Knowledge Management Capability and Innovativeness of Public Organizations: Examining the Moderating Roles of Social Capital and Creative Organizational Climate

Abstract

The main objective of this study is to examine the moderating role of social capital on the relationship between knowledge-oriented leadership and knowledge management capability (KMC). Also, to explore the moderating role of creative organizational climate on the relationship between KMC and public organizational innovativeness is aimed. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was applied to analyze the survey data from 784 tax administrative organizations in Thailand to test the proposed hypotheses. The results presented that knowledge-oriented leadership positively influences KMC. Meanwhile, KMC positively affects public organizational innovativeness. For the moderating effect, the findings indicated that social capital positively moderates the relationship between knowledge-oriented leadership and KMC. Additionally, creative organizational climate positively moderates the relationship between the accumulation of knowledge stocks and organizational innovativeness. Surprisingly, creative organizational climate negatively moderates the relationship between the regulation of knowledge flows and organizational innovativeness. These empirical results provide some recommendations for executives of public organizations in recognizing how to appropriately play a leadership role for effective knowledge management. Simultaneously, they could support important internal factors such as social capital and creative organizational climate to enhance their knowledge management capability and organizational innovativeness.