Identifying and prioritizing the barriers to knowledge flow in university libraries based on the maturity model of knowledge management belonged to the American Productivity and Quality Center

Knowledge management is used in the organization for guidance on the process of creating, disseminating and applying knowledge for organizational purposes. Understanding the weaknesses of/and barriers to the success factors in the flow of knowledge in the organization can affect the knowledge management process. Therefore, the present study deals with the identifying and prioritizing the barriers to knowledge flow in university libraries based on the maturity of knowledge management model taken from the American Productivity and Quality Center.

The present study is a survey-analytical study. The statistical population included 184 managers of central libraries of some universities, all included as the research census. Data were collected through a researcher-made questionnaire.

The barriers to knowledge flow are ranked in priority order: Management factors with a mean rate of 5.72 in the first rank, the source of knowledge with a mean rate of 5.7 in the second rank, organizational factors with a mean rate of 4.67 in the third rank, time factor with a mean rate of 4.37 in the fourth rank, communication channel with a mean rate of .22 in the fifth rank, individual factors with a mean rate of 4.21 in the sixth rank, technical factors with a mean rate of 3.92 in the seventh rank, and knowledge characteristics with a mean rate of 3.72 in the eighth rank. In terms of ranking the barriers of the dimensions of the flow of knowledge with the level of maturity of knowledge management the barriers are the level of innovation, the level of optimization, the level of standardization, the level of development and the level of beginning, respectively.

Academic libraries face the barriers and bottlenecks in the main steps of the knowledge management cycle. Although these obstacles exist in the entire dimensions of the flow of knowledge, the barriers are more tangible in the management dimension. Therefore, attention to effective leadership indicators, the right styles of management, organizational support, and attention to knowledge workers are necessary to eliminate these barriers.