Knowledge management capabilities and organizational performance: an investigation into the effects of knowledge infrastructure and processes on organizational performance

Knowledge is one of the most important assets for surviving in the modern business environment. The effective management of that asset mandates continuous adaptation by organizations, and requires employees to strive to improve the company's work processes. Organizations attempt to coordinate their unique knowledge with traditional means as well as in new and distinct ways, and to transform them into innovative resources better than those of their competitors. As a result, how to manage the knowledge asset has become a critical issue for modern organizations, and knowledge management is considered the most feasible solution. Knowledge management is a multidimensional process that identifies, acquires, develops, distributes, utilizes, and stores knowledge. However, many related studies focus only on fragmented or limited knowledge-management perspectives. In order to make knowledge management more effective, it is important to identify the qualitative and quantitative issues that are the foundation of the challenge of effective knowledge management in organizations. The main purpose of this study was to integrate the fragmented knowledge management perspectives into the holistic framework, which includes knowledge infrastructure capability (technology, structure, and culture) and knowledge process capability (acquisition, conversion, application, and protection), based on Gold's (2001) study. Additionally, because the effect of incentives ̶̶ which is widely acknowledged as a prime motivator in facilitating the knowledge management process ̶̶ was missing in the original framework, this study included the importance of incentives in the knowledge management framework. This study also identified the relationship of organizational performance from the standpoint of the Balanced Scorecard, which includes the customer-related, internal business process, learning & growth, and perceptual financial aspects of organizational performance in the Korean business context. Moreover, this study identified the relationship with the objective financial performance by calculating the Tobin's q ratio. Lastly, this study compared the group differences between larger and smaller organizations, and manufacturing and nonmanufacturing firms in the study of knowledge management. Since this study was conducted in Korea, the original instrument was translated into Korean through the back translation technique. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to examine the validity and reliability of the instrument. To identify the relationship between knowledge management capabilities and organizational performance, structural equation modeling (SEM) and multiple regression analysis were conducted. A Student's t test was conducted to examine the mean differences. The results of this study indicated that there is a positive relationship between effective knowledge management and organizational performance. However, no empirical evidence was found to suggest that knowledge management capabilities are linked to the objective financial performance, which remains a topic for future review. Additionally, findings showed that knowledge management is affected by organization's size, but not by type of organization. The results of this study are valuable in establishing a valid and reliable survey instrument, as well as in providing strong evidence that knowledge management capabilities are essential to improving organizational performance currently and making important recommendations for future research.

Experimental and analytical investigation of refrigerant and lubricant migration

The off-cycle refrigerant mass migration has a direct influence on the on-cycle performance since compressor energy is necessary to redistribute the refrigerant mass. No studies, as of today, are available in the open literature which experimentally measured the lubricant migration within a refrigeration system during cycling or stop/start transients. Therefore, experimental procedures measuring the refrigerant and lubricant migration through the major components of a refrigeration system during stop/start transients were developed and implemented. Results identifying the underlying physics are presented. The refrigerant and lubricant migration of an R134a automotive A/C system-utilizing a fixed orifice tube, minichannel condenser, plate and fin evaporator, U-tube type accumulator and fixed displacement compressor-was measured across five sections divided by ball valves. Using the Quick-Closing Valve Technique (QCVT) combined with the Remove and Weigh Technique (RWT) using liquid nitrogen as the condensing agent resulted in a measurement uncertainty of 0.4 percent regarding the total refrigerant mass in the system. The determination of the lubricant mass distribution was achieved by employing three different techniques-Remove and Weigh, Mix and Sample, and Flushing. To employ the Mix and Sample Technique a device-called the Mix and Sample Device-was built. A method to separate the refrigerant and lubricant was developed with an accuracy-after separation-of 0.04 grams of refrigerant left in the lubricant. When applying the three techniques, the total amount of lubricant mass in the system was determined to within two percent. The combination of measurement results-infrared photography and high speed and real time videography-provide unprecedented insight into the mechanisms of refrigerant and lubricant migration during stop-start operation. During the compressor stop period, the primary refrigerant mass migration is caused by, and follows, the diminishing pressure difference across the expansion device. The secondary refrigerant migration is caused by a pressure gradient as a result of thermal nonequilibrium within the system and causes only vapor phase refrigerant migration. Lubricant migration is proportional to the refrigerant mass during the primary refrigerant mass migration. During the secondary refrigerant mass migration lubricant is not migrating. The start-up refrigerant mass migration is caused by an imbalance of the refrigerant mass flow rates across the compressor and expansion device. The higher compressor refrigerant mass flow rate was a result of the entrainment of foam into the U-tube of the accumulator. The lubricant mass migration during the start-up was not proportional to the refrigerant mass migration. The presence of water condensate on the evaporator affected the refrigerant mass migration during the compressor stop period. Caused by an evaporative cooling effect the evaporator held 56 percent of the total refrigerant mass in the system after three minutes of compressor stop time-compared to 25 percent when no water condensate was present on the evaporator coil. Foam entrainment led to a faster lubricant and refrigerant mass migration out of the accumulator than liquid entrainment through the hole at the bottom of the U-tube. The latter was observed for when water condensate was present on the evaporator coil because-as a result of the higher amount of refrigerant mass in the evaporator before start-up-the entrainment of foam into the U-tube of the accumulator ceased before the steady state refrigerant mass distribution was reached.