Effect of Organisational Structure and ICT on Knowledge-Management Process:Findings From Indian Milk Co-Operatives

The current study has investigated the effect of organisational structure and information and communication technology (ICT) on knowledge-management process in Indian milk co-operatives. Independent variable of this research is organisational structure and its dimensions (centralisation, formalisation, and integration) and ICT. Dependent variable is knowledge-management process (acquiring and creating, organising and storing, sharing/disseminating, and applying). Both qualitative and quantitate research methods have been used in this study. Data were collected using questionnaires. The questionnaires were framed based on measurement parameters suggested in literature. As there are very few studies reported in literature in the context of Indian agricultural organisation, in general and Indian milk co-operatives in particular, the parameters used in other kind of organisation were used in this study. The questions in the questionnaires were suitably changed to make them more relevant/appropriate for milk co-operatives. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used for hypotheses testing and analysis. Tools like SPSS and AMOS (version 20.0) were used for data analysis. The result showed that there was significant and positive effect of integration and ICT on knowledge-management process in Indian milk co-operatives. These results obtained would help managers of milk co-operative to better understand the linkage between organisational structure, ICT, and knowledge-management process. This work is one of the first empirical studies that examine the relationship between organisational structure, ICT, and knowledge-management process in Indian milk co-operatives.