Most training performance measurement tools rely heavily on quantitative metrics that do not consider factors impacting knowledge transfer and behavioral change such as social relationships and company culture. This study observed a training performance measurement tool for a major U.S.-based airline. Analysis of the measurement tool consists of: a pilot study providing a baseline for the current gaps in training performance measurement, a survey of flight attendants to understand how company cultural and social factors impact learning and knowledge transfer, and focus groups to provide an in-depth analysis of what the underlying company cultural and social factors are. Both quantitative and qualitative analysis were utilized to identify the impact of cultural factors and social relationships on performance measurement to provide in-depth understanding of the role of tacit knowledge transfer in the training environment. Results show that cultural factors such as empathy, coaching, and on-the-job training, negatively impact the accuracy of flight attendants' ability to measure learning and knowledge transfer. A second finding shows social factors, personality, and agreement, show a strong trend towards negatively affecting the ability to accurately measure learning and knowledge transfer. The proposed knowledge transfer measurement model was further modified to reflect the findings and the results of this study. Further recommendations include altering the measurement tool, prioritization of skills, and communicating purpose.

Background. Software companies make frequent development in their software products to improve their quality. Agile software development (ASD) helps in the rapid delivery of the software product with consistent quality to the customer. Agile Software development shares a lot of characteristics with knowledge-intensive works, and it also needs lot of knowledge from different domains of both human and com- puting domains. Knowledge is defined as a belief of one individual capability for an effective action. Tacit knowledge is a category of the knowledge management which is defined an individuals’ memory, action or beliefs. Moreover, tacit knowledge plays a crucial role in ASD. However, tacit knowledge is hard to transfer among team mem- bers as tacit knowledge is based on an individual experience. Tacit knowledge is not documented for further reference so there is a need to study how efficiently can tacit knowledge is currently being transferred in the industry, what challenges are being faced in tacit knowledge transfer and the mitigation strategies used to overcome the tacit knowledge transfer challenges. Objectives. In this present thesis, we focused on how tacit knowledge is being transferred among team members in agile software development. Objective 1: To identify the current tacit knowledge transfer mechanism in agile software development. Objective 2: To identify challenges in managing tacit knowledge transfer between team members in Agile software development. Objective 3: To explore mitigation strategies to overcome the challenges faced dur- ing tacit knowledge transfer. Methods. In this study, SLR and interviews were implemented to achieve the objective. SLR was used to achieve the first two objectives, and interviews were conducted to achieve all the objectives. Results. From SLR, a total of 21 challenges and 12 transfer mechanisms have been identified whereas, from the interviews, a total of 12 challenges, 8 transfer mecha- nisms, and 7 mitigation strategies have been identified. There were new challenges and transfer mechanisms identified in both research methods. Some of the transfer mechanisms consist of daily scrum calls and day-to-day forums among the teams. Both the research methods’ results indicate that one of the most challenging parts while transferring tacit knowledge is the lack of critical thinking with human orienta- tion. Based on the interviews, some of the mitigation strategies such as regular sprint meetings, and online whiteboarding were considered to overcome the tacit knowledge transfer challenges. Conclusions. Based on the challenges identified from the interview, it is evident that teams working in distributed teams are facing more challenges in transferring tacit knowledge, and tacit knowledge transfer sessions should be recorded to reduce the challenges.

Patienterna blir allt äldre och deras komplexa akuta och kroniska ohälsotillstånd kräver specifik bedömning och vård av omvårdnadspersonalen. Utveckling av sjuksköterskans praktiska yrkeskunskap är en lång process samtidigt som nya sjuksköterskor upplever att klyftan mellan teori- och praktisk kunskap är stor. Sjuksköterskorna och verksamheterna behöver mer kunskap om hur sjuksköterskornas kompetensutveckling kan stödjas för att öka kvalificerade bedömningar i de komplexa omvårdnadssituationerna. Syftet med denna studie är att få ökad förståelse för sjuksköterskors upplevda erfarenheter av praktisk kunskap i de komplexa omvårdnadssituationerna. Metoden för denna studie har varit en fenomenologisk forskningsansats med kvalitativa intervjuer för att förstå sjuksköterskornas perspektiv på kunskap i de komplexa omvårdnadssituationerna. Data bearbetades och analyserades utifrån Giorgis analysmetod för den fenomenologiska analysens reduktion. Sjuksköterskornas praktiska kunskap baserades på två teman: Sjuksköterskans omdöme i de komplexa omvårdnadssituationerna och utveckling av praktisk kunskap och ett antal kategorier och underkategorier. Sjuksköterskornas beslutsfattande i de komplexa omvårdnadssituationerna baseras på deras tidigare erfarenheter, värderingar, professionella ambitioner, kritiska och logiska tänkande samt intuition. Nya situationer löses med hjälp av informationssökning, kritiskt och logiskt tänkande och med hjälp av andra. Sjuksköterskorna utvecklar sin kunskap genom självreflektion och reflektion i grupp. Resultaten visade att sjuksköterskornas medvetenhet om sin och yrkeskollektivets tysta kunskap är låg. För att säkerhetsställa att den legitimerade sjuksköterskan har den yrkeskunskap och kompetens som behövs för att möta patienter i de komplexa omvårdnadssituationerna behöver verksamheterna bättre stödja sjuksköterskorna i deras kompetensutveckling. De tysta föreställningar som påverkar beslutsfattande i komplexa omvårdnadssituationer behöver synliggöras och ifrågasättas för att de medvetet ska kunna basera sina beslut på kvalificerade bedömningar och erbjuda en god omvårdnadskvalitet som bygger på evidensbaserad kunskap. / The Swedish population lives longer, and a consequence is that healthcare professionalsencounter more older patients. Older patients and their complex acute and chronic ill health conditionsrequire specific assessment and care of nursing staff. The development of the nurse's practicalprofessional skills is a long process and nurses are thought to learn throughout their working lives. Atthe same time many new nurses experience a gap between theoretical and practical knowledge.Nurses, nurse trainers and clinical settings need more knowledge about how nurses’ skillsdevelopment can be supported to increase qualified assessments and nursing proficiency in complexnursing situations. The purpose of this study is to gain a better understanding of nurses’ experience of practicalknowledge in complex nursing situations. The study adopts a phenomenological method, using qualitative interviews to collect data, inorder to understand the nurses' experiences of complex nursing situations. Data was processed andanalyzed using Giorgi's phenomenological method. The study identifies two main themes: Nursing's judgment in the complex nursing situationsand the development of practical knowledge. A number of categories and subcategories are alsoidentified. Nurses decision making in complex nursing situations is based on their previousexperiences, values, professional ambitions, critical and logical thinking and intuition. New complexsituations are solved using information retrieval, logical thinking and the help of others. Nursesdevelop their knowledge through self-reflection and reflection in groups. The results showed that thenurses’ awareness about tacit knowledge, individually and in the nursing collective is low. In order toensure that the legitimate nurse has the professional skills and skills needed to meet patients incomplex nursing situations, nursing education and clinical settings need to better support the nurses intheir skills development in professional settings. Tacit knowledge and tacit theories need to be madevisible and open for critical reflection, so that nurses can consciously base their decisions on qualifiedassessments and offer good quality care based on evidence-based knowledge.

This dissertation is comprised of two manuscripts that explore various contestations and representations of knowledge about the highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1virus. In the first manuscript, I explore three narratives that have been produced to describe the 20-year journey of the virus. The journey begins in 1996 when the virus was a singular localized animal virus but then over the next 20 years multiplied its ontological status through a (de)stabilized global network of science and politics that promoted both fears of contagion and politics of otherness. Written by and for powerful actors and institutions in the global North, the narratives focused on technical solutions and outbreak fears. In doing so, the narratives produced policies and practices of biopower that obscured alternative considerations for equity, social justice, and wellbeing for the marginalized groups most directly affected by the H5N1 virus. The second manuscript explores a unique aspect of the H5N1 virus's journey as an emerging infectious disease -- its representation as a potential weapon for bioterrorists. The US government's recent attempt to secure what constitutes H5N1 knowledge produced a global debate between scientists and policy makers over how to balance the nation-state's desire for security with the life science's tradition of openly shared research. Known as the dual-use dilemma, this debate set up binaries of impossible reconciliation between the two groups. This dissertation argues that the dual-use dilemma obscures larger questions of justice. I propose a new concept of justice, knowledge justice, as an alternate more globally inclusive framework for exploring ways out of the dilemma. The concept is premised on the assertion that if knowledge is framed to obscure justice issues, then the justice questions of owning that knowledge can be used as a way out of the dual-use dilemma. Thus, knowledge becomes a question of justice that should be as important to policy makers as more traditional justice considerations of inequities in distribution, recognition, representation, and fairness. / Ph. D.

<p>Kunskap är en viktig resurs, speciellt inom kunskapsintensiva branscher så som revisionsföretag. En stor del av kunskapen hos en människa utgörs av den tysta kunskapen, som är den kunskapen som är personlig och svår att uttrycka. Genom att skapa en bättre förståelse för den tysta kunskapen, kan företagen utnyttja sina kunskapsresurser på ett bättre sätt. Därför krävs det att den tysta kunskapen studeras. Denna undersökning syftar till att ta reda på vad den tysta kunskapen är och hur den tillvaratas inom revisionsföretagen. För att besvara syftet har vi intervjuat fyra revisorer från de fyra största revisionsföretagen i världen. För att försöka fånga den tysta kunskapen, använde vi ”epitomes of tacit knowledge” som metod i vår intervjuguide. I undersökningen kom vi fram till att den tysta kunskapen finns inom revisionsyrket, och att den finns mest i möten med kunder. Det mest intressanta vi kom fram till, är att revisorerna tillvaratar den tysta kunskapen genom att ta hjälp av gamla fall vid bedömning av nya fall. Detta sker i diskussioner med andra medarbetare i berättelseform. Vi fann även andra förutsättningar där det finns en möjlighet för den tysta kunskapen att tillvaratas mellan revisorer, vilka revisionsföretagen använder sig av.</p> / <p>Knowledge is an important resource, especially in knowledge-intensive industries such as audit firms. Much of mankind's knowledge consists of tacit knowledge, this is a knowledge that is personal and difficult to express. By having a better understanding of tacit knowledge, companies can exploit their knowledge resources more effectively, and therefore it's important that the tacit knowledge is studied. The purpose of this study is to find out what tacit knowledge is and how audit firms take care of it within the own firm. To answer these questions we have interviewed four accountants from four of the largest accounting firms in the world. In our attempt to capture the tacit knowledge we used ''epitome of tacit knowledge'' as a method in our interview guide. In the survey, we found out that the tacit knowledge exists within the audit profession and that it appears in meetings with clients. The most interesting thing we discovered is that the auditors takes care of the tacit knowledge by taking help of old cases when assessing new cases. This occurs in discussions with other co-worker in narrative form. We also found other conditions where there is an opportunity for the tacit knowledge to be enforced between auditors, which audit firme use.</p>

Kunskap är en viktig resurs, speciellt inom kunskapsintensiva branscher så som revisionsföretag. En stor del av kunskapen hos en människa utgörs av den tysta kunskapen, som är den kunskapen som är personlig och svår att uttrycka. Genom att skapa en bättre förståelse för den tysta kunskapen, kan företagen utnyttja sina kunskapsresurser på ett bättre sätt. Därför krävs det att den tysta kunskapen studeras. Denna undersökning syftar till att ta reda på vad den tysta kunskapen är och hur den tillvaratas inom revisionsföretagen. För att besvara syftet har vi intervjuat fyra revisorer från de fyra största revisionsföretagen i världen. För att försöka fånga den tysta kunskapen, använde vi ”epitomes of tacit knowledge” som metod i vår intervjuguide. I undersökningen kom vi fram till att den tysta kunskapen finns inom revisionsyrket, och att den finns mest i möten med kunder. Det mest intressanta vi kom fram till, är att revisorerna tillvaratar den tysta kunskapen genom att ta hjälp av gamla fall vid bedömning av nya fall. Detta sker i diskussioner med andra medarbetare i berättelseform. Vi fann även andra förutsättningar där det finns en möjlighet för den tysta kunskapen att tillvaratas mellan revisorer, vilka revisionsföretagen använder sig av. / Knowledge is an important resource, especially in knowledge-intensive industries such as audit firms. Much of mankind's knowledge consists of tacit knowledge, this is a knowledge that is personal and difficult to express. By having a better understanding of tacit knowledge, companies can exploit their knowledge resources more effectively, and therefore it's important that the tacit knowledge is studied. The purpose of this study is to find out what tacit knowledge is and how audit firms take care of it within the own firm. To answer these questions we have interviewed four accountants from four of the largest accounting firms in the world. In our attempt to capture the tacit knowledge we used ''epitome of tacit knowledge'' as a method in our interview guide. In the survey, we found out that the tacit knowledge exists within the audit profession and that it appears in meetings with clients. The most interesting thing we discovered is that the auditors takes care of the tacit knowledge by taking help of old cases when assessing new cases. This occurs in discussions with other co-worker in narrative form. We also found other conditions where there is an opportunity for the tacit knowledge to be enforced between auditors, which audit firme use.

Submitted by Marcia Bacha (marcia.bacha@fgv.br) on 2013-10-09T13:04:34Z No. of bitstreams: 2 bernardo_noronha_v1.pdf: 548527 bytes, checksum: 97432c6f81c0d347435f2924a2ed9313 (MD5) Bernardo_noronha_Entrevistas_v2.pdf: 259829 bytes, checksum: 4f15dd73324bab755c23f5964083c795 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Marcia Bacha (marcia.bacha@fgv.br) on 2013-10-09T13:05:03Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 bernardo_noronha_v1.pdf: 548527 bytes, checksum: 97432c6f81c0d347435f2924a2ed9313 (MD5) Bernardo_noronha_Entrevistas_v2.pdf: 259829 bytes, checksum: 4f15dd73324bab755c23f5964083c795 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Marcia Bacha (marcia.bacha@fgv.br) on 2013-10-09T13:05:45Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 bernardo_noronha_v1.pdf: 548527 bytes, checksum: 97432c6f81c0d347435f2924a2ed9313 (MD5) Bernardo_noronha_Entrevistas_v2.pdf: 259829 bytes, checksum: 4f15dd73324bab755c23f5964083c795 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-10-09T13:07:05Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 bernardo_noronha_v1.pdf: 548527 bytes, checksum: 97432c6f81c0d347435f2924a2ed9313 (MD5) Bernardo_noronha_Entrevistas_v2.pdf: 259829 bytes, checksum: 4f15dd73324bab755c23f5964083c795 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008 / O conhecimento tem sido estudado há bastante tempo dentro da administração. Entretanto, a partir da década de 1990, com as mudanças nos fundamentos das economias industriais dos recursos naturais para os ativos intelectuais, as empresas passaram a preocupar-se com o conhecimento existente em suas organizações e seu gerenciamento. Um dos aspectos mais relevantes para o gerenciamento do conhecimento é a sua transferência. O conhecimento tácito, por não poder ser estruturado e codificado, é difícil de ser transferido pela organização. O gerenciamento de ativos intangíveis como o conhecimento tácito é percebido como importante capacitação para a competição e como fonte de vantagem competitiva sustentável. O objetivo desse trabalho é identificar, através de um estudo de caso, se os fatores relevantes à transferência do conhecimento tácito estão presentes em uma grande empresa petrolífera brasileira. A presente pesquisa analisa parte relevante da bibliografia acerca da transferência do conhecimento tácito em organizações e coleta evidências para propor um modelo heurístico que possa explicar como ocorre essa transferência de conhecimento tácito, baseado em fatores idiossincráticos e nos fatores organizacionais cultura organizacional, estrutura organizacional e estratégia de gestão do conhecimento. Como resultado, o fator idiossincrático e os fatores estrutura organizacional e estratégia de gestão do conhecimento foram corroborados pelas evidências empíricas, entretanto o fator cultura organizacional não foi identificado. A partir dos resultados alcançados, um novo modelo é proposto. Verifica-se que alguns fatores identificados ajudam a transferência do conhecimento tácito enquanto outros criam barreiras a essa transferência. São sugeridos mecanismos para auxiliar as organizações na transferência do conhecimento tácito. / Knowledge has long been studied in the management field. However, since the shift of the principles of industrial economy from natural resources to intellectual assets in the 1990’s, firms have been concerned about the management of its internal knowledge. The transfer of knowledge is one of the most important issues in knowledge management. Tacit knowledge, that cannot be codified, is more difficult to be transferred through the organization. The management of intangible assets like tacit knowledge is an important source if sustained competitive advantage. The objective of this study is to identify the presence in a major Brazilian oil company of key factors to the tacit knowledge transfer. This research revises relevant part of tacit knowledge transfer literature and gathers evidences to suggest a heuristic model to explaining how tacit knowledge is transferred within the organization, relied on idiosyncratic aspects and organizational aspects like organizational culture, organizational structure and knowledge management strategy. As a result, this work showed that idiosyncratic aspects, organizational structure and knowledge management strategy aspects were corroborated by empirical findings. However, organizational culture aspects were not identified. A new model of tacit knowledge transfer is drawn from the empirical results. Some of aspects identified in the organization studied help the transfer of tacit knowledge while others hamper its flow. Some tools to improve tacit knowledge transfer within organizations are proposed.

Magister Commercii (Information Management) - MCom(IM) / Knowledge Management has been at the heart of mounting focus over the last several years. Research and literature on the area under discussion has grown and organizations have come to realize that success is often determined by one’s ability to create, disseminate, and embody knowledge in products and services. This realization has led to increased interest in examining the ways in which knowledge can be effectively identified, elicited, codified, distributed and retained.When an employee leaves an organization, the knowledge they possess often goes with them. This loss can potentially have a negative impact on the productivity and quality of the organization. Knowledge Management seeks to find ways to minimize loss of knowledge when an employee leaves an organization. One of the impediments that knowledge management seeks to overcome is the accepted tendency in people to hoard knowledge. People often withhold knowledge when they feel it provides them with a competitive advantage over others. The argument of this study was intended to provide the organization with an approach that it can utilize to facilitate tacit knowledge elicitation by means of the storytelling method.In keeping with Grounded theory principles, and utilising an interpretive approach, stories from Subject Matter Experts were collected and re-coded into fitting knowledge management constructs. The coding of the stories into the various knowledge management constructs was then further refined by means of expert review. Pearson’s cross correlation analysis was also used as a supporting tool to determine and validate that the collected stories were classified correctly under the knowledge management constructs. The research findings eventually demonstrated that storytelling is an effective means of eliciting tacit knowledge from experts. In addition to this, the research has inadvertently resulted in the construction of a knowledge management framework for storytelling.

Knowledge Management (KM) and Business Intelligence (BI) are topics, which are receiving much currency in the literature of academia and the general media over the past several years. This thesis explores KM from the perspective of the acquisition of business intelligence inside and outside the organisation. We do this by undertaking an extensive survey of the literature in the field. This thesis provides an overview of the major concepts, approaches, and issues as well as some experiences and trends of KM, covering both organisational and technological aspects. Firstly, chapter 2 discusses various definitions of knowledge and KM as well as related terms like tacit knowledge and intellectual capital, from a philosophical, a technological and a business point of view. Secondly, chapter 3, describes the major components of KM, from a process perspective, a func- tional perspective and a technological perspective. Important processes include the setting of appropriate goals; the creation, discovery, acquisition and capture of knowledge. The chapter also describes the storage of that knowledge in knowledge repositories, the classification, re- trieval, filtering and refinement of knowledge; the transfer and use of that knowledge. Finally, the chapter ends with how organisations may undertake the assessment, conservation and main- tenance of knowledge, and states that groupware, document management systems, intelligent agents, knowledge maps and expertise profiling are examples of technologies used in KM. iii The thesis then looks at the role of asynchronous groupware in enabling and harnessing the benefits of KM. Here, the research discusses how Information Technology (IT), and specifically, synchronous and asynchronous groupware, may be integrated with KM in a drive towards cre- ating BI. Chapter 4 also studies the term `business intelligence', with specific relevance to the identification of business opportunities, and the application of the concepts of intellectual capital (IC). Chapter 5 outlines the research methodology, which includes two surveys on KM awareness and KM practices in order to gauge the level of implementation and application of KM for adding value to organisations. The research methodology also employs a case study to validate the implementation of an aspect of KM collaboration and knowledge sharing. The findings from the surveys give testament to the level of awareness and implementation of KM in best practice organisations. Chapter 7 then presents the approaches to measuring IC, and BI used by firms employing knowledge management practices to maintain their competitive advantage. In chapter 8, the researcher analyses how KM presentations and implementation in organisations may be operationalised. In chapter 9, the research presents the research model, the KM-BI model, which is the seminal objective of this thesis. The KM-BI model uses the confirmatory factor analysis procedure, Proc Calis of SAS Institute, to present a measurement model. In seeking to clarify the argument being made, a model is confirmed and discussed in terms of the transformation process from KM to BI and the subsequent competitive advantage. iv / Business Management / DBL

Thesis (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2008. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study concerns itself with two issues, (i) quality concerns about the MBA and (ii) increasing importance of knowledge management, especially tacit knowledge in the business world. The MBA course of study was established as a measure to prepare individuals aspiring to be managers for leadership positions and was originally targeted at the cream of employees. There are several expectations placed on employees when they are sent by their employers to do an MBA. Among these expectations are that employees are expected to tap into the experience of fellow students while on the program, improve their leadership and management skills, get exposure to knowledge on other fields and to acquire practical business solutions. It is said, though, that the MBA study programme is currently not meeting the desired expectations of the business world, which has, hence, led to the devaluation of this programme as a premier business education course. Conversely, knowledge management has gained significant importance in the recent past, owing to the subsequent empowerment of individuals and organisations to then create a competitive advantage over their rivals. In particular, it has been found that the increasing of tacit knowledge is most crucial for success in this regard. Tacit knowledge resides in the minds of individuals and is acquired after many years through both professional and general life experiences. This valuable knowledge, which is hard to capture, is lost whenever experienced employees leave an organisation, for anyone of various reasons, which may include retirement, change of jobs and/or restructuring . Organisations are, therefore, faced with the challenge of capturing tacit knowledge and then creating an environment where this is freely shared with others within that organisation, to reap the reward and beat any rivals. The objective of this study is to shed more light on tacit knowledge sharing within the MBA study programme and reveal how this action will address concerns relating to the quality of MBA training. In this regard, in this research study an attempt will be made to discover ways of harnessing the tacit knowledge found among the students, to then better the quality of the MBA and increase the value of this study programme. The results of this study did indicate that tacit knowledge is shared among the students in the MBA programme and that it is valuable to the students; that industry related knowledge and professional experience, closely followed by general life experiences, are the most valuable kinds of knowledge gained from fellow students. The sharing of such knowledge usually occurs during group/syndicate activities, with one's fellow students providing the greatest source of the knowledge that one gains. Tacit knowledge is shared equally across the different subject groupings in the MBA study programme, despite prior MBA tacit knowledge being most useful in LeadershiplHR and Strategy courses than in any other. The MBA environment is generally supportive of tacit knowledge sharing. However, a minority of students, mostly women, owing to other students' negative attitudes, find the environment intimidating. Students who participate in the MBA programme possess sufficient prior MBA work experience and higher education qualifications, indicating a wealth of tacit knowledge. The results suggest that business schools must continue to target students who are adequately experienced and who possess higher education qualifications as they are the individuals who possess a wealth of tacit knowledge, which proves to be valuable to all concerned . Additionally, after the value of tacit knowledge in the MBA has been recognised , activities that enhance its sharing are encouraged. The breadth of student experience is crucial to tacit knowledge sharing and, as such, calls for the student recruitment process at business schools to be adjusted accordingly. In addition there is need for the undesirable behaviour of certain students to be kept in check, that valuable tacit knowledge sharing is not missed as a result of intimidation. It is worthwhile noting that, through attraction of students with adequate prior work experience, a higher quality tacit knowledge would be tapped, thereby meeting part of the requirements of the business world for a high quality MBA study programme. In Chapter 1 a general presentation of this subject is presented, and the approach and rationale of the study are explained. In Chapters 2 & 3 an overview of literature relevant to the topic of tacit knowledge management, as well as that of MBA training , is presented. In Chapter 4 the methodology and data gathered are discussed. In Chapter 5 the summary and conclusions of this study are presented and suggestions for future research areas are made. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie studie handel oor twee sake, naamlik (i) vrae oor die gehalte van die MBA en (ii) die feit dat kennisbestuur al hoe belangriker word, veral ten opsigte van algemene kennis in die besigheidswereld. Die MBA-studiekursus het tot stand gekom om mense wat bestuurders wil wees voor te berei vir leierskapsposisies. Die kursus was oorspronklik gemik op net die beste werknemers. Daar was verskeie verwagtinge ten opsigte van werknemers wat deur hul werkgewers aangesê is om 'n MBA te loop. Daar was die verwagting dat werknemers tydens die kursus uit die ervaring van hul medestudente sou leer, dat hulle hul leierskaps- en bestuursvaardighede sou verbeter, dat hulle blootstelling aan kundigheid uit ander velde sou kry, en dat hulle praktiese oplossings vir besigheidsprobleme sou vind. Daar word beweer dat die MBA-studieprogram nie tans meer aan die verwagtinge uit die besigheidswerêld valdoen nie, en daartoe lei dat die program nie meer as een van die voorste besigheidsopleidingskursusse beskou word nie. Voorts is kennisbestuur deesdae baie belangriker, aangesien sekere persone onlangs bemagtig is, en maatskappye graag 'n mededingende voordeel oor hul konkurrente wil behou. Die feit dat algemene kennis aan die toeneem is, is veral ook belangrik vir suksesvolle kennisbestuur. Algemene kennis is kundigheid wat mense opdoen na baie jare se besigheids- en algemene lewenservaring. Die kennis is waardevol, maar dit is moeilik om vas te lê, en daarom gaan sulke kennis verlore wanneer ervare werknemers 'n maatskappy verlaat, ongeag of dit vanweë aftrede, bedanking of afdanking is. Maatskappye sukkel dus om algemene kennis te behou. Die uitdaging is om 'n omgewing te skep waarin sulke kennis vryelik met ander mense binne die maatskappy gedeel word. Dit is vir die maatskappy voordelig wanneer algemene kennis gedeel word, want dit gee die maatskappy 'n voorsprong oor sy konkurrente. Die doelwit van hierdie studie is om lig te werp op die manier waarop algemene kennis in die MBA-studieprogram gedeel word en te bepaal in watter mate kennisdeling mense se siening oor die gehalte van MBA-opleiding kan verbeter. Die doel van hierdie navorsingstudie is dus om maniere te vind waarop die algemene kennis wat studente het, te benut op 'n wyse wat die gehalte van die MBA verbeter en die waarde daarvan verhoog. Die uitslag van hierdie studie dui aan dat algemene kennis wel deur studente in die MBA-program met mekaar gedeel word en dat dit vir studente nuttig is, dat veral bedryfsverwante kennis en besigheidservaring, maar ook algemene lewenservaring, die waardevolste soort kennis is wat van medestudente verkry word . Sulke kennis word gewoonlik tydens groeps- of sindikeringsaktiwiteite gedeel, en die meeste kennis wat tydens so 'n sessie verkry word, kom trouens van medestudente. Dieselfde hoeveelheid algemene kennis word in al die MBA-studieprogram se vakgroeperings gedeel, hoewel algemene kennis oor die MBA self in die leierskaps-/mensehulpbron- en strategiekursusse belangriker is as in die ander. Die deling van algemene kennis word deur die MBA-omgewing aangehelp. 'n Klein groep studente, veral vroue, beleef die omgewing egter as intimiderend, as gevolg van ander studente se negatiewe houdings. Aangesien studente wat aan die MBA-program deelneem, voldoende MBA-verwante werkservaring en hoëronderwys-kwalifikasies het, kan 'n mens aanneem dat hulle oor heelwat algemene kennis beskik. Die uitslag dui daarop dat sakeskole steeds op studente moet fokus wat voldoende ervaring het en wat oor hoëronderwys-kwalifikasies beskik, aangesien hulle heelwat algemene kennis het, wat vir alle betrokkenes nuttig is. En wanneer sakeskole eers besef watter waarde algemene kennis vir die MBA het, moedig hulle gewoonlik aktiwiteite aan wat die deling van algemene kennis bevorder. As studente nie aan 'n verskeidenheid ervarings blootgestel word nie, sal die deling van algemene kennis daaronder ly, en dit moet in gedagte gehou word wanneer sakeskole oor die werwing van studente besluit. Die ongewenste gedrag van sekere studente moet ook in toom gehou word sodat intimidasie nie daartoe lei dat algemene kennis nie gedeel word nie. Wanneer sakeskole studente werf wat oor voldoende werkervaring beskik, word daar maar algemene kennis gedeel, en dit laat die program voldoen aan die vereistes wat die sakewereld stel vir 'n MBA-studieprogram van gehalte. In hoofstuk 1 word die onderwerp omskryf, en die redes en veronderstellings van die studie word uiteengesit. Hoofstuk 2 en 3 bevat 'n literatuuroorsig oor kennisbestuur van algemene kennis en oor MBA-opleiding. Hoofstuk 4 is 'n bespreking van die metodologie en data wat in die studie versamel is. Hoofstuk 5 beval 'n opsomming en gevolgtrekking van die studie, en voorstelle word gemaak vir toekomstige navorsing.