The field of technical consultancy is centered around the value that each individual consultant can provide. This value has its ground in the set of skills and knowledge which the consultant possesses, and from an organizational standpoint, must be probably managed as to be fully utilized within the organization. The knowledge that consultants acquire during project missions is not every fully utilized within the base organization, due to the restrictions of knowledge barriers, prohibiting the transfer and retention of knowledge.    Knowledge management therefore becomes an important aspect to consider in the technical consultancy field, as technology is constantly changing at a higher pace. This are of knowledge management has been neglected in the past, as most research regard knowledge management focus on more linear organization and management consultancy. This report aims to identify what and how knowledge barriers are created within the technical consultancy field and how the barriers affect knowledge acquisitions, transfer, and retention. This report follows a qualitative study approach, with semi structured interviews of 12 managers in key positions at 9 consulting firms, ranging from senior consultancy managers to senior consultants.    The results of the empirical study identified 19 knowledge barriers affecting knowledge acquisition, transfer, and retention. The aspect of knowledge and organizational culture was found to be a foundational part of KM affecting the entire cycle of KM. The major barriers related to technical consultancy holding specialized and diverse knowledge, a lack of adequate knowledge management systems implemented, economic factors affecting KM utilization, market drivers creating barriers and internal as well as external cultural factors affecting the KM cycle.

This research report captures a detailed exposition of an investigation on Knowledge Management (KM) practices in public and private sector entities in three industries (health, education and business loans) of Limpopo province – a proxy of the rural areas of South Africa. The investigation was necessitated by a need to understand KM in organisational context experiencing constraints in terms of resources that enable KM. It was found through an intensive literature review that there were very few empirical studies on KM practices of organisations operating in the rural areas, particularly in Africa. The theoretical framework of the study emanates from the knowledge-based view which has been popularised by the seminal work of Peter Drucker and Nonaka in the early half of the 90s. The knowledge-based view as presented in chapter 2 recognises the strategic role of knowledge in organisations. Its genesis is traced from the theories of classical scholars such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Various empirical studies of entities which have adopted the knowledge-based view are presented in chapter 2 of this report. The researcher observes from an intensive KM literature study that the average modern organisation could be categorised as knowledge-intensive considering that knowledge workers constitute the majority of its workforce. The definitions of a knowledge-based organisation and knowledge workers are presented in the operational definitions of key concepts. Arising from the identified gaps in KM literature as presented towards the end of chapter 2, this study was conducted as a comparative study between public and private sector entities in three research industries focusing on their extent of ICT application and degree of knowledge-oriented social factors for information and knowledge sharing. The investigation was guided by three research objectives as discussed in chapter 1 of this research report. The main purpose of the study was to answer two fundamental research questions as reflected in chapter 1. In answering the two research questions, the researcher identified four research hypotheses in line with the findings established from KM literature. These hypotheses are discussed in chapter 2 of this report.The underlying hypothesised statement guiding the study was to determine whether there were any significant differences in KM implementation between public and private sector entities in the three research industries in terms of four research constructs. These are: application of ICTs for knowledge and information sharing, degree of achievement of knowledge-based outcomes, tacit knowledge acquisition and the degree of knowledge-oriented social factors. Organisational culture, organisational structures, human resource practices and leadership comprised the social factors tested in the study. The research data were collected through a mixed research design approach combining the advantages of a survey instrument and interviews (this is fully reflected in chapter 3 of this research report). The research results (as presented in chapter 4) pointed to some form of significant differences in KM implementation between public and private sector entities in the education and business loans industry, but there were no significant differences in KM implementation between public and private sector entities in the health industry. Arising from the findings of the study, a model for improved KM implementation is presented in chapter 4 (figure 4.16). It was found during the investigation that all the research entities approached KM implicitly through KM related practices. KM related practices were found to be far more entrenched in the health industry (both public and private sector entities), the private sector entities in the education and business loans industries than was the case with the public sector entities in the education and business loans industries. In the entities where KM related practices were found to be entrenched, there were concerted efforts towards improved organisational processes. The study has managed to unravel the importance of KM related practices in laying the foundation for a formalised KM approach. / Graduate School of Business Leadership / D.B.L.

This research report captures a detailed exposition of an investigation on Knowledge Management (KM) practices in public and private sector entities in three industries (health, education and business loans) of Limpopo province – a proxy of the rural areas of South Africa. The investigation was necessitated by a need to understand KM in organisational context experiencing constraints in terms of resources that enable KM. It was found through an intensive literature review that there were very few empirical studies on KM practices of organisations operating in the rural areas, particularly in Africa. The theoretical framework of the study emanates from the knowledge-based view which has been popularised by the seminal work of Peter Drucker and Nonaka in the early half of the 90s. The knowledge-based view as presented in chapter 2 recognises the strategic role of knowledge in organisations. Its genesis is traced from the theories of classical scholars such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Various empirical studies of entities which have adopted the knowledge-based view are presented in chapter 2 of this report. The researcher observes from an intensive KM literature study that the average modern organisation could be categorised as knowledge-intensive considering that knowledge workers constitute the majority of its workforce. The definitions of a knowledge-based organisation and knowledge workers are presented in the operational definitions of key concepts. Arising from the identified gaps in KM literature as presented towards the end of chapter 2, this study was conducted as a comparative study between public and private sector entities in three research industries focusing on their extent of ICT application and degree of knowledge-oriented social factors for information and knowledge sharing. The investigation was guided by three research objectives as discussed in chapter 1 of this research report. The main purpose of the study was to answer two fundamental research questions as reflected in chapter 1. In answering the two research questions, the researcher identified four research hypotheses in line with the findings established from KM literature. These hypotheses are discussed in chapter 2 of this report.The underlying hypothesised statement guiding the study was to determine whether there were any significant differences in KM implementation between public and private sector entities in the three research industries in terms of four research constructs. These are: application of ICTs for knowledge and information sharing, degree of achievement of knowledge-based outcomes, tacit knowledge acquisition and the degree of knowledge-oriented social factors. Organisational culture, organisational structures, human resource practices and leadership comprised the social factors tested in the study. The research data were collected through a mixed research design approach combining the advantages of a survey instrument and interviews (this is fully reflected in chapter 3 of this research report). The research results (as presented in chapter 4) pointed to some form of significant differences in KM implementation between public and private sector entities in the education and business loans industry, but there were no significant differences in KM implementation between public and private sector entities in the health industry. Arising from the findings of the study, a model for improved KM implementation is presented in chapter 4 (figure 4.16). It was found during the investigation that all the research entities approached KM implicitly through KM related practices. KM related practices were found to be far more entrenched in the health industry (both public and private sector entities), the private sector entities in the education and business loans industries than was the case with the public sector entities in the education and business loans industries. In the entities where KM related practices were found to be entrenched, there were concerted efforts towards improved organisational processes. The study has managed to unravel the importance of KM related practices in laying the foundation for a formalised KM approach. / Graduate School of Business Leadership / D.B.L.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how knowledge retention may be enhanced at the University of Zambia (UNZA). A mixed research methodology was employed in the case study design. Data was collected using interviews and questionnaires. Purposive sampling was used to determine participants for the interviews while stratified random sampling was employed for the questionnaire respondents. Out of a population of 435 a sample of 205 was surveyed. The response rate was 60 %. Findings indicate that UNZA lacked a number of knowledge retention practices that can enable it to retain operational relevant knowledge. In view of these findings, the study concluded by recommending guidelines for the adoption of various knowledge retention practices that could be embedded into UNZA's knowledge management policy. / Information Science / M.A. (Information Science)

The knowledge gap between Arabic nations and the developed world is widening. A contributing factor to the slow acquisition and production of knowledge is the use of Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) as the language of instruction in schools. To bridge the gap, English is used in tertiary education in most Arab countries. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is a useful case study to explore the dynamics of Arabic and English in education. After an overview of the problems imposed by MSA, the dilemmas facing the teaching of English and in English in the UAE are explored. Many of the problems encountered in the teaching and learning of English are the product of specific aspects of an education in MSA. The study assesses whether MSA or English is the most viable instrument for the delivery of high quality education in the Arab world and finds that currently English is essential. / English Studies / M.A. (with specialisation in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of other languages))

在目前的企業環境中，很多企業致力於管理和應用組織知識，來維持他們的核心能力和創造競爭優勢。有效率的管理組織知識，能減少解決問題的時間和成本，並增加組織學習和創新能力。並且，由於累積知識資源的需求，很多企業開始發展知識庫，以儲存組織及個人的知識，用來增加組織整體的效率、支援日常的運作以及企業策略的操作。 知識管理是現代的典範，可用來有效管理組織知識，進而改善組織績效。知識管理的目的是強調管理知識的流動及流程。在知識管理流程方面，主要區分為知識擷取、整合、儲存/歸類、散播和應用知識等程序。另外，資訊技術可用來協助知識管理，並能使知識管理更有效率。知識管理的主要議題之ㄧ是知識的擷取，由於目前知識來源的提供，主要是透過知識工作者，可是它對於知識工作者而言，是一種額外的負擔。因此，設計一個有效的方法來自動產生組織知識，以減輕他們的額外負擔，將是一個很重要的課題。第二個相當重要的議題是知識整合，由於不同來源的知識，可能造成組織知識的衝突，因此設計一個知識整合方法，把不同來源的知識整合成一個完整的知識，組織將會逐漸增加這方面的需求。 分類在很多應用中是常遭遇的問題，例如財務預測、疾病診斷等。在過去，分類規則常藉由決策樹的方法所產生，並用於解決分類的問題。在本論文中，提出兩個以遺傳規劃為基礎的知識擷取方法和兩個以遺傳規劃為基礎的知識整合方法，分別支援知識管理流程中的知識擷取和知識整合。 在兩個所提的知識擷取方法中，第一個方法是著重在快速和容易地找到想要的分類樹，但是，此方法可能會產生結構較複雜的分類樹。第二個方法是修正第一個方法，產生一個較精簡和應用性高的分類樹。這些所獲得的分類樹，能被轉換成規則集合，並匯入知識庫中，幫助企業決策的制定和日常的運作。 此外，在兩個所提的知識整合方法中，第一個方法，能自動結合多重的知識來源成為一個整合的知識，並可匯入知識庫中，但是此方法只考慮到單一時間點的整合。第二個方法則是可以解決不同時間點的知識整合問題。另外，本論文提出三個新的遺傳運算子，在演化過程中，可用來解決規則集合中有重複、包含和衝突等常見的問題，因而可以產生較精簡及一致性高的分類規則。最後，本論文採用信用卡資料及乳癌資料來驗證所提方法的可行性，實驗結果皆獲得良好的成效。 / In today’s business environment, many enterprises make efforts in managing and applying organizational knowledge to sustain their core competence and create competitive advantage. The effective management of organizational knowledge can reduce the time and cost of solving problems, improve organizational performance, and increase organizational learning as well as innovative competence. Moreover, due to the need to accumulate knowledge resources, many enterprises have devoted to developing their knowledge repositories. These repositories store organizational and individual knowledge that are used to increase overall organization efficiency, support daily operations, and implement business strategies. Knowledge management (KM) is the modern paradigm for effective management of organizational knowledge to improve organizational performance. The intent of KM is to emphasize knowledge flows and the main process of acquisition, integration, storage/categorization, dissemination, and application. Furthermore, extant information technologies can provide a way of enabling more effective knowledge management. One of the important issues in knowledge management is knowledge acquisition. It is an extra burden for knowledge workers to contribute their knowledge into repositories, such that designing an effective method for abating an extra burden to automatically generate organizational knowledge will play a critical role in knowledge management. A second rather important issue in knowledge management is knowledge integration from different knowledge sources. Designing a knowledge-integration method to combine multiple knowledge sources will gradually become a necessity for enterprises. Classification problems, such as financial prediction and disease diagnosis, are often encountered in many applications. In the past, classification trees were often generated by decision-tree methods and commonly used to solve classification problems. In this dissertation, we propose two GP-based knowledge-acquisition methods and two GP-based knowledge-integration methods to support knowledge acquisition and knowledge integration respectively in the knowledge management processes for classification tasks. In the two proposed knowledge-acquisition methods, the first one is fast and easy to find the desired classification tree. It may, however, generate a complicated classification tree. The second method then further modifies the first method and produces a more concise and applicatory classification tree than the first one. The classification tree obtained can be transferred into a rule set, which can then be fed into a knowledge base to support decision making and facilitate daily operations. Furthermore, in the two proposed knowledge-integration methods, the former method can automatically combine multiple knowledge sources into one integrated knowledge base; nevertheless, it focuses on a single time point to deal with such knowledge-integration problems. The latter method then extends the former one to handle integrating situations properly with different time points. Additionally, three new genetic operators are designed in the evolving process to remove redundancy, subsumption and contradiction, thus producing more concise and consistent classification rules than those without using them. Finally, the proposed methods are applied to credit card data and breast cancer data for evaluating their effectiveness. They are also compared with several well-known classification methods. The experimental results show the good performance and feasibility of the proposed approaches.

This dissertation describes a research study conducted to determine the benefits and use of ontology technologies to support a simulation environment that evaluates countermeasures employed to protect military aircraft. Within the military, aircraft represent a significant investment and these valuable assets need to be protected against various threats, such as man-portable air-defence systems. To counter attacks from these threats, countermeasures are deployed, developed and evaluated by utilising modelling and simulation techniques. The system described in this research simulates real world scenarios of aircraft, missiles and countermeasures in order to assist in the evaluation of infra-red countermeasures against missiles in specified scenarios. Traditional ontology has its origin in philosophy, describing what exists and how objects relate to each other. The use of formal ontologies in Computer Science have brought new possibilities for modelling and representation of information and knowledge in several domains. These advantages also apply to military information systems where ontologies support the complex nature of military information. After considering ontologies and their advantages against the requirements for enhancements of the simulation system, an ontology was constructed by following a formal development methodology. Design research, combined with the adaptive methodology of development, was conducted in a unique way, therefore contributing to establish design research as a formal research methodology. The ontology was constructed to capture the knowledge of the simulation system environment and the use of it supports the functions of the simulation system in the domain. The research study contributes to better communication among people involved in the simulation studies, accomplished by a shared vocabulary and a knowledge base for the domain. These contributions affirmed that ontologies can be successfully use to support military simulation systems / Computing / M. Tech. (Information Technology)

Au cours des 25 dernières années, le nombre de joint-ventures internationales (JVI), qui se forment lorsque deux ou plusieurs entreprises partenaires mettent une partie de leurs ressources au sein d’une organisation légale possédée conjointement, s’est multiplié. Parallèlement à cette prolifération, les déterminants de la performance des JVI ont retenu particulièrement l’attention des chercheurs. Dans le cadre de cette recherche, nous nous focalisons sur l’aspect de l’apprentissage organisationnel en le liant à l’efficacité organisationnelle des JVI.Nous avons développé notre cadre conceptuel en nous basant sur la théorie de l’apprentissage organisationnel, la théorie fondée sur les connaissances et des revues de la littérature. Ainsi, nous avons proposé un modèle et dix-neuf hypothèses de la recherche liés aux retours positifs de l’apprentissage organisationnel sur l’efficacité organisationnelle des JVI. Ceux-ci sont ensuite examinés empiriquement en utilisant la méthode PLS sur une base de données de 176 JVI du Vietnam. Les résultats empiriques ont montré le rôle indéniable de l’apprentissage organisationnel dans l’amélioration de l’efficacité organisationnelle des JVI.Principaux résultats de la recherche : (1) plus les connaissances sont acquises dans les JVI plus leur efficacité organisationnelle s’améliore ; (2) la qualité des relations entre les partenaires de la JVI explique bien et influence fortement la performance d’acquisition de connaissances ; (3) concernant la culture d’apprentissage organisationnel, les pratiques de l’apprentissage d’équipe ont été identifiées comme un élément central influençant directement la performance d’acquisition de connaissances. / Over the past 25 years, the number of International Joint Ventures (IJV), which are formed when two or more partner companies put their resources together in a jointly owned legal organization, has multiplied. Along with this proliferation, the determinants of the IJV performance have attracted particular attention from researchers. In this study, we focus on the aspect of organizational learning by linking it to the IJV organizational effectiveness.We have developed our conceptual framework based on the theory of organizational learning, knowledge-based theory and literature reviews. Thus, we have proposed a model with nineteen research hypotheses related to the positive impact of organizational learning on the IJV organizational effectiveness. Both the model and these hypotheses are then examined empirically using the PLS method on a database of 176 IJV in Vietnam. The results showed the undeniable role of organizational learning in improving the IJV organizational effectiveness.Key research findings : (1) the more knowledge acquired in the IJV, the more its organizational effectiveness improved; (2) the quality of relationships between the IJV partners explains well and strongly influences the performance of knowledge acquisition; and (3) on organizational learning culture, the practices of team learning have been identified as a key element influencing the performance of knowledge acquisition directly.

Throughout life, we continuously accumulate data, information and knowledge. The ability to recall much of this accumulated knowledge commonly deteriorates with time, though some forms part of what is referred to as tacit knowledge. In the context of education, students access and interact with a teacher’s knowledge in order to create their own, and may have their own data, information and knowledge that could be added to teacher’s knowledge for everyone’s benefit. The realization that students can contribute to enhancing personal knowledge is an important cornerstone in developing a mentor (teacher, tutor and facilitator) focused knowledge system. The research presented in this thesis discusses an integrated framework that manages an individual’s personal data, information and knowledge and enables it to be enhanced by others, in the context of a blended teaching and learning environment. Existing related models, structures, systems and current practices are discussed. The core outcomes of this thesis include: • the virtualMe framework that can be utilized when developing Web based teaching and learning systems; • the sniplet content model that can be used as the basis for sharing information and knowledge; • an annotation framework used to manage knowledge acquisition; and • a multimedia object (MMO) model that: o allows for related media artefacts to be intuitively grouped in a logical collection; o includes a meta-data schema that encompasses other metadata structures, and manages context and referencing; and o includes a model allowing component parts to be reaggregated if they are separated. The virtualMe framework provides the ability to retain context while transferring the content from one person to another and from one place to another. The framework retains the content’s original context and then allows the receiver to customise the content and metadata so that the content becomes that person’s knowledge. A mechanism has been created for such contextual transfer of content (context retained by the metadata).

<p>The thesis describes steps taken towards using graphic representation and visual modelling support for the knowledge acquisition process in knowledge-based systems – a process commonly regarded as difficult. The performance of the systems depends on the quality of the embedded knowledge, which makes the knowledge acquisition phase particularly significant. During the acquisition phase, a main obstacle to proper extraction of information is the absence of effective modelling techniques.</p><p>The contributions of the thesis are: introducing a methodology for user-centred knowledge modelling, enhancing transparency to support the modelling of content and of the reasoning strategy, incorporating conceptualisation to simplify the grasp of the contents and to support assimilation of the domain knowledge, and supplying a visual compositional logic programming language for adding and modifying functionality.</p><p>The user-centred knowledge acquisition model, proposed in this thesis, applies a combination of different approaches to knowledge modelling. The aim is to bridge the gap between the users (i.e., knowledge engineers, domain experts and end users) and the system in transferring knowledge, by supporting the users through graphics and visualisation. Visualisation supports the users by providing several different views of the contents of the system.</p><p>The Unified Modelling Language (UML) is employed as a modelling language. A benefit of utilising UML is that the knowledge base can be modified, and the reasoning strategy and the functionality can be changed directly in the model. To make the knowledge base more comprehensible and expressive, we incorporated visual conceptualisation into UML’s diagrams to describe the contents. Visual conceptualisation of the knowledge can also facilitate assimilation in a hypermedia system through visual libraries.</p><p>Visualisation of functionality is applied to a programming paradigm, namely relational programming, often employed in artificial intelligence systems. This approach employs Venn-Euler diagrams as a graphic interface to a compositional operator based relational programming language. </p><p>The concrete result of the research is the development of a graphic representation and visual modelling approach to support the knowledge acquisition process. This approach has been evaluated for two different knowledge bases, one built for hydropower development and river regulation and the other for diagnosing childhood diseases.</p>