Abstract
The current research deals with the effectiveness of the knowledge management model in achieving the goal of improving its position in Bank Tejarat. The European Organizational Excellence Model (EFQM) was also chosen because the nine criteria included in this excellence model include the basic concerns of the bank. The analysis has been done by considering 5 main hypotheses based on 5 enabling criteria of the model and 5 sub-hypotheses according to the respondents' service units. The statistical population is experts and managers who are based in the headquarters of Tejarat Bank in Tehran. Using stratified random sampling, a total of 270 questionnaires containing 24 questions were distributed, of which 250 complete responses were received and analyzed. In this research, the methods of reviewing documents and questionnaires were used to collect information, and SPSS software was used to perform calculations. The results of the investigations show that, from the perspective of the employees of Tejarat Bank, in this discussion, among the components of the European model of organizational excellence, the human resources component has the highest priority and the component of business partners has the least importance.
Extended Abstract
Introduction
In organizations, knowledge can be found not only in documents and resources but also in daily organizational work, processes, performance and norms of the organization. knowledge, prior to be controlled and managed, must be created and used in an organization. The process of creating knowledge requires the interaction, participation and involvement of people with information technology.
If knowledge management becomes a part of the organization's business model, creating a culture of change in the organization can be applied with fewer issues, because no change is possible without awareness and preparation and saving the necessary energy for change. An organization that wants a superior position compared to its competitors, must respond to the needs and expectations of the customer by using the competitive knowledge available in the organization. Tejarat Bank has had the long-term experience of professional and leading bankers and has been among the pioneers of the banking system in many fields. He has always been concerned about updating service programs and attracting more and more customers through providing new services. Various and extensive research shows that most of today's organizations have turned to organizational learning and knowledge management with the aim of achieving a superior and brilliant position, and as a competitive advantage on the way to a clear and superior horizon compared to their competitors, they are trying to become the receiving organization. Bank Tejarat, like other organizations that have this concern, mentions knowledge management as a tool to achieve this goal. In addition, improving the knowledge level of the employees is one of the regular programs of the bank, which has long considered the effectiveness of trainings and their long-term effects as a basic principle.
In this research, we seek to find the answer to this question: How effective is the knowledge management model based on the European model of excellence in improving the competitive position of Tejarat Bank?
Theoretical framework
Knowledge is information combined with experience, circumstances, interpretation and thinking. When information enters the human mind, it becomes knowledge (Safaei et al, 2018).
Knowledge management is a coherent systematic process that uses a suitable combination of information technologies and human interaction to identify, manage and share the organization's information assets. These assets include databases, documents, policies and procedures. In addition, it includes both explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge of employees, and uses diverse and extensive methods to capture, store and share knowledge within an organization (Al Roy and Firestone, 2007). )
The European model of organizational excellence was created to recognize and promote sustainable success and provides guidelines for organizations that seek to achieve sustainable success. This model creates a holistic view of the organization and can be used to determine how these various methods are paired with each other and complement each other. (Suárez et al., 2014)
Keshavarz Afshar et al, (2022) in a research called "Designing a native model of knowledge management in Iran's government organizations" prioritized the most important components affecting the maturity of knowledge management. This priority is: input, process, output, consequence and feedback.
Maurcury & Mendes, (2018) believe that knowledge management can coexist with quality management, because they have the main success factors: approach to the customer and other stakeholders, human resource participation, leadership, management based on data, and information.
Research methodology
The current research is applicative- descriptive in terms of its purpose, and descriptive and correlative based on the method of data collection. In this research, due to the large statistical population, stratified random sampling method was used. The statistical population consists of all the personnel of the headquarters management of Tejarat Bank (employees with a bachelor's degree or higher). The method of collecting information was the review of documents and questionnaires. In the present study, a researcher-made questionnaire was used, which used a 5-point Likert scale to score the answers.
Research findings
In order to check the research hypotheses with the help of spss software, inferential statistics were used to test the hypotheses and the simple average method was used to calculate the dimensions of the research. In the following, the normality or non-normality of the statistical sample was investigated, then the non-parametric binomial test was used to check the status of the research components, and the path analysis method was used to check the model. Knowledge management based on the European model of excellence has a direct and positive effect on improving the competitive position of Tejarat Bank in the field of leadership, in the field of policy and strategy, in the field of human resources, in the field of business partners, and in the field of processes. According to the results of the research and the fact that the significance value of the test is smaller than the significance value (0.05), it can be said that at the confidence level of 95%, the investigated components among the headquarters staff of Tejarat Bank of Tehran in the seven districts have significant differences. Friedman's analysis of variance test, which was used to rank each of the independent variables of the research, confirms that among the employees of Tejarat Bank, the component of improving human resources has the highest priority and the component of business partners has the lowest priority. The priority of the criteria is from the highest to the lowest priority in the following order: human resources, processes, leadership, policies and strategies, and finally business partners.
Conclusion
The present study deals with the effectiveness of the knowledge management model based on the European model of excellence in improving the competitive position of Tejarat Bank. The results of this research are consistent with the findings of Javidnia and Kamali (2017), and Tavallaei & et al, (2021); the analyzes show that from the point of view of all the considered criteria of the European model of excellence, there is a direct relationship between knowledge management and the improvement of the competitive position of Tejarat Bank in the various areas mentioned in this research. Only regarding the prioritization among different criteria, the results indicate the priority of the criteria from the highest to the lowest priority in the following order: human resources, processes, leadership, policies and strategies, and finally business partners.
According to the current research, it is suggested to the bank managers that in the field of human resources, by adopting appropriate incentive policies to attract more employees' participation; in the process department by establishing organizational processes related to the creation, storage, distribution and combination of knowledge; in the field of leadership, with a commitment to culture-building regarding organizational knowledge and learning; in the field of learning strategies and policies with valuing and regulating the organization's mission and vision based on organizational knowledge, having a system Providing correct information; and finally, in the field of business partners, by forming expert and research groups, to gain knowledge and awareness of competitors' plans, by recognizing the new needs of customers, the possibility of preventing the wastage of the organization's resources and leading it to gain, provide more market share.