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This paper presents and analyses the principles to develop a knowledge ecosystem in the case of an industrial cluster - "a geographical concentration of interconnected companies, specialized suppliers, service providers, companies in related industries and associated institutions (trade / industry associations, universities, educational institutions) that compete but also cooperate" (Porter, 1990). In the scientific literature, knowledge ecosystem is relatively recent and less explored concept, which is mostly defined as a network of geographically co-located actors, primarily centred around a local university or another research organisation for knowledge search and creation (Almpanopoulou, 2019; Clarisse et al., 2014). Because industrial clusters are putting an emphasis on product commercialisation and creating value (business or innovation ecosystem), the development of knowledge ecosystem more or less reflects a quite fragmental point of view - it is sometimes understood simply as having an university or a research institute among the cluster members and organising particular training seminars, while cluster members may remain individualistic and passive regarding mutual knowledge sharing and creation (Jucevičius, Grumadaitė, Jucevičienė and Čeičytė, 2019). However, in this paper knowledge ecosystem is understood as a precondition of innovation and business ecosystem in order to deal with complex and wicked problems (Andersson and Törnberg, 2019). In addition, smart development is explored expanding digitalisation boundaries, while understanding a social system through the dimensions of agility, network-based, sustainability, learning, innovativeness (Jucevičius and Jucevičienė, 2017). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is interest in various forms of knowledge management, including communities of practice. However, there are no confirmed results on the conditions for success, while organizations expect substantial gains from knowledge development. Communities of practice are seen as a source of knowledge management, and in the end of competitiveness and innovation. The interest arises from this objective of knowledge management and innovation, but it is a specific form of knowledge management, in principle more centred on the individuals and their exchanges than on "management" by the firm, although the firm has a role to play in fostering such initiatives. Thus, the use of communities of practice has emerged as a way to develop collective skills and organizational knowledge, in order to foster innovation and success for organizations. The main contribution of this paper is that it identifies the conditions for success of communities of practice as a mode of knowledge management and knowledge sharing, as these conditions have not been confirmed in previous work. The paper first defines this form of knowledge sharing through communities of practice. It then presents some of the results concerning success, specifically satisfaction and attainment of objectives, as success is defined in this way. This is done on the basis of various case studies of communities of practice which were studied over a period of one year. The empirical results are based on a questionnaire survey administered to the participants of these communities of practice, but also on qualitative interviews and regular work and exchanges with some of the animators/managers and participants in these communities of practice. Some interesting differences are observed according to age and gender, as well as some challenges that were observed in the knowledge-sharing process, and which are often underestimated. The paper identifies some conditions which explain success, defined as attainment of objectives, and these are: commitment and motivation of participants for the attainment of objectives, as well as the presence of a leader, animator or steward. These preconditions for success confirm and extend what is documented in the literature, especially in the seminal work of Wenger and Lave (1991). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses arts as practice for business and society studies. Given that arts are necessary to develop business and society; how can valuable arts practices be learned? This conceptual paper is investigating how collective knowing develops in business contexts using art by unconventional painters such as Edvard Munch and Hakon Bleken as examples of this process. The necessity of art is giving us a societal meaning of the process of knowing or a scripted story for enterprise action based upon the knowledge of art. The reflection and dialogue based on art might contribute to creativity and innovation in the business process. The paper develops a theoretical framework and theory for how this might work. Dynamic art, design and innovative processes are processes where the past, the present and the future melt together. Understanding these processes might be crucial for the creation of sustainable businesses and societies. Understanding the dynamic tacit and explicit knowledge processes might be mutual beneficial for art and innovative businesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Enterprise social media (ESM), such as wikis, blogs, or social networks, have rapidly spread across organisations. They offer unique means to support knowledge management, knowledge creation, or internal communication, especially in distributed work environments. Researchers and practitioners alike argue that the selection, introduction, and optimisation of ESM need to be based on use cases. Various frameworks exist that support the underlying process. However, one main characteristic of ESM is that they are highly undefined and recombinant, that is, they can be employed for many different use cases, which may also change over time. This makes it hard to define use cases of ESM in advance. In this paper, we argue that in addition to potential use cases decision makers should have a proper understanding of the context ESM are going to be employed in. By context we mean a possibly unlimited, personal and situated set of relevant knowledge involved in employing ESM. Context can be considered as a sensitising device that makes us more aware of the potential situational and temporal boundary conditions. Sense-making is used to understand ESM and to provide guidance to a decision maker by eliminating ambiguity which occurs during selecting, introducing, and optimising ESM. The basic idea of sense-making is that reality is an ongoing accomplishment that emerges from efforts to create order and make retrospective sense of what occurs. The current paper discusses how the Cynefin sense-making framework can be used in deciding what to use ESM for and in subsequently evaluating ESM. Cynefin consists of five domains, that is, simple, complex, chaotic, complicated, and disorder. For two domains, complex and chaotic, the respective impact on employing and evaluating ESM is discussed. The next step is to request input from decision makers and users of ESM alike regarding the context they are in, perceived changes in context, and how context influences ESM usage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper summarize three literature reviews on topic of knowledge management in supply chain which reviewed 176 papers in between 1960 to 2015. These reviews highlight literature focus and identify gaps for further research. In this paper the methodology and literature sources are analyzed and used to review 23 newly identified papers from time span 2016 to 2017 providing add-on to previous literature reviews and showing to what extend identified gaps were solved or not. Paper shows that positive effect of knowledge management on supply chain is shown in majority of studies focused on performance. It also confirms that majority of studies use quantitative methodologies. Another findings are that factors affecting knowledge management phases are not analyzed enough as well as its barriers and also that human performance and cultural effects need a systematic analysis in their impact of knowledge management in supply chain performance. Paper value is in most updated review of literature on topic of knowledge management in supply chain providing starting points for topics and areas which need further analysis and deeper research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past two decades have shown significant growth of research in the field of Knowledge Management (KM) in support of Decision making. This review reveals that there has been successful development and implementation of KM Methods in Large organisations and SMEs in advance economies and emerging economies and a low adoption of KM practices in SMEs in resource constrained areas. On the other hand, there has also been significant growth and improvement in affordable and reliable Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure and platforms in resource constrained areas, creating significant opportunity for Implementation of KM and its benefits. In this review paper, advancements of knowledge Management methods over the years is presented and their adaptability to support Small Scale Enterprises in resource Constrained areas is also examined. The major contribution of this paper is that it presents a Summary and Comparative analysis of the different approaches and to what extent knowledge Management been applied in Large Companies and SME's in advanced economies and emerging markets, it identifies challenges and makes recommendations for appropriate knowledge management methods for resource Constrained areas. There is a general observation that most methods reviewed are both communications-driven and data driven and require heavy network infrastructure and hence creating resource challenges for organizations. In addition many have been developed with the basic assumption that work flow procedures and guidelines are documented and automated, this creates challenges for adaptability. The paper has 4(four) Main Sections (i) Introduction which presents an overview of the Importance of Knowledge Management to SME's (ii) Trends in KM in SME'S (iii) The Comparative Analysis of Knowledge Management Methods in SME's shall be discussed in Chapter 3 (iv) Recommendations of Future Work and Conclusion in Chapters 4. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Animation and 3D comics are the most widely used mediums for transferring scientific information to schoolchildren. This study aims at comparing the students' loyalty to 3D animation and printed comic. This paper answers the following research questions: (1) What are the criteria of animation that influence students' decision to keep watching and share the experience to their peers afterwards? (2) What are the factors in printed comics that affect students' willingness to keep using the media and share it to their friends? (3) Which media appeals more to rural schoolchildren? The paper employed questionnaires with the Likert test for collecting data. This paper ranked the criteria of 'sense' and 'think', which influence the students' loyalty to the media. The number of respondents was 139 students grade 7th and 8th, who live in Sedanau and Tanjung Batang village, the district of Natuna, Indonesia. We applied Friedman test to measure the criteria and the media of choice. This paper highlights that the media of choice is critical in the process of transferring knowledge successfully to the schoolchildren living in remote areas in Indonesia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Universities have long remained the hub of scientific research and training of the manpower base of countries. But in recent times there have been a paradigm shift in these roles played by universities, there are increasing calls for them to directly contribute to regional and economic growth and forging closer and direct collaborations with industries and commercializing their academic research outcomes. This institutional interdependence results in win-win outcomes for both industries and universities. Universities interact with industries through diverse means such as joint research and development, staff and student mobility, academic consulting, joint publication of academic papers among others. Technology intensive industries need the most sophisticated technology and knowledge to thrive. Greater attention has been paid to this collaboration, but little is known about which universities firms collaborate with. The main aim of this paper therefore is to empirically observe factors that influence technology intensive industries choice of universities (domestic or foreign) as collaborating partners across European Countries. These determinants included firm size, innovation expenditures, availability of funding and the extent of internationalization. For the empirical analysis, we used data from the Community Innovation Survey 2010-2012 and the standard logit regression model. The results of the logit regression demonstrated statistically that firm size, innovation activities and funding influenced firm's collaboration with local universities. Per contra, the results revealed insignificant differences for foreign universities. Practical implications are also offered to strengthen this kind of synergy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the current paper is to present theoretical findings of a part of a PhD thesis that is being prepared by PhD students in education. An increasing number of researchers and practitioners now point to the necessity for the higher education institutions to not only develop students' subject matter knowledge and capabilities, but also various transferable skills, such skills that would allow students to successfully blend in with the contemporary organizations. These contemporary organizations aim to utilize knowledge to maintain competitive advantage in the market, thus they are often referred to as knowledge organizations. Knowledge creation and dissemination processes in such organizations rely on organizational learning (OL) capabilities of their employees. Therefore, universities that educate future professionals for such organizations should be interested in including organizational learning into their learning agenda. But do universities create conditions for students to learn organizational learning in the study process, i.e. do they teach it explicitly? Perhaps, students can experience organizational learning through other activities on and off campus, i.e. learn it implicitly in informal settings? These are the questions discussed in the current paper. Further inquiry into the topic allowed distinguishing factors of student organizational learning at universities in various settings (formal, non-formal and informal) which will be used for drafting a questionnaire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the Customer Knowledge Management (CKM) as an integration between the approaches of Knowledge Management (KM) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Customer Knowledge Management is defined as a process of capturing, sharing, disseminating and applying Customer Knowledge. This Knowledge Management plays a key role in the success of CRM strategies. From the perspective of a Resource Based View, what are the technological factors that support the implementation of Customer Knowledge Management to improve the efficiency and the effectiveness of the Customer Relationship Management? Based on an in-depth case study in a sales outsourcing enterprise, this paper proposes technological factors that support the Customer Knowledge Management process in order to improve the efficiency and the effectiveness of CRM. This study will help guide companies in the implementation of Customer Knowledge Management process for successful CRM projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integration of Business Process Management and Knowledge Management requires addressing a range of characteristics of such solutions. These systems, which are characterised by concentration on propagation of contextual knowledge about the tasks executed during a business process, have to be mainly focused on the user of the process and his/her information needs. The issues addressed in the paper refer to the theory of process oriented knowledge management systems. Solutions that belong to this group are Business Process Oriented Autopoietic Knowledge Management Systems. The aim of the paper will be analysis of the possibilities of using autopoiesis in the development of an autonomous system designed to support the process of integrating BPMN and KM. To achieve this aim, literature on the subject will be studied and a unique methodology, presented in the author's previous papers, will be used. The above-mentioned methodology is implemented in three main stages, which involve the design of a business process, the design of knowledge resources impacting the business process, and the architecture of an autopoietic system that supports its operation. For that purpose, feedback connected with the different stages of the process and its impact on the process stages will be analysed. The paper will also present elements of a developed tool for designing a system in the presented methodology. The added value of the paper will be presentation of a new approach to integrating BPM and KM in the area of the application of autopoiesis mechanisms using the theory of software agent societies. The theory of autopoiesis explains the processes of creating and distributing knowledge in an organisation and can be applied to better use IT systems designed to support it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to present knowledge management (KM) approaches manifested by knowledge intensive business service (KIBS) companies together with their potential determinants (company size, type of services offered, and organizational structure). In particular, two types of approaches have been selected and examined, i.e. emergent KM approach and deliberate KM approach. Indeed, although KM approaches have been abundantly investigated in the literature, there are still not many studies comparing emergent KM approach with a deliberate one, especially with regard to the determinants of the two. Hence, the paper contributes to a better understanding of the differences between these two approaches and their influencing factors. The list of their potential determinants was established on the basis of literature review. Further on, ten case studies (from companies of various sizes and offering various services) have been examined to verify the factors determining the selection of KM approach. Although it is not possible to generalize, and such an assignment cannot be taken as a golden rule, the paper advocates that emergent KM approach is determined more by being a small company, while deliberate KM approach is determined to more extent by being a medium-sized one. As the analysis shows, the emergent/deliberate approach can also be determined by the type of service offered - if the service is not somehow regulated, then emergent approach is more common (e.g. IT services); while if the service has to conform some legal regulations and laws (e.g. legal/accounting services), then deliberate approach is more probable to be detected. Finally, in many cases being a hierarchical organization determines choosing deliberate KM approach, while having a flat structure - choosing emergent KM approach. The findings of both literature review and case study analysis indicate that there is a need to further analyse emergent and deliberate KM approaches with regard to their determinants. In addition, from the practical point of view, the paper shows that the two different approaches towards KM can be chosen by managers depending on the characteristics of the company (e.g. its size, offered services and organizational structure). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an effort to develop an effective engineering education model in the university for a continuous Knowledge Creation (KC) and utilization. Universities are facing new issues due to the increase in distance & online education. Therefore, they are trying to attract and retain students by providing facilities like learning factory (LF). Learning factory being a platform for knowledge creation & learning, it also creates an environment for interaction between students, academics, and industrial participants. It is essential to understand how knowledge creation takes place within learning factory settings. Knowledge creation is a process of generation of new ideas, and studies are broadly within industrial organization thus ignoring educational context such as within university. Therefore, it is crucial for the university to take this challenge and address these gaps, which is above mentioned, i.e., identifying a model and its applicability. We have conducted qualitative research, which includes a detailed literature review, workshop, informal interview and focus group with participants. A literature review has shed lights on the advanced model of knowledge creation, and this model is based on a framework of the unified theory of dynamic knowledge creation through SECI mode, 'Ba,' knowledge assets, and Leadership or simply known as Nonaka's model. The workshop reports on knowledge creation and applicability of this model in learning factory setting. The finding shows that a unified theory of dynamic knowledge creation model fits our existing learning factory setting with minor adjustments to serve our local industries. In summary, this paper applies the unified theory of dynamic knowledge creation model for the learning factory settings and from findings; it highlights the importance of the application of the knowledge creation to develop the education system and the role of management in learning factory settings. The results of this research should interest both management of university and industry for shaping their learning process and continuous knowledge creation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This main goal of the paper is to analyse the concept of big data in the theoretical framework of knowledge management and assess the implications of developing such a connection. We present the most important conceptual definitions and characteristics of big data and assess the possibility to integrate this concept within the traditional theoretical models of knowledge management. A secondary objective of our paper is to lay out the prerequisites of developing new knowledge management strategies according to the needs of the digital economy. Authors draw from the e-commerce experience in using big data for improving the decision-making process. We have collected data from a number of ecommerce SMEs that are acting on the Romanian online fashion retail market. An analysis of the impact of demographics and sales data on firms' growth strategies was conducted. Simultaneously, our study looked at how business intelligence systems used by SMEs were applied in order to analyse the aforementioned data. Conclusions drawn from the study show the most important and relevant benefits and best practices concerning the integration of big data into SMEs knowledge management strategies. The main focus of our paper is on identifying the best ways to improve net results through proper use of knowledge obtained from big data. We consider that our paper might be of interest for other people attending ECKM 2018, mostly for those participating with paper presentations concerning this exciting and challenging topic of big data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aging population of the western world poses a medical challenge for the society of today and of the future. In hospitals, healthcare professionals manage health care with the objective to provide care of high quality using the limited available resources. The decision-making in production and capacity planning decisions requires coordination and management of knowledge in different hierarchical levels and in different time-frames. Thus, this knowledge management is also needed between various health care services within a hospital, as well as with other healthcare providers, at a horizontal level. This paper is based on a qualitative study, conducted as a case study at a hospital in western Sweden. Eleven managers together with their production controllers were interviewed. This paper aims to analyze the challenges the health care at the hospital face related to the knowledge management in the production and capacity planning and control of activities performed. The difficulties found refers to limitations in knowledge management according to three different themes identified. These themes are the influence of political decisions, coordination and participation, and methods and IT-systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses information and knowledge management (IKM) research trends, based on the abstracts, titles and keywords of original research articles published in the South African Journal of Information Management (SAJIM) between 1999 and 2017. Leximancer, a natural language analysis software tool, was employed to examine the titles, abstracts and keywords of articles published in this journal. The findings of this paper report on the evolution of the field of IKM research over 19 years of publication, and compares the findings to global trends in IKM research. Analyses of trends in academic journals are used to guide researchers in identifying pockets of abundance, emerging focus areas, and topics in need of more rigorous exploration within a field of research. This paper will aid researchers in the field of IKM to identify topics that have been popular and thus frequently investigated. Furthermore, the findings of this study enable researchers to identify areas in need of exposure to advance the research field, while also highlighting contemporary issues identified by the data analyses and literature review. Founded in 1999, SAJIM is an open access IKM journal that has served as an international platform for discussion and debate in this dynamic field. The journal has published 49 issues since its inception, with topics ranging from corporate culture as a foundation for successful knowledge management, to e-mail overload and the emergence of crowdsourcing. Not surprisingly, a recent shift to include the social media phenomenon and its effect on information sharing is clear when the findings are reviewed. Artificial intelligence, especially when considering big data analysis, is revealed as an underexposed topic within the journal's publications. The research is moreover valuable to industry stakeholders in the field of IKM, as the paper gives an impression of the evolution of, and current trends within the journal, while comparing these trends to the global IKM environment. Therefore, the findings are valuable not only to the journal's governing body, but those academics and practitioners interested in the field of IKM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of intellectual capital was developed at the organization level, where intellectual capital is recognized as an important factor affecting the improvement of competitiveness. The idea of national intellectual capital (NIC) has emerged as a new category in academic research. NIC is defined as the hidden values of individuals, enterprises, institutions, communities, and regions that are the current and potential sources of wealth creation. The notion of smart growth, its factors and measuring methods are also new categories which emerge from the strategic development objectives defined by the EU. Smart growth is one that is based on knowledge and innovation. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between NIC, its components: national human capital, national social capital, national structural capital, national relational capital and the level of smart growth in the EU countries. Research into this kind of dependencies is extremely difficult since many of the phenomena involved in them are intangible and requires advanced methods from the field of multidimensional analysis. The first part of the paper presents selected aspects of the notions of NIC and smart growth. Then, empirical studies are conducted into the construction and estimation of a model describing the relationships between NIC and its components, as well as those between NIC and the level of smart growth. The research uses the method of soft modelling developed by Herman Wold. Soft modelling allows users to examine links between variables which are not directly observable (latent variables). The conducted research has demonstrated that NIC and its components had a significant, positive impact on the level of smart growth in the EU countries. The obtained results also made it possible to create rankings of the examined countries according to the stock of NIC, the stock of each of its components, as well as the level of smart growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the so-called knowledge economy, organizations' value is mostly a consequence of the development of their Intellectual Capital (IC) and Higher Education Organizations (HEO) are not an exception. Such organizations are considered crucial agents in this type of society due to their main role in the creation and dissemination of knowledge. HEOs have been pressed, by their different stakeholders, to disclose more flexible, transparent, competitive and comparable information. The focus of most IC literature is on its measurement and management. This paper addresses a rather different topic, the voluntary disclosure of HEOs' IC through a specific channel of communication: their web pages. This goal of this paper is twofold. First, it aims at assessing the extent of IC disclosure. Second, it also seeks to assess the quality of such disclosure. Data wer collected from the web pages of the top 40 HEOs belonging to the Academic Ranking of World Universities, the Shangai Ranking, and a Content Analysis technique was adopted to codify such data. Results suggest that Structural Capital is the dimension of IC regarding which HEOs disclosure levels are higher and qualitatively better, followed by Relational Capital and finally Human Capital. This paper contributes to a better unerstanding of how HEOs' IC is disclosed through web pages, terms of both extent and quality of such disclosure. Furthermore, it contributes to raise awareness among both researchers and practitioners regarding research on IC disclosure through web sites. This study is not without limitations. Specifically, it should be noticed that Content Analysis involves judgement, something which can be subjective. The size of the sample is also a limitation. Therefore, future research should use larger samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper continues verification of the Unified Theory of Knowledge Management's(KM) operationalized functions by looking for sufficiency when comparing them to verbs used in 100 KM articles. Multiple methods (qualitative approaches, mixed methods, and text analysis) were used to compare verbs from 100 classics identified by Serenko and Dumay in 2015 to sets of verbs constructed from knowledge disciplines organic functions (and other similar concepts). Synonyms and related words of the verbs from thesauri were identified to create verb concept supersets to evaluate how sufficient these concepts were in summarizing verbs used in the classics. Other relationships were used to create macro verb concepts. This paper explains the methods used to create verb concepts and compare them to verbs in the 100 KM classics. It builds on Sisson and Mazzuchi's 2017 organic verb concepts by identifying other verb categories, such as knowledge state verbs. It discusses how verb collections can explain activities in article collections, presents summaries of the comparisons of these supersets to the verbs in the KM classics, and suggests next steps for further investigation. The commonality of concepts across KM, represented by partitioning verbs in articles, based on collections of verbs, is demonstrated. Selected thesauri and alternates may not represent a complete collection of verb synonyms and related terms for constructing a verb concept. The analysis also assumes that KM classic verbs that do not show up in five articles (or multiple times in fewer) do not represent significant concepts and are not evaluated; although, results relaxing that assumption are shown. Other sources reveal other verbs. This paper demonstrates the idea of using verb sets to explain a domain. The commonality of concepts across KM is demonstrated supporting the idea that a set of common functions can be used to describe KM. Partitioning verbs based on macro verb concepts reveals the remaining verbs that need to be considered for additional KM operationalized functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses and explores trust development focusing on restoration of trust after trust violations or breaches within leader-follower relationship and focusing on the follower's view in the empirical qualitative study. Trust is an important intangible asset, knowledge resource growing or diminishing in organizations and their leadership. Trust is a multi-level, dynamic and complex concept in nature embedded in abilities, skills, knowhow, insights and relations enabling human capital growth and improved performance. In the trust research within managerial context, trust forms a foundation for cooperation in workplace relations. Knowing and sharing knowledge play a role in trust and its restoration. The paper aims to increase understanding of trust restoration in workplaces searching for decisive incidents, moments and phases in the process, and followers' perceptions of the most significant issues. The purpose of the paper is two-fold; first, to produce new empirical findings from trust restoration in workplace relationships that are still scarcely studied empirically, and second, provide insights into current and further research, and implications to practice. A need for studying and understanding trust and trust restoration more in-depth is well grounded, as the prior studies show that trust development process appears rather complex, multi-form and unpredictable boosting even unintentionally "the dynamics of evil". Trusting in workplace resource and activity is largely about communication and sharing knowledge by multi-channel and presently more and more technology-mediated, which may lead to misunderstandings and even violations of trust. The empirical qualitative data consists of interviews and written accounts of followers' experiences of trust restoration in leader-follower relationship. The findings reveal three phases within the trust restoration process discussed in more detail in the paper. Implications are made to avoiding mistrust development and trust breaches highlighting e.g., trustworthiness and communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is analysing and comparing all the academic papers in the proceedings of the ECKM conference in Barcelona 2017. We classified the papers according to five chosen philosophy of science frameworks. The chosen frameworks are analytical tools accepted for all social sciences. The methods indicate the direction of the knowledge management research. The validity and reliability of this direction are secured in the variety of frameworks and by that an evaluation of each paper from five scientific perspectives. The analyses based upon an emphasis upon the knowledge, the problem or instruments indicate that most papers concentrate upon existing knowledge and accepted methodologies and less related to new problems. The results indicate a conference based upon as-is-knowledge and existing methodology and less upon new problems like sustainable businesses, regions, and societies. Most papers are concerned with what we already know and how to improve the existing situation. The papers are less concerned with what we do not know and the intuitive what we do not know that we know. There is by that little progress or accumulation of new knowledge. The researchers do not agree on a school of knowledge management or familiar paradigms or common perspectives. The theoretical foundation has a high degree of similarity across the papers. The construction of data or stories asking what is adequate or inadequate for a good business story or the criticism of research as acceptable versus nonacceptable is not dominating. Most papers analyze definitive concepts verifying existing research as valid and are to a smaller degree falsifying existing research as invalid. We classified most papers to be within an empirical paradigm, fewer papers within a materialistic paradigm and a clarified subjectivity paradigm. Most papers define themselves as objective and in harmony with existing results while some papers are in harmony with the existing results using subjective methods. We classified a few papers within a clarified subjectivity or an action paradigm. The research concepts are accordingly definitive and deductive explaining existing worldviews while much fewer are using sensitizing inductive concepts exploring and exploiting worldviews. The practical implication is to get more engaged research. To move ahead for better quality in the research it is necessary to break free from the tremendous empirical paradigm and the materialistic paradigm and move into the clarified subjectivity and action paradigm. Paradigmatic ecumenism will tend to a fiercer, but an idea-generating debate. This pluralistic approach might give more engaged research representing more sustainable societies and businesses. We propose a model for a more engaged, creative and relevant knowledge management research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus on planning for managing potential crisis has increased during the past years. The incidents that one experiences in different countries and in our own country has led to regulations that instruct companies and organizations to develop and train on plans for emergencies and crisis. These regulations and the organizations realization of a need to have plans to handle potential crisis and train for handling situations, have created a demand for educational initiatives to aid the process back in their organizations. As a respond to this, The Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences has developed a bachelor study in Crisis Preparedness and Crisis Management. The target group has been wide and include all organizations; private and governmental. The students attending range from first responders to office workers, what they have in common is the organizational need of learning more about the curriculum that is offered in the Bachelor degree (such as e.g. Crisis Communication). This paper will present a way of getting the students to utilize their own and others backgrounds and experiences into the learning situation. The students are given a mandatory assignment of planning, execute and evaluate an exercise. This includes constructing a scenario for handling a form of crisis or rescue operation. These scenarios are programmed in a gaming platform (VBS3, HoloLens or RAYVN), and then played like a simulation. In order for the scenarios to be playable, it requires a quite intensive and extensive collaboration and cooperation between the group members. Our early attempts (with two groups) on this was so successful that we now expand to eight groups. The paper thus also present results from a survey, interviews (group interviews and individual interviews), and observations, both from the development phase and the simulation phase. Our main goal is to investigate on how the students perceive this approach in order to support their learning outcome from the study and how they see this to be useful and relevant for their work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National Industry 4.0 Plan is contributing to introduce new digital industrial technologies within the enterprise sector. This has brought the researchers and the experts of the sector to study as the business equilibriums are evolving and what new emergent professionalisms can be. On this basis, the paper aims to identify these skills and analyze professional's dynamics, in order to achieve a higher level of competitiveness on the national manufacturing sector 4.0 stage. National Industry 4.0 Plan provides significant incentives aimed at strengthening R&D investments and incentivizing new technologies investments, as well as developing new skills among the professionals who will play a primary role in the "new 4.0 companies". Therefore, Industry 4.0 does not only intend to promote investments in new machinery and technologies, but, in parallel, to modify both, the productive and organizational paradigms, to effectively manage the indispensable and delicate process of cultural and organizational transformation. In other words, the goal is to transform all the processes into a continuous sequence of interconnected inter-digitally phases, which will be managed by an inter-functional group that has complete responsibility for it. This target is to be considered as a result of a training process across all company levels, which, according to a bottom up approach, stimulates a process of new skills creation and increases the sense of belonging to the company. This process also accompanying the profound changes of non-technological nature, which, however, are a presupposition and consequence of technology. In this perspective, the paper intends to set up a desk analysis - where the main focus are the national SMEs - aimed at better identifying the necessary skills to achieve a higher competitiveness level in the landscape 4.0 and, consequently, analysing the evolution of the professionalism that are characterizing the evolution of the enterprise systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the digital age of everything connected, conventional managerial wisdom is challenged both in the business environment and in the public administration field. In some cases, business models are reshaped or replaced and public opinion's expectances change accordingly. The impact seems even more profound in urban areas, where technology and digitization tends to be associated with one of the most efficient solutions in terms of efficiency and environmental protection. Considering that technology gives specific solutions to practical problems, but they must be correlated strategically to develop genuine smart cities, our paper emphases how the best business management practices could be considered by civil servants when designing smart cities strategies, such as auditing the digital maturity of the involved players (both public and commercial), human resources' training or passing from paper strategy and random actions and projects to real program management. The focus of the paper is on presenting how specific knowledge is transferred from business to civil servants in the process of developing smart cities, based on content analysis and qualitative interviews with experts in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge management is the concept that can turn the tide in the context of market competitiveness and competitive advantage in any area of organised activity. The benefit knowledge management may bring to an organisation is not tied to human organisations only though, as artificial agents, initially created as an imitation of humans, can benefit from organised and accessible useful knowledge as well. This paper covers a number of conceptual modelling examples following the theoretical settings presented within the paper. These examples emphasise the importance for clear and nonbiased definition of knowledge management concepts and contents, with the goal of fostering knowledge sharing culture in organisations, as well as creating knowledge accessible to artificial agents and applicable to various situations where artificial intelligence can be of service utilising the concept of systems comprising agents both human and artificial. Therefore the main quest of this paper is to argue towards demonstrating the benefits of conceptual modelling in knowledge management using domain specific and general cases, respecting the concept of fair argument, thus providing reasoning both in favour and against the basic topic of this paper. The main method of achieving the set goal is based on theoretical overview and analysis of the proposed cases and already published research. The results that are presented in this paper are a good addition to both the research areas of knowledge managements and multiagent systems. The combination is a welcome addition in the modern world where distributed computing is gaining power and informatisation is a global and omnipresent process. Emphasising the importance of developing systems that help bridge the communication between human and artificial agents, especially if they happen to be working in the same organisation, is an interesting problem with rising significance, since artificial agents are increasingly present in historically human organisations. An interface fostering the communication process between human and artificial agents that suppresses the necessity for direct interaction of the included entities, but increases the importance of knowledge modelling and management towards effortless cooperation of said entities, certainly is a welcome concept towards the rising popularity of artificial intelligence in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the key factors behind the success of an organization lies in its ability to manage the constant effective "renewal" of knowledge. The exchange of knowledge among employees is a vital component of knowledge renewal and hence, also of knowledge management. Hence, organizations have an urgent need to pay attention to effective knowledge sharing, and concomitantly to develop an understanding of what encourages individuals to share knowledge. As social media tools have become mainstream, they have modified personal relationships, and have generated new possibilities for sharing knowledge and hence facilitating collaboration. The majority of people uses these tools to develop their personal networks, gather information and, increasingly to access organizational resources, manage business processes and generally to engage in regular business activities and achieve business objectives and goals. As a result organizations are finding the way to integrate social media tools into the essential infrastructure and fabric of the organization. In 2014 an exploratory survey investigated how social media were being used for knowledge sharing and whether their usage were supported by the organizations. As a continuation of this survey, the new research reported in this paper focuses on Hungarian leading family businesses as their economic and societal value creation is extremely important. In particular, these enterprises, produce 30% of the GDP of the country and employ one-third of all employees. The purpose of the research is to examine the characteristics of the knowledge-based social media tools used by family businesses. The research methodology involves qualitative research with data being collected trough semi-structured interviews, observations, personal experience and literature review. The research was conducted between September 2017 and June 2018. The results indicate that social media provides a great opportunity to give exposure to family businesses at low cost. It can be seen that the most popular social media tools used by family businesses are Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. The paper concludes with a practical implication, the "Social media roadmap", which is an innovative approach that contributes to the development of marketing communication for family businesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Literature has recently reminded the importance of Knowledge Intensive Business Services (KIBS) as knowledge intermediaries and innovators facilitators, renovating a school of thought that has gained a acknowledged positioning in the KIBS literature. It's equally recent the profound change facing manufacturing companies: they are being involved in a digital innovation process that is transforming their organizations and business models, where - especially for small- and mediumsized firms - the worst scenario is represented by strategic disruption. Notwithstanding the stakes, manufacturing firms - even minor ones - are not alone in this risky transformation: our research shows that in confronting with pervasive digital technologies (IOT, Cloud platforms, smart products and services) manufacturing firms always can count on local KIBS firms, that advice, assist and help them to approach this complex transitional phase. For SMEs, KIBS firms frequently represent also a knowledge bridge with global suppliers of platforms and layer technologies otherwise out of reach. This paper is aimed at exploring the role of KIBS firms - with special attention to technology-based firms (T-KIBS) - as knowledge intermediator and innovation triggers in medium-sized Italian manufacturing companies' digital transformation processes. The topic is quite recent, and to our best knowledge, little research has been devoted to this specific perspective. Thus, the paper adopts a quantitative method, describing and discussing information coming from a number of personal face-to-face in-depth semistructured interviews with acknowledgeable respondents in selected firms. Interviews have been done in the second half of 2017 and the beginning of 2018. Our research reveals that Kibs may act as facilitators of business model innovation in medium-sized manufacturing firms involved in digital transformation and servitization processes, but that the role of lead users demand is crucial in determining the commitment of the manufacturing firms to the transformation, that in turn becomes a pilot customer for the KIBS firm. We envisioned a circular process of evolution of the offerings of the involved firms, in which tasks, activities and knowledge management capabilities change depending on the step, involving both dyadic and network relations, crafting business ecosystems where small and medium technology and consulting firms, system integrators with specific knowledge on applications and customer needs interact with international technology MNEs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proper knowledge management is of particular significance in all projects, and especially important in the case of international ones. Such projects involve actors from several countries, and thus, have to allow for considerable differences stemming from cultural differentiation, diverse work patterns, and various levels of competencies in the project's area. The latter ones seem to be most prone to changes, and improving the level of internal competencies in the case of one of the project partners can greatly contribute to a larger success of the project as a whole. To do so, it is crucial to analyse one's gaps of competencies and draw up a plan of introducing corrective measures in this respect. This has been done during the implementation of the Ecolabnet project, financed by Interreg, and implemented in the six partner countries: Finland, Denmark, Poland, Sweden, Estonia, Lithuania, in the years 2019-2021. All the project partners formed the project consortium, whose objective was to accelerate the development of eco-innovations in manufacturing enterprises from the SME sector in the Baltic Sea Region. One of the stages of knowledge management in the project constituted identification of own competency gasps and addressing this issue. The paper presents the process of managing the knowledge on own competency gaps, and the measures that were taken so as to eliminate them. Additionally, the authors present the results of the survey conducted among the SMEs in the project partner countries, which illustrates the needs of the said SMEs in the area of eco-innovations. The authors also describe the steps taken so as to eliminate own competency gaps and improve the quality of CUT's offer for SMEs based on the results of the survey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents the design and implementation of a web-based system for knowledge management in the form of knowledge objects that are stored as semantic records. The innovation of the presented approach lies in interactive presentation of stored knowledge in the form of knowledge networks. Stored knowledge is made available to users in a form that is similar to a mind map, which allows a query topic to be further developed by relevant associations. Presentation in the form of a mind map provides a simple and efficient way of sharing knowledge, e.g. among employees. Moreover, presented application expands the possibilities, which provide ordinary systems to support of mind maps creation by additional support of linkages to authors and multiple linkages. In addition to browsing are also offered relevant knowledge objects that were classified as near. The aim of this paper is to show how this approach can be used and to present an application in the form of a web-based system (as an internet-based service) in the field of marketing. This means in particular the possibility of using this tool in the context of a methodology to support marketing management. Finally, we discus the pros and cons of using this system, including the specific requirements made by the area of the application presented here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present research shows a systematic literature review considering three related research topics: knowledge processes, absorptive capacity and innovation. The main purpose is to identify and describe main knowledge processes that have been tested by empirical articles during the 2009-2013 term. Following a systematic methodology we first search for key words and constructed a search string. Thus, using the web of knowledge database we obtained 608 references of which we chose 54 empirical articles, after title and abstract selection. The present review considered 24 empirical articles, where questionnaires were used for data collection. Also, innovation is considered as an output in the sample articles. Results show that knowledge acquisition, sharing, creation, codification and exploitation are the most popular topics in the knowledge processes-innovation relationship. Acquisition and exploitation dimensions reveal that knowledge processes are somehow aligned with the absorptive capacity construct (Cohen and Levinthal 1990), particularly with potential and realized absorptive capacity (Zahra and George 2002). The sample of papers in the review collected data mainly in manufacturing and high-technology industries. We presented information about the questionnaires used by the sample papers, showing that a large amount of valid and robust measures have been developed. As every study, this one has some limitations, as we considered only one database and empirical articles where questionnaires were used. This paper has several practical implications: first, academics should build some consensus around already existing measures for knowledge processes, as they show good psychometric characteristics. Second, overcoming some of the limitations of the present study, the search string can be adapted and applied to different databases, collecting other valuable references. In conclusion, the leading knowledge processes identified in our systematic review are aligned with the knowledge processes-Innovation literature, representing a knowledge lifecycle that is necessary to continuous innovation. Further research can confirm, replicate and upgrade our findings considering different databases or time spans. Moreover, researchers interested in studying the relationship between knowledge processes, absorptive capacity and innovation, found here evidence about used questionnaires that can help them in the decision making processes [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge management (KM) has long been associated with organizational practices for innovation, i.e. innovation strategies, and enterprises' innovation strategies have long been associated with firm performance. The existing research has much proliferated in demonstrating benefits of interconnecting the three areas and has presented many KM practices as prerequisites for successful innovation and/or firm performance. However, the integration of different kinds of KM into firm activities, especially into innovation activities, results in varied firm performance. Just as the nature of innovation conditions firm innovativeness (e.g. new-to-market innovation is considered to be superior to new-to-firm innovation), so too different kinds of KM lead to the implementation of more and less sophisticated innovation strategies, thus resulting in unequal firm performance. So, which KM practices contribute to the emergence of the most sophisticated innovation strategies? How is KM, via the innovation strategies, related to firm performance? The paper is aimed at answering these questions and identifying KM practices typical of innovation strategies with varied levels of sophistication. Here, the sophistication depends on coherence (e.g. positive or negative, strong or weak) between the extent of an innovation strategy of an enterprise and the enterprise's performance indicators. Thus, the link between kinds of KM and firm performance is not proximate in the paper. Instead, innovation strategies act as mediators. For the identification of innovation strategies, CIS8 database was used. It covers 60 innovation variables across 127,674 organizations from 12 core and 19 additional sectors and from 16 European economies. The innovation variables include different KM practices as well. Two firm performance indicators were also used in the research. The methods included exploratory factor analysis and correlation analysis. At each stage, the analyses were accompanied by rigorous validity and reliability tests. In total, six innovation strategies were identified. This let to decide about which KM practices are associated with the best firm performance and vice versa. In addition, the findings let to observe and compare the sample European economies by innovation strategies utilized there. The paper is original because of mainly three aspects. First, different KM forms are interrelated with firm performance and national economic-institutional contexts. Second, impressive scope of the paper (compared to the existing literature) should be noted. And third, the paper is original in its attempt to focus on KM practices within innovation strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Continuous change and a complex business environment challenge organisations to gather and leverage new knowledge, to innovate and broaden their competitive advantage. Gathering potentially valuable knowledge does not necessarily mean that other parts of the organisation will benefit from that knowledge. Knowledge exploitation will only occur when employees inside the organisation share new knowledge amongst its members, reshape, transform and then meaningfully integrate it with existing knowledge to enhance and create new processes, products and/or services. The ability of an organisation to acquire and assimilate external knowledge and then transform and exploit the knowledge within the firm is referred to as the Absorptive Capacity (AC). The absorption of knowledge can be facilitated by social connections with the external environment (e.g. customers, suppliers, universities and research institutions) and internally within an organisation, to share the externally acquired knowledge and ideas amongst employees. Current literature has not yet described and synthesised the entire process of knowledge absorption starting with the conditions that trigger the need for new knowledge, followed by the organisational factors influencing knowledge flow and -sharing, the prerequisites (antecedents) for effective knowledge absorption, through to the resulting organisational outcomes associate with enhanced knowledge absorption. The social networks that facilitate the acquisition and transfer of external knowledge and the internal networks required to exploit and absorb the knowledge within the organisation, are also important in this process. This paper provides a review of existing Absorptive Capacity (AC) and Social Networking (SN) literature and highlights the central and essential role of external (inter-organisational) and internal (intra-organisational) social networks in the process of acquiring, assimilating, transforming and exploiting (i.e. absorbing) knowledge in organisations. The various elements are synthesised into a comprehensive conceptual Knowledge Absorption Process (KAP) model that deepens our understanding of the absorption of externally acquired knowledge through external and internal social networks and highlights management interventions that will support this process and create competitive advantage for the business. The model is presented in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge management has been touted to help firms achieve high innovative performance hence it has become an entrenched managerial activity due to the changing perspective of what makes a firm more competitive over its competitors. Due to improvement in technology and increased contact due to globalization, access to and possession of discrete information by firms help to sustain firm absorptive capacity. It may also serve as enabler for distinctive firm positioning which provides benefit to the firm. The pool of knowledge within the firm when is inimitable helps the firm to engage in much innovative activities because the firm will possess both tacit and codified knowledge which other competitors do not have. Some scholars have found that it is more beneficial for firms to seek external knowledge if they aim at introducing new products into the market because the firm cannot produce all the knowledge it needs. This paper seeks to ascertain whether seeking solely external knowledge is determinant for firm's new product introduction in some selected countries in the transition knowledge economies. In the light of the foregoing aim, a logistics regression model has been used employing data from the Harmonized European Union Community Innovative Survey 2012-2014 for the empirical analysis. Our results show that in as much as firm's acquisition of external knowledge aids in introducing new product into the market, firm's internal research activities and professional knowledge management as well provide the firm with the opportunity to introduce new product. In contrast, the empirical results found cases where sourcing for external knowledge had no significant effect on firm's introduction of new product and services. For the management of knowledge in the firm, we argue that since not all the firm's knowledge could be purchased due to the long-term cost associated with it, it is imperative for management to help stimulate employee knowledge sharing atmosphere through collaborative working environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge management in local government organisations presents two challenges not found in for-profit organisations: a focus on efficiency savings and a wide ranging service provision, unlike anything found in the private sector. For instance, a pharmaceutical organisation might be focused purely on drug development, whereas a local government organisation has services ranging from the provision of leisure facilities, to social care responsibilities and education requirements. Coupled with the fact that local government tend to be less agile than other organisations this presents a substantial challenge to knowledge management initiatives. This paper presents an initial scoping of a case study of a local government organisation in the UK and their efforts to prepare to become a knowing council. From the initial assessment of the council, this paper presents an initial assessment of the current culture, the current information management strategies and makes recommendations for conducting a full case study analysis, necessary before a wide scale adoption of KM. Using observation and document analysis, this research has found that the council has a clear role based culture with evidence of 'empire building'. This is reinforced by the current technology architecture, although projects are underway to share information more consistently across the whole council. The current information management strategies are clearly based on an extended records management philosophy, a fact reflected by the heavy use of the electronic records and document management system. The recommendations proposed by this research is a novel approach to bring the council into the knowledge era and focuses on the creation of a knowledge sharing culture, enabled by the employees. The end goal of this research, whilst outside the scope of this research is the creation of a knowing council that effectively shares knowledge to support innovation and efficiency savings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Sustainable Learning Networks in Ireland and Wales (SLNIW) project aims to increase the competitiveness, creativity and innovative capacities and capabilities of micro-enterprises and SMEs in South East Ireland and West Wales by increasing accessibility to local entrepreneurial knowledge via the establishment of self-learning networks. To achieve this end the project created six networks, three in Ireland and three in Wales where explicit and tacit knowledge flows between the participants. The networks consisted of two all male groups, two all female groups and two mixed gender groups. The SLNIW project is part funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the INTERREG 4A Ireland Wales Programme 2007-2013 and is being undertaken by the Centre for Enterprise Development and Regional Economy (CEDRE) at the School of Business, Waterford Institute of Technology, in partnership with the School of Management and Business, Aberystwyth University in Wales. SLNIW is a longitudinal study spanning two years of engagement with the network participants. The data gathering methods used include observations and questionnaires. This paper outlines the role of SLNIW in facilitating trust among entrepreneurs and the monitoring of initial trustful communication in the learning networks in supporting the development of tacit knowledge flows. The findings of this study suggest that when establishing learning networks trust is a key factor in increasing accessibility to tacit knowledge. Therefore, reinforcing the importance of establishing trust, the consequences of breaking trust and the necessity of trust is very important to increasing accessibility to entrepreneurial tacit knowledge. This paper contributes to the existing body of research on tacit knowledge and highlights the importance of trust in the knowledge transfer process and how a self-learning network can enable greater accessibility to tacit knowledge. This research has implications for academics, practitioners, entrepreneurs and policy makers who are concerned with the establishment of networks to propagate knowledge and technology transfer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SMEs account for over 99% of all European businesses and in recent years they have proved themselves to be the engines of economic growth, along with the main sources of new employment. Today's competitive environment calls for a dynamic, self-sustaining culture of innovation within SMEs in order for them to be better equipped to face future challenges. The paper is built on the doctoral research carried out by the paper's author, along with the author's involvement in the national research project INOVEX „Increasing the quality performances within cooperative processes in SMEs through expert systems in innovation engineering and management‟ and the research project entitled "Instrument for evaluating Romanian SMEs maturity at strategic and operational level for sustaining their performances on the long-term". For the INOVEX research, several categories of basic processes were taken into account and within each category, 92 sub-processes and 227 activity modules (categories of problems) were identified. The main objective of the paper is to provide possible directions for sustaining innovative activities within Romanian SMEs. The first section discusses the problems identified in Romanian SMEs regarding several processes selected, namely research-development and introducing large-scale innovation, processes for continuous improvement of product development activities and institutional development processes. In the second part of the paper, the main types of innovation within SMEs are emphasized, along with the factors that are most likely to be considered by SMEs within the process for innovation planning. The paper also seeks to analyze the process of improvement related to organizational processes, products, and management system of Romanian SMEs that cover the objectives for improvement defined by the organization, employees' role in the process of improvement as well as the potential rewards offered for the employees 'involvement. Based on the main constraints identified in Romanian SMEs concerning innovation-related processes along with the analysis of the framework for implementing innovative activities within SMEs, the paper intends to identify possible directions to follow by Romanian SMEs in becoming more innovation-oriented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The process of technology innovation can be approached with a perspective that combines strategic business planning and engineering acumen. Technology innovation is the process by which technological ideas are generated, developed, and transformed into new business products, processes, and services by an entrepreneurial enterprise. This innovation is thus used to make profit, establish marketplace presence, and be a competitive advantage for the innovating enterprise. Being able to select the "right industry", that is, to identify the dimensions of an industry that is "more favorable" for new technology firms than other industries, is a challenge that must be planned strategically from the initiation of a business idea. Being able to identify potential opportunities from changes in environmental, social, regulatory, and technological factors is also important. Taking advantage of technological transitions is considered a strategic issue faced by innovating entrepreneurs. This paper presents the issues faced by twenty technology-based ventures created by engineering students-turned-entrepreneurs with backgrounds from various engineering disciplines. The innovation process is discussed in regards to how these students-entrepreneurs use knowledge about new ventures, innovation, and strategic positioning. Namely, Foster's technological s-curve is correlated with Ansoff's product-market matrix to categorize technology-based entrepreneurial opportunities. The dimensions of an industry, i.e. whether new products are introduced into an existing market or an existing product is launched to reach a new market, indicate the type of viable environments in which disruptive technologies can succeed. In addition, the paper discusses the role that current trends have in positively affecting technology transitions, as disruptive technologies are usually identified only after the effects of these trends on its particular industry are experienced. Thus, a dualperspective approach of applying both engineering design and strategic management is used. Finally, the effect that the limited-market environment of Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) in Canada has on these twenty technology-based ventures in terms of a product-market view of strategy and a resource-based strategy is discussed. The difficulty in assessing the potential success of technological opportunities early in their life makes it even more imperative for entrepreneurial engineers to apply an integrative approach to knowledge management and business strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper derives from a longitudinal study conducted in a multinational company. Through an interpretive case study approach, we have explored the phenomenon of knowledge networking in distributed work. More specifically, we have focused on the evolution patterns in a particular knowledge networking structure denoted as distributed networks of practice. The paper conceptualizes this kind of network of practice as an ICT facilitated dynamic relationship of participants that are geographically and temporally dispersed from one another, and who are sharing and creating knowledge related to their daily work practices and business problems. Three different categories of networks were identified 1) problem solving networks, 2) business improvement networks, and 3) innovation networks. Findings demonstrate that the networks evolved differently over time, and the study identified four distinct evolution patterns comprising 1) devolution in terms of short life cycle and dissolution, 2) recursive patterns where new ad-hoc networks emerged from the mother network, 3) integration of knowledge practices through cross-network proposals, and 4) innovation and expansion in scope and size. While previous studies have suggested fixed models for how a life cycle of a community takes place, this study however identified four dissimilar evolution patterns. Thus, these findings challenge life cycles models suggested in traditional community of practice research. The paper utilizes an information infrastructure perspective to provide an improved understanding of the evolution patterns within these networks by viewing them as ecological social structures facilitated by a technological infrastructure. Through social lines of practice and effective knowledge sharing, the participants created an infrastructure of knowing within the organization and managed to alter organizational practices through evolution. The paper illustrates how a knowledge networking structure as such may facilitate distributed work practices and knowledge activities across temporal and spatial boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge management systems (KMS) become increasingly important in periods of crises and economic slowdown, as many organizations are forced to lay off people, to reduce research and ICT budgets, to restructure departments and to optimize their costs. Subsequently, organizational knowledge assets, and mainly the existing tacit knowledge are threatened. This raises the importance of technologies that could assist organizational efforts to capture the existing knowledge and to mobilize it in order to overcome the crisis. Knowledge management systems should respond to these expectations and enable organizations dynamically to acquire and profit from all sources of knowledge. The present paper discusses the opportunities provided by extended KMS architecture combining elements of Web 2.0 technologies. It considers how Web 2.0 technologies can increase organizational effectiveness, efficiency and usability for company KM. The main services provided by KMS are identified and ranked. Finally, the paper makes an overview of the issue how KMS can enable companies to transform risks of the crises to new opportunities for further development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of this article is to systematize, to specify and to structure the realm knowledge management (KM). Historically, KM originates from such disciplines as knowledge engineering, psychology, management, computer science, and the main approaches are generated by different national cultures. As a result, we can observe the lack of clear definitions of used concepts and internal inconsistency of the discipline, which in turn leads to communication difficulties both inside academy and managerial practice. The main research question sounds like "What are the main elements of knowledge management as a subject area, and how are these elements interrelated?". To answer this question, we applied the ontological engineering method and carried out a deep structural analysis of the knowledge management domain. We identified the basic concepts of KM, determined the number of abstraction levels, distributed the concepts by levels and determined the main relationships between them. The main result is the ontology of knowledge management, or structural specification, which includes a dictionary of the main domain concepts, and visualizes the basic logical connections between them. We conducted a thematic literature review to avoid contradictions and inaccuracies. The proposed ontology combines taxonomy, partonomy and genealogy of knowledge management. We believe that this paper can be useful both to the academic community and to the practitioners, since it structures existing knowledge in the KM domain and it offers clear definitions of used concepts and the relations between them. It can help to synthesise the company common business vocabulary and language without ambiguity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of a knowledge-intense economy postulated the necessity to change the existing approach to manage intangibles. Though intellectual capital measurement and reporting is typically associated with private and listed companies, educational institutions also need to handle contemporary challenges as they mainly use and produce intangible resources. Schools, universities and research centers encounter increasing demand for transparency in reporting for stakeholders. The research field of IC in education is gaining popularity. But the majority of articles cover universities and other higher education institutions. There is a scarcity of IC measurement and reporting projects at secondary and primary education level. The country-specific IC context is also of potential interest for the researchers, managers, and policy makers in education. This paper represents the research project at the proposal stage. Our research goal is to investigate the current status quo of IC application in school education in St. Petersburg, Russia. First, we complete the content analysis of strategic documents to check if there is an established language for IC measurement, reporting and management in schools. Next, we use semi-structured interviews and questionnaires to analyze the importance of and country-specific and context-specific IC measurements, applications and adaptations from the stakeholders' point of view. The research plan and the preliminary results of the content analysis are presented below. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unprecedented growth witnessed by knowledge economies have resulted in a need for workers who have a learning mindset and are adept at intellectual thinking and problem solving at work. Knowledge Management Systems (KMS) are introduced with the aim of providing knowledge workers opportunities to collaborate, share knowledge, and enhance the innovation capability of the enterprise. However, for organizations to garner competitive advantage there is a need for KMS to be patronized. For investments in KMS to be meaningful, optimizing both knowledge seeking and knowledge sharing behaviors is crucial. While on the one hand, experts need to be encouraged to share their knowledge, on the other hand, seeking behaviors need to be promoted. Extant literature seems to have focused on knowledge sharing behaviors; relatively fewer studies exist on knowledge seeking behaviors. This paper presents a model to understand factors that impact individual's intention to seek knowledge on KMS. To gain a better understanding of the situational factors that influence knowledge seeking, answers to the following key research questions are sought: 1. Why and when do people seek knowledge at work? 2. Under what conditions does knowledge seeking thrive/happen the most? A quantitative study of the factors that motivate an individual to seek knowledge on KMS is undertaken with the objective of reviewing the effect of knowledge management (KM) and human resources (HR) practices on knowledge seeking behaviors of participants. Such a study is particularly vital post adoption of KMS. The decomposed theory of planned behavior (DTPB) is the underlying theoretical model on which our study is based. A preliminary questionnaire is discussed, and pilot data collected from 64 participants of a multinational company (MNC) are analyzed to arrive at a conceptual framework. Understanding knowledge seeking behaviors could lead to optimization of the share-seek process leading to better knowledge flow. Results of such an exercise could potentially provide significant insights on interventions that can be developed to enhance adoption of KMS for knowledge seeking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current trends like Digital Transformation and New Work suffer from an essential weakness: they fail to understand and take seriously that, in order to be successful in the world of VUCA, they require what we call "New Collaboration". In this sense, we speak of the secrets of New Collaboration that we see as a way of working together and that can be summarised by the following three statements: 1) New Collaboration requires and is based on the sharing of tacit knowledge. Sharing tacit knowledge requires: 2) suitable structures, leadership and competences; 3) dedicated collaborative interactions (methods). Understanding and taking New Collaboration seriously would allow Digital Transformation and New Work to better exploit their potential for improving business results in a world of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA). To contribute to this, our paper will first present an understanding of the essence of collaboration that we call knowledge-based and community-oriented because we are convinced that what matters today in collaboration is the process of knowledge sharing and the resulting construction of shared knowledge. Then we will propose an architecture of what we call a New Collaboration System - which includes people, processes and technology - with structures like communities of practice, leadership methods such as facilitative leadership and competences like collaborative skills. Last but not least, we will outline some methods for and approaches to collaborative interactions, such as our Presence Model of Knowledge Sharing, our Interaction Continuum Model and our D-3 Model of online interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Competition - based research financing is one of the necessary elements of knowledge-based economy functioning as targeted knowledge generation happens in competition - based environment. Competition based system of research and academic grants allocation is an instrument of selecting perspective projects by means of qualified academic evaluation of applications. Besides that, when making decisions on allocating new grant experts consider success degree and publications level of the previous projects conducted by the given researcher. The objective of the research is the dependence of scientific effectiveness on the volume of competitive financing. The purpose of this research consists in revealing regularities of the influence of various forms of competitive financing on the number of published articles on fundamental research results and to offer a method of assessing efficacy of competition-based financing. Authors used economic and statistic methods of collecting and processing information, correlation - regression analysis, differential calculations. Informational basis of the research is formed by report data on conducting fundamental research by institutions - members of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences for 2010 - 2015. As a result of the conducted research authors present Science Result Index that demonstrates the dynamics of changes in knowledge generation level depending on changes in financing. Authors provide empirical evidence of the fact that there is the stronger correlation dependence between financing dynamics and the number of published papers within the project. Therefore, the increase of competition-based financing for research allows for increasing publication activities of the researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Business information system (BIS) plays a substantial part in the process of knowledge construction and implementation of knowledge management in an organization. BIS helps constructing new knowledge and positively affect organizational learning, performance and knowledge management practices. However, majority of small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) assume that employing BIS is the implementation of knowledge construction. The paper aims to investigate the role of business information system as a mediating factor in market knowledge construction. The study was conducted on 209 SMEs in Thailand using questionnaires to collect the data. Sequential Equation Modelling (SEM) using Partial Least Square (PLS) for analysis. The result shows that business information system becomes a mediator between customer along with supplier and creating products (CP), innovative process (IP), identifying a new market (INM) and changing organizational behaviour (COB). However, business information system (BIS) does not become a mediator between market environment (ME) and identifying a new market (INM). The analysis also shows that the model has a predictive power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the Icelandic Equal Wage Standard and its legislation has impact on the registration, access and use of personal knowledge in organizations. It explains what preparations organizations have taken to implement the standard. It also studies whether and what information on personal knowledge is being registered now, to oblige to auditing and legal requirements, different from before. Finally, the aim is to shed a light on which employees have the role and responsibility of the registration process related to the standard. This is a multiple-case study and part of a PhD research. The empirical material contains semi-structured interviews with eight professionals, focusing on information management, human resources and training, and an analysis of the registration requirements of the Equal Wage Standard. The findings indicate that most organizations had not taken the necessary steps to prepare for the implementation of the standard. This is concerning as public organizations in Iceland with more than 250 employees must have implemented the standard by December 31st 2018. The legislation puts added pressure on organizations to ensure that documentation on employees formal and informal education and skills are authentic, traceable and of use. The standard and its legislation increases the significance of knowledge management studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many organizations cooperate with and spend a substantial amount of money on consultants, among others in knowledge creation projects. However, little seems to be known about consultants' roles in knowledge creation projects. We aim to contribute to knowledge-creation theory and dialogue theory against the background of client-consultant interaction with our work. In addition, we hope to add value to organizations, as increased insight into the dynamics of knowledge creation between clients and consultants might help them to optimize their interaction. This paper describes a case study guided by the research question: How is knowledge created in client-consultant interaction? Based on our findings from literature, we argue that in their knowledge-creation interaction clients and consultants use a dialogical approach. In addition, we are inclined to think that a specific dialogical process is used. Moreover, we think that the interaction itself might be impacted by power dimensions. We explored the above and more in two different exploratory case studies, both of which concerned projects in which corporate strategies for energy companies were created with the help of consultants. We used semi-structured interviews with clients, project participants, and consultants, combined with document analysis. Our findings in these cases indicate that productive dialogues were indeed used, that a particular process can be recognized in the dialogues and that power resources seem to be used, although mainly by other people involved in the knowledgecreation projects. Our main suggestion for further research is to study more and more diverse cases to see if the findings from these two cases match findings from other cases. Moreover, we think an interesting research topic might be to study knowledge-creation interaction between larger groups of clients and consultants, to see if and how the group size impacts the use of dialogue processes, and power resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on a fundamental problem: developing a model that describes the iterative process of goaloriented creation of new individual knowledge, and information technology that provides this process. It is assumed that a linguist creates a personal knowledge system as a cross-language typology. We proceed from the notion of a goal-oriented knowledge system. A linguist creates the typology to fill a knowledge gap in contrastive grammar. This gap can be identified through observation of the subject area. Our study arose from a need to fill the gap in the cross-language knowledge system for machine translation. Here, we suggest a model and information technology that facilitates goal-oriented creation of a new personal knowledge system by linguists as a typology. The proposed model consists of two submodels, one representing the formation of annotations of the studied language units, which is performed by a group of linguists, and the other representing the creation of a cross-language typology by an expert-linguist on the basis of generated annotations. In the process of creating a new typology, a linguist analyses bilingual texts. With the help of information technology, a linguist matches up emerging parts of knowledge with the analysed aligned sentences of these texts. The ability to establish this correspondence is the principal distinction of the proposed technology. To show the feasibility of the technology, our team has designed the prototype of the computer system supporting goal-oriented creation of new individual knowledge. This prototype contains German-Russian translations of books totaling about 2.5 million words, analysed by a linguist. The subject of the analysis is translation models of German modal verbs into Russian, which are discovered by a linguist from bilingual texts in an automated mode. There is a wide range of Russian lexical units and syntactic constructions in translations of German modal verbs. At present, there is no systematic description of them. The main aim of the translations' analysis is to create the typology, which will fill the gap in the German-Russian contrastive grammar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Customer Knowledge Management (CKM) is a term describing a business-level strategy used by organizations, in collaboration with their customers, to capture, share and disseminate customers' knowledge about their needs, wants and expectations. CKM is recognized as one of the most important product and service improvement strategies of the manufacturing and service sector. In many business fields, including healthcare industries, customer feedback contributes to service improvement. Relating to this paper, there are two research areas: the first area is customer feedback and service improvement in the field of healthcare; the second area covers risk management in the field of healthcare. This empirical study builds on existing research by focusing on the links between customer feedback and potential risk identification which results in product and service safety improvement, mainly in the healthcare field. As a comparison, CKM is also examined in the transportation service field. The first purpose of this study is to specify risk-related customer feedback in pharmaceutical and food industries, hospitals, and transportation service industries. The second purpose is to investigate whether riskrelated customer feedback has any significant impact on potential risk identification of products and services. The third purpose is to analyze how organizations assess the severity level of risk, based on a risk matrix. The severity levels are categorized as high, medium and low risk. The research results provided examples of specific cases where risk-related customer feedback has resulted in implementation of product and service safety improvements, or risk mitigation efforts in Japanese organizations. Typical risk-related customer feedback included requests arising from product design, material, labels, packaging, and facility maintenance and services. The questionnaire survey showed that customer feedback departments recognized the value of customer feedback for both service improvement and risk identification. In almost all industries which were included in this study, customer feedback departments recognized that customer feedback contributed to potential risk identification of low severity-level, rather than potential risk identification of medium or high severity-level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interconnection of innovation activity and productivity growth is rather discussed topic, but there is still no consensus on this issue. We study the determinants of enterprise productivity using unique micro level data of the Russian firms augmented with city and regional data. We are aiming to shed light on how knowledge accumulation, human capital, and other external factors affect productivity of Russian firms. Used dataset covers such groups of factors as micro-indicators of firm performance, innovative activity indicators, human capital and education, spatial indexes and others. The paper considers not only Russian enterprises in general, but also their individual subgroups, divided by the type of goods produced, location and size. We conclude that there is a positive impact of the number of patent applications per capita and technology imports on company productivity, with greater effects observed for more "traditional" industrial groups, while for high-tech industries these indicators are insignificant. This, as well as the negative impact of spending on innovation on the productivity, suggest that level of development of basic industries is inadequate, which in turn slows the growth rates of technologically intensive industries. Among the Russian firms, there is a stable positive impact of city specialization on productivity of firms, which indicates the possibility of successful formation of industrial clusters and mono-settlements. There are number of significant differences observed between federal districts as well, confirming an argument for the diversified and region-specific innovation policy. We find that import of technologies has significant positive effect on productivity only for firms in less developed federal districts, while for others it is insignificant. At the same time effects of sending on innovation is effective only for the Central federal district, the most advanced one. The obtained results may be used as a recommendation when constructing and improving the regional innovation policies across Russia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]