Knowledge management : critical perspectives on e-business activities

This article is both a review and an agenda-setting piece. It argues that knowledge management suffers from conceptual and definitional ambiguity, oversimplification of its development processes, and methodological limitations. Nevertheless, there is a consensus in business and academia that knowledge is a key component of success and allows firms to achieve and sustains competitive advantages. In a digital era, these advantages arise from the potential of data and information that can be gathered, processed, shared, and used to improve e-business activities. Thus, this research bridges the gap in the assessment of knowledge management and e-business relationship, by applying an SEM to a large database sample of KM activities performed by European firms.N/

Impact of internal corporate social responsibility factors on the employee’s innovation climate in the medical diagnostics industry

This study examined the relationship between employee-driven corporate social responsibility (CSR) factors and employee innovation in U.S. medical diagnostic companies during the respiratory syndrome coronavirus (COVID) pandemic. This study examined what employee-driven CSR factors affect such motivation of employees toward innovation. The research population was employees who have worked in operation, quality control, research, technical, and management departments of medical diagnostics companies in the United States of America. The investigator used a survey questionnaire for this correlation design study. Employees’ responses were analyzed based on education level, gender, and job function using descriptive analysis, t-test, and ANOVA-test. The theoretical framework consisted of the theory of corporate social responsibility and the expectancy theory of motivation. The study questions focused on nine predictors of employee-driven CSR, including employees’ rewards and recognition, empowerment, resources, engagement, and decision-making involvement, horizontal communication, vertical communication, employee job satisfaction, employee training, and leadership relationships as dependent variables and their impact on employee innovation climate as independent variables. Correlation and multiple regressions were conducted to determine the underlying relationship of the variables. The result indicated a significant relationship between employee-driven CSR and employee innovation. In addition, the study revealed that nine employee-driven CSR factors explained about 50% of employee innovation as predictor variables. Job satisfaction had the most significant impact on employee innovation climate, followed by Horizontal communication. In conclusion, this study recognized job satisfaction as the most critical employee motivational factor to innovate through quantitative research, which was also a characteristic of employee-driven CSR. The value of employee-driven CSR factors’ influence on innovation can contribute to both theory and practice. This research may highlight how medical diagnostics business leaders foster innovation through employee-driven CSR

Personnel and Human Resource Management

The basic endeavor of this discipline has not changed over the years: it has sought “to contribute to organizational success by assuring that the right numbers of the right people are in the right places at the right times doing the right things in the right ways.

Values-Based Network Leadership in an Interconnected World

This paper describes values-based network leadership conceptually aligned to systems science, principles of networks, moral and ethical development, and connectivism. Values-based network leadership places importance on a leader\u27s repertoire of skills for stewarding a culture of purpose and calling among distributed teams in a globally interconnected world. Values-based network leadership is applicable for any leader needing to align interdependent effort by networks of teams operating across virtual and physical environments to achieve a collective purpose. An open-learning ecosystem is also described to help leaders address the development of strengths associated with building trust and relationships across networks of teams, aligned under a higher purpose and calling, possessing moral fiber, resilient in the face of complexity, reflectively competent to adapt as interconnected efforts evolve and change within multicultural environments, and able to figure out new ways to do something never done before

Listening to Luddites: Innovation Antibodies and Corporate Success

Protracted innovation is an essential activity of every organization in the modern global marketplace and is fueled by a continuous stream of fresh ideas. Contemporary business literature decries the innovation antibody, employees who intentionally thwart the acquisition and dissemination of crucial new ideas. The business press posits but one uniform type of innovation antibody often unwittingly encouraged by corporate actions, and should be quickly and effectively neutralized. This paper asserts that, like biological antibodies in the human body, the work of innovation antibodies in the corporate body can be either positive or negative. It is true that recalcitrant negative innovation antibodies determined to slow or eliminate innovation must be excised from the organization. Positive innovation antibodies are important to organizational sensemaking and innovation activities, and should not be suppressed or overcome. A revised innovation sequencing model is put forth to guide the activities of positive innovation antibodies, as are specific actions recommended for organizations to encourage the appropriate growth and use of positive innovation antibodies to effect corporate innovation success.innovation; innovation antibodies; sensemaking; strategy; sustainability; values.

Occupational Cultures as a Challenge to Technological Innovation

This paper explains conflict over technological process innovation in cultural terms, drawing primarily on a case study of electric power distribution and strategies to automate its operation

Health Care in California and National Health Reform

CED believes that the U.S. employer-based health insurance system is failing -- and the recently enacted health reform, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), will not reverse that dynamic. Fewer American workers have insurance now than did ten years ago; and fewer American firms are offering health insurance now than did then. Many people do without care because they are not covered, or fear -- with justification -- that one illness or the loss of a job will cost them their coverage. The competitiveness of American firms is threatened by the cost of health insurance. Public budgets at every level of government are eroded by the costs of health care, including costs that previously were paid by employers. Although the new law will create pathways to private coverage for some people who are not insured by their employers, and many others will be made eligible for Medicaid, the clear intent is to maintain employer coverage for as many as possible -- and there is precious little in the law to improve this core structure of the U.S. healthcare system. We have proposed a fundamental restructuring of the health-care system to address this crisis. With the nation having focused on this issue, we have worked to learn what the health-care system of California can teach us about national reform, and how national reform might affect California

The four powers of design: A value model in design management

This analysis proposes a framework to bridge the gap between the world of designers and the world of managers. Illuminating her thesis with examples from Steelcase, Decathlon, and other companies, Brigitte Borja de Mozota parallels design's ability to differentiate, integrate, transform, and contribute to the enterprise and bottom-line results with a corporate focus on markets, processes, talent, and finances

Creating Common Ground: Formalizing and Designing Employee-driven Innovation Processes with Decision Points

Striving for innovation and advancement, a phenomenon can be observed wherein organizations are progressively incorporating their \u27ordinary\u27 employees into the innovation process, capitalizing on their creativity, expertise, and knowledge to foster novel ideas. Such integration mandates formalized yet flexible processes to offer a common ground for both employees as idea contributors and managers as decision-makers, enabling control and governance. Despite this, a conspicuous knowledge gap exists within the realm of employee-driven innovation (EDI) concerning the design of EDI processes. In this paper, we present the outcomes of an action design research project conducted with a medium-sized organization, focusing on formalizing and designing an EDI process with decision points through three iterative cycles. This research contributes fourteen meta-requirements and eleven design principles for EDI process design, thereby expanding the theoretical (prescriptive) knowledge base. Additionally, the results offer practical implications, enabling organizations to adopt the EDI process accordingly

Waking Up a Sleeping Giant: Lessons from Two Extended Pilots to Transform Public Organizations by Internal Crowdsourcing

Digital transformation is a main driver for change, evolution, and disruption in organizations. As digital transformation is not solely determined by technological advancements, public environments necessitate changes in organizational practice and culture alike. A mechanism that seeks to realize employee engagement to adopt innovative modes of problem-solving is internal crowdsourcing, which flips the mode of operation from top-down to bottom-up. This concept is thus disrupting public organizations, as it heavily builds on IT-enabled engagement platforms that overcome the barriers of functional expertise and routine processes. Within this paper, we reflect on two design science projects that were piloted for six months within public organizations. We derive insights on the sociotechnical effects of internal crowdsourcing on organizational culture, social control, individual resources, motivation, and empowerment. Furthermore, using social cognitive theory, we propose design propositions for internal crowdsourcing, that guide future research and practice-oriented approaches to enable innovation in public organizations