Effects of knowledge management factors on organizational performance in the Hospitality Industry: A study of selected 5 star Hotels in Nairobi, Kenya

Abstract

Four principal factors are key players in organizations performance, namely: enablers, drivers, facilitators and mechanisms. Knowledge and other intellectual capital assets are the principal enablers of an organization's performance for they provide a means to establish the proper course, content, and quality of actions while, drivers provide energy and stimulus for the knowledge managers and employees to act. Facilitators provide lubricants’ to reduce friction that works against actions and mechanisms consist of the functional elements that organizations manipulate, i.e. processes that operate to produce actions. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of knowledge management factors on organizational performance in selected hotels in Nairobi. The purpose of this study was to find out the effect of knowledge management enablers, drivers, mechanisms and facilitators on organizational performance. The objectives for the study were; to find out the extent to which knowledge management enablers affect organizational performance, to investigate the extent to which knowledge management drivers affect organizational performance, to determine the extent to which knowledge management mechanisms affect organizational performance and to find out the extent to which knowledge management facilitators affect organizational performance. The study was guided by systems thinking and social capital theories. The study employed both descriptive and explanatory research designs. The population for the study was 756 employees from three selected hotels and a sample of 254 was drawn for the study. Purposive, proportionate, stratified and systematic random sampling methods were used for the study to realize the objective of the study. Purposive sampling was used to select the hotels in Nairobi city. Proportionate sampling was used to determine the number of respondents to participate in the study from each of the hotels selected. Employees selected in each hotel were stratified based on their departments of operation. Systematic random sampling served to identify the actual participants in the study. The instrument for data collection was questionnaire. The content validity of the instrument was tested using a pilot testing. Data was obtained from primary and secondary sources for the study. The Cronbach’s alpha was at the level of 0.934. The analysis of data used both descriptive and inferential statistics methods. From the Multiple regression analysis, the results showed that knowledge management facilitators and mechanisms significantly affect organizational performance at 43.1% and 22.1%, respectively, while knowledge management enablers and drivers do not affect organizational performance. The major conclusions that the researcher drew from the study were; knowledge management mechanisms and knowledge management facilitators are the major components that affect performance or organizations, while knowledge management drivers and enablers do not affect organizational performance. The recommendation from the study was that hotel organizations should heavily invest in their knowledge management facilitators and mechanisms to ensure that the personnel are well equipped to cope with the challenges of performance in their organizations.