Knowledge management and strategic orientation: leveraging innovativeness and performance

Purpose - The aim of this study is to investigate whether knowledge management (KM) contributes to the development of strategic orientation and to enhance innovativeness, and whether these three factors contribute to improve business performance. Design/methodology/approach - A sample of 241 Brazilian companies was surveyed, using Web-based questionnaires with 54 questions, using ten-point scales to measure the degree of agreement on each item of each construct. Structural equation modeling techniques were applied for model assessment and analysis of the relationships among constructs. Exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and path analysis using the technique of structural equation modeling were applied to the data. Findings - Effective KM contributes positively to strategic orientation. Although there is no significant direct effect of KM on innovativeness, the relationship is significant when mediated by strategic orientation. Similarly effective KM has no direct effect on business performance, but this relationship becomes statistically significant when mediated by strategic orientation and innovativeness. Research limitations/implications - The findings indicate that KM permeates all relationships among the constructs, corroborating the argument that knowledge is an essential organizational resource that leverages all value-creating activities. The results indicate that both KM and innovativeness produce significant impacts on performance when they are aligned with a strategic orientation that enables the organization to anticipate and respond to changing market conditions. Originality/value - There is a substantial body of research on several types of relationships involving KM, strategic orientation, innovativeness and performance. This study offers an original contribution by analyzing all of those constructs simultaneously using established scales so that comparative studies are possible.

Environmental management in Brazil: is it a completely competitive priority?

Current studies indicate a need to integrate environmental management with manufacturing strategy, including topics like cross-functional integration, environmental impact, and waste reduction. Nevertheless, such studies are relatively rare, existing still a need for research in specific regional contexts. At the same time, the results found are not unanimous. Due to these gaps, the objective of this article is to analyze if environmental management can be considered a new competitive priority for manufacturing enterprises located in Brazil. A cross-sectional survey was conducted with Brazilian companies certified by ISO 14001. Sixty-five valid questionnaires were analyzed through Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). The first conclusion is that environmental management presents a preventive approach in the sample analyzed, focused on eco-efficiency, what potentially do not to create a competitive advantage. This preventive approach inhibits environmental management from being regarded as a new competitive manufacturing priority, in the full sense as defined by the literature. Another important result is that environmental management, although following a preventive focus, may influence positively the four manufacturing priorities: cost, quality, flexibility and delivery. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Firm Market Performance and Volatility in a National Real Estate Sector

We present empirical evidence using daily data for stock prices for 17 real estate companies traded in the Sao Paulo, Brazil stock exchange. from August 26, 2006 to March 31, 2010. We use the U.S. house price bubble, financial crisis and risk measures to instrument for momentums and reversals in the domestic real estate sector. We find evidence of conditional premium persistence and conditional volatility persistence in the market. We find that the conditional risk-return relationship in the sector is consistent with the prospect theory of risk attitudes in this period. Certain companies seem to be operating on a perceived potential industry return above the target, while most others are below the target, and the whole sector is below target on average. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.