Organizational Culture as a Knowledge Resource

Abstract

Organizational culture has long been recognized as the underlying set of values systems that determines how firms perceive and react to their environments. While there is widespread agreement over the relevance of culture and its impact on organizations, many believe that culture exists as a concept than can be neither measured nor controlled. This chapter considers an alternate view in characterizing culture as an important knowledge resource that facilitates the management of a firm’s intellectual (knowledge) assets. We first present a brief overview of organizational culture and then examine culture as an organizational resource that facilitates four key knowledge management activities. As part of this analysis, a series of research hypotheses is offered to provide a link between certain cultural sub-types and effective knowledge management practice in each of four areas: knowledge creation, storage, transfer, and application. A key implication of this chapter is that firms must increasingly view their culture as a competitive resource that must be managed in order to become a learning organization. As part of this management process, senior executives must be able to manage the various sub-cultures found within their organizations and to foster those sub-cultures consistent with knowledge management objectives. The chapter concludes by considering knowledge management initiatives as an opportunity to change corporate cultures.