Purpose: Knowledge strategy and its planning are affected by uncertainty and environmental turbulence. This paper aims to discuss these issues and present knowledge strategy planning as an integrated approach for facing these conditions. Design/methodology/approach: Based on an extensive survey and an original re-elaboration of the literature, the paper addresses these research questions: What is the meaning of knowledge strategy, and how can it be related to concepts such as strategic thinking, business strategy and knowledge management (KM) in organizations? What are the limitations of a pure rational approach to knowledge strategy in turbulent environments and under uncertainty? and What approaches can be consequently proposed to formulate knowledge strategies? Findings: The study provides a critical reading of the current literature. Also, it proposes an integrated approach that sees planning as a continuous effort of learning and adaptation to needs and opportunities that dynamically emerge from daily practices. Research limitations/implications: The proposed framework can inspire a new research agenda to detect how knowledge strategies are planned in companies and how they are continuously adapted on the basis of a dialog between rational contributions and perceptions of reality, practical views, intuitions and emotions. This can also inspire a new agenda for company strategists and KM professionals. Originality/value: In the literature, little attention has been devoted to knowledge strategy planning. The paper contributes to fill this gap and proposes a new way to see knowledge strategy as an integration of rational thinking and dynamic learning.

The fast and unpredictable changes in the business environment lead to significant changes in the future job market. For current business students, the future will offer many new opportunities for their employment but, at the same time, it will also create many threats disguised in the disappearing jobs. Business education centered mainly on knowledge transmission is challenged to switch towards a competence-based approach which includes knowledge, skills, and attitudes. The present research focuses on the need to change the paradigm of business education by creating a new learning environment centered on business competencies, and on a new knowledge ecosystem dynamics. The approach uses both qualitative and quantitative methods. In the first phase the research is focused on a critical literature review, and extraction of ideas for the next phase based on quantitative methods. In order to evaluate the students’ perception on the need of competence-based business education, a questionnaire has been designed and applied to undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in business and management programs. Data is processed by using SPSS and deriving six logistic regressions based on the conceptual model designed similar to a hierarchy Findings coming from students show a significant awareness for the need of paradigm shift in business education, from knowledge transfer to business competence development.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the knowledge dynamics process based on the energy metaphor and the thermodynamics framework. Knowledge dynamics is analyzed as a transformational process that goes beyond the Newtonian logic used to date. Design/methodology/approach: The research design is based on metaphorical thinking, critical analysis of the mostly used knowledge metaphors to date, and the logic of thermodynamics, which is the science of energy transformation. Findings: Knowledge is conceived as a field, composed of three fundamental forms: rational knowledge, emotional knowledge and spiritual knowledge. Each form of knowledge can be transformed into another form, thus generating an iterative and interactive dynamics. The unity of knowledge is supported by the brain’s organic structure. Practical implications: Understanding knowledge dynamics as a transformational process helps managers in their problem-solving and implementation of strategies in their organizations. Knowledge dynamics is fundamental to the learning and unlearning processes, and for stimulating innovation. Knowledge dynamics, as a transformational process, is influencing both organizational behavior as well as consumers’ behavior. Originality/value: The present research uses for the first time a thermodynamics approach in understanding and explaining the knowledge dynamics, which is a transformational process of three fundamental forms of knowledge: rational, emotional and spiritual.

The emergence of knowledge economy and knowledge management revealed the need for reconsidering the concept of knowledge in a larger framework than that created by philosophers from ancient times. While the epistemology as a theory of knowledge and justification considers knowledge as a justified true belief, experts in knowledge management consider knowledge as a strategic resource. The new economic interpretation of knowledge as a strategic resource and a key contributor to achieving a competitive advantage generated a search of new metaphors to supply the attributes needed in constructing the new framework of understanding and operating with a working concept of knowledge in management. The most widespread knowledge metaphors are based on analogies with stocks, flows, and stock-and-flows. These metaphors induce, beyond some useful attributes, the Newtonian mechanics paradigm which is limited by the properties of linear spaces and reversible processes. The purpose of this paper is to show how we can enrich the theory of knowledge by introducing the concepts of knowledge fields and knowledge dynamics based on metaphorical thinking and the thermodynamics principles. The focus of our research is the energy metaphor which considers energy as a source semantic field. The main outcome of the present research is that knowledge can be considered as a field, which is manifesting in different forms like energy. This thermodynamics framework opens new directions for research in knowledge management, decision-making and leadership.

Organizational Knowledge Dynamics: Managing Knowledge Creation, Acquisition, Sharing, and Transformation: 9781466683181: Library IS&T Books