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The purpose of this paper is to describe the initiative set up at the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) to investigate how knowledge management principles could offer solutions, while adapting to a world where technology and innovative processes are rapidly changing.

The paper investigates the challenges of implementing a corporate knowledge management system in ESOC, where currently the knowledge is managed in several different ways. The driver of the knowledge management initiative has been the need for developing a system able to locate intellectual capital and technical expertise.

The paper has identified the following main items to be considered in support of the ESOC knowledge management initiative: need for a consistent set of documentation, maintained under configuration control and regularly updated to reflect actual status; formation of cross‐support functional teams; usage of a Centralized ESTRACK Status and Diagnostic System (CESADS) as a supervisory/diagnostic tool for the ground operations; and need for knowledge management evolution.

Although just at the starting‐point, the needs and the benefits of the above points have been acknowledged at ESOC to guarantee reliable and efficient execution of the responsibilities of the Centre. The points raised are expected to be of interest to space industry planners, executives and researchers.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a conceptual framework for the intermediation of state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Governments may apply different form of support with the aim of increasing corporatization and internationalization of SOEs. The paper suggests a strategy based on institutional intermediation as the more efficient to drive corporatization and internationalization.

The research selected cases concerning SOEs in different industries in Europe in search of recurrences from a novel theoretical perspective. Among them, a case study concerning the Italian Space Agency explores the development of an institutional intermediary.

Government supports to SOEs appear in different forms and contribute to different results. A typology of the most recurrent forms shows three different types of actions governments have taken to support internationalization of firms. Intermediation seems the most suitable to trigger corporatization and internationalization.

The study explores institutional intermediaries as a novel supporting strategy for governments. It proposes a novel concept based upon a single case study. Further research needs to test and verify the institutional intermediaries’ impact drawing on a larger sample and different contexts.

So far, few attempts have linked corporatization to globalization. The paper tries to fill this gap between corporatization and internationalization of SOEs. Its value is the provision of a novel view that includes institutional intermediaries as instrumental to governments’ strategy that aims to bridge the two components.

In the last two issues of Online Review we gave a report on the European Space Agency — Information Retrieval Service (IRS) and on the British Library — BLAISE service. In this issue, we continue our series on ‘European Hosts’ by describing InfoLine a new European online service. The creation of both IRS and, to a lesser extent, BLAISE predates the current European network developments and the significant growth of online usage in Europe. The principal reason for starting IRS was the need to meet the information requirements of the European Space Agency. BLAISE is an understandable extension of the British Library's significant involvement in cataloguing services, database creation and document delivery. InfoLine is a commercial corporation set up to develop profitably services in the online marketplace.

U.S. and E.U. public and defense procurement rules require large prime contractors to promote subcontracts to small businesses, a.k.a. small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Under the U.S. Small Business Act, large firms encourage subcontracting through publicity, subcontracting plans, and “good faith” efforts to achieve subcontracting goals. However, processoriented measures failed to guarantee definitive results. In contrast, E.U. and member governments can hold large firms accountable to stricter subcontracting standards (often sweetened by incentives). With the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010, the U.S. is trying accountability measures now. Therefore, large contractors must plan for definitive subcontracting commitments in both markets.

This paper aims to describe some of the European Space Agency (ESA) workmanship standards which are based on industrial practices. Coordination with National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Centres on workmanship issues is also to be described.

The first ESA (then ESRO) workmanship standard was published in 1972. It applied to the hand soldering of electronic assemblies and became a contractual document, either replacing, or supplementing a vast number of company standards that had existed in European manufacturing companies. Since then some 40 standards related to Materials and Processes have been developed by ESA, the majority of which are to be found in the European Cooperation for Space Standardization (ECSS) series of European standards.

It is shown that, where appropriate, the standards are backed by a number of ESA‐approved skills training schools which provide training courses that result in the certification of operators, inspectors and instructors.

The workmanship standards are periodically revised in order to take into account newly developed technologies, the results of failure analyses (lessons learnt), laboratory and field test results, as well as some particular requests from industry.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the current knowledge management activities at the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC), specifically in knowledge capture, sharing and preservation and focusing on the developed and adopted methods and on the results obtained related to the process of knowledge capture using video‐recording of experts.

The knowledge management activities undertaken at ESOC during the past years have been organized into four phases: preliminary study and investigation on knowledge management systems including a review of already existing initiatives; a pilot project within the Flight Dynamics area (a key technical domain within ESOC taking care of the orbit and attitude aspects for the satellite operations) with respect to the questions of knowledge transfer and its barriers; the definition of the ESOC knowledge management system; and the introduction of knowledge capture procedures.

The inventory of the knowledge assets and the analysis of the knowledge coverage and criticality were essential to be able to identify the existing knowledge in specific areas and to perform a gap analysis. Through this analysis, it is now possible to identify those areas requiring improvement and to allow management to make reliable decisions for which areas the knowledge level should be increased.

With regard to the firm strategic behaviours, it seems particularly crucial to exploit all three dimensions of proximity, in order to guarantee openness and sustain innovativeness and competitiveness. Concerning policy implications, the local governments should address their actions to help and promote the openness of technology districts and the formation of technology clusters. With this aim, actions should be devoted also to sustain single local firms that are part of a technology cluster but not of a technology district. These, in fact, by increasing their competitive position, may generate positive externalities in the local area, fostering the diffusion and sharing of knowledge in the area and then, acting as knowledge gatekeepers for the whole area.

The paper describes the implementation strategy of the knowledge management within ESOC. Based on this practical experience, guidelines can be derived for the implementation of a more general knowledge management system in the aerospace industry.