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.

In order to sell products in the defense industry it is often demanded of the seller to reinvest capital and collaborate with companies in the buying country, with the buyer hoping to establish a defense industry of their own. These so called offset demands are seen as an industry standard and forces the sellers to open up their supply chain and educate and develop the industry in the buying country. This “forced” knowledge transfer is an interesting topic and have been the focus point of this thesis. How can firms conduct successful knowledge transfer and develop the foreign industry and at the same time protects its own products and competitive advantage? This qualitative study has been done through interviews with four people having senior positions and a vast knowledge and background in working with offsets, combined with secondary data from previous studies and articles. The study showed that the most important factor for a successful knowledge transfer is the absorptive capacity of the partner and buying country. Furthermore, the success also lies in the offset regulations of the buyer, if you ask for the wrong things or in the wrong way, the industrial effects will be very limited. The Swedish firms were not afraid of sharing their knowledge since they had the confidence that they would keep to stay ahead of any new upcoming competitor, therefore a minor factor to consider. Lastly offsets have often been portrayed negatively. However, if successfully conducted, several positive effects of offsets have been identified by the authors. Showing that even though partnerships may an “arranged marriage” it can still become successful.

The purpose of this meta-analysis was to examine the effect of situated learning on the academic performance of students with and without disabilities in inclusive general education classrooms. While previous research has reported the overall effectiveness of situated learning, relatively few studies have been conducted to investigate how situated learning influences students' academic performances in inclusive settings where students with and without disabilities work together. Moreover, although the main interest of situated learning is about how to apply basic knowledge and skills to an authentic context and, beyond this, how to transfer them into a similar but novel situation in everyday life, little has been known about its effectiveness on students' achievement in terms of knowledge transfer. In this study, a meta-analytical statistical method was employed to investigate the effect of situated learning, and its effectiveness was examined according to the three levels of knowledge transfer (knowledge acquisition, application, and transfer). A total of 19 situated-learning studies, both published and unpublished, were analyzed. Each primary study's effect sizes were calculated using Hedges' g with the bias correction and then combined into the three weighted average effect sizes regarding the levels of knowledge transfer. This meta-analytic study found that, on all of the levels of knowledge transfer, the situated learning is effective for the learning of students with and without disabilities in inclusive general education classrooms. In the random effects model, the situated instruction produced a weighted mean effect size estimate of 2.049 for knowledge acquisition, 1.836 for knowledge application, 1.185 for knowledge transfer. In addition, the percentage of students with special needs in general education classrooms had a negative influence on the effectiveness of situated learning. However, the pattern of results also showed that the proportion of students with special needs in general education classrooms does not influence as greatly the learning of knowledge transfer as it does knowledge acquisition or application. / text

Technology providers understand that almost all companies from banks to cell phone carriers are challenged to be synchronized with the evolution of their products.Failure to understand and utilize new developments, especially with hardware and software, is detrimental to any corporation. One of the biggest challenges high-tech companies face, is the ability to enhance their current training modules. Moreover, in the education process, companies could miss the opportunity of extracting valuable information from their own products and services. . The objective of this thesis is to highlight the importance of investing in the growth of knowledge transfer models. It will assess current methods of communication to provide recommendations of the most efficient vehicles in education. The investigation performed also targets possible solutions to help strengthen the feedback and vital information that can be gathered during the process of coaching. . The context of this research is to provide a suggested tool that should be implemented by technology companies to increase the efficacy of training modules. Information found in the text was drawn from research literature on knowledge transfer.The ideas diffused in this paper are intended to plant a seed in key areas of communication that directly impact the bottom line of a business. My ultimate goal is to have high-tech companies utilize the recommended models to transfer knowledge and, at the same time, acquire valuable information. The suggestions presented have potential to generate an increase in sales, revenue and client retention. / text

Offshoring concerns the relocation or a transfer of a company’s business activities to another country. When a company decides to offshore their business to another location it involves the transfer of products and knowledge which are both key activities in transfer projects. In today’s globalization it is difficult for companies to stay competitive in the marketplace. For this reason it is becoming more common that companies offshore parts of their business and opening affiliates abroad for the production of goods or services. It is challenging to transfer a product from one site to one other since the receiving site might not have been involved in the product development process from the beginning and therefore have limited associations to the product. The transfer of competence and knowledge but also different ways of working are some of the factors that needs to be successfully managed. This makes it especially challenging when considering cultural and geographical together with the temporal distance between the sites. It is difficult for companies to maintain a sourcing strategy that is cohesive and many companies therefor fails to manage a successful relationship with their offshore partners. The purpose with this study was to present a framework that would support the transfer process when aiming for parallel production. This was to include the features needed to be developed in order to manage the most important factors in the transfer process. In order to answer the research questions a case study with a qualitative research method was performed. Interviews in Sweden and China including 34 respondents were performed in order to identify the transfer process. The approach was a qualitative interview with a guided conversation with the emphasis on the authors asking questions and listening, and the respondent answering. The respondents was seen as meaning makers rather than passive channels for retrieving the data needed. The purpose was to derive interpretations rather than facts or laws. Each interview was conducted between three people including the two authors and one respondent. The findings indicate that the organization needs to improve their knowledge transfer process. The organization also needs to develop similar processes for the activities involved in the transfer process in order to perceive the same quality. The analysis of the qualitative findings resulted in a framework including six important factors for a successful transfer project. Following factors should be taken in consideration by the company to achieve a successful transfer project: identification of knowledge carriers, set up a transfer core-team, empowering knowledge sharing, the use of a personalized strategy, the development of similar processes and improve the common perception of quality.

Creating programs that can play games such as chess, checkers, and backgammon, at a high level has long been a challenge and benchmark for AI. Computer game playing is arguably one of AI's biggest success stories. Several game playing systems developed in the past, such as Deep Blue, Chinook and TD-Gammon have demonstrated competitive play against the top human players. However, such systems are limited in that they play only one particular game and they typically must be supplied with game-specific knowledge. While their performance is impressive, it is difficult to determine if their success is due to generally applicable techniques or due to the human game analysis. A general game player is an agent capable of taking as input a description of a game's rules and proceeding to play without any subsequent human input. In doing so, the agent, rather than the human designer, is responsible for the domain analysis. Developing such a system requires the integration of several AI components, including theorem proving, feature discovery, heuristic search, and machine learning. In the general game playing scenario, the player agent is supplied with a game's rules in a formal language, prior to match play. This thesis contributes a collection of general methods for analyzing these game descriptions to improve performance. Prior work on automated domain analysis has focused on generating heuristic evaluation functions for use in search. The thesis builds upon this work by introducing a novel feature generation method. Also, I introduce a method for generating and comparing simple evaluation functions based on these features. I describe how more sophisticated evaluation functions can be generated through learning. Finally, this thesis demonstrates the utility of domain analysis in facilitating knowledge transfer between games for improved learning speed. The contributions are fully implemented with empirical results in the general game playing system. / text

Problem Knowledge is becoming ever more vital in today’s economy and organisations are realising the need to act on the advantages it provides. Knowledge is complex and contradictory, making it difficult to be created and managed by organisations. Purpose The purpose of this research is to see how knowledge is created and subsequently managed within an environment characterised by progress and innovation, and to identify the most problematic areas in knowledge creation processes as well as suggest improvements. Method Overall, qualitative methods were used in this study. In-depth interviews were conducted with management level within three product development units, two of these were only used for support to the third and main case, Robotic Mowers. Issues of trustworthiness and ethical implications were confronted in order to provide the most advantageous method to conduct the study. Result Knowledge creation at Robotic Mowers originates from both external and internal sources. The most important external source and activity to create knowledge are suppliers/consultants and the most important internal sources is the use of tests. Further, the unit has a highly informal approach to the creation of knowledge and the management of it. Support to knowledge creation is mainly found in cultural aspects. Conclusion The unit’s knowledge creation is dependent on informal and unstructured interaction among group members and to external parties. Overall, low managerial control is exercised and the group has developed a strong culture that enhances informal ways of knowledge creation and its management. The main problem of knowledge creation is that the group fails to realise a long-term need, which is revealed through inadequate efforts in trying to turn tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge.

In the purest sense of the term, the transfer of knowledge deals with certain activities that attempt to pass on knowledge to another unit. In the course of globalization, companies seek nowadays the collaboration with other companies or organizations in developing countries, in order to benefit from several advantages like reduced labor costs. Next to that, a myriad of companies or organizations carry out projects with partners that are situated in developing countries, only with the attempt to fill the gap of knowledge between developed and developing world – knowledge that is particularly needed in those countries in order for them to reach certain standards of living and to keep up with the rapid development that takes place in other parts of the world. This paper investigates with the help of five selected cases the impact of the main influencing factors and barriers on the success of this type of knowledge transfer, as they are perceived by companies from developed countries. Thereby, this paper aims at providing information about their importance in the corresponding contexts and at giving inspiration on the ways these factors can be dealt with. The exploratory results suggest that by covering specific aspects from the beginning, the companies or organizations involved can overcome the majority of the factors and barriers. Furthermore, it is pointed out that the importance of each factor varies heavily depending on the context: the process of internal knowledge transfer requires the companies to concentrate their attention on different aspects than in the context of external knowledge transfer.

Acquisitions represent a common modus operandi of firm growth. Notwithstanding their lasting popularity, the majority of deals are reported to be unsuccessful. Given their prevalence and practical relevance, acquisitions have attracted scholarly interest from diverse academic disciplines and traditions. Despite the extensive volume of the acquisition literature, some intriguing questions remain unanswered and some essential assumptions remain untested. This dissertation seeks to explore several of these unanswered questions: What determines “us versus them” type of thinking in acquisitions? What influences social preferences, willingness to learn and the type and degree of trust in acquisitions? What roles do culture, organizational identity and status play in this regard? Shall we expect differences to be problematic all the time? Could it be the case that cultural differences sometimes lead to positive perceptions and reactions among individuals involved in acquisitions?  Motivated by these questions and many others, this dissertation primarily looks at the human side of acquisitions, and, in so doing, it problematizes the sociocultural dynamics during the initial phases of the post-acquisition process. Building on theories of social-psychology and utilizing experimental designs, the dissertation consists of three theoretical and three empirical papers, which address the aforementioned questions. The theoretical arguments and the empirical findings reported in this dissertation suggest that status differences between acquiring and acquired firms have discernable effects on key sociocultural integration outcomes like trust, social preferences, organizational commitment and knowledge transfer. Taken together, the arguments raised and results reported in this dissertation point out the important, yet hitherto relatively neglected, role of status in acquisitions, and in other similar inter-organizational modes. / <p>Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan i Stockholm, 2012</p>

This is a workshop #6 presented by BC RSRnet for British Columbia physiotherapists and occupational therapists on April 12, 2007 and recorded by Eugene Barsky, UBC Physiotherapy Outreach Librarian. / Improving use of evidence in health care : needs, hopes and the reality