Organizational Culture and Knowledge Management: A Case of Postal Corporation of Kenya in Nakuru County, Kenya

Abstract

Factors such as globalization, market liberalization, persistent technological changes and reforms initiated by the government have made it more complicated for the postal sector to anticipate its future. For organizations to respond to these needs of the changing environments, knowledge management has been postulated as an anchor to increase organizational competitive edge. The study’s main objective was to investigate how organizational culture affects knowledge management in Postal Corporation of Kenya, Nakuru County, Kenya. The research sought to establish the effect of clan culture, adhocracy culture, market culture and hierarchy culture on knowledge management in Postal Corporation of Kenya, Nakuru County, Kenya. The research was grounded on Schein’s theory and knowledge based theory. Descriptive research design was utilized to understand how and what type of organizational culture greatly affects knowledge management. Census was used in this research and involved the 91 targeted employees from top and middle management levels and staff at Postal Corporation of Kenya in Nakuru County. Semi-structured questionnaires were utilized to collect primary data. Pilot testing involved 9 respondents, that is, 10% of the sample randomly selected from Postal Corporation of Kenya Nakuru County. Industry experts and University supervisors were engaged to help in testing the validity of the questionnaire, while reliability was tested using Cronbach’s alpha. The study used a threshold of 0.7 as the standard of reliability and thus a coefficient below 0.7 indicated that the constructs were not reliable in capturing the variable. An average coefficient of 0.792 was obtained and thus the data collection tool was reliable. Descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviations) and inferential statistics (linear regression and correlation) were done using statistical package of social sciences software. Qualitative data was organized into themes and coded then analyzed using statistical package of social sciences software. The study findings indicated that clan culture, adhocracy culture, market culture and hierarchy culture affected knowledge management of Postal Corporation of Kenya as the respondents agreed with the statements. The correlation findings indicated a positive and significant linear correlation between clan culture and adhocracy culture, a negative and insignificant linear correlation between market culture and a positive and insignificant linear correlation between hierarchy culture and knowledge management in Postal Corporation of Kenya. Additionally, the regression results indicated a positive and significant effect of clan culture (β = 0.089, p=0.002) and adhocracy culture (β = 0.575, p=0.000) on knowledge management of Postal Corporation of Kenya. The regression results indicated a negative and insignificant effect (β = -0.113, p=0.076) of market culture on knowledge management of Postal Corporation of Kenya and a positive and insignificant effect (β = 0.139, p=0.102) of market culture on knowledge management. The study concludes that clan culture, adhocracy culture and hierarchy culture are significant organizational culture factors affecting knowledge management in Postal Corporation of Kenya as they lead to knowledge acquisition, knowledge conversion, knowledge application and knowledge protection. This means that enhancing clan culture, adhocracy culture and hierarchy culture will positively affect the knowledge management in Postal Corporation of Kenya. The study recommends enhancing clan culture so that strong team work, strong ties and high loyalty can be established among employees of Postal Corporation of Kenya. Further, adhocracy culture needs to be enhanced since it flourishes from hard situations and variation lending itself to adaptable, unlikely and vigorous working patterns which leads to knowledge management.