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This study aims to empirically explore the key elements for classifying and differentiating knowledge‐intensive organizations (KIOs) from other traditional organizations.

The study's conceptual framework is based on the prevailing propositions from the literature on KIOs and is explored using a survey of knowledge management (KM) professionals, a purposely selected community of practice (CoP).

The results suggest that organizations can generally be divided into two groups – KIOs and non‐KIOs, and there appear to be some clear factors that differentiate KIOs from non‐KIOs according to the CoP.

This study lays a foundation for the systematic development and evaluation of KIOs and their KM practices. The results from this study can stimulate issue formulation and hypothesis generation for investigation by KM researchers and academics. The study focused on a few types of organizations drawn from the literature which may limit the generalizability of the results. However, restricting the study to the core organizations identified in the literature provided the authors with leverage for an in‐depth empirical exploration of these organizations' characteristics.

To a KM practitioner this study aids in delineating the different elements to keep in mind when designing or evaluating KM practices in KIOs.

This paper is among the early works to empirically explore KIOs. It advances a framework of how to recognize the knowledge‐intense factors defining KIOs, thereby providing the required foundation for analyzing KM practices in KIOs. Also by identifying the core dimensions defining knowledge intensity, the study underscores the importance of the relations between workers, the community (organization) of which they are members, and the conceptions the workers have of their activities as presented in the theory of organizations as activity systems. While the importance of knowledge has often been demonstrated within work groups or for particular organizational processes, this study has demonstrated a useful foundation for analyzing an organization as a whole.

This paper reports on the research conducted into the adaptations Canadian public sector auditors have made to the emergence of e‐commerce and e‐business in the delivery of public services.

A comprehensive review of the literature was completed as a foundation for creating a semi‐structure interview questionnaire used in a series of interviews with audit executives from 20 audit organizations in Canada's public sectors.

The study found a distinct disconnect between what is reported in the literature and what has actually happened in practice. Practicing auditors do have a significant interest in the impact of e‐business on the audit profession specifically and on their client organizations generally. But there is significant disagreement about whether e‐business constitutes just another set of technologically mediated changes, not much different from the many others of the past 30 years, or whether e‐business is truly disruptive in nature. The consequence of this disagreement is difference in audit practice among constituencies and highly variable dependency on external expertise in favour of developing internal capacity.

The research is limited to internal auditors of public sector organizations in Canada.

A key area for future research is the impact on e‐business on horizontality of management practice in the public sector and the need for more holistic audit interventions.

The paper identifies key differences between what is said in the literature and what is done on the ground. It identifies key lessons from audit experience related to evolving e‐government, including the management of new risks. The research is valuable to both researchers and practicing public sector audit executives alike.

L'activité économique des stations thermales a pris aujourd'hui un tournant important. Après des décennies de conflit entre le thermalisme et la médecine clinique et pharmacologique, les stations thermales ont reçus aujourd'hui une nouvelle mission toute aussi précise qu'importante pour l'humanité.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how sustainability is integrated into a new venture’s business network initiation. This study unpacks sustainability in business network initiation using temporal bracketing and identifying its main processes. Temporal bracketing supports the understanding of the evolution of sustainability in network initiation. The processes help explore the sustainability patterns that emerge from the new venture’s attempt to integrate sustainability into network initiation.

The exploratory case study of an Italian pasta maker draws on industrial network theory to focus on the business network initiation of new ventures. The novelty is the integration of sustainability into the business network initiation literature. This paper adopts a single case study methodology and an abductive approach to analysis.

This study finds that sustainability in network initiation is achieved through three periods of initiation and through five processes that are overlapping, intertwined and reciprocal. This study suggests that sustainability can have a positive or negative impact when integrated into the initiation process.

This paper provides a conceptual framework for understanding how a new venture integrates sustainability in its network initiation. The framework comprises periods and processes of network initiation which show how a new venture can integrate sustainability in its business activities and resources through interaction with network actors.

THE great advantage the contemporary librarian enjoys is the opportunity of meeting his fellows at so many library assemblies. It might almost be wondered whether, in such opulence, the one great Conference in September is really necessary: a wonder that is immediately modified by the thought that no other meeting can give a representation of what the profession as a whole is doing or hoping to do; the many parts of the whole come together briefly then. It is the more necessary that the Conference makes this annual revelation, and does it manifestly. This is “much easier said than done”. Looking back on the almost complete disregard by the Press of the Folkestone meeting, in spite of our own statement that we had sought publicity for at least half a century in vain, we are compelled to think that renewed efforts should be made to attract the newspapers, radio and T.V. in the service of libraries. We are assuming that such notoriety is desirable, an assumption which some deny. If it is, our programmes must be ready sooner, advance matter of papers should be in the hands of editors before they are read, paragraphs for the B.B.C. and other public address organizations should be prepared and distributed even longer, before the newspapers get them. All this, however, must be based upon the proceedings themselves which, as we have affirmed often, should with a few inspirational exceptions be based upon the programme of service every type of library gives to the community.

Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely, innovative thought structures and attitudes have almost always forced economic institutions and modes of behaviour to adjust. We learn from the history of economic doctrines how a particular theory emerged and whether, and in which environment, it could take root. We can see how a school evolves out of a common methodological perception and similar techniques of analysis, and how it has to establish itself. The interaction between unresolved problems on the one hand, and the search for better solutions or explanations on the other, leads to a change in paradigma and to the formation of new lines of reasoning. As long as the real world is subject to progress and change scientific search for explanation must out of necessity continue.