SOCIAL CAPITAL AS AN ENABLER FOR SUSTAINABLE KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN ORGANIZATIONS

While the importance of knowledge management in organizations and its benefits as innovative powers and a competitive edge is a widely accepted notion in our field of research, it lacks contributions that focus on how knowledge management can be performed in a sustainable way. If we rely so strongly on knowledge management, we should strive for it that current knowledge practices respect both present and future knowledge demands. This paper aims to uncover how organizations can stimulate sustainable knowledge management, meaning the extent to which the organization is capable to track and adapt to changes, internally and in its external environment, by seeking its enablers. While it is clear now that an important part of knowledge in organizations resides in the informal networks, we use the concept of social capital as a measure for informal networks in organizations. By assessing 50 Dutch knowledge-intensive organizations, we seek to reveal to what extent the existence of social capital is an enabler for a set of best practices in knowledge management (known as New Knowledge Management) of which its practice is regarded as sustainable knowledge management

Strategic Knowledge Measurement and Management

Knowledge and intellectual capital are now recognized as vital resources for organizational survival and competitive advantage. A vast array of knowledge measures has evolved, spanning many disciplines. This chapter reviews knowledge measures focusing on groups of individuals (such as teams, business and organizations), as they reflect the stock or flow of knowledge, as well as enabling processes that enhance knowledge stocks and flows. The chapter emphasizes the importance of organizational value chains, pivotal talent pools and the link between knowledge and competitive success, in understanding the significance of today’s knowledge measures, and opportunities for future research and practice to enhance them

Eco‐Holonic 4.0 Circular Business Model to Conceptualize Sustainable Value Chain Towards Digital Transition

The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize a circular business model based on an Eco-Holonic Architecture, through the integration of circular economy and holonic principles. A conceptual model is developed to manage the complexity of integrating circular economy principles, digital transformation, and tools and frameworks for sustainability into business models. The proposed architecture is multilevel and multiscale in order to achieve the instantiation of the sustainable value chain in any territory. The architecture promotes the incorporation of circular economy and holonic principles into new circular business models. This integrated perspective of business model can support the design and upgrade of the manufacturing companies in their respective industrial sectors. The conceptual model proposed is based on activity theory that considers the interactions between technical and social systems and allows the mitigation of the metabolic rift that exists between natural and social metabolism. This study contributes to the existing literature on circular economy, circular business models and activity theory by considering holonic paradigm concerns, which have not been explored yet. This research also offers a unique holonic architecture of circular business model by considering different levels, relationships, dynamism and contextualization (territory) aspects

Collaborative stewardship in multifunctional landscapes: Toward relational, pluralistic approaches

Landscape stewardship offers a means to put social-ecological approaches to stewardship into practice. The growing interest in landscape stewardship has led to a focus on multistakeholder collaboration. Although there is a significant body of literature on collaborative management and governance of natural resources, the particular challenges posed by multifunctional landscapes, in which there are often contested interests, require closer attention. We present a case study from South Africa to investigate how collaborative stewardship can be fostered in contested multifunctional landscapes. We conducted this research through an engaged transdisciplinary research partnership in which we integrated social-ecological practitioner and academic knowledge to gain an in-depth understanding of the challenges of fostering collaboration. We identified five overarching factors that influence collaboration: contextual, institutional, social-relational, individual, and political-historical. Collaborative stewardship approaches focused on the development of formal governance institutions appear to be most successful if enabling individual and social-relational conditions are in place. Our case study, characterized by high social diversity, inequity, and contestation, suggests that consensus-driven approaches to collaboration are unlikely to result in equitable and sustainable landscape stewardship in such contexts. We therefore suggest an approach that focuses on enhancing individual and social-relational enablers. Moreover, we propose a bottom-up patchwork approach to collaborative stewardship premised on the notion of pluralism. This would focus on building new interpersonal relationships and collaborative capacity through small collective actions. Taking a relational, pluralistic approach to fostering collaborative stewardship is particularly important in contested, socially heterogeneous landscapes. Drawing on our study and the literature, we propose guiding principles for implementing relational, pluralistic approaches to collaborative stewardship and suggest future research directions for supporting such approaches

Transferring intermediate technologies to rural enterprises in developing economies: a conceptual framework

This paper integrates the contributions from different branches of the technology transfer literature to identify enablers driving the transfer of intermediate or appropriate technologies to recipients in rural areas of developing economies. An in-depth analysis of the literature shows that many enablers identified in the literature focus on high technology transfers and are of limited relevance in the context of rural enterprises. Other important enablers in this specific setting are ignored or insufficiently considered. This paper proposes a framework comprising a specific set of enablers that facilitates technology transfer in rural enterprises in developing regional economies

Opportunities for private sector participation in agricultural water development and management

Irrigation management / Private sector / Public sector / Public policy / Private investment / Participatory management / Privatization / Financing / Farmers / Households / Water harvesting / Africa South of Sahara

The role of urban living labs in a smart city

In a rapidly changing socio-technical environment cities are increasingly seen as main drivers for change. Against this backdrop, this paper studies the emerging Urban Living Lab and Smart City concepts from a project based perspective, by assessing a series of five Smart City initiatives within one local city ecosystem. A conceptual and analytical framework is used to analyse the architecture, nature and outcomes of the Smart City Ghent and the role of Urban Living Labs. The results of our analysis highlight the potential for social value creation and urban transition. However, current Smart City initiatives face the challenge of evolving from demonstrators towards real sustainable value. Furthermore, Smart Cities often have a technological deterministic, project-based approach, which forecloses a sustainable, permanent and growing future for the project outcomes. ‘City-governed’ Urban Living Labs have an interesting potential to overcome some of the identified challenges

Knowledge Management Systems That Influence Sustainable Competitive Advantage amongst Humanitarian Agencies in Kenya- Case of Information Technology Systems as an Enabler of Knowledge Management

This study investigated the influence of Knowledge Management (KM) systems on Sustainable Competitive Advantage (SCA) amongst Humanitarian Agencies-HAs through the use of IT systems as an enabler of knowledge management. The objective of study was to examine how information technology systems affect sustainable competitive advantage in humanitarian agencies- HAs- in Kenya. The study population was 42 HAs with 10,487 employees in Kenya. Both the primary and secondary data were collected using questionnaires, interviews, and observation checklists. The questionnaires were administered by a drop and collect method to ensure high response rates. Employees were stratified into management and junior staff. Purposive sampling was then used to sample management staff in the agencies surveyed and simple random sampling techniques were used to sample employees at the junior level. Statistical tools such as cross-tabulation and frequency tables were used to analyze the data. This study adopted a descriptive research design. The study used resource-based theory of knowledge management for competitive advantage as its theoretical basis. The resource-based view and theory of the firm defines a strategic asset as one that is rare, valuable, imperfectly imitable and non-substitutable. Knowledge is seen as one such strategic asset with the potential to be a source of competitive advantage for an organization. By adopting a resource-based theory of the firm with an extension of a knowledge-based perspective, this study aimed at developing and validating a conceptual model of the relationships between knowledge management enabler- it Systems and their influence on competitive advantage amongst humanitarian agencies in Kenya. From the study, there is substantial evidence to show that knowledge management has a strong positive influence on sustainable competitive advantage. The results from the 42 agencies surveyed reconfirmed a general agreement found in the literature that technological systems are ideal to bring significant positive correlations in improving organizational competitive advantage. Finally, recommendations were offered from practical ideas, drawn from experience, and intended for practitioners working with HAs but are also based on the theory behind the knowledge management concept and are just as relevant for consideration by knowledge management and development theorists alike. Key Words: Knowledge Management, Competitive Advantage, Humanitarian agencies, Civic, IT, Strategy, Organization, Enabler