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This paper aims to examine factors which influence how tacit knowledge is built and applied by client-facing consultants.

Qualitative methods (interviews, thematic analysis) were used to gather and analyse data from 15 consultants in an agricultural extension context.

Twenty-six factors about how tacit knowledge is built and applied to action emerged, and are presented grouped into four areas: tacit knowledge needed to be successful; how tacit knowledge is presently built; challenges in turning knowledge into action; and ways that building tacit knowledge might be better supported by the organization.

How the building of tacit knowledge can be accelerated for new organizational members will be of interest to those not only in agricultural extension, but more generally to those managers in organizations who must design and implement training and mentoring programmes for those who support customers and users of their products and services.

The findings provide insight into the mechanisms of building tacit knowledge in client-facing consultants. The experience-based perceptions about effective knowledge-building processes and strategies may contribute to more effective intake and training programmes for consultants.

Discusses the concepts of knowledge, information and data. Analyses the concept of knowledge organizations with the focus on its reliance on knowledge workers and intense information flow. Based on the previous discussion, critically analyses four contemporary myths: (1) process improvement should focus on activities; (2) process improvement should itself be a top‐down process; (3) organizations should be learning systems; and (4) fragmentation should be avoided. Argues that these myths are particularly deceiving and potentially dangerous owing to their incompatibility with the concept of knowledge organizations and the way these organizations operate.

Face‐to‐face business meetings are a widely used method of group interaction, and a rich source of data on what actually happens in group discussions. Active participation in a meeting is usually perceived to be making an oral contribution of some kind to the discussion. This paper describes a field study of ten face‐to‐face business meetings which were videotaped and subsequently analysed. Participant contributions were coded, and the data summarized. The mean contribution was approximately 12 seconds and 18 words. The most common contribution type was information giving. The highest single contributor in each meeting captured, on average, about 30% of the available airtime, while the two highest, combined, captured over half of the airtime. These findings are discussed within the context of requirements for designers of collaborative technology systems to support group interpersonal communication through the use of computing and data communication technologies.

How can action research be made more rigorous? We discuss in this paper action research, positivism and some major criticisms of action research by positivists. We then examine issues relating the conduct of IS research in organisations through multiple iterations in the action research cycle proposed by Susman and Evered. We argue that the progress through iterations allows the researcher to gradually broaden the research scope and in consequence add generality to the research findings. A brief illustrative case is provided with a study on groupware introduction in a large civil engineering company. In the light of this illustrative case we contend that effective application of the iterative approach to action research has the potential to bring research rigour up closer to standards acceptable by positivists and yet preserve the elements that characterise action research as such.

The paper seeks to capture leadership tacit knowledge mechanisms built throughout leaders' careers. Learning to be a leader involves developing the tacit knowledge to give confidence in one's decisions. Most of the knowledge required cannot be acquired from explicit documents – rather, it is built through action, experience and reflection. This research focuses on leadership in the innovation context where learning potentially occurs through a variety of knowledge building processes.

Narratives from 31 leaders who have achieved success in innovation leadership were collected piloting a tacit knowledge articulation methodology. From the narratives, a model is proposed which is embedded in the leadership career pathways of these innovation leaders.

The findings suggest that leadership tacit knowledge mechanisms evolve with organisations' life cycle. A bi‐focal (developmental and “locus of knowledge“ factors) model was assembled to explain how successful leadership involves balancing “locus of learning” from internal and external sources and facilitating mind‐shifts (e.g. collaboration and communication paradigms underlying relationship and networking processes).

The study sample size was relatively small – further replications with a larger number of subjects and in different contexts are planned or under way.

This research has implications relevant to both leaders interested in bringing their organizations to their next developmental level and to practitioners because leverage points are identified at which interventions designed to share the lessons learned from successful leaders will be most effective.

Tacit leadership knowledge is not easily transferred into explicit “how‐to” instructions for consumption by a prospective innovation leader, yet it is a major source of competitive advantage. It is more appropriate to view innovation leadership development as a tacit knowledge building process in individuals and groups, rather than a knowledge transfer from knowledgeable leaders to wannabe leaders. A developmental model is proposed that integrates the changes occurring in learning patterns while firms expand their loci of knowledge.

Much of the evaluative research on groupware in organizations so far has been preoccupied with the role of groupware as a new interaction medium to replace or extend face‐to‐face communication in groups. It has focused on gains and losses from a group interaction point of view, typically disregarding the impact of other functions such as group access, and contribution to information concerning the organization. Attempts to bridge this gap with an action research into the effects of the introduction of an asynchronous groupware system to support business process improvement groups in a service company based in Brazil. The research suggests that improvements in business redesign efficiency and effectiveness can be attained not only from asynchronous groupware support to group communication, but also from public sharing of historical information about previous business process improvement efforts, and by providing a repository of information about business processes which could be candidates for improvement. Concludes with the proposal of an explanatory model, describing the relationship between the introduction of technology, its integration with a business process improvement meta‐process, and its effects on the efficiency and effectiveness of that meta‐process.

This research aims to examine zero employee web-enabled businesses (ZEWEs) in a New Zealand context. A definition of ZEWEs is conceived and presented, synthesized from gaps in previous SME, micro business and web-based business literature. ZEWEs are an emerging and important new subcategory of web-enabled SMEs that have previously been not well covered by published research. Enablers and barriers to the successful establishment of a ZEWE are identified and compared to previous SME research.

A total of 20 entrepreneurs in New Zealand were interviewed about their perceptions of enablers and barriers to a successful ZEWE, and the components of business strategies that would help them achieve success in the web-based market. Qualitative thematic analysis methods were used to extract factors.

It was found that competitive advantage of products, adopting electronic commerce websites, motivation to become a business owner, and having a good reputation of both entrepreneurs and their businesses are significant enablers of success, while online competition, commercial disputes, capital requirements, deficits in management and technical capabilities, and taxation issues are barriers for the development and future success of ZEWEs.

This is exploratory research. The data was gathered in a New Zealand context of entrepreneurs using auction websites to found and operate their ZEWE businesses, and the findings may be useful in understanding other geographic and cultural environments.

A new category of zero employee web-enabled enterprises (ZEWE) has been investigated, and found to exist. Enabling factors and barriers particular to this class have been uncovered and compared to previous SME research. This new enterprise category may become important in future research about internet-based small enterprises and the entrepreneurs that start them.

Recent surveys show that process‐reengineering (BPR) has had widespread adoption in western countries. This has been motivated by case studies where drastic improvements in quality, productivity, cost reduction and competitiveness have been reported. The rate of failure in re‐engineering attempts, though, has been reported to be equally high. It is estimated that over 70 per cent of all re‐engineering attempts fail to produce bottom‐line improvements. Describes one such failed attempt in a large public organization in Brazil. As a result of the re‐engineering attempt, the organization had its IT infrastructure significantly improved, and the access to IT was decentralized by the downsizing of computer applications from a mainframe to a local area network. On the other hand, no radical changes in the organization’s business processes had resulted, despite the US$ 8 million invested in the BPR attempt. Moreover, even though some processes had been automated, almost no staff reduction was effected. The lack of layoffs meant that even the increase in efficiency in those processes, which by no means was radical, was not realized.

Suggests that a number of assumptions in the past have been made about how business process improvement, re‐engineering and organizational learning should take place in organizations. Points out that, although a number of these assumptions have been framed on theoretical models, few have been based on the empirical analysis of the nature of actual business processes. Tries to fill this gap with an analysis of data, information and knowledge exchanges in 22 business processes from three organizations. Points to a number of characteristics that appear to be contradictory to some current organizational practices, and that can be helpful to inform future developments in the fields of business process improvement, re‐engineering and organizational learning. Two relevant characteristics are a much higher proportion of data over material exchanges in business processes, and a higher proportion of knowledge exchanges in improvement over core and support processes.

Describes an empirical study of 15 business processes in three organizations. Business process data were collected in the context of action research projects where the researcher was involved in organizational development activities. Suggests that business processes tend to cut across different departments owing to a contemporary phenomenon ‐ the specialization of knowledge. This leads to the specialization of work with the multiplication of functions and departments in organizations. Also suggests that 70 per cent or more of the product flow through business processes in organizations is made up of information. Discusses organizational implications of these results as regards organizational design and business process redesign focus.