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A major part of knowledge management for knowledge-intensive firms such as professional service firms is the increasing focus on thought leadership. Despite being a well-known term, it is poorly defined and analysed in the academic and practitioner literature. The aim of this article is to answer three questions. First, what is thought leadership? Second, what tensions exist when seeking to create thought leadership in knowledge-based organisations? Third, what further research is needed about thought leadership? The authors call for cross-disciplinary and academic–practitioner approaches to understanding the field of thought leadership.

The authors review the academic and practitioner literature on thought leadership to provide a rich oversight of how it is defined and can be understood by separating inputs, creation processes and outcomes. The authors also draw on qualitative data from 12 in-depth interviews with senior leaders of professional service firms.

Through analysing and building on previous understandings of the concept, the authors redefine thought leadership as follows: “Knowledge from a trusted, eminent and authoritative source that is actionable and provides valuable solutions for stakeholders”. The authors find and explore nine tensions that developing thought leadership creates and propose a framework for understanding how to engage with thought leadership at the industry/macro, organisational/meso and individual/micro levels. The authors propose a research agenda based on testing propositions derived from new theories to explain thought leadership, including leadership, reducing risk, signalling quality and managing social networks, as well as examining the suggested ways to resolve different tensions.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, they are the first to separate out thought leadership from its inputs, creation processes and outcomes. The authors show new organisational paradoxes within thought leadership and show how they can play out at different levels of analysis when implementing a thought leadership strategy. This work on thought leadership is set in a relatively under-explored context for knowledge management researchers, namely, knowledge-intensive professional service firms.

This paper aims to study possible differences between the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) defined in the designation of Cuenca as a World Heritage (WH) site and its inhabitants' perceptions of heritage value. The study is based on research conducted in the historic centre of Cuenca in Ecuador, which was accorded WH status in 1999.

The research employs both quantitative and qualitative methodologies, providing a complementary approach to the research subject. Quantitative research involved a probability survey of 400 informants randomly selected from the population of the canton of Cuenca, while qualitative research included 40 semi-structured interviews with residents and traders in the historic centre and 150 further written consultations with residents of the city.

Following the introduction, methodology and description, the paper presents the data gathered from the survey and interviews. These indicate inhabitants' perceptions of the meaning, values, and uses of WH in Cuenca and reveal differences between their perceptions and those of the official OUV.

Although there are several studies on WH residents' perceptions of UNESCO OUV, few highlight the mismatch between local community views of heritage and those established by UNESCO. This study reflects critically on the concept of OUV, which is based on technical and political criteria rather than social participation. The study employs methodologies that could be applied in other case studies and used to improve heritage management. This is the only study on local perceptions of Cuenca's OUV.