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There is an increasing interest and growing practice in Citizen Science (CS) that goes along with the usage of websites for communication as well as for capturing and processing data and materials. From an educational perspective, it is expected that by integrating information about CS in a formal educational setting, it will inspire teachers to create learning activities. This is an interesting case for using bots to automate the process of data extraction from online CS platforms to better understand its use in educational contexts. Although this information is publicly available, it has to follow GDPR rules. This paper aims to explain (1) how CS communicates and is promoted on websites, (2) how web scraping methods and anonymization techniques have been designed, developed and applied to collect information from online sources and (3) how these data could be used for educational purposes. After the analysis of 72 websites, some of the results obtained show that only 24.8% includes detailed information about the CS project and 48.61% includes information about educational purposes or materials.

This paper aims to identify the current state of knowledge management (KM) diffusion in LIS schools. In terms of content, we have identified two principal approaches to the perception of KM in the LIS community: an active approach, seeing KM as an opportunity for the LIS community to change; and a passive approach, seeing KM merely as a topic of information management with a new label. Our research analyzed study programs at 145 LIS schools and in 188 LIS study programs in the United States, Canada, Europe (in particular, Russia), Australia, India, South Africa, China, Japan, Singapore, and Brazil and observed the inclusion or non-inclusion of KM courses in those programs. We employ a narrower approach to defining a KM course as being one having the term "knowledge management" in its name. The findings indicate that KM courses are integrated in one-third of the LIS study programs analyzed, and in schools with an information science focus this figure can rise to around 45%. Given the importance of this area and various views regarding KM diffusion in LIS schools, we recommend that those who have already implemented a KM course in their LIS programs create an informal community of practice (CoP) on KM implementation in LIS schools and build an open database of lessons learned from such integration, thereby capturing and sharing this crucial knowledge in a single place.

Purpose: An interorganizational learning (IOL) Web-based platform provides an ambidextrous working area, where employees can switch between exploration and exploitation-related activities. This study aims to present new indications on how to increase the acceptance and use of Web-based platforms for IOL. Specifically, it proposes how acceptance rates can be increased by focusing on the key mechanisms in Web-based platforms that are important from the users' perspective. Design/methodology/approach: Survey data were collected from employees in universities, companies, government agencies and research and technological development performers. Data analysis applies a multi-group analysis (MGA) based on the partial least squares structural equation modeling. Findings: Performance expectancy is important in explorative, exploitative and ambidextrous organizations. Moreover, effort expectancy is an important driver of platform acceptance in explorative organizations, facilitating conditions in exploitative organizations and hedonic motivation in ambidextrous organizations. Originality/value: This study contributes to the IOL literature by analyzing specific acceptance characteristics of potential users of a Web-based IOL platform for research and development. As the first paper published in this research context, it explicitly considers explorative, exploitative and ambidextrous organizations based on interactive and integrative interorganizational ambidexterity.

Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) have a great importance in Europe, but the dynamic nature of market has created a competitive incentive among companies requiring them to improve their critical area of knowledge management (KM) and corresponding skills to create new business. More entrepreneurs, more innovation and growth are necessary and this could be realized particularly by supporting young people who would like to be entrepreneurs but the existing education and training programmes are insufficient. Mentoring is in comparison with coaching/counselling a special form of active supporting of entrepreneurship competence, a "natural support" helping also young people with special needs to believe in themselves and boost her confidence. The mentoring approach helps young people giving them practical entrepreneurial support and SMEs to improve the transfer and use of strategic knowledge. Knowledge is the key for all organizations and the success of many of them depends on the effective deployment and continual enhancement of their knowledge base so as to be innovative and to remain/become competitive. The paper first describes the areas of research, mentoring, entrepreneurship education and KM and then used methods and results. Examples for projects supporting the improvement of young entrepreneurship education and KM also by using mentoring are given.

The purpose of this paper is to throw light on sustained research-practice collaborations (called 'schemes' here) aimed at improving educational outcomes. The empirical work combines a survey of thirteen school-university knowledge-exchange schemes in six European countries, with four case studies drawn from these. Three theoretical models of knowledge use are employed to aid analysis of these cases. It is suggested that a judicious mix of the three perspectives helps in understanding what makes such collaborations successful. Stages in the cyclical process of improving practice through use of research are described, beginning with frank analysis of pre-existing ways of thinking and culminating in the challenge of altering established practice.

This paper aims to advance the state of knowledge related to innovation and philanthropy, by exploring the emerging field of 'participatory grantmaking' (PGM) through the lens of innovation literature. While there are increasing amounts of European and global grantmakers utilizing more participatory methodologies in their grantmaking as a means to move power and increase the collective ability to create social good, there is yet to be any literature specifically exploring the links between these two fields. This conceptual paper, therefore, uses a broad reading of innovation literature to argue that it is most fruitful to consider PGM as innovation within four modalities: as a form of social innovation, process innovation, both radical and incremental innovation, and user-driven innovation. The paper ultimately finds that user-driven innovation (and in particular co-creation / co-production as a strategy to user-driven innovation) may provide the best examples of theory and practical relevance for those utilizing PGM as a means to democratize philanthropy in Europe and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The advancement of sciences and technologies, economic challenges, increasing expectations, and consumerism result in a radical transformation of health and social care around the globe, characterized by foundational organizational, methodological, and technological paradigm changes. The transformation of the health and social care ecosystems aims at ubiquitously providing personalized, preventive, predictive, participative precision (5P) medicine, considering and understanding the individual's health status in a comprehensive context from the elementary particle up to society. For designing and implementing such advanced ecosystems, an understanding and correct representation of the structure, function, and relations of their components is inevitable, thereby including the perspectives, principles, and methodologies of all included disciplines. To guarantee consistent and conformant processes and outcomes, the specifications and principles must be based on international standards. A core standard for representing transformed health ecosystems and managing the integration and interoperability of systems, components, specifications, and artifacts is ISO 23903:2021, therefore playing a central role in this publication. Consequently, ISO/TC 215 and CEN/TC 251, both representing the international standardization on health informatics, declared the deployment of ISO 23903:2021 mandatory for all their projects and standards addressing more than one domain. The paper summarizes and concludes the first author's leading engagement in the evolution of pHealth in Europe and beyond over the last 15 years, discussing the concepts, principles, and standards for designing, implementing, and managing 5P medicine ecosystems. It not only introduces the theoretical foundations of the approach but also exemplifies its deployment in practical projects and solutions regarding interoperability and integration in multi-domain ecosystems. The presented approach enables comprehensive and consistent integration of and interoperability between domains, systems, related actors, specifications, standards, and solutions. That way, it should help overcome the problems and limitations of data-centric approaches, which still dominate projects and products nowadays, and replace them with knowledge-centric, comprehensive, and consistent ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to fill a significant research gap in academic literature pertaining to open innovation (OI). To do so, this paper empirically tests the impact of organizational culture, employees' knowledge, attitudes and rewards as antecedents and mediators of OI adoption in organizations, facilitating a more thorough understanding by using an empirical multi-level approach. Design/methodology/approach: This paper analyzes the results of the "Identification of Industrial Needs for Open Innovation Education in Europe" survey through a quantitative analysis using logistic regression models. This survey includes 528 employees working in 28 different industrial sectors in 37 countries, most of which are in Europe. Findings: The results suggest a positive impact of organizational characteristics on the adoption of OI (i.e. including the adoption of outside-in and inside-out OI activities in participating organizations), showing that the openness of an organization's culture increases its likelihood of adopting an OI paradigm. More importantly, the results highlight the positive mediating effect of employees' knowledge and rewards on this relationship. Research limitations/implications: The data set that was the basis of this paper was generated in European countries, the results of the analysis are limited and appropriate for this region and may vary when applied to other regions of the world. Practical implications: The proposed multi-level approach offers new insight into organizational knowledge. It enables the improvement of OI and knowledge management practices in organizations by assisting practitioners and academics in recognizing the relationship between organizational culture; employees' knowledge, attitudes and rewards; and the adoption of the OI paradigm. Social implications: This paper offers a possible explanation on why open-border cultures are more likely to have a successful OI adoption, by relating it to factors that advance in the presence of an open-border culture, such as active participation of OI relative departments in knowledge sourcing and knowledge exchange, and rewarding employees for OI activities. Originality/value: This paper presents a new framework which links organizational culture to OI, moving on from merely examining culture in terms of its positive or negative impact on OI adoption. It contributes to research on the OI paradigm and knowledge management by highlighting the significance of antecedents and mediators from a multi-level perspective using multiple units of analysis. Most previous studies focus on a single unit of analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Against the backdrop of physical ageing, asset management organizations not only struggle with scattered object‐related data across incompatible software and models, but also dispersed, often missing, insights from domain experts. There is a large volume of data already available particularly at National Road Authorities i.e. object characteristics, inspection and measurement results, usage records. Yet this data is distributed, has complex and varying structures, it takes cumbersome effort to find and obtain for a particular asset management decision. Semantic knowledge models aim to capture domain information and represent it via class definitions, their attributes, relationships and in instances. Such models are used to create knowledge bases, where different technologies are utilized. In the IM‐SAFE project, a knowledge base is created based on a Semantic Wiki Platform. It captures asset information concerning their structural analysis and state on 99 civil structures across Europe. In this paper, a step‐by‐step methodology is provided to build the knowledge base. The paper involves knowledge acquisition, data collection, knowledge modelling, populating datasets and quality assurance steps. It will conclude future implications to make the base expandable and widely used for asset management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates extrinsic motivation as a determinant of knowledge exchange among employees in sales teams. Applying a social network approach, we study different forms of knowledge‐exchange behaviors from the perspective of a focal employee and from the perspective of the dyad. From the focal employees' perspective, we disentangle knowledge seeking from knowledge providing, and argue that these two behaviors are affected differently by employees' extrinsic motivation. From the dyad perspective, we take similarity in motivation of tied‐to employees and reciprocity of exchange ties into account. To test our hypotheses, we apply exponential random graph models to data gathered from 138 employees in five different sales teams distributed across three companies in Central Europe. The results of our analysis from the focal employees' perspective show that extrinsically motivated employees generally engage in less knowledge exchange. The dyad perspective further highlights that sales employees proceed purposefully when they exchange knowledge with coworkers. For instance, two employees' relative levels of extrinsic motivation determine their willingness to engage in reciprocal knowledge exchange. We discuss the implications of our findings for research on the microfoundations of organizational knowledge management and draw conclusions concerning HRM practices used to foster extrinsic motivation, thereby affecting knowledge exchange. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Skills needed in jobs and skills mismatches are important topics for research and policy in the field of economic development and the labour market. Understanding skill needs is essential for improving education and training policies, as labour markets experience dynamic transformation driven by rapid technological progress and increased complexity of work. On the other hand, knowledge economy is considered an important driver force of economic growth. This paper aims to assess skill needs in knowledge production and transfer occupations. We analyse data from online job advertisements and from the European Skills and Jobs Survey in order to provide a comprehensive picture of skills needed in occupations related to science, technology and ICT, as well as teaching positions from higher education in Europe. We find that workers involved in knowledge production and transfer activate in highly changing and challenging working environments. They differentiate themselves by other professionals and technicians mostly by the increased need for ICT skills, problem-solving, communication and learning skills, the ability to collaborate and adaptability. Our results are relevant for designing better education and training programs targeting occupations supporting knowledge production and transfer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a cross analysis of European countries studying knowledge variables related to investment and performance. The findings of the factor analysis reflects the existence of four key factors (Push&Pull effect; what we are like; education domino effect; and knowledge employment) which should be taken into account for managing governmental strategies within the European market. According to these factors, four clusters of countries have been identified focusing the case of the first cluster, comprised of Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands and Austria, which has been called 'knowledge countries'. This paper presents interesting findings about how European countries manage their knowledge and in consequence, how they establish their growth strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of Smart Specialisation Strategies (S3) is one of the key policy instruments for Europe's regional development. The strategy considers the regional sectoral diversity to build a competitive advantage and increase the position in the knowledge economy. Particularly less-developed regions can benefit in this context when Smart Specialisation is promoted as the primary instrument of European Cohesion Policy. One strategy to develop the competitive advantage of moderate innovator regions is to develop a common, collaborative strategy to overcome regional disparities by leveraging regional growth potential. A methodology is presented by the authors, which is suggested to be accompanied for the identification of Smart Specialisation Strategies in an interregional context. The objective of this is to supply a novel method for interregional Smart Specialisation development and to improve its outward-looking orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper highlights the main features of some Euratom projects, which have been running recently in support to education, training and mobility in the nuclear fields. The described projects address various critical aspects of nuclear knowledge management, aiming at maintaining the wealth of nuclear expertise in Europe in an environment characterised by decreased attractiveness of nuclear careers. In an effort to broaden the cooperation and to further extend the opportunities for mobility, some projects ran in parallel with similar initiatives undertaken beyond the European borders. The lesson learnt in terms of successes achieved and critical aspects revealed by the different actions are finally discussed also considering recent recommendations and assessed scenarios by the European Commission for the decarbonisation of the energy sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tests predictions from institutional and rational perspectives about the adoption of organizational practices through a comparative study of human resource management in firms located in six European countries. Distinguishing between calculative practices-aimed at efficient use of human resources--and collaborative practices--aimed at promoting the goals of both employees and employer--the paper predicts differences in adoption across countries. Results show that institutional determinants, as indicated by the national embeddedness of firms, have a strong effect on the application of both calculative and collaborative human resource management practices. Firm size, a rational determinant, has a considerable impact on calculative practices, whereas the effect of industrial embeddedness is quite modest for both practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose Governance of healthcare organisations and health systems requires many different competencies, with a great emphasis on evidence and information governance, which are traditional fields of librarians' expertise. However, stakeholders are unaware of how health and hospital libraries are contributing with specific activities and what are the trends in library support for health/clinical governance in Europe, mainly because traditional methods of measuring impact are restricted to specific library activities or are not showing direct impact long term. The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approach A model combining components of clinical and health governance (C/HG), related library activity types, and the possible impact was developed based on a literature review and tested by a European expert panel. A web-based survey was offered to the members of the European Association for Health Information and Libraries (EAHIL) to offer further insight into activities and examples of contribution to C/HG.Findings Librarians from 25 European countries participated in the survey. The model proves that librarians in Europe are involved in supporting most identified components of C/HG, with examples of clinical effectiveness and research, education and training, patient and public involvement, partnership engagement, formulating strategic direction, etc.Research limitations/implications The authors were unable to cover the roles of libraries in all European countries in this paper, but dialogue and research will continue within the EAHIL group.Originality/value No such comparative research has been undertaken before, looking at what activities and tasks libraries undertake to support C/HG. This research has highlighted valuable services and tools that can be replicated in libraries across health care organisations and at the same time promote libraries and librarians as significant actors in organisational governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Writings on urban development and planning in Europe have been dominated by a combination of technical studies of the real estate sector and more structural political economy approaches on land expropriation and financialisation. In this paper we draw on the example of the London Landed Estates, to critically assess how land-owning real estate companies, that we call city-owners, perform their roles and what models and knowledge sources they draw upon in managing and carefully curating urban spaces and places. Data sources include interviews with estate managers, others involved in, or affected by, their management, and other corporate public information. Our theoretical framing draws on performativity theory that we see as a valuable addition to existing research approaches. We describe and analyse the ways these agencies construct narratives and practices of socially responsible and historically established forms of performance, that they label place stewardship, and the specific mechanisms they use to bring places into existence. Collectively, the discussion calls for an increased focus on how models abstracted from local context and politics can be 'localised', in the study of the governance of the built environment. Greater attention also needs to be paid to the work that place does in influencing the strategies, tactics and activities of property owners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the specific role of mid-range universities in knowledge transfer and explores the knowledge flows from these mid-range universities which face a number of additional constraints in transitional Central Eastern European (CEE) regions. The first part focuses on the theoretical framework of knowledge transfers and on the types of university–industry linkages involving knowledge transfer in the case of mid-range universities. The next section examines the development path and specific trajectories of universities in post-communist countries. The following sections draw on the findings of the ERAWATCH research and focus on cases from the non-metropolitan regions of Hungary and the Czech Republic in order to examine the specific barriers to knowledge transfer and explain the reasons behind the traditionally weaker role of mid-range universities. The paper argues that ambitious university-based developmental models have to be revised in CEE regions and the future development role of universities has to be reconsidered from a more realistic perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to provide insights into the phenomenon of knowledge flows. We study one of the main mechanisms through which these flows occur, namely, the mobility of highly-skilled individuals. We focus on the geographical mobility of inventors across European regions. Thus, patent data are used to trace the pattern of inventors' mobility across European regions, to track down focuses of attraction of talent throughout the continent, and to study their distribution across the space. To do so, we gather information from PCT patent documents and we first match the names which seemed to belong to the same inventor and then we create a new algorithm to decide whether each patent applied for under each name belongs to the same inventor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After introducing the challenges and failures of first generation e-government (identified as e-Gov 1.0), and the rhetoric of the next generation of e-government efforts (identified as e-Gov 2.0), this paper presents an analysis of the promises of m-government, a relatively new phenomenon whose potential is largely unknown and unexplored but is already considered by many to be the most important subset of future e-government services. Discussing some cases of m-government technologies and applications worldwide, the paper identifies a number of risks and research questions to be further elaborated. In practice, are we about to go through a major adapting societal move, partly due to information and communication technologies (ICTs) but also to other co-factors likely to influence our near future (socio-political-economic and environmental trends), or are we just passing through a natural evolution (eventually faster than others occurred in the past)? Within this particular dynamic, the paper further addresses the importance of looking at what the various emerging scenarios may be, and which ones have to be considered and eventually deployed in terms of policy-relevant and favourable cost-benefit perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - This paper aims to determine whether the implementation of knowledge management (KM) is linked to e-business performance and to identify the nature of the relationship existing in the different components of knowledge-sharing and application and internet-based KM. Design/methodology/approach - This paper establishes a new model of the practices and results of the KM which has been tested in European companies. For that purpose, a structural equation modelling analysis was used. Findings - The results show that product innovation and external employees' access to databases have a strong positive effect on the maximization of internet-based KM and that internet-based KM has also a positive impact on e-business performance. Research limitations/implications - Limitations of this study include the need for more research into the KM cycle. This paper contributes to the research on this topic with new evidence in a broad sample. Practical implications - These results point to KM's usefulness in improving every day e-business processes. Therefore managers should be aware of these benefits. Originality/value - The present study advances knowledge on the nature of the relative importance of different components of internet-based KM as drivers of e-business performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Europe's transportation infrastructure including bridges requires optimised maintenance plans and adequate monitoring throughout its life cycle to ensure safety and serviceability. The deployment of new technologies can help this goal, providing numerous advantages compared to existing and established inspection and monitoring methods. This deployment can be facilitated by adequate policies and focused research and innovation, taking also into account the European ambitions for safe, secure, and future-proof transportation infrastructure. Considering the above, the objective of this study is threefold. First, it provides an overview of recent policy initiatives in Europe that facilitate the adoption of new and emerging technologies in bridge inspection and monitoring, as well as maintenance in general. Second, it identifies and reviews R&I projects relevant to bridges, including the budgetary expenditure, from the Horizon 2020 European Research Framework Programme which was recently concluded. Finally, it systematically reviews technologies and solutions developed by the identified projects, assessing also their technology readiness. What emerges is substantial research, which includes solutions and technologies (e.g., use of air or ground drones, artificial intelligence, digital twins) that have the potential to reshape the bridge inspection and monitoring state of play in Europe and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The classical approach of teaching and learning mostly based on knowledge transfer is questionable as knowledge life cycle is shortening and new type of jobs appear every day with new knowledge request. In this vein, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how to switch the focus from learning knowledge to learning generic skills liable to help future professionals to think and learn by doing.Design/methodology/approach The research is based on a 30-item questionnaire that was addressed to over 500 students involved in management and business undergraduate and graduate programs from two well-reputed Romanian universities. Three hundred and forty questionnaires were filled in and processed using SPSS, version 19. Additionally, a factorial analysis was performed, with a view to extract the most important factors that are involved in developing generic skills in university programs.Findings Results demonstrate that most of the students from the undergraduate programs prefer the classical approach – less implication and responsibility in doing a harder conceptual work – while most students from the master programs are open to the new perspective of learning to learn, namely, to developing generic skills.Research limitations/implications In the new turbulent business landscape, universities face a significant change in teaching their students. Although the research adds to the value of the extant literature on generic skills (also known as core skills), it is mainly focused on a Romanian sample, thus reflecting a context-based perspective.Originality/value The current study provides a preliminary insight into the perception of Romanian students about developing generic skills and into their readiness to assume the role of main actors in the learning process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Regional Studies is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Twenty years ago, historians complained that the art of excerpting was still a marginal topic. Ten years later, Ann Blair said that the history of note-taking had only just begun to be written. Indeed, historians spent nearly 25 years investigating how note-taking and excerpting systems developed in early modern Europe, and how great an influence they had on knowledge management and production in a society that gradually adapted to the mentality of printing. In the absence of an interdisciplinary book combining historical evidence with theoretical reasoning, this article aims at sketching out how early modern Italian culture took part in the debate on what we call the art of excerpting and note-taking (trascegliere e notare). The main hypothesis is that, within a century of the invention of the printing press, the notebook lost its function of memory aid and became a secondary memory. This functional change implied a loosening of the rhetorical structure of learning and experimentation with a new form of knowledge production, based on recombination. As a result, scholars discarded the culture of repetition and began to look for novelty. This produced a type of hypertrophy of variety: note-taking and excerpting techniques were understood as a way not only to avoid an excess of variety but also to produce substantially more variety than before. Knowledge was thus stored as a kind of "fine Capital" (Muratori) in view of an open future. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, scholars regarded such capitalisation as a question of "good taste". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Workforce management (WFM) systems potentially enable the optimisation of the management of the workforce (WF) of a service provider (SP) in order to maximise both service quality and efficiency. Although the extent research literature provides characterizations of the various typologies of WFM systems, the effects of these systems on productivity and quality have not been investigated very extensively. This paper proposes a classification of WFMs that enables an SP to select the most suitable WFM, on the basis of both SP operating characteristics and SP efficiency objectives. The aim of this classification is to offer guidelines to SPs intending to implement a WFM system for the first time in order to improve productivity and quality. A case study of two departments of an important European telecommunications services company is then presented in order to examine the implications of our research for WF management. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editors discuss various reports within the special issue on topics including value, practice and meaning in social work research, application of research to inform practice, and developing the practice of social work research.

Purpose |!|#8211; Effectively managing the cultural environment is an important stepping stone towards international business success. Cultural problems, especially between partners coming from diametrically different cultural categories represent one of the key challenges of knowledge management in international business co-operations. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of controversial cultural attitudes on collaboration and the use of most diverse knowledge capital of employees being regarded as a key resource for innovation and competitive advantage. Design/methodology/approach |!|#8211; Based on a comprehensive literature review, the very extensive data collection phase, applying the case study method, was carried out over a 13 month period. It mainly consisted of in-depth interviews requiring 23 of them to reach theoretical saturation, non-participant and participant observation (seven), focus groups (four) and fieldtrip notes in two culturally diverse Russian and Austrian research settings. Theoretical sampling was used to select the participants. The grounded theory method of constant comparative analysis was used to analyze the gathered data. Findings |!|#8211; The attitude towards sharing the precious resource of diverse employees|!|#39; knowledge regarded as a prerequisite to international business success is influenced by national cultures. Protective attitudes for knowledge sharing limit the growth of humans|!|#39; and the company|!|#39;s development. This paper suggests that providing the appropriate knowledge management tools and environment, especially referring to the soft aspects of emotions, will enhance and even change former institutionalised and ingrained patterns of behaviours. Therefore, the paper sheds light on the knowledge sharing contingency depending more on a social-cognitive state rather than a static hierarchical status. Originality/value |!|#8211; The paper poses two innovative organizational memory conceptualizations based on respondents|!|#39; needs and demands entailing a synthesis of knowledge management and interpersonal interactions to achieve the highest level of efficiency and high degrees of knowledge sharing and absorption. It bridges the gap of purely knowledge based and unemotional management tools towards a lively and engaging tool. This would appear to be the first time that an investigation of this type has been conducted explaining culturally influenced factors of knowledge management in Eastern and Western European co-operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent resurgence of growth studies has clearly established that technological progress and knowledge accumulation are among the most important factors in determining the performance of regional and national economic systems. In this paper we propose new evidence on knowledge flows across European regions based on patenting at the European Patent Office. We examine in- and out-flows of patent citations as a proxy of knowledge connections, while looking also at their dynamics through time. The econometric analysis is based on a model where the exchange of knowledge across regions is mainly affected by geographical distance together with a set of spatial variables. The main result is that knowledge flows decrease as the geographical distance between the origin and the destination region increase. Furthermore, knowledge flows tend to be higher among contiguous regions and areas within the same country. These results prove to be robust with respect to the inclusion of other characteristics of the origin and destination regions (production structure, economic conditions and technological efforts) as well as different estimation methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we address the manifold nature of knowledge through the analysis of four distinct but complementary phenomena (Internet hyperlinks, EPO co-patent applications, Erasmus students mobility and European research networks) which characterise knowledge as an intrinsic relational structure (directly) connecting people, institutions and (indirectly) regions across five European countries. We study the structure (in terms of density, centralisation, clustering, assortativity, centre-periphery and resilience) of these international knowledge flows through network analysis techniques and we test the influence of geographical distance as opposed to sectoral (based on the industrial distribution of innovative activity) and functional (based on the value of the European technological index) distances in shaping the strength of knowledge relations through a gravitational model. Network Analysis techniques applied to the configuration of international knowledge flows between European regions highlight the existence of a polarised hierarchical structure. By estimating a “gravity equation” model we demonstrate that, far from the claim of the “death of distance”, geographic distance is still relevant for determining the structure of inter-regional knowledge flows. Functional and, above all, sectoral distances play also a relevant role suggesting that knowledge flows easier between similar regions (according to their technological level and the industrial distribution of their innovation system). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we contribute to the longstanding discussion on the role of knowledge to economic growth in a spatial context. We observe that in adopting the European policy strategy towards a competitive knowledge economy, the Netherlands is—as most European countries—mainly oriented towards industrial, technological factors. The policy focus is on R&D specialized regions in their spatial economic strategies. We place the knowledge economy in a broader perspective. Based on the knowledge economy literature, we value complementary indicators: the successful introduction of new products and services to the market (“innovation”) and indicators of skills of employees (“knowledge workers”). Using econometric analysis, we relate the three factors “R&D”, “innovation” and “knowledge workers” to regional economic growth. We conclude that the factors “innovation” and “knowledge workers” are more profoundly related to urban employment and productivity growth than the R&D-factor. Preferably, urban research and policy-makers should therefore take all three knowledge factors into account when determining economic potentials of cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper provides a synthesis of the construction industry needs and requirements in relation to the adoption and use of information and communication technologies (ICT). This is based, on the one hand, on existing research and technology development initiatives commissioned at a national and European level, and, on the other, on a wide consultation with construction industry key players across Europe. A framework, used as a basis for capturing industry requirements, and formulating an ICT vision, has been defined. Five priority areas have been identified with the potential to solve the ICT related problems of the construction industry, namely: knowledge management, legal and contractual aspects management, quality and performance management, total lifecycle management, and human aspects management. The ICT vision, enabled by addressing these priority areas, has been formulated on a consensus basis, and a detailed roadmap has been developed providing a pragmatic implementation of the proposed vision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Given that knowledge and information are critical resources for acquiring access to the EU policy process, the question of this paper is how firms should manage the knowledge and information strategies surrounding their lobbying attempts. Developing an appropriate resource base is critical for firms trying to bring their interests to bear on European decision-making. The same holds for the ability to recognize potential points of entry to the EU policy process. Next to substantial knowledge and expertise, therefore, the ability to understand policy dynamics and the appropriate timing of lobbying attempts are critically important in corporate lobbying in Europe. The implication of this argument is that managing knowledge and information strategies become increasingly important for handlings firms' public affairs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How firms build new capabilities to adapt to changing environments is at the core of strategic management. However, research has addressed this question only recently. In this paper, I propose a model that describes how firms develop a capability to create and develop ventures through corporate venture capital, alliances, and acquisitions. The model is based on two longitudinal case studies of large corporations operating in the information and communication technology sector in Europe. At the core of this model are learning processes that enable the firm to build up an external corporate venturing capability, by utilizing learning strategies both within and outside venturing relationships. To build this new capability, firms engage in acquisitive learning. Critical to deepening the capability acquired is adaptation of all knowledge to the firm specific context through experiential learning mechanisms. I also discuss the important role that initial conditions and knowledge management practices play in determining the direction and effectiveness of specific learning processes that lead to an external corporate venturing capability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at investigating inter-regional knowledge spillovers across European sub-national regions. The basic questions that we wish to answer may be formulated in the following way: do regional geographical and technological proximities matter for the creation of new knowledge within the European regional landscape? After a review of the related literature, we consider a regional knowledge production function that allows for extra regional innovation-generating inputs. Accounting for regional specific “social capability”, this knowledge production function is applied to an extended sample of 153 European sub-national regions over the period 1989–1996. Interregional knowledge spillovers are shown to exist between geographically close regions and between regions displaying similar technological profiles. However, technological proximity and geographical proximity coincides to a certain extent. Knowledge spillovers are mainly driven by the private business sector. If knowledge spillovers occur within a given country, the national border turns out to seriously hamper interregional spillovers on the European scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The competitive advantage of cities in the developed world is increasingly thought to lie in their superior access to the knowledge-base. The generation of new knowledge through investment in research and development leads to new products, services and processes which form the basis of the new economy. Attempts to correlate knowledge creation with economic growth have therefore tended to use R&D measures such as the numbers of research establishments in a rather narrow sense. This paper develops a much wider measure of the knowledge-base comprising tacit knowledge, codified knowledge and knowledge infrastructure for 19 European cities. With the exception of the two world cities, London and Paris, which significantly underperform, there is a broad relationship between the quality of the knowledge-base and economic change as measured by the competitive shift-share residual. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the shift of personnel management towards human resource management in Europe after 1992. The initiative to abolish the maze of non-tariff barriers that impede the flow of goods, services, capital and people among members of the European Community (EC) emerged out of economic necessity. The White Paper and the European Single Act have accomplished something that was considered impossible years ago: the belief in the possibility to create a single market of 324 million consumers by the end of 1992 through administrative elimination of all technical, physical and fiscal barriers. The effects of deregulation and standardization on achieving economic unity in Europe, without political unity however, are discussed.

Pursuing a nodal (i.e., subsidiary) level of analysis, this paper advances and tests an overarching theoretical framework pertaining to intracorporate knowledge transfers within multinational corporations (MNCs). We predicted that (i) knowledge outflows from a subsidiary would be positively associated with value of the subsidiary `s knowledge stock, its motivational disposition to share knowledge, and the richness of transmission channels; and (ii) knowledge inflows into a subsidiary would be positively associated with richness of transmission channels, motivational disposition to acquire knowledge, and the capacity to absorb the incoming knowledge. These predictions were tested empirically with data from 374 subsidiaries within 75 MNCs headquartered in the U.S., Europe, and Japan. Except for our predictions regarding the impact of source unit's motivational disposition on knowledge outflows, the data provide either full or partial support to all of the other elements of our theoretical framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The authoress deals with the state of university education nowadays. Starting from theory of miseducation, she discusses the phenomena that have appeared within education as a consequence of European educational politics and developmental movements of contemporary civilization. In this context, special critical attention is paid to the notion of "learning society" and the related terms: IT society, knowledge management and knowledge economization. The antique idea of education, humanistic concept of education and the character of today's education are compared in the paper. The course of movement of the idea of educatedness is analysed that headed towards obliterating of the paradigms that had been established by educational tradition and which have experienced its negation through the form of modern semi-educatedness and today's miseducatedness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]