Abstract
This PhD research examines knowledge discovery in the context of organizational learning (OL) and learning organization (LO). Knowledge discovery is an integral part of knowledge management and OL. The research is carried out within a Project Action Learning (PAL) based OL setting in a collaborative company. Other associated issues studied include personal learning, knowledge sharing, knowledge management in the project process and knowledge discovery techniques.This research consists of three main parts: 1) the study of the factors that influence the personal learning and knowledge sharing within organizations 2) the integration of knowledge management with project management 3) the design and development of a knowledge discovery system to support OL implementation. Quantitative study method was adopted in the first part. Focus group study and case study were carried out in the second part. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used in the third part. Prototypes of knowledge discovery applications were developed and implemented in the third part to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed design.
The first part of this research is conducted within the PAL based OL setting in a collaborative company which is an electronic component manufacturer. PAL makes use of projects to affect OL. I examined the influencing factors of learning and knowledge sharing within this setting. The influencing factors were divided into external factors (organization policy, organization value, Information Service) and internal factors (individual attitude, knowledge competency). Interrelationships between the influencing factors were hypothesized and tested. Quantitative analysis results highlight the important role of “organization policy” in shaping the “organizational value” and actualizing the benefit of supporting “Information Service”. Results also reveal the synergistic effect between “individual attitude” and “knowledge competency”. Employees with better performance in their ‘knowledge competency’ exhibit stronger willingness toward learning and knowledge sharing. Good attitude toward learning and knowledge sharing can also assist with the knowledge development of practitioners.
Based on the findings of the first part of this research, I proposed to integrate knowledge management with project management to enable effective learning in project. A Knowledge Based Project Management (KBPM) framework was proposed to better understand the KM selected issues in the project process. The project evaluation and selection task was then used for illustration and further exploration. An evaluation metric for project knowledge contribution was proposed and used to build a project selection process model. The evaluation metric includes project knowledge contribution as an important dimension and decompose it into three important factors: individual learning, organizational level learning, and organizational culture change. The proposed evaluation metric facilitates the interweaving of the project-based learning and organizational knowledge development planning, complementing the existing project selection literature. Results of a focus group study and subsequent case implementation show that the proposed project evaluation metric can effectively assist decision makers to include the consideration of various project perspectives in solving project selection problem.
In the third part, a two-tier knowledge discovery system (KDS) was proposed to support the OL implementation. The KDS aims at to support the personal learning for the organizational benefit and help to promote the OL culture. The studies in the first and second part of this research set the theoretical foundation of the KDS development. The essence of KDS is an enterprise information system which extends the functions of OLSS with two tiers: knowledge discovery and knowledge presentation. Different functional modules are designed for each tier. Two important knowledge discovery functions, document retrieval and learning RS, are discussed and realized with proposed methods. A query expansion and classification based document retrieval approach was proposed to improve the document retrieval performance within organizations. Results of an experiment with input from a case company demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. A personalized knowledge RS was proposed to support personal learning in the workplace. A prototype was developed and implemented in a case company to investigate the influence of using personalized learning RSs on the learners’ learning attitude. Quantitative study results show an improvement in participants’ learning attitude after using the proposed RS. A focus group study was carried out to collect qualitative feedbacks from participants. The qualitative feedbacks indicate that the system needs to characterise the learning material from multiple perspectives and keep in pace with users’ changing interest.
This PhD research is interdisciplinary at the intersection of OL, personal learning, project management, and knowledge discovery applications. To sum up its contribution, first, this research explores the influencing factors of learning and knowledge sharing in PAL based OL setting. Second, a Knowledge Based Project Management (KBPM) framework is proposed for examining the KM activities in the project process and a project evaluation framework is proposed to integrate project based learning with project selection. Third, this research proposes a knowledge discovery system (KDS) and explores the effectiveness of a proposed document retrieval approach and a proposed personalised knowledge RS in support of OL. This research explores the application and influence of knowledge discovery in support of OL in the digital age. Case studies and experiments in this research provide practical implications for the future adoption of knowledge discovery to support individual learning and OL.
| Date of Award | 8 Dec 2017 |
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| Original language | English |
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| Supervisor | Kong Bieng CHUAH (Supervisor) |