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

Der Klimawandel stellt sich für heutige und zukünftige Generationen als eine ernst zu nehmende Angelegenheit dar. Neben der Gefährdung für Leben und Gesundheit, sieht sich auch die Wirtschaft gravierenden Auswirkungen gegenüber. In aktuellen Beiträgen der Forschung wird dabei zumeist die Problematik des Klimaschutzes behandelt. Dennoch sind die Auswirkungen des Klimawandels bereits vorhanden und fordern schon heute Maßnahmen. Eine wesentliche Möglichkeit, um auf längst auftretende, nicht mehr verhinderbare Auswirkungen des Klimawandels zu reagieren, stellt die Klimaanpassung dar. Doch obwohl sich durch eine frühzeitige Anpassung an die veränderten Rahmenbedingungen und neu entstehende Märkte, sich Chancen für die Unternehmen ergeben können, scheinen Unternehmen in der Anpassung an den Klimawandel gehemmt. Intention der vorliegenden Arbeit ist es daher, die Hemmnisse, die der Anpassung an die Auswirkungen des Klimawandels entgegenstehen, zu ergründen. Da der Hemmnisanalyse keine theoretische Basis zugrunde liegt, wird in der Arbeit der sozialwissenschaftliche Aspekt, der sich mit Beweggründen des Nicht-Handelns und negativen Folgen der Gesellschaft auseinandersetzt, anhand des Organisationalen Lernens einbezogen. Das erste Forschungsziel betrachtet daher die Darstellung des Organisationalen Lernens als theoretische Basis der Hemmnisanalyse. Das zweite Forschungsziel soll einen Leitfaden darlegen, der der Feststellung der Hemmnisse der Unternehmen gegenüber der Klimawandelanpassung dient. Dieser baut auf dem entwickelten theoretischen Konstrukt der Hemmnisanalyse auf. Um die Forschungsziele zu erarbeiten, werden Forschungsfragen aufgestellt. Diese lassen sich in dem entwickelten Forschungsdreieck, welches die Aspekte des Organisationalen Lernens, der Klimawandelanpassung und der Hemmnisanalyse in Zusammenhang bringt, wiederfinden. Das Forschungsdreieck wird im gesamten Verlauf der Arbeit angewendet. Die deskriptive Beantwortung der Forschungsfragen erfolgte anhand von 33 recherchierten Literaturquellen, die dem Forschungsdreieck entsprechen und mittels einer Inhaltsanalyse qualitativ sowie teilweise quantitativ ausgewertet wurden. Wesentliche Konzepte des Organisationalen Lernens wie der behavioristische und kognitive Lernansatz, das single-loop und double-loop learning, individuelle, gruppenbasierte und organisationale Lernebene und Lern-, Wissens- und Anpassungsprozesse konnten in der Literatur erkannt werden. Des Weiteren konnte eine Hemmniskategorisierung entwickelt werden, die sowohl dem Organisationalen Lernen als auch der Klimawandelanpassung entspricht. Eine Vielzahl relevanter Hemmnisse konnten identifiziert und der gebildeten Hemmniskategorisierung zugewiesen werden. Die Ergebnisse der Forschungsfragen spiegeln sich in dem theoretischen Konstrukt der Hemmnisanalyse sowie dem Leitfaden wider.

The thesis examines two interrelated topics; the perception of management theory in general, and the efficacy of the learning organisation in particular. The purpose of this thesis, therefore, is to compare the rhetoric espoused in the learning organisation literature with a survey of senior managers in large, commercial organisations. The results revealed a positive disposition towards business and management theory in general. The survey also demonstrated that leadership is considered the most important variable in the success of a company. This is facilitated through the attraction and retention of the appropriate staff and creating sufficient space for them to operate. Learning is embedded by anticipating the future, learning from the past and enabling good communication. However, the latter is balanced through change management. This is derived through legitimate authority and a reliance on planning. Finally, a strategy of experimentation is balanced by challenging industry rules. Themes involving politics, corporate alignment and corporate longevity were found to have relatively little convergent validity. The third section of the questionnaire reveals a positive disposition towards the learning organisation. The contribution of this thesis is in three areas. First, it is the only work to evaluate the anti-guru school. Second is the development of a syncretic model of learning organisation concept using structural equation modelling. Finally, it explains and examines the largely misunderstood concept of management fashions.

<p>This thesis deals with the importance of managing employees’ thoughts and feelings in relation to organisational learning. To visualise and to identify affections within organisations is of major importance since most of our actions and the decisions we make are steered by our emotions rather than rational thinking.</p><p>In this work we show that employees’ thoughts and feelings can be managed by implementing the cognitive therapeutic process into the organisational setting. In comparison to the more traditional way of managing problems within organisations, i.e. the two activities of problem identification and problem solving, the cognitive therapeutic process also addresses the importance of identifying associated feelings and underlying automatic thoughts in relation to an occurrence or a situation.</p><p>Consequently, the overall purpose of this thesis has been to develop an approach for improving the quality of organisational learning processes which should stimulate employees’ contribution and facilitate the identification of their thoughts and feelings in relation to their work. As a result, ‘The Affect Based Learning Matrix’ (TABLe MATRIX) was developed. TABLe MATRIX can be used either in a paper-based or in a Web-based format and identifies and analyses individuals’ affections in relation to an organisational occurrence or change, a subject or a problem. Our empirical investigations show that TABLe MATRIX contributes to improving the output of organisational learning processes since unspoken negative emotions make people passive in finding new solutions. TABLe MATRIX has been evaluated by interviewing thirteen operational development representatives within eight different branches and also by testing the paper-based version at two large organisations within retail fast moving consumer goods and within education.</p>

Organisational learning is conceptualised within healthcare policy as an acontextual entity to be implemented across services through a prescribed governance framework. Studies of organisational learning often exclude context in this way. The central questions of this thesis concern how and why context is relevant and important in relation to organisational learning. In order to address these issues, context and organisational learning were conceptualised as mutually constitutive activity and knowing-in-practice respectively. Taking a cultural-historical activity theoretical approach, learning is understood to be an intrinsic part of activity. These issues were explored empirically through qualitative case study in three purposively sampled Scottish primary care teams. Initial findings suggested collective learning occurred through participation in everyday activity. Team accounts of apparently the same routine object of work revealed distinctive patterns of activity. Each team seemed to be doing the same thing differently. Exploration of mediating means present in each teamâ s activity accounted for these differences: although similar on the surface, the attribution of meaning to each was contested and shaped through the cultural, historical and inherently contextual activity which they mediated within each activity system. Further analysis demonstrated members of each primary care team co-configured these objects with members of other interlinked activity systems. Different things were actually being done in similarly different ways. This showed how inherently contextual activities shaped the content of collective learning and offered an explanation of why context is relevant and important in collective learning. These findings suggest efforts to transfer knowledge as a discrete, manageable entity between situations are unlikely to succeed due to the filtering and translating effect of inherently contextual activity. From this perspective, organisational learning and related concepts such as â implementationâ and â best practiceâ become problematic. Healthcare policy concerning collective learning, within which such approaches are central, may benefit from reconsideration.

Dagens arbetsmarknad präglas av flexibilitet och ständiga förändringar som ställer höga krav på organisationers förmåga till omställning och utveckling. Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur chefers ledarskap kan främja organisatoriskt lärande mot visionen lärande organisation inom en statlig myndighet. Studien genomfördes i en organisation där det finns ett krav på ständigt lärande för att klara av sitt uppdrag. Genom en kvalitativ metod med djupintervjuer och fenomenologisk analysmetod klargjordes åtta respondenters upplevelser av ledarskapets främjande av medarbetarens lärande och utveckling. Resultatet visade att chefers ledarskap kan främja medarbetarens lärande och utveckling genom att ge individuellt stöd, vara lyhörd samt främja dialogen både på grupp- och organisationsnivå. Slutsats: De tre essenserna: ge individuellt stöd, vara lyhörd samt främja dialogen går att ställa mot huruvida de kan tillämpas på individuell- eller organisationsnivå. Individuellt stöd och lyhördhet berör främst ledarens agerande på individnivå. Dialogen däremot behöver främjas av ledarskapet både på individuell- och organisationsnivå för att bidra till en högre nivå av lärande i organisationen. / The labor market of today is characterized by flexibility and constant changes that place high demands on organizations' ability to change and develop. The purpose of the study is to investigate how the leadership by managers can promote organizational learning towards the vision learning organization within a state authority. The study was conducted in an organization where there is a requirement for continuous learning to fulfill its mission. Through a qualitative approach with deep interviews and phenomenological analysis method, eight respondents' experiences of leadership's promotion of employee learning and development were clarified. The results showed that the leadership by managers' can promote employee learning and development by  providing individual support, being responsive and promoting dialogue at both group and organizational levels. Conclusion: The three essences:  providing individual support, being responsive and promoting dialogue can be asked whether they can be applied at individual or organizational level. Individual support and responsiveness primarily concern the conduct of the leader at the individual level. Conversely, the dialogue needs to be promoted by leadership at both individual and organizational levels to achieve a higher level of learning in the organization.

Organizational learning causes organizational change. Different descriptive models have been proposed, but little research on variables influencing these processes has been done. Needs govern our behavior and motivate our acting. It has been shown that their identification and satisfaction effect value-creating and knowledge-intensive activities, such as innovation processes, strategy development, and product design. However, needs are usually implicitly anchored in organizations and people can hardly articulate them. Despite the fact that a focus on needs does not prescribe any concrete strategy, but extends opportunities to act, an initial consideration of needs often lacks. Consequently, their role as an influencing variable for organizational learning has not been investigated yet. Addressing this gap, this dissertation explores the nature of needs and how they can enhance organizational learning processes. It introduces a novel theory on needs for organizational practice which emphasizes the potential of a focus on needs. It argues why considering needs is beneficial for learning initiatives, such as vision or strategy development, in which various expectations which presumably emerge from shared needs have to be combined. Shared needs within a social system can trigger organizational learning and facilitate the design of new consensual satisfaction strategies (satisfiers). The theory allows for understanding the motivational forces of organizational learning and exploiting the postulated one-to-many relation between needs and satisfiers. Moreover, it points at influencing variables for the organizational transition from needs to need satisfaction and illustrates that by a knowledge perspective resulting in the concept of "need-based solution knowledge". This knowledge enables people to propose viable satisfiers in organizations. We introduce the methodological framework "Bewextra" that targets at the capacity to identify needs in organizations. It rests upon theories from various scientific fields and utilizes "learning from an envisioned future" as a core method. This enables to literally envision a desired future scenario in which all needs are intuitively fulfilled, and thereby allows for the creation of knowledge about needs. The research follows the action research paradigm which proposes a combinational interplay between rational and empirical research processes, in which various (qualitative) research methods are used. Besides theoretical considerations, the dissertation reports about four research projects in which the theories and methods were applied, reflected, and refined. More specifically, it presents how "Bewextra" was implemented and adjusted and demonstrates that a combination of conventional learning from the past and "learning from an envisioned future" enhances the outcome of organizational learning in various domains. Moreover, it investigates the differences between organizational strategies, that emerge with reference to needs, and strategies, that are developed without explicitly considering needs.

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in South Africa experience one of the highest failure rates in the world with 75% to 80% of SMEs failing in their first ten years. This data suggests that few small organisations in South Africa are sustainable entities and this in turn impacts on employment and the GDP of South Africa. In order to be sustainable, organisations should be learning ones (Garvin, 1993; Marquardt in Hattingh & Smit, 2004, p2). Senge’s (1990) ground-breaking model of a learning organisation identifies the disciplines companies should practice in order to contribute to their sustainability. This model, previously researched in large global companies, is used as the basis of researching a small company in a local, South African context. This study explores whether by being a learning organisation, a small company is able to sustain itself. Senge’s concept of a learning organisation includes five disciplines. These disciplines have adult and workplace learning theories embedded in them. The study attempted to identify whether the small company drew on these learning theories in day-to-day operations and practise, and if this contributed to its development as a learning organisation. In addition to learning theories, literature reviewed included factors that impact on small business sustainability in the South African context. The study reveals an interesting blend of a business management concept (“the learning organisation”) with adult education principles that give insight into developing a small company as a learning organisation. A qualitative, ethnographic case study approach was used for this study, using an interactive model to accommodate the dynamic nature of the workplace with its variety of events and activities. Data collection took place during two intensive research periods in 2008 and 2012, in a single Johannesburg-based company. A multi-method approach was used and included observations, document analysis, questionnaires, transect walks, auto-photography, focus groups and interviews. The study revealed that a small company can ensure its sustainability by being a learning organisation, even though the company did not hold the same understanding of a learning organisation that Senge (1990) did. By practising various adult and workplace learning theories, especially the theory of communities of practice, a small company can develop the disciplines of a learning organisation. Furthermore, organisations may practise the disciplines of a learning organisation organically, without specific intent, and this may assist in their sustainability.

In simultaneously pursuing commercial and social goals, specialist microfinance organisations (MFOs) are leading examples of social enterprises working in development. Yet evidence of the feasibility of such ‘double bottom line’ management is limited. The thesis takes a comparative case study approach to investigating the dynamics of a social enterprise model of microfinance, with particular emphasis on its role in promoting employment related goals. Case study material consists primarily of the experience of two Central Asian MFOs that participated in an action research project ‘Microfinance for Decent Work’ implemented by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). Data was obtained through participant observation, staff interviews, client level surveys, and it also includes reflective practice arising from my participation in the ILO project as a consultant to both MFOs between 2008 and 2012. The findings are mixed. One of the MFOs was more strongly internally motivated to achieve social goals, and was more successful in implementing social performance management initiatives. The other was motivated more by the goal to demonstrate social performance to external stakeholders, and was less responsive to the evidence generated. The thesis also illustrates both path dependence in the evolution of social performance management, and the limited capacity of external agencies such as the ILO to influence the institutionalisation of development management within MFOs.