Narrow Results

Knowledge Management (KM) provides a systematic process to help in the creation, transfer and use of knowledge across the university, leading to increased productivity. While KM has been successfully used elsewhere, universities have been late in adopting it. Before a university can initiate KM, it needs to determine if it is ready for KM or not. Through a web-based survey sent to 1263 faculty members from 59 accredited Library and Information Science programs in universities across North America, this study investigated the effect of individual factors of trust, knowledge self-efficacy, collegiality, openness to change and reciprocity on individual readiness to participate in a KM initiative, and the degree to which this affects perceived organisational readiness to adopt KM. 157 valid responses were received. Using structural equation modeling, the study found that apart from trust, all other factors positively affected individual readiness, which was found to affect organisational readiness. Findings should help universities identify opportunities and barriers before they can adopt KM. It should be a useful contribution to the KM literature, especially in the university context.

The objective of this paper is to study the direct and mediating effects on the motivation to become self-employed of a set of two individual factors (entrepreneurial self-efficacy and risk-taking) and five environmental factors (family self-employment background, social networks, social norms, legal system support and governmental support). Based on 535 cases from the United States, results show that legal system support, social networks, social norms, entrepreneurial self-efficacy and risk-taking had a strong impact on motivation for self-employment. Family self-employment history only had a direct effect and social networks and social norms only had an indirect effect on motivation for self-employment. Our study contributes to the literature by studying motivation for self-employment, at the "middle level" of complexity by providing a summary evaluation of a model involving 17 relationships among eight constructs. In so doing, we have also given substantial attention to context. Our results suggest the need to take into account individual and environmental factors systemically and contextually. Limitations and future research are discussed.

A cryptocurrency is a digital medium of exchange that operates independent of the central bank. It relies on cryptography to secure financial transactions and to check asset transfer. Several studies have shown that several factors play a role in inhibiting cryptocurrency spread, such as national culture, variables related to consumer psychology as well as factors related to regulation and monetary policy. Despite all the technological innovations, the inclusion of cryptocurrencies has become a challenge to governments and central banks since cryptocurrencies are often disfavored by rigorous regulation and monetary policy. On the other hand, psychological levels such as the need for human interaction, the organizational and functional barriers and many other variables related to power distance and uncertainty avoidance are the hindering factors for cryptocurrency adoption. In this chapter, we study the phenomenon of resistance to the spread of cryptocurrency. This study aims to explain how economic and psychological factors could discourage the consumer to use cryptocurrency.