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The considerable failure rate of information technology (IT) projects remains a problem for many organisations and impacts their ability to successfully participate in the digital economy. Previous root cause analysis identified project complexity as one of the key factors in and of IT project failure. The purpose of this research was therefore to critically examine complexity in IT projects. In contrast to earlier positivist research on complexity, this study was built on a critical realist perspective to better understand the underlying structures and mechanisms behind what individuals within IT projects perceive as being "complex".A qualitative research design was chosen with a series of semistructured in-depth interviews with IT project practitioners as the data collection method. The research identified four internal variables (experience, stress, frustration, and motivation) and three external variables (communication, expectations, and support) which interact with perceived complexity. These findings were synthesised into a conceptual model of perceived complexity in IT projects. In addition, the findings indicated that the role of an individual (project sponsor, project manager, project team member) influences perceived complexity. Through the identification of previously hidden mechanisms within IT projects, the study extends the body of knowledge about IT project complexity. In addition, the identified mechanisms were combined with typical situations in IT projects. The outcome, which represents the study's contribution to practice, are practice-orientated guidelines for handling complexity in IT projects which aims to support IT project professionals and organisations to better manage complexity. The study therefore provides valuable contributions to the theory and practice of IT project complexity.

The thesis critically appraises the author's published works, whilst also attempting to demonstrate originality, rigor, significance, and coherence throughout. The papers enclosed are both core and supporting and represent a critical evaluation of the author's work over the past nine years. In that time 10 pieces of work have been published in high quality journals, or disseminated at peer reviewed academic and practitioner conferences. Outlined below are the thesis aim and objectives, followed by the research context and key contributions of the author's research. Research Aim and Objectives The overarching aim of this thesis is to summarise the author's contribution to knowledge in the area of technology transfer through published works, specifically focusing on an exploratory study of innovation intermediaries in technology transfer contexts. The key objectives of the published works as appraised throughout the thesis can be summarised as follows: To critically examine the wide range of barriers that impede SMEs participation in regional and national R&D and innovation funding programmes aimed at promoting technology transfer and innovation. To critically investigate the applicability of technology to facilitate user innovation methods such as the lead user concept and its potential for wider deployment to support technology transfer. To conduct a tailored literature review to critically analyse the potential to integrate entrepreneurial networks and a business process approach, to add value to technology transfer processes within a university incubator setting and outline a research agenda.

Knowledge is now being seen as the most important strategic resource for organisations. The ability to leverage external knowledge to enhance organisational knowledge is a vital constituent as the second-hand experience can be obtained more rapidly and economically than first-hand experience. Transfer of organisational knowledge is of central interest for both academic researchers and practitioners. Moreover, it is significant for organisational learning and it is a powerful mechanism for gaining competitive advantages. However, knowledge transfer is not straightforward as it depends not solely on the nature of knowledge itself, but also on the process of acquisition and assimilation. There are limitations in knowledge transfer since some types of knowledge may not be directly captured, managed, and are not always prepared in a transferable form. Consequently, this research considers 'practice' as a vehicle for knowledge transfer to further our understanding of how knowledge can be reconstructed through the practice. Despite extensive research on knowledge transfer, there is a dearth of research that has explicitly focused on the practice-oriented knowledge transfer. This is different from the objectivist-based knowledge transfer where knowledge is presented as an object. There is little research that considers knowledge as a result of social interaction and knowledge is context-dependent nature. Additionally, organisations require a method of analysis in order to overcome knowledge transfer difficulties relating to the absent congruence of the sourcereCipient context and assist on organisation's decision to choose a suitable source for the transfer process.

The granularity of the information for sharing is one of the essential aspects in project learning. The utilization of information technology has maximised the benefit and extended the scope of sharing at horizontal and vertical aspects, e.g. sharing information between multiple concurrent projects and sharing historic data to new projects. Horizontal information sharing enables the use of common resources in planning and executing projects contained in programmes and portfolio management systems. Vertical information sharing enables a systematic information deposition and dissemination of lessons learned for the knowledge of project management. Information collected throughout a project lifecycle contributes to the project portfolio. Good practises or lessons learnt should be used to guide new projects. Project learning repositories are designed to collect the lesson learnt information and share the information with new projects to better manage them and improve their performance. Current main stream project management methods are process or activity based; making the project portfolio collected and the lesson learnt information granularity process based. Information sharing between projects only happens at the process (activity) level and project level. However, the vast amount of information in between which contains the best practices of producing project's "simple products" (deliverables) are not collected. Portfolios, on the other hand, at each activity level are not easily sharable due to the fact that new technologies, process reengineering and personnel preferences may all affect the chosen activities.

This research contributes to the literature on the subjective experience of knowledge sharing from the perspective of those actively engaged in it. The sharing of knowledge in organizations is influenced by interconnecting factors, including organizational mission, the use made of information technology, and the motivation of individuals. Much of the existing literature takes a reductionist approach to investigating these, treating knowledge as an asset and humans as rational beings. A research organization provides knowledge services to its clients, in which knowledge is viewed both as an asset and as praxis, both aspects being used to meet the organization’s remit and help justify its continued existence. An officially mandated culture of knowledge sharing is promoted to motivate staff to develop and exploit the organization’s knowledge capability. Despite this, knowledge sharing has not been optimised. The Appreciative Inquiry Method, an interpretivist action research method from the “enquiry” tradition, was deployed amongst participants from the organization to help them give up their thinking the effectiveness of their knowledge sharing practice and their ability to improve it. This made possible a synthesis of the situation based on their shared understanding. The PEArL framework was used throughout to reflect on the conduct of the research. The contribution of the research is in supporting and extending findings in the literature from an interpretivist perspective. The importance of knowledge-as-practice was affirmed, together with tacit knowledge possessed by individuals. Knowledge sharing is affected by the low value placed on knowledge-as-practice by the organization’s clients, which affects staff motivation and the way self-efficacy is expressed. The undervaluing of knowledge-as-practice influences pre-existing, informal knowledge subcultures, which subvert the formal knowledge sharing culture. The participants’ power in the situation is limited to providing the executive with a case for maintaining knowledge as practice, to encourage a culture of motivation to share knowledge and to increase access to sharing mechanisms. The contribution includes support for the importance of the “relationship” component of the PEArL framework.

Knowledge and its acquisition are seen to be an increasingly important aspect of business management. Universities, through initiatives such as Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTP), are influential in the effective co-production and transfer of business management knowledge, however the mechanisms of knowledge acquisition within KTPs have been under researched. This thesis explores the acquisition of knowledge in three KTPs where process mapping was used in order to deliver business process improvements. It utilises Activity Theory as its research framework, adopting a Participatory Action Research approach with multi-site triangulation and employing cyclic data capture and analysis. Data is captured using semi-structured interviews and instantaneously sampled field notes. The research identifies the organisational community in which the KTP is conducted to be the most significant source of tensions or disturbances that impinge upon the work that is being undertaken. It makes a contribution to knowledge by classifying a source of tensions or disturbances that are not currently identified by Activity Theory and proffers an extension to the framework to include the ‘Tacit Skills’ of the individual undertaking an activity. It also identifies issues of governance, such as the stewardship of public funds that pervade KTPs and threaten to undermine the stated aims of the KTP initiative. Furthermore it highlights the complexities of KTPs and emphasises the need to support the psychological, emotional and training needs of those that are involved in their execution.

The ability of an organisation to transfer knowledge is one of the key sources of competitive advantage for many of today’s organisations (Argote, 2000). New knowledge is created through interactions between explicit and tacit knowledge (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995). From the distinction between explicit and tacit knowledge made by Polanyi’s (1966), it is clear that the former can be transferred with relative ease, particularly using recent advances in information technology. Transfer of tacit knowledge on the other hand, requires social interactions with peers, colleagues, mentors and supervisor (Lahti et al, 2002; Cavusgil et al, 2003). Difficulties associated with this have been referred to as ‘internal stickiness’ (Szulanski, 1996) and is believed to be due to several factors. This study examines difficulties associated with the transfer of managerial tacit knowledge in the relationships involving supervisor and subordinates who work as managers in the Malaysian public sector. After examining previous literature in the field it is hypothesised that the stickiness of knowledge transfer may be associated with the quality of leader member exchange relationships, especially between leaders and their ‘in-group’ versus ‘out-group’ members. For example, in-group relationships are associated with higher levels of trust, respect and obligation compared with out-group relations. Another construct known to be associated with the quality of dyadic relationships is cognitive style (Armstrong, 1999). Cognitive style refers to individual differences in ways of perceiving, organising and processing information and differences in ways in which individuals solve problems, take decisions and relate to others. The research employed a quantitative approach using survey methods. Instruments used in the study included a measure of knowledge transfer stickiness (Szulanski, 1996), Leader Member Exchange (LMX7) (Graen and Uhl-Bien, 1995), Tacit Knowledge Inventory for Managers (TKIM) (Wagner and Sternberg, 1989) and the Cognitive Style Index (CSI) (Allinson and Hayes, 1996). The survey was administered to 1200 managers in the Malaysian Public Sector and 344 completed surveys were returned representing a response rate of 28.7%. Results from a final sample size of 300 managers comprising supervisors and their immediate subordinates are reported. The study successfully determined the relationship between knowledge transfer stickiness, LMX, cognitive style and managerial tacit knowledge. As expected, high-quality LMX leads to higher quality exchanges and concomitant improvements in the transfer of managerial tacit knowledge. Moreover, as hypothesised, individual differences and similarities in cognitive style also influence the transfer of tacit knowledge between supervisor and subordinate. Practical implications are given and recommendation made for future research.

There have been recent calls for further research into the sharing of managerial tacit knowledge to enhance individual and organisational performance. This, due to a lack of knowledge of current practices of knowledge sharing, especially in developing countries, has been the motivation behind this research. The study examines the roles of personality traits in facilitating knowledge sharing practices and managerial tacit knowledge transfer among managers working in high and low performance local governments. Specifically, the study examines the direct relationship between knowledge sharing practices and tacit knowledge among 308 managers working in local governments. Secondly, this study explores the differences between knowledge sharing practices, tacit knowledge and individual performance among managers working in high and low performance local governments. Thirdly, this study also explores the role of personality traits as moderators of the relationship between knowledge sharing practices and tacit knowledge with individual performance. A triangulation approach combining questionnaire and interviews was used in the study. The questionnaire was distributed to middle managers of 35 Malaysian local government engaged in a Star Rating System. There were 358 completed questionnaires returned, but only 308 were useable. To support the results from the quantitative data, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 8 managers from Malaysian Local Governments of high and low levels of performance representing 4 main categories: City Hall, City Council, Municipal Council, and District Council. The results provided general support the majority of hypotheses of the study. Specifically, mentoring programme (competence), individual codification, institutional personalization and institutional codification were related to managerial tacit knowledge transfer. Tacit knowledge associated with managing oneself, managing tasks and managing others were significantly related to knowledge sharing practices. Unexpectedly, there were no significant differences in knowledge sharing practices, levels of accumulated managerial tacit knowledge, or individual performance between high and low performance local governments. Finally, results indicated that the agreeableness dimension of individual personality interacted with mentoring programmes in a way that predicted individual performance. Furthermore, agreeableness and conscientiousness dimensions of personality interacted with tacit knowledge associated managing self and managing tasks to influence individual performance. The openness dimension interacted with tacit knowledge associated with managing others to influence individual performance. This study adds to the limited body of empirical research in knowledge management, particularly within the Malaysian public sector. It represents a comprehensive survey and explanation of knowledge management in Malaysia. The relationship between knowledge sharing practices and tacit knowledge variables and their interaction with sub traits of personality in terms of individual performance suggests that it would be beneficial to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government in Malaysia to manage tacit knowledge as a way of enhancing individual performance. Contributions to the theory and practice, limitations and implications of the study are discussed.

The geographic landscape of innovation has changed in recent years, embodying a larger number of countries that are dispersed across the globe. With this change, multinational corporations (MNCs) began to more aggressively expand their global presence in order to access complementary, and sometimes even superior, resources that are context-specific, and embedded in distant nations. In this thesis, I focus on the activities of subsidiaries located outside home-country borders to examine how the MNC creates, integrates and retrieves knowledge across borders. Four empirical studies constitute this thesis, where each follows on from the previous study in a sequential manner. In all four studies, the data used consists of a sample of 26,708 patents published by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to 1,022 foreign subsidiaries belonging to one of 238 semiconductor MNCs headquartered in the United States. These data span the time period 1980-2005, and are assigned to subsidiaries located in 42 countries, of which 15 are considered to be emerging market economies. The first study explores why cross-country collaboration on R&D with home-country inventors enhances the value of innovations that are conducted offshore. The results show that, in terms of the overall value, emerging economy subsidiaries benefit from increasing home-country involvement. In advanced economies, however, patents with the highest value are attained when the host-country and home-country inventors contribute equally to the innovation. As for the value that these R&D endeavours create for the MNC, the most valuable patents are attained when the home-country and the host-country inventors contribute equally, both in advanced and in emerging economy subsidiaries. The second study breaks down the value of innovations into two components, the value they create internally, within the MNC, and the value that they create to external firms in the host-country. The results show that innovations developed entirely in the emerging economy subsidiaries are less likely to diffuse in the MNC network, and they are also less likely to diffuse externally, in the host-country. However, for innovations which feature cross-country collaboration, the barriers which prevent internal diffusion can be overcome while, simultaneously, reducing knowledge diffusion in the host-country. The third study explores the long-term effect of cross-country collaboration on the performance of foreign inventors, and shows that it does indeed have a long-term effect, allowing them to generate high-impact patents and explore new technologies on their own. These positive effects are even more pronounced for inventors from emerging economy subsidiaries. However, the new knowledge that is generated in this way is unlikely to be integrated by the offshore subsidiaries to form new capabilities. Possible explanations are provided in the corresponding chapter. The fourth study examines two aspects of knowledge spillovers: how they can be mitigated and, if they do occur, how lost knowledge can be retrieved. Firms deploy certain strategies to prevent knowledge from spilling over. Some strategies – although they can be successful at curbing spillovers – can also make it increasingly more difficult for MNCs to retrieve knowledge after spillovers. The results show that at moderate levels of knowledge complexity coupled with wide geographic dispersion of its underlying elements can maximize the gap between internal and external appropriation. However, the relationship between the two is delicate, as minor variations could increase the rates of spillovers and decrease the rates of knowledge retrieval.

This research investigates information practices issues in a time constrained, uncertain and complex environment with a focus on emergency management. During a major incident, commanders from the multi-agency emergency services such as from the police, fire and rescue, and ambulance need to come together to manage the incident. Depending on the nature of the incident, commanders involved in emergency management vary; hence they meet on an ad-hoc basis. The literature states that information should be shared among members of a team for coordination. It is thus necessary to understand issues underlying information sharing. Also, one of the major tasks in emergency management is to make decisions. From an information science perspective, it is imperative to understand how information is used by decision makers to make decisions. Thus, two research questions of interest are (1) the issues which impact information sharing and (2) how information is used for making decisions. This research takes an interpretive approach in which activity theory is used as a methodological and analytical framework to address these research questions. Investigating the first research question, it was found that different components impact information sharing. These components are grouped into six dimensions providing more holistic understanding of the context, which is advocated in information practices research. A model (the POSSTT model) is proposed as a framework to study information sharing of such ad-hoc multi-agency groups. Addressing the second research question, contributions are made to the ongoing debate on types of decision making. In theory, type 2 (analytical) decision making is promoted by many researchers; however, in practice it was found that in a time constrained environment, decision makers may use a combination of type 1 (intuitive) and type 2 (albeit not deliberative) decision making. A model for how experienced people use information to make decision is proposed. In addition, a need is realised for sub-dividing the experienced decision making model into an "experienced decision maker" model, and, an "experienced and confident decision maker" model. These contributions have practical implication for policy making and system design.

The construction industry is the largest industry in the world and operates in knowledge-based project organisations. The success of projects relies on the management of both tacit and explicit knowledge. This situation calls for a method for disseminating tacit knowledge from individuals to achieve higher performance and success value in construction projects. For the purpose, this study first articulates the problems of knowledge management in the construction industry. Then, by reviewing some knowledge engineering and management literatures, this research sets a theoretical foundation of knowledge management in the construction industry. A questionnaire survey was used to investigate and examine the current situation of knowledge management in UK and China construction industry. The result of frequency analysis and nonparametric test analysis provides the perceptions on the importance of knowledge transfer, the implementation of knowledge transfer, the resources of knowledge, and barriers for tacit knowledge transfer. From the literature review, this study proposes a tacit knowledge transfer process framework (3I) and identifies a series of factors correlated with effectiveness of knowledge transfer. This thesis also identifies four main independent variables - organsiational culture, organizational structure, IT technology and No-IT technology, and investigates the relationship between organisational elements with these factors and the performance of knowledge transfer. The findings are based on three case studies and responses of questionnaire survey and interviews. The results reveal that there are significant relationships between some of the variables and either the creation of knowledge assets or performance of knowledge transfer. Therefore, it is necessary for construction organsiations to consider these elements in developing and implementing a knowledge management strategy/system in a construction organisation. This study proposes a practical methodology to transfer knowledge by using an integrated system (TKTMS). The TKTMS can be an effective tool for all project members to transfer tacit knowledge across firms' boundaries and accelerate the speed of knowledge creation, share and transfer in the construction industry. The integration of the function model (IDEF0) with the information model (IDEF1) is applied to understand the necessary function/information for consideration in the 3I model and implement TKTMS.

One of the most significant keys to value creation comes from placing emphasis on producing knowledge. The production of knowledge must a major part of the production strategy. This study aims to harness the concept of knowledge management (KM) as an essential element in the creation of sustainable competitive advantage for organisations. Accordingly, this research seeks to highlight the concept of knowledge management systems (KMS) as an essential element, in which the decision support system (DSS) and organisational performance (OP) are elements that control the survival of organisations in the marketplace. The industry requires creative thinking to generate innovation, learning and excellence in knowledge cognition and knowledge inertia, as well as knowledge acquisition (KA), and spending in three types of DSS: the group decision support system (GDSS), executive support system (ESS) and the expert system (ES). It also requires investment in experience inertia and in work teams for the purpose of access to cross-pollination of the information between the employees and to find new ideas about the industry. This study aims to investigate the issues and factors which affect the utilisation of KM as a tool for effective decision-making (DM).Therefore, decision models and DSSs which enhance effective utilisation of this approach will be investigated. Accordingly, a conceptual model based on the literature review and consultations with knowledge workers was developed. Studies of collaborating organisations which are active in manufacturing in Iraq and the UK were performed to validate the conceptual model and facilitate exploratory investigation regarding the relationships. Data was collected using personal interviews with managers and knowledge workers at the enterprises, in addition to use of the questionnaire which was distributed to samples within these firms. A case study method was used in the data collection stage. These case studies could also be implemented for the mechanical, systems engineering, and manufacturing industries. This is because the findings have been tested where the primary objectives of this study investigate KM gaps in the manufacturing industries generally. This study has also addressed the examined objectives by providing an explanation of several issues, identifying the key sources of KM and the corresponding factors. According to the study, KM is found to occur most strongly over the stages of manufacturing and on which high level KM mainly occurs. Furthermore, this study ties together the concepts of KM, DSS and performance as a way of creating sustinable competitive advantage for the firms. Similarly, the study examines the current use of KM tools and assesses the most prominent methods. This study explores the role of KM in industrial firms and the limitation of obstacles to avoid the gaps. Thus, this study proposes a businesslike framework and creative method, explaining comprehensively how KM must adjust in order to align employees' ideas with the firm's larger goals effectively and strategically, which will reduce the lack of harmonisation between the polarisation and implementation of KMS to those firms. The study identifies high correlation between KM and OP, in addition to identifying high correlation between computer-based DSS and OP.

The purpose of knowledge resource development is considered to be to generate and acquire the necessary knowledge for developing a firm's specific capability. In this research, I explore the patterns of knowledge resource development practice among privately-owned Chinese SME manufacturers in the informal network-based labour market. More specifically, this research focuses on exploring how privately-owned Chinese SME manufacturers attain skilled workers by bridging information asymmetries to improve both employers and employees' awareness of the skill availability in the informal labour markets that can usually be viewed as complex networked systems in the Chinese context. Through conducting an in- depth, qualitative study of 86 Chinese engineers, I identify three key aspects that explain the pattern of this phenomenon: (1) the informal rules existing within the social networks; (2) the employer's ability and strategy for acquiring skilled workers from the social networks; and (3) the skilled worker's (employee's) use of social networks to enhance employability and eventually contribute to the firm's knowledge resources. I develop an organizing framework for the process of knowledge resource development through social networks in the Chinese context to connect these three aspects. I found that, in Chinese society, the owner, senior managers and employees use guanxi (social capital in the Chinese context) to identify the individual workers, in their social network, who possess the specific skills, and encourage them to share their expertise and manpower with each other and the firm. The key contributions of this thesis are: (l) extending the current understanding of social networks by examining their application in the privately-owned Chinese manufacturing sector by providing a comprehensive picture of the way in which they develop knowledge resources through bridging information asymmetries in the network-based informal labour market; (2) identifying seven specific informal rules (namely, "anonymity", "huibao", "lun", "liyi", "mianzi", "renqing", and "integrated" rules) that have been widely used in guiding this labour matching process in the privately-owned Chinese SME manufacturing sector; (3) exploring how the owners and senior managers of privately-owned Chinese SME manufacturers use different dimensions of guanxi to gain advantages when engaging in recruitment practices through social networks to acquire skilled workers; (4) exploring the influences of different dimensions of guanxi with regard to job searching, job matching and compensation negotiating activities; and (5) extending the current understanding about connecting social capital and guanxi by providing a more detailed discussion of the connection between social capital and guanxi; developing guanxi specifications that link to specific dimensions of social capital, and using these connections to interpret the data. In general, this thesis explores Chinese firms' strategies for using social networks to attain skilled workers who contribute towards their knowledge of the resource development process. It also offers managerial insights for entrepreneurs who wish to enter the industry. 3

Although people in organisations often recognise, and suffer, broken and distorted communications; the way organisations share information internally is seldom considered seriously. Often it is tucked in human resources as low- impact Employee Communications (EC) or hijacked and/or over-shadowed by Knowledge Management (KM). Investment seems justifiable for external but not Internal Communications (IC). This work looks at the author's concept of Internal or Organisational Communications (I/OC); a fusion of IC, EC and KM. An Action Research (AR) approach which was both interpretive and iterative was conducted in three organisations; two vertically integrated businesses and a strategically selected network (in order to improve the transferability of investigative methodology). The purpose was to explore factors which influence the flow of communications/information around a corporate structure. Multiple research cycles were undertaken in Organisation One before spiralling into Organisation Two then Three. This resulted in research cycles informing each- other as they progressed, whilst a similar methodology was applied in three settings. After chronologically telling these stories, 18 themes were systematically drawn out which emerged, developed and sometimes dominated the work. Further analysis caused these themes to form seven groupings to be considered when seeking to improve communications. These groups represent a mode of engagement with an organisation, underpinned by a consistent set of values/beliefs. It is not appropriate to separate the themes and valueslbeliefs from the AR process itself; they will help improve communications when used within the framework of AR. This approach provides a methodology for enabling the analysis of communication issues in organisations. It seeks to understand the organisation before developing sustainable systems and processes built upon what is already working. It helps engender a sense of belonging whilst supporting increased productivity. As it is applied practically it is continuously developing conceptually making it adaptive. Finally, it makes substantive contributions in the areas of research methodology, methods in practice and KM and communications theory.

Knowledge Management Systems are deployed in organisations of all sizes to support the coordination and control of a range of intellectual assets, and the low cost infrastructures made available by the shift to ‘cloud computing’ looks to only increase the speed and pervasiveness of this move. However, their implementation has not been without its problems, and the development of novel interventions capable of supporting the mundane work of everyday organisational settings has ultimately been limited. A common source of trouble for those formulating such systems is said to be that some proportion of the knowledge held by a setting’s members is hidden from the undirected view of both The Organisation and its analysts - typically characterised as a tacit knowledge - and can therefore go unnoticed during the design and deployment of new technologies. Notwithstanding its utility, overuse of this characterisation has resulted in the inappropriate labelling of a disparate assortment of phenomena, some of which might be more appropriately re-specified as ‘hidden knowledges’: a standpoint which seeks to acknowledge their unspoken character without making any unwarranted claims regarding their cognitive status. Approaches which focus on the situated and contingent properties of the actual work carried out by a setting’s members - such as ethnomethodologically informed ethnography - have shown significant promise as a mechanism for transforming the role played by members’ practices into an explicit topic of study. Specifically they have proven particularly adept at noticing those aspects of members’ work that might ordinarily be hidden from an undirected view, such as the methodic procedures through which we can sometimes mean more than we can say in-just-so-many-words. Here - within the context of gathering the requirements for new Knowledge Management Systems to support the reuse of existing knowledge - the findings from the application of just such an approach are presented in the form of a Pattern Language for Knowledge Management Systems: a descriptive device that lends itself to articulating the role that such hidden knowledges are playing in everyday work settings. By combining these three facets, this work shows that it is possible to take a more meaningful approach towards noticing those knowledges which might ordinarily be hidden from view, and apply our new understanding of them to the design of Knowledge Management Systems that actively engage with the knowledgeable work of a setting’s members.

There has been little research on intellectual capital (IC) reporting practices of UK firms or on the incentives/disincentives that motivate them to disclose information about their value drivers. Therefore, this study explores annual report disclosures and seeks to explain why managers choose to disclose. The sample consists of 100 London Stock Exchange firms from nine knowledge-based sectors. Whilst adopting a primarily positive accounting theory explanation of disclosure, a new combination of theories (capital market transactions theory, proprietary costs theory and corporate governance theory) is used to generate explanatory variables. The results show that there is a skewing toward relational capital. However, there were large differences in the amount of information disclosed, both across sectors and, in many cases, inside sectors, suggesting that different sectors, or even different companies, may have quite different value drivers. Initial analysis of possible motives was conducted using an OLS regression including all possible explanatory independent variables. However, neither corporate governance nor proprietary costs are well-theorised, and several different variables were used to proxy each of these. Therefore, reduced regression models were also employed. Principal component analysis was used to generate one composite measure of corporate governance and proprietary costs. The results showed that reporting IC is negatively associated with the extent of external financing, while firms with high market-to-book values also disclose less IC information. However, contrary to expectations, the acquisition variable was insignificant although as expected, the relation between human capital disclosure and foreign operations was found to be positive and significant. For proprietary costs variables, there was a significantly positive relation between entry barriers and IC disclosure, and a negative relationship between IC and the intensity of industry competition. Finally, there was a significant, positive relationship between corporate governance and the disclosure of all types of IC.

Building information modelling (BIM) is not only an authoring tool for architects and engineers, but also an analysis tool for all stakeholders in the supply chain procurement process. Analysis tools such as the code checking of building regulations and environmental simulations that can report on heating loads, daylighting and carbon use will influence the adoption of intelligent modelling faster and further than previously thought. The benefits for clients should not be underestimated either and some are already reaping them where project certainty is to the fore. However, the professional language that architects and engineers espouse is a latent force that can run counter to fostering collaboration. An emerging professional, the Architectural Technologist, can bridge that divide and adopt the adjunct role of manager in the integrated project delivery. The impact of digitalisation on the management role of architectural technology leads to four objectives namely; the practicalities of integrating drawing operations; the practicalities of design processes within the databased controlled programmes; the mapping of the overall process pitted against individual responsibility, data reliability and standard risk and the significant contribution to an understanding of how IMT’s will drive changes within the discipline of Architectural Technology through the next decade. These objectives were then tested to establish whether there was an evolution in the manner in which the design team is structured. They included; how the opportunities for BIM are impacting design strategies, how they are impacting associated management structures and a deeper analysis of the changing role of the architectural technologist as a result of adoption. In conclusion, two streams were identified where one points to the educational set-up where primarily there is an apparent latent talent shortage waiting to be filled. Secondly, to the industry where project certainty will evidently drive the adoption of building information modelling and integrated project delivery as both clients and contractors will require projects to be delivered in BIM formats.

Seamless computer-based knowledge sharing between departments of a manufacturing enterprise is useful in preventing unnecessary design revisions. A lack of interoperability between independently developed knowledge bases, however, is a major impediment in the development of a seamless knowledge sharing system. Interoperability, being an ability to overcome semantic and syntactic differences during computer-based knowledge sharing can be enhanced through the use of ontologies. Ontologies in computer science terms are hierarchical structures of knowledge stored in a computer-based knowledge base. Ontologies have been accepted by all as an interoperable medium to provide a non-subjective way of storing and sharing knowledge across diverse domains. Some semantic and syntactic differences, however, still crop up when these ontological knowledge bases are developed independently. A case study in an aerospace components manufacturing company suggests that shape features of a component are perceived differently by the designing and manufacturing departments. These differences cause further misunderstanding and misinterpretation when computer-based knowledge sharing systems are used across the two domains. Foundation or core ontologies can be used to overcome these differences and to ensure a seamless sharing of knowledge. This is because these ontologies provide a common grounding for domain ontologies to be used by individual domains or department. This common grounding can be used by the mediation and knowledge verification systems to authenticate the meaning of knowledge understood across different domains. For this reason, this research proposes a knowledge verification framework for developing a system capable of verifying knowledge between those domain ontologies which are developed out of a common core or foundation ontology. This framework makes use of ontology logic to standardize the way concepts from a foundation and core-concepts ontology are used in domain ontologies and then by using the same principles the knowledge being shared is verified. The Knowledge Frame Language which is based on Common Logic is used for formalizing example ontologies. The ontology editor used for browsing and querying ontologies is the Integrated Ontology Development Environment (IODE) by Highfleet Inc. An ontological product modelling technique is also developed in this research, to test the proposed framework in the scenario of manufacturability analysis. The proposed framework is then validated through a Java API specially developed for this purpose. Real industrial examples experienced during the case study are used for validation.

The recent global credit crunch? has brought sharply into focus the need for better understanding of what it takes for organisations to survive. This research seeks to help organisations maintain their viability? – the ability to maintain a separate existence and survive on their own. Whilst there are a multitude of factors that contribute to organisational viability, information can be viewed as the lifeblood of organisations. This research increases our understanding of how organisations can manage information effectively to help maintain their viability. The viable systems model (VSM) is an established modelling technique that enables the detailed analysis of organisational activity to examine how the structure and functions performed in an organisation contribute to its viability?. The VSM has been widely applied, in small/large companies, industries and governments. However, whilst the VSM concentrates on the structure and functions necessary for an organisation to be viable, it pays much less attention to information deployment in organisations. Indeed, the VSM is criticised in the literature for being unable to provide much help with detailed information and communication structures and new theories are called for to explore the way people interact and what information they need in the VSM. This research analyses qualitative data collected from four case studies to contribute to our understanding of the role that information plays in organisational viability, making three key contributions to the academic literature. In the information management literature, this research provides new insight into the roles that specific information plays in organisations. In the systems thinking literature, this research extends our understanding of the VSM and builds on its powerful diagnostic capability to provide further criteria to aid in the diagnosis of viable organisations. In the information systems literature, this research develops a framework that can be used to help organisations design more effective information systems.

Process support is a core organisational competence which aims to help people plan and perform their work. This thesis addresses process support for Emergent Knowledge Processes (EKP). EKP can be characterised by human-orientation, emerging domain requirements, compliance requirements and dispersed participants/stakeholders. Current Process Aware Information Systems (PAIS) do not meet several important support requirements of EKP. Addressing these requirements will create business value. Through a Design Science (Hevner, March et al. 2004) research approach, this thesis addresses that problem. An approach to support EKP is conceptualised and implemented. The main contribution is a prescriptive framework. The framework consists of four components; interactive modelling, a combination of procedural and declarative models, flexible model management and real-time collaborative working. Interactive modelling is an approach to flexible process support where users create, adapt, analyse and enact visual models of their work processes. Underpinning the interactive modelling approach are both procedural and declarative models. Declarative models capture organisational rules. Procedural task-based models capture actual plans of work. Procedural models must comply with the rules established in the declarative models. Flexible model management and real-time collaboration support offer a cooperative working and knowledge management environment for interactive modelling. The conceptual design ideas have been realised in an academic software prototype. A Web-based groupware application, D2P, was developed as a 'plug-in' for the collaborative, Web-based modelling environment PowerMeeting. It is shown how Web technology can be leveraged for collaborative process support. A contribution is made through further demonstration of the applicability of Web-based solutions for professional, process related business requirements. As a final contribution, the results of a usability study demonstrate the usability of the D2P and PowerMeeting tools. Empirical evidence in the form of results from a usability study and user questionnaire confirmed that semi-skilled users with a small amount of training can activate the concepts and tools which make up the approach. Of particular importance is the demonstration of the usability of the less familiar declarative modelling paradigm. Scenarios are also provided to demonstrate the applicability of the approach.

E-learning is still an emerging phenomenon in international hotel companies about which very few previous academic studies have been carried out. This had created a need for this research. This study is an endeavor to bridge the gap in knowledge regarding the use of e-learning in international hotel companies. More specifically it focuses on exploring how international hotel companies can optimize the benefits that they get from using the e-learning tools (e-learning portal). This research is novel in the area of hospitality management and more specifically in the literature focusing on international hotel companies. This is the first study, to the author's knowledge, that has examined e-learning in international hotel companies from the perspectives of organizational learning and knowledge management. This study uncovered the practices in using e-learning of the three studied international hotel companies. This thesis highlights the importance of building a close (integral) relationship between e-learning, organizational learning and knowledge management. E-learning is viewed as a complex adaptive system. This study is organized into eleven chapters. The first six chapters focus on the literature review that supported the achievement of the main aims of this research. Chapter seven is the methodology. In order to attain the aims of this research, data were collected from multiple sources, for example interviews, data published in the public domain (internet sources) and documents collected from the three studied companies. Chapters eight, nine and ten are the case studies of the three studied companies. Each of these chapters in divided into two phases of analysis. Chapter eleven is the conclusion, recommendations and contributions of this research.

This thesis represents a body of work which is about individual and organisational learning from adverse incidents, the context of the studies was the National Health Service (NHS). The thesis presents a series of exploratory studies which were undertaken in order to discover whether NHS staff had a disposition to learn from adverse incidents and whether their employing organisations were indicative of a supportive learning environment. The studies began with the premise that failing to support NHS staff to learn from adverse incidents contributed to their occurrence and re-occurrence. This thesis makes a contribution to the scientific community in a number of ways; firstly it relates findings from exploring deep approaches to individual and organisational learning from adverse incidents. Secondly the thesis highlights the role of educational leadership as a mechanism for overcoming organisational barriers to learning from adverse incidents. Lastly and most importantly the thesis demonstrates that while progress is being made to educate staff towards achieving greater patient safety, there is much to be gained from concentrating educational efforts on supporting learning in the workplace. To this end the thesis illuminates how workplace learning from adverse incidents can be viewed as a source of positive learning for both the individual and the organisation and, presents findings from a new piloted approach to learning in which the student/participants came to view learning from adverse incidents as a positive experience. The thesis concludes with a range of tools specifically designed to support NHS staff in the workplace to learn from adverse incidents.

Knowledge Management (KM) is a mystifying and multidimensional concept. Although recognised as a discipline since the mid 1990's, KM continues to produce controversial debate amongst academics and practitioners from a variety of backgrounds. The competing schools of thought in the KM field stimulate fragmentation, which has led to the development of a wide variety of KM strategies and approaches. The literature review reveals that the majority of organisations consider KM to be strategically important, yet at the same time the majority of KM initiatives fail. One of the most fundamental reasons for the high failure rate in KM initiatives seems to be a distinct lack of focus and direction. There isn't enough attention paid to the specific objectives that each organisation is trying to deliver with the support of KM. It is often assumed, mistakenly, that managing knowledge simply pays off in the long term. These observations provide strong indication of the need for goal-oriented thinking in KM. This notion is reinforced by lessons learnt from a pilot KM initiative that follows conventional KM thinking and, ultimately, fails. In response, the Goal-Oriented Knowledge Management (GOKM) methodology is proposed, which focuses on organisational goals and combines various KM approaches according to context and objectives. GOKM is applied, evaluated and refined via three case studies at the Danwood Group, HSBC Bank and HBOS Bank. An overall evaluation of GOKM is presented, based on five key criteria (bottom-line results, added value, flexibility, usability and durability). In addition, the impact of GOKM in each participating organisation is measured against specific criteria that are set by senior management. The research has shown that GOKM has significant potential to be applicable in a wider context and this thesis makes a sizable contribution to the development of goal-oriented KM theory.

Organizational knowledge creation is a multifaceted process, and thus its representation needs to have the potential to be easily linked with, i.e. connected, associated or related with and informed by or inform, the extensive literature on its different facets. These linkages are easier to be made if the representation is able to or has the potential to reflect these facets. This study focuses on two such facets - an innovation process and dynamic interactions. Organizational knowledge creation in its influential models has been approached from an innovation-process, learning-process or tacit/explicit knowledge perspective. The innovation-process models focus predominantly on innovation stages and activities, and inadequately reflect dynamic interactions across these stages, even though the innovation process, i.e. the process through which an innovative idea is translated into innovative outcomes, such as products, services and systems, has the potential to specifically reflect the knowledge creation process, i.e. the dynamic process through which an innovative idea, generated by an individual(s), is amplified, as well as crystallized and connected with an organization's knowledge system. Learning-process models emphasise learning processes per se, and are unable to reflect either dynamic interactions or an innovation process. Tacit/explicit knowledge models, being the most influential on the subject, focus predominantly on dynamic interactions, and inadequately reflect the innovation process. The inadequate reflection of the innovation process makes learning-process and tacit/explicit knowledge models difficult to be linked with extensive literature on innovations in terms of the divergent and convergent processes/activities, how these complement and conflict one another, and how their conflict is synthesised. This study approaches organizational knowledge creation from an innovation-process perspective.

Since an understanding of 'culture' positively affects the wayan information systems practitioner influences and initiates actions in an organization, this research aims to get insight into an organizational infomlation systems management culture. In this research, a case study has been carried out in the context of the four major telecommunication companies operating in Thailand. The information systems management culture has been interpreted in terms of value systems embedded in the organization's managerial process of information systems and the manifestation of Thai values in such value systems. As such, the research domain of study is defined as 'the soft socio-technical aspect of the managerial process of information systems of the telecommunication companies operating in Thailand'. To tackle the research domain of the 'soft socio-technical aspect', the research embraces a 'soft systems' concept and adopts a 'soft' and 'socio-technical' approach to information systems. This is because of the fact that the research context is involved with human-machine inter-connections, pluralism, and multi-facets of a problem situation. The research enquiry process is formed by the systemic tools and techniques available in the socio-technical methodology namely SISTeM (Atkinson 1997; Atkinson and Brooks 2008) and 'Generative Systemic Metaphor' (Atkinson and Checkland 1988; Atkinson 2003). In order to obtain an in-depth understanding of the research domain of study, the constructed research enquiry process is used to interpretatively analyze the 'managerial process of information systems of the telecommunication companies operating in Thailand', as well as the value systems embedded in such managerial process and the influences of Thai culture on the identified value systems. Because within the Thai information systems research community, there is no previous 'soft systems' research, it could be argued that, for such a community, the research carried out in this thesis opens up an arena for a further 'soft systems' approach to information systems research, particularly those relevant to the soft socio-technical aspect of information systems.

This study provides an understanding and identification of knowledge management challenges in project teams within a single organization. Identification of challenges has generated discussion and recommendations are put forward for improving the level of knowledge management within the organization. This information is useful to those who are involved in knowledge management in project environments in construction; equally, the methodology can be applied to other types of project teams.

Since 1978, China has gradually reformed its economic system from the traditional planning economy to a more competitive market-oriented economy. After an effort of three decades, China has now become the world's fourth-largest economy behind the US, Japan and Germany. Nevertheless, the continuous national economic reform and entrance of foreign companies have significantly changed China's business status quo, and resulted in increasingly drastic market competition in the domestic market. Faced with this competitive environment and economic pressure, thousands of Chinese companies have implemented Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems in order to improve operational efficiency and enhance core competencies.

The thesis presents a comparison study of the two most established simulation approaches in Operational Research, Discrete-Event Simulation (DES) and System Dynamics (SD). The aim of the research implemented is to provide an empirical view of the differences and similarities between DES and SD, in terms of model building and model use. More specifically, the main objectives of this work are: 1. To determine how different the modelling process followed by DES and SD modellers is. 2. To establish the differences and similarities in the modelling approach taken by DES and SD modellers in each stage of simulation modelling. 3. To assess how different DES and SD models of an equivalent problem are from the users’ point of view. In line with the 3 research objectives, two separate studies are implemented: a model building study based on the first and second research objectives and a model use study, dealing with the third research objective. In the former study, Verbal Protocol Analysis is used, where expert DES and SD modellers are asked to ‘think aloud’ while developing simulation models. In the model use study a questionnaire survey with managers (executive MBA students) is implemented, where participants are requested to provide opinions about two equivalent DES and SD models. The model building study suggests that DES and SD modelling are different regarding the model building process and the stages followed. Considering the approach taken to modelling, some similarities are found in DES and SD modellers’ approach to problem structuring, data inputs, validation & verification. Meanwhile, the modellers’ approach to conceptual modelling, model coding, data inputs and model results is considered different. The model use study does not identify many significant differences in the users’ opinions regarding the specific DES and SD models used, implying that from the user’s point of view the type of simulation approach used makes little difference if any. The work described in this thesis is the first of its kind. It provides an understanding of the DES and SD simulation approaches in terms of the differences and similarities involved. The key contribution of this study is that it provides empirical evidence on the differences and similarities between DES and SD from the model building and model use point of view. Albeit the study does not provide a comprehensive comparison of the two simulation approaches, the findings of the study, provide new insights about the comparison of the two simulation approaches and contribute to the limited existing comparison literature.

The gaining popularity of Knowledge Management (KM) has been reinforced by the quest for innovation and value creation. Value creation is grounded in the appropriate combination of human networks, social capital, intellectual capital, and technology assets, facilitated by a culture of change. It is indicated that the future of KM tends to focus on the study of the impact on people in terms of value or knowledge value creation. Because of this, the positive relationship between KM and value creation has been discussed extensively in the literature. However, the majority of the studies on knowledge value creation have been widely undertaken to highlight several case studies demonstrating success in developed countries, whilst very few studies have been done in the cultural context of developing countries. These studies in developing economies have identified several distinctive features, in particular socio-cultural factors that have an important role and influence in KM practices. A call has been made for further research to explore KM in different organisational and cultural contexts in developing economies. Thailand is an example of a developing country where a number of distinctive socio-cultural features have been identified. It therefore represents an interesting case to conduct a study on the influence of these cultural features on KM practices within an organisational context. The objective of this empirical study is to explore knowledge value creation practices in a Thai organisation. The research adopts an interpretive stance and employs a case study approach involving multiple data collection methods. It is based on the researcher's personal expertise and close involvement in the selected case study organisation for over a decade. The study characterises Thai distinctive culture in terms of collectiveness, shyness, conscientiousness and seniority, and indicates that these distinctive socio-cultural features critically influence (a) the social network ties and relationships between employees within and across teams, (b) the resulting level of trust between employees, and (c) the ability to share and create knowledge effectively in the organisational socio-cultural environment. The study is limited to a Thai organisation, but can be generalised to other organisations that exhibit similar characteristics. It provides interesting insights into the socio-cultural factors affecting knowledge management adoption in a Thai organisation and a foundation to further the research on the validation of the theoretical model that emerged from this empirical study.

The information audit (IA) provides a method to identify, evaluate, and manage an organisation's information resources. With such a central information management role, it might be reasonable to assume that the IA would be an accepted element of information management best practice, particularly given the growth of information based services, and growing recognition of information as a primary resource and tradable commodity. However, there is evidence that the IA is neither accepted nor commonly practiced, primarily due to methodological problems, most notably the lack of a standard approach, limited empirical evidence, and an ambiguous sense of purpose. The objectives of this research were to firstly, identify and/or develop a generic and universally applicable information audit framework; and secondly, to test the usability of the framework. A qualitative approach supported by case studies was adopted. A methodologies were critically reviewed to identify an appropriate method to select as the basis for a generic and universal approach. The selected methodology was Buchanan & Gibb (1998), which was found to provide a complete methodology and comprehensive toolset. The methodology was tested in two stages: firstly, two case studies were conducted by the author to pilot and test completeness of design; and secondly, three usability trials were conducted by independent auditors under the observation of the author. In the stage one tests, the methodology was successfully trialled, proving to be both complete and usable and a suitable basis for a generic and universally applicable framework; however the usability trials, while also successfully completed, identified that the methodology requires some further instructional depth and tools/templates to be suitable for universal adoption, most notably for conducting interviews, process modelling, and qualitative data analysis. Recommendations are made accordingly for the refinement of the methodology. This research also developed and successfully trialled a scope matrix for identifying and managing IA scope, and mapped a direct methodological relationship from the information audit to information systems architecture development, potentially redefining and extending the value of the IA by demonstrating that A output provides direct input to related information system development frameworks and processes. Further notable output includes the development of two templates for capturing process data and information resource data respectively.

This research analyses how two social housing providers in South Africa Johannesburg Housing Company and COPE transferred knowledge from two social housing organisations in Europe - Notting Hill Housing Trust in England and Norske Boligbyggelags Landsforbund also known as the Norwegian Federation of Cooperative Housing Associations (NBBL) in Norway. Following the knowledge transfer, Johannesburg Housing Company has gone on to become a successful organisation while COPE closed down in 2005. This research analyses the knowledge transfer and the dominant organisational learning culture in the two organisations to try and explain why COPE closed down and why Johannesburg Housing Company has succeeded. This research uses knowledge transfer ideas that are within the broader knowledge management field and ideas on organisational learning culture to develop an analytical framework. The framework identifies three key areas for analysis, these are, analysis of the mechanisms used for the knowledge transfer process, the messages that were transferred during this process and analysis and identification ofthe dominant learning culture in each organisation. The main method for the data gathering and analysis was done through interviews with key actors in the four organisations - Johannesburg Housing Company, COPE, Notting Hill Housing Trust and NBBL. Analysis of key relevant documentation was also carried out. It was possible from the findings of the research to conclude that having a successful process ofknowledge transfer does not necessarily translate into success for the knowledge importing organisation. Secondly, that the dominant organisational learning culture in an organisation can have an impact on whether the outcome ofthe knowledge transfer process will be successful or not.

This thesis extends the academic debate on the determinants of international knowledge transfer effectiveness. In a sample of German organisations that transfer knowledge to their Chinese subsidiaries, it is shown that organisations with distinct teaching skills (eloquent capacity) perform significantly better at intra-organisational, cross-border knowledge transfers than other organisations. It is further illustrated that organisations with high levels of self-efficacy and low levels of partner differences develop significantly better eloquent capacity, channel capacity, and absorptive capacity. The thesis thereby provides insights into the determinants of knowledge transfer effectiveness that go beyond the concepts established in the literature. It also contributes to established concepts. The thesis shows that absorptive capacity is partly absolute and relative. Furthermore, it extends the view that knowledge transfers between unequal partners fail due to a lack of absorptive capacity to the view that they fail because of a lack of eloquent and absorptive capacity. The thesis integrates the antecedent literature. Analogical reasoning reveals that theories on effective communication fully cover the empirical evidence on effective knowledge transfers. As such, a holistic approach to understanding knowledge transfer effectiveness in a single theoretical framework is found. This helps to dispose of the lack of integration of research output in the discipline and offers other researchers a valuable framework within which research into knowledge transfer effectiveness can be conducted. The thesis contributes to research methodology by illustrating the value of combining conceptual, qualitative and quantitative findings. The qualitative and quantitative data collected from the same sample lead to seemingly opposing conclusions in one area of investigation. This apparent discrepancy is eliminated after the conceptual, qualitative and quantitative findings are triangulated and combined. The thesis thereby shows the value of a mixed-methods approach to understanding knowledge transfer effectiveness. In sum, the thesis offers advanced explanations for the empirical reality of international knowledge transfer effectiveness. It suggests methodologies and frameworks that can guide and improve future inquiries into the effectiveness of international knowledge transfers.

Theorists and practitioners alike recognise knowledge as the principal source of value in today's knowledge economy. The timely and effective dissemination of knowledge throughout the firm is a pre-requisite for strategic advantage in today's competitive economic environment. However, motivating employees to share their knowledge remains a prime concern for many firms today. Past research on knowledge sharing has failed to emphasize the importance of ownership in influencing human attitudes, motivation and behaviour. A direct consequence of this failure is that the devising of effective incentives for knowledge sharing remains unclear.

Many corporations over the world showed evidence of getting positive benefits from using design and analysis of experiments (DOE), however, some others did not. Companies did not use DOE or failed in using it (for some reasons) might lose their opportunities of getting those benefits which their counterparts received. Despite the advantages of. DOE, the technique is not commonly used by management. The purpose of this research is to investigate why the technique is not applied more often and hence suggestions are made to help rectify the situation. The research covered four main stages: literature review, samples of representative literature, questionnaire survey via the Internet and a case study using action research methodology being carried out in a printed circuit board company in Hong Kong. Triangulation was used in this research in order to uncover knowledge about the topic of study and tradeoff bias caused. A random sampling method and a judgmental sampling method were used in the samples of representative literature. Subsequently, two questionnaire surveys via the Internet were respectively conducted. The snowball sampling method was used to contact targeted companies. Data and information received from the surveyed companies on the use, or not, of DOE were collected and analyzed. The results and findings of the two questionnaire surveys indicated of what, how and why companies use, or not use, of DOE in their operations. A case study using action research methodology was also carried out in a local company. The action research was three-fold: (I) the researcher (i.e. the author) conducted DOE training to a team of staff, (2) trained staff undertook a current industrial problem and resolved it by using DOE, and (3) the company changed from the state of 'non-use of DOE' to the one of 'use of DOE' for better performance practices. Feedbacks from top management and the staff enriched the researcher to answer the posed research questions and achieved the objectives of the whole study.

This study sets out to explore the critical factors of knowledge management (KM) that impact on the organizational performance of Chinese enterprises. It attempts to investigate the relationships among KM factors including KM strategy, KM enablers (Organizational culture, Organization structure, People, and Technology), KM processes, and organizational performance. The conceptual framework of knowledge management guiding this research is developed from prior research (Alavi, 1997; Davenport, 1999; Lam, 2000; Leonard-Barton, 1995; Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995; Ramireza nd Dickenson, 2006; Zack, 1999). Previous KM research in the Chinese context has focused on the use of object-perspective measures such as number of created ideas or patents. There appears to be a relative neglect of the relationships between those KM factors. This research focused on exploring the relationships between those KM factors and investigating how they impact on organizational performance in the context of an emerging economy - China. This research adopted the mixed-methods (Creswell, 2003) methodological approach, which involved the use of qualitative and quantitative methods in addressing the research questions raised in this study. The results of this research suggest that organizational culture variables are found to be essential for knowledge creation. In particular, trust is a significant predictor of all knowledge creation processes. The findings of this study confirm that enterprises will be able to obtain strategic benefits of KM through effective knowledge creation processes. The research findings also imply that companies should align their knowledge strategies along with knowledge creation processes. The key to understanding KM in the Chinese context is recognizing the networking nature of the Chinese society which operates on the basis of "Guanxi". In Chinese enterprises, the socialization and externalization elements are remarkably similar to the Japanese situation that Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) described, as the Chinese are highly networked, hold tacit knowledge within these networks and are prepared to make this knowledge explicit only within the context of these pre-existing relationships. The departmental focus of Chinese enterprises mean that the combination of tacit knowledge is not straightforward, while learning-by-doing is important to sustain their development. The research also indicates that internalization is also problematic in Chinese enterprises because of individuals' fear of admitting mistakes. The implication of the findings for knowledge management and research is discussed.

Knowledge Management (KM) is a growing area of interest in the business world. Organisations have enthusiastically adopted the idea that knowledge has become strategic resource and the principal basis for gaining a competitive advantage. The enthusiasm has attracted the management theorist and practitioner to the contemporary field of KM. While it is frequently claimed that effectively managing knowledge is important for organisations, it raises the issue of how the role of KM practices can benefit organisations. The main aim of this research is to gain a deeper understanding into the role of KM in adding value within a United Kingdom (UK) light vehicle manufacturing industry focusing on the car manufacturing industry and to propose a conceptual framework which explores interrelated mechanisms of KM practises.

Studies have shown that knowledge management is an enabler of organisational processes and helps achieve projected objectives. This research is aimed at investigating the role of knowledge management in enabling development project management to achieve the following objectives; project success, faster completion times, efficiency, innovation, knowledge sharing and best practices. The research conceptual model (The CRAI-Codification, Reproduction, Assimilation and Interpretation model) focused on four types of primary knowledge needed by development projects for successful execution. These are: -Interpretative knowledge, Assimilative knowledge, Reproductive knowledge and Codified knowledge. Using a mixed method approach, qualitative and quantitative data were collected from over 1000 respondents from development organisations in 8 regions in 11 development project areas. Data were obtained using web questionnaires, structured interviews and organisational documentation. The selection of case studies arose as a result of responses to the online survey. The research used four case studies which exhibited KM 'consciousness and other criteria which enabled the researcher to identify them as knowledge generating projects. The cases were drawn from Nigeria, Uganda and Senegal. The research applied the CRAI model within these case studies and also compared the results of the survey data with the case study data. The survey achieved a 30.3% (303) response rate. The data gathered were analysed using quantitative analysis tools (SPSS) and techniques (regression, correlation, hypothesis testing, analysis of the model and other general analysis techniques). The survey and case studies focused on identifying best practices, knowledge sharing and management practices, knowledge processes in the project management cycle as reflected by the conceptual model, technology and other aspects of Knowledge Management. Some of the findings made by the research are: (a) No standard best practice exists across the board among development projects. Each project has a set of practices that represent best practices for managing their projects; (b) KM was found to be a factor in speeding up project completion times. It was also linked to project success, knowledge sharing, innovation and efficiency; and (c) The CRAI model was found to be applicable to development projects and the type of knowledge projects embody. The model positively correlated with each of the expected outcomes-innovation, completion times, efficiency, project success and knowledge sharing. Recommendations made by this research include: 1. Development Projects should begin to design KM strategies as part of Project Management systems; 2. A development project should begin with mapping essential knowledge needed by the project; 3. Development PM should pay closer attention to the existence of communities in the project; 4. KM should be included in the list of critical success factors; and 5. DPs should use PM technologies which integrate KM capabilities.

This research explored the extent to which different knowledge conversion processes require different kinds of leadership. The research was inspired by Nonaka and Konno (1998) and proposed that knowledge conversion processes may each require their own form of leadership because they are conducted under different bas or contexts. Vera and Crossan's (2004) work provided a foundation for this research through the argument that knowledge conversion processes need not only transformational but also transactional leadership. The leadership framework based upon transformational and transactional leadership was therefore adopted for the study. Semi-structured interviews and the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ), developed by Bernard Bass and Bruce Avolio to assess leadership under the transformational and transactional leadership framework, were used to gauge the opinions of participants about leadership and knowledge conversion processes. Scenarios/descriptions derived from Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) were used to focus the mindset of the participants involved in the interviews and the questionnaire, which was administered at the time of the interviews to support triangulation. Findings suggested that knowledge conversion processes do not differ to the extent that they require both transformational and transactional leadership. However, qualitative evidence indicated that knowledge conversion processes were somewhat different in terms of certain dimensions of transformational leadership. These differences related to the need for a strong sense of purpose, a compelling vision of the future and long-termism in some but not all situations involving the leadership of knowledge conversion processes.

Organisations, especially those with a business or commercial focus, have always had an interest in knowledge and learning whether they have used these terms to describe their internal processes or not. The acquisition and use of knowledge to create products and services has always been at the heart of any business venture, as has the development of the necessary skills and other actions within the workforce to deliver these products and services. It is only within the last twenty years that there has been any concerted effort to understand the processes that lead to the development of knowledge and that encourage and foster learning. This research examines the dynamics of knowledge development and its relation to learning in the team setting of one professional service company based in London. Using a grounded theory approach a detailed examination of the knowledge development activities in three teams is carried out, as they work on three projects with different external clients. Data is collected from the interaction of team members during set team meetings and from the way ideas are initiated and developed over the life of the project. This is supported by detailed examination of the business and organisational literature. The research provides insights into the way individual contributions to team discussions aid knowledge development as well as developing a picture of the nature of knowledge development - its dynamics and morphology. Detailed descriptions, models and visual representations are used to record the results of the research. The research as a whole has a methodology that is replicable and provides hypotheses that can be tested by other researchers. It also offers insights of value to those managers, consultants and other professionals involved in knowledge development in organisations.

With the rise in importance of technology to organizational life, a lot of attention has been given to the management of knowledge through technological applications (Chou and Lin, 2002). At the same time, a wide spectrum of social interactionist literature has argued for the importance of human agency in the creation, conversion and sharing of knowledge (cf Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995; Brown and Duguid, 2001; Dixon, 2002 and Chiva and Alegre, 2005). Given the amount of research on the importance of social interaction to the management of individual and organizational knowledge, it becomes imperative to develop a clear understanding of the role of the individual in these social interaction processes. This research begins with first principles by exploring the dynamics of knowledge sharing in organizations from the perspective of individual agents, in order to gain insight into the reasoning behind the action of individuals in sharing their knowledge and expertise. In so doing, the research assumes that the knowledge transfer process is essentially a social process and entails an active involvement of individual actors in making decisions about the sharing process. The empirical setting for this research is a single case study of Construct Co., an organization in the construction industry. Primary data was collected by in-depth interviews of a sample population of 27 respondents with additional secondary data drawn from company annual reports and in-house survey. By taking a qualitative interpretive approach (Morgan, 1979; Morgan & Smircich, 1980) and drawing on a theoretical framework that centres on Bourdieu's concepts of capital and habitus (Bourdieu, 1977,1985,1986), and the concept of communities of practice (Lave and Wenger, 1991; Brown and Duguid, 1991,2001), this thesis not only provides an exploratory insight into the determinants which govern individual knowledge sharing decision processes but also contributes to research on the practical utility of the habitus as both a conceptual and analytical tool in understanding the dynamics governing individual knowledge sharing decisions.

This thesis explores the characteristics of the organisational knowledge flow, using the empirical context of the sector that provides support to small and medium sized enterprises in Merseyside. The application of the tacit and explicit dichotomy in debates on knowledge development limits the way that knowledge is understood, by subsuming all aspects of knowing within these two categories, and in particular obscuring understanding of the personal nature of knowledge. The role of the knower in the process of knowledge development is underemphasisedin theliterature, with socialisation and the issue of practice being prominent in accounts of empirical research, without recognising the characteristics of individual participation andits significance to what is known. Through interviews and ethnographic fieldwork, this research challenges conventional approaches to knowledge development, by moving away from the knowledge dichotomy to apply the knowledge continuum to organisational processes, enabling a more in-depth understanding of the knowledge flow, and demonstrating the diversity and fluidity of knowledge. The role of the individualin relation to their interaction with other knowersis discussed, and how this action is clearly situated in particular sites. Consequently the significance of place to the knowledge flow emerges, and with this the need to move away from discussion of 'the organisation', to identification of the specific sites that comprise the workspace and howindividuals engage with them.