Thesis (MA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / Bibliography. Also available via the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Delaware, 2006. / Principal faculty advisor: Robert Eisenberger, Dept. of Psychology. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Montana, 2007. / Title from title screen. Description based on contents viewed Sept. 20, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 23).

Thesis (M.A.T.)--University of Texas at El Paso, 2008. / Title from title screen. Vita. CD-ROM. Includes bibliographical references. Also available online.

Thesis (MPhil)--Stellenbosch University, 2015. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT:Central to this study is the transfer of knowledge in organisations. The aim of this study is to ascertain how the concept of Knowledge Transfer (KT) is represented thematically in the three journals MIS Quarterly, Organization Science, and Management Science. It reviews the growth and development of KT in the context of organisational management and determines the historical and emerging themes and trends thereof. The study focuses on articles that listed any of the following concepts: ‘knowledge transfer’, ‘knowledge sharing’ and ‘knowledge flow’ either in the abstract, as a keyword, or in the title of the paper. A total of 146 articles were identified and analysed through the use of bibliometric and content analysis research methods. The results show that there has been a gradual increase of articles addressing KT related issues in organisations. The historical themes identified include contextual factors, mechanisms, geographic factors, business context, areas of study, agents, flow of knowledge and different knowledge types. From the historical themes, knowledge transfer is a growing literature with many different theories and models, contexts and goals, practices and measures. It is an active process and not a simple act of imitating an example of good practice from one organisation to another. Practices need to be modified to fit new contexts and cultures and authors find that the very process of transferring knowledge, if not implemented properly, has a severe impact on organisational efforts aimed at knowledge management. The emerging trends include organisational performance, organisational learning, organisational change, innovation and change and knowledge networks. From the emerging trends, the clear result is that knowledge transfer is conducted by organisations in order for them to maximise profits and work efficiently. It is in the emerging themes that authors are questioning the popular view of knowledge transfer as a mechanical process. Emerging themes reveal that knowledge transfer is a complex process, involving many different players and factors that must be addressed before a successful transfer can occur. These include, motivating the employees, creating an enabling environment in terms of organisational culture and structure. The study concludes that knowledge transfer as a notion of management in organisations must be re-examined in order to clarify it and establish the relationship it has with other managerial concepts. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Sentraal tot hierdie studie is die voorstelling van kennisoordrag in die literatuur. Die doelwit is om te bepaal hoe die begrip “kennisoordrag” in drie tydskrifte naamlik MIS Quarterly; Organization Science en Management Science begryp word. Die studie bied ‘n oorsig van die groei en ontwikkeling van die begrip binne die konteks van organisatoriese bestuur en identifiseer die historiese en opkomende temas en tendense daarvan. Die studie fokus op artikels met die terme ‘kennisoordrag’, ‘deel van kennis’ of ‘kennisvloei’ in die opsommings óf titels van artikels. ‘n Totaal van 146 artikels is geïdentifiseer en ontleed met behulp van bibliometriese- en inhoudsanalitiese navorsingsmetodes. Die resultate van die studie toon ‘n geleidelike toename in artikels rakende kwessies rondom kennisoordrag in organisasies. Die historiese temas wat geïdentifiseer is, sluit in kontekstuele faktore, meganismes, geografiese faktore, organisatoriese konteks, studie areas, agente, kennisvloei en verskillende tipes kennis. Volgens die historiese temas is kennisoordrag ‘n groeiende literatuur met talle teorieë en modelle, kontekste en doelwitte, praktyke en maatstawwe. Dit is ‘n aktiewe proses en nie bloot die nabootsing van goeie praktyke tussen organisasies nie. Praktyke moet verander word om nuwe kontekste en kulture te pas. Outeurs het verder gevind dat die proses van kennisoordrag ‘n ernstige impak op organisasies se kennisbestuur pogings het. Die opkomende tendense sluit in organisatoriese prestasie, organisatoriese leer, organisatoriese verandering, innovasie en verandering en kennis-netwerke. ‘n Ontleding van opkomende tendense toon dat kennisoordrag in organisasies plaasvind met die oog op ‘n toename in wins en doeltreffendheid. Outeurs bevraagteken die gewilde siening dat kennisoordrag ‘n meganiese proses is. Die opkomende temas toon dat kennisoordrag ‘n komplekse proses is wat verskillende faktore behels wat aandag moet geniet voordat suksesvolle oordrag kan plaasvind. Hierdie faktore sluit in die motivering van werknemers en die skep van 'n gunstige omgewing met betrekking tot organisatoriese kultuur en struktuur. Die studie sluit af met die oogpunt dat kennisoordrag as ‘n inisiatief van ‘n organisasie se bestuur herevalueer moet word in ‘n poging om dit verder te verduidelik en die verhouding daarvan met ander bestuurskonsepte te bepaal.

Do tangible, testable links exist between the autistic spectrum and creativity? How would such links work from the perspective of an author with Asperger's Syndrome? To what degree would autism mould the author's work, and how would it affect writing technique and style compared to neurotypical (non autistic spectrum authors)? Do these links provide a tangible advantage? Can an Asperger's author successfully engage a non-Asperger's readership? Has Asperger's become fashionable in fiction and if so what are the benefits/consequences? Can an “extraterrestrial stranded without an orientation manual”1 communicate ideas in a meaningful way to non-autistics? Asperger's Syndrome is a form of high functioning autism where those affected express a range of social, behavioural and perceptual traits which have no actual bearing on their level of intelligence. As an author with Asperger's my intention is to examine the degree to which my autism affects my writing technique and style compared to neurotypical (non autistic) creatives. Asperger's sufferers lack empathy and social skills, therefore creating situations a reader can empathise with is challenging. To an Asperger's other people are 'aliens'. If the characters and scenarios in my work are coloured by my difference, then it may be the difference itself which provides the hook for the reader. To what extent do Asperger's authors need to 'pretend to be normal' in order to engage a neurotypical reader, or to make their work generally marketable? Is there an argument that they shouldn't even try? With increasing diagnosis and better understanding of the autistic spectrum, the Asperger's limited but intense range of interests and ability to focus without human distraction might link in to creative excellence that has an appeal far beyond the boundaries of the autistic spectrum. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate whether claims of autistic links to creativity are more than heresay. I examine alleged positive evidence for these links, and see how this evidence ties in with my experience both as an Asperger's and an author, with particular regard to my decisions in crafting my novel The Ghost Land.

Typescript. Thesis (Th.D.)--Boston University. N.B.: pages 259-260 and 279-286 appear to be missing from the original manuscript. The former case appears to be a page numbering error on the author's part; no actual content is missing. In the latter case, it is unclear whether content was lost or the author mis-numbered the pages. / The problem of this dissertation is the definition of the nature and limits of the creative activity of mind. Is the mind passive or creative or both? If mind is creative, in what sense and to what extent is it creative? This problem is important for, the view of mind as passive or as active influences scientists, philosophers, artists, and statesmen (whether consciously or unconsciously), in their aims and methods of procedure. Augustine's complaint (that men study everything except themselves) can still be made. Creation is making something new, that is to say, something which was not given in the situation prior to creation and is not logically implied in that situation. Creation has traditionally been regarded as an exclusively divine prerogative. In the past twenty years, however, much has been written about human creativity. Does man have a right to speak of his own mind as creative, that is, able to produce new qualities, new relations, or even new realities? Many represent mind as merely passive; such a mind cannot be creative. Others exclude all passivity and hold that mind is wholly active; but such a mind could not even receive impressions from without. A systematic study of the problem of activity, passivity, and creativity by comparing data from historical, rational, and broadly empirical sources, such as this dissertation undertakes, has not previously been attempted. I. The Historical Approach. 1. Greek Philosophy is investigated, as one of the main sources of Western civilization. The great thinkers with few exceptions viewed mind as active. From Pythagoras on, there was a tendency to regard reality as immaterial or spiritual rather than material. Anthropomorphism, originally crude, was first criticized by Xenophanes (and Deutero-Isaiah), and then transformed into the clear idea of an organic universe in Plato. The dialectic principle emerges with the discovery of the self, its logos (Heraclitus) and nous (Anaxagoras). There is a tendency to identify mind, reality, and God. Creative activity was suggested especially by Plato through love, imitation, imagination, thought, effort, and the Idea of the Good. 2. Later contributions after the union of Greek and Judaeo-Christian influences show: ( 1) From Augustine and Descartes on, frequent recognition of the prime certainty of the self; (2) in Plotinus, Augustine, and Kant, acceptance of the activity of mind even in sensation; (3) since Berkeley and Leibniz renewed emphasis on activity and individualism (a metaphysic combining qualitative monism with quantitative pluralism) ; (4) in Berkeley, freedom, the immanence of God in nature ("divine language"), the belief that God can be known empirically and by reflection on experience, and the suggestion that mind-body interaction is cooperation with God; (5) in Hegel, interpretation of the principles of mind as an organic whole, the emptiness of abstraction, spirit as reality, a universal dialectical movement, the rational as the actual, and God as the most concretely universal personality; (6) in Bowne, personality as the center of a systematic philosophy, with freedom, individuality, activity and creativity of mind as fundamental principles. II. The Empirical Approach. 1. The creative results of the more empirical Hebrew mind are reviewed and compared with those of the more rational Greek, revealing many similarities. The philosopher searching for truth and the prophet seeking religious satisfaction arrive at like views of a creative spiritual universe. 2. Progress, discoveries and inventions in the sciences and the arts reveal the creative genius of the mind of man. 3. An examination of individual consciousness is made, distinguishing its esse from its causa. Introspection reveals the prime certainty of the self, the experiences of passivity, activity, and creativity involving body, physical world, other minds, and God. Single functions of mind indicated by various authorities as responsible for creativity are then examined, with the conclusion that the functions are all interdependent, no one ever acting alone, and that it is the whole mind which creates. III. Resultant Hypothesis. Interpretation of the data from all the above-mentioned sources suggests sixteen specific explanatory hypotheses. These lead to the conclusion that all creativity involves divine action wholly or in part, and to the following classification of types of creativity: 1. Creations by God's will alone. (1) The production of novelties and emergents within God's experience (for example, the evolution of the physical world, as viewed by personal idealism). (2) The production of selves and persons external to God (the creation of conscious selves as an aspect of the evolutionary process). 2. Creations by mans' will alone; free choices within limits. 3. Cooperative creations of divine and human wills: (1) Mental productions spch as ideas, knowledge, literary achievements, the discovery of essences (or thinking God's thoughts after him), and the development of selves into personalities. (2) Novel rearrangements of physical materials (initiated by human purposes: works of invention, compositions of art and science, and the birth of new organisms. The Resultant Hypothesis. Mind and only mind is creative. God alone truly creates, but men may cooperate with him in producing something new which he could not have achieved alone. Human mind by its free will is creative within limits producing novelties because it is a creative member of that rational, organic, dialectic society which includes God the ultimate source of creativity. IV. Relation of the Hypothesis to Other Fields. The hypothesis is then related to epistemology, psychology, metaphysics, religion, ethics, and education to discover what difference its acceptance would make and whether or not a coherent view of each of these fields would be compatible with it. The main conclusions of the dissertation, resting on the metaphysical hypothesis that reality is a society of minds sustained and ordered by a supreme and rational, mind, are as follows: 1. A mind is a unitary, organic, functioning whole. 2. Mind is active, passive, and dialectical or interactive. Every moment contains some activity and some complementary passivity. 3. The highest most nearly independent creation of man is in his free choices, but man may be called creative if he is a cooperative factor essential to some of God's creations. 4. The human mind creates ideas and knowledge by choosing new relations and discovers essences by communicating with other minds and by cooperating with God. 5. By a process of interaction with God, mental creations of man lead to new material productions through the skilled use of the body. 6. Revelation is both a historical fact and also a present and future possibility, which is actualized only in active creative minds. 7. Only God creates in the highest sense of bringing minds into being external to himself; and the production of all novelties (except acts of choice within human experience) always involves divine creativity.

Thesis (MTech (Design))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2015. / Design as a field of practice is constantly evolving and has predominantly been used to stimulate and facilitate the humanisation of new technologies, so that they are usable and desirable for the capitalist economy (Boehnert, 2013, p. 14). With the evolution of the commercial and economic systems, the role of the designer now needs a shift so that it is able to facilitate new and appropriate interactions (Manzini, 2015, p. 180). This thesis explores what some of those interactions may look like and the role that design may be able to play in assisting them. Enabling society to be better equipped to communicate and collaborate with industry and academia, and vice versa, may be beneficial. The more society’s contributions can be heard, acknowledged and implemented, the better the economy may function. Increasing the transparency and understanding of these systems would potentially allow for less corruption and greater collaboration within and between them, possibly allowing for improved innovation. Once entrepreneurs are better equipped to integrate and take advantage of the institutional structures that are in place, this could drive economic development forward, and more informed and effective decisions might be implemented. Institutionally, through a better understanding of their resources and networks, such research could also lead to the implementation of better management and leadership strategies. This thesis focuses on the role of design as a catalyst for product development in the Western Cape. The concept of enabling innovative product ideas through design is analysed through an examination of three current case studies being developed in this region. To contextualise this a bit further, what is examined are the processes, developments and relationships, within and across the structures of the university, civil society and the design industry. This is explored to identify how each of these groups may support the design process, and where they may inhibit it. The primary objective is to provide a foundational road-map to enable innovative ideas from which citizen projects, universities and the design industry may benefit and continue to build upon. In this way, it may be possible to create a more synergetic relationship between universities, the design industry and civil society, or at least to make that relationship more transparent and mutually beneficial.

Thesis (MTech (Industrial Design))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2016. / The purpose of this Master’s Thesis is to explore the application of Design Thinking as a valuable resource to any organisation, in this studies case the business model. Furthermore, it seeks to describe how the concept of ‘Design Thinking’ is shaping business models in the context of industrial design. By developing a language for and a description of these intersections and interdisciplinary roles. Consensus regarding the concepts of Design Thinking and the business model still needs development since this emerging area has become more established. An applied contextual research approach inevitably paints a new picture using the concepts and will also develop a language to assist design education, researchers and entrepreneurs in the industrial design praxis. The competitive advantage of any business is now driven even more by the intersection between different fields and disciplines. At this intersection exists the opportunity to understand the relationship between Design Thinking (a methodology that is grounded in industrial design) and the business model (a global concept for the logic of business) to help decision makers develop more sustainable pathways for design entrepreneurship. This research also addresses aspects of the changing role of industrial design and devotes the findings to the creative industries in South Africa. The research was conducted using a qualitative methodology, taking an applied context case study approach. Data were gathered from industry experts and three core cases: Thingking (design-maker consultants), Research Unit (a leather and luxury apparel company) and Nomanini, (provider of mobile solutions in the electronic domain).

M.Ed. / The purpose of this study was to explore whether the development of exceptional creativity could be linked to transformative learning. Although the theory of transformative learning, as defined by Mezirow in 1978 from his study of women returning to college, has stimulated much discussion in the field of adult education, a review of the literature on transformative learning and the study of creativity revealed no descriptions of transformative learning linked to the development of creativity in an adult. Mezirow claims that our experiences do not have meanings in themselves, but that we bring to our experiences an accumulation of past experiences, knowledge and learning. The meanings we make out of our experiences are thus socially constructed and context-dependant. This study explored whether the "meaning-making" of experience, and the way in which it is construed, validated and reformulated, could be linked to the development of exceptional creativity. A qualitative design was used utilizing an interpretive case study as research format. The case, an African designer was selected purposefully on the basis of two criteria: she is· exceptionally creative and her life has been characterized by major transitions. A series of in-depth interviews were conducted with the case as the method of data collection. The interviews focused on the case's life-story, and aimed at establishing whether her life-story could be linked to phases of "meaning becoming clarified," and whether transformative learning may have occurred in her creative development. The data was analysed using the constant comparative method of data collection. A main finding emerged from the data. The phases of transformation were set off by more than one disorienting dilemma which had its roots in the changing sociopolitical context of South Africa. As speculated, the development trajectory of the case's creativity can be linked to transformative learning. From the data it is evident that the development of exceptional creativity is intertwined with the phases of transformative learning and that both processes share numerous commonalities, compati~ilities and blurred boundaries. Although it must be kept in mind that this investigation was based on a single case, the study indeed demonstrated that there is a relationship between transfonnative learning and the development trajectory of exceptional creativity in an adult. Furthermore, if creativity is to be viewed as a multidimensional construct, and creative accomplishment as representing the interaction or confluence among these dimensions, then the development of exceptional creativity in this particular case can be seen as an expression of transfonnative learning. The finding not only provides a description of the development of exceptional creativity linked to transfonnative learning, but also reveals the significance of transfonnative learning as a process for the study of creativity in which creativity can be seen as an expression of the transfonnative learning process.