Knowledge Management dimensions and their impact on retail performance in Zimbabwe

Abstract

The importance of Knowledge Management (KM) in retail organisations is widely acknowledged by many Human Resources practitioners and academicians in Zimbabwe and the world over, yet there seems to be a paucity of research in this field. To address this dearth of published studies, the current study seeks to investigate the impact of KM success factors namely leadership, corporate culture, Information Technology (IT) infrastructure, measurement and evaluation, employee needs, organisational structure, and roles and responsibilities on retail performance in Zimbabwe. The conceptualised model and the hypothesis are empirically validated using a sample of 175 retailers in Harare, Zimbabwe. The findings reveal that leadership, corporate culture, IT infrastructure, measurement and evaluation, organisational structure, and roles and responsibilities are significant predictors of retail performance. However, employee needs did not show a significant effect on retail performance. Therefore, to improve their performance, retail organisations should make efforts to invest in KM initiatives.