The literature contains an ongoing debate concerning virtual or boundaryless organisations. This article suggests that virtual/boundaryless organisations are a logical continuation of the development of industrial organisation. We can see three important recurrent management characteristics...

Chester Barnard’s 1938 book The Functions of the Executive is re‐examined in the context of the emerging knowledge‐based dynamic theory of the firm. The key constructs and the underlying principles for Barnard’s functions of the “executive” and organization as a cooperative...

Building on the complexities of organizational knowledge creation the paper explores the alignment of knowledge management practices with the epistemological beliefs of individuals or groups in organizations. A pan‐European research project investigated individual’s philosophy about truth,...

During the past two decades a variety of reforms and projects under the mantle of public‐sector modernization were developed in order to achieve efficiency, effectiveness, economy and quality in service delivery. Despite the overwhelming consensus that public organizations must transform there...

Senior managers have shown an increasing interest in understanding and encouraging knowledge‐sharing behaviour in their organizations. However, very few empirical studies have examined senior managers’ perceptions of knowledge‐sharing behaviour. This study used Ajzen's theory of planned...

The division between academic knowledge and its relevance for practice is an enduring problem across many fields. Nowhere is this division more pronounced, and resolution of its negative features more required, than in academic management research and its relationship to management practice, for...

The process of management research involves various complexities and can sometimes be viewed as highly time consuming. Good research can and does provide a momentum for further research to be undertaken and this means that a researcher may have to think “outside the box” in order to achieve...

This paper addresses innovations based on open source or non‐proprietary knowledge. Viewed through the lens of private property theory, such agency appears to be a true anomaly. However, by a further turn of the theoretical kaleidoscope, we will show that there may be perfectly justifiable...

Jardine Matheson & Company is a Hong Kong multi‐industry conglomerate that has gone through political upheaval, global and regional economic crises, and has survived and transformed itself several times in the process. Firm learning and adaptability are audited across five breakpoints (1832,...

This paper explores how great ideas become “great works”. The paper explores the process used by Frederick Taylor to “spread the gospel” of scientific management – one of management's great works. The paper takes this example, dissects it and applies current theory and models to...