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“Academic values” is one of the most popular terms used in the higher education literature. But how do we study academic values? Besides autonomy, freedom, and collegiality, the “values” in “academic values” often remains implicit, leaving a conceptual gap in the literature. Moreover, autonomy, freedom, and collegiality may reflect the shared normative expectations as part of the value system of a profession, rather than the value orientation at the individual level. To examine the latter, this chapter proposes a conceptual framework adapted from the studies of work values in applied psychology. As a heuristic device, the academic work value framework consists of six ideal-typical value orientations belonging to three dimensions: work autonomy, social orientation, and value of knowledge. The framework's relevance and usefulness are evaluated by revisiting relevant literature on academic orientations. The result shows a spectrum of value positions in academic work, from the “old school” values to the “entrepreneurial” ones to the hybrid orientations. Overall, this framework provides a potential approach to operationalize the concept of academic values for empirical research. At the same time, as a heuristic device, it is open for reflection, critique, and further development.

This article aims at contributing to the development of a Marxist theory of the production of knowledge, and in particular of natural sciences and techniques (NST), under capitalism. It rejects the double critique that the labor theory of value has become obsolete under modern capitalism and that Marx’s theoretical structure cannot accommodate mental production. The paper starts with two preliminary sections. First, some relevant aspects of dialectics as a tool of social research are submitted. Then, notions such as Information Society or Service Society are debunked. On this basis, the production of individual and of social knowledge is inquired into and the conditions for knowledge production to be production of (surplus) value are analyzed. Next, the question is tackled as to why and how this knowledge (and in particular NST) is functional for the interests of the capitalist class, even though in a contradictory way. Several examples are provided. Particular attention is paid to the computer and to biotechnology and genetic engineering. The most common objections against the thesis of the class determination of knowledge are dealt with. It is argued that class determination of knowledge can explain why the science and techniques developed in one society and by one class can be used in other societies and by other classes. Examples are provided of trans-class and trans-epochal elements of knowledge. Finally, the last section submits that a radically different type of NST can originate only from a radically different type of society, based on radically different production relations.

Intellectual capital (IC) and social capital (SC), as forms of intangible value in organizations, are crucial assets in today's volatile business environment. Efforts to retain and develop these intangibles are becoming more deliberate and disciplined. However, organizations fail to recognize the relationship between organizational distress and the loss and/or reduction of intangible value. The loss of intangible value may potentially impact an organization with equal or greater damage than the loss of more tangible value. IC and SC generate many outcomes beneficial to the individual and the organization. These benefits are reduced when stress of employees becomes excessive and damaging. The relationship between the health of an organization and the degree of impact of distress serves as a lingering threat to organizational financial resources. Managers must build upon the growing knowledge from research and practice to help organizations account for the costs of organizational distress, translate the importance of intangible value into tangible terms, and garner support for developing IC and SC to obtain business objectives. Deliberate and disciplined effort to build collaborative capital can facilitate the growth of IC and SC which minimize the damage of organizational distress.

This chapter attempts to theorize the role of knowledge in the determination of the value of commodities. This draws from the South Korean controversy on the value and price of information commodities such as computer software and digital music. One group of writers has argued that the value of software copies (=commodities) is contributed by the labor time expended to produce the source code (=knowledge) in a piecemeal fashion. For another group, the source code has nothing to do with the production of the value of copies given that the source code is unnecessary for the (re)production of copies, and thus the value of software copies is approximately zero and its price is a high monopoly price. Both approaches are flawed. In the case of the former, no value can actually be transferred from the source code to copies because no changes are made to the source code before or after the production of copies. In case of the latter, knowledge is viewed as having nothing to do with value production. On the basis of this critique, an alternative view is put forward, in which knowledge plays an important role in value production by determining the productivity and/or complexity of labor. Knowledge “virtually intensifies” labor. It is also argued that intellectual property rights should be theorized in a way to refine and reproduce the role of knowledge – the virtual intensification of labor – at more complex and concrete levels of analysis.

The study this chapter reports focuses on how network theory contributes to the understanding of the internationalization process of SMEs and measures the effect of network capability on performance in international trade and has three research objectives.

The first objective of the study relates to providing new insights into the international market development activities through the application of a network perspective. The chapter reviews the international business literature to ascertain the development of thought, the research gaps, and the shortcomings. This review shows that the network perspective is a useful and popular theoretical domain that researchers can use to understand international activities, particularly of small, high technology, resource-constrained firms.

The second research objective is to gain a deeper understanding of network capability. This chapter presents a model for the impact of network capability on international performance by building on the emerging literature on the dynamic capabilities view of the firm. The model conceptualizes network capability in terms of network characteristics, network operation, and network resources. Network characteristics comprise strong and weak ties (operationalized as foreign-market entry modes), relational capability, and the level of trust between partners. Network operation focuses on network initiation, network coordination, and network learning capabilities. Network resources comprise network human-capital resources, synergy-sensitive resources (resource combinations within the network), and information sharing within the network.

The third research objective is to determine the impact of networking capability on the international performance of SMEs. The study analyzes 11 hypotheses through structural equations modeling using LISREL. The hypotheses relate to strong and weak ties, the relative strength of strong ties over weak ties, and each of the eight remaining constructs of networking capability in the study. The research conducts a cross-sectional study by using a sample of SMEs drawn from the telecommunications industry in Ireland.

The study supports the hypothesis that strong ties are more influential on international performance than weak ties. Similarly, network coordination and human-capital resources have a positive and significant association with international performance. Strong ties, weak ties, trust, network initiation, synergy-sensitive resources, relational capability, network learning, and information sharing do not have a significant association with international performance. The results of this study are strong (R2=0.63 for performance as the outcome) and provide a number of interesting insights into the relations between collaboration or networking capability and performance.

This study provides managers and policy makers with an improved understanding of the contingent effects of networks to highlight situations where networks might have limited, zero, or even negative effects on business outcomes. The study cautions against the tendency to interpret networks as universally beneficial to business development and performance outcomes.

Over decades, indigenous management practices and their values in Africa have changed from time to time. However, it continued to remain relevant in most business organisations in developing countries. Today in Africa and across the globe, there is a paradigm shift and stiff competition in human resource management practices as a basic element for effective and efficient business organisations’ performance. Effective human resource management practices and performance of organisations rely on the integration of indigenous management practices and sound strategies aligned to cultural values and cores business objectives. The study covers four regions of Africa as a continent. Empirical teachings of the study form a basis for active reforms and innovations, so as to revamp the use of indigenous knowledge, which was deliberately destroyed by colonial masters. Over the years, human resource management practice has evolved in favour of Western strategies and ideologies. Advocates for curriculum reforms in all African countries so as to incorporate indigenous knowledge content, since it is believed to be the future of Africa. An appropriate employees management practice in Africa is a necessary move in today’s business community as it enhances service delivery and performance. The application of indigenous management practices is believed to play a vital role and invokes effective decision-making practices in the business organisation. Therefore, the chapter traces the origin of indigenous wisdom and its fundamental structure in management practices. This chapter attempts to throw light on indigenous management practices and their values in business organisations in Africa.

Among world’s economies, the circular economy (CE) has become popular especially in the European Union and China, which opens several opportunities for sustainability leaders to gain a first-mover advantage and, consequently, to pursue organizational sustainability and growth. In spite of public policy support, since CE often requires entrepreneurial innovation among complex networks of companies, most companies are still learning how to manage knowledge dynamics at the inter-organization level. The chapter starts by defining the key characteristics of CE and identifying the peculiarities in terms of inter-firm cooperative and competitive relations, which help in delineating contributions from the green supply chain literature. The second section shows – through the discussion of term maps – how multiple- and inter-disciplinary streams of research are increasingly linked by hard (i.e., information communication technologies based) and soft (i.e., relational and organizational) aspects of knowledge management. The third section provides a discussion on key hard and soft factors that characterize four knowledge dynamics, i.e., knowledge creation, knowledge storage, knowledge transfer, and knowledge sharing that can improve the adoption and integration of circular processes within inter-organizational coopetitive strategies. Particular attention is here given to the cross-analysis of outcomes from theoretical papers, case studies, and quantitative empirical researches that contribute to shaping relations between internal and external factors that might play as predictors of a successful implementation of CE principles. Finally, the last section concludes with recommendations for improving organizational and managerial capabilities to manage inter-firm knowledge dynamics while pursuing CE objectives in international business environments. Beside this guidance for practitioners, directions for further research are suggested for each pillar of the emerging conceptual model.

The present study develops a multi-theoretic framework of the mechanisms of value creation in interorganizational relationships and of the key factors influencing those mechanisms. The integrative use of several theories in building the model is justified by numerous studies suggesting that a multi-theoretic approach is required to understand the complexity of interorganizational relationships (Gulati, 1998; Osborn & Hagedoorn, 1997; Park et al., 2002). We believe that the relationships between start-up companies and their corporate investors, with each party holding a diversity of strategic and financial objectives, are not less complex than other potential interorganizational relationships. They may therefore also require ideas from several theories to be properly understood. In this study, we build the models applying primarily the resource-based and the knowledge-based views, as well as social capital theory. Ideas from other theoretical approaches are used to complement these theories.