Vulnerabilities and Knowledge Risks in Knowledge Processes

Abstract

This study aims to put forward measuring scales for two central concepts – vulnerabilities and knowledge risks – and identify the factors composing the two constructs. The research presented in this paper is part of a larger project investigating knowledge vulnerabilities and risks appearing in knowledge processes of organizations. In this sense, a new ontology developed by Brătianu et al. (2022) was used to design an instrument for measuring risks and vulnerabilities related to knowledge processes in organizations. Organizational knowledge dynamics perspective (Brătianu et al., 2022) was used to group knowledge risks typologies into the following clusters: knowledge creation, knowledge acquisition, knowledge loss, knowledge sharing, knowledge use, emotional knowledge dynamics, spiritual knowledge dynamics. Examples of knowledge risks belonging to such clusters may include a knowledge risk of non-creation and a knowledge risk of bad timing (for knowledge creation cluster), knowledge spillover or knowledge forgetting (for knowledge loss), as well as knowledge hiding and knowledge hoarding (for knowledge use). Our study fills a gap in the literature by suggesting a scale for measuring knowledge risks and grouping them by factor, and also a scale for measuring vulnerabilities and grouping them by type of vulnerabilty by means of principal components analysis. Current state of knowledge on vulnerabilities and knowledge risks comprises mainly theoretical approaches. Also, most studies do not discuss the concepts of knowledge risks and vulnerabilities together. The main novelty of our study lies in its quantitative approach to analysing knowledge-related vulnerabilities and risks. For this purpose, a questionnaire was applied to a sample of employees comprising both managers and non-managers from Romanian organizations. The factors resulted after having applied the principal components analysis have provided a clearer picture of the constructs of vulnerabilities and knowledge risks, leading to a deeper understanding of knowledge processes and their risks.