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During the 1980s, a significant management shift occurred in organizations which generally were recognized as being globally competitive. More and more these organizations were transforming their traditional Taylor‐based management strategies into total quality management (TQM) approaches to managing. As a result, management educators were faced with the dilemma of how to teach the new TQM paradigm emerging in globally competitive companies. Presents a method of teaching total quality management concepts and suggests that viewing TQM as a new “management technology” may be useful. Describes a successfully implemented educational approach to teaching both the content and process of TQM approaches to management and applies it to Poland′s post‐communist management development challenge.

This paper proposes a fully holistic framework of the “Knowledge Management Gap” to demonstrate the management gaps that might occur when implementing the knowledge management system.

The relevant literature is reviewed, and then the concept structure proposed.

This study identifies reasons for knowledge gaps and demonstrates several fundamental approaches to avoid them. Furthermore, corrective actions are proposed to enhance the success of the implementation of the knowledge management systems.

This study tries to explore the factors associated with knowledge management gaps. This research is an exploratory study, so the results are only propositions; hence an empirical survey should be carried out in the future.

This framework is expected to provide a convenient way to audit the knowledge management gaps, and thus enterprises can make corrections and adjustments accordingly to greatly enhance their chances of success, while implementing the knowledge management systems.

An innovated framework of “KM gaps” is proposed to fully illustrate the management gaps that might occur during the implementation of knowledge management. Furthermore, the actions to reduce the misfit between the capability and implementation of KM systems are also demonstrated.

In order to make knowledge management (KM) successful, the most important aspect is to nurture organizational culture. Furthermore, many studies indicate that hierarchical culture can significantly hinder the success of KM activities. The purpose of this paper, based on the antecedents of hierarchical culture and utilizing four activities of knowledge conversion, is to explore the impacts of hierarchical culture on the effectiveness of the knowledge management processes (KMP).

In order to gain best exploration on hierarchical culture, knowledge conversion, and KMP, both qualitative and quantitative techniques were used.

Through interpretative case studies and questionnaire analyses, the research finds that hierarchical culture has shown its influences towards KMP, and can act as mediators for knowledge conversion, and KMP. For instance, developing hierarchical culture will be suitable for conducting combination and externalization; moreover, it will be beneficial to the implementation of KM. In contrast, it would not be helpful towards socialization and internalization; moreover, it will not be beneficial to KM strategy and plan.

The study comprised in‐depth interviews with only two firms and questionnaire surveys with 31 companies. The results need to be validated by a robust survey.

This conceptual framework is expected to provide a convenient way to illustrate the effects of hierarchical culture on knowledge conversion, and KMP. And thus, enterprises can make corrections and adjustments accordingly in order to greatly enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of implementing KM through appropriate organizational culture.

This study proposes a conceptual framework to fully illustrate the influences of hierarchical culture on knowledge conversion, and KMP.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Tenn. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

I. INTRODUCTION This study attempts to extend and expand previous research conducted by the Department of Marketing at Strathclyde on the adoption and diffusion of industrial products.

The discussion about public sector performance is still present today, despite the profound research that has already tried to address this subject. Furthermore, theory links negative effects on organizational performance with increased levels of organizational complexity. However, literature thus far did not succeed to put forward a successful theory that explains why and how public organizations became increasingly complex. To answer this question, we argue that increased organizational complexity can be explained by viewing public organizations as the hybrid result of different institutional logics, which are shaped by various management views. However, former research mainly concentrated on the separate study of management views such as traditional public management (TPM), NPM, and post-NPM. Although appealing, research that approaches hybridity from this perspective is fairly limited.

We conducted a literature review in which we studied 80 articles about traditional public management, NPM, and post-NPM.

We found that these management views essentially differ on the base of three fault lines, depending on the level of the organizational culture. These fault lines, according to the management view, together result in nine dimensions. By combing dimensions of the different management views, we argue that a public organization becomes hybrid. Furthermore, in line with findings of contingency theory, we explain the level of hybridity might depend on the level of tight coupling for a given organization. Finally, we developed propositions that explain hybridity as the result of isomorphic forces, organizational change, and organizational resistance to change and that link hybridization with processes of selective coupling.

The value of this chapter lies in its real-life applicability.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Tenn. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

This issue is a selected bibliography covering the subject of leadership.