An Empirical Test of the Knowledge Management Life Cycle Model at a Turkish Petroleum Oil Industry Firm

Abstract

Most of the knowledge management life cycle models (KMLCM) in the literature are not only focusing on the processes of knowledge in organizations but also emphasizes the role of knowledge. The theoretical background of this study is based entirely on Sagsan's (2007) "A New Knowledge Management Life Cycle Model" (KMLCM), which are sequentially constituted at the five fundamental processes of knowledge such as creating, sharing, structuring, using and auditing with subtitles at the organizational level. Knowledge creating includes tacit and explicit dimensions of knowledge; knowledge sharing could be succeeded through establishing social and technological communications infrastructure channels; knowledge could be structured organized via knowledge mapping techniques as well as knowledge retrieval and storage systems; knowledge could be used for organizational products, services and decision making process. The last step of KMLCM is knowledge auditing, which allow us to control knowledge capacity in the organization based on the organization's intellectual capital and knowledge assets. This study aims at testing this model at the oil indistry firms, which are distributing Turkish Petroleum (TP) oils as a dealer in Turkey. It is also well-known Turkish Petroleum brands. Thus, the empirical test of the study will prove the findings in the way of applying knowledge management strategy in this firm. The results were discussed by considering each of the knowledge management processes/stages. The findings about implementing KMLCM in the firm are also differentiated at twofold. The first is about the stage of organizational life cycle (deliberate, institutionalized, innovative, rationalized, entrepreneurial) and the second is about the organizational structure such as formalization, centralization, professionalization, specialization and size. In conclusion, it could be said that both organizational life cycle stages and organizational structure variables are directly related to implement KMLCM in the firm. At the end of the study, two fundamental questions were designed for the future research.