International Journal of Innovative Research in Accounting and Sustainability

ISSN: 2736-1381 (Print), ISSN 2736-1500 (Online)

Vol. 8, No. 1, 2023

Dimensions of Knowledge Management Practices on the

Performance of Academic Staff of Federal Universities in
South-West, Nigeria

Festus Femi OGUNYEMI1*, Modupe Olayinka AJAYI 2 & Ayedun Taiwo

AKINYEMI 3
1
Department of Business Administration, Federal University of Technology Akure, Nigeria
2
Department of Project Management Technology, Federal University of Technology Akure,
Nigeria
3
Department of Entrepreneurship, Federal University of Technology Akure, Nigeria

*E-mail of the corresponding author: ffogunyemi@futa.edu.ng

ABSTRACT
The practice of knowledge management (KMP) assists organisations in locating, selecting,
organizing, disseminating, and transferring crucial knowledge and expertise required for
tasks including problem-solving, active learning, strategic planning, and decision-making in
universities and higher institutions. However, the individual and joint effects of dimensions
of knowledge management techniques or strategies to improve performance in Nigerian
universities remain unclear. The study analysed the dimensional effects of knowledge
management practices on the performance of the academic staff of Federal Universities in
South-West, Nigeria. A survey research design was adopted and data was collected using a
structured questionnaire. The total population of the study was 5749 academic staff from the
selected four Federal Universities in South-West Nigeria. Using Yamane, a sample size of
1206 was determined. The sampling technique adopted for the study was stratified
technique. Data were analyzed using mean, Standard Deviation and Partial Least Square in
Structural Equation Modelling). The result of the objective of this study showed that
Knowledge application and Knowledge discovery were the only relevant sub-constructs of
KMPs. The result of the study revealed that there are positive and significant relationships
between knowledge management practices and the performance of academic staff. The study
also revealed that knowledge creation, knowledge sharing and knowledge storage have no
significant relationship with the performance of academic staff. The study concluded that the
application and discovery of knowledge in our various higher institutions is a significant
factor in academic performance. Therefore, training and workshops relevant to individual
academic staff should become the focus of attention rather than spending resources on
knowledge not vital to academic performance.
Keywords: Knowledge Application, Knowledge Creation, Knowledge Discovery,
Knowledge Management, Knowledge Sharing, and Knowledge Storage

1. INTRODUCTION
It has been identified by some scholars that Knowledge Management (KM) is
contributing to the success of organizations in general and higher educational institutions in
particular (Masa’deh, et al., 2017). In the current dynamic business environment, the
competition is getting stiffer and sustainability become an issue. The contribution of people

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toward organizational performance in that respect is sacrosanct (Muthuveloo, et al., 2017).

Knowledge management enables people, systems, and technological development to build
expectations between intangible and measurable assets in both organizations. This allows
new opportunities in industry to be found and established through the use of information
obtained by the specialist, quick and easy access to the necessary knowledge in all situations
at any moment, that is to say, to ensure that the necessary knowledge is always in the right
place in the correct manner, at the right time and to make the execution more responsive and
more successful (Sundram,et al, 2020).
Universities and higher education institutions share a common vision of
discovering, developing, preserving, and disseminating knowledge. During the process of
KM, a wide range of policies and practices can shape the values of an educational
organization (Ahmad, et al., 2015). The senior employees in educational institutions are
supposed to be the major key players in enhancing knowledge database and management
and also bridging knowledge or skill gap within the organisation. Learning the necessary
skills and developing one's mental, physical, and social capacities so that one can live and
contribute to society's advancement is one of education's objectives. Nigeria nowadays has a
tremendous demand for competent workers who would be independent and entrepreneurial
(Okolocha, et al., 2020).
Despite the fact that researchers in the field of HRM are becoming aware of reasons
to include knowledge management practices and human-related issues in their functions,
there are considerable gaps in the field of HRM on the understanding and identifying the
common ground between HRM practices and knowledge management processes as well as
other performance outcomes has been noted in recent studies (Singh, et al., 2021, Kianto et
al., 2017; Rupietta and Backes-Gellner, 2017). In particular, the methods by which HRM
influences the policy of knowledge management employee behaviour to be involved in
knowledge management activities in the university environments need in-depth study.
Assessing the framework of knowledge management in organisations, knowledge
management is considered as an efficient and effective organizational critical resource that
could improve completive advantage over global competitiveness (Kuppusamy &
Ramanigopal, 2017).
Accordingly, knowledge management is considered a vital strategic resource in
sustainable competitive advantage (Zheng, 2017). In view of those empirical arguments, the
impotency of knowledge management remains unchanged in the performance of
organisations, however, the trend of practicing knowledge management by the organisations
has been declining (Bratianu & Bejinaru, 2019). Nearly 82 percent of organisations are
inefficient or ineffective in KM tools and KM practices and only 12 percent are succeeding
in both aspects (Centobelli, et al., 2019). However, the role of knowledge management
techniques or strategies to improve performance in Nigerian Universities is not clear. While
knowledge management has been identified as a strategy for driving innovative processes in
business organisations, there is a paucity of literature on application of knowledge
management to enhance workforce productivity in public universities (Ojo, 2016). There are
also ambivalence research outcomes in the research of scholars that have shown interest in
examining the role of knowledge management on workers’ efficiency. Some authors
proposed that there was a significant link between knowledge management and an
institution’s performance in learning environment (Ozigbo, 2012; Ferdows & Das, 2010),
while authors on the other side maintained that, there was no significant link between
knowledge management and workers efficiency. Therefore, there is expedient need for study
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Vol. 8, No. 1, 2023

of this nature to be conducted, to take a stand through systematic and scientific-based

research. There is also paucity of literature or published documents that have attempted the
use of knowledge management in solving the deteriorating state of workers’ performances
among public learning organisations like universities.
However, the individual and joint effects of dimensions of knowledge management
techniques or strategies to improve performance in Nigerian universities remained unclear in
recent studies given the emergence of the digital age and the constant changes in knowledge
management. Therefore, this study bridges the identified research gaps in this current
disposition. It analyses the dimensional effects of knowledge management practices on the
performance of the academic staff of Federal Universities in South-West, Nigeria. The
following null hypotheses were tested in the study:
HO1: Knowledge creation have no significant effect on the performance of the academic staff
of Federal Universities in South-West, Nigeria.
HO2: Knowledge sharing have no significant effect on the performance of the academic staff
of Federal Universities in South-West, Nigeria.
HO3: Knowledge storage have no significant effect on the performance of the academic staff
of Federal Universities in South-West, Nigeria.
HO4: Knowledge application have no significant effect on the performance of academic staff
of Federal Universities in South-West, Nigeria.
HO5: Knowledge discovery have no significant effect on the performance of academic staff
of Federal Universities in South-West, Nigeria.
This study has relevance to human capital development through the university
system. It provides insight into the efficacy of knowledge management in enhancing
performances among employees in federal institutions in Nigeria. Given the trends and
velocity in which knowledge is being shared, only organizations with the best practices will
be able to stay afloat in the constantly changing environment which employees and
employers must key into. On this note, directors, managers, human resource managers
among others should be fully enlightened on how efficacious the concept of knowledge
management could be very useful in enhancing performances among employees. Therefore,
testing the issues of performance and commitment together from a knowledge-based
perspective would make an interesting contribution. The choice of data collection from
academic employees of the federal universities was reinforced because of their important
contributions to the major functions of universities namely research, training, community
services.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Knowledge Management
Socio-economic infrastructure heavily depends on the nature of service provision by
Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) (Sahibzada, et al., 2020). Several researchers such as
Salama (2017), Demchig (2015), and Dalkir (2005) all agree that there is no one definition
of knowledge management that is universally accepted. Therefore, knowledge management
is the process of producing, collecting, storing, sharing, transferring, and using explicit and
implicit forms of knowledge at the individual, group, organizational, and community levels
(Madhoushi, et al., 2010). Notwithstanding, knowledge management processes play an
important role as potential enablers of working skills and to improve the capacity of the
teams to enhance the ways they share knowledge and the tools that they use (Wang, 2006).
The importance of Knowledge Management as a critical tool in organization and society

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Vol. 8, No. 1, 2023

(Omotayo, 2015). According to Chigada and Ngulube (2015), knowledge management

practices in the organizations should be actions aimed at improving the internal flow and use
of information and knowledge, and universities as an organization can be a major participant
in these activities. Knowledge management practices are different from knowledge
management processes as they are conscious organizational and managerial activities that
enable the firm to leverage intellectual capacity or knowledge-based resources to create
value (Andreeva & Kianto, 2012; Kianto et al., 2014).
Si Xue (2017) asserts that knowledge creation is a process that entails applying new
knowledge or changing existing content in the organization’s explicit and tacit knowledge;
doing so necessitates organizations seeking out new knowledge and information from both
inside and outside the organization. Research show that the KC process is particularly
beneficial to organizations since it has the ability to increase their levels of innovation,
competitiveness, and success (Bryant, 2005; Grant, 1996; Wang et al., 2014). Individuals
can acquire new general competencies and improve an existing competency, such as
communicating, coming up with new ideas, solving problems, setting priorities, managing
relationships, creativity, planning, and teamwork (Trivellas, et al., 2015).
The movement of knowledge sharing involves the mental transmission of
information that inspires and motivates the employees of any organization. Share values,
experiences, norms, attitudes, skills, perspectives, and beliefs with coworkers and employees
(Ghobadi & Mathiassen, 2016). According to Hassan, Noor, and Hussin (2017), knowledge
transfer is a crucial knowledge management procedure that enhances organizations’
proficiency and makes it easier for management to capitalize on particular information. In
other words, knowledge transfer is a process that involves exchanging knowledge, selecting
which knowledge to transfer, and putting that knowledge into practice between the holder
and the recipient. Knowledge must be carefully safeguarded once it has been obtained. Chan
(2014) suggested that knowledge storage, along with other components, is a crucial part of
the knowledge management process while combining knowledge management and customer
relationship management. The ability of the organization to retain and maintain knowledge,
or organizational memory, has been specifically identified by scholars as the fundamental
component in attaining this (Torabiet al., 2016).
Eugene et al. (2010) defines Knowledge discovery as the nontrivial extraction of
implicit of an information that is previously unknown but of potential usefulness extracting
the information from the available data. These knowledge discovery systems rely on
technological hardware and technologies which support both the socialization and
combination processes without any need to distinguish the creation and discovery phases of
the knowledge, but only considers their similarity in terms of meaning; especially as
innovation and as advancement of knowledge (Seifert, 2004).
Boateng and Agyemang (2015) describes knowledge application as processes
within organizations that enable organizations to use and leverage knowledge in ways that
improve its operations, develop new products and generate new knowledge assets. Through
knowledge application, organizations can locate the source of competitive advantage by
offering knowledge integration methods to solve organizational problems.

2.2 Knowledge Management Practices and Performance of Employees

Hussin and Mokhtar (2018) investigated the impacts of knowledge management
practices on Employees’ Job Satisfaction. This study was carried out among employees of
one academic Library in a prominent higher-learning institution in Malaysia. Based on the

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ISSN: 2736-1381 (Print), ISSN 2736-1500 (Online)
Vol. 8, No. 1, 2023

research, among four knowledge management practices, knowledge sharing was found to be
more influential to the job satisfaction of the employees. The result indicated that knowledge
retention, knowledge acquisition, and knowledge sharing have significance towards job
satisfaction with knowledge sharing having the most significance, meanwhile knowledge
creation has no significance towards job satisfaction.
Mardania, Nikoosokhan, Moradi and Doustar (2018) researched the relationship
between knowledge management and innovation performance. The findings of the study
showed that Knowledge management is significant mechanism to improve innovation and
performance. Furthermore, Obaidat and Otair (2018) carried out a study on the impact of
knowledge management on the function of employee performance appraisals in the
industrial companies-case study. The findings indicated that knowledge management has
significant effect on employee performance appraisal. The result further explained that
Knowledge generation has positive but no significant effect on employee performance
appraisal, while knowledge storage, sharing and application have positive significant effect
on employee performance appraisal. Anwar & Ghafoor (2017) investigated knowledge
management and organizational performance in private universities in Kurdistan. The result
of the Regression Analysis showed that there was a negative relationship between
knowledge creation, knowledge acquisition, knowledge refinement and organizational
performance, while knowledge transfer, storage, sharing and reuse had a positive
relationship with organizational performance.
Altarawneh and Altarawneh (2017) worked on knowledge management practices
and intellectual capital in Jordan. Multiple linear regressions for testing the effect of KMPs
on intellectual capital. The findings revealed that knowledge management practices
(communication and knowledge sharing, KM policies and strategies, a culture that
encourages knowledge creating and sharing, training and mentoring employees, and
knowledge capturing and acquisition) has a significant effect on Intellectual capital.
Henttonen, et al., (2016) studied the relationship between individual-level knowledge
sharing (in terms of attitudes, benefit estimations, self-efficacy and actualized behaviours)
affects individual work performance. The findings confirmed the hypothesis that knowledge-
sharing propensity impacts positively knowledge-sharing behaviour. Additionally,
knowledge-sharing behaviour mediates the relationship between knowledge-sharing
propensity and individual performance. The latter effect is also significant amongst the most
highly educated members of the organisation but not among those with the lowest
educational levels.

3. METHODOLOGY
The design adopted for this study was survey. The study covered 4 selected Federal
Universities selected purposively. The population of the study consisted of 5749 academic
staff in the 4 universities. A stratified sampling technique was used to select researchers
from the universities with a sample size of 1206 academic staff. The instrument for used to
collect data during the study was a questionnaire. The instrument was subjected to face
validation by experts in measurement and evaluation. The reliability of the instrument was
established through Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient. The coefficients obtained were 0.72 for
knowledge sharing, and 0.82 for knowledge capturing, 0.88 for knowledge mapping and
0.90 for knowledge storing. These figures confirmed that the instrument was reliable for use
in achieving the research objectives since Hinton, Brownlow & Mcmurray (2004) suggested
that a value within 0.70 - 0.90 is reliable. The instrument was administered by the

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researcher and assistants to the respondents in their various institutions. Copies of the
questionnaire were filled and returned on the spot. 1206 copies of the research instruments
were administered to the respondents in which 884 copies were retrieved and found valid for
analysis. Thus, a 93.4 percent returns rate was achieved. Descriptive statistics (mean and
standard deviation) and Structural Equation Modeling were used to analyse the data
collected. Summaries of results were presented in tables, followed by interpretations.
3.1 Model Specification
The effect of dimensions of knowledge management Practices (KMPs) on the
performance of academic staff of Federal Universities in South-West, Nigeria is represented
in structural equation model as:
fACAD_PERF=𝛼0+𝛼1baCreatet+𝛼2BbSharet+𝛼3BcStoret+𝛼4BdApplyt+𝛼5BeDiscovt+e……
………..(1)
where;
fACAD_PERF - Academic Performance, 𝛼0 - constant term,𝛼1…𝛼5 -Parameter coefficient, e
-error term, baCreate - knowledge creation, BbShare - Knowledge sharing, BcStore -
Knowledge storage, BdApply - knowledge application, BeDiscov - Knowledge discovery.

4. DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS

4.1 Descriptive Statistics
This section of the study revealed that the population is somehow balanced as the
male recorded 470 (53.2 percent) and female recorded 414(46.8 percent). This is an
implication that there is no gender bias associated with the study. The observation on the age
distribution of the respondents indicated that majority were within the age of 41-45 years
which represents 340 out 340 out of 884 (representing 38.5 percent) this followed by 36-40
age distribution with 177 (20.0 Percent) representing the age distribution of 46 and above
were closely followed with 163 (18.4 percent) academic staff which were also followed by
25. The study revealed 31-35 years as the last age distribution in the sample with 89(10.1%)
academic representatives. This implies that majority of the academic staff were either within
or above the middle-aged category, as a result, they were able to understand issues
Knowledge Management Practices and Performance of academic staff, which is suitable for
this research.
Also, the study recorded that the population for the study recorded more of 6-
10years of working experience with 309(35.0%) academic staff. This was followed by 11-15
years and 1-5years of working experience with 221(25%) and 216(24.4%), respectively. On
the years of working experience 16 - 20 years were recorded to have fewer representatives
with 138 representing 15.6%. This implies that the respondents are quite experienced field
of academics and be able to relate with the subject under investigation. Lastly, study
revealed the educational qualifications of the study's respondents. The table showed that
there were 566 (64.0%) academic staff with Ph.D. in the sample, followed by Masters of
Science/Masters of Technology with 189 (21.4%) and the first-degree staff occupied the last
position with 129 representatives 14.6%. These compositions reinforce the authenticity of
the results and information provided in the study as larger proportion of the sample have
Ph.D. as their highest qualification. This might be an implication that they are well
informed, and possessed the ability to assess and process information towards making a
decision in line with the concepts of this study.

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4.2 Dimension of KMPs and Academic Performance

The measurement model conducted in the objective had provided the quality criteria
needed for the sub constructs of KMPs. Additionally, the academic performance was
measured as the sum of papers a faculty member has as conference papers, Journal articles,
and Books or Monographs. This is the usual practice for the assessment of academic staff
productivity and promotion criteria. The presentation for this section includes the descriptive
characteristics of academic performance indicators and thereafter, the structural model for
objective presented.
The study from table 1 revealed the total number of research grants received by the
academic staff (505 entries). An approximation of four (4) on average with one (1) and
Twenty (20) being the minimum respectively. Table 1 also presented the awards received by
the academic staff in their career if applicable. There were 467 entries where an average of
about six (6) awards were recorded with a minimum of one (1) and a maximum of 30
awards received. It also reported a mode of 5, which indicated majority had received five
awards in their career. Most research grants always include opportunities for research
assistance which are normally post-graduate training.
Furthermore, the study examined the total number of postgraduates supervised by
the academic staff in this study, it was reported that an average of 8 postgraduate students
have been supervised by 310 entries in this category. It was also gathered that the majority
have each supervised as many as five (5) postgraduates in their career. We further assessed
the number of incitation received by our scholars; it was gathered that an average of 104
citations were received by 244 valid responses.
This implies that the academic staff in the study area contributes significantly to
their specialized fields through their research works, in which their content is able to
advance or expound on the current knowledge base. This is with most occurrences of twenty
(20) citations with a minimum of one (1) and a maximum of 500. The study further delved
into the impact of individual researchers’ citations by evaluating the h – index and i10 –
index. The h – index which shows the quality of the scientist rather than the number of
papers published (Hirsch & Buela – Casal 2014) showed in this study to have an average of
eleven (11) citations for an average of eleven papers published. Many of the respondents
(245 valid responses) produced more h-index of 15. The least and maximum h-index were
one (1) and 82, respectively. Similarly, for an i 10-index that is every ten (10) papers
published with at least ten (10) citations showed a mean of 10.7 and a maximum of 85 i 10-
index among our respondents.
Finally, the study examined the number of conference papers, journals and books or
monographs published by the respondents. Table 1 revealed that academic staff published
more journal articles (506) and conference papers (502) than books or monographs (463).
For conference papers, an average of 15 were published with many having up to five (5) and
a maximum of 100 conference papers. The number of published journal articles received an
average of thirteen (13) papers with a frequent occurrence of ten (10) and a maximum of 60
published articles by the study’s respondents. Finally, most academic researchers published
fewer books (with a mode of 2) and an average of nine (9 books) per faculty member and a
maximum of 70 books or monographs had been produced by a researcher. The next
paragraph provides information on the relationship between the dimension of KMP and
academic performance in the study area.

Table 1: Indicators of Academic Performance

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Vol. 8, No. 1, 2023

Total
Total Total number of
postgraduate number of research
what is students awards grants
what is what is your Number of supervised so received in received in
your your number Number of Published Number of far in your your your
number of number of of i- conference articles/ Books/Monograph academic career, If career, If
Item Citations H-index? index? papers Journal published career applicable applicable
Valid 244 245 233 502 506 463 310 467 505
Miss 640 639 651 382 378 421 574 417 379
Mean 104.13 11.31 10.17 14.68 13.39 8.82 8.17 5.86 3.94
Med 20 10 8 6 10 6 6 4 2
Mode 20 15 10 5 10 2 5 5 2
S. 129.38 10.35 10.73 16.19 9.67 8.62 7.35 4.84 4.08
Dev
Min. 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Max. 500 82 85 100 60 70 70 30 20
Sum 25407 2771 2370 7370 6774 4085 2533 2735 1991

Source: Authors’ Computation (2022)

4.3 Structural model for the dimensions of KMPs and the academic performance
for algorithm and bootstrapping, respectively
The result of path analysis on Table 2, Figure 1, and Figure 2 provides the necessary
information. As previously mentioned, the study examined the VIF before the assessment of
the relevant and significance of the dimension of KMPs. Thereafter the coefficient of
determination and affect sizes are considered. Table 2 revealed no issues of collinearity as all
the values of VIF were below the threshold of 5.00. It is also noteworthy that knowledge
application (β =0.305 t=4.347) and Knowledge discovery (β=0.151t=2.774) were the only
relevant and significant sub-constructs of KMPs having an effect on academic performance.
All other sub-constructs: knowledge creation, knowledge sharing and knowledge storage
were not significant to the academic performance in the study area. Also, noticeable was that
knowledge application has more affect size (0.031) than knowledge discovery (0.011) which
may be assumed to have no effect based on the Cohen criteria found in Tekson et al. (2019).
The study also recorded an R-square adjusted value of 0.146 which may be
regarded as moderate on the basis of the threshold found in Cohen (Tehseen et al. 2019).
Hence, the null hypotheses HO1, HO2 and HO3 are hereby accepted, which means knowledge
creation, knowledge sharing and knowledge storage have no significant relationship with the
performance of academic staff. While HO4 and HO5 are rejected and accept alternate
hypotheses, which state that knowledge application and knowledge discovery have positive
and significant relationships on the performance of academic staff in the study area.
It is important to note that the path of BD3 (My institution allows specialist and
experienced academic staff to integrate their available knowledge into the system) and BD1
(Relevant knowledge is provided to academic staff when needed) affect most the academic
performance of faculty members. It should be policy in our various higher institutions that
the application of knowledge is very important to our development as it is to academic
performance. It is also important to note that training and workshop relevant to individual
academic staff should become the focus of attention rather than spending resources on
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knowledge not vital to academic staff research needs.

The findings of this study agree with the findings of past authors (Jemal & Zewdie,
2021; Rehmam et al., 2021; Obaidat & Otair, 2018; Okafor et al., 2019; Sahana and Rethy
2018; Hussinki et al. 2017; Anwar & Ghafoor, 2017) on the relationship between KMPs and
organizational performance but differs on the dimension of KMPs that have Positive and
significant effect on organizational performance. The result is in line with the findings of
Jemal and Zewdie (2021) who explored the role of knowledge management practice on the
performance of higher education institute at Jimma University College of agriculture and
Veterinary medicine in Ethiopia, considering academic staff perception and found that
through ordinal logistic regression analysis that the only component of KMPs that has
positive and significant impact on performance is knowledge utilization.
The findings differ slightly from the findings of Kianto et al. (2018) who conducted
research on the impact of knowledge management on knowledge worker productivity and
found that knowledge creation and knowledge utilization (application) are the dimension of
KMPs that have positive and significant effect on productivity of knowledge worker. The
results also show a slight distinction from the research of Rehmam et al, (2021) who carried
out empirical investigation of the impact of knowledge management on organizational
learning in higher educational institutions and found that in addition to knowledge
application, knowledge acquisition, documentation, and knowledge creation, positively
influence organizational learning. The results also differ slightly from the research of
Obaidat and Otair (2018) who carried out a study on the impact of knowledge management
on employee performance and discovered that knowledge application knowledge storage
and knowledge sharing are the dimensions of knowledge management practices that have
positive significant effect on employee performance aleit in industrial companies. Moreover,
the result differs from the research of Okafor et al. (2019) who investigated knowledge
management strategies and performance in telecom firms and discovered that knowledge
creation, knowledge storage, knowledge sharing, and knowledge application all have a
significant positive correlation with corporate performance. Anwar and Ghafoor (2017)
investigated Knowledge Management and Organizational Performance of Private
Universities in Kurdistan and found that knowledge transfer, storage, sharing and reuse
(application) are the dimension of KMPs that have a positive relationship with
organizational performance.

Table 2: Structural Model for the Dimension of KMPs and Academic Performance
Original Standard T Statistics P 2.5% 97.5% f VIF
Sample Deviation (|O/STDEV|) Values Square
(O) (STDEV)
baCreate -> fACAD_PERF 0.003 0.052 0.063 0.950 -0.099 0.107 0.000 2.427
bbShare -> fACAD_PERF -0.020 0.068 0.286 0.775 -0.157 0.114 0.000 3.533
bcStore -> fACAD_PERF -0.034 0.054 0.637 0.524 -0.125 0.088 0.001 2.271
bdApply -> fACAD_PERF 0.305 0.070 4.347 0.000 0.161 0.433 0.031 3.545
beDiscov -> fACAD_PERF 0.151 0.055 2.774 0.006 0.047 0.258 0.011 2.561
R Square 0.155
R Square Adjusted 0.146
Source: Authors’ Computation (2022)

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Figure 1: Algorithm of Dimensions of KMPs and Academic Performance

Source: Authors’ Computation (2022)

Figure 2: Bootstrapping of Dimensions of KMPs and Academic Performance

Source: Authors’ Computation (2022)

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5. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The study has established empirically the relationship between knowledge

management practices and the Performance of Academic Staff of Federal Universities in
South-West Nigeria. This research has raised awareness of the dimensions of KMPs and the
factors which are likely to determine performance of academic staff in unnatural
environment. The study examined the effect of dimensions of knowledge management
Practices (KMPs) on the performance of academic staff in the study area and the result
showed that Knowledge application (β =0.305; t=4.347) and Knowledge discovery
(β=0.151; t=2.774) were the relevant and significant sub-constructs of KMPs having effect
on the academic performance, with Knowledge application having more effect size. Based
on the implication of results, it can be concluded that the application of knowledge in our
various higher institution is very important to our development as it is to academic
performance. It is also important to acknowledge that trainings and workshop relevant to
individual academic staff should become the focus of the attention rather than spending
resources on knowledge not vital to academic staff research need.

The findings of this study have important policy implications on the Performance of
Academic Staff of Federal Universities in South-West Nigeria. Based on the result of the
research, the following recommendations are made:

i. As institution create knowledge through training, seminar, and conferences among

others, they should ensure adequate monitoring of the knowledge that are generated
through these means.
ii. Institution management should provide necessary tools to apply knowledge and ensure
to give room for specialists and experienced persons to integrate their knowledge. They
should further provide adequate facilities needed to work with as this is more important
to academic staff than the rewards and compensation when the two are compared.
iii. University management should ensure the application of knowledge in our various
higher institution as this is very important to staff development as it is to academic
performance.

REFERENCES
Andreeva, T. & Kianto, A. (2011). Knowledge processes, knowledge‐intensity and innovation: a
moderated mediation analysis. Journal of Knowledge Management, 15(6) 1016-1034.
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