Abstracts Category : Other

A Work SystemTheory Approach to the Study of Knowledge Integration : theUniversity of Pretoria

by Jaco Pretorius

Industries, as well as the governments of the world,scrutinise higher education institutions. Although Higher Educationis the most stable of all the educational levels, the demand forgreater relevance of these institutions in todays society is amatter of certainty. South Africas economy is strongly dependentfor its growth on finance, real estate and business services. Thisfast growing sector demands a knowledge-based economy forsustainable growth. In order to stay relevant and to besustainable, research is imperative. The new responsibility toproduce more research has led to a transition phase that putsuniversities constantly on the defence. This study considers theeffect of producing more and more research and the race to be thetop research university in South Africa. Challenges are numerous,including Governments pressure on universities be more independentof state funds. The University of Pretoria serves as exemplar tostudy the effect and consequences of the transition from aknowledge management perspective. The researcher implemented theWork System Theory of Steven Alter to analyse the elements of theresearch work system. The study has been conducted on two levels:The Research Information Management System (RIMS) database of theDepartment of Research and Innovation Support (DRIS) was analysedto obtain a broad overview of the research conducted by Universityof Pretoria researchers between 2006 and 2009. On the second level,the top researchers from faculties on the main campus wereidentified and interviewed during 2014 and 2015 in order to obtainan individual perspective. The findings and gap analysis showedthat although the University of Pretoria is considered one of thetop research institutions, many gaps exist that inhibit thedissemination of knowledge throughout organisations and thatchanges need to be implemented. The fields of Economic Geographyand Information Systems were applied to get a better understandingof knowledge integration in the knowledge management field. Thestudy culminated in a research framework derived from strategic,tactical and operational input by top researchers. Aspiringresearchers can use the framework to understand the environment inwhich research needs to take place and to improve their personalstrategies to enhance their research output.Advisors/Committee Members: De Villiers, Carina (advisor), Horn, A.C. (Andre Carl) (coadvisor).