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University patents are a critical tool for firms seeking to gain information from universities. However, the potential of this tool is frequently constrained by ineffective communication and commercialisation strategies. University patents must be successfully advertised and disseminated to third parties to have an impact outside academia. In this scenario, inventors, universities, and technology transfer offices (TTOs) (which manage their patent portfolios) are encouraged to increase their efforts to promote and communicate patents. This article uses signalling theory to examine the key features of university patents that influence the investment or acquisition decisions of entrepreneurs and investors. Our findings can help TTOs, inventors, and universities strengthen their patent communication and commercialisation strategies, and also help third parties secure more successful university patents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research establishes a theoretical framework for knowledge value co-creation and analyses the knowledge value co-creation process of manufacturing enterprises and internet enterprises with the internet platform participation in three stages. Meanwhile, we use the system dynamics method to analyse the causality of knowledge value co-creation, establish the model of the system flow chart, and use Vensim software to perform simulation and sensitivity analyses of the model. The findings show that cloud computing capability can increase the knowledge stock of manufacturing enterprises and internet enterprises. The knowledge governance environment of the internet platform has a significant impact on the knowledge value co-creation of both partners. Improving the level of smart manufacturing can increase the amount of knowledge innovation of manufacturing enterprises but has a small impact on the knowledge stock of internet enterprises. Our research provides practical guidance to enhance the knowledge value co-creation between manufacturing enterprises and internet enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates if and to what extent the performance of public research institutes improves because of a collaboration with other partners, namely universities, industries, the government, and the civil society. Using the quadruple helix approach as a theoretical framework, the study investigates the Romanian context as an emerging economy, in the period 2012–2019. The analysis is based on a negative binomial model, and findings have documented that the research performance of public research institute is positively affected by cooperation and internationalisation. Furthermore, collaboration with other partners, which belong to a wide social research network, has proved to be effective, stimulating researchers and managers in actively participating in cooperative relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Set in a French higher education context, this paper contributes to the knowledge management literature by arguing that the digital transformation of knowledge transfer via distance learning includes negative outcomes, in addition to many benefits. Based on quantitative and qualitative data, via an online survey from learners and instructors, our findings show that while online modes of delivery are convenient and cost-effective, they overlook many aspects that enable users to engage in knowledge transfer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we aimed to develop a system for knowledge management mimicking the memory in the human brain. This system was used to create a multilingual guide for patients suffering from disorders of the spine. We viewed the transfer of knowledge as the transmission of a chain of small, interchangeable, semantic units. We defined the smallest amount of information that can be accurately communicated as a Knowledge Transfer Unit (KTU). Combining these KTUs in different sequences allowed us to create text chapters on more than 70 diseases. Through using KTUs, we reduced the number of characters by 72%, from 528,821 in the final output files to only 147,451 in our text database. In this paper, we present a new tool for knowledge management and transfer mimicking the process of integration of information and information recall within the human memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the effect of resource heterogeneity on knowledge Transfer in R&D alliances based on system dynamics method. Based on literature review, we identify the factors that affect knowledge transfer in R&D alliances, and analyse the effect of the organisational and network resource heterogeneity on knowledge transfer in R&D alliances. On this basis, we use system dynamics method to analyse the causality of the effect of the organisational and network resource heterogeneities on knowledge transfer, establish the model of system flow chart, and use Vensim PLE software to perform simulation and sensitivity analyses of the model. The results show that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between the organisational resource heterogeneity and knowledge transfer and that network resource heterogeneity has a positive effect on knowledge transfer in R&D alliances. Our research provides valuable insights into the exploitation of resource heterogeneity in R&D alliances to facilitate effective knowledge transfer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alternative Food Networks (AFNs) are challenging the traditional food system by leveraging concepts such as self-organisation and self-management aiming to shorten the food supply chain and give customers more power. The process of re-connection between producers and customers facilitates new ways of managing and sharing knowledge across the network and paves the way to analysing AFNs through the lens of the theory of the commons. The aim of this study is to understand if the perception of AFNs as a community-oriented business model leads to sustainability-oriented changes in customers' behaviours. With this purpose, the authors used an ordinary least squares (OLS) regression and a moderation analysis with data collected from 1,971 AFN customers. The results show that those customers who strongly perceive the community-orientation of AFN business models, tend to develop more sustainable food-related behaviours. This relationship is further reinforced by individual customer's ethical consumption awareness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to investigate the extent to which Chinese firms engage in varied university-industry knowledge transfer channels and the impact on product innovation performance. Data was collected on 14 distinct types of channels used by manufacturing firms located at the centre of the pearl river delta in Guangdong Province of China. Our results revealed that varied channels has a curvilinear relationship with product innovation. Moreover, it exhibits a curvilinear moderating effect on internal R&D capability–innovation relationship. It negatively moderates R&D capability–innovation relationship at low range of varied channels, but the negative moderating effect weakens as the range increases and eventually is converted to a positive one after the range reaches a turning point. The findings furthered our understanding on varied university-industry knowledge transfer channels and the associated innovation benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

University-industry links and their impact on innovation processes have been widely acknowledged. However, previous studies have mainly examined university-industry knowledge transfer activities from the perspective of the research and third stream missions. This paper goes a step further, analysing such processes from the perspective of the university's teaching mission. More specifically, it explores how educational crowdsourcing platforms help bring universities and industry together to develop joint activities in undergraduate and graduate programmes. Nine platforms with different business models were examined. A qualitative exploratory approach was adopted to manually collect and analyse data from the platforms. This study identified three categories of educational crowdsourcing platforms based on their focus (education, crowdsourcing or networking). The analysis shows that, although these platforms have some shortcomings, they provide benefits to all stakeholders by facilitating experiential learning, promoting skills acquisition and encouraging the development of new ideas to meet industry needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge has vital role in the development of an economy. Universities have switched to interacting with industries like never before to achieve excellence. On the other hand, industries look forward to working and partnering with academics to a greater extent and firms are pushed to innovate by the ever-increasing competitive market forces. Fostering university/industry (U/I) relationships can pave the way for the participating firms and their subsidiaries for building social capital and portrays trust, shared goals, and network ties as the pivotal elements of the social capital theory. In this paper, we develop a theoretical model based on the integrated view that communication is the medium for building trust and strong social ties. This, in turn, can enhance the quality and effectiveness of the knowledge transferred and its utilization for inducing innovation, adapting to sophisticated technology, which in turn foster growth opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

University-industry partnerships emphasise the transformation of knowledge into products and processes which can be commercially exploited. This paper presents a framework for understanding how social capital in university-industry partnerships affect knowledge transfer strategies, which impacts on collaborative innovation developments. University-industry partnerships in three different countries, all from regions at varying stages of development, are compared using the proposed framework. These include a developed region (Canada), a transition region (Malta), and a developing region (South Africa). Structural, relational and cognitive social capital dimensions are mapped against the knowledge transfer strategy that the university-industry partnership employed: leveraging existing knowledge or appropriating new knowledge. Exploring the comparative presence of social capital in knowledge transfer strategies assists in better understanding how university-industry partnerships can position themselves to facilitate innovation. The paper proposes a link between social capital and knowledge transfer strategy by illustrating how it impacts the competitive positioning of the university-industry partners involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge and its transference are increasingly viewed as key factors of companies' competitiveness. In this sense, our research aims to analyze how the knowledge transfer takes place between the higher education sector and the companies. In order to achieve the objectives of the study, a questionnaire was administered through a telephone interview to 500 companies, distributed throughout Portugal. The empirical results show there is cooperation between companies and institutions of higher education when entrepreneurs are younger, and companies are located in urban areas such as Lisbon. This cooperation, which translates into the knowledge transfer, is conducive to greater innovation as well as greater financial performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study sought to develop a multiple-criteria decision support system for evaluating transfers of knowledge from higher education institutions (HEIs) to society at large. Drawing on a panel of knowledge transfer specialists, we developed the evaluation system by completing the three phases of the multiple-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) approach. The structuring phase used the strategic options development and analysis (SODA) methodology and cognitive mapping techniques. The evaluation phase applied the measuring attractiveness by a categorical-based evaluation technique (MACBETH), which allowed us to evaluate HEIs' local and overall performance. The third phase consisted of formulating recommendations. Assuming a constructivist process-oriented stance, this research included a real-world application of the proposed system to Portuguese public HEIs. Our study demonstrates that HEI administrators can use the techniques applied to make strategic decisions when seeking to foster the transfer of knowledge to society at large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural distance has been identified as one of the main issues affecting partnership processes in international joint-ventures (IJVs). However, there is still a lot of debate about the role played by cultural differences in influencing IJVs' knowledge management. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how cultural distance impacts on knowledge management processes of IJVs' relationships in a cross-cultural business environment. We performed a content analysis focused on an embedded case study, the IJVs of the Generali Group in India. Results show that trust alone is not sufficient to support knowledge management within IJVs, as partners may feel reluctant to share strategic information. However, the creation of facilitation roles, the development of knowledge acquisition skills, and the contributions of managers and employees generate a social glue that increases the willingness to share knowledge and facilitates knowledge management processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the modern ICT-enabled knowledge work context, questions related to access to information and knowledge-sharing practices have received growing research attention. However, there is still surprisingly little empirical research exploring the actual impact of effective knowledge transfer to work productivity. The purpose of this paper is to fulfil this research gap and empirically study whether there are any differences in subjective work productivity based on how the knowledge worker perceives the level of information flow and knowledge transfer within the organisation. Furthermore, the aim is to determine whether there are differences between the extent to which the positively experienced information flow and knowledge transfer impact experienced work productivity. Through the survey method, data were collected from 998 knowledge workers from Finland in various sizes of organisations. The quantitative data were analysed using SPSS software descriptive statistics, correlations and U-tests. The practical value of the study is in the analysis results. The paper presents the value of information flows and knowledge transfer to knowledge work productivity. This increased understanding will help managers to evaluate the effects of investing in supporting information flows and knowledge transfer within their organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ability to access and exploit knowledge resources is one of the key challenges for today's multinational corporations (MNCs). However, there is still a lack of consensus about the exact nature of the role played by culture in affecting knowledge transfer in multinational contexts. The purpose of this paper is to explore how the dynamics of national culture influence an organization operating in a cross-cultural business environment and how the company can benefit from cultural differences. We focused on a holistic single case study, the Generali Group, by performing content analysis of the evidence collected with qualitative coding techniques. We propose a framework, based on the integration of intercultural competences and the use of specific knowledge facilitation mechanisms, which allows knowledge to spread in a more easy and fluid way in multinational environments and supports MNCs in reconciling the knowledge transfer dilemma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Personalization and codification are two dominant knowledge transfer (KT) mechanisms found in organizations and organizational networks. This paper proposes a theoretical model of KT that explains organizations' choice of KT mechanisms in terms of the tacitness of knowledge being shared and the corresponding information content. Shannon's entropy, an information theoretical concept, has been used to define the constructs of tacitness and information content and explain their influence on the choice of the corresponding KT mechanisms. Contributions of the paper include (a) use of information content as a predictor of the choice of KT mechanisms, (b) development of an expression for tacitness, and an intuitive explanation of the tacit-explicit continuum, (c) characterization of product variety in terms of information content, and (d) development of a KT theoretical model that can be operationalized for predicting the choice of KT mechanisms in real-life situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although previous research indicates a variety of facilitators of knowledge transfer, many firms still suffer from knowledge transfer difficulties. This study explores the relational antecedents of knowledge transfer by integrating the motivation-opportunity-ability framework with a social network approach, which emphasizes the relations among people rather than their attributes. To rigorously validate causal relations among network variables, the social networks of employees in a research and development department were surveyed twice in 6 months. A regression analysis with 76 × 76 networks using a multiple regression quadratic assignment procedure showed that opportunity and motivation were the first- and second-most influential factors for knowledge transfer, respectively. There was a marginal, but statistically significant effect for ability. The creation of a working environment in which knowledge transfer can easily take place, and motivating competent employees to transfer their knowledge, are critical to successful knowledge transfer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this research, we are interested in ERP systems which are common information repositories that are aimed at matching the knowledge, practices, and skills that drive the organization in the best possible way. Can the cognitive and hierarchical models coexist within the same project? What is the impact of ERP on the interconnection between communities? To answer these questions, we rely in particular on the work of Levina and Vaast (MIS Quarterly 29(2):335-363, 2005), which underlines that the modes of interaction between CPs must be mediated by the activation of boundary objects and/or the mobilization of boundary spanners. Finally, this leads us to discriminate between two types of ERPPs (hierarchical/cognitive) and to underline the role of the switch in the ERPP success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Know-how is a critical element of franchising, and its transfer is a key issue for franchisors and their staff. The aim of this paper was to analyse franchisees' perceptions about know-how transfer in franchise networks. Findings of our qualitative empirical study show that franchisees seem to value the mechanisms used in their network, which include formalised processes (the operations manual, online tools), training (initial and ongoing) and social mechanisms (discovery sessions, meetings and committees). Only the effectiveness of on-field consultants is questioned, which leads to important managerial implications. At the theoretical level, the paper contributes to our understanding of franchise operations by providing a franchisee-centred model of how knowledge is created and disseminated in the networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores knowledge transfers inside University-Industry collaborative research as the objective and scope of R&D activities vary. First, we contribute to a dynamic perspective on inter-organizational knowledge transfers by providing a new typology of University-Industry collaborative research. Second, we provide propositions related to contingent knowledge transfers, i.e. alignment between the nature of a project and the expected transfers. If such an alignment should ideally be built starting in the design phase, we demonstrate that a lack of alignment can be corrected as the collaborative research is iterated. Those iterations are experienced by partners as highly emotional events, influencing the rest of the collaborative work through what we call the pivot complex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite research on how multinational corporations (MNCs) manage knowledge transfer across national borders, little is known about the implications of such transfer on subsidiary performance and the intervening influence of cultural distance. This is an important topic because effective knowledge management in terms of performance outcome is crucial for MNCs to build competitive advantage. This paper tackles the topic by developing hypotheses to examine the interactive effects of cultural distance and knowledge transfer within MNCs on subsidiary performance. Our empirical study with China-based MNC subsidiaries in the IT industry shows that knowledge transfer is significantly and positively related to subsidiary performance, while cultural distance is significantly and negatively associated with subsidiary performance. In addition, we found that cultural distance moderates the knowledge transfer-subsidiary performance relationship. Specifically, cultural distance weakens the positive relationship in knowledge inflows, but enhances the positive relationship in knowledge outflows, and different directions of knowledge transfer, interacting with cultural distance, have varying effects on subsidiary performance. These findings have important implications for cross-culture knowledge management research and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge has become the main competitive tool for firms. Just as knowledge is considered as the most important strategic resource, knowledge management (KM) is considered to be critical to a firm's success. Several attempts have been undertaken to identify and define the different KM processes. From the literature review, four key dimensions stand out as affecting KM processes: knowledge creation, knowledge transfer, knowledge storage/retrieval, and knowledge application. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the KM and value literature by determining the importance of the different processes of KM for increasing value creation and value capture in firms. The context for the research hypotheses is the Spanish banking industry in 2010. The results support a positive relationship between KM and value creation, and between value creation and value capture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge Regions are insufficiently studied by academia. The aim of the article is to analyse Knowledge Region (KR) by inter-linking knowledge creation theories, including knowledge management and knowledge sharing for the purpose of developing of a Cross-Border Knowledge Region (CB KR). The empirical study of the cross-border cooperation organisation and a theoretical debate on the creation processes of CB KR are linked. This methodology puts in evidence that an intermediary organisation and CB KR creation processes are explicitly linked as it facilitates the development of a KR. The originality is that cross-border cooperation organisation is studied by applying the three-element model developed by Nonaka, Toyama and Konno to an intermediary organisation. The intermediary organisation covers Helsinki and Tallinn capital city-region(s) and is used as a Place/Space/Ba in this article. The outcomes prove that intermediary organisations should be part of KR development processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]