Purpose

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) research is often dominated in a western context. Perhaps, with the rapid expansion of organisations in the context of emerging economies, there is a pressing need for the development of a new dimension. Organisations operating in emerging markets must address the social challenges of serving low-income consumers and rural communities as part of their CSR strategy. The next era of CSR should look out for a period of experimentation and innovation as organisations advance their core business objectives by addressing existing social and environmental issues, which are dependent on market and industry settings. The purpose of this paper is the requirement of careful considerations when formulating the CSR framework for different industries and markets in the global business environment and this is the focus in this paper.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper provides a review and certain limitations of the literature on the highly cited works such as stakeholder theory and Carroll’s pyramid model. Following on, the proposed matrix model, related discussion of the four phases and associated propositions are explained in the paper. Finally, some concluding remarks on the need for a new look on CSR in the context of non-western markets are presented.

Findings

In this paper, the authors introduce “The matrix model of CSR” as a starting attempt and a guideline in formulating the CSR approach across industry and countries, particularly illustrating in the context of diverse organisations in different sectors. However, this model is at a conceptual level and future research could allow empirical testing and refinement of the “matrix model” in different market and industry conditions.

Originality/value

A CSR model for multiple organisational contexts would provide more insight for the relevant stakeholders regarding their CSR activities. Thus, this article attempts to suggest a CSR matrix model and it takes a phased approach by classifying the CSR activities based on the degrees of CSR and altruistic nature of activities that could be adapted for other industries as well as emerging economies.

Modern corporations face enormous digital transformation challenges in order to incorporate digital content into its corporate memory. At the same time over the last decade and a half, there is growing evidence of the advent of different types of mechanisms to manage digital organizational content. The management of digital content is particularly important to support knowledge worker practices to access, share and reuse content in knowledge intensive organizations. Despite the availability of technological solutions in the marketplace to integrate content, managers are often overwhelmed by the choices they need to make to effectively manage digital content in their organizations. Extant literature indicates that in an increasingly digitized world, there is no clear understanding of the digital content considerations for informed decision-making in organizations. Based on our research experiences in knowledge management, particularly knowledge codification in digital infrastructures we provide certain perspectives on the four considerations for effective management of digital content in large organizations. We present four short exhibits to illustrate these four core considerations which we label as the ‘4Cs’ (i.e. content contribution, categorization, control and centralization) for effective digital content management in large organizations.

The extant literature shows that the connection between KM strategy and business strategy and business strategy and IT strategy has been extensively studied. However, the link between KM strategy and IT strategy remains unclear. To better understand how KM strategy influences IT strategy and vice versa within the context of business strategy, we synthesize the literature and contribute to the conceptualization of a triadic connection of the influences between business, KM and IT strategies and its deeper understanding in determining efficacy of knowledge use in organizations.

In an increasingly globalized and hyper connected business environment, using knowledge strategically is often critical for competitive performance. This article is motivated to illuminate the notion of strategic knowledge management (SKM) in organizations. In this regard, executives need to develop an informed understanding of what types of organizational knowledge (and how much) can be 'structured' and/or allowed to 'proliferate' in order to sustain both work productivity and innovation capacity toward a harmonious conceptualization of strategic knowledge in their organizations. This conceptual paper is based on analysing certain exemplars of why organizations need to put greater emphasis on the equivalence between codification and personalization in the context of strategic knowledge management. Our explanations on managing strategic knowledge through different examples provide insights and pitfalls that organizations must be aware of and are as follows. Firstly, we argue that an exclusive emphasis on codification or personalization runs the risk of 'knowledge structuration' or 'knowledge proliferation' respectively in an organization's strategic knowledge management. Secondly, executives should continuously realize the need to emphasize on equivalence (or congruence) between codification and personalization aspects of SKM in order to keep enduring work productivity and innovation capacity in organizations. Thirdly, we argue that SKM initiatives that prodigiously focus on either codification or personalization can lead to pitfalls despite plenty of managerial interventions. We further believe that our proposed ideas will be worthwhile considerations for executives/leaders responsible for strategy, IT and innovation divisions of the organization to determine whether its organization's knowledge engine is running smoothly, and if not, where to direct their energy to yield long term and robust outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to indicate that managers responsible for decision making often have a limited appreciation of strategic shifts between codification and personalization of knowledge in different operational environments. This study is motivated by a concern to illuminate the influence of diverse business environments in the shift between strategies of knowledge in organizations. A qualitative multiple case-study method was adopted to research four case organizations drawn from multiple industries – manufacturing, research, education and consulting – that are positioned within contrasting operating environments (i.e. local, national, international and multinational, respectively). Results from the case studies suggest that four factors condition shifts between codification and personalization strategies in different operational environments that are of critical significance for the effective use of knowledge in organizations. The authors have also found that strategic shifts between codification and personalization are continuous and emergent. The study suggests that the combination of multi-operational types and four elements (i.e. competition, organizational size, organizational structure and information technology) are highly relevant for determining the shifts between codification and personalization strategies in organizations.

Knowledge as a valuable asset of organizations is increasingly incorporated into thinking about strategy. Studies of knowledge management (KM) suggest that executives engaged in decision making often have a slender understanding of the strategic significance of knowledge. When addressing the challenge of explicating and designing a knowledge strategy, logics of codification and personalization have been differentiated and commended. The paper draws upon evidence from four case studies to identify factors that shape the evolving contexts of knowledge strategies. It is in these contexts that the challenge of continuously reviewing and revising the mix of codifying and personalizing aspects of strategic KM is practically accomplished. The cases are analysed with reference to external competition, leadership, organizational politics, culture and technology as a basis for advancing a more dynamic framework for the analysis of knowledge strategies.

Shift work is a continuous ‘round-the-clock’ work practice that involves rotating work schedules with a vital process of ‘handover’ denoting a change of teams between shifts. Handover as an activity requires that outgoing shift teams pass on insights and responsibility to incoming shift teams. Knowledge transfer in shift work environments is therefore crucial to allow for a seamless continuation of work practices between shifts. Studies in shift work indicate that knowledge transfer between shifts often fails—that is, incoming workers tend to solve problems with inadequate information, have an incomplete understanding of significant events that occurred in prior shifts, while workers often attempt to solve the same problems across different shifts. This study investigates the challenges associated with shift handover and proposes knowledge transfer enablers that can make a difference to handover. In addition, these enablers can foster learning, a process often overlooked in shift environments. A qualitative research methodology was used to study three distinctive case organisations in the manufacturing and educational sectors, where the nature of day-to-day work is shift-bound and transfer issues were present during handover processes. Our findings suggest that three enablers facilitate knowledge transfer problems associated with shift work: (1) a purposeful knowledge codification and classification culture, (2) open access to established boundary objects and boundary spanners and (3) a unified information infrastructure to facilitate knowledge transfer during shifts and handover.