Organizational Commitment Knowledge Management Interventions and Leargninga Organization Capacity

The Learning Organization
Organizational commitment, knowledge management interventions, and learning

organization capacity
Peter Massingham, Kieren Diment,
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TLO
16,2 Organizational commitment,
knowledge management
interventions, and learning
122
Peter Massingham and Kieren Diment
Centre for Knowledge Management,
School of Management and Marketing, University of Wollongong,

Wollongong, Australia
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between organizational
commitment and knowledge management initiatives in developing learning organization capacity
(LOC).
Design/methodology/approach – This is an empirical study based on a single case study, using
partial least squares (PLS) analysis.
Findings – The strategic importance of LOC and the role of knowledge sharing in developing LOC
have been well documented. The effect of social and conversational technologies on LOC has also
undergone investigation. The effect of individual factors (e.g. attitudes) towards such technologies has
not been adequately described empirically. This paper links organizational commitment, a broad
attitude domain, and technology aptitude, a narrow attitudinal facet, to knowledge sharing via a social
and conversational technology.
Originality/value – This research clarifies person-related effects within these important workplace
phenomena.
Keywords Corporate strategy, Knowledge management, Learning organizations,
Communication technologies
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Developing learning organization capacity (LOC) is necessary for success in today’s
global knowledge economies (Housel and Bell, 2001). LOC defines an organization that
effectively manages its knowledge resources (Grant, 1996), responds to forces for
change (Senge, 1990), and learns from its experiences (Coulson-Thomas, 1996). At the
individual and group levels LOC enables innovation and creativity suitable for
knowledge workers, who contribute to the organizational knowledge base (OKB). The
OKB consists of individual and collective knowledge assets that the organization can
use to perform its tasks. Organizational learning (OL) is the process of changes in the
OKB, and represents growth in the organization’s competence to act and solve
problems. Knowledge management (KM) is the specific interventions designed to
The Learning Organization change OL (Probst et al., 2002). Therefore, the achievement of LOC involves the use of
Vol. 16 No. 2, 2009
pp. 122-142 KM interventions (KMIs), framed as OL change initiatives, and designed to increase
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0969-6474
the OKB. An understanding of the various factors that facilitate or hinder OL change
DOI 10.1108/09696470910939206 initiatives is important to both managers and academics.
The article examines a KMI introduced at the research division of Australia’s Learning
leading steel manufacturer BlueScope Steel (BSR). This initiative was the introduction organization
of a corporate Wiki, called a technology encyclopedia (TE). A Wiki is an evolving
knowledge repository where users are encouraged to make additions to this repository capacity
by adding new documents or working on existing ones (Pfaff and Hasan, 2006). “Social
software”, such as Wikis and Blogs, have had much success in civil society, particular
as a means for sharing knowledge over the internet (Swisher et al., 2004). The 123
introduction of these social and conversational technologies (SCTs) into corporate
settings represents an exciting opportunity for organizations to increase knowledge
sharing (KS) amongst employees. But how will employees react to the introduction of
SCTs at work?
Researchers typically examine KM interventions at the sub-attitudinal facet level,

i.e. the level of commitment towards the intervention (e.g. TE), which results in
descriptive analysis of the commitment factors, e.g. why people like or dislike the TE.
There has been some previous research on the acceptance of Wikis, which has
identified a range of barriers, including: cost, legal issues, informational overload, and
deterioration of the quality of information, and being time-consuming to read
everything that purports to be information (Pfaff and Hasan, 2006). However, this
research approach has limited managerial application because it considers the
intervention in isolation. For example, an employee might like the idea of the TE but
not use it because he/she cannot see how it could benefit their work. This article argues
that managers need to consider KM interventions at two levels: the specific feelings
about the intervention – and the broader construct of organizational commitment (OC).
OC is the strength of an individual’s identification with and attachment to an
organization (Meyer and Allen, 1984). The precedent for this approach is grounded in
the OL literature, where researchers have framed OC as a broad level attitudinal
domain within the learning organization construct (Brooks, 2002), and commitment is
an output of employees’ psychological contract (PC). PC is an exchange agreement
between individuals and their organization (Zhao et al., 2007).
OC, therefore, is both an input and an output of OL. At the input level, OC is
necessary for successful implementation of OL change initiatives, and is measured as a
focused sub-attitudinal facet. At the output level, OC occurs as a result of successful OL
initiatives, and is measured as a broad level attitudinal domain. This model, however,
is cyclical rather than linear. Once a general level of satisfaction with the organization
is reached, this is continually topped up by new OL initiatives. In this way, the broad
attitudinal domain becomes an input to focused sub-attitudinal facets, which, in turn,
become inputs to the broad attitudinal domain, and so on. This cyclical model grounds
OC and OL within the employee’s PC with the organization. Despite this cyclical
relationship, no previous research has examined the broad attitudinal domain level as
an antecedent to the focused sub-attitudinal facet level. Previous research has not
situated attitudes towards KM technologies within hierarchical understandings of OC,
neither have those efforts extended the causal chain beyond attitudinal barriers to
observable, overt behavioral outcomes of attitude to technology and search cycle
behavior, such as KS. Our research objective was to address this gap in the literature
by examining whether OC influences OL change initiatives. The causal path examined
by this article is summarized by Figure 1. We then review each of the key concepts
underlined by our model.
TLO
16,2
124
Figure 1.
General hierarchical model
of organizational
commitment, knowledge
management, and learning
Review of concepts
OL
OL is the process that enables an organization to adapt to change and move forward by
acquiring new knowledge, skills, or behaviors and thereby transforms itself (Hackett,
2002). The process of OL is driven by internal change mechanisms concerned with
structure, process and human capability, combined with continuous environmental
reviews intended to maintain or improve performance (see Örtenblad, 2001; Sicilia and
Lytras, 2005; Phillips, 2003). Research grounded in strategic human resource
management theory focuses OL on the individual. For example, Pedler et al. (1991, p. 1)
define the learning organization as “an organization that facilitates the learning of all
of its members. . .in order to meet its strategic goals”; while Yang et al. (2004) identify
learning climate and self-development for everyone as key characteristics of a learning
organization.
OC
OC is an exchange agreement between individuals and the organization (Coopey, 1995).
OC is an essential element of employees’ PC, which may be understood within the
motivational processes of social exchange theory and the norm of reciprocity (e.g. Blau,
1964; Homans, 1961). This approach frames LOC as an input and OC as an output,
based on empirical linkages between developmental issues (learning organization
capability), power/control issues (psychological empowerment), and effect issues (OC)
(see Looise and Paauwe, 2001). This literature suggests that if managers invest in the
organization’s capability (i.e. LOC) and its people, then increased OC will emerge. OL is
the manifestation of the investment. LOC processes create an environment that
satisfies the two psychological states necessary for productive OL: safety and
commitment (see Lipshitz et al. 2002). If employees feel the organization is investing in
them, then they will feel empowered, safe, and trust in management, leading to OC.
OL researchers have traditionally examined OC as a focused sub-attitudinal facet, Learning
where commitment is seen as a necessary pre-requisite for successful change organization
management. This approach typically characterizes OC as “buy-in” and attitudes
are measured in terms of willingness to accept a specific change initiative. capacity
Individual enthusiasm and commitment is both an input and an output in Senge
et al.’s (2005) model of profound change, however, shared commitment is attained at
the later stage of the change management cycle. Senge’s view of organizational 125
change is influenced by his childhood experience of how his father was mistreated,
and he argues that OC results if people are treated with dignity and respect (Senge
et al., 2005). In this sense, the PC requires a degree of trust in the organization,
which is manifested by management behavior through learning organization
processes that increase organization commitment (Sayeed, 2001; Yang et al., 2004).
This literature argues that employee empowerment through training activities not
only develops employees and improves their skills and abilities but also enhances
their job satisfaction and their commitment to the organization (McEvoy, 1997).
Career development strengthens the PC and motivates employees to have continued
commitment to the firm. Therefore, at the focused sub-attitudinal facet level, KM
interventions which employees believe invest in their capability and career
prospects are likely to be perceived as empowering, enhancing employees’ PC with
the organization, and increasing their OC. While at the broad attitudinal domain
level, employees are more likely to accept KM interventions, if their PC with their
organization is strong. The strength of the relationship is measured by OC levels,
which is determined by LOC.
KM initiatives
KM refers to the systematic, explicit, and deliberate building, renewal, and
application of knowledge to maximize an enterprise’s knowledge-related
effectiveness and returns from its knowledge assets (Wiig, 1997). Probst et al.
(2002) identify eight “building blocks” of KM: goals, identification, acquisition,
development, distribution, utilization, retention, assessment. SCTs are increasingly
being used as KM initiatives to develop LOC, particularly knowledge distribution or
sharing. SCTs transforming KS in civil society, such as Wikis and blogs, form an
essential part of networked structures of social interaction and creative activity,
which are emerging as a part of the digital civil culture. Wiki technology, such as
BSR’s TE, can promote a KS culture by allowing for the quick transmission of rich,
detailed information between people and groups. It can provide information about
the desired values, norms and behaviors in the form of standard operating
procedures (SOPs), as well as providing a forum for encouraging the type of desired
KS. It takes advantage of the collaborative efforts of all members of the
organization to create an effective library of knowledge.
KS
Knowledge transfer or sharing is one of the core OL processes. KS is defined as the
movement of knowledge within an organization . . . in a process of dyadic exchanges
between the source and recipient units over several stages. Researchers have found
that the process of KS is not a random process, and organizations can institute various
internal policies, structures, and processes to facilitate learning (Inkpen, 1998). The
TLO literature, therefore, has concentrated on identifying transfer barriers and solutions.
16,2 From an OL perspective, KS connects the individual with others, e.g. the organization,
through Senge’s (1990) construct of “systems thinking”, which shifts the mind from
seeing the parts to seeing the whole. This systems approach is manifested in the KS
literature where there is considerable focus on organizational transfer barriers (see
Simonin, 1999,psychological contract; Jensen and Szulanski, 2004). A few researchers
126 have examined individual level constructs as barriers to KS, including perceptions of
risk and uncertainty (Erramilla and D’Souza, 1995); motivation and trust (Minbaeva
et al., 2003).
The activities of knowledge work are mediated by tools, such as the TE, in a way
that the tool and activities co-evolved in the context of the work group. For our
purposes, KS is best situated within the context of search cycle behavior. Typically,
employees begin searching for knowledge if they have a problem they cannot resolve
themselves or if they want to learn something new. Liesch and Knight (1999)
conceptualize this as the knowledge search cycle, an episodic process that begins with
a “trigger” that initiates the search for knowledge, followed by an
“information-to-knowledge” translation phase. The cycle of information searching
and translation to knowledge continues until the employee is “sufficiently informed”.
When this point is reached, the employee leaves the search cycle, and can proceed to
action. Knowledge search cycle behavior is important in terms of organizational
outcomes. It may be measured in terms of outputs (effectiveness) and productivity
(efficiency) (see Barney, 2001). It may also be associated with the organization’s
capacity to learn and innovate (Garvin, 1993). For BSR, productivity may be linked to
organization performance via knowledge search cycle behavior. Efficiency may be
interpreted as the time taken to search for necessary knowledge, and may be linked to
organizational performance in terms of cost reduction, speed of task completion and
other outcome measures; while effectiveness may be measured in terms of work output
and LOC.
Learning organization capability

The learning organization is a construct that has emerged in recent years, largely in
response to the growing recognition that intangible assets such as knowledge, rather
than tangible assets, are now an organization’s most valuable strategic resource (see
Grant, 1996). This has changed the way many organizations operate. The learning
organization is seen as an ideal state that can be reached through collective OL
(Ikehara, 1999; Phillips, 2003; Sun and Scott, 2003); organizational structure
(Richardson, 1995; Garratt, 1999; Sicilia and Lytras, 2005); organizational culture
(Dymock and McCarthy, 2006); KS (Örtenblad, 2001; Schulz, 2001; Thomas and Allen,
2006), by changing with the environment (Coulson-Thomas, 1996; Lorange, 1996;
Garratt, 1999), and knowing the environment (Griffey, 1998). While researchers often
use the terms OL and learning organization (LOC) interchangeably, there is a clear
difference: OL is a process and LOC is an outcome. LOC is an ideal state that
organizations desire to achieve and OL is the change process used to attain LOC. For
the purposes of our study, OL is the use of KMIs as change initiatives, designed to
increase the OKB.
Research design Learning
Sample organization
A self-administered questionnaire and cover letter (explaining the study and assuring
confidentiality) were sent to 100 employees of the research and development (R&D) capacity
division of Australia’s leading steel manufacturing firm, BlueScope Steel. This sample
represented all of BSR’s employees. The study was sponsored by one of BSR’s senior
management team and supported by the management team. The survey was delivered 127
via the world wide web and participation was requested by email. Respondents were
asked to complete and submit the survey online. A total of 65 employees completed
usable questionnaires.
The KMI
The introduction of a TE was part of a broader strategy to improve KM at BSR. This
was necessary to improve its capacity as a learning organization, which, in turn, aimed
to improve innovation at BSR. The TE would organize (i.e. warehouse) much of BSR’s
extensive structural capital and also provide an online forum for knowledge creation,
transfer, and collaboration. BSR conceptualised this in this preliminary model of the
place of the TE in BSR’s communication and information management (Willis, 2004)
(see Figure 2).
Figure 2.
BSR’s conceptual model of
the place of the technology
encyclopedia in BSR’s
communication and
information management
TLO In the past five years at BSR, e-mails have replaced memos as the preferred mode of
16,2 delivery to customers. This has greatly increased speed of delivery at the expense of
thoroughness, and information storage and retrieval. The TE offered an opportunity to
resolve the conflict between these parameters. The TE exists within other systems at
BSR competing with individual information repositories and knowledge search
preferences, BSR’s alternative information repositories and KS cultures which differ
128 between organizational units, and a rapidly changing product offer as innovation tools
are developed by individual innovators or established software suppliers. BSR,
therefore, was keen to evaluate employee attitudes towards the TE in order to assist its
implementation as a change initiative within its broad learning organization strategy.
The TE, therefore, was a web-based application that allows many participants to
write collaboratively, where they can continue to add to or edit the content of
documents, and dynamically determine the relationships between sets of documents.
Such documents can be anything supported by the web with hyperlinks to anywhere
on the world wide web, including text, image and video. BSR hoped the TE would
improve its LOC by increasing its knowledge base, i.e. stock of knowledge. In order to
become a learning organization, BSR aimed to introduce a range of flexible systems. A
TE was one of these. It is a source of structural capital but it must have currency,
relevance, and employees must be willing and able to access it, contribute to it, and use
it. The TE takes advantage of the collaborative efforts of all members of the
organization to create an effective repository of codified knowledge.
Measures
OC. In measuring OC, we used LOC as a proxy for the investment associated with
strong employee PCs. Based on the arguments presented in the literature review, we
propose that LOC perception is a measure of employees’ overall satisfaction with
management, manifested in terms of investment in training and associated learning
support, which empowers employees, builds trust, and leads to high levels of OC.
In measuring LOC, researchers typically adopt a normative perspective that
presumes that learning is a collective activity which takes place under certain
conditions (DiBella, 1995). There are numerous measurements of the necessary
conditions, e.g. Senge (1990) lists personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, team
learning, and systems thinking. Sinkula et al.(1997) suggest a three-step framework:
organizational values, market information processing behaviors, and organizational
actions. The challenge is how to measure these constructs: organizational values, for
example, are measured by commitment to learning, open-mindedness, and shared
vision. Senge argues that OC results if people are treated with dignity and respect.
Measurements include constructs such as “positive stories”, “amount of union
grievances”, “support for management”, “degree of openness, honesty, and trust”, and
“lay-off practices” (Senge et al., 2005). This approach tends to focus on what the
organization is doing. We felt these measurements do not lend themselves to survey
research. For example, it would be pointless to ask respondents to rate their
organization’s open-mindedness or mental models (Senge, 1990).
Our preference was to look at measurements of individuals’ perception of their
organization’s LOC to assess their level of OC. We identified a total of 86 factors from
extant literature (e.g. Kluge et al., 2001; Moilanen, 2005). These factors were then
aggregated into extant constructs, e.g. organizational values. The OC measures used in
our model have two dimensions. First, there are measurements of learning organization Learning
attributes. These are aggregated into five scale items: organization
(1) driving forces: building the organization; capacity
(2) finding the purpose: where and why?;
(3) questioning: why not? what are the barriers?;
(4) empowering: in what ways?; and 129
(5) evaluating: to know if you have succeeded (Moilanen, 2005).
Second, there are measurements of learning organization behaviors. These are

aggregated into seven scale items:
(1) knowledge pull;

(2) subjectivity;
(3) transferability;
(4) embeddedness;
(5) self-reinforcement;
(6) perishability; and
(7) spontaneity (Kluge et al., 2001).
Respondents’ ratings of BSR in terms of these scale items are explained in Table I.
KMI. To measure the attitude toward the TE, we combined questions about
willingness to contribute and to use it. The first question was: when you learn
something new in doing your job at BSR, do you put your knowledge on the TE? It
explains whether BSR respondents are willing to share knowledge on the TE. The
second question was: please rate the importance of the TE as a source of knowledge in
helping you learn. It explains whether BSR respondents are willing to use the
knowledge on the TE. We allocated a code to each respondent based on their answers
to the two questions. Those who were given a score of 1 or 2 from the matrix were
considered TE “Rejecters” and those that were given a score of 3, 4 or 5 were
considered TE “Champions”. The distribution of scores is also shown in Table II.
These results show that BSR respondents were divided over their attitude to the TE.
Slightly more than half (56 percent) were classified as rejecters, while the remainder (44
percent) were champions. The most positive respondents were five (9 percent) who felt
the TE was important as a source of knowledge and indicated they would frequently
share their knowledge on the TE. On the other hand, four respondents (7 percent) were
very negative about the TE indicating it was very unimportant as a source of
knowledge and they would never share their knowledge on it.
KS. The KS measures in our model are grounded in the intellectual capital (IC)
construct (Edvinsson and Malone, 1997; Bontis, 1998; Stewart, 1998). It had four
dimensions: human capital, social capital, structural capital, and relational capital. Our
objective was to place the KMI under investigation – the TE – within the context of
how people work. Our KS construct aimed to do this by looking at knowledge search
cycle behavior (see Liesch and Knight, 1999), i.e. where people look for knowledge
when they do not know how to do something or want to learn something new. The
TLO
Sub-scale item Mean SD n Alpha
16,2
Learning organization attributes
Driving forces 4.35 0.98 63 0.81
Finding the purpose 3.17 0.75 63 0.71
Empowering 4.14 0.66 63 0.85
130 Evaluating 3.97 0.89 63 0.44
Questioning 2.00 0.54 63 0.58
Learning organization behaviors
Knowledge pull 3.17 0.86 61 0.79
Subjectivity 3.59 0.62 62 0.86
Transferability 3.23 0.67 59 0.86
Embeddedness 2.81 0.65 60 0.89

Self reinforcement 2.80 0.59 58 0.91
Perishability 3.04 0.64 58 0.84
Spontaneity 3.40 0.60 61 0.67
Knowledge search behaviors
Human capital 1.15 0.36 55 NA
Social capital 2.74 0.69 55 0.55
Structural capital 3.11 0.85 55 0.79
Relational capital 4.22 1.14 54 0.68
Attitude to the TE
Table I. Willing to use 3.33 1.64 63 NAa
Construct descriptive Willing to contribute 2.03 1.24 63
statistics and internal
consistency Note: a The Pearson correlation between these two items is 0.60
Willingness to contribute to the TE

Rating of TE as a source Never Rarely Sometimes Frequently Always
of knowledge do this do this do this do this do this
Very important 3 (1)a 4 (1)a 4 (1)a 5 (0)a 5 (0)a

Important 3 (1)a 3 (1)a 4 (3)a 4 (5)a 5 (0)a
Slightly important 2 (4)b 2 (10)b 3 (9)a 4 (3)a 5 (0)a
Slightly unimportant 1 (6)b 2 (3)b 2 (1)b 3 (0)a 4 (0)a
Table II. Unimportant 1 (1)b 1 (0)b 2 (1)b 2 (0)a 4 (0)a
Sub-attitudinal facet Very unimportant 1b 1b 1b 2b 3 (0)a
matrix to derive a score
for attitude to the Notes: Classification: a Champion: n ¼ 35; b Rejecter: n ¼ 32. The main figure in each cell of the table
technology encyclopedia is the transformed score, with the number of individuals scoring at that level in parentheses
question was: When you search for knowledge, where do you usually go first, second,
third, and so on, until you find what you are looking for?
Results and analysis

PLS, which is well suited to analyses in which the case-to-variables or case-to-paths
ratios are low (Fornell and Bookstein, 1982; Hulland, 1999), was used to test the
hypothesized relationships (see Figure 3) using JMP software (SAS Institute, 2003) and
Learning
organization
capacity
131
Figure 3.
Path diagram showing the
relationship between
organizational
commitment, attitude to
structural capital and
attitude to the technology
encyclopedia
R (Ihaka and Gentleman, 1996). Our sample of 65 cases meets PLS’s sample size
requirements (Wixom and Watson, 2001). Following Hulland’s (1999) recommended
procedure, we tested our model in two stages. First, the reliability and validity of each
measure was assessed. Second, the model itself was tested by estimating the paths
between the constructs, to estimate the predictive power of the model. What follows is
a summary of our model development. Further information including the summary of
the questionnaire used, descriptive statistics, and the actual R code used to define the
path model and reliability calculations, can be found on the web at www.uow.edu.au/
, kdiment/wiki
Reliability and validity

Cronbach’s alpha was used to test the reliability of our sub-scales, as suggested by
Nunally (1978), and used by previous KM research using PLS (see Bontis, 1998). This
being an exploratory study, we use the commonly accepted but liberal value of 0.7 as
our threshold for satisfactory alpha. The reliabilities for each of the constructs and
their sub-scales vary. We discuss each construct separately. Criterion and face validity
is assessed by examining the sizes of the effects evident from the PLS modeling. Table I
shows descriptive statistics and alpha for all scales evaluated for use in the PLS
analysis.
Learning organization attributes. The first step in our model (see Figure 3) was the
broad attitudinal domain: OC. It was measured by two scale items: learning
organization attributes (Moilanen, 2005), and learning organization behaviors (Kluge
et al., 2001). Alpha is satisfactory for three of the five sub-scale items: driving forces,
finding the purpose, and empowering so they are retained in the model. On the other
hand, alpha is below threshold for the sub-scale items evaluating and questioning. To
TLO further test this finding, we performed stepwise removal of single items from each of
16,2 the problematic sub-scales (i.e. individual questions). Removing single items for the
evaluating scale is problematic as it is a three-item sub-scale, and two item sub-scales
are generally seen as insufficient for scale development (Anastasi, 1982; Nunally, 1978).
While the questioning scale has sufficient items for stepwise removal, the removal of
individual items does not result in sufficient alpha. This means that these two
132 sub-scales were omitted from the model.
Learning organization behaviors. Alpha is satisfactory for six of the seven sub-scale
items: knowledge pull, subjectivity, transferability, embeddedness, self-reinforcement,
and perishability. Alpha for the sub-scale item spontaneity is marginally insufficient at
0.67. Removing single items results in only a marginal improvement of alpha when the
question “systematic use of creativity techniques for product innovations” is removed

(alpha is 0.696), so this sub-scale was removed from the conceptual model. While this is
close to the cut off of, 0.7, this is a fairly liberal threshold. Therefore inclusion of this
item in the model is unlikely to improve the fit of the model, and may in fact result in
“overfit” – i.e. accounting for noise rather than signal, which is a potential problem
with the PLS approach (Falk and Miller, 1992).
Attitude toward the TE. The second step in our model (see Figure 1) was the focused
sub-attitudinal facet: feeling about the KM intervention (TE). It was measured by two
scale items: willingness to contribute and to use the TE. It is not appropriate to
calculate reliability for the two items that comprise this sub-scale as they are only two
items (Anastasi, 1982) and second, the score is not a simple mathematical
transformation (e.g. sum or mean) of the two items, being somewhat more subjective
than that. However, because the correlation coefficient between the two items is of
moderate magnitude (0.6 or 36 percent of shared variance), we can say if an individual
is willing to use the TE they are more likely to be also willing to contribute to the TE,
but the answer to one item only predicts the other item to a relatively small degree.
This supports the face validity of this measure.
KS. The third step in our model (see Figure 1) was assessing overt behavior: KS. It
was measured by four scale items: human capital, social capital, structural capital, and
relational capital. Cronbach’s alpha shows satisfactory internal consistency for one of
the four sub-scale items: structural capital. Alpha is below threshold for the remaining
three sub-scale items: human capital, social capital, and relational capital. To further
test this finding, we considered stepwise removal of single items defining each
sub-scale (e.g. individual questions). Human capital and relational capital had too few
items to satisfactorily calculate alpha. Therefore, these sub-scale items are excluded
from the model. Further research is required to make these sub-scales useable.
We can examine whether the poor alpha for social capital is simply a function of the
number of items in the scale from our “good” sub-scale – structural capital (with nine
items and a good alpha score) to see if alpha becomes unacceptably low by removing
more than one item at a time and recalculating alpha for the truncated scale. We would
expect then that for calculating alpha on only five items in the relational sub-scale (i.e.
the same number of items in the social sub-scale) the results would be just as
unacceptable as for social capital if the poor results are only caused by the lack of items
in the scale. Recall that alpha for the overall score for the social capital scale was 0.55.
We can compare this for all possible five-item sub-scales for the structural capital by
assigning alphas for all possible combinations of five out of seven items on the
structural capital sub-scale. While the resulting mean alpha is now below the Learning
commonly accepted level (0.66, 95 percent confidence interval ¼ 0:64 to 0.67) it is still organization
significantly higher than for the social capital items. This shows that the poor quality
of the social capital items is not simply an artifact of the small number of items on the capacity
scale, but that there are also other measurement issues which are causing problems.
Therefore, this sub-scale item was excluded from the model. Further research is
required to make this sub-scale useable. 133
Defining OC with PLS
Following the methods described by Falk and Miller (1992), we specify the PLS model
as a series of causal chains. OC is the first item in the model, being the overall
endogenous variable, and the starting point. According to our theory, this variable is
determined by learning organization attributes and learning organization behaviors. In
order to understand this latent variable we used PLS to predict the learning
organization attributes: Driving forces (DF), Finding the purpose (FP), Empowerment
(Emp), Evaluating (Eval); from learning organization behaviours: Knowledge pull (KP),
Subjectivity (S), Embeddedness (E), Self reinforcement (SR), Perishability (P),
Transferability (TF), which provides the R 2 values against the learning
organization behaviors, i.e. how much each variance each behavior construct
explains of the learning organization attributes as a whole. Items without satisfactory
alpha were omitted from the model. In order to assess how learning organization
attributes affect the construct, we perform the regression model in reverse, which
provides us with the R 2 loadings on the OC latent variable. As is convention with this
“soft modelling” approach (Falk and Miller, 1992), the OC scores are placed at the start
point (far left hand side) of the diagram, as we theorise that OC is the initial driver of
attitudes to structural capital, and attitude to the TE. The mean explained variance for
the learning organization behaviours is 0.24 (SD ¼ 0.09, range ¼ 0:1 to 0.34) while the
mean explained variance for the learning organization attributes is also 0.24
(SD ¼ 0:10, range ¼ 0:12 to 0.35). Therefore we estimate that there is 76 percent of “left
over” variance to explain the other constructs in the model. The individual loadings on
the OC latent variable give at least some indication of the importance of each sub-scale
to the latent variable (i.e. the higher the loading, the more important the sub-scale).
Predicting attitude to the TE from structural capital and OC

Now we further develop the path diagram to account for the triangular relationship
between OC, search cycle behavior and attitude to the TE. To do this we examine four
models. The models are as follows:
(1) Predict structural capital score from OC.
(2) Predict attitude to TE from OC scores.
(3) Predict TE attitude from structural capital scores.
(4) Predict TE attitude from structural capital scores and OC scores combined.
This will show the variance that OC and structural capital score share, and
which is independent.
The first three models are straightforward, and follow the same form of the first model.
Note that unlike the OC part of the model, these relationships are unidirectional and so
TLO the reverse prediction is not valid. We are interested in the hypothesis that OC predicts
16,2 attitude to structural capital. While in the case of OC it made sense to examine the
structure of the latent variable by regressing the learning organization behavior scores
and learning organizational attributes scores between each other, here we postulate a
strict independent variable - dependent variable relationship.
134 Model 1: predicting attitude to structural capital from OC

This model shows that OC explains between 20 and 26 percent of the variance of
attitude to structural capital, depending on if a four-component (parsimonious) model
or a complete nine-component model is specified. However there are two problems with
this. The difference between the four component model and the nine-component model
is statistically significant at the 0.05 level, and the nine-component model almost
certainly suffers from “over-fit” (see above). Therefore we chose the four-component
model here.
Model 2: predict attitude to TE from OC scores

In this case, a two-component model is parsimonious (R 2 ¼ 0:23 compared to 0.25 with
a nine-component model). This result requires further examination to see the degree of
independence between OC and attitude to structural capital when both are used to
predict TE attitude together (in model 4).
Model 3: predict TE attitude from structural capital scores

As the TE is actually structural capital in itself, we expect that much more variance is
explained here than in the other models. This is in fact the case, and the parsimony of
the model is also very good. A single component model explains 40 percent of the
variance of TE attitude, a two component model 52 percent, three 55 percent, four 56
percent and the remaining components (5-9) explain 57 percent of the variance of TE
attitude. Therefore we chose the three-component model.
There is a possible objection that use of the TE as structural capital should be
omitted from this analysis, but the three component model with this question removed
gives an R 2 of 0.53 (53 percent), which is not a statistically significant difference.
Model 4: predict TE attitude from structural capital scores and OC scores combined
While the independent assessments of structural capital and OC combined show us
how both contribute to the TE attitude independently, we need to evaluate what
proportion of the shared variance contributes to TE attitude score. In other words,
given that OC predicts 23 percent of TE attitude, and structural capital score predicts
55 percent of the variance of TE attitude, we do not know in what way they are
dependent on each other. Therefore we can define a model that predicts TE from
structural capital and OC combined. If this is significantly less than 78 percent we then
know that the two items do not interact independently.
A four-component model seems most parsimonious predicting with the combined
scales 71 percent of the variance of TE attitude. Six components predict the maximal
variance of 74 percent, being essentially the same as the 7 to 18 component models. The
difference between this and the independent models is only 4 percent, which expressed
in terms of correlation coefficients (i.e. the square root of the difference in proportion of
variance explained) is only 0.2 which is non-significant at the 0.05 level (r crit ¼ 0:26, for
n ¼ 55). Therefore, the two components of the model are independent of each other,
and the 21 percent of the variance that OC explains of structural capital, is independent Learning
of the structural capital scores. Note that combining OC and structural capital scores organization
also eliminates the parsimony problems exhibited by model 1.
capacity
Unaccounted variance
OC accounts for just below 50 percent of the variance of attitude to structural capital
and attitude to the TE. This, plus the “internal variance” of the OC latent variable, 135
leaves 33 percent of remaining variance to be explained. So while we were unable to
measure the other kinds of capital (human, social and relational) with sufficient
reliability and precision to be able to include them in the model, we can see that the
magnitude of the importance of these items is relatively low. However, measurement of
these constructs with greater precision would give us the opportunity to examine the
interactions between the different types of capital. Figure 3 summarizes the results.
Discussion
PLS analyses the measurement model and structural model concurrently. Model fit is
dependent on the integrity of the data as well as the strength of the theory. With
appropriate close attention to reliability, this was satisfactory for the present study
The objective of the study was to determine whether OC would influence attitudes
towards KM initiatives, such as the TE. The results provide strong evidence for a
causal relationship between the constructs underlying the conceptual model presented
in this article (see Figure 1). There are several key findings, which are discussed
separately.
The first main finding is the significant path relationship between OC and attitude
towards the TE (explaining 25 percent of variance). This has important implications
for managers who wish to introduce a KMI. Traditional approaches to change
management isolate the change initiative and aim to increase shared commitment by
addressing barriers to change (Senge et al., 2005, p. 43). This approach is grounded in
the theory of action research, which aims to “unfreeze” the organization, and then
“refreeze” it in new desired behaviors (Jones, 2004, p. 322). The process of isolating the
change initiative is step 1 of the action research method – diagnosing the organization
– which aims to define the problems that need to be “unfrozen”. Senge et al. (2005)
extend this by arguing that learning capabilities are a necessary antecedent to
successful change management. Contemporary theories of change management argue
that individuals must be empowered to embrace the change initiative, often through
training. This article argues that there is a further antecedent that is necessary even
prior to learning capabilities: OC.
Managers need then to determine whether there is sufficient organization
commitment necessary to pursue the other steps in this model. They can do this in two
ways. First, conduct an assessment of overall OC. Mean score analysis of the responses
to the survey instrument used in this article will identify how positively (or negatively)
employees are feeling about the organization’s learning organization capability. In our
study of BSR, we found that respondents rated the organization an average of 4.2/6.0
for learning organization attributes (n ¼ 32 items); and 3.1/5.0 for learning
organization behaviors (n ¼ 51 items). These ratings compare satisfactorily with the
results of the firms in the original studies: Kluge et al. (2001) and Moilanen (2005). This
suggests that respondents were generally positive about the organization, suggesting
TLO good levels of organization commitment. In conducting a similar exercise at their
16,2 organization, managers might look for negative levels of commitment, i.e.
unsatisfactory overall mean scores, at the organization level, business unit level, and
individual level. This will identify areas where OC needs to be improved prior to the
next step in the change management model – learning capabilities.
The second task for managers is to identify specific areas of OC that need to be
136 improved. This can be done at the sub-scale level and/or at the sub-scale items level. As
a first step, managers should look at the overall mean scores for each of the sub-scales,
e.g. knowledge pull, etc. This will identify areas where employees are feeling more
negative about the organization. The manager can then isolate these problem areas and
probe into the reasons for unsatisfactory rating by looking at the sub-scale items
ratings, e.g. setting targets to achieve or surpass world-class level. The second step
then is to compare the overall mean scores for each of the sub-scale items in each
unsatisfactory sub-scale area, to identify problem areas.
There is an important implication for managers, which is less intuitively obvious.
We found that the sub-scale items varied in their ability to predict OC (see the path
analysis in Figure 3). Managers might then use the numbers in Figure 3 to differentiate
amongst the sub-scales and prioritize for action. For example, we found that the
sub-scales with the most predictive power were empowering (35 percent) and
perishability (34 percent). However this conclusion is preliminary because three
sub-scales – questioning, spontaneity, and evaluating – were dismissed from the
model due to lack of reliability (see Table I). Further work on scale development is
required to assess the importance of these sub-scales. Therefore in designing an action
plan to improve OC, managers might consider the overall mean score of the sub-scales
in the following order. The priority for action will be the first sub-scale that has an
unsatisfactory overall rating, and so on.
Ranking of OC sub-scales in terms of predictive power

(1) Empowering.
(2) Perishability.
(3) Knowledge pull.
(4) Driving forces.
(5) Subjectivity.
(6) Self-reinforcement.
(7) Embeddedness.
(8) Evaluation.
(9) Finding purpose.
(10) Transferability.
(11) Unknown (further research required):
.
questioning;
.
spontaneity; and
.
evaluating.
The second major finding is that the relationship between OC and the attitude towards Learning
a KMI is mediated by search cycle behavior. This is an important finding with organization
implications for the next step in the change management process: learning capabilities.
Figure 3 shows that there is a path relationship between organization commitment and capacity
the attitude toward a KMI (the TE). Managers may then take action to increase
organization commitment and, therefore, increase the likelihood that individuals will
develop a shared commitment to the change initiative, as outlined above. However, our 137
findings show that managers will have a significantly better likelihood of successful
change implementation if they also take action associated with search cycle behavior.
There are two parts to this finding. First, organization commitment does influence
search cycle behavior. The path analysis shows a similar predictive power for
organization commitment and the other two latent variables in our conceptual model
(25 percent and 21 percent). There is an important implication for managers in this
finding. It suggests that individuals with strong organization commitment are more
likely to trust structural capital and use it as a source of knowledge. The two
constructs underlying this statement – commitment and trust – reveal a positive
relationship with the organization. Individuals with this relationship are more likely to
be receptive to new initiatives proposed by the organization. Managers can use this
finding by increasing organization commitment, using the same approach outlined
above, which should result in more usage of structural capital. Second, our findings
suggest that the search cycle behavior must match the KMI. In this case, the TE is a
structural capital tool. This means there is a match between the cycle behavior and the
KMI. The strong predictor value of 53 percent reinforces this point. Managers can use
this finding to enhance the likelihood of success with the TE. It means that if
organization commitment levels and usage of structural capital can be increased, then
the likelihood of employees using and contributing to the TE is doubled. We can state
this with confidence because the predictor value explained by increasing organization
commitment in isolation is 25 percent, and the predictor value if structural capital
usage is increased is 53 percent. However, if the KMI was a social capital tool, e.g.
communities of practice, the search cycle behavior does not match. The result would be
a lower predictive value and less likelihood that the KMI will succeed. Further work on
refining how to measure social capital is required to confirm this hypothesis.
Managers can increase structural capital usage in two ways: first, by increasing
organization commitment (see the discussion above), and second, by disaggregating
the search cycle behavior sub-scale. By looking at the mean score ratings explaining
individuals’ usage of the various structural capital sources in Table I, managers can
identify where usage needs to increase and take appropriate action.
The third major finding is the relationship between the KMI and LOC. In Figure 1,
the KMI is the dependent variable. There is, of course, another step in the causal path,
which is the outcome of the change initiative (Figure 3), which Senge et al. (2005)
measures in terms of personal results and business results. We did not measure the
outcomes of the introduction of the TE at BSR because at the time of the study it was
too early to identify the impact on the organization or its staff. However, we can draw
some preliminary assumptions based on two LOC indicators: the contribution to the
TE and its usage. While we aggregated these two indicators to define the variable
attitude to TE, they also provide some insight into whether this KM intervention will
make a difference to the organization in the sense of increasing the knowledge base. If
TLO individuals contribute to the TE then they are improving one of the building blocks of
16,2 KM – KS – and if they use it then they are improving another building block –
knowledge utilization.
Conclusion
This article has examined attitudes towards a social and conversational technology
138 (SCT) – a Wiki – at BSR. The SCT was a TE. This case study has provided an
opportunity to explore attitudes toward KMIs at several levels. First, we considered
whether people were willing to contribute to the TE or use it. This was represented as a
sub-attitudinal facet in Figure 1 (focused attitudes and motives) and the output in our
path analysis in Figure 3 (attitude to TE). Second, we considered whether OC
influenced people’s feelings about the TE. This was represented as a broad attitudinal
domain in Figure 1 and the input in our path analysis in Figure 3. Third, we placed the
TE within the context of how people work at BSR. This was represented as overt
behavior in Figure 1 (KS) and a moderator variable in our path analysis in Figure 3
(search cycle behavior).
These constructs were examined within the overall context of learning organization
theory. While the relationship between LOC and OC was highlighted 15 years ago
(Ulrich et al., 1993), there has been surprisingly little empirical research on LOC
processes and OC. More specifically, there has been limited research on the impact of
commitment levels on knowledge-sharing attitudes and behaviors (Hislop, 2003).
There have been preliminary findings that OC may influence the willingness of
workers to share their knowledge (Storey and Barnett, 2000), but researchers identified
that further empirical research was required (Bhatnagar, 2007). There has been some
research on the linkages between LOC, KM, and OC (Brooks, 2002), but this fails to
consider psychological empowerment as a key predictor of OC. Within this context,
this article examined OC as a broad indicator of individual satisfaction with the
organization and its influences on the change management cycle.
The article’s main contribution has been to highlight how OC is an input, as well as
an output, of change management initiatives, manifested by OL theory as KMIs (e.g.
the TE). The findings presented by the causal path in Figure 3, i.e. that OC is a
predictor of acceptance of KMIs, is significant for several reasons. First, it highlights
the hierarchical nature of shared commitment, a construct that has been held
significant by change management researchers for many years (e.g. see Senge, 1990,
Senge et al., 2005). If KM interventions are to be successful, employee commitment
towards the intervention is necessary (e.g. the sub-attitudinal facet level) as is
satisfaction with the organization (e.g. the broader attitudinal domain level). This latter
point – broad organization commitment – has been overlooked by previous research.
Second, the employee’s PC with the organization is influenced by perceptions of
learning organization behaviors and attributes. This article has forwarded a means for
assessing the PC (e.g. organization commitment levels) in terms that are entirely
relevant for learning organization change (see the scale items in Figure 3). Third, the
relationship between broad attitudinal domain - organization commitment (OC) and the
focused sub-attitudinal facet – attitude to the TE – is moderated by the overt behavior
– knowledge searching. Analysis of the type of knowledge addressed by the KM
intervention will help further predict the success of the intervention. For example, in
our case the TE was a structural capital tool and respondents who preferred using
structural capital (e.g. codified data, reports etc), had more positive attitudes the TE Learning
compared with respondents who preferred using human capital. The article has, organization
therefore, advanced our understanding of employee attitudes towards KM
interventions, with specific guidance on how to improve the uptake on SCTs to capacity
improve KS.
The research is limited by construct reliability. The research discarded three
sub-scale items – human capital, social capital, and relational capital – because alpha 139
was below threshold and, therefore, the item proved unreliable. To further test this
finding, we considered stepwise removal of single items defining each sub-scale (e.g.
individual questions). Human capital and relational capital had too few items to
satisfactorily calculate alpha. Social capital had sufficient items to conduct a step-wise
removal, but still resulted in an unsatisfactory alpha. This suggests that the poor
quality of the social capital items is not simply an artifact of the small number of items
on the scale, but that there are also other measurement issues that are causing
problems. This creates an opportunity for further research. The sub-scale items are
defined by the field of IC, which has an extensive literature. Further studies could
expand the quantity and quality of the items defining the IC sub-scale items. For
example, social capital might incorporate measurement constructs such as network
size, density, heterogeneity, and betweenness (Lee, 2004). In this way, researchers
might test the model presented in this article (see Figure 3) using a revised and
expanded list of IC sub-scale items.
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Corresponding author
Peter Massingham can be contacted at: peterm@uow.edu.au
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Organizational Commitment Knowledge Management Interventions and Leargninga Organization Capacity

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The Learning Organization

Organizational commitment, knowledge management interventions, and learning

*Related content and download information correct at time of download.

School of Management and Marketing, University of Wollongong,

Researchers typically examine KM interventions at the sub-attitudinal facet level,

Learning organization capability

Second, there are measurements of learning organization behaviors. These are

(1) knowledge pull;

Embeddedness 2.81 0.65 60 0.89

Willingness to contribute to the TE

Very important 3 (1)a 4 (1)a 4 (1)a 5 (0)a 5 (0)a

Results and analysis

Reliability and validity

question “systematic use of creativity techniques for product innovations” is removed

Predicting attitude to the TE from structural capital and OC

134 Model 1: predicting attitude to structural capital from OC

Model 2: predict attitude to TE from OC scores

Model 3: predict TE attitude from structural capital scores

Ranking of OC sub-scales in terms of predictive power

organization”, The Learning Organization, Vol. 8 No. 3, pp. 125-33.

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