The impact of Knowledge Management on Organizational Productivity: A Case Study on Koosar Bank of Iran

Knowledge is becoming a valuable asset for most organizations and the quest to manage this asset is gaining popularity among researchers and management. Organizational management's main objective is to ensure effective and efficient use of its diverse resources such as labor, capital, materials, energy and information in their quest to achieve competitiveness as well as to increase productivity that must be managed. In today's rapid technological change, companies are in constant struggle to maintain competitive advantage through market differentiation by providing superior products and services. The management in organizations is increasing their focus on employees' know-how, past experiences and expertise in their quest to excel in achieving their goal. In short, Knowledge has become an integral asset for most organizational functionalities. Knowledge management promises to create the proper structure and the necessary technological infrastructure in organizations and human-driven placement. This research investigates the role of “tacit” knowledge sharing on organizational productivity. Accordingly, a framework was developed and hypotheses were drawn and tested where results demonstrated interesting insights into the role of sharing on organizational productivity. The survey, which was conducted at Koosa Bank of Iran, demonstrated that the employees' intension to share and consequently the sharing of tacit knowledge has direct positive impacts on productivity. In addition, our analysis demonstrated that not only productivity would increase as a result of knowledge sharing, but also employees' innovative contributions increased as a result of exposure to others' knowledge, expertise, and experiences.