Strategic knowledge management, innovation and performance

Our aim is to shed light on the consequences of knowledge management (KM) strategies on firm's innovation and corporate performance. Organisations are not aware of the real implications that KM may have. Based on an empirical study consisted of 310 Spanish organisations and structural equations modelling, results show that both KM strategies (codification and personalisation) impacts on innovation and organisational performance directly and indirectly (through an increase on innovation capability). Also, findings demonstrate a different effect of KM strategies on diverse dimensions of organisational performance. Our conclusions may help academics and managers in designing KM strategic programs in order to achieve higher innovation, effectiveness, efficiency and profitability.     

#Resilience is not enough for Black women in STEM: Counterstories of two young Black women becoming a STEM person

Both K-12 schools and STEM disciplines are embedded in White supremacy and exclusion, making it that much harder for Black women to maintain an interest and sense of belonging in STEM. Through a Critical Race Feminism methodology, we tell the counterstories of our two co-authors, two Black women, over the course of their lives. Through these counterstories (stories that run counter to normative stories of STEM as male and White), Kelli and Samantha show us how they negotiated and maintained a sense of belonging in STEM even through moments of self-doubt in their STEM trajectory. These negotiations allowed them to carve a space for themselves within STEM. A key finding from these counterstories was the resilience both women developed through their participation in counterspaces and support from family and teachers that helped them develop pride in their STEM identity trajectories. Our study adds to the research on Black women's journeys in STEM by describing resilience strategies that our authors were forced to develop in response to White supremacy and how they were able to maintain their STEM identity by creating a counterstory that allowed them to maintain their sense of belonging within STEM. And yet, we conclude by asking if resilience is enough since both women questioned their authentic and valued place in their respective STEM disciplines because of the dominant storyline of STEM as White and male. Their stories reveal the deeper truth that change is needed in STEM to empower students of color to see themselves as not just tolerated but valued members of the discipline.     

Sociological Rob: How Rob Kling Brought Computing and Sociology Together

We examine practice theories concerned with knowledge sharing in complex organizations to distinguish common trends and variations in this complex body of work. We suggest that an analytical framework highlighting the relational thinking in practice theories can serve as a tool to sort through the literature on knowledge sharing. First, we delineate a relational framework consisting of seven attributes associated with a practice theory. Second, we use this framework to analyze a narrow set of practice theories represented by three seminal works on communities of practice. Third, we compare and contrast the relational dynamics found in the three seminal works in regard to how they conceptualize knowledge sharing within and across communal boundaries.     

Assessing learner‐centredness through course syllabi

One attempt to revitalise undergraduate education has been by shifting the dominant pedagogy to a learner‐centred focus and supporting an emphasis on the scholarship of teaching and learning. The discussion regarding efforts to refocus undergraduate education to be more intentional by moving towards a learner‐centred paradigm is encouraging, yet it is crucial to acknowledge that most of the effort and literature on the learner‐centred paradigm and the scholarship of teaching and learning have necessarily focused on strategies for the classroom. It is equally important for administrators to consider the impact of the paradigm shift on their roles. Assessment and evaluation are the very core of the learner‐centred paradigm. Assessment is both the single‐most important gage of learning that drives the educational process and the most effective means of implementing institutional change. In this article, the authors offer a means of assessing the degree of learner‐centredness in current teaching practices through a systematic review of course syllabi. Using a rubric developed for this purpose the authors have reviewed course syllabi in order to develop a benchmark for the degree of learner‐centredness present in current teaching practices and employed the results as a vehicle for planning professional development.     

Finding the skills for tomorrow: Information literacy and museum information professionals

This paper presents results from 21 semi-structured interviews with museum information professionals who were asked about their experiences working with information resources, tools, and technologies in museums. The interviews were analyzed to develop an understanding of the information literacy skills of museum information professionals. This paper presents the results of this analysis, and discusses the state of information literacy in museums, and the increasing need for museum information professionals to possess information literacy skills. The results illustrate how information literacy is defined by information professionals in museums, and how perceptions of information literacy and its importance to museums have changed over time.     

Historical view of the influences of measurement and writing theories on the practice of writing assessment in the United States

The purpose of this study is to examine the interactions among measurement theories, writing theories, and writing assessments in the United States from an historical perspective. The assessment of writing provides a useful framework for examining how theories influence, and in some cases fail to influence actual practice. Two research traditions are described to classify measurement theories (test-score and scaling), and three research traditions are proposed for classifying writing theories (form, idea and content, and sociocultural context). The results of this study trace the impact of measurement and writing traditions on writing assessment practices within selected time periods during the 20th century in the United States. One of the major findings of this historical analysis is that measurement theory has had a strong influence on writing assessments, while writing theory has had minimal influence on writing assessments. We also found support for the idea that a new discipline of writing assessment has emerged. This new discipline combines multiple fields including the writing, composition, and measurement communities of scholars, and it has the potential to set the stage for the future of writing assessment in the 21st century.     

The accuracy of performance task scores after resolution of rater disagreement: A Monte Carlo study

When multiple raters score a writing sample, on occasion they will award discrepant scores. To report a single score to the examinee, some method of resolving those differences must be applied to the ratings before an operational score can be reported. Several forms of resolving score discrepancies have been described in the literature. Initial studies of the various methods, however, have demonstrated that decisions about student performance may differ depending on the resolution method applied. Thus, studies are needed to investigate the quality of the scores associated with each model. To study score quality associated with each model, we conducted a Monte Carlo study and varied the factors associated with scoring and resolution to determine the conditions under which a particular resolution method might be superior.     

Attachment Pattern,Reasons for Living,and Suicide Risk Among College Students

To explore the relationships between attachment, reasons for living, and suicide, 163 college students completed measures in each domain. Correlations between all measures were significant and in the expected directions. Results indicate that, although survival and coping skills are most associated with low suicidal intentions, students' level of attachment and their view of parents as accessible are also significantly associated with low suicidal intentions.     

Language Arts Performance Assignments: Generalizability Studies of Local and Central Ratings

We conducted generalizability studies to examine the extent to which ratings of language arts performance assignments, administered in a large, diverse, urban district to students in second through ninth grades, result in reliable and precise estimates of true student performance. The results highlight three important points when considering the use of performance assessments in large-scale settings: (a) Rater training may significantly impact reliability; (b) simple rater agreement indices do not provide enough information to assess the reliability of inferences about true student achievement; and (c) assessments adequate for relative judgments of student performance do not necessarily provide sufficient precision for absolute criterion-referenced decisions.