Purpose This paper explores participants' perceived benefits and costs that influence the quantity and the quality of voluntary participation in knowledge networks in a resources-constrained economy. Design/methodology/approach A conceptual model of perceived benefits and costs of knowledge sharing is designed on the basis of literature. The influence of perceived benefit and cost on perceived quantity and quality of knowledge sharing are assessed on the basis of a survey with 283 participants in a business context within a resourcerestrained economy. Findings The results indicate that reputation, reciprocity, and altruism are perceived to benefit quantity of participation, while reciprocity, altruism, and knowledge self-efficacy are perceived to benefit the quality of participation in knowledge networks. Effort and time have a negative impact on both quantity and quality of participation in knowledge sharing. Research limitations/implications This study provides insights into the factors that influence acceptance and use of knowledge networks, and can thus influence business policies. Originality/value This exploratory study explores both perceived benefits and costs of participation in knowledge sharing in a resource-constrained economy.

Knowledge management is a critical issue in today's business world. Knowledge is considered to be one of the most strategic resources of a firm and sources of competitive advantage. This paper identifies and ranks Critical Success Factors (CSFs) for implementation of knowledge management in the Iranian Energy Sector. Using the Analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method the relative quantitative weights of 8 of the major CSFs for implementation of knowledge management are identified, based on analyses with KM designers in the Iranian energy sector. The outcomes of the research designate that the critical success factors in the order of importance are: corporate culture, human and financial resources, strategy and leadership, structures and procedures, meso environmental factors, knowledge management process, macro environmental factors, technology and infrastructure.

Web service composition can provide a value-chain between customers and suppliers. The increasing number of services, and thus possible combinations, demands the development of dynamic and automatic techniques for their composition. Current commercial solutions are limited and are primarily static and manual. Automation requires reasoning about (semantic descriptions of) the services. In this paper we describe our initial work involving the semantic description of Web services using DAML-S and how our Agent Factory has used these descriptions in its design process to derive a Web service configuration.

Knowledge management is a critical issue in today's business world. Knowledge is considered to be one of the most strategic resources of a firm and sources of competitive advantage. This paper identifies and ranks Critical Success Factors (CSFs) for implementation of knowledge management in the Iranian Energy Sector. Using the Analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method the relative quantitative weights of 8 of the major CSFs for implementation of knowledge management are identified, based on analyses with KM designers in the Iranian energy sector. The outcomes of the research designate that the critical success factors in the order of importance are: corporate culture, human and financial resources, strategy and leadership, structures and procedures, meso environmental factors, knowledge management process, macro environmental factors, technology and infrastructure.