The paper presents a method to elicit individual knowledge from verbal judgments. Usually verbal ... more The paper presents a method to elicit individual knowledge from verbal judgments. Usually verbal representation, such as discourses , explanations, dialogues, are ambiguous. The method was developed for the evaluation of competences of professional workers in a large R&D company. The model was developed in two phases. The aim of the first phase was t o define the set of competences and their explicative force in the evaluation process. According to the model, the evaluation is carrie d on by a network of evaluators, who evaluate the competences expressed by individuals in situations they manage during their activity. The evaluator are forced to explain the motivation of their judgment. The resulting evaluation discourse is represent as a tree, where the root is the final judgment and the leafs are the final categories justifying the judgment. The second phase is aimed to use the trees in order to design an evaluation procedure. At this end the trees are interpreted by using th e fuz...
The aim of the paper is to propose a methodology to compute the cost of competencies involved in ... more The aim of the paper is to propose a methodology to compute the cost of competencies involved in critical organizational processes. We present a costing model for the assessment of competencies integrating a cost technique, Activity Based-Costing (ABC), with a Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The proposed model has been tested in a small manufacturing firm operating in the packaging sector and the first results are reported. The main contribution of the work concerns the development of a costing model useful for managers to acquire awareness about the role of competencies in the activation of critical processes, and consequently, triggering learning processes. Furthermore, the evaluation of the costs of competencies can be used to make a more careful analysis of the cost/benefits ratio associated to an investment in intangible assets than the ones performed by other methods available in the literature that are unbalanced toward the evaluation of benefits.
This paper presents a fuzzy real option model for the estimation of the value of an investment in... more This paper presents a fuzzy real option model for the estimation of the value of an investment in individual compe-tencies. The use of the real option technique is justified on the basis of the following hypotheses: i) either deve-loping or acquiring a competency is a financial ...
ABSTRACT Nonaka and Takeuchi foundational work brought tacit knowledge to the attention of the Kn... more ABSTRACT Nonaka and Takeuchi foundational work brought tacit knowledge to the attention of the Knowledge Management (KM) community. During the same years, research in cognitive science was offering new insights on how tacit knowledge operates by highlighting the role of visual perception and aesthetic appreciation. Despite these developments, the relationship between tacit knowledge and aesthetics has received scarce attention in KM literature. Drawing from studies in Neuro-Aesthetics, Gestalt psychology, Art critique and Design, we focus on the relationship between aesthetics and ambiguity resolution and adopt as empirical unit engineering systems representations. We show that more effective system representations can be achieved through the application of a set of aesthetic principles supporting the achievement of an optimal level of complexity in the representation (effective complexity). The empirical findings provide evidence that more aesthetically pleasant system representations built following this approach leads to the design of both more elegant and performant systems.
This paper introduces a new and novel deterministic technique for mining association rules from q... more This paper introduces a new and novel deterministic technique for mining association rules from quantitative data tables and databases and show how to use these techniques to devise a fuzzy-inference based apriori algorithm for discovering associations. The algorithm is sound and efficient. It introduces a complexity level that is equivalent to the complexity of the algorithm proposed by Agrawal. It
This article proposes an agent-based model to support the development of self-sustaining regional... more This article proposes an agent-based model to support the development of self-sustaining regional innovation systems (RIS). The model is the base of a computational laboratory, CARIS (Complex Adaptive Regional Innovation System), which aims at evaluating the self-sustainability of RIS and at investigating what are the resources, competencies and mechanisms able to trigger powerful innovation and economic growth processes. Such a topic is particularly interesting for the so-called lagging regions, which, notwithstanding noticeable policy interventions, have been unable to significantly improve their innovation performances. Results of this study show that the exploration capacity, the propensity to cooperation, and the endowed competencies of actors belonging to a region could be considered as key aspects in affecting the regional innovation performance. This means that policy-makers should (i) incentivize investments in research and development activities both at the public and priv...
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the configuration of factors affecting the accura... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the configuration of factors affecting the accuracy of triage decision-making. The contribution of the work is twofold: first, it develops a protocol for applying a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) in the context of triage decision-making, and second, it studies, through two pilot cases, the interplay between individual and organizational factors in determining the emergence of errors in different decisional situations. Design/methodology/approach The methodology adopted in this paper is the qualitative comparative analysis (QCA). The fuzzy-set variant of QCA (fsQCA) is implemented. The data set has been collected during field research carried out in the Emergency Departments (EDs) of two Italian public hospitals. Findings The results of this study show that the interplay between individual and contextual/organizational factors determines the emergence of errors in triage assessment. Furthermore, there are some regula...
The purpose of this chapter is to illustrate some concepts that can help researchers and scientis... more The purpose of this chapter is to illustrate some concepts that can help researchers and scientists in understanding and managing human resources in condition of uncertainty and ambiguity. Usually, discussion about conceptual issues takes two forms: descriptive or normative. In the first case authors describe effective concepts and successful procedures, while in the second case they set down standards and procedures, which researchers and practitioners are advised to follow. Our approach is a step behind standard descriptive or nonnative approaches, as we are concerned with methods that can be constructed on the basis of the understanding of human action in economics organisation. Thus our purpose is the discussion of a set of concepts necessary to construct tools for grasping and managing human action in organisational context. Widening the set of tools which researchers and managers have at hand is a necessary condition to escape from the condition of a man possessing only an hammer, who will view all problems as problems requiring the pounding of nails.
Journal of Information Technology Case and Application Research, 2002
Recent literature has examined the role that IT plays in shaping organizations. Dewett and Jones ... more Recent literature has examined the role that IT plays in shaping organizations. Dewett and Jones (2001) provide a broad overview of how IT impacts organizational characteristics and outcomes. While Information Systems (IS) include many different variety of software platforms and databases, IT includes "a broad array of communication media and devices which link information systems and people including voice mail, e-mail, voice conferencing, video conferencing, the internet, groupware and corporate intranets, car phones, fax machines, personal digital assistants, and so on (Dewett and Jones 2001, p. 314). The fundamental aspect of this definition is that IT enable people to communicate and to use a common, objectified memory of data, information and messages encoded in databases. Dewett and Jones describe five broad categories of outcomes:
International Journal of Technology Management, 2015
Few projects have had such a profound and lasting effect on the world as the Manhattan Project. T... more Few projects have had such a profound and lasting effect on the world as the Manhattan Project. Today, after it was approved 70 years ago by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, its legacy is felt in nuclear medicine, military defence, terrorist threats, and the production of energy. What was remarkable about this project was that to succeed it had to push through the frontiers of knowledge in ways that are impressive even by today's standards. This paper includes a short history of the project and the challenges that had to be overcome. But the paper is primarily about a very large organisation that was forced to learn quickly, compress each stage in the project in a race against time, and pass knowledge, which was often incomplete, from one phase to the next. As such, it makes a theoretical contribution to the literature on the management of large–scale science projects and provides insight into the problems that these projects face today.
Journal of Global Information Technology Management, 2014
The question raised in the title of this editorial is relevant for two reasons. First, a small in... more The question raised in the title of this editorial is relevant for two reasons. First, a small innovative information technology (IT) firm is an incomplete system. Only a part of competencies is internal and under the entrepreneurial control, another part is external and tied to the company by a variety of collaboration forms. It follows that the small IT firm has uncertain boundaries. It is a blurred system deeply ingrained in the surrounding environment. Second, the high rate of innovation in IT sector requires that competencies should be renewed with a very high frequency. This fact implies the need of an environment particularly rich in technical, professional, and managerial skills. The environment becomes particularly important in the medium to long term. A small IT firm usually comes to life around an innovative idea that exploits the potential of an emerging technology. Consider, for example, thousands of small businesses that make apps for mobile phones. The IT firm is genetically innovative. Problems come later. As soon as the initial innovative drive runs out and a small firm must renew its set of competencies. In this case the environment becomes crucial, and the richness of the local context affects the competitiveness of the company, and often its own survival. If above statements are plausible, then there is a problem that has a strong relevance to both the underdeveloped areas of the industrialized countries, and the emerging countries: Which external competency system can support innovative capacity of small IT firms?
Building Systems for the Learning Organization, 2007
In Chapter XVIII we outlined the characteristics of a computational approach to support organizat... more In Chapter XVIII we outlined the characteristics of a computational approach to support organizational analysis. Agent-based modeling, one of the several methodological tools presented in Chapter XVIII, is particularly suited for the modeling of learning processes in complex networks. In ...
The paper presents a method to elicit individual knowledge from verbal judgments. Usually verbal ... more The paper presents a method to elicit individual knowledge from verbal judgments. Usually verbal representation, such as discourses , explanations, dialogues, are ambiguous. The method was developed for the evaluation of competences of professional workers in a large R&D company. The model was developed in two phases. The aim of the first phase was t o define the set of competences and their explicative force in the evaluation process. According to the model, the evaluation is carrie d on by a network of evaluators, who evaluate the competences expressed by individuals in situations they manage during their activity. The evaluator are forced to explain the motivation of their judgment. The resulting evaluation discourse is represent as a tree, where the root is the final judgment and the leafs are the final categories justifying the judgment. The second phase is aimed to use the trees in order to design an evaluation procedure. At this end the trees are interpreted by using th e fuz...
The aim of the paper is to propose a methodology to compute the cost of competencies involved in ... more The aim of the paper is to propose a methodology to compute the cost of competencies involved in critical organizational processes. We present a costing model for the assessment of competencies integrating a cost technique, Activity Based-Costing (ABC), with a Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The proposed model has been tested in a small manufacturing firm operating in the packaging sector and the first results are reported. The main contribution of the work concerns the development of a costing model useful for managers to acquire awareness about the role of competencies in the activation of critical processes, and consequently, triggering learning processes. Furthermore, the evaluation of the costs of competencies can be used to make a more careful analysis of the cost/benefits ratio associated to an investment in intangible assets than the ones performed by other methods available in the literature that are unbalanced toward the evaluation of benefits.
This paper presents a fuzzy real option model for the estimation of the value of an investment in... more This paper presents a fuzzy real option model for the estimation of the value of an investment in individual compe-tencies. The use of the real option technique is justified on the basis of the following hypotheses: i) either deve-loping or acquiring a competency is a financial ...
ABSTRACT Nonaka and Takeuchi foundational work brought tacit knowledge to the attention of the Kn... more ABSTRACT Nonaka and Takeuchi foundational work brought tacit knowledge to the attention of the Knowledge Management (KM) community. During the same years, research in cognitive science was offering new insights on how tacit knowledge operates by highlighting the role of visual perception and aesthetic appreciation. Despite these developments, the relationship between tacit knowledge and aesthetics has received scarce attention in KM literature. Drawing from studies in Neuro-Aesthetics, Gestalt psychology, Art critique and Design, we focus on the relationship between aesthetics and ambiguity resolution and adopt as empirical unit engineering systems representations. We show that more effective system representations can be achieved through the application of a set of aesthetic principles supporting the achievement of an optimal level of complexity in the representation (effective complexity). The empirical findings provide evidence that more aesthetically pleasant system representations built following this approach leads to the design of both more elegant and performant systems.
This paper introduces a new and novel deterministic technique for mining association rules from q... more This paper introduces a new and novel deterministic technique for mining association rules from quantitative data tables and databases and show how to use these techniques to devise a fuzzy-inference based apriori algorithm for discovering associations. The algorithm is sound and efficient. It introduces a complexity level that is equivalent to the complexity of the algorithm proposed by Agrawal. It
This article proposes an agent-based model to support the development of self-sustaining regional... more This article proposes an agent-based model to support the development of self-sustaining regional innovation systems (RIS). The model is the base of a computational laboratory, CARIS (Complex Adaptive Regional Innovation System), which aims at evaluating the self-sustainability of RIS and at investigating what are the resources, competencies and mechanisms able to trigger powerful innovation and economic growth processes. Such a topic is particularly interesting for the so-called lagging regions, which, notwithstanding noticeable policy interventions, have been unable to significantly improve their innovation performances. Results of this study show that the exploration capacity, the propensity to cooperation, and the endowed competencies of actors belonging to a region could be considered as key aspects in affecting the regional innovation performance. This means that policy-makers should (i) incentivize investments in research and development activities both at the public and priv...
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the configuration of factors affecting the accura... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the configuration of factors affecting the accuracy of triage decision-making. The contribution of the work is twofold: first, it develops a protocol for applying a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) in the context of triage decision-making, and second, it studies, through two pilot cases, the interplay between individual and organizational factors in determining the emergence of errors in different decisional situations. Design/methodology/approach The methodology adopted in this paper is the qualitative comparative analysis (QCA). The fuzzy-set variant of QCA (fsQCA) is implemented. The data set has been collected during field research carried out in the Emergency Departments (EDs) of two Italian public hospitals. Findings The results of this study show that the interplay between individual and contextual/organizational factors determines the emergence of errors in triage assessment. Furthermore, there are some regula...
The purpose of this chapter is to illustrate some concepts that can help researchers and scientis... more The purpose of this chapter is to illustrate some concepts that can help researchers and scientists in understanding and managing human resources in condition of uncertainty and ambiguity. Usually, discussion about conceptual issues takes two forms: descriptive or normative. In the first case authors describe effective concepts and successful procedures, while in the second case they set down standards and procedures, which researchers and practitioners are advised to follow. Our approach is a step behind standard descriptive or nonnative approaches, as we are concerned with methods that can be constructed on the basis of the understanding of human action in economics organisation. Thus our purpose is the discussion of a set of concepts necessary to construct tools for grasping and managing human action in organisational context. Widening the set of tools which researchers and managers have at hand is a necessary condition to escape from the condition of a man possessing only an hammer, who will view all problems as problems requiring the pounding of nails.
Journal of Information Technology Case and Application Research, 2002
Recent literature has examined the role that IT plays in shaping organizations. Dewett and Jones ... more Recent literature has examined the role that IT plays in shaping organizations. Dewett and Jones (2001) provide a broad overview of how IT impacts organizational characteristics and outcomes. While Information Systems (IS) include many different variety of software platforms and databases, IT includes "a broad array of communication media and devices which link information systems and people including voice mail, e-mail, voice conferencing, video conferencing, the internet, groupware and corporate intranets, car phones, fax machines, personal digital assistants, and so on (Dewett and Jones 2001, p. 314). The fundamental aspect of this definition is that IT enable people to communicate and to use a common, objectified memory of data, information and messages encoded in databases. Dewett and Jones describe five broad categories of outcomes:
International Journal of Technology Management, 2015
Few projects have had such a profound and lasting effect on the world as the Manhattan Project. T... more Few projects have had such a profound and lasting effect on the world as the Manhattan Project. Today, after it was approved 70 years ago by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, its legacy is felt in nuclear medicine, military defence, terrorist threats, and the production of energy. What was remarkable about this project was that to succeed it had to push through the frontiers of knowledge in ways that are impressive even by today's standards. This paper includes a short history of the project and the challenges that had to be overcome. But the paper is primarily about a very large organisation that was forced to learn quickly, compress each stage in the project in a race against time, and pass knowledge, which was often incomplete, from one phase to the next. As such, it makes a theoretical contribution to the literature on the management of large–scale science projects and provides insight into the problems that these projects face today.
Journal of Global Information Technology Management, 2014
The question raised in the title of this editorial is relevant for two reasons. First, a small in... more The question raised in the title of this editorial is relevant for two reasons. First, a small innovative information technology (IT) firm is an incomplete system. Only a part of competencies is internal and under the entrepreneurial control, another part is external and tied to the company by a variety of collaboration forms. It follows that the small IT firm has uncertain boundaries. It is a blurred system deeply ingrained in the surrounding environment. Second, the high rate of innovation in IT sector requires that competencies should be renewed with a very high frequency. This fact implies the need of an environment particularly rich in technical, professional, and managerial skills. The environment becomes particularly important in the medium to long term. A small IT firm usually comes to life around an innovative idea that exploits the potential of an emerging technology. Consider, for example, thousands of small businesses that make apps for mobile phones. The IT firm is genetically innovative. Problems come later. As soon as the initial innovative drive runs out and a small firm must renew its set of competencies. In this case the environment becomes crucial, and the richness of the local context affects the competitiveness of the company, and often its own survival. If above statements are plausible, then there is a problem that has a strong relevance to both the underdeveloped areas of the industrialized countries, and the emerging countries: Which external competency system can support innovative capacity of small IT firms?
Building Systems for the Learning Organization, 2007
In Chapter XVIII we outlined the characteristics of a computational approach to support organizat... more In Chapter XVIII we outlined the characteristics of a computational approach to support organizational analysis. Agent-based modeling, one of the several methodological tools presented in Chapter XVIII, is particularly suited for the modeling of learning processes in complex networks. In ...
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Papers by Giuseppe Zollo