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Purpose: Intellectual capital includes what employees know and the agility to search and retrieve knowledge (organizational agility). Organizational agility could be seen as the result of using validated routines and protocols (knowledge application), but also as the result of using unproven theories, rumors, colloquial expressions, or sayings (counter-knowledge), which means that organizational memory may enable both the application of good knowledge and the mitigation of counter-knowledge. This study examines the links between a firm's organizational memory, counter-knowledge, knowledge application, and organizational agility. Design/methodology/approach: Using SmartPLS 3.2.8 in a sample of 112 companies, the following questions were addressed: Does the improvement of organizational memory result in the growth of organizational agility? Does the growth of counter-knowledge and knowledge application at the same time hinder the enhancement of organizational agility? Findings: The results support that organizational memory not only enhances the application of gained knowledge but also allows the spreading of rumors, gossip, and inappropriate or false beliefs (counter-knowledge). Furthermore, results support that the knowledge that emerges from the development in parallel or simultaneous of counter-knowledge and knowledge application provides bad references, which will lead to a degradation of organizational agility. Practical implications: When supporting organizational agility, managers should be conscious of the urgency of counteracting the misuse of counter-knowledge. Originality/value: These findings make an important contribution to what is potentially a barrier to innovation and creativity, helping managers overcome the problems associated with misunderstandings or wrong assumptions derived from counter-knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – People live and work in a world where they do not have complete knowledge and, as a result, they make use of rumours, beliefs and assumptions about relevant areas of concern. The term counter-knowledge has been used to refer to knowledge created from unverified sources. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between counter-knowledge and human capital (HC) as well as investigating interactions between absorptive capacity (ACAP) and HC. Design/methodology/approach – A model is tested to examine the relationship between counter-knowledge, HC and the financial performance of 112 companies listed on the Spanish Stock Exchange. Findings – The results are calculated using structural equation modelling. This leads to the main conclusion that while the increasing presence of counter-knowledge leads to a reduction of ACAP and, by extension with HC. However, in the context of the sample, HC has positive effects on firms’ performance. Therefore, consideration must be given to the evaluation of the real cost of counter-knowledge or inappropriate assumptions on HC. Practical implications – The key managerial implication of this paper is that management should actively develop an organizational culture which questions the source of any knowledge and favours evidence-based reasoning over reasoning based on “gut instinct”, what has worked in the past and reasoning based on rumours and gossip. Originality/value – This paper provides empirical support for the argument that the all so-called “knowledge” generated from the sharing of unverified news is not necessarily good knowledge. Rumours or gossip shared thanks to unverified sources are some examples that illustrate people possibility to create inappropriate or false beliefs via unsupported explanations and justifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]