Knowledge management practices and performance: are they truly linked?

Knowledge management (KM) has often been claimed to be an essential ingredient in building competitive advantage. Yet, KM adoption is relatively slow, especially in the Malaysian context. Most organizations are unsure if the promised performance improvement is just a passing fad. This study intends to provide empirical verifications to support the link between KM practices and performance outcomes for organizations. Responses from 180 knowledge-based organizations were analysed. The analysis indicated that knowledge acquisition and knowledge utilization positively influenced strategic and operational improvement in organizations, whereas the positive effect of knowledge dissemination was only evident in the case of strategic improvement. Organization size had some interesting moderating impact on the tested relationships.