During the last decades the world economy has experienced significant transformations. The pace
of change is still showing no sign of slowing down. Financial globalization and rapid merge of
information and communication technologies have integrated the world economy. The world economy
has been turned from an industrial into a knowledge economy . Knowledge has become a strategic
asset for firms and the ability to manage knowledge seems to be the crucial management skill
now in the knowledge age . It is assumed as basis of the knowledge economy in sense of sharing
knowledge and creating new knowledge for commercial advantage. Findings of the research about
the factors of knowledge sharing process indicate that the success of intra-organizational
knowledge sharing in firms is determined to be an important extent of social relationships
between the people and departments involved. This book provides interesting insights to the
concepts of knowledge and social capital. It shows how they take effect in real life business:
what role does trust and trustworthiness play? Do we need shared visions? Can the existence and
the effect shared values be measured? - Interesting questions? Yes indeed. And the answers
given in this book are even based on statistical hard facts from empirical data. And this is
not always the case in books that deal with issues on the borderline between economic and
social science.
