Research On The Effects Of Knowledge Management And Organizational Learning On IT Application

The application of information technology (IT) facilitates the exchange of information and knowledge sharing in and between organizations, improving the control system and firm performance with cost saving and higher efficiency. According to the resource based view, the IT resources, combining IT infrastructure, IT human resources and IT strategic resources, directly and indirectly affect the firm competitive advantage and performance. In addition, IT's business value can be achieved with the influence of certain organizational capabilities.As strategic resource, knowledge can be managed and utilized through the process of knowledge management (KM) and organizational learning (OL). The knowledge accumulation, sharing and utilization process through the individual, group and organizational level, leading to the knowledge creation and innovation. Particularly, IT resources'implementation provides the technological platforms for the KM and OL, enabling the knowledge acquisition, dissemination, sharing and storing. In addition, as critical organizational capabilities, KM and OL both affect the IT application efficiency and have complementary (interaction) effects.Based on the same studies, this paper designs scales to measure the IT resources, KM, OL and firm performance. Through the exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, the scales show high reliability and validity. Furthermore, the PLS (Partial Least Squares) structural equation model estimation results illustrate that: KM and OL both partially mediate and positively moderate the relationship between IT resources and firm performance; the interaction of KM and OL has significant effect on firm performance, showing the complementarity between KM and OL; furthermore, their interaction also mediates the relationship between IT resources and firm performance. The theoretical contributions and managerial implications are discussed, and the limitations of the study and further researches are highlighted accordingly.