Vestina Vainauskienė

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore the development of entrepreneurship competences (EC) shaped by self-directed experiential learning (SDEL) within business and entrepreneurship studies internships. Design/methodology/approach: The investigation applied deductive qualitative research guided by SDEL framework. Students' weekly reflections on entrepreneurship internships were analyzed to identify enabling and constraining behavior, affecting EC development. Seventeen undergraduate students provided their written consent to the use of their reflections for this study. Lists of keywords were then inductively derived from the coded data to characterize empirically confirmed SDEL patterns. Keyword distribution was analyzed throughout the reflections on EntreComp-defined competences. Findings: The study identified distinct patterns through which self-directed learning (SDL) would either enable or limit the progression across Kolb's experiential learning (EL) phases in the development of EC. SDL manifested unevenly across EL phases, with strengths in dealing with concrete experience and reflective observation, along with notable limitations in engaging with conceptualization and experimentation. Contextual factors, task design and learner readiness had significantly shaped these outcomes. Originality/value: The research advances a theoretical understanding of SDEL by mapping the emergence of its enabling and limiting elements in the SDL-EL interaction. Lists of keywords, assigned to the SDEL framework, propose a replicable tool for analyzing reflective texts, offering a way to anticipate, support and evaluate learning behaviors in educational contexts. The findings occurred in a natural learning environment, as students were not prompted to consider SDL or EL concepts. The disclosures represent authentic and spontaneous manifestations of SDEL occurrence in actuality.

Patient‐led online health communities (OHCs) provide an accessible way for patients to share their knowledge without the constraints of time and distance. By sharing knowledge, patients receive information from other members of the community that expands their knowledge. In this way, knowledge ‘grows’ and enhances the ability of patients in the community to adequately self‐care in everyday life, that is, patient empowerment. This paper aims to understand the dynamics of knowledge sharing in patient‐led OHCs. In search of an answer to the research question, the virtual ethnography research design was applied using an observational data collection method. The observational research was conducted in five patient‐led OHCs of chronically ill patients on the Lithuanian version of the Facebook Platform. The results of the study provided insight into the dynamics of knowledge sharing by detailing the design of the discussions that took place in the studied communities and by characterising the path of knowledge sharing.

Knowledge sharing is essential for a person to grow individually and professionally. In recent years, international businesses have tended to realize the importance of having a good knowledge management system in place. The COVID-19 pandemic, back in 2020 brought a shift to the way of how companies operate with the majority turning to remote work. As a result, companies needed to adapt their knowledge sharing strategies to more remote possibilities. To guarantee that the employees are sharing their knowledge and are able to learn from others, more businesses started to adopt innovative tools for knowledge sharing. One of such tools is virtual communities of practice that brings a chance for employees to have a collaborative tool where they are connected with likeminded people. The objective of this article is to provide recommendations for ensuring knowledge sharing through virtual communities in international business organizations. To achieve this objective, potential knowledge sharing practices in the context of international business are discussed. Additionally, an original research methodology based on virtual ethnography for identi fying knowledge sharing practices in an international business organization is presented, and the qualitative research findings are discussed and interpreted.

Maternity care communication is a generative topic both globally and nationally. Maternity care research has predominately dealt with mental health or physical environment issues, with little focus on healthcare providers’ innovative business-consumer communication or brand management. With the application of brand equity in maternity care communication in social media cases, the purpose of the present study to investigate matching between organizational identity and the represented image. Theoretical grounding elucidates the evidence of digital innovation in action. Qualitative methodology allows eliciting further research directions with relevant research instruments. Two Lithuania-based healthcare sector organization cases with equal value parameters (time, place, activities, and context) are researched. Quantitative and qualitative data analysis, based on virtual observation, is performed. The gap between what organizations want to communicate and what they actually communicate is identified. Managerial and communication actions creating premises for collaborative behaviour and value creation by specific communication tools across such issues as medical influencers, community managers, or readiness for managing healthcare during the pandemic are surveyed. Research limitations due to the narrowness in scope, investigating only two cases within a specific field, are counterbalanced by the completeness of the quantitative and qualitative inquiry into social media data. Despite this, this innovatory study not only expands academic knowledge, suggests an instance of methodology and a research sample, possibly adaptable to varying contexts, but also implies potential issues for communication and management practitioners at healthcare institutions, suggesting apprehensible solutions. DOI: https://doi.org/10.54663/2182-9306.2022.v10.n19.184-205

Patient empowerment is an indispensable precondition for patients to self‐manage their disease. The article takes the position that patients are empowered for disease self‐management through patient knowledge empowerment when sharing knowledge. One of the most important instruments to successfully empower a patient to manage a chronic disease and maintain social relations, which are also a precondition for the prevention of chronic illnesses, is the possibility to access online health communities (OHCs) and participate in them. The aim of the article is to model possible development scenarios of OHCs as enablers of patient knowledge in relation to other digital health technologies (DHTs). A foresight methodology was used to achieve the goal, employing a technology scanning approach after selecting 10 foresight studies, which resulted in four future scenario models for the empowerment of patients wcith chronic diseases through digital health communities. They reveal options for the future interoperability of OHCs with other DHTs and highlight their importance and significance for the healthcare system as a technology for balancing patient self‐efficacy and social relations as well as the need to maintain and develop them.

The non-development of the concept of patient knowledge empowerment for disease self-management and the non-development of the theory of patient knowledge empowerment in patients with chronic diseases, cause methodological inconsistency of patient empowerment theory and does not provide a methodological basis to present patient knowledge empowerment preconditions. Therefore, the aim of the present integrative review was to synthesize and critically analyze the patient knowledge enablers distinguished in the public health management theory, the knowledge sharing enablers presented in the knowledge management theory and to integrate them by providing a comprehensive framework of patient knowledge enablers. To implement the purpose of the study, in answering the study question of what patient knowledge empowerments are and across which levels of patient knowledge empowerment they operate, an integrative review approach was applied as proposed by Cronin and George. A screening process resulted in a final sample of 78 papers published in open access, peer-review journals in the fields of public health management and knowledge management theories. Based on the results of the study, the Enablers of Patient Knowledge Empowerment for Self-Management of Chronic Disease Framework was created. It revealed that it is important to look at patient knowledge empowerment as a pathway across the empowerment levels through which both knowledge enablers identified in public health management theory and knowledge sharing enablers singled out in knowledge management theory operate. The integration of these two perspectives across patient empowerment levels uncovers a holistic framework for patient knowledge empowerment.

Purpose of the article. Scientific research implies that current tectonic shifts, taking place in the external environment, have been reforming the consumer market. In the context of these tendencies, the knowledge seeded in consumer’s consciousness keeps fluctuating in the direction hard to identify. The article investigates the problem of how the dynamicity of consumer knowledge manifests itself. Scientific aim: The present paper aims at suggesting guidelines for constructing an open structure of consumer knowledge. Findings. In grounding the object of the current article, theoretical investigation has been carried out to reveal that consumer knowledge dynamicity is the change of product-related information and subjective experiences, stored in consumer’s long-term memory and allowing the consumer to make purchasing decisions. It manifests through certain structural parts of knowledge, open to the external environment change and interrelated, dealing with product terminology and attributes, with the evaluation of those attributes and the ways of usage as well as facts about the brand. Those structural parts are influenced by marketing activities of an organization, by macro-environment factors, by consumer characteristics, and by changes in purchasing decision making. The present article introduces the case of Lithuanian beauty and personal care mass product industry. Conclusions. The overview and analysis of qualitative research results have revealed the following path of the open consumer knowledge structure formation. Consumer’s knowledge about a product is built when the consumer has certain knowledge on product terminology and on product usage ways. The knowledge of product terminology and usage, then, determines the creation of knowledge on product attributes evaluation. The latter knowledge category builds synergy in the interaction with product attributes which, consequently, influence brand facts.