Knowledge risks in corporate restructuring. Evidence from a survey

Abstract

This exploratory study aims to verify whether corporate restructuring operations can be exposed to risks related to knowledge management. To answer this Research Question, a questionnaire was administered to gather data from a sample of Italian banks that experienced mergers and acquisitions. Responses showed the bankers’ awareness of the existence of risks associated with knowledge management capable of influencing organizational change success, but also of the possibility that such risks can be effectively identified, managed, and mitigated through constant commitment in protecting and sharing knowledge, during and after the corporate restructuring process. Employing the “multiple correspondence analysis methodology”, demographic characteristics of the respondents with questionnaire responses were associated, with the aim of obtaining, through the construction of maps, a more in-depth picture, also from a visual point of view, of what emerged from the analysis of the questionnaire responses.