A Semantic Web-Based Approach to Knowledge Management for Grid Applications

The integration of information and communication technologies (ICTs) into knowledge management (KM) is essential for effective knowledge processes in higher education; however, significant barriers continue to hinder optimal use in many African contexts. This study examines perceived barriers to ICT adoption and their impact on KM effectiveness in Tanzanian universities, applying the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) as its analytical lens. A cross-sectional, mixed-methods design was employed, combining quantitative survey data from 350 students with qualitative insights from interviews, focus group discussions, and document reviews involving institutional stakeholders. Descriptive findings indicate that weak internet connectivity (72%), limited ICT infrastructure (65%), and frequent electricity disruptions (56%) were the most prevalent barriers, alongside outdated systems, inadequate technical support, and low digital competence. To test the relationship between barriers and KM effectiveness, a chi-square test of goodness of fit was conducted, revealing a statistically significant difference in the distribution of reported barriers, χ²(6, N = 350) = 412.57, p < .001. Poor internet connectivity and limited access to ICT resources were particularly predominant and exerted the strongest influence on KM outcomes, supporting H₁ that perceived barriers significantly affect KM in Tanzanian higher education institutions. The findings indicate that these barriers reduce both perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, slowing ICT adoption and encouraging reliance on informal alternatives, such as WhatsApp. The study recommends coordinated investment in ICT infrastructure, digital literacy programs, responsive technical support, and institutional ICT governance to enhance KM practices, foster innovation, and strengthen Tanzanian universities’ role in global knowledge networks.

China's Great Bay Area covers Hong Kong S.A.R, Macau S.A.R, Shenzhen, and many other cities in Guangdong Province and is one of China's most economically prosperous areas. Thousands of people start their businesses in this area every year. It is a well-known belief that knowledge management can help business success; however, start-up companies may face many issues in applying knowledge management to achieve their success. Therefore, this study examines the challenges and problems of knowledge management implementation in start-up companies in this region. Conducting a series of semi-structured interviews with owners of start-up companies, this study tries to find several challenges of these companies, such as a lack of knowledge management systems and expertise in the domain. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study investigating the knowledge management challenges of start-up companies in China’s Great Bay Area. It also provides significant managerial implications that can help these companies to embark on the knowledge management journey successfully.

PurposeThe main purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of knowledge management (KM) infrastructure and KM processes on the performance of KM practices.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is based on personal interviews, data were collected from 83 managers from a single case study of a Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) operator in Turkey.FindingsThe paper finds that hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling. Test of hypotheses revealed that both KM processes and KM infrastructure positively and significantly influenced the performance of KM practices. These findings tend to corroborate our conceptual model and are also in line with the existing literature. KM infrastructure was found to be more significantly affecting KM performance than KM processes, indicating that the context and background of KM is more important than the application aspects of KM.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings in this paper cannot be generalized due to the case study approach. It may not be claimed that both KM processes and KM infrastructure solely determine the performance of KM practices. Instead, there are many other factors that may influence KM performance, which are somewhat beyond the scope of this research.Practical implicationsThe paper shows that the evaluation of KM performance is expected to increase the effectiveness, efficiency and adaptability of KM efforts so as to add more value to the overall performance of the organization.Originality/valueIn this paper there is little or no empirical evidence investigating the influence of KM infrastructure and KM processes on KM performance. This paper rectifies this imbalance by clarifying the link between KM infrastructure, processes and performance.

78 What kind of perceptions do the medical and information directors have about the factors influencing on knowledge management in hospital?

Realising the vision of pervasive health care will generate new challenges for knowledge management and data integration. Such challenges are fundamentally different from issues and problems that we face in centralised approaches as well as non-clinical scenarios. In this paper, we reflect upon our experiences in the Miakt project wherein a prototype system was developed to support data integration and decision making in the breast cancer domain. While the decision making needs to rely on different clinical expertise, the Miakt system leveraged a system ontology to glue together distributed services. Situating the Miakt system in a highly pervasive environment reveals the inefficiency of global vocabularies via domain ontologies and the inappropriateness of “static” system ontologies with assigned system configuration instances. We examine the capability of a process calculus based language, Lightweight Coordination Calculus (LCC), in meeting knowledge management challenges in pervasive health care. The key difference in approach lies in making the representational abstraction reflect the relative autonomy of the various clinical specialisms (eg., mammography or histopathology) involved in contributing to patient management. The bringing together of diverse forms of information necessary for the collective medical assessment is managed by tracking the message passing protocols undertaken by medical personnel. The scope within LCC of accommodating boolean-valued constraints allows for flexible integration of heterogeneous sources in multiple formats, which are characteristic features of a pervasive healthcare environment.KeywordsKnowledge ManagementTacit KnowledgeResource Description FrameworkDomain OntologyKnowledge Management SystemThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

This article presents the findings of a research project undertaken to investigate the role and challenges of knowledge management in construction engineering projects, and to identify improvements for knowledge retention. The research method comprised a case-based knowledge audit using an internationally based engineering company, as well as a documentary review, a questionnaire survey and interviews in order to understand current knowledge management practices. The Soft Systems Methodology was used to interpret and present research findings. The knowledge audit revealed that project experience can be shared more than previously realised, with knowledge being better captured at project and/or organisation level. In addition, a knowledge management strategy that encourages knowledge retention and use can be driven by business objectives in order to enhance the value of project team knowledge.

Meeting the challenges of knowledge management at the Housing and Development Board

Service learning programs provide a richer, more practical experience for students and can deliver more benefits to the community by undertaking larger projects not limited by the length of a semester. Long-term projects with a larger scope present both knowledge management and project management challenges. The Engineering Projects In Community Service (EPICS) program at Purdue University has established a unique structure for resolving many of these issues. The primary author advises an EPICS team that has successfully delivered a custom database application used on a daily basis by a local judicial government agency to track 8000 clients. The application has been updated and maintained by the student team over multiple versions and semesters.This case study presents our experience with the knowledge and project management issues in this team, identifying practices that have resulted in a successful delivery to the community partner and positive experience for the students, advisors, and other participants.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to offer an overall view of knowledge management challenges for global business via discussing the challenges and proposing theoretical and managerial implications.Design/methodology/approachBased on a comprehensive literature review, the paper identifies six main knowledge management challenges faced by global business today. Then, the challenges are discussed in relation to managerial practice.FindingsThe paper argues that developing a working definition of knowledge, dealing with tacit knowledge and utilization of information technology, adaptation to cultural complexity, attention to human resources, developing new organizational structures, and coping with increased competition are the main knowledge management challenges faced by global business today.Practical implicationsSuggested implications include a more significant managerial emphasis on considering and dealing with the knowledge management challenges in a holistic manner, taking into account all internal and external factors influencing the knowledge‐management process.Originality/valueThe paper evaluates the critical findings of the literature within the historical progress of knowledge management, clarifies the main knowledge management challenges faced by global business organizations today, and offers a basic framework for further studies.

The theme of the research is to look into the relatedness among IT lead-in, “knowledge management”, “marketing orientation” and “job performance” in T Company in mobile communication industry. From 2005, mobile communication industry starts the tendency of internationalization and diversification. Meanwhile, the enterprise faces the pressure of accelerated innovation.Therefore, most enterprises lead in “knowledge management” concept and use IT (Information Technology) infrastructure, deal with the changes of international products through organization learning. Accordingly, the target of this research is to study how the telecommunication operators learn from cross-unit (IT Role) base on the acknowledgement of “knowledge management” and”marketing orientation” , and get job performance in result. The case study instrument is pretested with T Company which goes public and is one of the top three telecommunication companies. To construct related materials of “knowledge management”,”marketing orientation”and ”job performance” which are suitable to employees of T Company through data collection. Process the PLS analysis model base on 80 emplyees of 5 major departments to validate the causal relation among the variables of “IT role”,”knowledge management”,”marketing orientation” and “job performance”. Findings are that “knowledge management” is the important effect parameter of IT system and “marketing orientation”, and “marketing orientation” is also the significant effect of firm performance. The case study connects “IT role”and “knowledge management”in theoretical foundation, and links IT and “marketing orientation”via “knowledge management”to make positive effects. Moreover, the case study extends more effects of “marketing orientation”theory to firm performance. Key words: “IT Role”,”Knowledge Management”,”Marketing Orientation”,”Job Performance”.

More and more organizations have recognized the importance of efficient enterprise knowledge construction, extraction and management. To effectively acquire domain knowledge from experts, a knowledge centre that can automatically manage the huge amounts of documents and knowledge is required. In this paper, a knowledge management (KM) model as well as a platform consisting of document keyword extraction (DKE) module, document classification (DC) module, authority reasoning (AR) module and validation process decision (VPD) module are developed for intelligent and automatic management over the manufacturing intellectual properties (IPs) of the automobile industry. In this industry, sophisticated entities are involved in knowledge construction and reuse under the collaborative design environment. A case study is provided to evaluate feasibility and performance of the intelligent knowledge management model. With the training and learning stages, the accuracy and precision of the KM decision modules can be significantly improved. Therefore, in addition to the automobile IP management, it is proven that with the learning mechanism, the proposed intelligent KM approach can be applied to different applications for organizations to efficiently construct and manage domain knowledge .

Most of knowledge management documents use a single dimension or individual case study as the foundation to carry out studies into management performance and the studies into how knowledge management performance influence knowledge management driver are very few. Consequently, this study integrated the theories from different studies to propose three individual drivers of knowledge management, and the knowledge management performance of organizations was the dependent variable. Through questionnaires, the mutual relationship between the three individual drivers of knowledge management would be discussed, and then the relationship between the drivers of knowledge management and the knowledge management performance in the organization would be discussed too. Two-step approach of Anderson and Gerbing (1988) was the main study method of this study, and SPSS statistical software was used to carry out reliability test and exploratory factor analysis, and assessment of validity and measuring model were then carried out. LISREL8.51 statistical software was used to carry out verification for the measuring model. The study result showed that the more popular the application of relevant information system of knowledge management, the better the performance of organization’s knowledge management. Positive participation of the leaders and creation of knowledge management culture are important factors of the optimal knowledge management performance in the organization. On the other hand, appropriate use of information technology allows the formation of knowledge management culture. This culture could guide or stimulate the organization too. Leader’s behavior is the significant factor of creating excellent knowledge management culture. This study attempted to urge the enterprises to check on its organization and operation, and correct their major problems during the preparation of implementing knowledge management, so as to promote the probability of being successful when the enterprises implement knowledge management. Key words: Drivers of knowledge management, knowledge management performance, knowledge -based economy, operation performance.

Knowledge-based economy has taken it over from the money-based economy. Huge exchanges of know-how and advanced technology have resulted in transforming the picture of many developing countries. Economic development has always centred on knowledge being acquired by human beings which later came to be known as ‘human capital’. But only over the last few years has its relative importance been recognised, just as that importance is growing. This has led to change in economic functions, and economists have already started putting it as an important variant in all laws that govern economics. With growth of information technology and people realising the power of knowledge, companies can no longer ignore the importance of the accumulated knowledge they have at their end.

Knowledge management (KM) plays important roles in cybersecurity. This study collects five real-life cases of good practices of KM for the domain of cybersecurity in business organizations. Through an iterative process of team-based qualitative data analysis of the five cases, the study develops a model of KM for cybersecurity that conceptualizes three common aspects of KM practices for cybersecurity in business organizations. First, KM for cybersecurity in business organizations has clear specialized organizational structures that involve three inter-organizational tiers across the organization boundaries. Second, the knowledge flows of KM for cybersecurity in business organizations emphasize on explicit, declarative, and specific knowledge. Third, in comparison with KM for other domains, KM for cybersecurity has well-defined objective measures to assess the effectiveness of KM. The domain-specific KM model based on the good practice cases provides a road-map for KM practices in the domain of cybersecurity in business organizations.

PurposeIn order to make knowledge management (KM) successful, the most important aspect is to nurture an appropriate organizational culture. Furthermore, many studies indicate that hierarchical cultures can significantly hinder the success of KM activities. The purpose of this paper, therefore, based on the antecedents of hierarchical culture, is to utilize four activities of knowledge conversion to explore the impact of hierarchical culture on the effectiveness of KM processes.Design/methodology/approachIn order to understand the influences of hierarchical culture on knowledge conversion and KM processes, both qualitative and quantitative techniques were used to analyze the data. A case study of two large companies included interviews with several senior managers. A survey questionnaire was also administered to senior managers in 31 Taiwanese companies that had hierarchical cultures.FindingsThrough interpretative case studies and questionnaire analyses, the research finds that a hierarchical culture influences KM practices and can act as a mediator for knowledge conversion and KM processes. For instance, developing a hierarchical culture will be suitable for combination and externalization. Moreover, it would be beneficial to the implementation of KM. In contrast, it would not be helpful for socialization and internalization. In addition, it would not be beneficial to KM strategy and planning.Research limitations/implicationsThe results need to be validated with a robust survey.Practical implicationsThe conceptual framework provides a convenient way to illustrate the effects of hierarchical culture on knowledge conversion and KM processes. Enterprises can make corrections and adjustments accordingly to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of implementing KM through the appropriate organizational culture.Originality/valueThe paper proposes a conceptual framework to illustrate the influences of hierarchical culture on knowledge conversion and KM processes in Taiwanese organizations.