A Model for Understanding the Relationships Between Organizational Trust, KM Initiatives and Successes

Organizational culture and more particularly organizational trust is often mentioned as one of the main enablers for knowledge sharing and knowledge acquisition. For this research we used an empirical approach to validate this assumption. A theoretical model was developed to test the influence of organizational trust on the usage of various KM tools and practices (personalization and codification) as well as to assess its impact on KM initiative success and on the resulting benefits for organizations. Data collected among 97 US companies were used to validate this model and to demonstrate the significant role of trust in KM initiative success.