Inter-Organisational Knowledge Sharing in the Public Sector: The Role of Social Capital and Information and Communication Technology

<p>This thesis explores the dynamics of knowledge sharing, through the context of interorganisational collaboration in the public sector. The growth of collaboration across public sector organisations places increasing importance on knowledge sharing, yet it is an area that has historically proved difficult for the sector. Knowledge sharing research increasingly emphasises the importance of social capital in facilitating and influencing knowledge sharing behaviours, yet the public sector’s approach to knowledge sharing has predominantly focussed on the use of information and communication technology (ICT) tools. The aim of this research is to better understand the dynamics of knowledge sharing, and the roles that social capital and ICT play in knowledge sharing. This is a contemporary and important research topic. Public sector commitment to increasing collaboration requires a strong focus on inter-organisational knowledge sharing. This multiple-case, multi-method research incorporates a research design that blends qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis. The research extends and deepens current understanding of the dynamics of knowledge sharing and contributes to the existing body of knowledge in the areas of knowledge sharing, social capital, and ICT. It also provides valuable empirical evidence relating to public sector based sharing at the inter-organisational level. The research found that social capital is a significant concern for collaborative teams. Factors such as trust, group identity and shared purpose and goals were identified as important considerations for team members. Despite the sector’s focus on ICT tools as key knowledge sharing mechanisms, the actual availability of tools was limited. Further, individuals’ use of tools was low due to their perceptions of the available tools as difficult to use and of limited usefulness. A key outcome of the research was the development of a conceptual framework that can be used to support the work of academics and practitioners engaged in the field of collaboration and knowledge sharing. The framework identifies six important antecedents that influence the development of social capital, and the availability and use of ICT. These antecedents include collaboration design, leadership, the perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness of ICT, and individual technical ability. The final antecedent identifies individual’s commitment to the ‘intrinsic value of public sector work’ as a key collaboration factor.</p>

Inter-Organisational Knowledge Sharing in the Public Sector: The Role of Social Capital and Information and Communication Technology

<p>This thesis explores the dynamics of knowledge sharing, through the context of interorganisational collaboration in the public sector. The growth of collaboration across public sector organisations places increasing importance on knowledge sharing, yet it is an area that has historically proved difficult for the sector. Knowledge sharing research increasingly emphasises the importance of social capital in facilitating and influencing knowledge sharing behaviours, yet the public sector’s approach to knowledge sharing has predominantly focussed on the use of information and communication technology (ICT) tools. The aim of this research is to better understand the dynamics of knowledge sharing, and the roles that social capital and ICT play in knowledge sharing. This is a contemporary and important research topic. Public sector commitment to increasing collaboration requires a strong focus on inter-organisational knowledge sharing. This multiple-case, multi-method research incorporates a research design that blends qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis. The research extends and deepens current understanding of the dynamics of knowledge sharing and contributes to the existing body of knowledge in the areas of knowledge sharing, social capital, and ICT. It also provides valuable empirical evidence relating to public sector based sharing at the inter-organisational level. The research found that social capital is a significant concern for collaborative teams. Factors such as trust, group identity and shared purpose and goals were identified as important considerations for team members. Despite the sector’s focus on ICT tools as key knowledge sharing mechanisms, the actual availability of tools was limited. Further, individuals’ use of tools was low due to their perceptions of the available tools as difficult to use and of limited usefulness. A key outcome of the research was the development of a conceptual framework that can be used to support the work of academics and practitioners engaged in the field of collaboration and knowledge sharing. The framework identifies six important antecedents that influence the development of social capital, and the availability and use of ICT. These antecedents include collaboration design, leadership, the perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness of ICT, and individual technical ability. The final antecedent identifies individual’s commitment to the ‘intrinsic value of public sector work’ as a key collaboration factor.</p>

Inter-Organisational Knowledge Transfer among Research and Development Organisations: Implications for Information and Communication Technology Support

<p>The purpose of this thesis was to investigate the nature of knowledge transfer among key organisations in the New Zealand (NZ) research and development (R&D) sector. From these findings, practical implications for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) support were drawn. Knowledge-intensive R&D activities have seldom been investigated from a social network perspective. As Allen et al. (2007) point out there is a lack of research addressing the issue of knowledge transfer in inter-organisational social networks, specifically in the R&D sector. By employing social network analysis (SNA), this study addressed this gap and analysed and identified inter-organisational knowledge transfer structures and processes among organisations by focussing on three cases. Key themes related to SNA included the identification of the network topology, informal key roles of organisations by their levels of interactivity in the networks and their types of relationships for transferring knowledge. The concepts underlying social network analysis played a significant role in informing this research. Using a mixed method approach of case research and social network analysis, this thesis comprises an in-depth investigation into the nature of knowledge transfer among key R&D organisations in the NZ environmental sector. The mixed methods approach employed followed three consecutive steps for each of the three cases. First, a qualitative phase was conducted. Data were collected from workshop/seminar participants. This helped to achieve a deeper understanding of the field under study, and the results were used to develop an online survey instrument for the second quantitative phase. In this quantitative phase the online survey was distributed to employees of various R&D organisations. In total, 168 participants took part in this survey. Besides addressing SNA concepts, additional key themes covered by this survey were types of knowledge transferred, media used and preferred media characteristics as well as knowledge services for learning. In a final qualitative phase the workshop/seminar participants were asked follow-up questions in relation to key survey results with the aim of confirmation and explanation. This research aimed to address practical and theoretical issues alike. From a practical perspective, this research provides important background information on how to increase collaboration among R&D organisations in New Zealand. R&D key players, such as Crown Research Institutes, private research organisations, universities, government departments, and industry organisations, need to collaborate more in order to increase commercialisation of research knowledge, reduce costs (e.g. reuse knowledge) and drive innovation. From a theoretical perspective, this thesis adds knowledge to the application and further development of SNA concepts, such as tie strength, centrality and network structure, in an inter-organisational knowledge transfer context. Key findings were the definition of intermediate ties and their importance for knowledge transfer in inter-organisational social networks, recommendations of suitable centrality measures for knowledge networks and the identification of small-world networks in the R&D sector. Finally, implications for ICT support could be drawn. These implications may help increase inter-organisational collaboration. Possible ICT support was categorised into three levels that appeared useful in this study's knowledge transfer context: the individual level, the group level and the inter-organisational level.</p>

Inter-Organisational Knowledge Transfer among Research and Development Organisations: Implications for Information and Communication Technology Support

<p>The purpose of this thesis was to investigate the nature of knowledge transfer among key organisations in the New Zealand (NZ) research and development (R&D) sector. From these findings, practical implications for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) support were drawn. Knowledge-intensive R&D activities have seldom been investigated from a social network perspective. As Allen et al. (2007) point out there is a lack of research addressing the issue of knowledge transfer in inter-organisational social networks, specifically in the R&D sector. By employing social network analysis (SNA), this study addressed this gap and analysed and identified inter-organisational knowledge transfer structures and processes among organisations by focussing on three cases. Key themes related to SNA included the identification of the network topology, informal key roles of organisations by their levels of interactivity in the networks and their types of relationships for transferring knowledge. The concepts underlying social network analysis played a significant role in informing this research. Using a mixed method approach of case research and social network analysis, this thesis comprises an in-depth investigation into the nature of knowledge transfer among key R&D organisations in the NZ environmental sector. The mixed methods approach employed followed three consecutive steps for each of the three cases. First, a qualitative phase was conducted. Data were collected from workshop/seminar participants. This helped to achieve a deeper understanding of the field under study, and the results were used to develop an online survey instrument for the second quantitative phase. In this quantitative phase the online survey was distributed to employees of various R&D organisations. In total, 168 participants took part in this survey. Besides addressing SNA concepts, additional key themes covered by this survey were types of knowledge transferred, media used and preferred media characteristics as well as knowledge services for learning. In a final qualitative phase the workshop/seminar participants were asked follow-up questions in relation to key survey results with the aim of confirmation and explanation. This research aimed to address practical and theoretical issues alike. From a practical perspective, this research provides important background information on how to increase collaboration among R&D organisations in New Zealand. R&D key players, such as Crown Research Institutes, private research organisations, universities, government departments, and industry organisations, need to collaborate more in order to increase commercialisation of research knowledge, reduce costs (e.g. reuse knowledge) and drive innovation. From a theoretical perspective, this thesis adds knowledge to the application and further development of SNA concepts, such as tie strength, centrality and network structure, in an inter-organisational knowledge transfer context. Key findings were the definition of intermediate ties and their importance for knowledge transfer in inter-organisational social networks, recommendations of suitable centrality measures for knowledge networks and the identification of small-world networks in the R&D sector. Finally, implications for ICT support could be drawn. These implications may help increase inter-organisational collaboration. Possible ICT support was categorised into three levels that appeared useful in this study's knowledge transfer context: the individual level, the group level and the inter-organisational level.</p>

Biological Insights Knowledge Graph: an integrated knowledge graph to support drug development

The use of knowledge graphs as a data source for machine learning methods to solve complex problems in life sciences has rapidly become popular in recent years. Our Biological Insights Knowledge Graph (BIKG) combines relevant data for drug development from public as well as internal data sources to provide insights for a range of tasks: from identifying new targets to repurposing existing drugs. Besides the common requirements to organisational knowledge graphs such as being able to capture the domain precisely and give the users the ability to search and query the data, the focus on handling multiple use cases and supporting use case-specific machine learning models presents additional challenges: the data models must also be streamlined for the performance of downstream tasks; graph content must be easily customisable for different use cases; different projections of the graph content are required to support a wider range of different consumption modes. In this paper we describe our main design choices in implementation of the BIKG graph and discuss different aspects of its life cycle: from graph construction to exploitation.

Recovery Focused Nutritional Therapy across the Continuum of Care: Learning from COVID-19

Targeted nutritional therapy should be started early in severe illness and sustained through to recovery if clinical and patient-centred outcomes are to be optimised. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has shone a light on this need. The literature on nutrition and COVID-19 mainly focuses on the importance of nutrition to preserve life and prevent clinical deterioration during the acute phase of illness. However, there is a lack of information guiding practice across the whole patient journey (e.g., hospital to home) with a focus on targeting recovery (e.g., long COVID). This review paper is of relevance to doctors and other healthcare professionals in acute care and primary care worldwide, since it addresses early, multi-modal individualised nutrition interventions across the continuum of care to improve COVID-19 patient outcomes. It is of relevance to nutrition experts and non-nutrition experts and can be used to promote inter-professional and inter-organisational knowledge transfer on the topic. The primary goal is to prevent complications and support recovery to enable COVID-19 patients to achieve the best possible nutritional, physical, functional and mental health status and to apply the learning to date from the COVID-19 pandemic to other patient groups experiencing acute severe illness.

Decolonising management and organisational knowledge (MOK): Praxistical theorising for potential worlds

This special issue (SI) editorial contributes to ongoing efforts worldwide to decolonise management and organisational knowledge (MOK). A robust pluriversal discussion on the how and why of decolonisation is vital. Yet to date, most business and management schools are on the periphery of debates about decolonising higher education, even as Business Schools in diverse locations function as contested sites of neocolonialism and expansion of Western neoliberal perspectives. This editorial and special issue is the outcome of a unique set of relationships and processes that saw Organization host its first paper development workshop in Africa in 2019. This editorial speaks to a radical ontological plurality that up-ends the classical division between theory and praxis. It advocates praxistical theorising that moves beyond this binary and embraces decolonising knowledge by moving into the realm of affect and embodied, other-oriented reflexive, communicative praxis. It underscores the simultaneous, contested and unfinished decolonising-recolonising doubleness of praxis and the potential of borderlands locations to work with these dynamics. This special issue brings together a set of papers which advance different decolonising projects and grapple with the nuances of what it means to ‘do’ decolonising in a diversity of empirical and epistemic settings.

Complexity and Knowledge in Organisational Context: Concepts, Approaches, Boundaries and Relations

The study sought to understand the relationship among organisations, knowledge and complexity so that managers could develop more effective strategies when working with organisational knowledge and complexity. The theoretical framework of the theme was elaborated from Web of Science and then an analysis of identified approximations, relations and boundaries was carried out. Aiming at greater consistency regarding the approximations and boundaries among the studied themes, we sought complex organisations that contemplated knowledge as a resource. The initial search retrieved 95 articles, and after content analysis was performed, we identified 25 articles considering complex organisations as social organisms and knowledge as a resource. In this sense, difficulties were observed regarding the definition of the concept of complex organisation, as well as regarding the understanding of knowledge as a resource. After the analysis of the 25 articles, eight pointed to some characteristic of complex organisations, and this corpus does now allow to relate and identify the impact of knowledge on complexity, or complexity on knowledge. From these considerations, we discuss ways to manage complexity and knowledge as elements inserted in the organisational context.