Gianluca Elia

Intangible Assets in Higher Education and Research: Mission, Performance or Both?

Purpose – This paper aims to discuss the role of intangible assets in higher education and research institutions and to present a measurement framework, along with an illustrative application.Design/methodology/approach – A review of existing theories and practical experiences is undertaken to build the core conceptual model and a dashboard of indicators. The model is then applied to investigate the mission and performance angles of intellectual capital with reference to an Italian higher education and research institution.Findings – Creating intangible assets is at the core of the mission of education and research organizations. The identification and measurement of intellectual capital are thus an operational priority to evaluate the alignment between strategic orientation and performance within such institutions.Research limitations/implications – The research has to be considered as exploratory and presents a single case, resulting in the need for further applications. However, the dashboard of metric...

Semantic Knowledge Management: An Ontology-based Framework

The massive quantity of data, information, and knowledge available in digital form on the web or within the organizational knowledge base requires a more effective way to control it. The Semantic Web and its growing complexity demands a resource for the understanding of proper tools for management. Semantic Knowledge Management: An Ontology-Based Framework addresses the Semantic Web from an operative point of view using theoretical approaches, methodologies, and software applications as innovative solutions to true knowledge management. This advanced title provides readers with critical steps and tools for developing a semantic based knowledge management system.

A performance measurement system for academic entrepreneurship: a case study

Purpose – This paper aims at proposing a performance measurement system (PMS) for academic entrepreneurship. Design/methodology/approach – The PMS has been developed through action research carried out within an Italian higher education and research centre on the basis of the literature background, focus groups and interviews. Findings – The study presents a new PMS based on an input–output model for academic entrepreneurship. As a result, a multidimensional framework for measuring technology entrepreneurship is proposed together with a set of key performance indicators (KPIs) to assess the “third mission” of universities. The application of the framework allows demonstration of its validity in public settings. Research limitations/implications – Because the research was conducted in a specific organisation, the possibility of generalizing the results to similar institutions is a key issue. Hence, it is important to distinguish between what is general in scope and what is case-specific. Practical implicat...

Chapter 13 Bottom-up extraction and maintenance of ontology-based metadata

Abstract In this chapter, several flexible techniques aimed at extracting, maintaining and enriching semantic-web style metadata are discussed. Such techniques were designed for being applied in the framework of dynamic Communities of Practice (CoP) interactions. Namely, we present a way of building ontologies that proceeds in a bottom-up fashion, defining concepts as clusters of concrete objects. Unlike huge, “supply-side” normative ontologies, our bottom-up ontologies are based on use of implicit and, therefore, parsimonious part-whole and is-a relations. This makes them suitable for the ad-hoc style of conceptualization used within communities of practice and peer-to-peer (P2P) communities. Also we discuss how metadata based on bottom-up ontologies can be associated with a flexible degree of trust by collecting user feedback. Our bottom-up extraction method complements current practice, where, as a rule, ontologies are built top-down. It is not claimed that bottom-up construction is a generally valid recipe; rather, the approach is intended to enrich the ontology developers palette when designing and implementing Semantic Web applications.

Managing Ontology Evolution Via Relational Constraints

Ontology-based modelling is becoming increasingly important in the design of complex knowledge management applications. However, many problems related to large-scale ontology development, deployment and collaborative maintenance of related metadata still remain to be solved. Making online modifications to an ontology whose concepts are simultaneously being used for metadata generation may potentially disrupt metadata semantics and even introduce inconsistencies. In this paper we analyzed and classified operations on ontology according to their impact on metadata. The approach is aimed at environments (like our own Knowledge Hub) relying on a relational database for storing ontologies and metadata assertions and it is based on the use of database triggers for automating metadata maintenance.

Networked Learning for Human Capital Development

In Chapter 1 we moved from major transformations in economy and business to raise the need for a new framework, the Open Business Innovation Leadership that should inform the practice of management at a threefold level: (a) the need to develop a new mindset that incorporates the changing competitive paradigms, strategic levers and drivers of success; (b) the need for a new perspective about human capital development in terms of people, learning processes and strategic purpose; and (c) the centrality to develop social capital and stakeholder value by adopting an integrated organizational learning and innovation model. From this perspective, Chapter 2 has investigated the emergence of a competitive mindset suitable for the new scenery; whereas this chapter focuses on the centrality of intangible resources, and in particular on human resources, in leading organizations that create value.

Next-generation human resource management: a system for measuring and visualising professional competencies

The analysis of traditional CVs to evaluate professional competencies can be a challenging endeavour, particularly when a large amount of candidates has to be examined. The main reason is due to people that use different terms and criteria to describe and measure their experiences. This makes the selection for a given job or project role a time-consuming process, with no assurance that the best person is selected. This article presents an integrated methodology to standardise the assessment and visualise the professional expertise of individuals. A set of classifications, an algorithm and the core elements of an info-graphics tool are presented with the purpose to provide comparable competence measures and charts that can speed up the pre-screening and selection processes in large-scale recruitment campaigns or project management scenarios.

Business rules for semantics-aware business modelling: overview and open issues

This work outlines the benefits of adopting semantics-aware formalisms in the description of business vocabularies and rules in the context of enterprise modelling. Within the framework outlined by the Model-Driven Architecture (MDA) approach, these formalisms may enable a wide range of inference capabilities and provide a more direct translation of business models into formalisms that can drive the actual orchestration of business processes. Furthermore, whenever the semantics conveyed by business vocabularies and rules can be portrayed with semantic web languages such as Web Ontology Language (OWL)-Descriptive Logic (DL), business domains can be evaluated according to the open-world interpretation of a Knowledge Base (KB) that constitutes the default interpretation of business models. Three different use cases addressing, respectively, intramodel, model-to-model and model-to-metadata processing of business vocabularies and rules are presented.

Service Customization Supporting an Adaptive Information System

This work approaches the problem of discovering atomic web services that will realize complex business processes in an adaptive information system. It is proposed a model for semantic description of web services and user profile and the design of a semantic recommender engine based on this model. The recommender engine performs, during the web service discovery phase, a ”similarity evaluation” step in which it can be possible to estimate the similarity between what the service offers and what the user prefers. A semantic algorithm, that measures distance between concepts in an ontology, is used to rank the results of the semantic matching between the user profile and a list of web services, suggesting to the user the most suitable services.

The effect of HRM practices on knowledge management capacity: a comparative study in Indian IT industry

Successful businesses demand high-performing human resource management practices (HRMP) and effective knowledge management capacity (KMC) to enhance the overall organizational performance. Rapid growth of both local and multinational companies operating in knowledge-intensive industries has increased the global competition in the labor market, also for the developing economies. Therefore, attracting valuable human capital, retaining talents and managing effectively knowledge to deliver on the latest technologies and innovative solutions and services are the biggest challenges in the modern IT industry. The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of HRMP on KMC through a cross-case analysis including four companies operating in Indian IT sector. Based on the existing studies in this field, five key HRMP have been identified (i.e. recruitment and selection, training and development, compensation and reward, employee retention and career development), as well as two key processes supporting the KMC (i.e. knowledge acquisition and knowledge sharing).,The paper adopts a qualitative research method based on a multiple case study, and it uses primary and secondary data collected through desk research and field interviews.,Results show the existence of HRMP aiming to enhance the individual learning, motivation and retention of employees for knowledge acquisition and knowledge sharing, in the strategic perspective to improve the organizational performance.,The paper presents some limitations, which may provide scope for future research. First, being the study a qualitative multiple case analysis, a more extensive research is needed to generalize the results and investigate further relationships existing between HRMP and KMC. Moreover, a deep investigation on the organizational performance dimensions (e.g. sales growth, cash turnover, financial goal achievement) is required to verify the existence of possible links. Finally, a further limit consists in considering only knowledge acquisition and knowledge-sharing processes, excluding another crucial knowledge management (KM) process such as knowledge application. As for the research implications, the paper contributes to investigate the role of HRMP in supporting KMC in Indian IT companies, which represents a context of research not so much investigated.,From a practitioner point of view, the study can be helpful to HR and KM managers for motivating employees to undertake learning processes and enhance their performance, as well as to acquire and share knowledge resources that are useful for the organization to remain innovative and stay competitive.,As the influence of HRMP on KMC has not been widely studied in the Indian IT industry, the study may open the field for further studies on a deeper investigation of the relationships existing between human resources management (HRM), KM and organizational performance in knowledge-intensive industries in India and, more in general, in developing economies.