Management Dynamics in the Knowledge Economy (E-Journal)
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The Use of the Evidence from the Behavioral Sciences in the Organizational Decision-Making Process
Get PDFThe important managerial decision-making and the development of policies, strategies, internal normative acts and procedures must be solid grounded for efficient achieving of their objectives. To this end, the evidence-based approach uses various types of evidence, a leading role having those scientific, and the critical thinking. The evidence from behavioral sciences is especially important when the decisions objectives involve behavioral elements. They also help to ensure the rationality of any decision-making process. The concern for the use of behavioral sciences research in the decision-making preceded the occurrence of evidence-based approach. The increased knowledge fund of organizations, the access to the best practices and to the relevant scientific research findings represent only the initial stages of the evidence-based approach implementation and functioning. The ensuring of their effective use calls for special skills training among staff, the creation of tools and organizational mechanisms and of a facilitating organizational culture. This paper argues the need to integrate two approaches that promote the decision-making based on scientific evidence, the evidence-based approach and the use of behavioral and social sciences in the decision-making, to potentiate the contribution of the behavioral sciences to the increasing of the decision-making efficiency. The efforts made in this paper had overall objective to prepare and facilitate the use of research evidence provided by behavioral sciences in the organizational decision-making process by presenting the main concepts and knowledge in the field and by proposing an outline procedure specifically developed
Perception and Consumption of Global Luxury Brands in Russia and Romania: Comparative Cross-Cultural Aspects
Get PDFThe present paper compares the luxury consumption in Russia with that in the post-communist countries of the former Soviet bloc. The aim of this research is to find out the common and specific about an attitude to global luxury brands in Russia and Romania. We investigate the motives for buying luxury brands in these two countries, as well as the brands’ preferences for Russian and Romanian consumers. Furthermore, the portrait of an average luxury consumer in Russia and Romania is introduced and analyzed in the study. The current investigation consisted of two parts. First, it was qualitative research, as in-depth interviews with luxury brands consumers. It allowed us to formulate the hypotheses. Then to verify the hypotheses, we conducted on-line survey in which 45 female respondents from each country took part. As can be seen from the study, Russian and Romanian luxury brands connoisseurs have much in common. Both of them prefer global brands to local ones. The majority of Russian respondents agree that luxury brands are bought to demonstrate the status and welfare or at least it is a kind of reward for being hard working. As for Romanians, the key reason for luxury consumption is a very high quality and perfectionism in details. Although the consumers from the countries have shown some common characteristics, they are different in their attitude to Louis Vuitton (LV is not № 1 in Romania). What is more, the brands ratings and products choice are completely different in Russia and Romania. All our respondents have very strong cultural background: they visit opera, museums, listen to classical music and read serious books. Furthermore, their touristic destinations have cultural purposes as well. It means that people appreciate not only material brands, but also try to do their best to follow the cultural life style. This research contributes to some extent to the understanding of luxury brands consumption in Russia and Romania. The study can be useful for luxury companies, which plan to do business in these countries or already have been presented there
The Effects of Knowledge from Collaborations on the Exploitative and Exploratory Innovation Output of Greek SMEs
Get PDFThere is very limited research linking the collaborations of Greek SMEs and their innovation output. This paper uses the exploitation / exploration framework and links it to the knowledge flows towards SMEs coming through their collaborations. It explores three types of knowledge, namely managerial, technological and market-related. It finds that the exchange of management knowledge has a positive and significant effect on exploratory innovation only, the exchange of technical / technological knowledge has a negative and significant effect on exploitative and exploratory innovation output, and the exchange of market knowledge does not have an effect on any type of innovation output. Also, partnering with same nationality firms has a negative effect on exploratory innovation and particularly for exploitative innovation the existence of a collaboration manager has a negative effect. Most of these findings are corroborated by interviews with 10 managers of Greek SMEs
Knowledge Management and Politics at the Highest Level: An Exploratory Analysis
Get PDFThis paper analyses Knowledge Management (KM) as a political activity, made by the great political leaders of the world. We try to examine if at the macro political level KM is made, and how. The research is interesting because given that we live in a Knowledge Society, in the Information Era, it is more or less obvious that the political leaders should also do KM. However we don’t know of any previous study on KM and world leaders and this paper wants to be a first step to fill that gap. As a methodology we use literature review: given this one is a first preliminary study we use data we found online and in databases like EBSCO. We divide the analysis in two main parts: theoretical ideas, and application. In the theoretical part we aim at distinguishing KM as made by managers from KM made by politicians. The second part is itself divided in two segments: the past and the present times; in the second segment we illustrate our ideas with the example of President Barack Obama. We observe, rather surprisingly, how much it has been over-looked by scholars; KM always was and nowadays is pervasive in the activity of the world political leaders. Furthermore, the importance of KM made by world political leaders is so great that it should prompt the making of detailed studies in order to improve the world governance. The study has the limitation of relying on documents, insights and texts, and not on interviews. It should be followed by studies of a more qualitative and participative nature. We believe it would be very interesting to make such studies and that they would help improving the democracies in the 21st century and beyond
Supply Chain Collaboration under Uncertainty in the Albanian Beer Market
Get PDFToday supply chain uncertainty is higher due to the global crisis, the fast changing technology and the increasing vulnerability of supply chains. Companies use different strategies to reduce uncertainty, like building agile supply chains, increasing resilience, postponement, etc. All these strategies require strong supply chain collaboration. Although research interest in supply chain collaboration is growing, no research has been done in Albania. This paper is one of the first to investigate supply chain management practices and the extent of supply chain collaboration in the Albanian beer industry. The aim of this research is twofold: first, to investigate how supply chain uncertainty influences the extent of collaboration with the supply chain members, and second, to analyze how organizational culture facilitates the collaboration process. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the managers of the main beer companies. A guide questionnaire was prepared. It consisted of open and rate-scale questions about supply chain collaboration, supply chain uncertainty, supply chain management practices and organizational culture. The research will show that a high level of supply chain uncertainty does not always lead to a high degree of collaboration with the supply chain members. Organizational culture is the key driver of a successful collaboration. Not all types of culture can facilitate collaboration but only the ones with an external orientation
The Role of Romanian Universities in Increasing Graduates’ Employability. Curriculum Management and Development of Competences Required by the Labor Market
Get PDF IT&C instruments have been introduced in teaching and learning in order to facilitate the acquisition of competences and develop abilities for using new media and technologies. They lead to creating the competences which are necessary for a well-trained workforce. The results of a previous study where we wanted to identify the students’ main requests regarding development needs by using new teaching/learning technologies have highlighted the support that students want to receive from universities in finding a workplace. Thus, “84% of students want universities to establish partnerships with private institutions or ask for their support in developing projects in which students could participate as volunteers. 64% of students want the curriculum to be adapted to the employers’ requests and 59% consider it is necessary to include new teach/learn tools in the process of adapting the curriculum” (Butum, Stan & Zodieru, 2015). The present paper develops the idea that students are very demanding with the quality of their studies and they are focusing to obtain “right” skills for the labor market. We want to develop this analysis by approaching the change/adaptation of the curriculum in concordance to the market needs. We also intend to identify the employers’ requests about the young graduates’ competences and abilities and the way the employers perceive the role of universities in building human capital
The Future Knowledge Worker: an Intercultural Perspective
Get PDFThe paper aims to provide empirical evidence regarding the influence of cultural specificity on the capacity of the European higher education institutions of developing the future knowledge workers. Therefore, an exploratory research is employed and the qualitative approach is combined with the qualitative one. The focus is on the European business faculties since they are the main provider of the advanced economies workforce. 24 units of analysis are selected based on five criteria: university’s number of students, research level, experience on the market, presence on QS Worlds University Ranking, position occupied in national ranking and access to information; for each of them, a content analysis is applied. Then, a logistic regression analysis is employed in order to determine whether cultural dimensions (independent variables) influence the use of a specific teaching activity, the development of certain skills and faculties’ capacity of developing the future knowledge workers (dependent variables). The results show that power distance and uncertainty avoidance may decrease the odds of developing the future European knowledge worker while the long term orientation may increase these odds. All five clasical dimensions of Hofstede influence the development of graduates’ skills but only four of them have an impact on the teaching and evaluating activities, namely: power distance, individualism, masculinity and uncertainty avoidance; the second one influences academics’ attitude towards increasing the use of practical activities within the courses while the other ones have an impact on the theoretical activities
Key Features in Knowledge-Driven Companies
Get PDFIn today’s Romanian business environment, an increasing attention should be laid on clarifying the organizational strategy, structures and systems within the corporate governance, and moreover a critical eye must be focused on the organizational culture, leadership, and alignment to ethical values. Organizational transparency makes sense rationally and ethically, therefore the business leaders and the top management must learn how to effectively build trust, communicate, and foster true values in a transparent manner. This paper proposes an introspective view over a Romanian entrepreneurial organization within the SME sector, where many and sudden changes at governance level took place in a relative short span of time, changes that influenced over time many critical aspects of human capital, including aspect of knowledge management. In our case, short-term gains prevailed over long-term interest and people were not prepared for these changes. By analyzing the effect of lack of transparency, communication and alignment over the employees’ engagement and involvement, the article draws on insights from different employees’ point of view, demonstrating that culture is capable of altering strategy and structure. The role of a leader of an organization is no longer simply to run the business on a daily basis, but to create the right culture based on ethics and values. It becomes essential to cultivate such a framework, based on leadership processes, toward achieving business objectives and related growth, profit, and return goals, outlining the future of corporate governance and what’s needed for continued effectiveness in a framework where knowledge is continually enhanced
Organizational Innovation – A Means to Enhance Quality of Life for Employees in Knowledge Economy
Get PDFThis paper provides an overview of the latest significant researches, both in academic and public institutions, both theoretical and empirical, both in Europe and worldwide, on organizational innovation. It synthesizes the different approaches especially on the effects of innovative practices on the employees’ quality of life, as they emerge from the empirical research conducted in different organizations and countries, mainly in organizations of knowledge-intensive business services sector, specific to knowledge economy. Organizational innovation is a new way of organizing the business practices of the organization, including knowledge management, in workplace organization or external relations; it refers to practices that have never been used before by the company. Knowledge-based organizations are built on intangible assets, on the knowledge, experience and competences of high-skilled human resources, who represent the most valuable resource of these organizations. The secondary data analysis we conducted showed that workplace innovation leads to employees’ welfare, health and therefore to their motivation and loyalty. Unfortunately, in the last five years, the percentage of European companies that adopt new, innovative forms of organization (“discretionary learning” forms), meant to ensure better working conditions, decreased. Moreover, in Romania there is a lack of harmonization between legislation and the development of activities specific to the knowledge economy; that is why the conclusions of the paper consist in several guidelines for Romanian business environment in order to improve the “golden collars” employees’ quality of life
Development through Knowledge Economy: Cluj-Napoca – a European Smart City
No full textThe paper is related to both theoretical concepts and best practice in the field of Knowledge Management Strategy. We have designed a mixture of research methodology that covers literature review, comparative case-study analysis, and best practices in the Smart-City field, in order to propose an adequate model, with a suitable quick guide for implementation that may provide a solution for the development of Cluj-Napoca case study. After an in-depth literature review, we proposed the following as the main research question: Could a smart city comparative case study methodology be used as a knowledge management strategy for development? After a preparatory stage we focused on the upgrading of a smart city development model. To put this model at work we looked for and designed a quick guide that can be used as a tool for implementing the model named Knowledge Broker Intervention Model (KBIM). This KBIM and the quick guide for implementation may be seen as our small contribution to the theory and practice in the field. The Knowledge Broker Intervention Model was designed to improve the networks of components in a new way and a more sustainable development. These outcomes of the comparative analysis may be used as a starting point for the transformation of Cluj Napoca into a Smart City based on the quick guide we developed. Cluj Innovation City is a first step towards transforming Cluj-Napoca into a Smart City, which could be developed around the existing Cluj IT Cluster. The role of a knowledge broker would be to ensure that knowledge of the organizational culture of private firms could be harvested, processed and further transferred to universities. In their turn, universities would adopt the new knowledge and apply it in such a way in which it will influence the nurture of scientists. This would come as a solution in the process of closing the gap between knowledge generation, dissemination and feedback actions. It will link research results with policy and practice, as well as match some research portfolios to the needs of policy and practice, therefore the knowledge broker would act as a catalyst in this scenario