Knowledge Management Activities and Strategic Planning Capability Development

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.While the strategic management literature extols the virtues of engaging in strategic planning for superior performance, how a dynamic strategic planning capability can be developed remains underexplored; a knowledge void addressed by the paper through applying knowledge-based theory. A mail survey was sent to high technology firms randomly sampled from the Kompass Directory of UK businesses. Firms were sampled at the SBU level, given the focus on strategic planning capability. An organization’s strategic planning capability derives from extensive information distribution and organizational memory. While learning values is non-significant, symbolic information use degrades the development of a strategic planning capability. By investigating the contributory activities that lead to strategic planning capability development, the findings establish how strategic planning materializes in organizations. Further, the differential effects found for knowledge management activities on strategic planning capability development extends empirical studies that suggest knowledge is always a central tenet of strategic planning. A set of key knowledge activities are identified that managers must address for strategic planning capability development: strategic planning routines and values of search, analysis, and assessment should be appropriately informed by investments in knowledge dissemination and memory on a continual basis. Meanwhile, information misuse compromises strategic planning capabilities and managers must protect against out-of-context or manipulated information from infiltrating into organizational memory. Despite the advent of the Knowledge-Based Theory and its core premise that capabilities derive from knowledge management activities, little research has been conducted into demonstrating the knowledge-based antecedents of a strategic planning capability

What is Strategic Competence and Does it Matter? Exposition of the Concept and a Research Agenda

Drawing on a range of theoretical and empirical insights from strategic management and the cognitive and organizational sciences, we argue that strategic competence constitutes the ability of organizations and the individuals who operate within them to work within their cognitive limitations in such a way that they are able to maintain an appropriate level of responsiveness to the contingencies confronting them. Using the language of the resource based view of the firm, we argue that this meta-level competence represents a confluence of individual and organizational characteristics, suitably configured to enable the detection of those weak signals indicative of the need for change and to act accordingly, thereby minimising the dangers of cognitive bias and cognitive inertia. In an era of unprecedented informational burdens and instability, we argue that this competence is central to the longer-term survival and well being of the organization. We conclude with a consideration of the major scientific challenges that lie ahead, if the ideas contained within this paper are to be validated

A measurement strategy for non-dispersive ultra-violet detection of formaldehyde in indoor air: Spectral analysis and interferent gases

We have conducted an extensive review of published spectra in order to identify a region with potential for detection of formaldehyde in indoor air. 85 chemicals and chemical groups common to the indoor environment were identified, 32 of which had absorption spectra in the UV-vis region. Of these, 11 were found to overlap with the formaldehyde UV region. It was found that the region between 320 to 360 nm is relatively free from interference from indoor gases, with NO being the only major interferent. A method is proposed for a low resolution (3 nm) spectroscopic detection method, specifically targeted at formaldehyde absorption features at 327 nm with a reference at 334 nm. 32 ppb of NO was found to have a cross-sensitivity with equivalent magnitude to 100 ppb of formaldehyde. A second reference at 348 nm would reduce this cross-sensitivity.This work was funded by the Engineering and Physics Science Research Council (EPSRC) under grants GR/T18424, EP/P504880 and EP/H02252X. Enquiries for access to the data referred to in this article should be directed to [email protected]

Noise analysis for CCD-based ultraviolet and visible spectrophotometry

Full-text not yet available due to publisher embargo.We present the results of a detailed analysis of the noise behavior of two CCD spectrometers in common use, an AvaSpec-3648 CCD UV spectrometer and an Ocean Optics S2000 Vis spectrometer. Light sources used include a deuterium UV/Vis lamp and UV and visible LEDs. Common noise phenomena include source fluctuation noise, photoresponse nonuniformity, dark current noise, fixed pattern noise, and read noise. These were identified and characterized by varying light source, spectrometer settings, or temperature. A number of noise-limiting techniques are proposed, demonstrating a best-case spectroscopic noise equivalent absorbance of 3.5×10−4  AU for the AvaSpec-3648 and 5.6×10−4  AU for the Ocean Optics S2000 over a 30 s integration period. These techniques can be used on other CCD spectrometers to optimize performance

Supersymmetric Higgs Singlet Effects on B-Meson FCNC Observables at Large tan(beta)

Higgs singlet superfields are usually present in most extensions of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) that address the mu-problem, such as the Next-to-Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (NMSSM) and the Minimal Nonminimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MNSSM). Employing a gauge- and flavour-covariant effective Lagrangian formalism, we show how the singlet Higgs bosons of such theories can have significant contributions to B-meson flavour-changing neutral current (FCNC) observables for large values of $\tan\beta \stackrel{>}{{}_\sim} 50$ at the 1-loop level. Illustrative results are presented including effects on the B_s and B_d mass differences and on the rare decay $B_s\to\mu^+\mu^-$. In particular, we find that depending on the actual value of the lightest singlet pseudoscalar mass in the NMSSM, the branching ratio for $B_s\to\mu^+\mu^-$ can be enhanced or even suppressed with respect to the Standard Model prediction by more than one order of magnitude.Comment: 28 pages, 8 figures, LaTeX. Minor updates. Version to be published in PR

Formaldehyde sensor using non-dispersive UV spectroscopy at 340nm

Formaldehyde is a volatile organic compound that exists as a gas at room temperature. It is hazardous to human health causing irritation of the eyes, nose and throat, headaches, limited pulmonary function and is a potential human carcinogen. Sources include incomplete combustion, numerous modern building materials and vehicle fumes. Here we describe a simple method for detecting formaldehyde using low resolution non-dispersive UV absorption spectroscopy for the first time. A two channel system has been developed, making use of a strong absorption peak at 339nm and a neighbouring region of negligible absorption at 336nm as a reference. Using a modulated UV LED as a light source and narrowband filters to select the desired spectral bands, a simple detection system was constructed that was specifically targeted at formaldehyde. A minimum detectable absorbance of 4.5 × 10-5 AU was estimated (as ΔI/I0), corresponding to a limit of detection of approximately 6.6 ppm for a 195mm gas cell, with a response time of 20s. However, thermally-induced drift in the LED spectral output caused this to deteriorate over longer time periods to around 30 ppm or 2 × 10-4 A

Gender, Part-time Employment and Employee Participation in the Workplace: Comparing Australia and the European Union

The international trend in the growth and incidence of 'no n-standard employment', and its highly gendered nature, is well documented. For ease of definition, and because of the nature of the available data, we focus upon part-time employment in this paper. Employee participation may be defined as any workplace process which 'allows employees to exert some influence over their work and the conditions under which they work' (Strauss 1998). It may be divided into two main approaches, direct participation and indirect or representative participation. Direct participation involves the employee in job or task-oriented decision-making in the production process at the shop or office floor level. Indirect or representative forms of participation include joint consultative committees, works councils, and employee members of boards of directors or management. In the EU context statutory works councils are the most common expression of representative participation, but in Australia, consultative committees resulting from union/employer agreement or unilateral management initiative are the more common form. All of these forms of employee participation raise important issues concerning part time employees. Effective participation has two further major requirements which also may disadvantage part timers. First, there is a ge neral consensus in the participation literature that training is required for effective direct or representative participation. Secondly, effective communication between management and employees is required for participation, preferably involving a two-way information flow. The issue is of further significance since it has decided gender implications. This paper seeks to redress this relative insularity in the literature by examining some broad trends in this area in Australia and the EU. It analyses survey data at a national level in Australia and compares with some survey data generated in the EU by the EPOC project and analysed by Juliet Webster along the lines which we suggest here. It tests the hypothesis that the growth of one non-standard form of employment, part-time employment, diminishes the access to participation in the workplace enjoyed by female workers in comparison with their male colleagues, and finds that the hypothesis is strongly confirmed. This has major implications for workplace equity, and for organisational efficiency.gender, part-time employment, employee participation, Australia, European Union

The mediation between participative leadership and employee exploratory innovation: Examining intermediate knowledge mechanisms

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.We examine mediation effects of coworker knowledge sharing and absorptive capacity on the participative leadership–employee exploratory innovation relationship in R&D units of Taiwanese technology firms. Deploying a time-lagged questionnaire method implemented over four business quarters, data is generated from 1600 paired samples (managers and employees) in R&D units of Taiwanese technology firms. The structural equation modeling results reveal that (1) participative leadership is positively related to employee exploratory innovation; (2) coworker knowledge and (3) absorptive capacity partially mediate the relationship between participative leadership and employee exploratory innovation independently; and, (4) coworker knowledge sharing in combination with absorptive capacity partially mediates this relationship. The results extend previous research on participative leadership and innovation by demonstrating that participative leadership is related to employee exploratory innovation (Lee and Meyer-Doyle, 2017; Mom et al., 2009).Results also confirm that participative leadership drives employee exploratory innovation through employee absorptive capacity. This reinforces the need highlighted by Lane et al. (2006) to investigate the role of absorptive capacity at the individual-level. Collectively, while participative leadership is important for employee exploratory innovation it is the knowledge mechanisms existing and interacting at the employee-level that are central to generating increased employee exploratory innovation from this leadership approach