Juan Gabriel Cegarra Navarro

Linking chief knowledge officers with customer capital through knowledge management practices in the Spanish construction industry

Tangible results are the most powerful weapon Chief Knowledge Officers (CKOs) have for persuading their companies to adopt the knowledge management agenda. Today, in small medium enterprises (SMEs), CKOs can take a more strategic perspective, scanning the enterprise to discover how they might improve customer relations as well as promote knowledge management practices. The goal of this research is to explore the links between: the extent to which a SME possess a CKO; its knowledge management practices; and the strength of its customer capital. The research model and hypothesized relationships are empirically tested using the structural equation modelling (SEM) approach, validated by factor analysis of 164 SMEs in the Spanish construction industry. The main conclusion from our empirical study is that the responsibilities associated with the management of knowledge fall into three general categories: context in time; learning from demand; and open-mindedness.

Social networking sites as a learning tool

Purpose – Over the past few years, social networking sites (SNSs) have become very useful for firms, allowing companies to manage the customer–brand relationships. In this context, SNSs can be considered as a learning tool because of the brand knowledge that customers develop from these relationships. Because of the fact that knowledge in organisations is embodied in the concept of the learning organisation, customers may create brand knowledge as a consequence of two learning facilitators: informational and instrumental value. Then, the purpose of this paper is to identify the role played by brand knowledge in the process of creating customer capital, in the context of SNSs. Design/methodology/approach – A total of 259 users of SNSs, who were followers or fans of brand pages, participated in this study. Data were collected through an online survey and they were analysed using structural equation modelling. Findings – The results of the study show that brand pages at SNS can perform brand knowledge by pro...

An application of health-portals to improve electronic listening

Electronic listening (eListening) is an innovation that potentially provides patients and other users with the right answer in the right place at the right time. Thus, eListening can potentially improve service flexibility, adaptability and quality. The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which new web-based service delivery channels, which we refer to as health-portals (he-portals), facilitate eListening in the Spanish public healthcare sector. In this paper, we investigate the relative importance and significance of hospital size and three different types of information and communications technologies (Internet, groupware and collective systems) on the use of eListening through an empirical investigation of 300 Spanish public he-portals. Our main conclusion is that the implementation of Internet systems alone does not guarantee the development of effective eListening. In addition, we demonstrate that hospital size does not affect the level of eListening achieved by hospitals.

Healthcare management in the knowledge-based economy

The current crisis and market pressure from health maintenance organizations has led hospitals and healthcare companies to reduce healthcare costs through efficiencies and be innovative, with new technologies, processes and services. It has been generally accepted that both explicit and tacit knowledge play a basic role in organizational innovation. However, there are few research works that study the relationship between knowledge management and the effectiveness of the innovation process. In this issue, the Service Industries Journal (SIJ) focuses on the management of health services organizations. Because the healthcare environment is indeed very diverse, and many factors come into play to ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare services, healthcare leaders are achieving optimal healthcare outcomes through developing the capacity to create, distil and distribute knowledge. The current crisis and market pressure from health maintenance organizations has led hospitals and healthcare companies to reduce healthcare costs through efficiencies and be innovative, with new technologies, processes and services. It has been generally accepted that both explicit and tacit knowledge play a basic role in organizational innovation. However, there are few research works that study the relationship between knowledge management and the effectiveness of the innovation process. In this issue, the SIJ focuses on the management of health services organizations. Because the healthcare environment is indeed very diverse, and many factors come into play to ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare services, healthcare leaders are achieving optimal healthcare outcomes through developing the capacity to create, distil and distribute knowledge. The guest editors of this special issue are Juan-Gabriel Cegarra-Navarro and Gabriel Cepeda-Carrion. We are associate professors at the Technical University of Cartagena and at the University of Seville, respectively. Their academic interests include the use of knowledge management, absorptive capacity, dynamic capabilities and organizational learning and unlearning. They are also experts in qualitative (case study research) and quantitative (structural equation modeling and partial least squares) methods in the management research. Their research has been published in several top-ranked journals including several in the SIJ. We are sensible to the above-commented research gap and have considered editing this special issue for The SIJ. Healthcare organizations will face major challenges in the following years: increased costs, greater pressure towards accountability and transparency, as well as a diminishing labour supply pool. Therefore, public and private healthcare services organizations are looking closely at the benefits associated with knowledge management and process management. The concept of management of health services organizations includes both the entire structure of healthcare delivery as well as individual healthcare facilities such as information communication technologies, smart devices, phones and tablets used out of the entire structure of organization. Therefore, it is useful to think about the ‘macro’ organization of health service delivery as well as the ‘micro’ organization. Because the healthcare environment is indeed very diverse, and many factors come into play to ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare services, healthcare leaders are achieving

Linking external communities with performances through market orientation

External Communities of Practice (EcoPs) are groups formed by company clients and company workers, whose members regularly share knowledge and learning. These communities are based on common interests, commitment, mutual trust and collaborative relations with the organisation. Through EcoPs, organisations will secure purchase repetition and recover the investment that has been made to gain and maintain customers. This paper examines the explanatory power of EcoPs on market orientation, and their effects on the creation of business performance through an empirical investigation of 139 small- to medium-sized enterprises of the Spanish Optometrists sector using repeated ANOVA measures validated by factor analysis.