Knowledge management taxonomy in the Brazilian automotive industry

Knowledge management (KM) is based on contextual factors of the organization, such as human resources, organizational culture, and organizational structure, developed separately by the organizations. This research aims to identify clusters for the development of these contextual factors. The research was based on an instrument containing questions that evaluate the degree of development of the contextual factors of the organization. We collected data from 78 companies of the Brazilian automotive industry, and analyzed them from multivariate techniques of factor analysis, cluster analysis, and discriminant analysis. The research results present four distinct clusters for the development of the contextual factors that support KM. The mapped clusters indicate that a small group of companies are innovative and explorative of knowledge and lead the industry’s creative process, while the other two groups, called exploitative and retardative companies, follow the development proposed by the companies of the two first groups.