An empirical study of knowledge management in the government and nonprofit sectors: Organizational culture composition and its relationship with knowledge management success and the approach for knowledge flow

Knowledge Management (KM) provides the capability to engineer the enterprise structure (formal and informal), its functions, and processes to leverage its intellectual assets in order for the enterprise to survive and prosper in the current dynamic environment. There is a critical need in the government sector to effectively integrate KM systems with the aim of transcending boundaries for the purpose of disseminating essential knowledge throughout many departments, agencies, state and local governments, including nonprofit institutions. However, for KM to truly be successful requires more than just implementing a new technology that can be acquired in a box; it requires understanding and integrating the human aspect of it, as well as the culture in which they operate.; This research focuses on the government and nonprofit sectors. It characterizes and evaluates the enterprise culture composition using four culture types, the success of KM systems, and the strategic approach for knowledge flow at different hierarchical levels of the enterprise. A total of 341 responses from employees occupying different functional roles and supporting different U.S. government and nonprofit enterprises were collected using a carefully crafted research questionnaire that was distributed through multiple channels nationwide.; We found statistical evidence indicating that organizations that implemented KMS in a Hierarchy culture have the lowest success factor scores compared to all other culture types. Additionally, results at the organization and work unit levels supported a positive correlation between the enterprise cultural strength and successful KMS efforts. Findings also confirmed a positive and stronger relationship between a Personalization approach for knowledge flow in organizations that have Clan or Adhocracy cultures and a Codification approach in organizations that have Hierarchy or Market cultures. Also, results indicate that successful KM efforts in the government and nonprofit sectors use a hybrid approach for their knowledge flow, focusing strongly towards one approach (Codification) and using the other strategy (Personalization) as complementary instead of implementing a balanced approach. The understanding these factors and the relationships among them has been demonstrated to be essential in order to increase the likelihood of success when implementing a KMS effort or a KM solution.