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The purpose of this paper is to elicit tacit knowledge exhibited in expert information system (IS) professionals in a form that can be shared with others; and to develop categorical framework suggesting key content areas of tacit knowledge in the requirements analysis domain.

Requirements analysis is selected as the main focus of this study due to the importance of this phase to the success of IS development and the nature of requirements analysis tasks requiring extensive amount of tacit knowledge. The authors used the “storytelling” approach, a semi-structured interview technique for knowledge elicitation.

The study resulted in 132 knowledge items using a qualitative method and categorized them into 14 categories using cluster analysis. The study found that experienced, successful analysts see systems analysis in behavioral, managerial, and political terms and focus heavily on interpersonal, project management, and organizational issues.

The limitations in the research sample, or in the recollection capability of the research subjects could compromise the comprehensiveness of the tacit knowledge in the requirements analysis domain; however, the elicited knowledge at least represents important dimensions one might reasonably find in this domain.

Very little research has attempted to capture this tacit dimension of system analysts’ knowledge. Thus, capturing and transferring the tacit knowledge from experts should help in the evolution of novice to expert system analysts thereby improving both their effectiveness and the quality of the information systems developed.

Product-service system (PSS) has been attracting attentions of global manufacturing to providing high-value added services in addition to their traditional product development and manufacturing business. For this reason, it is of great importance to research PSS. The purpose of this paper is to establish a systematic strategy and a system tool for PSS design.

A requirement-driven product-service system (RdPPS) is developed using requirements analysis and knowledge management technologies. A framework is proposed to support RdPPS by providing tools and methods for requirement analysis and processing, formalization of PSS by ontology-based knowledge representation, reasoning method for PSS solution finding, and solution optimizing and assessing. Finally, the design support strategies for RdPPS are investigated to demonstrate the usability and functioning of the developed system.

Many conventional design methods did not consider the influence of customer requirements (CRs) during the planning phase of PSS design. Moreover, a broader range of knowledge is required to PSS design, since both products and services are considered.

This research provides a solid foundation for PSS, and promotes an effective means for PSS design.

A RdPSS is presented. CRs are considered during the design phase of PSS as well as both product and service knowledge.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the processes of identification, emergence and filling of organizational knowledge gaps over an extended period of time, using the strategy in action perspective. Specifically, it aims to explore the nature and types of knowledge gaps, to capture their changes and to shed some light on the processes of filling knowledge gaps.

The study is based on two case studies and adopts a processual approach. It analyses 40 years of data collected using secondary sources and semi-structured interviews over a period of two years and identifies critical organizational events both in retrospect and real time.

The findings show that the two case study companies have identified a number of knowledge gaps over the 40 years period. Changes in the nature and type of knowledge gaps are identified and discussed in detail leading to a new taxonomy of organisational knowledge gaps. The findings report that knowledge gaps emerge due to changes in both exogenous and endogenous conditions over time. The filling of those gaps depends on a number of factors. Among these, the ability to make a distinction between “strategic” and “imposed” knowledge gaps and the ability to build absorptive capacity within a stipulated time frame have a predominant role.

The respondents were asked to look back into the history of their company using their memory of events to provide explanations surrounding critical organizational events. Since some of the respondents had not witnessed all of the events in question, their responses were at times based on hearsay. However, every effort was made to check the authenticity of the respondents ' explanations, such as using a range of sources and discussing the events with respondents at different hierarchical levels of the company.

This study provides examples of knowledge in practice and puts forward a new taxonomy of knowledge gaps which can help managers to deal with imposed and strategic knowledge requirements. Specifically, this study equips managers with tools on how to devise their knowledge strategy, how to identify their knowledge requirements and what are different sources (internal and external) which they can explore to fill those knowledge gaps.

The paper builds on the strategy in practice perspective, which stresses the need for further studies to link theoretical frameworks with practical solutions. In this respect, this paper attempts to make sense of organizational knowledge theory by applying it in real life business situations and by unearthing the concept and usage of knowledge gaps. The use of a retrospective processual approach to study changes in organizational knowledge requirements over time is another interesting aspect of this research. Finally, the paper provides a new taxonomy of organizational knowledge gaps.

The main focus of the requirements engineering (RE) literature has been on the technical aspects related to the RE projects. Research has largely focused on the specific methods for collecting the requirements for an information system. Much less research has been conducted on the social and collaboration aspects of RE. To fill this gap, this paper aims to study the contribution of social factors, such as social ties, knowledge sharing and flexibility, for successful collaboration in RE teams.

The research followed the case study methodology. Data were collected from a successful RE and development project in a public sector company in Finland. The model for social collaboration by Kotlarsky and Oshri (2005) was applied as a starting point for analysis, but new concepts emerged during the coding process.

The results suggest that human-related aspects, such as flexibility, collective knowledge and transactive memory, were important for successful collaborative work in the RE team studied. The results show a clear connection between the collaboration factors in the RE process and the success of the end product.

The article fills a clear gap in the RE literature. It shows that human-related aspects are important in the RE process. This opens up new research avenues, such as investigating the effect of human-related factors on the whole lifecycle of a project.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the perceptions of 19 requirement engineering (RE) techniques in Kuwait in term of three criteria “awareness,” “use,” and “perceived value generated over past system development projects.” Also, this paper aims to examine possible relationships between these RE techniques and two information system development success factors.

This paper develops a questionnaire and tests with a sample of respondents from 175 organizations in Kuwait.

Results show that: Arab culture influence perception of RE techniques; most companies have good knowledge of different techniques; several different techniques for identifying and analyzing customer requirements are used; the most highly valued RE techniques are decision trees, goal oriented, prototyping, data flow diagram (DFD), and interviews; six techniques (tree analysis, role playing, unified modeling language, Kawakita Jiro method, flow charts, and Ishikawa) are found to have the least perceived value; and only two techniques (prototyping and decision tree) are highly correlated with the statement “Obtaining the right requirements is a critical success factor for system development,” while other three techniques (quality function deployment, DFD and role playing) are correlated with “We experienced problems during past system developments projects because of wrong requirements collection.”

The study sheds light on perceptions on RE techniques perception in Kuwait where less is known about the subject from Western researchers.

This paper suggests re‐examining university curriculums in order to prepare students for familiarity with techniques that have proven their effectiveness elsewhere and call for more collaboration between academia and practitioners in order to appropriate research outcomes. In addition, this paper is of benefit to foreign consulting companies willing to penetrate the Gulf Cooperative Council.

This is the first Arab study that sheds light on system development practices in the Arab world.

To investigate the relationship between key users (defined as their influence) in “information”, “purchase”, “communication” or “entertainment” networks, and the number of elicited requirements in web‐based information systems (WIS).

A lab experiment was designed and conducted to investigate the relationship between college students' elicited requirements for two WIS cases and their social networks.

The individual centrality in “information” networks has a significant positive relationship with the numbers of elicited “information” requirements and total requirements; however, the individual centrality in other social networks has no significant relationship with the number of the elicited requirements.

The requirements collected from “key users” may account for most requirements, which is similar to the results predicted by Pareto's rule.

The origin of a WIS depends on a few influential users. These key users possess more power than others, and they define not only the “requirements” of the site but also its content or knowledge. The WIS designers may take advantage of this fact.

This paper fills the information requirement elicitation gap, while transferring the conventional IS development experiences to WIS.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the knowledge public procurement professionals perceive as important for performing their duties.

Using secondary data generated from a job analysis study commissioned by the Universal Public Procurement Certification Council [UPPCC], this paper examined the knowledge sets that procurement officials recognize as necessary and sufficient for daily operations and professional development.

Principal Component Analysis is used to validate the six domains of knowledge covered on the survey. This paper identifies sets of core knowledge domains that are essential for procurement administration, including sourcing, negotiation process, contract administration, supply management and strategic procurement planning.

Furthermore, the authors incorporated anecdotal commentary information from the same survey to determine what additional professional development and continuing education opportunities procurement officials are seeking to improve performance in their current and future work roles.

The purpose of this paper is to examine strategic decisions surrounding critical events to show how the decision-making processes evolve and how the dominant logic changes vis-à-vis those decisions. Further, this study explores the processes of managerial decision making focusing on spatial and temporal cognition dimensions.

The methodology adopted in this study is a case study using the retrospective processual analysis approach. Data were collected using both primary and secondary sources. In all, 40 years of secondary data on key critical events and decision making were collected using a range of secondary sources. Those events were further examined using 49 in-depth semi structured interviews.

The findings of this study explain the relationship between operant conditions, strategic actions and outcomes of strategic decisions by highlighting the significance of knowledge strategy, strategic agility and intentionality in shaping and reshaping managers’ dominant logic. Further, the authors show that the dominant coalition, among other factors, plays an important role in building decision-making capacity and in the formation and transformation of an existing dominant logic.

The study identified a number of limitations. First, the issue of generalization as the data were collected from only two case study companies. Second, in some cases respondents were asked to respond to research questions using “memory of the events” which took place a long time ago, hence the issue of credibility. Further, sometimes respondents reported information collected through hearsay. To overcome the limitations of this research, the authors made all efforts to ensure that the data collected were reliable and credible such as by using diverse data sources, confirmation of events at multiple level and personal observations.

The study identifies and explains a number of factors which influence decision making. The authors also present the revised dominant logic model which can act as a tool in managerial decision making.

The paper shows how managerial decision making changes knowledge strategy, which in turn leads to changes in existing dominant logic or the creation of a new dominant logic, hence looking at the issues of decision making using an evolutionary perspective. Second, the paper empirically tests and explains the relationship between intentionality, actions and organizational outcomes using spatial and temporal learning. Finally, the use of the longitudinal retrospective processual analysis and events analysis, is a novel way of understanding a particular phenomenon.

This paper aims to offer an integration point for newly acquired heterogeneous knowledge resources to be assessed if these resources qualify to be a part of a firm’s existing knowledge resource portfolio. Focus of this paper will be on the development of knowledge integration point (KIP), in addition to the factors helping in determination of this KIP, for example, manager’s judgment about the firms’ knowledge requirements, knowledge reserve a potential employee should have and firm’s existing knowledge resource portfolio.

This study includes a content analysis.

Firms should have only those resources which contribute to value creation for the customers and the organization. Presence of any other knowledge resource which does not have the ability to create value is a waste of value. It is the knowledge managers’ responsibility to decide whether a knowledge resource should be a part of a firm’s existing knowledge portfolio. This decision should be taken before the acquisition of that knowledge resource, i.e. at KIP, then it would be more easy for knowledge managers to handle and integrate them with the existing set of firm’s knowledge resources.

If the potential knowledge resource is evaluated at KIP to know its level of integration and configuration ability with the existing firms’ knowledge resource portfolio, then it will take less time and efforts to integrate. It will take such firms far ahead than those whose acquired resources took much time to integrate. Hence, resource’s integration and configuration ability levels affect the speed of integration, which ultimately provides opportunity to firms to perform well.

KIP may help to make speedier integration process, which eventually leads firms to perform better.

The paper's objective is to present a group decision support system (GDSS) for facilitating the process of core knowledge selection.

The proposed GDSS is developed by taking advantage of the characteristics of certain existing analytical and mathematical methods, including knowledge‐based SWOT analysis, knowledge audit instruments, gap analysis, synergy analysis, similarity measures, multi‐objective linear programming (MOLP), and fuzzy programming. A case study was performed to identify whether or not the GDSS achieves its designed purpose.

The results show that GDSS can be applied effectively in identifying core knowledge that should be developed.

The proposed GDSS provides a comprehensive procedure for top managers, using a strategy‐orientated perspective to determine suitable core knowledge to be developed by appropriately analyzing internal synergy and external gap effects on core knowledge. Top managers need not only be aware of the relationship between core knowledge and other factors but must also consider decision‐making problems related to this issue.

Few prior studies have provided a systematic approach for develops organizational core knowledge by using analytical and mathematical methods. This paper particularly focuses on the question of how firms can actually identify core knowledge and thus develop appropriate strategies.