Many organizations have started to adopt knowledge management as one of their strategic initiatives that is to create, retain, share and use the valuable knowledge assets to achieve the organisational objectives. Although knowledge management (KM) is mainly adopted by the private sectors, the Knowledge-based Economy Master Plan, which was launched in 2002 by the government of Malaysia, has encouraged the public and government sectors to value and exploit their knowledge assets. While knowledge comprises both explicit and tacit, many organisations have created knowledge management teams with various KM designations/positions, led by Chief Knowledge Officers (CKOs) to manage the organization knowledge assets. As KM is considered a new, multifaceted and an evolving discipline, frameworks pertaining to KM activities are still lacking. Regardless of which approach an organisation embarks on, there must be a 'shared understanding' of the organisation KM direction so knowledge assets could be capitalized at every level in the organisation. It is crucial for KM team members being able to introduce and promote the organisation's KM direction; therefore, those who are responsible for managing the initiatives should have adequate skills and knowledge to perform their KM tasks. Besides having some managerial and generic competencies, KM team members must also have some essential technical skills (KM-related skills). The research highlighted two research questions - how do KM managers interpret the essential KM-related competencies needed in supporting their KM tasks? and how do these required KM competencies influence KM managers' attitudes towards KM-related training needs to improve their KM understanding and implementation? From the social constructionist philosophical stance, this interpretive study uses the qualitative research approach to explore and investigate the essential KM-related competencies required by KM managers in performing their KM tasks and how they influence the attitudes for KM related training. Adopting a qualitative case study approach, the researcher made a study of KM managers of XYZ; an organisation that adopted a strategic KM approach. An E-focus group was conducted for the pilot study and face-to-face interviews were used to understand the phenomenon based on the experience of KM managers. Findings suggested that six essential KM-related competencies are needed by KM managers; KM overview, Corporate Taxonomy, Communities of Practice (CoPs), KM Tools, Knowledge Measurement and Information Management. This is to make sure that KM could be easily justified in the terms of the benefits to the management and employees, especially relating it to the economic gains. Those competencies were also suggested based on their difficulties in delivering some KM activities such as measuring knowledge, developing taxonomies and establishing appropriate KM tools and CoPs. Indeed as KM managers' suggestions and views on KM competencies come from their KM involvements, KM managers also admitted that those competencies had influenced their preferences towards KM-related training. KM managers prefer some advanced KM-related courses and also certified KM training. The findings have implications for HR/KM personnel and researchers at XYZ as well as others in general. Hence, the major contributions of this research include the following: a. KM competencies framework for KM professions which contributes to b. Demonstrates the implications of the required KM competencies on training preferences c. Presents the design and development of an alternative way of data collection method in conducting e-focus group using blog.

Since the 19th century School Governors have gone through an extended period of change. The most recent legislative changes related to the New Relationship with Schools Agenda (NRwS) will challenge Governing Bodies and highlights the need for effectiveness and accountability. Today state secondary schools are legally required to have a corporate Governing Body which is responsible for appointing the Head Teacher, for strategic planning and for standards. Governors are representative of the community they serve and are expected to be `critical friend' to the Head Teacher. This research is aimed at developing a method of helping Governors become more effective by: examining empirically their performance and effectiveness; investigating the nature of volunteering; exploring the distinctions between School Governor practices and those of Non-Executive Directors in the business sectors; identifying not only the bathers to effectiveness but individual and organizational factors which enable a Governing Body to become more effective and then developing Model Guidelines which will help them to carry out its role more effectively. To achieve these aims an ethnographic methodology is used and the data gathering methods included: a pilot questionnaire survey; a pilot self evaluation exercise with a school experiencing problems; a questionnaire survey; a pilot elite interview; elite interviews with five experts and fieldwork in two state secondary schools. Most of the literature tends to focus on factual information whereas this study, whilst an academic piece of research, it is also intended to be a working tool for Governors. The findings are largely consistent with the literature; thirty two issues of concern have been identified. These in turn have been translated into five key issues, Governance and Structure, Guiding Principles, People and Processes and Conduct all within a culture of Review and Self Evaluation. The fifth key issue highlights criteria considered essential to the development of the Model Guidelines. The five key issues identified by the research constitute the parameters for the explicit, generic, applicable and hitherto unavailable Model Guidelines for School Governors.

There is intensive research in international business studies exploring strategic decisions relating to the choice of entry mode. As a frontier issue the choice of entry mode has been widely recognised as being one of the critical decisions in a firm's internationalisation. However, most of the research primarily focuses upon Western multi-national enterprises (MNEs) rather than small-medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Recently, interest in the international business activities of SMEs has been increasing. Nevertheless, little has been done in light of the choice of entry mode in the SME sector, especially for SMEs from developing countries. This study explored how Chinese SME managers make their strategic market entry choices when entering the UK to address the issue of whether Western MNEs' foreign investment theories are applicable to Asian SMEs. The decision making of entry mode choices involves complicated social processes such as social relationships both in and outside the firm. This research takes a social constructionist paradigm, trying to understand and interpret the Chinese SMEs decision maker's unique experiences, perceived values and embedded Chinese culture that can have great impact on their choice of entry modes. Cohering with this philosophical stance, 10 Chinese SMEs managers in the North East of the England were involved in qualitative interviews and data was analysed through template analysis. The findings of this thesis offer a more holistic picture of SME managers' decision making in terms of their entry mode choices. This study is inconsistent with the more classic motives of firms' internationalisation, such as securing raw materials and seeking low-cost labour as it reveals 2 previously unrecognised motives of Chinese SMEs' internationalisation, namely `seeking entrepreneurial freedom' and 'building their own international teams'. Moreover, 4 entry modes were used by the Chinese SMEs' entering the North East of England markets, including direct exporting, joint venture and wholly-owned subsidiary and internet entry mode. Interestingly, the joint venture mode used by Chinese SMEs in this study is operationally different from traditional joint ventures. Furthermore, a number of influencing factors emerged from the Chinese SME managers' accounts: firm-specific factors, strategy-factors, product-specific factors, networks and social culture factors and the decision maker's personal characteristics. In drawing upon their motives, influencing factors, and entry modes a 3-stage decision making process was discovered which combined rational and cybernetic strategic approaches that have been adopted by Chinese SMEs managers at different levels. Contributively, this study offers alternative understandings of the choice of entry mode. By drawing upon experiences of Chinese SME managers it extends the foreign investment theories based on Western-MNEs and offers a contribution to practice grounded in an Asian-SME context. Significantly, this thesis develops a practice-based framework by integrating factors into the whole decision making process, providing practical guidance for SME managers to inform their entry mode choices.

This study investigates the characteristics of first line managers (FLMs) required to manage absence 'effectively' within Gateshead Metropolitan Borough Council. An important theoretical contribution to knowledge is made by focusing specifically on the role and impact of FLMs which is an issue that has previously been identified as being important, but has not been researched specifically. A wide range of literature was explored from the fields of health management, psychology and business management to present a clear picture of the key issues involved in absence management. Discussions are provided on personal, organisational and group level characteristics which have been found to have an association with levels of employee absence, before looking at best practice in the management interventions that can be used. Five major hypotheses were generated from the literature and were further broken down into 21 testable sub-hypotheses. A positivist approach was taken using a quantitative methodology in order to meet the objectives of this study. This consisted of a range of research methods including a survey to FLMs, policy analysis and analysis of internal organisational documents. Using this variety of methods a clear picture of existing practices was developed and then analysed. This extensive methodological approach makes an interesting contribution to this research field and is in response to some earlier criticisms of research designs in this area. The survey results show multiple statistically significant relationships between variables and levels of absence including; the age of the FLMs; the division (p=0.01) and departments (p=0.02) in which the FLMs work, and their levels of knowledge of the organisation's absence management policy and procedures (p= 0.048). This allowed the rejection of the null hypotheses and states that there is an association between these variables and levels of absence of the FLMs' employees. However, there are also other interesting results that are of high practical significance despite the results not being statistically significant. This includes looking at relationships between variables such as career history and relationships with other stakeholders, when correlated with the absence levels of the FLMs' employees. The main results from the other research methods utilised in this study demonstrate that there is some ambiguity over responsibilities for managing absence and that absence management is not fully integrated into associated HR policies. Despite attempts to implement best practice interventions, there remain some indications of differences between rhetoric and reality. Recommendations for the organisation include the need to include supplementary details in their absence management policy and to condense the seven existing documents into one comprehensive policy guide. In addition the organisation needs to support their FLMs so that they understand exactly what their role in absence management entails and how and when they should work in partnership with other stakeholders.

Since 1997, when Thailand faced a severe financial crisis as a result of IMF debt, many Thai organisations have seen fit to use Buddhist Training and Development (T&D) programmes to change the way in which their employees work and think. Buddhist principles suggested that the crisis occurred due to the nation's mistaken focus on certain objectives, without paying attention to the wellbeing of humans. In other words, the country was absorbed with consumerism. It has been advised that focussing on Buddhism would aid in the mental recovery of the people affected by the crisis and improve the human resource development (HRD). This research takes a social constructionist epistemology, trying to understand and interpret data under the interpretive paradigm. The study explores the practise and provision of T&D based on Buddhist philosophies in a sample of Thai organisations by interviewing organisational practitioners; including trainers and trainees and observing the T&D courses. The work examines Buddhist T&D in the context of social responsibility and organisational ethics, whilst also considering the implications of its findings on the design of T&D courses for modern Thai business organisations using the content analysis method. Finally, it considers the impact of the research on the researcher as a trainer, lecturer and T&D practitioner. The findings of this thesis offer a clearer picture of Thai organisations in three areas: organisational development including T&D, social responsibility and morals, and Buddhist teaching and practises. The study is achieved by focussing on the overlapping areas of mind development, morality and modern perspectives such as corporate social responsibility (CSR) and management competency of business. In addition, the thesis explores how T&D of staff in Thai organisations can be utilised for the long-term benefit and success of staff themselves, organisations and society. It also identifies the strengths and opportunities the Buddhist approach offers. The characteristics of employees within Thai organisations are analysed along with their impact and effect on organisations. Particularly in relation to jobs, this thesis explores the ways to release anger, conflict or stress in the organisation and display good leadership characteristics. Finally, this DBA (Doctor of Business administration) thesis proposes a new T&D processes combining the Western style of business knowledge and Thai Buddhist T&D. Three new theoretical frameworks are contributed: Transformation of Learning Organisational Development and Buddhist T&D, Employee T&D Model and Buddhist T&D Policy. The roles of contributions to professional practise in an organisation as a leader and as a member of the organisation are also presented.

An appreciation of the extent of one's own knowledge is known as metaknowledge and it has been argued that students' ability to distinguish between what they know, and what they do not, is an important influence on academic success. However, previous research suggests a general tendency for individuals to display overconfidence in their knowledge, by overestimating how much they know. This study assessed the ability of learners studying business in higher education to appreciate the extent of their own knowledge and investigated the association between this capability and academic achievement. It therefore contributes towards answering broader questions regarding how well individuals are able to assess their own capabilities and what the implications of this are. Quantitative methodology was employed and multiple-choice tests used to investigate how accurately students were able to assess the extent of their knowledge of issues addressed in their study programmes. Analysis of over 12,500 judgements provided by 508 respondents revealed a general tendency for overconfidence and indicated that this was greater for males, older participants and particularly, for Chinese students. Consequently, interventions designed to moderate overconfidence may be particularly valuable for these sub-groups. In terms of its potential implications for learning, the research indicated that better metaknowledge was positively associated with higher levels of academic performance, particularly for those in their first year studying at the university. Consequently, while metacognitive skills, such as accurate self-monitoring, are typically poorly addressed in business schools, the findings from this study suggest that initiatives to improve self monitoring accuracy may be effective in enhancing student learning. Additionally, such interventions have other potential benefits for learners, since metacognitive monitoring skills may also usefully inform lifestyle decisions, as well as improving the chances of success in business and may therefore be particularly beneficial for business students.

Whilst there have been calls to theorize and explore how disability and ableism are constructed through organizing processes as a contribution to the critique of knowledge construction in organization studies (Harlan and Robert, 1998; Hearn and Parkin, 1993; Mumby, 2008), to date such calls have not been developed. Drawing upon the disability studies literature, a disability studies informed theoretical lens is developed and fused with the epistemological project in organization studies to answer the research question “What can disabled academics’ career experiences offer to studies of organization?” The theoretical potential of a disability studies lens is developed through a narrative inquiry with eight disabled academics. To interpret disabled academics’ narrative accounts the voice-centred relational method (Mauthner and Doucet, 1998), genealogical snapshot(Carabine, 2001) and voice and visibility framework (Simpson and Lewis, 2005; 2007)were fused. This enabled an approach to interpreting how disabled academics both construct through narrative and are constructed through discourse to explore their career experiences. Through a fusion of the disability studies lens and disability studies, boundaryless and academic career literatures, in-depth interpretations are offered which identify new insights into, and surface some of the discourses contributing to, the career boundaries disabled academics experience. This focus contributes to the boundaryless and academic career literatures by extending research to participants whose experiences are underresearched and under-theorized. The thesis offers insights into the different career boundaries disabled academics experience to those currently identified within the boundaryless and academic career literatures. The importance of, and negating responses to, disability and impairment effects related ways of organizing are argued to contribute to the career boundaries disabled academics experience. Ableism is argued to inform some of the discourses theorized, contributing to the perception of disability and impairment effects related ways of organizing as negated differences outside of normative expectations. The UK Higher Education context is complex. The career boundaries and discourses informing perceptions of disabled academics’ organizing requirements are argued to contribute to a hyper-complex organizing context. Within this hyper-complex context, disabled academics, and those they relate with, must negotiate to organize academic careers. This thesis offers a disability studies lens to organization studies as a productive theoretical lens through which disability and ableism are theorized and identified as productive categories for analysis, and as contributions to, studies of organization.

This work constructs a bridge across the "knowing-doing gap" of international staff exchange: the gap between strategy formulation and its execution within the constraints of a post-1992 university business school in the UK. It goes beyond the common, well-intentioned and yet vague statements involving the "encouragement" of international staff exchange to propose a model of execution through strategic entrepreneurship. The promotion of international staff mobility is a founding principle of the "Bologna Process", designed to create a converged system of higher education across Europe. Many UK "new" (ie post-1992) universities are engaged in the development of internationalisation strategies which include staff exchange. Meanwhile, the failure to execute strategy is increasingly acknowledged as a major problem in organisational performance. Using a first-, second and third-person Insider Action Research (AR) approach, the author initiated, planned, organised and implemented an international staff exchange between universities in the UK and France. Data generated were subjected to a double process of analysis in order to construct the new model. A policy of "subjectivity with transparency" and transcontextual credibility throughout enables the reader to judge transferability. Duality is the nature of this "bridge" and the simplistic transplant of the expatriation policies of commercial organisations is avoided. Concepts from the theoretical literature in three domains - strategic management and entrepreneurship in higher education, internationalisation of higher education and strategy execution through strategic entrepreneurship - are combined with the research analysis to propose that "strategic entrepreneurs" can execute the riskier elements of an internationalisation strategy, such as staff exchange. Members of the creative class, strategic entrepreneurs are attracted and motivated by the foundation of a diverse environment and entrepreneurial culture promoted by a university's values-driven, holistic approach to internationalisation. Their autonomous strategic behaviour must be facilitated by an execution-focussed organisational architecture. In a university, the overall approach to staff exchange should combine central and local (school-based) functions and resource both to develop strategic initiatives and to exploit tactical opportunities. This work broadens AR from education into strategic management, specifically linking the areas of strategic execution and strategic entrepreneurship.

This study explores how a concentrated ownership structure and the underlying firm strategies/activities or practices influence the performance of family-controlled publicly-listed firms in Malaysia. Specifically, it aims to enhance our understanding of how differing types of significant owners, control-enhancing means, business groups and firm diversification affect firm performance within a national corporate governance system characterized by pervasive political involvement in business. It also aims to enhance out understanding of the role of board independence in moderating the above effects. the distinctiveness of this study arises from its approach of considering ownership structure and the underlying firm strategies/activities or practices in an integrated manner with particular emphasis on their inter-relationships. Multivariate with moderate regression analysis were utilized as primary tools of analysis. Based on a sample of 314 firms, major findings include (i) the proportion of family equity ownership positively influences corporate performance, (ii) group-affiliated firms generally under-perform non-group affiliated firms, (iii) the heterogeneity of business groups results in considerable differences in performance. Specifically, size of business group has a negative moderating effect on the firm diversification-performance relationship, (iv) profit redistribution occurs in firms that have a high level of family ownership and that are affiliated to large business groups, (v) board independence in general lacks effectiveness in moderating the influence of firm strategies or activities on firm performance. In terms of practical/managerial implications, the study demonstrates (i) the importance of conceptualising corporate governance in a broader sense, particularly in emerging economies such as Malaysia, (ii) how policymakers and regulators may identify and better monitor firms that are more likely to expropriate investors and/or exhibit governance problems, and (iii) a potentially fruitful approach to be adopted by investment professionals in selecting firms with better overall governance structures and performance that enhance their investment returns, particularly in the long term.

This study investigates the effective measurement of employee commitment within the Nigerian banking sector. The relevance of the research originates from various research findings that shows that in most organisations, evidence abounds of employees' emotional and physiological distancing of themselves from their organisation even when the pay is highly competitive. In addition, there are also evidences of inconsistencies in research outcomes when Western commitment scale is employed within non-Western organisation. This study is therefore aimed at filling literature gaps on identified inconsistencies from the use of Western scales in measuring commitment in non-Western organisations and also to comprehend employee commitment behaviour in organisations within non-Western culture. In exploring the above issues, this research developed a 28-item, 7-point Likert scaled questionnaire, distributed to 200 participants with a 42% response rate. The research also employed exploratory factor analysis in the form of PCA and Varimax for factor extraction and scale reduction and Cronbach's Coefficient alpha internal consistency measure for reliability assessment. To take the study a step further, the scale was additionally subjected to statistical test using One Way ANOVA, Pearson's Chi-Square test, and Spearman' s rank order correlation in measuring employee commitment behaviours, using two variables: income and age. The outcome from the study was two-fold. The 28 items were reduced to 18 usable items with 3-factor extractions representing three components of commitment. Scale reliability was also measured. The first outcome shows that the scale is indeed a culturally suitable and usable (valid and reliable) scale for the assessment of employee commitment to their organisation in Nigeria with an alpha score of .930, evidence of strong scale reliability. The second outcome was from the test aimed at assessing the behavioural aspect of employee commitment to their organisation in relation to the two variables income and age. The outcome shows that the higher income earning Nigerian employees (employees within the income band 1.1 million and above), and employees within the age group 31-35 are likely to be less committed to their organisations than their counterparts. The study concludes with the view that to effectively measure employee commitment to organisations in non-Western Nigerian cultures, requires the development and use of an appropriate and culturally motivated usable and suitable (consistent and dependable) scale. The conclusions are also discussed in terms of the links between income, age and commitment. It identified that high income and age are not necessarily indicators of commitment; rather some factors associated with culture might have stronger influence on employee expression of commitment to their organisation.