Does social media usage boost career prospects of women: an exploratory study in the academia

PurposeThis paper draws on the affordance perspective, to explore the social media (SM) usage experiences that might render valuable for academic women professionals, for knowledge exchange, networking and success. Owing to the increased SM usage during COVID-19 pandemic, this paper tries to find out that in what ways do SM affordances facilitate the underprivileged group of women professionals to grow in their careers in a masculine, conservative society through knowledge exchange.Design/methodology/approachBy utilizing qualitative study design, the authors collected data from 31 women employed in Pakistani universities, through unstructured questionnaires. The responses were analyzed through Nvivo.FindingsThe generated themes suggested that women in Pakistan are aware of SM's potential for knowledge exchange among fellow professionals. They use it to aid them in communication, collaboration and networking. Additionally, they utilize it to share knowledge and build networks that are vital for career progression and success.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper concludes with the implications for practitioners that would aid them in boosting career prospects for women academicians through SM usage in a developing country Pakistan;where women's career outlooks are not as promising as for men;or as bright as for women working in the developed economies.Originality/valueThis a unique attempt to explore knowledge exchange dimensions with the help of SM in the context of working women by the deploying the phenomenological approach.

"The old order Changeth!” Building sustainable knowledge management post COVID-19 pandemic: Very Informal Newsletter on Library Automation

PurposeThe global pandemic and the resulting rapid and large-scale digitization changed the way firms recognized and understood knowledge curation and management. The changing nature of work and work systems necessitated changes in knowledge management (KM), some of which are likely to have a long-term impact. Using the lens of technology in practice, the purpose of this study is to examine the impact of technology agency on KM structures and practices that evolved across five knowledge-intensive global organizations. This study then argues that sustainable knowledge management (SKM) systems evolve in specific contexts.Design/methodology/approachThis study adopts a qualitative case study design to examine five multinational knowledge-intensive global organizations' KM systems and practices across diverse industry sectors.FindingsBased on the findings, the authors develop SKM systems and practices model relevant to a post-pandemic organizational context. The authors argue that KM digitization and adoption support socialization in knowledge sharing. Further formalization through organizational enabling systems aids the externalization of knowledge sharing. Deliberate practices promoted with leadership support are likely to sustain in the post-COVID era. Further, organizations that evolved ad-hoc or idiosyncratic approaches to managing hybrid working are more likely to revert to legacy KM systems. The authors eventually theorize about the socialization of human-to-human and technology-mediated human interactions and develop the three emerging SKM structures.Originality/valueThis study contributed to practitioners and researchers by developing the various tenets of SKM.

The Great Resignation: the great knowledge exodus or the onset of the Great Knowledge Revolution?

PurposeThe purpose of this Real Impact Viewpoint Article is to analyze the phenomenon of the Great Resignation from the knowledge management perspective.Design/methodology/approachIt applies the knowledge-based view of the firm to the notion of the Great Resignation, reviews the extant literature and relies on secondary data.FindingsThe Great Resignation has created numerous knowledge-related impacts on the individual, organizational and national levels. On the individual level, because of an accelerating adoption of freelancing, the future may witness an expansion of the category of the knowledge worker and a growing need for personal knowledge management methods and information technologies. Organizational effects include knowledge loss, reduced business process efficiency, damaged intra-organizational knowledge flows, lower relational capital, lost informal friendship networks, difficulty attracting the best human capital, undermined knowledge transfer processes and knowledge leakage to competition. Countries may also witness the depletion of national human capital.Practical implicationsManagers should learn how to use the available human capital more efficiently;realize the importance of universal succession planning programs;automate knowledge-centric business processes;facilitate knowledge-based IT initiatives by implementing self-functioning virtual communities, including enterprise social networks;restructure organizations to optimize intra-organizational knowledge flows;adjust strategies, products and target markets based on the available human capital;and create telecommuting conditions for people with disabilities who cannot be physically present. Knowledge management scholars are presented with a unique opportunity to convert the numerous theoretical insights accumulated within the boundaries of their discipline into practical application to facilitate the Great Knowledge Revolution.Originality/valueThis viewpoint offers managerial recommendations and inspires future Great Resignation investigations.

From knowledge to wisdom: will wisdom management replace knowledge management?

PurposeThis conceptual paper aims to contribute to the knowledge management (KM) literature by seeking to determine whether wisdom management (WM) will replace KM in future.Design/methodology/approachThis exploratory paper follows the interpretivist research philosophy and the deductive approach. The data collection is based on selected literatures from three disciplines (KM, philosophy and psychology). The findings were qualitatively analysed.FindingsThe findings are threefold: (1) the discussion of wisdom has been either neglected or superficially discussed in the KM literature;(2) despite the fact that wisdom is widely discussed and researched in philosophy and psychology disciplines, there is no commonly agreed upon definition of wisdom, and a dichotomy exists between the implicit and explicit theories of wisdom;(3) wisdom research in philosophy and psychology disciplines provides valuable input to KM by identifying the dimensions, components and characteristics of wisdom and wise individuals.Research limitations/implicationsImportant sources may have been unintentionally overlooked in this paper. This paper identifies the need for empirical research and discussion about WM as the next potential phase of KM. It offers several implications for researchers, managers and management educators as this paper shows that WM is emerging as a new discipline.Originality/valueThis paper makes a theoretical contribution to the fifth phase of KM by drawing attention to wisdom and WM as the next potential phase of KM.

Enablers of knowledge sharing for organizational sustainability: proposing a conceptual framework

PurposeThis study aims to propose a conceptual framework describing the relationship between enablers of knowledge sharing (KS) and organizational sustainability.Design/methodology/approachAn in-depth literature review based on preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses flowchart was conducted to identify the enablers of KS. The study develops a conceptual framework by assimilating enablers of KS on three levels: individual, technical and organizational, to attain organizational sustainability.FindingsEnablers of KS are beneficial for organizations to enable problem-solving, better and faster decision-making, stimulating creativity and innovation, improved customers' services and leveraging employees' talent.Research limitations/implicationsWithin organizational structure, KS can be fostered by a culture that encourages employees to generate novel and creative ideas.Originality/valueThe model of KS presented in this study is applicable to organizations in more complex and uncertain contexts, e.g. the postpandemic era to retain and sustain talented employees.

Online knowledge sharing and creativity in the context of working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic: Very Informal Newsletter on Library Automation

PurposeThe COVID-19 lockdown has forced many organizations and employees to work from home. In such uncertain and unprecedented context, it is crucial for organizations to stimulate their employees' creativity to adapt to new working environment and thus to sustain and improve organizational performance. This paper aims to examine how to stimulate employees' creativity by focusing on their online knowledge sharing (OKS) behaviors, their use of online platforms and their organizations' innovation climate in a working from home (WFH) context because of the lockdown. For empirical analysis, this research uses data from Vietnam – a developing country in the Southeast Asia.Design/methodology/approachData are collected from employees working in Ho Chi Minh City but WFH during the COVID-19 lockdown. Structural equation models are used for analyzing the data.FindingsOnline platform use and organizational innovation climate are positively associated with creativity directly and indirectly via the mediating roles of internal and external OKS.Research limitations/implicationsThis research provides policymakers, organizational leaders and managers with an important evidence on how to stimulate creativity by emphasizing the roles of knowledge sharing, online platforms and innovation climate. Accordingly, relevant practical implications are also drawn to sustain or improve organizational performance in the context of WFH context because of COVID-19 lockdown. This research also contributes to knowledge management literature by providing an evidence on the relationships between online platform use, organizational innovation climate, OKS and creativity.Originality/valueThis research is among the early attempts that explore the associations between employees' use of online platforms, their organizations' innovation climate, their internal and external OKS behaviors and their creativity in the context of WFH because of a lockdown.

Higher Education to Support Sustainable Development: The Influence of Information Literacy and Online Learning Process on Chinese Postgraduates’ Innovation Performance

Digitalization provides opportunities for sustainable development. Cultivating postgraduates’ digital skills is an important task of higher education to support sustainable development (HESD). As a crucial way of cultivating digital skills, high-quality online learning processes are of great significance to achieve “Quality Education”, in line with the 2030 sustainable development agenda. Based on Biggs’s 3P (Presage-Process-Product) learning model, this study focused on the whole learning process and explored the relationship among postgraduates’ information literacy, online platforms, online knowledge-sharing processes and their innovation performance. The analysis of a questionnaire survey of 501 Chinese postgraduates showed that (1) information literacy has a positively predictive effect on postgraduates’ innovation performance;(2) different online learning processes lead to different learning results. Compared to the quantity-oriented online knowledge sharing process (Qty-KSP), the quality-oriented online knowledge sharing process (Qlty-KSP) is related to better innovation performance, which opens onto this study’s third finding: (3) Qty-KSP and Qlty-KSP play a parallel mediating effect between postgraduates’ information literacy and their innovation performance. Compared to Qty-KSP, Qlty-KSP is a more powerful intermediary variable, which leads to this study’s fourth finding;(4) an efficient online learning environment can contribute to higher-quality online learning process, thus improving postgraduates’ innovative performance. This study suggests that policy makers should develop postgraduates’ digital skills for sustainable development in the digital age. This can be achieved by (1) cultivating postgraduates’ information literacy;(2) encouraging them to practice high-quality online learning processes;and (3) providing an efficient sharing platform for sustainability, resilience, and digitalization in higher education.

How Knowledge Sharing Affects Business Model Innovation: An Empirical Study from the Perspective of Ambidextrous Organizational Learning

In the era of knowledge economy and open innovation, it is especially important for organizations to learn how to store and utilize internal and external knowledge for the sustainability of business models. The ability to innovate is a necessity for sustainable development, thus this paper starting from the internal factors driving enterprises to realize business model innovation, from perspective of ambidextrous organizational learning, takes 257 managers in enterprises as samples to empirically study the mechanism of knowledge sharing on business model innovation. The results of regression analysis and structural equation model (SEM) path analysis show that knowledge sharing affects novel and efficient business model innovation through ambidextrous organizational learning, and ambidextrous organizational learning plays a complete mediating role. Both explorative and exploitative learning have a significant positive impact on the novel and efficient business model innovation, and explorative learning has a stronger promoting effect. Therefore, in the practice of enterprise business model innovation, leaders need to establish a system that can promote the willingness of employees to share knowledge. Organizations need to pay attention to the effectiveness of explorative learning, consider the actual demand of employees as much as possible, and mobilize the initiative of employees in the learning process. Organizations also are required to pay attention to the balance between explorative learning and exploitative learning.

The Role of Knowledge Creation and Transfer in Family Firm Succession

The purpose of the study is to investigate the role that knowledge creation and knowledge transfer processes play in family firm intergenerational succession in Thailand. An exploratory qualitative case study approach is used. Interviews were conducted with successors and predecessors of small, medium and large Thai firms that have undergone leadership succession within the past five years (30 firms, for n = 60 interviews). Data were analyzed using a qualitative content analysis approach. There were 16 different knowledge approaches identified that are undertaken by the successor. These processes are commonplace to firms, including formal and informal, internal and external processes of knowledge creation and transfer. Most of these occur at different stages of preparation for succession (pre-succession, transition and succession stages). While some knowledge approaches are used across firms, others are specific to small or large firms. These knowledge approaches and stages were used to develop a knowledge process model for family firm succession. The research develops an original model of the knowledge processes associated with family firm succession. This model, which incorporates a staged succession model with the knowledge processes identified, explains how and why knowledge creation and transfer occur during the succession process.

Praxis of knowledge-management and trust-based collaborative relationships in project delivery: mediating role of a project facilitator

Purpose>Critical knowledge and lessons learnt from the delivery of infrastructure projects have often remained untapped mainly due to the transient and fragmented nature of construction delivery. The main aim of this paper is to investigate the mediating role of a project facilitator in attenuating disruptions in knowledge flows during the delivery of an infrastructure project.Design/methodology/approach>An inductive case-study method is employed in examining the mediating role of the facilitator in an infrastructure project. Content analysis was undertaken by coding the data derived from eight focus group interactions, 23 semi-structured interviews and 24 documentary sources from workshops using NVivo 12 plus.Findings>(1) The project facilitator provided a coherent context to re-invent the narratives (i.e. behaviours and events) by creating a forum for understanding critical problems and stimulating constructive dialogue and intervention. (2) The project facilitator leveraged on both explicit and tacit knowledge within the team, leading to improvement in the proactive management of emergent technical, operational and behavioural challenges, and (3) The project facilitator sustained a valuable intervention in attenuating disruptions in knowledge flows for problem-solving, relationship-management, best-practice strategies, coaching and leadership, as well as reflexive practice.Originality/value>The novelty of this research is that a facilitator is used as the “knowledge-broker” in a multi-party infrastructure delivery team assembled using a traditional lump-sum contract framework. Facilitators have only previously been used in collaborative contract environments like alliancing and partnering.

The co-evolution of knowledge management and business model transformation in the post-COVID-19 era: insights based on Chinese e-commerce companies

Purpose>This study aims to answer the question of how business models (BMs) maintain stability while coping with environmental uncertainties. This study proposes a dynamic co-evolution of knowledge management and business model transformation based on a comparative analysis of the focal firms’ BMs and their main partners in two e-commerce ecosystems in China.Design/methodology/approach>The open data of listed companies regarding the introduction of emerging topics on the transformation tendency of BMs in the post-COVID-19 business world is qualitatively analysed. The theoretical foundation is based on a critical review of the literature.Findings>Three aspects of the co-evolution between knowledge management and business model transformation are introduced. These three aspects are as follows: knowledge integration helps with multi-system business integration and decision-making collaborations;knowledge sharing helps to enhance cognitive ability and network value based on businesses;and the creation of new knowledge helps enrich the knowledge base and promote the transformation of BMs.Research limitations/implications>Solely attributing a firm’s ability to cope with environmental uncertainties to its business model weakens the importance of its knowledge management. This study argues that the co-evolution between knowledge management and business model transformation also plays a key role in a firm’s response to issues post-COVID-19.Originality/value>This study calls for the development of a normative theory of co-evolution between knowledge management and business model transformation, implying uncharted territories of knowledge management based on interaction with business model designs in e-business ecosystems.

Knowledge Creation in Online Environment: Bridge between Self and Collaborative Studies

In so-called DX (Digital Transformation) age, the education field has been extended/exchanged rapidly to the online environment, which is logically an open and cyber space, composed virtually through information network, from the face-to-face environment, which is physically a closed space, organized really with persons. In particular, our current situation with the influence of COVID-19 makes the direction clear. However, in the school education it is difficult to grasp at once what the corresponding well-planed strategies are and what the necessarily-estimated effects are. Of course, the goal and methods in the school education and its organization are not equal to those in many of social activities and companies. Moreover, in the education field, the objectives are different between the primary/secondary education and the higher education. In this paper, from a viewpoint of knowledge creation we discuss this problem on the basis of SECI model, proposed by I.Nonaka, et al., and Knowledge Handling model and Knowledge Transfer schema, developed by us. © 2022 IEEE.

Supply Chain Governance Mechanisms, Green Supply Chain Management, and Organizational Performance

While firms understand that implementing green supply chain management (GSCM) is important, they seem uncertain about how to manage their green initiatives by looking beyond their own facilities. Building a green supply chain requires the participation of all partner firms across the supply chain. However, partner firms are different in size, situation, capabilities, and even industries. Thus, encouraging them to participate in green initiatives is difficult. Many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) hesitate to comply with green initiatives as they require a substantial amount of investment. This study empirically examines the causal relationship between the partnership governance mechanism and the success of GSCM. Based on transaction-cost economics theory (i.e., opportunism) and relational perspectives (i.e., trust) as the theoretical background, this study found that governance mechanisms between suppliers and manufacturers are positively related to GSCM performance. It showed that formal governance is important in the process-management side, while relational governance is critical for sharing knowledge in GSCM. The implications of the study results provide strategic insights on how the choice of governance mechanism affects GSCM performance and thus a firm’s competitiveness.