In 2005 the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) published a White Paper in which it detailed its Defence Industrial Strategy (DIS) (UK MoD, 2005). The strategy involved a rapid transformation of UK defence towards a product-service, business-like paradigm through the adoption of Through Life Capability Management (TLCM). TLCM has since been succeeded by other initiatives. However, for organisations involved in the management of capability through life, the associated principles of operation as well as the challenges remain, including that of the management of knowledge. The confederated capability enterprise is a distributed knowledge system. Knowledge of the systems, for which a particular organisation has through-life management responsibility, may be distributed throughout an enterprise that comprises several commercial organisations as well as the customer. The bringing together of different components of capability and perspectives makes managing knowledge difficult. This is complicated further by the observation that in a decade one can expect a significant proportion of the manpower involved in a capability will have changed. Success in this type of environment requires a clear understanding of the value of particular knowledge within the organisation as well as effective knowledge management in the wider enterprise. Dstl and EPSRC have jointly funded this research which addresses management of knowledge for through life capability through modelling of the capability enterprise, a workshop on TLCM benefits and behaviours, a comparative case study at a commercial service company and the UK MoD including Dstl, and knowledge mapping within a specific exemplar capability. The results of the modelling illustrated the Systems of Systems (SoS) nature of the enterprise and the need to align capability and management processes across the enterprise. How well this can be achieved depends on the extent to which both the UK MoD and industry are willing to share, access and process information and knowledge. This would require trust between the individuals and organisations involved. The need for trust was emphasised in an international workshop where the participants discussed the behaviours that were required for the perceived benefits of TLCM to be realised. The workshop members highlighted trust in long term planning as industry seeks to manage skills and knowledge over time. ServiceCo provides communication and media services to customers globally. It comprises four customer-facing divisions and two operational units. The case which was based on interviews in one customer-facing and one operational unit revealed the following: • Focus on corporate values supports knowledge management behaviours across the organisation. • Succession planning is needed for all skills and knowledge that are critical or essential to the business. • Once the continual renewal of knowledge slows down and/or stops in an organisation, the knowledge is lost. The second case of the study was the Royal Navy Command Head Quarters and Dstl. Dstl is a trading fund that provides UK MoD and the wider UK government specialist Science & Technology services and operates and manages the Chief Scientific Advisor's research programme. The case study revealed: • Security regulations and considerations impact significantly on effective management of knowledge. • Knowledge retrieval can be 'hit and miss' as complicated filing structures and indexing practices are applied inconsistently, leading to individuals adopting a number of strategies to share knowledge. • Succession planning for people with rare skills is an issue that impacts business continuation. Comparison between the two cases showed that the two organisations experienced different problems but that the knowledge behaviours adopted by the individuals involved were essentially the same. This pointed to the need to address the issues associated with the management of knowledge as cultural and organisational in nature. Personal strategies to manage and share knowledge included individuals retaining copies of files on desktop hard drives and keeping paper copies in drawers; documents were emailed to ensure the intended audience would get it or be able to access it; and asking a colleague for advice on where to find out things. An important difference between knowledge management between the two organisations was that the UK MoD relied on processes due to the rapid change of personnel whereas the service company relied on personal relationships as people remained in the roles for longer. The knowledge mapping of 'moving personnel and materiel using vehicles' revealed that each Line of Development (LoDs) has its own constituent (LoDs) indicating the requirement to manage organisational capability in order to deliver capability to customers. It also illustrated all the active knowledge that is required in order for the capability to be delivered. The research main contributions are: • Theoretical models for exploring the use of knowledge in acquisition projects over time • Comparing two organisations at separate ends of the organisational spectrum and identifying common organisational factors that influence the management of knowledge for through life capability • Recognising that the enterprise is a capability SoS. In order to successfully delivery capability, knowledge about and within the components needs to be managed. Other findings include: • Management of knowledge for TLCM puts the focus on managing knowledge for future capability requirements rather than on retention of knowledge products, bringing in aspects such as business continuation planning and consequently impacting on the organisation's future development. • There is a strong relationship between knowledge conservation, human resource management and company policies. • Managing changes in design and/or function requires a good understanding of the different processes used within the various disciplines involved across the capability components and how they contribute to the final product and to each other. • An organisation's goals and the manner in which it organises itself to achieve them with regard to the management of knowledge does not appear linked. Instead, focus falls on the organisational architecture and the human resource polices that it implies. • 'Knowing' is an individual capability and also a social one; communities of practice and networking are necessary components of an organisation's knowledge base. • Knowing whom to ask and where to look is in a knowledge retrieval perspective nearly as important as knowing what to look for. • 'Individuals know while documents, processes and tools support knowing'. This emphasises the need for a close connection between humans and IT-based knowledge repositories. • The role of IT in knowledge management can either be to correlate knowledge in people's heads to relevant projects or to correlate individuals and knowledge in relevant projects depending on the key questions asked in the management of knowledge within the organisation. • The role of IT in determining issues related to the relevance and location of documentation differs depending of the organisation's reliance on face to face interactions between employees as a means for communicating this information. • The capability end user is in some instances hard to define. How the end user is defined determines where the SoS boundaries are defined. It is probably better to define the boundary as a broad fuzzy border. The indeterminacy implied by this view becomes a complexity issue for management of knowledge. • The impetus to manage knowledge and how is influenced legal requirements and by the organisation's relationships with its stakeholders including the extent it is subject to external scrutiny. Based on the research, a number of recommendations are made.

M.Phil. (Information Management) / This study was aimed at the discovery of in corporate advisory networks who act as agents to share information and knowledge. In the current competitive and often uncertain economic business environment, savvy executives need to leverage off the expertise of their company employees in order to service their customers effectively and remain competitive. Since not all employees in the company have expert knowledge, executives need to discover the advisory networks of expert employees embedded in formal organisational structures and encourage them to share and transfer their expert knowledge to novices and/or less experienced employees. In light of the current argument, a diagnostic technique known as social network analysis (SNA) was used to map out and measure the advisory relational X-ray patterns within organisational departments and across to other functional business units. Once the patterns are discovered and the key expert networked employees identified, knowledge sharing interventions are introduced to facilitate experts to share and transfer their information, knowledge, insights and experiences to other less knowledgeable employees within the departments and across to other functional areas in the organisation. The overall objective of this study is therefore to utilise the SNA technique to discover the experts in the corporate advisory networks whom will act as agents to facilitate information and knowledge sharing in the organisation to improve other employees’ work performance thereby enabling the organisation to meet and even exceed its strategic objectives...

Despite the fact that knowledge management (KM) challenges cannot be solved by installing a technical system alone, technical support for KM initiatives is still an important issue and nowadays requires handling of context, intelligent content analysis and extended collaboration support. Since information systems have significantly improved in the last ten years with regards to implementing Web 2.0 features and semantic content analysis, knowledge workers can expect better support from IT than ever. After the human-oriented, technology-oriented (documents), process-riented and social KM phases, KM support now needs integration of those beneficial technologies instead of hyping one and neglecting the other. The true nature and potential of social media does only manifest when people incorporate them into their day-to-day work routines or even "live" the social media idea. The same is true for business process management (BPM). If BPM tools are not integrated into the existing, well-known information systems, acceptance will be low. Practice shows, that employees often do not even know in which process they are currently working.

Knowledge management (KM) is something that we as humans have practiced for generations by means of sharing stories around the fireplace, passing down recipe books, teaching trade crafts to children and showing young adults how to hunt. This primitive version of KM was not described as an area of development or expertise within organisations until 1995 when Nonaka and Takeuchi’s SECI model revolutionised the world of KM. Since then, many KM researchers have contributed to the field and tried to establish its true foundations. As a result, many KM models and frameworks have emerged leading to a call for the standardisation of KM terminology, and the harmonisation of about 160 existing KM models and frameworks. What has been strikingly overlooked in all these KM models and frameworks is the idea of knowledge seeking as a necessary theoretical component and as a key KM process. Only recently there have been a few attempts to integrate knowledge seeking into KM models and frameworks. With a view to taking this development further, this study achieves two things. First, the study assesses the theoretical status of knowledge seeking in some of the established KM models, frameworks and strategies, and reviews the work of KM researchers who have grappled with the idea of knowledge seeking. Second, the study describes some of the key features of knowledge seeking in a sample of companies. Four companies were selected according to their type and size. They included a small business intelligence consulting company, a branch office of a country-wide IT company, a department within a larger insurance company, and a company that deals with financial software. Using questionnaires and descriptive statistical methods to generate, analyse and interpret the data, the study delineates some of the key features of knowledge seeking in the workplace by asking where people seek knowledge to solve problems, where they seek knowledge under the pressure of time, and where they would prefer to seek knowledge in ideal circumstances. On the basis of the data, the study revises Han Lai and Margaret Graham’s KM life cycle model, which is the latest version of a KM model that integrates knowledge seeking. Additionally, the study adapts Hansen et al’s codification versus personalisation KM strategy. The study therefore contributes to the theoretical aspects of KM by showing that knowledge seeking deserves sustained analysis in KM models and frameworks as a KM process, and it contributes to KM practice by showing the implications of knowledge seeking for KM strategies. Copyright / Dissertation (MIS)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Information Science / unrestricted

Please read the abstract in the section, 00front, of this document / Dissertation (M Eng (Industrial Engineering))--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Industrial and Systems Engineering / unrestricted

DevOps, a portmanteau of Development and Operations, is the collection of principles and practices that try to improve cooperation between IT Development and IT Operations teams in the software development domain. The DevOps paradigm, thus, promises to overcome the traditional boundaries between development and operations teams and to improve collaboration across teams through a culture that is conducive to shared goals and accountability. Responding to the recent call for a better understanding of DevOps Knowledge Management (KM), this study aims to explore the role of knowledge management in advancing DevOps performance outcomes. Toward this, the study adopts a practice perspective of KM, and aims to answer the following research questions: 1) What are the enablers of KM practices in DevOps teams? 2) What are the distinctive characteristics of KM practices that underpin positive DevOps performance outcomes? Using an inductive research design and qualitative data collection and analysis procedures, this study followed a multiple case study approach, and collected and analyzed data from nine in-depth interviews with DevOps professionals across three organizations. Using grounded theory coding procedures, an emergent theoretical model of DevOps KM is presented and discussed, along with various propositions that outline how DevOps teams acquire, capture, share and apply knowledge, and how their KM practices can drive positive DevOps performance. Key insights from this study indicate that technology leaders need to foster greater awareness about the significance of KM in DevOps teams. This can be done by highlighting challenges associated with a lack of effective KM practices, and best practices followed by other companies. Furthermore, DevOps teams should adopt a mix of people-centered and technology-centered KM practices that enable effective personalization and codification of knowledge. Lastly, DevOps managers need to encourage alternative-bridging KM practices through regular use of KM tools and features within DevOps technologies while investing in dedicated knowledge sharing platforms. Through a discussion of the enablers of KM practices in DevOps; typical configuration of people-centered, technology-centered, and alternative-bridging KM practices in DevOps; and the linkages between KM practices and DevOps performance outcomes, this study aims to contribute to the extant research literature on DevOps KM, and provide practical guidelines for institutionalizing KM practices that can support the fast-paced nature of DevOps teams.

Submitted to the Faculty of Arts in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (D.Phil) in the Department of Communication Science at the University of Zululand, South Africa, 2004. / This dissertation focuses on the contribution of electronic communication (e-Communication) to knowledge management. It is based on an empirical survey of knowledge management practitioners in the private, public and NGO sectors in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The major findings of this study are (1) that many knowledge management practitioners have not received any formal training in knowledge management, (2) that for most of them their practices are not informed by explicit knowledge management policies, (3) that there is no culture of sharing knowledge established within particular organisations, and finally (4) that knowledge managers are not using e-learning facilities to keep their knowledge of knowledge management current.

The dissertation focuses on the problem of increasing the company's performance through human resource management. Knowledge, its dissemination, sharing, storing and deepening is a critical factor not only for performance, but also a necessary condition for survival. Knowledge is an integral part of the competencies of the employees and the companies they work for. The dissertation identifies individual competence assessment tools and performance as well as activities related to the evaluation process. It looks closely at the evaluation process and what tools are used in the different sized companies. Doctoral thesis tests the hypothesis of dependence between competence and performance. It presents progress in the implementation of one of the evaluation methods, many sources of feedback, called "16 STEPS". It formulates some general recommendations for the communication of requirements which are put to all employees at the same time, such as the evaluation of executives and the exploration of company culture. It contains a draft proposal for the implementation and use of integrated tools for evaluating competence and performance and also highlights its flexibility. The tool of multi sources feedback and integrated assessment tool performance and competencies can be used in all large companies, regardless of the focus of the company.

El texto completo de este trabajo no está disponible en el Repositorio Académico UPC por restricciones de la casa editorial donde ha sido publicado. / Over time, the textile sector has been globally represented and characterized by increasingly demanding customers, which has forced companies to seek more flexible processes. However, these changes in production methods have also generated greater wastes, a common problem, which also leads to a greater number of defaults on meeting the demand. As a result, several efforts have been made to solve this issue, such as using emerging Lean or Just-in-Time philosophies with different approaches. Likewise, high sector turnover sometimes causes learning to become tedious, thus affecting the knowledge which has already been acquired. Therefore, this paper proposes a Lean Manufacturing model, bolstered by knowledge management to guarantee its viability over time. A simulation using the Arena software reduced non-compliances with companies’ production schedule up to 80%.

As the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR) has influenced all sectors, and workers who accrued their experience over decades are reaching retirement age, it has become imperative in all sectors to access their knowledge, store it, and share it with new employees to avoid such knowledge being lost. Knowledge management aims to take advantage of the intangible assets that would otherwise be wasted: The knowledge developed and held by the organisations' employees, their accumulated experience, and task-specific knowledge acquired by employees. Hence, the importance of knowledge management (KM) practices in driving organisational growth and profitability is well established. However, there is a paucity of literature regarding the influence of non-technical attributes (employee attitude, organisational culture, and organisational politics) in driving the effective implementation of KM across public sector organisations. Hence, the present study addressed the gap in literature by exploring the non-technical attributes that influence the effective implementation of KM in South African parastatals. The present study was based on the assumption that non-technical attributes are as important as the technical attributes for ensuring effective KM implementation. The study was governed by the Ecological Theory of KM, which endorses that individuals, relationships, and learning communities play an important role, including their interaction with each other as well as internal and external factors that motivate them to share adequate, appropriate, and timely knowledge. This research contributes to the theoretical knowledge within the information systems (IS) community through developing models and theories in the extant literature that may account for the influence of organisational culture and politics in influencing the effective implementation of knowledge management systems (KMSs) in South African parastatal organisations. The evidence suggested that knowledge-sharing behaviour among employees is an important determinant for the effective implementation of KM. Hence, it was speculated that organisational culture and organisational politics might also influence KM implementation within South African parastatals by influencing the employee-related attributes. The ontological and epistemological stances that were considered for this study were objectivism and positivism, respectively. Such stances were adopted because it was contended that the realism related to KM implementation could be estimated through objective endpoints. A mixed-method approach was undertaken to obtain the relevant data from the participants. The subjective responses of the participants were obtained through closed-ended and open-ended questions. Since there are different non-technical factors that could influence the effective implementation of KM, it was hypothesised that a positive organisational culture or a positive employee attitude might not always ensure effective KM implementation. The hypotheses were grounded on the concept that a positive attitude by employees might become undermined by a dominant negative organisational culture, and destructive or over-bearing organisational politics. Under such circumstances, the positive attitude of employees would not be sufficient to influence effective KM implementation. The study showed that attitudes of people and a positive organisational culture significantly influenced an effective KM implementation. One of the novel findings in this study was that organisational politics did not significantly impact the implementation of KM practices (p > 0.05). However, the focus group interviews reflected that the parastatal organisation suffered from leadership challenges, which substantiated the lack of a relationship between politics and KM implementation. The major theory that emerged from this study was that knowledge sharing across a parastatal organisation is governed by the interaction of different knowledge-sharing theories. The novel finding that organisational politics might not significantly influence the effective implementation of a KMS could be explained from the theories of knowledge sharing, which mandate that trait theory and social engagement theory might interact in influencing knowledge sharing across employees of parastatal organisations. If organisational politics do not influence knowledge sharing, the altruistic attributes of an employee may still be sufficient to share tacit and explicit knowledge. Future studies should explore the direct interaction between the positive and negative attributes of people, organisational culture, and organisational politics in influencing an effective implementation of KM across a number of parastatal organisations.