ECKM 2026
27th European Conference on Knowledge Management
Keynote Speaker Outlines
The following are outlines for the Keynote Speeches which will take place at ECKM 2026
Future of Innovation: AI, Robots and the Role of Human Creativity
Speaker: Marina Dabić
As artificial intelligence and robotics rapidly reshape industries and societies, the future of innovation depends not only on smarter machines but on uniquely human creativity and knowledge. This keynote explores how AI and robots augment human capabilities, automate complexity, and unlock new possibilities while creativity, imagination, ethics, and emotional intelligence remain distinctly human strengths. By examining different hypotheses and providing different business models in collaboration between humans and intelligent systems, the talk highlights how innovation emerges at the intersection of technology and creativity, emphasizing the human role in shaping purpose driven, inclusive, and responsible futures in an AI powered world.
InKNOWation: When Knowledge Becomes Innovation
Speaker: Nóra Obermayer
Despite decades of investment in knowledge management systems and innovation strategies, the relationship between knowledge and innovation remains theoretically underspecified. Organizations frequently succeed in accumulating knowledge yet struggle to translate it into transformative outcomes. They rarely fail to innovate because they lack ideas; they fail because they lack aligned knowing. This keynote introduces the concept of InKNOWation as a reframing of the knowledge – innovation relationship. It shifts attention from managing knowledge as an asset to understanding knowing as a condition. The central argument is that innovation does not emerge from the volume of knowledge available, but from the quality of alignment within the knowing process itself. InKNOWation occurs when key dimensions of knowing are aligned: perceived value, engaged interest, constructed meaning, emotional climate, and organizational maturity. The InKNOWation model offers a new lens for knowledge management: moving from the accumulation of knowledge toward the cultivation of conditions under which knowledge becomes innovation.
Models of Knowledge Diffusion in the Context of Internationalization and Building Networks of Professional Service Organizations
Speaker: Sławomir Smyczek
The professional services sector is currently undergoing intensified integration and networking processes. The interorganizational networks being built vary in their degree of formalization and scope. Professional service organizations also actively participate in very intensive internationalization processes, both passively and actively, which influences the scope of this process and the unique models adopted in this sector. In consequences, new created international network organizations providing professional services are characterized by a particularly high sensitivity to knowledge. This keynote discusses the scope, course, and models of knowledge diffusion processes in these organizations. The shape of these models depends largely on the adopted knowledge generation process, knowledge management concepts, and knowledge diffusion strategies, while also taking into account the cultural differences of network partners and the position of individual partners within a given structure.