consisted of
the second to ¯fth parts of the questions, was sent to other people.

4. Results
The results of the questionnaire responses were analysed as follows:
The cartography or map of people: In this part of the questionnaire, the importance
of implementation of KM and the risk level of its acceptance in all parts of IROST
were discussed, as evaluated by managers and deputies of di®erent department. The
results show that managers of most of the units evaluated the implementation of KM
as unavoidable or necessary. Innovation department evaluated KM 70% (the highest
score) unavoidable, followed by the research centers with 52% of unavoidability. The
Technical Departments Development Center evaluated the need as 86%; other de-
partment percentages are lower and take the next places. This need was deemed less
important in the Human Resources Department being evaluated as 50%, and,

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in other departments it was evaluated between 0% and 20%. In total, statistics show
that the majority of departments of IROST feel the necessity to implement KM in
their departments (Fig. 1).
According to the results, the risk rate of implementation of KM in terms of
acceptance, modi¯cation or rejection in view of the managers and their deputies in
di®erent departments, have been evaluated as shown in Fig. 2. In this evaluation, the
Departments of Innovation, Technology Development, the IT O±ce, and the Center
of Industrial Microorganisms, evaluated the rate of people's acceptance of the project
to be higher than 50%. Human Resources Department, Research Centers and
Technology Incubators believed, by more than 50%, that the implementation of KM
with some modi¯cations was possible in those units. The possibility of rejection of
the implementation constituted a small and even in some of the departments zero
percentage. In general, managers and deputies of di®erent departments evaluated
this change as important and believed that its implementation was possible in the
department and considered the level of risk to be very low.

Li le Influence Necessary Unavoidable

9%
59%
32% Center of Microorganisms
18%
50%
32% Planning Department
10%
67%
24% IT Office
14%
86% Technology Incubators
0%
0%
48%
52% Research Centers
50%
50% Human Resources Department
0%
4%
48%
48% Technology Development Department
4%
70%
26% Innova on Department

Fig. 1. The importance rate of implementation of KM in view of IROST's departments.

Accepted Modified Rejected

63%
32%
5%
Center of Microorganisms
47%
47%
5%
Planning Department
50%
50% IT Office
0%
28%
61%
11%
Technology Incubators
35%
55%
10%
Research Centers
16%
63%
21%
Human Resources Department
60%
40% Technology Development Department
0%
65%
35% Innova on Department
0%

Fig. 2. Level of risk of implementation of KM in di®erent departments.

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E®ects of changes study: In this section, the e®ects of the implementation of KM in

the ¯eld of human resources are studied. Five factors are evaluated in this part.
\Culture is as an obstacle in KM" is evaluated with a score of four. This means the
current culture in IROST is now seen as the greatest obstacle to the implementation
of KM. This section is more accurately analysed in the last section dealing with the
cultural aspects. Next, \to compromise data privacy and intellectual property" is
rated two, and \knowledge sharing" and \endangerment of people's powers" are
rated one. People's job place with a score of zero indicated the lack of jeopardizing
their position.
Behavioural questions: The results of this section show that in the current situation,
in order to implement the KM, 50% of the people are pioneers, 32% are inactive,
4% are against change, 12% are neutral and 2% did not provide any answer in this
regard.
Barometer of change: The ¯rst goal in the CM is to build an attachment to the
project among those who are involved in it. In order to obtain a quantitative as-
sessment of the degree of attachment to the project, a barometer of change was used.
The barometer of change is the method by which the degree of individual attach-
ment to project can be evaluated as below (Autissier and Moutot, 2013):
. A score of less than 20 indicates that the organisation clearly rejects the proposed
change.
. Scores of 20–40 are related to the lack of understanding of the purpose of change.
. Scores of 40–60 mean that some of the tools needed to achieve the desired changes
require supplementary description.
. Scores of 60–80 is a positive sign indicating an appropriate level of accepting the
change.
. Scores higher than 80 mean that the organisation has been able to accept the
change and re°ect a dynamic potential to create change. In addition, these dy-
namics shows a degree of innovation in the structure.
Based on the scores obtained from the questionnaires in the evaluation of changes,
which is KM here, the results of the barometer in IROST is equivalent to 75 points.
In other words, this number means there is a positive sign of accepting the change in
the organisation.
Cultural aspects related to knowledge sharing: In this part of the questionnaire, ¯ve
important factors of trust, commitment, job satisfaction, organisational communi-
cation and learning which all play an important role in knowledge sharing have been
studied. Each of these aspects consists of a series of 57 questions whose answers
evaluate the importance of each of the ¯ve cases. With regard to the cultural
changes, the results show that the ¯ve main aspects, trust, commitment, job satis-
faction, organisational communication and learning are the most important roles in
knowledge sharing. The organisational communication with a median of one holds
the lowest importance, and job satisfaction, trust, learning and commitment with a
median of two take the second place. These results indicate that these aspects were

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generally evaluated in a low level of importance and lacked enough signi¯cance

at IROST.

5. Discussion and Conclusion

The di®erence between the perceptions of managers and ¯ndings: The results
show that managers and deputies of di®erent departments, more or less consider
the implementation of KM in their units as varying between \necessary" to
\unavoidable". Human Resource Departments mainly believed that KM could be
accepted easily by IROST sta®, and there would not be a lot of resistance against
implementation of KM. However, the results showed that the implementation of KM
has a high risk level and it seems that sta® will not cooperate enough in this project
and especially in knowledge sharing there will be a lot of resistance.
The di®erence between the behavioural results and cultural ¯ndings: Although the
results of behavioural assessment showed that IROST sta® welcome this project and
feel it to be e®ective in organisational growth and development, weak cultural
evaluation in knowledge sharing showed that there is a lack in knowledge sharing for
a successful KM implementation. Hence, in case of the implementation of a KM
project, the project is likely to fail. Therefore, it seems that IROST should invest
more on the cultural aspects that have a potential role in knowledge sharing.
If people feel more attached to the KM project, they will cooperate more e®ectively
in its implementation.
This study investigates the importance of CM in the process of KM implemen-
tation. In this research, among di®erent challenges and obstacles in implementation
of KM, cultural barriers and challenges in the process of knowledge sharing have
been discussed. In this research, the change aspects or the cultural aspects and
challenges which should be considered by the organisation were identi¯ed and
analysed. According to the research questions at the beginning of this paper, the ¯ve
aspects e®ective in knowledge sharing, including trust, commitment, job satisfaction,
learning, and organisational communication were identi¯ed. By using CM assess-
ment questionnaire, these aspects were analysed and evaluated in IROST. These
factors need to be present at a high level in order to allow knowledge sharing. The
results showed that due to the low importance of these aspects at IROST, in case of
implementation of KM, knowledge sharing will not be e®ectively carried out.
Comparing the results of this study with the others research: The ¯ndings of study of
Handzic and Agahari (2004), when compared to Handzic et al. (2001) study, dem-
onstrate the di®erence in cultural contexts between a large corporate body and a
relatively small, academic one. Both bodies exhibit reputable, high performing
organisations in their respective industries, however, they have opposing cultures.
The university school is characterised by a predominantly knowledge hoarding
culture, and the ¯rm in this study by a strong knowledge sharing culture. These
¯ndings have important implications for managers who wish to implement formal
KM initiatives, as they clearly indicate the importance of organisational

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N. Armaghan and J. Renaud

environment for knowledge sharing. They also indicate the importance of aligning
context with culture. While, our study in this organisation showed that in studied
research organisation there is almost the same culture as mentioned above for uni-
versities in Handzic's studies with a knowledge hoarding culture. In studied Iranian
organisation, the evaluation of CM showed that there is a real tendency to do KM,
but when we studied the knowledge sharing aspects related to Iranian organisations,
the scores are evaluated in very low level.

Conclusions
With regard to whether the CM is e®ective in a successful KM implementation, in
this paper, it was shown that the CM in the process of implementation of KM not
only results in identifying the resistance against the project, but also by evaluating
CM, the feasibility of the project and its probability of success and implementation
will be investigated. In this study, according to the objectives of the paper, we ¯rst
identi¯ed the cultural aspects in°uencing knowledge sharing; then, by the assess-
ment of CM and these aspects in the case study, it was determined that the low
presence and levels of importance of these aspects at IROST will hinder the suc-
cessful implementation of KM. Thus, based on the goals set in the beginning of the
paper, it was determined that implementation of a CM project at the same time of
the implementation of KM is essential and the independent implementation of KM
regardless of the CM requirements will greatly increase the probability of failure in
a KM project.
The results indicate that managers and deputy managers more or less regard
implementation of KM in their units ranging from \necessary" to \unavoidable".
The results of behavioural changes of people showed that 50% of these people are
pioneers of change. The barometer of changes equal to 75 points showed that there
are positive signs of accepting change at IROST, but the cultural results evaluated in
IROST indicate that ¯ve main factors of trust, commitment, job satisfaction,
organisational learning and communication, having the most important role in
knowledge sharing, were generally evaluated as issues of low importance. In other
words, as a whole, there are positive signs of accepting the change and the imple-
mentation of KM in the organisation; but before that, organisation's cultural factors
should be studied in depth.
The recommendations in this regard are general and for each of the said
factors are as follows:
. It is recommended that IROST invests in the cultural aspects that have a potential
role in knowledge sharing. If only people's need for the said factors is met, we will
have an increase in their rate of participation and cooperation in the implemen-
tation of a KM project; thus, it seems that the areas which strengthen the cultural
aspects in knowledge sharing in the organisation that also have been discussed and
analysed in the questionnaire should be of speci¯c consideration for IROST.

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. Regarding the trust factor, the results show that strengthening the following
factors, which were evaluated by questionnaires, will increase the sta®'s trust in
IROST: participation of employees in organisational decisions, adherence to
organisational commitment, accountability for delegated responsibility, the exis-
tence of a critical space without punishment, maintenance of a win–win rela-
tionship between managers and employees, increasing the quality of services,
accountability of managers for their decisions, dealing honestly and openly with
employees, freedom of people in their a®airs, integrity of scienti¯c information and
observing intellectual property rights, and o®ering accurate and timely informa-
tion to the employees in di®erent matters.
. Regarding the commitment factor, the results show that strengthening the fol-
lowing factors, which were evaluated in questionnaire, will increase the sta®'s
commitment in the organisation: compliance with laws and regulations, increasing
loyalty to the organisation, giving priority to organisational interests over private
interests, making a good reputation for the organisation, commitment to organi-
sation's success and adherence to contracts.
. Regarding the job satisfaction factor, the results show that strengthening the
following factors, which were evaluated by questionnaires, will most certainly
increase the sta®'s job satisfaction in IROST: enhancing job opportunities,
promoting sta® knowledge, skills and capabilities; ¯tting the responsibilities with
sta® powers and resources within the organisation, boosting work motivation and
encouraging employees, optimizing sta® performance, employing workers in jobs
be¯tting their quali¯cations the best, treating the sta® fairly and avoiding dis-
crimination, o®ering incentives to encourage people to do be more e®ective,
maintaining health and mental health and safety of employees at work, providing
job security, compensating for the damages caused by the environment.
. Regarding the organisational learning factor, the results show that promoting the
following factors, which were evaluated by questionnaires, will increase the sta®
learning at IROST: encouraging employees to design and develop new ideas, im-
proving teaching methods, promoting online or e-learning, learning through study
opportunities outside the organisation, group learning, learning through increased
social interactions;
. Among the ¯ve factors, organisational communication was ranked weaker than
the others in IROST. In this regard, the results show that improving the following
factors, which were evaluated by questionnaire, will be e®ective in improving
organisational communication: increasing people's communication in the frame-
work of common scienti¯c work, increasing communication in the form of informal
meetings and a friendly work environment, increasing people's communication in
informal meetings outside the organisation or workplace, promoting group ac-
tivities and o®ering incentives to encourage people to do group and team activi-
ties, maintaining an easy and quick communication with managers, increasing
assessment of sta® performance by managers based on their team activities.

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N. Armaghan and J. Renaud

The question of which strategies should be implemented against these obstacles in

the implementation of KM will be covered in this research in the future. Other
aspects of the research could be to examine other barriers such as process, leadership,
technology, etc., as well as their management in the organisation that could be
discussed in future studies.

Acknowledgment
This research was supported by a grant from the Iranian Research Organization
for Science and Technology.

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