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PurposeIn the context of today's knowledge economy, development policies that are mainly based on knowledge as a primary source of wealth and added‐value are increasingly adopted by cities and countries. This tendency is becoming much more common due to the global financial crisis. Thus, the knowledge‐based development field has been in a state of important progress during the last decade. This paper seeks to discuss and highlight the major issues of knowledge‐based development. By doing so the paper aims to present an agenda for future research directions for the present decade of 2010‐2020.Design/methodology/approachThe paper presents an agenda for future research by co‐instantaneously presenting the status in relation to the major pending issues of the knowledge‐based development field. This is accomplished through a wide‐scope literature review and qualitative scoring of knowledge‐based development (KBD) categories.FindingsThe main finding is that research is needed in four main directions: development of holistic and unified approaches for the practical formulation of citizen‐centric knowledge‐based development strategies; knowledge‐based urban planning; knowledge‐based development assessment and metrics; practical aspects of implementation of knowledge‐based development approaches.Research limitations/implicationsResearch in the paper is based on a wide literature review of the most important and added‐value available resources in the KBD field and in qualitative scoring of research categories. Use of empirical components such as citation analysis, field surveys, knowledge network analysis as well as for a specific approach regarding the scoring system would be needed in future research.Originality/valueThe discussion and issues presented in the paper should be of value not only to researchers and practitioners but also to cities and countries willing to design efficient and effective knowledge‐based development strategies.

During recent years, the theme of Knowledge Cities (KC) has evolved as a major topic of interest, in the context of the knowledge-based development (KBD) field. The KC theme, being multi-dimensiona...

PurposeTo survive in the global economy, SMEs have to improve their products, services and processes, exploiting their intellectual capital in a dynamic network of knowledge‐intensive relations inside and outside their borders. This paper aims to explore the rationales for the integration of knowledge management (KM) and ERP in SMEs and to present a conceptual model for their integration.Design/methodology/approachA wide range of academic and practitioner literature related to ICT and KM adoption from SMEs is reviewed. On the basis of this review and analysis, a conceptual model is designed.FindingsThe proposed model is regarded as an adaptable solution, where an SME with a traditional business structure uses existing IT applications and builds on them. Before applying the proposed model, SMEs should ensure that their KM initiatives fit into their organisational culture, or otherwise they should be prepared to change it.Research limitations/implicationsThe applicability of this model in an SME seeking to gain a competitive advantage needs to be explored. Practitioners should use the model in order to develop new platforms and extended ERP modules.Practical implicationsThe model can be used in any area of information and knowledge management.Originality/valueUsing the model, SMEs can achieve the integration of ERP and KM, which is proven to be a necessity for them in the knowledge economy.

PurposeKnowledge cities (KCs) are cities in which both the private and the public sectors value knowledge, nurture knowledge, spend money on supporting knowledge dissemination and discovery and harness knowledge to create products and services that add value and create wealth. Knowledge cities fall under a new area of academic research entitled knowledge‐based development (KBD), which brings together research in urban development and urban studies and planning with knowledge management and intellectual capital. The purpose of this paper is to advance the research in the KC area by exploring stakeholder knowledge partnerships in a knowledge city.Design/methodology/approachBased on their previous research, the authors' main discussion highlights the need for more effective local government and stakeholder knowledge partnerships to better support knowledge management (KM) initiatives in a KC and proposes a conceptual model, as a good research starting‐point, to assist local governments develop and capitalize on more effective knowledge‐based stakeholder partnerships.FindingsThe main issues related to local government‐stakeholder partnerships are discussed and several processes are analyzed that can facilitate more effective two‐way knowledge transfers between local government and stakeholders in a KC, which are fundamental for establishing successful knowledge partnerships.Research limitations/implicationsIt would be interesting and useful to deepen the analysis made by the authors and look for more fundamental reasons behind their observations.Originality/valueThe main advantage of this paper is that it proposes a simplified conceptual model for stakeholder knowledge partnerships in knowledge cities.

PurposeThe concept of knowledge cities (KCs) offers advantages to any urban region. Many cities globally claim themselves as being already KCs, while other cities have elaborated strategic plans in order to integrate this concept into their operational structures. The examination of their approaches reveals however that these initiatives are fragmented. The purpose of this paper is to present a multi‐dimensional and integrated decision support model for a KC's strategy formulation.Design/methodology/approachReference is made to a methodological approach (KnowCis) for the integrated development of a KC, consisting of five main phases and taking into account nine different dimensions. The strategy formulation phase is a particularly complex procedure for any authority (e.g. local government or city's development agency). The reasons for this complexity are related to the amplitude of the KC concept, to the variety of the factors to be considered as well as to the challenge for balancing the needs and interests of different target groups.FindingsThe proposed model consists of the following building blocks: identification of the appropriate actions (based on the KnowCis methodology), modeling of the city's current status as a KC (via the development of related indicators), assessment of actions' necessity (based on the indicators' outcomes and through the benchmarking of other successful KCs cases), selection of the most appropriate form for each proposed action (based on their efficiency during the last reference period) and, finally, prioritisation of the proposed actions (based on a multi‐criteria approach).Research limitations/implicationsThe main suggestion for future research is the development of an intelligent information system which will incorporate the building blocks of the proposed model.Originality/valueThe originality and value of the paper is that the proposed model can be a really helpful decision support tool for any city which is developing a knowledge‐based strategy.

The concept of the Knowledge City is a subfield of the Knowledge-Based Development which, during the last years, has attracted the interest of many researchers and practitioners. Various cities around the world have also undertaken considerable efforts and initiatives so as to be developed or to enhance their status as a Knowledge City. However, their approaches were rather ad-hoc and spontaneous and were not based on a pre-defined methodology. The research community has only recently begun to concentrate on the direction to substantiate the fundamental principles of Knowledge Cities and to define unified methodologies for their design, development and operation. Under this prism, the authors have recently proposed such a methodology, called KnowCis. The application of this methodology is currently in progress, on a Greek municipality. The municipality incorporates some special characteristics and features that render it a very advantageous case for this pilot application. This paper refers to the characteristics of the municipality and to the application of the KnowCis methodology, presents the progress of the effort and the preliminary results until now and provides useful insights on the forthcoming actions and plans of the city's administration. The outcomes, results and lessons-learnt of this pilot application will permit to fine-tune the KnowCis methodology.

PurposeThe concept of knowledge cities (KCs) is particularly advantageous for any contemporary city. Many cities globally claim themselves as being already KCs, while other cities have elaborated strategic plans in order to be transformed into KCs. The examination of their approaches reveals that these initiatives are fragmented and there is not a unified and coherent methodological approach. The purpose of this paper is to present the basic elements of a methodological approach for the integrated development of a KC.Design/methodology/approachThe examination and analysis of many cities' approaches, on a previous research work, have permitted one to identify an emerging pattern of successful KCs' main characteristics and features. These characteristics served as the basis in order to develop a methodological approach for the development of a KC.FindingsThe paper presents the basic elements of a methodological approach, named KnowCis (knowledge cities), which consists of five main phases.Research limitations/implicationsThe concept of KCs is very broad and consequently the purpose of the proposed approach is to incorporate all the related aspects. A suggestion for future research is the enhancement of the approach in order to incorporate additional aspects of a city's life.Practical implicationsThe KnowCis approach is a useful tool for any city that intends to be developed as a KC. At this stage there is an ongoing collaboration with a Greek city for its pilot application.Originality/valueThe approach presented in this paper is unified and it can be easily adapted in order to comply with the particular characteristics of each city.

Nowadays, it is commonly accepted in both researchers' and practitioners' communities that many disciplines and practices of the knowledge management (KM) field are also relevant and applicable to the knowledge-based development. This is reflected by the fact that the theme of knowledge cities (KCs) is now a ‘hot’ topic of interest and discussion. However, as it also happened with the early stages of evolution of KM, there is neither a coherent framework nor a unified methodology for the design and implementation of successful KCs. The real success of KCs is under investigation in the research community. In this direction, the authors propose a set of hypotheses for the design, development and operation of successful KCs. Then, based on an empirical evaluation of several case studies that have been successfully put in real practice they discuss the support of each case to these hypotheses. The key findings are expressed as a framework for building successful KCs.

PurposeIn the new era of knowledge economy, knowledge and the processes to generate it and manage it are considered to be the most valuable assets of an organisation in the competitive business environment. Over the last years, intensive discussions have taken place about the importance of knowledge management for the whole of society, except for the business world. Today, there is a consensus among researcher and practitioner communities that the challenges facing modern societies call for development strategies that are knowledge‐based. Such strategies could enable humankind to pursue the vision of a global society in which all the basic human needs can be satisfied, while maintaining a healthy and physically attractive environment. However, general agreement has not yet been reached on which type of knowledge‐based development (KBD) strategy is the most advantageous and should be followed. This paper attempts, on the one side, through the study of current literature, to demonstrate the needs that should be fulfilled by KBD strategies and, on the other side, to justify why the relatively new concept of knowledge cities is the one that fully corresponds to these needs.Design/methodology/approachThe authors attempt to review and analyse in a coherent way the current trends regarding KBD policies as well as to examine the needs to be addressed by successful KBD strategies, based on a wide range of published works, including papers, books, reports and web sites.FindingsThe main finding is that there are many issues that contemporary KBD policies should address and that the new concept of knowledge cities fully corresponds to these needs.Research limitations/implicationsRecommended directions for further action research are presented.Originality/valueThe distinguishing feature of this study is that it shows that the concept of a knowledge city is the most appropriate and advantageous model for a KBD strategy, fully complying with and satisfying their needs.

PurposeDuring the last 15 years, knowledge management (KM) has changed from one generation to the next through constant improvements and new perspectives. A myriad researchers have presented methodologies, frameworks, technologies and have discussed various KM theoretical and practical issues. However, KM still needs extensive development – it is in its infancy. This paper aims to explore the world of KM in a different way; to review the current status quo and analyze the main agreements and disagreements among researchers and practitioners in order to highlight the key issues which need to be further researched.Design/methodology/approachThe authors attempt to review and analyze in a coherent way the main agreements and disagreements among researchers and practitioners – in the field of KM – based on a wide range of published works, including papers, books, reports and web sites.FindingsBased on the key agreements among researchers and practitioners and having in mind the remaining disagreements, the third KM generation should proceed to further investigation of several KM issues and to further research.Research limitations/implicationsThe key issues highlighted here need to be researched further. Following on from the individual‐knowledge focus of the 1970s/1980s and the group‐knowledge focus of the 1990s/2000s, the third KM generation should: develop criteria for evaluating frameworks, methodologies and approaches, and systems for measuring knowledge, intellectual capital and other assets; include double‐loop learning; analyse investments and costs of KM Systems; use modern technologies for transfer of explicit knowledge; and apply KM to other areas of social life. There is also a need to clarify the meanings of differences between the various concepts discussed here.Originality/valueThe distinguishing feature of this study is that it emphasizes placing KM in a broader context of researchers/practitioners’ discussions so that the key issues can be better recognized and understood.

Over the past several years, there have been intensive discussions about the importance of knowledge management (KM) in our society. Nowadays, it is commonly accepted that many KM disciplines and practices are relevant to the social‐level knowledge‐based development. In this context, the new theme of “knowledge cities” came to the front. This paper attempts on the one hand to define the concept in a coherent way – presenting also its main implications and benefits – and on the other hand, to examine – on a worldwide scale – the different models of knowledge cities as well as modes of practice. The authors were based on a broad range of published works, including papers, books, reports and Web sites. The main approach was to briefly present the existing views of the concept, accompanied by some criteria determining a knowledge city. The authors also tried to provide a meaningful and concise review of existing cases, avoiding to get into many confusing details. This review provided valuable input for the definition of the key success factors and main benefits related to knowledge cities. This new concept is currently a main topic of interest for the research community and practitioners. It becomes clear that it has important benefits and in this way, focused research is needed towards many directions, in order for it to become a part of our life in near future. This integrated review is a very useful source of information for academics and practitioners who want to be acquainted with the knowledge cities concept.

Knowledge management (KM) has recently received considerable attention in the computer information systems community and is continuously gaining interest by industry, enterprises and government. Decision support and KM processes are interdependent activities in many organizations. In all cases, decision makers always combine different types of data and knowledge available in various forms in the organization. One of the key – but also criticized – building blocks for advancing this field of knowledge management and consequently supporting the decision making is artificial intelligence (AI). In this framework, this paper aims to improve understanding of AI towards knowledge management. It examines and discusses both the potential and the limitations of basic AI technologies in terms of their capability to support the KM process and shares thoughts and estimations on further research on the development of the next generation decision support environments.

Knowledge Management (KM) has recently received considerable attention in the computer information systems community and is continuously gaining interest by industry, enterprises and academia. As we are moving into an era of "knowledge capitalism", knowledge management in combination with information management will play a fundamental role towards the success of transforming individual knowledge into organizational knowledge. Higher education (HE) institutions are in the knowledge business, since they are involved in knowledge creation, dissemination and learning. The increasing economic importance of knowledge, which nowadays redefines the links among education, work and learning, makes the role of KM in HE crucial. In this framework, this paper presents the key concepts of human-computer interaction in knowledge management, discusses their applicability to HE and proposes the creation of learning organisations in HE institutions, as an innovative way to apply KM to HE.

In the current competitive environment, each company faces a number of challenges: quick response to customers’ demands, high quality of products or services, customers’ satisfaction, reliable delivery dates, high efficiency, and others. As a result, during the last five years many firms have proceeded to the adoption of enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions. ERP is a packaged software system, which enables the integration of operations, business processes and functions, through common data‐processing and communications protocols. However, the majority, if not all, of these systems do not support the production scheduling process that is of crucial importance in today’s manufacturing and service industries. In this paper, the authors propose a knowledge‐based system for production‐scheduling that could be incorporated as a custom module in an ERP system. This system uses the prevailing conditions in the industrial environment in order to select dynamically and propose the most appropriate scheduling algorithm from a library of many candidate algorithms.

Knowledge management has recently received considerable attention in the computer information systems community and is continuously gaining interest from industry, enterprises and government. As we move towards building knowledge organizations, knowledge management in combination with information management will play a fundamental role towards the success of transforming individual knowledge into organizational knowledge. In this framework, this paper discusses the key concepts of human‐computer interaction in knowledge management, identifies new challenges of knowledge management for Web‐based business and proposes a “user agent architecture” for knowledge management in e‐learning environments. User agents use artificial neural network technology and can be used in various e‐learning or e‐training environments, in order to provide them with means of managing information stored, filtering content and enabling better knowledge adoption on behalf of their users.

Planning and scheduling are forms of decision making, which play a crucial role in manufacturing as well as in service industries. In the current competitive environment, effective sequencing and scheduling has become a necessity for survival in the marketplace. A great challenge for today’s companies is not only how to adapt to this changing, competitive business environment but also how to draw a competitive advantage from the way in which they choose to do so. Intelligent solutions, based on expert systems, to solve problems in the field of production planning and scheduling are becoming more and more widespread nowadays. Proposes an expert system, which uses the prevailing conditions in the industrial environment in order to select and “fire” dynamically the most appropriate scheduling algorithm from a library of many candidate algorithms.

Within the last decade many projects have been implemented in order to provide technical assistance (TA) to countries, which have initiated their transition from centrally planned to market economies (mainly countries of Central and Eastern Europe being previously under the Soviet regime). The monitoring and evaluation exercise aims at assisting these TA projects in achieving their objectives, by providing management information on the projects’ implementation, so that structured management decisions can be taken, if and when needed. In this framework, the necessity for creation of an overall M&E database system emerged. The IMES was developed for the needs of the European commission (DGLA) and its main objective was to improve the Management Reporting on Tacis progress and results, by extracting relevant information on projects’ performance from the monitoring and evaluation reports and by producing overall statistics at NIS (New Independent States) level.

Nowadays, knowledge is considered as one of the most valuable assets of an enterprise which has to be managed efficiently and effectively in order to gain a competitive advantage in the knowledge economy era. Knowledge Management (KM) evolved into a strategic management approach, finding application not only in the business world but also in other areas such as education, government and healthcare. In this way, the new link between KM and KBD created the appropriate environment for the advent of a new concept in the scientific and practitioners’ communities, the concept of “Knowledge City” (KC). Nowadays, the theme of KCs is a ‘hot’ topic of interest and discussion. The process for developing a KC, is neither quick nor simple. This seems to be already understood by the research community, which the last few hears has begun to concentrate its efforts so as to develop appropriate frameworks, methodologies, tools, systems, etc so as to support the development of KCs. In this context, and given that there are still many pending issues, this article attempts to propose a taxonomy of KC research, by co instantaneously presenting the status with these major themes of KC research. The discussion presented on this article should be of value to researchers and practitioners.

In an effort to follow the new public administration roadmap but also invest in the sharing of knowledge, governmental organizations appear in a crossroad: a lot of knowledge has been created, organized and even digitized but still it cannot be considered available anywhere, anytime, for any citizen, business or other organization. The more scientists and managers study the issue, the more they realize that it is a question of “crossing the desert” than “jumping over the gap”. Making governmental knowledge available to its final beneficiaries requires the design, development and deployment of a Federated Knowledge Registry, as the platform to cater for the formal description, composition and publishing of the governmental services canvas. Such a system will manage traditional or web services, together with the relevant electronic documents and the process descriptions, in an integrated schema. Touching upon all knowledge management processes from knowledge capture, knowledge sharing, to knowledge creation, the chapter goes beyond the methodology and tools used for developing such a system for the Greek Government, to the integration and the diffusion of eGovernment knowledge with the help of formal ontology definitions - capturing the core elements of the domain together with their main relationships.

The healthcare environment is changing rapidly, and effective management of the knowledge base in this area is an integral part of delivering high-quality patient care. People all over the world rely on a huge array of organizations for the provision of healthcare, from public-sector monoliths and governmental agencies to privately funded organizations, and consulting and advisory groups. It is a massive industry in which every organization faces a unique combination of operational hurdles. However, what every healthcare system has in common is the high price of failure. Faced with the prospect of failing to prevent suffering and death, the importance of continuously improving efficiency and effectiveness is high on the agenda for the majority of healthcare organizations (Brailer, 1999). Taking also into consideration that the amount of biological and medical information is growing at an exponential rate, it is not consequently surprising that knowledge management (KM) is attracting so much attention from the industry as a whole.

E-government, driven by an ever-increasing and pervasive use of information and communication technologies, is affecting the public sector more and more (Bannister, 2005; Eyob, 2004; Metaxiotis & Psarras, 2004). Many governments across the globe have resorted to instituting e-government initiatives as a way of better positioning themselves in the Information Age (Information for Development Programme [InfoDev], 2004), or seem at least to be showing commitments in redressing the imbalances resulting from the low utilization of knowledge resources and ICT in the economy and governance (Joi, 2004). E-government is enabling government organizations to provide better services to their constituents. The ability to improve citizens’ access to services has made e-government an attractive investment for government organizations, fueling worldwide implementation of such applications (Amaravadi, 2005; Scherlis & Eisenberg, 2003). As an emerging practice, e-government seeks to realize processes and structures for harnessing the potentialities of information and communication technologies at various levels of government and the public sector for the purpose of enhancing good governance. The key issues in transformation are the adoption and uptake of interoperable standards, the development of appropriate business models, the legal and policy frameworks that will facilitate integration, and governance arrangements that support both enterprise responsibilities and crossagency approaches and responsibilities.

Recent EU and Greek Government legislation highlights the need for the modernisation of the public health management system and the improvement of the overall health of EU citizens. In addition, the effusion of epidemics even in developed countries makes the need for the enhancement of public health services imperative. In order to best confront the above-described challenges, the National Technical University of Athens, in cooperation with the Greek Ministry of Health and Welfare and the European Commission (EC), designed and developed an integrated public health information network, named GEPIMI (Integrated Geographical System for EPIdemiological and other Medical Information), in the framework of a three-year pilot project. This pilot project, funded by Greek Ministry of Health and Welfare and the EC supported the Programme INTERREG II to establish an advanced and integrated web-based information system that can process and move information in real time, allowing public health authorities to monitor events at hundreds or thousands of public health facilities at once. The system is established among hospitals, primary healthcare authorities and health agents in Greece, Bulgaria, Albania, Fyrom, and Turkey. The project aims at demonstrating the best practices, prospects, applications and high potential of Telematics Healthcare Networks in Europe, with a view to promoting cooperation and interconnection between European communities in the field of Telematics Healthcare Applications. The GEPIMI System, implemented via an innovative web based system, constitutes a replication of a highly effective mechanism. It incorporates state-of-the-art technologies such as Geographic Information Systems (G.I.S.), web based databases, GPS, and Smart Card Technology and supports a variety of health-related web applications including early warning and response of epidemics, remote management of medical records, seamless healthcare coverage, comprehensive statistical analysis of data, decision-making procedures, inter-communication between international scientific fora and other.

As various e-Government initiatives are being realised throughout the world, policy makers and technology providers start to understand the importance of local administration e-Government systems. Municipalities are often the closest Point of Service for the European citizens and enterprises, having access to all the necessary information and usually providing the final service – a fact that makes their e-Services Portals a very important link in the e-Government chain. After attempting a positioning of municipality systems in the taxonomy of e-government systems, the present paper analyses the set of services that a Municipality Portal should be able to offer, focusing on eEurope – related capabilities. Based on this service directory, a multi-faceted classification mechanism is proposed, leading to an extendible taxonomy of e-Services to be offered by Municipality e-Government systems. A set of facets is analysed for each service, allowing for classification of services based on their main purpose, nature, orientation, means of provision, and various functional characteristics. Through populating, viewing and querying this multi-faceted classification, the design, development, deployment and impact assessment of e-Government systems for Municipalities can be systematically addressed.

One of the most difficult works in the world of ERP systems is proven to be their installation and customization to fulfil the needs of the customer. With the great development of Knowledge Management in the last decade a new era has begun; the era of capturing, storing and managing effectively ERP Consultants' knowledge in order to rapidly build customized enterprise systems, which in other times would take months to model and develop. This paper presents such a case, where IT and Knowledge Management power are used in order to surpass the difficulties of this ERP field. The authors describe an advanced generic Case-Toolkit, which is able to support the complicated process of Modelling and optimal adaptation (MOA) of an ERP system to the needs of an enterprise. This tool-kit aims to be used by the ERP consultants in two ways. The first is to analyse, categorise and store the business processes and the second is to use the business processes that are created for presale reasons.

In the new era of knowledge economy, knowledge and the processes to generate and manage it are considered as the most valuable assets of an organisation in the competitive business environment. Over the last years, intensive discussions have taken place about the importance of Knowledge Management for the whole society, except from the business world. Today, there is a consensus among researcher's and practitioner's communities that the challenges facing modern societies, call for development strategies that are knowledge-based. In this context, the theme of Knowledge Cities (KCs) came to the front. The review of literature reveals that the process of designing Knowledge-Based Development (KBD) strategies for KCs is complex and not appropriately supported by decision support methodologies and/or intelligent systems. In this paper, the authors, based on a previously presented methodology for the formulation of a KBD strategy for KCs, propose an AI-based decision support system for designing such strategies, by selecting and prioritising the most appropriate interventions and actions. The system consists of two sub-systems: the first (developed using the technology of Expert Systems) assess the necessity of a particular intervention and proposes its most appropriate form. The second prioritises the selected interventions based on Multi-Criteria Decision Making. The authors also present the successful preliminary results of the systems pilot application to a Greek municipality.

In today's fierce business competition, innovation fuels organisational growth, drives future success and is the engine that allows businesses to sustain their viability in the new knowledge-based economy. Innovation does not require genius, but it does require a system-wide dedication to pursue unique opportunities. Since the specific requirements and critical factors needed to support innovation are only recently being explored, this paper seeks to analyse the value of effective Knowledge Management (KM) leading to innovation. KM has recently received considerable attention in the computer information systems community and is continuously gaining interest in industry, enterprises and academia. As we are moving into an era of 'knowledge capitalism', knowledge management will play a fundamental role in the success of today's businesses. This paper presents the key aspects of the role of KM in the enterprises, explores the relationship between KM and innovation, and gives answer to the difficult question: 'Can effective KM create more successful innovation and how?'

Over the past several years, there have been intensive discussions about the importance of Knowledge Management (KM) within our society. As we are moving into an era of "knowledge capitalism", the management of knowledge is promoted as an important and necessary factor for organisational survival and maintenance of competitive strength. During the last 15 years, KM has changed from one generation to the next through constant improvements and new perspectives. Many researchers have presented methodologies, frameworks, technologies and have discussed various KM theoretical and practical issues in several sectors, including healthcare. E-health and KM-based health are still in an early state of evolution, and it is only recently that researchers decided to intensify their efforts in these fields. In this context, this paper aims to review the current status quo, analyse key issues to which researchers should pay attention and contribute to researchers' dilemma solving about where future research should be focused.

Over the past several years there have been intensive discussions about the importance of knowledge management (KM) within our society. As we are moving into an era of "knowledge capitalism", the management of knowledge is promoted as an important and necessary factor for organisational survival and maintenance of competitive strength. During the last 15 years, KM has changed from one generation to the next through constant improvements and new perspectives. Many researchers have presented methodologies, frameworks, technologies and have discussed various KM theoretical and practical issues in several sectors, including the energy sector. This paper aims to analyse the necessity of the application of KM in the energy sector, discuss key issues and managerial implications and describe how the KM process can be implemented in this sector.

Good governance is a concept that has recently come into regular use in political science and public administration and appears to be member of a wider group of terms such as democracy, civil society, human rights, social development. In addition, it is only recently that government policy makers have started looking at the potential of applying the tools and techniques of e-commerce to the tasks of government. In parallel, during the last 15 years, KM has changed from one generation to the next through constant improvements and new perspectives. Many researchers have presented methodologies, frameworks, technologies and have discussed various KM theoretical and practical issues in several sectors, including public administration. Yet, e-government and KM-based public administration are still in an early state of evolution, and it is only recently that researchers decided to intensify their efforts in these fields. In this context, this paper aims to present a conceptual analysis of KM in e-government, discuss key issues related to the application of KM in e-government to which researchers should pay attention and describe a Knowledge Model as a basis for future research.

Advances in telecommunications, automated processes, web technologies and wireless computing are already forcing dramatic changes in a variety of sectors, ranging from business and industry to education and health. Yet, the electronic business space, in a broader sense, is still in a relatively early state of evolution, and it is only recently that policy makers have started looking at the potential of applying the tools and techniques of e-commerce to the tasks of other sectors. The use of the internet as a source of health information and connectivity between healthcare providers and consumers has increased interest in e-health. E-health offers the rich potential of supplementing traditional delivery of services and channels of communication in ways that extend the healthcare organisation's ability to meet the needs of its patients. To date, some e-health applications have improved the quality of healthcare, and later they will lead to substantial cost savings. However, e-health is not simply a technology but a complex technological and relational process. In this sense, practitioners and researchers who want to successfully exploit e-health need to pay attention to various pending issues that have to be addressed. The aim of this paper is to propose a novel taxonomy for e-health research in the new millennium by instantaneously presenting the current status with some major themes of e-health research.