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A “Swedish Community of Practice” emerged during the mid 1980s in Sweden. The “community” today follows two tracks; one is Human Resource Costing & Accounting (HRCA) and the other is a nonfinancial measurement system for intangible assets based on a theory originally brought forward by a work group consisting of members from several Swedish knowledge companies, the so called “Konrad Group.” This article describes the development of the latter track. Inspired by McLuhan, it is suggested that individuals in organizations create external and internal structures to express themselves. Indicators can be created that monitor External Structure (Customers and Suppliers), Internal Structure (Organization) and People's Competence. The indicators can be incorporated into a management information system. Indicators that monitor renewal, efficiency and stability are preferred. A matrix framework, called “The Intangible Assets Monitor,” is suggested for presenting the indicators. A number of generic indicators are defined under each heading and suggestions for interpretation and examples of how Swedish companies use the indictors are cited.

Karl Erik Sveiby starts out with a big advantage over most of the authors and consultants offering their views and services about knowledge management. In his latest book, The New Organizational Wealth, he expands on his insights as a managing partner in building Affärsvälden, which grew from 10 people when it was founded in 1979 to one of Sweden's largest specialist publishers employing 160 staff when it was taken over in 1994. He talked to Measuring Business Excellence at the launch of the book, which is reviewed on page 64.

Companies around the world are recognizing the importance of intellectual capital (IC) and its significant contribution towards adding higher value to its products or services. The objective of the study is to examine the IC disclosure practices of the top 20 profit‐making public listed companies in Malaysia in their annual reports, both qualitatively and quantitatively. This paper adopts the definition of Karl Erik Sveiby which classified IC as internal capital, external capital and employee competence. A content analysis of 20 copies of 2001 annual reports was carried out. The study indicates that the incidences of voluntary disclosure of IC in company report are high qualitatively, but not quantitatively. This study will assist future researchers, the national accounting setting board and regulators to develop an appropriate accounting framework for those ICs which do not have accounting standards yet.

The emerging business model of value creation includes both social and environmental capital as well as human, structural, and customer capital.

Leaders of successful organizations are consistently searching for better ways to improve performance and results. Frequent disappointments with past management initiatives have motivated managers to gain new understandings into the underlying, but complex mechanisms ‐ such as knowledge ‐ which govern an enterprise’s effectiveness. Knowledge Management, far from being a management “fad”, is broad, multi‐dimensional and covers most aspects of the enterprise’s activities. To be competitive and successful, experience shows that enterprises must create and sustain a balanced intellectual capital portfolio. They need to set broad priorities and integrate the goals of managing intellectual capital and the corresponding effective knowledge processes. This requires systematic Knowledge Management. With knowledge as the major driving force behind the “economics of ideas”, we can expect that the emphasis on knowledge creation, development, organization and leverage will continue to be the prime focus for improving society.

This article is seeking to explore the practical implications of an epistemological approach to strategy formulation. In doing so it tries to expand the field of knowledge management and intellectual capital beyond its operational and often inwardly technological focus to a new theory of the firm. A resource‐based perspective is suggested, using autopoietic epistemology to guide strategy formulation. People use their capacity‐to‐act in order to create value in mainly two directions; by transferring and converting knowledge externally and internally to the organisation. The value grows each time a knowledge transfer or conversion takes place. The strategy formulation issues are concerned with how to utilise the leverage and how to avoid the blockages that prevent sharing and conversion. Activities that form the backbone of a knowledge‐based strategy are to be aimed at improving the capacity‐to‐act both inside and outside the organisation.

The impact of knowledge management on the financial success of companies has not yet been properly researched. This paper aims to make a contribution by examining the relationship between sustainable sales growth and knowledge management activities in 108 Finnish small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs).

Data were generated from a questionnaire survey of 108 SMEs from different fields and thematic interviews with ten companies.

Higher levels of KM‐maturity were found to correlate positively with long‐term sustainable growth. Although Finnish SMEs display a surprisingly high awareness about KM, only a minor proportion of the sample firms has been able to benefit in terms of growth from their KM‐related activities. The results have implications for policy formulation in the field of SMEs, since half the Finnish SMEs in the sample do not grow. We found that the fast‐growing companies with high KM‐maturity are applying KM‐related activities in a comprehensive and balanced way, thereby raising question marks around the effectiveness of eclectic “KM implementations”.

This research was carried out in only one country and the results cannot be generalised. Furthermore, this study does not provide any information concerning the causal relationship of knowledge management and SME performance. Therefore, further studies in the field are needed.

The results from this study also suggest that SMEs might be able to shift into higher growth by applying a comprehensive KM‐approach incorporating all intangible assets equally.

This study provides new information concerning the relationship between knowledge management and small business performance.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse issues that prevent knowledge sharing in organisations.

The paper contains content analysis of 691 free text comments about the climate for knowledge sharing provided by 848 employees, primarily knowledge workers, in 92 business units and departments.

The paper finds that two main issues that prevent knowledge sharing are the attitudes of the nearest supervisor and a lack of context‐building information. Apathetic managers, who do not actively encourage business/organisational information, and hypocritical managers, who do not “walk the talk”, are the main management behaviours that prevent knowledge sharing according to their subordinates in the sample. The study also suggests that a lack of organisational context‐building information and knowledge impacts the context negatively and makes knowledge workers less prone to share knowledge also in their work groups.

The sample is too small to draw conclusions valid beyond the sample organisations. Respondents in the sample are primarily non‐managers in Europe and Australia. Context‐building knowledge and information have been largely ignored in the knowledge sharing literature. Also, non‐managers tend not to be targeted as respondents in studies on knowledge sharing. The study suggests that managers' apathy should be considered a disabling behaviour with regard to context.

The silo walls in organisations are built of apathy. Few managers actively prevent or resist sharing of knowledge. However, knowledge sharing requires enabling management behaviours. Sharing business/organisational information not related to tasks communicates priority and provides context necessary also for sharing in the work groups.

The paper provides useful information on issues that prevent knowledge sharing in organisations.

Suggests that collaborative climate is one of the major factors influencing effectiveness of knowledge work. Discusses the concept of collaborative climate and develops a survey instrument to measure it. Presents results based on data from 8,277 respondents in a wide variety of public and private sector organisations. Collaborative climate tends to improve with age, education level and managerial role. It is generally better in private firms, and seems to peak with mid‐size firm level. Employees tend to experience a U‐formed appreciation of the collaborative climate. Theories proposing that people reach a “professional plateau” (an S‐formed curve) have been supported to some degree. Finally, collaborative climate in the private sector is generally better than in the public sector. Uses the data to identify gaps and potentials for improving effectiveness. Further investigates two cases of good and bad practice and identifies strengths and weaknesses.