INVESTIGATING THE APPLICATION STATUS OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH LEARNING ORGANIZATION AMONG THE NONACADEMIC STAFF MEMBERS OF AHVAZ JUNDISHAPUR UNIVERSITY OF MEDICAL SCIENCESIN, SOUTHWEST IRAN

Introduction: Medical sciences universities are the places where specialized and committed workforces required by the society in such fields as healthcare and treatment are fostered and educated. Thus, the present study aims at investigating the application status of knowledge management and its relationship with learning organization amongst the nonacademic staff members of Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciencesi n southwest Iran. Materials and Methods: The study population of the present descriptive research included all of the nonacademic staff members working in Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences. A total of 180 employees were selected based on a simple randomized method as the study sample volume. Two questionnaires, namely the learning organization questionnaire and knowledge management questionnaire, were employed to collect the data. The data extracted were analyzed in SPSS, ver. 21. Findings: The results of the study hypotheses analyses by the use of one-sample t-test indicated an intermediate score for all of the five components of learning organization, i.e. personal mastery, mental model, shared vision, team learning and systems thinking. Also, the results of the correlation coefficient showed that there is a positive relationship between the five learning organization components and the knowledge management. The results of the regression analyses indicated that systematic thinking and mental patterns are the best predictors of knowledge management. The significance level was set as 0.05. Discussion and Conclusion: Since the scores obtained for organizational learning and knowledge management were in an unacceptable level and the today's world is currently bearing witness to very rapid variations in various areas of science and technology, it is necessary for the nonacademic staff members of the university to have plans for creating learning and knowledge as well as knowledge distribution and transfer in the organization. Keywords: Knowledge Management, Learning organization, Ahvaz, Iran.