Impact of Knowledge Management and Change Management on the Effectiveness of the Firm: Evidence from the Russian Companies

Abstract

Many researchers believe that enterprise knowledge today is the key resource to ensure the effectiveness of the firm. However, the empirical investigations of practical usage of management tools show that knowledge management meets the expectations much less frequently than other technologies. The hypothesis that value of accumulated enterprise knowledge is materialized in the form of changes in internal systems and external environment is proposed here on base of theoretical analysis. Therefore, change management is a complementary activity to the knowledge management, only joint development of these two management disciplines can provide the greatest effectiveness. To check this hypothesis empirical survey of 88 Russian companies was conducted. Survey results confirm that firms, which invest in knowledge management and change management simultaneously, are more effective than firms, which develop only one of these practices.