Mini Tracks – Calls for Papers & Workshops

Public Policies, Knowledge Management and Intellectual Capital

Formal Modeling for Knowledge Management

Mini Track: Public Policies, Knowledge Management and Intellectual Capital
Chair: Eduardo Tome – Universidade Lusíada de Famalicão – Portugal

.PDF of Public Policies

Eduardo Tome

In this Minitrack we assume that Knowledge Management (KM) is both a science and an economic sector. We also assume that Intellectual Capital (IC) is the main asset that Knowledge workers and companies possess. Furthermore, major investments in IC and KM are usually made by private companies, but also by public organizations and by Third Sector organizations. However most of the analysis on KM and IC has been done from a private point of view. Indeed the most important methodologies have been designed for companies (Edvinson and Malone 1997, Kaplan and Norton, 1996) and have been applied in companies (North, Reinhardt and Schmidt, 2004 Bonermann and Alwert 2007, Bontis, 2002). The extension of the analysis to countries and regions happened rather recently (Bonfour and Edvinsson, 2005; World Bank, 2008).

Contrary to the mainstream view that IC and KM are mainly a private matter, in a recently published paper Tomé 2008 defended that Social Policies and Welfare States are the hidden face of IC and KM. According to that line of thought the public sector has an important, or even decisive role to play in the IC and KM markets, depending on the type of Welfare State that is in place in the different countries (Esping Andersen, 1993). And indeed, if we define IC as a set of economic goods or services that include among others, education, training, marketing, and R&D we have to assume that at least in some countries the public bodies have had an important role in the IC and KM market.

In that context we would welcome papers that would focus in the following topics:

How have national governments and public bodies invested in IC and KM?

Can we show relevant case studies?

Are there any best policy guidelines?

What are the good practices?

How do IC and KM public investments relate to the Esping Andersen’s 1993, analysis on the types of Welfare Capitalism?

Can we analyse the EU’s investment in IC and KM based on the Lisbon Strategy - What are the findings that result from that analysis?

What are the differences and similarities between the USA, and the EU

What is the situation in the BRICs?

How can we compare developing countries and developed countries? - Are there characteristics for the two sets of countries?Finally, following (Tomé and Neumann 2008) we would call for papers that would assess the impact of the public policies in the different aspects of the IC and KM markets, namely demand, supply, equilibrium, investment, return, stock, flow and return

References:

Bonfour, A.; Edvinsson L (2005).; Intellectual Capital for Communities (Edts) Butterworth-Heinemann. Elsevier. Oxford. UK.

Bontis, N. (2002a), "Intellectual capital disclosure in Canadian corporations", Journal of Human Resource Costing and Accounting, Vol. 14 pp.9-20.

Bornemann, M, Alwert, K. (2007) The German guideline for intellectual capital reporting: method and experiences, Journal of Intellectual Capital, Volume 8, Number 4, 2007 , pp. 563-576(14).

Edvinsson, L, Malone, M, (1997) Intellectual Capital, HarperCollins Publishers.

Esping Andersen, G (1993): The three worlds of welfare capitalism, Polity Press Cambridge.

Kaplan R.; Norton D (1996) The Balance Scorecard. Harvard.

Tomé E. (2008) The Hidden Face of Intellectual Capital: Social Policies” Journal of Intellectual Capital, volume 9, issue 3, pp. 499-518.

Tomé E. Neuman G (2008) On the way towards an European Atlas on KM and IC” 9^th European Conference on Knowledge Management, Southampton

World Bank (2008) KE and KEI Indexes (KAM, 2008). http://info.worldbank.org/etools/kam2/KAM_page5.asp

For mini track submission details, see the call for papers page.

Mini Track:, Formal Modeling for Knowledge Management
Chair: Ettore Bolisani, Università degli Studi di Padova, Italy

.PDF of Formal Modeling

Ettore Bolisani

This mini track addresses the key question of the formal foundations of KM. The definition of formal models is a crucial question in any discipline, and has often represented a reason of contrast between the "hard" sciences (mostly grounded on mathematical models) and human or social sciences (that often deal with more elusive and ambiguous objects). In the case of KM, which is a multidisciplinary field, this debate appears still at the beginning. The scholars are still more struggling to analyse the practical implications of KM rather than setting its formal foundations. As in other areas of management, formal modelling is often relegated to the technological approaches, while the "soft" issues (i.e. social and relational aspects) are much treated with qualitative models. This minitrack can would be an opportunity to discuss and share viewpoints, research proposals, findings and other points among scholars and practitioners interested in formal approaches to KM, and can provide the opportunity to set the agenda for future research in this field.

In that context we would welcome papers that would focus in the following topics:

Key issues and prospects of formal modeling in KM

Applications of formal modeling to KM research and practice

Quantitative and qualitative KM models

The issue of knowledge representation in KM

Mathematics applied to KM

Economic models applied to KM

Models of inter-organisational KM transfer

Computer simulation in KM research

For mini track submission details, see the call for papers page.

Updated 20 January 2009