Discussion
As stated above, this study was a descriptive research effort
to investigate the levels of implementation of KM and outcomes
of nursing performance, to examine the relationships
between core KM factors and nursing performance outcomes
and to identify core factors affecting these outcomes.
Regarding the levels of KM implementation, the total
mean score obtained in the study was 321. This result was
similar to the total mean scores of 344 obtained in the
study of Hwang (2011) and 327 obtained in the study of
Choi (2005), both of which involved nurses at healthcare
organisations and which used the same measurements for
KM implementation. In our study, of the five core KM factors,
knowledge-sharing culture had the highest mean score
of 344, followed by organisational learning with a score of
333, innovative management leadership with a score of
316, the nursing management system with a score of 312
and the reward system for performance outcomes with a
score of 305. These results differed somewhat from those
of Choi (2005) and Hwang (2011). In each of those studies,
the mean score for organisational learning was the highest,
followed by the scores for innovative management leadership,
knowledge-sharing culture, nursing management system
and reward system for performance outcomes. The
reasons that our study’s result for knowledge-sharing culture
differed from the results of those studies might be that
the results reflect different organisational cultures and characteristics,
different employee perceptions of the quality of
the work environments and different organisational
attitudes towards knowledge-sharing (Shih-Hsiung & Gwo-
Guang 2013). All of our study’s mean implementation
scores for the five core KM factors were higher than the
middle score. This indicates that in the information society
of the 21st century, nurses in healthcare organisations are
participating in KM to improve their problem-solving skills
by discovering the knowledge and know-how of other organisation
members and sharing them throughout the organisation.
In our study, when the total mean implementation scores
for core KM factors were compared with the general characteristics
of the nurses who participated, the scores for
nurse managers were higher than those for general nurses.
The attitudes of nurse managers with respect to the implementation
of core KM factors could support the success of
their general nurses’ knowledge-sharing efforts because
nurse managers could serve as role models encouraging a
problem-solving and knowledge-seeking environment in
their units (Sanchez-Polo & Cegarra-Navarro 2008). From
this perspective, we could say that the core KM factor
implementation scores for nurse managers being higher
than those for general nurses indicated the possibility of
strong support for KM development among the general
nurses in their organisations.
Regarding the levels of outcomes of nursing performance,
the total mean score was 368. This result corresponded
closely with the mean score of 369 obtained by Ryu
(2009), who identified levels of nursing performance outcomes
using the same instrument as was used in our study.
With respect to the four subcategories of nursing performance
outcomes, in both our study and the Ryu study, performance
competency had the highest mean score, followed
by performance attitude, willingness to improve performance
and application of the nursing process. Recently, a