Structural Equation Modeling of the Relation between Organizational Culture and the Process of implementing Knowledge Management (Case Study: Zahedan Municipality)

At the beginning of the third millennium, knowledge management has been developed as a strategic requirement for service institutions, organizations, and foundations. It guarantees long-term excellence for organizations and communities, and reflects the extent to which they have benefited from human and intellectual capital, and information. Organizational culture is one of the key factors in implementing knowledge management. This research is aimed at investigating the relation between organizational culture and the process of knowledge management through a combined research approach. Using Delphi method and referring to the viewpoints of experts by content analysis and conducting semi-structured interviews in the qualitative stage of the research, the researchers identified twelve components of knowledge-based organizational culture in the statistical population. These components included desire to achieve knowledge, knowledge-work orientation, teaching and learning, knowledge related interactions, sympathy, knowledge popularization, commitment to knowledge programs, knowledge evaluation and reward, knowledge legitimacy, knowledge scheduling, knowledge flexibility, and knowledge preservation. In the quantitative part of the research, descriptive and correlation methods using LISREL software and structural equation modeling were used. The relation of each of these components with the process of knowledge management was analyzed. In the qualitative phase, 33 experts in the field were selected, and in the quantitative phase, the sample consisted of 141 of the employees of Zahedan municipality selected by random sampling. Having analyzed the data, the researchers found out that the components of knowledge program and knowledge legitimacy are most effective in the process of knowledge management in Zahedan municipality in relation to organizational culture and knowledge management. Finally, some practical solutions were proposed for dealing with the issues.