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1. Introduction
Knowledge management (henceforth KM) has found a very important place in modern management and business leadership ([15] De Long and Fahey, 2000; [38] McCuiston and Jamrog, 2005). Both scholars and managers recognize the importance of knowledge for organizations in achieving and maintaining competitive advantage ([9] Ciganek et al. , 2008; [15] De Long and Fahey, 2000; [32] Lai and Lee, 2007). KM centers on the belief that employees possess knowledge that can be used to achieve superior business performance. According to [40] Nonaka (1991), knowledge is an enduring source of competitive advantage. Some scholars are of the belief that knowledge is the most valuable and important resource possessed by any organization ([10] Chang and Lee, 2007), whereas others assert that knowledge is critical to an organization's survival ([13] Davenport and Prusak, 1998).
Early research in the field of KM focused on technology as the key enabler of information transfer ([38] McCuiston and Jamrog, 2005). Businesses made significant investments in information technology to support their KM initiatives ([6] Benbya, 2006). However, it was noted that many of these initiatives failed to produce the desired results ([16] DeTienne et al. , 2004). [14] Davenport et al. (2008, p. R11) noted that "knowledge sharing knowledge-management efforts, while useful in some ways, haven't necessarily led to better products and services, more effective employees or superior work processes".
Gold and colleagues argued that it is the identification and assessment of preconditions that are necessary for the success of KM in organizations ([21] Gold et al. , 2001). Within the organizational behavior literature, these preconditions are broadly described as "capabilities" or "resources" ([31] Kelly and Amburgey, 1991; [33] Law et al. , 1998; [35] Leonard, 1995). [54] Yang and Chen (2007) also confirmed that companies tend to launch KM programs without taking their capabilities into consideration, thereby making it difficult for these companies to succeed in business operations.
Utilizing the theoretical foundations given by [21] Gold et al. (2001) and [54] Yang and Chen (2007), the objective of this paper is to provide an empirical context for understanding the role of organizational capabilities in the form of a knowledge infrastructure capability that plays a direct role in the success of KM processes and practices.
The paper commences by introducing...