Mapping group knowledge

During group meetings it is often difficult for participants to effectively: share their knowledge to inform the outcome; acquire new knowledge from others to broaden and/or deepen their understanding; utilise all available knowledge to design an outcome; and record (to retain) the rationale behind the outcome to inform future activities. These are difficult because, for example: only one person can share knowledge at once which challenges effective sharing; information overload makes acquisition problematic and can marginalize important knowledge; and intense dialog of conflicting views makes recording more complex.

Exploration of the relationship between tacit knowledge and software system test complexity

This research has explored the relationship between system test complexity and tacit knowledge. It is proposed as part of this thesis, that the process of system testing (comprising of test planning, test development, test execution, test fault analysis, test measurement, and case management), is directly affected by both complexity associated with the system under test, and also by other sources of complexity, independent of the system under test, but related to the wider process of system testing. While a certain amount of knowledge related to the system under test is inherent, tacit in nature, and therefore difficult to make explicit, it has been found that a significant amount of knowledge relating to these other sources of complexity, can indeed be made explicit. While the importance of explicit knowledge has been reinforced by this research, there has been a lack of evidence to suggest that the availability of tacit knowledge to a test team is of any less importance to the process of system testing, when operating in a traditional software development environment. The sentiment was commonly expressed by participants, that even though a considerable amount of explicit knowledge relating to the system is freely available, that a good deal of knowledge relating to the system under test, which is demanded for effective system testing, is actually tacit in nature (approximately 60% of participants operating in a traditional development environment, and 60% of participants operating in an agile development environment, expressed similar sentiments). To cater for the availability of tacit knowledge relating to the system under test, and indeed, both explicit and tacit knowledge required by system testing in general, an appropriate knowledge management structure needs to be in place. This would appear to be required, irrespective of the employed development methodology.

Effective Knowledge Integration in Emergency Response Organizations

Natural and man-made disasters have gained attention at all levels of policy-making in recent years. Emergency management tasks are inherently complex and unpredictable, and often require coordination among multiple organizations across different levels and locations. Effectively managing various knowledge areas and the organizations involved has become a critical emergency management success factor. However, there is a general lack of understanding about how to describe and assess the complex nature of emergency management tasks and how knowledge integration can help managers improve emergency management task performance. The purpose of this exploratory research was first, to understand how emergency management operations are impacted by tasks that are complex and inter-organizational and second, to investigate how knowledge integration as a particular knowledge management strategy can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the emergency tasks. Three types of specific knowledge were considered: context-specific, technology-specific, and context-and-technology-specific. The research setting was the Miami-Dade Emergency Operations Center (EOC) and the study was based on the survey responses from the participants in past EOC activations related to their emergency tasks and knowledge areas. The data included task attributes related to complexity, knowledge area, knowledge integration, specificity of knowledge, and task performance. The data was analyzed using multiple linear regressions and path analyses, to (1) examine the relationships between task complexity, knowledge integration, and performance, (2) the moderating effects of each type of specific knowledge on the relationship between task complexity and performance, and (3) the mediating role of knowledge integration. As per theory-based propositions, the results indicated that overall component complexity and interactive complexity tend to have a negative effect on task performance. But surprisingly, procedural rigidity tended to have a positive effect on performance in emergency management tasks. Also as per our expectation, knowledge integration had a positive relationship with task performance. Interestingly, the moderating effects of each type of specific knowledge on the relationship between task complexity and performance were varied and the extent of mediation of knowledge integration depended on the dimension of task complexity.

Improving innovation and performance of Social Enterprises: Knowing what they know

Social Enterprises (SEs) are normally micro and small businesses that trade to tackle social problems, and to improve communities, people’s life chances, and the environment. Thus, their importance to society and economies is increasing. However, there is still a need for more understanding of how these organisations operate, perform, innovate and scale-up. This knowledge is crucial to design and provide accurate strategies to enhance the sector and increase its impact and coverage. Obtaining this understanding is the main driver of this paper, which follows the theoretical lens of the Knowledge-based View (KBV) theory to develop and assess empirically a novel model for knowledge management capabilities (KMCs) development that improves performance of SEs. The empirical assessment consisted of a quantitative study with 432 owners and senior members of SEs in UK, underpinned by 21 interviews. The findings demonstrate how particular organisational characteristics of SEs, the external conditions in which they operate, and informal knowledge management activities, have created overall improvements in their performance of up to 20%, based on a year-to-year comparison, including innovation and creation of social and environmental value. These findings elucidate new perspectives that can contribute not only to SEs and SE supporters, but also to other firms.

Auditoría integrada de Información + Conocimiento: aplicación en un caso de estudio

Se presentan los resultados de la aplicación de una metodología integradora de auditoría de información y conocimiento, llevada a cabo en un Centro de Investigación del Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología y Medio Ambiente de la provincia de Holguín, Cuba, conformada por siete etapas con un enfoque híbrido dirigida a revisar la estrategia y la política de gestión de información y conocimiento, identificar e inventariar y mapear los recursos de I+C y sus flujos, y valorar los procesos asociados a su gestión. La alta dirección de este centro, sus especialistas e investigadores manifestaron la efectividad de la metodología aplicada cuyos resultados propiciaron reajustar la proyección estratégica en relación con la gestión de la I+C, rediseñar los flujos informativos de los procesos claves, disponer de un directorio de sus expertos por áreas y planificar el futuro aprendizaje y desarrollo profesional.

Sistemas curriculares para la gestión de información y conocimiento institucional. Estudio de caso

La organización del conocimiento en el contexto de las Ciencias de la Información tiene como esencia la información y el conocimiento debidamente documentado o registrado. La organización del conocimiento como proceso, envuelve tanto la descripción física como de los contenidos de los objetos informacionales. Y el producto de ese proceso descriptivo es la representación de los atributos de un objeto o conjunto de objetos. Las representaciones son construidas por lenguajes elaborados específicamente para los objetivos de la organización en los sistemas de información. Lenguajes que se subdividen en lenguajes que describen el documento (el soporte físico del objeto) y lenguajes que describen la información (los contenidos).A partir de esta premisa la siguiente investigación tiene como objetivo general analizarlos sistemas de Gestión de Información y Conocimiento Institucional principalmente los que proponen utilizar el Currículum Vitae del profesor como única fuente de información, medición y representación de la información y el conocimiento de una organización. Dentro delos principales resultados se muestra la importancia de usar el currículo personal como fuente de información confiable y normalizada; una síntesis de los principales sistemas curriculares que existen a nivel internacional y regional; así como el gráfico del modelo de datos del caso de estudio; y por último, la propuesta del uso de las ontologías como principal herramienta para la organización semántica de la información en un sistema de gestión de información y conocimiento.

Towards a knowledge-based approach for effective decision-making in railway safety

Purpose – This paper aims to contribute towards understanding how safety knowledge can be elicited from railway experts for the purposes of supporting effective decision-making. Design/methodology/approach – A consortium of safety experts from across the British railway industry is formed. Collaborative modelling of the knowledge domain is used as an approach to the elicitation of safety knowledge from experts. From this, a series of knowledge models is derived to inform decision-making. This is achieved by using Bayesian networks as a knowledge modelling scheme, underpinning a Safety Prognosis tool to serve meaningful prognostics information and visualise such information to predict safety violations. Findings – Collaborative modelling of safety-critical knowledge is a valid approach to knowledge elicitation and its sharing across the railway industry. This approach overcomes some of the key limitations of existing approaches to knowledge elicitation. Such models become an effective tool for prediction of safety cases by using railway data. This is demonstrated using passenger–train interaction safety data. Practical implications – This study contributes to practice in two main directions: by documenting an effective approach to knowledge elicitation and knowledge sharing, while also helping the transport industry to understand safety. Social implications – By supporting the railway industry in their efforts to understand safety, this research has the potential to benefit railway passengers, staff and communities in general, which is a priority for the transport sector. Originality/value – This research applies a knowledge elicitation approach to understanding safety based on collaborative modelling, which is a novel approach in the context of transport.

Redes Interorganizacionais: um estudo sobre partilha e utilização do conhecimento em organizações da Rede Associativa Empresarial da Região Centro de Portugal

Tese de doutoramento em Psicologia, na especialidade de Psicologia das Organizações, do Trabalho e dos Recursos Humanos

Gestão da informação: um estudo de caso em um instituto de pesquisa tecnológica

Each two years the amount of available information in the world double. This is the Information Age, where the success depends on what one knows, not on what one has. A new economy appears with the capacity to generate, to store, to process and to apply effectively the knowledge, based on information, determining the companies productivity and competitiveness.The objective of this work is to understand the information management model of a technological research institute - CTGÁS (Gas Technology Center). The research has been done focused on the 5 main processes and the 15 support processes of the organization value chain , aiming to understand the information management in the organization based on Davenport´s Information Management model (1998). Therefore, it was necessary to identify how the necessary information for the organizational processes accomplishment are determined, obtained, distributed and used by the organization. The research can be classified as descriptive, regarding to its aims, and as a case study, related to the research ways. Interviews with the managers of the organization value chain processes have been carried through, with the objective to identify how they perceive the Information Management process that circulates in the organizational processes. Complementarily, a documentary research has been carried through, associated to the direct observation and procedures and actions follow up, involving the Information Management. The data treatment and analysis have been done from the authors theoretical support and from the managers interviews analysis, documents and processes observed by the researcher in the organization. It was noticed that the organization has raised its level of information needs that are not difficult to be determined and are satisfactorily obtained and distributed, although the majority of them are not structuralized, automatized or even classified regarding to its confidence. These peaces of information have good quality and are important, however they reflect a medium dependence on external and informal information, besides being used only in its great majority for people to know what and how to do something

Continuous Delivery : Utmaningar ett förvaltningsuppdrag kan stå inför vid en övergång till Continuous Delivery

Continuous delivery (CD) is a software engineering approach where the focus lays on creating a short delivery cycle by automating parts of the deployment pipeline which includes build, deploy-, test and release process. CD is based on that during development should be possible to always automatically generate a release based on the source code in its current state. One of CD's many advantages is that through continuous releases it allows you to get a quick feedback loop leading to faster and more efficient implementation of new functions, at the same time fixing errors. Although CD has many advantages, there are also several challenges a maintenance management project must manage in the transition to CD. These challenges may differ depending on the maturity level for a maintenance management project and what strengths and weaknesses the project has. Our research question was: "What challenges can a maintenance management project face in transition to Continuous delivery?" The purpose of this study is to describe Continuous delivery and the challenges a maintenance management project may face during a transition to Continuous delivery. A descriptive case study has been carried out with the data collection methods of interviews and documents. A situation analysis was created based on the collected data in a shape of a process model that represent the maintenance management projects release process. The processmodel was used as the basis of SWOT analysis and analysis by Rehn et al's Maturity Model. From these analyzes we found challenges of a maintenance management project may face in the transition to CD. The challenges are about customers and the management's attitude towards a transition to CD. But the biggest challenge is about automation of the deployment pipeline steps.

Percepções de maturidade em gerenciamento de projetos à luz da nova gestão pública: uma investigação com gestores das secretarias estaduais do Rio Grande do Norte

This study aimed to measure the perception of maturity project management of state boards of Rio Grande do Norte by the perception of its managers. Argues that project management has been highlighted as a critical factor for the success of any organization, because the projects are directly related to the set of activities that result in organizational innovation as products, services and processes and the improvement of project management is directly aligned with the main pillars of the New Public Management. Methodologically, this is a quantitative research of a descriptive nature in which 161 forms were applied with coordinators and subcoordinators of state departments of Rio Grande do Norte, culminating in a sampling error of less than 6% to 95% confidence according to the procedures finite sampling. The process of tabulation and analysis was done using the package Statistical Package for Social Sciences - SPSS 18.0 and worked with techniques such as mean, standard deviation, frequency distributions, cluster analysis and factor analysis. The results indicate that the levels of maturity in project management in state departments of Rio Grande do Norte is below the national average and that behavioral skills are the main problem for improving management in these departments. It was possible to detect the existence of two groups of different perceptions about the management of projects, indicating, according to the managers, there are islands of excellence in project management in some sectors of the state departments. It was also observed that there are eight factors that affect maturity in project management: Planning and Control , Development of Management Skills , Project Management Environment , Acceptance of the Subject Project Management , Stimulus to Performance , Project Evaluation and Learning , Project Management Office and Visibility of Project Managers . It concludes that the project management in state departments of Rio Grande do Norte has no satisfactory levels of maturity in project management, affecting the levels of efficiency and effectiveness of the state apparatus, which shows that some of the assumptions that guide the New Public Management are not getting the levels of excellence nailed by this management model

ESTUDO SOBRE A ACEITAÇÃO E USO DO SISTEMA INFORMATIZADO DE ELABORAÇÃO E GERENCIAMENTO DE PROJETOS PEDAGÓGICOS DE CURSOS – SIEGPP

O presente trabalho dá prosseguimento a uma pesquisa desenvolvida na Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC) que gerou o software SIEGPP (Sistema Informatizado de Elaboração e Gerenciamento de Projetos Pedagógicos de Cursos), no modelo SaaS (Software as a Service). Esse software é destinado a facilitar a elaboração de projetos pedagógicos para cursos técnicos profissionalizantes de nível médio na modalidade a distância (EaD). O objetivo deste trabalho é avaliar a aceitação do SIEGPP pelos coordenadores desses cursos, oferecidos pelo Instituto Federal Minas Gerais (IFMG). Os coordenadores preencheram os dados dos projetos pedagógicos dos seus cursos, usando o SIEGPP e responderam a um questionário de avaliação organizado com base no modelo de aceitação de tecnologia – Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). Os dados aferidos pela pesquisa demonstram que o SIEGPP apresentou elevados índices de aceitação quando testado seguindo o Technology Acceptance Model, o que permite afirmar a validação de seu potencial para utilização como SaaS por profissionais de educação na modalidade EaD. Esses dados estarão à disposição dos pesquisadores da UFSC para aprimoramento da ferramenta, antes de sua liberação para os usuários.

Inteligência coopetitiva setorial: uma proposta de modelo

The business environment context points at the necessity of new forms of management for the sustainable competitiveness of organizations through time. Coopetition is characterized as an alternative in the interaction of different actors, which compete and cooperate simultaneously, in the pursuit of common goals. This dual relation, within a gain-increasing perspective, converts competitors into partners and fosters competitiveness, especially that of organizations within a specific sector. The field of competitive intelligence has, in its turn, assisted organizations, individually, in the systematization of information valuable to decision-making processes, which benefits competitiveness. It follows that it is possible to combine coopetition and competitive intelligence in a systematized process of sectorial intelligence for coopetitive relations. The general aim of this study is, therefore, to put forth a model of sectorial coopetitive intelligence. The methodological outlining of the study is characterized as a mixed approach (quantitative and qualitative methods), of an applied nature, of exploratory and descriptive aims. The Coordination of the Strategic Roadmapping Project for the Future of Paraná's Industry is the selected object of investigation. Protocols have been designed to collect primary and secondary data. In the collection of the primary ata, online questionary were sent to the sectors selected for examination. A total of 149 answers to the online questionary were obtained, and interviews were performed with all embers of the technical team of the Coordination, in a total of five interviewees. After the collection, all the data were tabulated, analyzed and validated by means of focal groups with the same five members of the Coordination technical team, and interviews were performed with a representative of each of the four sectors selected, in a total of nine participants in the validation. The results allowed the systematization of a sectorial coopetitive intelligence model called ICoops. This model is characterized by five stages, namely, planning, collection, nalysis, project development, dissemination and evaluation. Each stage is detailed in inputs, activities and outputs. The results suggest that sectorial coopetition is motivated mainly by knowledge sharing, technological development, investment in R&D, innovation, chain integration and resource complementation. The importance of a neutral institution has been recognized as a facilitator and incentive to the approximation of organizations. Among the main difficulties are the financing of the projects, the adhesion of new members, the lack of tools for the analysis of information and the dissemination of the actions.

Aplicación de un modelo de gestión del conocimiento para mejorar el programa de capacitación del call center de Promociones y Cobranzas Beta S.A. Bogotá

Este artículo de investigación propone la aplicación de un modelo de gestión del conocimiento para mejorar el programa de capacitación en el Call Center de la empresa Promociones y Cobranzas Beta S.A., ubicada en la zona centro de Bogotá, Cra. 10 No. 16 -39 piso 13. La investigación se realizó durante el año 2015 utilizando como metodología revisión documental, entrevistas a los coordinadores del área y encuestas con un grupo de asesores del Call Center. La aplicación de dichas herramientas generó información acerca del proceso de capacitación actual. A partir de algunas teorías de gestión del conocimiento se buscó determinar el ciclo de las capacitaciones que mejor se adaptara a la necesidad del Call Center de Promociones y Cobranzas Beta S.A., de tal forma que la comunicación con los asesores de cobranzas fuera más efectiva y el conocimiento mantuviera una actualización permanente. La aplicación del modelo permitirá a la gerencia de la compañía, ampliar el conocimiento y mejorar en el servicio con los clientes atendidos, reflejando cumplimiento de las metas de cobro establecidas en el área. Palabras clave: Gestión del conocimiento, programa de capacitación, Call Center

Tacit knowledge sharing: the determination of a methodological approach to explore the intangible.

Introduction. Research design should take into account both (a) the specific nature of the object under scrutiny, and (b) approaches to its study in the past. This is to ensure that informed decisions are made regarding research design in future empirical studies. Here these factors are taken into account with reference to methodological choice for a doctoral study on tacit knowledge sharing, and the extent to tacit knowledge sharing may be facilitated by online tools. The larger study responds to calls for the two domains of knowledge management and human information behaviour to be considered together in terms of their research approaches and theory development. Method. Relevant literature – both domain-specific (knowledge management) and general (research methods in social science) - was identified and analysed to identify the most appropriate approaches for an empirical study of tacit knowledge sharing. Analysis. The analysis shows that there are a number of challenges associated with studying an intangible entity such as tacit knowledge. Quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods have been adopted in prior work on this theme, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Results. The analysis has informed a decision to adopt a research approach that deploys mixed methods for an inductive case study to extend knowledge of the influence of online tools on tacit knowledge sharing. Conclusion. This work intends to open the debate on methodological choice and routes to implementation for studies that are subject to practical constraints imposed by the context in which they are situated.