Collaborative knowledge management - A construction case study

Due to the new threats and challenges faced by the construction industry today, construction companies must seek new solutions in order to remain ahead of the competition. Knowledge has been identified to be a significant organisational resource, which if used effectively can provide competitive advantage. A lot of emphasis is being put on how to identify, capture and share knowledge in today's organisations. It has been argued over the years that due to the fragmented nature of the construction industry and ad-hoc nature of the construction projects, capture and reuse of valuable knowledge gathered during a construction project pose a challenge. As a result critical mistakes are repeated on projects and construction professionals have to kee

Management innovation made in China: Haier’s Rendanheyi

This article shows how emerging market companies like China’s Haier Group create management innovations that are appropriate for an environment characterized by increased volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA). Dealing with VUCA effectively requires practices favoring nimble and decentralized responses; the Haier Group developed a platform of management practices under the label Rendanheyi (in Chinese: 人单合一) to transform itself from a conventional hierarchical manufacturing firm into a highly responsive online-based entrepreneurial company with “zero distance to the customer”. We demonstrate how the organizational, competitive, institutional, and technological contexts mattered for the development of Rendanheyi. Our study contributes several insights for practitioners and academics. First, we showcase how context dependent management innovations are created to allow emerging market firms like Haier to deal with a high VUCA world. Second, we draw lessons from Haier’s experimentation process for other firms. Finally, we create an extended process model of management innovation that managers, in both emerging and developed countries, can readily apply

Introducing "2.0" functionalities in an ERP

Companies and ERP editors show an increasing interest for the Web 2.0 technologies, aiming at involving the user of a web site in the creation of content. We summarize in this communication what these tools are and give an overview of recent examples of their use in companies. We show on the example of the most recent ERP of SAP, Business By Design, that if "2.0 tools" are now available in some ERPs, their integration in the business processes is not yet fully done. We suggest in that purpose the first draft of a methodology aiming at developing "2.0 business processes" using an ERP 2.0

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

Investigating knowledge management factors affecting Chinese ICT firms performance: An integrated KM framework

This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in the Journal of Information Systems Management, 28(1), 19 - 29, 2011, copyright Taylor & Francis, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/10580530.2011.536107.This article sets out to investigate the critical factors of Knowledge Management (KM) which are considered to have an impact on the performance of Chinese information and communication technology (ICT) firms. This study confirms that the cultural environment of an enterprise is central to its success in the context of China. It shows that a collaborated, trusted, and learning environment within ICT firms will have a positive impact on their KM performance