This research observes a science teacher¡¦s first experiment of technology integration into teaching. Data are also collected from interviews with the teacher and students. This case study aims to 1) depict what it means to an elementary school teacher to integrate information technology into teaching, 2) observe during the teaching process what preparation a teacher did, what problems one encountered, and what adjustments to make afterwards, 3) analyze actions a teacher took to integrate information technology and the meaning behind the actions, 4) clarify the role of knowledge transformation played in the process of technology integration into teaching. Based on one-semester observations and interviews, the data coding and interpretation suggests the following four findings: 1. The significance of technology integration into teaching lies in creating circumstances for students¡¦ critical thinking and the evaluation of information instead of emphasizing the use of information technology as indispensable tools for teaching and learning. 2. Before integration, the impact factors are a teacher¡¦s competences in effective search for WWW resources search and in relating resources with teaching materials. In the midst of the integration process, obstacles include the timing for integration, the characteristics of interdisciplinary subjects, students¡¦ computer literacy and the improper motivations for technology integration. After the integration process, the primary modification for the case study teacher is to adjust the sequence of teaching process to match his own computer class schedule. 3. Overall, in the process of technology integration, actions are the combinations of a teacher¡¦s beliefs and other incidents happened in the process. The actions mean the assimilation and transformation of a teacher¡¦s beliefs and the expectation of teaching. 4. The more the teacher knowledge is transformed into action, the more the teacher knowledge become solid. The future study is suggested to focus on how the teacher¡¦s teaching competences and experiences can combined with information technologies as well as to explore elements of effective teaching methods and models for technology integrated instruction.

In recent years the funds spent on research and development (R & D) have grown considerably. An indication of the extent of the growth in the U.K. was given by Hart (1) who noted that in 1900 approximately 0.05% of the gross national product was spent on research. This percentage increased to 0.25% in 1938, 1.6% in 1954 and 2.7% in 1962. Villiers (2) quotes a similar growth in the U.S., where research expenditure grew from <1% of gross national product in 1947, to about 3% in 1962. (In the U.K. it appears, from some statistics produced by the Ministry of Technology (3), that research expenditure has remained at about 2.7% of GNP over the period 1962-1967). The allocation of these resources poses a number of challenging questions in governmental, industrial and academic spheres. At a national level the kind of questions that might be asked are (a) what proportion of the gross national product should be devoted to government sponsored research, or (b) how should funds be divided between the claims of the aerospace, computer, or machine tool industries, or (c) how should funds be divided between the competing claims of the nuclear physicists and marine biologists. The large industrial concern is faced with similar problems though the resources involved are smaller. ICI for example spent about £30M on R & D in 1968, and during the later 1960's, the growth rate was about 8% per year. The Company must decide on the total amount to be spent on R & D and how it is to be allocated between different Divisions of the Company and different research categories. At lower levels of management two of the questions arising are (a) which projects shall be selected, and (b) how should the flow of resources to projects be controlled. It is now generally accepted that there is a need for techniques for assisting in the management of R & D. Jones (4) summed up the situation well when he wrote "It is not surprising that there is an increasing amount of discussion on the management of R & D for profit. Business becomes increasingly competitive and R & D activities, just as those of production and marketing must be examined to see how they can best play their part." Already a large number of relevant papers have been published, but as yet no significant breakthrough has been achieved. An important feature of the literature has been the concentration on theoretical models as a means of assisting research managers: reports of new methodology considerably out-number reports of practical testing of the methods in research laboratories. Throughout the author's research the opposite bias, that is to say towards a practical rather than a theoretical approach has been maintained. This was facilitated by the author completing most of his research in the R & D Department of the Mond Division of ICI (of which he is a member). The research presented in this thesis began with the very general objective of examining and developing methods for the allocation of resources (capital and manpower) to R & D and so Chapter 1 discusses some relevant methods that have been proposed in the literature. It was later decided to concentrate on the development of an improved system of project evaluation and control. Chapter 2 analyses an established system in this field, and looks at past projects to demonstrate some of the problems such a system should accept. Later chapters present the system that was developed during the research and record experience of testing the various procedures on a number of Mond Division R & D projects. As these are either still in progress or are only recently completed it has been necessary, for reasons of security, to limit descriptive detail and to normalize numerical data. Such normalization has been made in a manner that preserves the essential financial characteristics of the project. It is well perhaps, in the Introduction, to distinguish between the terms research and development. Following Baines, Bradbury and Suckling ( (5), page (2) ) process definition will be the term used to cover the steps required to take exploratory production activities from laboratory scale to full-scale. Development will refer to the problems of opening up a business area with a new product and will include economic assessment and marketing activities. For the most part these activities are closely linked to research activities and are usually performed by members of the same project team. The convention followed in the thesis will be to use the term 'research' to refer to all the activities of the project team and to assume that these also include some development activities as defined above. Only when discussing the work of others who have used the term R & D, or when there is a reason to emphasise the commercial exploitation content of a project will the word development be used.

This thesis analyses the process of knowledge-base adoption in the enterprise environment. Using data from two knowledge-management systems operated by the company, Semanta, s.r.o. we studied the day-to-day interactions of employees using the system and identified the important drivers of system adoption. We began by studying the effect of co-workers' collaborative activities on knowledge creation within the system. It was found that they had a positive and significant impact upon overall knowledge creation and thus on adoption. Secondly, we explored how the newly defined concept of gamification could help determine and encourage an increase in knowledge creation. The use of gamification tools, such as the "Hall of Fame" page, turned out to have significant influence in the adoption process. Thirdly, we examined how users continually seek knowledge within the system and how asking for missing information and being supplied with answers has an impact on adoption rates. It was shown that the quicker the responses and the more experts dealing with requests the greater the impact on knowledge base adoption. Finally, we showed that the size and character of the company deploying the knowledge management system does not influence the adoption drivers. This thesis represents an effort to fill the...

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Understanding factors that enhance or diminish performance levels of individuals is instrumental for achieving individual (low level) and organisational (high level) goals. In this study, the effect of social network structure, position, ties and information and communication technologies (ICT) use on performance attitudes of knowledge intensive workers in dispersed occupational communities is investigated. Based on social network theories of strength of weak ties and structural holes, and the social influence model of technology use, a theoretical framework is developed. In conjunction with qualitative interviews conducted with subject matter experts, the framework is used to further develop and refine a valid and reliable survey instrument. Secondly, network measures of degree centrality, density, structural holes (constraint and efficiency), tie strength and tie diversity are applied for exploring the association with ICT use and performance from a sample of 110 rural general practitioners. Empirical results suggest that network structure, position and ties of knowledge workers play a crucial role in individual performance and ICT use. In particular, degree centrality and task-level ICT use was found to be positively associated with performance while ego-network constraint was found to be negatively correlated with performance. In terms of ICT use, functional diversity and degree centrality were positively associated with task-level ICT use whereas ego-network efficiency was found to be negatively correlated with ICT use at the communication-structure level. Among the variables that showed significance, degree centrality best explained overall variance for performance, and functional diversity best explained overall variance for task-level ICT use, although professional accreditations remains a potent indicator also. The results from this study resonate with findings from past literature and extend traditional theory of social networks and performance within the micro level to include geographically dispersed individuals involved in knowledge intensive work. For individuals in such non-competitive settings, traditional network theories such as structural holes theory still apply. However, a key finding is that network structure is a much more potent predictor of performance although network position is important. The second key finding addresses a major gap in the literature concerning understanding social processes that influence ICT use. As the technology acceptance and the social influence models lack empirical evidence from a social networks perspective, this research shows that rather than the strength of ties which functions as a conduit of novel ideas and information, it is the functional tie diversity within individual professionals networks that increase ICT use at the task-level. Methodologically, the study contributes towards a triangulation approach that utilises both qualitative and quantitative methods for operationalising the study. The quantitative method includes a non-traditional “networks” method of data collection and analysis to serve as a fine complement to traditional research methods in behavioural studies. The outcome is a valid and reliable survey instrument that allows collection of both individual attribute and social network data. The instrument is theoretically driven, practically feasible to implement, time-efficient and easily replicable for other similar studies. At the domain level, key findings from this study contradict previous literature which suggests that professionals in occupational communities such as general practitioners decline in performance as they age. In fact, findings from this study suggest that age and experience do not affect for performance; rather, there is a negative relationship between experience and task-level ICT use, and that task-level ICT use is positively associated with performance in terms of attitudes to interpersonal care. Furthermore, degree centrality is also positively associated with professional accreditations, such as fellowship of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, which is conducive to performance in terms of attitudes to interpersonal and technical care. The contextual implication from the quantitative and qualitative evidence of this study is that while contemplating strategies for optimising ICT use or for improving attitudes to quality of care at the technical and interpersonal level, the importance of social structure, position and relations in the practitioner’s professional network needs to be considered carefully as part of the overall individual and organisation-level goals.

Clinical information systems are being introduced into nurses’ work at an alarming rate. These systems are implemented with limited input from nurses who provide direct patient care, and without considering human factors in the systems design and implementation process. The need for nurses to be involved at every level of decision-making as it relates to technological innovation into their work is imperative to mitigate system failure and truly support their work. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is two-fold: 1) to discuss evidence that suggests that the nurse is not really viewed as an end user in most clinical information systems implementations and 2) to describe the implications of this misperception to the nurse, organization, and nursing profession.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Understanding factors that enhance or diminish performance levels of individuals is instrumental for achieving individual (low level) and organisational (high level) goals. In this study, the effect of social network structure, position, ties and information and communication technologies (ICT) use on performance attitudes of knowledge intensive workers in dispersed occupational communities is investigated. Based on social network theories of strength of weak ties and structural holes, and the social influence model of technology use, a theoretical framework is developed. In conjunction with qualitative interviews conducted with subject matter experts, the framework is used to further develop and refine a valid and reliable survey instrument. Secondly, network measures of degree centrality, density, structural holes (constraint and efficiency), tie strength and tie diversity are applied for exploring the association with ICT use and performance from a sample of 110 rural general practitioners. Empirical results suggest that network structure, position and ties of knowledge workers play a crucial role in individual performance and ICT use. In particular, degree centrality and task-level ICT use was found to be positively associated with performance while ego-network constraint was found to be negatively correlated with performance. In terms of ICT use, functional diversity and degree centrality were positively associated with task-level ICT use whereas ego-network efficiency was found to be negatively correlated with ICT use at the communication-structure level. Among the variables that showed significance, degree centrality best explained overall variance for performance, and functional diversity best explained overall variance for task-level ICT use, although professional accreditations remains a potent indicator also. The results from this study resonate with findings from past literature and extend traditional theory of social networks and performance within the micro level to include geographically dispersed individuals involved in knowledge intensive work. For individuals in such non-competitive settings, traditional network theories such as structural holes theory still apply. However, a key finding is that network structure is a much more potent predictor of performance although network position is important. The second key finding addresses a major gap in the literature concerning understanding social processes that influence ICT use. As the technology acceptance and the social influence models lack empirical evidence from a social networks perspective, this research shows that rather than the strength of ties which functions as a conduit of novel ideas and information, it is the functional tie diversity within individual professionals networks that increase ICT use at the task-level. Methodologically, the study contributes towards a triangulation approach that utilises both qualitative and quantitative methods for operationalising the study. The quantitative method includes a non-traditional “networks” method of data collection and analysis to serve as a fine complement to traditional research methods in behavioural studies. The outcome is a valid and reliable survey instrument that allows collection of both individual attribute and social network data. The instrument is theoretically driven, practically feasible to implement, time-efficient and easily replicable for other similar studies. At the domain level, key findings from this study contradict previous literature which suggests that professionals in occupational communities such as general practitioners decline in performance as they age. In fact, findings from this study suggest that age and experience do not affect for performance; rather, there is a negative relationship between experience and task-level ICT use, and that task-level ICT use is positively associated with performance in terms of attitudes to interpersonal care. Furthermore, degree centrality is also positively associated with professional accreditations, such as fellowship of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, which is conducive to performance in terms of attitudes to interpersonal and technical care. The contextual implication from the quantitative and qualitative evidence of this study is that while contemplating strategies for optimising ICT use or for improving attitudes to quality of care at the technical and interpersonal level, the importance of social structure, position and relations in the practitioner’s professional network needs to be considered carefully as part of the overall individual and organisation-level goals.

Thesis (M.S.)--Cornell University, August, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 48-58).

A presente tese de doutoramento insere-se no debate sobre desenvolvimento regional brasileiro e está voltada para a análise das dinâmicas produtivo-regionais no período 1999-2010. O trabalho está fundado na percepção, derivada da literatura especializada sobre o tema, de que, nesse período, caracterizado por retomada de taxas relativamente robustas de crescimento, consubstanciar-se-ia um momento possível para deslocamentos regionais da produção, inclusive com viés desconcentrador. Contudo, e apesar dessa expectativa, conclui-se que não houve, no Brasil da primeira década dos anos 2000, mudança do padrão estrutural de distribuição espacial da atividade. Novas áreas de produção, sobretudo de produção manufatureira, surgiram a partir de extrapolamentos espaciais de áreas já tradicionais de localização industrial. E essas novidades estão majoritariamente relacionadas a atividades ligadas a recursos naturais, como a agropecuária e o extrativismo mineral, que encontraram, na demanda internacional, incentivos à expansão com benefícios para as suas regiões produtoras ou com potencial de produção. Em termos de estratégias de pesquisa, a investigação fundamenta-se no estudo do processo de desenvolvimento regional brasileiro, tomando os municípios como unidade empírica. O recurso à consideração de unidades bastante desagregadas está relacionado ao intento de dissociar as dinâmicas econômicas internas aos estados e/ou às microrregiões de suas limitações político-administrativas. Do ponto de vista da atividade econômica, uma classificação que permite a consideração conjunta da indústria e dos serviços e que classifica a atividade econômica segundo a sua intensidade de tecnologia ou conhecimento é desenvolvida e empregada. O seu principal mérito reside no fato de possibilitar a identificação de padrões de distribuição espacial específico para as diferentes atividades econômicas. / This doctoral thesis is related to the Brazilian regional development debate and is focused on the analysis of the regional-productive dynamics from 1999 to 2010. Its start point is the perception, derived from the specialized literature, that in such years, characterized by a renew growth cycle, an opportunity to regional displacements of the economic activity had emerged. Although and besides the opportunity, the thesis concludes that there was no change in structural patterns of economic activity spacial distribution in Brazil during the years of 1999-2010. The new production sites, mainly the manufacture ones, had development as spin offs of the already consolidated industrial sites. Moreover, the majority of the new production sites were natural resources intensive and export oriented, agricultural and mineral extrativism, for instance. Regarding research strategies, the thesis investigates the Brazilian regional development process by assuming cities as the main empirical unity. The strategy of look at a very disaggregate unities is due to the intent of dissociate economic dynamics from political-administrative national space divisions. From the economic activity point of view, a new economic activity typology is developed and tested. Its aim is to consider manufacture and services activities together, what is done by classifying the economic activity by the intensity degree of technology and knowledge of each activity.

A presente tese de doutoramento insere-se no debate sobre desenvolvimento regional brasileiro e está voltada para a análise das dinâmicas produtivo-regionais no período 1999-2010. O trabalho está fundado na percepção, derivada da literatura especializada sobre o tema, de que, nesse período, caracterizado por retomada de taxas relativamente robustas de crescimento, consubstanciar-se-ia um momento possível para deslocamentos regionais da produção, inclusive com viés desconcentrador. Contudo, e apesar dessa expectativa, conclui-se que não houve, no Brasil da primeira década dos anos 2000, mudança do padrão estrutural de distribuição espacial da atividade. Novas áreas de produção, sobretudo de produção manufatureira, surgiram a partir de extrapolamentos espaciais de áreas já tradicionais de localização industrial. E essas novidades estão majoritariamente relacionadas a atividades ligadas a recursos naturais, como a agropecuária e o extrativismo mineral, que encontraram, na demanda internacional, incentivos à expansão com benefícios para as suas regiões produtoras ou com potencial de produção. Em termos de estratégias de pesquisa, a investigação fundamenta-se no estudo do processo de desenvolvimento regional brasileiro, tomando os municípios como unidade empírica. O recurso à consideração de unidades bastante desagregadas está relacionado ao intento de dissociar as dinâmicas econômicas internas aos estados e/ou às microrregiões de suas limitações político-administrativas. Do ponto de vista da atividade econômica, uma classificação que permite a consideração conjunta da indústria e dos serviços e que classifica a atividade econômica segundo a sua intensidade de tecnologia ou conhecimento é desenvolvida e empregada. O seu principal mérito reside no fato de possibilitar a identificação de padrões de distribuição espacial específico para as diferentes atividades econômicas. / This doctoral thesis is related to the Brazilian regional development debate and is focused on the analysis of the regional-productive dynamics from 1999 to 2010. Its start point is the perception, derived from the specialized literature, that in such years, characterized by a renew growth cycle, an opportunity to regional displacements of the economic activity had emerged. Although and besides the opportunity, the thesis concludes that there was no change in structural patterns of economic activity spacial distribution in Brazil during the years of 1999-2010. The new production sites, mainly the manufacture ones, had development as spin offs of the already consolidated industrial sites. Moreover, the majority of the new production sites were natural resources intensive and export oriented, agricultural and mineral extrativism, for instance. Regarding research strategies, the thesis investigates the Brazilian regional development process by assuming cities as the main empirical unity. The strategy of look at a very disaggregate unities is due to the intent of dissociate economic dynamics from political-administrative national space divisions. From the economic activity point of view, a new economic activity typology is developed and tested. Its aim is to consider manufacture and services activities together, what is done by classifying the economic activity by the intensity degree of technology and knowledge of each activity.

No / The relationship between the academy and the business community is currently perceived to be important to the future of both parties. Universities provide graduates to meet the needs and requirements of society and industry, and the latter supplies products and services to meet the needs of the market place. Whether public or private, industry increasingly seeks to use tools and techniques that increase efficiency and effectiveness, whilst at the same time maximizing quality and minimizing cost. The current trend towards companies outsourcing their R & D requirements to reduce corporate overheads and optimize staffing levels means that Universities can utilize the opportunity and bid to supply this expertise. Universities also generate their own spin-outs from intellectual property they create, as well as licensing technology to industry, rather than transferring it. However, the relationship between university and industry is not without its challenges, chief of which is the historical commitment of the academy to advance knowledge whether it is directly applicable or not. In addition, there are many fundamental and important long term research issues that many would argue are the primary duty of the academy to address, which may have no direct application in the short to medium term. This is resulting in increasing tensions in the academy, and in the priorities for national and international funding agencies. There can also be significant cultural differences and reward models between the academy and industry which give rise to difficult issues for staff at the interface. This chapter reviews the current developments and the issues at the interface between business and the academy.