Knowledge management practices and the enhancement of customer capital: the importance of time

Actualmente, los responsables de las pequeñas y medianas empresas (PYMES) debido al hecho de tener que vigilar continuamente sus empresas a la búsqueda de mejoras en las relaciones con sus clientes y trabajadores, están otorgando un papel cada vez más estratégico a las prácticas de gestión del conocimiento. No obstante, hay situaciones donde las organizaciones y sus miembros se enfrentan a entornos cada vez más inciertos, por lo que es necesario reconsiderar las prácticas de gestión del conocimiento que se han venido desarrollando en la empresa desde sus inicios. Estas prácticas, en forma de procesos y rutinas, pueden basarse tanto en conocimiento tácito como explícito y también necesitan ser continuamente reconsideradas de cara a la captación de nuevo conocimiento. En tales circunstancias, sería necesario modificar e incluso eliminar parte del conocimiento existente al objeto de asegurarnos de que los empleados tienen acceso a conocimientos lo suficientemente actualizados como para que mantengan o garanticen las relaciones que las PYMEs tienen con sus clientes. Nuestro trabajo examina el impacto que un contexto de “mentalidad abierta” (openminded) en la organización existente en un momento dado (T) tiene sobre las actuaciones que intentan reconsiderar los conocimientos organizativos en un momento posterior (T+1). Analizamos además la relaciones entre los procesos de aprendizaje/conocimiento explorativo y aplicado sobre el capital relacional. Se utiliza para ello evidencias empíricas procedentes de 107 PYMES del sector de las telecomunicaciones en España, utilizando la técnica PLS.Actualmente, los responsables de las pequeñas y medianas empresas (PYMES) debido al hecho de tener que vigilar continuamente sus empresas a la búsqueda de mejoras en las relaciones con sus clientes y trabajadores, están otorgando un papel cada vez más estratégico a las prácticas de gestión del conocimiento. No obstante, hay situaciones donde las organizaciones y sus miembros se enfrentan a entornos cada vez más inciertos, por lo que es necesario reconsiderar las prácticas de gestión del conocimiento que se han venido desarrollando en la empresa desde sus inicios. Estas prácticas, en forma de procesos y rutinas, pueden basarse tanto en conocimiento tácito como explícito y también necesitan ser continuamente reconsideradas de cara a la captación de nuevo conocimiento. En tales circunstancias, sería necesario modificar e incluso eliminar parte del conocimiento existente al objeto de asegurarnos de que los empleados tienen acceso a conocimientos lo suficientemente actualizados como para que mantengan o garanticen las relaciones que las PYMEs tienen con sus clientes. Nuestro trabajo examina el impacto que un contexto de “mentalidad abierta” (openminded) en la organización existente en un momento dado (T) tiene sobre las actuaciones que intentan reconsiderar los conocimientos organizativos en un momento posterior (T+1). Analizamos además la relaciones entre los procesos de aprendizaje/conocimiento explorativo y aplicado sobre el capital relacional. Se utiliza para ello evidencias empíricas procedentes de 107 PYMES del sector de las telecomunicaciones en España, utilizando la técnica PLS

The relationship between access to debt finance and viability of small & medium enterprises in Zimbabwe

The study examines the relationship between the level of access to debt finance and viability among 41 randomly selected SMEs operating in the agricultural sector in Zimbabwe for the period 2011 and 2014 using descriptive statistical analysis and panel data regression analysis. The study found that viability is positively associated with short-term debt and negatively associated with long-term debt, while it has no significant relationship with total debt. The study concludes that the level of debt accessed does not matter to viability; what matters is the type of debt accessed. It also concludes that access to debt is not the main factor associated with viability, but there are other factors such as size of business, growth opportunities, number of employees and the ratio of female to male shareholders. It is therefore recommended that SMEs managers and policy makers should be mindful of the type of debt availed to SMEs since shortterm debt is positively related to viability and long-term debt is negatively associated with viability. It is also recommended that SME managers should monitor the sizes of their enterprises and growth opportunities since these are negatively associated with viability. Female ownership of SMEs should be encouraged and supported as the results demonstrate that those enterprises dominated by female shareholders are associated with high viability. SME managers should ensure that they have adequate employees, since the results show that viability is associated increasing the number of employees

ENLISTING AI IN COURSE OF ACTION ANALYSIS AS APPLIED TO NAVAL FREEDOM OF NAVIGATION OPERATIONS

Navy Planning Process (NPP) Course of Action (COA) analysis requires time and subject matter experts (SMEs) to function properly. Independent steamers (lone destroyers) can soon find themselves lacking time or more than 1–2 SMEs or both. Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques implemented in real-time strategy (RTS) wargames can be applied to military wargaming to aid military decision-makers’ COA analysis. Using a deep-Q network (DQN) and the ATLATL wargaming framework, I was able to train AI agents that could operate as the opposing force (OPFOR) commander at both satisfactory and near-optimal levels of performance, after less than 24 hours of training or 500000–learning steps. I also show that under 6 hours or 150000–learning steps does not result in a satisfactory AI admiral capable of playing the role as the OPFOR commander in a similarly sized freedom of navigation operation (FONOP) scenario. Applying these AI techniques can save both time onboard and time for reachback personnel. Training AI admirals as quality OPFOR commanders can enhance the NPP for the entire Navy without adding additional strain and without creating analysis paralysis. The meaningful insights and localized flashpoints revealed through hundreds of thousands of constructive operations and experienced by the crew in live simulation or simulation replays will lead to real world, combat-ready naval forces capable of deterring aggression and maintaining freedom of the seas.Lieutenant, United States NavyApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited

The European Fund for Strategic Investments

The inside story of the European Fund for Strategic Investments from 2015 to 2020 told through interviews with the Managing Director, Deputy Managing Director, members of the Investment Committee and final beneficiaries across Europe. The architects of this €500 billion-plus programme, the head of the EU bank and the president of the European Commission, describe the genesis of this financial pillar of the Investment Plan for Europe. Then the people who ran one of the biggest economic stimulus programmes in history detail how they did it—and what the lessons are for policymakers responding to new crises, including the economic shock caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The European Fund for Strategic Investments has been one of the good news stories to emerge in a decade of economic uncertainty. It has gone well beyond its highly ambitious target of €500 billion in mobilised investments. The Juncker Plan has made a strong contribution to the 14 million jobs created in the EU between 2015 and 2020. It has become a success in co-financing projects that otherwise might not have been carried through. It has also charted the path towards new ways of financing. This is not only the case in relatively conventional areas, such as infrastructure, but also in sectors like research and innovation or the contribution to climate change mitigation. This is exactly what makes EFSI so ground-breaking: responding to the needs of the market through continuous financial innovation. The principle of the European Fund for Strategic Investments is here to stay. It has paved the way for its successor, the InvestEU programme, which is to be deployed under the 2021-2027 multiannual financial framework. This publication details why the programme was such a success

Organizational unlearning context fostering learning for customer capital through time: lessons from smes in the telecommunications industry

In situations where organizations and their members face changing environments it is necessary that old knowledge represented in processes and routines be challenged prior to the addition of new knowledge. It could be claimed that for learning to occur on an organizational level it must be possible for unlearning to take place. However, there have been few, if any, studies providing direct empirical evidence for this relationship. In the analysis presented in this paper we explicitly include time as a variable in order to model a situation where unlearning at time (t0) in order to learn more efficiently at a moment after occurs prior to time (t1). In addition, we also examine the relationship between organizational learning and customer capital. These relationships are examined through an empirical investigation of 107 Spanish small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) from the Telecommunications industry. The results indicate that the effect of the unlearning at a moment (t0) on customer capital at a moment (t1) is depends on whether the learning taking place at (t1) can be characterized as either exploration or exploitation

The European Fund for Strategic Investments

The inside story of the European Fund for Strategic Investments from 2015 to 2020 told through interviews with the Managing Director, Deputy Managing Director, members of the Investment Committee and final beneficiaries across Europe. The architects of this €500 billion-plus programme, the head of the EU bank and the president of the European Commission, describe the genesis of this financial pillar of the Investment Plan for Europe. Then the people who ran one of the biggest economic stimulus programmes in history detail how they did it—and what the lessons are for policymakers responding to new crises, including the economic shock caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The European Fund for Strategic Investments has been one of the good news stories to emerge in a decade of economic uncertainty. It has gone well beyond its highly ambitious target of €500 billion in mobilised investments. The Juncker Plan has made a strong contribution to the 14 million jobs created in the EU between 2015 and 2020. It has become a success in co-financing projects that otherwise might not have been carried through. It has also charted the path towards new ways of financing. This is not only the case in relatively conventional areas, such as infrastructure, but also in sectors like research and innovation or the contribution to climate change mitigation. This is exactly what makes EFSI so ground-breaking: responding to the needs of the market through continuous financial innovation. The principle of the European Fund for Strategic Investments is here to stay. It has paved the way for its successor, the InvestEU programme, which is to be deployed under the 2021-2027 multiannual financial framework. This publication details why the programme was such a success

Managing Health and Well-Being in SMEs through an Adviceline: A Typology of Managerial Behaviours

Despite evidence supporting the application of health and well-being policies and practices in the workplace, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) still struggle to manage health at work. To address this gap, this research explores the role of a new occupational health (OH) adviceline assisting and managing health at work within SMEs. From our qualitative data we develop a typology of managerial response patterns, which can be summarised into four behavioural types: business case behaviour, social model behaviour, protective behaviour, and avoidant behaviour. The study posits that both the business case and the social justice arguments need to be acknowledged while implementing and managing health and well-being initiatives in SMEs. However, the combination of these two models is very difficult to achieve, and in addition to an OH adviceline, other interventions need to be implemented to support SMEs

Determinantes de la estructura de capital para pymes en Colombia.

Las micro, pequeñas y medianas empresas (pymes) se han posicionado con el paso de los años como un importante motor de crecimiento para la economía, el comercio y la generación de empleo para los países. Entender su funcionamiento cobra relevancia a la hora de promover medidas que mejoren su desempeño y permanencia en el tiempo. En tal sentido, es importante señalar que, los determinantes de la estructura de capital han evolucionado en el transcurso del tiempo, y las pymes no son ajenas a este fenómeno. En lo que respecta a Colombia, pocas investigaciones han ahondado en estudiar los determinantes de la estructura de capital de las Pymes. Por lo que, el objetivo de la presente investigación es determinar los factores que afectan la estructura de capital de las pymes colombianas a través de un modelo panel que incorpora variables propias de las compañías. Para ello, se usó la metodología de datos panel, la cual captura no sólo los efectos del tiempo en una muestra, sino que también considera las características propias de cada individuo dentro de un conjunto de datos. Como variables independientes se tuvieron: Edad Crecimiento, Colateralidad, Rentabilidad, Escudos Fiscales, Tamaño, Vencimientos de la deuda. Como resultados más relevantes de la regresión, se pudo observar que la mayor parte de las variables son significativas, a excepción de la variación del ingreso operativo, lo que indica que, un mayor o menor crecimiento en ventas no influye directamente en el nivel de endeudamiento en las pymes.Introducción ; Estado del arte ; Marco teórico ; Metodología ; Resultados ; Conclusiones ; Referencias bibliográficasMagíster en Finanzas CorporativasMicro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have, over the years, positioned themselves as an important engine of growth for the economy, trade and employment generation for countries. Understanding how it works is important to promote measures that improve its performance and permanence over time. In this sense, it is important to note that the determinants of the capital structure have evolved over time, and SMEs are not unaware of this phenomenon. As far as Colombia is concerned, little research has been done on the determinants of the capital structure of SMEs. Therefore, the objective of this research is to determine the factors that affect the capital structure of Colombian SMEs through a panel model that incorporates company-specific variables. To do this, the panel data methodology was used, which not only captures the effects of time in a sample, but also considers the characteristics of each individual within a data set. As independent variables we had: Age Growth, Collateral, Profitability, Tax Shields, Size, Maturities of the debt. As the most relevant results of the regression, it was observed that most of the variables are significant, except for the variation in operating income, which indicates that higher or lower growth in sales does not directly influence the level of indebtedness in SMEs.Maestrí

Collaboration strategies and SME innovation performance

There is a growing recognition that collaboration is a key source of new knowledge and innovation in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Bridging the gap in the open innovation in SMEs literature on returns to open innovation our study demonstrates that a type of partner and its geographical proximity predict innovation performance in SMEs. Controlling for selection bias and endogeneity and using the panel data on 9,213 SMEs in the United Kingdom (UK) during 2002–2014, we found that collaboration with suppliers and customers domestically and internationally, collaboration with universities domestically and competitors internationally facilitate innovation in SMEs. The results offer implications for policymakers, scholars, entrepreneurs and SME managers

Strategies for Accessing Finance by Small and Medium Enterprises

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