The impact of job characteristics on knowledge creation

In the era of knowledge economy, organization seeks to achieve two main goals: knowledge creation and use. Knowledge creation is the main source for establishing and maintaining competitive advantage. Therefore to identify the antecedents of knowledge creation is the subject of many researches. Since knowledge is created by individuals in organizations, therefore finding out the context in which they are better motivated is a must in knowledge creation process. Job design in one of the significant element at individual level of knowledge creation. The main objective of this research is to explore the relationship between job characteristics and individual level knowledge creation in an Oil Refinery Company. Thus a questionnaire was designed based on Hackman and Oldham’s Job Diagnostics Survey (JDS) and Nonaka’s Organizational knowledge creation. The result was promising and regression model results indicate significant and positive impact in regard to autonomy, feedback, skill variety, task identity, task significance as key features in designing jobs on individual level knowledge creation. Also the moderating role of growth need strength between job characteristics and knowledge creation was supported.