The current research used grounded theory methodology (GTM) to construct a conceptualization of personal knowledge within a knowledge management (KM) perspective. The need for the current research was based on the use of just two categories of knowledge, explicit and tacit, within KM literature to explain diverse characteristics of personal knowledge. The construct of tacit knowledge has often been explicated and debated in KM literature. The debate over tacit knowledge arose from the complex epistemological roots of tacit knowing and the construct of tacit knowledge popularized by organizational knowledge creation theory. The ongoing debate over tacit knowledge in KM literature has shed little light on personal knowledge within a KM perspective. The current research set aside the debate over tacit knowledge and pursued the construct of personal knowledge from the perspective of the knower using GTM. Thirty-seven interviews were conducted with fourteen participants. Interviews were audio recorded and coding was accomplished with the qualitative data analysis software MAXQDA. A total of eight categories were identified. These were organized into two groups. The core category being overwhelmed represented the absence of personal knowledge. The categories questioning self, seeking help, and microthinking fit under being overwhelmed. Together these categories were inverse indicators because they all decreased as knowledge acquisition progressed. The core category being confident represented the presence of personal knowledge. The categories remembering, multitasking, and speed fit under being overwhelmed. Together these categories were direct indicators because they all increased as knowledge acquisition progressed. Three significant conclusions were drawn from the current research. These conclusions led to the conceptualization of personal knowledge from a KM perspective. The first significant conclusion was the conceptualization of a process of knowing as Integrated Complexity: From Overwhelmed to Confident (ICOC). The second significant conclusion was personal knowing as first-person epistemology is a universally lived experience that includes commitments to internal and external requirements as well as a bias toward integration. The third significant conclusion was personal knowledge can be viewed as a complex adaptive system. Finally, the current research concluded that personal knowledge within a KM perspective is a complex adaptive system maintained through acts of first-person epistemology.

Thesis (Ph.D.), Faculty of Humanities, School of Education, University of the Witwatersrand, 2009 / People who hold doctoral degrees are considered valuable national resources able to produce knowledge to address pressing problems, and important sources of labour for the higher education sector. However, in 2006, only 1100 people graduated with doctoral degrees in South Africa. This limits the potential for research and improvements in higher education. In addition, 618 of those graduates were white, making it difficult to address equity concerns. Within the higher education sector there are debates about how to increase enrolments in doctoral education and the best way to run PhD programmes for effective learning, high quality research results and for efficiency. But there is little South African-based empirical research into what makes people undertake PhDs, how the programmes work and what learning and knowledge result. This study explores how different stakeholders – national and institutional policymakers, academic staff and doctoral people – understand the PhD; how these understandings influence the practice of doctoral education; and how different practices affect the PhD experience and the learning and knowledge produced. The primary research question I address is: “How do existing models and pedagogies of doctoral programmes shape the learning of doctoral people and the outcomes of doctoral programmes in South Africa?” The origins of the Doctor of Philosophy degree are often traced back to the nineteenth century reforms of German universities when the idea emerged that all scholars should be actively involved in research. But this is a simplistic view. By examining the evolution of the PhD in greater depth, it becomes clear that it has undergone continuous change and has always served both the high-minded pursuit of knowledge and the more prosaic pursuit of skills for employment. The literature reflects ongoing tension between the scholarly view of the PhD as knowledge generation by an emerging scholar, and the labour market view of the PhD as developing high-level research skills. In the South African context both of these views can be observed, but I also identified a view of the PhD as ongoing personal development through an engagement with knowledge. The three views of the PhD are underpinned by different discourses which inform the practice of doctoral education. In South Africa, the traditional model of individual supervision dominates, and it varies by discipline, department and supervisor. But patterns of practice can be discerned and I identify four of these and discuss how supervisors construct their individual supervision practice. Doctoral education is also a function of the people who do PhDs. Much of the research undertaken in the overdeveloped world focuses on younger people who are starting out on academic careers. However, in South Africa, many people doing PhDs are older and midway through careers which are often not academic. This leads me to propose a model of intersecting contexts, as an alternative to McAlpine and Norton‟s nested context model of doctoral education, which more accurately reflects the local situation. I discuss the PhD experience and make use of the intersecting contexts model to develop the notion of congruence between the PhD, the contexts and the PhD person with more positive experiences being related to higher degrees of congruence. Finally, I consider how the outcomes of doctoral education, the learning and knowledge which result, relate to the expectations of the different stakeholders. The research took the form of a qualitative study with a multiple case-study design employing theoretical replication. I examined doctoral education in four academic units at three South African universities with the units selected to represent different disciplines. All four units were in previously advantaged universities from the English-speaking tradition and all were successfully producing PhD graduates. These rich pictures of how doctoral education takes place contribute empirical evidence to current debates about the PhD in South Africa. At a conceptual level I identify the competing discourses about what a PhD is. I provide a more nuanced understanding of the practice of doctoral education within the overarching model of individual supervision. The intersecting contexts model provides a way to understand the expectations and circumstances of doctoral people and the notion of congruence illuminates their varied experiences. Finally, the study confirms that the outcomes of doctoral education, in terms of learning and knowledge generated, meet at least some of the expectations of policy-makers, supervisors and people who do PhDs.

The purpose of this thesis was to explore how microstate human interactions produce macro level self-organization and emergence in a supply disruption scenario, as well as discover factors and typical human behaviour that bring about disruptions. This study argues that the complex adaptive system’s view of complexity is most suited scholarly foundation for this research enquiry. Drawing on the dissipative structure based explanation of emergence and self-organization in a complex adaptive system, this thesis further argues that an energy gradient between the ongoing and designed system conditions, known as adaptive tension, causes supply chains to self-organize and emerge. This study adopts a critical realist ontology operationalized by a qualitative case research and grounded theory based analysis. The data was collected using repertory grid interviews of 22 supply chain executives from 21 firms. In all 167 cases of supply disruptions were investigated. Findings illustrate that agent behaviours like loss of trust, over ambitious pursuit, use of power and privilege, conspiring against best practices and heedless performance were contributing to disruption. Impacted by these behaviours, supply chains demonstrated impaired disruption management capabilities and increased disruption probability. It was also discovered that some of these system patterns and microstate agent behaviours pushed the supply chains to a zone of emergent complexity where these networks self-organized and emerged into new structures or embraced changes in prevailing processes or goals. A conceptual model was developed to explain the transition from micro agent behaviour to system level self-organization and emergence. The model described alternate pathways of a supply chain under adaptive tension. The research makes three primary research contributions. Firstly, based upon the theoretical model, this research presents a conceptualization of supply chain emergence and self-organization from dissipative structures and adaptive tension based view of complexity. Secondly, it formally introduces and validates the role of behavioural and cognitive element of human actions in a supply chain scenario. Lastly, it affirms the complex adaptive system based conceptualization of supply chain networks. These contributions succeed in providing organizations with an explanation for observed deviations in their operations performance using a behavioural aspect of human agents.

<p>There is a common belief amongst those who are involved in projects that as project complexity increases the difficulty to manage a project increases and thus the probability to succeed in project completion considerably decreases. Perception of complexity in a project usually refers to common criteria from traditional project management thinking such as the scale of the project; cost; duration; and the degree of risk to its owner. However, whether a project is perceived to be complex or not may not be purely a product of the size of the project. It may also be derived from the person’s experience in projects. The aim of this study is to identify attributes of perception of project complexity and observe whether experience is also a determining factor in perceiving a project as complex. The research is based on the assumption that a complex project may exhibit behaviour similar to complex adaptive system. This study proposes a theoretical framework based on projects understood as complex adaptive systems. A project experience matrix is developed which will be useful to help link degree and type of experience to perceptions of project complexity.</p><p>This study employs a comparative study between two cases to explore and compare the perception of complexity in each case. Qualitative and quantitative data were obtained through semi-structured interview and questionnaires, then analysed accordingly. The outcomes of this research attempted to find answers to the following questions: How do project managers and team members perceive a project as complex (project complexity)?” In answering this question we explored how project managers and team members perceived project complexity. The major question above was elaborated by some minor specific questions. These are: Which attributes of complex adaptive systems are attributed by project managers and team members to project complexity? Is project experience a determining factor to the perception of project complexity? Based on our sample we found no significant differences between attributes of complex adaptive systems and perception of project complexity; no significant association between depth and context of experience and perception of project complexity. We also found no significant differences between the Chinese and Indonesian samples.</p>

There is a common belief amongst those who are involved in projects that as project complexity increases the difficulty to manage a project increases and thus the probability to succeed in project completion considerably decreases. Perception of complexity in a project usually refers to common criteria from traditional project management thinking such as the scale of the project; cost; duration; and the degree of risk to its owner. However, whether a project is perceived to be complex or not may not be purely a product of the size of the project. It may also be derived from the person’s experience in projects. The aim of this study is to identify attributes of perception of project complexity and observe whether experience is also a determining factor in perceiving a project as complex. The research is based on the assumption that a complex project may exhibit behaviour similar to complex adaptive system. This study proposes a theoretical framework based on projects understood as complex adaptive systems. A project experience matrix is developed which will be useful to help link degree and type of experience to perceptions of project complexity. This study employs a comparative study between two cases to explore and compare the perception of complexity in each case. Qualitative and quantitative data were obtained through semi-structured interview and questionnaires, then analysed accordingly. The outcomes of this research attempted to find answers to the following questions: How do project managers and team members perceive a project as complex (project complexity)?” In answering this question we explored how project managers and team members perceived project complexity. The major question above was elaborated by some minor specific questions. These are: Which attributes of complex adaptive systems are attributed by project managers and team members to project complexity? Is project experience a determining factor to the perception of project complexity? Based on our sample we found no significant differences between attributes of complex adaptive systems and perception of project complexity; no significant association between depth and context of experience and perception of project complexity. We also found no significant differences between the Chinese and Indonesian samples.

Yes / Purpose The objective of this study was to advance our knowledge of pharmaceutical supply chain resilience using Complex Adaptive System theory (CAS). Design/methodology/approach An exploratory research design which adopted a qualitative approach was used to achieve the study’s research objective. Qualitative data were gathered through 23 semi-structured interviews with key supply chain actors across the PSC in the United Kingdom (UK). Findings The findings demonstrate that CAS, as a theory, provides a systemic approach to understanding PSC resilience by taking into consideration the various elements (environment, PSC characteristics, vulnerabilities and resilience strategies) that make up the entire system. It also provides explanations for key findings, like the impact of power, conflict and complexity in the PSC, which are influenced by the interactions between supply chain actors and as such increase its susceptibility to the negative impact of disruption. Furthermore, the antecedents for building resilience strategies were the outcome of the decision-making process referred to as co-evolution from a CAS perspective. Originality/value Based on the data collected, the study was able to reflect on the relationships, interactions and interfaces between actors in the PSC using the CAS theory, which supports the proposition that resilience strategies can be adopted by supply chain actors to enhance this service supply chain. This is a novel empirical study of resilience across multiple levels of the PSC and as such adds valuable new knowledge about the phenomenon and the use of CAS theory as a vehicle for exploration and knowledge construction in other supply chains.

Modeling or simulating Complex Adaptive Systems (CASs) is both important and challenging. As the name suggests, CASs are systems consisting of large numbers of interacting adaptive compartments. They are studied across a wide range of disciplines and have unique properties. They model such systems as multicellular organisms, ecosystems, social networks, and many more. They are complex, in the sense that they are dynamical, nonlinear, and heterogeneous systems that cannot be simply scaled up/down. However, they are self-organized, in the sense that they can evolve into specific structures/patterns without guidance from outside sources. Modeling/Simulating CASs is challenging, not only because of the high complexity, but also because of the difficulty in explaining the underlying mechanism behind self-organization. The goal of this research is to provide a modeling framework as well as a simulation platform to advance the study of CASs. We argue that there are common principles behind self-organization processes of different systems across different domains. We explore, analyze, and perform experiments into these principles. We propose and implement modeling templates such as short-term and long-term adaptivity. We incorporate techniques from systems theory, employing computing paradigms, including multi-agent system and asynchronous message passing. We also consider an application from the biological domain to model and simulate under our framework, treating it as a CAS for validation purposes. / Ph. D.

BACKGROUND:This paper proposes a novel model for homeopathic remedy action on living systems. Research indicates that homeopathic remedies (a) contain measurable source and silica nanoparticles heterogeneously dispersed in colloidal solution / (b) act by modulating biological function of the allostatic stress response network (c) evoke biphasic actions on living systems via organism-dependent adaptive and endogenously amplified effects / (d) improve systemic resilience.DISCUSSION:The proposed active components of homeopathic remedies are nanoparticles of source substance in water-based colloidal solution, not bulk-form drugs. Nanoparticles have unique biological and physico-chemical properties, including increased catalytic reactivity, protein and DNA adsorption, bioavailability, dose-sparing, electromagnetic, and quantum effects different from bulk-form materials. Trituration and/or liquid succussions during classical remedy preparation create "top-down" nanostructures. Plants can biosynthesize remedy-templated silica nanostructures. Nanoparticles stimulate hormesis, a beneficial low-dose adaptive response. Homeopathic remedies prescribed in low doses spaced intermittently over time act as biological signals that stimulate the organism's allostatic biological stress response network, evoking nonlinear modulatory, self-organizing change. Potential mechanisms include time-dependent sensitization (TDS), a type of adaptive plasticity/metaplasticity involving progressive amplification of host responses, which reverse direction and oscillate at physiological limits. To mobilize hormesis and TDS, the remedy must be appraised as a salient, but low level, novel threat, stressor, or homeostatic disruption for the whole organism. Silica nanoparticles adsorb remedy source and amplify effects. Properly-timed remedy dosing elicits disease-primed compensatory reversal in direction of maladaptive dynamics of the allostatic network, thus promoting resilience and recovery from disease.SUMMARY:Homeopathic remedies are proposed as source nanoparticles that mobilize hormesis and time-dependent sensitization via non-pharmacological effects on specific biological adaptive and amplification mechanisms. The nanoparticle nature of remedies would distinguish them from conventional bulk drugs in structure, morphology, and functional properties. Outcomes would depend upon the ability of the organism to respond to the remedy as a novel stressor or heterotypic biological threat, initiating reversals of cumulative, cross-adapted biological maladaptations underlying disease in the allostatic stress response network. Systemic resilience would improve. This model provides a foundation for theory-driven research on the role of nanomaterials in living systems, mechanisms of homeopathic remedy actions and translational uses in nanomedicine.

Although Code of Maryland policy mandates multidisciplinary, integrated teams for residential service provider organizations (RPOs) for an intellectual/developmental disabilities (IDD) population, alignment criteria to identify and evaluate the functional characteristics of such teams do not exist. This ambiguity has resulted in potential conflict in the goals of service delivery, as well as misaligned quality assessment and policy development criteria. The intent of this general qualitative study was to use complex adaptive systems theory and Vitkiene's work on corporate ethos to determine whether the services provided by a single RPO were consistent and aligned with the regulatory mandate set by the state. Data were acquired from the Maryland Office of Health Care Quality, for the years 2010-2015 that consisted of compliance inspections, reports, citations, as well as responses and corrective actions made by the IDD-RPO. Data were deductively coded according to Vitkiene's 3 ethos principles: economy (profit), procedure (task completion), and beneficence (customer service) and then subjected to a content analysis procedure. The study affirmed the lack of alignment criteria within the RPO by demonstrating ambiguity in how services were measured. Findings identified beneficence as most likely to be associated with a multidisciplinary team. Positive social change implications stem from recommendations to repurpose public health compliance data to address issues of misalignment in institutional service delivery; these findings may also be used by policy makers to focus on ethos as a means to focus on realigning policy objectives, the regulatory environment, and the work done at the RPO level to encourage better quality of life for individuals diagnosed with IDD.

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