Role of the Social Capital in Effectiveness of Knowledge Management within Iran Khodro Diesel Company

Abstract

Social capital is considered as a new concept which, as compared with the human or physical capitals, is of more significance within different organizations. On the other hand the modern management has already identified the concept of knowledge as an endless source of interests and competitive advantages. Given the growing significance of this organizational necessity which is vital for proper knowledge management all the required efforts shall be made for identifying and understanding the factors affecting and the factors affected by the concept of knowledge.

The main purpose behind the present research was to study role of the social capital and its relationship with the knowledge management effectiveness within every organization. The statistical community used for the present research included staff of the Iran Khodro Diesel Company Research and Development Department. The researcher, at the beginning of his research, referred to three secondary assumptions and one primary assumption. Then the social capital was designed based on three dimensions including cognitive, relational and structural dimensions and the knowledge management was designed based on three dimensions of the knowledge, knowledge storage, continuous knowledge refinement, knowledge utilization and knowledge sharing/distribution. The main tools for collecting the required data included statistical sampling for 105 individuals as well as the social capital and knowledge management related questionnaires distributed among the participants in the research. The validity of the questionnaires was verified by use of the content validity method and the factor analysis of the structural equations. Also the reliability of the questionnaires was calculated based on the Cronbach’s Alpha at 0.89 and 0.91 which was indicative of an accepted reliability. The statistical analysis was made by use of the SPSS statistical and LISREL software. Accordingly, all the three secondary assumptions as well as the primary assumption were confirmed. Based on the outcome of the research it was verified that there is a meaningful relationship between the three dimensions of the social capital and the knowledge management effectiveness. In continuation the organizational rating was assessed based on the knowledge management dimensions and the social capital and in the end some recommendations were introduced for promotion of the social capital and knowledge management within the organization.