Configurations of knowledge management practices, innovation, and performance: Exploring firms from Brazil

This paper identifies the profiles of Brazilian firms according to their use of knowledge management (KM) practices, and then compares both innovative performance and organisational performance among these profiles. It contributes to the knowledge-based view literature by extending our knowledge about the most efficient configurations of KM practices in emerging countries. A sample of 206 Brazilian firms was surveyed, and cluster analysis was used for identifying the firm profiles. We found that in emerging countries like Brazil, there are different firm profiles regarding the KM practices they use, and these configurations may lead the firm to different levels of performance. Specifically, we found that firms that achieve superior innovation performance have configurations of KM practices that include a high use of strategic management of knowledge, Information and communication technologies (ICT) that supports KM, and three knowledge-based human resource management practices: recruitment, training and development, and appraisal

Integrating information and knowledge for enterprise innovation

It has widely been accepted that enterprise integration, can be a source of socio-technical and cultural problems within organisations wishing to provide a focussed end-to-end business service. This can cause possible “straitjacketing” of business process architectures, thus suppressing responsive business re-engineering and competitive advantage for some companies. Accordingly, the current typology and emergent forms of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) technologies are set in the context of understanding information and knowledge integration philosophies. As such, key influences and trends in emerging IS integration choices, for end-to-end, cost-effective and flexible knowledge integration, are examined. As touch points across and outside organisations proliferate, via work-flow and relationship management-driven value innovation, aspects of knowledge refinement and knowledge integration pose challenges to maximising the potential of innovation and sustainable success, within enterprises. This is in terms of the increasing propensity for data fragmentation and the lack of effective information management, in the light of information overload. Furthermore, the nature of IS mediation which is inherent within decision making and workflow-based business processes, provides the basis for evaluation of the effects of information and knowledge integration. Hence, the authors propose a conceptual, holistic evaluation framework which encompasses these ideas. It is thus argued that such trends, and their implications regarding enterprise IS integration to engender sustainable competitive advantage, require fundamental re-thinking

Classification and influence of agricultural information on striga and stemborer control in Suba and Vihiga Districts, Kenya

This paper reports on findings of a study to examine the sources used by farmers in search of agricultural information on striga and/or stemborers control technologies and factors that influence acquisition of such information in Western Kenya region. A random sample of 476 households in Suba and Vihiga districts were interviewed and 15 information pathways were identified. Using principle component analysis (PCA) to derive few latent variables that encapsulate maximum variance in the pathways, two components (latent variables) proxying for ‘agricultural knowledge’ were extracted. Type I-knowledge (first component) loaded heavily with sources that had ‘group’ information searching. Type II-knowledge (second component) loaded heavily with sources requiring individual farmer search. Both types of knowledge positively and significantly influenced the likelihood of households using improved technology to control stemborer, while only Type-II knowledge and social economic factors were important in influencing the farmers’ likelihood of using an improved technology to control striga. This study shows that information is an important factor in the households’ likelihood of using improved technologies in the control of striga and stem borer in Vihiga and Suba, Kenya. Methods of individual interaction are important to striga control.Agricultural information, improved technology, striga, stemborers, control technologies, Kenya, Agricultural and Food Policy, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Demand and Price Analysis, Farm Management, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Food Security and Poverty, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, International Relations/Trade, Marketing, Productivity Analysis, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

MICROCOMPUTER BUDGET MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

The enterprise budget, whole farm cash flow, and income statement are fundamental tools of farm and ranch management. The "Microcomputer Budget Management System" (MBMS) is a microcomputer software package that facilitates the storage and use of information for crop and livestock budgeting. It performs the calculations for several enterprise budgeting formats and for preparation of whole farm resource use reports and financial statements. The MBMS also includes internal machinery and irrigation cost calculation routines. MBMS was developed for use by extension staff, researchers, lenders, consultants, and operators of diversified farms and ranches with many enterprises that use enterprise and whole farm budgeting for analysis and planning activities. The flexibility and detailed nature of the program requires the user to have knowledge of enterprise budgeting and operation of complex computer programs. This paper presents a discussion of the features and capabilities of the software and the computational procedures used in the cost calculations.Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Exploring the potential of knowledge brokering to enhance natural resource management : findings from the Catchment Knowledge Exchange project in Victoria

Despite significant efforts in natural resource management (NRM), the environmental condition of Victoria’s catchments is mostly ‘poor to moderate’, and continuing to decline in many places. NRM is a complex undertaking involving social, economic, and environmental objectives, across policy, research, and practice dimensions. It is therefore not easy to ensure that the knowledge required to underpin effective NRM is readily available to practitioners. Knowledge brokering is an emerging approach with the potential to improve knowledge sharing and exchange. While it has attracted attention in other areas of public interest (such as health and information technology), its potential in NRM has received relatively limited attention. This article reports on a Victorian knowledge brokering case study which was a major element in the Catchment Knowledge Exchange project. A key finding is that knowledge brokering is a role that is being undertaken informally, without proper acknowledgement or definition. This raises challenges for knowledge management in the context of NRM. We conclude that the ‘people’ component of knowledge brokering is the driving element, although organisational processes and information technologies are critical in enhancing the effectiveness of knowledge brokers. Demonstrating the benefits of knowledge brokering in terms of the ultimate measure of its contribution towards improving the condition of catchments remains a challenge

Local Knowledge and Natural Resource Management in a Peasant Farming Community Facing Rapid Change: A Critical Examination

Environmental degradation is a major global problem, and addressing it is a key Millennium Development Goal. Its impacts are not just environmental (e.g., species loss), but also economic (e.g., reduced agricultural productivity), with degradation increasingly cited as a key cause of rural poverty in the developing world. The degradation literature typically emphasises common property or 'open access' natural resources, and how perverse incentives or missing institutions lead optimising private actors to degrade them. By contrast, the present paper considers degradation occurring on private farms in peasant communities. This is a critical yet delicate issue, given the poverty of such areas and questions about the role of farmers in either degrading or regenerating rural lands The paper examines natural resource management by peasant farmers in rural Tanzania. Its key concern is how the local knowledge informing farmers' management decisions adapts to challenges associated with environmental degradation and market liberalisation. Given their poverty, this question could have direct implications for the capacity of households to successfully meet their livelihood needs. Based on fresh empirical data, the paper finds that differential farmer knowledge helps explain the large differences in how households and communities respond to the degradation challenge. The implication is that some farmers adapt more effectively to emerging challenges than others, despite all being rational, optimising agents who follow the management strategies they deem best. The paper thus provides a critique of local knowledge, implying that some farmers experience adaptation slippages while others race ahead with effective adaptations. The paper speaks to the chronic poverty that plagues many rural communities in the developing world. Specifically, it helps explain the failure of proven 'sustainable agriculture' technologies to disseminate readily beyond an initial group of early innovators, and suggests a means to help 'scale up' local successes. Its key policy implication is to inform improved capacity building for peasant communities.

Water Quality Assessments for Urban Water Environment

This special issue entitled “Water Quality Assessments for Urban Water Environment,” strives to highlights the status quo of water environment, opportunities and challenges for their sustainable management in lieu of rapid global changes (land us eland cover changes, climate change, population growth, change in socio-economic dimension, urbanization etc.), in the urban space particularly in developing nations around the world. It also highlights the effect of COVID19 pandemic on water resources and way forward to minimize the risk of spreading health risk associated with wastewater management. Considering the complex nature of the urban water security, it highlights the importance of emerging approaches like socio-hydrology, landscape ecology, regional-circular-ecological sphere etc., which presents a perfect combination of hard (infrastructure) and soft (numerical simulations, spatial technologies, participatory approaches, indigenous knowledge) measures, as the potential solutions to manage this precious water resource in coming future. Finally, what is the way forward to enhance science-policy interface in a better way to achieve global goals e.g., SDGs at local level in a timely manner. It provides valuable information about sustainable water resource management at the urban landscape, which is very much useful for policy-makers, decision-makers, local communities, and other relevant stakeholders

A classification of emerging and traditional grid systems

The grid has evolved in numerous distinct phases. It started in the early ’90s as a model of metacomputing in which supercomputers share resources; subsequently, researchers added the ability to share data. This is usually referred to as the first-generation grid. By the late ’90s, researchers had outlined the framework for second-generation grids, characterized by their use of grid middleware systems to “glue” different grid technologies together. Third-generation grids originated in the early millennium when Web technology was combined with second-generation grids. As a result, the invisible grid, in which grid complexity is fully hidden through resource virtualization, started receiving attention. Subsequently, grid researchers identified the requirement for semantically rich knowledge grids, in which middleware technologies are more intelligent and autonomic. Recently, the necessity for grids to support and extend the ambient intelligence vision has emerged. In AmI, humans are surrounded by computing technologies that are unobtrusively embedded in their surroundings. However, third-generation grids’ current architecture doesn’t meet the requirements of next-generation grids (NGG) and service-oriented knowledge utility (SOKU).4 A few years ago, a group of independent experts, arranged by the European Commission, identified these shortcomings as a way to identify potential European grid research priorities for 2010 and beyond. The experts envision grid systems’ information, knowledge, and processing capabilities as a set of utility services.3 Consequently, new grid systems are emerging to materialize these visions. Here, we review emerging grids and classify them to motivate further research and help establish a solid foundation in this rapidly evolving area

Encyclopedia of Portal Technologies and Applications - Enterprise Portals and Web Services Integration

Portals went through the following different life cycle stages: desktop organization and personalization; single intranet-based portals such as human resource and Internet product-based or industry-based portals; functional-based portals such as knowledge management and business intelligence; and integrated intranet-based enterprise portal (EP) covering some or all functions of the enterprise (see for example http://www.ebizq.net/topics/eai/features/1650. html on how integrating portals and business process management (BPM) enabled the presentation of an integrated view of diverse back-end databases). Current research and practice efforts are directed toward making portals an open system supporting different platforms and allowing its integration into emerging technologies such as Web services (WS). A WS, on the other hand, is defined as an integrating loosely coupled application that uses three major standards: WSDL (definition of WS), UDDI (registry and discovery of WS), and SOAP (access of a WS). However, strongly coupled applications may also benefit from WS technologies to componentized diverse application platforms (i.e., databases, file-based legacy systems) using WS technologies. The article emphasizes cross-organization integration of business function and processes, rather than simply accessing general purpose WS such as weather forecasts and currency conversion. This article highlights challenges stemming from technologies and management issues and opportunities for enhanced application integration and accessibility. Technology-based integration could follow either standard-based open architecture or product-based approach. Current technologies include the product-based MS .NET and the standard-based J2EE and XML. Major players in EP and WS technologies include IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and BEA, with dedicated efforts and strong commitments to the integration of EP and WS. Major issues related to the management of both technologies include transaction management, message control and choreography, workflow management, and security. The following sections detail the discussions on these challenges and describe opportunities though a master-slave relationship between the two technologies. chaLLEngE

Investigating the technology catching-up trajectory of Chinese Hi-Tech SMEs: an integrated framework from industry-, resource-, and institution-based view

Accepted for WLICSMB 2010Purpose This paper intends to review the literatures on the technology catching-up trajectory of latecomers in order to understand the innovation strategies of Chinese Hi-Tech SMEs (Gu & Tse, 2010; Xie & White, 2006; Chen & Qu, 2003; Lee & Lim, 2001; Kim, 1997). It also tries to construct an integrated framework to investigate their innovation strategies and the impact on organizational performance from the Industry-, Resource-, and Institution-based view (Peng, Wang, & Jiang, 2008). Design/methodology/approach The authors have reviewed papers published in the leading journals in the R&D field and proposed an integrated conceptual framework of innovation strategies of Chinese Hi-Tech firms based on Peng, Wang and Jiang (2008)’s institution-based view framework to examine the innovation strategy from Industry-, firm-specific Resource-based, and Institution-based View Originality/Value This paper pays attention to the institution factors in shaping Chinese SMEs to develop innovative capabilities. Chinese firms have comparative advantages, such as better comprehending Chinese local market, better understanding of local business environment comparing to MNEs. Our paper argues that by developing effective innovation strategies and improving innovative capabilities, Chinese SMEs will be able to survive from the severe competitions from state-owned enterprises and foreign firms in China