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Thesis advisor: Mary Tripsas / The technologies that knowledge workers use in the ongoing production of knowledge are becoming increasingly complex, embedding assumptions that previously would have been made by workers themselves. This dissertation aims to unpack this phenomena, exploring how knowledge workers encounter and use technologies in the ongoing construction of knowledge. I present three essays – one theoretical and two empirical – that examine how patterns of interactions shape technology use and consequently knowledge outcomes. In each essay, I draw on several theoretical lenses, including status, coordination, and behavioral strategy to build new theory on how and why technologies are used and understood. The first essay presents a theoretical model of how status dynamics can shape the way new technologies are interpreted and used, including whether or not knowledge workers seek to understand the assumptions in their technologies. The second essay draws on data from a two year ethnographic study of technology use within an investment bank, comparing how different groups validate the outputs of their technologies when theoretical and physical mechanisms are absent. The third essay examines the evolution of technology adoption and use within a knowledge work group, identifying the unique mechanism of departures as prompting shifts in use. This dissertation contributes to literature on knowledge work and the social construction of technology. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. Carroll School of Management. / Discipline: Management and Organization.

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.

In this thesis a number of disparate subjects and notions are drawn together in order to move toward a coherent perspective on the notion of an organisation and the way in which organisations may be seen to survive. The contribution of the work and knowledge management in order to produce a 'frame' for the way in which organisational change and survival may be discussed. The assumptions are made that the notions of the learning organisation and knowledge management are subsets of organisational survival. An examination of how these notions have been interpreted in organisations provides the context to which Maturana and Varea's autopoietic theory may be used as a 'frame' for discussion on the nature of organisations. The combination of my experiences in organisations and discussions on the use of autopoietic theory in the organisational context, provide the basis from which I make hypotheses regarding the nature of organisational survival and the way in which organisations may be seen to change over time / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This research is concerned with designing representations for analytical reasoning problems (of the sort found on the GRE and LSAT). These problems test the ability to draw logical conclusions. A computer program was developed that takes as input a straightforward predicate calculus translation of a problem, requests additional information if necessary, decides what to represent and how, designs representations capturing the constraints of the problem, and creates and executes a LISP program that uses those representations to produce a solution. Even though these problems are typically difficult for theorem provers to solve, the LISP program that uses the designed representations is very efficient.

The present thesis focuses on Indian experience in the traditional knowledge sector. It argues that strong patent protection has not been conducive to the indigenous people and their traditional medicinal knowledge. Moreover, this protection has supported the pharmaceutical sector by entitling it with the patents, sourced from traditional herbal medicinal knowledge on the ground of novelty and usefulness. The thesis also investigates the scenarios, where time and again it has been proved that the current patent tool does not provide free hand to indigenous people. It advocates that the production and dissemination of legal clauses promoted by the Indian patent system is not an adequate legal tool for the protection of traditional medicinal knowledge. Finally the thesis explores India’s obligation to protect and preserve traditional medicinal knowledge and proposes model guidelines for the pharmaceutical sector in order to exploit herbal medicinal knowledge.

The present thesis focuses on Indian experience in the traditional knowledge sector. It argues that strong patent protection has not been conducive to the indigenous people and their traditional medicinal knowledge. Moreover, this protection has supported the pharmaceutical sector by entitling it with the patents, sourced from traditional herbal medicinal knowledge on the ground of novelty and usefulness. The thesis also investigates the scenarios, where time and again it has been proved that the current patent tool does not provide free hand to indigenous people. It advocates that the production and dissemination of legal clauses promoted by the Indian patent system is not an adequate legal tool for the protection of traditional medicinal knowledge. Finally the thesis explores India’s obligation to protect and preserve traditional medicinal knowledge and proposes model guidelines for the pharmaceutical sector in order to exploit herbal medicinal knowledge.

In 2003, the Organization for Economy Co-operation and Development (OECD) reported in its survey that Knowledge Management (KM) was one of the internal management priorities in the central government organizations in each country. It revealed that KM had been emphasized in OECD member countries. KM practices have been improved deeper and wider on application in private sector than those in government organizations. Even though, implementing KM practices has already been a global trend in this changeable century of 21. KM is a better resolution to promote administration efficiency and problem solving by accumulating material of knowledge and networking specialist. For this reason, government has been actively inducing KM practices and expecting efficiency leaders abounding with knowledge. Comptroller administrations are responsible for the budget, accounting and statistics in the government. Under the limitation of resources, how the comptroller administrations do the delivering for creating the best efficiency, service quality and performance is a grim challenge at this present. This research was done by interviewing and following questionnaire survey, based on the pattern compiled by literature reviewing, to the accountants and statisticians of Taipei and Kaohsiung government for examining the status of the KM practices in these comptroller agency. After sampling the accountants and statisticians of the two governments, this study presented a detailed analysis of its 372 valid questionnaires, which were processed by SPSS10.0 software, and obtain the findings as follow: 1.The average in all aspect is above 3 except the sharing of comptroller knowledge due to its tacit. It manifests that all accountants and statisticians have approved the KM promoting. 2.In knowledge selection aspect, man has shown more rates of utilization than woman, but woman has paid more attention to the mentoring, training, and coaching practices; staff mobility and improving the classification of information. The superior have more rates in utilizing knowledge creating than the non-superior and emphasize the relationship between organizational culture with opening, cooperation, trusting, sharing and learning. 3.In KM process aspect, budgeting comptrollers, accountants and the senior in qualification and record of service are less rates than statisticians and the junior. In aspect of KM enablers, the budgeting comptrollers place more value on strategy and leadership planning, the ones who take more time on using computer in work pay more attention to information technology and the junior focus on performance measurement. 4.The one who takes KM enablers seriously will use the KM process more frequently. It has proved the theory of KM model of AABC. 5.There are divergences in consciousness in most of aspects between Taipei and Kaohsiung comptrollers except in knowledge accumulating, accessible function of Internet site and difficulties in implementing KM practices. According to the statistics, the average of Kaohsiung is higher than Taipei in every aspect. It shows that accountants and statisticians in Kaohsiung are more perception than those in Taipei. As a result of this research, the researcher has given seven suggestions to the comptroller agency for inducing KM practices as follows: (1) Build up the consciousness of the middle- aged, higher educated and less experiences accountants & statisticians in KM concept. (2) Promoting the level of hardware and software in KM. (3) Strengthen leadership of the superior. (4) Enhancing ability of the non-superior in researching, developing and creating. (5) Establish a society on practical knowledge and a channel for sharing and communication. (6) Integrating laws and regulations, set up a database of KM in legislation. (7) Making an inquiring system of government accounting information for public.

Given the continuous improvement of IT, the organizational information system moves from single department system to integrated organizational system, like the ERP system. Because of competitive commercial environment, the market of integrated system has developed quickly. It¡¦s important to apply domain knowledge of the organization when an information system is adopted. If the organization does not consider domain knowledge, it will bring less effect to the organization. On the other hand, the consultant company hopes the case be dealt with a package solution to save cost. Therefore, adjusting both sides becomes a critical way to reach the successful adoption. This study attempts using the view of knowledge transfer to investigate how enterprise and ERP consulting company to exchange knowledge. Computer efficacy will become the adjustable power to make two powers fit. Good computer efficacy will bring two advantages. One is to avoid too much customization. The other is to step away the package¡¦s type of ERP implementation. This study used deeply discussion to interview four adoption company and two consultant companies to prove the relation of knowledge transfer model. The result of study shows that apparently positive effect between interaction and knowledge transfer. The better knowledge transfer will provide the better quality of ERP system. The computer efficacy in the user company will provide balance in knowledge, avoiding the situation that the consultant company might be too powerful to lower the ERP system quality.

Twenty-one century is a Knowledge economy system. Knowledge is being substituted for the machine facilities, capital asset, materials or labors, and to be the most important productive materials and competitive weapons for the enterprise. We can find out many high technology companies, which have the very high stock price in the U.S., but they do not have lots of tangible assets. Even though some of them have ten or hundred times of marketing values compare with the tangible assets. The main difference is the Intellectual Capital that is not presented by the financial reports. Therefore, for the enterprise, it is the most important issue to integrate the knowledge and enterprise core ability, and transfer to be knowledge oriented organizations by using the Intellectual Capital.There are many domestic enterprises begin to set up the knowledge management (KM) mechanism under the industry pressure, and start the research about how to drive the KM and with what kind of steps. Although there are many scholars have proposed different KM framework, activities and influential factors, the KM will still be a new issue for enterprise.Therefore, this research will propose three cases of domestic enterprise which carry out the KM. In order to study the procedure for the KM, the framework of KM, the influential factors of KM, the motivation of KM, how to drive the KM process, what kind of activities of KM, when to drive the KM, and what kind of information technology will also be discussed in this paper. Finally, this study will compare with the framework of current KM literature and analyze the result, and to be the reference for other enterprise in carrying out KM.