Leveraging Knowledge Management to Enhance Competitive Benchmarking and Operational Performance: A Ugandan Healthcare Perspective

This study was aimed at testing the mediating role of knowledge management on the influence of competitive benchmarking on operational performance of Uganda’s hospitals. A cross-sectional survey was conducted from August 2021 to October 2021.Primary data was corrected from 53 private general hospitals. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS Version 20) was used to capture, clean and perform preliminary descriptive statistics while Partial Least Squares - Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was done by use of SmartPLS software to test the hypotheses about the relationships among variables. Results showed that both competitive benchmarking and knowledge management had positive and significant direct effects on operational performance. The findings further indicated that knowledge management partially mediated the relationship between competitive benchmarking and operational performance. Hospitals were advised to create a suitable environment for creating, storing, sharing and utilizing knowledge in order to achieve better operational performance. Furthermore, managers needed to set aside resources and build capacity of staff to effectively benchmark other hospital operations in order to improving operational performance. This study had a number of limitations. First, the study mainly used private general hospitals thus suggesting another study to consider both public and private hospitals. Furthermore, other researches need to be done while controlling for contextual variables such as hospital age, hospital size and experience. Longitudinal studies could also help to test the causality of competitive benchmarking and knowledge management on operational performance.