A maturity model acts as a path to improve an entity, which may be a human being, an employee, a group of people, a product, a technology, a process, a department or an organization. In the application of a maturity model, an entity progresses forward from one level of maturity to the next level to achieve perfection. In the context of organizations, development of maturity models in a particular aspect helps in assessing the current effectiveness of the identified entity and getting good clarity on capabilities required to improve its performance. A Knowledge Management (KM) maturity model gives a structured life cycle approach to understand the evolution of initiatives made by an organization in implementing KM. The paper, “The Relationship Between Valuation Criteria and Maturity Level of Knowledge Management: An Empirical Analysis”, authored by Sorush Niknamian, presents the valuation criteria based on the KM maturity level in executive agencies of Khuzestan province. The author has used two different questionnaires, one for valuation criteria and another for KM maturity level to collect data from employees. From the analysis of data, the author has reported a significant relationship between the valuation criteria and the maturity level of knowledge management. Based on the results, the author has made several suggestions and recommendations like: selective technologies should meet the needs for creating and implementing KM system and enable all employees access its output; constraints and problems associated with funding to be identified and predicted; legislation and legal frameworks be tailored to KM; provision of technical infrastructure, network and automation equipment in each section; and managers should maintain written guidelines to create, distribute, share and store knowledge in the organization, encouraging sharing of knowledge by facilitating a open and reliable atmosphere for communication and creation of a specific set of indicators to assess KM.

Indigenous knowledge is the knowledge confined to a particular society or culture in the form of understandings, views, philosophies, habits and skills. This knowledge leads people to make decisions and develop techniques for better results in their daily life, and it paves a way to develop many technologies. In the paper, “Indigenous Knowledge and Sustainable Value Chain Approach to Climate Change Adaptation in the Fisheries Sector of Coastal Bangladesh”, the authors, Prabal Barua and Syed Hafizur Rahman, have analyzed the indigenous knowledge of southeastern coastal communities of Bangladesh about sustainable value chains of fish species in response to climate change vulnerability. With the help of in-depth interviews with influential stakeholders and focused group discussions with several beneficiaries, the authors have taken up the analysis of the end market, value chain mapping and opportunities and constraints. It is reported that the people in coastal areas apply indigenous knowledge as a fast value chain approach for better utilization of fish marketing and creating opportunities to generate high income within short time against economic losses due to natural disasters.

According to Holsapple and Joshi (2004), KM ontology refers KM as an entity’s efforts to expand, cultivate and apply available knowledge in different ways that add value to the entity to accomplish its objectives in a positive way. To provide a deeper understanding beyond ontology, in the paper, “Knontology – A New Domain of Understanding and Inquiry in Knowledge Management”, the authors, Sonali Gayen, Sujoy Dey and Sidharta Chatterjee, have introduced a concept with a new name ‘Knontology’ as a new domain of understanding and inquiry in KM. They have combined epistemology and ontology for better understanding of ontological problems related to KM. They have indicated that the new concept reinforces deeper understanding of relations between things at the finest levels of inquiry and at various levels of meta-analyses and interpretations. The authors have proposed that a combination of knowledge and its associated ontologies into a unique framework can be used as a new tool for analysis of ontology theory. They have presented an example based on design and discovery of new arguments related to critical levels of thoughts guided by knontological schema in order to reveal deeper thoughts at higher levels of cognitive process. The authors are optimistic about the power of knontology in different contextual levels to manage knowledge by different applications integrated in different technological systems or platforms.

Amit K Srivastava and Arpita Mehta have made a detailed review of the book Off-the-Shelf IT Solutions: A Practitioner’s Guide to Selection and Procurement authored by Martin Tate and Cathy Humphreys. The review highlights how the book talks about the evaluation, selection and procurement of off-the-shelf information technology solutions for a business; the book’s intended audience is private and public sector organizations and stakeholders.