Despite significant research output in recent decades on international new ventures (INVs),little attention has been paid to understanding the processes and conditions under whichthe entrepreneur identifies and exploits an opportunity and subsequently creates valuewithin the firm. As a result, the dynamics involved in the role of the entrepreneur during theestablishment and internationalization of INVs remain in a black box. In order to understandthe context, interaction among players and other dynamics involved before, during, and afterthe establishment of the INV’s creation and development, a different approach is needed. Theaim of this dissertation is to describe and understand the role of entrepreneurs in the processof establishment and internationalization of international new ventures. Three longitudinal case studies were conducted between 1999 and 2008 with a total of 108interviews using snowball sampling. In addition, comprehensive secondary data have beencollected to enrich the empirical cases with thick descriptions, and to enhance content validityas well as the reliability of the research. This study offers a more nuanced picture of how entrepreneurs’ characteristics influencethe international development of their firms. For example, it appears that it was neitherthe previous foreign experience, the education, nor the previously developed internationalnetwork (as suggested by previous literature) that can be credited for the rapid and vastinternationalization of the case firms. Instead, it is suggested that an entrepreneur’schildhood and prior life story directly influences their behaviour in the INV. We proposethat different types of entrepreneurs are important factors to understanding firms’ differentinternationalization patterns. Depending on the backgrounds of the entrepreneurs, theydeveloped preferences, skills, and especially desires that would come to affect the totalbehaviour of their future organizations. This study also develops the notion of psychicdistance into three separate spaces - the physical, the mental and the social space. Forexample, the context and experience during childhood creates the foundations for theentrepreneurs’ mental and social space, which can separately, but also in relation toeach other, offer a more accurate and deeper understanding of the actions taken by theentrepreneurs in the INV. Furthermore, this study has shown that the role and characteristicsof the entrepreneur do change over time, which also determines the individual’s sensitivity toopportunities and the international behaviour of the company.

Planning maps are not only, as is often silently assumed by planners, neutral technical tools to assist them in their design and analytical tasks or to communicate their findings to others. In complex multi-stakeholder planning processes maps are also inherently coloured representations of knowledge, the outcomes a specific way of learning resulting from the activity of mapping itself, and discursive means through which norms and interests are promoted as objective truths. This thesis research explored how members of a local stakeholder group representing farm business made sense out of, and judged the data quality of planning maps in a combined highway planning and environmental impact study in southern Ontario, executed by the province’s Ministry of Transportation. More specifically it was concerned with how participants evaluated the cartographic representation issues of interest to them in the context of a mayor decision in the transportation study: the location of the highway route, in which both its existing route and new route sections through rural lands were options. The research instruments were a map review workshop and a questionnaire. This research was theoretically underpinned by a framework that integrates three fields of knowledge: cartographic theory, planning theory, and theory on knowledge and sensemaking. The framework served as a sensitizing concept for the analysis and interpretation of the observations obtained from research participants. All three fields were explored with an emphasis on social constructivist understandings which facilitated the understanding of situations characterized by complexity and ambiguity where certain and objective knowledge becomes impossible and where the perspectives and interests of multiple stakeholders come to the foreground. The spatial data on the study cartography in general was judged as correct. The big exception was the data on water-related phenomena. Here participants, although they were familiar with the area, had access to the reviewed cartography for more than two years, and were well aware of the importance of water-related issues in the decision-making process, only during the workshop became aware that the data, recently released by an official data source, were strongly outdated. The findings confirmed the usefulness for planning processes of the simple review procedure followed in the workshop. The process of sensemaking by participants focussed strongly on two areas. First, the central issue of the group: the recognition of agriculture as strong and relevant business deserving recognition equal to urban businesses. Second, on an issue that was not part of the goals of the study, the identification of needs for compensation, not only for loss of assets, but also for ongoing increases of operational costs. Participants, in contrast to the study’s thematically organized overlay analysis which resulted in a fragmented determination of impacts based on readily available public information, emphasized the need to use the farm (business) as a functional whole against which to measure impacts, considering its overall operation and viability. In the workshop it became clear that determining impacts on a complex entity like a farm is equally complex, and hard to map in a comprehensive way. Using maps not for a comprehensive analysis but for learning by illustration or example, however, offers opportunities in these cases. In practice this would require a review of what is considered as legitimate knowledge in formal decision-making. Participants attitudes towards (the representation of) nature showed to widely divergent, and attachment to place was virtually not touched upon. The emphasis on agribusiness seemed to stem not only from material interests, but was also strongly related to identity. Participants judged that the study cartography reflected a strong urban bias. They found that agriculture was underrepresented compared to urban economic and ecological interests and sometimes also misrepresented. Numerous suggestions were made to include new layers of data in the cartography, and to visually emphasize already included data related to agriculture. Although some information was found as redundant, is was above all the lack of more detailed information on agriculture and agribusiness that participants emphasized as issues they would like to see corrected. Whereas some data on some issues where emphasized as missing altogether, in other cases, notably in drainage, participants emphasized missing complementary perspectives. Information suggested by participants to be included mostly served to emphasize the importance of the agricultural sector as a whole and to spare it from impacts, but would create both technical and political difficulties if it were to be used for the comparison between different route options through rural lands. Different types of metaphors played an important role in the sensemaking process by the participants. Some participants followed more rational approaches to sensemaking that emphasized the correctness and information content of the data, while others seemed to be stronger ware of the strategic-discursive role of the maps. Many participants judged the study cartography as little explicit and highly ambiguous in many aspects, an observation for which a plausible explanation is the MTO’s needs to make decisions not only based on technical evaluations, but also taking into account strong informal political forces which required the study team to be able to review its positions if necessary and justify them largely based on the maps. Based on the research some recommendations for better public map use are suggested in order to make better use of the potential of cartography in planning to facilitate learning and mediation between multiple perspectives and interest. Future research, using anthropological methods, observing the process of creation and use of maps in planning in action is suggested as important to move beyond the limitations of perspectives that emphasize maps as representations.

How do we help students to integrate their tertiary education with their development as " wise" global citizens and professionals? The study engages with this question through exploring the use of Reflective Journals as a central and integrating strategy for learning and assessment for a socially and culturally diverse group of students in a large, compulsory, first year, one-semester Engineering unit [BNB007: Professional Studies] between 2000 and 2004. The study supports the hypothesis that Reflective Journals can be an effective strategy for improving the often-criticised poor communication skills of domestic and international students in technical fields. For many students, the process of reflection also became a means of learning about their learning. Attitude surveys administered to students pre and post the teaching intervention in the years 2000-2002 showed positive changes in anticipated directions that encouraged further research. If attitude change was occurring in BNB007, what was the nature of the change? The research showed that at a deeper, longer term and more complex level, this new self-awareness supported many students to develop the kind of futures thinking and social learning " that will be necessary to navigate the transition to sustainable futures" (Raskin et al., 2002). The study contributes to the literature and to methodology through the first complementary use of two new methodologies, Sense-Making and Causal Layered Analysis. Thirty in-depth Sense-Making based interviews, including four with staff, indicate that 'meta-reflection' and transformative learning did take place. Expressing these qualities in the discourse of internationalisation as " global portability" or even " global competence" is unsatisfactory because these popular terms do not embody the qualities graduates need to create sustainable futures. As currently used, they mainly serve a market-dominated version of globalisation and its allied internationalisation-as-profit discourse. Raskin et al proposed a more appropriate term, " sustainability professionals", emerging from a preferred, valuesbased globalisation inspired by a vision of humane, sustainable futures that see " rights assured, nature treasured, culture rich and the human spirit animate" (p.70). This more challenging concept of a graduate for the 21st century is expressed here through the term Globo sapiens, whose qualities are identified in this study. Such professionals are willing to think critically and to assume responsibility for their impact on communities and the planet. This is the critical-futures oriented, transformative and therefore radical notion connoted by the title Towards Globo sapiens. This research identified some of the terrain and challenges of a post-development vision in a vocational area of teaching in Higher Education. It explained how particular students resisted or reconstructed their worlds when challenged at fundamental levels, but within a supportive atmosphere. Thus the study contributes to what educators might need to know, be and do, in order to teach effectively for the transformations urged by Sustainability Scientists, among others, and upon which any sustainable alternative futures depend. The study is underpinned by transdisciplinary syntheses that help to illuminate each area in new and fruitful ways.

Thesis (MPhil (Information Science))--University of Stellenbosch, 2010. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Knowledge assets can be defined as anything that affects a business’s disposition to act on data received from the environment. Knowledge assets are embedded in the objects within an organisation and are the source of an organisation’s competitive advantage, by being closely linked to what the organisation knows and by allowing the organisation to act and to be innovative. Knowledge assets evolve over time as knowledge agents, through a process of sense making, substitute physical resources for informational resources by codifying and abstracting knowledge assets, in the process increasing their value and ability to be diffused to wider audiences. These knowledge assets are internalised in an organisation and impact on the organisation when they are applied to concrete problems. Knowledge assets play an important role in the creation of information assets in an organisation. Information assets are created when a knowledge agent makes use of his or her knowledge to make sense of data received from sources in the environment. The creation of information through the sense making process creates new knowledge which is added to the agent’s knowledge base. Enterprise architecture is the process of designing future states for an organisation and then planning, leading and governing the organisation towards that future state. Enterprise architecture focuses mostly on the organisational process, on information and technology. Enterprise architects make use of enterprise architecture frameworks such as TOGAF or the Zachman framework, which are primarily concerned with the domains of business, information and technology architecture, yet none of these mainstream frameworks used by enterprise architects takes knowledge assets into account, despite the obviously important role that they play in the organisation and especially in the information creation process. This research proposes to show that knowledge assets have an important role to play in enterprise architecture by allowing enterprise architects to • identify or facilitate the creation of knowledge assets pertaining to a specific problem; • understand whether information assets are located in the ordered and complex or the chaotic regimes and what would be the implication of moving them between regimes; • plot knowledge assets movements and relationships to each other on the social learning cycle path, which would enable enterprise architects to balance the types of learning that the organisation employs; • define the level of codification, abstraction and diffusion of knowledge assets, based on the intended audiences and to understand where knowledge assets could be developed to improve quality and when outdated knowledge should be destroyed in favour of new knowledge. Knowledge assets are related to Enterprise Business Architecture (EBA) through the specific knowledge domains that exist within an organisation. Understanding whether knowledge assets exist in the ordered, complex or chaotic regimes will provide a more complete view of the organisation. Architecture of knowledge assets in this space will provide a better understanding of an organisation’s culture: this understanding can compensate for differences in knowledge agents’ spatio-temporal positions, how and when they receive data and their particular cognitive styles. The importance of knowledge assets in the creation of information links it emphatically with Enterprise Information Architecture (EIA). Knowledge asset architecture provides a better understanding of how information is created and flows through an organisation, taking into account the meaning of the information to the organisation, which compensates for that oversight in information theory, which regards the accuracy of data that is communicated as the only concern. Information technology has exponentially increased mankind’s ability to codify, abstract and diffuse knowledge assets. Enterprise Technical Architecture (ETA) is mainly concerned with the technology infrastructure implemented within an organisation. Enterprise architects can apply knowledge asset architecture to decide whether the technology should be used to enhance the codification and abstraction of information, allowing more efficient diffusion of information to a larger audience, or whether more concrete information should be diffused to a more closely-knit audience. This research will argue that the use of knowledge assets as a domain within enterprise architecture will greatly enhance the enterprise architect’s ability to understand and lead the organisation to a more desirable future state. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Kennisbates is vasgelê in die konkrete en abstrakte voorwerpe in die organisasie. Hierdie voorwerpe omsluit alle voorwerpe wat ‘n effek het op hoe die organisasie reageer op data wat vanaf die omgewing ontvang word. Kennisbates is ‘n bron vir die kompeterende voordeel wat ‘n organisasie geniet omdat dit verband hou met wat die organisasie weet en dit die organisasie in staat stel om te innoveer. Kennisbates sal aangaande evolueer soos wat kennisdraers, deur die sinmaak proses, fisiese hulpbronne vervang met inligtings hulpbronne gedurende die proses van kodifisering en abstraksie en sodoende die kennisbates se waarde vir die organisasie te verhoog en beskikbaar te stel vir groter gehore. Die kennisbates word dan vasgelê in die organisasie wanneer die kennis toegepas word op konkrete probleme. Kennisbates speel ‘n belangrike rol in die skepping van inligtingsbates in die organisasie. Inligting word slegs geskep wanneer die kennisdraer gebruik maak van sy kennis om sin te maak van data onvang vanuit die omgewing. Die nuwe inligting word dan intern vasgelê in die kennisdraer as nuwe kennis. Ondernemingsargitektuur is ‘n proses waardeur die toekomstige staat van ‘n organisasie ontwerp word deur beplanning, en daar verder leiding gegee word ter uitvoering daarvan. Ondernemingsargitektuur fokus meestal op die organisasie se prosesse, inligting en tegnologie. Ondernemingsargitekte maak gebruik van ondernemingsargitektuurraamwerke soos TOGAF en die Zachmanraamwerk as riglyne vir hulle werk. Hierdie raamwerke fokus primêr op die besigheid, inligting en tegniese domeine van argitektuur. Nie een van die hoofstroom ondernemingsargitektuurraamwerke neem kennisbates in ag nie, ten spyte van die voordiehandliggende belangrike rol wat kennisbates in die organisasie se inligtingskeppingsproses speel. Hierdie navorsing stel voor dat kennisbates deel kan vorm van ondernemingsargitektuur deur ondernemingsargitekte toe te laat om • kennisbates aangaande ‘n spesifieke probleem te identifiseer of die skepping daarvan die fasiliteer, • te bepaal of die kennisbates in die geordende, komplekse of chaotiese regime bestaan en wat die implikasie sou wees om hulle na ‘n ander regime te skuif, en • die kennisbates op die sosiale leersiklus aan te stip, wat die ondernemingsargitek in staat sal stel om die leerbenaderings van die organisasie te balanseer, die vlak van kodifisering, abstraksie en verspreiding te definieer, gebaseer op die voornemende gehoor vir die spesifieke inligting. • beter begrip te hê daarvoor of die kennisbate na ‘n beter kwaliteit ontwikkel moet word of vernietig moet word om plek te maak vir nuwe kennisbates. Daar bestaan ‘n verwantskap tussen OBA (Ondernemingsbesigheidsargitektuur) deur die spesifieke kennisdomein wat reeds in die organisasie bestaan. Deur te verstaan of die kennisbates binne die geordende, komplekse of chaotiese regimes val sal beter begrip bied van die organisasie as geheel. Al hierdie gesigshoeke word in die geordende domein beskryf. Kennisbateargitektuur sal ‘n beter begrip van die organisasie se kultuur bewerkstellig. Die kultuur in ‘n organisasie word gebruik om te vergoed vir die verskille in die kennisdraer se tyd-ruimtelike ligging tydens die ontvangs van data asook hulle kognitiewe styl. Daar bestaan ‘n daadwerklike verwantskap tussen kennisbateargitektuur en Ondernemingsinligtingsargitektuur (OIA). Kennisbateargitektuur sal bydra tot die begrip van hoe inligting geskep word en vloei deur die organisasie. Dit sal die betekenis van inligting in ag neem en daardeur vergoed vir die tekortkoming van inligtingteorie wat slegs die korrektheid van die data wat vervoer word in ag neem. Inligtingstegnologie het die mens se vermoë om inligting te kodifiseer, abstraksie toe te pas en te versprei eksponensieël verbeter. Ondernemingstegnieseargitektuur (OTA) is hoofsaaklik verantwoordelik vir die tegnologiese infrastruktuur wat geïmplimenteer word binne die organisasie. Ondernemingsargitekte kan kennisbates gebruik om te besluit of tegnologie gebruik moet word om beter inligting te skep deur hoër kodifisering en abstraksie toe te pas, om daardeur die vermoë te skep om die inligting vir ‘n wyer gehoor beskikbaar te stel, of om meer konkrete inligting vir ‘n meer intieme gehoor beskikbaar te stel. Hierdie navorsing stel voor dat kennisbates as ‘n domein binne die ondernemingsargitektuur vervat word. Dit sal die ondernemingsargitek in staat stel om die organisasie beter te lei na ‘n wenslike toekomstige staat.

La fiabilité organisationnelle concerne l’étude des conditions organisationnelles permettant à un système organisé complexe de maintenir des niveaux de fiabilité compatibles à la fois avec les exigences de sécurité et les exigences économiques. Les études effectuées sur le fonctionnement des organisations à haute fiabilité mettent en avant un ensemble de pratiques et de dispositifs mis en place au sein de ces organisations, tant au niveau de l’individu et du groupe qu’au niveau de l’organisation, qui permettent à celles-ci de gérer et d’exploiter efficacement des systèmes techniques complexes à risques. Dans la lignée des différents apports sur ce qui fait la fiabilité au sein de telles entreprises, ce travail vise à démontrer la prise en compte du désordre, comme une des logiques organisationnelles, participant à la fiabilité de l’entreprise. En ce sens, une conceptualisation du désordre en tant qu’organisateur (désordre organisationnel) est proposée. À la suite de cette conceptualisation, la thèse démontre dans quelle mesure le désordre, par le biais de lamise en place d’organisations informelles stratifiées sur l’organisation formelle existante, permet de résorber et de restreindre les effets des perturbations. Le désordre est analysé comme catalyseur intrinsèque de la création de sens, participant à la fiabilité. En discutant la considération du désordre comme étant essence même de l’organisation, ce travail analyse l’approche normative sous-jacente dans la conception même de l’organisation et la fiabilité de celle-ci. / The study of high organizational reliability refers to the examination of conditions that allow a complex organized system to maintain high levels of reliability consistent with both security and economic requirements. Studies on the functioning of High Reliability Organizations (HRO) feature a set of practices and mechanisms implemented within these organizations - at the individual, group and organizational levels - which enable them to manage and operate effectively complex technicalsystems at risk. In line with the contributions on what contribute to high reliability in such companies, this work aims to demonstrate the consideration of disorder, as one of the organizational logics, supporting reliability of the company. In this sense, a conceptualization of disorder as an organizing component (organizational disorder) is proposed. As a result of this conceptualization, the thesis demonstrates to what extent organizational disorder, through the establishment ofinformal organizations stratified on the existing formal ones, can reduce and limit the effects of disruptions. Disorder is analyzed as an intrinsic catalyst of sensemaking, partaking to high reliability. By discussing the consideration of disorder as the very essence of the organization, the thesis also debates upon the underlying normative approach in the very conception of the organization and its ensuant high reliability.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-04-16T15:23:24Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 ArquivoTotal.pdf: 2954210 bytes, checksum: ef1b4fe8f0e6f0f1a375e83510e7a8ac (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-03-25 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / The use of information is an indispensable practice to any individual and as such, it is also essential to the professionals of education, especially teachers. Hence the importance of the issue here exposed being made clear by the fact of these professionals need of information for the development of their teaching practices. The present research on "Needs and use of information in the practice of science teachers" aims to analyze the needs and use of information of teachers from the urban area of the municipality of Santa Rita - PB. In that sense, the following question arises: What are the needs and use of information for science teachers in their teaching practices? An alternative approach of the Users´ Studies was used in this research, and the Sense-Making model was prioritized for offering through universal categories of cognitive metaphor, the situation (need for information), gap (cognitive emptiness), and use (informational help to bridge the cognitive emptiness), the logical way for meeting the research objectives. This is a descriptive field research, with a propositional nature. The population is consisted of 28 science teachers, distributed in schools in the urban areas of the municipality of Santa Rita. As an instrument of data collection, the mixed questionnaire was used. Data analysis, of qualitative and quantitative basis, shows that the study group is composed of qualified teachers who prioritize the post-graduation demonstrating interest in being updated for the practice of teaching. Although acknowledging the difficulties of the profession, most teachers manifest satisfaction and teach for pleasure in self-fulfillment. With emphasis on the categories of the Sense-Making, situation-gap-use, the situation reveals that teachers are constantly seeking to meet their information needs through the Internet, books, and educational videos, among others. In the gaps, barriers of time, language, terminology and quality of information were the most displayed, but they developed strategies that minimized the difficulties and could make use of the information. The use of information was centered on the development of teaching activities and the teachers were satisfied with it because it solved their informational problem. Actions to contribute to a better performance of the studied teachers about those questions in their teaching and pedagogical practices were proposed. We conclude that the development of the research contributed to the basis of the Science of Information, which is to provide information and impart knowledge to those who need it, making this the social responsibility in this area of knowledge, as well as in Education, when it makes itself responsible for the challenge of educating a society. Studying the teachers´ information needs and how they guide the search process and the use of information to satisfy their informational needs towards teaching practice, was assigned as a process of great value. / O uso da informação é uma prática indispensável a qualquer indivíduo e não poderia deixar deser aos profissionais da educação, sobretudo, os professores, logo, a importância da temáticaem questão evidencia-se pelo fato desses profissionais necessitarem, de informação para odesenvolvimento de suas práticas docentes. A presente pesquisa, sobre Necessidades e usode informação na prática dos professores de Ciências , tem como objetivo analisar asnecessidades e uso de informação dos professores da zona urbana do município de Santa Rita PB. Nesse sentido, surge o seguinte questionamento: Em suas práticas pedagógicas, quaissão as necessidades e uso de informação dos professores de Ciências? Para a pesquisautilizou-se a abordagem alternativa dos Estudos de Usuários e priorizou-se o modelo Sense-Making , por oferecer através das categorias universais da metáfora cognitiva, da situação(necessidade de informação), da lacuna (vazio cognitivo) e do uso (ajuda informacional paratranspor o vazio cognitivo), o caminho lógico para o atendimento dos objetivos da pesquisa.Trata-se de uma pesquisa de campo, descritiva e de caráter propositivo. A população écomposta por 28 professores de Ciências, distribuídos nas escolas da zona urbana domunicípio de Santa Rita. Como instrumento de coleta de dados utilizou-se o questionáriomisto. A análise dos dados, de base qualitativa e quantitativa, mostra que o grupo estudado écomposto por professores qualificados, que priorizam a pós-graduação, demonstrandointeresse por se manterem atualizados para o exercício da docência. Embora admita asdificuldades da profissão, a maioria dos professores demonstra satisfação e ensina por prazerem se autorrealizar. Com ênfase nas categorias do Sense-Making, situação-lacuna-uso, temseque a situação revela que os professores estão em constante busca para suprir suasnecessidades de informação, através da internet, dos livros, vídeos educativos, entre outros.Nas lacunas, as mais apontadas foram as barreiras de tempo, de idioma, terminológicas e dequalidade da informação, mas os mesmos desenvolveram estratégias que minimizaram asdificuldades e conseguiram usar a informação. O uso da informação esteve centrado nodesenvolvimento das atividades docentes e os professores saíram satisfeitos com o uso porresolverem seu problema informacional. Sobre essas questões propõem-se ações que podemcontribuir para melhor desempenho dos professores estudados, em suas práticas docente epedagógica. Conclui-se que o desenvolvimento da pesquisa contribuiu para o fundamento daCiência da Informação, que é disponibilizar a informação e transmitir o conhecimento àquelesque dele precisam, constituindo a responsabilidade social dessa área do conhecimento, comotambém da Educação, quando se responsabiliza pelo desafio de educar uma sociedade.Estudar as necessidades de informação dos professores, e como estes conduzem o processo debusca e uso da informação para satisfazer suas necessidades informacionais direcionadas àprática docente, configurou-se como processo de grande valia.

Submitted by Michiel Jeroen Herman Willem Kortstee (michielkortstee@gmail.com) on 2018-11-05T21:11:49Z No. of bitstreams: 1 20181022 Michiel JHW Kortstee Tese Doutorado FINAL.pdf: 3026309 bytes, checksum: 83be162551be8d7ade6c417331417e69 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Debora Nunes Ferreira (debora.nunes@fgv.br) on 2018-11-07T20:27:17Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 20181022 Michiel JHW Kortstee Tese Doutorado FINAL.pdf: 3026309 bytes, checksum: 83be162551be8d7ade6c417331417e69 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Isabele Garcia (isabele.garcia@fgv.br) on 2018-11-08T12:20:58Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 20181022 Michiel JHW Kortstee Tese Doutorado FINAL.pdf: 3026309 bytes, checksum: 83be162551be8d7ade6c417331417e69 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-11-08T12:20:58Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 20181022 Michiel JHW Kortstee Tese Doutorado FINAL.pdf: 3026309 bytes, checksum: 83be162551be8d7ade6c417331417e69 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-09-17 / This thesis aims at exploring stakeholders’ perceptions of management innovation in health care. Rising health care costs due to technological innovation and demographic developments and advanced insights on how health and care could be organized drive the search for new organizational models and technologies that may contribute to better health outcomes for lower costs. Multiple stakeholders across the health care continuum need to collaborate in integrated care networks with multiple interdependent components. The study is based on qualitative exploratory research and consists of a literature review and a case-study at a management innovation in an university medical center. This study explores the vision and perceptions of stakeholders of innovation in healthcare, the innovation process through which management innovations evolve, underlying change and steering mechanisms, critical success factors and results. Management innovations and their implementation are considered complex. It is observed that due to different backgrounds and professional logics, stakeholders have partial and different understandings of integrated care concepts. Awareness of the different understandings explains the importance of an implementation approach of integrated care concepts where these perceptions converge. Sense making, the attribution of meaning to perceptions is essential here. Change does not happen in a vacuum, but emerges in interaction with other actors in the organization and its local context. It is observed in the literature and case-study that sense making processes are at work in the innovation process. Management innovation is merely a spontaneous, unplanned change process that starts with an intrinsic drive and emerges from how people frame what they see, relate it to their values and act upon it in interaction with others. It is a human, subjective, interactive, emergent selforganizing process of sensing and sense making that – if aligned with vision, values and intentions of people – can bring together different stakeholders in joint concepts of integrated care. Leading management innovation processes becomes a matter of guiding and creating room for self-organizing processes in organizations. Examples of management innovation from across the world demonstrate that management innovation can significantly contribute to better health outcomes for lower costs. The willingness, necessity and ability to change determine the pace. Exploring further and investing in the potential of management innovation may be a wise choice to make health systems more sustainable. / Esta tese tem como objetivo explorar as percepções dos stakeholders sobre inovação em gestão na área da saúde. Aumento dos custos de cuidados de saúde devido à inovação tecnológica e mudanças demográficas e insights avançados sobre como saúde e cuidados poderiam ser organizados impulsionam a busca de novos modelos organizacionais e tecnologias que podem contribuir para melhores resultados de saúde com menores custos. Múltiplos stakeholders em toda a cadeia de cuidados de saúde precisam colaborar em redes de atenção integradas com múltiplos componentes interdependentes. O estudo é baseado em pesquisa qualitativa exploratória e consiste em uma revisão da literatura e um estudo de caso de inovação em gestão em um centro médico universitário. A tese explora a visão e as percepções dos stakeholders sobre inovação nos cuidados de saúde, o processo de inovação através do qual as inovações de gestão evoluem, mecanismos subjacentes de mudança e direção, fatores críticos de sucesso e resultados. As inovações de gestão e sua implementação são consideradas complexas. Observa-se que, devido às diferentes origens e lógicas profissionais, os stakeholders possuem entendimentos parciais e diferentes dos conceitos de cuidado integrado. A conscientização dos diferentes entendimentos explica a importância de uma abordagem de implementação de conceitos de cuidados integrados nos quais essas percepções convergem. Sense-making, a atribuição de significado às percepções, é essencial aqui. A mudança não acontece no vácuo, mas surge em interação com outros atores da organização e seu contexto local. Observa-se na literatura e estudo de caso que processos de sense-making estão presentes no processo de inovação. A inovação gerencial frequentemente é um processo de mudança espontâneo, não planejado, que começa com uma motivação intrínseca e emerge de como as pessoas enquadram o que vêem, relacionam-se com seus valores e agem de acordo com eles em interação com os outros. É um processo humano, subjetivo, interativo, emergente de auto-organização de sensing e sense-making, que, se alinhado com a visão, os valores e as intenções das pessoas, pode reunir diferentes stakeholders em um único conceito de cuidado integrado. Os principais processos de inovação gerencial tornam-se uma questão de orientar e criar espaço para processos de autoorganização. Exemplos de varias partes do mundo demonstram que a inovação gerencial pode contribuir significativamente para melhores resultados de saúde com custos mais baixos. A vontade, necessidade e capacidade de mudar determinam o ritmo. Explorar mais e investir no potencial da inovação gerencial pode ser uma escolha sábia para tornar os sistemas de saúde mais sustentáveis.

Motstånd till förändring och konflikter kring vari nyttan ligger och vilket värde som ett förändrat arbetssätt kan generera handlar ofta om oförståelse. Men när en engagerar sig i någonting, och därigenom börjar förstå sig på det, så införs struktur och mening i det okända som vidare genererar ett kognitivt ramverk. Förståelse byggs upp om varför en övergång från ett nuläge till ett börläge är av värde. Studiens syfte uppkom efter att en processkartläggning genomförts som väckte intresset för ämnet. Detta mynnade sedan ut i att undersöka hur en processkartläggning och visualisering i form av processgrafer kan främja meningsskapande och underlätta vid adoption av informationsteknologi på mikronivå. Studien har genomförts med en kvalitativ forskningsansats där teorin har riktat sig mot förändringen, närmare bestämt hur förändring sker och hur det ser ut vid ett införande av ny informationsteknologi samt vilka konsekvenser det kan ha. Detta har sedan studerats med hjälp av Karl E. Weicks sense making theory. Konklusionen är att den aktivitet som en processkartläggning är samt visualiseringen i form av processgrafer, anses stödja cykeln hos individers meningsskapande. Meningsskapandet i sin tur föreslås kunna hantera den oförståelse, rädsla och oro som ett införandeprojekt kan generera, vilket i sin tur underlättar individers adoption.

Ce projet de recherche s'inscrit dans la thématique de l'analyse et du diagnostic de l'industrie bancaire et suit la production du sens dans les pratiques bancaires, visant particulièrement trois axes où le sens est produit : l'information, le document bancaire et la communication. au-delà de l'approche de la perspective du technicien, ce projet se propose de mobiliser les outils, les enseignements et les perspectives interdisciplinaires qu'offrent les sciences de l'information et de la communication (sic) en convoquant les acquis des champs de recherche comme la philosophie, les sciences du langage, l'économie, et bien sûr, la sociologie. l'objet de la recherche est celui des pratiques d'information et de la communication (formalisées ou non- formalisées) engagées par les représentatives de la banque (le personnel) et par les partenaires externes (les autorités, les clients, les fournisseurs). le projet empirique est structuré en vue d'un double objectif. d'abord, la recherche se propose de participer à la dynamique précipitée des marchés financiers et aux changements qui sont devenues souvent radicales en vue de l'adaptation aux nouvelles exigences de l'environnement. ensuite, le deuxième objectif de la recherche est de révéler les pratiques innovantes de l'information et de la communication que les banques ont mises en scène afin de répondre aux besoins des clients et de s'adapter aux nouvelles pressions économique (les fluxes internes de l'information et de la communication, les documents formalisés en procédures, normatives, rapports, analyses destinées tant a l'use interne et externe). méthodologiquement, il s'agit d'un projet de recherche participative. / This research project belongs to the thematic of the analysis and diagnosis for the banking industry and follows the creation of meaning in banking practices, by targeting mainly the next three areas: information, bank document and communication. The object of the research consists in the banking practice (formal or non-formal) engaged either internally and externally. This project aims to mobilize tools, lessons and interdisciplinary perspectives offered by the information and communication science (ICS) and to converge also the achievements of research fields such as philosophy, languages, economy or sociology sciences. My observations, based on the participative research methodology, are structured for a double purpose. First, the research targets to join the previous efforts to emphasize the communication’s role, by focusing on the meaning’s creation. The second objective is to reveal the innovative information and communication practice that banks have implemented to meet customer’s needs and to adapt to the new economic pressures.

The strategic environment of companies is divided in four domains. These domains are the known, knowable, complex and chaos domains. The known and knowable domains are characterised by order while the chaos and complex domains are characterised by unorder. The factors present in the chaos and complex domains are emergent in nature and are regarded as un-ordered. Executives and managers need to be prepared to manage in all four these domains in order to ensure the long-term competitiveness of companies. This implies that the training needs of executives and managers need to be identified and addressed in order to prepare them to manage in the four domains in the strategic environment of companies. Executives and managers are trained by means of traditional and/or strategic training. Traditional training prepares executives and managers to manage in the ordered domains while strategic training prepare executives and managers to manage in the domains characterised by un-order which are emergent in nature. Strategic training is “based on predictions of future job requirements” (Rothwell&Kazanas, 1994:425). Traditional training addresses the training needs of executives and managers as it flows from the current strategic orientation of the company while strategic training addresses the training needs of executives and managers as it flows from the emergent strategic orientation of the company. Knowledge management entails the establishment of an environment within which knowledge processes (creation, codification, sharing, organisation and use of knowledge) are performed through a variety of tools and techniques to the benefit of the company. Knowledge processes regarding the emergent strategic orientation of companies are performed during a strategic training process and therefore strategic training is regarded as a knowledge management technique. Strategic training enables executives and managers to learn as regards the emergent strategic orientation of the company. Ahmed, Kok and Loh (2002:23) state: “The objective of organizational learning and knowledge management is to create a motivated and energized work environment that supports the continuous creation, collection, use and reuse of both personal and organization knowledge in the pursuit of business success.” Furthermore, Ahmed, Kok and Loh (2002:23) explain that the ability of companies to capitalise on their knowledge assets defines their competitiveness. Knowledge management techniques such as strategic training should be used to ensure that the knowledge assets of companies contribute to the long-term competitiveness of companies. The literature on strategic training was studied and empirical research was conducted in a selection of 24 large South African companies in order to ascertain the nature and scope of training offered to executives and managers. The nature and scope of training in large South African companies were studied to ascertain whether these companies use a strategic training process to identify and address the strategic training needs of executives and managers and thus if companies perform knowledge processes regarding their emergent strategic orientation. It was ascertained that only a few of the 24 large South African companies which participated in the study use a strategic training process to identify and address the strategic training needs of executives and managers. A framework for the implementation of a cyclical strategic training process is therefore proposed as a guideline for companies that want to use a strategic training process. / Thesis (DPhil)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Information Science / unrestricted