M.A. Thesis:

The relationship between knowledge management practices and corporate innovation with regard to the mediating role of knowledge application

In today's dynamic and competitive environment, organizations desperately need to increase their innovation capabilities, and this can only be achieved by paying attention to a valuable source of knowledge and the ability to create and use it. Organizational innovation will not emerge without participatory and dynamic knowledge management, and therefore the very existence of knowledge management has become very important for organizations. Knowledge management, in order to create value in today's highly complex and dynamic environment, considers innovation performance as a vital factor for organizations. In the present study, the relationship between knowledge management methods and company innovation with respect to the mediating role of knowledge application is discussed. This research is applied in terms of purpose and descriptive in terms of survey data collection method. The statistical population of this study is Sabzevar Steel employees, 110 of whom have been selected as a sample by simple random method. Data collection tools were standard questionnaires of Jimmins et al. (2008) -Peniads (2006) -Prajgo and Sohel (2006) -Conrad and Newman (1999) -Gabriel et al. (2015) in the dimensions of knowledge dissemination, knowledge production, knowledge storage Is the application of knowledge and innovation, the reliability of which was obtained through Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.930, 0.898, 0.918, 0.948, 0.920, respectively, which Cronbach's alpha coefficient greater than 0.7 indicates the reliability of the variable Is based on a five-point Likert scale .Statistical analysis of data was performed using structural equation modeling with AMOS 24 software. The results of the research show that there is no relationship between knowledge dissemination and knowledge application, but there is a positive and significant relationship between knowledge production and knowledge application as well as knowledge storage and knowledge application. There is no relationship between knowledge dissemination and innovation as well as knowledge storage and innovation, but there is a positive and significant relationship between knowledge production and innovation as well as the application of knowledge and innovation. Finally, it was found that the application of knowledge does not mediate the relationship between knowledge dissemination and innovation, nor the relationship between knowledge production and innovation, but the application of knowledge has the ability to mediate the relationship between knowledge storage and innovation.

Keywords: Knowledge management-knowledge dissemination-knowledge production-knowledge storage-innovation-knowl