This thesis aims to evaluate the implementation of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) based on a case organization; the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre (KFSH-RC). The study is an exploratory investigation. Understanding BSC perspectives is important for academic comprehension and is crucial for successful implementation. BSC at KFSH-RC includes five main perspectives: Quality of Care; Medical Care; Employees; Financial; and Education and Research (learning and growth). The thesis tackles two main anecdotal, practice-based arguments: BSC helps achieve business strategy, and the implementation of BSC has often fallen short of the assertions made about its potential for impact. A case study with a triangulation approach is justified and pursued. This study contributes to the literature in different ways. The application of the BSC has received limited attention in healthcare organisations in general, and in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in particular, and may be one of the first to explore such issues, across management and professional groups, to research BSC in the healthcare organisation in the KSA. It distinguishes between the understanding of financial and non-financial perspectives; and the researcher has developed a conceptual framework, which reflects the main elements of BSC implementation. Quantitative data analysis from the case study indicates that staff members at the KFSH possess only a shallow understanding of various BSC perspectives. The study revealed a consistent lack of understanding of BSC by the department employees, due to their lack of interest. The results show that performance measures following the implementation of BSC created no significant improvement. It also confirms that even some senior managers face difficulties understanding BSC perspectives. The qualitative-based findings indicate that the level of understanding of BSC for clinical services is not significantly different from that for non-clinical services; staff members of the KFSH resist the implementation of BSC in the early stages; and there is 'autocratic' leadership style at the KFSH inhibited the flow of information. The power distance and autocratic leadership style, in combination with an inadequate launch of BSC, fail to follow the implementation steps recommended by both Kaplan and Norton (2001a) and Kotter (1996). These organisational dynamics, it will be argued, are understated in the original BSC methodology, a view consistent with the findings of Woodley (2006) and may be especially so in environments with strong professional norms such as hospitals. The implications for the study and practice of non-profit organisations wishing to adopt methodology developed initially in a commercial context, is considered.

This study is concerned with what is happening within a mentorship interaction between engineers aimed at knowledge transfer. The practice of knowledge transfer is contextualised within the knowledge economy that ideologically positions Western economies as knowledge holders and advanced, while positioning developing countries as knowledge deficient and backwards. The prevailing literature regards knowledge transfer as difficult to achieve and is primarily focused on factors that hinder its success, looking to causal relational factors between and within the participants, in particular the qualities of knowledge receivers. Constructing the relationship and the individuals engaged in knowledge transfer as problematic brings about certain types of relations between individuals and between groups. These bring into play the positioning of role players within knowledge transfer that is not neutral, creating asymmetrical power relations and impacting identity construction. Studies in knowledge transfer have examined the factors that inhibit successful knowledge transfer extensively and do not consider its discursive context or considerations of power relations. Based on the assumption that discourse produces social practices and individual identities within social, historical and cultural contexts, this study adopted a social constructionist perspective and suggests that the ways in which identities are constructed in a mentorship interaction affect how participants experience and make sense of their worlds, which has implications for the practice of knowledge transfer. Viewing power as embedded in relations, a Foucauldian Discourse Analysis was conducted of discursive constructions generated from 17 interviews of participants engaged in a multinational knowledge transfer project between South African and Saudi Arabian engineers. The analysis showed that the construction of self and other does have an impact on knowledge transfer between Saudi Arabian and South African engineers. The multiple identity constructions of the participants within the knowledge transfer relationship were resourced from dominant discourses that reveal different meanings attributed to the participants’ mentorship experience and showed the systematic setting up of self and other within unequal power relations that favour the self. The study suggests that deeper consideration should be given to the effects of othering and power within social interactions between individuals located in divergent contexts such as those that characterise knowledge transfer. / Psychology / Ph. D. (Consulting Psychology)