During the last decades the world economy has experienced significant
transformations. The pace of change is still showing no sign of slowing
down. Financial globalization and rapid merge of information and
communication technologies have integrated the world economy. The world
economy has been turned from an industrial into a "knowledge economy".
Knowledge has become a strategic asset for firms and the ability to
manage knowledge seems to be the crucial management skill now in the
"knowledge age". It is assumed as basis of the knowledge economy in
sense of sharing knowledge and creating new knowledge for commercial
advantage. Findings of the research about the factors of knowledge
sharing process indicate that the success of intra-organizational
knowledge sharing in firms is determined to be an important extent of
social relationships between the people and departments involved. This
book provides interesting insights to the concepts of knowledge and
social capital. It shows how they take effect in real life business:
what role does trust and trustworthiness play? Do we need shared
visions? Can the existence and the effect shared values be measured? -
Interesting questions? Yes, indeed. And the answers given in this book
are even based on statistical hard facts from empirical data. And this
is not always the case in books that deal with issues on the borderline
between economic and social science.
