As current social problems grow more complex, public organizations have to deal with more complicated problems and values than in the past. Public organizations arguably need more knowledge to effectively address such complex problems. However, there is little study of the relationship between knowledge sharing and government performance. This study has several primary purposes. First, it tries to find out more about the roles and effects of knowledge sharing on program performance in public organizations. Second, by examining the factors affecting the relationships between knowledge sharing and program performance, the study explores the importance of individual and organizational conditions in connecting knowledge sharing to program performance. Lastly, the study helps clarify the effect of knowledge sharing on program performance by also examining other factors that are likely to affect program performance. To explore the relationships among explicit and tacit knowledge sharing, public service motivation, self-set goals, red tape, economic conditions, staffers' professionalism, budgetary resources, and program performance, I examined Virginia's Child Protective Services program. The Virginia Department of Social Services determines the guidelines and policies for the state's CPS program and supervises its implementation by local agencies. I focused on the implementation of the CPS program. The study examined the relationships between CPS program performance and the degree and dynamics of knowledge sharing at the local jurisdictional and at the individual social worker levels in each of the 23 local CPS departments in which staffers responded to an on-line survey. In addition to these relationships, the study examined the effects of individual, organizational, and financial factors in Virginia local CPS departments on the relationships between knowledge sharing and program performance. The study yielded numerous findings. First, at the local agency level evidence showed that explicit knowledge sharing played an important role in affecting CPS program performance. At the individual level, only the reported usefulness of explicit knowledge sharing affected CPS program performance, while the usefulness of tacit knowledge sharing and time devoted to explicit knowledge sharing affected usefulness of explicit knowledge sharing. The personal motivation of CPS staffers influenced program performance through tacit knowledge sharing, and red tape evidently affected CPS program performance by decreasing explicit and tacit knowledge sharing. Even when factors like local economic conditions and available financial resources were taken into account, the usefulness of explicit knowledge sharing still affected CPS program performance. Second, the relationships among time devoted to, usefulness of, and access to explicit and tacit knowledge sharing were diverse. They affected CPS program performance through the reported usefulness of explicit and tacit knowledge sharing. Third, individual and organizational factors influenced the relationship between knowledge sharing and CPS program performance. The personal motivation of CPS staffers had a positive effect on tacit knowledge sharing, but red tape appeared to have a negative effect on explicit and tacit knowledge sharing. Fourth, the study showed that several factors other than knowledge sharing such as local economic conditions, work training of CPS staffers, family assessments, CPS staffer education, and additional budgetary resources also affected CPS program performance. / Ph. D.

During team decision-making practices information is often shared among team members as part of the decision making process. Knowledge sharing involves one team member sharing information so that other team members can encode the knowledge to make their own mental representation of the new information (Huan & Jiang, 2012). Unfortunately, the literature has shown that new information is not always shared between team members during decision making processes (Stasser & Titus, 1985). When teams make decisions without considering all the information available poor decisions can result. This research study tests a team conceptual model derived by Turner (2013) addressing attitudes toward knowledge sharing. Structural equation modeling was conducted to test a portion of Turner’s (2013) team conceptual model. The tested model included the independent variables of psychological safety, team conflict, team cohesion, and transactive memory systems. The dependent variable for the dissertation was knowledge sharing.

Modern organisations are increasingly seen as knowledge-based business ventures in which proactive knowledge management is important for competitiveness. The interest in knowledge management seems to have surged across world. In the increasingly competitive and global marketplace, firms are especially keen to integrate and capitalise on the knowledge of their employees and make it available when and where it is needed. In addition, many firms realise the need to educate and indoctrinate new hirelings into the organisation quickly due to the scarcity of global resources and an aging workforce (Teicholz, 2004). As a result, many organisations implement knowledge management initiatives in an attempt to combine and exploit their knowledge assets. It is therefore necessary to critically evaluate Sasol on these terms. How the knowledge management strategy supports organisational processes is investigated along with collective learning and collaborative decision making within the organisation. An in depth literature study was conducted to gain insight into KM concepts and strategies. It also provided a reference to current best practices. Above all, the literature study helped to gain perspective on the complexities of measuring a phenomenon like KM in an organisation. Performance measurement techniques are discussed and reference made to the eras of knowledge management. A short section makes reference to another organisation considered to be a global leader in integration of knowledge management systems. The research design method that was chosen to authenticate the research objectives is qualitative. The interpretive methods employ an inductive approach that starts with data and tries to derive a theory about the phenomenon of interest from the observed data. Results were obtained from a combination of two methods. Published and available secondary data mainly obtained from Sasol resources. The second was structured interviews conducted from a criterion based sampling strategy conducted on employees to obtain primary data. Sasol employees are supportive of the Sasol KM systems and are (to some extent) using it. Many believe that Sasol is a learning organisation and therefore benefitting from the systems in place. However, the people of Sasol are generally not aware of the full functionality of the deployed systems. Therefore the current state of the Sasol KM system integration is the consequence. Organisational Knowledge, unlike personal knowledge, is only of value if it is shared with others who need it (KMI, 2010). In order to enhance collective learning, learning organisations establish specific learning processes that become embedded in work processes. This is the basis of the outcomes and the recommendations of this research. / MIng (Development and Management Engineering), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Modern organisations are increasingly seen as knowledge-based business ventures in which proactive knowledge management is important for competitiveness. The interest in knowledge management seems to have surged across world. In the increasingly competitive and global marketplace, firms are especially keen to integrate and capitalise on the knowledge of their employees and make it available when and where it is needed. In addition, many firms realise the need to educate and indoctrinate new hirelings into the organisation quickly due to the scarcity of global resources and an aging workforce (Teicholz, 2004). As a result, many organisations implement knowledge management initiatives in an attempt to combine and exploit their knowledge assets. It is therefore necessary to critically evaluate Sasol on these terms. How the knowledge management strategy supports organisational processes is investigated along with collective learning and collaborative decision making within the organisation. An in depth literature study was conducted to gain insight into KM concepts and strategies. It also provided a reference to current best practices. Above all, the literature study helped to gain perspective on the complexities of measuring a phenomenon like KM in an organisation. Performance measurement techniques are discussed and reference made to the eras of knowledge management. A short section makes reference to another organisation considered to be a global leader in integration of knowledge management systems. The research design method that was chosen to authenticate the research objectives is qualitative. The interpretive methods employ an inductive approach that starts with data and tries to derive a theory about the phenomenon of interest from the observed data. Results were obtained from a combination of two methods. Published and available secondary data mainly obtained from Sasol resources. The second was structured interviews conducted from a criterion based sampling strategy conducted on employees to obtain primary data. Sasol employees are supportive of the Sasol KM systems and are (to some extent) using it. Many believe that Sasol is a learning organisation and therefore benefitting from the systems in place. However, the people of Sasol are generally not aware of the full functionality of the deployed systems. Therefore the current state of the Sasol KM system integration is the consequence. Organisational Knowledge, unlike personal knowledge, is only of value if it is shared with others who need it (KMI, 2010). In order to enhance collective learning, learning organisations establish specific learning processes that become embedded in work processes. This is the basis of the outcomes and the recommendations of this research. / MIng (Development and Management Engineering), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

This research captures a detailed exposition of an investigation into knowledge sharing in HIV/AIDS non-government organisations in South Africa. HIV/AIDS is a global challenge and one of the most severe problems facing our world today. South Africa is home to the largest population of people living with HIV/AIDS in the world. Knowledge management, and more specifically knowledge sharing, has been identified as a key area of focus that could be deployed to solve this problem. Despite the large number of NGOs that address HIV/AIDS in South Africa, very little research has focused on understanding this group of organisations. As such, this qualitative research contributed to the literature by examining the context in which South African NGOs work and develop an argument about the factors that influences knowledge sharing in HIV/AIDS NGOs in South Africa. A literature review provides an overview of the main contexts in which knowledge sharing has arisen. The literature shows that despite its importance for HIV/AIDS NGOs in South Africa, there is no framework which addresses intra-organisational knowledge in this context. It is an area that has received very little research attention, yet is of increasing importance in the light of the HIV/AIDS crisis in South Africa. This motivated the researcher to formalise, refine and validate a framework to address this issue. The research has resulted in a number of contributions to knowledge and benefits for the NGO involved. A key contribution is the development of a knowledge sharing framework that has been evaluated by HIV/AIDS NGO practitioners and internationally recognised knowledge management experts that can be used to support intra-organisational knowledge sharing in HIV/AIDS NGOs in South Africa. This framework consists of the identification of knowledge sharing component drivers required for effective knowledge sharing with the HIV/AIDS NGO and a method for implementation based on a knowledge sharing process. The research has also identified areas where there is a significant scope for further research and investigation.

過去台灣對於國會聯絡人的研究，多屬於國會聯絡人所發揮的功能及扮演的角色或是相關工作績效評估方面，缺乏針對國會聯絡人養成過程的討論，在我國的憲政體制所造成的權力分立下，為了使行政與立法間溝通聯繫順暢並降低互動過程中的衝突，行政機關的國會聯絡人扮演了關鍵性的角色，故在挑選國會聯絡人及對新進國會聯絡人養成訓練上，各機關皆相當重視，而師徒制運用於行政機關國會聯絡人養成上的現象相當普遍，值得從師徒制所產生的影響進行深入研究。 本研究是以深度訪談法為主，並輔以文獻分析法及參與觀察法的質性研究，透過立意抽樣方式，選擇8個行政機關共16位資淺、資深之國會聯絡人員為研究對象進行研究。 針對訪談內容、觀察現象並相關文獻歸納與分析研究的結果，本研究提出主要結論有三點，首先，從歸納訪談的結果來看，行政機關在新進的國會聯絡人組織養成過程中，透過資深同仁擔任師父角色的經驗傳授，徒弟有了遵循準則，且師父好的行為表現轉移徒弟身上，國會聯絡工作易上手，但是徒弟必須有積極進取的態度及不能一昧承襲缺點，食古不化，才能順利完成任務；其次，師徒在互相教導與學習過程中，因為滿足雙方的需求而效果良好，在工作上有好的績效表現，容易獲得升遷機會與好名聲，就算有一天互換角色後，也會傳承教導與學習的風氣，但若未達師徒間特質及能力要求，教導與學習效果降低，會對自己與組織造成負面影響；最後，在樂於知識分享的組織文化下，組織成員無法透過言語表達的默會知識得以透過「做中學」方式傳遞，共同為組織良好績效努力，組織也要避免成員有自利主義，若知識藏私不願意分享，將危害到整個組織。 / There are many studies on the issue of- “Congressional Liaison.”-Previous studies have focused on their function, liaison’s roles or performance, there are lacking of congressional liaison’s training and mentoring. Due to the separation of powers, legislature and executive are independent but strongly associated with each other. Thus, congressional liaison is a crucial bridge to maintain communication and tackle the conflicts between parliament and agencies. Governmental agencies requires establishing functioning congressional liaison’s mentor relationship, but how the knowledge and insight of congressional liaison works be trained and passing on within the agencies is an interesting question waiting to be answered . This study utilized in-depth interview, literature review and participant observation to do the research. By purposive sampling, author chose 16 junior and senior congressional liaisons from 8 executive agencies as interviewers. This study concludes following three observations. First, executive agencies tend to establish a mentorship for new members to get familiar with their job. Interviews show that if following the instructions and mentor’s standard, protégé is easier to be trained into a good liaison officer. Moreover, protégé will have more positive attitudes and be more flexible to accomplish the missions. Secondly, through mentoring protégés, mentors can perform better and are likely to get the reputation and promotion. When protégés become mentors, they are more liable to proceed with mentorship. On the contrary, if the mentors are not able to do the mentoring job well, not only the learning efficiency will be low, but the malfunctioning relationship have organizational consequences. However, during the process of coaching and learning, mentors and protégés can be beneficial from each other. Lastly, because of the knowledge sharing and organizational culture, members could implement the concept of “learn by doing” to deliver the tacit knowledge. Also, organization should avoid members from being too egoism, once they are unwilling to share or interchanging the experiences, it is might be harmful to the organizations.

知識管理的發展，就目前而言，理論部分已經算是相當的完備，有許多外國與本國學者都注意到知識管理的重要性，並且對影響知識管理的因素、知識管理的運作等都有相當程度的研究。 但是在企業的真正落實上，卻還是有一段差距，雖然目前也越來越多企業家瞭解到知識經濟時代的來臨與知識管理的重要性，但其在落實上，卻還是不易找到一個真正的著力點。 以半導體產業做為例子，因為其價值鍊上各位置專業分工的不同，導致各專業分工都必須具有自己本身的核心能力，因此為了培養與加強本身的核心能力，知識的累積就顯的重要，是故，在知識分享的機制方面，就必須根據不同的核心能力所需不同的之事類型來作調整。 簡單的以知識類型與核心能力作一個分類，前端的IC設計廠商所必須具備的是晶片設計的能力，而這樣的能力主要多以員工本身為主要的存在容器，也就是所謂的隱性知識，並且因為通稱的經驗也佔有相當大的影響力，是故其顯性化就較不容易，因此其知識分享機制就必須以隱性知識為中心。 在中段的IC製造廠商本身業務算是價值鍊中最複雜的，因為他必須負責部分整合的工作，也就是說，除了自己本身的製造生產能力外，也必須有部分設計能力，和本身也必須投入資源在製程的研發上，進行高階的製程研發以求符合IC設計客戶的需求，因此其需要的知識類型不只有顯性、也有隱性。 後段的IC封測業務相較於IC製造就顯的較為專門化，主要在從事IC製造的產品作封裝與測試工作，因此整體來能來說，標準化、大量化、或品質控管能力等都是其核心能力，是故其需要的知識類型主要在於顯性知識的轉化。 當然，除了核心能力外，組織規模、領導者、工作內容、產業的獨特生態與個別特殊的策略性思維，都將是影響知識分享機制的因素。 / 『Knowledge Management』 is getting more and more important now. And lots of scholars had already realize the importance, then paid large attention doing research about the KM. But in practicing, many industries still did not good at the KM. They understand the value of the KM, but they cannot find a good way to make it perfect. Take IC industry for instance. We all know that each step in the value chain has its own business, including design, foundry, and package. As a result, they should own different core competence to fit their business. And creating core competence should depend on knowledge accumulating. So they should need different knowledge types. IC design industries should have tacit knowledge, and package industries should have explicit knowledge. The foundry, are more complex, they should have both. Besides of the core competence, the scale, the CEO, the business, and the policy all will affect the knowledge sharing.

Short time-to-market is a key success factor in the todays’ dynamic business environment and many companies are trying to improve their product development processes. A challenge is to develop products according to the time plan and at the same time keeping the cost low and the quality high. This study focuses on the project management within the product development process in an automotive industry. The background of this study started as a request from the research and development department at the automotive company, which led to the following questions; 1) what are the most crucial factors for project success? 2) How can these factors contribute to a more successful outcome? 3) How can project management decrease product development lead time by sharing knowledge? The research approach is a case study and the data collection consist of interviews and questioners at two companies connected to project management in product development projects. Spider charts are created from the collected data containing eleven dimensions to show similarities and differences between the project managers working within the research and development department as well as between the two companies. The main conclusions are that there is a need to allow a certain level of flexibility when managing projects, in order to more easily handle late changes. Being involved in a project from the concept phase could facilitate the product development activities later on, due to a deeper understanding regarding previous decisions. Further, knowledge sharing methods, such as databases, has to be designed to be suitable for a specific organization and user friendly which enables the users to more easily search for specific types of knowledge. Lastly, a low level on the detailed focus is shown to be another success factor, however, in some cases there is still a need of this detailed focus to solve specific problems but the details may never become a higher focus than the holistic view. / <p>Studien är gjord hos Volvo Car Corporation och Vattenfall Research and Development AB har använts som benchmarkingföretag.</p>

This multi-disciplinary study explores a field of enquiry at the boundaries of information science and development studies. It is concerned with the facilitation of knowledge processes - processes of knowledge exchange and co-creation - in the international development sector. Additionally, this study considers the importance of human relationships and social networks (and power), and studies these in knowledge intermediation projects. The main gaps that are addressed regard the understanding of intermediating knowledge process concerned with learners situated (partly) across cultural, language, and political boundaries in developing countries. Such projects/programmes/approaches, coined South-South knowledge exchanges by the World Bank, have only seen very limited amount of research; the foci of this research are human relationships and initiation acts, which add further novelty. By mirroring ideas of triangular and South-South collaboration the thesis explores knowledge intermediation projects and three roles played by actors participating in such projects: the intermediary and facilitator of knowledge processes (usually backed by a funding body), someone sharing knowledge (knowledge holders), and someone learning from others (knowledge seeker). This study not only shows how these roles apply to knowledge intermediation projects but also addresses their influence on relational elements at the interpersonal level. Two case studies are used to show how knowledge intermediation projects in the international development sector are shaped by their approach (demand initiated, facilitator/funder initiated), especially in terms of the relationships they foster. The sociology of knowledge approach to discourse analysis (SKAD) is used in the study of the case studies, which is supplemented by social network analysis. After linking the discovered relationship patterns to the initiation acts in the respective case studies a picture emerges that offers two broad insights. Firstly, facilitator/funder initiation of South-South knowledge intermediation projects appears to lead to many potential relationships, most of them irrelevant to an individual and, therefore, unestablished. Secondly, demand initiation of South-South knowledge intermediation projects appears to lead to very few, yet highly relevant, relationships.

Organisationer är beroende av medarbetarnas unika kunskap vilket även har kommit att betraktas som den viktigaste strategiska resursen. Kunskap är även betydelsefullt för organisationers framgång och konkurrenskraftighet. För att bibehålla konkurrensfördelar är det av vikt att skapa framgångsrika lärtillfällen som främjar både individuellt och kollektivt lärande. Den här undersökningen syftar till att beskriva och analysera hur kollektivt lärande uppstår samt ledarskapets betydelse för det kollektiva lärandet. Den teoretiska referensramen utgår från teorier om vilka förutsättningar som behövs för ett kollektivt lärande samt ledarskapets betydelse. Undersökningens empiri har inhämtats genom semistrukturerade intervjuer med tre medarbetare och tre ledare på en utvecklingsavdelning vid en statlig myndighet i Mellansverige. Undersökningens resultat har analyserats mot de teoretiska utgångspunkterna. Undersökningens slutsatser är att kollektivt lärande har potential att uppstå genom dialog och reflektion i gruppmöten, genom nära relationer och via digital dokumentation. De aktiviteter som ledare skapar som har potential för kollektivt lärande är; planerade aktiviteter som avdelningsdagar som möjliggör gemensamma övningar, kunskapsforum och gemensamma luncher. Vidare skapar ledare förutsättningar genom att bygga relationer till sina medarbetare och uppmuntra medarbetarna till samarbete genom att ange samarbete som ett lönekriterium. / Organizations are dependent on the employees' unique knowledge, which has come to be regarded as the most important strategic resource. Knowledge is also important for organizations' success and competitiveness. To maintain competitive advantage, it is important to create successful learning opportunities that encourage both individual and collective learning. This study aims to describe and analyse how collective learning arises and the importance of leadership for collective learning. The theoretical frame is based on theories about what prerequisites are required for collective learning and the importance of leadership. The survey's empirical data has been obtained through semi-structured interviews with three employees and three leaders at a development department at a government agency in central Sweden. The study's results have been analysed in relation to the theoretical frame. The study's conclusions are that collective learning has the potential to arise through dialogue and reflection in group meetings, through close relationships and via digital documentation. The activities that leaders create and have the potential for collective learning are; planned activities such as departmental days that enable joint exercises, knowledge forums and common lunches. Furthermore, leaders create the prerequisites by building relationships with their employees and encouraging employees to collaborate by stating cooperation as a pay criterion.