1,720,969 research outputs found
The vital role of knowledge management and creativity for performance
No full textIt is common opinion that knowledge management practices and creativity are very important factors for firms facing a turbulent and dynamic environment. Knowledge and creativity in fact are a helpful support for managers that have to make decisions under uncertain and complex conditions. Knowledge generates economic value when it is utilized to solve problems and making decisions and so problem solving becomes the way thanks to which it is possible to link firm knowledge to firm performance. But when facing new problems, people and organizations will have to go beyond their knowledge maps and find a new path that will allow them to find new solutions. That is why PS involves a great deal of creativity. They are not only complementary but also synergic in the problem solving process. This paper aims to shed light on the benefits that knowledge and creativity are able to produce for the problem solving process and how this, in turn, impacts on firms’ performance. We collected survey data from January to March 2015 from a sample of 1525 leading Italian industrial companies. Findings confirm that work design, organizational culture and structure increase organizational creativity and, more generally, the firm’s ability to solve problems (efficacy in finding and implementing new and useful solutions). Results also suggest that in order to successfully win challenges and arrive where nobody else has been before people need to rely on both their knowledge and creativity. Furthermore it seems very clear that creativity deploys its greatest potential when it rests on strong epistemic bases. It can be gathered that for a better understanding of the potential benefits deriving from knowledge and creativity it is necessary to consider the synergy they could activate. One of the main limitations of the present paper is that it has not been possible to stratify problem solving skills by hierarchical levels (i.e., strategic, tactical, operational) nor split them in to functional areas (i.e., marketing, finance, R&D, etc.). Another limitation is the generalizability of results given that the data was collected from one single European country
Does Knowledge Management enhance Decision-Making speed?
Get PDFEvery manager has to make daily decisions the efficacy of which will affect firm performance and so decision-making (DM) and problem-solving (PS) are very important skills able to make the difference between the success and the failure of a firm. At the same time markets have reached such a level of complexity that uncertainty and risk connected to decisions are higher than ever before while market turbulence forces firms to make faster and faster decisions in order to quickly adapt to the changing environment. For this reason time and knowledge are strictly connected resources. Speedy decisions in fact allow firms to adopt new technology or to take advantage of new market opportunities before competitors do so. According to several scholars knowledge management (KM) seems very useful to improve DM and PS processes. However, to date, few studies have investigated the impact that KM practices have on decision speed and efficacy. Therefore the present paper aims to empirically prove the impact that KM has on the organizational decision-making process and how this, in turn, impacts on firm performance. We collected survey data from 113 leading Italian companies and tested the structural model with Partial Least Square (PLS) method. Results, suggest that some KM practices significantly impact on the firm's ability to make speedy and effective decisions and also on firm performance. A very interesting result is the fact that the firm's ability to make speedy and effective decisions does not impact on firm performance. The main limitations of the present paper concern the fact that it has not been possible to stratify problem solving skills by hierarchical levels (i.e., strategic, tactical, operational) and the generalizability of results, considering that the data was collected from one single European country
Knowledge versus creativity: which of them really matter?
No full textIt is common opinion that knowledge management practices and creativity are very important factors for firms facing a turbulent and dynamic environment. Knowledge and creativity in fact are a helpful support for managers that have to make decisions under uncertain and complex conditions: they are not only complementary but also synergic in the problem solving process.
This paper aims to shed light on the benefits that knowledge and creativity are able to produce for organizational decision making, underlining differences and analogies between them. Only once certain aspects have been clarified it will be easier to judge the opportunity of investing in KM infrastructure or, in the case it already exists, what kind of changes are needed to improve creativity and/or decision-making speed
Intellectual capital’s link with financing opportunities
No full textAbstract
Purpose – This study aims to provide empirical evidence on the link between intellectual capital and a firm’s
ability to attract funding and financing in Italian companies.
Design/methodology/approach – Data from 125 Italian companies was collected through an online survey
and analysed using structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM).
Findings – Results show that structural capital has a positive, direct impact on both human and relational
capital. At the same time, relational capital is the only intellectual capital component that has a positive, direct
impact on a firm’s ability to attract funding and financing. Finally, we found that a firm’s ability to attract
funding and financing impacts both innovation and financial performance.
Originality/value – This novel study is among the first to provide empirical evidence of how human,
relational and structural capital interact with each other and enhance a firm’s ability to attract funding and
financing
INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL, ENTREPRENEURIAL ORIENTATION AND GREEN INNOVATION IN ITALIAN SMES
Get PDFPurpose. This study aims to examine the relationships between
Intellectual Capital (IC), entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and
green innovation in small and medium-sized Italian enterprises
(SMEs). Specifically, it investigates how different components of
Intellectual Capital influence the dimensions of entrepreneurial
orientation and how these, in turn, impact green innovation.
Design/methodology/approach. A structural model is developed
and tested using data from a sample of 210 Italian SMEs. The
model is analysed using the PLS-SEM technique.
Findings. Results show that Structural Capital has a significant,
positive influence on all three dimensions of entrepreneurial ori-
entation (innovativeness, proactiveness and risk-taking). Human
Capital positively impacts risk-taking, while Relational Capital
positively influences innovativeness. The only EO dimension that
demonstrates a significant, positive relationship with green inno-
vation is innovativeness.
Practical and Social Implications. The study highlights the im-
portance of SMEs investing in Structural Capital to foster entre-
preneurial orientation. Moreover, it underscores the critical role of
innovativeness in driving green innovation, suggesting that culti-
vating a culture of creativity and experimentation could be key to
advancing environmental sustainability efforts.
Originality of the Study. This research contributes to the existing
literature by providing empirical evidence on the interplay between
IC, EO and green innovation in the context of Italian SMEs. It of-
fers a more nuanced understanding of how different components of
Intellectual Capital influence specific dimensions of entrepreneur-
ial orientation and how these translate into green innovation
Knowledge management, problem solving and performance in top Italian firms
No full textThe purpose of this paper is to empirically test the link among knowledge management practices, problem solving processes, and organizational performance.
Design/methodology/approach:
This study uses survey data from 112 leading Italian companies. To test the structural relations of the research model we used the partial least square (PLS) method.
Findings:
Results show a strong relationship between knowledge management practices and intermediate activities of creative problem solving and problem solving speed. In addition, creative problem solving has a direct impact on both organizational and financial performances whereas problem solving speed has a direct effect only on financial performance.
Research limitations/implications
The focus on top Italian firms limits the generalizability of results.
Practical implications:
This study provides empirical evidence of the importance of knowledge management practices for problem solving activities and firm’s performance.
Originality/value:
The present paper fills an important gap in the extant literature by conceptualizing and empirically testing the relationship among knowledge management, problem solving processes (creative problem solving and problem solving speed) and firm performance. This study is the first ever to study these relationships within the Italian context
Key factors that improve knowledge-intensive business processes which lead to competitive advantage
No full textPurpose – The purpose of this paper is to empirically test the knowledge-intensive process of creative
problem-solving and its outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach – This study uses survey data from 113 leading Italian companies. To test
the structural relations of the research model the authors used the partial least square (PLS) method.
Findings – Results show that work design and training have a positive direct impact on creative
problem-solving process while organizational culture has a positive impact on both creative problemsolving
process and its outcomes. Finally creative problem-solving process has a strong direct impact on its
outcomes and this, in turn, on firms’ competitiveness.
Practical implications – This study suggests that managers must highlight the problem-solving process
as it affects a firm’s capability to find creative solutions and therefore its competitiveness. Moreover, the
present paper suggests managers should invest in specific knowledge management (KM) practices for
enhancing knowledge-intensive business processes.
Originality/value – The present paper fills an important gap in the BPM literature by empirically testing
the relationship among KM practices, multistage processes of creative problem-solving and their outcomes,
and firms’ competitiveness
Geometric Deep Learning Strategies for the Characterization of Academic Collaboration Networks
No full textThis paper examines how geometric deep learning techniques may be employed to analyze academic collaboration networks (ACNs) and how using textual information drawn from publications improves the overall performance of the system. The proposed experimental pipeline was used to analyze the collaboration network of the Machine Learning Genoa Center (MaLGa) research group. First, we find the optimal method for embedding the input data graph and extracting meaningful keywords for the available publications. We then use Graph Neural Networks (GNN) for node type and research topic classification. Finally, we explore how the resulting corpus can be used to create a recommender system for optimal navigation of the ACN. Our results show that the GNN-based recommender system achieved high accuracy in suggesting unexplored nodes to users. Overall, this study demonstrates the potential for using geometric deep learning and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to best represent the scientific production of ACNs. In the future, we plan to incorporate the temporal nature of the data and navigation statistics of users exploring the graph as additional input for the recommender system
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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