The Integrated Knowledge Space - the Foundation for Enhancing the Effectiveness of the University’s Innovative Activity

The paper examines the implementation of Integrated Knowledge Space as an effective method for knowledge management in a global university network which will integrate all interested parties of the educational space: the faculty, scholars and business people within the framework of distributed departments on the basis of Information Centre of Disciplines (ICD). ICD enables higher education institutions to accumulate and make on-line renewal of knowledge for teaching and learning processes and for enhancing innovation potential. ICD facilitates the development of human and relational capital of integrated and interconnected educational, research and business communities.Intellectual capital, Knowledge Management, Knowledge Park, Integrated Knowledge Space, Information Centre of Disciplines

The impact of process quality measurement on financial performance of market oriented firm

Market orientation and process quality measurement had been regarded in the literature as sources of competitive advantage for business performance.However, both these concepts had been discussed separately in their own respective academic discipline. In the context of business operation today,the organisation need to work as a team to survive in the challenging business environment. Market orientation originates from the marketing concept. On the other hand, process quality measurement originates from quality management principles and is viewed as one of its tools. Despite their importance, many organisations have not combined them in order to become a market driven and quality oriented organisation. Thus, this study investigated the impact of process quality measurement on the relationship between market orientation and financial performance of manufacturing firms in Malaysia. Although the overall results showed lack of evidence on the impact of process quality measurement on market orientation-financial performance relationships, individual results signified that process quality measurement moderate the relationship between market action and financial performance

Transaction stage of e-Government systems: identification of its location & importance

All e-Government maturity models identify a Transaction stage along the pathway to full systems integration. The evidence suggests that a significant number of project failures occur at this stage and thus frustrate the endeavour to achieve a coherent uniform means of access to Government. Clearly, research to identify and overcome the challenges presented at this stage is critical. In this paper the Transaction stage is clearly delineated as the point at which online technology ceases to be peripheral to the agency’s activity. Hence, it presents the first real organisational challenge and an appropriate research strategy is defined to uncover the problems that arise at this point

Modelling a Trusted Mechanism for Knowledge Sharing

Knowledge sharing has been identified as a major focus area for knowledge management. Efforts are made with a view to identify the most effective ways to share knowledge, as a step towards improving organizational performance. In this striving, various factors have been identified as impediments for knowledge sharing, including inadequate organizational structures, sharing unfriendly organizational cultures, and denominational segregation. Related problems may occur when information systems, such as intranets, distributed libraries, document management systems, or groupware applications, are introduced to support knowledge sharing. The extensive use of the IT&C has only added new questions on how to address issues of trust within the present knowledge -rich environment. This paper proposes a new way of approaching knowledge sharing in the context of information and communication technology development. The study provides an overview of the manner and extent in which information assurance concepts of integrity, authenticity, availability, non-repudiation and access-control may be employed to ensure a trusted and effective knowledge sharing process.knowledge sharing; sharing policy; access control; trusted knowledge sharing; barriers in knowledge sharing.

A case of success: the impact of ad hoc teams in the automobile industry

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to analyse the effect of training on ad hoc teams in an industrial setting. Design/methodology/approach - In this paper, data were collected from 11 Spanish automobile manufacturer suppliers and included the assessment of the current situation, the creation and holding of different workshops followed by the collection of the results. Findings - The paper finds that ad hoc teams are really effective especially in lean companies. Originality/value - This paper breaks new ground in analysing the effect of training ad hoc teams in an industrial setting

Sequential Teamwork in Competitive Environments: Theory and Evidence from Swimming Data

The aim of the paper is to assess whether there is free-riding in teams when team production is sequential and when there is competition between teams. This a common case, which, however, has not been considered in the literature so far. We develop a model where team members contributing earlier have an incentive to free-ride more even when there is competition between teams. These predictions are tested on more than 300.000 observations on swimmers’ performance at competitions from all over the world. We find that swimmers in relays perform weaker as compared to their individual performance, and that earlier swimmers’ performance in relays is weaker relative to later swimmers. Our results suggest that competition does not solve the free-riding problem in team production with sequential contributions.team production, contest, intergroup competition, sequential contribution, free-riding, swimming

Knowledge Management And Organizational Effectiveness: Considering Applications For Leadership

This essay will explore the change of the organizational environment from a structured production model, bureaucracy, to an information-based organization that is directed to manage knowledge.  Moreover, this essay will discuss how organizations and leaders can all play a part to enhance knowledge transfer and create more efficient organizations

Empowerment in the Public Sector: Testing the Influence of Goal Orientation

Empowerment has emerged as an important new issue in the public sector organization setting in the wake of mainstream new public management (NPM). Nevertheless, few studies in this frame have combined structural (managerial) and psychological (individual) approaches in an integrative study of empowerment. There is also a need to examine the moderating variables involved in this relationship, as well as to extend research on work motivation in public management. This study explores the effect of structural empowerment on psychological empowerment, and it also draws on goal orientation (GO) theory to examine the moderating role of employees’ GO in this link. The model is tested on a sample of 521 Spanish local authority employees. The results do not confirm the direct link between structural and psychological empowerment, but show that learning GO has considerable moderating power in this relationship, and its interaction with structural empowerment affects employees’ psychological empowerment levels

Personnel Economics: The Economist's View of Human Resources

Personnel economics drills deeply into the firm to study human resource management practices like compensation, hiring practices, training, and teamwork. Many questions are asked. Why should pay vary across workers within firms--and how "compressed" should pay be within firms? Should firms pay workers for their performance on the job or for their skills or hours of work? How are pay and promotions structured across jobs to induce optimal effort from employees? Why do firms use teams and how are teams used most effectively? How should all these human resource management practices, from incentive pay to teamwork, be combined within firms? Personnel economics offers new tools and new answers to these questions. In this paper, we display the tools and principles of personnel economics through a series of models aimed at addressing the questions posed above. We focus on the building blocks that form the foundation of personnel economics: the assumptions that both the worker and the firm are rational maximizing agents; that labor markets and product markets must reach some price-quantity equilibrium; that markets are efficient or that market failures have introduced inefficiencies; and that the use of econometrics and experimental techniques has advanced our ability to identify underlying causal relationships.