The Influences of Knowledge Management Capability and Knowledge-oriented Leadership on Public Organizational Innovativeness: An Empirical Study from the Tax Administrative Organizations in Thailand

Abstract

The objectives of this research are to verify the mediating role of knowledge management capability (KMC) (i.e., accumulation of knowledge stocks and regulation of knowledge flows) in the relationship between knowledge-oriented leadership and public organizational innovativeness. Additionally, the moderating effects of social capital in the relationship between knowledge-oriented leadership and the two components of KMC as well as the moderating effects of creative organizational climate in the relationship between KMC and organizational innovativeness are examined. The relationships among these constructs are examined in public organizations. To understand the phenomenon in the public organization context, 1,334 tax administrative organizations in Thailand were selected to gather data for this research. The data from 784 organizations were analyzed by structural equation modeling to assess the construct validity and reliability and test the posited hypotheses.

The results of the study are described as follows. First, the result found that knowledge-oriented leadership strongly and positively influences both two components of KMC. Furthermore, KMC in the regulation of knowledge flows positively affects public organizational innovativeness whilst the accumulation of knowledge stocks does not affect. Second, the findings show the regulation of knowledge flows positively mediates the relationship between knowledge-oriented leadership and organizational innovativeness while the accumulation of knowledge stocks does not. Finally, the results indicate that social capital plays a moderating role in the relationship between knowledge-oriented leadership and KMC. Furthermore, a creative organizational climate positively moderates the effect of the accumulation of knowledge stocks on organizational innovativeness. Incredibly, it significantly and negatively moderates the effect of regulation of knowledge flows on organizational innovativeness creative is significantly and negatively moderated by creative organizational climate.

Integrating several concepts from these empirical results can provide some recommendations for executives of tax administrative organizations should to determine effective KM activities and strategies to enhance their innovativeness and performance. As well, encouraging the relational social capital and supporting perceived creative organizational climate among their members are significant to consider together with a leadership role, KMC, and innovativeness in the public organizations.

-