Evaluation of the performance of European Union countries based on green knowledge management

Objective: Knowledge management is considered a strategic necessity, ensuring long-term superiority for organizations and communities, and their utilization of human and informational capital. Organizational knowledge management is recognized as one of the fundamental components for the success of organizations in the information age. Effective implementation of knowledge management leads to improved performance and processes; however, this requires a precise understanding of knowledge management concepts, especially its fundamental stage of deployment and implementation, as well as a comprehensive understanding of its overarching constituent elements. Green Knowledge Management (GKM) is a novel approach in knowledge management that focuses on creating, sharing, and applying knowledge in environmental issues. Its main objective is to assist organizations and communities in achieving sustainable development by enhancing awareness and knowledge in the environmental domain. The lack of requisite skills in individuals and organizations can pose a significant challenge for implementing green knowledge management, as individuals must possess the necessary skills to create, share, and apply knowledge related to environmental issues. In addition to the aforementioned challenge, the absence of appropriate infrastructure for implementing green knowledge management, such as a lack of access to information and communication technologies, can hinder the implementation of green knowledge management. The research aims to present a suitable framework for evaluating the performance and efficiency of green knowledge management in European Union member countries as decision-making units. This is achieved by employing the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) technique while considering the inputs of the number of researchers and the amount of capital allocated to the development and management of green knowledge, and green technology as the tangible output of green knowledge application, for the first time.

Method: To develop a performance evaluation model based on green knowledge management, relevant research in this field was first utilized to identify the essential components. Subsequently, the European Union member countries were evaluated based on the extracted themes and sub-components using the combined Network Data Envelopment Analysis (NDEA) and Slacks-Based Measure (SBM) technique. Data from 27 European Union member countries were extracted from official databases and, after normalization, analyzed using this quantitative model.

Findings: The research findings indicate that for the implementation of knowledge management, six essential factors must be considered: the total number of personnel in research and development as input variables, the number of green patents, the number of academic publications in environmental innovation, and the level of awareness of sustainable development as intermediate variables, and finally, the level of environmental technology as the ultimate output variable. According to the proposed model's results, in the knowledge creation domain, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, and Spain are identified as efficient countries within the European Union. In contrast, in the knowledge application domain, Cyprus, Germany, Malta, Slovakia, and Spain are recognized as efficient countries. It is noteworthy that although countries like Luxembourg or the Netherlands have the highest number of researchers and the highest level of environmental investment as input resources, Cyprus, Italy, and Greece achieved the highest output while simultaneously utilizing the lowest levels of the aforementioned input variables. Consequently, these countries demonstrated superior performance in effectively utilizing green knowledge for sustainable development and were recognized as the most efficient countries. The performance gap for inefficient countries indicates the extent of change required for each variable to achieve an efficient state. Therefore, the performance gap for each input variable was calculated for each evaluated country, with the smallest difference corresponding to the number of research and development personnel. Additionally, the combined gap of the intermediate variables was stated for each country, with the smallest difference pertaining to academic publications (environmental innovation).

Conclusion: To utilize the conceptual combined model of Network Data Envelopment Analysis and Slacks-Based Measure Data Envelopment Analysis for evaluating the performance of green knowledge management in European Union member countries, the input variables include the number of research and development personnel and the amount of green investment. The intermediate variables comprise the number of green patents, the number of academic publications related to environmental innovation, and the level of awareness of sustainable development management. Finally, the output variable is the level of development of environmental technologies. The utilization of the introduced model is recommended for evaluating the performance of green knowledge management in organizations or different countries.