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The paper aims to present key preconditions for the development of organizational knowledge ecosystem inside an audit firm. The audit activities represent a specific context for knowledge management, especially what concerns knowledge sharing and generation of new knowledge in organizational environment of formal rules and standards. We present the survey of audit firm employees (68) and their management by discussing the key challenges related to the dynamic knowledge sharing and new knowledge creation inside an audit firm. The paper investigates the nature of knowledge within an audit firm and analyses the cultural and structural aspects of KM practices that may lead to the emergence of ecosystem for sharing the existing and generating new knowledge. The paper adopts the intra-organizational perspective to knowledge ecosystem. The audit firm operates as knowledge organization that, despite its strong formal side, is a complex dynamic system of knowledge professionals, who form the different communities of practice inside the firm. Research presented in this paper helped identify the key challenges and opportunities for the emergent knowledge partnerships inside the professional audit firm. The key cultural preconditions behind the effective knowledge ecosystem - trust-based relations, organizational culture, positive horizontal and vertical relations, and strong intrinsic motivation to share knowledge - are in place. Research findings also reveal a good fit between the employee expectations and organizational practices. However, certain challenges need to be addressed, such as bringing out and embodying the tacit knowledge of employees, and the need for continuous upgrading of the processes of knowledge creation and integration. To establish an effective and sustainable knowledge ecosystem inside the professional services firm, the paper argues for striking a delicate balance between the formal and informal parts of organization, as well as its KM system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents some aspects of knowledge management theory. This underpins a research methodology designed to expose knowledge transfer in voluntary not-for-profit groups. The paper aims are to make recommendations which, supported by a knowledge management strategy and good practices, provide the basis for the development of a future model of knowledge management in crisis situations. A hypothesis has been established: During emergencies that arise suddenly, a variety of information and knowledge is dispersed, widely disseminated, and belongs to many different organizations. A coherent information system is needed for the dissemination and sharing of knowledge for effective assistance to people affected by the crisis. The main challenge in managing knowledge in such humanitarian emergencies, is the fact that a wide variety of information and knowledge is dispersed, disseminated, and originally belongs to many different organizations. These information resources may not be organized and used effectively during a crisis situation. Over time, preliminary and non-standardized rules are developed. The authors of this paper took part in a humanitarian action - both independently and in cooperation with non-governmental organizations. This allowed for the collection of extensive research material. During the research, the methodology of participatory observation and surveys was used. The aim of the study was to develop knowledge management standards, for use in the event of other humanitarian crises. The final research technique used is given, from participant selection to outcome analysis. It was found that processes of organizational learning and active knowledge management occurred in many forms. Knowledge was transferred in and out of the organizations. Expertise from earlier experiences was applied, and transferred, becoming explicit. Managerial skills and methods were applied in new organizational contexts. Many similarities and some differences were found, despite clear differences in the type of organisations and country of origin. The research allowed the authors to research extensively into people's motivations, priorities, and forms of information transfer. Knowledge acquisition, transfer and sharing were clearly identifiable, as was organizational learning and subsequent usage of it. Future implementation of standardized, coherent knowledge management rules, used in crisis situations will facilitate the sharing of knowledge and its reuse. The framework can also be applied to other situations of emergency decision making, such as crisis management and emergency medical assistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How to measure knowledge has attracted the interest of scholars since more than two decades. Many techniques have been proposed but they are still far from becoming an established practice. They are very heterogeneous, are based on different foundations, and often derive from techniques formerly developed for other goals. A rationale to treat the problem still lacks, which is critical for both practice and research. The paper attempts to give some order to a critical issue in the KM and IC literature, where the theoretical and methodological soundness of the various measurement techniques is still debated. By examining the extant literature, it aims to illustrate the state-of-the-art of knowledge measurement and the related issues in KM research and practice. It proposes a classification of popular methods, and discusses their differences, point of strength and weakness. Also, it analyzes their soundness from the point of view of a theory of measurement. Implications for research and practice are summarized in the conclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to look deeper at the learning processes as the specific process of knowledge creation at the subsidiaries questioning what kind of knowledge sources influence the organisation's learning processes. In this paper we use the concept of organization's learning in its' primary meaning presented in Stankeviciute's work (2002). In this respect organization's learning is treated broader than organizational learning (OL). Such an approach, proved by our previous paper (Juceviciene, Mozuriuniene, 2011), allows admitting that not only the organizational learning but also the processes of non-formal learning may be presented in the organization. These two kinds of learning processes are the structural parts of the organization's learning. The analysis of an organization's knowing creation at Multinational Corporation is based on Macharzina, Oesterle, Brodel (2001) indications that allow us to reveal and analyse knowledge sources that may influence the organization's learning. The paper does not limit itself with the theoretical research. The results of empirical research are provided and discussed. In order to get more relevant data on which knowledge sources are more important for the organization's learning at subsidiaries, the multinational company that considers itself as a knowing organization has been analysed. The research has been provided at subsidiaries of that company in three Baltic States. The method of semi-structured interview was applied. The results of an extensive research allowed to make important conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - This article examines organizational learning models to develop a mental model integrating them as an input to generalizing Knowledge Management (KM). Before Senge's coining of the term learning organization, and more recently with Marquardt's (2002) Systems Learning Organization Model (SOLM), researchers have presented different aspects of organizational learning. These models present interesting but differing viewpoints. This paper investigates their common aspects and how this can be visually displayed. It then moves past these models to identify eight ways (to prepare) to learn. Approach - Qualitative approaches were used to find and partition models discovered using seeds from an in-work KM domain term model. System engineering approaches were also applied, helping to identify which concepts to further evaluate and present. Findings - Crossan, Lane, and White's (1999) framework of four processes across the three levels of organizational learning provides the best overall generalization of organizational learning and is used to differentiate the others. Marquardt's (2002) SOLM provides an organizational level framework. Schwandt's (Schwandt and Marquardt, 2002) and Lewis's (2014) provide multi-level models from different perspectives. Parts of other organizational models seem to apply more at the individual or group levels. The eight identified ways to learn: be taught, study, discuss, reflect, practice, experiment, sense/experience, and question, collectively, directly address options in common English words. Originality/Value -This integrated perspective provides a mental model for relating selected organizational models. The eight ways to learn represent a more complete view of learning in common terms. Ways they can be considered offer a range of opportunities for organizations to learn that might not otherwise be considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper used current business theory to underpin an original research methodology modified by the authors, to expose knowledge, its acquisition, management and transfer, in voluntary not-for-profit groups operating with widely differing technical purposes. The aim was to show how the methodology identified common processes underlying knowledge management, and how it was acquired, managed and transferred, in disparate organisations. The methodology first used Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA henceforth) techniques. It was used to structure and analyse the responses after full transcription, then complemented by other analysis techniques. Transcripts were made from new interviews with disparate individuals from groups in Poland were compared with earlier published results. The underpinning acquisition process is addressed in depth. IPA was used to structure and analyse the responses after full transcription. The research question is: Are there common factors about motivational and knowledge transfer processes, in disparate groups? To identify these factors, meaning units were identified and noted, and analysis of these created emergent themes, which were then addressed using other, literature derived tools. The authors also propose to use this process for new avenues of research. Finding a methodology and answering this research question has proved a challenge, and this paper describes a methodological solution. The full research technique is presented, from participant selection to outcome analysis. The results demonstrated thatsimilar processes of organisational learning and active knowledge management occurred in all the groups. Knowledge was transferred in and out of the organisations. Expertise from earlier experiences was applied by the groups, and transferred, becoming explicit. Existing managerial skills and methods were applied in new organisational contexts. Many similarities were found, despite clear differences in technical purpose and types of organisations. Utilisation of this technique made outcomes clearly visible. Thus, this process, although very time consuming and inevitably subjective, has allowed the authors to research extensively people's motivations, priorities and beliefs. The outcome was a strong, defensible and auditable understanding of why people got involved in the organisations, their motivation and its consequences. Their knowledge acquisition, transfer and utilisation were clearly identifiable, as was their organisational learning and subsequent usage of it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge management modelling has lately mostly focused on taxonomies for contents of knowledge action (e.g. creation, protection, exploitation, dissemination) and resource-requirements for KM (e.g. chief knowledge officers' role, Intellectual Capital, KM systems). The literature on KM does contain individual remarks on the dynamic nature of knowledge and its management, but does not include the time-dependency in its frameworks. The concepts of agility and increased volatility propose that a firm's knowledge and processes on it are in a flux. Knowledge is not only accumulative but knowledge also inflates over time. Anticipation of future knowledge has rarely been inbuilt into KM frameworks. Some researchers (e.g. Kaivo-oja & Laureaeus, 2017; Rechberg, 2018) have presented reasoning as to how the futures-dimension should be incorporated into KM. Berry and Johnston-Jewell (2014) proposed a link in the opposite direction, proposing that KM approach and practices have the potential to improve futures foresight. The time-moderation (of futures) on knowledge and KM is thus a required dimension for framework building. This paper reviews the prior-art literature on the topic in the form of a brief bibliographic study. The research database Google Scholar is screened for relationships between KM and time/future-related concepts in research titles through Boolean search. The paper summarizes the findings of the analysis with a proposal of elements and their relationships needed for a dynamic knowledge management framework, where the axis of time is interwoven into the framework. A prospective framework for dynamic KM process is depicted for further study and elaboration to continue the KM framework development further from the proposals made by Saukkonen (2020). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to perform a semantic analysis of the knowledge dynamics concept and to propose a framework for the semantic clusters used in knowledge management. Knowledge is an abstract term without correspondence with any physical object. Knowledge can be understood through metaphorical thinking. Metaphors used in explaining knowledge contribute to its spectrum of meanings today and the difficulty of finding a unique definition. Among the most frequently used metaphors are those based on an object, a stock, an iceberg, a flow, a process, and energy. The concept of knowledge dynamics follows the same pattern, and its interpretation depends on the researcher's experience and the metaphor used. That explains why we find so many different interpretations for such a critical concept in knowledge management theory and practice. The aim of the present research is to perform a semantic analysis of the multiple meanings assigned to knowledge dynamics and to propose a framework for the semantic clusters. The research is based on a qualitative analysis of the literature, the theory of metaphorical thinking, and the theory of semantic clustering. We take as reference the well-defined meanings of the dynamics concept from physics and thermodynamics. In physics, dynamics means motion in space or change in time. In thermodynamics, dynamics means transformation from one state to another state or from one field into another field of a given variable. Our analysis findings can be instrumental in a better understanding of the knowledge dynamics concept and adequate utilization in practice. Many researchers use, for instance, the meaning of flow for both the concept of knowledge and that of knowledge dynamics without a correct understanding of the fluid mechanics laws. That leads to misinterpretations in their research models and empirical research. The originality of this paper comes from the semantic clustering analysis and the proposed framework used and an interdisciplinary approach. [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]

The focus of this paper is on organizational learning as an important characteristic of innovative culture and its development. The paper draws on the approach that the characteristics of innovative culture, learning among them, are treated as universal, but at the same time they may have unique features in certain socioorganizational contexts (Dombrowski et al., 2007; Hofstede, 2001; Inglehart, 1997). Those unique features may also be disclosed when innovative culture is addressed in organizations of different types. The paper addresses the following question: what features of organizational learning prevail in profit and non-profit organizations? What different (and to what extent different) mechanisms (tools) of innovation management would enable organizational learning in organizations that are of different types and belong to different sectors, and are characterized by different features of organizational learning? The research instrument was developed drawing on the theoretical model designed as a result of the involvement of the authors of this paper in the project 'Study on the Profiles of Innovative Culture in Organizations of Public and Private Sector' funded by the Research Council of Lithuania (2010-2011). The research draws on the quantitative research strategy; a written survey has been employed. Different profit (engineering, telecommunications, IT, business consulting) (110 respondents) and non-profit (schools, universities, colleges, museums, theatres, non-governmental and other) organizations (180 respondents) were selected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most Small-scale Medium Enterprises (SME's) are becoming relentless in managing and developing knowledge management systems. This is a view however that is based on anecdote rather than reliable empirical evidence. Using data from 300 SME's in Ethiopia, this paper helps redress this deficit. Specifically the paper explores the extent to which SMEs in Ethiopia engage in knowledge management programmes and deciphers some of the factors which may explain the use and non - use of knowledge management practices. The analysis reveals that although a significant number of SME's are knowledge conscious, many more seemingly adopt an ad hoc or haphazard approach. For example less than tenth have credible knowledge management systems. Consequently it seems that there is considerable distance to be travelled to arrive at a universal appreciation of the need to incorporate knowledge portals in SME operations. The analysis also reveals that larger SMEs are more likely to adopt knowledge management systems where the employed labourforce is high and where government assistance is readily available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theorists and researchers in the field of Knowledge Management are frequently frustrated by issues with concept definition, as illustrated by the following comment "there remains disagreement on methodologies, definitions and processes" from the summary article "Issues Raised at ECKM, 2008". How can we clearly define constructs of interest? How can we further research and understanding in the field if we are speaking with different vocabularies? This paper illustrates some of these issues by describing the concept definition process involved in the development of an organizational memory scale. The example being used to illustrate these issues was a self-report scale of organizational memory developed to survey experienced workers' attitudes to mentoring others to pass on their knowledge. The current research sought to differentiate between the types of organizational knowledge that experienced workers have and the possible relationships these have with attitudes pertaining to knowledge transfer via mentoring. Defining the construct to be measured is the vital first ingredient in scale development. Many researchers lament that the concept of organizational memory is a "rather loosely defined and under-developed concept" (e.g. Johnson & Paper, 1998, p.504), and this hints at the challenges that concept definition can entail. Furthermore, in the early stages of this particular project it became clear that the organizational memory scale had similar aims, and was able to borrow from, an existing sale of organizational socialization (Chao, O'Leary-Kelly, Woolf, Klein & Gardner, 1994). This paper describes the concept definition process involved in the development of the scale along with results from the exploratory factor analysis. There is a discussion of the relative contribution that the organizational memory scale makes alongside the existing measure of socialization (Chao et al., 1994), along with goals for further development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focus on fraudulent or unethical behaviors in which there is no awareness, reasoning, or intention, but an incorrect action that results from lack of knowledge in terms of action errors. Using error management framework, we focus on the potential positive effects of errors, to link the errors with the more general goal of learning. Literature has shown that errors are often related to communication failures and of sharing of information. To enrich our understanding about fraudulent or unethical behaviors, this article contributes to the extant literature by investigating how knowledge sharing behaviors impact on the process of learning from error within the firm, to preventing future fraudulent or unethical behavior. The study reports a case study for examining the characteristics of the knowledge sharing behaviors, and how these behaviors characteristics impact the process of learning from error within the organization, to preventing future fraudulent or unethical behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shortening the time for training new employees is desired, as this will mean reduced cost for the organization. The faster a new employee is a "full member" of the staff, the more income can be generated for the company. We have followed a pilot apprentice program where able to see what worked and what did not. The organization has struggled with high turnover and long training time. They introduced an apprenticeship based training, but due to circumstances within the organization, the training program "crumbled". For a while the mentors had increasingly different ways of training the apprentices. In this paper we suggest how one can develop and implement a training regime that will work over time. This will contribute towards knowledge management initiatives in the organization as it will help knowledge sharing not only between mentor and apprentice, but also between the mentors and the rest of the organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper highlights the importance of organizational and cultural contexts in the efficiency of knowledge sharing strategies and particularly strategies based on the use of Information Systems to support knowledge sharing activities. Relying not only on our theoretical investigations, but also on industrial fieldworks, we propose a framework which helps Identify, given dominant characteristics of the organizational and cultural contexts, information system functionalities to develop or to promote in order to support knowledge sharing. A case study illustrates the use of our framework and the implications of this work are finally discussed at the end of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organizations may experience a knowledge gap and the most common way of covering the gap is to either hire the competence needed or educate the existing work force. In this paper, we present a case study of a training executive that experienced a knowledge gap regarding his own execution of his job. The case study shows how learning by doing, doing by learning, assimilating, developing and sharing knowledge in an organization can enhance and develop ones work and induce changes in ones workplace. This paper will present how this approach has contributed to develop routines for training new staff, and how it has enabled the co-workers to take part in developing these routines, and execute them. The result is a dramatic reduction in the time it takes new staff to be operable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report about the design and implementation of an undergraduate course on organizational learning in an Austrian business school. Using problem-based learning, this course enables students to put theories on organizational learning into practice. In a live case study, a case partner from industry provides an unstructured and ill-defined problem which students try to solve. The design and implementation follow a recent call to complement rational-analytic with creative and design-oriented thinking in business schools and leadership education (Glen et al., 2014). The design thinking framework serves as a scaffold to apply theories from organizational learning to the problem. From a researcher's perspective, the course implementation reflects an action research cycle addressing how problem-based learning and design thinking can bring theory on organizational learning into practice. As the course evaluation shows, the proposed course design and implementation are well recognized by the students and are a viable way to teach organizational learning. With this paper, we contribute to the discourse on how design thinking can be applied in business schools and practically outline how it can serve as a scaffold to teach organizational learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper provides a discussion on questions raised by the disciplines of management and education sciences regarding the challenges and opportunities of organizational learning of teachers. The aim of this paper -to reveal the specifics of organizational learning of the teachers in higher education while implementing the study programme. In the first part, we analyse the substance of organizational learning of the teachers, based on the model of Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995), on three levels a) learning at the level of academic department; b) learning of the teacher group in the study programme; c) teacher's individual learning. The model of OLT is substantiated. In the second part, we present the empirical research and its findings regarding the teachers' organizational learning while creating the study-relevant organizational knowledge of academic departments. Based on the case study of a higher education institution situated in Lithuania, we analyse the specifics of teachers' learning and study-relevant organizational knowledge creation. In the third part, we provide a discussion on the following questions: should the OLT in higher education be taken for granted or should it be supported by managerial actions that would ultimately lead to the creation of knowledge management system? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organizations that display high levels of creativity and performance manage their knowledge effectively. Early Knowledge Management (KM) models tended to focus on explicit and quantifiable knowledge. Collectively, people in organizations display capabilities similar to those of human mind: accumulation of experience (memory), learning of new behaviors and understandings, and solving of problems and innovating (intelligence). Authors propose that these collective capabilities should be focused and managed. The paper describes a new approach to knowledge management, the Organizational Mind Model, a holistic approach that incorporates insights from three main streams of research in knowledge management: organizational memory, organizational learning and collective intelligence. Its application in an organizational setting illustrates the potentialities of the approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Looking at knowledge management (KM) literature from the perspective of KM processes shows that compared with "assessment", "creation", "absorption", "storage and organization", "sharing", and "utilization", there is a gap in terms of considering the role of "knowledge active forgetting (KAF)". Similarly, the field of organizational learning has been mainly focused on the "accumulation" side of the learning, while "creative destruction" and unlearning has been less tapped. On the other hand, empirical evidences and case studies point to plenty of situations in which learning process fails, at least in part, due to the fact that the old and obsolete knowledge in organizations prohibit firms to absorb, create, or even utilize new knowledge. However, the dominance of external (opportunistic) approaches in the strategy discourse has left little free room for considering about old and obsolete knowledge from the strategic point of view. Although, the resource based approach provides us with an analytical standpoint that paves the way of considering knowledge active forgetting both theoretically and practically, this line of research seems still in its infancy. Throughout a review of the literature of strategy, we showed that the strategic approach toward "KAF", although not well developed, has some roots in this literature. Issues such as "creative destruction" (Schumpeter, 1934; Aghion and Howitt, 1990; Caballero, 1993; Duguet, 2001; Cantner et al., 2008), "organizational forgetting" (de Holan et al., 2004), "learning to forget" (Hamel and Prahalad, 1994), "avoiding preserving the past" (Hamel and Prahalad, 1994), "strategic inflection points" (Grove, 1997) are some of these issues. As it would be the main contribution of this paper, we want to legitimize the concept of KAF as a strategic issue especially in knowledge based firms, and how overlooking this issue explicitly could negatively affect the implementation of other strategies. Finally, some theoretical questions and practical challenges have been discussed as future research and actions in the field of strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the unstable and dynamic business environment, knowledge, and mechanism of knowledge sharing are playing a critical and inevitable role in the processes of organizational learning, growth, development, and change. In addition to this organizational creativity, the fundamental component for the process of innovation that led to enhancing value creation processes and creating the organization's comparative advantage. Moreover, the employee empowerment or empowered employee is considered as one of the most consequential elements of human resource management in the organization and has a crucial role in the creative thinking processes. The main purpose of this study is to describe and examine the role of knowledge sharing in reinforcing organizational creativity. The study has analyzed the role of knowledge sharing on organizational creativity through the mediating role of employee empowerment, moreover, this paper is declaring that empowered employees are capable of being creative thinkers and that will be the most significant component for developing organizational creativity. The method of this research is based on positivism philosophy; the Quantitative research method was applied in this research. The research is divided into two main parts: the theoretical part and the empirical part. The theoretical part consists of the deep literature review on knowledge and knowledge sharing, employee empowerment, and organizational creativity. For the empirical part, the researcher used the questionnaire on a group of professors and specialists. The questionnaire was founded to be the most suitable instrument to obtain the necessary data empowerment. The hypothesis has been tested and the outcome of the study clarified that there is powerful evidence that the independent variable (knowledge sharing), has a statistically significant positive impact on the dependent variable (organizational creativity) with the mediating role of employee empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public-Private Partnership (PPP) is merely considered as a tool of governance and management (Khanom, 2010). Nevertheless, for the last 40 years, many countries and regions have been promoting PPP to overcome the drawbacks of traditional public procurement to make this model of organization a popular tool widely used in the field of public services delivery (Cui et al, 2018). The World Bank (2007) defines PPP as "an agreement between a government and a private firm under which the private firm delivers an asset, a service, or both in return for payment [..]" and the main focus of PPPs is that added value can be achieved from greater co-operation between public and private actors (Steijn et al, 2011) precisely in correspondence of this agreement. This paper aims to investigate the contribution of Knowledge Management (KM) in facilitating a sustainable improvement in the delivery, efficiency, and effectiveness of PPP projects followed by a systematic literature review underling the relations between PPP and KM. Indeed, part of international literature emphasized the gap in skills related to public involvement for PPPs, also considering the lack of case studies that investigates PPP under a KM theoretical lens (Boyer, 2016; Robinson et al, 2010; Li et al, 2003). By this qualitative literature review, we tried to identify some best practices and common rules that admit the coexistence of PPP along with a Knowledge Management approach (Robinson et al, 2010). The results suggest an innovative concept of KM within PPPs, describing it as "process or practice of creating, acquiring, capturing, sharing and using knowledge [...], whether tacit or explicit, by making it easily accessible and usable to save time, improve performances and facilitate innovation in the planning and operational phases of PPP projects" (Scarbrough et al, 1999; Robinson et al, 2010). Furthermore, this work highlights how attention should be paid on the knowledge sources (Castrogiovanni et al, 2015) and on the increasing number of theoretical and comparative investigations on KM - both in private and public sectors- in order to develop PPP tools in line with current information needs and literature gaps (Carrillo et al, 2006). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper studies the evolution of military Knowledge Management from a Command and Control perspective. The study is intended to support strategic planning of knowledge creating military organisation and defining the Enterprise Architecture for Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Information (C4I) System of systems (SoS). This paper is one part of writer's research in finding why so many C4I SoS implementations have faced challenges. Military Command and Control is studied within the framework of Knowledge Creation utilising tools of Evolution Theory and Path Creation to find patterns and dependencies. With this approach, the paper composes a roadmap for Military Knowledge Management. The study proceeds in finding further causalities and dependencies, which are useful in defining Military Enterprise Architectures. This approach identifies several ways to support the Cognitive level of Information Superiority defined by Perry, Signori and Boo (2004). The study proposes that development of a strategy following this approach should first begin with diagnoses of the three dimensions of Sense-making, Decision making and Learning utilising the defined roadmap before launching solution finding. The road map helps in recognising the current situation and assessing possibilities to improve them towards future. Flexibility becomes an essential requirement for all technical C4I systems since inflexibility in military structures may lead to strategic or operational surprise. The road map for Military Command and Control described in this paper is targeting to mitigate problems in defining the options and constraints for C4I architectures. It provides an additional method to analyse business layer of TOGAF 9.1 enterprise architecture model, especially from a military management viewpoint. The road map will help to align the development strategy with sense-making, decision making and organisational learning abilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper serves as a platform to encourage researchers and scholars to build upon triple-loop learning both as a concept and research program. The implications and limitations of double-loop learning are explored. From its notion of error detection and correction, double-loop learning represents a functional model that assumes that individuals already possess the knowledge and competency to deal with the problem at hand. However, not all problems have clear right or wrong answer. Learners do not always have the right knowledge bases to identify and solve the problem. Triple-loop learning is therefore seen to offer value since it deals with the question of "How do we decide what is right?" It provides an integrated awareness of the previous learning loops by recognizing the need for problem reframing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge management in resource-intensive and big data applications involving multiple parties where collaboration is a pre-requisite to the successful operation of the system remains a topic of much-needed innovation, especially in the wake of growing resource-intensive applications such as disaster management and smart environments. Analysis of existing literature reveals the growing need to tackle the issue of unified data dissemination. Where this issue has been given some focus, the outreach has been more or less limited to similar systems (i.e. cross-instance collaboration) and no particular focus has been applied on the problem of exposing this data or knowledge to third parties (i.e. crossvendor collaboration), which necessitates integration of semantic technologies. This paper proposes an integration of semantic technologies within the Web of Things based on the concept and principles of the Service-Oriented Architecture to realize a semi-autonomous multi-party collaboration framework that is capable of offering cross-vendor information exchange and collaboration facilities. Powered by the JENA semantic engine and exposed as a web application with a RESTful API, the generic framework offers an extensible knowledge management system for dynamic Web of Things applications. Disaster management is taken as a potential application scenario to critically analyse and evaluate the system prototype and show that the proposed framework is capable of meeting the ever-increasing needs of cross-vendor information sharing and exchange needs in today's applications. The paper presents an analysis of tag-based semantic profiling and annotation of devices in a distributed sensor network and discusses the correlation of increased profiling accuracy and reduced mapping ambiguity with an increase in the number and quality of tags provided during the profiling phase. The paper concludes by asserting that tag-based semantic profiling of network assets is an effective and maintainable mechanism for the semantic annotation of devices and for meeting the knowledge management needs of the Web of Things. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the findings of a knowledge sharing and information security literature review and identifies an interesting research gap in the intersection of the two practices. In a fast changing environment where there is increasing need to understand customers' demands and competitors' strategies (Lin et al, 2012), knowledge sharing is recognised as an essential activity for organisational success (Wasko and Faraj, 2005; Renzl, 2008). Organisations continuously aim to exploit existing knowledge, seek new ways to improve and increase knowledge sharing activities, as well as to identify and reduce possible knowledge sharing barriers. However, albeit the integral role and benefits of knowledge sharing having been widely recognised, the security or protection of knowledge has not received the same level of attention. Although the importance of protecting knowledge has been stressed by some researchers (e.g. Gold et al, 2001; Desouza and Awazu, 2004; Desouza 2006; Ryan, 2006), research into the 'softer' or the human behaviour aspects of knowledge protection is scarce. Information security is another field that has grown tremendously and is now a globally recognised discipline (Gifford, 2009) receiving attention from academics and practitioners (Wiant, 2005). Information security measures aim to prevent the loss or leakage of an organisation's valuable information and manage the resulting cost of any loss. Despite organisations' investments in prevention measures, information security breaches are still common where humans are often seen as the weakest link and 'incorrect' human behaviour as the most common point of failure. However, much of the research carried out to prevent information security breaches focuses on technical facets (Gordon and Loeb, 2006; Coles-Kemp, 2009). From the literature review, it is evident that knowledge sharing and information security have become well-established concepts in academia and within organisations. However, the middle ground between these two equally important, and adjacent, practices, has received inadequate attention. Knowledge sharing aims to encourage individuals to share knowledge with colleagues, organisational partners and suppliers; on the other hand, information security initiatives aim to apply controls and restrictions to the knowledge that can be shared and how it is shared. This paper draws attention to the perceived paradoxical nature of knowledge sharing and information security and raises awareness of the potential conflict that could compromise the protection of knowledge, or alternatively, reduce the openness of knowledge sharing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses a gap in the literature concerning the management of Intellectual Capital (IC) in a port, which is a network of independent organizations that act together in the provision of a set of services. As far as the authors are aware, this type of empirical context has been unexplored when regarding knowledge management or IC creation/destruction. Indeed, most research in IC still focus on individual firms, despite the more recent interest placed on the analysis of macro-level units such as regions or nations. In this study, we conceptualise the port as meta-organisation, which has the generic goal of economic development, both for itself and for the region where it is located. It provides us with a unique environment due to its complexity as an "organisation" composed by several organisations, connected by interdependency relationships and, typically, with no formal hierarchy. Accordingly, actors' interests are not always aligned and in some situations their individual interests can be misaligned with the collective goals of the port. Moreover, besides having their own interests, port actors also have different sources of influence and different levels of power, which can impact on the port's Collective Intellectual Capital (CIC). Consequently, the management of the port's CIC can be crucial in order for its goals to be met. With this paper we intend to discuss how the network coordinator (the port authority) manages those complex relations of interest and power in order to develop collaboration and mitigate conflict, thus creating collective intellectual assets or avoiding intellectual liabilities that may emerge for the whole port. The fact that we are studying complex and dynamic processes, about which there is a lack of understanding, in a complex and atypical organisation, leads us to consider the case study as an appropriate method of research. Evidence presented in this study results from preliminary interviews and also from document analysis. Findings suggest that alignment of interests and actions, at both dyadic and networking levels, is critical to develop a context of collaboration/cooperation within the port community and, accordingly, the port coordinator should make use of different types of power in order to ensure that port's goals are achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The field of knowledge management is in its third stage. After its emergence surrounded by a techno-centric paradigm and based on the close connection to information management in which the handling of data seemed to be most promising in order to generate knowledge, the field experienced its first social turn led and heavily influenced by the work of Nonaka who was the first to put the human in the center of any knowledge creating process. Since then, it is widely accepted that knowledge creation is a mainly social process. Shortly after the turn of the century, the field shifted for a second time: Apparently, as a result of the growing challenges of globalized economy accompanied by the phenomenon of decreasing stability and higher uncertainty, the need for new approaches in knowledge management being able to take future demands for new types of knowledge into account has emerged. Future is not a probability-based forward projection of the past. Rather, organizations and individuals need the capacity to sense emerging opportunities and adapt accordingly. There is an apparent need for theories and approaches being able to deal with the future and prepare individuals as wells as organizations for the time to come. In this third stage of knowledge-based management, the most innovative strategies are capable of anticipating and shaping the future. Scharmer's concept of "learning from the future as it emerges" can be seen as a promising strategy to do so. Based on this idea, two recent approaches are considered in this paper, namely the Theory U model for processes of profound change (Scharmer 2009) and the Vikobama method for vision development processes (Kaiser & Fordinal 2010a). The purpose of this paper is to compare Vikobama with Scharmer's Theory U model, both emphasizing on the anticipation of future needs. The paper's focus lies on the depiction of those state-of-the-art concepts to the creation and transfer of knowledge regarding their narrative methods used. The paper will be structured in three main parts. First, it will be argued that taking the future into consideration in knowledge creating processes is necessary and highly valuable. Second, the two concepts named are briefly introduced and analyzed in terms of their concrete realization. In the last chapter, we will give an outlook on how the idea of learning from the future has been advanced and introduce the concept of "interacting with the envisioned future". The main method of this concept is narrative reporting which will be contextually explained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper highlights the importance of a learning orientation for improving organizational performance in banks, which are important companies in the economy of any country. Companies in the financial sector have experienced many environmental changes in this decade. The financial crisis has broken the traditional businesses of this sector and the sector has been forced to look for new ways to survive. Organizational learning is considered as powerful key for improving the development of people (it enhances their skills, capacities and skills) and organizations (it promotes quality in the development of the activities, improves customer service, and increases in communication among employees). Organizational learning is also related to a learning culture. On the one hand, organizational culture can be a driving element of organizational learning. A culture that supports organizational learning must foster the exchange of knowledge across the enterprise, promoting processes of knowledge management. On the other hand, organizational culture has an indirect influence on organizational learning through the organization's employees. Employees who are committed to learning will tend to transfer more knowledge in different situations, such as when they support decision-making or when they possess knowledge that can be useful for the organization. The results of an investigation with 238 employees from 81 entities of one important Spanish bank are reported, using a structural equation model, to show how a learning culture is related to organizational learning and performance. In addition, we found evidence of the mediating role of knowledge commitment and learning transfer in the relationship between learning culture and organizational learning. Important conclusions and implications are derived from these results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This conceptual paper considers the issues associated with evaluating the impact of knowledge management (KM) programmes and activities in the post-bureaucratic organization. The metaphor of ripples and waves is used to describe multiple and varied interacting impacts of KM practices on individuals, groups and the organisation. There is reinforcement, dampening, cancellation and barriers to these ripples and waves of impact as a result of everything else that is happening in the organisation. Amongst many influential factors are other organisational development initiatives such as Lean or Six Sigma, leadership development initiatives and organisational restructuring, political considerations and existing embedded mindsets. This creates difficulties for knowledge managers asked to make direct cause and effect links between individual KM practices and aspects of organizational performance, particularly on the short timescale of budget cycles. This paper offers a new perspective on this issue based on examining current research in the disciplines of Strategy as Practice and evaluation and relating them to organizational learning and organizational knowledge theory. An argument is developed that moving from expecting to evaluate individual KM initiatives to a participatory approach to building evaluative capability into KM programmes offers two potential benefits: amplifying the impact of those programmes by positively developing the learning environment; and providing a more effective means of understanding what is working, what is not, and what improvements could look like. The principles that underpin building evaluative capability are founded in the language systems of the organization (the means by which learning happens). They include adopting approaches that prompt reflection and questioning, mobilising dialogue between groups, and developing contextual views of success . A participatory approach means seeking and enabling widespread involvement in those approaches. Action learning groups and appreciative inquiry workshops are identified as potentially useful approaches for knowledge managers to build this capability in practice. Developmental evaluation theory suggests that these would be most relevant within the development and implementation phases of KM activities, but it will be argued that the complex social context of a distributed knowledge system could make their application valuable beyond these. To build this capability, knowledge managers will need to develop critical thinking and evaluative questioning skills within the organisation, and demonstrate skilled facilitation and an awareness of complex dynamics associated with political considerations. Examination of the relevance of the principles to more hierarchical organizational structures is recommended, together with case-study based research to examine their value and application in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A team is a working group characterized by a certain amount of people who work at a certain amount of projects (multiple relations). Each individual of the team has different experiences and knowledge background. That means each individual followed different learning processes in its life. This leaded to a different knowledge structure. Exactly this fact, to see the individual as a knowledge resource, which is a in this context defined as knowledge node that can be part of one or more social networks, in private and/or in professional environment, will be described in this paper. By abstracting and projecting the individual's knowledge into the model of a knowledge node, there are interesting possibilities to improve the learning processes. A knowledge node is defined by knowledge domains, levels, and volumes. Furthermore, the knowledge node has a behavior on one hand for improving the knowledge, on the other hand for interacting with other knowledge nodes. Each knowledge node is in a permanent learning process. There are diverse motivations for learning, like curiosity, professional purpose, personal interest. The result is a complex individual learning process. Objective of the paper is to describe a learning process inside a social group, like a working team, on the basis of the individual knowledge resources - using the model of knowledge node - and learning processes of each group member. Results shall be the improvement of the group learning (organizational learning) process, which provides the knowledge sharing and improvement inside the group; the effects on the learning behavior of each individual; and the influence on the knowledge node, the knowledge structure of the individual, itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Universities have had an important role in human society, no matter their profiles - technical or humanities, social or medical studies. This is explained by the mission of each higher education institution. In general, the mission statement of any university relates to three main areas - education, research and social involvement which are reflected in priorities, objectives and concrete actions differentiating one university from another. Behind these priorities, there is one universal task common to all universities, which is not so concretely expressed: they educate people! Therefore, many processes in universities are different from similar ones in other type of organizations. Even when a more corporative approach was adopted by university managements, many specific issues were revealed for the simple reason that universities do not produce tangible goods. Rather they deal with knowledge, emotions, people, long term results, competences and learning outcomes. In universities, decision-making processes do not always consist of having academics or professors as decision-makers. Sometimes, the students themselves become the decision-makers. More than professors, students, when they become decision-makers, are focused more on emotions. In addition, emotions and priorities can be transferred from one generation of students to another. This paper reveals the importance of emotions transferred during teaching in order to understand the decision making processes undertaken by students. It starts from the following statement: 'students' education is based not only on transfer of theoretical and practical knowledge, but also on transfer of emotions; students' behaviours are a consequence of their learning, including emotional knowledge; transfer of emotions affects professionally the students. The main objectives of this paper consists of the following: identifying effects of the transfer of emotions during teaching; analysis of the decision-making processes adopted by students from the perspective of the influence factors; identifying measures that universities need to take in the area of quality management. The main outcome of the paper consists of identifying a new approach to be applied to quality management in universities through the set of measures proposed for the improvement of the decision-making processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper offers a theoretical framework bringing together the matters of organizational knowledge, dynamic capabilities, organizational learning, knowledge creation and innovation by drawing parallels with thermodynamics and informatics and making use of such concepts as entropy, chaos and disorder, equilibrium and uncertainty. The idea of entropy originated in the XIX century as a means of explaining the basic principles governing the operation of - at the time - steam engines, but gradually developing into one of the most fundamental concepts in modern Physics. Being effectively a measure of disorder in a system (and thus, in its original sense, explaining the system's inefficiency through the dissipation of 'useful' energy), it made its way into quite a few other fields, often quite remote from thermodynamics, wherever the notions of uncertainty and/or chaos and disorder could be made use of. In informatics and cybernetics, for example, it is used to describe how the act of acquiring information reduces uncertainty (e.g., if one checks out the weather forecast, their own predictions of the next day's weather are likely to become somewhat more accurate in probability terms). In economics and sociology it was in use, sometimes avoiding the direct application of the term, from mid-XX century, appearing in the works of scholars such as Shannon and Weaver, Pareto, Capecchi, Möller, McFarland, Carvat and Kucera as well as others, leading to the formulation of the unified Social Entropy Theory in 1990 ((Bailey 1990)). Somewhat surprisingly, no examples of its use can be found in the area of organizational knowledge and capabilities; it would appear that the leap somehow has not yet been made. In this paper we attempt to bridge the gap by highlighting the analogy between an organization and a black box process with inputs, internal process and outputs, not entirely dissimilar from Carnot's engine. It, in turn, lets us draw parallels and make a number of propositions concerning the relationships between capabilities, learning, knowledge and other related matters. The resulting framework allows further elaboration in two directions, both towards the development of more advanced mathematical apparatus and its operationalization with high applied potential. Although relying to a degree on some basic knowledge of scientific concepts and making fairly limited use of mathematical notation, the paper is aimed at the general audience and, hopefully, will be of interest to scholars and practitioners alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current demand for a higher quality of service, specifically in the healthcare sector, leads to an increase in the need for caregivers with a qualified professional attitude and advanced competency. Therefore, organizations in this sector, in order to better meet their goals and pursue high standards, need to implement managerial systems which are closely involved in managing knowledge in such a way so as to support work activities and service quality. These prior considerations support the main question of this paper which is: how to provide high-quality care through the use of managerial tools devoted to the management of knowledge. In particular we will consider the role played by factors such as managerial commitment and knowledge integration, and the interaction of these aspects with individual commitment in affecting quality care as perceived by caregivers. Using a knowledge management approach combined with an organizational learning perspective, in this paper we analyze an issue about which relatively little is known. That is, the relationship between care quality - as perceived by physicians, nurses, physiotherapists - individual commitment and managerial mechanisms supporting knowledge integration. The analysis is carried out among healthcare workers in one rehabilitation centre which operates as a Scientific Institute for Hospitalization and Care. The data for this study were gathered through a questionnaire filled in by employees and professionals (i.e. physicians, physiotherapists and nurses). A regression analysis was used to analyze the data coming from a pilot sample (N=33). Prior results show the importance of the link between knowledge management practices and healthcare service quality and gave support to the subsequent research stage, currently in progress, in which the questionnaire was administered to the whole of the centre staff (N=200) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of managing organizational knowledge for sustainable competitive advantage has gained much recognition in management and knowledge management literature and these have made contemporary organisations to be aware that the most important asset of every organization is its organizational knowledge which is embedded in its people. Therefore, the judicious management of it will create core competencies, greater performance and advantage for the organization over its competitors in the business environment. But is knowledge management all about success stories? In fact, there are evidences that a great number of knowledge management projects end up unsuccessful. Knowledge management scholars are mostly interested in the success stories of KM implementation and processes but in practice, KM fails to sometimes justify the return on investment. While many KM scholars agree that organizational learning is an essential part of knowledge management, it is therefore important to emphasize that critical organization learning comes from lessons learned from failures. In the process of Knowledge Management, these lessons learned from failures help an organization to create its knowledge and avoid reinventing the wheel. Therefore, learning from previous KM failures is important for any organization that strives to manage its knowledge. This paper is aimed to explain some of the key points of the lessons learned from KM failures. The paper explains why KM failures factors should be examined with keen interest of helping KM practitioners to learn from KM failures and avoid reinventing the wheel. The review of relevant literature, reports and articles have been studied with the purpose of understanding the reasons for KM failures and the failure factors. No doubt, this paper contributes immensely to existing body of knowledge on KM failures and will help KM managers and practitioners to avoid making the same mistake while implementing KM in their organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to determine the relationship among two intangible assets. Specifically, we studied the relationship between organizational learning and corporate reputation because both have similar properties which suggest the existence of a strong positive association. Organizational learning is a critical infrastructure that supports the strategy formulation and implementation systems of a company where corporate reputation is a key element, relying on the perceptions of stakeholders about the behaviour of the company. Consequently, organizational learning has a positive effect on corporate reputation. An empirical study was done for the Spanish accounting audit firm in 2010, because professional service firms seem to be more sensitive to organizational learning and corporate reputation, and to the attitude of employees (mainly managers). Auditing is a labour-intensive service, where the managers and employees are important actors in the interaction with customers and, therefore, in the development of organizational learning and the configuration of the firm's corporate reputation. This paper also analyzes the influence of organizational learning and corporate reputation on financial performance, because both are intangible assets through which firms can achieve competitive advantage. Subsequently, a regression analysis confirms that organizational learning activities have a positive and significant effect on some dimensions of corporate reputation, differentiating its major influence on internal and/or external dimensions. As well as this, the direct and indirect effects among organizational learning, corporate reputation and financial performance of the firm are tested through a structural equations model. The results exhibit the positive and direct influence of corporate reputation on financial performance and the positive and indirect effect (through corporate reputation) of organizational learning on that firm's results. Therefore, this study serves as an important contribution to the literature by examining and identifying the positive relation between organizational learning activities and corporate reputation, testing their direct and indirect effect on business results, in particular on financial performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to present our research results concerning the way organizations in an emergent economy may become learning organizations. According to Peter Senge, learning organizations are those that are able to go beyond adaptive learning as a need for their survival. Learning organizations must be able to think and to create their own future. These organizations must have a vision of what they would like to become in a desirable future, and they should be able to develop those strategic resources and dynamic capabilities necessary to generate a sustainable competitive advantage. One of the most important dynamic capability is organizational learning that means the capacity to integrate individual learning of all the employees into an organizational process by sharing the same vision and cultural values. Through learning we re-create ourselves such that we meet our shared goals and the external business requirements. Since in emerging economies these contextual fields of forces become more and more unpredictable and rapidly changing, it is important for organizations to develop learning capabilities. In the general context of globalization, achieving the competitive advantage on a given market means for an organization to have a fast reaction to external changes and learn how to influence the external environment itself. It is not so easy, especially in the former European socialist countries where before the political change there was a centralized and state controlled economy without any real business competition. However, this late start in the free market economy can be overcome only through an accelerated development based on organizational capabilities of learning. Learning is not a simple cybernetic process with a feedback mechanism like in engineering systems. It is much more, a dynamic process based on the capacity of the organization to renew itself through innovation and changing performance settings. Our research has been designed in concordance with these above ideas, and we developed a questionnaire aiming at identifying and evaluating the key factors needed for realization of an organizational learning and amplifying it to the level of learning organization. Mainly, we are interested to identify the following three internal fields of forces: (a) leadership; (b) organizational learning processes, and (c) a supportive organizational culture. Leadership is important to define a vision and to create motivational mechanisms for all employees to share that vision and to work within its gravity force. Organizational mechanisms could be specific to different fields of businesses, but their presence is necessary. They are based on the organizational knowledge dynamics and teamwork. Organizational culture is important to sustain all efforts of management and employees such that there is a convergence toward a common goal. We delivered 1500 questionnaires to a great number of SMEs from the North-East region of Romania and we got a rate of response of 45%. We processed these questionnaires with a professional software SPSS. Conclusions show a growing trend for these SMEs to develop into learning organizations [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main focus of the paper is learning and improvement in project-based organizations. Projects have been increasingly becoming a popular work-form in modern organizations. Many organizations consider that projects are an effective means to create focus and accomplish the intended results within a limited time frame. However, there are several important issues that are to be addressed in the world of projects. One such issue is managing uncertainty. This paper looks at uncertainty management in projects as its background, and focuses on learning in organizations. Managing / dealing with uncertainty requires, among other things, the following aspects that are connected to learning and knowledge sharing: Reflecting and making sense of the situation individually and / or collectively Utilizing existing knowledge or explore new knowledge to manage uncertainty Gaining new knowledge and competence by managing uncertainty effectively These 3 aspects can go in a spiral to facilitate improvement in managing uncertainty, and contribute to develop learning organizations. This paper is based on a research project called "Practical uncertainty management in a project owner's perspective"(in short, the PUSproject). This paper describes efforts taken by the PUS-project to create better understanding and knowledge within the field of managing uncertainty in projects. There were 6 industrial partners, from both the public and private sectors, who were involved in the project. This paper first presents a connection between uncertainty management and learning. And then, it looks at different learning strategies that were applied by the different participating organizations when it comes to managing uncertainty in their projects. These learning strategies are discussed with the referring to relevant theories. This paper suggests that learning is not a one-time or few-times event. It is an on going, dynamic process that has the potential to create new approaches and solutions to deal with uncertainty in projects in an effective manner. The learning and improvement that these six organizations achieved were based on an approach called "living" uncertainty management - a continuous, active approach towards managing uncertainty that the PUS-project applied. This paper is based on the results obtained by various research methods that were applied in the PUS-project. These methods were of both qualitative and quantitative nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Software development companies are knowledge intensive and usually adopt either traditional or agile methods to drive their projects. This paper concentrates on organizations that have been using Agile Methods (AM), which focus is, from a knowledge perspective, on tacit knowledge. Although the knowledge might flow well within agile teams, there are often opportunities in terms of knowledge flowing across teams' boundaries, which can negatively impact organizational learning. Furthermore, difficult relations between individuals within an organization may constitute a barrier to knowledge sharing (KS). Given this scenario, this article aims to analyse the influence of the relational dimension of social capital theory on tacit and explicit KS among individuals from different software development teams. To this end, a survey was conducted among individuals working in software development teams using agile methodology in which 205 completed questionnaires were collected. The data were analysed using descriptive measures and partial least squares structural equation modelling. The findings show: 1) reciprocity directly influences tacit and explicit KS; 2) norms of cooperation and trust directly influence tacit KS; 3) reciprocity, norms of cooperation and trust indirectly influence explicit KS; and 4) tacit KS influences explicit KS. These findings are aligned with the characteristics of AM, which prioritise tacit knowledge. This study should help managers and scholars: 1) identify how to increase KS among individuals from different teams using AM; and 2) understand the relevance of reciprocity, which is the only motivation directly associated with tacit and explicit KS among individuals from different teams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Boundary objects are tools used to transfer knowledge across organisational and functional divides. Where boundaries can create challenges for organisational learning and knowledge management, boundary objects can be an effective tool for overcoming them through translation and communication. Much of the project work in today's large infrastructure organisations is carried out by cross-functional teams under pressure to deliver project objectives on time and within budget and it is crucial for staff to access meaningful information and knowledge from experts in the organisations involved in projects and from other areas of the business. Understanding the features that make boundary objects effective can improve organisational learning and better inform decision-making, eventually improving organisational performance. This paper assesses whether the features of boundary objects found to be effective in biological and manufacturing environments are valid in project-based industries, particularly construction. The findings suggest that, by maximising the efficacy of boundary objects, large construction organisations can address the knowledge-sharing issues literature has identified as arising from the complex and temporary nature of construction projects. This article contributes to theory by identifying three new features of boundary objects, in addition to those listed by Leigh Star, that are used effectively in the organisation under scrutiny. The findings also demonstrate that all of the features in Star's theory contribute to knowledge transfer in a project-based environment, although not all are as effective compared to other industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to better manage knowledge for making it become productive and unlocking its developmental potential a comprehensive set of concepts, methods and tools is required that helps companies in purposefully intervening in their core processes. Challenges mainly consist in the wide and ever growing variety of those supportive means, missing guidance in selecting appropriate methods and tools, the need for adapting theoretical concepts to a certain company environment while implementation, requirements for predicting efforts and impact from knowledge-related interventions. Therefore, the paper introduces and elaborates the concept of a "knowledge clinic" that is meant to support companies in their knowledge investments in the same way as any process of medical treatment with the human body is organized: diagnosis, healing, cross-checking. In particular the paper motivates the approach, discusses its theoretical background, explains its structure and way of working, and derives conclusions on implications on change processes at company and economy levels. With this the paper wants to contribute to step forward on the road to support organizations in dealing with and profiting from knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As organizations strive to improve their business performance and capacity for innovation, their attention is increasingly focused on how they manage knowledge. This is a reason why Utilizing organizational knowledge is a strategic weapon to acquire a competitive advantage. In knowledge management (KM) processes, Representing and capturing Knowledge is an important constituent. One tool to represent and make knowledge visible throughout the organizations is knowledge mapping. Knowledge mapping plays an important role in the construction, learning, and dissemination of knowledge. KM is most effective when it is approached holistically. This is achieved through a series of integrated initiatives aligning human resource issues, ICT infrastructures and informal learning interventions that enable the organization to improve the quality of the knowledge it holds, enhance access to and the retrieval of the knowledge. European Foundation for Quality Management excellence (EFQM) model could be considered as an interface to integrate KM. EFQM excellence model is an appropriate assessment tool for organization to identify which sectors have strengths and which has weaknesses. To do so, model provides some criteria and sub criteria in two main sections: enablers and results. In order to achieve bullet points in EFQM model, organization require a set of skills and knowledge in the organization. Exploitation of proper knowledge maps supports the organization to classify these knowledge and skills. This paper proposes a practical framework to capture and represent organizational knowledge in a holistic approach based on EFQM enablers. In order to achieve this aim, paper focus on enablers components. Subsequently by exploring these enablers in a systematic view, knowledge maps were developed for enablers. Proposed framework is subject to implement in a real case in shipyard industries to provide practical evidences. Following the illustration of knowledge maps role in KM process, paper proceeds by analyzing different knowledge maps. After a brief review of EFQM model and the role on knowledge maps in this model, the appropriate map will be selected to map organizational knowledge based on bullet points in EFQM model. Finally lessons learned from industrial case study will discuss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to describe a PhD research work in progress, which empirically determines organizational learning processes in University-Industry Research Cooperation (UI). Since knowledge is considered to be the most valuable resource of an organization, the management of knowledge has become a central issue in the scientific as well as in the practical field. For industrial companies, one promising source of new knowledge creation is the research cooperation with universities. But still the preservation and transfer of (tacit) knowledge is a major challenge for organizations. Since project work is commonly applied in UI research cooperation, the documentation of tacit knowledge and the transfer of procedural knowledge to other parts of the organization are considered as essential steps towards a learning organization. While research projects bear a high learning potential for individuals and the whole organization, the practical realization of this idea is not fully accomplished yet. One reason is the unanswered question of how to design project work of UI cooperations in a reflexive manner for the purpose of organizational learning. Therefore the research question can be formulated as follows: How should project work in UI research cooperation be designed to foster organizational learning? To answer this research question the author refers to various theoretical fields of research (organizational learning, knowledge management, project management). Since social interaction is considered to be an essential part in project work and tacit knowledge transfer, a qualitative research approach in form of a single case study seems to be adequate. Object of determination will be the institutionalized program of an industry organization which undertakes diverse research and development projects in cooperation with several universities in Germany. In conducting interviews with participants from both organizations and in observing the generation, use and transfer of the project knowledge, the author develops a model of reflexive project work, which can be seen as an advanced version of actual project management in regards of a sustainable use of organizational knowledge. Research results will offer interesting insights into the design of cooperative UI research projects. Implications derived from the research may be useful for scientists in the field of knowledge management and project management as well as to practitioners like project managers or consultants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the fundamental challenges indentified in Knowledge Management is the process of capturing knowledge. To successfully capture knowledge, it must first be acquired. Knowledge Acquisition is concerned with the acquisition of knowledge from knowledge sources. This can occur in one of two ways, by using nonhuman sources (e.g. electronic documents, organisational databases, etc.) or human sources. Knowledge Elicitation is the field concerned with the acquisition of knowledge from human sources. In the literature, the terms Knowledge Acquisition and Knowledge Elicitation are often used interchangeably; however there is a clear distinction between the two. In a new and emerging field such as Knowledge Management, it is important that this delineation is made. This paper explores the relationship between the two concepts and provides a roadmap from Knowledge Acquisition to Knowledge Elicitation. The research begins with an overview of the field of Knowledge Acquisition, focusing on three different approaches, Automated, Semi-automated and Manual Knowledge Acquisition techniques. The issues that impact the selection of each are discussed (known as the Knowledge Acquisition Bottleneck). From this, the paper proceeds with an overview of the Knowledge Elicitation, looking at the various influences that have directed research as well as the issues and requirements for successful elicitation. The paper concludes with an examination of the various classifications of techniques that exists with the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this conceptual paper is to present a practicable method for conducting knowledge management in a value-oriented way. Therefore, a concept is deduced for integrating the resource knowledge into value stream mapping, an established method for business process optimization. The concept is discussed by examining its expected benefits as well as the challenges identified. In order to allow for the implementation of this concept, a three-layered approach for a knowledge-integrating value stream mapping method is presented: The first layer includes components for data collection, knowledge-specific preparation and visualization. The second layer contains the selection mechanisms for interlinking layer 1 and layer 3, which finally comprises knowledge management processes as well as a wide set of according methods and tools. The practical application of the approach is exemplarily illustrated on the basis of experiences from a case study. The paper concludes by identifying the specific need for further research on this topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organizational structure has been linked to several strategy constructs: organizational learning; firm internationalization; innovation;firm performance;organizational capabilities; product development etc. However, until now, studies have not classified the role that organizational structure plays in facilitating or inhibiting knowledge creation. This paper attempts a classification using multinational corporations as context. The paper's aim is to show how the formal organizational structure could influence knowledge creation activities. Organizational structure components include: reporting relationships; organization routines; standard operating procedures; reward systems. This list is by no means exhaustive and could vary from one organization to the other but this paper focuses on reporting relationships and routines. Knowledge creation is a process that adds value for multinational corporations. It has been identified by the knowledge based view as a process that leads to competitive advantage for firms if well coordinated (Grant, 1996b, Nonaka, 1994b). This paper adopts ideas of the emerging knowledge governance approach which hypothesizes that organizations can influence knowledge creation through the use of formal mechanisms(Foss, 2007). The overall proposition is that formal organizational structure components particularly reporting relationships and routines influence knowledge creation through particular organizational controls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces the concept of Key Knowledge Sharing Point (KKSP) to describe potential crossroads in global innovation projects. As Knowledge Management becomes more and more important in global settings it is essential to identify when and where key knowledge is or must be shared within specific process cycles in order to run innovation projects successfully. The goal of the paper is to contribute to the methods development of standardisation as a design activity in the domain of learning technologies. This activity is reported suffering from a legitimacy crisis and needs both improved process and products. As a Key Knowledge Sharing Point the authors understand situations or events in which knowledge sharing is of essential importance for the success of an activity. The KKSP construct is explored in in two cases studies in order to test its abilities as a descriptive lens. The first case study analysed a case of legitimacy breakdown in stakeholder engagement, focussing on Key Knowledge, Key Sharing Points and Key Timing, the three intersecting aspects of the KKSP constructs. The second case study was chosen for its critical timing (scope definition of new standardisation work items), and demonstrated the analytical strength of the KKSP construct highlighting the importance of what knowledge to be exchanged through which channels. This paper describes a first step towards a prescriptive model based on a iterative development with several cycles of descriptive studies. The authors use Actor Network Theory to analyse standardisation activities understood as a recursive process of design, sense-making and negotiations. For further development of the KKSP construct in a prescriptive direction the authors point to the problematisation and perspective primitive Why as a starting point. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge is becoming is becoming an increasingly important factor of organizational competitiveness. The way knowledge is shared within the organization is essential and central not only to the success of the organization but also among those employee who share it, since those who take part in the knowledge sharing process also benefit from it. Since middle managers have an important position of within the organization and play a significant role in the process of knowledge sharing this paper has focused on the knowledge sharing of these middle managers in Hungary. A new method of how to measure middle managers' maturity of knowledge sharing is presented in this paper. Between 2007 and 2010 an empirical survey was conducted during which 400 middle managers working at medium- and large-sized enterprises in Hungary were investigated by a questionnaire. The answers of this survey have been analysed using Principal Component Analysis and four different components regarding the maturity of knowledge sharing have been identified. These four components are the availability among middle managers, the availability among the middle manager and subordinates, the usefulness of knowledge among middle managers and the usefulness of knowledge among the middle manager and subordinates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is about a research project called "Practical uncertainty management in a project owner's perspective" (in short, the PUS-project). This paper describes efforts taken by the PUS-project to create better understanding and knowledge within the field of managing uncertainty in projects. Traditional way of managing uncertainty falls within the iron triangle of cost, time and quality that are associated with the project, and focuses mainly on threats rather than opportunities. The PUS-project proposed the perspective of project owner in order to deal with and manage uncertainty in projects effectively. This paper looks at how cooperation between the PUS-project and one of its main industrial partners (Norwegian Directorate of Public Construction and Property Management (Statsbygg)) took place. In this regard, this paper presents what was done and what was achieved through this cooperation. Statsbygg organises, plans and executes around 160 projects - large and small - at all times, and 20-30 large projects are completed every year. Managing uncertainty is an important part of project management. This paper describes how improving uncertainty management in Statsbygg's projects becomes a means to knowledge transfer, learning and organization development. Efforts related to learning and knowledge transfer played an important role in the process of organization development that Statsbygg experienced. These kinds of efforts have the potential to promote a culture that positively influences the way uncertainty is dealt with and managed in projects in Statsbygg. These efforts can contribute to create awareness and proper attitudes that are needed to obtain the desired results. Cooperation between the PUS-project and Statsbygg, which is presented in this paper, is an example that illustrates how knowledge and value can be created through collaboration between practitioners from the industries and researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current academic debate has shown the value of knowledge as the most critical intangible asset for organizations and its essential role in the achievement of a competitive advantage. This paper provides evidence of the complexity involved with the set of knowledge assets owned by firms in innovation strategy. In particular, according to the Knowledge Based Theory of the Firm, the paper considers that intangible resources are key elements for organizational development and innovation. That is, organizations must be aware that understanding their own knowledge base can lead to a set of capabilities enhancing the chances for their growth and competitive advantage. The context of the study is the small enterprises, i.e. firms with less than 50 employees according to the wide accepted small enterprise category reported in the last EU recommendation (2003). The research analyzes the effect of knowledge sources importance and organizational knowledge base on two different types of innovation: product and process innovation. To do this we estimated four factors: one representing the breadth of knowledge owned by the firm and three other factors. One, considering human capital as source of knowledge and two external knowledge sources such as: cooperation with non industrial agents and interaction with actors of the supply chain. Analysis is based on a sample of 144 small firms operating in mechanical sector in central Italy. The results have important practical implications for small firms management; they indicate that for the two processes of innovation investigated (process and product innovation), the importance attached to knowledge sources and to the use of different cognitive assets play a different role.In particular we find a positive relation between product innovation and prior organizational knowledge base and learning by human capital (internal staff and learning by hiring). The results also suggest positive relations between process innovation and learning by knowledge networking (Universities and Research Centers, other Companies and Groups, Associations), learning by HC and learning by competitive functioning (Customers, Suppliers and Competitors). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]