There is a need for research to understand change processes and knowledge management in health service organisations, and indeed public sector organisations in general. This research seeks to explain how knowledge becomes formulated and thereby mobile, and also how practice has come to be established, visibilised and thereby sustained in a specific context. Exploring practice within a health service organisation, and in particular a public health service organisation, is a particular feature of this research. The research demonstrates how collaboration becomes necessitated under pressure of enacting increasingly complex work activities, an outcome being changing practices and extended accountability relationships which enacts discipline while realising expertise. Using an ethnographic approach, the research explores how the practice of early childhood nursing in the South Western Sydney Area Health Service became a specialised expert undertaking. The research examines how change has occurred, whereby early childhood nursing was refined from being one part of the generalist community nursing practice to being a specialised practice through the increasing technologisation of practice. The technologisation of practice refers to the artefacts, conduct and the processes through which the conceptualisation and enactment of early childhood nursing has become increasingly standardised. Through the technologisation of practice explicit knowledge becomes distributed within the artefacts for practice and tacit knowing becomes distributed across, and is continually enacted by, the collaboration of the practice community. There are four interrelated aspects to the technologisation of practice. Firstly, the technologisation of practice involves standardising the conceptualisation and enactment of practice through constructing a multi-dimensional practice resource within a community of practice. Secondly, the technologisation of practice involves the mobilisation and refinement of the multi-dimensional practice resource to realise a practice network involving extended relationships of accountability. These relationships of accountability are within a profession and also with other professionals. Thirdly, the technologisation of practice involves the ongoing enactment of accountability in a collaborative community of practice. The research shows that a team can become a collaborative community by constructing an accountability context, reorganising and facilitating the team, and then amalgamating the organising and service delivery activities through integrating formal meetings and informal interactions. Fourthly, the technologisation of practice involves the collaborative community assemblage and/or appropriation of further technologies into practice thereby strengthening the local and extended relationships of accountability and expanding the boundaries of practice. The research describes how the technologisation of practice is the enactment of a number of mutually enabling practice dualities, which together simultaneously discipline and realise expertise. The interrelated practice dualities are individual-community, subjective-objective, local-global, formal-informal and governmentality-communal self-governance. The situatedness of practice is shown to necessitate a subjectivity-objectivity duality, whereby individual and communal experience is drawn upon to see through the otherwise opaque nature of statistics and information. The alignment of practice with the broader organisation and professional colleagues realises a local-global duality, whereby the community's local understandings are informed and shaped by distant issues. The formal-informal duality is a mechanism by which practice is increasingly collaboratively conceptualised and enacted, and thereby standardised. Individual and communal 'expertise' becomes realised through the assemblage and appropriation of organising and transforming tools and artefacts, or alternatively technologies. At the same time, the community in defining the use of such technologies as competent practice is disciplining their own conduct. Through this action a governmentality-communal self-governance duality is realised as the nursing community pursues expertise while disciplining themselves; by engaging in collaborative interactions and using standardised technologies the community constructs and makes visible their knowing, practice and expertise.

The first aim of the dissertation is to shed light on how communication at a drama college may obstruct the students’ involvement. There are three studies on this subject in the dissertation. The first study deals with the students’ involvement in their education in general. The second study deals with the applicants’ involvement in the entrance examination to the college. The third study deals with the students’ involvement in a basic acting course at the college. The main theoretical framework is Etienne Wenger’s theories on social practices and social configurations, Per Linell’s activity type theory, and Herbert Clark’s theories on joint projects. The studies reveal a number of potential communicative obstacles, due to different basic communicative circumstances, communicative procedures and normative formulations. The second aim of the dissertation is to offer analytical tools which drama colleges and similar organizations can use to shed light on their own communication. The analytical concepts and the method used in the studies have the potential to be useful for such organizations: the concepts are relatively comprehensible and do not require a specific type of data, and the method offers steps in which to conduct an analysis. The third aim is to develop forms for what in the dissertation is called a practice-oriented communication analysis, in order to contribute to the discussion on how to study language use as part of broader communicative and social contexts, and how to collaborate with those whose communication is studied. The dissertation offers an orderly way to handle such questions, by formulating guidelines for the selection of theories, methods, and data, and by arguing for certain theories, methods, and data in regard to the guidelines.

Abstract This research attempted to understand the experiences of a cohort of informal and formal science educators and informal science institution (ISI) community representatives during and after completion of a pilot graduate certificate program. Informal science educators (ISEs) find limited opportunities for professional development and support which influence their contributions to America's science literacy and school science education. This emergent design nested case study described how an innovative program provided professional development and enabled growth in participants' abilities to contribute to science literacy. Data were collected through interviews, participant observations, and class artifacts. The program by design and constituency was the overarching entity that accounted for members' experiences. Three principal aspects of the ISI certificate program and cohort which influenced perceptions and reported positive outcomes were (1) the cohort's composition and their collaborative activities which established a vigorous community of practice and fostered community building, mentoring, and networking, (2) long term program design and implementation which promoted experiential learning in a generative classroom, and (3) ability of some members who were able to be independent or autonomous learners to embrace science education reform strategies for greater self-efficacy and career advancement. This research extends the limited literature base for professional development of informal science educators and may benefit informal science institutions, informal and formal science educators, science education reform efforts, and public education and science-technology-society understanding. The study may raise awareness of the need to establish more professional development opportunities for ISEs and to fund professional development. Further, recognizing and appreciating informal science educators as a diverse committed community of professionals who positively influence science education for everyone is essential.

In recent years, experts and organizations involved in mathematics education have emphasized the importance of collaboration between mathematicians and mathematics teacher educators as a means of improving the professional preparation of mathematics teachers. While several such collaborative endeavors have been documented in the extant literature, most research reports have focused on the products, rather than the process, of collaboration. The purpose of this interpretative phenomenological case study is to gain an understanding of the lived experiences of a mathematician and a mathematics teacher educator as they engaged in a team-teaching collaboration within the context of prospective secondary mathematics teacher preparation. Participants in this study are a mathematician (Dejan) and a mathematics teacher educator (Angela) who worked together to plan, implement, and assess prospective secondary mathematics teachers enrolled in a mathematics content course (Geometry) and a mathematics methods course (Teaching Senior High School Mathematics). I employed interpretative phenomenological analysis (Smith, Flowers, & Larkin, 2009) as the methodological framework. Consequently, I attempted to make sense of Dejan and Angela's experiences as they engaged in active reflection on those experiences. I also utilized the situated learning perspective (Lave and Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998) as a theoretical lens to guide the design and interpretation of this study. I assumed that learning, meaning, and understanding are situated in communities of practice, and therefore, to understand the meaning-making of Dejan and Angela during their team-teaching experiences, I paid particular attention to their understandings and identities as members of their respective communities of practice in mathematics and mathematics education. The themes that emerged from my analysis illustrate (a) how crossing community boundaries led to Dejan and Angela's increased awareness of their practice, (b) the roles of coach and student taken on by Angela and Dejan throughout the collaboration in an effort to increase Dejan's awareness of the needs of PSMTs, and (c) the influence of mutuality as a driving force in the instructors' collaborative experiences. In using the situated learning perspective as an interpretive lens to describe and explain Dejan and Angela's meaning-making throughout their collaboration, I demonstrate (a) the importance of the dual processes of participation and reification to facilitate learning and meaning between instructors, (b) the ways in which a lack of shared history can hinder communication between collaborators, (c) the influence of a community's "regime of mutual accountability" on collaborators' decision making and interactions, and (d) the value and complexities of brokering and crossing boundaries.

Two-Way Immersion (TWI) programs offer settings and goals that foster multilingual and multicultural communities; however, communities are complex and fluid, and have aspects that may or may not promote equitable education and learning. This research analyzes the actions and interactions of a group of first grade students to address how community develops during the first semester of implementation of a TWI program. Theoretical notions of figured worlds and communities of practice frame the analysis of ethnographic data to provide insight into the complex social and pedagogical dynamics of this setting 1) through conversations with teachers, 2) through observations of teacher-student interactions during teacher-centered activities, and 3) through observations of students interacting with less teacher presence. Findings describe the teachers’ discourses about their students, which centered on issues of equity and dismantling language status hierarchies. The findings also describe practices that the teachers themselves frame as promoting unified, equitable communities; however, analysis was mixed in finding that certain practices appeared to promote unity within the classroom and others appeared to reinforce divisions among students. Key findings also confirm the results of other researchers regarding the positioning of initially bilingual students in TWI as “dual language experts.” This study notes some ramifications of teaching practices and aspects of the specific 50-50 TWI model for the entire community of learners, which, while elevating balanced bilinguals may marginalize English learners and Spanish learners. / text

The objectives of this study are to determine the awareness level of knowledge sharing amongst the employees of Sasol, to determine how Sasol utilises human capital in the company and to identify and analyse the methods of knowledge sharing and knowledge transfer. The literature review distinguishes between explicit and tacit knowledge. Explicit knowledge leads a company to codify while tacit knowledge leads to connecting people. The literature study also covers the utilisation of human capital and identifies methods of knowledge sharing and -transfer, namely legacy pages, expert location systems, buddy systems, post-retirement agreements, identification of successors, After Action Reviews, interviews, observation, protocol analysis, teach backs, story writing and storytelling, and process mapping. The literature study forms the foundation for the formulation and designing of a questionnaire. The questionnaire was distributed amongst the employees of two of Sasol's divisions in order to obtain data about the utilisation of human capital in Sasol and to identify and analyse the current and preferred methods to capture and share tacit knowledge and skills. The data obtained from the questionnaires was processed, analysed and interpreted. Conclusions were drawn, linking the literature review and the results obtained from the empirical study. Based on these conclusions, recommendations were made. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006.

Ce mémoire propose de conceptualiser la culture organisationnelle d’un angle nouveau. Mary Jo Hatch (1993), dans son modèle de Cultural Dynamics, soutient que la culture d’une entreprise favorise la modulation de l’identité des individus y travaillant. Partant de cette affirmation, je me questionne à savoir si l’inverse est aussi possible. La culture de l’organisation et l’identité des individus y travaillant peuvent-ils évoluer dans une dynamique de co-construction? Afin d’étudier ce phénomène, j’ai mené une série d’entrevues selon la méthode du récit de vie au sein d’Empire Sports, une chaîne québécoise de boutiques de vente au détail d’articles de sports extrêmes. En me basant sur la théorie des communautés de pratiques, j’ai analysé et interprété les résultats obtenus lors des entrevues. J’arrive à identifier et à préciser ce phénomène de co-construction que j’interprète à l’aide d’un nouveau concept appelé la culture extrême. Comme cette recherche est exploratoire, les conclusions ouvrent la possibilité d’approfondir davantage les connaissances à propos de la culture extrême en l’examinant dans d’autres contextes organisationnels. / This Master’s thesis proposes looking at organizational culture in a new light. In her model of cultural dynamics, Mary Jo Hatch (1993) suggests that a company’s culture influences the identity of the individuals working there. Starting from this affirmation, I ask if the inverse is also possible. Do organizational culture and individual identities evolve together in a dynamic of co-construction? Using a method inspired by the « life story », I conducted a series of interviews at Empire Sports, a Quebec chain of boutiques specializing in extreme sports. I use the communities of practice framework to analyze and interpret the intreviews. My results identify a phenomenon of co-construction at work. I interpret this using a new concept which I call « extreme culture ». The conclusions of this exploratory research suggest that further research in other organizational contexts could be useful in deepening of the concept of extreme culture.

Using elements of design experiment research and autoethnography, this action research project investigated how viewing learning as complex participation in a community of practice characterized by mathematical inquiry impacted my teaching practice in a grade 10 Applied Mathematics class in a rural Manitoba high school. This report of the research project describes and analyzes both my attempts to change my teaching practice by drawing on theories of learning mathematics as complex participation in a community of practice and the changes that resulted from these attempts. The analysis focuses on the characteristics of a community of practice characterized by mathematical inquiry, how I attempted to foster such a community, what challenges I faced when I changed my teaching practice in this way, and how insights from this practitioner research project can inform the teaching of mathematics as well as theorizing about the learning of mathematics.

本研究為長期性的敘事研究，運用了Wenger (1998)的「實踐社群」社會學習理論(communities of practice)，以及Norton(1995)的投資理論 (investment)，研究目的是為了探索一位台灣的英語教學研究所博士生的學術成長經驗及其所衍生的意義，特別是針對他奮勉進行學術研究投稿、完成博士學位、並進而開啟他未來的學術生涯等等的過程。本研究主要追蹤了研究參與者在其博士生涯的三個形成階段中，他的學術投稿經驗的心路歷程，一路到研究參與者最後在全球的英語教學領域之學術社群中取得更完全的參與度階段。為了能夠對於研究參與者其經驗有深入的了解，本研究採用了「敘事研究法」，收集了研究參與者的學習經驗自傳、敘說訪談的錄音及其逐字稿、研究者的現場筆記及研究筆記、以及其他由研究參與者所提供的文件等資料，以便能分析參與者的言談資料、且對資料進行敘事性的分析、並進而產出情節故事作為研究結果。研究結果發現，研究參與者持續努力來達成其所認定的學術投稿要求，確實增長了他在學術素養的成長，並足以成為學術社群當中的一員。在其過程當中，研究參與者對於實踐其學術投稿的過程當中相關資源的運用方式，與在Wenger ‘s (1998) 「實踐社群」社會學習理論的非正式學習的特色是相互呼應的。研究參與者在學術社群當中所獲得的參與度，也表現出了其所累積的文化資產。最重要的是，從研究參與者的經驗透露出，就其受到英語教學社群的社會文化的影響之下來看，研究參與者埋首致力於學術投稿活動不僅僅是為了當下於英語教學社群的參與，也為了即將到來的終生志業進行Norton (1995)理論當中的個人投資的傾向。這樣的情況顯示出，要學習成為一個英語教學研究領域的學者，的確是涉及了諸多層面的複雜構面及諸多意義上的磋商。而就整個過程來說，也是與研究參與者，他身為初階的年輕學人，身處於台灣的社會情境當中，為了能夠符合全球各地諸多種類專業社群的規範，他以放遠全球的思維來，來實踐在地的行動，成長中的信念是有所共鳴的。最後，本研究將針對台灣高等教育環境中的英語教學研究領域之博士班課程提出建議並討論，以促進年青學人們在學術領域的發展。 / Drawing on Wenger’s (1998) social learning theory as well as Norton’s (1995) notion of investment, this longitudinal qualitative study aims to investigate and derive meanings from the academic experience of one former Taiwanese TESOL doctoral student as he struggled to write for scholarly publications, survived the Ph.D. program, and initiated his academic career. The study mainly traces the twists and turns of his publishing experience in three stages of his forming years till the participant finally has acquired a fuller membership in the global TESOL academic community. To capture and derive an in-depth understanding of the experiences, a narrative inquiry approach was adopted, collecting the young scholar’s written autobiography, recorded narrative interviews and transcripts, the researcher’s research notes and other related documents that the participant provided, so as to thematically analyze the narrative data and then exert the narrative analysis to configure the happenings and events into seven emplotted narratives as the research results. The findings indicate that the participant’s continual endeavor to meet the perceived and assumed requirements for publishing indeed rendered him the academic literacy development necessary to become a member of the academic community. In the process, the participant’s ways of utilizing resources situated in the practice of publishing echo the features of informal learning in Wenger’s (1998) social learning theory. The membership in the academic community gained by the participant also indicates the accumulated cultural capital. Most importantly, the participant’s experience as a doctoral student, being socially and culturally medicated by the TESOL academic community, reveals a tendency to engage in academic tasks for scholarly purposes not only for the current participation in the TESOL academic community but also for personal investment (Norton, 1995) for the coming life-long career. This suggests learning to become a TESOL scholar indeed involves multiple layers of complexity and challenges, and the whole process is also a resonant to his growing faith as a novice young scholar, situated in the social context of Taiwan, to act locally and think globally, in order to conform to norms of various discourse communities around the world. Suggestions for TESOL doctoral programs in Taiwanese higher education to help and support young scholars’ academic development are discussed.

The objectives of this study are to determine the awareness level of knowledge sharing amongst the employees of Sasol, to determine how Sasol utilises human capital in the company and to identify and analyse the methods of knowledge sharing and knowledge transfer. The literature review distinguishes between explicit and tacit knowledge. Explicit knowledge leads a company to codify while tacit knowledge leads to connecting people. The literature study also covers the utilisation of human capital and identifies methods of knowledge sharing and -transfer, namely legacy pages, expert location systems, buddy systems, post-retirement agreements, identification of successors, After Action Reviews, interviews, observation, protocol analysis, teach backs, story writing and storytelling, and process mapping. The literature study forms the foundation for the formulation and designing of a questionnaire. The questionnaire was distributed amongst the employees of two of Sasol's divisions in order to obtain data about the utilisation of human capital in Sasol and to identify and analyse the current and preferred methods to capture and share tacit knowledge and skills. The data obtained from the questionnaires was processed, analysed and interpreted. Conclusions were drawn, linking the literature review and the results obtained from the empirical study. Based on these conclusions, recommendations were made. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006.