The “soft” dimension of organizational knowledge transfer

Built in, not bolted on: responsible innovation in UK Centres for Doctoral Training – the new normal?

Purpose

The purpose of the study detailed here was to engage with Directors of Centres for Doctoral Training (CDTs) during the first year of their new Centres to form a snapshot view of the nature and type of training that was being incorporated and how this might affect the wider institution – in this case the university. Using an organisational learning lens, this paper empirically examines the work-in-progress of the responsible innovation (RI) training in CDTs to assess how new RI understandings are being created, retained and transferred within the CDTs, questioning whether this process represents a programme of “institutionalisation”.

Design/methodology/approach

During the past decade, RI has become increasingly embedded within the EU and UK research context, appearing with greater frequency in funding calls and policy spaces. As part of this embedding, in its 2018 funding call for CDTs, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) required RI training to be included in the programme for all doctoral students.

Findings

The paper concludes that, at present, institutionalisation is highly variegated, with the greater organisational change required to truly embed RI mindsets.

Originality/value

The paper provides original, empirical research evidence of RI institutionalisation in UK CDTs, and, using a “learning organisation” lens, examines areas of value to both RI and learning organisation theory.

Human resource management practices in creating a committed workforce for fostering knowledge transfer: a theoretical framework

Purpose

This paper aims to review existing literature on the role of human resource management (HRM) practices in nurturing employee’s organisational commitment (OC), which subsequently promoting knowledge transfer (KT) within an organisation and propose a conceptual framework for future empirical research.

Design/methodology/approach

An extensive review of existing literature was undertaken in an attempt to build the conceptual model for KT.

Findings

The proposed conceptual framework illustrates the role of OC as a focal mediating mechanism in fostering KT. This paper identifies “high commitment” HRM (HCHRM) (e.g. staffing, job design, training and development, performance appraisal and reward system) as the factors influencing the development of OC, which subsequently affecting KT (i.e. knowledge sharing and application). Also, this paper integrates the potential moderating roles of leader-member exchange (LMX) between HCHRM practices-OC, as well as information and communication technology support in the OC-KT linkage into the proposed framework.

Research limitations/implications

This paper presents a comprehensive view of fostering KT. However, the major limitation of this paper is that it remains at a conceptual level. Further empirical investigations would be helpful to test propositions, hence validating the proposed conceptual framework.

Practical implications

The proposed conceptual framework could serve as practical guidance for managers and/or practitioners in developing policies that will facilitate KT in business organisations.

Originality/value

While KT is often viewed as a single phenomenon, this paper considers the KT into two components (i.e, sharing and application) in accordance with the practice-based perspective on knowledge and behavioural approach to KT. In addition, the adoption of the general workplace commitment model in conceptualising KT could further validate its applicability in knowledge management research. Also, the integration of LMX as a moderator in the proposed framework could contribute to the scant research on LMX-related moderation models upon validation.

Team psychological capital and innovation: the mediating of team exploratory and exploitative learning

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of team psychological capital (PsyCap) on team innovation. The study also examines the mediating role of team learning, including exploratory and exploitative learning, in team innovation.

Design/methodology/approach

A sample of 272 team leaders of firms in Vietnam was surveyed to validate the measures via confirmatory factor analysis and to test the model and hypotheses using structural equation modeling.

Findings

The results demonstrate that team PsyCap has a positive effect on team innovation. Further, team exploratory learning mediates the relationship between team PsyCap and team innovation; however, team exploitative learning does not. Although team exploitative learning is explained by team PsyCap, it does not enhance team innovation.

Practical implications

The study findings suggest that, to enjoy a high level of team exploratory and exploitative learning and innovation, firms should develop team PsyCap. This could be undertaken by implementing leader–subordinate mentoring programs, together with creating a social context that helps in interacting and communicating among team members.

Originality/value

This study is among the first to examine the role of team PsyCap in team exploratory and exploitative learning and innovation, adding further insight to the literature on innovation at the team level.

Conceptualising the initiation of researcher and research user partnerships: a meta-narrative review

Background

Integrated knowledge translation refers to researcher and research user partnerships to co-generate and implement knowledge. This type of partnership may be critical to success in increasing knowledge use and impact, but the conceptualisation of its initiation has not been fully developed. Initiating this type of partnership has proven to be challenging but crucial to its success. The purpose of this study was to conduct a meta-narrative review of partnership initiation concepts, processes, enablers, barriers and outcomes in the disciplines of healthcare and social sciences where examples of researcher and research user partnerships were found.

Methods

Seven research traditions were identified. Three were in the discipline of social sciences (including psychology, education and business) and five were in the discipline of healthcare (including medicine, nursing, public health, health services research). Searches were conducted in MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, ABI Inform, ERIC, PsychInfo and the Cochrane Library on June 9, 2017. Fifty titles and abstracts were screened in triplicate; data were extracted from three records in duplicate. Narratives comprised of study characteristics and conceptual and empirical findings across traditions were tabulated, summarised and compared.

Results

A total of 7779 unique results were identified and 17 reviews published from 1998 to 2017 were eligible. All reviews identified a partnership initiation phase referred to as ‘early’ or ‘developmental’, or more vaguely as ‘fuzzy’, across six traditions – integrated knowledge translation, action research, stakeholder engagement, knowledge transfer, team initiation and shared mental models. The partnership initiation processes, enablers, barriers and outcomes were common to multiple narratives and summarised in a Partnership Initiation Conceptual Framework. Our review revealed limited use or generation of theory in most included reviews, and little empirical evidence testing the links between partnership initiation processes, enablers or barriers, and outcomes for the purpose of describing successful researcher and research user partnership initiation.

Conclusions

Narratives across multiple research traditions revealed similar integrated knowledge translation initiation processes, enablers, barriers and outcomes, which were captured in a conceptual framework that can be employed by researchers and research users to study and launch partnerships. While partnership initiation was recognised, it remains vaguely conceptualised despite lengthy research in several fields of study. Ongoing research of partnership initiation is needed to identify or generate relevant theory, and to empirically establish outcomes and the determinants of those outcomes.

The Role of Bias in Knowledge Translation: Lessons Learned from a Dissemination of Best Practices in Maternal Opioid Use

INTRODUCTION

Increases in opioid use during pregnancy fueled concerns among reproductive health advocates, policy makers, and providers in North Carolina, United States. A stakeholder group designed a set of knowledge translation (KT) interventions to increase the use of evidence-based practices across relevant health care and social service arenas. Efforts to decrease stigma was included as a best practice. Understanding the process and the contexts in which KT intervention activities occur can help increase their effectiveness. Toward that end, this study examined how stigma was addressed and how audiences responded to evidence-based messages.

METHODS

Data were collected over a seven-year period and included observations of KT activities (conferences, workshops, and community meetings), focus groups and interviews conducted with providers, and a review of publicly available documents, including KT intervention materials. Clarke's situational mapping was initially applied, and stigma emerged as a critical contextual element. Data were then analyzed to identify how stigma was addressed and how evidence-based messages were received.

RESULTS

Despite direct stigma-reduction messages, biases against maternal drug use and ambivalence toward evidence-based recommendations of harm reduction principles were found in audience responses. Findings also revealed tensions around the interpretation of knowledge and the appropriate implementation of best practices between "experts" and among practitioners.

DISCUSSION

Stigma and professional biases may serve as significant barriers to KT activities. Results suggest that even under the best of circumstances, evidence-based practices for highly stigmatized and controversial issues are difficult to disseminate and may require unique approaches.

A knowledge-based view of people and technology: directions for a value co-creation-based learning organisation

Purpose

This paper aims to investigate the potential of knowledge management (KM) as a discipline in helping understand and manage social and economic complexity. The paper highlights some of the potential relationships between KM in organisations and their economic performance. Finally, the authors assess the role of human resources and technological infrastructures in the relationship between organisation’s approach to KM and their performance.

Design/methodology/approach

The hypotheses are tested via a survey on a sample of managerial-level employees of information technology organisations located in the city of Brno in Czech Republic. The data collected are analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM) to study the relationship between KM; the workforce’s willingness and ability to collaborate and co-create value; and the organisations’ economic performance.

Findings

The research found that there is a direct and positive relationship between an organisation’s approach to KM and its economic performance. This study also shows that the workforce’s behaviour and the technological infrastructure of the organisation have a direct effect on business performance. Finally, the authors proposed that a link between human resource management and technology orientation must be established and supported by a KM strategy.

Originality/value

This paper offers a new perspective to the approach to KM in organisations. Reflections and empirical results underline the need for organisations to invest in the implementation of KM strategies that involve both the human resources and technological infrastructure as a way to improve the impact of knowledge on the companies’ economic performances.

Repatriate Knowledge Sharing Environment: Scale Development and Validation

The transfer of repatriate international knowledge to their colleagues is essential for organisations to capitalise on the benefits international assignments can offer and to gain a competitive edge. Literature on knowledge sharing and repatriate effectiveness was reviewed for the development of the repatriate knowledge sharing environment (RKSE) measure. The first phase of the study created and pilot tested a proposed seven-dimension measure of the RKSE. Phase two confirmed the dimensions of the measure and examined the validity of the measure. The first phase alluded to an eight-dimension RKSE factor structure: source credibility, knowledge quality, source awareness, employee interaction, source recognition, workplace professionalism, supervisor support and promotion of knowledge exchange. Phase two exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the eight-dimension RKSE scale. Furthermore, construct validity was found for the eight dimensions of RKSE scale and criterion-related validity was established. Through the use of this new instrument, organisations can improve their understanding of the organisations support towards repatriate knowledge management.

A study of indicators of willingness in the knowledge transfer process

The literature on knowledge transfer is confident in its assertion that a ‘stickiness’ pervades knowledge disclosure process. This phenomenon is often attributed to structural communication barriers but an equally valid explanation could stem from the individual feeling a sense of ownership of their knowledge which then engenders a reluctance to be open about their knowledge within a formal knowledge transfer process. We pursue this idea theoretically through notions of possessiveness and psychological ownership; and empirically by exploring the concept of willingness to disclose. Assuming willingness to be unidimensional a methodology is put forward that uses indicators to measures its direction. Using a sample of 1050 UK engineers we illustrate the direction of willingness on a reluctance–willing dimension. We argue that knowledge transfer requires management to examine more closely the stimuli that affect the process.

A study of indicators of willingness in the knowledge transfer process

The literature on knowledge transfer is confident in its assertion that a ‘stickiness’ pervades knowledge disclosure process. This phenomenon is often attributed to structural communication barriers but an equally valid explanation could stem from the individual feeling a sense of ownership of their knowledge which then engenders a reluctance to be open about their knowledge within a formal knowledge transfer process. We pursue this idea theoretically through notions of possessiveness and psychological ownership; and empirically by exploring the concept of willingness to disclose. Assuming willingness to be unidimensional a methodology is put forward that uses indicators to measures its direction. Using a sample of 1050 UK engineers we illustrate the direction of willingness on a reluctance–willing dimension. We argue that knowledge transfer requires management to examine more closely the stimuli that affect the process.

The managerial issues related to transferring shop floor knowledge in manufacturing relocation

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to explore the specific practices of management in the dispatching unit and to identify mechanisms for supporting transfer of shop floor knowledge embedded in operating manufacturing equipment.

Design/methodology/approach

– The paper applies an inductive and a case study approach for exploring three empirical cases that represent different manufacturing facility relocation processes and differences in the applied managerial practices.

Findings

– The paper identifies two important gaps in international production literature when firms relocate equipment to other sites; a time gap (from dismantling to re-assembly of production facilities) and a space gap (from the current to the new site abroad). These gaps are important for understanding why relocation processes are difficult and what management can do to facilitate such processes.

Practical implications

– The paper identifies four issues that management faces in the dispatching context when relocating manufacturing facilities.

Originality/value

– The paper gives new insights to a limited literature of shop floor knowledge transfer when relocating manufacturing facilities.

Determinants of causal ambiguity and difficulty of knowledge transfer within the firm

The knowledge-based view of the firm portrays knowledge assets as the basis of sustainable competitive advantage. However, leveraging the knowledge available to the firm is not straightforward. The transfer of best practices within the firm or the replication of a certain routine poses challenges for managers. Causal ambiguity of knowledge makes it difficult to transfer practices into other contexts within the firm. In this paper, a new framework is proposed that identifies four antecedents to causal ambiguity: complexity, tacitness, relevance to the existing knowledge base, and the locality of knowledge. The paper concludes with the implications of the framework.