Knowledge is the resource that provides the best possibilities of being competitive since it increases while used and is difficult to copy. Knowledge sharing has been shown to increase organizational performance in both tangible and intangible measures. Therefore, it is important that employees of a research and development department in a large Swedish industry, that were recommended to telework in combination with short-time working due to covid-19, continue sharing knowledge. This study aimed to analyze how employees in a development department share knowledge while teleworking and how it differs from knowledge sharing in a traditional office. The phenomenon was analyzed in-depth, especially what prevents the knowledge from being shared and knowledge sharing barriers that exist during telework. The objective was to gain further knowledge of how departments can share knowledge efficiently while teleworking. A qualitative single case study was conducted and 8 semi-structured interviews were held with employees at the department. The findings suggest that knowledge sharing occurs with tools that are used in a traditional office and that is no difference in terms of whom employees share knowledge with, but the face-to-face meetings are missing. A further suggestion is that it occurs by less informal knowledge sharing and that the meetings tend to have a stricter agenda that is kept at a higher degree than when working in a traditional office. The knowledge sharing barriers identified were: challenging to express knowledge, time constraints, uncertainty which knowledge to share with whom, less informal places to share knowledge, lack of trust, differences in experience/knowledge/education, attitude, and culture & leadership. The results give companies in similar situations cognizance of how knowledge sharing occurs and differ when suddenly teleworking is required and knowledge sharing barriers that exist. These findings identify risks and difficulties of knowledge sharing when teleworking.

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This study confined itself to an exploratory interpretive approach aimed at expanding the understanding of some elements that may affect virtual teams. It highlights the advantage of virtual teams over FTF teams.

Large family studies of complex disorders can be used to detect a genomic region linked with a particular illness. Where multiple families are found with common regions of linkage, this could be due to an ancestral mutation common to these families. In this thesis, I describe a method for studying allele sharing in families that share a linkage region, to identify a common founder mutation, thus maximising the results of replicated linkage studies. The method tests the hypothesis that the evidence for shared linkage is derived from the sharing of a common affected ancestor. By comparing the allelic similarity of haplotypes across common linkage regions, it is possible to identify any regions that are identical by descent between the families. A method of permutation analysis followed by a nested permutation technique have been developed to assess the statistical significance of allele sharing scores. Chapter 3 describes the proof of principle of the method through its application to known cystic fibrosis mutations and through simulated datasets. This provides both a real dataset and a much more diverse range of simulated conditions on which to test the method. The range of simulated data was also used to develop a set of criteria for the effective us of the method. In Chapter 4, the allele sharing method was applied to two replicated linkage regions on chromosome 4p15-16 that segregate with bipolar affective disorder. This was done over two phases, first taking in markers covering the genic regions of the shared linkage region and then followed up with a complete coverage of the region. This analysis identified a 200kb region with significant confidence within the 8Mb of the two linkage regions. The study of this region presents a clear example of how replicated linkage results that are caused by some founder effect, can be examined, and refined using this allele sharing method to vastly reduce the region under investigation.

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

Organizations are increasingly utilizing knowledge-sharing technologies to increase the amount of knowledge within their organization. While in most organizations, knowledge sharing is seen as a benefit, for law enforcement agencies it is viewed as a necessity. In order to protect against future terrorist attacks like September 11th, law enforcement agencies are trying to increase knowledge sharing across their current organizational boundaries. Given this massive undertaking, we have to wonder what are the potential unintended effects of this increase in knowledge sharing. This dissertation seeks to address this issue by understanding the relationships between individual and organizational factors, the use of knowledge sharing technology, and organizational outcomes.After a general discussion on knowledge, knowledge management strategies and technologies, a two-part model of knowledge sharing is proposed that 1) predicts outcomes given the use of knowledge sharing technology and 2) investigates the individual and organizational factors that serve as antecedents to the use of the knowledge sharing technology.The findings of this research suggest that given the characteristics of a police organization, an increase in the use of the knowledge sharing technology to communicate with external groups results in decreased productivity and job perceptions. Furthermore, this relationship may be moderated by factors within the police organization. Previous research on knowledge sharing has found that as knowledge sharing increases between individuals in different groups, productivity also increases. The results of this dissertation indicate that this is not always the case. By pulling together different areas of research, such as knowledge management, information technology, communication, and organizational behavior, this dissertation addresses the gaps in the research and contributes to the existing understanding of knowledge sharing. This dissertation also provides an important notice to law enforcement and other organizations: although they may approach knowledge sharing with the best intentions, there can be unintentional effects to increasing the use of knowledge sharing technology.

This research considers one of the most important of resources - knowledge. There is a widespread view that knowledge is important to organizations and this has led to the study of knowledge management. There are a plethora of definitions of knowledge and knowledge management, but knowledge sharing is recognised as being of fundamental importance. The literature shows the success of knowledge sharing is not only affected by factors including culture, management, technology, processes and structure but, more importantly, it is affected by how these factors interact and fit together. However there is little literature on alignment or strategic fit in knowledge sharing. This research adds to the literature by investigating the enablers and constraints of knowledge sharing and the possible effects of alignment. An interpretive approach using case studies triangulated with a survey is adopted, involving semi-structured interviews with 23 people across five organizations. The findings suggest that significant top management support and a strategy for knowledge sharing are necessary precursors of effective knowledge sharing. In the organizations which lacked this, there is little to encourage people to share and almost none of these organizations measured well on any aspect of knowledge sharing. There are widely varying uses of technology, but many are aimed at sharing data or information. Fewer uses of technology are geared to enabling or encouraging the communication necessary for knowledge sharing. The lack of senior management support may prevent any significant internal or external alignment so a possible approach to strategic fit for knowledge sharing is that strategy has to come first (and the management support that goes with it) and that this should lead to the embedding of the necessary behaviours for knowledge sharing. Only after this are processes and technology able to support knowledge sharing.

This study confined itself to an exploratory interpretive approach aimed at expanding the understanding of some elements that may affect virtual teams. It highlights the advantage of virtual teams over FTF teams.

Boston University. University Professors Program Senior theses. / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-02