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The purpose of this paper is to study how the motivation in firms to safeguard the prerequisites of innovation relates to the strength of the employee-related protection mechanisms that deal with knowledge leaking and knowledge leaving, and the moderating effect of organizational trust in the relationship.

The hypotheses were tested on a sample collected in Finland from 80 companies engaged in R&D. A partial least squares was used for the analyses.

Knowledge leaking and leaving from a firm can be approached with both formalized and soft types of employee-related mechanisms; that the motivation to secure innovativeness positively relates to both forms; and that the presence of organizational trust is especially effective in reinforcing employee-related practices that can prevent knowledge leaving.

The data were gathered in a single western European country and that may have affected the results.

The managers would do well to introduce both formalized and soft forms of protection so as to mitigate the effects of knowledge both leaving and leaking. Building on the findings of this study, managers could prioritize between the different categories and mechanisms depending on the market and industry they operate in.

This study adds to the literature by studying quantitatively the employee-related protection mechanisms and the effect of organizational trust in the usage of those mechanisms.

Human resources in knowledge intensive industries create the basis for continuing innovation and subsequent firm performance. At the same time, they pose risks for the competitiveness of the firm: unwanted leaking of knowledge and intellectual capital to outsiders exposes firm-critical knowledge, and knowledge leaving with a departing key employee may jeopardise the firm’s projects. The purpose of this paper is to examine how human resource management can serve as a protection mechanism to diminish knowledge leaking and leaving via employees.

The authors approach these issues through a case study utilising interview data from 22 interviews within two large research and development intensive firms.

Human resources could be seen both as a strength and weakness of a firm with respect to knowledge protection. The findings indicate that there are numerous practices related to commitment, trust, motivation, and sense of responsibility available to deploy to strengthen loyalty and to improve preservation of intellectual capital.

While human resources management aspects have been widely discussed with regard job profitability and efficiency in generating intellectual capital, their connection to knowledge protection has often been overlooked. This study aims to contribute to this area.

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.

Knowledge retention is becoming a main challenge in many countries, as knowledge becomes a main asset of organizations. The research questions the challenge of how can organizations minimize the loss of important knowledge while experiencing high levels of retiree? The research aims to suggest a framework for knowledge retention initiatives in organizations.

The research methodology is multi‐case research. The unit of analysis is organization (eight organizations analyzed, overall more than 30 retiree knowledge retention mini projects). Data linkage to the propositions and method of interpretation – explanation building technique.

This research suggests that successful knowledge retention can be achieved in three primary stages: defining scope; documenting (planning and implementation); and integrating knowledge back into the organization. Special care must be dedicated throughout the process to: retaining best practices and unexpected situations; structuring the process of knowledge retention; structuring retained documentation.

Academic implications are two‐fold. First, it suggests that assessment projects, which estimate knowledge loss risk, and described in most academic researches, should be eliminated in knowledge retention models; second, research should continue, developing more models regarding detailed planning and implementation stages, as initiated in Hofer‐Alfeis DeLong and here. Further research should be conducted in order to discover how effective the suggested methods are in retrospect (after years, and not only after months).

Business implications do exist. The case studies described, using the proposed framework, show that knowledge retention is not only important, but also applicable. Structuring the process and results, as described above, may provide organizations with guidelines how to conduct such projects.

Its value is in changing the suggested known frameworks for knowledge retention, enabling more effective and efficient knowledge retention, and therefore less knowledge loss in organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to describe different concepts of valuable knowledge that are perceived to be lost when an older expert departs from a knowledge-intensive organisation.

A multiple case research methodology and semi-structured interviews involving 17 participants from five small-to-medium enterprises (SME).

Five concepts of valuable knowledge have emerged from the interviews: subject matter expertise; knowledge about business relationships and social networks; organisational knowledge and institutional memory; knowledge of business systems, processes and value chains; and knowledge of governance.

The scope of the research project is restricted to SMEs in New Zealand and this restriction limits the generalisation of the results to other contexts. This study may serve as a starting point for future investigations including larger organisations that may have a greater number of older experts.

By identifying the different types of older experts' knowledge, organisations are able to realise the potential of retaining that knowledge within the organisation.

This is one of the first investigations of the knowledge that older experts in the professional services industry possess within a small-to-medium enterprise context.

The purpose of this study is to investigate a framework for knowledge retention to support business continuity in cross-border mergers of the telecommunications industry in Lesotho.

This study applied a qualitative case study, with data collected through interviews from a purposively selected sample of staff members who held managerial positions. Information in this study was partially extracted from the PhD thesis of Dr Tseole ET supervised by Prof Ngulube P at the University of South Africa completed in 2021.

The study discovered that a considerable amount of knowledge may have been lost because employees who either left the organisation or those who were apparently forced to resign during the process had left without any proper knowledge retention arrangements.

The framework proposed in this study may be used in framing future studies as a theoretical framework. The study also provides new literature for review and discussion of background in future related studies.

The framework provided in the study may be used as a benchmark in the knowledge management industry and/or organisations for policy development or improvements and implementation of knowledge retention strategies.

Through recommendations and framework provided by this study, organisations will be able to improve their services to their sphere of influence in the surrounding communities. So, community will be receiving an improved and good service at all the times.

A framework for facilitating knowledge retention in the cross-border mergers of the telecommunications industry is therefore proposed and the researchers believe it will be helpful to the organisation for improving knowledge retention going forward, particularly in the merger process.

As Baby Boomers continue to retire, organizations should have plans in place that successfully execute this transition. Some industries, such as accounting, are unique in that there is specialized knowledge required by employees, including education and work experience. This study examines what accounting organizations are doing to manage this transition. The research question posed is as follows: How are organizations in the accounting industry addressing anticipated retirements?.

This is a qualitative study that is interpretive. In order to answer the research question, six managers who are involved in the hiring process at accounting organizations of varying sizes were interviewed. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and coded using the software program, Dedoose, in order to develop themes that addressed the research question.

By conducting semi-structured interviews that focused on efforts related to this issue, it was found that accounting organizations are focusing on three aspects related to the research question: Accounting firms are focusing on (1) culture, (2) knowledge and (3) transition as they lead their organizations through this time.

This research project provides insight into how some accounting organizations are managing issues related to increasing retirements. By knowing how other organizations are handling these issues, accounting organizations can use this knowledge to prepare, themselves, for anticipated retirements. This knowledge is also valuable in other fields that provide professional services (e.g., medical and legal).

This topic has not been fully explored in the accounting industry. The findings of this study are useful to accounting firms, world-wide, as well as to organizations in other professional services fields, world-wide. This research could be further explored in other professional services organizations, such as the health and legal fields.

Knowledge protection (KP) is one of the main knowledge management (KM) processes that aim to protect the organization’s knowledge from any inside and outside force leakage. In higher education institutions (HEIs), KP is rarely being discussed and covered in contrast to knowledge sharing (KS) in terms of its determinants. The purpose of this paper is to provide a deep analysis of previous research articles from 1980 to 2019 and examine the associated institutional factors on KP determinants within HEIs as a research objective.

The preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis was a well-established approach for analyzing the systematic literature review methodology. Several articles were published over the past decades collected from 5 different databases, but after the screening, 101 articles were reviewed and only 22 articles were relevant to the research objective.

The findings indicated that KP is under academic research topic in KM and has received minimal attention in HEIs compared to KS, which has been frequently studied in HEIs. The literature categorized KP determinants into four areas: technological, organizational structure, behavioral and ethics and organizational culture. It will open the door for academics to investigate further into the factors, theories and models of KP in general and HEIs from a particular perspective.

As evident from the paper finds, with few pieces of literature covered in this topic, HEIs have to protect the knowledge from any illegal usage or any expert’s knowledge loss after leaving the institutions. This study can help university leaders to understand how the different KP determinants can maximize KP without affecting the KS and develop the KP phenomenon for a strategic fit to enhance their institutions’ safe knowledge usage.

This is the first research of its type which has extensively examined the literature on KP related to HEIs. Also, this paper provides theoretical and practical insights through understanding the determinants that affect KP practices among academic staff.

The purpose of this article is to understand the impact of radical change initiatives such as large VEROs or RIFs on the organizational memory system (OMS), specifically the tacit and explicit knowledge held by individuals.

A qualitative case study design was used to explore and describe OMS in a securities industry organization that experienced radical change. Interviews, document analysis, and observation followed by thematic coding and analysis using Atlas.ti® software were used to collect and analyze data. A total of 16 organizational officers, directors, managers, and specialists participated in the interviews.

Findings suggest the same OMS devices were in use before, during, and after radical change initiatives occurred. However, the degree or proportion of use of these devices changed after the change initiatives. Overall, there was some loss of knowledge, but the loss appeared to have no effect on the organization's profitability.

Findings suggest that certain factors (industry role, nature of the work, and the configuration of work groups) may have influenced the results. Other factors were a management team strongly committed to change, protention of thinking, and continuous communication. Through activities of sense‐making, succession planning, automation, and training, the organization managed to develop and increase the use of its memory system to retain knowledge as well as generate new knowledge.

This research provides information for practitioners who may be helping their organizations transform through radical change and are concerned about the potential loss of information and knowledge resident in organization memory systems.

This case study points to some important practical lessons and actions that can serve as a blueprint for how to manage radical organizational change and preserve the tacit and explicit knowledge aspects of organizational memory.