Investigating the impact of leadership style on knowledge management processes among telecomunication industry in Malaysia / Ahmad Sufi Alawi Idris

Prior to the advent of Knowledge Economy, Knowledge Management (KM) has emerged as one of the essential agendas in organizations due to the reliance upon the quality, availability, and accessibility of knowledge as valuable commodities, rather than physical or tangible inputs. Practitioners and academicians alike begin to acknowledge the potential of KM and its processes within organizational context which may contribute towards sustainable competitive advantages. The study identified these processes as the building blocks that determine the success of a KM program. The deliverance of KM Processes relies upon the capabilities of individual within organizational context. These capabilities are unique to individuals and it is paradoxical in nature which means that KM Processes is conducted privately and discreetly. However, the study believes that these capabilities towards KM Processes are influenced and determined by Leadership Style of individuals. This is the fundamental behind the proposed theoretical framework that is being introduced in the study. Furthermore, previous studies stressed that there are scarcity of research explaining Leadership Style and KM Processes. Hence, there are still very little empirical evidence to establish the influence of Leadership Style on KM Processes especially in Telecommunication organizations of Malaysia. Therefore, the proposed theoretical framework is developed in order to explore the relationship between these two main constructs among Telecommunications Industry in Malaysia. Furthermore, Organizational Settings comprising of Motivation and KM Technology are also employed to enhance the proposed framework in order to ascertain its role as moderators in influencing the relationship between Leadership Style and KM Processes. Samples comprised of 302 respondents from five (5) telecommunication organizations in Malaysia. Drawing from the results, the study disclosed that there is a high level of KM Processes among low to mid level managers of telecommunication organizations in Malaysia. Furthermore, Transformational Leadership Style and Transactional Leadership Style were found to be positively influencing KM Processes, but however, Passive Avoidant Leadership Style was revealed to be negatively influencing KM Processes. As for the moderating influence introduced in the framework of the study, it can be concluded that Motivation was discovered to be positively influencing the relationship between Leadership Style and KM Processes. On the other hand, the moderating influence of KM Technology was not found to be moderating the relationship between Leadership Style and KM Processes. Based on this, the study concludes that KM processes is impacted by Leadership Style to the extent of influencing the capability of employees towards their knowledge agenda.