An Investigation on the Effect of Knowledge Management on the Strategic and Operational Performance of Organizations Through the Application of Organizational Excellence Model (EFQM 2020)

Today, the focus on organizational knowledge management as one of the strategic and key areas of organizational improvement and excellence is growing. The special place of knowledge management in standards and models of organizational improvement and excellence has changed in the past few years and it is now evaluated as one of the main business areas of the organization. This change is quite noticeable and significant in the new version of the European Quality Management Foundation (EFQM) organizational excellence model, published in 2020. On the other hand, applying a comprehensive and international model in order to promote and improve organizational knowledge management is one of the issues and challenges ahead of the organizations. Accordingly, the purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of improving knowledge management deployment as one of the main components of organizational value chain and its final impact on strategic and operational performance of the organization, using the new model of excellence edition 2020. The statistical population of the present study is over 90 companies and institutes affiliated to the Executive Headquarters of Imam Khomeini’s Command Organization, with the experience in participating in the process of organizational excellence evaluation. A number of 67 expert questionnaires were sent and completed. To analyze the data, the structural equation modeling approach with partial least squares method and Smart PLS software was used. The results show that the new model of organizational excellence is a good framework for improving the establishment of knowledge management, in terms of deepening the issue of knowledge management, especially from the aspects of organizational culture, knowledge-based leadership and knowledge interaction with the key stakeholders and, ultimately leads to improved strategic and operational performance.