PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to reveal how trust develops between partner firms in the context of intercultural business relationships and how understanding of the business culture of a partner firm and adaptation to it can be a driving force for the beginning and maintaining of trust development with that partner.Design/methodology/approachThe study is of a qualitative nature and employs “elite interviewing” methodology for the aims of data collection. The analysis is conducted through theoretically‐informed reading of interviews.FindingsManagers constantly learn the business culture of the partner through interactions. Adaptation based on the acquired business culture knowledge is found to be as important for the development of trust between business relationships' parties. A “moderate” level of cultural adaptation is identified as most favourable for this development. Additionally, a categorization of cultural adaptation within business relationships is proposed.Research limitations/implicationsThe insufficient number of personal interviews within a specific industrial context does not allow a generalisation of the study outcomes.Originality/valueResearch which addresses the importance of cultural adaptation for trust development within business relationships, is scarce. This study attempts to fill in this gap. Furthermore, it shows the need to consider business culture, rather than national culture, while studying business relationships. Finally, the study provides interesting avenues for further research.
PurposeThis study was developed in response to the need to develop age-friendly smart living environments due to the complex demands placed on society by the ageing of the population. This study aims to analyse the potential that knowledge visualisation offers collaborative decision-making applied to the development of a multiple criteria framework supporting knowledge management (KM) through knowledge collaboration (KC) and knowledge sharing (KS) in the context of regional innovation systems (RIS).Design/methodology/approachUsing a socio-technical approach, knowledgeable and experienced representatives of RIS innovation actors were brought together to develop a constructivist multiple criteria framework that integrates knowledge visualisation and collaborative decision-making techniques (i.e. cognitive mapping and system dynamics).FindingsThe study introduces a multiple criteria model supporting KM encompassing conditions and practices of RIS innovation actors facilitating and encouraging KC and KS. The potential for knowledge visualisation in collaborative decision-making is explored in great depth and illustrated in a case study setting.Practical implicationsThe panel members who participated in this study consider our methodological proposal to be extremely versatile and see great potential for further applications in RIS contexts.Originality/valueThe combined use of cognitive mapping and system dynamics according to the strategic options development and analysis (SODA) approach offers a holistic and well-informed perspective on the issue in question. The literature reports no prior work of this methodological combination in the same research context.
Extrusion of rubber profiles is a time-and resource-intensive process. The experience of individuals supervising the production is difficult to gather and to convey to others. The aim of the MErKoFer project is to gather accumulated knowledge on the production process and established procedures, which are employed in handling occurring malfunctions and ensuring specified quality standards, and to give advisory feedback based on this knowledge. This approach is based on case-based reasoning, an ontological representation of domain-specific information and dependencies, associations and rules identified by data mining techniques, and neural networks. Solutions of similar situations are provided to the machine operators as hints from the knowledge base to support their decisions and improve their autonomy and the quality of their actions.
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