Abstract
The aim of this study was to investigate factors affecting the adoption of knowledge management initiatives in a sample of Jordanian public organizations. Four factors were identified based on the literature review, perceived usefulness and complexity of knowledge management adoption, in addition to people and technology-related factors. Managers and employees (N=125) from seven public organizations participated in the study. Data was collected using a questionnaire (18 items) developed for the purpose of the study with reference to related works. The first six items were used to measure perceived usefulness of knowledge management adoption. Similarly, six items were used to measure perceived complexity of knowledge management adoption. Technology was measured using four items. Finally, two items measured people-related factors. The findings of the study accepted the hypotheses that perceived usefulness, perceived complexity, technology and people are significant factors play an important role in the adoption of knowledge management initiatives in public organizations. This study contributes to management and research by showing that personal characteristics, organizational characteristics along with characteristics of knowledge management are three pillars for success of knowledge management adoption. Therefore, those pillars should be of interest to organizations which are willing to improve their performance. (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by IASE. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).