Researchers report mixed findings on the successful application of information technologies (IT) for knowledge management (KM). The primary difficulty is argued to be the use of information management techniques and concepts to design and develop KM Tools. Also problematic is the existence of a multiplicity of KM technologies, the application and use of which differs across organizations. This paper argues that these problems stem, in part, from the information system field's over-reliance on design concepts from the functionalist paradigm. Hence, our contention that alternative perspectives, which bring into focus issues of ontology and epistemology, need to be brought to bear in order to understand the challenges involved in the design and deployment of IT artefacts in knowledge management systems (KMS). The philosophy of technology, with its emphasis on the primacy of praxis, and which incorporates ontological and epistemological concepts from phenomenology and hermeneutics, is applied to the findings of a participative action research study to illustrate how social actors interpret and understand worldly phenomena and subsequently share their knowledge of the life-world using IT. The outcome of this marriage of situated practical theory and philosophy is a set of design principles to guide the development of a core KM Tool for KMS.

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There is a dearth of research on the capabilities of innovative small-to-medium software enterprises (SMSEs). Understanding how SMSEs build and apply business and information systems (IS) capabilities is important, as such firms account for over 90% of software enterprises operating in Europe and the US. This paper elaborates and applies dynamic capability theory to explore and help understand the web of conditions and factors that shaped and influenced business and IS capability development and application in one European SMSE. Drawing on the overarching theory of dynamic capabilities, a theoretical model is presented that posits relationships among (1) a firm's past activities; (2) its integration, learning and reconfiguration, and transformation capabilities; (3) its financial, complementary, locational, and technological asset positions; and (4) the products and services that result, and which are of value to an SMSE's customers. The paper refines and elaborates the model by describing and enumerating the business and IS capabilities, assets, and products and services of the SMSE under study. To properly assess whether this firm's products and services were of value to its customers, research was also conducted at two customer sites in Ireland and the US, in addition to the investigation at the primary research site in Dublin. The study therefore informs both practitioners' and researchers' understandings of this complex and underresearched phenomenon: for practitioners, it highlights the characteristics required to build innovative software solutions; for researchers, it illustrates the patterns and regularities associated with the development and application of business and IS capabilities.

The Munro Reviewhighlighted obstacles hindering the realisation of an ‘effective’ and ‘child-centred’ English child protection system, including the ‘risk’ associated with the social worker’s discretionary space. The review called for reform to enable practicing social workers to exercise their discretion in the best interests of the individual child. This article reports on the results of an iterative qualitative mixed-methods case study of one local authority child protection team, utilising focus group, questionnaire, interview, observation, documentary analysis and critical realist grounded theory, to explore whether, on encountering a discretionary space, social workers were willing to employ discretion, and the factors influencing this decision. The main findings included that social workers were experiencing discretionary space in an entrepreneurial, de jure and de facto sense and that practitioners were more likely to choose to exercise their discretion within the managerially sanctioned discretionary space. Whilst the research does offer some evidence in favour of Munro’s image for discretion within the system, it also suggests that further efforts may be required to better imbed ‘sanctioned’ discretionary space into local policy and procedures so that child protection social workers can more consistently employ their discretion in the interests of the individual child.

The Munro Review of Child Protection asserted that the English child protection system had become overly ‘defensive’, ‘bureaucratised’ and ‘standardised’, meaning that social workers were not employing their discretion in the interests of the individual child. This paper reports on the results of an ethnographic case study of one of England’s statutory child protection teams. The research sought to explore the extent of social worker discretion relative to Munro’s call for ‘radical reform’ and a move towards a more ‘child-centred’ system. Employing an iterative mixed methods design – encompassing documentary analysis, observation, focus group, questionnaire, interview and ‘Critical Realist Grounded Theory’ – the study positioned the UK Government’s prolonged policy of ‘austerity’ as a barrier to social worker discretion. This was because the policy was seen to be contributing to an increased demand for child protection services; and a related sense amongst practitioners that they were afforded insufficient time with the child to garner the requisite knowledge, necessary for discretionary behaviour. Ultimately, despite evidence of progress relative to assertions that social worker discretion had been eroded, the paper concludes that there may still be ‘more to do’ if we are to achieve the ‘child-centred’ and ‘effective’ system that Munro advocated.