This study investigates how knowledge is created in a small business organization. Knowledge creation refers to organizational learning which results in innovation. The research design was a qualitative, single site case study of three firms in the point of sale industry. Data collection took place during a six month field study and employed multiple methods including participant observations, interviews, document reviews, and field journal entries. The study was informed by a conceptual framework which focused on the importance of both tacit and explicit knowledge forms, multiple modes of knowledge conversion (socialization, externalization, combination, internalization), and a knowledge spiraling process. Six themes emerged from the data. The first theme, "the people are the business" indicated that individuals become a knowledge creating structure that transcends office boundaries. A second theme, "we just spend tons of time talking", emphasized the importance of dialogue and informal communication structures to the sharing of tacit knowledge. A third theme, "there hasn't been a new idea in a million years", illustrated the predominance of incremental rather than radical innovation, the strategy of mimicking concept successes, and the importance of learning with other organizations through strategic alliances. A fourth theme, "you learn from your mistakes", represented the experiential nature of learning within the firm. A fifth theme, "it's one of those crystal ball kind of things" depicted the intuitive nature of personal knowledge and its limitations. Finally, the sixth theme, "a day late and a dollar short" explored how time and money pressures both enhance and hinder knowledge creation within a small business context. By comparing the themes to the conceptual framework the study concluded that small business organizations create knowledge in accordance with the nature of interpersonal interactions as they occur in context. The theoretical knowledge spiral was reconceptualized as a web structure in order to accommodate more diversity of approaches to knowledge creation and the complex nature of innovations. / Education, Faculty of / Educational Studies (EDST), Department of / Graduate

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment for the Masters in Technology: Entrepreneurship, Durban Institute of Technology, 2003. / The Department of Education has, since 1998, introduced entrepreneurship education in government schools, for the first time. One of the overall developmental outcomes of the curriculum, of which there are five, is to develop entrepreneurial capacities. Economic and Management Sciences, one of the eight learning areas, encourages learners to develop basic skills and knowledge needed to manage their lives and their environments effectively; to understand the basics of the economy and how it works, and develop basic entrepreneurship, financial management and planning skills to operate effectively in the economy / M

Approaching the subject of 'orality' as a complex social-historical practice containing fissures of technological inversion and spatial-acoustic transgression, this thesis seeks to understand the implications of an electronically realised 'secondary orality'. In particular, it seeks to understand this idea as it is elaborated in the media theory of Marshall McLuhan. The approach taken here attests to a vitally important, if often' ghosted', materialism of acoustic space, a context which is immediately and ambivalently implicated in the institutionalising and ideologising of communications technology. It is argued that a cultural media theory must address those forms of managed communicative experience that serve to diminish the everyday vernacular. The Introduction of the thesis identifies developments that have brought the idea of a 'secondary orality' into being. Chapter One examines Havelock's and Innis's privileging of technology in the orality question, as well as the general denial of acoustic practice within the orality-literacy debate. Chapter Two explores Ong's ideas on 'presence' as well as Derrida' s critique of Western phonocentrism in terms of the larger historical denial of sound. Chapter Three explores McLuhan's position on the techno-evolutionary overcoming of rationalism in the new electronic landscape and argues that his 'electronic materialism' is a form of interiorisation. Chapter Four turns to a discussion of the ancient world to consider oral ambivalence and the paradox of orality in the transition to literacy. Consideration is also given to the early modern emergence of a paradigm of abstract visualisation. Chapter Five examines the modern emergence of an oral resistance found in the acoustic otherworld of the' chapbook' and the poetics of Wordsworth, Blake, and Clare. Chapter Six discusses issues of the oral 'other' as found in the theories of Bakhtin, Volosinov, and Kristeva. Chapter Seven investigates a varied postmodern neo-McLuhanism in relation to issues of ecology, intertextuality, and the feminisation of technology. The Conclusion argues that 'secondary orality' involves a technological inversion of oral powers serving an electronic hegemony. The mimetically engineered spatial disorientation of transgressive sociality is further considered.

University of Macau / Faculty of Science and Technology / Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

M.Sc. / We live in a modern world in which visual perception has become an absolute necessity. Navigating and walking around in a city without getting lost is a difficult enough task when using all senses, but if you are visually disabled, this becomes a near impossible task. All around us are signs, billboards, motorcars, buildings, computers, and other similar signs of modern times, which are most effectively observed visually. The next logical step in assisting the visually disabled to experience the world around them more freely, is to make more effective use of the technology that has created the shift to the visual world in the first place. It now appears possible to design a framework to incorporate not only current, but also future hardware and software into a solution to the above-mentioned problems. Such a framework has to be flexible to allow it to keep up not only with hardware, but software advances as well. Furthermore, it needs to take into account the needs of a typical blind user. One way of implementing this framework is to make use of a form of sensereplacement. Where the visual sense is impaired, technology can be used to analyze and interpret the visual world, obtain meaningful information from the scene, and then re-route this information to another sense. This dissertation is divided into three sections. The first section will provide an overview of the rest of the dissertation. It will also investigate similar research that is currently being undertaken, and provide a model for a possible solution to the above-mentioned problems. The second section will provide the background study needed to make informed decisions when implementing a prototype system. The third section will investigate the implementation of a prototype model, as well as the construction of a pilot project.

The purpose of this study is to investigate creativity, innovation and certain determining factors, which have an influence on creativity and innovation in the micro business environment and specifically in an information technology firm. The information and communications technology (ICT) sector is very dynamic and very fast paced both in the world and in South Africa. Businesses in this sector have to adapt, almost constantly, to incessantly changing technology, customer demands and macro-environmental variables. A vast amount of research exists to suggest that businesses have to adapt to and embrace change in order to survive in this environment. Creativity and innovation are central to change in the organisation. For the purposes of this study creativity is defined as an intellectual process evident in four discernible components, namely the creative person, the creative product, the creative process and the creative environment. Evidence for creativity and innovation includes novelty and usefulness of ideas and new or improved solutions to existing problems within a given context. Novelty and usefulness are therefore characteristic and typical evidence for the presence of creativity. All four components are important for the development and facilitation of creativity and innovation. The four components have a determining influence on creativity resulting in a feedback system. The study specifically focuses on creative environment and in this case - the organisational climate. Organisational climate is the observed recurring behavioural patterns and attitudes in the organisation. This climate influences creativity and innovation by supporting or inhibiting it. An organisation’s climate can also influence other psychological processes such as job satisfaction, decision-making, communication, team effort and motivation of workers across the organisation. The goal of this study was to identify and measure organisational climate factors known to have a significant, determining influence on the work environment, conducive to creativity and innovation. The organisational climate of a firm in the South African ICT sector was measured and analysed. The “Situational Outlook Questionnaire” (SOQ) was used to measure the organisational climate observable in the organisation. The SOQ is employed to assist organisations in assessing the organisational climate for its conduciveness to creativity and innovation, as well as the climate’s ability to foster and promote productivity and change within the organisation. The SOQ was developed over a period of fifty years and is proven to be a reliable and valid measuring instrument. The SOQ assesses nine dimensions that have a direct impact on a creative organisational climate. The nine dimensions are: Challenge/involvement, trust, risk-taking, playfulness/humour, freedom, conflict, debate, idea support, and idea-time. The results indicated the organisation that has been assessed has a strong climate supportive of and conducive to creativity and innovation. The organisation’s SOQ results across all dimensions, except the freedom and debate dimensions, compared very well with other innovative organisations. This could indicate that there is too much debate around decisions, resulting in too much talking before important issues are decided upon. The freedom score was also somewhat low because employees are probably not allowed to make independent decisions related to their jobs. Employees are under obligation to report to superiors before deciding important issues. This organisation’s management strives towards promoting and fostering a climate that is supportive of and conducive to creativity and innovation. This is evident in the results provided by the SOQ as well as the innovative products and services delivered to customers. / Prof. W.M. Conradie

M.Tech. (Information technology) / This research is concerned with establishing the causes for the slow adoption of biometric authentication in the South African banking sector and constitutes exploratory research. It looks at the widely accepted means of authentication and delves deeper into why these modes may not be sufficient to protect sensitive data. The scope of the research is limited to the banking sector only. The first sections of the study establish what the biometric authentication norms are amongst international banking institutions. This is then followed by an environmental study of the South African approach-to biometric authentication. Owing to the limited number of banks in South Africa compared to developed countries, the study is limited to the four major banking institutions in.South Africa, namely ABSA, Standard Bank, Nedbank and First National Bank. An online survey was used to g·ather the required data for analysis. The general approach adopted to investigate the extent to which biometric authentication is used by the said four banks was to first measure the respondents' knowledge of biometrics and to establish the level of exposure the respondents had to the said technology. The next step was then to establish the extent to which the participating banks had investigated the use of biometric authentication. This was followed by consideration of the current use of biometric authentication and lastly, the future use and user perceptions regarding various aspects of biometric authentication in the financial services sector. A matrix that identifies the factors perceived to be impacting the adoption of biometric authentication concludes the last chapter on user perception.

M.Ed. (Education Management) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

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Creativity and innovation are significant for the creation of a knowledge and productive base economy with its associated growth, sustainability and job creation. However it is noticed that students will need to employ the techniques on creativity and innovation in order to prepare themselves sufficiently to become business owners and entrepreneurs in this current global world where government jobs are difficult to come by. Therefore, the primary objective of this study is to determine creative and innovative techniques that will prepare final-year students to become entrepreneurs. A hard copy Word document questionnaire was considered an appropriate measurement method for this study. The targeted population of the study included entrepreneurial experts, business owners, teachers and lecturers of business management/studies in the Sisonke District of Kwazulu Natal Province. Thus, some 100 entrepreneur experts, owners of businesses, teachers and lecturers were identified as part of the sampling frame. A total number of 67 questionnaires were administered out of the 100 targeted– giving a response rate of 67%. The quantitative data were processed using Excel, leading to appropriate descriptive statistical analyses, including frequencies, means, medians and standard deviations. In order to obtain a better understanding of a model that will prepare final year students to become entrepreneurs, problem statements and sub-problems were stated and a t-test was used to establish demographic variables, whilst correlation analysis among skills was conducted regarding the model of creative and innovative techniques. Factor analysis was conducted using the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient which confirms that training in the model will prepare students to become entrepreneurs. The results from the empirical study revealed that a model of creative and innovative techniques will prepare students to become entrepreneurs, with a total of 70% of respondents attesting to it. Based on the relevant literature study and the empirical results, recommendations were made in order to support the training needs of students on creativity and innovation techniques. However, the unavailability of an exhaustive entrepreneurial experts database and small number of further education and training colleges in the Sisonke District, did not allow the research to draw on a larger representative sample. Thus, this limitation has impeded in-depth statistical analysis that would have allowed the research to obtain more accurate findings. Further studies could be investigated from lecturers, business owners and experts whether an introduction of a special curriculum on creativity and innovation in further education and training schools may prepare students to become entrepreneurs.