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

Anca Mândruleanu
organization and refine and change things that may have worked well elsewhere, but for a variety <strong>of</strong>
reasons will not be able to work well in <strong>the</strong>ir companies.
Concerning <strong>the</strong> quantitative research, data presented below were analyzed in SPSS program, with
identifying information removed. The survey consisted <strong>of</strong> a series <strong>of</strong> questions presented above on
<strong>the</strong> knowledge sharing influence in increasing <strong>the</strong> efficiency <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> company (save time and reduce
effort). Measures used in this study included <strong>the</strong> geographical distribution and <strong>the</strong> demographic items
(year <strong>of</strong> birth). The descriptive statistics for <strong>the</strong> variable that describe <strong>the</strong> macro-variable
Organizational Knowledge is presented in Table 1. In Table 1, N represents <strong>the</strong> total number <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>
participating managers (50), Min equals 1 and Max equals 5 represent <strong>the</strong> minimum and <strong>the</strong>
maximum values that <strong>the</strong>ir answers range between (1 represents totally disagree and 5, totally agree).
The fourth column (Mean) represents <strong>the</strong> mean <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> answers and varies between 3,97 and 4,45.
The majority <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> answers’ means is close to <strong>the</strong> maximum value (5), except for one variable that
have a value less than 4. The Standard Deviation (column 4) has values less than 1 that means that
<strong>the</strong> managers have similar opinions concerning <strong>the</strong> process <strong>of</strong> knowledge transfer.
Descriptive Statistics
N Min Max Mean Standard
deviation
Q1. Promote collaboration 50 1 5 4,25 ,834
Q2. Implement <strong>the</strong> knowledge tranfer
process
Q3. Promote innovation in products and
services
Q4. Capture tacit knowledge for
organizational use.
Q5. Create a strong organizational
culture
50 1 5 4,27 ,880
50 1 5 4,36 ,851
50 1 5 4,45 ,896
50 1 5 3,97 ,725
Table 1: Descriptive Statistics for managers
Few managers feel that knowledge is not for business. It is intangible and it cannot be measured.
Since it is not measurable, it cannot be managed, <strong>the</strong>y claim. The modern economic system is
increasingly based on knowledge. Organizations have to innovate and to improve <strong>the</strong>ir performance
and to compete effectively. To do so is to take advantage <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> wealth <strong>of</strong> experience, talent and skills
in <strong>the</strong> company, because <strong>the</strong>y represent organizational knowledge. Knowledge embedded in products
and processes can be protected by law through copyright and patents, and <strong>the</strong>se can be managed
and measured. To what extent employees create and transfer knowledge can be managed and
measured as well (Kermally, 2002).
Analyzing <strong>the</strong> Reliability Statistics, <strong>the</strong> value <strong>of</strong> Cronbach’s Alpha is 0.829, more than 0.7, <strong>the</strong>
minimum value that shows <strong>the</strong> relevance <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> obtained answers. We can conclude that <strong>the</strong> answers
are relevant and correctly correlated.
Items Statistics
Scale Mean if Item
Deleted
Scale
Variance if
Item Deleted
Corrected
Item
Q1. Promote collaboration 17,71 6,524 ,683 ,788
Q2. Implement <strong>the</strong> knowledge
tranfer process
16,14 5,879 ,584 ,761
Q3. Promote innovation in products
and services
16,48 6,129 ,586 ,818
Q4. Capture tacit knowledge for
organizational use.
17,96 6,326 ,606 ,891
Q5. Create a strong organizational
culture
16,77 6,503 ,517 ,782
Table 2: Items Statistics for managers
566
Total
Correlation