This thesis studies the notion of knowledge in business firms, and in particular the concept of knowledge mobilization, understood as the mechanisms used by organizations to apply, transfer and retain knowledge about cause and effect relationships. As a theoretical framework, we use here a derivative of the resource based view of the firm called the knowledge based view. This theory is used to understand and analyze how service organizations in international strategic alliances developed and refined their knowledge base. / Methodologically, this thesis utilizes a qualitative, longitudinal perspective, based on several cases of organizations in similar structural context but whose results after a few years of operation show large variances. The findings of this work show that the usefulness of knowledge for business firm (its value), is highly dependent on the life-cycle of the organization. Also, the types of knowledge mobilized varied also according to position in the life-cycle. Whereas younger, inexperienced organizations sought to transfer and develop knowledge, older organizations tried to prevent knowledge from dissipating. All these findings contribute to the creation of a contingent, evolutionary view of knowledge in business firms. In addition, the notion of knowledge consolidation (or effortful activities needed to maintain a piece of knowledge in the organization) is developed, and evidence is presented to support it.

The focus of this thesis was to utilize the organizational action research process to formulate recommendations on how to develop a leadership system for managers within Mount Royal University (MRU). The following organizational action research question and sub questions guided the research: How can Mount Royal University support leadership development for individuals who are new to management roles? The sub questions were: What are the key leadership competencies? If new management roles have incorporated leadership into their practice, what would we expect to see? How will new management integrate leadership into their roles? The research data collected were from a series of focus groups with managers and senior managers. The four themes that encapsulated what is required for effective leadership development of MRU managers were, organizational understanding of leadership, leadership development, leadership community, and leadership culture. Research findings and relevant literature concluded that MRU needed a model to guide the desired leadership behaviors. Leadership behaviors require a supportive system with a flexible yet rigid leadership framework. In addition, vision, values and community would act to prepare managers for the change that leadership development required. The project recommendations reflected the need for MRU managers to explore, recreate, and define leadership. Specific leadership characteristics were identified within a competency framework. Recommendations linking leadership to MRU's Human Resources systems were made. Lastly, communities of practice and leadership resources were suggested as leadership support mechanisms for managers.

As the United Nation Decade of Education for Sustainable Development draws to a close, there are growing calls for a critical reappraisal of the state of sustainability in Higher Education. The emerging literature suggests that despite modest gains in some areas, Higher Education’s overall engagement with the principles of sustainability has been both piecemeal and accommodatory leading many to ask: what is blocking this transformation? The questions that guided this research were: how do academics conceptualize 1) sustainability, 2) sustainable universities, and 3) the role they see for the university in envisioning a sustainable future. The purpose was to better understand what a culturally sensitive vision of organizational change for sustainability at the university could resemble and to offer insight into how to negotiate cultural or values-based barriers to change. This thesis discusses how culturing a perspective of critical ‘sustainabilities,’ based in pluralism and critical openness, as a vision of change for sustainability at the university is likely to be more aligned with academic culture while concomitantly helping to foster the development of diverse and transformative notions of sustainability.

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Selection and adaptation paradigms have been jointly employed in the derivation of a theoretical model of firm evolution. This construct enabled researchers to explore: "why are there so many different kinds of organizations?". In that, evolutionary influences and adaptive firm behaviour were simultaneous forces that shape the survival of organizational forms over time. Such a notion was applied towards a dynamic programming context. This dynamic programming model was translated into a computer simulation such that an empirical representation of firm evolution was depicted. / The results from four computer simulations confirmed the selection and adaptation propositions described in this research. The simulations found evolutionary forces to be significant determinants to differentiating firm survival. While, adaptive firm behaviour only served to prolong organizational survivability with in the confines of the selection forces of the market. / Future organizational research should focus on expanding the dimensions of strategic adaptation, strategic, voluntarism, niche width dynamics, organizational inertia theory and organizational slack. By addressing these areas, a more comprehensive depiction of organizational evolution could be attained.

This is a case study which investigated the perceived consequences of the organizational change that was implemented in January 2013 at Karlstad University. The study aimed to explore the experiences of the employees concerning the changes in organizational structure and internal communication. This was done through a set of eight individual standardized qualitative interviews with members from different departments. A lot of effort and thought was given to the ethical implications and to create a comfortable and open climate during the actual interviews to ensure that the respondents felt free to speak openly and honestly about their personal opinions and experiences. It is evident that the overall vision was ambitious; aiming to create a more effective organization through cutting off excessive administrative personnel and streamlining decision paths. However according to the opinions of the respondents it was clear that the result was far from the desired goal. Essentially, efficiency was only achieved at the top level. Previous administrative tasks have been moved to new members and a major uncertainty has arisen. A critical reason for the failure was the lack of communication during the organizational change, which created lots of antagonism from the employees. The management was unsuccessful in making the members feel involved in the decision making, and a lack of transparency was apparent. The hopes of a transparent organization were then high after the change, but proved to turn out quite the contrary. Decision referrals have failed to reach the employees until after the final decision has been made. The decision paths are not considered to be more effective amongst the departments and a massive dissatisfaction has emerged since employees no longer can make their own decision on matters that involve them. This involves for example shaping their own syllabi, something which they were fully capable and successful in doing before the change. A massive micromanagement has thus been created, and it is not deemed adapted to the organization as a whole. This has created an impression amongst the members that they are no longer trusted or considered competent. The merging of departments has not been successful either. Some combinations are not considered logical and the desire to break new grounds has not been achieved. The old department groups instead appear to have grown stronger, and not the cooperation in-between them, not even within the newly combined departments. One reason for this may be that the idea and hope of increasing cooperation across department borders was a desire from the management, and not the departments themselves. Thus, there is uncertainty both in the current leadership structure and internal communication. The members are lacking proper instructions on how communication should pass both up and down. Therefore they desire more distinct guidelines and an explicit division of responsibilities. The conclusion is therefore unambiguous; improved effectiveness has only been achieved in the top layers of the organization, and not facilitated work or improved the situation of the employees. This consequence is pitiful at an organization such as a university with concurrent research, which definitely possesses the knowledge and competences within both organizational structures and internal communication. Conclusively, they have not managed in successfully converting their internal assets from theory to action. Key words: internal communication, organizational change, organizational structure / Detta är en fallstudie över konsekvenserna av omorganisationen som skedde i januari 2013 på Karlstads universitet. Syftet var att ta reda på medarbetarnas upplevelse av förändringarna inom internkommunikationen och organisationsstrukturen. Detta uppnåddes genom åtta stycken personintervjuer av strukturerad form med anställda ifrån olika institutioner. Stor vikt lades på de etiska övervägandena och för att skapa en trygghet och tillit under själva intervjutillfällena så att respondenterna kunde svara öppet och ärligt gällande sina åsikter och upplevelser. Det framgår att den ursprungliga visionen hade ambition; där man önskade effektivisering med hjälp av mindre administrativ personal och effektivare beslutsvägar. Enligt medarbetarnas uppfattning blev dock resultatet långt ifrån idealet. På det stora hela förbättrades effektiviteten i beslutsvägarna endast högt upp i hierarkin. Administrativa personalens uppgifter blev flyttade till nya medarbetare och en stor otydlighet uppstod. En avgörande anledning var att man misslyckades i kommunikationen under processens gång, vilket gjorde att många medarbetare motsatte sig förändringen. Man misslyckades då medarbetarna inte kände sig delaktiga i de beslut som fattades, och därmed upplevde processen som ogenomskinlig. Hoppet om en transparent organisation var stort inledningsvis vid omorganiseringen, men det har snarare blivit tvärt om då beslutsremisser inte kommer ut till medarbetarna förrän efter besluten är genomförda. Beslutsvägarna känns inte effektivare nere på ämnesnivå, och ett stort missnöje har uppstått då medarbetarna inte längre har rätt till att besluta kring saker som står nära dem, exempelvis sina egen kursplaner, något som de tidigare anser sig ha klarat av mycket bra själva. Det har således uppstått en detaljstyrning uppifrån som inte passar verksamheten och detta har skapat en känsla bland medarbetarna av att de inte längre är betrodda. Sammanslagningen av institutioner blev inte heller perfekt, då vissa kombinationer inte känns logiska och visionen om att bryta mark inte uppenbarat sig. Ämnena i sig har istället blivit stärkta snarare än samarbetet mellan dem, vilket kan grunda sig i att idén om samarbete inte kom som ett önskemål från ämnena själva utan uppifrån i hierarkin. Det finns således en otydlighet både i strukturen och kommunikationen. Det är oklart hur kommunikationen ska hanteras nerifrån och uppåt, och därför önskas tydligare riktlinjer och ansvarsområden. Slutsatsen är alltså entydig; effektiviseringen har enbart rört ledningen och inte underlättat eller förbättrat situationen för medarbetarna. Detta ifrågasätts då en organisation som ett universitet med aktiv forskning inom både organisationsstruktur och internkommunikation väl besitter kunskap och kompetenser, men inte lyckats omvandla dessa tillgångar från teori till praktik i sin egen verksamhet. Nyckelord: internkommunikation, organisationsförändring, organisationsstruktur

There is a huge skills shortage in South Africa which impacts negatively on its worldwide competitiveness. Since the advent of democracy, the South African government has been faced with the challenge of addressing one of the major legacies of apartheid; namely, the dire skills shortage affecting the majority of the citizens of this country. This legacy of apartheid has a direct correlation with the economic performance of the country. Various intervention strategies to remedy this socioeconomic situation were explored, resulting in the birth of various Skills Development Acts, which will have far-reaching consequences for all sectors of the South African economy. Skills transfer is at the centre of all these Acts. The impact of training on the ‘bottom-line’ has always been the concern for most business organisations, not only in South Africa, but the world over. However, the focus for most of these business organisations, in terms of strategic human resource development, has arguably, focused mainly on middle management and top management. The most fundamental and underlying hypothesis of this study therefore, is to highlight the difference in production brought by lower-level management of these business organisations as a consequence of training opportunities offered to them. The actual implementation of production targets occurs at this level of management. Thus, it is the researcher’s contention that focuses and endeavours to improve productivity through strategic human resource development, need to consider lower-level employees as a critical part of this strategic mission. The empirical objectives of this thesis were firstly, to validate the four questionnaires used in this study namely, the Motivation/Job Satisfaction Questionnaire (JDI); the Organisational Climate Questionnaire (LSOCQ); the Effectiveness of Training Questionnaire and the Self-rated Performance Questionnaire for employees in selected organisations in South Africa. Secondly, it was to determine the reliability of the above mentioned constructs. Thirdly, the aim was to determine differences between employee motivation and job satisfaction and organisational climate levels of various demographic groups. Fourthly, it was to assess the relationship between the three variables namely, motivation and job satisfaction, organisational climate and effectiveness of training; and lastly, to determine whether effectiveness of training can predict employee motivation and job satisfaction and perception of organisational climate. A pre-post longitudinal study, following a form of quasi-experimental research comparable pre-test post-test one group design (Cooper & Schindler, 2000:405; Shaughnessy & Zechmeister, 1997), with a random sample of (N = 604 pre-; and N = 526 post-) of lower level employees in five selected companies across sectors in South Africa was used. All the questionnaires, that is those previously validated namely, the Job Description Index Questionnaire (JDI); Litwin and Stringer’s (1968) Organisational Climate Questionnaire (LSOCQ); Self-rated Performance (SELFPERF); and the one constructed and validated namely, the Effectiveness of Training Questionnaire (EFFTRA) were based on Kirkpatrick’s (1976) framework for the evaluation of a training programme and a demographic questionnaire which were administered. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the measuring instruments in terms of frequency distribution tables and summary statistics namely the mean and standard deviation. Cronbach’s alpha coefficients were used to describe the reliability of the measuring instruments. Exploratory factor analysis with a Varimax rotation was used to determine the validity of the constructs of motivation/job satisfaction, organisational climate and effectiveness of training and Cronbach coefficient alpha was used to establish the reliability of the same constructs. Hypothesis testing was conducted to look for significant differences between constructs across both pre and post sample groups. Pearson correlation coefficients were used to determine the relationship between the measuring instruments. Regression analyses were used to develop possible significant models in line with the objectives of the study. The results revealed that all constructs used were both valid and reliable, supported by both the literature research and the empirical findings of this study. For example this study provided a significant contribution in that it developed a valid and reliable measuring instrument in the form of the effectiveness of a training questionnaire. In addition, significant differences within constructs (namely, motivation/job satisfaction and organisational climate) across both pre and post groups were identified specifically in regard to certain demographics namely different organisations, gender, age, home language and race. Also significant differences were found between the levels of both motivation/job satisfaction and organisational climate constructs of employees in terms of skilled/semi-skilled groups and qualification levels in particular. It is also worth noting that, one of the study’s most significant findings revealed that those employees that received more training are more motivated and have an increased perception about their organisational climate than those who received less or no training at all. Therefore, the two core variables of this research (namely, motivation/job satisfaction and organisational climate) are both influenced by skilled/semi-skilled groups as well as the amount of training received. Finally, the results also revealed significant relationships between the constructs of motivation/job satisfaction, organisational climate and effectiveness of training. A few interesting regression models were also developed. The first and second models respectively showed that effectiveness of training was strongly influenced by motivation/job satisfaction and in the case of the second model by organizational climate. A third model also revealed that motivation/job satisfaction could be well modelled by the independent variables of self performance, organizational climate and effectiveness of training and a forth showed that organizational climate could be well modelled from the independent variables of self performance, motivation/job satisfaction and effectiveness of training. In conclusion, the significance and limitations of the research are discussed, followed by recommendations for organisations and for future research. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, 2009.

This dissertation provides a sociological description and explanatory account of the organisational transformation in the Durban Public Order Police (POP) unit following the transition to democratic governance in South Africa in the mid-1990s. In contrast to other more cursory commentary on police organisational change in South Africa, an in-depth case study is used to provide a close-in examination of the details of successes and limitations of particular aspects of the transformation project. Through the use of an ethnographic approach - supported by quantitative research methods - I explore the mechanisms that were used to bring about change in Durban POP and assess the extent to which this change process has been successful. Extending the work of Janet Chan and Edgar Schein, I argue that for police organisational change to take place, there needs to be a shift in both the field (objective, historical relations or the structural conditions of police work) but also in existing 'police culture' (basic assumptions and values). Police organisational transformation can only be partially brought about through conventional mechanisms of change such as new policies, revised training, or even new entrylevel recruitment programmes. Rather, fundamental shifts in assumptions and values requires a) changes in the way in which police work is structured and evaluated; b) daily experiences 'on the streets' that demonstrate that new policing responses achieve desired and positive outcomes; and c) a work environment that is supportive whereby all members feel acknowledged and where the diversity of members (and consequently of communities more broadly) is valued. To empirically validate this argument, three key areas of the organisational life of Durban POP are examined. First, the extent to which the behaviour of members of the unit toward the public has changed following the implementation of new training and policy is closely examined. I argue that mechanical change in police behaviour was not difficult to achieve. However, this behavioural change was only partly accompanied by more fundamental changes in the basic assumptions that police held about their work and their environment. Changed behaviour was, as a result, contingent on immediate circumstances and on the extent of supervision and gUidance provided to unit members by their officers. Second, in order to explain this low level of change, I examine the nature of management and supervision in the unit. Despite the emphasis in the South African public service legislation on participatory and professional management practices, police supervisors and managers had retained an autocratic management style. In addition, police supervisors and managers did not always provide sufficient direction to rank-and-file officers, much needed during times of police organisational change. Third, in further explanation of the limited level of change, the extent to which pre-existing social cleavages (based on race and gender) that existed within the unit have changed is explored. Despite affirmative action and equity legislation and programmes, the unit continued to be plagued by deep racial and gender divisions which were reinforced by the structural make-up of the unit and the inability of middle management to challenge them and to provide alternative ways of organizing and interacting within the unit. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal,Durban, 2002.