KNOWLEDGE CREATION PRACTICES AND EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE IN SELECTED PUBLIC TECHNICAL VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING INSTITUTIONS IN KENYA

Employee performance in technical vocational education and training institutions has been found to be poor. Poor performance among employees is exhibited through a high level of incompetence and lack of innovativeness among Technical Vocational Education and Training Institutions (TVET) graduates. This culminates in problems of graduate employability owing to a lack of required skills required by employers. This poor performance may be ascribed in part to deterioration in individual employee performance as a consequence of ineffective skills amongst employees and inadequate knowledge management practices inside the institutions. Globally, despite the fact that there exist many knowledge management practices in higher educational institutions in many countries, there is strong agreement amongst academics and researchers that knowledge imparted through higher institutions of learning falls short in providing youth with the appropriate and relevant skills needed to succeed in the labour market. Higher education institutions as ‘knowledge intensive’ organizations thrive on the creation and dissemination of knowledge and therefore rely heavily on the performance of its employees to facilitate and continually generate and disseminate knowledge. The study sought to investigate the influence of Knowledge Creation Practices on Employee Performance in public technical vocational education and training institutions in Kenya. The study was anchored on Unified Model of Dynamic Knowledge Creation propounded by Nonaka, Toyama & Konno in the year 2000. The study used a positivism philosophy and a descriptive survey research design. The target population comprised of 11 national polytechnics in Kenya. The unit of inquiry comprised of 265 administrators comprised of both academic and non-academic heads of department. Primary data was collected using structured self-administered questionnaires. The reliability of the research instrument was ascertained using Cronbach Alpha. Validity was established using content and construct validity. Quantitative data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics with aid of SPSS 26. Descriptive analysis used includes; frequencies, mean, standard deviation and percentages while inferential analysis involved correlation analysis and multiple linear regression analysis to test the hypothesis at a significance level of 0.05. Regression analysis indicated that knowledge creation (P=0.000) has a significant influence on employee performance. The study concluded that knowledge creation practices significantly influence employee performance in TVETs. The study recommends that managers should create a better atmosphere in their institutions that encourage their employees to express new ideas. They also should apply effective ways to manage knowledge workers better by creating policies that inculcate new knowledge which consequently should go a long way in continously improving employee performance. Article visualizations