Konstantinos Ergazakis

Exploring the world of knowledge management: agreements and disagreements in the academic/practitioner community

Purpose – During the last 15 years, knowledge management (KM) has changed from one generation to the next through constant improvements and new perspectives. A myriad researchers have presented methodologies, frameworks, technologies and have discussed various KM theoretical and practical issues. However, KM still needs extensive development – it is in its infancy. This paper aims to explore the world of KM in a different way; to review the current status quo and analyze the main agreements and disagreements among researchers and practitioners in order to highlight the key issues which need to be further researched.Design/methodology/approach – The authors attempt to review and analyze in a coherent way the main agreements and disagreements among researchers and practitioners – in the field of KM – based on a wide range of published works, including papers, books, reports and web sites.Findings – Based on the key agreements among researchers and practitioners and having in mind the remaining disagreements...

Towards knowledge cities: conceptual analysis and success stories

Over the past several years, there have been intensive discussions about the importance of knowledge management (KM) in our society. Nowadays, it is commonly accepted that many KM disciplines and practices are relevant to the social‐level knowledge‐based development. In this context, the new theme of “knowledge cities” came to the front. This paper attempts on the one hand to define the concept in a coherent way – presenting also its main implications and benefits – and on the other hand, to examine – on a worldwide scale – the different models of knowledge cities as well as modes of practice. The authors were based on a broad range of published works, including papers, books, reports and Web sites. The main approach was to briefly present the existing views of the concept, accompanied by some criteria determining a knowledge city. The authors also tried to provide a meaningful and concise review of existing cases, avoiding to get into many confusing details. This review provided valuable input for the definition of the key success factors and main benefits related to knowledge cities. This new concept is currently a main topic of interest for the research community and practitioners. It becomes clear that it has important benefits and in this way, focused research is needed towards many directions, in order for it to become a part of our life in near future. This integrated review is a very useful source of information for academics and practitioners who want to be acquainted with the knowledge cities concept.

On the selection of equity securities: An expert systems methodology and an application on the Athens Stock Exchange

In this article we present an expert systems methodology for supporting decisions that concern the selection of equities, on the basis of financial analysis. The proposed methodology is employed for selecting the attractive equities, through the evaluation of the overall corporate performance of the corresponding firms. The crucial importance issue of the industry/sectoral accounting singularities was strongly taken into account. An elaborate review of coherent research studies is also provided. Finally, the validity of the proposed methodology is tested through a large scale application on the Athens Stock Exchange.

Rethinking the development of successful knowledge cities: an advanced framework

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present how the topics of knowledge‐based development (KBD) and especially of knowledge cities (KCs) have attracted the interest of many researchers and practitioners during recent years. In a previous research work of the authors, a set of hypotheses for the design, development and operation of successful KCs are proposed and validated through the analytical study of KCs cases in support of these hypotheses, resulting in a related framework. However, the rapid changes in the field render it necessary today to re‐examine the elements which had led to the formulation of the framework, so as to update it.Design/methodology/approach – The methodology followed so as to update the framework is based on the examination of the already identified KCs and the inclusion of five additional KCs cases. For the new set of KCs, the authors examine at which degree each case supports the hypotheses. Modifications in the set of hypotheses are proposed. The hypotheses that continue ...

Digital Cities: Towards an integrated decision support methodology

This paper deals with the problem of the low ICT adoption rate by many cities or urban regions. The consequences of the poor ICT environment in these authorities may be summarized into (i) the cutback of local business competitiveness, (ii) the incapability of attracting new business investments, (iii) the poor service of citizens needs (living in the local area or abroad - a foreign country or another city, namely emigrants), (iv) the poor service of visitors that have or want to have transactions in the local area. The main shortcomings of local authorities refer to lack of capabilities and expertise, negligence of local needs and urban characteristics, absence of ICT adoption models to local needs, ignorance of development and exploitation models etc. These regions need support so as to select the most appropriate ICT best practices, integrated them into their strategic plans and implement them with success. This procedure is particularly complex, since many factors and restrictions have to be considered. The overall objective of this paper is to illustrate the Digital City concept and to propose an integrated methodology for Digital City development that will act in a supportive way for the regions or cities that have low rates in ICT penetration and try to adopt ICT best practices into their core functions and services.

An integrated decision support model for a knowledge city's strategy formulation

Purpose – The concept of knowledge cities (KCs) offers advantages to any urban region. Many cities globally claim themselves as being already KCs, while other cities have elaborated strategic plans in order to integrate this concept into their operational structures. The examination of their approaches reveals however that these initiatives are fragmented. The purpose of this paper is to present a multi‐dimensional and integrated decision support model for a KCs strategy formulation.Design/methodology/approach – Reference is made to a methodological approach (KnowCis) for the integrated development of a KC, consisting of five main phases and taking into account nine different dimensions. The strategy formulation phase is a particularly complex procedure for any authority (e.g. local government or citys development agency). The reasons for this complexity are related to the amplitude of the KC concept, to the variety of the factors to be considered as well as to the challenge for balancing the needs and ...

An AI-based decision support system for designing Knowledge-Based Development strategies

In the new era of knowledge economy, knowledge and the processes to generate and manage it are considered as the most valuable assets of an organisation in the competitive business environment. Over the last years, intensive discussions have taken place about the importance of Knowledge Management for the whole society, except from the business world. Today, there is a consensus among researchers and practitioners communities that the challenges facing modern societies, call for development strategies that are knowledge-based. In this context, the theme of Knowledge Cities (KCs) came to the front. The review of literature reveals that the process of designing Knowledge-Based Development (KBD) strategies for KCs is complex and not appropriately supported by decision support methodologies and/or intelligent systems. In this paper, the authors, based on a previously presented methodology for the formulation of a KBD strategy for KCs, propose an AI-based decision support system for designing such strategies, by selecting and prioritising the most appropriate interventions and actions. The system consists of two sub-systems: the first (developed using the technology of Expert Systems) assess the necessity of a particular intervention and proposes its most appropriate form. The second prioritises the selected interventions based on Multi-Criteria Decision Making. The authors also present the successful preliminary results of the systems pilot application to a Greek municipality.

An Integrated Methodology for the Evaluation of ePetitions

An ePetition is a petition that gathers support electronically. The review of existing ePetition cases reveals that the real impact of current ePetition practices is difficult to be addressed and evaluated. This difficulty is also due to the lack/incompleteness of specific and unified methodologies for the evaluation of ePetition results. In this framework, the authors in this chapter are firstly presenting an overview of existing methodologies for the evaluation and assessment of ePetition approaches. Then, they propose a unified and complete methodology for the in-depth evaluation of an ePetition approach. The last part of the chapter is devoted to the presentation of the main results from the real-life application of this evaluation methodology, in the context of an FP7-funded project.

Taking Knowledge Management on the ERP road: A two-dimensional analysis

In todays fierce business competition, companies face the tremendous challenge of expanding markets, improving their products, services and processes and exploiting their intellectual capital in a dynamic network of knowledge-intensive relations inside and outside their borders. In order to accomplish these objectives, more and more companies are turning to the Enterprise Resource Planning systems (ERP). On the other hand, Knowledge Management (KM) has received considerable attention in the last decade and is continuously gaining interest by industry, enterprises and academia. As we are moving into an era of “knowledge capitalism”, knowledge management will play a fundamental role in the success of todays businesses. This paper aims at throwing light on the role of KM in the ERP success first and on their possible integration second. A wide range of academic and practitioner literature related to KM and ERP is reviewed. On the basis of this review, the paper gives answers to specific research questions and analyses future research directions.

Evaluating corporate performance within the frame of the expert systems technology

An expert systems methodology is presented in this article for supporting decisions that concern the evaluation of the overall corporate performance of firms, on the basis of financial analysis. The advantage of the methodology is that it provides no uniform evaluation of firms, but specialised evaluations per industry, since the firms that participate in the evaluation process are categorized in classes, with respect to their corresponding industry. In this way the major issues of time trend and competition between rival firms is achieved to be fully taken into consideration. Finally, the validity of the proposed methodology is tested through an illustrative application.