The impact of knowledge management processes on organizational resilience: data mining as an instrument of measurement.

The aim of the research conducted for this thesis is to test the feasibility of using data mining (DM) to assess the relationship between and the impact of knowledge management (KM) on organizational resilience (OR). The emphasis currently placed on the value of intangible assets by private sector organizations and the recent increase in the use of data mining technologies are the key drivers in this evaluation of the use of data mining tools as an alternative to classical statistics when measuring intangibles. Data was collected using a questionnaire that was sent to the senior executives of a number of mid-sized companies located in the mid-west of the USA. Using Microsoft's SQL Server's Analytical Services (MSSAS) and the data provided by the respondents, five predictive models are built to test the suitability of the MSSAS' DM tool for assessing the relationships between and the impact of KM on OR. Of the five models constructed as part of this research, four classification models (two Naïve Bayes models, one neural network model, and one decision tree model) and one clustering model were found to be suitable tools for capturing the intricate relationships that exist between KM and OR. These models made it possible to evaluate the strengths of the relationships between KM and OR and to identify which KM processes contribute, and to what extent, to OR. In addition, the models enabled the collation of predicted OR scores, based on the responses given in the questionnaire. Finally, this research identifies some of the key challenges associated with using DM as a measurement instrument for assessing the relationship between and the impact of KM on OR. This research makes a number of significant contributions to the existing body of knowledge. It contributes to the understanding of the impact of KM on OR, to the understanding of the methods used to measure such impact and to the processes involved in measuring such impact using DM. From a practitioner perspective, this research contributes to the understanding of OR and provides a framework for achieving OR within an organizational context