Knowledge management enabler factors and firm performance : an empirical research of the Greek medium and large firms

Abstract

Knowledge has become one of the most important driving forces for business success. Knowledge management helps organizations to find, select, organise, distribute, and transfer vital information. Through a successful knowledge management (KM) organizations improve their effectiveness and gain competitive advantage. The development of KM has led to the need of identifying its critical success factors. This study identifies and discusses the critical success factors or enablers that determine the KM effectiveness within organizations, which in turn influence the total performance of the firm. Based on existing frameworks and models, this study outlines the five most important factors that are believed to be critical for an effective KM implementation. This paper also investigates the effect of knowledge management effectiveness on firm performance. The proposed research model is tested via an online survey sent to 280 medium and large sized enterprises, randomly selected, all over Greece; from those only 109 answered the questionnaire correctly. The results of the study will help organizations to understand the impact that different enablers have on the KM successful implementation and how the effectiveness of KM affect firm performance.