Search results for: knowledge management for success of higher educational institutes
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 26707

Search results for: knowledge management for success of higher educational institutes

26467 A Constructionist View of Projects, Social Media and Tacit Knowledge in a College Classroom: An Exploratory Study

Authors: John Zanetich

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Designing an educational activity that encourages inquiry and collaboration is key to engaging students in meaningful learning. Educational Information and Communications Technology (EICT) plays an important role in facilitating cooperative and collaborative learning in the classroom. The EICT also facilitates students’ learning and development of the critical thinking skills needed to solve real world problems. Projects and activities based on constructivism encourage students to embrace complexity as well as find relevance and joy in their learning. It also enhances the students’ capacity for creative and responsible real-world problem solving. Classroom activities based on constructivism offer students an opportunity to develop the higher–order-thinking skills of defining problems and identifying solutions. Participating in a classroom project is an activity for both acquiring experiential knowledge and applying new knowledge to practical situations. It also provides an opportunity for students to integrate new knowledge into a skill set using reflection. Classroom projects can be developed around a variety of learning objects including social media, knowledge management and learning communities. The construction of meaning through project-based learning is an approach that encourages interaction and problem-solving activities. Projects require active participation, collaboration and interaction to reach the agreed upon outcomes. Projects also serve to externalize the invisible cognitive and social processes taking place in the activity itself and in the student experience. This paper describes a classroom project designed to elicit interactions by helping students to unfreeze existing knowledge, to create new learning experiences, and then refreeze the new knowledge. Since constructivists believe that students construct their own meaning through active engagement and participation as well as interactions with others. knowledge management can be used to guide the exchange of both tacit and explicit knowledge in interpersonal interactions between students and guide the construction of meaning. This paper uses an action research approach to the development of a classroom project and describes the use of technology, social media and the active use of tacit knowledge in the college classroom. In this project, a closed group Facebook page becomes the virtual classroom where interaction is captured and measured using engagement analytics. In the virtual learning community, the principles of knowledge management are used to identify the process and components of the infrastructure of the learning process. The project identifies class member interests and measures student engagement in a learning community by analyzing regular posting on the Facebook page. These posts are used to foster and encourage interactions, reflect a student’s interest and serve as reaction points from which viewers of the post convert the explicit information in the post to implicit knowledge. The data was collected over an academic year and was provided, in part, by the Google analytic reports on Facebook and self-reports of posts by members. The results support the use of active tacit knowledge activities, knowledge management and social media to enhance the student learning experience and help create the knowledge that will be used by students to construct meaning.

Keywords: constructivism, knowledge management, tacit knowledge, social media

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26466 Educational Justice as the Basis for Social Justice

Authors: Baratali Monfaredraz

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The concept of justice has been able to occupy a lot of people’s minds and speeches for a long time. Justice has various dimensions such as economic justice, judicial justice, political justice, educational justice, ethnical justice and etc. Educational justice as one of the most basic dimensions of justice can alter our education in every field and it can flourish the talents and capabilities on macro level. One of the most efficient ways for social justice realization is to provide equal opportunities for all people in the society to be able to access equally to education as their human rights since today how progress occurs in education is regarded as the index of social development. On this basis, especially developing countries try to provide equal opportunities for all people in terms of access to education, specifically in higher education. At present, private education system violates the principles of conducting effort, meeting the needs and in part realizing the capabilities and so it cannot be justified to be a fair conductance. It seems that providing higher quality education in public schools and lowering role of teacher and educational facilities in educational achievement can be considered as a proper way to remove the discrimination in terms of unequal distribution of educational facilities. In addition, higher education development in deprived regions can initialize social activities among the inhabitants of these regions. Justice in educational field can result in access of all people to economic and social situations and job opportunities in future.

Keywords: educational justice, deprivation, private schools, higher education, job opportunities

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26465 Open Source Software in Higher Education: Oman SQU Case Study

Authors: Amal S. Al-Badi, Ali H. Al-Badi

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Many organizations are opting to adopt Open Source Software (OSS) as it is the current trend to rely on each other rather than on companies (Software vendors). It is a clear shift from organizations to individuals, the concept being to rely on collective participation rather than companies/vendors. The main objectives of this research are 1) to identify the current level of OSS usage in Sultan Qaboos University; 2) to identify the potential benefits of using OSS in educational institutes; 3) to identify the OSS applications that are most likely to be used within an educational institute; 4) to identify the existing and potential barriers to the successful adoption of OSS in education. To achieve these objectives a two-stage research method was conducted. First a rigorous literature review of previously published material was performed (interpretive/descriptive approach), and then a set of interviews were conducted with the IT professionals at Sultan Qaboos University in Oman in order to explore the extent and nature of their usage of OSS.

Keywords: open source software, social software, e-learning 2.0, Web 2.0, connectivism, personal learning environment (PLE), OpenCourseWare

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26464 Knowledge Sharing and Organizational Performance: A System Dynamics Approach

Authors: Shachi Pathak

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We are living in knowledge based economy where firms can gain competitive advantage with the help of managing knowledge within the organization. The purpose the study is to develop a conceptual model to explain the relationship between factors affecting knowledge sharing, called as knowledge enablers, in an organization, knowledge sharing activities and organizational performance, using system dynamics approach. This research is important since it will provide better understandings on what are the key knowledge enablers to support knowledge sharing activities, and how knowledge sharing activities will affect the capability of an organization to enhance the performance of the organization.

Keywords: knowledge management, knowledge sharing, organizational performance, system dynamics

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26463 Role of HRM Practices on Business Success: The Case of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)

Authors: Asma Dill

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The aim of this study is to explore the role of HRM practices in SMEs success. The role of HRM practices in large enterprises is relatively known, on the other hand, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) companies have not been greatly studied in relation to the HRM practices in the past. Although, there is a lack of literature and empirical research in this area, several studies in the recent years emphasized on the importance of the HRM practices for the success of the SMEs. This study finds out relationship of HRM practices and SMESs performances. The objective is to analyze significant impacts of HRM practices (training, performance appraisal, compensation and employee development) on SMEs success, to determine whether SMEs recognize the importance of HRM practices in their businesses. To carry out this research a survey research strategy was followed. The sample frame for this study consisted of firms that belong to the services and commerce sector, employing at least 50 employees. The final research sample consisted of questionnaires. Descriptive statistical methods have been used during quantitative analysis to explore the relations. The findings of the study revealed that HRM practices have a significant influence on the performance of SMEs, and the better the HRM practice, the higher the performance of the SMEs. HRM practices, including, training, compensation, performance appraisal and employee development, have been found to be significantly and positively related to business success. Outcome of the study will provide useful guidelines to the business organizations. This study contributes to knowledge by providing insights on the impact of HRM practices on SMEs performance.

Keywords: compensation, employee performance, HRM practices, training

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26462 Knowledge Elicitation Approach for Formal Ontology Design: An Exploratory Study Applied in Industry for Knowledge Management

Authors: Ouassila Labbani-Narsis, Christophe Nicolle

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Building formal ontologies remains a complex process for companies. In the literature, this process is based on the technical knowledge and expertise of domain experts, without further details on the used methodologies. Possible problems of disagreements between experts, expression of tacit knowledge related to high level know-how rarely verbalized, qualification of results by using cases, or simply adhesion of the group of experts, remain currently unsolved. This paper proposes a methodological approach based on knowledge elicitation for the conception of formal, consensual, and shared ontologies. The proposed approach is experimentally tested on industrial collaboration projects in the field of manufacturing (associating knowledge sources from multinational companies) and in the field of viticulture (associating explicit knowledge and implicit knowledge acquired through observation).

Keywords: collaborative ontology engineering, knowledge elicitation, knowledge engineering, knowledge management

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26461 The Utilization of Big Data in Knowledge Management Creation

Authors: Daniel Brian Thompson, Subarmaniam Kannan

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The huge weightage of knowledge in this world and within the repository of organizations has already reached immense capacity and is constantly increasing as time goes by. To accommodate these constraints, Big Data implementation and algorithms are utilized to obtain new or enhanced knowledge for decision-making. With the transition from data to knowledge provides the transformational changes which will provide tangible benefits to the individual implementing these practices. Today, various organization would derive knowledge from observations and intuitions where this information or data will be translated into best practices for knowledge acquisition, generation and sharing. Through the widespread usage of Big Data, the main intention is to provide information that has been cleaned and analyzed to nurture tangible insights for an organization to apply to their knowledge-creation practices based on facts and figures. The translation of data into knowledge will generate value for an organization to make decisive decisions to proceed with the transition of best practices. Without a strong foundation of knowledge and Big Data, businesses are not able to grow and be enhanced within the competitive environment.

Keywords: big data, knowledge management, data driven, knowledge creation

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26460 The Psychological Specification of Motivation of Managerial Activity

Authors: Laura Petrosyan

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The high and persistent working results are possible when people are interested in the results of the work. Motivation of working may be present as a psychological complicated phenomena, which determines person's behavior in working process. Researchers point out that working motivation is displayed in three correlated conditions. These are interest in outcomes of work, satisfaction with the work, and the third, is the level of devotion of employee. Solution of the problem of effective staff management depends on the development of workers' skills. Despite, above mentioned problem could be solved by the process of finding methods to induce the employees to the effective work. Motivation of the managerial activity aroused not only during the working process, but also before it starts. During education the future manager obtains many professional skills. However, the experience shows, that only professional skills are not enough for the effective work. Presently, one of the global educational problems is the development of motivation in professions. In psychological literature the fact is mentioned, that the motivation can be inside and outside. Outside motivation is active only at short time. Instead, inside motivation can be active during all process of the professional development. Hence, the motivation of managerial activity might be developed during the education. The future manager choose the profession being under some impression of personal qualities. Detection of future manager’s motivation will influence on the development of syllabuses. Moreover, use of the psychological methods could be evolved for preparing motivated managers. Conducted research has been done in the Public Administration Academy of the RA. The aim of research was to discover students' motivation of profession. 102 master students took part in the research from Public Administration Academy. In the research were used the following methods: method of identifying a person's motivation to succeed (T. Elers) and method of studying students’ motivation (T.E. Ilyin). First of the methods designed to explore a person's motivational orientation to get success represented by Hackhausen. The method gives the opportunity to reveal the level of motivation to success. In the second method separated three scales: i) Knowledge achievements, ii) Knowledge of the profession, iii) Get a diploma. The data obtained from these tests gave quantitative data. Aanalyses of our survey results exposes that within master students the high level have the average rates of knowledge achievements. The average rates of knowledge of the profession and geting a diploma not in high level. Furthermore, there are almost equal to each other. In the educational process The student acquiring skills not synthesize with the wield profession. Results show that specialists really view about profession not formulated yet.

Keywords: managerial activity, motivation, psychological complicated phenomena, working process, education the future manager

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26459 A Case Study on Expanding Access to Higher Education of Students with Hearing Impairment

Authors: Afaf Manzoor, Abdul Hameed

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Children with hearing impairment face several challenges in accessing primary and secondary education in general and higher education in particular in Pakistan. A large number of these children are excluded from formal education system through segregated special institutions. The enrollment rate of these children at school level is very low and it continues decreasing as they move on the ladder of education. Negligible number of students with hearing impairment gets any chance to be enrolled at tertiary or higher education institutes. The segregated system of education at primary and secondary level makes it even more difficult to adjust in an inclusive classroom at a higher level not only for students with hearing impairment but for their teachers and peers as well. A false belief of teachers and parents about low academic profile of students with hearing impairment is one of the major challenges to overcome for their participation at higher education. This case study was conducted to document an innovative step taken by the Department of Special Education Needs, University of Management & Technology, Lahore Pakistan. The prime objective of this study was to assess the satisfaction level of students with hearing impairment in BS 4 Years and MA Special Education programs at Lahore campus. Structured interviews were of 40 students with hearing impairment to assess the satisfaction on service delivery (admission process, classroom pedagogy, content, assessment/results, access to other services centers i.e. library, cafeteria, hostel, co-curricular activities) and campus life. Their peers without disabilities were also interviewed to assess their acceptance level. The findings of the study revealed positive results about their educational as well as social inclusion in the university. The students also shared their fears at the time of admission and how fear eventually faded out with the passage of time due to the proper academic support system. The findings of the study will be shared in detail with the audience during the presentation.

Keywords: students with hearing impairment, higher education, inclusive education, marginalization

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26458 Changes in Knowledge and Awareness for a Community-Based Cancer Screening Educational Program

Authors: Shenghui Wu, Patricia Chalela, Amelie G. Ramirez

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Background: Cervical cancer (CC), colorectal cancer (CRC), and breast cancer (BC) are diseases that can be prevented/detected through early test. Through educational programs, individuals can become better informed about these cancers and understand the importance of screening and early detection. A community-based educational program was developed to improve knowledge and awareness toward the screening of the three cancer types in a South Texas underserved population. Methods: Residents living in Laredo, Texas were invited to participate in the present study. From January 2020 to April 2021, participants were recruited using social media and flyer distributions in general community. Participants received a free live web cancer education presentation delivered by bilingual community health educators, and online pre- and post-education surveys for CC, CRC, and BC separately. Pre-post changes in knowledge for individual items were compared using McNemar’s chi-squared tests. Results: Overall, participants demonstrated increases in CC (n=237), CRC (n=59), and BC (n=56) screening knowledge and awareness after receiving the cancer screening education (Ps<0.05). After receiving the cancer screening education, 85-97% of participants had an intent to talk to a healthcare provider about CC/CRC/BC screening, 88-97% had an intent to get a CC/CRC/BC screening test in the next 12 months or at the next routine appointment, and 90-97% had an intent to talk about CC/CRC/BC with their family members or friends. Conclusion: A community-based educational program can help increase knowledge and awareness about cervical, colorectal, and breast cancer screening, promote positive changes in population's knowledge and awareness about the benefits of cancer screening.

Keywords: cervical cancer, colorectal cancer, breast cancer, educational program, health knowledge, awareness, Hispanics, screening, health education

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26457 Education, Learning and Management: Empowering Individuals for the Future

Authors: Ngong Eugene Ekia

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Education is the foundation for the success of any society as its impact transcends across all sectors, including economics, politics, and social welfare. It is through education that individuals acquire the necessary knowledge and skills to succeed in life and contribute meaningfully to society. However, the world is changing rapidly, and it is vital for education systems to adapt to these changes to remain relevant. In this paper, we will discuss the current trends and challenges in education and management and propose solutions that can enable individuals to thrive in an ever-evolving world.

Keywords: access to education, effective teaching and learning, strong management practices, and empowering and personal development

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26456 A Conceptual Framework for Knowledge Integration in Agricultural Knowledge Management System Development

Authors: Dejen Alemu, Murray E. Jennex, Temtim Assefa

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Agriculture is the mainstay of the Ethiopian economy; however, the sector is dominated by smallholder farmers resulting in land fragmentation and suffering from low productivity. Due to these issues, much effort has been put into the transformation of the sector to bring about more sustainable rural economic development. Technological advancements have been applied for the betterment of farmers resulting in the design of tools that are potentially capable of supporting the agricultural sector; however, their use and relevance are still alien to the local rural communities. The notion of the creating, capturing and sharing of knowledge has also been repetitively raised by many international donor agencies to transform the sector, yet the most current approaches to knowledge dissemination focus on knowledge that originates from the western view of scientific rationality while overlooking the role of indigenous knowledge (IK). Therefore, in agricultural knowledge management system (KMS) development, the integration of IKS with scientific knowledge is a critical success factor. The present study aims to contribute in the discourse on how to best integrate scientific and IK in agricultural KMS development. The conceptual framework of the research is anchored in concepts drawn from the theory of situated learning in communities of practice (CoPs): knowledge brokering. Using the KMS development practices of Ethiopian agricultural transformation agency as a case area, this research employed an interpretive analysis using primary and secondary qualitative data acquired through in-depth semi-structured interviews and participatory observations. As a result, concepts are identified for understanding the integration of the two major knowledge systems (i.e., indigenous and scientific knowledge) and participation of relevant stakeholders in particular the local farmers in agricultural KMS development through the roles of extension agent as a knowledge broker including crossing boundaries, in-between position, translation and interpretation, negotiation, and networking. The research shall have a theoretical contribution in addressing the incorporation of a variety of knowledge systems in agriculture and practically to provide insight for policy makers in agriculture regarding the importance of IK integration in agricultural KMS development and support marginalized small-scale farmers.

Keywords: communities of practice, indigenous knowledge, knowledge management system development, knowledge brokering

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26455 Efficient Utilization of Commodity Computers in Academic Institutes: A Cloud Computing Approach

Authors: Jasraj Meena, Malay Kumar, Manu Vardhan

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Cloud computing is a new technology in industry and academia. The technology has grown and matured in last half decade and proven their significant role in changing environment of IT infrastructure where cloud services and resources are offered over the network. Cloud technology enables users to use services and resources without being concerned about the technical implications of technology. There are substantial research work has been performed for the usage of cloud computing in educational institutes and majority of them provides cloud services over high-end blade servers or other high-end CPUs. However, this paper proposes a new stack called “CiCKAStack” which provide cloud services over unutilized computing resources, named as commodity computers. “CiCKAStack” provides IaaS and PaaS using underlying commodity computers. This will not only increasing the utilization of existing computing resources but also provide organize file system, on demand computing resource and design and development environment.

Keywords: commodity computers, cloud-computing, KVM, CloudStack, AppScale

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26454 Knowledge Management Factors Affecting the Level of Commitment

Authors: Abbas Keramati, Abtin Boostani, Mohammad Jamal Sadeghi

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This paper examines the influence of knowledge management factors on organizational commitment for employees in the oil and gas drilling industry of Iran. We determine what knowledge factors have the greatest impact on the personnel loyalty and commitment to the organization using collected data from a survey of over 300 full-time personnel working in three large companies active in oil and gas drilling industry of Iran. To specify the effect of knowledge factors in the organizational commitment of the personnel in the studied organizations, the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is used. Findings of our study show that the factors such as knowledge and expertise, in-service training, the knowledge value and the application of individuals’ knowledge in the organization as the factor “learning and perception of personnel from the value of knowledge within the organization” has the greatest impact on the organizational commitment. After this factor, “existence of knowledge and knowledge sharing environment in the organization”; “existence of potential knowledge exchanging in the organization”; and “organizational knowledge level” factors have the most impact on the organizational commitment of personnel, respectively.

Keywords: drilling industry, knowledge management, organizational commitment, loyalty, principle component analysis

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26453 Way to Successful Enterprise Resource Planning System Implementation in Developing Countries: Case of Public Sector Unit

Authors: Suraj Kumar Mukti

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Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system is a management tool to integrate all departments in an organization. It integrates business processes, manages resources efficiently and provides an appropriate decision support system to management. ERP system implementation is a typical and time taking process as well as money consuming process. Articles related to key success factors of ERP system implementation are available in the literature, but rare authors have focused on roadmap of successful ERP system implementation. Postponement is better if the organization is not ready to implement ERP system in better way; hence checking of organization’s preparation to adopt new system is an important prerequisite to ensure the success of ERP system implementation in an organization. Then comes what will be called as success of ERP system implementation. Benefits achieved by ERP system may be categorized into two categories; viz. tangible and intangible benefits. This research article presents a roadmap to ensure the success of ERP system implementation and benefits achieved through the new system as in success indicator. A case study is presented to evaluate the success and benefit achieved through the new system. The article gives a comprehensive approach to academicians and a roadmap to the organizations seeking to implement the ERP system.

Keywords: ERP system, decision support system, tangible, intangible

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26452 Effects of an Educational Program on Nurses Knowledge and Practice Related to Hepatitis-B: Pre-Experimental Design

Authors: R. S. Mehta, G. N. Mandal

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Hepatitis-B is the major infectious disease of mankind. In Nepal it is reported that more than 4.3% of Nepalese population at any time in their life has been infected with Hepatitis-B virus (HBV). The objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of planned educational programme regarding knowledge and practice of hepatitis-B among the nurses working at medical units of BPKIHS. Pre-experimental research design was used to conduct the study among the nurses working in medical units of BPKIHS. Total 40 nurses were included in the pre-test and 34 in the post-test. The education intervention was arranged on 24th May 2012 from 2:15 pm to 4:45 pm i.e. two and half hours. After two weeks of education intervention post-test was conducted. Most of the participants (60%) were of the age group of 18-22 years, Hindu (82.5%), and unmarried (65%). After education intervention there is significant differences in knowledge on the components of Hepatitis-B at 0.05 level of significance. There is no difference in the attitude components after post-test except the component patient contaminated with Hepatitis-B must be called as the last patient (p=0.035). It can conclude that hepatitis-B educational program improved knowledge and practice among the nurses.

Keywords: educational program, Hepatitis-B, pre-experimental design, medical units

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26451 Information Asymmetry and Governing Boards in Higher Education: The Heat Map of Information Asymmetry Across Competencies and the Role of Training in Mitigating Information Asymmetry

Authors: Ana Karaman, Dmitriy Gaevoy

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Successful and effective governing boards play an essential role in higher education by providing essential oversight and helping to steer the direction of an institution while creating and maintaining a thriving culture of stewardship. A well-functioning board can also help mitigate conflicts of interest, ensure responsible use of an organization's assets, and maintain institutional transparency. However, boards’ functions in higher education are inhibited by the presence of information asymmetry between the board and management. Board members typically have little specific knowledge about the business side of the higher education, in general, and an institution under their oversight in particular. As a result, boards often must rely on the discretion of the institutional upper administration as to what type of pertinent information being disclosed to the board. The phenomenon of information asymmetry is not unique to the higher education and has been studied previously in the context of both corporate and non-for-profit boards. Various board characteristics have been analyzed with respect to mitigating the information asymmetry between an organizational board and management. For example, it has been argued that such board characteristics as its greater size, independence, and a higher proportion of female members tend to reduce information asymmetry by raising levels of information disclosure and organizational transparency. This paper explores the phenomenon of information asymmetry between boards and management in the context of higher education. In our analysis, we propose a heat map of information asymmetry based on the categories of board competencies in higher education. The proposed heat map is based on the assessment of potential risks to both the boards and its institutions. It employs an assumption that a potential risk created by the presence of information asymmetry varies in its magnitude across various areas of boards’ competencies. Then, we explore the role of board members’ training in mitigating information asymmetry between the boards and the management by increasing the level of information disclosure and enhancing transparency in management communication with the boards. The paper seeks to demonstrate how appropriate training can provide board members with an adequate preparation to request a sufficient level of information disclose and transparency by arming them with knowledge of what questions to ask of the management.

Keywords: higher education, governing boards information asymmetry, board competencies, board training

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26450 The Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility and Knowledge Management Factors on University's Students' Learning Process

Authors: Naritphol Boonyakiat

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This research attempts to investigate the effects of corporate social responsibility and knowledge management factors on students’ learning process of the Silpakorn University. The goal of this study is to fill the literature gap by gaining an understanding of corporate social responsibility and the knowledge management factors that fundamentally relate to students’ learning process within the university context. Thus, this study will focus on the outcomes that derive from a set of quantitative data that were obtained using Silpakorn university’s database of 200 students. The results represent the perceptions of students regarding the impact of corporate social responsibility and knowledge management factors on their learning process within the university. The findings indicate that corporate social responsibility and knowledge management have significant effects on students’ learning process. This study may assist us in gaining a better understanding of the integrated aspects of university and learning environments to discover how to allocate optimally university’s resources and management approaches to gain benefits from corporate social responsibility and knowledge management practices toward students’ learning process within the university bodies. Therefore, there is a sufficient reason to believe that the findings can contribute to research in the area of CSR, KM and students’ learning process as an essential aspect of university’s stakeholder.

Keywords: corporate social responsibility, knowledge management, learning process, university’s students

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26449 Application of Knowledge Discovery in Database Techniques in Cost Overruns of Construction Projects

Authors: Mai Ghazal, Ahmed Hammad

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Cost overruns in construction projects are considered as worldwide challenges since the cost performance is one of the main measures of success along with schedule performance. To overcome this problem, studies were conducted to investigate the cost overruns' factors, also projects' historical data were analyzed to extract new and useful knowledge from it. This research is studying and analyzing the effect of some factors causing cost overruns using the historical data from completed construction projects. Then, using these factors to estimate the probability of cost overrun occurrence and predict its percentage for future projects. First, an intensive literature review was done to study all the factors that cause cost overrun in construction projects, then another review was done for previous researcher papers about mining process in dealing with cost overruns. Second, a proposed data warehouse was structured which can be used by organizations to store their future data in a well-organized way so it can be easily analyzed later. Third twelve quantitative factors which their data are frequently available at construction projects were selected to be the analyzed factors and suggested predictors for the proposed model.

Keywords: construction management, construction projects, cost overrun, cost performance, data mining, data warehousing, knowledge discovery, knowledge management

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26448 Human Resource Practices and Organization Knowledge Capability: An Exploratory Study Applied to Private Organization

Authors: Mamoona Rasheed, Salman Iqbal, Muhammad Abdullah

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Organizational capability, in terms of employees’ knowledge is valuable, and difficult to reproduce; and help to build sustainable competitive advantages. Knowledge capability is linked with human resource (HR) practices of an organization. This paper investigates the relationship between HR practices, knowledge management and organization capability. In an organization, employees play key role for the effective organizational performance by sharing their knowledge with management and co-workers that contributes towards organization capability. Pakistan being a developing country has different HR practices and culture. The business opportunities give rise to the discussion about the effect of HR practices on knowledge management and organization capability as innovation performance. An empirical study is conducted through questionnaires form the employees in private banks of Lahore, Pakistan. The data is collected via structured questionnaire with a sample of 120 cases. Data is analyzed using Structure Equation Modeling (SEM), and results are depicted using AMOS software. Results of this study are tabulated, interpreted and crosschecked with other studies. Findings suggest that there is a positive relationship of training & development along with incentives on knowledge management. On the other hand, employee’s participation has insignificant association with knowledge management. In addition, knowledge management has also positive association with organization capability. In line with the previous research, it is suggested that knowledge management is important for improving the organizational capability such as innovation performance and knowledge capacity of firm. Organization capability may improve significantly once specific HR practices are properly established and implemented by HR managers. This Study has key implications for knowledge management and innovation fields theoretically and practically.

Keywords: employee participation, incentives, knowledge management, organization capability, training and development

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26447 Incorporating Morality Standards in eLearning Process at INU

Authors: Khader Musbah Titi

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In this era, traditional education systems do not meet the new challenges created by emerging technologies. On the other hand, eLearning offers all the necessary tools to meet these challenges. Using the Internet has brought numerous benefits to most educational institutions; it has also stretched traditional problems of plagiarism, cheating, stealing, vandalism, and spying into the cyberspace. This research discusses these issues in an eLearning environment. It attempts to provide suggestions and possible solutions to some of these issues. The main aim of this research is to conduct a survey at Irbid National University (INU), one of the oldest and biggest universities in Jordan, to study information related to moral and ethical issues in e-learning environment that affect the construction of the students’ characters in the future. The study will focus on student’s behavior and actions through the Internet using Learning Management System (LMS). Another aim of this research is to analyze the opinions of the instructors and last year students at INU about ethical behavior and interaction through LMS. The results show that educational institutes that use LMS should focus on student character development along with field knowledge. According to disadvantages, the results of the study showed that most of students behave unethically in their online activities (cheating, plagiarism, copy/paste etc.) while studying online courses through LMS. The result showed that instructors play a major role in the character development of students. The result also showed that academic institute must have variant mechanisms and strict policy in LMS to control unethical actions of students.

Keywords: LMS, cyber ethics, e-learning, IT ethics, students’ behaviors

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26446 Transnational Higher Education: Developing a Transnational Student Success Signature for Clinical Medical Students an Action Research Project

Authors: Wendy Maddison

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This paper describes an Action Research project which was undertaken to inform professional practice in order to develop a newly created Centre for Student Success in the specific context of transnational medical and nursing education in the Middle East. The objectives were to enhance the academic performance, persistence, integration and personal and professional development of a multinational study body, in particular in relation to preclinical medical students, and to establish a comfortable, friendly and student-driven environment within an Irish medical university recently established in Bahrain. Expatriating a new part of itself into a corner of the world and within a context which could be perceived as the antithesis of itself, in particular in terms of traditional cultural and organisational values, the university has had to innovate in the range of services, programmes and other offerings which engages and supports the academic success of medical and nursing students as they “encounter the world in the classroom” in the context of an Arab Islamic culture but within a European institution of transnational education, engaging with a global learning environment locally. The outcomes of the project resulted in the development of a specific student success ‘signature’ for this particular transnational higher education context.

Keywords: transnational higher education, medical education, action research, student success, Middle Eastern context, student persistence in the global-local, student support mechanisms

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26445 A Case from China on the Situation of Knowledge Management in Government

Authors: Qiaoyun Yang

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Organizational scholars have paid enormous attention on how local governments manage their knowledge during the past two decades. Government knowledge management (KM) research recognizes that the management of knowledge flows and networks is critical to reforms on government service efficiency and the effect of administration. When dealing with complex affairs, all the limitations resulting from a lack of KM concept, processes and technologies among all the involved organizations begin to be exposed and further compound the processing difficulty of the affair. As a result, the challenges for individual or group knowledge sharing, knowledge digging and organizations’ collaboration in government's activities are diverse and immense. This analysis presents recent situation of government KM in China drawing from a total of more than 300 questionnaires and highlights important challenges that remain. The causes of the lapses in KM processes within and across the government agencies are discussed.

Keywords: KM processes, KM technologies, government, KM situation

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26444 Intellectual Capital, Knowledge Management, and the Leader Role in the Construction of Sustainability

Authors: Leandro da S. Nascimento, Maristela J. Melo

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The increased competition in the globalization drives organizations to innovate in their products and services to remain competitive. Innovation and creativity are incorporated as key aspects to creating value for consumers and for the creation of competitive advantage in organizations. However, there are factors that contribute strong with development of innovation and creation in organizations. These factors are the intellectual capital and knowledge management, which together with sustainability, ensure the development of competitive strategies. However, it is understood that the role of the leader is essential to stimulate the development of human capital, because the human capital is essential for organizations of knowledge. It is the leader who drives the dissemination and sharing of knowledge, an essential aspect for the formation of intellectual capital and therefore should be managed. And it turns out that the management of knowledge through intellectual capital allows the development of environmental initiatives efficiently and effectively. Thus, the research demonstrates the importance of the role of leader / manager in organizations and seeks to analyze how managers can contribute to the adoption of sustainability through intellectual capital and knowledge management.

Keywords: intellectual capital, knowledge management, leadership role, sustainability

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26443 A Study on Knowledge, Attitude and Behavior on Emergency Contraception among Higher Secondary and Bachelor Level Youth Students of Lekhnath Municipality, Nepal

Authors: Gokul Pathak, Dilip Kumar Yadav

Abstract:

Background: Unsafe/unprotected and early sexual relations are highly responsible for the problems of unwanted pregnancy, child birth and other adverse consequences. Emergency contraception (EC) refers to methods that women can use to prevent pregnancy after unprotected sexual intercourse, method failure or incorrect use. Aim and Objective: The objective of this research study was to assess the level of knowledge, attitude and behavior on emergency contraception among youth students of Lekhnath Municipality. Methodology: This institution based descriptive study was carried out in August-October 2012 on Lekhnath Municipality, Nepal. Multistage simple random sampling procedure with pretested semi structured questionnaire following self administered technique was used to collect information. Collected data was coded and entered in the EpiData 3.1 ® and exported to Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS®) version 20.0 for analysis. Chi-square test and Spearman correlation was applied wherever required. Results: A total of 641 students (87.6 %), youth students participated in this study which incorporates 354 male and 287 female youth students, of them 54.3% were from Higher Secondary level and 45.7% were from Undergraduate level. The awareness of EC among respondents was found only 64.7%. 25.8% respondents were found to have fair knowledge level where as 74.2% had poor knowledge level. Level of knowledge was significantly associated with age, educational level, faculty and educational status of mother. The study showed 82.4% respondent’s favorable attitude towards use of EC. 21.1% respondents were found to be sexually active (29.7% male and 10.5% female) and only 28.1% of sexually active respondents had ever used any method of EC. Conclusion: Knowledge about EC was found quiet low among youth. There was significant lack of knowledge about exact time limit of using devices of EC. Similarly several misconceptions regarding EC were found very high among youth. Health education initiatives should target students as they are more likely to be sexually active.

Keywords: emergency contraception, youth, unsafe/unprotected sexual intercourse, knowledge, attitude and behavior

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26442 Transformation to M-Learning at the Nursing Institute in the Armed Force Hospital Alhada, in Saudi Arabia Based on Activity Theory

Authors: Rahimah Abdulrahman, A. Eardle, Wilfred Alan, Abdel Hamid Soliman

Abstract:

With the rapid development in technology, and advances in learning technologies, m-learning has begun to occupy a great part of our lives. The pace of the life getting together with the need for learning started mobile learning (m-learning) concept. In 2008, Saudi Arabia requested a national plan for the adoption of information technology (IT) across the country. Part of the recommendations of this plan concerns the implementation of mobile learning (m-learning) as well as their prospective applications to higher education within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The overall aim of the research is to explore the main issues that impact the deployment of m-learning in nursing institutes in Saudi Arabia, at the Armed Force Hospitals (AFH), Alhada. This is in order to be able to develop a generic model to enable and assist the educational policy makers and implementers of m-learning, to comprehend and treat those issues effectively. Specifically, the research will explore the concept of m-learning; identify and analyse the main organisational; technological and cultural issue, that relate to the adoption of m-learning; develop a model of m-learning; investigate the perception of the students of the Nursing Institutes to the use of m-learning technologies for their nursing diploma programmes based on their experiences; conduct a validation of the m-learning model with the use of the nursing Institute of the AFH, Alhada in Saudi Arabia, and evaluate the research project as a learning experience and as a contribution to the body of knowledge. Activity Theory (AT) will be adopted for the study due to the fact that it provides a conceptual framework that engenders an understanding of the structure, development and the context of computer-supported activities. The study will be adopt a set of data collection methods which engage nursing students in a quantitative survey, while nurse teachers are engaged through in depth qualitative studies to get first-hand information about the organisational, technological and cultural issues that impact on the deployment of m-learning. The original contribution will be a model for developing m-learning material for classroom-based learning in the nursing institute that can have a general application.

Keywords: activity theory (at), mobile learning (m-learning), nursing institute, Saudi Arabia (sa)

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26441 Knowledge Management and Motivation Management: Important Constituents of Firm Performance

Authors: Yassir Mahmood, Nadia Ehsan

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In current research stream, empirical work regarding knowledge and motivation management along their dimensions is sparse. This study partially filled this void by investigating the influence of knowledge management (tacit and explicit) and motivation management (intrinsic and extrinsic) on firm performance with the mediating effects of innovative performance. Based on the quantitative research method, data were collected through questionnaire from 284 employees working in 18 different firms across the citrus industry located in Sargodha region (Pakistan). The proposed relationships were tested through regression analysis while mediation relations were analyzed through Barron and Kenny (1986) technique. The results suggested that knowledge management (KM) and motivation management (MM) have significant positive impacts on innovative performance (IP). In addition, the role of IP as full mediator between KM and firm performance (FP) is confirmed. Also, IP proved to be a partial mediator between MM and FP. From the managerial perspective, the findings of the study are vital as some of the important constituents of FP have been highlighted. The study produced important underpinnings for managers. In last, implications for policymakers along with future research directions are discussed.

Keywords: innovative performance, firm performance, knowledge management, motivation management, Sargodha

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26440 Institutional Effectiveness in Fostering Student Retention and Success in First Year

Authors: Naziema B. Jappie

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The objective of this study is to examine the relationship between college readiness characteristics and learning outcome assessment scores. About this, it is important to examine the first-year retention and success rate. In order to undertake this study, it will be necessary to look at proficiency levels on general and domain-specific knowledge and skills reflected on national benchmark test scores (NBT), in-college interventions and course-taking patterns. Preliminary results based on data from more than 1000 students suggest that there is a positive association between NBT scores and students’ 1st-year college GPA and their retention status. For example, 63% of students with a proficient level of math skills in the NBT had the highest level of GPA at the end of 1st-year of college in comparison to 56% of those who started with a primary or intermediate level, respectively. The retention rates among those with proficiency levels were also higher than those with basic or intermediate levels (98% vs. 93% and 88%, respectively). By the end of 3rd year in college, students with intermediate or proficient entering NBT math skills had 7% and 8% of dropout rate, compared to 14% for those started at primary level; a greater percentage of students qualified by the end of 3rd-year qualified among proficient students than that among intermediate or basic level students (50% vs. 44% and 27% respectively). The findings of this study added knowledge to the field in South Africa and are expected to help stakeholders and policymakers to better understand college learning and challenges for students with disadvantaged backgrounds and provide empirical evidence in support of related practices and policies.

Keywords: assessment, data analysis, performance, proficiency, policy, student success

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26439 Knowledge, Attitudes and Readiness of Students towards Higher Order Thinking Skills

Authors: Mohd Aderi Che Noh, Tuan Rahayu Tuan Lasan

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Higher order thinking skills (HOTS) is an important skill in the Malaysian education system to produce a knowledgeable generation, able to think critically and creatively in order to face the challenges in the future. Educational challenges of the 21st century require that all students to have the HOTS. Therefore, this study aims to identify the level of knowledge, attitude and readiness of students towards HOTS. The respondents were 127 form four students from schools in the Federal Territory of Putrajaya. This study is quantitative survey using a questionnaire to collect data. Data were analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 23.0. The results showed that knowledge, attitudes and readiness of students towards HOTS lam were at a high level. Inferential analysis showed that there was a significant relationship between knowledge with attitude and readiness towards HOTS. This study provides information to the schools and teachers to improve the teaching and learning to increase students HOTS and fulfilling the hope of Ministry of Education to produce human capital who can be globally competitive.

Keywords: high order thinking skills, teaching, education, Malaysia

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26438 Strategies for Success: Strategic Thinking’s Critical Role in Entrepreneurial

Authors: Silvia Rahmita

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Entrepreneurial success is crucial for economic growth, competitiveness, and job creation, yet many entrepreneurs face failure due to various challenges. This paper explores the critical role of strategic thinking in mitigating entrepreneurial failure. Entrepreneurial competencies—encompassing knowledge, skills, and traits—are essential for creating and growing ventures. Despite these competencies, numerous entrepreneurs fail due to poor management, inadequate support, and ineffective policies. The paper categorizes entrepreneurial failures into financial, operational, market, product or service, strategic, leadership, legal, human capital, technological, and environmental failures. Each failure type can be addressed through strategic thinking, which involves foresight, balancing short-term and long-term goals, and hypothesis-driven processes. By integrating strategic thinking into their approach, entrepreneurs can enhance risk management, adapt to market changes, and sustain growth. This process involves setting clear goals, innovating products, and maintaining a competitive edge. Ultimately, strategic thinking provides a framework for proactive planning, adaptation, and continuous improvement, reducing the likelihood of failure and ensuring long-term success. Entrepreneurs who prioritize strategic thinking are better equipped to navigate the complexities of the business environment and achieve sustainable growth.

Keywords: entrepreneurial failure, strategic thinking, risk management, business failure

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