The Mediating Role of Risk Management in the Relationship between Knowledge Management and the Performance of Egyptian Higher Education Institutions: A Structural Equation Modelling Approach

This study explores how risk management (risk assessment, risk communication, andrisk monitoring) mediates the relationship between knowledge management (knowledgeacquisition, knowledge conversion, knowledge application, and knowledge protection)and the performance of higher education institutions in Egypt. A structuredquestionnaire was sent to 700 respondents from higher education institutions in Egypt,and 428 provided valid responses (61.1% response rate). The hypotheses were testedusing structural equation modeling with the AMOS software. The measurement modelpresented good fit indices (φ/DF = 1.997, RMSEA = 0.048, TLI = 0.945, CFI = 0.951). Thestructural model's findings indicated that all variables of knowledge management(knowledge acquisition β = 0.610, knowledge conversion β = 0.391, knowledgeapplication β = 0.675, knowledge protection β = 0.149) have significant effects oninstitutional performance. Knowledge management also has a significant positiveimpact on all dimensions of risk management (acquisition β = 0.767, conversion β =0.115, application β = 0.684, protection β = 0.297). Risk management has a significantpositive impact on institutional performance (β = 0.702). Notably, risk managementpartially mediates the relations between all dimensions of knowledge management andinstitutional performance (p-values = 0.002–0.003) and accounts for 43.0% of thevariance in institutional performance (R² = 0.430). The findings confirm all of the fourmain hypotheses and sub-hypotheses, proving that excellent knowledge managementprocesses along with good risk management processes, significantly improve theperformance of the higher education institutions.Keywords: Knowledge management; Risk management; Higher education institutions;Institutional performance; Structural equation modeling; Egypt; Partial mediation.