The Impact of Personal and Positional Powers on Knowledge Management Systems

The importance of Knowledge Management System (KMS) to an evolving knowledge economy has been reported in the literature for many years. This importance, in part, is due to KMS's ability to foster positive organizational value by increase its competitive edge. Organizational leadership has repeatedly appeared in the literature as a reliable determinant of KMS success. While researchers have identified many of the critical success factors that influence that success, the subconstructs of leader power remains elusive. This study was able to empirically demonstrate the predominate construct of Expert and Reward powers were positive, significant, and consistent across all KMS constructs (leadership commitment to KMS, knowledge content quality, knowledge system quality, and knowledge use). Legitimate power demonstrated negative influences on various KMS constructs. Information powers had varying degrees of success while Coercive power was not statistically significant.