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The purpose of this paper is to explore educator collaborative inquiry in the shared workspace in professional learning communities (PLCs). Specifically, this investigation was part of an ongoing investigation of well-established PLC collaborative interactions and self-directed learning of educators as part of the shared workspace as a component of school improvement.

A qualitative design was used for this investigation. Participants were purposefully selected to provide qualitative data on existent, well-established PLCs and their practice as educators in the shared workspace. Qualitative data were collected about participant perception. Data were collected from each participant by conducting semi-structured interviews, observations, and the collection of document and artifacts.

Findings from this ongoing investigation point to positive collaborative physical interactions and intellectual discourse that lead to educator learning through the collaborative inquiry process.

Theories on PLCs and educator job-embedded professional learning are unique in this paper. The concepts of PLCs and the collaborative inquiry process have been well developed but not in the context of the shared workspace. Recent literature on effective collaborative inquiry educators undergo in PLCs as a continuing professional development model provides a foundation for the work done in this ongoing case study. Sustained collaboration and continued professional development of teaching innovations as a product of the collaborative inquiry process in the shared workspace are underdeveloped as yet but further developed in this paper.

The purpose of this study is to empirically investigate the influence of shared goals and hope on knowledge sharing and knowledge creation in organizations. Furthermore, it examines the mediating role of hope in the relationship between shared goals and knowledge sharing and between shared goals and knowledge creation.

This study has used quantitative research methodology wherein the data have been collected from 221 employees of information technology (IT) companies in India using survey questionnaire. Structural equation modelling has been applied to test the hypotheses of the study.

The findings of the study reveal that shared goals and hope positively influence knowledge sharing and knowledge creation. Shared goals also affects hope positively. Further, hope acts as a mediator between shared goals and knowledge sharing and between shared goals and knowledge creation.

This study is a cross-sectional study conducted in IT companies in India. It can be supplemented by future studies through qualitative approaches and longitudinal data collection.

The study makes a significant contribution to literature by considering shared goals and hope as antecedents of knowledge sharing and knowledge creation. It provides directions to managers to focus on various interventions to strengthen shared goals and hope amongst employees to motivate them to share and create knowledge that can help the organization to get sustainable competitive advantage.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, this study is an early study conducted to examine the influence of shared goals and hope on knowledge sharing and knowledge creation. Further, hardly any study has examined the mediating role of hope in the relationship between shared goals and knowledge sharing and between shared goals and knowledge creation.

Having complexity theory as the overarching conceptual rationale, this paper presents a research model that defines external drivers, strategic and internal business practices and performance outcomes in service firm contexts.

Using an original survey instrument, the authors empirically examine business process management (1) adopting the mediating roles of shared goal practices and technology imperative practices (2) involving moderating roles of competitive market environments and joint implementation practices.

In response to dynamic market complexity, firms implement business process management through shared goal practices and technology imperative practices for achieving customer service outcomes. The findings also suggest the moderating roles of competitive pressure and joint implementation practices.

Generalizations here are limited to service firms. Increasing customer service expectations (e.g. simplicity, convenience, visual images and rapid responses) require firms to involve cross-functional work throughout their organizational processes.

In digital environments, business process management requires socio-technological synergy through shared goal practices and technology imperative practices.

Building on a theory-driven research model, a survey instrument provides tools to examine business process management of service firms that sense dynamic market complexity challenges and translate them to achieve desirable customer service outcomes.

To further extend the understanding of the aggregating functions of an entrepreneurial business network, this paper attempts to explore the antecedents enabling the organisation of diverse entrepreneurs to engage in a collaborative inter-firm business network project. This paper also elucidates the development of the relational capabilities and performance of entrepreneurial business networks.

An explorative, longitudinal case study design is employed to analyse an Italian agricultural business network, which comprised a group of local small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Using the network as the focus of analysis, the case study draws insights from key informants comprising the network management team and the entrepreneurs who make up the membership of the business network.

The results of the study provide critical factors for successful organisation of inter-firm engagement. Although these factors are not mutually exclusive, the results show that organising for inter-firm engagement in an entrepreneurial business network context positively influenced the network relational performance and entrepreneurs' innovation capabilities.

The paper extends current understanding of inter-organisational engagement and illuminates the antecedents enabling the development of network relational dynamics capabilities. The empirical results provide unusual insights into the aggregating roles of an entrepreneurial business network, giving practitioners practical insights into managing a successful inter-organisational collaborative project. Using the relevant theoretical frameworks, the study empirically tests the organisation solutions relevant to literature on inter-firm engagement in a business network context and addresses the organisation solutions' interrelationship and linkages to entrepreneurial network relational performance in terms of knowledge practice, information and resources sharing and innovation.

Knowledge sharing is the corner‐stone of many organisations’ knowledge‐management (KM) strategy. Despite the growing significance of knowledge sharing's practices for organisations’ competitiveness and market performance, several barriers make it difficult for KM to achieve the goals and deliver a positive return on investment. This paper provides a detailed review of current KM and related literatures on a large number of possible knowledge‐sharing barriers with the purpose of offering a more comprehensive and structured starting‐point for senior managers when auditing their organisation's current knowledge base and knowledge‐sharing requirements.

This article reviews and discusses over three dozen potential knowledge‐sharing barriers, categorising them into three main domains of recently published works: individual/personal, organisational, and technological barriers.

The extensive list of knowledge sharing barriers provides a helpful starting point and guideline for senior managers auditing their existing practices with a view to identifying any bottle‐necks and improving on the overall effectiveness of knowledge‐sharing activities.

Managers need to realise, however, that a particular knowledge sharing strategy or specific managerial actions will not suit all companies and that there are differences to be expected between MNCs and SMEs, private, public sector, and not‐for‐profit organisations. As such, the implementation of knowledge‐sharing goals and strategies into an organisation's strategic planning and thinking will vary greatly.

The main discussion of this paper brings together a large range of knowledge‐ sharing barriers in an attempt to indicate the complexity of knowledge sharing as a value‐creating organisational activity.

The concept of a community form is drawn upon in many subfields of organizational theory. Although there is not much convergence on a level of analysis, there is convergence on a mode of action that is increasingly relevant to a knowledge-based economy marked by porous and shifting organizational boundaries. We argue that communities play an underappreciated role in organizational theory – critical not only to occupational identity, knowledge transfer, sense-making, social support, innovation, problem-solving, and collective action but also, enabled by information technology, increasingly providing socioeconomic value – in areas once inhabited by organizations alone. Hence, we posit that organizations may be in the shadow of communities. Rather than push for a common definition, we link communities to an organization's evolution: its birth, growth, and death. We show that communities represent both opportunities and threats to organizations and conclude with a research agenda that more fully accounts for the potential of community forms to be a creator (and a possible destroyer) of value for organizations.

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.

Although lean methods are considered easy to be implemented during the initial phases of the lean transformation process, few companies are able to maintain them in long term. One of the key factors for this maintenance is the role played by the leaders in their teams. The purpose of this paper is to show the outcomes of an action research that analyzed and developed leadership practices, using the lean leadership model for developing people as reference and considering the factors: to promote employees’ self-development; to coach and develop employees; to support daily kaizen; to create vision and align goal.

The results of this study are based on the action research method applied in a large Brazilian industrial company. The study was structured considering the phases of problem diagnosis, action plan, implementation and evaluation of practical and theoretical results.

The leadership practices implemented from the model were shown to be adequate to the lean production system (LPS) and it was observed that reflecting on the processes and the organizational learning are two main concepts that these practices support in the organization.

Since this study is based on action research in a single company, the generalization of results is limited. Suggestions for future research include the development of a quantitative research in different industrial contexts.

The practical implications of this research are to present activities that must be developed by the leadership of organizations to maintain LPS.

This paper raises the problems of organizational leadership that limit the implementation and maintenance of LPS, presenting the planning and implementation of changes in leadership practices to solve these problems.

This paper aims to propose an ethical approach best suited to dealing with the issues of digital ethics in general and internet research ethics in particular.

This article engages with the existing literature on virtue ethics, situationism and digital (research) ethics.

A virtue-based casuistic method could be well-suited to deal with issues relating to digital ethics in general and internet research ethics in particular as long as it can take place in communities with shared practices and traditions.

These insights could add and further deepen the rich debate about research ethics that is already ongoing within the internet research community.

There has been growing attention given to the concept of social climate as an element of prison practice. Research has indicated that more positive social climates can improve safety, psychological well-being, quality of life and contribute towards reduced reoffending. The purpose of this paper is to consider how the more positive social climates found in democratic therapeutic communities are constructed and how these practices can be replicated in other settings.

This paper adopts a reflective practice approach. The intention is to look back at the concept of social climate in prisons and in particular within a prison-based democratic therapeutic community (DTC); draw upon research and theory in order to critically evaluate the nature and effectiveness of that social climate, and; draw wider lessons about the nurturing and maintenance of social climates that may have broader relevance in prisons.

It is concluded that understanding and managing social climate is an essential aspect of improving the safety and effectiveness of prisons. Developing practices that enhance social climate requires looking beyond mainstream prison practices, towards niches such as specialist units and prisons, including DTCs and other therapeutic communities, and psychologically informed environments, as well as looking at practices in other settings including forensic mental health. Taking this wider perspective can be source of ideas and practice that could inform a profound culture change.

The paper offers an attempt to understand the distinct practices that create a more positive social climate in DTCs and consider how elements of this could be exported to other prisons. This has implications for both penal theory and practice.