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Purpose An online learning community is defined as the context where knowledge sharing takes place virtually. Prior research has revealed that it is fundamentally important for higher education institutions to leverage on internal and external sources of knowledge, which can improve the value of relational capital. However, in a higher education setting, the positive effects of relationship improvement because of knowledge sharing can be jeopardized by the circulation of unverified information (i.e. counter-knowledge). The purpose of this study has been to analyse if online learning communities can counteract the effects of counterknowledge.Design/methodology/approach This study examined the relevance of online learning communities to counteract counter-knowledge, along with how this, in turn, can affect the creation of relational capital from the perspective of 210 undergraduate students using partial least squares.Findings Results support that online learning communities may help universities to not only create relational capital but also contribute to clarify misunderstandings and prevent counter-knowledge learned from badly informed sources.Originality/value There has been very limited research aimed at developing an adequate framework to analyze the role played by unverified information in universities. Therefore, this study fills this gap and proposes a framework focusing on the concept of online learning communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Spanish healthcare system has undergone important changes, particularly with respect to the development of new hospital services. Today, more than ever, the factors that define the nature and structured of the Spanish healthcare environment (e.g. demand, costs, system deregulation) are undergoing rapid change thus obliging hospital administrators to develop and implement flexible and adaptive strategies in order to survive in an increasingly challenging environment facing hospital management. This work examines how the existence of some learning practices is linked to knowledge transfer and how this component is linked to relational capital. These relationships are examined through an empirical investigation of 54 doctors and 62 nurses belonging to 44 Hospital-in-the-Home Units. In an applied sense, the findings provide homecare practitioners with identifiable factors, which enable two learning models (conceptual and operational) and address the relevant issues by changing strategies at both the individual and organisational levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]