Proceedings of the 12th European Conference on Knowledge ...

3. Methods
3.1 Scales
Aino Kianto, Tatiana Andreeva and Xing Shi
To examine <strong>the</strong> state <strong>of</strong> KM in China, Finland and Russia, we adopted <strong>the</strong> survey methodology and
collected data with structured questionnaires.
The first issue we were interested in was <strong>the</strong> general awareness <strong>of</strong> KM and <strong>the</strong> terminology used for it
in <strong>the</strong> surveyed organizations. To explore <strong>the</strong>se issues, we simply posed a number <strong>of</strong> questions
(presented fur<strong>the</strong>r in <strong>the</strong> table 3) with dichotomous response options (yes/no)..
Next, we wanted to find out whe<strong>the</strong>r KM receives any dedicated budgets in <strong>the</strong> companies currently
and in <strong>the</strong> next 24 months, as well as how <strong>the</strong> spending is estimated to change. This can be taken as
a measure <strong>of</strong> whe<strong>the</strong>r <strong>the</strong> companies really are doing things in terms <strong>of</strong> KM; while it is very easy to
say that knowledge is a crucial resource, dedicated budgets indicate actual enacted KM activities. For
<strong>the</strong>se items <strong>the</strong> response format was a simple dichotomy (yes/no) or multiple choice
(increase/decrease/stay <strong>the</strong> same).
The following issue we explored was <strong>the</strong> KM practices employed by <strong>the</strong> companies. Drawing from
previous literature discussing <strong>the</strong> conscious and systematic management practices used for
facilitating knowledge processes in organizations, we examined KM practices from five perspectives:
strategic management <strong>of</strong> knowledge, organizational culture, HRM practices, organizational structures
and information and communication technologies (ICT). However, as knowledge management
discipline is still in <strong>the</strong> development phase, widely utilized operationalizations <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>se concepts do not
exist. Therefore, for <strong>the</strong> purposes <strong>of</strong> this research, <strong>the</strong> scales for KM practices were combined by <strong>the</strong>
authors based on <strong>the</strong> existing literature, constructing new items where needed. For all <strong>the</strong> KM practice
items, <strong>the</strong> respondent was asked to indicate his/her agreement to a particular statement on a six-point
Likert scale (1= strongly disagree, 6 = strongly agree).
Strategic management <strong>of</strong> knowledge scale aimed to measure <strong>the</strong> organization’s ability to establish <strong>the</strong>
knowledge-strategy link and existence <strong>of</strong> a clear knowledge management strategy (Zack, 1999;
Skyrme & Amidon 1997; Dalkir 2005). The scale consists <strong>of</strong> six items which were drawn from Kianto
(2008) and McKeen et al. (2005)..
Organizational culture is <strong>the</strong> combination <strong>of</strong> shared history, expectations, unwritten rules, and social
customs that are rarely articulated but can influence people‘s communicational behaviours (Jarkko,
2004). A lot <strong>of</strong> empirical studies revealed <strong>the</strong> importance <strong>of</strong> building an organizational culture <strong>of</strong> KM in
facilitating knowledge processes (Davenport et al. 1998, Dorothy et al.2006, Kristen et al. 2004 ). The
scale for organizational culture consists <strong>of</strong> six items, drawn from KMAT survey (2001), Kulkarni (2003)
and Steyn et al. (2008).
Human resource management (HRM) policy and practice play a significant role in KM (Hislop, 2003;
Scarbrough, 2003; Wong, 2005). Human resource management practices scale includes five items,
four <strong>of</strong> which are drawn from <strong>the</strong> Canada KMP Survey (2001) and one generated by <strong>the</strong> research
team.
Organizational structure is ano<strong>the</strong>r central aspect in implementing KM (Gold et al, 2001; Quintas et al,
1997, Wong, 2005). Most items in this scale were generated by <strong>the</strong> research teams and one item was
adapted from Kianto (2008).
Finally, Information and communication technologies scale aimed to identify <strong>the</strong> extent to which <strong>the</strong>
organization is able to use technological tools and infrastructures for facilitating knowledge work
processes (Alavi et al., 2001; Davenport et al., 1998). Items from Liu (2006), Kulkarni et al. (2003),
Kruger (2007) and Kianto (2008) were adopted to build this scale.
The principal component analysis yielded a five-factor solution, representing <strong>the</strong> five knowledge
management practices. Composite measures were calculated from <strong>the</strong> averaged item responses <strong>of</strong>
each construct. Table 1 presents <strong>the</strong> items, factor loadings and internal consistencies <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> KM
practice variables. The coefficient alphas range from .854 to 0.942, exhibiting a good internal
consistency <strong>of</strong> all <strong>the</strong> composites.
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