Knowledge Management in Indian Research and Development Organizations:An Organizational Culture Perspective

The present study made an attempt to explore the knowledge management processes and the role of contextual variables in Indian research and development organizations. The present paper aims to focus on various knowledge management processes practiced in research oriented organizations from the organizational culture perspective. A qualitative methodology was employed in the present study. An interview schedule consisting of 23 different items was developed by the authors to conduct in-depth interviews of 30 (Male = 25, Female = 5) individuals who belonged to upper echelon (senior scientists and consultants), aged 27 years to 65 years (mean age = 51.43 years) from 11 Indian research intensive organizations across 3 cities. Content analysis displayed some themes. For instance, sharing of information and expertise took place in most of the research and development organizations at both levels, individual and organizational; more emphasis was given to collaborative research and interdisciplinary ventures. Further it was found that documentation and retrieval of knowledge were given due importance in most of the organizations and various ways were adopted of maintaining it. Besides that, the results also revealed that organizational culture played vital role in influencing knowledge management processes. Organizational culture present in these research intensive organizations principally laid emphasis on inter-disciplinary exchanges, openness, leader accessibility, transparency, trust, etc. Moreover, knowledge management processes were found to have positive impact on performance and profitability. This study has several implications for research and development organizations. It also makes significant contributions to both the knowledge management and organizational culture literatures.