The selection of an appropriate style for a knowledge management initiative for the company is recognized as a dilemma for most managers who have an interest in the knowledge asset and its applications. Innovation is an important part of organizational performance and a company’s innovative capacity may be dependent upon its ability to take advantage of its knowledge assets. It is therefore critical that there is compatibility between the firm’s knowledge management approach and the style that executive managers adopt for managing their knowledge assets in order to achieve the required optimum performance in their organization. In this paper the role of the knowledge management styles on organizational performance will be examined and understood through a conceptual model based on a k‐space framework.

No abstract

This paper addresses the relationships between certain attributes of knowledge, knowledge management styles and organizational performance. From an extensive study of the literature, an innovative knowledge space (K-Space) model of organizational knowledge was developed as the first stage of the research. This led to the identification of four knowledge management styles and a framework that relates these styles to knowledge creation and improved organizational performance. A survey instrument was developed to measure the constructs contributing to the relationships in this framework and mailed to 338 organizations in different Australian industries. The results confirm that an organization can improve its performance through better management of its knowledge capabilities. Using a MANOVA analysis, the four knowledge management styles were found to be deployed in significantly different ways by organizations in different industry types. There is, however, in all organizations a particular benefit from deploying a balance of knowledge management styles which combine the human and technology perspectives. The findings of the study also demonstrate that the K-Space model provides a basis for a new way of conceptualising knowledge creation processes within organizations.

Creativity and high performance in learning processes are the main concerns of educational institutions. E-learning contributes to the creativity and performance of these institutions and reproduces a traditional learning model based primarily on knowledge transfer into more innovative models based on collaborative learning. In this paper, the authors focus on the preliminary investigation of factors that influence e-learning adoption in Jordan. As a pioneer country for e-learning systems in the Middle East, an investigation has been completed for one of Jordan’s universities that has implemented e-learning. Factors are defined through the analysis of unstructured interviews with developers and users of the e-learning systems, and Leximancer content analysis software is used to analyze the interview’s content. Main factors include Internet, legislations, human factors, and Web content.

Creativity and high performance in learning processes are the main concerns of educational institutions. E-learning contributes to the creativity and performance of these institutions and reproduces a traditional learning model based primarily on knowledge transfer into more innovative models based on collaborative learning. In this paper, the authors focus on the preliminary investigation of factors that influence e-learning adoption in Jordan. As a pioneer country for e-learning systems in the Middle East, an investigation has been completed for one of Jordan’s universities that has implemented e-learning. Factors are defined through the analysis of unstructured interviews with developers and users of the e-learning systems, and Leximancer content analysis software is used to analyze the interview’s content. Main factors include Internet, legislations, human factors, and Web content.