The nexus between innovativeness and knowledge management: A focus on firm performance in the hospitality sector

While the importance of knowledge management is increasingly acknowledged, many firms do not fully understand the significance of innovativeness in relation to knowledge management and firm performance. Consequently, the objective of this article is to investigate innovativeness and its relationship with knowledge management and organizational performance in an under-examined industry sector and country context. The study methodology was survey-based and took place in the hospitality industry sector in Lesotho, Africa. Findings highlight the importance of knowledge management practices as an important driver of firm performance, where the results emphasize the positive mediating effect of innovativeness on the relationship between knowledge management and firm performance. The study has important practitioner and policy implications, where it is recommended that knowledge management be utilized in conjunction with innovativeness so as to positively influence firm performance. The article delivers a novel contribution to the literature in terms of establishing empirical associations between knowledge management, innovativeness and firm performance in an emerging country context.     

考虑知识隐藏的项目团队知识共享激励研究

本研究在分析项目团队知识隐藏概念基础上,整合社会认知、社会惰化等理论,构建知识隐藏的前因变量模型,并通过187份有效问卷,运用逐步回归分析对假设进行验证。研究结果表明,知识共享自我效能、个体结果期望、外生激励、分配公平、互惠与知识隐藏显著负相关;知识共享自我效能与个体结果期望显著正相关;个体结果期望对知识共享自我效能和知识隐藏之间的关系起到部分中介作用;互惠对知识共享自我效能和知识隐藏之间的关系起正向调节作用。最后对研究进行了分析与讨论。     

Knowledge sharing and rewards: a game-theoretical perspective

Shared databases are used as tools for knowledge management. But contributing knowledge to the database is a public-goods dilemma. Its specific features are multidimensionality of the goods, resource overlap, interdependency of group members and the lack of a marginal unit of return for individual contributions. An analytical model is presented describing the individual- and group-level payoff function. It shows that rewarding contributions with a cost-compensating bonus can be an effective solution not only at the individual level, but also at the group level. Whether or not a bonus system is self-supporting depends on the critical mass of people on average needing a contribution. This depends on the overlap of the people's resources and their interdependency.     

Knowledge sharing in open source software project teams: A transactive memory system perspective

The extant studies have not empirically examined the possible team cognitive mechanisms that facilitate knowledge sharing in OSS teams, even though knowledge sharing is a cognitive task and an OSS team is a complex cognitive system. To fill this research gap, we adopt the perspective of transactive memory system (TMS) to explore the relationships among TMS, knowledge sharing, communication quality, and technical achievement of OSS teams. By analyzing data from 95 OSS projects with the partial least squares (PLS) method, our study demonstrates that several TMS dimensions have positive impacts on knowledge sharing behaviors and communication quality. Moreover, communication quality positively influences technical achievement of OSS teams. These findings provide useful implications for literature and practice.     

Knowledge sharing in a multi-cultural setting: a case study

Organizational culture has been shown to influence the success of knowledge management practices. Hofstede's theory specifies that organizational culture is not independent of national culture. A case study of an international subsidiary was conducted to explore the extent to which knowledge sharing is dependent on national culture. Results indicate that language differences can create knowledge blocks, and cross-cultural differences can explain the direction of knowledge flows.     

Knowledge sharing in a cross-cultural context: Nordic expatriates in Japan

Although the scholarly discussion increases our understanding about aspects involved in the management of knowledge, relatively little is known about knowledge sharing in a cross-cultural context. Yet, attitudes about knowledge sharing as well as knowledge sharing behavior have been identified in related research as varying across cultural contexts. The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the aspects that influence the act of making knowledge available to others in a cross-cultural context. The empirical part of the study, consisting of semi-structured interviews with 30 Nordic expatriates and eight Japanese managers in Japan indicates that language differences, status hierarchies, collectivism, and logical differences can create barriers to knowledge sharing. Managerial implications and suggestions for future research are offered.     

员工知识共享、知识共享意愿与信任基础

分析了员工信任关系产生的基础,进而从知识拥有者和知识分享者两方面揭示了知识共享意愿与不同类别信任的关系,以及这种信任关系建立的原因,提出促进知识共享意愿的员工信任关系的构建途径。     

Knowledge sharing in project-based organizations: Overcoming the informational limbo

Project-based organizations (PBO) are nowadays widespread in almost all the activity sectors. This type of organizations poses complex problems for information and knowledge management due to the fragmentation and lack of uniformity of organizational structures, processes, practices, and technologies. The ineffectiveness of knowledge sharing over time, between project teams, is perhaps the most prominent issue that PBO must deal with. This strongly affects organizational learning, which seems to under-deliver value to PBO. Therefore, relevant knowledge is trapped in an “informational limbo” out of reach, not being capitalized for the organization. This is particularly true in research and development (R&D) institutions, where knowledge sharing can be hindered by conceptual misunderstandings resulting from different disciplines, cultures and ways of working of project participants. This paper addresses such issues by analyzing, in a comprehensive way, how information and knowledge management can better suit project team's needs and at the same time improve organizational learning. An ethnographic study, based on immersed participant observation, is performed at a Portuguese R&D Institute, in order to understand the link between the way information is managed in a project and how people interact and learn by sharing knowledge between projects. Results provide a set of enterprise information management (EIM) recommendations. Findings also suggest that a PBO-wide EIM strategy, balancing knowledge codification and personalization mechanisms, is a feasible solution to overcome the problems of knowledge sharing in PBO.     

Knowledge sharing in the process of developing a cross-border knowledge region

Knowledge Regions are insufficiently studied by academia. The aim of the article is to analyse Knowledge Region (KR) by inter-linking knowledge creation theories, including knowledge management and knowledge sharing for the purpose of developing of a Cross-Border Knowledge Region (CB KR). The empirical study of the cross-border cooperation organisation and a theoretical debate on the creation processes of CB KR are linked. This methodology puts in evidence that an intermediary organisation and CB KR creation processes are explicitly linked as it facilitates the development of a KR. The originality is that cross-border cooperation organisation is studied by applying the three-element model developed by Nonaka, Toyama and Konno to an intermediary organisation. The intermediary organisation covers Helsinki and Tallinn capital city-region(s) and is used as a Place/Space/Ba in this article. The outcomes prove that intermediary organisations should be part of KR development processes.     

国外知识管理研究述评

知识管理是当今管理科学、信息科学交叉融合的最新理论成果之一，日益受到理论界与产业界的关注。90年代以来，关于知识管理的研究大量涌现。本文对知识、知识管理、智力资本、知识管理框架体系等现有理论进行了评论性回顾，并对相关研究领域急需解决的问题做了展望。     

Knowledge sharing within teams: enabling and constraining factors

In this study, we tested the effects of several team features on knowledge sharing within teams of primary school teachers. We hypothesized that trust in team leader and trust in colleagues, mediated by team identification, will have a positive effect on knowledge sharing. We found indirect effects of both trust variables through team identification and a direct effect of trust in team members on knowledge sharing. We explored, furthermore, a moderator effect of team identification on the relation between team work value diversity and knowledge sharing to examine if team identification diminishes the potential negative effects of team work value diversity on knowledge sharing. Contrary to our expectations, we found no relation between work value diversity and knowledge sharing if team identification is low, while the relation takes a negative curvilinear form if team identification is high. This outcome is explained by the notion that signals of un-sameness in values can produce perceptions of threat and subsequent reactions in high identification teams.     

Knowledge sharing via social media in software development: a systematic literature review

Effective knowledge exchange among software developers is crucial for the competitive performance of their organizations. Today, the constant pressure on businesses to continually innovate and the increasing capability of information technologies to facilitate broader and more distributed communication are driving organizations to leverage social media tools to improve performance. These tools, which have changed the way we share knowledge, enable people to connect, communicate, and collaborate. Research on knowledge sharing via social media is still in its early phases, with a comprehensive overview of the literature yet to be completed. Thus, using a systematic literature review approach, this study aims to map the current literature on the topic in relation to software development. Furthermore, this study highlights the findings of former research and identifies gaps in the literature. The study offers several insights for researchers and practitioners and proposes a future research agenda to strengthen knowledge in the field.     

Knowledge markets in firms: knowledge sharing with trust and signalling

Knowledge sharing and learning are critically important to the success of knowledge management. In this research, we study the design of incentive rewards to facilitate knowledge transfer utilizing an internal knowledge market within organizations. The internal knowledge market is modelled as a marketplace where knowledge providers can send signals about their knowledge and learners may voluntarily acquire the knowledge based on the signals. Three types of knowledge recipients are differentiated with respect to their signalling threshold functions: knowledge connoisseur, knowledge public, and knowledge dilettante. In addition, a knowledge recipient may be either humble or arrogant, with different propensities for learning characterized by different learning inhibition cost functions. For different knowledge recipients, we study the knowledge providers’ best signalling strategies and the firm's optimal design of reward structures. Knowledge providers will adopt different signalling strategies if they lack the necessary trust that knowledge recipients will accurately report their learning. We analyse how the firm can offer learning rewards and employ IT support to improve the trust so as to increase knowledge transfer. This research provides valuable insights for practitioners to manage an internal knowledge market.     

Knowledge management: a neuro-hemispherical view of the field

Knowledge Management Research & Practice - The definition and subsequent use of knowledge within and across organisational and social contexts has been a vibrant and evolving growth area over...     

On the interaction between humans and Knowledge Management Systems: a framework of knowledge sharing catalysts

Knowledge Management Research & Practice - Admitting that knowledge workers and Knowledge Management Systems (KMSs) are valuable organizational assets whose interaction should be augmented,...     

Knowledge sharing barriers in organic growth: A case study from a software company

In a high-technology field such as the software business, there are many companies striving for growth. For small software firms organic growth is a natural way to grow and often the chosen route. Effective knowledge sharing is crucial for an organically growing software company to extract maximum benefit from its existing resources. However, it can be argued that there exist many barriers to effective knowledge sharing in an organic growth context. For companies that have an intention to grow it is important to identify these possible pitfalls lining the growth path. Using an empirical case study, this paper aims to increase the understanding of the biggest potential knowledge sharing barriers that an organically growing software company may face. Management able to recognize such barriers to knowledge sharing could support growth by acting to prevent the barriers from arising and eliminating those already in place.     

Going beyond technology: Knowledge sharing as a tool for enhancing customer-oriented attitudes

Numerous articles, books and essays have shown that ongoing efforts to meet customers’ needs characterize market leaders. For a firm to successfully develop customer-oriented attitudes throughout the entire organization, employees at all levels and sections need to be committed to providing a high level of service. It is therefore essential to understand what drives employees – especially those who do not interact daily with customers – to adopt a customer-oriented attitude. The aim of this study is to shed some light on one facet of this relationship, namely the mechanism of knowledge sharing that may impact employee customer orientation. The underlying notion is that technology, in its various advanced forms of CRM software, enhances and enables client “knowing.” In other words, it leads to a greater ability on the part of employees to share knowledge, which brings about real customer orientation.This paper provides empirical evidence, based on a sample of 345 Hi-Tech workers from a telecommunication company, of a link between sharing explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge to enhance customer orientation. The findings indicate that sharing tacit knowledge has a positive effect on increasing employee customer orientation and increases sharing of explicit knowledge, while also strengthening communication about customers in the organization. It is concluded that firms should encourage tacit knowledge sharing and its transformation by technology into explicit knowledge to augment employees’ customer-oriented attitudes.     

工程建设项目动态成本管理信息化研究——以新疆某隧道施工项目为例

工程建设项目由于其特殊性,在成本管理的过程中更注重其时效性和准确性。动态成本管理信息系统正好顺应了用户的这一要求,它可以快速准确地为用户提供成本核算和成本比较分析等功能,并可按用户要求完成规范的成本分析报告,极大的节省了财务人员的时间和精力,也为项目经理提供了翔实准确的成本分析结果,为其决策提供依据。     

Knowledge sharing in global virtual team collaboration: applications of CE and thinkLets

Although a global virtual team (GVT) can provide organizations with increased competitive advantages and greater flexibility due to its unique ability to transcend traditional boundaries of time, locations, and organizational constraints, knowledge sharing in globally dispersed and culturally diverse members also poses unique challenges to organizations wishing to capitalize on diverse knowledge of GVTs. This work, therefore, examines extant literature on collaboration engineering (CE) and thinkLets and further proposes that CE and thinkLets can help organizations develop predictable patterns of knowledge-sharing behaviour and a sense of structure in GVT collaboration. Implications of using CE and thinkLets for organizational practice and research are also discussed in the virtual collaboration context.