Investigating the Relationship Between Knowledge Management, Intellectual Capital and Business Performance of Industries in Iraq

The current research attempts to clarify the intertwined properties between intellectual capital and knowledge management and also between technology and culture, at the same time, established an integrated framework for the fields. With very little information about knowledge management practices in Iraq, this research investigated knowledge management process perspective and its relationship to intellectual capital. The focus is to examine the effects of knowledge management and intellectual capital on business performance, using technology and culture as moderators for firm's effectiveness. One hundred and ninety one usable questionnaires were collected. Respondents to the questionnaire were from middle to top managers who worked in companies that held patents in various industries. The discriminate validity, convergent validity, and reliability were established. Five research hypotheses were supported by the results as follows; there is a positive relationship between knowledge management process and business performance, there is a positive relationship between knowledge management content and business performance, there is a positive relationship between intellectual capital and business performance, culture act as a moderator for the relationship between knowledge management process, knowledge management content, intellectual capital and business performance, and technology act as a moderator for the relationship between knowledge management process, knowledge management content, intellectual capital and business performance. Several contributions of this research project were realized. First, an integrated model of knowledge management and intellectual capital was empirically tested. Second, emergent Knowledge management processes and its contents were established as enablers of business performance and the relationship with other intellectual capital components, including human capital, relation capital, structure capital and customer capital and should examine other factors that may affect the sophistication of business performance such as culture and technology. A revised model was presented that may lead to future research in this area.