Article review Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Article review - Assignment Example As a result, knowledge management is being widely acknowledged for its positive role in the success of organizations. A vast body of research in the past has shown that leadership behaviors and organizational culture serve as hurdles in the creation and leveraging of knowledge. Effective knowledge management depends upon an organization’s social ecology along with IT platforms. This imparts the need for exploring the cultural and human aspects of business and articulating the way leadership styles and organizational culture influence the tendency of an organization to develop and apply knowledge. This article is about investigation of the relationship between behaviors of leadership and the practices of knowledge management. This article particularly tends to study the influence of the behaviors of transformational and transactional styles of leadership on knowledge management as well as the moderating impact that the culture of the Australia based small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) organizations has on this relationship. To achieve this, the authors proposed four hypotheses in total to test. The conceptual model used in the research consisted of four constructs; transformational leadership, transactional leadership, organizational culture, and practices of knowledge management. A questionnaire survey was conducted to empirically examine the four hypotheses. Validity and reliability of the data was checked using pre-tested measures and constructs. The questionnaire consisting of 17 items was given to the participants to realize the frequency of use of the different processes of knowledge management in their organizations. The authors measured the leadership styles and the associated behaviors using 36 item Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire. The authors measured the organizational culture using the 36 item Denison’s Organizational Cultural Survey. Although 1000 surveys were mailed to the middle managers of the SMEs in Australia, yet with the res ponse rate being only 15.7 per cent, the sample size was 157. Most of the respondents belonged to the middle and senior management level. Middle managers were 44.9 per cent of the total while senior managers were 32.5 per cent. Line managers accounted for 21.7 per cent of the total. This methodology provided the authors with an opportunity to concisely review the basics of knowledge management related to the research, the relationship between knowledge management and leadership as well as that between leadership and the culture of organization. As a result of the research, it was found that transactional leadership and transformational leadership are both related to the practices of knowledge management positively. It was also found that the behaviors of contingent reward leadership and charismatic leadership greatly impact all dimensions of the practices of knowledge management. An unexpected yet interesting finding of the research was that contingent reward leadership has apparent ly a slightly stronger contribution on all dimensions of the practices of knowledge management compared to the impact of charisma attributed behaviors. Hierarchy and mission organizational culture moderated the relationship between practices of knowledge management and transactional leadership. The most effective behaviors of leadership for the practices of knowledge management were found to be charisma and contingent reward. Development of a successful system of knowledge mana