The Development of Knowledge and Information Networks in Tourism Destinations

This chapter looks to analyse new paradigms in the relationship between public and private organisations towards tourism destinations. It proposes new approaches for increased performance both at the competitive and the organisational level. Based on the literature review, this chapter suggests new organisational forms of being and interaction directed at increased customer needs and growing competitiveness on the tourism industry. The development of public-private partnerships and knowledge networking in destinations and in organisations are issues also addressed. Furthermore, the implementation of interorganisational networks in a cooperative environment is important in developing and maintaining an adequate environment with shared objectives and practices in tourist destinations.

The Role of Trust, Satisfaction, and Communication in the Development of Participation in Virtual Communities

The rapid growth of virtual communities has created a new interest in researchers. Indeed, understanding these communities is especially relevant because it may allow for the obtaining of valuable information (e.g. needs of particular groups of people). In this respect, this work tries to explore which factors motivate individuals to take part of a virtual community since participation is one of the most important variables for the development and sustainability of virtual communities. More specifically, we analyze the effects of trust in a community, satisfaction with previous interactions and the communication level of the members’ intentions to participate in a given virtual community. The data (obtained through an online surveys made to members of several virtual communities) show that trust in a virtual community had a positive and significant effect on members’ participation in a virtual community. In addition, we found that satisfaction with previous interactions and the level of communication in a community significantly increased the level of trust in that virtual community.

Virtual Communities of Practice

In geographically dispersed organizations, like multinational corporations (MNCs), contextual gaps exist between senders and receivers of knowledge. Employee socialization resulting from physical proximity facilitates contextualization of the transferred knowledge. However, in MNCs most knowledge transfers take place through virtual communication media. We investigate the phenomenon of virtual communities of practice, and propose them to be efficient for individual’s knowledge retrieval as participation in such communities reduces the contextual gaps between senders and receivers of knowledge. However, the organization must provide a knowledge-sharing friendly culture, and an institutional protectionism, in order to establish the required level of swift trust within the virtual community.

A Complex Adaptive Systems-Based Enterprise Knowledge Sharing Model

This chapter describes a complex adaptive systems (CAS)-based enterprise knowledge-sharing (KnS) model. The CAS-based enterprise KnS model consists of a CAS-based KnS framework and a multi-agent simulation model. Enterprise knowledge sharing is modeled as the emergent behavior of knowledge workers interacting with the KnS environment and other knowledge workers. The CAS-based enterprise KnS model is developed to aid Knowledge Management (KM) leadership and other KnS researchers in gaining an enhanced understanding of KnS behavior and its influences. A premise of this research is that a better understanding of KnS influences can result in enhanced decision-making of KnS interventions that can result in improvements in KnS behavior.

Editor Conclusions

The study of virtual organizations encompasses several research fields, and the variables involved in each of them are sometimes closely related. This represents a challenge for managers, since the decision taken about the technical tools to use, the organizational structure, incentives or procedures, for example, are tightly linked, and this represents a complex problem in itself. Nevertheless, the biggest challenge in virtual organization management is the lack of experience. Although the phenomenon is not new- there are plenty of successful communities of practice in the net- most of the managers and professionals have limited experience in networking, and only as users in specific areas of knowledge or business activities, and are not fully aware of networking possibilities and limitations. This lack of experience implies a big trial when facing the problems involved in virtual organizations management.

Knowledge Management in SMEs Clusters

This chapter highlights the necessity of establishing relationships with other companies and external agents in order to empower the creation and diffusion of knowledge, through factors such as innovation. Likewise, the influence of geographical and territorial factors will be studied in the context of this economy. SMES normally work and are immersed in particular geographical regions so this chapter will analyze the particular case of knowledge generation and sharing in SMES clusters as an essential source of competitive advantage. A new organizational form will be suggested in order to make possible the creation, transfer and sharing of knowledge in supply chain of SMES clusters. In this sense, a network functioning model is finally proposed.

The Value of Virtual Networks for Knowledge Management

In this chapter we describe a practical tool useful to managing knowledge in the firm. It has already been introduced and tested in several firms and we have obtained good conclusions about its performance. In this chapter, we combine the modules of the software application with the theoretical functions of Knowledge Management principles. We also develop a list of indicators to measure the effect of implementing SoftKnow in a firm. This is useful to have an economic impact of the introduction of a practical tool based on Knowledge Management. After reading this chapter we think the managers’ perceptions of this type of tool will change, since they will able to assimilate all the impacts and applications of the tool.

Knowledge Integration Through Inter-Organizational Virtual Organizations

In this study we adopt an inter-organizational view to examine virtual organizations. Thus, we understand this phenomenon as a strategic agreement between organizations that collaborate and coordinate their work through information technologies. This dimension adds greater flexibility to the strategic alliance, which in turn is beneficial for the integration of knowledge. In high technology industries, inter- organizational virtual organizations add further advantages to this option of knowledge integration through strategic alliances because of the importance of speed and flexibility. We put forward a series of propositions, following an initial approximation to this phenomenon through the combination of the strategic alliances, virtual organizations and the knowledge-based view literatures.

E-Government Challenges

Government agencies are being pressed to become more efficient. For this reason, e-government strategies result from the expectations from society to be able to use Internet technologies as a strategic means of communications and relationship with its public sector, virtualising the delivery of public services. The aim of this chapter is to identify the main barriers and facilitators affecting the deployment of e-government, and to classify them into dimensions that may help researchers and practitioners to identify and better understand these factors. A literature analysis and empirical research based on the perceptions of the technology managers of Spanish councils with more than 5000 inhabitants and institutional Websites were carried out. The findings disclose some lessons for public managers to take into account when implementing an e-government strategy. However, the ultimate challenge seems to be in the hands of the politicians of the council, who are responsible for developing these e-government strategies.

Human Capital and E-Learning

Companies are increasingly conscious of the fact that the achieving of their objectives, together with the improvement of their competitive advantages, depends on the appropriate management of the human factor. The dynamism and strong competition that characterize the business world make it increasingly necessary to introduce a system of human resources to allow the exploiting of the knowledge and skills of both people and teams, thus encouraging their learning capacity. In this context, e-learning is becoming established as a flexible and quick way of improving the acquiring of knowledge and skills within a company. The rapid growth and expansion of e-learning, together with the failure of some of its projects, has made the development of various assessment approaches a necessity. Given the importance of this aspect, the aim of this study is to analyze the progress that has been made in the quality of e-learning initiatives.