Investigating the Effect of Organizational Structure Dimensions on Knowledge Management in Public Hospitals in Qom Province

Today, knowledge is deemed a valuable and strategic resource while on the other hand, knowledge management is not possible without proper organizational structure. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate the impact of organizational structure on knowledge management in public hospitals.

This applied - exploratory study was performed on 570 employees at Qom University of Medical Sciences hospitals. The research instrument was a standard researcher-made questionnaire with a five-part Likert scale. The validity of the questionnaire was assessed through content, convergent and divergent validity tests. In addition, instrument reliability was measured by Cronbach’s alpha and composite reliability test. Data were analyzed through exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis as well as structural equation modeling by SPSS v. 20 and Lisrel 8.8 software.

The mean and standard deviation of the knowledge management component were found to be 3.354±0.816. The results of exploratory factor analysis showed that KMO was equal to 0.936 and that Bartlett test was significant at the level of 0.001. Cronbach’s alpha and composite reliability were between 0.982-0.983 and 0.926, respectively. Furthermore, convergence validity was found to be 0.806 while divergent validity of variables was also confirmed. Confirming its fit indicators, exploratory factor analysis categorized the organizational structure into three sections of formality, decentralization, and strategies.

The results showed that the three components of organizational structure have a positive and significant relationship with the establishment of knowledge management. Therefore, supporting senior managers in knowledge-based strategies and increasing employee participation in decision-making and decentralization will be useful for implementing knowledge management.