Investigation of Environmental Factors that Influence Knowledge Transfer in the Air Force

This research asked the following question: is there a correlation between types of organizational culture and factors influencing knowledge transfer? It hypothesized that organizations scoring high on the cultural factors of openness to change/innovation, and task-oriented organizational growth would be fertile to knowledge transfer. Second, it hypothesized that organizations scoring high on the factors of bureaucratic and competition/ confrontation would be infertile to knowledge transfer. The research looked at Air Force squadrons, surveying a representative sample of the 1,495 active-duty squadrons included in the study with a 62-item, 5-point Likert-type instrument. Overall, 51 squadrons were surveyed, and 22 produced usable results. Both squadron and individual results were analyzed and both were similar. Squadron results showed that organizations scoring high on the factors of openness to change/innovation and task-oriented organizational growth appeared to score consistently high on three of the four measures of fertility to knowledge transfer. Organizations scoring high on the factors of competition/confrontation appeared to score consistently low on three of the four measures of fertility to knowledge transfer. The factor bureaucratic produced no significant correlations. In every case, the measure of fertility to knowledge transfer known as partner similarity did not behave as expected. The research concluded that there appears to be a correlation between organizational culture and factors influencing the transfer of knowledge, but concludes that the factors influencing the transfer of knowledge should be further explored, and a longitudinal study performed, before inferring any causal relationship.Air Force Inst of Tech Wright-Patterson AFB OH School of Engineering and Management is the author of 'Investigation of Environmental Factors that Influence Knowledge Transfer in the Air Force', published 2002 under ISBN 9781423511359 and ISBN 1423511352.