The Role of School Organizational Culture in the Relationship between Teachers' Digital Literacy and Educational Knowledge Sharing

Introduction                                  
The rapid expansion of digital technologies in recent years has fundamentally transformed teaching–learning processes, professional interactions, and knowledge management practices within educational systems. In this evolving landscape, teachers’ digital literacy has emerged as a critical twenty-first century competency that plays a pivotal role in the effective integration of technology, the creation of digital content, and the facilitation of educational knowledge sharing. Beyond technical proficiency, digital literacy encompasses cognitive, social, and ethical dimensions that enable teachers to critically evaluate information, engage in collaborative networks, and actively participate in digital knowledge ecosystems. Despite its recognized importance, empirical evidence indicates that possessing digital skills alone does not necessarily lead to active engagement in knowledge-sharing behaviors. This gap suggests the presence of underlying organizational and cultural mechanisms that influence how individual competencies are translated into professional practices. Among these, school organizational culture—characterized by shared values, norms, trust, and collaborative orientations—plays a crucial role in shaping teachers’ willingness to share knowledge and engage in collective learning processes.
Furthermore, in the context of digital transformation, the boundaries between educational institutions and information systems have become increasingly blurred. Schools are no longer merely sites of instruction but are evolving into knowledge-intensive environments that function similarly to digital libraries in terms of knowledge production, organization, storage, and dissemination. From this perspective, teachers’ digital literacy can be seen as a key driver for effective interaction with digital information infrastructures, including digital libraries and knowledge management systems. Simultaneously, digital libraries are not only repositories of information but also interactive platforms that support knowledge exchange, collaboration, and continuous professional development. This conceptual convergence highlights the necessity of examining the dynamic interplay between digital literacy, organizational culture, and knowledge-sharing behaviors within educational contexts. Accordingly, the present study aims to investigate the mediating role of organizational culture in the relationship between teachers’ digital literacy and educational knowledge sharing, while also providing insights relevant to the design and development of digital knowledge environments and intelligent library systems. 
 
Mothodology
This study is applied in terms of purpose and employs a quantitative, descriptive-survey design. The statistical population consisted of teachers working in primary and secondary schools in Tehran during the 2025–2026 academic year. Using stratified random sampling, 320 participants were selected as the final sample. Data were collected through standardized questionnaires, including the Digital Literacy Scale (based on Carretero Gomez et al., 2017), Denison’s Organizational Culture Scale, and a Knowledge Sharing Scale. The reliability of the overall instrument was confirmed with a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of 0.87, indicating satisfactory internal consistency. Data analysis was conducted using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) with SmartPLS4 software.
 
Fingdings
The evaluation of the measurement model indicated that all factor loadings exceeded 0.60 and t-values were greater than 1.96, confirming the adequacy of construct validity. Additionally, convergent validity (AVE > 0.50) and composite reliability (CR > 0.70) were established for all constructs. The structural model results revealed that teachers’ digital literacy has a positive and statistically significant effect on educational knowledge sharing (β = 0.171, t = 3.548, p < 0.001), although the effect size was weak (f² = 0.026). This finding indicates that digital competencies alone have a limited direct explanatory power for knowledge-sharing behaviors. In contrast, digital literacy demonstrated a very strong and significant effect on organizational culture (β = 0.921, t = 92.029, p < 0.001, f² = 0.574), highlighting its critical role in shaping organizational norms and interactions. Furthermore, organizational culture exhibited a strong and significant impact on knowledge sharing (β = 0.751, t = 16.157, p < 0.001, f² = 0.502), underscoring the importance of a supportive cultural context in promoting knowledge-sharing behaviors. The mediation analysis confirmed that organizational culture plays a significant mediating role in the relationship between digital literacy and knowledge sharing (β = 0.802, t = 9.27, p < 0.001). In addition, the coefficient of determination for educational knowledge sharing (R² = 0.829) indicates a high level of explanatory power of the model. Model fit indices also demonstrated a satisfactory fit (GOF = 0.759, SRMR = 0.073, NFI = 0.831).
 
Discussion and Conclusion
The findings suggest that while digital literacy is a necessary individual capability for interacting with digital technologies and information resources, its translation into actual knowledge-sharing behavior largely depends on the presence of a supportive, collaborative, and trust-based organizational culture. In other words, organizational culture acts as a mediating mechanism that fosters professional interactions, psychological safety, and collaborative norms, thereby enabling teachers to effectively share knowledge. These findings are consistent with theoretical perspectives in knowledge management and organizational culture, which emphasize the role of social context in activating knowledge processes. From a practical perspective, the results indicate that policies focusing solely on providing technological infrastructure in schools, without addressing cultural and organizational dimensions, are likely to have limited effectiveness. Therefore, educational interventions should simultaneously promote teachers’ digital literacy and strengthen a learning-oriented organizational culture. Furthermore, given the functional similarities between schools and digital libraries in terms of knowledge management, the findings of this study can inform the design and improvement of digital information systems and digital libraries, particularly in fostering interactive environments, enhancing knowledge-sharing cultures, and increasing user participation in knowledge creation and exchange.
In conclusion, this study proposes an integrated model demonstrating that the interaction between individual factors (digital literacy) and organizational factors (organizational culture) plays a crucial role in shaping knowledge-sharing behaviors. These insights contribute to the development of the knowledge management literature in educational contexts and offer practical implications for improving digital learning environments and intelligent knowledge systems.