Within the frames of digital business transformation the data are one of the basic company assets. Many companies adopt cumbersome expensive software to provide analytical reports, revealing the causes of success and failure. The observed gap between business expectations and the obtained results is associated not with software quality, but with data management. Based on the analysis of world practices in data management and Russian professional standards the principle of forming required competences in data management for companies’s top-management is proposed. The article suggests the competency model for company’s management in the sphere of data management. The purpose of this work is to create a competency model of different levels of executives in the sphere of data management within the frames of global digital transformation. This model will give a chance to formulate additional list of managers’ competencies involved in the process of data management. The comparative analysis of global practices in data management and Russian professional standards; case research of Russian company managers’ attitude to competencies in data management. Digital medium formation is an integral element of enterprise integration into the broad scale global digital transformation processes. These changes include, in particular, cross-industry digital transformation, development of new industries as well as “joint” economy formation. This, in turn, requires all company management levels to acquire new professional competences corresponding to the requirements of digital economy. Since the data are the main part of digital economy, the data management organization that goes out of limits of mere creation and introduction of the corporate information system is required. In the article new principles of formating company management competences concerning data management are suggested. The presented competency model will let correctly formulate and structure the requirements for employees in the field of data management. The model can be adapted for companies of different sizes, different organizational structures and scope of activities.

Continuous joint action and knowledge sharing are fundamental aspects of business model innovation (BMI) for businesses to meet the complex BMI agenda of today; 12 independent businesses initially joint innovating on the establishment of a new business model concept of a balanced energy plant project in 2013, where the businesses had to work in symbioses from the very first moment. They and the Greenlab Skive business model innovation project have now in the spring 2017 reached the third critical BMI phase of this high risk BMI project – “letting go”-, the prototyping and implementation phase. The new established management with now a formal CEO and board have an important task related to achieve a long term sustainable GLS business – beyond phase 3 and phase 4. The paper address how GLS can create sustainable knowledge creation and exchange to insure that the GLS business will survive beyond implementation and initial operation phase and still be attractive as knowledge partner/Zone when the GLS begins operating.

The purpose is to study Business Intelligence (BI) -tools that enable value creation in the private healthcare sector in Finland. The focus is especially on the utilization of BI-tools. This means to study the factors that enable the BI-tools to create value for the organization. As the healthcare sector is changing rapidly, it is putting forward a growing need for developing new ways for data-driven decisions, especially at the organizational level. Researched organizations are private healthcare organizations in Finland. Walter et al.’s (2001) function-oriented value analysis is used as a framework to point out the BI-tools’ meaning in value creation. The empirical data was collected during winter and spring 2017. Thematic interviews of key-personnel responsible for BI were conducted, to gain understanding of the value creation with BI-tool utilization in the Finnish private healthcare industry. The themes were related to what kinds of BI-tools they are using, how their BI is organized, what are their challenges in BI and what kinds of future needs and development ideas they have for BI. Data-driven value creation is one of the most important aspects in the private healthcare sector organizations. By analysing the BI-tools, their challenges, future needs and development roadmaps, we gain better understanding of the value creation factors in the private healthcare sector organization. This helps us to understand the potential of value creation, its relations and requirements in utilization of BI-tools. The suggested approach has significant novelty value in the context of the Finnish private healthcare sector. In this study the outcome will provide valuable information as well as deep understanding on the existing BI-tools portfolio used in the Finnish private healthcare sector companies. Advanced BI-tools would increase the ability of value creation in the private healthcare sector organizations. The approach provides valuable insights for value identifying the future needs of Business Intelligence and creates understanding on the current state within the private healthcare sector.

Organizations aiming to use modern data analytics face several severe challenges that were not evident or visible beforehand. In this paper we study a Finnish manufacturing company’s data empowerment and information management processes and practices, particularly from the viewpoint of data utilization. We answer to questions 1) what challenges the case organization faces and, more generally, 2) what are the lessons learned from advancing such endeavour. We have a case study of a Finnish globally operating manufacturing company which was carried out in 2016. The empirical data is consisted of group discussions, relevant data sets acquired from the case company’s information systems, and lastly, 12 thematic interviews of the key actors in the company in relation to service development. Interview themes were related to the following issues: information needs, managerial practices, knowledge concepts, information technology and information systems, and knowledge and network dynamics. We analysed qualitative data by using Choo’s (2002) information management model as a framework. Based on the analysis we point out challenges related to information needs, information gathering, sharing and utilization. Afterwards we analyse the requirements data and information empowerment faces and summarize our lessons learned how to create value and actionable knowledge from data. Understanding data-based value creation helps organizations to enhance its decision-making and knowledge processes. However, most research focuses either on knowledge and its management, or data and information quality issues. Quite rarely the value chain from data to knowledge and its utilization are illustrated. In this paper we present the data-based value creation pipeline and its concrete challenges and solutions. Our focus is on data-based value creation in general. Consequently, our study illustrates practical challenges in relation to research literature from several disciplines increasing our awareness of intertwined nature of issues and path dependency between details. This understanding and lessons learned also open up new research avenues. The approach provides valuable insights for managing service development and decision-making and creates understanding on data-based value creation. Achieved understanding provides meaningful knowledge for organizations utilizing or having plans to utilize, for example, data analytic methods in their businesses.

The aim of the study is to identify the contribution of authors in the domain of Knowledge Management (KM). The underlying data is from two leading KM journals, namely, the Journal of Knowledge Management (JKM) and the Journal of Intellectual Capital (JIC). We downloaded articles from Thomson Reuters Web of Science (WoS), with JKM and JIC-specific searches resulting in 508 and 73 citing articles respectively. The timeframe of analysis was 2009-2016. This dataset was used to create co-citation network visualisations to provide insights into the clusters of authors and research topics. Measures such as Betweenness centrality and hubs-authorities (HITS) were used to identify significant authors and their key themes of interest. More specifically, network analysis identified six dominant research themes, it revealed a total of 14,422 authors being cited (depicted as nodes in the visualisation) with a total of 1,023,123 citations (edges). Based on the findings of this study, the paper will explore the specific themes and the intellectual turning points in KM research and its evolution. Our bibliometric analysis has practical significance for researchers since it recognises the dominant research areas, and by extension, it identifies those that are still in their infancy; the latter having the potential of representing an interesting research gap. The limitation of the study is that the underlying data is only from two journals (albeit, from the top two journals in KM), which may lead to partially biased results. In future, the aim is to also leverage the analysis to more KM journals, e.g., the top ten journals within the Serenko & Bontis (2013) most updated list.

The aim of this paper is to describe the organisational factors that enhance digital business development in private- and public-sector organisations. Quantitative methods are utilised to analyse the relationships between business digitalisation levels and organisational factors, including leadership and culture. This study provides valuable understanding of the organisational factors contributing to digital business development, on which studies are scarce. This study contributes new knowledge on the key factors promoting the digitalisation of businesses. The study indicates that strategic leadership and cultural readiness for strategic value co-creation are associated with higher levels of business digitalisation and, therefore, are key factors to take into account when promoting business digitalisation. These findings contribute to the practical development of digitalisation of organisations, which is relevant to the competitiveness of individual companies and the larger Finnish economy.

Today’s knowledge worker is typically deeply immersed into the digitally rich, ubiquitous work space during most of the wake hours. Information technology has enhanced knowledge work processes, especially communication related to the work processes, in several ways. Technological tools enable asynchronicity, spatial dispersion, and mobility. Work is no longer bound to time or place, and working environments in the digital era differ from those before. In the context of knowledge work this means using technological tools to enhance performing tasks and, especially, to support co-creation. The paper aims to build a retrospect on discussion around them during last twenty years. The paper addresses work environments of knowledge work based on structured literature review on how tools supporting knowledge work, their affordance and information ergonomics and effects on well-being, performance and productivity have been studied in articles published in top 10 knowledge management area journals. The paper reveals the gap between managerial intentions, practice and discussion in literature. The practical contribution of the paper is about summarising development of knowledge work environment and means of production. This is about on concentrating focus on relevant issues and recent findings. Many topics in the field emerge in cycles, yet they remain at least partly unsolved in practice

This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of information and communication technologies (ICT) tools to enable the sharing of tacit knowledge in organisations. Sharing knowledge is defined as the interactions between human actors whose raw material is knowledge (Helmstadter, 2003). This behavior is critical to the creation and application of organizational knowledge. In relation to the existing types of knowledge, we incorporated the most used classification in the literature, postulated by the philosopher Michael Polanyi (1958), who suggested that there are two types of knowledge: tacit and explicit. Based on this, a way of defining sharing knowledge is the process by which employees exchange tacit and explicit knowledge (Nonaka, 2007). Tools based on information and communication technologies (ICT) have been traditionally used to share explicit knowledge, while in the literature there is no clarity about the effectiveness of these tools to share tacit knowledge (Panahi, Watson and Partridge, 2013). Although, research on the subject is not exhaustive, there are reports of the ineffectiveness of ICT tools to share tacit knowledge (Abadi, Hussini, Sriraj, Thienthong and Finley, 2009), as well as reports of their effectiveness to share tacit knowledge (Razmerita, Kirchner and Nabeth, 2014). The debate about ICT tools as facilitators of tacit knowledge sharing suggests a current gap in the knowledge management literature (Panahi, Watson, and Partridge, 2016). In our study, we found that those ICT tools that facilitate dialogue, for example, audio conferences and text messages, are effective to share tacit knowledge and that ICT tools that do not facilitate knowledge dialogue, for example internet and emails, are not effective to share tacit knowledge. We adopted a quantitative approach. Data were collected using an instrument that measures types of knowledge and tools to share knowledge. Participants were 217 knowledge workers in New Zealand and researchers who attended a knowledge management conference in the United Kingdom. This study contributes to clarify if ICT tools are effective to share tacit knowledge. We found that some ICT tools are ineffective to share tacit knowledge. However, we also found that some tools based on ICT can facilitate knowledge sharing, specifically those that permit dialogue, for example audio-conferencing and text messaging. The outcomes of the application contribute to redesign strategies and activities of organisational communication and collaborative work, to make the exchange of tacit knowledge more productive in the processes of creation and application of knowledge.

The aim of the research is to develop theory and practice of managing risks in the process of generating new knowledge, in particular, identifying patterns of knowledge generation risks spread depending new knowledge cost structure. A set of focus group interviews were conducted management with representatives of medium size companies to identify patterns of new knowledge generation risks spread and formulating recommendations concerning cost optimization and risk. The following hypothesis was tested during the research: there is a dependence between knowledge generation risk and cost structure of generating different types of knowledge. During the research the authors observed the following pattern: the larger the costs for research are, the less the risk of functional knowledge generation is and the higher the risk of generating operational knowledge is. If research costs take 8-10% of overall company costs, knowledge generation risks structure becomes stable and looks as follows: functional knowledge generation risk is 15-18%; structural – 28-30%; operational – 53-55%. The four strategies of spreading overall risk were identified that depending on the different types of knowledge and the share of costs for research: strategy of borrowing knowledge; knowledge copying strategy; knowledge imitation strategy; knowledge generation strategy. Therefore, the conducted research demonstrates interdependence between the level of knowledge increase risk and costs structure for different types of knowledge. It has been defined that at minimal costs for research the risk of functional knowledge increase is the highest whereas operational and structural knowledge increase is relatively low. As the level of research costs grows functional knowledge generation risk decreases, but the risk of generating operational and structural knowledge grows. Effective innovational development of companies, particularly in challenging economic environment, requires organization of optimal costs structure for different types of knowledge. It is strategic knowledge management based on company basic strategy, its aims and development vectors that provides maximum effect in the field of ensuring competitiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the problem of validating new transdisciplinary knowledge. The problem of validating new knowledge is always hard, but in case of mono-disciplinary knowledge, we at least have the disciplinary knowledge against which to validate. However, when transdisciplinary knowledge is created, two additional problems appear. On the one hand, the new knowledge links to concepts in more than one discipline, which are thus likely to belong to different intellectual traditions. On the other hand, the new knowledge does not belong to any of these disciplines, and thus the usual ways of validating fail us. In this paper we choose the electric car (represented by the Tesla), which we look at from the viewpoint of mathematics, physics, psychology, and economics. For each discipline we consider a simplistic approach that we label ‘dogma’ and a more sophisticated approach that we label ‘philosophy’. We speculate about how new knowledge can be created within these disciplines as well as in a multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary manner. Then we examine the problem of validating transdisciplinary knowledge. We conceptualise a three-step validation process for the new transdisciplinary knowledge and show how it can be supported using a knowledge-based expert system. Validating is always a difficult problem in academic research but in the case of transdisciplinary knowledge, it gains an additional level of complexity. In contrast, practitioners validate all the time, and their validation is nearly always transdisciplinary. Furthermore, what works well in academic research is validating experimental findings and similar results based on hard evidence. There are continuous attempts to develop validation principles in qualitative research but there is still no agreement or guidelines on how to execute validation correctly or, at least, in an acceptable way. Validating in case of conceptual results is virtually non-existent. The little that exists can be reduced to examining the consistency of new knowledge with the existing disciplinary knowledge. Therefore in this paper we initiate what can be a long journey of developing principles of validation in the case of new transdisciplinary knowledge resulting from a conceptual inquiry. This is what we call validating meta-knowledge. We believe that the most significant implication of our work in transdisciplinary validation will be education, particularly at the highest doctoral level. However, we also believe that creative problem solvers, academics and practitioners alike will also benefit from a better understanding of transdisciplinary validation.

We observe that the pressure of regulatory practices, whether de facto, prescribed legally, imposed by means of standards or other, entails and increasingly so the adoption by organizations of Data Governance (DG) practices in the management of their data. What is interesting is that the prescriptive means employed to specify the said DG in the form of Controlled Language (CL), is not only itself a knowledge asset, but that furthermore interpretation of the said DG prescriptions in the context of organizational data can provide complementary knowledge assets in the form of organizational value outcomes. That this is possible is due to the integration of DG and operational access to organizational data, which has been possible for some time. To exploit this situation, we describe a model-theoretic model marrying the disciplines of ‘Knowledge Asset Dynamics’, DG and formal linguistics enabling obtaining knowledge from organizational value outcomes and vice versa. Our model’s data content is diachronic in nature, thus providing a sound basis for knowledge asset dynamics. Our approach enables building a knowledge base in the form of a validated CL corpus amenable to mechanical enquiry and inference. We propose an approach in which ‘organizational value outcomes’ are the result of the global application of DG founded on a semantic meta model enabling modelling the semantic structure of an arbitrary database in which the traditional static attribute-value couple semantics is rendered dynamic by means of context polarization. DG which forms the model’s knowledge is expressed in human and machine comprehensible form using semantic rules written in CL. This methodology puts in evidence the feasibility of a constructive approach for relating knowledge and organizational value outcomes, which is intensional and exhaustive in nature, whose development process is inherently agile due to its model−driven evaluation procedure, and which incorporates traceability with justifications (these being increasingly mandatory, imposed by regulatory authorities, legislation etc.), and which furthermore enables the mechanical generation of exhaustive case based benchmarks. Instantiations of the model with application domain specific data values provide the possibility of performing set theoretic operations (union, forward functional composition etc.). The outcomes of the application involve the practice of normalising inherent in our approach which is consistent with standardization for interoperability within and between digital organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the current state and crucial issues of knowledge assessment and measurement in Russian higher education (HE) from the faculty perspective. Knowledge management plays a vital role in HE institutions (HEI) as they are involved in creating and disseminating knowledge. Educators realize that creating a social environment in HEI that encourages faculty to continuously extend their own knowledge and develop effective ways of capturing new knowledge is the key to university prosperity. Based on extensive literature review, there are identified some issues related to knowledge management (KM) at HEI. The key issues involve: the measurement of teaching and research-based activities (publications, grant applications, scientific-research conferences) in faculty’s professional work; the balance of quantitative and qualitative indicators used to assess faculty’s performance; challenges of continuous professional development. Primary data were collected through surveys from a sample of HEI faculty and expert interviews. Based on empirical research, the study reveals major problems of managing faculty’s knowledge at an individual level. The study makes a valuable contribution, given that there is a lack of empirical studies of this nature focusing on Russian HE institutions. The findings were reported to management of HE institutions and presented at some scientific-research conferences. Some ideas were realized in the system of key performance indicators introduced in 2016 with the aim to stimulate the faculty teaching and research creativity and enhance knowledge management effectiveness in Russian higher education.

This article aims to identify the most crucial issues of knowledge management at higher school with the focus on students’ distance learning practices. The main criterion of knowledge management effectiveness is the quality of knowledge demonstrated by university graduates. Based on an extensive review of literature, processes of knowledge management from students’ perspective are identified. These include such processes as knowledge identification, dissemination, capturing and assessment. Primary data were collected through surveys from a sample of distance students and expert interviews with higher school faculty. Based on empirical research, the study reveals major problems of managing students’ knowledge in distance learning at all stages of its implementation. The study makes a valuable contribution, given that there is a lack of empirical studies of this nature focusing on distinctive features of knowledge management of Russian students learning at a distance. This paper raises awareness and provides initial guidelines to university management in formulating strategies on how to properly approach and manage the KM processes in distance learning programs.

This paper conceptualizes education export as an activity aimed at transferring intellectual capital from one country to another. The analysis produces two analytical frameworks for identifying the relevant elements of intellectual capital in education export projects – one from the provider’s perspective and the other from the customer’s perspective. The paper is a literature-based conceptual study that links the literature streams of higher education / education export and intellectual capital. There is no prior research linking education export and intellectual capital. As expected, given the central role of intellectual capital in education export, the concept of intellectual capital was considered a useful tool for getting a more detailed understanding of the different kinds of knowledge-based resources that are transferred during an education export activity. The results of this study can be used in further empirical research concerning education export as well as in practical management work related to evaluating, planning or improving export activities. However, more research is needed.

Problem solving is a transversal skill that transcends individual disciplines and explores the applicability of knowledge. The purpose of this study was to examine students’ learning behaviour in an interactive problem-solving environment by means of a logfile analysis, which provided both a qualitative and quantitative description of the exploration strategies students used in mapping minimally complex, simulated problems. We propose an approach which enables us to describe not only the quantitative change of students’ learning and exploration strategies in a simulated problem-solving environment, but also the qualitative change. The sample for the study was drawn from first-year university students (N=1729; Mean_age=19.58; SD_age=1.8). The MicroDYN approach was employed as a measurement device for creative problem solving (OECD, 2014), which is a specific form of problem solving in interactive situations involving minimal complex systems (Funke, 2014). The assessment took place in the ICT lab of the University of Szeged Library. The test took approximately 45 minutes to complete. The results shed new light and provide a new interpretation of previous analyses of creative problem solving in the MicroDYN approach, since the existing body of empirical research involved analyses of the second (describe) and the third (operate) phases. The true benefit of the latent profile analysis‐based approach is that it has confirmed our hypothesis that development can be described in terms of not only quantitative change, but also qualitative change. An exclusively quantitative analysis is insufficient, as it would lead to false conclusions in this case. There is great potential in investigating and clustering the problem-solving behaviour and exploration strategy usage of students to learn about their learning strategies in a creative and interactive problem-solving environment. This information has direct implications for teaching, especially for devising instructional methods for improving students’ higher-order reasoning skills and scientific inquiry (Kuhn, 2012).

This research explores this topic by developing the links between a firm’s organizational memory, counter-knowledge, the process of knowledge application, and organizational agility. This study addresses the following two questions: Does the enhancement of organizational memory result in the development of both counter-knowledge and the process of knowledge application? Does the development of both counter-knowledge and the process of knowledge application at the same time hinder the enhancement of organizational agility? The above relationships are examined through an empirical investigation of 112 companies listed on the Spanish Stock Exchange. The results are calculated using a SEM approach based on components (PLS). Results support that organizational memory not only supports the understanding of routines, processes, and procedures of the company (i.e. knowledge application), but also allows the spreading of rumours, gossip, unsupportable explanations and justifications, and inappropriate or false beliefs (i.e. counter-knowledge). Furthermore, the knowledge derived as a result of developing in parallel or simultaneously both counter-knowledge and the process of knowledge application provides bad references, which in turn lead to a natural deterioration or depreciation of organizational agility. The considerations discussed above allow us to put forward the argument that counter-knowledge plays an important role in the relationship between organizational memory and organizational agility. Findings from this study reinforces the literature which claims that measures to counteract the effects of counter-knowledge on knowledge structures are urgently needed otherwise personal relations are prone to suffer from misunderstandings or wrong assumptions.

This study investigates the impact of counter-knowledge on the relationship between knowledge management and business performance. Regarding this, much has been written about why it is important to manage knowledge but considerably less has been written about the role played by counter-knowledge in the different knowledge processes. Following previous attempts to identify and define the different knowledge processes, we propose the following processes as the main knowledge management processes required to increase firm performance: realized absorptive capacity, organizational memory, and knowledge application. Then we analyse the counter-knowledge’s influence on knowledge management processes and the possible impact on firm performance. A model is tested to examine the impact of counter-knowledge on the knowledge management processes and the firm performance on the Spanish banking industry from a quantitative approach. Specifically, we tested our hypotheses using a SEM approach based on composites (PLS). The unit of analysis is branch-office managers from the 15 banks operating in Spain in 2013. Data were collected from 151 branch-office managers. The assumption that knowledge management is an organizational capability implies that firms need to possess a set of resources in order to create, share, and use knowledge (Chou et al., 2007; Lin, 2007; among others). Therefore, organizations should have processes for sharing knowledge (i.e., organizational memory) and for using the knowledge created (i.e., knowledge application) in order to support the management of knowledge to increase business performance. Given the importance of external knowledge for the development and increase in employees’ knowledge and learning capabilities (Jantunen, 2005; Newey and Zahra, 2009), realized absorptive capacity also represents an important part of a firm’s ability to create new knowledge (Chou, 2005; Lane, Koka, and Pathak, 2006; Liao et al., 2010). The analysis of the role of counter-knowledge in this classic relationship is the value of this paper. The considerations discussed above allow us to put forward the argument that counter-knowledge plays an important role in knowledge management since it influences knowledge management processes (i.e., realized absorptive capacity, organizational memory, and knowledge application). According to Cegarra, Eldridge and Gamo (2012), counter-knowledge can be seen as a natural deterioration or depreciation of organizational knowledge, usually with negative consequences for customers. This paper tries to support empirically the effect of counter-knowledge in the knowledge management processes and firm performance.

Our focus is on how VUCA impacts on conventional management education, and in how novel educational activities are required to augment management education so it more successfully addresses the challenges of VUCA. We developed an approach based on participatory action research into the development of new learning methods to support managers in coping with VUCA. It presents a case study of an institution which has explicitly sought to develop new forms of learning for developing innovative managers, and the experiences in three innovative learning approaches are compared. In this research a focus was on the lack of order faced by top managers, and on why and how new educational methods are needed to address this. Use was made of a specific lens arising from complexity science, namely the Cynefin framework (Kurtz and Snowden, 2003; Snowden and Boone, 2007), to analyse the high level education implications of VUCA in non-military organisations (Bennett and Lemoine, 2014). Cynefin is a sense-making framework which divides contexts into two domains – order and unorder. Originality/value –This methodology involves an approach based on participatory action research into the development of new learning methods to support managers in coping with VUCA. It examines an institution which has explicitly sought to develop new forms of learning for developing innovative managers, and the experiences in three distinct parallel approaches are compared. The outcomes challenged one approach being proposed to addressing VUCA, namely to simplify solutions into “antidotes” e.g. Johansen, 2009. This search for antidotes means deploying the formulaic approaches developed to “solve” order. This study concluded that it is fruitless to deploy the tools of order, to solve an utterly different type of problem, namely unorder. The educational emphasis needed to be on developing personal qualities of current and future managers, and they needed to be developed through experiential learning approaches, rather than the transmission of formal knowledge and recipes. Overall, the action research concluded that it was feasible to develop innovative learning methods even within the parameters of a conventional institution.

To hinder the high failure rate of strategic networks, recently scholars have concentrated on behavioral aspects such as trust, conflict management, resolution and commitment as fundamental antecedents of strategic network performance (Christoffersen, 2013). Within this context, this article focuses on the antecedents of commitment, based on the rationale that high levels of commitment cannot occur naturally during network evolution. Therefore, this article aims to understand how commitment is achieved along the development process of SME strategic networks. To address the aim of the article, a qualitative approach based on multiple case studies was used. This method is generally more suited to deal with “how” research questions and when researchers want to understand a real-life phenomenon in depth (Yin, 2013). Two case studies of Italian SME strategic networks having an increasing and decreasing level of commitment were selected to have a base of comparison, following a ‘polar types’ theoretical sampling approach suggested by Eisenhardt and Graebner (2007): Case 1 and Case 2 are both alliances of 12 partners offering complementary products and services in the automotive and automation industry respectively. The study makes a noteworthy academic contribution to theory concerning commitment in a SME strategic network context. Its main value consists in providing an in-depth and overarching investigation of the antecedents of partners’ commitment, which is supposed to be one of the determinants of network success, as anticipated. By comparing two cases in which partners show a different level of commitment along the network development process, this study allows to provide a twofold contribution. The former is to unveil the most relevant elements partners may rely on to achieve a high level of commitment and the latter is to propose a dynamic approach towards the study of commitment in SME strategic networks. The article provides a series of practical guidelines for managers. In particular, SME entrepreneurs and managers may profit from specific indications regarding which are the factors that influence the commitment of partners and how to increase it throughout the network development process. SME strategic networks are a useful mean to overcome the economic crisis and to open up to international markets. For this reason, it is necessary to study in detail the elements that can support the survival of this kind of networks and their strengthening.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse knowledge transfer in the university system and networking settings through a literature review and by adopting, in the future, an international comparison between competitive and uncompetitive regions in the current scenario (Huggins, Johnston, 2009). Following this aim, the paper presents the characteristics and differences between social and capital networks (Aiken, 2010; Chakrabarti, Rice 2003; Cheng-Nan et al. 2007; Huggins, 2010) as well as hybrid and institutional organizations to define the knowledge transfer model useful within an international context. The analysis has been developed, in this first phase of the research, through the review of literature. This current analysis is the first step of our research aimed at showing how the knowledge transfer is activated by universities (Dearlove, 2002) and which is the best networking model able to support knowledge sharing in different regional contexts (Cardoni, 2015; Clark, 1998; Etzkowitz, 2008; Goddard, Kempton, 2011; Guerrero, Urbano, 2010; Gunasekara, 2006; Trequattrini et al., 2015). We propose a qualitative approach based on a comparison between competitive and uncompetitive regions of different countries in order to recognize which university model and networking setting can facilitate knowledge transfer towards the territory. The sources of the paper are of a secondary nature. Several articles, documents, books and websites have been consulted. This methodology highlights the knowledge transfer activated by universities and networks towards the environment and points out the differences and provides suggestions in order to improve the knowledge transfer of the traditional university model. In this way, the current research contributes towards expanding the international literature on the topic of knowledge transfer. The major implication of the paper is to find the characteristics and differences between competitive and uncompetitive regions through a future international comparison. However, findings of the paper are aimed at introducing suggestions towards the activation of knowledge transfer in traditional universities.