The Evaluation of Knowledge Management and Its Relationship withCompetitive Position of Iran's Major Firms

Abstract

Current research has been performed to evaluate the knowledge management (KM) in business administration, and assess the relationship between utilization of KM tools and competitive position of business as an empirical and practical survey. The target population of this study is registered firms in Tehran Stock Exchange among Iranian top 100 firms selected by the Industrial Management Institute of Iran. Datawas collected by questionnaire, and investigated through eight hypotheses in four main dimensions: KM attitudes, KM implementation, KM challenges, and KM tools. Findings showed that firms acknowledge the importance and necessity of KM, but also were facing human and structural challenges in terms of infrastructure; so goal-oriented and coherent KM plans are not successfully implemented. On the other hand, results confirmed that KM adoption has a direct and positive impact on competitive position of firms; therefore implementation of KM tools could improve the competitive position of major firms