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This paper aims to argue that the value of social media in knowledge management (KM) can be evaluated on the basis of how social media helps to overcome four generic knowledge problems – i.e. uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity and equivocality. Drawing upon the relevant KM and social media literature, the paper discusses the four knowledge problems surrounding the KM and presents a framework for overcoming them through social media.

A literature synthesis involving inductive interpretation of qualitative research was used.

The paper shows how different knowledge problems can be approached through social media: uncertainty can be reduced by decent problem formulation and effective information acquisition, complexity can be simplified by increasing knowledge process capacity and decomposing problems, ambiguity can be dissipated by sensemaking and equivocality can be encountered by creating trust and allowing polyphony of perceptions.

The paper contributes to the KM research by providing a theoretically founded framework which illustrates the relationship between social media and knowledge problems.

The framework can be used not only for identifying and understanding epistemological differences between knowledge problems but also for developing social media guidelines for KM purposes. The paper provides a categorisation of knowledge problems, which can be applied in the crystallisation of an organisation’s knowledge strategies in terms of codification and personalisation.

Social media means not only new possibilities but also new threats to organisations’ KM practices. The paper establishes the association between social media and the management of fundamental knowledge problems not previously discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to frame organisational cybersecurity through a strategic lens, as a function of an interplay of pragmatism, inference, holism and adaptation. The authors address the hostile epistemic climate for intellectual capital management presented by the dynamics of cybersecurity as a phenomenon. The drivers of this hostility are identified and their implications for research and practice are discussed.

The philosophical foundations of cybersecurity in its relation with strategy, knowledge and intellectual capital are explored through a review of the literature as a mechanism to contribute to the emerging theoretical underpinnings of the cybersecurity domain.

This conceptual paper argues that a knowledge-based perspective can serve as the necessary platform for a phenomenon-based view of organisational cybersecurity, given its multi-disciplinary nature.

By recognising the knowledge-related vectors, mechanisms and tendencies at play, a novel perspective on the topic can be developed: cybersecurity as a “knowledge problem”. In order to facilitate such a perspective, the paper proposes an emergent epistemology, rooted in systems thinking and pragmatism.

In practice, the knowledge-problem narrative can underpin the development of new organisational support constructs and systems. These can address the distinctiveness of the strategic challenges that cybersecurity poses for the growing operational reliance on intellectual capital.

The research narrative presents a novel knowledge-based analysis of organisational cybersecurity, with significant implications for both interdisciplinary research in the field, and practice.

The purpose of this paper is to show how workers successfully address constraints posed by distributed work – specifically, the lack of cognitive common ground or “mutual knowledge” – through emergent practices.

The authors draw on archival and interview data collected over a ten-month period, from two matched product development teams, one working side-by-side in the USA and the other distributed between the USA and India.

The paper illustrates how distributed team members compensate for the difficulties presented by the lack of mutual knowledge by modifying their use of knowledge management systems and communication technologies to coordinate work, and using temporal and task-based differences to facilitate problem solving.

This study answers calls to examine how distributed teams actually work. By emphasizing the creation of new practices over knowledge transfer and employees’ perspectives over managers, the paper adds to current understandings of how aspects of the mutual knowledge problem can be alleviated. Since emergent practices are not dependent on shared values or identities, they can coordinate action without compromising the distinct perspectives of workers or constraining the diversity that inspires innovation. In addition, the attention to problem solving in distributed teams – particularly tacit knowledge recombination – extends a literature primarily focussed on communication and coordination processes.

In this paper, the authors shift the focus from managerial and organizational policies to the emergent practices of workers themselves, by showing how the authors successfully coordinate and innovate in a changing organizational context.

This chapter focuses on the results of laboratory experiments that reveal how social preferences help regulate behavior to overcome social dilemmas. It argues that this evidence provides empirical support for the Austrian argument that social rules (as well as the institution of the market) are an important part of how societies respond to the knowledge problem. However, it also argues that the specific laboratory results regarding the “crowding out” of social preferences and the redistributive character of social preferences when outcomes are influenced by luck provide challenges to Austrian economics. In response, Austrian economics would seem to need to develop some more expanded notion of what matters in human life beyond the exercise of freedom and so extend the list of rules or institutions that require defence beyond those of the market and the rule of law.

The Federal Reserve regulates U.S. commercial banks using a system of risk-based capital (RBC) regulations based on the Basel Accords. Unfortunately, the Fed’s mis-rating of several assets such as mortgage-backed securities encouraged the build-up of these assets in the banking system and was a major contributing factor to the 2008 financial crisis. The Basel system of RBC regulation is a prime example of a Hayekian knowledge problem. The contextual, tacit, and subjective knowledge required to properly assess asset risk cannot be aggregated and utilized by regulators. An effective system of banking regulation must acknowledge man’s limited knowledge and place greater value on individual decisions than on top-down planning.

Austrian insights on the limits of central planning, the pervasiveness of knowledge problems, and the importance of the entrepreneur in coordinating social change have yielded substantive contributions to the literature on how individuals and communities respond to both natural and unnatural, or manmade, disasters. Austrian economists have examined the political economy of natural disasters, disaster relief and recovery efforts, the economic effects of extended wars, post-conflict societal reconstitution, and the effectiveness of humanitarian aid. This literature advances two main findings: (1) that centralized governments are likely to be ineffective at providing the goods and services that are necessary for community recovery and (2) that decentralized efforts are better suited to address the needs of society, to discover the best course of action for producing and distributing these goods and services, and to adapt to changing needs, circumstances, and technology. This paper examines the Austrian theories utilized to examine disasters, provides a summary of the recent research on both natural and unnatural disasters, and proposes areas for future research.

Mises (1949[1963], p. 692) explains that market-failure justifications for state actions, such as economic regulation “ascribe to the state not only the best intentions but also omniscience.” He then points out that neither assumption is valid: government is not benevolent since both, those who are employed by the state and those who demand state actions, have subjective self-interests, and it is not all knowing since knowledge is widely dispersed and the cost of coordination is infinitely high, particularly without market profits and prices as coordinating mechanisms. Furthermore, Mises suggests that dropping either assumption undermines the conclusions that state intervention is necessarily desirable even if some sort of market failure is actually identified. Austrian economists in the Mises tradition have tended to focus on the knowledge problem in their challenges to regulation, however. Many Austrians obviously recognize the interest problem, of course, but they often assume it away in order to illustrate that government interference with markets is not desirable even if it is well intended. In contrast, public-choice analysis tends to focus on the interest problem as source of government failure, although some public-choice analysts also obviously recognize the knowledge problem. Indeed, this difference in perspective is so pronounced that Ikeda (1997, p. 240) explicitly distinguishes between Public Choice and Austrian political economy by suggesting that the Austrian approach assumes benevolence on the part of government officials, while the public-choice approach assume narrow interests.¹ Ikeda (1997, p. 150) also suggests that the separation of these two approaches is justified because “Austrian political economy and public choice are each capable of standing on their own [so] public-theorists…find it optimal simply to continue to pursue their research along the line of either the former or the latter approaches.” The following presentation questions this assertion. Instead, both assumptions should be dropped, and the resulting integrated Austrian-public-choice model should be expanded to include assumptions about the relationships between regulations, property rights security, and both market and political behavior.²

Purpose – To show that Hayek's cognitive theory sheds light on Hayek's institutional theory.

Methodology/Approach – Although F. A. Hayek contributed richly to many fields of economics – from capital theory to monetary theory, and from institutions to spontaneous order – one theme is omnipresent in his work: the knowledge problem. This paper examines Hayek's work in psychology, The Sensory Order, and argues that there exist strong parallels between Hayek's cognitive and institutional theories.

Findings – Hayek's institutional (or social) theory makes a lot more sense when understood as a necessary consequence of his cognitive theory. Furthermore, Hayek's cognitive theory allows for rational individuals making choices that are socially embedded.

Research limitations/implications – Three Hayekian themes are explored: (1) institutional implications of limited knowledge; (2) learning and knowledge generation; and (3) mental models. The paper then uses a challenge within Hayek – the tension between microlevel methodological individualism and macrolevel institutional evolution – as a starting point toward resolving the lingering individual-culture methodological puzzle in contemporary economics. These are mere starting points for further research.

Originality/value of paper – Horwitz (2000) writes that “Hayek's thought will have come to fruition when the social sciences abandon rationalist and constructivist explanations of social phenomena in favor of ones that recognize the roles of tacit and contextual knowledge, institutional evolution, and spontaneous order. Such an approach would dramatically improve our understanding of the human mind.” This paper offers a step in that direction.

The term “dynamics of interventionism” refers to a social process, i.e., a sequence of adjustments to change over time, among a great many individuals, who largely share a common set of rules of interaction.¹ It is constituted by the unintended consequences at the interface between the governmental and market processes, when the scope of government is either expanding or contracting in relation to the market. Interventionism is the doctrine or system based on the limited use of political means (i.e., legitimized violent aggression (Oppenheimer, 1975[1914])) to address problems identified with laissez-faire capitalism. Thus, an intervention refers to the use of, or the threat of using, political means to influence non-violent actions and exchanges. Supporters of interventionism do not completely reject the institutions of capitalism, such as private property and the price system, but do favor using piecemeal interventions that extend beyond so-called minimal-state capitalism² in order to combat suspected failures or abuses they associate with the unhampered market. Examples of this would include, but are not limited to, market power, externality, asymmetric information, income inequality, racial and sexual discrimination, and the business cycle.

The purpose of the article is to identify and analyze the challenges of business-to-business (B2B) research relevance from the point of view of top executives.

Ten in-depth interviews with top executives from different B2B industries were conducted and analyzed by using Arndt’s (1985) elements of a healthy discipline, i.e. knowledge, problems and instruments.

The findings reveal 12 challenges that characterize contemporary B2B research relevance from a top executive perspective.

The research offers genuine top executive insight. More research from different perspectives is needed to broaden the understanding of B2B research relevance.

Reflecting B2B research with the identified challenges can contribute to better research designs, narrowing the gap between B2B scholars and practitioners. Altogether, it contributes to the health of the B2B discipline. The study also introduces a new approach to analyzing research relevance by using the elements of scientific balance.