Attaining The Knowledge Organizational Paradigm: Theoretical Views Of The 21st Century Organization And The Case Of Slovenian Institute For Learning Enterprises

As we enter the first decade in the twenty-first century, contemporary management thinking is being profoundly reshaped by two new convictions: managing organizational knowledge effectively is essential to achieving competitive success; and managing knowledge is now a central concern, and must become a basic skill of modern manager. In the paper we would like to present the impact of the increased interconnectivity of people and organization, and to perform the new organizational paradigm that provides a modern knowledge construction of the 21st century organization. Therefore, the paper focuses on the process of attaining the knowledge organization, and enlightens different theoretical architectures of the 21st century organization. Modern forms of organizational structures range from horizontal, process and team structures to virtual networks. We illustrate the impact of organizational paradigm in the Slovenian economy with a case study, where we examine the Slovenian Institute for Learning Enterprises (SILE). SILE was registered as a non-profit institute and established by 18 flourishing major Slovenian enterprises in January 2001 with the aim of developing the concept of learning organization (LO) and diffusing the concept of knowledge management (KM) to become regular practice in Slovenian enterprises

Knowledge management initiatives benefits for the Slovenian public sector

This paper highlights the importance of knowledge management in Slovenian public sector organizations. Knowledge management has received a lot of attention in the past two decades, however in the public sector it is still under-researched. The global financial and economic crisis revealed some important organizational weaknesses in the Republic of Slovenia, some particularly due to the ineffectiveness of the Slovenian public sector, which ranks amongst the worst in the Euro zone. Authors argue that a stronger commitment to knowledge management, which is currently unused in the Slovenian public sector, represents an opportunity to coordinate and exploit public sector organizational knowledge resources. After analysing existing literature, authors have identified examples of good practices from foreign countries that could be partially transferred and adapted into the Slovenian environment. Since the efficient use of knowledge is linked to the performance of public sector organizations, the paper suggests that successful implementation of knowledge management initiatives should result in a more efficient public sector and, indirectly, in improved international public sector competitiveness rankings. This paper is also considered to be important for public sector practitioners and managers, as it proposes implementation of a knowledge management pilot project in Slovenian public sector

Creating The Knowledge Based Organization Through Learning Implementation Framework:

As we enter the first decade in the twenty-first century, contemporary management thinking is being profoundly reshaped by two new convictions: managing organizational knowledge effectively is essential to achieving competitive success; and managing knowledge is now a central concern and must become a basic skill of a modern manager. In the paper we would like to present the impact of the increased interconnectivity of people and organization, and to perform the new organizational paradigm that provides a modern knowledge construction of the 21st century organization. Therefore, the paper focuses on the process of attaining a knowledge organization, and enlightens different theoretical architectures of the 21st century organization. Modern forms of organizational structures range from horizontal, process and team structures to virtual networks. The purpose of paper is to show signs of the Knowledge Based Organization in the Knowledge Based Economy, and to extent the creation of Learning Organization through Learning Implementation Framework from Slovenian economy perspective. The Slovenian Institute for Learning Enterprises today plays the leading role in the knowledge society, linking and distributing learning practices among Slovenian enterprises. On May 1, 2004, Slovenia has become a full member of the EU, and consequently, the role of Institute will become even more important in the implementation of learning organization culture in Slovenian economy

Retaining Older Workers: Fields Of Action – Constituting A Comprehensive Age Management Model

The need to improve labor market participation of older people has gained heightened attention in recent years, especially in view of the significant demographic changes the European Union will undergo due to population aging. Besides the macroeconomic level, the implications of this trend are very present on the company level, especially through managing the aging workforce. Companies are thus introducing new approaches, policies and instruments which are supposed to foster higher employment rates of elderly through implementing active aging concept into business and HRM practice. The aim of this paper is to highlight the development of active aging initiatives within Slovenian companies where the practice of age management is still in its early stage. However, we expect that due to the aging population and the shortages on the labor market one can expect that those practices will receive more and more attention in the future. Because of age discrimination, and a longstanding culture of early exit from employment, many organizations in Slovenia, both the workplace and the community, have no experience in positively targeting older workers. Therefore, those looking to respond to workforce aging usually start from a low or non-existent base. Moreover, Slovenian employers are still often reluctant to employ older workers, either because of age stereotypes or because of some very reasonable dilemmas concerning personnel economics. With the aim to help beginners, we have developed a conceptual model, thus providing a useful base for further development of company-specific age management model that suits to the company needs the most. A key message of this paper is that when it comes to good practice, even very small changes can have a positive impact. The paper concludes with some recommendations for the future development of active aging practice, with an emphasize on new HRM approaches, policies and instruments which seem to be of extreme importance when striving to prolong working life

Organizational learning and information-communication technologies– a promising link

Highly turbulent and competitive business environment has directed a focus of many researchers as well as practitioners on to the field of organizational learning as a way of gaining and sustaining competitiveadvantage. One of the most important issues is its relation to information-communication technologies.The purpose of this paper is to examine prior research and propose a model linking Organizational Learning construct (OL) to Information-communication technologies (ICT). Using structural equationmodeling methodology, we tested this relationship based on the data from 220 questionnaires received from top managers of 867 Slovenian companies with more than 100 employees in the year 2003. Our research demonstrates statistically significant positive correlation between OL and ICT

Organizacijsko učenje i informacijsko-komunikacijske tehnologije-obećavajuća veza

Highly turbulent and competitive business environment has directed a focus of many researchers as well as practitioners on to the field of organizational learning as a way of gaining and sustaining competitive advantage. One of the most important issues is its relation to information-communication technologies. The purpose of this paper is to examine prior research and propose a model linking Organizational Learning construct (OL) to Information-communication technologies (ICT). Using structural equation modeling methodology, we tested this relationship based on the data from 220 questionnaires received from top managers of 867 Slovenian companies with more than 100 employees in the year 2003. Our research demonstrates statistically significant positive correlation between OL and ICT.Visoko turbulentno i natjecateljsko poslovno okruženje usmjerilo je mnoge znanstvenike i ljude iz prakse prema području organizacijskog učenja kao načinu dobivanja i održavanja konkurentne prednosti. Jedan od najvažnijih čimbenika jest odnos prema informacijsko-komunikacijskim tehnologijama. Svrha ovog rada je ispitati prethodno istraživanje i ponuditi model koji objedinjuje Organizacijsko učenje (OL) i Informacijsko-komunikacijske tehnologije (ICT). Primjenjujući metodologiju stvaranja modela strukturalnog poravnavanja, ispitali smo vezu koja se temelji na podacima 220 upitnika, primljenih od top menadžera iz 867 slovenskih kompanija s više od 100 zaposlenika u 2003. godini. Naše istraživanje ukazuje na statistički značajnu pozitivnu korelaciju između OL i ICT

Age Management: A New Paradigm In HRM Within Slovenian Enterprises

In the recent years a demographic situation in European countries has been mostly characterized by a growing proportion of the older population – a trend that is expected to continue in the future. The implications of this trend are not only present on the macroeconomic level (pensions, later retirement, health problems, etc.) but are more and more approached by the companies due to the aging workforce. Companies are thus introducing new approaches, policies and instruments which are synthetically called age management to accommodate to the situation of the ageing workforce. Age management is thus primarily the companies’ orientation and is proved by the previous research that the essential drivers for the older workers staying active are found within the companies. The aim of this paper is to highlight the development of age management within Slovenian companies where the practice of age management is still in its early stage. However, we expect that due to the ageing population and the shortages on the labor market one can expect that those practices will receive more and more attention in the future. Therefore, we reveal through the research of the 200 Slovenian companies the existing age management practices such as recruitment practices, training, remuneration, flexible work options, internal culture, and even a companies’ external image. We analyze the major problems and obstacles that seem to appear in developmental process of the age management implementation in Slovenian companies, and conclude with some recommendations for the future development of the age management.

Labor Market And New Dimensions Of Labor Relations: The Case Of Slovenia

The economic and social situation at the beginning of the 21st century is bringing new challenges also to labor - management relations all over the world. During the transition period, Slovenia was facing hard times in striving to build completely new market-oriented economic society. Because of the significance of labor-management relations to the new economy and political system, labor-related matters received much attention from the Slovenian economic development policy. Within socialist economic system unemployment actually did not exist, as the system was very protective. Labor relations were administratively regulated and all shortcomings broke out on the eve before the socialism collapsed. Transformation depression was accompanied with decline in economic activity in general and inflation, which both had negative impact on standard of living and employment. The registered unemployment rate was rising up to 14.4 % in 1993. The most critical groups were those having no vocational education, older than 40 and those already being unemployed. The main reasons for employment stagnation and the persistent high registered unemployment rate could be found in economys restructure initiated by a transition into market economy (bankruptcies) and the loss of Yugoslav markets (orientation on a more demanding European markets). Many enterprises faced inevitable failure; many workers were dismissed or got a status of being redundant. The problem was moderated with new retirement legislation, which enabled the possibility of early retirement, which consequently lowered the share of elder people employed and contributed to very modest share of part-time employed people. In Slovenia labor costs (taxes and social contributions paid by employees and employers) are the highest in the new EU member states with the exception of Cyprus. If Slovenia wants to boost employment and economic growth, it will have to implement the new labor-relations law and create a more flexible labor market. Considering that competitive advantage and economic growth are often achieved by reducing labor costs (and lower social security of employees) the regulation of labor relations needs very subtle actions. In the paper, we present the development of labor relations in Slovenia through three periods: planned economy, transition and post-transition period, high-lightening the recent trends, the key labor market development problems, as well as bringing forward the key orientations and policies alleviating critical elements on this field

Entrepreneurship: An Educational Perspective (The Case Of Slovenia Compared To Developed Economies)

Challenges of modern economy are forcing the developed countries to seek comparative advantages mainly in their human resources in the trained, educated, flexible and self-confident workforce. Lifetime learning, continuous training and systematic development of entrepreneurial and managerial skills are becoming the basic need for any developed and/or developing country. Well-educated people with the above mentioned characteristics are initiators of high-tech and dynamic entrepreneurship, which is without doubt the main factor of development. Considering the fact that Slovenia is still far away from ideal entrepreneurial society in which entrepreneurship is the way of life for the majority of its population as well as taking into account that Slovenian entrepreneurs and managers have much lower education than their American counterparts we come to the conclusion that Slovenia should focus much more on entrepreneurial and managerial education. For these reasons we are going to discuss the following hypotheses:Slovenia needs to expand its entrepreneurial activity in general, especially dynamic and high-tech entrepreneurship to compete successfully on the European market.The psychological profile of Slovenian people and/or entrepreneurs is closer to theprofile of employees than to dynamic entrepreneurs. Dynamic entrepreneurship requires a higher educational level than Slovenian entrepreneursposses.Slovenia should improve its educational structure.Entrepreneurial education should involve the implementation of modern, active learningmethods.Active teaching (learning) methods contribute to the development of entrepreneurial characteristics

Virtual Management: A Cross-Section Of The Management Process Illustrating Its Fundamental Functions Of Planning, Orga-nizing, Leading And Controlling In A New Era Organization

In the age of the E-Economy, the process of management is undergoing radical changes in all dimensions of basic management functions. New solutions in information and communication technologies are constantly emerging in the forefront, changing and re-defining the current content of management. The traditional management process has built-in competitive advantages on the classic factors of production (land, labor, capital). In the New Economy, the production and distribution of information and knowledge is the main source of a company's assets. The aim of the paper is to present the impact of the New Economy on the management process through its fundamental functions in a new era organization. At the turn of the 21st century, organizations are facing the Internet revolution, which imposes on top management new and different conceptual requirements. Therefore, the paper focuses on the new paradigm of virtual management, and enlightens different theoretical views of the 21st century organization. The results, presented in the paper, can be applied to all companies, competing in today’s extremely competitive environment.