Many organisations have recognised that knowledge is the most important resource in today's economy. Although knowledge management is seen as central to process and product innovation and improvement, to executive decision making and to organisational adaptation and renewal, little is known on the effect of managerial power and relational trust on the traits and skills of knowledge acquisition. A survey of 140 first line managers was conducted to investigate the relationship between managerial power, relational trust and knowledge acquisition attributes. Results indicate that most, but not all, of the managerial power dimensions enable employees' knowledge acquisition. Moreover, the findings show that relational (interpersonal) trust had a negative effect on the skills and traits of knowledge acquisition. It was also found that the dimensions of managerial power provided statistically significant additional predictive power, after having statistically controlled for the predictive effects of interpersonal trust.

Information Technology is no longer regarded solely as a repository within knowledge management but also as a collaborative tool. This change of role gives rise to online communities (OLCs), which extend the loci of existing communities of practice. To leverage the potential of these communities, organisations must understand the mechanisms underpinning members' decisions to share knowledge and expertise within the community. This paper discusses existing research and develops a theoretical model of factors that affect knowledge sharing in OLCs. The aim is to increase our understanding of the antecedents to knowledge‑sharing in OLCs.

The goal of this paper is to explore the emergence of trusting relationships within Communities of Practice. It has been argued that trust can be viewed as an organizing principle (McEvily, Perrone, and Zaheer, 2003). However, the focus of this paper is on the view that trust is an essential pre‑condition for the sharing of knowledge. The goal of the paper is to discuss possible connections between social networking principles, network structure, and trust within Communities of Practice. This paper will define and subsequently analyze the concept of trust and develop arguments relating to the existence and strength of trusting relationships within Communities of Practice. The theoretical arguments propose relationships between the characteristics of trusting relationships and four network characteristics: homophily; closure; brokerage; and the small‑world problem. The general research question that underpins this paper is: To what extent do network principles determine the level of trust among members within a social network (i.e. a Community of Practice)? The analysis focuses on a specific type of social network which has been termed a Community of Practice. Communities of Practice have been argued to be critical elements in the creation, refinement and sharing of knowledge (Dugid, 2005; Wenger, 1998; Wenger, McDermott, and Snyder, 2002).

The term knowledge‑intensive business services (KIBS) indicates private companies whose job consists of collecting, generating, analysing, and distributing knowledge with the purpose of delivering customized services to satisfy client’s needs. KIBS firms rely on highly educated professionals, and supply knowledge resources or other knowledge‑based services that clients are unable or unwilling to develop by themselves. The provision of KIBS entails a bilateral exchange of knowledge between the service provider and the end user along with the entire supply cycle. In this process, not only KIBS firms supply clients with precious elements of technical and applicative knowledge, but also client firms provide KIBS with pieces of knowledge that are necessary for designing a successful solution. As is well underlined in the literature, trust is an essential ingredient of client‑provider knowledge exchanges, so that KIBS companies have deal with it properly. This is not simple, since trust has several dimensions that rely on different trust‑building mechanisms. In light of this, the paper aims to analyse the different forms of trust and the related trust‑building mechanisms that come into play during the delivery of a knowledge‑intensive service. This is done by discussing the findings of a multiple case‑study of a particular group of KIBS, i.e. computer service companies located in the Northeast of Italy. Specifically, the study: a) offers a knowledge‑oriented description of the interactions that take place during the service delivery process between client and KIBS firms; b) analyses the role played by the different forms of trust, as antecedents and consequences of each interaction; c) makes some remarks about the trust building mechanisms that a KIBS company can exploit, and the resulting management implications.

Many innovative businesses formed around energy or bio‑related activities, for instance, are often the result of collective action of organisations involved in many‑sided markets, which can be found in and around focusing environments such as business incubators or tech¬no¬logy centres. Within such environments, group interests beyond those of single producers and their immediate clients exist and interfere. Rather generically, important economic outcomes of innovations are se¬quen¬ces of cost reduc¬¬tion events, the pace of which is influenced by technology and networking alike. Moreover, new products or technologies are producing long term costs difficult to anticipate, which eventually, in response to private and public awareness and knowledge formation, will have to be inter¬nalized. More traditional industries like textiles rely in general on conservative business models and use new technology in rather restricted ways. Product design is fashion orien¬ted and there¬fore predominantly “artistic” in nature, distribution channels are directed towards out¬lets facilitating physical contact of clients with the produce. New technology enters main¬ly via more mechanized production cycles for a given set of narrowly defined final products. The formation of Intellectual Capital (IC) in such industries is a slow. The presence of low creativity products indicates underutilization of both new product concepts and tech¬nological possi¬bilities. Participative design procedures for new product concepts using appropriate eCommerce features point here towards a way out. Such features include well adapted recommender systems based on trust creation and opinion formation. We propose to model the effects of these long term costs of new technology and the possibly complementary effects of participative design procedures by economic agents acting within specific adaptable neighbourhoods and by formation of some trust related assets. Thereafter, the influ¬ence exerted between firms is increasing in firm similarity, in the degree of product complementarity, and it also depends on (mutual) trust relations. A sustainable innovation is more expensive than a regular one but it may lead to long term benefits and to durable competitive advantage, espe¬cially if many firms from the network collude. The associated opinion formation process which leads to sustainable innovation may be viewed as a collec¬tive cognitive process resem¬bling that of branding and re‑branding. A similar trust‑based opinion formation is also regarded as part of a pro¬ce¬dure for assessing the acceptance of many new or parallel product concepts as they derive from Participative design procedures anticipating future product uses. Stylized dynamic models, which entail an opinion formation process, can in turn be identified with different levels of sustainability commitment by innovating and imitating firms within a dynamic multi‑firm setting. Such models tend to display the statistical behaviour of some aggregates known to occur in empirical innovative processes.

In this competitive age, knowledge is continuously being identified by both scholars and practitioners as the most competitive asset. Numerous organisations in todays knowledge‑intensive economy are keen not only to determine knowledge‑sharing but to als

The Research Management Unit of Swiss Distance University for Applied Sciences (Fernfachhochschule Schweiz … FFHS) has experienced trust building processes in virtual environment amongst others in their work with Community of Practice (CoP). The estab lishment of CoPs has become their core business, that means that they have have planned and implemented such kind of learning communities for international companies and for university groups. According to the author, CoPs are perceived as laboratory for creating intellectual capital for which trust building is a pre‑conditioned success factor. To identify trust building methods in a research environment in particular and in CoPs in general, using new technologies is the main aim in this paper. So, the br oad subject CoP and intellectual capitalŽ will be constricted and the focus put on trust. A special focus is put on the virtuality element which has become very important with the raise of social media platforms in the business world. Following questions will be addressed in the paper: How is trust defined in a virtual environment, especially among researchers? How can you build trust in a CoP? How can the community leader influence this trust building? What is the role of different group members? Which influence does a deep organizational trust have on the success of a community? To answer this question, foremost a theoretical analyses model for trust and its processes will be developed based on the three domains of intellectual capital which most auth ors have identified for the division of intellectual capital: human capital, structural capital and relationship capital. To cope with the technical dimension of virtuality, a new approach to the intellectual capital domains is elaborated. In the first pl ace, at the level of human capital, the author describes personal characteristics and competencies (knowledge management skills) which enable trust building. Secondly, the level of structural capital focuses on technical aspect of the community and acti vities which foster trust building. Last but not least, the relationship level studies the trust building process linked to different roles and a new collaborative culture. As a case study for this paper, serves the community of researchers at the FFHS wh ich collaborate through a virtual platform called eDolphin. The researchers, working for a future‑oriented institution and eUniversity, come from different disciplines and promote an eLearning and eCollaboration approach in team activities and project man agement. The findings of the theoretical approach lead to its adaptation to the practical example of eDolphin. How was trust build in this case? What are the lessons learned which we identified during this community building process. Last but not least, some theories and findings concerning community building on social media platforms are described.

The contemporary approach to the concept of intellectual capital has transformed. The three components (human, relational and organizational capital) are not enough to reflect reality, as the static perspective was replaced by an integrative vision: i ntangible resources, actions and process that contribute to sustainable competitive advantage. However, this theoretical division provides solid ground for explaining the close bond between trust, cultural identity and cooperation, soft concepts, and in tellectual capital in knowledge‑based organizations. Therefore, we consider it is of high interest to identify the nature of the relational and organizational capital, and trust association. Is it first trust and then the two intellectual capital componen ts, or the other way around? Also, we can take one step further and consider the intellectual capital formation process and architectural scheme behind it. This paper aims firstly at offering a theoretical framework for the liaisons between the concepts p reviously mentioned and intellectual capital, underlying specific characteristics for the Romanian educational system, especially for tertiary /higher education. The second objective is to provide new research directions, comparing the findings with situa tions of other cultures, like Japan and USA. The research methodology comprises a thorough literature review of scientific studies and of the 2011 National Romanian Education Law. It focuses on the changes and challenges for the intellectual capital forma tion phase. Also, it involves an empirical investigation of an evaluation of the current intellectual capital formation route. The research instrument is a questionnaire, collecting information for both quantitative and qualitative research purposes. The findings of this paper seek to identify the structure and dynamics of the intellectual capital formation process in the Romanian higher education system. As well, we hope to lead to concrete solutions for improving general dynamics, and acknowledgment of trust, cooperation and cultural aspects as corner stones in education intellectual capital formation area.