Maria Mårtensson

A critical review of knowledge management as a management tool

Over the past several years there have been intensive discussions about the importance of knowledge management within our society. The management of knowledge is promoted as an important and necessary factor for organisational survival and maintenance of competitive strength. To remain at the forefront organisations need a good capacity to retain, develop, organise, and utilise their employees’ capabilities. Knowledge and the management of knowledge appear to be regarded as increasingly important features for organisational survival. Explores knowledge management with respect to its content, its definition and domain in theory and practice, its use and implications, and to point out some problems inherent in the concept. The main contribution of this paper is an extensive literature survey on knowledge management.

Measuring to understand intangible performance drivers

The present qualitative study explores what eleven Swedish organizations have systematically worked at to increase the understanding of the importance of intangibles as performance drivers. The present analysis is accomplished using a combination of evolutionary theory, knowledge-based theory and organizational learning. The results indicate that assets in an accounting sense seem to be of less interest than perceptions of activities that enable future performance. These “enablers” are often customer and employee perceptions of individual, organizational and relational competence. The way for the firms to ascertain a continuous organizational learning process with respect to the value creation chain is to measure intangibles as well as to maintain organizational routines that ensure the transformation of measurement results into action.

Mobilizing change through the management control of intangibles

This qualitative study explores the management control of intangibles in three Swedish companies. The present analysis is discussed in terms of four theoretical perspectives, namely, evolutionary, ...

The communication of human accounts: examining models of sensegiving

Abstract:Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to reflect on how sensegiving cues are encapsulated in models of reporting for human resources. This has been by investigating elements, arguments and ...

The makings of a statement : accounting for employee health

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore how the idea of health statements is constructed and on what assumptions it rests. Design/methodology/approach – Published health statements from t ...

Managing and measuring employee health and wellbeing: a review and critique

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify the case for taking employee health and wellbeing into account in some way and to consider a range of objections that might be raised against such exercises.Design/methodology/approach – The paper identifies the existence of a persistent sickness absence as a cause for concern for a range of stakeholders and how it might be accounted for in the light of recent developments within the intellectual capital field. Attention then turns to some of the difficulties such well meaning interventions might encounter, and briefly considers how a self‐accounting approach might in some part overcome these.Findings – The paper finds that a programme of empirical research within the field of employee health and wellbeing is now required to ensure that employee health and wellbeing into account.Practical implications – While predominantly a discursive contribution to the literature, the paper incorporates some discussion of innovative accounting interventions.Originality...

Managing Paradoxes in Governance – Tensions in the Emergence of a New Board

Abstract Purpose Taking a micro-perspective of governance that includes problem-solving and stakeholder involvement capabilities as part of the strategic steering role, we wish to contribute to the understanding of the human side of governance. Thus we have studied the relationships between the board and its management and stakeholders, and in so doing we recognize internal and external actors as well as the board itself, and how they all contribute to the implementation of the governance function. Methodology/approach Based on an interpretative approach that focuses on change over time, we performed a qualitative empirical study of the governance of Robotdalen, a small non-profit public organization in Sweden that is a joint public and private collaboration. This chapter forms part of a longitudinal study that has been carried out since 2009. It is based primarily on interviews with board members, management and other stakeholders, and complemented by document studies and observations. Findings Governance practice entails multiple and multilevel tasks, and the tensions between representativeness/professional boards, conformance/performance, and controlling/partnering up with management, are prevalent in both small non-profit and public organizations. According to our results the apparent choice between the extremes of each tension is, however, not a choice at all but rather a balancing act. In trying to balance tensions through collaboration between managers, board, financiers, and the hosting university, new governance structures and practices emerge at the organizational level. Originality/value By following the process of the emergence of a new board, we illustrate how various actors work together to co-produce governance functions in practice. In the past little or no effort has been made to take into account contextual factors such as organizational size – an aspect that may influence or shape board characteristics and work methodology. We therefore attempt to do so in our chapter, by studying the emergence of a new board in a small public organization, what possible paradoxes and tensions are involved in such work, and how such tensions are managed.

Strategic Management in the Public Sector: How Tools Enable and Constrain Strategy Making

ABSTRACT Strategic management (SM) has become prominent on the agenda in several public organizations due to new public management (NPM) reforms. Nevertheless, there are few studies investigating how public organizations apply SM in practice and what tools are used. As a result, calls have been made for such studies. This article can be seen as an attempt to meet this call by presenting a qualitative case study of how SM has been applied in the Swedish Transport Administration (STA), a central government agency in Sweden, and what tools it used in strategy making. By analyzing the micro processes of strategizing at STA, our results indicate that public organizations need to be aware of at least three specific tensions that can enable or constrain strategy making. These tensions are: short v. long-term, parts v. whole, and reactivity v. proactivity.

The Quest for Public Value in the Swedish Museum Transition

Purpose — The aim of this paper is to investigate the nature of public value in the context of Swedish public museum management and how it is created.Methodology/approach —The museum context is introduced, and assumptions and principles underpinning new public management (NPM) and public value management, along with examples of applicability and implementation in museums, are presented. Three key issues of convergence and divergence within the theoretical framework — strategic orientation, accountability and performance — are identified and introduced as a gateway to the empirical findings and the ensuing discussion.Findings —NPM-oriented values have become part of the strategic orientation of the museum sector. The results of this study show that there exist at least three conceptions of museum management that are based on two different strategic orientations, that is, accessibility and conservation, which also point to different conceptions of value.Social implications — Museum management can be seen as the management of tensions between conservation and accessibility and between customer orientation and stakeholder orientation towards the creation of museum value.Originality/value of paper — The findings will assist museum management determine not only what value is but also for whom it is valuable, taking into account both present and future generations.

Is what’s good for business good for society? Entrepreneurship in a school setting: Frontiers in European Entrepreneurship Research

The chapter takes a discourse approach drawing upon governmentality and the concepts of programme and technology. It focuses on how a programmatic initiative – a strategy for implementing entrepren ...