The need for faster, more flexible and less risky ways for organisations to expand their capabilities and competencies increasingly lead to the formation and proliferation of networking strategies and partners. Understanding the potential contribution that CoP membership can provide within these teams is a step towards developing and refining a strategy to support and enhance the speedy progression of the team towards a productive phase. The study shows that membership of researchers to the same or similar CoPs have some impact on the norming stage, and assist in reaching the performing / productive stage faster in team development. The survey in particular has indicated that similar standards, practices, terminology, ethics, standards, peer recognition, trust and a sense of belonging have more of an impact on the productive phase of team forming, than on the norming phase. The hard factors such as terminology, standards and similar practices have a strong correlation with the softer factors such as a sense of belonging and trust. This information should be utilised in both the socialisation processes in academic institutions as part of the education of professionals, as well as organisational approaches to Research and Development (R&D), information sharing and development of the researchers. The paper also highlights emerging organisational and strategic Best Practices currently prevalent in R&D teams and collaborative projects. It is clear that research collaborations cuts across the whole spectrum of business and management areas - from strategy, across intellectual property issues, finance, strategic human resource management, R&D management and innovation, knowledge management, organisational values and culture, and many more. To support innovation and R&D on a strategic level, both internally and on inter-firm collaborations, requires a review of the total organisational strategy, culture and norms in an organisation. Innovation and R&D support should be a holistic approach, with strategic and pro-active risk management supported by appropriate strategic human resources management and systems. Literature on CoPs, teams, social capital (SC), knowledge management (KM), intellectual capital (IC), intellectual property (IP), strategy and governance provide theoretical grounding. / Business Leadership / Ph. D.

The need for faster, more flexible and less risky ways for organisations to expand their capabilities and competencies increasingly lead to the formation and proliferation of networking strategies and partners. Understanding the potential contribution that CoP membership can provide within these teams is a step towards developing and refining a strategy to support and enhance the speedy progression of the team towards a productive phase. The study shows that membership of researchers to the same or similar CoPs have some impact on the norming stage, and assist in reaching the performing / productive stage faster in team development. The survey in particular has indicated that similar standards, practices, terminology, ethics, standards, peer recognition, trust and a sense of belonging have more of an impact on the productive phase of team forming, than on the norming phase. The hard factors such as terminology, standards and similar practices have a strong correlation with the softer factors such as a sense of belonging and trust. This information should be utilised in both the socialisation processes in academic institutions as part of the education of professionals, as well as organisational approaches to Research and Development (R&D), information sharing and development of the researchers. The paper also highlights emerging organisational and strategic Best Practices currently prevalent in R&D teams and collaborative projects. It is clear that research collaborations cuts across the whole spectrum of business and management areas - from strategy, across intellectual property issues, finance, strategic human resource management, R&D management and innovation, knowledge management, organisational values and culture, and many more. To support innovation and R&D on a strategic level, both internally and on inter-firm collaborations, requires a review of the total organisational strategy, culture and norms in an organisation. Innovation and R&D support should be a holistic approach, with strategic and pro-active risk management supported by appropriate strategic human resources management and systems. Literature on CoPs, teams, social capital (SC), knowledge management (KM), intellectual capital (IC), intellectual property (IP), strategy and governance provide theoretical grounding. / Business Leadership / Ph. D.

Malaysia is a transition economic country that aims to be a developed country by 2020. In realising this mission (Vision 2020), the cluster concept has been an interest and adopted by the central authorities. There are few years ahead to reach the targeted year and it interest of this study to investigate the relevant development on its own engineered cluster of the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) that was put forward on the success of Silicon Valley in the US. This thesis focuses on the development of the MSC cluster in the Malaysia context. It examines and measures the state of the cluster, the role played by its core actors (from Triple Helix perspective) and their relationship in the MSC. The role of collaboration has been used to measure the relationship among actors with the key determinants of cluster formation. A mixed data collection method was used to answer the research question and objectives involved. A conceptual model for analysing the MSC cluster is proposed, bringing together insights from the literature on clusters, role of actors, collaborative relationship and the complex systems of innovation approach. This conceptual model uncover the weaknesses of social dimension (social infrastructure) in Porter’s diamond model and the general approach of Triple Helix model in the cluster development. The cluster lifecycle model is used to add the depth to the analysis on the condition of cluster development.