Knowledge management and organizational culture in a software development enterprise

Abstract

The aim of this study was to analysis knowledge management and organizational culture at a Spanish software development enterprise. For this purpose, two different tasks were performed: first, analysis of knowledge management levels and organizational culture; and second, analysis of the relationship between organizational culture and knowledge management. The sample consisted of 196 employees between 21 and 45 years old, with 119 (61.3%) men. To achieve the objectives, adaptations of the Organizational Knowledge Practices (OKP) questionnaire (Cortijo, & Quintanilla, 2004) and the “Organizational Culture Inventory” (OCI) were used (Cooke & Lafferty, 1987). Based on the results, it appears that the company is oriented towards a constructive organizational culture. It also seems that the company emphasizes efficient knowledge management practices, especially in regard to teamwork. Finally, the link between organizational culture and knowledge management seems to be proven. As hypothesized, constructive culture is positively related to knowledge management performance, while Passive–Defensive and Aggressive–Defensive cultures are negatively related. All these results are particularly interesting considering that in the scientific literature such relationships have been proposed from a theoretical perspective, but only a few studies have explored these questions at the empirical level.