Facilitating Knowledge Management with Information Management and Organizational Mechanisms

A comprehensive and feasible model that delineates the interrelationships among diversified learning mechanisms, information management, and knowledge creation is absent. This study aims to fill this void. Unlike previous research, this study investigates the causality of knowledge creation from two different perspectives: data management strategy, i.e. distributed data application and administration (DDAA), and organizational learning mechanisms (OLM). We also defined a term, OIM (organizational information mechanism), to represent the composite effect of both DDAA and OLM. In our framework, we argued that the composite effect of data management and organizational learning mechanisms influence the result of knowledge creation. In order to test the feasibility of this framework, we conducted an empirical study. This study employed a survey instrument, which contains data collected from 500 organizations in manufacturing, trade, transportation and service industries, and academic institution. A total of 202 usable responses were analyzed. We identify three causal relationships from this study. (1) The composite effect of DDAA is positively related to knowledge creation; (2) The composite effect of OLM is positively related to knowledge creation; and (3) The composite effect of OIM is positively related to knowledge creation. The implications of the study are discussed, and further research directions are proposed.