In the 1990s, Senge advocated building the Learning Organization by practicing five disciplines. Facing the uncertainties of a rapidly changing marketplace, the competitiveness between organizations has become conspicuously important. Therefore, learning, and acting faster than competitors is critical in the success of companies' existence, management and development. / Organizational Learning (OL) and renewed competence help an organization to better understand the actual situation, gain new knowledge, and adopt effective, innovative and coordinated action to suit the fast changing environment. Kurt Lewin (1946) first used the phrase 'action research'. Action research (AR) is a methodology which that uses an action spiral of planning, action, observation and reflection (including evaluation) to find facts, solve problems, and improve performance. Performance Management is also a continuing process, through the development of individuals and teams to promote organizational performance. The main purpose of performance management is to link individuals and teams to organizational goals for continuously enhancing their performance. / The action researcher first reviewed the literature about organizational learning, learning organizations, and action research and performance management; and brought up some new viewpoints and developments. Secondly, this study led to the design of a systematic framework (OL-WA model) including the organization's concerns, organizational learning, willingness to act, and organizational performance, to increase the research performance (i.e. main competitive advantage of the university) at Chienkuo Technology University (CTU) in Taiwan. Finally, this study used the methods of organizational learning, action research, performance management, and survey questionnaires to manage and enhance the research performance. Considering the improvement through implementing the above methods and critical factors that influence research performance at CTU, the findings, analysis and serial actions being explored should help bring out some valuable academic contributions and helpful experiences, knowledge and constructive suggestions for the academic and business circles in Taiwan. / Thesis (DBA(DoctorateofBusinessAdministration))--University of South Australia, 2006.

Globalisation has elevated knowledge to become the prime source of competitive advantage. Because knowledge is derived from learning, management concepts such as the Learning Organisation (LO) started to gain popularity in the early 1990s. However, attention in the LO concept has declined since the mid-1990s. At the same time, there is a lack of relevant literature to guide practitioners in manufacturing organisations such as those in Malaysia which need to become LOs but do not know how to do so in their transition into the knowledge-based economy. Hence, three separate but interlinked papers on the application of LO concept were written as a contribution to revive interest and to assist practitioners on LO implementation. To show how Papers 1, 2 and 3 relate to each other, they have been integrated into this paper as the literature review, the first empirical study and the second empirical study respectively. / The literature review looked at the causes of the reduced interest in the LO concept and suggested some empirical research opportunities to revive it. Consequently, two empirical studies were conducted based on a common theoretical grounding and sample. The first study addressed the role of organisation size on the LO implementation by analysing the extent of presence of LO characteristics between small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and large enterprises (LEs) in the Malaysian electrical and electronic (E & E) industry. Because the industry is dominated by foreign multinational enterprises (MNEs), this research also looked at the role of ownership by doing a similar analysis between foreign-owned enterprises and Malaysian-owned enterprises. From the findings, it was concluded that organisation size and ownership do not cause any significant perceived difference among organisations in their practice of LO characteristics. The second study tackled the perceived lack of usefulness of the LO by testing for a correlation between the LO characteristics and organisational performance and for significant difference in organisational performance between LOs and non-LOs. The findings confirmed that LO characteristics correlate positively with organisational performance, resulting in LOs achieving significantly better organisational performance compared to non-LOs. / Thesis DBA(DoctorateofBusinessAdministration))--University of South Australia, 2004.

Thesis (PhD)--University of South Australia, 2003

Thesis (PhDBusinessandManagement)--University of South Australia, 2001.

Thesis (PhD)--University of South Australia, 2000

Thesis (PhD)--University of South Australia, 2003

Thesis (PhD)--University of South Australia, 2003

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 95-105).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Toronto, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 595-601).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Toronto, 2005.