The thesis focussed on the need to understand the nature of design processes in innovative, multi-domain, organisational information systems design. A cross-disciplinary, interpretive investigation of organisational IS design was based upon multiple literatures: information system development and methodologies, human-computer interaction, situated action, social psychology, psychology of programming, computer-supported co-operative work, computer science, design 'rationale' and organisational behaviour. Three studies were performed: 1. A case study of a user-centred design project, employing grounded theory analysis. 2. A postal survey of IS development approaches in large UK companies. 3. A longitudinal field study, involving participant observation over a period of 18 months in a cross-domain design team, employing ethnography, discourse analysis and hermeneutics. The main contributions of this research were to provide rich insights into the interior nature of IS design activity, situated in the context of the organisation (a perspective which is largely missing from the literature); to provide conceptual models to explain the management of meaning in design, and design framing activity; to produce a social action model of organisational information system development which may form the basis for communicating the situated nature of design in teaching; and to suggest elements of a process model of design activity in multi-domain, organisational information system development. The implications of the research findings for IS managers and developers are also considered a significant contribution to practice. Detailed findings from these studies relate to: I. Disparities between the technology-centred view of organisational IS development found in the literature and the business and organisation-based approaches reported in the survey. 2. The role of pre-existing 'investment in form' in shaping the meaning of design processes and outcomes for other team members and its implications for the management of expertise and for achieving double-loop leaming. 3. The detailed processes by which design is framed at individual and group levels of analysis. These findings indicated a mismatch between "top down" models of organisational IS design and observed design "abstraction" processes, which were grounded in concrete analogies and local exemplars; this finding has significant implications for organisational design approaches, such as Business Process Redesign. 4. The distributed nature of group design, which has implications for achieving a 'common vision' of the design and for the division of labour in design groups. Intersubjectivity with respect to process objectives may be more critical to design success than intersubjectivity with respect to the products of design. - 5. The political nature of design activity: it was concluded that an effective design process must manage conflict between the exploration of organisational possibilities and influential, external stakeholders' expectations of efficiency benefits. 6. Design suffers from legitimacy problems related to the investigation of a "grey area" between explicit system design goals and boundary and emergent definitions of design goals and target system boundaries; this issue needs to be managed both internally to the design-team and externally, in respect of stakeholders and influential decision-makers. It is argued that the situated nature of design requires the teaching of design skills to be achieved through simulated design contexts, rather than the communication of abstract models. It is also suggested that the findings of this thesis have implications for knowledge management and organisational innovation. If organisational problem-investigation processes are seen as involving distributed knowledge, then the focus of organisational learning and innovation shifts from sharing organisational knowledge to accessing distributed organisational knowledge which is emergent and incomplete.

The findings of this multi-site study emphasise the importance of Organisational Culture for integrating clinical information systems into intensive care units. A novel model, the Iterative Systems Integration Model, has two principle components, these being Organisational Culture and the Actual Usefulness of the clinical information system. The model is derived from empirical data collected in four intensive care sites in England and Denmark, with one site being used to validate the model. The model highlights clinical information systems as directly affecting the work processes of the sites investigated, which in turn affect the Organisational Culture and Actual Usefulness of the clinical information system used, and these features affect clinical information system integration. This forms an iterative process of change as clinical information systems are introduced and integrated. Intensive care units are complex organisations, with complex needs and work processes. The impact of clinical information systems on these work processes is investigated in this thesis using Role Activity Diagrams. These diagrams are analysed to show that although clinical work processes are consistent at each site, the information processes differ. Intensive care information processes are found to have the potential to be much simplified with the introduction of seamless clinical information systems. Qualitative data collectio n methods were deployed, i. e., observations, interviews, and shadowing of clinical staff, together with a questionnaire at each site for further validation. Data were analysed using grounded theory to extract salient variables, which informed the development of the model. These factors were indicative of the Organisational Culture of the sites investigated and the Actual Useftilness of the clinical information systems being used. It was posited that clinical information systems that reconcile expectations of both hospital management and clinical staff - and that have the potential to adapt to their organisational environment - have a greater chance of surviving in complex environments such as intensive care. Despite decades of Health Infon-flatics, no such systems exist in their entirety; this research shows that 'ancient problems' of clinical information systems integration are still prevalent, and presents the Iterative Systems Integration Model, the application of which may assist with the integration of clinical information systems in intensive care.

Knowledge management (KM) is an emerging discipline that promises to capitalize on organizations intellectual capital. KM refers to the process of managing the life-cycle of knowledge relevant to areas that are mission critical to the organization. This includes efforts to capture, store, and deploy knowledge using a combination of information technology and business processes. In recent years, KM has become a critical subject of discussion in the business literature. Both business and academic communities believe that by leveraging knowledge, an organization can sustain its long-term competitive advantage. Approaches to KM varied form emphasizing the capabilities of information and communication technologies to the focus on social systems such as employee training and motivation. Engineering organizations led the way in KM initiatives realizing the potential of successful KM implementation in decreasing production time and cost, increasing quality, making better decisions as well as improve organizations' performance and provide a competitive advantage. Although some engineering organizations reported early KM success, other organizations have tried and failed to implement KM. These failures have been linked to the lack of a generally accepted framework and methodology to guide successful implementation of KM in organizations. This primary aim of this research is to produce a model for a successful implementation of KM in engineering organizations which integrates the various approaches and key factors to implementing KM. The study has produced a model which provides a framework that identifies the different types of knowledge available in engineering organizations, the KM life-cycle which is needed to manage this knowledge, and the key factors that facilitate this process. The model also provides management with guidance for implementing KM in their organizations. In order to achieve the aims and objectives of this research, a triangulation nonexperimental approach is adopted using qualitative in-depth case study with triangulation of data collection methods that uses observation, structured interviews, unstructured interviews, historical data collection, and document review. This is followed by a quantitative approach with the use of a questionnaire to further validate and generalize the proposed KM model. In building the KM model a thorough review of previous related literature from different disciplines was conducted. The literature reviewed included various issues relating to KM, such as KM approaches, perspectives, frameworks, and methodologies as well as strategic planning, human resources, instructional design theories, organizational learning, information technology, etc.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Wollongong, 2006. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references: leaf 289-297.

Thesis (M.Sc. (Computer Science)) -- Universiteit van Pretoria, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Sc.) - Carleton University, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 138-145). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Syracuse University, 2008. / "Publication number: AAT 3333579."

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1990. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 120-125).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Kent State University, 2006. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed June 11, 2009). Advisor: Natasha Levinson. Keywords: library and information science, information literacy, library instruction, school librarianship, academic librarianship, professionalization of librarianship. Includes bibliographical references (p. 241-256).

Thesis (M.S.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 1994. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 45-49).