Alignment of knowledge and business strategies: study of an organizational university

Aligning knowledge and business strategies is especially important and is one of the organization's main challenges. This study aims to discover and construct a network and map knowledge and business strategy themes based on the functional domain theory in an Iranian organizational university. This study uses a directive qualitative content analysis approach to answer the research questions. Content analysis shows that four academic, physical, character and specific capabilities are needed to meet the strategic intellectual needs of the under-study university. The findings show that using the modality tools of the activity domain creates a communal meaning or shared understanding and consequently creates the possibility of operationalization. The first modality leads to a communal meaning about the structure and communication of elements. The temporalization modality establishes a shared understanding of the order and dependency between actions. The stabilization modality leads to a shared understanding of the organization's rules, standards, regulations, etc. Contextualization modality provides a communal meaning about the formation, organization, and activity domain based on the domain's motivation. The transition modality was used to provide a map and translation of the interaction and coordination, and thereby we achieved sub-categories through which coherent coordination and interaction are created. This research concluded that aligning knowledge and business strategies in organizational universities can be based on a common level and framework as the scope of operational activity. To achieve organizational goals, adopting a suitable approach for aligning resources and knowledge capabilities with the intellectual needs of the business strategy is of foremost importance. It can achieve success and sustainable competitive advantage for the organization.