Examining the relationships between organizational culture, knowledge management and environmental responsiveness capability

Purpose - The main aim of this paper is to study the effects of organizational culture on environmental responsiveness capability (ERC), both directly and through the mediation of knowledge management (KM) in selected Iranian Industrial Research Organizations (IIRO). Furthermore, the effects of four types of organizational culture on ERC and KM in the target population are compared. Design/methodology/approach - Relationships between the ERC, KM and organizational culture are considered using survey data through the structural equation modelling approach. Five-point Likert questionnaire has been used as a tool for measuring variables. The authors sample includes 276 members of 13 selected target organizations whose names are not mentioned due to prior agreement. Findings - Results show that organizational culture has a positive and significant relationship with ERC, both directly and indirectly through the mediation of KM. Additionally, compared with other types of organizational cultures, innovativeness culture has the highest correlation with ERC, both directly and through KM as a mediating variable. Furthermore, cooperativeness culture has a direct significant relationship with ERC, whereas consistency and effectiveness cultures indirectly have significant and positive relationships with ERC through KM. Therefore, results of this research provide appropriate evidence that ERC can be affected directly by innovativeness culture and KM. Originality/value - The advantage of this paper compared to other related research is to study on ERC based on cultural and knowledge-related variables. Hence, it can extend the literature of ERC, and it can be useful for the managers who are dealing with industrial research company. © 2014, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.