The effect of organizational memory on organizational agility: Testing the role of counter-knowledge and knowledge application

Purpose: Intellectual capital includes what employees know, and the agility to search and retrieve knowledge (organizational agility). Organizational agility could be seen as the result of using validated routines and protocols (knowledge application), but also as the result of using unproven theories, rumours, colloquial expressions or sayings (counterknowledge), which means that organizational memory may enable both the application of good knowledge and the mitigation of counter-knowledge. This study examines the links between a firm’s organizational memory, counter-knowledge, knowledge application, and organizational agility. Design/ Methodology/ Approach: Using SmartPLS 3.2.8 in a sample of 112 companies the following questions were addressed: Does the improvement of organizational memory result in the growth of organizational agility? Does the growth of counter-knowledge and knowledge application at the same time hinder the enhancement of organizational agility? Findings: The results support that organizational memory not only enhances the application of gained knowledge, but also allows the spreading of rumours, gossip, and inappropriate or false beliefs (counter-knowledge). Furthermore, results support that the knowledge that emerges from the development in parallel or simultaneous of counterknowledge and knowledge application provides bad references, which will lead to a degradation of organizational agility. Practical implications: When supporting organizational agility, managers should be conscious of the urgency of counteracting the misuse of counter-knowledge. Originality/ Value: These findings make an important contribution to what is potentially a barrier to innovation and creativity, helping managers overcome the problems associated with misunderstandings or wrong assumptions derived from counterknowledge

PEGASE: A generic and adaptable intelligent system for virtual reality learning environments

International audienceThe context of this research is the creation of human learning environments using virtual reality. We propose the integration of a generic and adaptable intelligent tutoring system (Pegase) into a virtual environment. The aim of this environment is to instruct the learner, and to assist the instructor. The proposed system is created using a multi-agent system. This system emits a set of knowledge (actions carried out by the learner, knowledge about the field, etc.) which Pegase uses to make informed decisions. Our study focuses on the representation of knowledge about the environment, and on the adaptable pedagogical agent providing instructive assistance

Organizational learning from hidden improvisation

Research has identified improvisation as a creative and open activity that can be harnessed to encourage innovation and learning within the organization. In this paper, we present improvisation as a covert phenomenon, occurring in a climate of mistrust and fear of censure, and disconnected with wider organizational learning. Drawing on qualitative evidence of a Fire Service in the United Kingdom, we explore hidden improvisation, and identify the conditions and processes that can connect these local deviations to wider processes of learning. We show that while most improvisations remain hidden and contained to avoid wider scrutiny, certain conditions of frequency, connectedness and scale escalate events to become more visible to supervisors and managers. The learning outcomes from these visible improvisations will then depend on management’s interpretation, evaluation and translation of improvising behaviours. Dependent on prior relationships of trust and credibility, middle management perform a key brokering role in this process, connecting previously hidden improvisation to wider organizational systems and structures.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Place Experience of Nursing Home Courtyards: a Holistic Approach to Understanding Institutional Outdoor Environments

This dissertation research investigates place experience of three nursing home courtyards. Based on systemic place theories, each nursing home courtyard is conceptualized as place or a system consisting of three major subsystems: physical settings, people and rules of place uses. Place experience as the center of conceptualization is the result of interactions between them. Place experience is thus characterized by objective, subjective and consensual qualities of people-environment relationships. The research design follows the premises of pragmatic case study methodology; a mixed research method is employed that includes archival research of floor plans, photo documentation, a physical setting checklist and instrumented measures for physical environments; staff interviews, surveys and auditing evaluations for organizational and staff contexts; and resident interviews and behavior mapping for individual contexts and place rules. Through synthesizing different sources of data into experiential descriptions, this study suggests that each courtyard is a compound of nine desired experiential attributes including 1) privacy, 2) social interactions, 3) accessible space and built features, 4) safety & security, 5) sensory stimulation, 6) information awareness and spatial orientation, 7) familiarity, 8) sense of ownership and 9) participation in meaningful activities. Each courtyard is unique in its distinct composition of these attributes and arrangements of the three subsystems. Experience of social interactions is the shared experiential quality across the cases. The three courtyards are programmed as a social space but are not meant to be a place to mark ownership, show identities and create meaningful engagement. The shared nature is incongruent with residents’ experience of home gardens and gardening collected from the interviews. A relatively successful case is selected; it is a place with more equal emphases on the nine attributes. Its patterns of the three subsystems may guide a less effective case to make future improvement. Implications of the findings are considered at three levels. First, this study applied a pragmatic approach, which offers a means to generate a holistic understanding of institutional outdoor environments; this study may complement the current research dominated by a positivist approach. Second, the approach recognizes and acknowledges the multifaceted phenomenon of the courtyards; it describes sets of variables or quality indicators that may help further theoretical construction or the development of quality measure. Third, this comparative research highlights the importance of establishing a database of cases reports. The accumulation of successful cases would help identify effective patterns of the three subsystems. Shared features emerging from successful cases may represent findings with high generalizability

How Dutch Institutions Enhance the Adaptive Capacity of Society

This report examines the adaptive capacity of the institutional framework of the Netherlands to cope with the impacts of climate change. Historically, institutions have evolved incrementally to deal with existing social problems. They provide norms and rules for collective action and create continuity rather than change. However, the nature of societal problems is changing as a result of the processes of globalization and development. With the progress made in the natural sciences, we are able to predict in advance, to a certain extent, the potential environmental impacts of various human actions on society, for example, climate change. This raises some key questions: Are our institutions capable of dealing with this new knowledge about future impacts and, more importantly, with the impacts themselves? Are our institutions capable of dealing with the inherent uncertainty of the predictions

Salesperson’s Customer Orientation: A Reconceptualization and a New Definition

This study critically examines the existing domains, conceptualizations and operationalizations of the salesperson’s customer orientation constructs present in the literature. The widely used Salesperson orientation-Customer orientation (SOCO) construct (its domain, definition and scale) is examined in detail, and several inconsistencies were found. We also examine other individual-level and organizational-level orientation constructs, including market orientation, in order to appropriately delineate the boundaries of the salesperson’s customer orientation construct. Based on a comprehensive review of literature on the marketing concept, and related literatures on several other relevant orientation constructs, we suggest a new definition of this mid-level construct. Not only is our new definition more encompassing (to include all activities of the salesperson related to customers, and not just their interactions with the customers) but is also more forward-looking (salesperson’s enhanced role not just as need-fulfiller, but more as customers’ value co-creator). We sincerely hope that the new definition suggested by us would encourage scale development efforts from researchers, that would aid in further reducing (if not removing)the several inconsistencies present in the literature related to salespersons’ customer orientation, and its effect on their performance and effectiveness.