Knowledge management, organizational culture and Employee commitment of tier one Banks in the North Rift Region, Kenya

Abstract

Employee commitment has been established as a determinant of knowledge management both in public and private sector. Although the exact nature of this symbiotic relationship between knowledge management and employee commitment has hardly been determined, it has always been assumed based on scant data. Therefore, the goal of this study was to investigate how organizational culture among tier one commercial banks moderates the relationship between knowledge management and employee commitment. The study's specific goals were to investigate how employee commitment is affected by knowledge creation, acquisition, sharing, and storage. The study was anchored on the theories of organizational epistemology, universalistic theory, and organizational culture theory. The study used an explanatory research design and post positivist philosophy as a guide. An empirical review was conducted that summarized and synthesized results from various empirical studies that identified patterns, validated theories and provided a grounded understanding of specific research question. (Johnson & Christensen, 2023). 264 employees of Tier 1 banks in the North Rift Region were selected as a sample size from a random digit numbers table using stratified, proportional, and simple random selection procedures. The study targeted 774 employees of these institutions. A strutured questionnaire was used to gather study data. Descriptive statistics such as means, standard deviation, frequencies and percentages and inferential statistics such as ANOVA, correlation coefficient and regression analysis were used to analyze quantitative data. According to the study's findings, employee commitment is positively and significantly impacted by knowledge management techniques (knowledge creation, knowledge acquisition, knowledge sharing, and knowledge storage) (β1=.344, p<0.05, β2=.143, p<0.05, β3=.214, p<0.05, and β4=.077, p< 0.05) respectively. The results also showed that employee commitment was positively and significantly associated with organizational culture (β5 =.189 p<0.05). Furthermore, the results showed that, with the exception of knowledge acquisition, which was not significant (β7=.006, p>0.05), organizational culture had a positive and significant moderating effect on knowledge creation, knowledge sharing, and knowledge storage on employee commitment (β6=.029, p<0.05), (β8 =.033, p<0.05), and (β9=.014, p<0.05), respectively. Employee commitment is impacted by knowledge management strategies, according to the study's findings. Additionally, it is determined that employee commitment and knowledge management practices are moderated by organizational culture. The study concludes that knowledge creation, sharing, and storage significantly boost employee commitment in tier one banks in Kenya, with organizational culture enhancing their effects. However, knowledge acquisition when interacted with organizational culture did not significantly impact employee commitment. The findings emphasize the importance of integrating knowledge management with a strong organizational culture to improve employee loyalty and performance. Theoretically, the study creates a new insight about the moderating effect of organizational culture on knowledge management and employee commitment. Subsequent studies should include additional knowledge management variables as well as potential modifiers or intervening variables to better examine the spectrum of influences these techniques have on employee commitment. Additionally, future studies should be carried out on the same topic employing a triangulation approach to provide more depth and detail to their conclusions.