Designing a Model for Knowledge Management at National Level Using Grounded Theory and Interpretive Structural Modeling

In today's environment, sustainable competitive advantage is dependent to the "knowledge capital". In such an environment, knowledge is the most important concept for the creation of value added. Previous studies show that people, organizations, and nations have advantages over competitors that have used knowledge strategically. Due to the current situation and the transition from an industrial economy to knowledge economy and knowledge management function in this change, it seems that  providing a model for the management of intangible assets can be useful for  improving economic and social conditions in the countries. Therefore, this study tries to provide a model of knowledge management at national level to reduce the loss of national intellectual capital and national knowledge. For this purpose, grounded theory was selected as a qualitative method for collecting and analyzing data. Knowledge management experiences were studied in a number of countries and key success factors were extracted with using the first stage of grounded theory. A group of experts and professionals was used to concise concepts and generate the theory in the fields of knowledge management. It should be noted, in addition to the construction of the model, the native components of country were added due to experts’ opinion and model validation was performed in this stage. Finally, interpretive structural modeling approach was used to test the theory and components were classified in three levels: vision, enablers and outcomes.