Investigation Of The Status And Bariers Of Knowledge Management Systems And Its Effect On Organizational Performance: The Case Of Mesfin Industrial Engineering

Abstract

Knowledge Management System is a practice that creates a synergy of the information processing ability given by information technology with the inventive and imaginative competency of human and social elements in organizations. This study presents the status of knowledge management systems for organizational performance in Mesfin Industrial Engineering (MiE). The main purpose of this study was to investigate Knowledge Management System (KMS) in manufacturing industry which focuses on organizational performance. In the rising global economy managing knowledge successfully has become a basic activity for any competitive advantage of organizations. As far as competition in market place increases, organizations tend to strive in order to remain competitive, productive and profitable. It is vital for companies to ensure they utilize their organizational assets human and technical, in order to achieve maximum performance and efficiencies. Although knowledge management system serves as critical enablers of industrial processes in organizations, their co-existence with organizational performance is not clear yet. In general KMS is necessary part every organizations day today operation. In order to go aligned with this study, the researcher used cross sectional survey research method by using questionnaire, interview and observation as data collection instruments. To find respondents for the data collection instruments the researcher used both purposive and random sampling technique for interview and questionnaires respectively. The study was therefore more quantitative which uses descriptive statistics. After all this, the finding shows that MiE was using knowledge management systems even though the status of their utilization was at low level with limiting factors such as inadequate knowledge of the benefits of Knowledge Management Systems in the organization, Lack of organized training in Knowledge Management System and Personal motivation to use Knowledge Management System. Finally the researcher recommends the organization to have the habit of frequent training to the employees either annually or biannually to advance the attitude of the employees in KMS. In the meantime this research was done giving special emphasis for single organizations employees, in order to encompass multiple organizations employees’ future researchers can use to incorporate more than one organization to study the same work.