The role of knowledge assets and corporate social responsibility in creating firm value

Knowledge Management (KM) implementation is as much a challenge as it is a great opportunity for businesses worldwide in several sectors. The controversy over its worthwhile application persists among practitioners and scholars, with claims having arisen that business opportunities and performance are enhanced through KM adoption. Conversely, challenges regarding effective implementation of KM concerning individuals’ behaviors, beliefs, and practices prompt significant questioning regarding its complex basis: individual-technology-process-production. The purpose of this work is to shed light on some perspectives for the effective adoption of knowledge management technology, the consolidation of a favorable and aligned organizational culture, and patterns of use and retrieval of information in organizations. This study brings into focus the concept of knowledge management and technology, and culture in the organization through a systematic literature review and based on the researcher’s hypothesis and observations that successful KM implementation results from a clear understanding of its multidisciplinary, complex, and multifaceted process, which requires a methodical and strategic business practice concerning the application of technological tools, the establishment of a learning culture through shared vision of business’ and individuals’ needs, and consequential enhancement of processes and solutions. It concludes that investment in KM practice and the consolidation of a learning culture are correlated, reflecting a type of leadership that is favorable to the flow of information, generation, and sharing of knowledge (the intellectual capital) and optimization of decision making and business performance.

This study examines the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and earnings management after controlling for endogeneity of CSR. Using a sample of non-financial firms listed on Korean Securities Market between 2002 and 2010, this study finds that ignoring endogeneity biases the estimated relation between CSR and earnings management. Specifically, the results show that the negative and significant relation between CSR commitment and discretionary accruals reported in the previous studies becomes insignificant. However, the negative and significant relation between CSR commitment and real activities manipulation remains significant even when the endogeneity of CSR commitment is taken into account. Therefore, this study provides evidence that proactive CSR engagement significantly affects firm’s practice of real activities manipulation, while it does not affect its practice of discretionary accruals. These results indicate that CSR commitment leads managers to be more responsible in management of operational activities than in accruals management.

The increasing turmoil in the external organizational setting or business environment has focused attention on capabilities and resources as the primary source of competitive advantage. Obviously, this statement points to the application of the resource-based view (RBV) of organizational management. Nevertheless, what constitutes RBV remains an illusion in many quarters of organizational management, as scholars have managed to put up their personal ideas, and managed to converge on phenomenon-driven theories, in addition to RBV. This paper reviews the concepts of RBV in light of knowledge management to highlight some critical pitfalls that might have eluded the research community on the subject matter of RBV. To this end, this paper’s educational value lies in the fact that it simplifies the concept of RBV to the new researcher in a fashion that is capable of appealing to his or her level. A cross-sectional qualitative research approach was employed in an effort aimed at understanding the role of RBV in creating a sustainable competitive advantage and key competencies. A total of 20 relevant articles were searched from different databases and search engines, including Scopus, EBSCO, ABI Inform, IEEE, PubMed, Science Direct, SABINET, IEEE, Bing, Science Direct, and Google Scholar. The findings indicate that RBV plays an important role and assists organizations not only create, nurture, and maintain competitive advantage, but also understand the collective resources needed to compete favorably in a globalized and highly competitive market. With expert knowledge workers at its core to provide support for knowledge creation, sharing, and utilization, the RBV principles discussed in this paper promise to guarantee a methodological step geared towards the achievement of competitive advantage. It, therefore, makes an incremental contribution to the RBV to attain modest improvement in organizational settings.