Knowledge and Process Management

Volume 14 Number 3 pp 226–236 (2007)

Published online in Wiley InterScience
(www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/kpm.281

& Research Article

A Research Agenda for the Relationships

between Culture and Knowledge
Management
William R. King*,y
Katz Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

A preliminary research agenda for the relationship between culture, at several levels, and
knowledge management (KM) practice and success is developed. The levels of culture that are
considered are national culture (NC), overall organizational culture (OC), organizational
climate, organizational subcultures, subunit cultures, and team climate. The national and
organizational levels have previously been dealt with in largely separate research streams.
The ubiquity of globalization demands that they be integrated into a single research agenda.
Indicators that may serve as measures of the dependent variable in the culture–KM relationship
are suggested as is a format that facilitates the formulation of specific research questions. While
culture is usually thought of as the independent variable in the culture–KM dyad, the role of
culture as the dependent variable in these relationships is also treated. Copyright # 2007 John
Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

INTRODUCTION success of the organization’. (Oliver and Kandadi,

The concept of ‘culture’ appears frequently in the
literature of knowledge management (KM). Often, it
does so in the context of a ‘knowledge-sharing
culture’, ‘knowledge culture’, or some similar
notion, but there are many references to ‘organiz-
ational culture (OC)’, ‘climate’, and ‘national culture
(NC)’ as well. (Ardichvili et al., 2006; Bock et al.,
2005; DeLong and Fahey, 2000; Lang, 2004; Lopez
et al., 2004; Ordonez de Pablos, 2004; Park et al.,
2004).
A knowledge culture is one particular variety of
OC representing a ‘way of organizational life that. ..
enables and motivates people to create, share, and
utilize knowledge for the benefit and enduring
*Correspondence to: William R. King, Katz Graduate School of
Business, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA.
E-mail: billking@katz.pitt.edu
y
University Professor.
2006, p. 8). However, there are many other varieties
and levels of culture whose impacts on KM need to
be considered by researchers.
Culture is believed to influence the knowledge-
related behaviors of individuals, teams, organiz-
ational units and overall organizations because it
importantly influences the determination of which
knowledge it is appropriate to share, with whom
and when. Although the literatures of NC and
various kinds and levels of OCs have been largely
distinct, it is increasingly recognized that these
‘levels’ of culture can have both independent and
collective influences (e.g. Leidner and Kayworth,
2006).
OC has been called ‘the most significant input to
effective KM and organizational learning.. . .’ (Janz
and Prasamphanich, 2003). Culture was determined
to be the biggest impediment to knowledge transfer
in an empirical study of 431 US and European
organizations conducted by Ernst and Young

Copyright # 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Knowledge and Process Management
(Ruggles, 1998). Indeed, culture dominated all other
impediments in their ranking. In a theoretical
domain, ‘cultural barriers’ have been identified as
one of two major categories that ‘make it difficult to
realize the full value’ (of KM) (McCann and
Buckner, 2004, p. 47). So, culture is both important
to, and problematic for, KM.
This paper addresses the various concepts and
levels of culture that are useful to research and
practice in KM. It first focuses on the various levels
of culture in terms of how they can affect KM
practices and outcomes. It also emphasizes that
organizational-level cultures should be an impact
area for embedding knowledge into the organiz-
ation. Thus, culture is both an antecedent and an
outcome of KM.
The objective of the paper is to develop a
conceptualization for a preliminary research agenda
for the relationships of culture and KM.
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
The willingness of people in organizations to
participate meaningfully in KM is of central
importance to the field. ‘Knowledge sharing’ (King,
2006)—the willingness of individuals to share their
valuable personal knowledge with others who are
often unknown to the potential sharer—is of
particular importance. (Gilbert and Krause, 2002).
Motivating people to be willing to share can take a
variety of forms (King and Marks, 2008). Szulanski
(1996) proposed that motivational forces derive
from either or both of the two bases: personal belief
structures and institutional structures such as
values, norms, and accepted practices. It is to these
institutional structures, which usually are described
as ‘culture’, that this paper is addressed.
This paper addresses culture at five levels that are
relevant to KM practice and success:
- national culture,
- organizational culture,
- organizational climate,
- subunit culture and organizational subcultures,
- team climate.
The focus is on the influence of these ‘culture
levels’ on KM practice and success as well as (for the
organization-level cultures) their role as organiz-
ational assets within which knowledge may be
embedded (Holsapple and Joshi, 2001). The influ-
ence of culture and climates on a wide variety of
individual, group, and organizational choices is
widely accepted; clearly, this is the conventional
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
wisdom (Pauleen and Murphy, 2005). However,
these relationships have not been widely empiri-
cally tested.
Moreover, the streams of thinking and research
that have characterized NC and organizational-
level ‘cultures’ have been largely distinct. (Leidner
and Kayworth, 2006). Since both streams focus on
measuring the cultural attributes of people who
‘belong’ to a culture and since the ubiquitous nature
of globalism requires that we think beyond
traditional organizational boundaries, these streams
must now be integrated.
The influence of culture is often a matter of faith;
one either believes that it is important, or not.
However, there are some fairly clear illustrations of
culture’s multi-faceted significance. For example,
Hofstede criticized McGregor’s ‘Theory X versus
Theory Y’—a fundamental tenet of management
theory that is often reflected in OC—by saying that
‘McGregor’s theses were written from an indivi-
dualistic, fairly masculine cultural background,
which makes little sense in collectivist, moderately
feminine Indonesia’ (Hofstede, 1994). Hofstede
thus integrated NC with OC in a minor way,
something that this paper argues must be done in
major ways.
NATIONAL CULTURE
NC, also known as national character, has been
referred to as ‘the pattern of enduring personality
characteristics found among the populations of
nations’ (Clark, 1990, p. 66). Social anthropologists
have concluded that different societies face the same
basic sets of issues. It is the manner in which a
society deals with those issues that varies among
cultures. According to Inkeles and Levinson (1969),
anthropologists categorized these issues as: the
relationship of individuals to authority; the relation-
ship of individuals to society; the concept of
masculinity and femininity; how people deal with
uncertainty, and the way in which people express
their feelings.
People are believed to acquire patterns of
thinking, feeling, and acting, starting in early
childhood and continuing throughout their life.
These sources of mental programming ‘lie within
the social environments in which one grew up and
collected one’s life experiences’ (Hofstede, 1991,
p. 4). This programming starts at home with the
family and is affected by the neighborhood, school,
work, and community. Values are formed from
experience with parents, school, religion, and the
media (Laurent, 1983).
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Hofstede’s cultural dimensions
The common issues facing people worldwide that
were identified by Inkeles and Levinson (1969)
correspond well with dimensions that Hofstede
operationalized as ‘power distance (PD)’, ‘collecti-
vism versus individualism’, ‘femininity versus
masculinity’, and ‘uncertainty avoidance (UA)’,
which are so widely used that they have come to
be operationalizations of NC.
Hofstede’s dimensions are ubiquitous in the
literature of NC. Sondergaard et al. (1994) examined
reviews, citations, and replications of his work,
determining that between 1980 and 1993, 1036
quotations from Culture’s Consequences appeared in
journals. He concluded that Hofstede’s work was
based on ‘a rigorous research design, a systematic
data collection, and a coherent theory to explain
national variations’ (p. 449). Hofstede’s dimensions
have significant impact today; in fact, most research
on NC uses it in some way. Even those researchers
who offer alternative measurement scales, compare
theirs to his (e.g., Maznevski et al., 2002).
Uncertainty avoidance
UA, describes the degree to which individuals feel
threatened by ambiguous situations by establishing
formal rules and rejecting deviant ideas and
behaviors. People scoring high on this dimension
attempt to avoid uncertainty in all forms and
situations. They have anxiety, gravitate toward
secure settings, and use experts (Hofstede, 1984).
They often cope through technology, law, and
religion (Hofstede, 1980). In organizations, UA is
‘manifested by the clarity of plans, policies,
procedures, and systems’ (Newman and Nollen,
1996, p. 75). High UA individuals are less tolerant of
those with different ideas, from other countries, or
displaying deviant behavior. People from high UA
cultures are less willing to make individual
decisions and have weaker motivations to achieve.
Power distance
PD addresses the power or influence that a
subordinate perceives from a superior (Hofstede,
1991). High PD leads individuals to accept the
decisions and opinions of their supervisors simply
due to their superior position, and to believe that the
greater benefits and privileges of being a supervisor
are warranted. In contrast, in low PD cultures,
employees believe that inequity should be mini-
mized and try to reduce it, believing that the
hierarchical system is merely a consequence of
convenience. They also tend to disagree with their
supervisors and cooperate with fellow employees
more often (Hofstede, 1980).
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Knowledge and Process Management
In cultures high in PD, such as Malaysia, Guate-
mala, Panama, Philippines, and Mexico (Hofstede,
1980), employees tend to comply with an order
given by a superior even if they are unsure of its
ethical standing or merit. In contrast, that behavior
would not be found as often in countries scoring low
on PD, for example, Austria, Israel, Denmark, New
Zealand, and Ireland (Hofstede, 1980).
Because of a general decrease in PD that appears
to have occurred across cultures (Hofstede, 1991,
2001), some researchers question its relevance.
Hofstede counters that the differences are likely
to remain, and that their ‘mutual ranking’ (p. 46)
should be unchanged.
Masculinity/femininity
Perhaps the most misunderstood dimension, mas-
culinity/femininity (MF) does not refer to gender.
Hofstede’s (1980, 1984, 1991, 2001) notion is that a
culture ranking high on masculinity emphasizes
achievement, earnings, and assertiveness. On the
other hand, cultures ranking high on femininity
favor personal goals, the quality of life, group
decision-making, a friendly environment, and
nurturance. Although these characterizations are
named for gender, the countries that exhibit
extremes of either characteristic are not necessarily
gender imbalanced.
Although MF does not refer to gender, there are
some gender implications in countries with differ-
ent MF scores. Males in cultures scoring high on
masculinity (e.g., Japan, Austria, Venezuela, Italy,
and Switzerland) are found to focus more on work
goals, while females are encouraged to follow more
traditional tender and modest roles. In contrast,
both genders seem to emphasize the quality of life
and personal goals in cultures scoring high on
femininity (e.g., Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands,
Denmark, and Costa Rica).
Organizations reflect masculinity with ‘merit-
based opportunities for high earnings, recognition,
advancement, and rewards’ (Newman and Nollen,
1996, p. 759), while those that reflect femininity
emphasize the quality of interpersonal relations and
quality of working life. This measure is described as
a continuum by Bennett (1999), where the MF score
represents a point along that continuum.
Individualism/collectivism
Another continuum, individualism/collectivism
(IC) describes the relationship of the individual to
the group. It assesses the extent to which individ-
uals’ self-interests take priority over the concerns of
the group. People in individualistic cultures are
more self-oriented. In cultures such as Guatemala,
Ecuador, Panama, Venezuela, and Columbia
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DOI: 10.1002/kpm
Knowledge and Process Management
(Hofstede, 1980), individuals tend to see themselves
as members of a group and are thus closer to the
collective side of the scale. The group provides
much of their identity and members are loyal to the
group (Hoecklin, 1995). Individuals from a collecti-
vist culture do not value standing out from the
crowd. In contrast, people of cultures scoring high
on individualism such as the United States,
Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the
Netherlands, are self-oriented and value individual
initiative, freedom, and challenge.
IC ‘will strongly affect the nature of the
relationship between a person and the organization
to which he or she belongs’ (Hofstede, 1991, p. 152).
IC can affect the reasoning for compliance with
organizational requirements. In individualistic cul-
tures, employees act for personal gain or conscience
rather than for the good of the group or organization
(Hofstede, 1991). The actions of others are not
considered important to individualists, who tend to
lead highly segmented social lives.
On the other hand, the goals and approval of the
group are valued by individuals on the collectivist
side of the scale. Collectivists feel interdependent
with the group and will subvert their own interests
if they are at odds with the group’s (Hofstede, 1991).
They do not care to work alone and they feel
protected by the group (Newman and Nollen, 1996).
A collectivist has concern for the implications of his
or her actions on the lives of others and values a
sense of sharing and helping.
Other national culture dimensions
Other value dimensions that have been considered
for NC are ‘time orientation’—the trade-off
between the short- and long-runs (Hofstede and
Bond, 1988), ‘monochronism versus polychron-
ism’—linear versus parallel processing, (Hall,
1976), and ‘locus of control’—whether one’s fate
is controlled by others or by oneself (Smith et al.,
1995).
ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE
‘Integrationist’ views of OC propose that a single
unified culture exists in an organization. It is
characterized by consistency across individuals
and units in terms of the elements of culture:
assumptions, values, and artifacts (Schein, 1985).
Assumptions, or beliefs, represent interpretive
schemes that people use to perceive reality and to
make sense of it. These assumptions are formed over
time as members of an organization make decisions,
cope with problems, and take advantage of oppor-
tunities. Then, they are passed on to other members
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of the organization. A specific culture emerges
when all those in the organization accept these
assumptions or beliefs as interpretive schemes.
Values are a more visible reflection of these
underlying assumptions in that they present a set of
social norms that define the ‘rules’ through which
people interact (DeLong and Fahey, 2000). They
represent a basis for social control in that they define
the behaviors that are appropriate for organiz-
ational members to display.
Artifacts are the most visible aspects of OC. A
firm’s knowledge repository is one KM-related arti-
fact of its underlying cultural values and assumptions.
Those who believe that a single, unified culture
exists in organizations see OC as ‘an integrating
mechanism or social or normative glue that holds
together a potentially diverse group of organiza-
tional members’ (Meyerson and Martin, 1987, p. 624).
Among the organizational cultural values that
have been prominently studied are ‘task orien-
tation’—a concern for efficiency, ‘people-
orientation’, ‘constructive’—fairness and helpful-
ness, ‘passivity’, and ‘aggression’ (Cooke and
Lafferty, 1987).
To illustrate the three components of OC in a
manufacturing context, consider the underlying
cultural assumption of a ‘customer orientation’:
values such as investing in facilities and equipment
to leverage intellectual work, working closely with
suppliers and customers, making global decisions,
exercising management control, and integrating
processes with suppliers. The related artifacts might
be reengineering, cellular manufacturing, quality
improvement efforts, preventive maintenance, and
‘pull’ production. (Nahm et al., 2004).
ORGANIZATIONAL CLIMATE
Organizational climate is often distinguished from
OC in that climate reflects a contextual situation at a
point in time as well as its links to the behaviors of
organizational members, whereas culture is an
evolved context within which specific situations
are embedded. Organizational climate is therefore
usually distinguished from OC in terms of perma-
nence. Culture is more permanent; climate is
similar, but less enduring. In effect, climate is a
direct behavioral manifestation of culture.
Thus, climate is more susceptible to change,
particularly through manipulation, than is culture.
In many instances, in which ‘changing the culture’ is
attempted or discussed, it is really climate that is
being addressed. This manipulation may be by
managers who have a plan to alter the organization
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or by participants who are exercising their power
and influence.
Important aspects of organizational climate in
achieving KM goals are ‘trust’ (Hinds and Pfeffer,
2003), ‘openness’, ‘tolerance of well-reasoned fail-
ure’ (Leonard and Sensiper, 1998), and one imbued
with pro-social norms (Constant et al., 1994).
ORGANIZATIONAL SUBCULTURES AND
SUBUNIT CULTURES
Proponents of a ‘differentiation’ perspective on
culture view OC as a mix of ‘local cultures’, each
with their own assumptions, values, and artifacts
(Denison, 1996; Hofstede, 1998; Meyerson and
Martin, 1987; Sackmann, 1992). This view does
not conflict with the ‘integration’ view of a unitary
OC since both can exist simultaneously.
These organizational subcultures may reflect the
organizational structure, professional occupations,
task assignments, ethnic values, rank in the hiera-
rchy, or technologies used (Bloor and Dawson, 1994)
Subunit cultures are a special variety of organ-
izational subculture in that they are created within
the boundaries of particular subunits of an organ-
ization. For instance, the Accounting Department of
a firm might, and generally does, have a specific set
of guidelines and behavioral norms that may be
different from the broad OC’s guidelines and
norms. This may result from ‘business necessity’
(e.g., because the subunit is subject to rules from
government regulators) or it may merely reflect the
unique psychological makeup of self-selected
members of the unit.
Among the subunit cultural values that have been
studied are ‘professionalism’ and ‘bureaucratic’
(Jones, 1983), ‘cosmopolitanism’ (Gouldner, 1967),
and ‘developmental’ (Quinn, 1988).
Organizational subcultures are generally differ-
ent from subunit cultures in that they do not
necessarily refer to an organized unit of the
organization. For instance, Jermier et al. (1991)
studied clusters of officers in a police department in
terms of the distinct subcultures that they had
developed (e.g., ‘anti-military social workers’,
‘ass-covering legalists’) that were quite independent
of the subunits in which they operated.
TEAM CLIMATE
Teams are primary organizational mechanisms for
leveraging the diverse specialized knowledge of
individuals toward a common goal (Cooke et al.,
2001). Ideally, a team is established so that the levels
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Knowledge and Process Management
and distribution of knowledge within the team
matches those required for success in the project
that is assigned, (Walz et al., 1993). Since teams are
typically focused on a single objective and are
short-lived, the concept of climate is more appro-
priate at the team level than is culture.
When groups of individuals work collaboratively
as when a team pursues a focused objective, there is
no question that something resembling a climate
forms. This has been recognized in terms of the
‘team cognition’ of the group (Mathieu et al., 2000).
In experiments with temporary self-organizing
student teams, I have observed significant and
lasting differences in many values and artifacts—in
communications patterns and media, for example.
These differences are not readily explained by
anything other than ‘team climate’. For instance,
some teams tend to communicate electronically and
seldom have team meetings. Others meet regularly
and use e-mail very little between meetings. Clearly,
this reflects different shared behavior patterns that
emerge very rapidly after the teams are formed.
A linkage between the broad notion of culture/
climate and the specific idea of a ‘team climate’
comes through the well-accepted notion of ‘shared
cognition’. Cannon-Bowers and Salas (2001)
indicate that ‘shared attitudes/beliefs’ are one of
the four components of shared cognition. ‘When
team members are similar in terms of their attitudes
and beliefs, it will cause them to have compatible
perceptions about the task environment....’ Shared
attitudes/beliefs are not... task-related; rather, they
are more generic...They are believed to affect task
performance in the sense that when team members
have similar attitudes/beliefs, they arrive at com-
patible interpretations of the environment, which
enable them to make better decisions’ (p. 197).
Thus, well-developed team cognition allows team
members to draw on their own specialized knowl-
edge to develop project results that are internally
consistent and coordinated among members
(Mathieu et al., 2000).
If all team members are from the same organiz-
ation, the team climate may importantly reflect the
organizational climate. But, that is not always so. In
student teams, there is usually no common
organizational affiliation; yet a team climate rapidly
develops.
HOW DO CULTURES RELATE TO KM?
Culture can influence KM in many ways. In turn,
organizational-level cultures may also be influenced
by KM as assumptions and findings from proces-
sing knowledge are embedded in the culture.
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The conventional wisdom of KM is that certain
organizational assumptions and values will lead to
‘good’ KM behaviors and outcomes and that others
will lead to ‘bad’ ones. For instance, it is widely
believed that sharing, openness, and trust among
individuals in an organization will be positive for
KM and that such values as competition among
individuals will be dysfunctional for KM. While this
is the prevailing belief in KM, a recent study that I
have done (King and Marks, 2008) suggests that this
may not be true in all types of organizations, so even
generally held ‘wisdom’ such as this requires
further research attention.
National culture’s effect on KM
NC influences the way that all people in a society
think, how they view their duties, collect infor-
mation, respond to others, and express their
feelings. So, it is reasonable to assume that NC
would influence the way that KM can be best
conducted, how KM outputs would be valued and
used, and the overall success of KM. It is
conceivable that if national cultural norms are
contrary to established organizational norms—
such as might be the case for employees of a
foreign-based firm—the latter can dominate, but
that is unproven and somewhat unlikely for the
long-run because NC is so enduring.
The ways in which NC can influence behavior are
clear since an individual’s predisposition to risk-
taking is heavily influenced by NC. This might
translate into knowledge-sharing behavior—shar-
ing versus ‘hoarding’ knowledge, for example.
Barton (1995) perhaps summarizes it best in saying
that, ‘Values serve as a knowledge-screening and
-control mechanism’.
The influence of NC has been studied in the
context of innovation where it has been demon-
strated that low power-distance and UA and high
masculinity and individualism can foster higher
innovation. (Couto and Vieira, 2004; Kedia et al.,
1992; Morris et al., 1994; Nakata and Sivakumar,
1996; Shane, 1992, 1993). Similar effects have been
found in the management of large science projects
(Shore and Cross, 2005), in group support systems
(Reinig and Mejias, 2004), in consumer behavior
(Ganesh et al., 1997), and in product diffusion
(Dwyer et al., 2005). One might expect similar results
in the context of KM.
Organizational culture’s effects on KM
The impact of cultures on individuals can be
thought of in terms of cognitive and post-cognitive
impacts and behavioral impacts (King and Ko,
2001), Cognitive and post-cognitive impacts include
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the conscious and subconscious willingness to
search and notice, searching and noticing, and the
willingness to form new patterns of cognitive
associations. Behavioral impacts reflect actions that
are taken (or avoided) by individuals based on these
patterns or cognitive associations.
At the level of intermediate organizational
impacts, responsiveness to employees opinions, to
customers, to changes in the marketplace, to
technological innovations, to competitors and the
flexibility, and opportunistic nature of the organ-
ization are impact indicators.
Learning impacts may be thought of in terms of
diffusion (the sharing of information/interpret-
ations with others), elaboration (the development
of different interpretations by various individuals),
infusion (the identification of underlying non-
obvious problems or issues), and thoroughness
(the development of multiple understandings
across individuals) (King and Ko, 2001).
Organizational impacts relate to overall organiz-
ational performance (probably best assessed in
multiple dimensions as in ‘balanced scorecard’
approach (Kaplan and Norton, 1996).
Organizational-level cultures’ relationships to
KM have been addressed by DeLong and Fahey
(2000) who posit four ways that OCs (and
subcultures) can influence KM.
(1) Culture shapes assumptions about which
knowledge is important.
(2) Culture mediates the relationships between
organizational and individual knowledge.
(3) Culture creates a context for social interaction.
(4) Culture shapes processes for the creation and
adoption of new knowledge.
The definition of OC includes assumptions as a
basic element of culture, so (1) is self-evident in that
it applies to assumptions concerning knowledge.
The second manner in which culture can
influence KM reflects the rules and understandings
that exist concerning who owns knowledge—the
individual or the organization. In some instances
this is formalized, but in most cases it is not, and
various behaviors (e.g., sharing versus ‘hoarding’)
ensue depending on how individuals view owner-
ship of their personal knowledge. Clearly, trust is
important to this as are established norms regarding
cross-functional relationships. For instance, Gold
et al. (2001) concluded that organizations with more
open and supportive value orientations are predis-
posed toward constructive knowledge behaviors.
Jarvenpaa and Staples (2001) studied university
personnel and found that shared organizational
values influenced individuals’ perceptions of the
ownership of knowledge.
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The third way in which OC influences KM has to
do with the role of culture in creating a context for
social interaction. This is reflected in such things as
standard practices concerning the purpose, fre-
quency and duration of meetings, the appropriate-
ness of contacting the ‘boss’ via e-mail, etc.
Culture also shapes the processes for creation
and adoption of new knowledge. The organiz-
ation’s perceived attitude toward failure is an
important element of this. In some firms,
well-reasoned failure is not only accepted, it is
celebrated; in others, a single failure can doom
one’s career. Clearly, the propensity to take risks
and to generate new knowledge is influenced by
this ‘organizational attitude’ which is reflected in
what happens to people who are responsible for
failures.
Despite the strong intuition-based beliefs that OC
greatly influences KM practices and success, studies
of organizational antecedents of knowledge-related
behaviors report equivocal findings about which
specific norms and values promote knowledge
sharing (Huber, 2001). Indeed, the appropriate
culture for motivating ‘good’ KM is often defined
tautologically (Lubin, 2001; Mullin, 1996) with no
specification of these norms and values.
So, any research agenda for the influence of
culture on KM must focus on identifying the specific
values that are most salient in influencing KM.
Whereas the four previous points emphasize the
impact of culture on KM, KM also impacts culture
(climate) because cultural assumptions, values, and
artifacts are a main category of impact for new
knowledge. Thus, when a new practice is found to
be especially useful, it is embedded in the
organizational climate. Indeed, this is a definition
of ‘organizational learning’—‘encoding inferences
from history into routines that guide behavior’
(Levitt and March, 1988).
Consider some examples:
A company assesses its sales department’s
reports on successful and unsuccessful sales pre-
sentations, draws conclusions, and incorporates
successful approaches into its sales training pro-
gram. Over time, these approaches become the
company’s selling guidelines and norms.
A firm uses focus groups to better understand the
buying decisions of customers. Models of the
customers’ decision processes are made available
in a repository. Various marketing groups within
the firm analyze the knowledge and develop
marketing approaches which are tested in various
areas of the country. The results suggest practices
and procedures which are standardized and dis-
seminated widely to sales people, product
designers, and marketing strategists.
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The past contract bids placed by a firm are
grouped into ‘successful’ and ‘unsuccessful’
categories. An analysis shows some clear determi-
nants of success and practices that often lead to
failure. These are incorporated into a repository that
is made ‘required reading’ for writers of project
proposals.
KM’S IMPACT ON CULTURE
Demarest (1997) defines ‘Commercial Knowl-
edge’—the sort of knowledge that makes business
enterprises work—as ‘an explicitly developed and
managed network of imperatives, patterns, rules,
and scripts, embodied in some aspect of the firm,
and distributed throughout the firm, that creates
marketplace performance’ (p. 377).
This definition makes it clear that culture (or
climate) artifacts and values are influenced by the
knowledge that results from KM processes. KM can
be seen as one of the methods for the ‘explicit’
development of these artifacts and values.
It may be true that, in the short run, it is climate,
and not culture, that is so affected. Indeed, with the
ever-increasing recognition of the rapid obsoles-
cence of knowledge, it may only be climate that can
be affected. Nonetheless, researchers should not
neglect relationships in which KM is the indepen-
dent variable and culture is the dependent one.
DEVELOPING AN AGENDA FOR
RESEARCH
Table 1 shows a preliminary format for a research
agenda for the relationships between culture and
KM. NC, organizational and subunit culture or
climate (OC) is shown as impacting individuals,
teams, and the overall organization.
A research agenda would relate levels or
components of culture to one more of the KM
outcomes listed in the table. Table 1 serves the
purpose of identifying important dependent vari-
ables in the culture–KM relationship. It suggests
research questions of the form:
Is x related to y?where x is a specific culture,
cultural level or some assumption, value or artifact
of culture, and y is one or more of the dependent
variables in Table 1. The table also facilitates the
posing of more sophisticated research questions
that involve the joint effects of culture at two or
more levels.
The first two columns of Table 1 show that the
individual effects are on individuals’ knowledge
search, noticing, sharing and re-use behaviors, and
W. R. King
DOI: 10.1002/kpm
 Table 1
KM-related outcomes at three levels
DOI: 10.1002/kpm
A Research Agenda
Individuals
National culture; organizational –Willingness to search and
or subunit culture or climate notice, searching and noticing
behaviors and willingness to
form new patterns of cognitive
association
–Behaviors that reflect new
cognitive associations
–Sharing behaviors
–Knowledge re-use behaviors
–Individual learning
–Role clarity
–Job performance
–Job satisfaction
233
Preliminary research agenda
Teams
–Degree of collaboration
–Communications methods,
media, and quality
–Amount of effectiveness of
sharing of knowledge
–Degree of virtualness
–Amount of quality of cooperative
learning
–Team efficiency, effectiveness, and
timeliness of performance
–Project success
Organization
–Innovation processes and performance
Knowledge and Process Management
–Responsiveness to change
–Amount of quality of collective learning
–Amount of quality of collaborative
problem solving
–Amount and quality of knowledge
embedded in products processes
and relationships
–Capabilities created
–Utilization of KM processes
–KM technologies utilized
–KM strategy employed
–Effectiveness of creation, acquisition,
sharing, transfer, and other KM processes
–Existence of KM artifacts such as communities
of practice, expert networks, discussion forums,
best practice repositories, etc.
–Success of KM
–Changes in organizational vision and mission
–Return-on-KM investment
RESEARCH ARTICLE
RESEARCH ARTICLE
on other knowledge-related behaviors such as the
propensity to transfer knowledge to those who can
benefit from it.
Culture also influences the clarity with which
individuals perceive their roles; in situations of
ambiguity; for instance, an open culture is likely to
lead to explicit questioning of roles. The ultimate
effect in individual terms may be greater or lesser
job satisfaction.
In terms of team effects, NC and OC influence the
level of collaboration, communications methods,
media selection, the quality and the quantity and
quality of sharing within teams, and the degree of
cooperative learning which occurs when team
members work together to maximize their own
and other team member’s performance and learn-
ing. Among the team artifacts that would be
indicators of the effects are the frequency of
meetings and written progress reports and the
‘virtualness’ of the teams that an organization
employs.
The myriad effects of NC and OC at the
organizational level are primarily reflected on the
organizational-level objectives of KM—greater
innovation, collaboration, willingness to change,
as well as the learning that takes place, the amount
and quality of knowledge that is embedded in the
organization’s products, processes and relation-
ships, and the new knowledge-related capabilities
that are created. Of course, the amount of use of KM
and its success, the KM strategy that is employed
(e.g., codification vs. personalization), and the
nature of KM processes and technologies that are
employed are important impact indicators. The
effectiveness of KM processes, as indicated by KM
artifacts, is also relevant.
Of course, each of these is an intermediate
organizational outcome; improved organizational
performance is the ultimate outcome. However, it is
usually not feasible to research these sorts of
questions in the context in which overall organiz-
ational performance is the dependent variable;
Table 1 recognizes that KM may have an impact
on ‘ultimate’ outcomes at each level such as job
performance and satisfaction, project success, and
return-on-KM investment.
Table 1 can thereby facilitate the development of
research questions such as:

How does the national (or ethnic) culture of indi-
viduals affect their knowledge-sharing behavior?

Does the Asian cultural characteristic of ‘saving
face’ influence these individuals’ willingness to
participate in communities of practice?

Does a knowledge-sharing OC result in greater
organizational responsiveness to change?
234
Knowledge and Process Management

How do differences in values and assumptions at
various office locations affect knowledge-sharing
behavior?

Which (of several) subcultures in an organization
are most conducive to KM success?

Are different OCs related to the selection of
different KM strategies?

What is the joint effect of particular organiz-
ational and team climates on project success?

Is an organization’s preference for the use of
self-organizing teams reflected in any of the team
outcomes listed in Table 1?

How does the level of the shared cognition that is
developed by a team affect these team outcomes?
At a more managerial, or pragmatic, level,
questions such as the following may be asked:

Does the cautious nature of our organizational
climate affect our ability to successfully employ
KM?

Does our reward system motivate organizational
members to share knowledge?

Does the lack of trust in our organization affect
our ability to innovate?
The impact of team climate on the knowledge
behaviors of teams (not shown in the table) might be
studied using the same outcomes that are specified
in the ‘team’ column in Table 1. The major
distinction is that team climate probably does not
importantly affect individual-and organizational-
level KM factors.
A preliminary research agenda for the impact of
KM on culture (or climate) would include KM’s
impact on the artifacts, values and assumptions
incorporated into OC (or climate), and team climate.
Among these would be the imperatives, patterns,
rules and scripts (Demarest, 1997), and other aspects
of culture or climate as reflected by the items that
make up the many instruments for assessing culture
(e.g., Calori and Sarnin, 1991; Chatman et al., 1991;
Denison and Mishra, 1995; House et al., 2002.
SUMMARY
The concept of culture is explored in terms of NCs,
overall OC, organizational climate, organizational
subcultures, subunit cultures, and team climates.
Relationships between culture and KM are concep-
tualized in a research agenda that include culture as
both the independent and dependent variable in the
culture–KM relationship.
W. R. King
DOI: 10.1002/kpm
Knowledge and Process Management
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