Knowledge Management Success in Clinical Service Environments

Abstract

The related literature suggests the need to achieve deeper understanding and explanation of knowledge management (KM) success in healthcare service with respect to the complexity of the decision environment. Therefore, this research aims to examine descriptively KM success in Turkish healthcare organisations. More specifically, the study analyses the characteristics of the clinical context, social and technical aspects of the implemented KM solutions (KMS), clinical staff's KMS adoption and its impact on their knowledge and performance in two different clinical service environments (hospitals). The results reveal some interesting patterns. As expected, the participants who perceived their context as more complex and KMS as more sophisticated tended to adopt it more than others. However, this did not produce more superior knowledge and performance. Several possible explanations were offered for the findings and future research was recommended in order to overcome current limitations.