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To provide evidence about that the process called knowledge management can happen in work teams, but only if they have the necessary characteristics to be considered communities of practice.

First, the paper identifies the characteristics of the work team that favor knowledge management from a revision of existing literature about communities of practice. Second, by means of an empirical study of 363 individuals working in permanent teams, the paper obtains confirmation that those characteristics exercise a favorable influence on knowledge management. The empirical study is carried out by means of statistical analysis: exploratory factor analysis and Cronbach's α analyses were carried out to check the validity and reliability of scales; conducted correlation analyses were also conducted to test the six hypotheses regarding direct relationships and multiple regression analyses to assess the relative importance of each of the characteristics of the work team in knowledge management.

Empirical evidence is obtained that knowledge management is favored in work teams that possess certain characteristics: self‐management, leadership, individual autonomy, climate of trust, common understanding, and the members' heterogeneous and complementary skills. The paper also provides a detailed examination of that relationship. Evidence is obtained about what characteristics of work teams favor the knowledge management process in its different phases (i.e. creation of knowledge, and transfer and integration of knowledge).

On the one hand, the group rather than the individual would have been a more suitable unit of analysis. So, it should be noted that our findings are to be interpreted as individual perceptions. On the other hand, our scales represent new measures. So, they must be interpreted cautiously.

The paper provides evidence that will help companies to understand the value of knowledge to their success and to obtain maximum performance through the organization of their human resources into teams with the appropriate characteristics to become communities of practice.

This paper fills an empirical gap in the literature around communities of practice and knowledge management.

This paper aims to develop a reliable and valid scale for measuring the underlying knowledge involved in work. To do so, it builds on the knowledge-in-practice (KIP) framework that suggests different types of work have different underlying knowledge characteristics. This allows us to answer two important questions: What are the underlying characteristics of KIP that are important to effectively manage a firm’s knowledge resources? How do we measure these characteristics? The answers help to build theoretical and empirical understanding of the construct of KIP.

The study uses a discovery-oriented survey design methodology to design the survey instrument, followed by a mixed-methods approach to validate the scale.

A new scale is developed for measuring the tacitness and learnability of the knowledge involved in work. It allows work units to be evaluated based on the underlying knowledge involved in different types of work.

The KIP scale can be used for measuring the type of knowledge characteristics in organizations. Academics can use this study as a basic model to explore knowledge across different contexts and focus on the different characteristics within and across work contexts.

The study provides a clearer and more granular understanding of knowledge in organizations that can be used as a guideline to refer to when measuring and assessing knowledge requirements.

Scholars have pushed to understand work from a knowledge and collaboration perspective. A measurement scale for the KIP framework provides a critical first step towards this outcome.

This study aims to identify and classify the range of antecedents of counterproductive knowledge behavior (CKB) to provide a better understanding of their implications for addressing CKB.

The study includes three studies. Using meta-analysis (Study 1) and meta-synthesis (Study 2), the authors reviewed extant primary quantitative and qualitative studies to aggregate information on the antecedents of CKB identified to date. In Study 3, these antecedents were modeled schematically by using the matrix of cross-impact multiplications (MICMAC) analysis.

The meta-analysis and meta-synthesis (Studies 1 and 2) yielded 28 antecedents of CKB. These were categorized into five groups of characteristics, relating to the workplace, leadership, interpersonal, individual differences and knowledge. Then, in Study 3, the antecedents were categorized according to their interrelatedness and strength of effects (using four quadrants comprising autonomous, dependence, driving and linkage factors).

This study takes an integrative approach to the CKB literature, both by aggregating underlying constructs (knowledge hoarding, hiding, etc.) and in aggregating quantitative and qualitative literature. This prevents silos and integrates knowledge across a range of CKB studies. Besides, the authors reveal the relative role of antecedents by modeling them.

The purpose of this paper is to confirm quantitatively the previous finding that organizational characteristics influence knowledge management, and to assess whether the national culture of knowledge workers equally affects the management of knowledge.

Based on data gathered from a questionnaire survey of a Japanese pharmaceutical company's 14 foreign subsidiaries, the effects of organizational characteristics and national culture on knowledge management were tested using multiple regression analysis.

Although organizational characteristics and national culture were found to affect knowledge management, the data showed organizational characteristics to be a stronger prescriptive factor compared with national culture.

Because this research centered on a single company in the pharmaceutical industry, future research should attempt to confirm the validity of this framework in other industries.

Changes in organizational characteristics, such as structure and relationship in particular, rather than adjustments in the composition of employees' nationalities, will have a stronger impact on the resulting knowledge management.

This framework linking organizational characteristics and national culture to knowledge management had received a first justification using a case study approach with a qualitative comparative method and has now been confirmed with a quantitative approach. Among the predictors of knowledge management beyond the realm of deliberate measures within the firm, the data show that organizational characteristics exert a stronger influence than national culture.

This paper aims to focus on the characteristics of a two-tier network featuring internal subject cooperation and external embedded cooperation in the context of regional innovation systems (RISs) and explore the influence of network characteristics on knowledge emergence.

Using social network analysis, a two-tier internal and external cooperation network of a RIS is constructed. A negative binomial regression method is used to explore the effects of the characteristics of these two-tier internal and external networks on knowledge emergence, the moderating effect of the cooperation knowledge base in this context is investigated and grouping and quantile regressions are used to conduct heterogeneity analysis.

The scale of the internal cooperation network has a positive effect on knowledge emergence, and the betweenness centralization of the internal cooperation network has an inverted U-shaped effect on knowledge emergence. The scale and structural holes of the external embedded network have an inverted U-shaped effect on knowledge emergence. Furthermore, the internal cooperation knowledge base weakens the influence of the external embedded network on knowledge emergence.

This research may enlighten policymakers with respect to improving the scale and structure of the RIS cooperation network and matching the embedded network based on the internal cooperation knowledge base to promote knowledge emergence.

This research contributes to the study of knowledge emergence by exploring the influence of a two-tier network structure and scale characteristics on knowledge emergence in RISs. This paper also extends the framework of relevant research by integrating the internal cooperation knowledge base into the analysis of externally embedded cooperation and knowledge emergence.

Knowledge sharing intention and group identity are the keys to improving library service quality. The purpose of this paper is to integrate work design questionnaire and affective events theory to understand the relationship between task characteristics and knowledge sharing quality in the context of the library.

Data collected from 204 professional librarians in various libraries provide strong support for the proposed research model. A structural equation modelling analysis was performed using LISREL. The adequacy of the measurement model was evaluated on the criteria of reliability, convergent validity and discriminant validity.

The paper shows that sharing intention and group identity have important effects on knowledge quality. Task characteristics, such as work methods, task variety and social feedback, have strong effects on group identity.

The findings imply that only work methods and social feedback have strong effects on knowledge sharing intention.

The motivation to share librarians' knowledge is critical to successful library service. The paper provides evidence that knowledge quality is built through work methods, task variety and social feedback. Implications for theory and practice and suggestions for future research are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of environmental characteristics, business partnership relationship, knowledge complementarity, organizational characteristics on knowledge management practices and innovation performance.

The research used primary data, i.e. data obtained directly from the distribution of questionnaires to respondents, namely, the company’s managers/leaders/directors in the companies that became the research sample. Data were collected by sending questionnaires either by mail or email to the respondents. To examine the effect of environmental characteristics, business partnership relationship, knowledge complementarity and organizational characteristics on knowledge management practices and innovation performance.

Environmental characteristics, business partnership relationship, knowledge complementarity and organizational characteristics partially have a significant effect on knowledge management practices. Environmental characteristics and business partnership relationship partially have a significant effect on innovation performance, while knowledge complementarity and organizational characteristics have no significant effect. For other constructs, knowledge management practices are able to be a moderator variable, which can relate these constructs with innovation performance.

The research using the diffusion of innovation paradigm, the combination of market-based and knowledge-based paradigms is expected to fill the previous research gap and become the first uniqueness and originality, as well as characteristic of this research. The second originality is this research examines the role of the knowledge management practice variable as the moderator variable. Then, the third originality is this research investigates the relationship between business partner relationship and innovation performance. These three originalities are still rarely studied in previous studies, so this research will further complement, expand the study, especially in the knowledge management, innovation performance area.

The purpose of this paper is to uncover the nature of job characteristics related to different generational cohorts (Baby-boomers, Generation X and Generation Y). Significant differences between four task and four social job characteristics across generational cohorts have been revealed.

The empirical research was conducted through a field study of employees from large-sized Croatian organizations. A cross-sectional and cross-occupational research design was applied. A total of 512 knowledge workers (139 managers and 373 professionals) participated in the research. Descriptive and inferential statistical methods were used to determine and compare work design across generations.

The results indicate that job characteristics are not equally represented within different generational cohorts. While the nature of task job characteristics is mostly irrespective of generations, social job characteristics to some extent differ among generational cohorts. High task variety, reasonably high task identity, and a moderate level of both received interdependence and task significance are recognized as common job characteristics of knowledge workers across generations. However, jobs of Baby-boomers, Xers, and Yers are idiosyncratic for work autonomy, interaction with others, initiated interdependence, and teamwork. Additionally, the inclusion of the work type as a control variable revealed that interaction with others does differ but only among generations of professionals.

The present study is the first research in which generational similarities and differences have been empirically examined through job characteristics. The authors focused on knowledge workers within an under-researched context (studies about knowledge workers, work design and generational differences are rare or non-existent in south-eastern European countries), making this systematic investigation unique and practically significant.

Based on theories of organizational learning and strategy, the purpose of this study is to develop a strategic contingency model to identify the interrelationships among knowledge characteristics, knowledge management (KM) strategy, knowledge integration, organizational learning, KM capability and innovation.

This study was conducted using the survey method. A total of 800 survey questionnaires were sent to KM managers from the semiconductor, LED, precision machinery, communication, and biotech industries. ANOVA and LISREL were adopted to test 11 hypotheses as developed in this study.

The research results concluded that: knowledge characteristics with higher modularity and explicitness could enhance organizational learning and knowledge integration; levels of organizational learning, knowledge integration, and KM capability had significant impact on a firm's innovation; the interaction effects of human oriented KM strategy and organizational learning, and system oriented KM strategy and knowledge integration were found to significantly impact KM capability.

To further confirm the results of this cross‐sectional research, more longitudinal research is suggested. To identify the scope of generalization of this study, future research may use the same questionnaire or an abbreviated one to conduct surveys across different industries or different international settings.

The interrelationships among knowledge characteristics, KM capability and innovation have been evaluated extensively in previous studies. However, the interaction effects between organizational learning and KM strategy and between system oriented KM strategy and knowledge integration on KM capability have been largely ignored. The results of this study provide very important references for academics and practitioners to implement the effectiveness of KM.

In most of the literature, knowledge management is treated as a universal practice, which is transferable from one country or company to another. There are some empirical hints that this is not always the case. The main research question, which this paper aims to answer, is: Which cultural characteristics in Germany and Hong Kong influence knowledge transfer?

A qualitative and exploratory approach has been used to answer the research question. A series of 13 in‐depth interviews was conducted during April and May 2008 with experts from a range of various professional backgrounds in Hong Kong and Germany. Approaches of cultural characteristics are discussed and linked with the topic of knowledge transfer.

The findings show that knowledge transfer depends on national cultural characteristics which are power distance, performance orientation, in‐group collectivism, and uncertainty avoidance.

As the research was conducted in two countries only, the findings cannot be generalized. In addition the sample is limited to only 13 interviewees. Therefore, further and also quantitative research is necessary.

If companies introduce knowledge management systems in order to support worldwide knowledge transfer, national cultural characteristics have to be taken into account; it is not enough to provide only the technology.

Findings of cultural studies (e.g. GLOBE) and the approach of knowledge transfer are linked with each other. Moreover, empirical evidence is given for the cases Hong Kong and Germany.