Models of Cognition,the Contextualisation of Knowledge and Organisational Theory

This paper examines the importance of cognitivefoundations for theories of organisationalbehaviour. Three different conceptions of humancognition and reasoning are examined: theinformation processing, situated learning andcultural-historical perspectives. The papershows how each conception of cognition leads toa different understanding of organisationalroutines and organisational problem-solving, aswell as to the adoption of a differentempirical methodology for observingorganisational behaviour and for testinghypotheses about the nature of routines andproblem-solving. The paper demonstrates that ofthe three approaches to human cognition, onlythe cultural-historical one gives rise to anunderstanding of organisational knowledge asembedded within a wider cultural andinstitutional setting.     

The need for knowledge modification in technology change: a framework to consider changes in domain complexity,knowledge and productivity

This paper researches productivity in relation to domain complexity and the present knowledge capacity in an organisational context. The study is based on five very different case studies. Three studies are conducted in Denmark, Germany, Mexico and China and are related to knowledge transfer in the relocation of manufacturing facilities. Two studies investigate operation and automation of oil and gas production in the North Sea. The case study method involves semi-structured interviews, surveys, an analysis of historical production data and observations. Based on the findings from the field studies, the paper develops a conceptual framework that management can use for discussions of productivity, development of knowledge and design of learning programmes when considering changes in the complexity of a domain or a change in knowledge.     

Linking organisational commitment with continuous learning through peripheral vision and procedural memory

Under some circumstances such as the lack of commitment of peers or the imposition of excessive authority, many employees tend to turn a blind eye to either the development of new, more effective procedures or recognise that new or modified customer needs have developed. In these situations, organisational commitment is a preliminary step not only to the effective implementation of current procedures but also to questioning values of the organisation and future needs of customers. This study proposes that organisational commitment helps alleviate these problems by maintaining an ambidextrous perspective between procedural memory and peripheral vision to promote continuous learning. This research has therefore been conducted to explain both conceptually and empirically how peripheral vision could interact with and influence procedural memory, and hence facilitate continuous learning (CL) within the business. While peripheral vision is often associated with developing and supporting knowledge structures for the exploration of new opportunities and with identifying and addressing new clients, many consider these knowledge structures as examples of organisational routines and procedures, and thus as aspects of the ‘procedural memory’ of an organisation. To contribute to the understanding of these relationships, this study addresses two questions: (1) Are outcomes of CL processes within the organisation determined by the presence of organisational procedural memory – both skills and knowledge, and (2) Does an improved peripheral vision result in higher levels of learning? After using PLS-SEM on a sample of 203 employees of Spanish banks, our findings support the theory that peripheral vision facilitates the emergence of new and unconventional behaviours within a culture, which in turn has a positive effect on the firm’s continuous learning.     

Performance management practices in lean manufacturing organizations: a systematic review of research evidence

This paper provides the first systematic look into the existing research on performance management (PM) practices employed in lean manufacturing organisations (LMOs). It adopts a systematic review method to examine the evidence generated in the period 2004 – 2015 and uses a comprehensive PM framework to synthesise the findings. The results suggest that PM practices that have the most prominent role in LMOs are those that, firstly, are located closest to front-line actions and, secondly, explicitly address operational realities. This calls into question the primacy of accounting-driven controls in LMOs, suggesting that operational controls may be more effective than top-down accounting-based PM practices. The results also confirm the bias towards operational-level issues but suggest that LMOs may integrate the operational and the strategic levels by using PM practices that drive organisational learning through employee involvement and engagement.     

The Role of Existing Knowledge in New Product Innovativeness and Performance

The purpose of this study is to provide a more thorough assessment of the link between existing knowledge and organizational performance than currently exists in the literature. We identify factors and processes influential in the management of existing knowledge within the areas of learning culture, knowledge building, and organizational performance. Through structural equation modeling, a more thorough examination is given of the role existing knowledge plays in new product performance and innovativeness. In completing this task, we provide insight into the subprocesses of knowledge building by evaluating the influence of shared interpretation and two aspects of information acquisition—efficiency and degree of innovativeness of newly acquired information—on new product development (NPD) outcomes. Included in the examination of these processes are organizational culture and structure characteristics believed to influence knowledge management success.     

The Effect of Outward and Inward Internationalisation on Different Types of Innovation: Evidence from UK SMEs

This paper empirically examines the effect of outward internationalisation, inward internationalisation activities and outward-inward internationalisation (i.e., exporting and importing) on different types of innovation undertaken by UK SMEs. Specifically, we differentiate between product innovation and process innovation and examine the potential effect that they can generate individually and in combination. The results show that both inward and outward internationalisation support product and process innovation in SMEs. However, such an effect is found to be stronger for the combined outward-inward internationalisation operations than for the single mode undertaken by SMEs. The results are found to be robust across the different types of innovation. However, sub-sample analysis shows that, although innovation responds to different internationalisation operations in micro and small firms, for medium-sized firms, only the combination of outward and inward internationalisation operations increases the probability of undertaking both innovations. Using the organisational learning theory, we argue that engaging in both internationalisation activities simultaneously enables firms to acquire a more diverse and richer set of knowledge and key information — through double loop learning, which is translated into increased levels of innovation. Hence, our results have important theoretical, managerial, and policy implications and stimulate the existing debate in the area.     

Identifying and managing persisting tensions affecting strategic learning from projects

While research recognises that strategic learning from projects helps build organisation-wide knowledge capabilities, learning from projects still remains fragmented and is often prematurely discontinued. Although research demonstrated that persisting tensions affect project-based organising, little is known about specific tensions affecting strategic learning from projects. A single, in-depth case study in a multinational food processing and packaging corporation is used to explore paradoxical tensions affecting strategic learning from projects. The study uncovered three persisting learning tensions: project/organisational identity, short-/long-term-orientation and standardisation/flexibility. Seven strategies are proposed, supported by the empirical data, to respond to these tensions.     

Management innovation: A systematic review and meta-analysis of past decades of research

Managerial innovation has gained increased popularity in research and practice because of its positive effects on organisational renewal and performance. Regardless of the growing number of studies on management innovation, there is still a lack of research that integrates and synthesises this body of knowledge. This study undertakes a systematic review and meta-analysis of the literature to gain insight into existing empirical studies on management innovation. Our content analysis and review of 66 studies from 1981 to 2017 analyses the trends and background of research into management innovation. In addition, we develop a model of management innovation grounded in selected theoretical lenses to advance our understanding of the different drivers, moderators, mediators and outcomes of management innovation. Results of the meta-analysis show that management innovation is positively related to organisational size (r_c = .282), knowledge management (r_c = 0.608), organisational learning (r_c = 0.692), firms’ overall performance (r_c = 0.393), and financial performance (r_c = 0.269). Finally, we have identified several research gaps and provided a future research agenda in the context of managerial innovation.     

Patterns of knowledge flows and MNE innovative performance

This paper examines the influence of inter-and intra organisational knowledge flows on innovative performance in multinational enterprises. It employs a theoretical framework relating to organisational differentiation within multinational enterprises to generate a number of hypotheses linking knowledge flows to innovate performance. The hypotheses are tested in the biopharmaceutical context. Patent citations and co-patenting are utilised to capture knowledge flows. The findings support suggestion in the literature that subsidiary embededdness in external knowledge stimulates innovation in MNEs.     

Intelligent Public Organisations

The article explores the nature of the intelligence and organisational learning of public sector organisations with regard to both individual organisations and multiple organisational ecosystems. The main ideas behind modern systems theory (MST) and the logic developed by the MST theorists in the domain of organisational intelligence are pinpointed in the paper. The article presupposes that the basic structure of the organisational features of intelligence consists of leadership, strategy and foresight, people, partnerships and resources, and organisational processes, and the intelligence builds on these features. The article concludes with an explicit definition of the organisational activities that generate organisational intelligence, putting forward best practice examples with regard to these activities while also presenting scientific evidence to back up these claims.     

Women and training: an empirical investigation in the Arab Middle East

Few studies have explored the professional training experiences of Arab women within the contexts of learning organisational cultures and relevant human resource development (HRD) practices. Capitalising on in-depth, face-to-face interviews, this study explores the experiences of women managers in Lebanon with professional training and organisational learning. The findings demonstrate the paucity of professional training and learning opportunities for women and illustrate how organisational discrimination and gender-biased cultures and tension influence women’s learning. To overcome these barriers and alleviate organisational tension, the Lebanese women managers capitalise on their agency and individual capacities to improve their training experiences and increase their access to learning opportunities. By virtue of individual agency and through their agentic process, the careerists shape their training and overall learning by being adaptive and developing structures of action that enable them to advance their learning. The results have important implications for HR managers and HRD scholars. They also extend our understanding of the importance, or lack thereof, of the learning culture within an organisation.     

Management innovation,pro-innovation organisational culture and enterprise performance: testing the mediation effect

The interest in management innovation (MI) is growing and the conviction about its significant role in boosting an enterprise’s competitive advantage and performance has recently gained ground. The studies on MI and its relationships with enterprise performance, which are relatively scarce in literature, indicate the complexity of these relationships. This inspired us to propose the management innovation construct and its operationalisation, which allowed for the empirical verification of the relationships between management innovation and enterprise performance. Simultaneously, we adopted the hypothesis on the mediating role of pro-innovation organisational culture. The aim of this article, therefore, is to study the relationships between MI and enterprise performance as well as to determine what role is played by pro-innovation organisational culture in these relationships. In order to do that, we conducted a survey of 301 companies based in Poland. Our research results confirmed the existence of relationships between management innovation and enterprise performance in the survey sample, although they were not very strong. Additionally, the hypothesis about the mediating role of organisational culture was also partially supported. The results of our study enrich the knowledge about the role of MI in stimulating enterprise performance and the role of pro-innovation organisational culture. We also discuss the implications for further research and management practice.     

Brokering knowledge: Linking learning and innovation

This paper presents a model of innovation, knowledge brokering, that explains how some organizations are able to routinely innovate by recombining their past knowledge in new ways. While existing theories of organizational learning and innovation are useful, the links between them are crucial for understanding how existing knowledge becomes the raw materials from which individuals in organizations construct innovative solutions. This model develops these links by grounding processes of learning and innovation in the larger social context within which they occur. Using a microsociological perspective, this article draws together research spanning levels of analysis to explain innovation as the dissembling and reassembling of extant ideas, artifacts, and people. Previous research has suggested that firms spanning multiple domains may innovate by moving ideas from where they are known to where they are not, in the process creating new combinations of existing ideas. This paper more fully develops this process by linking the cognitive, social, and structural activities it comprises. Knowledge brokering involves exploiting the preconditions for innovation that reside within the larger social structure by bridging multiple domains, learning about the resources within those domains, linking that knowledge to new situations, and finally building new networks around the innovations that emerge from the process. This article also considers the origins of knowledge brokers as firms committed to this innovation strategy, the structural and cultural supports for the knowledge brokering process, and several obstacles to the process that these firms experience. Finally, I discuss the implications of this model for further research on innovation and learning, and the implications for other organizations seeking to establish their own capabilities for brokering knowledge.     

基于协同技术学习的组织技术能力提升机理研究

在对现有技术学习理论简要介绍和评述的基础上,本文从糸统角度出发,提出协同技术学习的概念,把协同技术学习界定为知识积累和知识应用两个子过程,两者协同发展,包括学习主体、学习内容、学习源和学习方式的协同,技术能力的提升正是在其协同发展基础上实现的。文章从静态和动态两个角度,分析了协同技术学习提升技术能力的机理。     

Framework for assessing the strategic plant role and deploying an improvement roadmap in global operations networks: an empirical study

In the current global economy, with an increased international presence of all types of organisations, the design and management of global operations networks (GON) plays a vital role in organisational competitiveness. Whilst all types of organisations are facing significant challenges for managing increasingly complex global operations, current literature on GONs is still limited in its scope. The aim of this paper is to discuss the development and evaluation of a construct for assessing the strategic plant role and developing of an improvement roadmap in GONs. This research makes a contribution to current knowledge on global operations by extending the model proposed by Ferdows in ‘Making the Most of Foreign Factories’ (HBR, 1997) and operationalising it to enable its application for the design and optimisation of GONs.     

Informal Mentoring as an Organisational Resource

Mentoring is a mechanism for supporting junior managers but until now little research on the benefits to the organisation has been reported. This paper reports on a survey of managers in a UK local government authority to ascertain their views of the benefits of informal mentoring to the organisation. Both mentors and protégés perceived mentoring as investment in a future pool of managers and a tool for the management of change. Mentoring was also seen as assisting in the transfer of knowledge, organisational learning and cross-departmental communication—in other words, as nodes in an information network. Further research is suggested into mentoring as a micro-level knowledge-producing community of practice. As informal mentoring is likely to bring longer-term advantages to the organisation, the paper also discusses how to capture the benefits of informal mentoring when designing formal schemes.     

Knowledge Accession and Knowledge Acquisition in Strategic Alliances: The Impact of Supplementary and Complementary Dimensions

This paper advances the concepts of knowledge accession and knowledge acquisition in strategic alliances by identifying supplementary and complementary dimensions to these knowledge transfer modes. Complementary knowledge transfer reflects the similarity of knowledge that the partners have and is conducted in pursuit of higher efficiency and productivity to enhance partner firms' existing competitiveness. Supplementary knowledge transfer occurs when partners each possess distinctive core competences and the information that is acquired or accessed increases the business scope of partners. As knowledge accession entails knowledge amalgamation that does not involve organizational learning, costs associated with the transfer process are lower and trust is easier to establish than in the case of knowledge acquisition. The paper reviews the implications of these transfer modes on trust building in alliances and their costs implications and presents a number of propositions for further exploration.     

Unemployment,Labour Institutions and Innovation

ABSTRACT: This contribution endorses the transactional trilogy of institutional economics in order to suggest a theoretical framework for re-examining the relationships between unemployment, labour institutions, and technological and organisational innovation. Labour institutions are usually called into question in the debates on European unemployment. Although the advocates of the biased technological change thesis defend it in order to improve the employment of unskilled workers, this article argues that a deregulation of the labour market may in fact generate losses of dynamic efficiency with respect to knowledge accumulation, the organisation of production and national capabilities of innovation. In addition, the impact of technological and organisational innovation on employment partly depends on the capabilities of firms and nations to initiate institutional learning, regarding bargaining, managerial and rationing transactions.     

MOOCs 平台学习使用影响因素研究——基于隐性和显性知识学习视角

随着信息化的快速发展, MOOCs平台为广大学习者提供了随时随地通过网络免费知识学习的机会.知识学习存在显性知识学习和隐性知识学习, 这两类知识对MOOCs学习使用效果发挥着极为重要的作用.基于知识学习理论及技术采纳理论, 对MOOCs平台学习使用影响因素进行了研究.通过1 752份问卷调查、数据分析发现, 显性知识下的网站设计要素和课程教学要素, 以及隐性知识下的认知隐性知识、技能隐性知识和社交隐性知识学习对MOOCs平台学习者使用存在显著正向影响;通过回归分析发现, 技能隐性知识和社交隐性知识学习的重要性明显高于课程教学相关要素以及网站设计这两类显性知识.基于研究和分析的结果, 可以为互联网环境下国家教育模式及相关产业的发展规划提供建议.     

The influence of top management support for ICTs on organisational performance through knowledge acquisition,transfer, and utilisation

This research analyses, first, whether top management support for information and communications technologies has positive consequences for knowledge management by analysing the specific influence of top management support for ICTs on each of the knowledge management processes (knowledge acquisition, transfer, and utilisation). Second, it analyses the influence of each knowledge management process on organisational performance. The theoretical model is tested using data collected from March to May 2010 from 201 CEOs in Spanish technology organisations. The results indicate that the stage-based disaggregation of the knowledge management process into knowledge acquisition, transfer, and utilisation, and the three-stage management process are the mediating mechanisms in the relationship between top management support for ICTs and organisational performance. CEOs should thus support the information and communication technologies necessary to improve all of the interrelated stages of knowledge management as a mechanism for achieving better organisational performance. Various strategic actions should be stimulated within the organisation to intensify the interrelation between these stages of acquisition, transfer, and utilisation of knowledge.