IT and Knowledge Management Influence on Organizational Learning Capability—The Mediating Role of Organic Structures

This article describes a valid and current research area, which is the formation of organizational learning ability, perceived as a condition necessary for the survival and development of modern organizations. It refers to the issue of organic organizational structure as a factor shaping this ability. Many researchers emphasized that the organizational structure plays a key role in determining the processes of organizational learning. However, only in recent years, these views have been verified empirically—demonstrating the importance of organic structures in this area. Therefore, determination of what may contribute to the development of organic structural solutions in the context of developing learning capacity of the company appears to be a significant research problem. This article discusses what is the organic organizational structure role in shaping the learning ability of organization. It was empirically verified, using confirmation factor analysis, that among other factors organic structure determines organizational learning capability (OLC). Next part of article describes information technology (IT) and knowledge management (KM) as two important factors influencing structure reorganization and facilitating introduction of organic-type structure in organization. Discussion concerning the problem of their influence on various organizational structure dimensions is included. After that, research results are presented. First part of these researches concerns IT and KM influence on organizational structure and provides conclusions based on correlation and stepwise regression analysis. The empirical results show that IT and KM are two important factors influencing structure reorganization and facilitating introduction of organic-type structure in organization. Research has shown that these factors are complementary in terms of their impact on the organizational structure (they have a statistically significant impact on various structural dimensions). Therefore, IT and KM may be considered as intermediate factors influencing OLC and should be closely observed in those organizations, which are trying to enhance their learning capability.

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