Journal of Knowledge Management, Economics and Information Technology

This paper intended to determine the role corporate culture plays in facilitating or hindering knowledge management (KM) practices, especially knowledge sharing, in selected private higher education institutions in Botswana and whether there is a fit or misfit between organisational culture of these institutions and international KM best practices.
Several key literary KM sources were consulted in which the theoretical underpinnings of the study were firmly grounded. This study used a quantitative method through the questionnaire as a data collection instrument.
A sample comprising 132 respondents was chosen from a total population of 670 comprising academic staff from five selected higher education institutions. The culture of these institutions was found to be negatively impacting on KM practices by, for example, not recognising and rewarding employee effort in promoting KM behaviour, not involving employees in decision-making, and failing to cultivate trust among employees and between employees and management.

  Organisational Culture as a Knowledge Management Enabler in Selected Private Higher Education Institutions in Botswana: A Question of Fit or Misfit (636.9 KiB, 3,100 hits)

As a creative industry, batik industry should always create a breakthrough in the form of innovative batik motifs to attract buyers. Manufacturers of batik in Indonesia are batik SMEs with very simple organization and management. However, they are in a competitive business environment that threatens their survival.
In order to continue to create innovative products, collaboration of employees in batik SMEs is absolute important. Collaboration between individuals is more likely to occur in the patterns of informal relationships rather than in formal ways.

This article examines and analyses the patterns of informal relations in Winda Sari batik. Winda Sari batik SME is one of big SMEs in Sragen. Using Social Network Analysis (SNA) for analysis, the results of this study indicate that the relationships between individuals are highly dependent and focused on the specific individuals as intermediaries.

In addition, there are patterns of relationships in the subgroups, or cliques, which have only a few numbers of members. In addition, the relationships appear to be one-way relationships than reciprocal relationships. This kind of relationships is less support to collaboration.

  Using Social Network Analysis to Analyze Collaboration in Batik SMEs (740.7 KiB, 3,926 hits)