THE NEXUS BETWEEN KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND INNOVATION. A LITERATURE REVIEW

Knowledge management is the new managerial discipline whose aim is to support the processes of knowledge exploitation, memorization, re-use and learning. Therefore, it can be said that knowledge management has, implicitly or explicitly, a strong relationship with innovation management. Despite this fact, knowledge management and innovation management have developed into two separate fields and two distinct contexts of research. Starting from these assumptions, the purpose of this paper is to examine how the connection between knowledge management (KM) and innovation management has been developed in the last 10 years. In order to achieve our goal, an etic approach is employed which encompasses an external view of meaning associations and real-world events. The research combines the qualitative with the quantitative perspective and the whole multi-stage process is dominated by an inductive approach. The analysis focuses on 894 articles that were published in knowledge management and innovation journals, mostly indexed in Scopus and Thomson Reuters databases, during 2006 - 2016. The main results prove that there is a strong connection between KM and innovation management although the number of KM journals that approach topics related to innovation is higher than the number of innovation journals that focus on knowledge-related issues. The concept of "innovation" is by far the most used in the analyzed KM papers, while the term of "knowledge" is frequently used as a generic keyword in the Innovation papers; only a few papers are about a specific topic such as product development, project management, and process improvement - in the case of KM journals - or organizational learning, social capital, and human capital - in the case of Innovation journals. The research findings have both theoretical and practical implications. On the one hand, it synthesizes how the link between knowledge management and innovation management evolved in the last 10 years. On the other hand, it may serve as a handbook of managerial guidelines; it brings forward the knowledge management approaches and tools which can be used for product or process innovations

Sharing Knowledge in Public Service Networks: a Case Study of Employment Services

Public services require efficiency and quick responsiveness. An effective management of knowledge and knowledge exchanges is vital. This paper addresses this issue by analysing the case of employment services, which have been subjected to profound reforms in the last years with the aim of providing services that fit the needs of local companies and workers. This is why today labour markets are often managed at local or regional levels, and are populated by wide networks of public and private intermediaries that try to match companies and workers locally. However, these networks require effective management of knowledge exchanges between players, efficient coordination mechanisms, and appropriate use of IT. The paper analyses the processes of knowledge exchange and sharing that characterises a significant case of networked public employment services: the Province of Vicenza, located in Northeastern Italy. The study is based on direct interviews with main actors, on the analysis of support systems and services (e.g. databases, portals), and of available documents. The players in the employment system are identified, and their structure, functions, resources and management approaches are examined. Particularly, the processes of interaction and knowledge sharing between players are analysed, and the web of knowledge exchanges mapped. The related issues of coordination and knowledge management are also investigated. The findings can help public policy makers and private company managers to set appropriate policies for employment services

The Times They are (Not?) A-Changing: Recent Trends of Knowledge Management Literature

After almost 3 decades, the literature on knowledge management (KM) has gained importance. Today, many journals and international conferences are explicitly oriented to KM research, and many others propose special issues or special tracks on KM. The increasing number of studies and publications raises the question of what direction KM research is taking. This paper aims to explore the current trends in KM research by providing an analysis of the literature. It is based on two sources of data: first, some existing reviews of the KM literature, with the goal to analyse if these studies converge towards consistent conclusions; second, the proceedings of a long-running and popular international Conference on KM (the European Conference on Knowledge Management), where a quantitative analysis was carried out to understand the main streams in this field of study. The overall picture is that of a field of study with a flourishing literature and lively debate, but that it is still struggling to define its \u201cidentity\u201d

Managing counter-knowledge in the context of a pandemic:challenges for scientific institutions and policy makers

Counter-knowledge comes from unverified sources of information such as hoaxes, rumours or partial lies. It creates an atmosphere of lack of trust that often leads individuals into making risky decisions. In contexts of high uncertainty, the flow of counter-knowledge is likely to increase. Although scientists and scientific institutions can provide knowledge based on evidence and verifiable facts, they may find it difficult to react to the proliferation of counter-knowledge which affects their own credibility. This paper adopts concepts derived from the knowledge management field to shed light on this problem. Examples from the recent history of Italy are discussed. Useful lessons for the public and policymakers are derived. These lessons become particularly relevant in the context of a crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic, as the world experiences a combination of factors that provide a fertile ground for the emergence of both scientific knowledge and social counter-knowledge

Capitalising knowledge exchanges: an interpretative model

In today’s economy, companies establish intense interactions with trading partners: co-design teams and other formal/informal structures are commonly used to implement collaborative knowledge creating processes. However, companies not only learn from R&D but from all the operational or managerial activities that are involved in trading. Business relationships are often represented just in terms of “economic transactions”, namely the material acts of exchanging goods and money. However, the act of trading involves an intense exchange of knowledge between the parties. Companies learn from all the operational or managerial activities that are involved in a business relationship; so, it is important to understand the mechanisms by which they can capitalise knowledge exchanges with trading partners. To represent these processes, the paper employs and develops the model of knowledge transaction proposed in a previous study: a knowledge transaction is defined as the act of exchanging valuable pieces of knowledge. The model is applied for representing and interpreting the mechanisms of inter-firm interactions that are involved in economic transactions between a seller (more precisely, a supplier) and a buyer (i.e. a client firm). Since any economic transaction implies a number of communications before, during, and after the material exchange, and these communications carry pieces of knowledge, consequently they involve a number of knowledge transactions. Each piece of knowledge has a value for both the “sender” and the “receiver”. Consequently, a knowledge transaction implies a “payback” that may consist in another piece of valuable knowledge. To validate the usefulness of the model of knowledge transaction, a case-study analysis of inter-firm business relationships and economic transactions in a group of interacting firms (i.e.: the SAP network) is proposed. The case-study, that focuses on the identification and analysis of knowledge transactions occurring in trading, allows to verify the potential usefulness of the model, to highlight the current elements of weakness of this research line, and to suggest the points of a future research agenda

Knowledge-based strategies: case-study analysis of local computer services companies

The studies of models for formulating business strategies that explicitly consider knowledge as the core resource are still insufficient. This paper analyses this issue by considering the particular case of computer service firms, which can be seen as Knowledge Intensive Business Services (KIBS) connecting the sources of technological innovation (i.e. large multinationals, research laboratories, universities, etc.) to the individual needs of the local customers. In particular, they operate as mediators between the local cognitive requirements and the more generic knowledge resources available in the global environment. Since the activity of those companies is based on the capability to manage knowledge flows among various actors, the formulation of their business strategies requires new approaches that directly focus on cognitive processes. The paper describes the results of an extensive survey involving the computer service companies located in a specific region (Northeast of Italy). The study allows to draw useful schemes for the identification of knowledge-based strategies, which can be of use beyond the specific context of investigation. In particular, the paper: a) analyses approaches that can be used to establish a knowledge-based business strategy; b) uses such approaches to identify how computer service firms pursue their business strategy by means of a proper management of their knowledge assets; c) discusses the utility of the illustrated approaches, and provides some suggestions for a future research agend

Tecnologie produttive e struttura del settore. Prospettive tecnologiche

Il testo illustra i risultati di una ricerca volta a valutare le prospettive tecnologiche del settore orafo con particolare riferimento alle piccole e medie imprese venete

Understanding Knowledge Transfer on the Net: Useful Lessons from the Knowledge Economy

KM is making its way among the more established branches of business management. Thus, the contribution that can come from an \u201ceconomic reading\u201d of KM practices can not be neglected. To systematise the conceptual backgrounds and to improve the formal modelling, a more direct connection with the models and approaches of the economic disciplines would be useful, but KM and Economics have often been two too distant areas. Recently, the attention to the economic models by KM researchers has increased. On the other hand, a growing number of economists has shown interest in the emerging field of the "Knowledge Economy", that focuses on the knowledge as an explicit object of the economic analysis. From these converging efforts, useful elements for the conceptual systematisation of KM can arise, and can give theoretical robustness to both the practice and the research. In the light of this, the chapter examines the contribution that the current studies of the Knowledge Economy can give to the clearer understanding of KM and, particularly, of Knowledge Transfer processes that are a central element of KM. The open research questions that may result from such an "economics-based" approach to KM are also analysed

Reti nel tessile-abbigliamento

Il capitolo illustra un'indagine basata su casi di studio relativa all'evoluzione dei modelli di impresa nel tessile-abbigliamento. Vengono illustrati i rapporti reticolari tra le imprese e le problematiche di gestione degli scambi di conoscenz