http://ejkm.com EJKM News en © 2012, EJKM Tue, 10 Apr 2012 10:19:20 +0000 Tue, 10 Apr 2012 10:19:20 +0000 EJKM EJKM EJKM RSS generator http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Being a knowledge driven process, healthcare delivery provides opportunity to incorporate knowledge management practices to improve processes. But it has also been noted that knowledge management is systematically more complex in healthcare and minimal research exist to guide academic and organizational stakeholders. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the application and impact of knowledge management practices in healthcare delivery. The paper is conceptual in its nature and aims to propose a contingency-based framework to drive further empirical research. The paper is primarily based on a literature review of the healthcare knowledge management and associated information sciences research streams. The fundamental research questions are: ‘‘what and how do the various knowledge management practices affect the performance of healthcare delivery?’’ and ‘‘what are the contingent and contextual factors that needs to be considered when exploring the relationship between knowledge management practices and performance of healthcare delivery?’’ We first discuss facets of performance in healthcare delivery but thereafter focus on the technical and interpersonal care aspects of healthcare delivery. We investigate knowledge management practices in the areas of (i) knowledge acquisition and sharing, (ii) knowledge assimilation and application. In our paper we explore how the different knowledge management practices affect the performance of healthcare delivery through technical and interpersonal care. Thereafter we explore the factors of physician characteristic, ailment characteristics, organizational IT infrastructure and organization processes, on which the conceptual framework will be contingent on. We thereafter evaluate the conceptual framework with a case study. From an academic perspective our paper identifies some key knowledge management practices and explores their linkages with technical and interpersonal care, while from a practical point of view it provides implications for administrators and practitioners in healthcare delivery on the management of contingency factors so that the knowledge management practices can be properly implemented. http://www.ejkm.com/volume10/issue2/p110 Prantik Bordoloi and Nazrul Islam http://www.ejkm.com/volume10/issue2/p110 Thu, 01 Mar 2012 01:01:01 +0000 Knowledge sharing and creation are considered key processes leading to innovation and organizational performance. Several organizational initiatives have focused on building communities of practice in order to create a platform where employees can share experiences and insights. The focus in this paper is on one type of network structure, termed distributed networks of knowledge (DNoK). The success of such practices is deeply linked to whether or not formalization of the networks can hamper their knowledge creation and creativity. The role of leadership has been extensively discussed in the setting of communities of practice. However, this paper intends to shed new light on the topic by exploring the boundary management perspective in order to enable knowledge sharing and creation within this specific context of DNoK. To this end, we have examined the role of leadership styles in different DNoKs in a multinational firm. http://www.ejkm.com/volume10/issue2/p121 Eli Hustad and Aurilla Aurelie Bechina http://www.ejkm.com/volume10/issue2/p121 Thu, 01 Mar 2012 01:01:01 +0000 Human capital (HC) represents the cumulative tacit knowledge that is embedded in the minds of people in organisations. HC is important to organisations because it serves as a source of innovation and strategic renewal. Individuals carry HC when they join an organisation and take their talent, skills and tacit knowledge with them when they leave the organisation. Thus HC is volatile in nature. Organisations are therefore keen to do what they can to foster and develop HC as a means of achieving sustainable competitive advantage. This paper argues that neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) has the potential of developing and enhancing the stock of HC in organisations. NLP emerged in the 1970s from the University of California, USA. NLP suggests that subjective experience is encoded in terms of three main representation systems: visual, auditory, and kinaesthetic (VAK). NLP practitioners claim that people tend to have one preferred representation system over another in a given context. Despite that previous research has shown that NLP can assist in facilitating knowledge and learning capabilities, very limited research is conducted using NLP in nurturing HC in organisations. This paper critically reviews the literature and theoretically argues that NLP can be used as a practical approach to develop HC in organisations. This is because NLP primarily focuses on individual internal learning and that learning likely leads to the accumulation of HC in organisations. In other words, organisational members may find it more effective to enhance their tacit knowledge, both individually and collectively, if they adopt the NLP approach in their day-to-day work. Examples on how NLP may be used to develop HC in organisations will be provided. Future research direction and limitations will also be discussed. http://www.ejkm.com/volume10/issue2/p131 Eric Kong http://www.ejkm.com/volume10/issue2/p131 Thu, 01 Mar 2012 01:01:01 +0000 Operational knowledge in industries is difficult to capture because of the tacit nature of gestures. Our experiments showed that the operators can be equipped with video capture devices. Professional workers can also be invited to describe the intentions of their gesture. But the bottleneck is in the gesture itself. This paper describes an experiment, which was performed at EDF (Electricité de France), the French leader energy producer company. Several categories of professional gestures were studied and were investigated to produce training video material called “MAP” (Multimedia Apprenticeship Platform). The capture protocol aims to collect operators’ intentions, their mental models. An anthropocentric three-step methodology was applied. For all the gestures, six descriptors were used to qualify the environment and the capture situation: (A) the realism of the situation, (B) the length of the gesture, (C) the shooting area size, (D) thought and decision-making of the operator, (E) the operator’s ability to gaze available information and (F) the operator’s ability to search for information in the environment. A three-value scale is used for each descriptor to quantify the criticism of the gestures. Results include the perimeter of application of the MAP methodology, describing professional gestures which can be captured, formalized and transmitted. The majority of the descriptors have a moderated influence on the process, concentrating their impact on one point of the method. Two parts of the professional gesture have high-level impact on the whole process: (1) the visual component of the gesture to use available information or to search pertinent information in the environment, and (2) the time devoted to interaction between operators or to think and make decision during the realization of the professional gesture. http://www.ejkm.com/volume10/issue2/p142 Sophie Le Bellu and Benoit Le Blanc http://www.ejkm.com/volume10/issue2/p142 Thu, 01 Mar 2012 01:01:01 +0000 : A main purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of intellectual capital and intellectual capital complementarity on a firm’s global initiatives. Sample was selected with a type of purposive sampling. The selection criteria were that companies had to locate in Taiwan, but competing globally. Altogether 324 firms took part in the study. Structural Equation Modelling technique was used in the data analysis. Based on the analyses results, some implications are provided. Firstly, the importance of intellectual capital is again highlighted. It is confirmed that intellectual capital does enhance a firm’s global initiatives. Secondly, some moderating effects of business environment are found between intellectual capital and global initiatives. Thirdly, the important role of intellectual capital complementarity is identified. It is found that intellectual capital complementarity has positive effect on global initiatives in both high dynamic and low dynamic contexts. As a result, the value of intellectual capital components can mostly be actualized only in terms of their dynamic interrelationships and conjoint interaction. http://www.ejkm.com/volume10/issue2/p154 Ya-Hui Ling http://www.ejkm.com/volume10/issue2/p154 Thu, 01 Mar 2012 01:01:01 +0000 : Agriculture must evolve into a more environmentally-friendly approach while remaining economically workable. This type of agriculture is said to be sustainable. It has a systemic logic and therefore requires a strong knowledge base. In this study we propose a knowledge management IT-based system. In the first part of our article, we discuss the potential actors of the system and their possible implications. The second part deals with the knowledge selection and formalization. The third part describes the main computing features of the knowledge server we propose. http://www.ejkm.com/volume10/issue2/p164 Vincent Soulignac, Jean-Louis Ermine, Jean-Luc Paris, Olivier Devise and Jean-Pierre Chanet http://www.ejkm.com/volume10/issue2/p164 Thu, 01 Mar 2012 01:01:01 +0000 The practice of developing knowledge management systems in organizations is hindered by a lack of research into (a) what is a knowledge management system, (b) how to develop a knowledge management system in practice, and (c) what role (if any) information technology should play in supporting a knowledge management system. Hence the use of ad hoc, proprietary approaches by practitioners. This paper addresses this gap in research and in practice by presenting five principles from a set of 12 that that emerged through a grounded theory study of the practice of developing knowledge management systems in organizations. The paper focuses on how each of the principles (i) emerged from, and was validated in, evidence collected from developing knowledge management systems, (ii) is connected to related work in the literature, and (iii) informs the practice of developing knowledge management systems. The principles have fundamental implications for the practice and research of developing knowledge management systems in an organizational context. In practice, the principles offer practitioners useful insights into developing knowledge management systems in a way that delivers value to organizations. In research, the principles address several problematic aspects of the literature, particularly concerning divergence, fragmentation and inconsistencies in definitions for knowledge management systems, the purpose for developing knowledge management systems and the role of IT in supporting knowledge management systems. Furthermore, the paper helps distinguish between information systems, which are often used in knowledge management and knowledge management systems whose characteristics, according to the principles presented are very different. http://www.ejkm.com/volume10/issue2/p184 Mark Woodman and Aboubakr Zade http://www.ejkm.com/volume10/issue2/p184 Thu, 01 Mar 2012 01:01:01 +0000 This paper is the final phase of a larger research project that investigates knowledge transfer in global supply chains from the perspective of South East Asian reseller companies. In a previous study a theoretical model for knowledge transfer in global supply chains was developed and quantitatively validated for the case of Thai resellers of laboratory equipment where equipment resale companies (donors) provide training to their customers (recipients). Results from that previous study indicated that the transfer capability was the most important issue for the donor firms. Furthermore, the most critical factor for the recipient firms was their absorptive capacity in the form of certain capabilities for the successful utilization of the technical knowledge received from the donor firms. By adopting a qualitative sense-making research approach and a two-round focus group interview method for data collection and analysis the current study attempts to provide further deeper explanations for the results of previous quantitative survey. Five participants were chosen for two-round of focus group meetings for this purpose. http://www.ejkm.com/volume10/issue2/p196 Lugkana Worasinchai and Farhad Daneshgar http://www.ejkm.com/volume10/issue2/p196 Thu, 01 Mar 2012 01:01:01 +0000 This Book review comments on Tina Stavredes' book, Effective Online Teaching, published by Jossey Bass, 2011. http://www.ejkm.com/volume10/issue2/p207 Dan Remenyi http://www.ejkm.com/volume10/issue2/p207 Thu, 01 Mar 2012 01:01:01 +0000