Knowledge and Process Management最新文献

COVID-19 pandemic unleashed uncertainties around the world. Organizations scrambled to ensure business continuity. COVID-19 pandemic was unprecedented as disruptions were far beyond business continuity scenarios planning with respect to severities, timelines, and geographies. Initially, business disruptions were assumed to last just for a few days or weeks at a local governing region, county, or state level. However, the pandemic lasted much longer and sustained efforts were needed to stay compliant with ever-evolving and changing local, state, federal, and international guidelines, rules, and regulations. Prolonged work from home became an unavoidable and only way to ensure business continuity for many service-oriented organizations. Organizations not only tried to leverage existing knowledge management (KM) practices but also were compelled to critically relook at the efficacy and effectiveness of KM practices. Organizational KM systems and practices (OKMSP) in a typical Indian engineering consulting and design organization were studied. The changes in employee perceptions about OKMSP during the pandemic period were captured and critically analyzed. The study evaluated employee perceptions related to four critical aspects of OKMSP namely, KM processes, usage of KM tools, KM effectiveness, and KM culture. Lack of face-to-face meetings during the COVID-19 period made an important change in the way of working. This paper captures COVID-19 pandemic-induced changes and provides pointers to further research opportunities in the field of OKMSP. The study highlights the need for robust knowledge management systems to face pandemic-induced disruptions.

The aim of the paper is to propose the authors' business process nature assessment method and to indicate how to use the data provided by it as guidance for implementing and developing business process management (BPM) in organisations operating in the present complex and dynamic knowledge economy (KE). The study is based on the existing research literature relating to BPM and knowledge management (KM), and thus investigating how the evolving KE affects the nature of business processes and thus the whole BPM ecosystem. The empirical section of the paper employs action research methodology. The data was collected through internal documentation analysis, interviews, workshops (focus groups), process modelling and, observation during workshops. This part of the study confirmed that the use of the proposed method allows for the diagnosis of the nature of business processes in the organisation, including the identification of the nature of the key processes and their characteristics, which allows selection of the optimal BPM implementation methodology. At the same time, the use of action research allows for efficient communication between management and the team implementing BPM, which has been shown to be a necessary condition for the successful implementation of BPM.

The rapidly escalating COVID-19 pandemic entails many unprecedented life circumstances, including in the way people work. The social distancing policy has forced companies to adopt work-from-home (WFH) arrangement to maintain business sustainability amidst both health and economic crises. While in many developed countries, WFH arrangement has been a common practice, this is not the case in some Asian countries, particularly in countries where high power distance emphasising heightened supervision and punishment among workers are still a preferred managerial style, such as Indonesia, China, India, and Thailand. While acknowledging that WFH is considered as beyond an option in this pandemic period, this commentary paper, built on existing literature presented in the narrative fashion, aims to critically identify key barriers of WFH implementation in some Asian countries, particularly in autocratic societies, using both theoretical and contextual approaches. The paper concludes by discussing recommendation for future studies and proposing strategic implications for companies and workers to effectively adopt WFH arrangement, especially in societies where WFH is still a new practice or is involuntarily held.

Effective management of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and the urgent need to improve epidemic prevention require rapid response and immediate solutions, deploying appropriate knowledge management procedures and facilitating effective decision-making and managerial efforts. The increased adoption of smart cities (SC) technologies offers various technologies that can support knowledge capturing, acquisition, sharing, and transferring. However, knowledge management practitioners and decision-makers face various challenges to manage huge data generated from the various SC platforms. Managing COVID-19-related knowledge necessitates filtering, cleaning, keeping, and sharing only useful data. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to investigate managing knowledge related to COVID-19 from a SC perspective. The methodological approach for this study is a systematic literature review. The findings indicate that SC technologies, through the advanced deployment of information communications technology (ICT) applications, have a crucial role in knowledge capturing and sharing. Smart cities strategies enable knowledge extraction through facilitating data collection and analysis over various disparate databases, as well as facilitating quick and accurate handling and analysis of huge and unpredicted amount of data. Managing knowledge related to COVID-19 pandemic has the potential to improve the planning, treatment and controlling the pandemic, enhance decision-making, and enable disaster management. However, the managing of a huge amount of complex, unstructured data and information remains a big challenge for COVID-19 knowledge management (KM) initiatives. The paper proposes a conceptual model and illustrates the various components and links between SC strategies, KM and COVID-19, and how this can inform, facilitate, and enhance decision-making to take steps for the path of recovery.

Organizational strategies around employee retirement are often cast in generational terms (i.e., as knowledge transferred between older and younger generations). Within this context, research suggests generational differences in knowledge sharing preferences and in supporting information and communication technology (ICT) preferences. At the same time, others argue that the concept of generations is a myth, or a stereotype-driven perception. Therefore, the objectives of this study were (1) to examine whether there are generational differences in knowledge sharing and ICT preferences and (2) to examine whether perceptions of younger and older generations' preferences match their actual preferences. Data were collected from 138 survey participants (Baby Boomers, Generation Xers, and Millennials) and analyzed using ANOVAs, effect sizes, and confidence intervals. Additionally, 13 interviews were conducted with Baby Boomers and analyzed using content and narrative analyses. Findings showed no reliable differences between the three generations' preferences for knowledge sharing modalities (i.e., in writing and verbally) and methods (i.e., in person and through various ICTs). The most preferred methods were email, in-person, telephony, and instant messaging. Most interestingly, while all generations had an accurate perception of Millennials' sharing preferences, they all demonstrated a distorted perception of Baby Boomers' preferences. Moreover, the broader the generation gap, the greater the discrepancy in perception. These findings support the postulation that generational differences may be a matter of perception rather than actuality. The most significant implication for research and practice is to retire generational thinking and to propose several alternative organizational strategies in managing knowledge continuity.

The article describes the study of the influence of shock onlinezation caused by the CoViD-19 quarantine on the knowledge management performance and effectiveness in organizations. The methodology of the study is based on a set of multiple linear regression equations linking together the onlinezation, knowledge management parameters, problem-solving and financial performance. The results of the study allow developing a set of practical recommendations regarding the development of knowledge management systems in organizations under the onlinezation context, with a special accent to solving technical and/or marketing uncertainty-related problems with architectural or modular innovations.

Emotions are deeply rooted in the human mind and vital to many knowledge processes, such as knowledge creation and knowledge sharing. Nonetheless, the knowledge management (KM) discipline largely approaches KM from a rational rather than an emotional standpoint. Therefore, starting with a broad view on emotions in general as well as several discrete emotions, our paper presents a structured review of existing evidence on emotions and their role in KM research. We use a structured literature review approach to examine research on emotions as a general concept as well as several discrete emotions in KM research. We recognize and incorporate an integrative emotions-in-KM framework, dividing KM into enablers, processes, and intermediary outcomes as well as organizational performance, and connected emotions with each of these parts. After identifying 72 relevant research publications, we analyze and assign these publications to our initially developed integrative review framework. We present several research opportunities to inspire and encourage further research on emotions in KM. Our analysis reveals a strong focus on empirical approaches; we suggest future research employs further qualitative research to incorporate profound theories and models for further exploring emotions in KM. Furthermore, emotions as the intermediary outcome or during knowledge creation and knowledge use could be investigated in further research endeavors. By showing in which KM contexts and processes emotions are displayed, organizations can draw conclusions to trigger positive emotions for better KM as well as reducing barriers caused by emotions.

The study aims to create an understanding of the embeddedness of individual expertise in the customer relationships of professional business service firms. A theoretical pre-understanding based on discussions of professional service business relationships in general and the role of individual experts in customer relationships, in particular, is assessed through a case study of a professional business services provider and four customer organizations. The study suggests that the embeddedness of individual expertise within professional services in business relationships manifest itself in four ways: (1) expertise embedded in knowledge of the service context, (2) expertise that can be transferred between organizational contexts, (3) expertise embedded in personal relationships, and (4) expertise embedded in the personal interactions that enable knowledge-sharing. Each has implications for various activities performed by the parties and relationship management practices, which are also scrutinized in the present study. Also, the adoption of a new concept of personified service in business relationships is put forward. The study highlights that the reliance on personal expertise is not only a challenge for relationship management, as often suggested, but can also generate effectiveness in both customer and supplier relationship management.

The sharing and application of knowledge in intellectual disabilities care are vital and challenging. Therefore, organizations providing care and support for people with intellectual disabilities use strategies to stimulate these processes. To optimize these strategies, we investigated the contextual factors that influence their execution. We conducted individual, in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 11 CEOs of organizations providing care for people with intellectual disabilities in the Netherlands. A thematic data analysis was conducted in which a deductive approach was followed by a bottom-up clustering. We thus identified factors related to both the internal and the external context. The internal context involves persons within the organization and the organizational structures. The external context involves the organization's socio-political environment and collaborative partnerships. We concluded that the execution of strategies to improve the sharing and application of knowledge is influenced by contextual factors which appear to be interconnected. These contextual factors point to the key role played by care professionals.

In this paper, we analyse the impact of the Covid-19 crisis in organizations from the point of view of knowledge management. Specifically, we address the question of technology, people and processes. We conclude, first, that KM should be put at the centre stage in 2021 because, above all, first and foremost, the Covid-19 crisis is a crisis about knowledge, and that a massive knowledge failure has been at its core – namely, the absence of a vaccine and the cure for Covid-19. We furthermore conclude that in organizations, there was a complete lack of “social knowledge” linked with “organizational behaviour” which led to an organizational crisis; quite crucially, we believe that the mentioned crisis was even fostered by the immense technology available, but continued because, despite all the value of people, there was not knowledge about processes; in fact, suddenly, the drastic change in setting caused previously competent people to become incompetent. All this leads to the third conclusion, namely, the solution of the crisis will be achieved using technology and making people competent again and teaching them the right processes. Finally, for the time being, Humanity is still searching for answers, and we believe that all the partial measures (such as use of masks, social distance, washing hands, home/remote working, etc.) will mean an advance and increase in organizational agility.