Assessment of organizational aspects affecting knowledge management in auditing and consulting firms

Abstract

Globalization, rapid information technology development, and COVID-19 restrictions created challenges for organizations globally to use knowledge management practices to identify proper strategies and find solutions to satisfy changeable customer needs and develop uniqueness leading to leadership and mutual value creation. Knowledge management is an effective and efficient organization's management direction and practice that became necessary to improve organizational performance in a dynamic environment. Prior research showed that various organizational factors have different plaid roles in the knowledge management cycle and influence knowledge management processes differently. The main goal of this study is to explore the influence of specific organizational factors, flexible organizational culture and balanced organizational structure on the efficient implementation of five knowledge management processes, including knowledge application, creation, acquisition, sharing, and storage. The research was conducted in the unstudied context of Mideast countries and the knowledge-intensive auditing and consulting firms sector. Following the scientific literature analysis, the research model was developed, and the research hypotheses were proposed and then quantitatively tested through the structural equation modeling (SEM) technique. This study's results supported the hypotheses that the identified organizational factors were significantly associated with the knowledge management cycle.