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This research explores perceptions of knowledge management processes held by managers and employees in a service industry. To date, empirical research on knowledge management in the service industry is sparse. This research seeks to examine absorptive capacity and its four capabilities of acquisition, assimilation, transformation and exploitation and their impact on effective knowledge management. All of these capabilities are strategies that enable external knowledge to be recognized, imported and integrated into, and further developed within the organization effectively. The research tests the relationships between absorptive capacity and effective knowledge management through analysis of quantitative data (n = 549) drawn from managers and employees in 35 residential aged care organizations in Western Australia. Responses were analysed using Partial Least Square-based Structural Equation Modelling. Additional analysis was conducted to assess if the job role (of manager or employee) and three industry context variables of profit motive, size of business and length of time the organization has been in business, impacted on the hypothesized relationships.

Structural model analysis examines the relationships between variables as hypothesized in the research framework. Analysis found that absorptive capacity and the four capabilities correlated significantly with effective knowledge management, with absorptive capacity explaining 56% of the total variability for effective knowledge management. Findings from this research also show that absorptive capacity and the four capabilities provide a useful framework for examining knowledge management in the service industry. Additionally, there were no significant differences in the perceptions held between managers and employees, nor between respondents in for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. Furthermore, the size of the organization and length of time the organization has been in business did not impact on absorptive capacity, the four capabilities and effective knowledge management.

The research considers implications for business in light of these findings. The role of managers in providing leadership across the knowledge management process was confirmed, as well as the importance of guiding routines and knowledge sharing throughout the organization. Further, the results indicate that within the participating organizations there are discernible differences in the way that some organizations manage their knowledge, compared to others. To achieve effective knowledge management, managers need to provide a supportive workplace culture, facilitate strong employee relationships, encourage employees to seek out new knowledge, continually engage in two-way communication with employees and provide up-to-date policies and procedures that guide employees in doing their work. The implementation of knowledge management strategies has also been shown in this research to enhance the delivery and quality of residential aged care.

The purpose of the article is to identify and systematize the terms of successful acquisitions on the enterprise market, along with making their classification into the necessary (which enable reaching synergy) and additional conditions (increasing the level of synergy or optimizing the process of obtaining it).

The methodology is based on direct interviews with the CEO, CFO and COOs. The surveys were carried out between the year 2000 and 2010 in a few tens of companies conducting acquisitions. The aim was to answer the question of whether the individual conditions of successful transactions were carried out and what were the results of acquisitions from the perspective of changes in the expected value (or observed) by the buyer. There has also been used the personal experience of the authors as participants in the acquisition on the sides of both, the buyer and the purchased.

The results allowed us to identify key conditions for success at each stage of the transaction process (critical success factors (CSF)). They also made it possible to classify the terms according to the criterion of their significance. The results clearly show that the cost-effective acquisition processes at the same time require fulfilling a number of conditions. The lack of synergetic effects of these conditions may decide not possible to obtain the expected increase in value in the purchasing process.

The research was conducted in a wide spectrum of companies, regardless of the ongoing activities in the industry, mainly on the Polish market. This means that the findings and recommendations are universally applicable, provided that some of the proposals may relate in particular to the so-called emerging markets.

The practical application of recommendations given in the paper will allow to reduce the risk and abridge the scale of failures in the acquisition processes. The attention is drawn to the practical implications of the pitfalls to which the managers who decide on and carry out complex processes of capital investments may be exposed.

As a result of literature and empirical research as well as the article's authors' own experience as experts, there has been proposed a comprehensive model of the most important behaviors conditioning the success of the acquisition in the context of building the shareholder value. This very model organizes the past experience of the M&A market, classifies the important factors in the M&A processes according to their effect on the value, and it supplements them with new elements, allowing the construction of a sustainable competitive advantage of the organization.

This study aims to show how change readiness shapes the knowledge acquisition process. The study elicits change readiness factors, at the individual and firm levels, that influence the knowledge acquisition process and are based on the context of professional service firms.

The qualitative study is grounded in interpretive philosophy and adopts a multiple-case study design. Three New Zealand Professional Service firms were analyzed for this study. Using grounded theory analysis, categories and concepts of change readiness that shape knowledge acquisition were identified.

Knowledge acquisition understanding, knowledge acquisition context and individual differences, represent primary dimensions defining change readiness for the knowledge acquisition process. Finally, distinctive firm archetypes, inter-profession differences and professionals’ demography, affect the way change readiness elements shape the knowledge acquisition process in the firms studied.

The study develops a theoretical model that shows how elements of change readiness, at the individual and organizational levels, influence knowledge acquisition. The study offers several propositions that could be tested in future studies. The study involves three professional service firms; hence, interpretation of the findings is limited.

A holistic understanding of change readiness factors that influence knowledge acquisition could mitigate failures of knowledge management processes in organizations.

It is the first empirical study that seeks to develop a theory on how change readiness elements influence knowledge acquisitions in the organization. To offer more contextualized findings, the study is done within the professional service industry.

Numerous firms in the automotive industry, to improve their competitiveness, have recently adopted mergers and acquisitions (M&As) strategies, particularly those in which a multinational enterprise from a developed country (DMNE) or a multinational enterprise from an emerging market (EMNE) acquires a DMNE. However, DMNEs in the industry typically do not acquire emerging market firms. In response, this paper aims to analyze that uncommon M&As process by focusing on the relationship between modes of post-acquisition acculturation and project management (PM) maturity. Because the literature addressing M&As does not correlate the acculturation process with project team maturity, this study seeks to partly fill that gap by proposing a framework for the relationship that draws upon Nahavandi and Malekzadeh’s (1988) research and Holmes and Walsh’s (2005) model.

This paper present qualitative research based on a case study in the automotive industry of a DMNE’s acquisition of a Brazilian firm. For data collection, this research conducted 14 in-depth interviews with managers, the transcripts of which were analyzed using content analysis.

Content analysis revealed differences between modes of acculturation perceived by the acquired and acquirer firms, as well as a gap between PM teams from both types of firm. A direct relationship emerged between the mode of acculturation and PM team, which constituted a factor driving the evolution of PM practices within the company. In recognizing that relationship, this research proposes and elucidates a framework that relates the mode of acculturation following the M&A process to PM maturity.

No previous research in the literature on M&As has analyzed post-acquisition acculturation and PM maturity in conjunction. For managers in post-acquisition companies, the proposed framework of this study is useful for understanding good management practices and, for project teams, for understanding the acculturation process.

This paper aims to present a discussion of the critical success factors (CSF) that affect the acquisition process for enterprise resource planning (ERP) software.

The research strategy was a multiple‐case design with three organizations that had recently completed the acquisition of an ERP solution. The rationale for the multiple‐case design was that, as a research strategy, the focus could be directed to understanding the dynamics and complexities present within each case, these being critical success factors of the ERP software acquisition process within the organization.

This study identified ten factors critical to the successful outcome of acquiring an ERP solution. Their omission would have resulted in a less than optimal outcome for the organization. For each of the three cases, the elements that stand out the most are as follows: clear and unambiguous authority, a structured, rigorous and user‐driven process, its planning, the establishment of criteria, and the sense of partnership that the team works to establish not only with various user commitments, but also with the potential vendor.

It is important to note that no one CSF alone is going to make an ERP acquisition successful. It is rather the combination of several critical factors that will result in its successful outcome.

Decribes how ESC, a holding company for a gas and electric utility and non‐utility energy business, completed the acquisition of Oracle’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution (finance and related applications) at a cost of US$6.5 million in March 1997. From initiation to completion, the acquisition took approximately six months. The structure of the acquisition process that emerged from the data revealed six distinctive iterative, recursive and inter‐related processes that, together, form a complex web of activity and tasks for the acquisition of ERP software. These activities and tasks are described and analyzed as a function of the six processes. The ERP acquisition process developed by ESC for this acquisition was non‐typical of their normal procurement practices and proved to be a significant learning experience for the entire organization. This case provides a useful illustration of “good practice” and sets forth the framework for the ERP acquisition process.

By combining consumer culture theory and service dominant logic, this study proposes that value might be understood as value-in-acquisition, such that value outcomes result from the acquisition process in which broader social forces shape the exchange process.

This study addresses low-income consumers, for whom societal arrangements strongly determine service interactions. Qualitative interviews reveal service value processes and outcomes for low-income consumers during acquisition processes.

For low-income consumers, inclusion, status, resource access and emotional relief represent key value outcomes. Important value processes shape those value outcomes, reflecting broader societal arrangements at macro, meso and micro levels. Marketing constitutes an institutional arrangement that establishes an empowered “consumer” role. Value processes are hindered if consumers sense that their agency in this role is diminished, because marketing interactions give precedence to other social roles.

Marketing should be studied as an institutional arrangement that shapes value creation processes during acquisition. Micro-level value processes have important implications for service quality and service value. Value outcomes thus might be designed in the acquisition process, not just for the offering.

The acquisition process for any good or service should be designed with its own value proposition, separate to the core product or service. Careful design of value processes during acquisition could mitigate conflict between social roles and those of consumption.

There is value in the acquisition process, independent of the value embedded in the goods and services.

The purpose of this paper is to mainly find out how well is time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC) suits for a university library setting in Estonia. For this purpose, all activities related to acquisitions process were identified and recorded in detail, and the cost of all these activities related to acquisition process in Estonian university libraries based on the example of the TDABC method were anlyzed.

The data used in this paper is based on a review of relevant literature to provide an overview of the concept of the different cost accounting methods suitable for the measurement of the acquisition process. Through a case study, conducted among Estonian university libraries, the TDABC approach was used to analyze the acquisition process in university libraries. More specifically, the acquisition process studied concerned print format books, audiovisual documents and sheet music, and covered acquisition processes such as receipt of orders, ordering documents, communication with bookshop (if necessary), receiving documents and communication with the customer.

On the basis of the current study it can be said the TDABC methodology seems to be one of the best tools for understanding cost behavior and for refining a cost system for university libraries. While analyzing the results, it appeared that the difference in time and cost for acquiring a document can be remarkable and concerns both – acquiring foreign documents (documents from other countries) and acquiring domestic documents, and between the university libraries chosen for the current study.

The subject of cost accounting as a performance measurement method is in general an unexplored field in Estonian university libraries. Time guidelines for acquiring the documents were, however, quite common in the 1980s in the USSR, including Estonia. Soviet-wide regulatory documents were issued on all library work processes, but each library could still implement their own rules. In the 1990s, the regulations were consigned to oblivion. Very few cost surveys involving different library activities have been carried out in Estonia and none have been published. Where such studies have been conducted, the results remain for internal use only.

Federal agencies are relying increasingly on contractors to perform their missions. With hundreds of billions of tax dollars spent each year on goods and services, it is essential that federal acquisition be handled in an efficient, effective, and accountable manner. The Government Accountability Office (GAO), however--as well as other accountability organizations, inspectors general, and the agencies themselves--continue to identify systemic weaknesses in key areas of acquisition. In fact, the acquisition function at several agencies has been on GAO's high-risk list, which identifies areas in the federal government with greater vulnerability to fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement. In January 2005, we added interagency contracting to this list. Far too often, the result of poor acquisitions has been an inability to obtain quality goods and services on time and at a fair price. We can no longer afford such outcomes. Given current fiscal demands and the fiscal challenges we are likely to face in the 21st century, the federal government must improve its ability to acquire goods and services in a cost-effective manner. GAO developed this framework to enable high-level, qualitative assessments of the strengths and weaknesses of the acquisition function at federal agencies. Such assessments can help senior agency executives identify areas needing greater management attention, and enable accountability organizations (including GAO) to identify areas requiring more focused follow-up work. The framework consists of four interrelated cornerstones that our work has shown are essential to an efficient, effective, and accountable acquisition process: (1) organizational alignment and leadership, (2) policies and processes, (3) human capital, and (4) knowledge and information management. The framework supports an integrated evaluation approach, but each of these cornerstones can stand alone so users of this framework may tailor evaluations to an agency's specific needs.