Continuous product innovation : learning behaviours and knowledge management

The research reported in this paper considers Product Innovation from a broader perspective than that of the isolated NPD (New Product Development) project commonly discussed in the literature. In this perspective, Product Innovation is a continuous and cross-functional process involving the sharing and transfer of knowledge within the many steps of the innovation process, and the integration of a growing number of different competencies inside and outside the organisational boundaries. This paper examines two in-depth case studies that were carried out to establish if and how learning occurred within companies developing new products. Based on a model developed as part of a joint Euro-Australian research project, the way in which the selected companies share and transfer knowledge and learning experiences during their product innovation processes have been examined and analysed. This model uses a number of interrelated variables including performance, behaviours and levers to stimulate improvement, contingencies, and learning/innovation capabilities to describe the learning and knowledge transfer in product innovation processes within the case studies. This paper discusses some of the skills the research has identified that managers need to enable their companies to gain a competitive advantage through improved product innovation. The ongoing research has developed, tested and disseminated a computer-based methodology to assess organisational knowledge capture and transfer in the new product development process. The research is part of the Euro-Australian co-operation project known as CIMA (Continuous Improvement and Product Innovation Management).

Knowledge management in continuous product innovation : a contingent approach

There is a growing interest in new organisational forms and integrated managerial and technological approaches supporting companies in continuously innovating their products and processes to survive in a turbulent environment. Successful product innovation will more and more depend upon a company's ability to manage knowledge and integrate a growing number of competencies within and outside the organisational boundaries. These abilities require a complex set of interrelated managerial, technological and organisational conditions that must be designed according to the individual firm's characteristics. This paper aims to identify and analyse the relation between individual firms' contingent variables and managerial approaches to foster knowledge management in product innovation. Evidence is based on a survey of 70 companies, including European and Australian firms, developed within the Euro-Australian cooperation project entitled CIMA (Continuous Improvement for global innovation management).

From design for ecologically sustainability to facilities management through building intelligence and knowledge management

Ecological sustainability basically concerns environmental protection and social benefits. An ecologically sustainable development is based upon reduced energy usage, increased efficiency, and upheld social responsibility; and it should be properly evaluated by financial, environmental and social aspects. Council House 2 (CH2) is claimed to change the way of Australia approaches in ecologically sustainable design and construction. This is the ‘Six-Star design and built’ green star facility assessed by the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA), and the 10-story city council building was completed and opened in 2006, totally A$11.3 million was invested for the sustainability features. CH2 protects the environment, when it compares with the old council house, and is expected to reduce electricity consumption by 85%; reduce gas consumption by 87%; produce only 13% of the emissions; and reduce water mains supply by 72%. In this paper, the author examines its design reports and the researches paper, in the form of knowledge base, to case-study how the sustainability, effectiveness and efficiency of CH2 work. By leveraging the existing CH2 sustainability knowledge, design and building professions can learn and imitate it in further ‘green’ design without ‘re-inventing the wheel’; facilities executives can also use the existing knowledge to identify steps to boost up the facilities’ operating efficiency.

Knowledge management culture, strategy and process in Malaysian firms

Malaysia is one of the leading countries in Asia that are at the forefront in the development of a knowledge-based economy (KBE). The Malaysian government has been making substantial investments in both physical and technological infrastructure to facilitate knowledge-intensive economic activities. Foreign and local firms in Malaysia are encouraged to take advantage of the opportunities brought by the emerging KBE. However, little is known as to how firms in Malaysia respond to this new trajectory of economic development. In particular, there is paucity in the literature as to how Malaysian firms manage knowledge in their organizations as they strive to achieve sustainable competitive performance. Little is known as to how and why firms in Malaysia develop and manage their intangible and knowledge-based resources as they operate and respond to the modern knowledge-based competitive economic arena. This paper examines a type of organizational culture that supports and promotes knowledge management (KM) within firms in Malaysia. The paper argues that KM-oriented culture shapes the overall KM strategy of firms, which consequently shapes the organizational process required to manage the firm's knowledge-based resources. The study uses survey data from a sample of 153 firms from Malaysia. Structural equation modelling was used to develop and test the measurement model of KM-oriented culture, KM strategy and KM process of the sample firms, as well as the structural model of their hypothesized relationships. The results show that firms with high level of KM-oriented culture demonstrated well-defined KM strategies. Firms that implemented well-defined KM strategies also reported that they have better KM processes in place. Building a KM-oriented culture within the organization is a pre-requisite to the implementation of any KM systems in Malaysian firms. Successful implementation of KM strategies, processes and the supporting technological infrastructure depends on whether organizational members consider KM as a norm within the firm. The study's focus on the linkages between KM-oriented culture, strategy and process in the context of Malaysian firms contributes to a more nuanced understanding of KM among firms in the Asian context in general, and in the Malaysian context in particular.

Social capital for knowledge management : the case of small and medium-sized enterprises in the Asia-Pacific Region

This article proposes a conceptual framework that explains that the social capital of a community shapes the innovation performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) through knowledge management within the firm. The study's significance stems from the unprecedented effort in explaining how community social capital matters in the innovation performance of SMEs, a departure from previous studies that have typically examined market-related or hierarchical social capital in the form of formal networks and directly linked them to a firm's innovation performance without due regard for knowledge management within the firm as an antecedent of organisational innovation performance. The aim is to stimulate further thinking and empirical research on the subject of social capital of a community in the SME and/or entrepreneurial context.

The relationship between knowledge management strategic orientation and business strategic orientation among SMEs

Little is known about how Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) practise Knowledge Management (KM) from both a theoretical and empirical perspective. Some research has been conducted in this field but from a western cultural perspective. Research on KM and SMEs in developing countries such as Saudi Arabia is limited. The research reported in this paper investigated KM strategic orientations and business strategic orientations in Saudi Arabian SMEs. The research involved the development of a theoretical framework relating to KM strategies and business strategies. Three KM strategies were proposed: aggressive, conservative and balanced and were linked to Miles and Snow’s typology: prospectors, defenders and analysers respectively. The empirical research involved a survey of Saudi Arabian SMEs. A total of 143 SMEs, participated in the survey. The results indicate that the proposed classifications and relationships between KM strategic dimensions were valid. It further shows that there was an association between business strategy and KM strategy exists and the proposed linkage between: prospectors and aggressive KM strategy, defenders and conservative KM strategy and analysers and balanced KM strategy were mostly confirmed but with some inconsistency regarding knowledge breadth dimensions.

Concept definition in knowledge management : the development of an organizational memory scale

Theorists and researchers in the field of Knowledge Management are frequently frustrated by issues with concept definition, as illustrated by the following comment "there remains disagreement on methodologies, definitions and processes" from the summary article "Issues Raised at ECKM, 2008". How can we clearly define constructs of interest? How can we further research and understanding in the field if we are speaking with different vocabularies? This paper illustrates some of these issues by describing the concept definition process involved in the development of an organizational memory scale. The example being used to illustrate these issues was a self-report scale of organizational memory developed to survey experienced workers' attitudes to mentoring others to pass on their knowledge. The current research sought to differentiate between the types of organizational knowledge that experienced workers have and the possible relationships these have with attitudes pertaining to knowledge transfer via mentoring. Defining the construct to be measured is the vital first ingredient in scale development. Many researchers lament that the concept of organizational memory is a "rather loosely defined and under-developed concept" (e.g. Johnson & Paper, 1998, p.504), and this hints at the challenges that concept definition can entail. Furthermore, in the early stages of this particular project it became clear that the organizational memory scale had similar aims, and was able to borrow from, an existing sale of organizational socialization (Chao, O'Leary-Kelly, Woolf, Klein & Gardner, 1994). This paper describes the concept definition process involved in the development of the scale along with results from the exploratory factor analysis. There is a discussion of the relative contribution that the organizational memory scale makes alongside the existing measure of socialization (Chao et al., 1994), along with goals for further development.

Simulation-based knowledge management in airport operations

Capturing and retaining knowledge in any organization is a major challenge. This talk describes how these challenges have been addressed through simulation and modeling techniques for complex engineered systems. A series of case studies that focus on airport processes are used to demonstrate the concepts. Furthermore, the additional benefits that a simulation model can bring, through online control and decision-making support, are discussed.

Knowledge management in future factories

Technology in the manufacturing sector has seen rapid change, transforming from stand alone, manual processes to smart, integrated systems. We have witnessed the migration of relay-based systems to advance SCADA systems, manual pro-duction to fully automated, and hand written reports to interactive computer-based dashboards. We are now seeing the emergence of smart products manufactured in smart plants and the evolution of smart services in manufacturing. Future manu-facturing systems will be distinguished by intelligent machines, automation and human factors’ integration. This talk will focus on how knowledge can be embed-ded in processes and products through the use of simulation and modelling tools to streamline future smart production systems and improve product quality. The implications to future smart manufacturing enterprises are explored through a se-ries of case studies from aerospace, mining and small and medium manufacturing enterprises.

Enterprise localization practices and their implication for knowledge management in foreign participation in the Chinese construction sector

Foreign firms active in the Chinese construction industry find themselves in a competitive environment unlike the environments in which they operate back home. Adaptations are therefore required in order that firms retain competitive leverage while integrating into the circumstances of the Chinese market. Since these firms primarily compete on superior knowledge capabilities it is instructive to understand how adaptations both serve to transfer propriety capabilities to China while adapting to the knowledge characteristics of the Chinese market into which those capabilities are transplanted. Five localizing parameters across which adaptations take place are identified in this paper and rates of localization are tabulated for 60 foreign firms active in the Chinese construction industry. Revealed localizing behaviors are then analyzed in the light of existing literature for explanatory power. It is concluded that in order to be strategically competitive firms must not only retain knowledge differentials, but that the knowledge must be coded and disseminated in a manner suited to the environment in which it is to be utilized.

Knowledge management view of environmental sustainability in manufacturing SMEs in the Philippines

This study highlights the role of knowledge management (KM) in enabling small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in a manufacturing industry in a developing country to engage in environmentally sustainable business. Drawing on the knowledge-based view of the firm, it argues that resource-constrained SMEs rely on their relational capital to augment their capability to innovate in order to find better and environmentally sound ways of doing business. However, SMEs need to harness their KM orientation in order to leverage the knowledge-based resources emanating from their relational capital towards building their innovation capability. This capability is essential in integrating effective environmental management practices in business. The findings from our analysis of data from a survey of 241 manufacturing SMEs in the Philippines support these hypotheses and underscore the importance of developing an organisational capability to engage in KM in order to adopt sustainable business practices. The implications of the findings are also discussed.

Effects of knowledge management on client-vendor relationship quality : the mediating role of global mindset

Purpose: This study argues that knowledge management (KM) by itself has only limited effects on client–vendor relationship (CVR) of global providers of highly customised services. Rather, it is the ability of top management to properly evaluate and utilise a vast array of complex knowledge which allows global firms to develop and maintain superior CVR. The paper tests the proposition that global mindset (GM) of top management mediates the effects of KM on CVR quality. Design/methodology/approach: The paper uses survey data from a sample of 68 international service providers (ISPs) in the information technology sector in India and partial least squares approach to structural equation modelling to test the hypotheses. Findings: The results show that both KM and GM have positive and statistically significant effects on the quality of CVRs. The results also confirm that the GM of top management has significant and substantive mediation effects on the relationship between KM and CVR quality. Research limitations/implications: The small size of the sample and the focus on ISPs in a single country constitute the main limitations of the study. Future research should ideally draw from a larger sample of ISPs from multiple countries and sectors in order to allow for greater generalisation of the findings. Practical implications: ISPs will benefit from developing the GM of their top management teams to enhance their CVRs. Originality/value: The paper provides new insights into how, in an international context, firms can transform their KM into superior CVR quality through the development of GM.