Impacts of knowledge management on organizational innovation in 25 Taiwanese teaching hospitals

Objectives:

The study aimed to explore the impact of knowledge management on organizational innovation in medical institution.

Methods:

This study used a cross-sectional research design with self-composed

questionnaires. Workers from 25 hospitals were set to be the subjects for this study.

500 questionnaires were distributed, and 337 effective questionnaires

were returned, resulting in a response rate of 67.4%. The data were analyzed by multiple regression and one-way ANOVA.

Results:

From the study, we discovered that hospital characteristics are significant differences

on knowledge management's “Acquire Creation”, “Circulation Proliferation”, “Storage Internalization”, “Application Sharing” and organizational innovation's “Management Innovation”, “Technological Innovation”. We also learned that academic medical centers are superior to regional hospitals, and there are significant

positive relations between every phase in knowledge management and

organizational innovation. "Application sharing" from knowledge

management shows the biggest effect on organizational innovation.

Conclusions:

This study demonstrates that knowledge management can develop significant

positive influences on organizational innovation. Each hospital should

combine knowledge management and organizational goals for developing a

learning organization to reinforce the sharing and application of

knowledge among the hospitals. Then, through the positive support from

the managers on the development of knowledge management, they will be

able to bring all the workers to participate in knowledge management and

bring the benefits of the organizational innovation.