Submitted by William Justo Figueiro (williamjf) on 2015-06-29T19:45:25Z No. of bitstreams: 1 51.pdf: 3383250 bytes, checksum: e454f028d4d3ae7e8c56d5b0ad1440fd (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-06-29T19:45:25Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 51.pdf: 3383250 bytes, checksum: e454f028d4d3ae7e8c56d5b0ad1440fd (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013 / CAPES - Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Para garantir que uma pesquisa seja reconhecida como sólida e potencialmente relevante, tanto pelo campo acadêmico quanto pela sociedade em geral, ela deve demonstrar que foi desenvolvida com rigor e que é passível de debate e verificação. É neste âmbito que um método de pesquisa robusto se torna imprescindível para o sucesso na condução de um estudo. Este estudo busca contribuir para a comunidade de Engenharia de Produção argumentando pela necessidade de adotar-se um método de pesquisa centrado na evolução de uma “Ciência do Projeto” (Design Science), evidenciando seu sentido e suas formas de operacionalização. Para desenvolvimento deste estudo utilizou-se uma abordagem metodológica teórico-conceitual fundamentada em ampla revisão da literatura. A partir da revisão da literatura, foi possível verificar que os conceitos da proposta metodológica associada à pesquisa em Design Science, são pertinentes e aplicáveis à Engenharia de Produção. O trabalho apresenta um histórico conceitual a respeito da Design Science e da Design Science Research, a importância da definição das Classes de Problemas e dos Artefatos gerados no âmbito da pesquisa, e os principais passos para operacionalizar a Design Science Research. Para aprofundar o entendimento da pauta em questão, o trabalho também propõe comparações e análises sobre a Design Science e a sua relação com as ciências tradicionais. Ao final, o estudo busca apresentar alguns cuidados para a utilização e validação da Design Science Research. / To ensure that research is recognized as potentially relevant and solid, by both academic field and society in general, it must demonstrate that it was developed with rigor and is liable to debate and verification. It is in this context that a robust research method becomes essential to successfully conduct a study. This study seeks to contribute with the Production Engineering community debating the need to adopt a method of research focused on the evolution of Design Science, showing its meaning and its ways of operation. For this study was used an approach based on theoretical and conceptual extensive literature review. From the literature review, was possible to assert that the concepts associated with the proposed methodological research on Design Science are relevant and applicable to Production Engineering. This dissertation presents a conceptual history about the Design Science and Design Science Research, the importance of defining the Classes of Problems and Artifacts generated from a research, and key steps to operationalize the Design Science Research. To deepen the understanding of the staff concerned, this study also proposes comparisons and analyzes on the Design Science and its relationship with the traditional sciences. Finally, the study discusses some attenttion points for the use and validation of Design Science Research.

Neutron monitors detect secondary particles produced by the collision of cosmic rays and atmospheric nuclei. The need exists for a mini-neutron monitor data acquisition system (MNM-DAS) to replace the existing recording system of the calibration neutron monitor developed in 2003 at the North-West University Centre for Space Research. The MNM-DAS must also replace the recording system of a standard NM64 neutron monitor. This research thus includes the development of the MNM-DAS using Design Science Research (DSR) in conjunction with Systems Engineering (SE) to streamline the design phase and maximize research output. A literature study is conducted, where an overview of the calibration monitor system is provided, together with the objectives for the development of the MNM system. An abstract system architecture was drawn up in the conceptual design phase of the project to provide a coherent description of all system functions. The system architecture was derived for the existing system, including additional functions of the required system, by performing a functional analysis. The architecture describes the function and fit of each functional unit and all interfaces that form an integrated system. From the conceptual design and system architecture, a preliminary synthesis was done. Following the preliminary synthesis, electronic circuitry was developed to capture the arrival time of pulses from the proportional neutron monitor counter tubes along with environmental variables, such as temperature, pressure, and location, which all influence the count rate. The MNM-DAS was successfully designed and developed by following this Systems-Engineering approach embedded into a Design Science Research framework. The MNM-DAS was constructed and tested, and is currently being used to provide neutron count data in real-world applications internationally. / MIng (Computer and Electronic Engineering), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Neutron monitors detect secondary particles produced by the collision of cosmic rays and atmospheric nuclei. The need exists for a mini-neutron monitor data acquisition system (MNM-DAS) to replace the existing recording system of the calibration neutron monitor developed in 2003 at the North-West University Centre for Space Research. The MNM-DAS must also replace the recording system of a standard NM64 neutron monitor. This research thus includes the development of the MNM-DAS using Design Science Research (DSR) in conjunction with Systems Engineering (SE) to streamline the design phase and maximize research output. A literature study is conducted, where an overview of the calibration monitor system is provided, together with the objectives for the development of the MNM system. An abstract system architecture was drawn up in the conceptual design phase of the project to provide a coherent description of all system functions. The system architecture was derived for the existing system, including additional functions of the required system, by performing a functional analysis. The architecture describes the function and fit of each functional unit and all interfaces that form an integrated system. From the conceptual design and system architecture, a preliminary synthesis was done. Following the preliminary synthesis, electronic circuitry was developed to capture the arrival time of pulses from the proportional neutron monitor counter tubes along with environmental variables, such as temperature, pressure, and location, which all influence the count rate. The MNM-DAS was successfully designed and developed by following this Systems-Engineering approach embedded into a Design Science Research framework. The MNM-DAS was constructed and tested, and is currently being used to provide neutron count data in real-world applications internationally. / MIng (Computer and Electronic Engineering), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Cybersecurity professionals are in high demand, but the definition of individual interests and the functions that comprise those roles is more complex than it may seem. In the face of a global shortage of cybersecurity professionals, and an often-difficult team dynamic around these individuals, in addition to a dramatic rise in cybercrime and security breaches, it is important to define and understand career success and career performance within an organization. This research uses a design science approach founded on a sociotechnical theoretical framework based on Information Technology (IT) turnover and Human Resources (HR) theories to analyze individual factors of job satisfaction and job performance for cybersecurity roles to design a cybersecurity interest to function career alignment model through the integration of prominent indicators of individual interest. This is accomplished using a mixed methods approach of surveys, interviews, and a focus group that are employed using various techniques of visual, descriptive, correlation, and thematic analysis. Two key findings within this research involves cybersecurity roles and functions and the ability to align an individual's personal interests to those roles. In the former case, cybersecurity roles are poorly defined and are prone to widespread ambiguity, requiring the design of a taxonomy of discrete functions for analysis. In the latter case, individual interests, as analyzed through popular individual profiling solutions are vague and largely irrelevant to cybersecurity professionals. This requires that individual interests be defined and applied to relevant industry functions to provide meaningful alignment to job satisfaction and job performance. Among the implications for IT Turnover Theory, is the refined attribution of individual interests within cybersecurity roles instead of a monolithic interpretation of cybersecurity professionals as a single factor. This is also true for the Intermediate Linkages Model as the job satisfaction-turnover relationship may be further refined to include industry-specific functions for cybersecurity functions and the specific interests of cybersecurity professionals. The implications for design science research could extend beyond the usage of standard guidelines, venturing into this study's process of using design challenges to illuminate hidden design principles. This challenge-principle relationship may provide additional insight to new or existing facets of reasoning. These new viewpoints may uncover otherwise excluded aspects that provide additional insight into this study or topics beyond. For cybersecurity and human resources practitioners, this study provides several implications beyond the foundation for career training for functional guidance. It provides an alternative viewpoint on organizational and departmental design for cybersecurity to business alignment to increase individual job satisfaction and ultimately improve organizational performance. Future research would result in deployed artifact instantiations that promotes general career direction for future and current cybersecurity personnel, while also providing additional guidance to organizations for the proper deployment of cybersecurity teams. Other research could include IT careers beyond cybersecurity to create a standardized method for the alignment of interests to career functions for the improvement of individual job satisfaction and overall organizational performance. / Thesis (PhD (Information Technology))--University of Pretoria, 2020. / Informatics / PhD (Information Technology) / Unrestricted

À STMicroelectronics, l'équipe de Business Intelligence est confrontée à exploiter quotidiennement des données et des informations pour créer des rapports d'activité afin de superviser la production. Dans une telle organisation industrielle, les produits changent régulièrement et les données peuvent rapidement devenir obsolètes. Par conséquent, au fil du temps, le nombre de rapports crées est de plus en plus important, tandis que les connaissances sur leur création sont perdues. Ceci est illustré dans une évaluation qualitative et quantitative de la partie principale du système de connaissances à STMicroelectronics.Ainsi, des problèmes d'obsolescence, de duplication, de non-centralisation et de prolifération continuent à surgir. Ce travail doit, donc, répondre à la question de recherche générale suivante:Comment assurer une capitalisation continue des connaissances métier?Pour répondre à cette question, un cycle d'amélioration continue pour la capitalisation des connaissances est proposé. Son objectif est de capitaliser efficacement et en permanence les connaissances, tout en ciblant les besoins métier et assurant une solution évolutive. Un système de Business Intelligence pour la Business Intelligence (BI4BI) est proposé. Comme la connaissance est intégrée non seulement dans les systèmes et les outils, mais aussi détenue par les humains et leurs pratiques, notre solution de capitalisation de connaissances proposée implique aussi les utilisateurs et les organisations: elle propose de recueillir les points de vue des utilisateurs pour les intégrer dans la représentation des connaissances et dans notre système BI4BI. / At STMicroelectronics, the Business Intelligence team is daily confronted to exploit data and information to create reports about manufacturing activities in order to supervise it. In such an industrial organization, products change regularly and data can quickly become obsolete. Consequently, over time, the number of created reports is highly growing, while knowledge about their creation is lost. This is shown in a qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the main part of the STMicroelectronics' knowledge system.As a result, problems related to knowledge obsolescence, duplication, non-centralization and proliferation continuously arise. Therefore, this work addresses the general following research question:How to ensure a continuous expert knowledge capitalization?To answer this question, a continuous improvement cycle for knowledge capitalization is proposed. Its objective is to effectively and continuously capitalize expert knowledge while targeting business needs and providing an evolving solution. It is based on a Business Intelligence for Business Intelligence system (BI4BI). Since knowledge is embedded not only in systems and tools, but also in human minds and practices, our proposed knowledge capitalization solution also involves people and organizations: it proposes to collect users' feedbacks and insights to integrate them in knowledge representation and in our BI4BI tool.

Submitted by Nadir Basilio (nadirsb@uninove.br) on 2018-04-13T13:45:10Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Ana Claudia Torre.pdf: 4017373 bytes, checksum: 07d0e2bce6621bdd3aa4cdec6b777f11 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-04-13T13:45:10Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Ana Claudia Torre.pdf: 4017373 bytes, checksum: 07d0e2bce6621bdd3aa4cdec6b777f11 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-02-23 / The building of a project portfolio and their prioritization depend on a series of decision-making from people with different perceptions, judgments and interests. When a consensus is not reached, individual judgments can be weighed using decision support tools that can solve decision-making difficulties in multi-choice environments. However, for the application of a multicriteria method, the criteria need to be defined, and the lack of guidelines for establishing criteria for project selection is the main challenge faced by organizations in portfolio management. The main purpose of this work is the proposition of a method for the definition of criteria for the selection and prioritization of projects, and it was developed to solve a need of the Military Police of the State of São Paulo - PMESP. To achieve this goal, the research method Design Science Research was used in which the knowledge that involves understanding and solving the problem is obtained during the construction of an solution for a specific problem context. The method for defining criteria is able to contribute to the practice of project portfolio management, defining criteria for project selection and prioritization, recording the meanings of each criterion and formalizing the criteria definition process. Therefore, the criteria and their definitions are stored and can be accessed whenever necessary. In addition, the application time of the method can be adjusted according to the complexity of the organization and both public and private companies can benefit from the application of this method. / A formação de um portfólio de projetos e sua priorização dependem de uma série de tomadas de decisões de pessoas com percepções, julgamentos e interesses diferentes. Quando um consenso não é alcançado, os julgamentos individuais podem ser pesados usando ferramentas de apoio à decisão, capazes de resolver dificuldades de tomada de decisão em ambientes de múltiplas escolhas. Porém, para a aplicação de um método multicritério, há a necessidade da definição dos critérios, e a falta de diretrizes para o estabelecimento de critérios para a seleção de projetos é o principal desafio enfrentado pelas organizações no gerenciamento de portfólio. Este trabalho possui como principal finalidade a proposição de um método para a definição de critérios para a seleção e priorização de projetos, e foi elaborado a fim de solucionar uma necessidade da Polícia Militar do Estado de São Paulo - PMESP. Para o alcance de tal objetivo, por meio de uma abordagem de pesquisa qualitativa, foi utilizado o método de pesquisa Design Science Research, no qual o conhecimento que envolve a compreensão e a resolução do problema é obtido durante a construção de uma solução para um contexto de problema específico. O método para a definição de critérios aqui desenvolvido é um conjunto de passos capaz de contribuir para a prática de gestão de portfólio de projetos, definindo critérios para seleção e priorização de projetos, registrando os significados de cada critério e formalizando o processo de definição de critérios. Dessa forma, os critérios e suas definições ficam armazenados, podendo ser acessados sempre que necessário. Além disso, o tempo de aplicação do método pode ser ajustado conforme a complexidade da organização e tanto empresas públicas e privadas podem usufruir da aplicação deste método.

Potentielle Steuerreformen befinden sich regelmäßig auf der Tagesordnung der politischen Diskussion in Deutschland und Europa. Die erwarteten Aufkommens- und Verteilungswirkungen von Steuerreformen werden von Simulationsmodellen quantifiziert, die damit der politischen Entscheidungsunterstützung dienen. Bisherige Simulationsmodelle basieren auf makroökonomischen oder unternehmensindividuellen Daten und führen die Analyse für einen historischen Zeitraum oder für einzelne Länder durch. Vor diesem Hintergrund stellen die Beiträge dieser Dissertation das Design, die Implementierung und die Anwendung des Mikro-Simulationsmodells ASSERT dar. ASSERT basiert auf unkonsolidierten Jahresabschlussdaten sowie Beteiligungsbeziehungen europäischer Unternehmen, länderspezifischen Parameterdaten und berücksichtigt die nationalen Besteuerungsvorschriften der europäischen Länder. Die Simulation der zukünftigen Unternehmensentwicklung erlaubt eine vorwärtsgerichtete Analyse für mögliche nationale oder europäische Steuerreformszenarien unter Unsicherheit. Dabei werden Auswirkungen auf inländische und ausländische verbundene Unternehmen berücksichtigt. Das formale und steuerliche Design von ASSERT wird in Beitrag 1 erläutert. Die Anwendung von ASSERT erfolgt dann in Beitrag 2. Ziel dieses Beitrags ist die Quantifizierung der Auswirkungen möglicher Reformszenarien zur alternativen Besteuerung der ertragsteuerlichen Organschaft in Deutschland. Die Präsentation des Entwicklungsprozesses, des optimierten IT-Designs und der Implementierung ist Gegenstand von Beitrag 3. Zunächst wurde ASSERT für eine zeitnahe Realisierung funktionenorientiert konzipiert und realisiert. Nachfolgend wurde ein ganzheitliches Datenbankdesign und ein integriertes Programm-Paket erstellt, um Verbesserungen der Performance und der Wartbarkeit zu erzielen. Da zu erwarten ist, dass unternehmerische Entscheidungen durch Steuerreformen beeinflusst werden, werden in Beitrag 4 Verhaltensreaktionen in Bezug auf die Finanzierungsstruktur berücksichtigt und die resultierenden Zweitrundeneffekte für verschiedene Szenarien ermittelt. Die Modellierung der Zielkapitalstruktur erfolgt in Abhängigkeit des tariflichen, des marginalen Steuersatzes und weiteren Konzerncharakteristika.

Detta examensarbete är utfört för Imano AB och behandlar ämnet databaser. Enorma mängder data finns lagrad i databaser världen över, men bara en bråkdel av all data används till något. Data kan förekomma i många olika former och en mängd olika typer av databaser har vuxit fram som komplement till de traditionella relationsdatabaserna. För sociala nätverk, logistiksystem, e-handel och i många andra sammanhang är relationer mellan dataposter ofta lika intressant som själva datainnehållet. När så är fallet kan grafdatabaser vara ett intressant alternativ. I en grafdatabas sparas relationer mellan enskilda dataposter som egna objekt, och denna egenskap kan användas för att ställa frågor om hur data relaterar till andra data. För att på ett effektivt sätt kunna utnyttja grafdatabasens egenskaper finns behov för ett lättillgängligt och användbart verktyg. Syftet med examensarbetet är att skapa ett verktyg, som kombinerar grafdatabasen Neo4js förmåga att hantera relationer mellan enskilda dataposter med visuell presentation av data i en webbapplikation. Studien undersöker om detta verktyg gör att användaren lättare kan få ny förståelse ur befintlig data. Denna studie är i grunden ett utvecklingsarbete som följer principerna för metoden Design Science Research. Metoden består av en utvecklingsprocess i flera steg där empirin är den kunskap som erhålls under arbetets gång. I utvecklingsprocessen ingår även kvalitativa undersökningsmetoder för att samla in data vid demonstration och utvärdering av artefakten. I rapporten jämförs grafdatabaser med relationsdatabaser. Studien avser dock endast att peka på skillnader gällande vissa egenskaper och genomför ingen fullständig jämförelse av exempelvis prestanda. Studien visar enligt utvecklarna att grafdatabasen Neo4j har egenskaper som gör den lämplig för användning där relationer mellan enskilda dataposter är viktiga som källor till kunskap. Resultatet av forskningen är att ny förståelse kan komma ur befintlig data genom användning av grafdatabas, speciellt om den kombineras med visualisering. / This thesis written in swedsh is done for Imano AB and deals with the subject databases. Huge amounts of data are stored in databases worldwide, but only a fraction of all the data is used. Data can exist in many different forms and various types of databases have emerged as a complement to the traditional relational databases. In social networking, logistics systems, e-commerce and many other contexts, relationships between data items are often as interesting as the actual data content. When this is the case, graph databases provide solutions to problems that other databases cannot handle. In a graph database relationships between individual data records are stored as own objects. Thanks to this, it is easier to ask questions about how data relate to other data. To effectively exploit the graph database’s features there is a need for an accessible and useful tool. The purpose of the project is to create a tool that combines the graph database Neo4j’s ability to manage relationships between individual data items with visual presentation of data in a web application. The study examines whether this tool allows the user to more easily gain new insights from existing data. This study is basically a software development process which follows the principles of the method of Design Science Research. The method consists of a development process in several stages where empirical data is the knowledge obtained during work. The development process also includes qualitative research methods to collect data at the demonstration and evaluation of the artifact. The study shows, according to the developers that the graph database Neo4j has properties that make it suitable for use where relationships between individual data items are important as sources of knowledge. The result of the research is that new understanding can emerge from existing data using a graph database, especially when combined with visualization

The future of networking lies within the development of low-latency and reliable networks. This development poses increased demand on the presence of edge-nodes. For a network operator to provide a low-latency edge-node resource, the physical distance from antenna-to-user needs to be small. This in turn, requires the network operator to have wide coverage of their physical antennas. An alternative solution is for network operators to share their edge-nodes within a so-called Operator Platform (OP) to reduce the cost of expanding their physical presence. In this project Design Science Research (DSR) was used to design an artifact named Master Thesis Orchestrator (MTO), to address the issue of finding and delivering shared edge-node resources between operators. An abstracted model of a realistic scenario was adopted. This model was used in evaluating the performance of the design against a baseline solution. The MTO is a decentralised algorithm using a shared memory cache. The artifact also has a randomised component which is used to control the frequency of shared memory accesses. These design choices were chosen to improve the performance in terms of scalability. A simulation of the artifact and baseline was conducted using a testbed implemented with Kubernetes/minikube. By assessing the performance on different input sizes (number of edge-nodes), the following performance metrics was gathered: success-rate (accuracy), run-time, and amount of data transmitted. The results showed that the MTO produced an average accuracy of 36% (baseline=96.8%) in terms of successful/failed user requests. The performance regarding run-time and transmitted data, varied depending on the outcome of the request. The MTO’s worst-case performance occurs for failed matches, leading to performance akin to that of the baseline’s average performance. The best-case performance of the MTO showed improvements of run-time compared to the baseline solution. The data was validated through an Analysis of variance (ANOVA)-test and the distributions are significantly (α = 5%) different from each other. The designed artifact is however not better than the baseline solution on all analysed metrics. The designed algorithm is volatile in-terms of time-needed and accuracy, but resource efficient. The poor accuracy is a significant factor into the probability that the worst-case performance would occur resulting in a slow and unreliable solution. Nevertheless, in terms of scalability, the designed artifact is showing less severe growth-rate than that of the baseline. / Framtiden för nätverk ligger i utvecklingen av tillförlitliga nätverk med låg latenstid. Denna utveckling ställer ökade krav på förekomsten av så kallade kantnoder. För att en nätoperatör ska kunna tillhandahålla en kantnodsresurs med låg latenstid måste det fysiska avståndet från antenn till användare vara litet. Detta kräver i sin tur att nätoperatören bör ha stor täckning av sina fysiska antenner. Ett alternativ till detta är att nätoperatörer delar sina resurser inom en så kallad Operatörsplatform för att minska kostnaderna för utökning av sin fysiska antennärvaro. I det här projektet användes Design Science Research för att utforma en produkt vid namn Master Thesis Orchestrator (MTO) för att lösa problemet med att hitta och leverera kantnodresurser mellan operatörer. En abstrakt modell av ett realistiskt scenario skapades. Denna modell användes för att utvärdera designens prestanda i förhållande till en baslinjelösning. MTO är en decentraliserad algoritm som använder sig av en delad minnescache. Designen har också en slumpmässig komponent som används för att styra åtkomstsfrekvensen till det delade minnet. Dessa designval gjordes för att förbättra skalbarhetsprestandan. En simulering av algoritmen och baslinjelösningen genomfördes med hjälp av en testbädd som implementerades med Kubernetes/minikube. Genom att testa prestandan på olika ingångsstorlekar (antal kantnoder) samlades följande mätetal in: framgångkvot (noggrannhet), körtid och mängden överförd data. Resultaten visade att MTO gav en genomsnittlig noggrannhet på 36% (baslinje=96,8%) gällande lyckade/felaktiga matchningar. Prestandan när det gäller körtid och överförda data varierade beroende på resultatet av matchningar. MTO:s sämsta prestanda uppstår vid misslyckade matchningar, vilket leder till ett resultat som liknar baslinjelösningens genomsnittliga prestanda. MTO:s bästa prestanda visade förbättringar av körtiden jämfört med baslinjelösningen. Testerna validerades genom ett ANOVA-test och algoritmerna skiljer sig signifikant (α = 5%) från varandra. Den utformade produkten är dock inte bättre än den baslinjelösningen för alla analyserade mätvärden. Den utformade algoritmen är volatil när det gäller tidsåtgång och noggrannhet, men resurseffektiv. Den dåliga noggrannheten är en betydande faktor för sannolikheten att den värsta möjliga prestandan skulle inträffa, vilket leder till en långsam och opålitlig lösning. När det gäller skalbarhet uppvisar den utformade produkten dock en mindre allvarlig tillväxttakt än baslinjelösningen.

Thesis (PhD) -- Stellenbosch University, 2014. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis has as its focus the engineering of integrated knowledge networks (IKNs) through the use of a reference architecture. The purpose of the study is to gain a deeper understanding of the constructional principles underlying this class of collaborative networks. Although IKNs and enterprise engineering are both seen as promising approaches to the challenges of the Information Age, significant challenges still exist in the engineering of IKNs. Our globalised and commercialised society may currently be characterised by both extreme complexity and extreme rates of change. Enterprise engineering is seen as a promising approach to equip enterprises with the characteristics that are desirable in the modern economy, including flexibility and agility. Enterprise architecture contributes to this endeavour by providing a high-level design of the enterprise that allows for integrated engineering of the enterprise. From a commercial point of view, it has been widely recognised that the ability to innovate and generate new knowledge through the development of new products, services and processes is a key factor in the survival of enterprises. The latest trends in innovation management, however, show that the innovation process is no longer one that is executed inside a single enterprise, giving rise to the development of inter-organisational innovation networks. Furthermore, the importance of knowledge as a dynamic enabler of this networked innovation approach is highlighted. This has lead to the emergence of IKNs in which knowledge is created and shared between network stakeholders in order to foster sustainable innovation. The increasing rate of change means that enterprises, including IKNs, have progressively less time to react to market changes and opportunities. The emphasis is therefore on the potential of the EE and EA disciplines as tools to adapt to the dynamic landscape of the Information Age. At present, the ability to apply comprehensive enterprise engineering to IKNs is hampered by the lack of resources that describes sound constructional principles for these networks. The focus of this study is therefore on the application of the enterprise engineering discipline to IKNs through the development of a reference architecture. The reference architecture for IKNs is developed through design science research within a pragmatic and qualitative research strategy. The research problem is first identified and motivated. Various solution objectives are subsequently defined. This is followed by the design and development of the reference architecture through four iterative design cycles. A qualitative systematic review is conducted and serves as the foundation for the development of various reference models. The reference architecture for IKNs is demonstrated and evaluated through a series of illustrative scenarios, after which the utility, novelty and design rigour of the artefact is communicated. It was found that the reference architecture provides constructional principles in the engineering of IKNs, thus enabling the design, operation and research of this class of collaborative networks. The study therefore takes a first step toward extending the concept of EE to IKNs, and collaborative networks in general. This enables the greater adaptability of these networks to the dynamic environment of the Information Age. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis ondersoek die ontwikkeling van geïntegreerde kennisnetwerke (GK’s) aan die hand van ‘n verwysingsargitektuur. Die doel van die studie is om ’n beter begrip van die onderliggende ontwerpbeginsels van hierdie klas kollaborasie netwerke te kry. Alhoewel beide GK’s en ondernemingsingenieurswese beskou word as belowende benaderings tot die uitdagings van die Inligtingsera, bestaan beduidende uitdagings steeds in die ontwikkeling van GK’s. Ons geglobaliseerde, gekommersialiseerde samelewing word tans gekenmerk deur beide buitengewone kompleksiteit en buitengewone tempo-verandering. Ondernemingsingenieurswese word beskou as ’n belowende benadering om ondernemings toe te rus met die eienskappe wat in aanvraag is in die moderne ekonomie, insluitend aanpasbaarheid en vlugheid. Ondernemingsargitektuur dra by tot hierdie poging deur ’n hoëvlak ontwerp van die onderneming te voorsien wat geïntegreerde ontwikkeling van die onderneming toelaat. Vanuit ’n kommersiële oogpunt word dit ruim aanvaar dat die vermoë om te innoveer en nuwe kennis te ontwikkel deur die ontwikkeling van nuwe produkte, dienste en prosesse ’n kernfaktor in die oorlewing van ondernemings is. Die jongste benadering in innovasiebestuur toon aan dat die innovasieproses nie meer slegs in een onderneming uitgevoer word nie. Dit lei dan tot interorganisasie-innovasienetwerke. Die belangrikheid van kennis as ’n dinamiese instaatsteller van hierdie netwerk-innovasiebenadering word verder beklemtoon. Dit het gelei tot die ontstaan van GK’s waarin kennis tot stand gebring en gedeel word tussen netwerk belanghebbendes om sodoende volhoubare innovasie te bevorder. Die toenemende tempo in verandering beteken dat ondernemings, insluitende GK’s, toenemend minder tyd het om op markveranderings en -geleenthede te reageer. Die klem val daarom op die ondernemingsingenieursweseen ondernemingsargitektuur-dissiplines as hulpmiddels om by die dinamiese landskap van die Inligtingsera aan te pas. Tans word die vermoë om omvattende ondernemingsingenieurswese in GK’s te beoefen, gekniehalter deur die tekort aan hulpbronne wat grondige konstruksie-beginsels vir hierdie netwerke beskryf. Die fokus van hierdie studie is daarom die toepassing van die ondernemingsingenieurswese-dissipline op GK’s deur die ontwikkeling van ’n verwysingsargitektuur. Die verwysingsargitektuur vir GK’s word ontwikkel deur ontwerpwetenskapnavorsing binne ’n pragmatiese en kwalitatiewe navorsingstrategie. Die navorsingsprobleem word eers geïdentifiseer en gemotiveer. Verskeie oplossingsdoelwitte word vervolgens bepaal. Hierna geskied die ontwerp en ontwikkeling van die verwysingsargitektuur deur middel van die vier herhalende ontwerpsiklusse. Die verwysingsargitektuur vir GK’s word gedemonstreer en geëvalueer deur ’n reeks beeldende scenario’s, waarna die bruikbaarheid, nuutheid en ontwerpstrengheid van die artefak gekommunikeer word. Dit is bevind dat die verwysingsargitektuur konstruksiebeginsels in die ontwikkeling van GK’s voorsien en sodoende die ontwerp, werk en navorsing in hierdie klas kollaborasie netwerke moontlik maak. Dié studie neem ‘n eerste tree in die rigting om die konsep van ondernemingsingenieurswese tot GK’s uit te brei. Dit maak die groter aanpasbaarheid van hierdie netwerke by die dinamiese omgewing van die Inligtingsera moontlik.