It is estimated that each direct job in the automotive industry supports at least 5 indirect jobs in the global community, resulting in more than 50 million jobs to the global auto industry (Ellis, 2006). In South Africa the automotive sector, as an employer, is widely viewed to be second only to mining. In the automotive industry globally, it is being discovered that knowledge, as opposed to “data” or “information”, is becoming harder to locate as a knowledge-bleed is occurring due to the phenomenon of the “brain drain”, retirement of experienced professionals, changing work behaviours among the younger generations and the general lack of infusion of new talent into the South African automotive industry over the past decade (Liebowitz, 1999). This realisation has spawned a growing interest in the concept of knowledge management (KM). KM is the development of tools, processes, systems, structures and cultures explicitly to improve the creation, sharing and use of knowledge critical for decision making. The effective use of KM helps organisations to improve the quality of their decision making and correspondingly to reduce costs and increase efficiency (Kinicki and Kreitner, 2008). Most automotive Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) have made some attempt at KM initiatives, and these attempts have been well-documented. However, among the automotive component suppliers, limited evidence exists of attempts at KM (Piderit, 2007). No standard KM application framework could be established in the literature for industry practitioners in automotive component manufacturers within the Eastern Cape. The aim of this research study is therefore to develop a framework for the application of KM in automotive component manufacturers within the Eastern Cape. The research consisted of a study of the knowledge management literature and the subsequent development of a knowledge management framework and empirical evaluation of the framework in the automotive component supply industry of the Eastern Cape. In conclusion the report presents a knowledge management framework which converts a company assessment to recommended corrective actions to be implemented and also presents the author’s findings, conclusions and recommendations derived from the study.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nmmu/vital:8606 |
| Date | January 2011 |
| Creators | Lingham, Nathan |
| Publisher | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Faculty of Business and Economic Sciences |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Masters, MBA |
| Format | x, 168 leaves ; 30 cm, pdf |
| Rights | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University |
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