Influence of organizational culture on knowledge transfer: Evidence from the Government of Dubai

Date01 February 2018
Published date01 February 2018
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1696
SPECIAL ISSUE PAPER
Influence of organizational culture on knowledge transfer:
Evidence from the Government of Dubai
Mohammad Habibur Rahman
1
|Immanuel Azaad Moonesar
1
|Md Munir Hossain
2
|
Md Zahidul Islam
3
1
Mohammed Bin Rashid School of
Government, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
2
School of Business, Western Sydney
University, Penrith, NSW, Australia
3
UBD School of Business and Economics,
Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Bandar Seri
Begawan, Brunei Darussalam
Correspondence
Mohammad Habibur Rahman, Mohammed Bin
Rashid School of Government, Convention
Tower, 13th Floor, PO Box 72229, Dubai,
United Arab Emirates.
Email: mohammad.habibur@mbrsg.ac.ae
In the current context of globalization and technological spread, the role of knowledge as an
organizational resource is phenomenal. Knowledge management can be seen as an addon to
reform paradigms such as new public management, good governance, and smart government,
which has generated significant interest for public sector reformists in recent years. The amount
of literature on knowledge management in public the sector of the United Arab Emirates is
relatively scanty. In the Government of Dubai (1 of 7 Emirates in the UAE), the journey towards
knowledge management has started 2 decades or so ago and now has begun to take structural
roots in many organizations. This study examines the relationship between organizational culture
elements (i.e., trust, communication between employees, reward, leadership, and learning and
development), organizational socialization, and knowledge transfer in the government organiza-
tions in Dubai. Based on a theoretical framework to measure the influence, this study conducted
a questionnaire survey in the Government of Dubai entities. From 811 respondents representing
these organizations, the survey results unfold positive relationship between knowledge transfer
and the 4 selected organizational cultural elements (i.e., trust, communication between
employees, reward, and leadership). Socialization is found to play a moderating role in all the
hypothesized relationships except between reward and knowledge transfer. It also examines
further research implications to support knowledge transfer processes and practices in the public
sector of Dubai and the UAE.
1|INTRODUCTION
Over the past five decades or so, the knowledge management
literature has been deepened by various scholarly thoughts and
constructs. In the 1960s, Polanyi, one of the early thinkers provoked
a philosophical underpinning by his famous quote: we can know more
than we can tell(Polanyi, 1966). The 1990s received a renewed
scholarly attention on the field when a host of scholars enriched the
discourse with diverse perspectives on how knowledge could lead to
innovation, development, and change. Galtung and Vincent (1992)
perceived information and knowledge as important drivers of economy
and social power, and others including Senge (1990); Drucker (1995);
Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995); Davenport, De Long, and Beers (1998)
underlined the need for knowledge management as a new paradigm
and a central strategic tool to organizational performance. Recent
literature continue to underpin the role of knowledge management in
innovation through integration and networking (Alexander, Neyer, &
Huizingh, 2016; Cappelli & Montobbio, 2016; Galunic, Sengupta, &
Petriglieri, 2014; Liana, PhillipsWen, & Jain, 2016; Llopis & Foss,
2016; Matysiewicz & Smyczek, 2016).
For public sector reformists, knowledge management has
generated significant interest in the postnew public management
era (Tangaraja, Mohd Rasdi, Ismail, & Abu Samah, 2015). Sandhu,
Jain, and bte Ahmad (2011) perceived managing knowledge as a
central resource for government services to improve public
governance and service delivery. However, as Zhang and Ng (2012)
observe, organizations are not able to create knowledge by themselves
because knowledge is created by individuals and argue that leveraging
knowledge is only doable when individuals are ready to share
their knowledge with others. Therefore, determining which factors
promote individuals' knowledge transfer (Van den Hooff & de Ridder,
2004) constitute an important area of research. To explore the
question further, Ives, Torrey, & Gordon (2003) examined what are
the elements that effectively influence organizational knowledge
transfer and found that these are organizational structure, culture,
processes, strategy, and information technology.
DOI: 10.1002/pa.1696
J Public Affairs. 2018;18:e1696.
https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1696
Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa 1of13

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