AD ALTA
JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
Values and beliefs are part of individuals' consciously held
conceptual apparatus, which they use to justify their
actions and evaluate outcomes.
The third level of culture comprises visible artefacts, by
which is meant everything from office layout, dress codes
and books relating company history, to stories, myths and
symbols.
Figure 3 Three levels of culture
Source: Schein (2011, p. 78)
All three levels of corporate culture are extremely powerful
determinants of corporate life, and are intuitively incorporated
into the actions of skilled executives who use them to manage
people, formulate strategy and induce corporate change.
Corporate culture is imperative factor for successful knowledge
management (Davenport et al. 1998, Pan and Scarbrough, 1998,
Martensson, 2000). It defines the core beliefs, values, norms and
social customs that govern the way individuals act and behave in
corporation. In general, a culture supportive of knowledge
management is on that highly values knowledge and encourages
its creation, sharing and application. The biggest challenge for
most knowledge management efforts actually lies in developing
such a culture. Since culture is a wide concept, it comprises
many facets. According to some authors that have studied this
kind of culture, learning culture can be described as a corporate
culture that is oriented towards the promotion and facilitation of
workers' learning, its share and dissemination, in order to
contribute to corporate development and performance
(Liebowitz, 2015). In the literature, this cultural orientation
towards learning is called oriented learning culture or simply
learning culture and, in short, it is the type of culture that
a learning corporation should have. In other words, "in practice,
corporate learning culture can be a vital aspect of corporate
culture and the core of a learning corporation" (Wang et al.,
2007, p. 156).
Among them, we could highlight learning as one of the
corporation's core values, a focus on people, concern for all
stakeholders, stimulation of experimentation, encouraging an
attitude of responsible risk, readiness to recognize errors and
learn from them, and promotion of open and intense
communication, as well as promotion of cooperation,
interdependence and share of knowledge.
Based on the compilation of several studies, the following values
are identified as key corporation values or cultural drivers
(Holbeche, 2005; Rooney, 2006; Avedisian & Bennet, 2010;
Kippenberger, 2010, Nevis et al, 1995, Senge, 1999, Sveiby and
Simons, 2002):
innovativeness,
customer-centricity/focus,
flexibility,
openness, communication and dialogue,
teamwork, collaboration
trust and respect for all individuals,
risk assumption
creativity and
learning (Easterby-Smith, 2011).
Edward Hall identified three levels of the culture and explained
them by referring to how they influence learning:
the formal level – here the concepts are “taught by percept
and admonition (…) the learner tries, makes a mistake and
is corrected.” , in other words he learns using conceptual
and behavioural patterns;
the informal level – here learning is done through models
and imitation;
the technical level – here learning is done using explicit
forms (Collison, 2005).
And how can be culture managed to be culture supporting
knowledge management initiatives? If manager think of culture
as both a source of resistance and energy, long-term „managed
change“ is possible. If the sailor understands the prevailing wind
systems, tides and currents, he can use them to his advantage. If
managers attempt to force the culture by „managing it“ or insult
the culture by ignoring it, they will experience its subversive and
invisible power. If they aim to understand it and work with it in
support of explicit change goals, the culture itself will shift over
time in tune these goals.
According to Bevern (2002) corporate culture does not refer only
to people, their relationships and beliefs, but it also refers to
products, structures, as well as on selection and reward practices
of the company. It is deeply embedded and has an intensive
historical impact on present and future management.
Moreover, some of the world´s most admired and successful
business leaders (for example, Lou Gerstner or Jack Welch)
believe that corporate culture, if correctly aligned with the
external environment, is the key to long-term corporate success
(Schein, 2004). However, too often these soft issues are
forgotten and values are just declared by the management: no
real understanding about corporate values exists.
These issues will be elaborated in turn in the research of this
article. This study is based on quantitative research, administered
on 246 employees of three big organizations, which are in study
of Kokavcová (2011) identified as organizations having elements
of knowledge management. As mentioned earlier, we have
selected key elements that were identical among more authors
(Holbeche, Rooney, Avedisian & Bennet, Kippenberger, Nevis,
Senge, Sveiby and Simons): collaboration, trust, creativity,
respect for all individuals. The questionnaire consists of 55
items, 12 for culture supporting knowledge sharing, 12 for
collaboration, 11 for trust and 10 for creativity and 10 for respect
of all individuals. The scale was rated on 5-point Likert-type
scale, with 5 indicating “strongly agree” to 1 indicating “strongly
disagree”.
As part of a deeper analysis of the data file was reviewed by the
correlation structure (see Table 1). According to the results of
this analysis, the culture supporting knowledge sharing in
surveyed organizations is mostly influenced by trust and than by
collaboration.
Table 1 Correlations between evaluated variables – Pearson
Correlation
Based on the research results it can be said that within the
organizational culture there are various characteristics of culture
that affect knowledge sharing, but mostly this study focuses on
trust nad collaboration. Goh (2002) assented that a collaborative
culture is an important condition for knowledge transfer to
happen between individuals and groups. This is because
knowledge transfer requires individuals to come together to
Culture
supporting
knowledge
sharing
Collaboration
Trust
Creativity
Respect of
all
individuals
Culture
supporting
knowledge
sharing
1
0,742
0,829
0,678
0,688
Collaboration
1
0,731
0,620
0,670
Trust
1
0,731
0,626
Creativity
1
0,505
Respect of all
individuals
1
Artefacts
(visible behaviour)
Espoused values
(rules, standards, prohibitions)
Basic underlying assumptions
(invisible, unconscious)
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