The Relationship Between Error Management Climate, Knowledge Conversion And Employee Competence

Learning from error is one of the main learning ways. The way of organizationtreated errors (e.g. error management climate) will affect knowledge conversion (e.g.knowledge conversion), thus affect employee competence (e.g. employee competence).the relationship between error management climate (open and blame), knowledgeconversion (socialization, externalizion, combination, internalization) and employeecompetence (exploratory innovation and exploitative innovation) is complex. Besides,China is different form other country about dealing with error. Maybe there are specialdimensions, which are worth further study.This paper focus on two main problem: The dimension of error managementclimate in the Chinese context; The relationship between error management climate,knowledge conversion and employee competence in the Chinese context.First, conceptual model together with research hypotheses is established vialiterature review. Secondly, through qualitative research (code32interviews and148employee handbooks) and quantitative research (analysis75questionnaires forpre-questionnaire and394formal questionnaires), this paper establish the final scale.Finally, through cross-level empirical research (105enterprises,3-10people, including562valid questionnaires, alidity and reliability of constructs are examined, data aretested through aggregation tests, and hypotheses are tested empirically throughregression analysis). Findings show that:1. Error management climate in the Chinese context is divided into five dimensions:Blame punishment, tolerance empathy, analysis solve, secondary error prevention,contingency handling.2. Different dimensions of error management climate promote different processesof knowledge conversion: open error management climate (tolerance empathy, analysissolve, secondary error prevention, contingency handling) promotes socialization andexternalization; blame error management (blame punishment) climate promotecombination and internalization.3. Different dimensions of error management climate promote different types ofemployee competence: open error management climate (secondary error prevention andcontingency handling) promotes employee exploratory innovation; blame errormanagement climate (blame punishment) promotes employee exploitative innovation; while the relationships between tolerance empathy, analysis solve and employeecompetence is nonsignificant.4. Different processes of knowledge conversion promote different types ofemployee competence: Externalization promotes employee exploratory innovation;combination promotes employee exploitative innovation; the relationships betweensocialization, internalization and employee competence is nonsignificant.5. Knowledge conversion plays mediating effect between error managementclimate and employee competence: Externalization plays mediating effect betweencontingency handling and employee exploratory innovation; externalization playsmediating effect between secondary error prevention and employee exploratoryinnovation; combination plays mediating effect between blame punishment andemployee exploitative innovation; mediating effect between socialization,internalization and employee competence is nonsignificant.Based on the discussion about the results of hypotheses testing, this paper proposedthe theory and practical significance, and summarizes research papers limitations andfuture prospects.