The Influence of Organizational Forgetting on Organizational Performance: Evidence from Pharmaceutical Industry in Egypt

Purpose: The purposes of this paper are to determine the impact of Organizational Forgetting on Organizational Performance (OP) at pharmaceutical industry in Egypt. Design/methodology/approach: The present study is conducted by descriptive-survey method and its population consists of employees at Sadat University in Egypt. 240 standard questionnaires were distributed of which 200 questionnaires (83%) were returned. To gather data, OF questionnaire devised by Fernandez & Sun, (2009) and Moshabbeki et al., (2012), and OP questionnaire devised by Darroch, 2003; Pathirage, et al., 2007; and Chen & Mohamed (2008) are used. Findings: The research confirmed a conceptual model for OF. Moreover, research results showed that there is a meaningful relationship between OF and OP. Results of this research suggest managers to develop their capacity of Knowledge Management (KM) in order to improve their OP. The improvement will be gained when learning process has been done through intentional OF. Research limitations/implications: This research helps to stimulate scientific research, particularly in terms of testing the model content, as well as studying the study variables and the factors affecting them. This study also has some limitations. First, this paper just focuses on organizations to find new perspective for the OF literature. Second, because of the scope of this research, interviewees are limited to individuals who have knowledge or take any seminars related to field of this sector. Other sectors also must be considered to attain detailed knowledge related to OF because case-specific studies will bring new dimensions to the literature of OF. Originality/value: First, this study makes a research contribution to the field of OF because studies related to OF consist of conceptual papers. Second, I have introduced two new perspective to the concept of OF through this research paper. Third, forgetting is the necessary counterpart of learning, and that attempts to manage knowledge must also include attempts to manage forgetting.