ABSTRACT Electronic Commerce (EC) has completely changed business environment and model. Furthermore, traditional business needs new transformation strategy to match customer demand. Many companies try to implement Knowledge Management (KM) or Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to promote customer satisfaction and earn more money. The purposes of this research are as follows: 1. Strategic analysis of customer knowledge management for steel industry 2. Taking steel industry as an example to understand the customer knowledge This research focuses on three dimensions of CRM¡BKM (knowledge management, customer knowledge resource, and customer knowledge measurement) to design the questionnaire for the steel companies. Taiwanese company has limited knowledge about CRM and KM, especially for traditional business such as steel company. This research aims to collect the idea, strategy and model of CRM and KM in the global market. Moreover, this will help traditional business use new transformation strategy to catch on network consumer and create higher added value. This will help steel industry to draw a blue roadmap in the future. Keywords: KM, CRM, customer knowledge, customer knowledge resource, customer knowledge measurement

In the service economy of the 21st century, companies face intense competition in providing customer-centric products and services. In an environment where emerging technologies constantly stimulate innovative methods of service delivery, customer and technological knowledge remain the primary types of information applied by a company in providing customers with quality products and services. Managing knowledge interactions for synergetic business operations is critical in building a service-oriented infrastructure for continuous innovation. This study explores the pattern of knowledge interaction between R&D and marketing departments. Knowledge possessed by R&D department is defined as technological knowledge, while knowledge possessed by marketing department is defined as customer knowledge. First, the concepts, theories, and relevant research regarding the relationship between customer and technological knowledge is reviewed. Based on boundary-spanning theory, this study conducts an exploratory case study to examine the interaction between customer and technological knowledge. The case study focuses on the interaction between sales personnel and R&D employees across three levels of interaction, the syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic. This study found that different types of knowledge and activities between R&D and marketing departments generate different results. This study also found that most business knowledge for innovation is generated at the knowledge interaction between semantic and pragmatic level. Another finding is that Field Application Engineers play the important roles of boundary spanner because they possess both technological knowledge and customer knowledge for their specialized field. Boundary spanners serve as both filters and facilitators in information transmittal between internal units, and play an important role in the transfer of ideas within organizations. To develop critical innovations, businesses should interact according to what type of knowledge accessed.

Obtaining customer knowledge represents a key task across all firms given its importance for potential competitive advantage, improving service quality and achieving long-term relationships with agents. However, despite the fact that the interaction between customers and frontline employees during service encounters is considered a valuable source of customer knowledge, our understanding of the role of frontline employees as brokers in this respect remains embryonic. The purpose and motivation of this research are to explore the factors-namely, enablers and barriers-that influence frontline employees' motivation to serve as knowledge brokers. The process through which knowledge brokers transfer customer knowledge during service encounters is also considered important. This study further contributes to the theory of knowledge management by formulating a valid conceptual framework that illustrates the process of knowledge-brokering during these service encounters. This thesis adopted a qualitative research approach using an in-depth multiple case study analysis. In total, 30 semi-structured interviews with different informants (i.e. managers and employees) from three top commercial banks in Jordan were undertaken. In addition, other data sources, including documents and observations, were also informed the primary data collection. Contextually, Jordan's service-oriented economy combined with its developing nature provided a rich research environment for exploring these issues. The study reveals that frontline employees engage in knowledge-brokering during service encounters transfer through three types of customer knowledge, namely, knowledge about customers, knowledge for customers, and knowledge from customers. Furthermore, the main findings demonstrate four critical sets of factors facilitating or impeding knowledge-brokering during these events, i.e.; organisational-level factors (e.g. organisational culture, organisational structure, and organisational support), individual-level factors (e.g. job experience, prior customer knowledge, ability to understand customer knowledge, self-efficacy, and workload), technological-level factors (e.g. bank information system and a lack of a customer-relationship management system) and knowledge-level factors (e.g. tacit or explicit). It was also found that the process of knowledge-brokering during service encounters is accomplished in two ways: knowledge-brokering for the customer and knowledge-brokering for the organisation. This study also reports a set of managerial implications that provide a better understanding of the influential factors inherent in establishing and seeking to succeed in knowledge-brokering during the course of frontline bank employees' interactions during service encounters. Keywords: knowledge-brokering, frontline employees, customer knowledge, service encounters.

Due to globalization, international business competition has become keen in recent years. Enterprises have to face different challenges from all over the world, from inside Taiwan to the whole globe. Consequently, enterprises start to consider what management they can put into practice in order to increase organizational niche and improve business competitiveness and performance. Numerous theories and empirical studies suggested that the prime method to increase business competitiveness and performance is to connect management activities and strategies with customers. It can achieve remarkable success in business innovation and economy. Based on this, business philosophy nowadays turned into customer-oriented instead of cost or efficiency-oriented. There are lots of literature referring customer knowledge management and customer relationship management; most of them focus on the impact of these two factors on business performance. The linkage between knowledge management and customer relationship management are less discussed. As a matter of fact, customer knowledge management is the intervening variable when enterprises do customer relationship management, affecting the outcome of customer relationship management a lot. This study mainly aimed to to measure how customer knowledge management and customer satisfaction influence customer relationship management. On the other hand, the influence of customer satisfaction on customer knowledge management and customer relationship management are included as well. According to the analysis of literature and in-depth interview with the case company, the findings were as followed: 1.Customer knowledge management in software industry is beneficial for the predictability of the Customer relationship management. 2.The customer satisfaction is very important for software industry. Customer satisfaction is beneficial to enrich the intension of Customer knowledge management and maintain a good relationship with customers.

There has been an increasing demand for commercial organisations to foster real-time interaction with customers, because harnessing customer competencies has been shown to be a major contributor towards various benefits, such as growth, innovation and competition. This may drive organisations to embrace the development of multimodal interaction and complement Electronic Customer Knowledge Management Systems (E-CKMS) with metaphors of audio-visual nature. Although the implementation of E-CKMS encounters several challenges, such as lack of trust and information overload, few empirical studies were devoted to assess the role of audio-visual metaphors, and investigate whether these technologies can be put into practice. Therefore, this thesis describes a comparative evaluation study carried out to examine the implication of incorporating multimodal metaphors into E-CKMS interfaces on not only usability of E-CKMS, but also the user's trust, knowledge and acceptance. An experimental E-CKMS platform was implemented with three different modes of interaction: Visual-only E-CKMS (VCKMS) with text and graphics, Multimodal E-CKMS (MCKMS) with speech, earcons and auditory icons and Avatar-enhanced multimodal E-CKMS (ACKMS). The three platforms were evaluated by three independent groups of twenty participants each (total=60) who carried out eight common tasks of increasing complexity and design based on three different styles. Another dependent group of forty-eight participants (n=48) was instructed to interact with the systems under similar usability conditions by performing six common tasks of two styles, and fill a questionnaire devised to measure the aspects of user acceptance. The results therein revealed that ACKMS was more usable and acceptable than both MCKMS and VCKMS, whereas MCKMS was more usable than VCKMS, but less acceptable. Inferential Statistics indicated that these results were statistically significant.

Denna studie har utförts på ett försäkringsföretag som har sin verksamhet inom en nischad marknad som erbjuder försäkringar vid nybyggnation av fastigheter. I företaget finns en funktion som har upprättade processer för hantering av externa samarbetspartners, vilken studien har avgränsats till. Med ett kvalitativt angreppssätt har författarna utgått från företagets processer för att sedan teoretiskt underbygga analysen. Författarna har undersökt hur viktig insamling och absorbering av extern information är för värdeskapande. Resultatet av studien visar att insamling av extern information är viktigt och författarna har kunnat framställa en arbetsmodell för att försäkringsföretaget systematiskt ska kunna arbeta med extern informationsinsamling och absorbering för skapandet av värde och innovation. / This study has been conducted with an insurance company in a niche market offering insurances within new construction for real estate. The extent of this research paper has been limited to one of the functions in the company’s operating procedures, involving external collaboration partners’. With a qualitative approach the researchers’ have examined the company’s procedures and analysed it against relevant theories. The researchers’ have investigated the importance of the gathering and absorbing of external information for value-creation. The result shows that the gathering of external information is extremely important and the researchers’ have constructed a business model in order to systematically conduct external knowledge sourcing to create value and innovation.

Social networking for enterprises is the use of emergent social software platforms within or between companies to enable participants to rendezvous, connect or collaborate through computer-mediated communication and to form online communities (McAfee, 2006). It provides a platform for participants to co-create social networks that permit the exchange and retrieval of relevant knowledge on a company-built platform. The objective of this research is to understand the characteristics and development of social network applications in different types of enterprises. We discuss the key factors for companies to develop their own social network using web 2.0. Based on the classification of customizing products (Pine, 1993), this study uses multiple case studies and the characteristics of their social networks such as service, marketing and collaboration to see how social networking on web 2.0 helps customize products for business benefits. The findings of the study are that with different types of customizing products, the company will have a different focus in its value chain. We explored these differences by constructing a two-way model. Using the two-way model, our study separates the different types of products into four sectors: provider, listener, promoter and collaborator. The four sectors can describe the purpose of the product using the social network and gives advice that is relevant to similar types of companies.

Because most of Taiwan semiconductor industry are (OEM; Original Equipment Manufacturer) and the major customers have two type: One is IDM which has own IC design, fab manufacturing, IC assembly and IC test, for example IBM,Inter¡Ketc.And the other is IC design houses which only have IC design, and let fab manufacturing, IC assembly and IC test outsourcing, for example Media Tek, Etron...etc. In order to force on core technology, the company¡¦s strategy is outsourcing and the outsourcing capacity will release to subcontractors. How to increase new package development performance is the major points to make sure subcontractors can get outsourcing capacity and it also can let company transfer from OEM to ODM. New package development is the basic procedure and the core technology in the semiconductor industry. Due to the product become high risk, shorter life cycle time and faster technology innovation, it causes the company will be more competitive in the world. In order to keep growth, it¡¦s very important to make sure the success of new package development. That¡¦s reason why more and more company involve customers knowledge in the new package development to reduce uncertainty, shear financial risk and provide the key decision. Believe in the customer knowledge management, customer characteristic and market information are all affect the new product development performance.

The video game industry has developed into a multibillion dollar industry. As the rise of social media and other online networks has enabled consumers to more easily express their opinions and critique about the products, these platforms become important when it comes to obtaining customer knowledge. The responsibilities of a community manager includes to obtain this knowledge and share it further with the game developers. Hence, a shared effort between the firm and the online communities of the firm can help create value for the customers in the long run. This study aims to gain a deeper understanding of the community manager's role within the process of transferring information from the communities into knowledge for the company, and also to explore how it differs in different sized companies. Theory regarding knowledge transfer and conversion, as well as customer knowledge management theory have be covered and in addition also theories on online communities. To achieve the aim of the study a qualitative and exploratory research was undertaken by selecting four case companies. Gathering the empirical findings, it became clear that one company had the most interesting community out of the four cases and therefore it became the main focus in the analysis. A community manager’s role is different depending on the company and its size. Larger firms are more concerned with a social media presence and smaller firms are more concerned with maintaining close relationships. Reaching a conclusion, it was clear that the community manager at Expansive Worlds, had several different roles within the process of knowledge transfer, in terms of acquiring, combining, and sharing knowledge.

Syfte: Syftet med uppsatsen är att redogöra för hur kassapersonalens förutsättningar för att förhindra penningtvätt kan förklaras med hjälp av beslutsteorier. Teoretisk och empirisk metod: Forskningsmetoden för uppsatsen är kvalitativ, med en abduktiv ansats. Den för studien valda empiriska metoden är semi-strukturerade intervjuer där respondenterna är valda med hjälp av subjektivt urval samt ett så kallat snöbollsurval. Teoretisk referensram: Som bakgrund till studien ligger såväl internationella direktiv och rekommendationer som svensk reglering av penningtvätt och finansiering av terrorism. Vi har också utgått från befintliga teorier kring regleringens betydelse, samt teorier om den riskbaserade regleringen. Den teoretiska referensramen innehåller dessutom tre olika beslutsteorier. Slutsats: Vår slutsats är att kassapersonalen anser sig ha de rätta förutsättningarna för att kunna förhindra penningtvätt. Men brister i hanteringen av penningtvätt visar att förutsättningarna inte är tillräckliga. / Purpose: The purpose of the thesis is to describe how bank tellers have the opportunity to prevent money laundering by applying different decision theories. Theoretical and empirical method: The research method of the dissertation is qualitative, with an abductive approach. The chosen empirical method is semi-structured interviews where the respondents are selected with a subjective selction and a so called snowball selection. Theoretical approach: Behind the study are both international directives & recommendations and Swedish statutory laws of money laundering and financing of terrorism. We have also originated from existing theories about the importance of the regulation and theories about the risk-based regulation. The theoretical approach also contains three different decision theories. Conclusion: Our conclusion is that bank tellers think they have the right opportunities to prevent money laundering. But flaws in the management of money laundering show that the prerequisites are not sufficient.