[AISWorld] OR Insight Special Issue Call for Papers: Facilitating information and knowledge management through Information Systems

[Papadopoulos A.]

Dear Colleagues,

We would like to invite you to submit papers for the special issue of "OR Insight" (Palgrave Publishers) entitled: "Facilitating information and knowledge management through Information Systems and Operational Research: from theory to practice"

Guest Editors: 
Dr Thanos Papadopoulos, School of Management, University of Southampton, UK
Dr. Panagiotis Kanellis, Executive Director, Advisory services, Greece
Teta Stamati, SingularLogic Integrator, Greece.

The management and sharing of information and knowledge is one of a small set of core competencies that has such a direct and profound effect on reaching and sustaining competitive advantage. We live in the "Information Society", where the amount of information and knowledge a firm possesses equals its ability to act on time, dealing thereby with constant changes in the external context in it is embedded. Hence, information and knowledge management bring various issues to the fore, such as how to retrieve the most relevant and trustworthy sources; how to use these sources so as to succeed in the achievement of a firm's strategic plans; how to use them for making decisions, providing individuals with the appropriate modelling techniques (e.g. cognitive mapping) and Information Systems (IS) (e.g. expert and knowledge management systems) for this; and how to use them for personal knowledge enhancement and improvement of one's role as "knowledge worker" in today's information society (Edwards et al., 2009). 

The achievement of a firm's strategic plan and competitive advantage is dependent on its ability to respond to challenges occurring in both internal and external environment. In this vein, Operational Research (OR) comes to the fore, inter alia, as an agent and means of securing that 'intervention and  change' - which is needed for the achievement of a firm's objectives- is effective and successful (Klein et al., 2007). Successful OR practice involves the successful management of information andknowledge through the design and implementation of various models and IS (e.g. knowledge management and expert systems, artificial intelligence). These models and systems enable, for instance, effective decision making; they bring changes in the knowledge of individuals and groups associated with the change; and they help them to understand highly complex change situations, as well as the interactions between
multiple stakeholders with often conflicting and competing views, who discuss, negotiate changes, and use modelling techniques to deal with the complexities of these different interpretations (Edwards et al., 2009). Thus, change and intervention, improved and effective decision making, the delivery of new products and services and the improvement of already existing ones are dependent on OR practice through the effective information and knowledge management, and technological capabilities as suggested by the use of IS and models. However, this poses challenges related to numerous factors (e.g. contextual, cultural) that need to be taken into consideration when designing, implementing, and managing effective models and IS. Research has
shown the influence of the aforementioned factors, but, clearly, further research is needed into these topics.

The motivation for this Special Issue stems from the unexplored issues regarding the development and implementation of OR based models, IS, and networking in managing information and knowledge in today's complex contexts. The focus is to stimulate discussion and debate on the processes and models for the management of information and knowledge. Submitted papers must be practical/real world cases which emphasise the role of IS (e.g. expert and knowledge management systems), and OR model development and implementation as mechanisms to e.g. store, retrieve, coordinate, share, and control the exchange of knowledge and information, and suggest managerial lessons to be learnt. Potential topics, but not restricted to, include: 

§ IS implementation issues (Social, cultural, contextual, power, politics) for
information and knowledge management;
§ The creation of an enterprise knowledge-driven culture and learning organisation
and delivery of value based on customer knowledge;
§ The emergence of networks and social networking for information and knowledge
exchange and sharing;
§ The role of trust, solidarity, and power in knowledge sharing and exchange;
§ Knowledge management practices and IS enabled innovation, core competencies
and intellectual capital valuation;
§ The role of knowledge management systems with the form of artificial intelligence,
expert and knowledge management systems in avoiding or mitigating risk during
strategic planning and problem solving.
§ The role of knowledge management in modelling decision support and facilitating
group decisions by forms of knowledge modelling (e.g. causal maps or values'
hierarchies), so as to bring to light knowledge/opinions exchanged in the group,
ensure the underlying issues are analysed rigorously, and promote learning
(Edwards et al., 2009; Montibeller et al., 2006).
§ The development and implementation of specific OR- based models and algorithms
that underpin many systems and play important role in information and knowledge
management.

We welcome papers that bridge the gap in the overlapping fields of IS, knowledge management and OR-driven information and knowledge management. We also
welcome papers that are of particular relevance to practitioners and draw from different background theories and results of research on IS and OR driven information and knowledge management.

References:
Edwards, J.S., Ababneh, B., Hall, M., and Shaw, D. (2009). Knowledge management: a review of
the field and of OR's contribution. Journal of the Operational Research Society, 60, S114-S125.
Klein, J.H., Connell, N.A.D., and Meyer, E. (2007). Operational research practice as storytelling.
Journal of the Operational Research Society 58, 1535 -1542.

Montibeller, G., Shaw, D., and Westcombe, M. (2006). Using decision support systems to
facilitate the social process of knowledge management. Knowledge management research and
practice, 4, 125-137.

Key dates
Deadline for submission: 30th November 2010
Publication: mid-2011

Submission
Papers must be submitted to: a.papadopoulos at soton.ac.uk and accompanied by a cover
letter explicitly stating the contribution of the paper. They must also comply with the
OR Insight Instructions to Authors (http://www.palgravejournals.com/ori/author_instructions.html) -especially the requirement that author
names should not appear anywhere in the manuscript file that is submitted. Normal OR
Insight reviewing procedures and standards will apply.


The Guest Editors will be happy to answer any queries from potential authors.

Best Regards,
Thanos 
======================================================== 
Dr Athanasios (Thanos) Papadopoulos, Dipl-Eng, MSc, PhD, FHEA
Lecturer in Knowledge and Information Systems Management
School of Management
University of Southampton
Room 4052, Building 2, Highfield
Southampton, UK
SO17 1BJ
Tel: +44 (0)23 8059 7716
Fax: +44 (0)23 8059 3844
Email: a.papadopoulos at soton.ac.uk
www.management.soton.ac.uk
========================================================
 

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