Review of the Knowledge Management Among the Startup's Firms

Centobelli, Cerchione, and Esposito (2017) conducted a systematic review of the knowledge management among the startup's firms to establish gaps and suggest agenda for future research. Firms are increasingly leveraging on knowledge management to promote innovation and cultural changes in the organization. Although it is accepted that knowledge management enables teams and stakeholders to complete their goals, there is still lack of literature that have studied the knowledge management as practices in small and medium term enterprises. Only a small section of research has focused on how knowledge management is used in small start ups.

Methodology

The researchers employ systematic review in tackling knowledge management among start-ups companies. Systematic methodology involves a researcher coming up with ten steps from finding the key word to validation of the papers at the end of the research. The researchers, therefore, looked at the scientific contributions in developing the ten steps that can be replicated. This literature review organized into two phases that included searching of the material to be used through identification of both the key word and the data base. The second phase was selection of the papers to be included.

Findings

The researchers identified the main factor that influences the negative or positive use of knowledge management in start-ups. They also found that empirical evidence can be important in pointing out the impact of knowledge management on firms. The knowledge management contributes to firms performance through enhancing economic, human, market and technological performance.

Limitation

It was assumed that the keyword identified would contribute in retrieving all the papers related to the problem of the study. This is not the case since some authors use variations of keywords.

There were also high chances of biases in the selection of the papers to be included in the study. In addition, the content analysis is exhausting given the high number of literature to be studied deeply.

The influence of teamwork quality on software team performance

Weimar, et al. (2017) argued that unlike previous studies that have indicated that software projects success depends only on having sound structural programming and agile development. These researchers sought to establish that completion of software projects is also depended on high-quality collaborations. This study seeks to analyze and introduce three factors that that influence the quality of the software teams. These factors are trust among the teams, sharing knowledge that is valuable and coordination of the expertise. Having a team of high quality is vital for accomplishing success in the software projects. This research is to fill the gap since few researchers have investigated the elements and dynamics that influence innovation among teams.

Methodology

As a quantitative and qualitative investigation, the researchers used two groups of respondents that included project team members and stakeholders. The study started by investigating the new team quality in 29 software developments teams based in 18 companies. The process involved comparing results and the goals of the teams.

These teams filled 204 questionnaires. The stakeholders filled 128 questionnaires as well. Items were measured using a 5 point Likert scale. After data collection, analysis was done through statistical methods to establish relationships between the team performance and characters of the teams

Findings

The study found three additional factors that can influence software team performance. These include trust, coordination of the team by experts and value sharing. Teams had different diversity like informational and social category. Value diversity on the other hand exists when project team members have various perspectives on the teams goals, missions and the task to be accomplished leading to conflicts. It is therefore crucial for members to share the same mission, vision to appreciate the tasks to be accomplished. One of the factors that contribute to software projects success is the use sharing information, having the same values and trust.

Limitation

The study used an online questionnaire that had a high number of respondent dropping out due to failure to answer all the questions. It was also not easy to quantify the open-ended questions hence the researchers used many assumptions.

Continuous software engineering: A roadmap and agenda

In this study, Fitzgerald and Stol, (2017) investigates why the software development teams have faced the problem of the disconnection between the planning and the actual implementation of projects. Teams need to be able to share ideas on the functionality of the newly released product. The teams needs also be able to share tools and software infrastructure to accomplish projects successfully.

Researchers argue that software development teams often encounters problems in accomplishing projects due to lack of continuity in planning, designing, programming and analysis. Consequently, different teams are involved in one part of the project, like planning without consulting the people that will develop the software.

There has been rapid accepted of agile methods in software development from being used in small teams and require teams to be able to respond to the needs in their environment as quickly as possible. This can only happen if knowledge sharing is encouraged at all level.

Methods

The research mainly employed secondary research through reviewing various literatures dealing with the subject matter. The researchers investigate various activities that need to be conducted continuously in the software teams to achieved project success. The call the process of project delivery, continuous soft ware engineering. The conclusion is made after content analysis.

Findings

Researchers concluded that continuous integration is an important practice that can eliminate disconnection between projects and teams deployed. There is need to integrate business strategy and development for success among the teams. The research focused on proving an overall framework to reduce confusions among the software teams that is caused by disconnection. There is need for software projects to embrace continuity that will connect all the teams involved from planning and delivery of the software to the market.

Limitation

Researchers faced the confusion brought by the interchangeability of terms and lack of rigorous definition by researchers. The paper is a proposal for adopting a concept for integration of various activities and processes within teams. It therefore need further research to test the concepts through metrics and other quantitative data. The data validity is based on the observation of other people that did not conduct research.

References

Centobelli, P., Cerchione, R. and Esposito, E., 2017. Knowledge management in startups: systematic literature review and future research agenda. Sustainability, 9(3), p.361. http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/3/361/htm

Fitzgerald, B. and Stol, K.J., 2017. Continuous software engineering: A roadmap and agenda. Journal of Systems and Software, 123, pp.176-189. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Klaas-Jan_Stol2/publication/279754472_Continuous_Software_Engineering_A_Roadmap_and_Agenda/links/55cdcde208aee19936f80031.pdf

Hajro, A., Gibson, C.B., and Pudelko, M., 2017. Knowledge exchange processes in multicultural teams: Linking organizational diversity climates to teams effectiveness. Academy of Management Journal, 60(1), pp.345-372. http://amj.aom.org/content/60/1/345.full

Weimar, E.M.I.L.Y., Nugroho, A., Visser, J., Plaat, A., Goudbeek, M. and Schouten, A.P., 2017. Theinfluence of teamwork quality on software team performance. arXiv preprint arXiv:1701.06146.

https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1701/1701.06146.pdf