The Use of SAP as a Knowledge Management Tool at an Australian Research University

This chapter explores the role of SAP (a leading enterprise resource planning [ERP] system) in enabling knowledge management (KM) practice at a research university as a KM tool. A qualitative case study approach is pursued to achieve a rich and in-depth understanding of this organizational phenomenon. KM is understood by the university as consisting of four phases: knowledge creation, knowledge storage, knowledge sharing, and knowledge application. This study finds that the use of SAP system enables the process of knowledge management within the case organization through several means including idea generation, prime repository of knowledge, sharing workflow information, and facilitating decision making. Based on empirical evidence, this case provides a comprehensive understanding of the role of SAP systems in supporting KM process, which contributes to the theoretical domains of both ERP system and KM. This study provides guidelines for practitioners to create strategies for successful KM practice in concert with to the development of IT strategy.

Evaluating Knowledge Management Practices in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs)

Higher education institutions (HEIs) are in knowledge intensive environments and play a central role in knowledge creation and production through research, learning, and teaching. It is important to consider that knowledge plays a vital role to HEIs and thus could benefit from established KM practices. The aim of this chapter is to evaluate the practices or implementation of knowledge management (KM) within HEIs in the context of Brunei Darussalam. It examines the importance, processes and the challenges or barriers of KM practices. The findings demonstrate that among the HEIs in Brunei that have developed KM initiatives, there are differences in the role and approaches. This verifies that KM is multifaceted concept and contextual in practice. Moreover, the findings revealed how knowledge in theory is managed and conceptualised. In conclusion, KM plays a significant role in HEIs in Brunei Darussalam with a contribution through a conceptual KMPro framework which has the potential to provide a guideline for HEIs practitioners to succeed in KM which was criticised as elusive.

Valuing Intellectual Capital at the Postgraduate Level in Higher Education Institutions

Knowledge management has become an essential part of today's society. Since organizations and society in general are starting to realize the importance of knowledge for the development of the economies, higher education institutions are appearing as the central tool to develop knowledge and consequently develop society. But normally, these institutions focus on teaching and learning as their main processes and give all of their attention to developing and improving these processes. Nonetheless, higher education institutions have recognized the importance of intellectual capital to respond to the new needs of society and to improve the quality of education, so they start talking about models to measure intellectual capital, although these models, as it was previously mentioned, are being developed for production companies. The objective of this chapter is to state the importance of developing models to value intellectual capital in higher education institutions, especially at the postgraduate level.

The Implementation of E-Learning in an Italian University as a Consequence of the Emergency Challenges

This research aims to analyze the implementation process of new knowledge management tools (KMT) in an Italian university as a result of the emergency challenges (COVID-19). The processes of academic knowledge transfer (AKT) and knowledge management tools (KMT) are undergoing rapid changes due to technological innovation and new user requirements. Universities are obliged to offer educational and training courses through distance learning technologies and e-learning platforms. The research adopts a research-action approach to analyze the case study. The results of this research show that the extensive use of KMT and e-learning requires new approaches for the creation of educational content on the part of professors; on the other hand, the implementation of these new technologies requires the redesign of the knowledge transfer processes to meet the requirements of web connection and the quality of teaching materials which are shared with many students at the same time.

Business Education in the USA

This chapter examines emerging trends and developments of business education in American higher education. The authors trace the genesis of U.S. business education to its medieval roots and explore its progression through historical stages and four industrial revolutions, including the fourth industrial revolution (4IR). Analysis reveals eight mega drivers affecting universities and colleges and creating development opportunities and competitive pressures for change. Drivers range from stagnant enrollments to skyrocketing costs of higher education to the devastating impacts of the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19). In examination of implications of the 4IR and emerging socio-economic trends for B-schools, the chapter discusses developmental outlook and emerging instructional innovations such as flipped classroom, project-based learning, and others.

Knowledge Management Strategies for Higher Education

With digital transformation and progress in science, developing process capabilities with limited resources has gained immense importance for higher education institutions. To provide the highest quality education services and manage the information and knowledge management processes, appropriate strategies, and related key performance management factors must be defined efficiently. In the literature, numerous models and tools have been proposed to measure knowledge management capabilities (Mohapatra et al., 2016; Imran et al., 2017; Dayan et al., 2017; Trivella et al., 2015). This chapter aims to develop a better understanding of the relationship between knowledge management processes and propose an assessment model of knowledge management system for higher education institutions to measure knowledge resources and their capabilities. To do so, the knowledge management system is identified by four main attributes (People, Processes, Technology and Culture) and each attribute is comprehensively analysed in a dedicated section.

Factors Affecting Successful Adoption and Adaption of E-Learning Strategies

This chapter explores factors affecting the development of e-learning strategies in the context of higher education institutions. The authors focus on understanding the impact of e-learning on pedagogical approaches to teaching and learning and elaborate on the challenges higher education institutions experience in implementing e-learning strategies. A combination of synchronous and asynchronous delivery allows educational establishments to not only offer a service that is good value for money but promotes action learning, and encourages ownership, independent learning, and creative thinking. This work proposes social networking scaffolding for asynchronous and synchronous e-learning, where the learner is at the centre of a social network system. Furthermore, the chapter provides guidance to higher education governors, leaders, and e-learning technicians in developing and implementing e-learning strategies.

Critical Knowledge-Sharing Barriers and Knowledge Governance in Vietnamese Higher Education Institutions

This research reveals the Vietnamese higher education institution (HEI) environment to examine knowledge sharing issues in developing countries. It compares knowledge management (KM) governance mechanisms in HEIs in a developing country with KM governance mechanisms used widely in developed countries. The authors position this research in the contextual of management capacity, infrastructure, and training issues. This chapter considers how strategies to develop and implement knowledge transfer are both led and governed in Vietnamese HEIs. Data were analyzed and triangulated from interviews, focus groups from different universities, and government and university websites in Vietnam. Four significant factors are identified in the KM process—bureaucratic management, hierarchical governance patterns, lack of autonomy, and underdeveloped KM systems—as contributory factors. The results are compared with extant KM governance literature and finds that knowledge is managed through bureaucratic mechanisms. Vietnamese academics rarely share their knowledge critical to research and research-led teaching.

Knowledge Management in Higher Education Institutions

The teaching management of higher education institutions (HEIs) has traditionally focused on processing compliance with regulated curricular conditions, rather than normalizing the learning and knowledge developed, to be transferred to society. The motivation of knowledge management in HEIs should be aimed at strengthening knowledge preservation strategies. In recent decades, this model has been a growing interest on the part of academics and academic institutions at the international level. The main objective of this study is to analyze research trends on knowledge management in HEIs worldwide during the period 1980-2019. Bibliometric techniques were applied to a sample of 1931 scientific journal articles selected from the Scopus database. The study documented a rapidly growing knowledge base, mostly written by academics located in developed societies. This chapter provides a point of reference for future research on this topic, as well as revealing the intellectual structure of this interdisciplinary field.

Exploring Institutional Behavioural Elements Needed to Support Knowledge Management in Higher Education Partnerships

As market competitiveness in the higher education sector continues to grow, higher education executives and managers are exploring alternatives of maintaining and growing market share by forming partnerships with other higher education institutions. Collaborative initiatives amongst higher education institutions are driven by key stakeholders, higher education executives, managers, academics, and administrators, who are involved in a significant amount of knowledge exchange processes at institutional and departmental levels. Entering into a partnership and managing knowledge at intra-institutional levels becomes a very important, challenging, and complex task. This chapter argues that in order to develop effective higher education partnerships, executives and managers will need to channel their efforts and resources on four institutional, behavioural elements, which include institutional culture, trust, absorptive capacities and communication channels.