Submitted to the Faculty of Arts in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (D.Phil) in the Department of Communication Science at the University of Zululand, South Africa, 2004. / This dissertation focuses on the contribution of electronic communication (e-Communication) to knowledge management. It is based on an empirical survey of knowledge management practitioners in the private, public and NGO sectors in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The major findings of this study are (1) that many knowledge management practitioners have not received any formal training in knowledge management, (2) that for most of them their practices are not informed by explicit knowledge management policies, (3) that there is no culture of sharing knowledge established within particular organisations, and finally (4) that knowledge managers are not using e-learning facilities to keep their knowledge of knowledge management current.

This research investigated whether the buyer-seller interorganizational relationship (IOR) differed between a firm and two classes of customers. The first class used electronic data interchange (EDI) with the firm and the second class used the traditional paper-based purchasing system. IOR characteristics included reputation, skill, direct power, indirect power, reciprocity, and efficiency.

by Yau Mun-Yee. / Includes questionnaire. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 52-53). / ABSTRACT --- p.ii / TABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.iv / LIST OF TABLES --- p.vi / Chapter / Chapter I. --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Research Objective --- p.2 / Organization --- p.3 / Chapter II. --- ELECTRONIC DATA INTERCHANGE (EDI) --- p.5 / Definition --- p.5 / History --- p.5 / Classification --- p.7 / Chapter III. --- LITERATURE REVIEW --- p.9 / Chapter IV. --- RESEARCH METHOLOGY --- p.13 / Research Hypotheses --- p.13 / Measurement of EDI Usage --- p.15 / Choice of Trading Partner --- p.17 / Methodology --- p.19 / Chapter V. --- DATA ANALYSIS --- p.21 / Testing of First Hypothesis HI --- p.23 / Testing of Second Hypothesis H2 --- p.27 / Testing of Third Hypothesis H3 --- p.30 / Chapter VI. --- INTERVIEW STUDY --- p.37 / EDI Implementation Strategy of the Company --- p.37 / EDI Connection Strategy of the Company --- p.41 / Chapter VII. --- CONCLUSION --- p.45 / Summary --- p.45 / Limitation of this Research --- p.46 / Suggestion for Future Research --- p.47 / Managerial Implication --- p.47 / APPENDIX A Covering Letter --- p.50 / APPENDIX B Research Questionnaire --- p.51 / BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.52

The purpose of this dissertation is to explicate the meaning of information systems (IS) success in the realm of a dynamic hierarchical structure model of IS success. Through an empirical study of 382 firms using internal and Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) systems, different characteristics of this model are examined via four hypotheses. / First, using linear structural modelling techniques, it is shown that successful information systems share certain properties common to all systems, in addition to certain properties specific to each class of systems. Four generic factors influencing IS success are identified as (i) output reliability, (ii) system's characteristics, (iii) efficiency outcomes, and (iv) users' requirements. Second, the role of time in the IS adoption and assessment process is explored. By comparing firms that have adopted EDI with those that have not adopted EDI, it is shown that the decision maker's perception of IS success changes during different stages of the adoption and assessment process. Third, the role of stakeholders in the assessment process is examined by comparing perceptions of different managerial groups based on their educational background, management echelon, and functional area. It is shown that different stakeholders evaluate the success of IS differently. Finally, through an examination of various types of evaluation functions, it is shown that IS success is a multi-dimensional construct. / Overall, cross-group comparisons of the dynamic hierarchical structural model of IS success provide sufficient evidence regarding the instability of IS success across time, type of system, and stakeholders involved in the evaluation process. / In addition to the major hypotheses, two corollaries have also been examined. It is shown that user involvement in an IS project has a positive effect on the system's success. Further, the results of the study indicate that respondents in smaller companies are more satisfied with the support and services of the MIS department than their counterparts in larger companies. / Finally, by comparing three versions of the questionnaire used in the study, it is shown that question order has a significant effect on responses. The implications of this finding for survey studies are discussed.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print.

No description available.

Satellite communication promises potential methods for providing global communication. In particular, by the development of a Low Earth Orbital (LEO) satellite constellation, both global coverage and broadband communication will be accessible. Problems arise in situations where various traffic types in broadband communication require different levels of quality of service (QoS). Traffic control is required to make sure that each traffic demand may receive the expected QoS. Another problem is that the dynamic topology of a LEO satellite network requires a traffic allocation control, which is able to allocate traffic demand into the Inter Satellite Links (ISLs) between LEO satellites.In this thesis, traffic allocation strategy in a dynamic LEO satellite communication network is studied and analyzed. The delivery of Quality of Service (QoS) is an important objective. Traffic allocation control is performed in the LEO satellite constellation to provide a near optimal utilization of these ISLs. An alternative solution is proposed in this research, in which a combination of two algorithms will be used to allocate traffic in this dynamic satellite network. The first algorithm allocates traffic during small time intervals, based on an assumption that the topology is unchanged during these intervals. The second algorithm allocates traffic after topology updating has been accomplished. Traffic allocation respects some constraints including QoS (due to multiservice requirements), capacity constraints, traffic distribution, and availability constraints. Both theoretical and empirical studies have been undertaken to examine the performance of the proposed algorithm, denoted GALPEDA (Genetic Algorithm Linear Programming and Extended Dijkstra Algorithm). The proposed algorithm provides privileges to a class of high priority traffic, including benefits for traffic allocation of multiclass traffic in LEO satellite communication. It provides a novel traffic allocation mechanism to cope with the dynamic topology of a LEO satellite; moreover this algorithm distributes multiservice traffic evenly over the network. Simulations results are provided.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 175-186).

The Internet has enabled the collection, aggregation and analysis of personal data on a massive scale. It has also enabled the sharing of collected data in various ways: wholesale outsourcing of data warehousing, partnering with advertisers for targeted advertising, data publishing for exploratory research, etc. This has led to complex privacy questions related to the leakage of sensitive user data and mass harvesting of information by unscrupulous parties. These questions have information-theoretic, sociological and legal aspects and are often poorly understood. There are two fundamental paradigms for how the data is released: in the interactive setting, the data collector holds the data while third parties interact with the data collector to compute some function on the database. In the non-interactive setting, the database is somehow \sanitized" and then published. In this thesis, we conduct a thorough theoretical and empirical investigation of privacy issues involved in non-interactive data release. Both settings have been well analyzed in the academic literature, but simplicity of the non-interactive paradigm has resulted in its being used almost exclusively in actual data releases. We analyze several common applications including electronic directories, collaborative ltering and recommender systems, and social networks. Our investigation has two main foci. First, we present frameworks for privacy and anonymity in these dierent settings within which one might dene exactly when a privacy breach has occurred. Second, we use these frameworks to experimentally analyze actual large datasets and quantify privacy issues. The picture that has emerged from this research is a bleak one for noninteractivity. While a surprising level of privacy control is possible in a limited number of applications, the general sense is that protecting privacy in the non-interactive setting is not as easy as intuitively assumed in the absence of rigorous privacy denitions. While some applications can be salvaged either by moving to an interactive setting or by other means, in others a rethinking of the tradeos between utility and privacy that are currently taken for granted appears to be necessary. / text