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Considers the transfer of management knowledge to the People’s Republic of China through Western universities as a complex process involving cultural as well as educational issues. Shows that the traditional case study format prevalent in MBA style executive education must be modified for use with Chinese executives. Describes a management education programme for Chinese executives. Attributes a successful outcome of facilitating factors that included using a modified version of Mintzberg’s model of managerial work and a case‐study method attuned to the participants’ learning and cultural needs. Presents a learning model appropriate for use in any high context culture.

This paper sets out, first, to integrate HR strategies into knowledge management (KM) systems; second, to examine the type of HR strategies to be pursued and third, it looks at the probable behaviour effects of such a strategy in the creation, distribution and use of knowledge.

The paper discusses recent literature on the link between KM and human resource management (HRM).

The HRM strategy and the general strategy of a firm make up the general KM strategies. Two were identified in this paper: exploitative strategy and explorative strategy. Both strategies have behaviour effects, which have some impact on the KM process. Thus, the exploitative strategy will put greater emphasis on knowledge storage, technical skills, as well as distributing explicit knowledge via IT solutions. This increases the risk that firms adopting such strategy will be locked into past design and to be unable to reach for future applications. Explorative strategy places greater weight on knowledge creation, as well as on human interaction to transfer tacit knowledge and use knowledge to increase innovation and new learning. Firms adopting such strategy tend to lack structure and processes to utilise the innovations into competitive advantages.

The analysis of the paper is based on literature review, therefore the concepts developed in the paper need empirical testing.

This paper attempts to integrate HRM into KM systems.

This paper seeks to explore the relationship between knowledge management and quality management with a particular focus on the role of quality culture. The paper also aims to address the assumption that as knowledge management reaches its maturity, in terms of acceptance as an important part of doing business in the modern world, quality will again become the mantra of successful companies.

A total of 1,000 quality managers from Australian organisations were surveyed for their perspectives on current and future knowledge management and quality management approaches. The questionnaire utilised both quantitative and qualitative data collection methods. The questionnaire was broken into three sections: respondent profile, current knowledge management and quality management practices, and future predictions for both knowledge management and quality management.

The key finding of the paper was that organisations would have to embrace a quality culture as a fundamental component of implementing knowledge management in order to compete successfully in such a dynamic business environment. The responses from this survey assist in identifying the relationship between knowledge and quality management, and the importance and future of both knowledge and quality management.

This paper is based upon the assumption that quality is in fact, resurging. It has identified quality culture as the significant link between knowledge management and quality management that leads to successful competitive advantage. Organisations are urged to recognise knowledge management as a vehicle for success not a stand‐alone process. It is the first time that such a survey has been designed, and the first time a paper has produced an explanation to the current situation.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of the use of the human resources (HR) intranet at managerial levels in terms of internal customer satisfaction with the HR function.

Using role theory to underpin the research, this study examines both the changing role of managers as well as managers' expectations of the HR function as an internal service provider and HR's use of intranet applications to provide these services. The current literature encompassing ICT, marketing and HR is reviewed and used as a guide for the design of the single case pilot study.

Overall, the results indicate that managers who perceive their expectations as being met, express satisfaction with the HR intranet and record increased satisfaction with the HR function. However, differences of perceptions emerge concerning this satisfaction between HR managers (i.e. suppliers) and other managers (i.e. customers). The findings also indicate that the effectiveness of communication concerning information about new technology (including that of training, marketing, user involvement and feedback) influences managers' perceptions of satisfaction with both the HR intranet and the HR function.

These findings suggest that the intranet can play a powerful part in helping HR to build a closer and more satisfactory relationship with its customers in order to achieve mutual organisational benefit. However, this preliminary study also emphasises the need for further research on the impact and effectiveness of the HR intranet.

This paper begins the process of filling a substantial gap in the literature and provides a framework from which further research can be continued.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze how organizational factors such as cultural values, leadership and human resource (HR) practices influence knowledge exploration and exploitation practices and innovation via an empirical study.

From the knowledge‐based view of the firm, six hypotheses were established and statistically tested in a sample of 111 Spanish companies belonging to innovative industries. Survey methodology was used with the aim of gathering data regarding knowledge management (KM) practices and certain, related organizational aspects in firms.

This paper provides evidence of a moderating effect of knowledge‐centered culture, knowledge‐oriented leadership and knowledge‐centered HR practices in the relationship between knowledge exploration and exploitation practices and innovation outcomes of companies. In line with previous literature, it is suggested that although KM practices are important on their own for innovation purposes, when certain enablers – organizational factors to overcome human barriers to KM – are properly established, the innovation capacity of the firm can be more successfully exploited.

The research is limited to high rate innovation industries. Future studies will include other industries and a more diverse sample of firms.

The results of this study suggest that managers should place attention on knowledge exploration and exploitation practices along with several organizational enablers in order to achieve high levels of innovation results for the company.

This paper provides new empirical evidence on the relationships between KM, organizational elements such as culture, leadership, HR practices, and innovation in a large sample of firms. To date, the empirical research of these relations has been mainly limited to descriptive case studies and there is thus a lack of empirical evidence with large samples of firms.

This paper aims to present a novel way to conceive knowledge strategy (KS). It suggests that a firm could outperform another by establishing a coherent and integrated KS depending on the objectives pursued and the understanding of knowledge management (KM) by managers, the use of KM tools, and organizational aspects to support KS implementation.

A cluster analysis was used to study the effect of KS on business performance and innovation based on a cross‐sectional sample of Spanish firms. Additional statistical analyses were used in order to develop a taxonomy of KSs.

The paper shows that the way an organization approaches knowledge management has major implications on the development of their strategy and the outcomes of KS application. Four types of KS are thus described based on the empirical analysis, i.e. proactive, moderate, passive and inconsistent, each of them having different effects on business performance and innovation.

The research is limited to high rate innovation industries. Future studies could include other industries and a more diverse sample of firms.

The conception of KS presented here is a powerful approach that can lead an organization to achieve further innovation and higher levels of business performance.

An integrated and coherent KS has the potential to produce optimal results in terms of technological innovation and business performance.

The purpose of this paper is to propose information leadership as a concept for describing the activity of leading information processes in organisations and in the society, and consequently, to distinguish and articulate the influence and consequences of making decisions about the use, organisation and management of information resources and information infrastructures.

To complement the earlier observations of the usefulness of making an analytical distinction between information and knowledge, and management and leadership within information management/knowledge management, this paper posits that it is useful to distinguish information and knowledge leadership as two separate yet inherently connected processes of orchestrating respectively information infrastructures and resources, and the processes of knowing in an organisation.

This paper defines information leadership as the leadership of information resources and infrastructures in contrast to the leadership of social knowledge processes, knowing and organisational learning. The distinction helps to explicate the informational premises of knowledge in organisations, articulate the difference of the infrastructural and social forms of leadership and to be more explicit about the respective consequences of information and information infrastructures and knowledge held and practised within an organisation and on its boundaries.

The concept of information leadership can be used both for describing the activity of leading the development and using information resources and infrastructures in organisations, and for articulating the influence and consequences of making decisions about the use, organisation and management of information resources and information infrastructures.

To the knowledge of the authors, this is the first time information leadership is defined comprehensively in the context of information and knowledge management and specifically in relation to knowledge leadership.

Nowadays organizations have realized that knowledge, its effective use and the fast acquisition and utilization of new knowledge represent the only source of sustainable competitive advantage. In fact, an effective exploitation and management of knowledge resources are the basis of the development of those capabilities that ground the organization's capacity to deliver successfully targeted value propositions. During recent decades, there has been a growing interest in the processes of management of knowledge resources. Currently the debate on knowledge management processes is still lively. The dynamics which link knowledge processes to value creation, the valuation of their impact on organizational performance and the role of some organizational and technological resources as enablers or restraints of successful knowledge management emerge as relevant topics to be investigated. This introduction to the special issue aims to develop some theoretical and managerial reasons explaining the importance of an effective management of knowledge processes to deal with the uncertainty, change, and turbulence of the current socio‐economic scenario.

The approaches, evidences and insights discussed in this introduction are largely based on the discussion of the topics of the conference “International forum on knowledge assets dynamics” organized in June 2010 in Matera, Italy. At this conference, leading experts discussed the challenges and practices of measuring and managing knowledge resources to support value creation and business performance improvement of organisational systems.

The outcomes of this introduction and of all the contributions to the special issue reflect the emerging discussion about the role of knowledge processes and, more generally, of the management of knowledge resources, in value creation. This discussion is largely focused on the dynamics at the base of the translation of knowledge processes and resources into value, highlighting properly approaches and tools or application in different contexts of analysis.

This introduction, as well as all the contributions to the special issue, deal with different aspects which are important in the discussion both of the role played by knowledge processes in achieving outstanding organisational performance and the approaches, tools, methods and techniques to structure, organize knowledge resources and optimize their use in order to support effective organizational processes execution and value creation.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to an emerging debate centred on the ways in which knowledge management (KM) might be effectively researched and, in turn, how KM practice might be improved.

Burrell and Morgan's paradigms are used to set the scene and to highlight the changing focus in three closely related areas – research per se, the KM movement and KM research. Albeit the changes are not occurring simultaneously, the general trend in these areas is similar i.e. there is a move from a functionalist stance to one based on interpretivism. Next, case study research and participatory action research (PAR) are introduced as examples of research approaches that, respectively, tend to reflect the functionalist and interpretivist paradigms. Then there is an analysis of a KM research project from each of these approaches. Each research project is analysed with respect to five dimensions and in terms of the benefits that the organisation gained for its KM practice. The analysis is used as a vehicle to propose that PAR makes a significant contribution in tackling some of the acknowledged obstacles to effective KM practice.

The characteristics of PAR would appear to complement KM activities. As such, PAR is put forward as a strategy for meaningfully researching KM while, simultaneously, improving KM practice.

This paper accelerates discussion about how KM research is undertaken and demonstrates how the synergy between PAR and KM can be exploited for the benefit of KM researchers and practitioners.