A Study of the impact of Knowledge Management Infrastructures and Dimensions of Improvement of Managers' Decision-making on the Knowledge management status in the Iran Public Libraries Foundation

Purpose: To determine the impact of the knowledge management infrastructures and the dimensions of improvement of managers' decision-making on the status of knowledge management in the public libraries affiliated to the Iran Public Libraries Foundation. Method: This research is a descriptive-correlational study. The statistical sample of the research was selected by using the cluster random sampling method. Six provinces with 300 samples were selected and finally 247 full questionnaires were returned. The research tool consists of a researcher-made questionnaire. For the data analysis, the exploratory factor analysis and linear regression analysis were used. To assess the validity of the questionnaire, the factor analysis and to assess its reliability, Cronbach's alpha was used at the level 0.95 for the knowledge management infrastructures and status and 0.97 for the dimensions of improvement of decision-making, and thus both validity and reliability were confirmed. According to the structure of the questionnaire, the status of knowledge management (i.e. the criterion variable) was studied based on the dimensions of the "knowledge management infrastructure" variable (i.e. the predictor variable) (including human resources infrastructure, technology infrastructure, process infrastructure, culture infrastructure, organizational strategy infrastructure, and precision resources infrastructure) as well as the decision-making dimensions (the predictor variable) (including accuracy and precision of information, economic availability of information, rapidity of information flow, information security, information relevance, applicability of data). Findings: The results of the research indicate that based on the prediction model, the infrastructures "human resources", "culture" and "process", as well as all dimensions of decision-making improvement can predict the knowledge management status in the public libraries affiliated to the Iran Public Libraries Foundation, but in the final model, the "organizational strategy" infrastructure, "financial resources" infrastructure and "technology" infrastructure failed to predict the status of knowledge management. Originality/value: This research can provide useful and practical information for managing the public libraries of Iran, thereby improving the status of knowledge management based on the relationship between the knowledge management infrastructures and the dimensions of improvement of managers' decision-making.