The Role of Knowledge Creation in Knowledge Management: A case of Sri Lankan Research Officers

Abstract

There are considerable levels of gaps identified in ‘Knowledge Creation’ (KC) and ‘Knowledge Management’ (KM) at individuals’ level as well as the organizational level. The present study examines whether the ‘Social Capital’ (SC) and ‘Information Technology Capability’ (IT) have any significant impact on KM and determine the mediating role of KC on the above relationship in the public sector Research Institutions in Sri Lanka. The study follows the positivistic philosophy and used the hypothetico-deductive method. A questionnaire-based survey was used to collect data and it was done as a cross-sectional survey with a self-administered questionnaire. The population is defined as the research officers in Public Research Institutions in Sri Lanka and the selected sample was 220. The successful response rate is 67%. The findings confirmed that SC and IT have a significant impact on the KM with the model accuracy as 31.3%. When the KC mediates the relationship from SC to KM and IT to KM, the explained variation of the KM can be enhanced up to 61.2% and 45.2% respectively. Therefore, the research institutions should pay special attention to KC while facilitating for SC, IT and KM.