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1 – 10 of 30Camille Venezia and Verna Allee
To better understand mobile work and the lives of mobile workers from the employee perspective and to identify aspects of mobile work that are working well or could be improved.
Abstract
Purpose
To better understand mobile work and the lives of mobile workers from the employee perspective and to identify aspects of mobile work that are working well or could be improved.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey of 557 respondents involved in mobile work, including managers and workers. Questions focused on how mobile workers identify roles and communicate socially/professionally; how they use space, technology, and collaborative tools; and how they feel about mobile working.
Findings
Identifies the workplace needs of mobile workers. Gaps in mobile workers' stated activities and work patterns are revealed in relation to current thinking about workspace utilisation. Considerable employee disenchantment suggests that office design is not supporting the new roles mobile workers are asked to fulfill.
Research limitations/implications
This report summarises the findings of the first phase of a multi‐year research study which included 557 mobile worker respondents representing 84 world‐wide organisations.
Practical implications
Demonstrates the need to reconfigure physical infrastructure to support the rapid changes in business practices, such as mobile, flexible, and collaborative work. Results are useful to managers under pressure to make better use of existing resources, free up space, or grow without adding space.
Originality/value
The first multi‐year study of global mobile workers. Research has rarely examined the roles mobile workers play, the professional interactions they need to conduct, and differences in their output. Recent applications of network analysis in organisational settings have revealed that different roles can have very different needs for support of mobile work. Providing the necessary infrastructure by evaluating mobile worker roles creates new business opportunities and transforms the provision of space and services.
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Verna Allee and Jan Taug
The purpose of this paper is to review a systemic organizational change initiative for improving collaboration, innovation and value creation at a global telecom.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to review a systemic organizational change initiative for improving collaboration, innovation and value creation at a global telecom.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on a comprehensive internal assessment Telenor identified core issues and challenges in supporting collaboration after several years of dramatic global expansion. From the assessment the change leaders built a business case for launching a systemic change initiative. They chose a collaboration and partnering approach with multiple management groups, with an emphasis on networks and innovation. A two‐year roadmap was developed to build three meta capabilities in collaborative technologies, social innovation and network behaviors and new business thinking.
Findings
The case study is a mid‐point assessment of how the implementation is working. A small and smart approach for introducing new ideas and learning innovations into receptive and influential groups within Telenor, new ways of working are taking hold quickly. The equal emphasis on bringing in social innovation such as communities of practice and introducing a next generation of management tools is effectively changing behaviors that are supported by new collaborative technologies.
Originality/value
Collaboration and knowledge sharing at Telenor is seen equally as a technology issue, a social innovation and behavior issue and a business issue. Many change efforts around knowledge sharing and collaboration emphasize technology or behaviors, but rarely address both effectively. This approach is more systemic than most because it not only addresses these two arenas, but also puts an unusually high emphasis on educating people into new business fundamentals such as the importance of intangible value and the power of networks.
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The purpose of this paper is to provide examples and technical details for conducting a value network analysis that addresses the conversion and utilisation of intangible assets.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide examples and technical details for conducting a value network analysis that addresses the conversion and utilisation of intangible assets.
Design/methodology/approach
Value network analysis was first developed in 1993 and was adapted in 1997 for intangible asset management. It has been tested in applications from shop floor work groups to business webs and economic regions. It draws from a theory based in living systems, knowledge management, complexity theory, system dynamics, and intangible asset management.
Findings
The paper provides a high level of detail on the analysis method and insights from its practical application across a range of business issues. Tips are provided for how to integrate the methodology with other business analysis approaches.
Research limitations/implications
The paper does not provide a comparative analysis with other methods because most other value network models are process views, social network analysis or clustering techniques.
Practical implications
Sufficient detail is provided so researchers and practitioners will be able to apply the method in their own investigations. Further resources are noted, as well as access points to the global user community and open source tools.
Originality/value
This paper is the first detailed publication of the value network analysis method, which has been acclaimed by experts in intangibles, network analysis, knowledge management, and process analysis. It fills a gap between theory and practice for managers, executives, analysts, and researchers.
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Maria Solitander and Annika Tidström
The purpose of the paper is to develop intellectual capital theory to include competitive aspects that influence value creation of the network.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the paper is to develop intellectual capital theory to include competitive aspects that influence value creation of the network.
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical part of the paper is based on a qualitative case study of a network of collaborating competitors within the natural products industry in Finland. A total of 29 interviews are conducted involving 11 informants. The empirical material is examined through Verna Allee's value network analysis.
Findings
Business relationships include both collaborative and competitive dimensions. By adding a competitive dimension to Allee's value network, a more exhaustive picture of the network emerges. Hence, the relationships not only consist of collaborative tangible and intangible flows between the actors of the network, but also of competitive flows that per definition may only be intangible.
Research limitations/implications
The paper is based on a single case study. The paper includes collaborating competitors, but opens up interesting avenues for further research as competitive elements surely are present also in other types of business relationships.
Practical implications
Knowledge received from partners is not always trustworthy. Still, managers gain more from getting access to knowledge they do not know if it can be trusted, than to be excluded from the collaboration.
Originality/value
This paper brings forward the notion of competitive elements in collaborative relationships. IC research has tended to mostly focus on the positive aspects of the knowledge economy, but has much to gain by realising that there are also negative aspects that affect the creation and distribution of value in a network.
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Nick Bontis and Danny Nikitopoulos
A synopsis of key topics, issues and findings as presented at the 4th World Congress on Intellectual Capital hosted by McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. There were…
Abstract
A synopsis of key topics, issues and findings as presented at the 4th World Congress on Intellectual Capital hosted by McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. There were 536 delegates from 32 countries discussing the growing importance of intellectual capital. This paper highlights the key messages from the keynote speakers of the conference. Includes a summary of the presentations of such luminaries as Shahla Aly, VP Communication Sector at IBM Canada; Stephen Denning, KM director of the World Bank; Don Tapscott, chairman of Digital 4Sight; Ante Pulic and Ursula Schneider, directors of the Austrian Intellectual Capital Research Centre; Tom Jenkins, CEO of OpenText; Leif Edvinsson, VP of Knexa.com Enterprises; Verna Allee, president of Integral Performance Group; and Don Morrison, COO of Research in Motion.
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The purpose of this paper is to provide examples of evaluating value‐creating networks and to address the organizational issues and challenges of a network orientation.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide examples of evaluating value‐creating networks and to address the organizational issues and challenges of a network orientation.
Design/methodology/approach
Value network analysis was first developed in 1993 and was adapted in 1997 for intangible asset management. It has been applied from shopfloor work groups to business webs and economic regions. It draws from a theory base of living systems, knowledge management, complexity theory, and intangible asset management.
Findings
The paper provides an overview of a value network analysis method and examples and insights from its practical application.
Research limitations/implications
The paper does not provide a detailed comparative analysis with social network analysis, but rather looks forward to where interest in social networks may evolve into continuing concentration on value‐creating networks.
Practical implications
Value network analysis provides an opportunity to overcome the “split” in business management practices, where human interactions and relationships reside in one world of models and practices, and business processes and transactions reside in another. The engineering approaches of the last two decades have focused on driving out variation, with the unanticipated consequence of stifling organizational agility and innovation. The more human‐centric orientation of the value network perspective brings these two worlds together in a powerful, simple, and pragmatic way to model business activities.
Originality/value
The paper augments and expands the growing application of social or organizational network analysis by pointing to a next generation of analysis and analytics that can support organizational effectiveness. The value network analysis method fills a gap between network theory and practical application for managers, executives, analysts, and researchers.
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Keywords
The emerging business model of value creation includes both social and environmental capital as well as human, structural, and customer capital.
Keeping track of the revenue stream is important, but it's equally important to track the flow of knowledge and intangibles.
Marco Montemari and Christian Nielsen
– The purpose of this paper is to investigate the measurement and the management of the dynamic aspects of intellectual capital through the use of causal mapping.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the measurement and the management of the dynamic aspects of intellectual capital through the use of causal mapping.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper details the methods utilized in a single in-depth case study of a network-based business model.
Findings
The paper illustrates how causal mapping can be used to understand how intellectual capital really works in the specific business context in which it is deployed. Moreover, exploiting the causal map as a platform for extracting a set of indicators can provide information on the length of the lag and the persistence of the effects of managerial actions. In addition, it can signal when and how to refine and update the causal map. The combination of these factors can potentially support the dynamic measurement and management of intellectual capital.
Research limitations/implications
The paper presented has two main limitations. First, the use of a single case study to provide in-depth and rich data limits the generalizability of the observations. Second, the proposed approach has not been implemented in practice. Future research opportunities include interventionist-type case studies that put the causal mapping approach into practice.
Practical implications
The paper highlights the need to build causal maps to enhance the measurement and management of intellectual capital, which is dynamic in nature. As a consequence, this tool can be useful for monitoring the intangibles of companies and networks and to better understand the contribution their intellectual capital makes to the value creation process.
Originality/value
The paper openly questions the measurement of the fluid and dynamic aspects of intellectual capital. It proposes a tool for governing these aspects and it suggests that even the existing intellectual capital measurement systems can improve their usefulness by including these dimensions. So, a shift in intellectual capital measurement is prescribed.
Details