Background and Objectives: The aim of the current study was to Identify and group the effective factors on the implementation of knowledge management in the water production and transmission exploitation company in the southeast of Ahvaz. Today, one of the most crucial success factors for organizations to gain a competitive advantage is the identification, sharing, and use of organizational knowledge, or knowledge management. As a result, organizations are constantly searching for solutions to successfully implement knowledge management processes in their working environment. Gaining this competitive advantage is obviously reliant on the organization's capacity to efficiently transform current information into new knowledge assets (Ou et al., 2016). Despite the fact that many organizations have invested in and implemented knowledge management at various organizational levels, many of them have also failed (Chua & Lam, 2005). Therefore, one of the biggest problems in every organization is figuring out the essential and efficient components of knowledge management implementation.
Methodology: The current study uses an applied approach to its goal and a descriptive-analytical methodology to its implementation. Ten experts—five university professors in the subject field and five senior industry managers—make up the research community. The target population was sampled and chosen using a targeted non-random technique, and the necessary data were gathered using structured interviews and questionnaires. The Interpretive Structural Modelling (ISM) method was used to conduct the final analysis of the study data. An effective method for examining how one element affects other elements is interpretive structural modelling. According to Kannan et al. (2009), this technique looks at the direction and order of intricate interactions between system components.
Findings: The results indicated that the cornerstone of this model, which influences all other aspects, is engagement in corporate affairs, knowledge activities, and information exchange. In other words, it is important to pay close attention to the fact that the fundamental component in the implementation of knowledge management is the involvement of all employees in the organization-level sharing of information. As long as all employees do not actively participate in the knowledge affairs of the organization, the rest of the processes will not be done properly. According to the findings, the most influential factors are the mechanism of group discussions, organizational position and use of resources. In the second level, there is the factor of existence of resources, which affects the factors of the first level and is affected by the factor of the third level. At the third level is the concentration factor. At the fourth level, there are four factors of technological infrastructure, trust, leadership and knowledge sharing, and finally at the fifth level is the factor of participation. According to the obtained model, this factor is the most effective factor in the correct implementation of knowledge management.
Discussion: Factors affecting the implementation of knowledge management, according to the level of influence, play a key role in the correct implementation of related processes. According to the final model of the research, it can be seen that all the ten factors that were investigated in this research, although they are at different levels of influence, but they are related to each other. This model has identified the factors affecting the implementation of knowledge management in the studied company and discovered the relationships between these factors and leveled them. According to this model, it is suggested to apply the findings of this research and use them in the real work situation, to increase the participation in knowledge affairs and knowledge-building activities in the company, and the company managers to create solutions for Create participation opportunities for all employees. Also, the leaders of the organization, by strengthening the spirit and culture of trust in the organization, create the ground for creating a fluid flow of knowledge and knowledge sharing among different departments of the company, and for this they can use appropriate and up-to-date technological infrastructures. It is also suggested to act in a centralized way in maintaining and producing knowledge content in different work environments so that repetitions and rework can be avoided and previous experiences can be used to solve future problems; In other words, "testing the tested is a mistake, and this will not be achieved without focusing on the creation and access to knowledge treasures.