Schedules, Calendars and Agendas

Time management instruments such as schedules, calendars and agendas are obvious tools to organise individual and collective action. Besides being of great practical significance in the western world and beyond, these tools are remarkable in that they are rarely questioned by those who are governed by them. Yet, they are tools and as such they can be used by management in organisations. This paper will explore: -why these time instruments are much legs visible than the task itself, -to what extent they are knowingly used by management, and -if their effectiveness is somehow limited to certain activities. It is argued that the unobtrusiveness oftime instruments is related to the natural distinction between content and context. Tasks, intellectual or practical, lead the actors to focus on content. Time management instruments appear to belong to context instead. Hence, they are normally taken for granted, framing the problem.Time; management

Creation of Managerial Capabilities Through Managerial Knowledge Integration

The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework of managerial knowledge integration and to illustrate the framework for three levels of management: front-line, middle, and top management. Based on the framework, propositions will be derived relating managerial knowledge integration with the creation of managerial capabilities and a firm's managerial competences.managerial knowledge integration;managerial capabilities and competences;levels of management

Creating the N-Form Corporation as a Managerial Competence

This paper discusses key properties of the N-form corporation or internal network forms of organizing from three mutually related perspectives: structure, knowledge flows and management processes. To operationalize knowledge flows, a key property of N-forms, the paper suggests a new measure, the H/V ratio, to empirically assess the configuration of knowledge flows. The argument is illustrated by a case study of a firm showing that top management's perception about having an internal network contradicts with reality as vertical knowledge flows appear to dominate the horizontal ones. The managerial competence required for creating internal networks aimed at knowledge creation and sharing will be discussed.internal networks;knowledge flows;N-form Corporation;Organizational forms;managerial competence

Transition Processes Towards Internal Networks

As a result of many changes in the competitive landscape, knowledge has become a crucial resource of firms, which has impelled firms to change their forms of organizing. Evidence suggests that internal networks, as such an alternative form of organizing, progress to emerge to facilitate the organization and management of knowledge. Insights into how firms actually change into internal networks have been sparse, however. On the basis of three case studies conducted at Rabobank-one at the group level, one at the local member banks, and one at the business unit Spectrum-this paper furnishes this lack of inquiry with new insights. The evidence illustrates that when firms change into internal network forms of organizing, horizontal knowledge flows between subunits are facilitated.differential paces of change;internal networks;knowledge flows

Moir{\'e} patterns as a probe of interplanar interactions: graphene on h-BN

By atomistic modeling of moir{\'e} patterns of graphene on a substrate with a small lattice mismatch, we find qualitatively different strain distributions for small and large misorientation angles, corresponding to the commensurate-incommensurate transition recently observed in graphene on hexagonal BN. We find that the ratio of C-N and C-B interactions is the main parameter determining the different bond lengths in the center and edges of the moir{\'e} pattern. Agreement with experimental data is obtained only by assuming that the C-B interactions are at least twice weaker than the C-N interactions. The correspondence between the strain distribution in the nanoscale moir{\'e} pattern and the potential energy surface at the atomic scale found in our calculations, makes the moir{\'e} pattern a tool to study details of dispersive forces in van der Waals heterostructures.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure