A Pilot Study of IOKSS in the Health Sector

This pilot study aims to assess the predictors of knowledge workers’ attitudes toward the inter-organizational knowledge sharing system (IOKSS) in the health sector. The deployment of IOKSS in knowledge-intensive sectors can be valuable and crucial for effective social and economic development, especially in developing countries. Knowledge workers’ attitudes toward IOKSS are critical, as they are the driving force of such systems; however, prior research on inter-organizational systems (IOS) has focused on organizational adoption, and mainly on vertically-linked organizations. Based on preliminary data collected from medical doctors in various organizations in the health sector, this study indicated that several factors related to individuals, peers, proposed IOKSS, the organization, and sector were significantly correlated with knowledge workers’ attitudes. Such results can provide several insights for researchers and practitioners on their adoption of IOKSS

The Relationship Between Workers’ Financial Participation in Companies and Economic Results

It is known that workers’ financial participation, primarily in the form of wider participation of employees in profits and ownership, has been used in enterprises from many years, but in practice the period of implementation of different forms of financial participation has taken place only in the last four decades. Workers’ participation in decision-making has a longer tradition, so it is well described in the literature, and its impact on the results achieved by companies are known through the many research projects conducted by researchers around the world and through detailed reports. Financial participation has not been the focus of so many papers, so the knowledge and information from this area is incomplete. This is because of the lack of comprehensive studies on the various forms of participation, their irregularity, the lack of cooperation between states in the exchange of information concerning the number of implemented solutions, etc. Of course, it is not possible to include all of the companies in research and the results cannot be generalized due to the different conditions and selection criteria in particular countries. Also, the ambiguous interpretation of the term “financial participation” by different authors and different institutions does not allow for setting up and developing the output database necessary to conduct the research and carry out comparisons. In the literature, programs of financial participation are treated as an incentive system, without taking into account the wider context and the relationships between these programmes and the results achieved by the company. This contribution aims to give some theoretical and scientific examples, which, by virtue of their nature and severity can contribute to the possible diverse research solutions to the problems facing businesses, especially in today's dynamic, global economy. After forty years of empirical research on the benefits of the implementation of various programmes of financial participation, the information provided, in principle, only in the form of reports, is not sufficient to express opinions on the development of forms of participation. At the same time, it is concluded that the programmes of financial participation have had a positive effect on the results achieved by companies, especially in terms of social benefits. Arriving at the above opinion has been additionally impeded by the different attitudes of the social partners to the issue of participation and participatory approaches, the absence of explicit data showing the relationship between implemented financial schemes and financial results, changes in the competitive position of enterprises, etc. The outlined theory concerning how the workers’ ownership affects economic performance achieved by a company unfortunately has not changed. This article is not to bring about fundamental changes, but to find new threads or directions of deliberation.Celem artykułu jest zaprezentowanie wybranych poglądów na temat postrzegania mechanizmów i zależności pomiędzy pracowniczą partycypacją finansową a wynikami przedsiębiorstw. Z racji, niewątpliwe większej popularności programów udziału we własności, skoncentrowano się na pokazaniu wielopłaszczyznowych zależności pomiędzy własnością pracowniczą, a osiągnięciami ekonomicznymi oraz wykazaniu, że mechanizmy oddziaływań własności pracowniczej na produktywność mają charakter złożonych interakcji

FACTORS OF KNOWLEDGE SHARING: A LITERATURE REVIEW

Since both academia and practitioners believe that knowledge sharing has become one of the critical ingredients for any organization to have competitive edge, knowing it with its totality is highly imperative. The purpose of this paper is to provide a more inclusive insight about various factors of knowledge sharing that has so far been discussed and empirically tested. A theoretical ground is provided in the introduction to provide strong justification for certain important factors so that the reader can get better idea of the initial concepts. Then, detail literature is reviewed to get better understanding of knowledge sharing itself and the factors affecting knowledge sharing from theoretical and empirical studies. The study is conducted with the help of collecting data from search engines such as Google scholar, papers published in renowned journals, conference proceedings and books. The results show that knowledge sharing factors such as shared goals, social network, social trust, subjective norms, attitude of employees, knowledge of the situation and perception of employees regarding situation play vital role in enhancing knowledge sharing behavior of the employees in an organization. This study has implications for both the researchers and practitioners

The Estonian organizations - the subjects of transformation

Estonia stayed fifty years under the communist regime. This paper explores the transformation of Estonian organizations within the framework of the Leavitt's model of change where the process is analyzed from the perspective of four organizational elements: people, organizational goals, structure, and technology. In respect with the people the role of individuals is emphasized as well as the polarization of mindsets is discussed. The new era forced to clarify the organizational task because of market economy. The organizational structure does not change as fast as the other elements do and hierarchy considered being important. The formalization tactics (personnel selection and training) have gained new meaning in the process of transformation of organizations. The technology has varied due to the twofold possibilities- advantage to introduce the new informational technology and the usage of the old fashion machinery. Change of the society led to the change of organizations, which had the transformational nature. There was shown that all the elements of the organizations had the pressure to find new forms of existence

Investigating the Impact of Organisational Culture and Leadership on Knowledge Sharing Behavioural Intention Among Employees in Organisations in the United Arab Emirates

This study seeks to obtain a better understanding of the factors influencing employees’ knowledge sharing behavioural intentions within the Emirati organisational context. While the literature provides some examples of studies on the subject in Western countries and Asia, there has been a lack of research around the topic in the Middle East, Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Some organisations have placed a lot of emphasis on innovation and technology and forgotten what (ultimately) makes their business really successful – the human factor. The study followed a mixed methodology approach; the quantitative method was the primary approach and qualitative methods were employed as a complementary technique to deepen the understanding of some of the quantitative data results. The theoretical foundation of this thesis is based on the theory of reasoned action (TRA) and the theory of planned behaviour (TPB). These theories are widely used in social psychology to explain many human behaviours. The model therefore is developed based on the latest evolution of the TRA and TPB framework as well as additional factors highlighted in the literature. Eleven variables were tested to examine their impact on the intention to share knowledge in an organisational context. Primary data were obtained from a questionnaire administered to three large government organisations in the UAE: of 1073 questionnaires, 881 were usable. A total of 21 (including the pilot interviews) semi-structured interviews were carried out in the same three organisations with organisational executives, KM managers and KM practitioners. Structural equation modelling was used to test the three study models. The results show that both inclusive leadership’s and knowledge leadership’s influence on organisational culture dimensions (participation, trust, agreement, team orientation, and openness) were highly significant. Interestingly, and contrary to expectations, the quantitative data show that neither participation nor team orientation had a significant impact on attitude toward knowledge sharing. Also, the results show that inclusive leadership has a positive an impact on attitude toward knowledge sharing whereas knowledge leadership was found to have a negative influence. In addition, all TRA constructs were significant for all three models. The results offer various insights into knowledge sharing behavioural intentions in organisations in the UAE. Policy makers, executive leaders and KM managers will be able to utilise the results and the practical implications of this study to create intervention programs to enhance knowledge sharing intentions and practices in organisations. The thesis provides an alternative view to the more common technological focus, moving it more onto human related factors. It is important for organisations to acknowledge the importance of both leadership and organisational culture on knowledge sharing behavioural intentions among employees. Like anything else that keeps evolving, organisational culture and leadership too evolves and therefore, organisations need to look for the best organisational culture and leadership style that will keep them on top of the market

Satisfaction with creativity: a study of organisational characteristics and individual motivations

In answering the question of what influences satisfaction for creativity in the workplace, this work takes into account the extent to which the organization supports human aspiration to creativity. The empirical model uses survey data encompassing over 4,000 workers in Italian social enterprises. Results show that satisfaction for creativity is supported, at organizational level, by teamwork-oriented action, including the quality of processes, relations and on-the job autonomy. At the individual level, satisfaction for creativity is enhanced by the strength of intrinsic and socially oriented motivations and by competence. The analysis of interaction terms shows that teamwork and workers' intrinsic motivations are complementary in enhancing the perception of creativity-enhancing work settings, while a high degree of required competences appears to substitute good relationships with superiorscreativity, job satisfaction, organizational processes, motivations, teamwork,autonomy, interpersonal relations

Intermediate Institutions for Interactive Learning Processes in a Governance Perspective: the Case of Aeronautic Industry in Campania Region.

The present paper presents the results of the empirical analysis on fifteen enterprises and twenty no-industrial organizations involved at different level in the Aeronautical Cluster in the Campania Region. Information and data on the selected sample are colleted both by a study of the industrial sector, and also by suitable questionnaires and interviews, that the authors have submitted to the entrepreneurs and to the top managers of either the enterprises or the no-industrial organizations. The authors have focalized their study by applying the SWOT analysis on the following issues: • the cluster’s structure by analysing the relational skill developed by single actors of the cluster and by their impact on the innovation capacity of the enterprises; • the effectiveness of cluster’s governance strategies and how different actors actually participate to the local development processes of the aeronautical industrial sector. On these bases the authors wanted to deduce possible policy options for different kind of actors to optimize the cluster’s governance. Particularly they will describe in the present paper some indications to: 1) the SME’s that present strong relations with customers but low integration with large part of the others actors, i.e. with no-customers enterprises; 2) the large enterprises related to the industrial policies and to the suppliers' governance; 3) the policy makers at local level and the intermediate institutions for a better support of the local enterprises. In fact, the research results are based on the conscientious awareness that the analyzed sector is at a critical point, for which it is necessary that all the actors involved put together their efforts in order to steer and to direct the development process, both by identifying participative mechanisms at local level and also by strengthening those exogenous elements which are able to promote local development. Obviously only part of the criticisms can be solved at local and national level and some of them can be solved only partially. This observation opens the question of policy at the international level which can be determinate only with a more exhaustive integration into transnational networks. The research described in the present paper has been undertaken within the framework of the project: “IKINET – International Knowledge and Innovation Network†(EU FP6, N° CIT2-CT-2004-506242).

The impact of customer satisfaction on purchase intention in Malaysian takaful industry

To date the study of customer satisfaction and purchase intention have dominated the services literature. This study is aimed to investigate the impact of customer satisfaction on purchase intention among Takaful participants in Malaysia. A self-administered questionnaire is distributed to eight Takaful companies in Malaysia as a study setting for this study. Out of the total 600 distributed questionnaires 390 were finally selected for data analyses. It is expected that findings from this study will contribute to the existing literature to both theoretical and managerial approaches in order to better understand the pattern of customer satisfaction and purchase intention in Takaful industry settings