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The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the mediating effect of social capital (SC) on knowledge management (KM) and intellectual capital (IC).

A conceptual model of the connections between IC, KM, and SC was developed and the posited hypotheses were tested using a survey data set of 281 questionnaires collected from knowledge workers working in 72 information and communications technology companies operating in Jordan.

The findings show that knowledge documentation and knowledge transfer emerged as having the strongest effects on IC, followed by knowledge acquisition and knowledge creation, while knowledge application was found to have an insignificant effect. Also, knowledge transfer and knowledge acquisition emerged as the only two significant processes for the development of SC. Moreover, SC was found to partially and significantly mediate the effects of all processes on IC.

To promote the development of IC, particularly, in a knowledge-intensive business service (KIBS) sector, documentation, transfer, acquisition, and creation of knowledge are especially effective processes. Furthermore, SC can be significantly enhanced through ensuring effective internal knowledge transfer and acquisition practices. Nurturing IC in a knowledge-intensive context can also be significantly enhanced through looking at the firm as a cooperative knowledge-sharing entity, i.e. investing in SC.

This is the first empirical study that has examined the links among KM processes, SC, and IC in a KIBS sector within an “oil-poor,” “human resource-rich” Arab developing country context.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of knowledge management (KM) on product and process innovations, as well as on operational performance (OP). In addition, the effects of product and process innovations on OP, as well as their mediating effects on the relationship between KM and OP, are also investigated.

A questionnaire-based survey was designed and used to collect data from 207 manufacturing companies operating in the Jordanian capital Amman. To assess construct validity, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted. To test research hypotheses, the bootstrap re-sampling method was applied using Hayes’s SPSS multiple-mediator PROCESS macro.

The results indicate that KM has significant positive effects on product and process innovations, and OP. Process innovation was found to have a significant positive effect on OP, while product innovation was not. Furthermore, only process innovation was found to significantly mediate the KM-OP relationship.

The findings of this study provide useful insights about the role of KM in facilitating and enhancing product and process innovations, as well as OP in the surveyed manufacturing companies. An important implication concerns the roles of product and process innovations. Manufacturing companies seeking improvements in their OP are recommended to focus on process innovation rather than product innovation. While product innovation may affect other aspects of performance, such as market and financial ones, it was not found to significantly affect OP. Process innovation can also leverage KM’s contribution to manufacturing companies’ OP.

This is a pioneering study in that it developed an integrated model that depicts the interrelationships among KM, product innovation and process innovation and OP, in a developing country context.

This study aims to develop and empirically test a “stocks and flows”-based model of intellectual capital (IC) that examines how human-embodied knowledge (i.e., human capital) can be transformed into organisational non-embodied knowledge (i.e., organisational capital) through the mediating roles of social capital and the knowledge management (KM) process of knowledge transfer.

A structural model was developed and empirically tested using a survey data set of 295 questionnaires collected from the “knowledge-intensive” pharmaceutical manufacturing industry in Jordan.

Empirical results revealed that each of human capital, social capital and knowledge transfer has a positive and significant effect on organizational capital. In particular, knowledge transfer emerged as having the strongest effect. Social capital, on the other hand, emerged as having a positive and significant effect on knowledge transfer. Mediation analysis revealed that while human capital significantly affects organizational capital, such an effect is partially and significantly mediated by each of social capital as well as knowledge transfer.

This study provides senior managers in pharmaceutical manufacturing firms with valuable insights pertaining to the development of their IC, in terms of how to exploit their knowledge stocks (i.e. human-embodied knowledge and organizational non-embodied knowledge) through managing knowledge flows between them. This was shown to be significantly leveraged by the mediating roles of social capital as well as knowledge transfer.

This study provides important theoretical and empirical contributions to the extant literature in a number of ways. It provides better understanding of the intricate linkages among IC dimensions, and how these play complementary roles in organizational capital development. It has also provided important empirical evidence highlighting the vital mediating roles of social capital and knowledge transfer in facilitating knowledge flows, which aid in transforming human-embodied knowledge stocks into organizational-embodied ones.

This study aims to investigate the moderating impact of environmental knowledge on the factors influencing individuals’ continuous intention to use e-wallets.

Using a quantitative research design, this study develops and empirically tests a structural model. A purposive sample of 344 e-wallet users in Jordan was analyzed using Smart-PLS software.

The results indicate that perceived usefulness, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control directly influence the intention to continue using e-wallets. Notably, environmental concern and environmental knowledge do not have a direct impact on continuous intention. However, they act as mediators in the relationship between perceived behavioral control and continuous intention. Specifically, environmental knowledge acts as a mediator between perceived behavioral control, subjective norms and continuous intention. Furthermore, environmental knowledge moderates the relationship between perceived behavioral control and subjective norms, significantly impacting users’ continuous intention to use e-wallets.

This study contributes to the extended theory of planned behavior model within the banking sector by emphasizing the enhanced explanatory power of environmental factors. It underscores the pivotal role of environmental knowledge as a moderator that connects determinants of e-wallet usage to continuous intention.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the effects of innovation orientation (IO) on both the implementation levels of soft and hard lean management (LM), as well as innovation performance. It also aims at exploring the effects of soft and hard LM on innovation performance.

The study analyzes survey data collected as a part of a high-performance manufacturing (HPM) project from 238 international manufacturing companies in eight countries and three industries. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were applied to assess construct validity. The study hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling.

The results demonstrated that innovation-oriented companies tend to adopt aspects of both soft and hard LM. However, the results revealed an insignificant effect of soft and hard LM on innovation performance. The study also showed that innovation performance is positively influenced by an IO. These results indicate that having an IO is vital for enhancing both LM as well as innovation performance. They also evidently suggest that LM is more related to continuous improvement (incremental innovation) rather than (radical) innovation and, as such, is not important for firm’s intent on enhancing their innovation performance.

The current study demonstrates that IO and LM are complementary and not contradicting strategies. The two strategies share many cultural aspects, similarities and commonalities. However, LM is not sufficient to predict innovation performance. Managers of the surveyed manufacturing firms are advised to focus on IO, as it has beneficial impacts on both LM (continuous improvement initiatives) as well as innovation performance. This clearly indicates that placing the emphasis upon radical (innovative) improvement rather than incremental improvement (LM practices) is believed to support continuous and innovative improvement alike.

The relationship between LM and innovation is debated in the existing literature, but the debate is characterized by a lack of empirical evidence. This is one of the first studies that empirically investigates the relationships between IO, LM and innovation performance. It identifies some new insights to direct future research, particularly regarding different innovation types as well as in service organizations.

Since conducting the literature review revealed that assessing quality in secondary schools has been an unexplored territory, and where most educational service quality research studies have mainly focussed on assessing quality from a student’s perspective in higher education, comes into play with a two-fold objective: first, to identify the quality dimensions most vital to students in a developing country such as Jordan, and then to develop a framework consisting of these dimensions; and second, to investigate the extent of satisfaction of students enrolled into international qualifications in Jordan by measuring the gap between expectations and perceptions. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

A focus group meeting consisting of experts in the field of secondary school education, specifically in internationally recognized qualifications, was conducted. These expert’s objective input helped develop the framework for assessing quality in secondary schools.

A framework was developed specifically to suit private secondary schools in Jordan with reference to the SERVQUAL model. The resulting questionnaire is intended to be distributed to over 200 students enrolled in an international qualification program among private schools in Jordan.

The framework could be considered as a form of reality check for schools supplying school administrations in Jordan with a suitable tool to measure whether they are exceeding their students’ expectations. This framework might not be applicable to public schools in Jordan, since it was customized to be applied in schools who have adopted international qualification(s).

This study contributes to quality service research that addresses the context of high schools in a developing Middle-Eastern country.

The purpose of this paper is to aggregate significant part of debates in the field of International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs) toward performance improvement by benchmarking of the Total Quality Management (TQM) practices, and to propose TQM-Benchmarking model as a seed for future research in the context of INGOs.

TQM practices for INGOs were first identified based on critical synthesis of the literature for both, existing for-profit TQM literature and the INGOs field-specific quality and accountability frameworks, initiatives, and practices (Jordan introduced as an example) followed by solicitation of the opinions of experts and colleagues through personal interviews and focus group discussions to define the proposed TQM-Benchmarking model.

TQM-Benchmarking model of six practices vital to INGOs performance are proposed by this review including leadership and management commitment, beneficiaries focus and participation, partnership management for sustainability, human resource (HR) focus, process management and learning and continuous improvement, and use of quality information.

While TQM practices succeed in improving performance of for-profit organizations, this review proposed TQM-Benchmarking model with field-specific practical pillars of performance improvement in the INGOs.