This qualitative study investigated antecedents of knowledge sharing in the public sector. Basing on the theory of planned behaviour and literature review, three antecedents guided the conceptualization of the study namely; employee attitudes, subjective or social norms and perceived behaviour control. Data from the 19 in-depth interviews were thematically analyzed. Findings revealed that employee attitudes towards knowledge sharing in the public sector were both positive and negative. While the theory of planned behaviour focuses on the attitudes of knowledge givers, it emerged that the knowledge seekers’ attitudes mattered as well. Subjective norms were prevalent in meetings, teams, job rotation as well as in the Communities of Practice (CoP). The finding that Communities of Practice were disconnected in terms of knowledge sharing emerged surprising because we had not envisaged it since previous studies have not investigated it. Perceived behaviour control was modified by scanty organizational resources as well as incentives and policies. The study proposes knowledge sharing model for both practitioners and researchers.

This article was set out to examine the allegations labeled against qualitative research by quantitative researchers. The allegations were that: it is subjective, difficult to replicate in healthcare, and this amounts to little more than anecdote, personal impression or conjecture. In attempting to resolve the allegations, this article relied on extensive literature review and examined evidence that has been put forth in support of qualitative research approach in healthcare. The article also examined the benefits and pathologies of quantitative and qualitative approaches. It is revealed that although each of the two approaches has its own strengths and weaknesses, none can ably offer practical solutions to challenges of validity and reliability in healthcare research. To mitigate such challenges, the paper rests on the use of mixed methods/triangulation so as to neutralize pathologies inherent in each approach. It is recommended that the use of triangulation should be founded on the strong basis of pragmatism. Method integration should be done skillfully and cautiously, because validity and reliability of its findings may not be guaranteed due to its susceptibility to the ontological and epistemological positions of the researcher. The paper concludes that any attempt to resolve this debate creates even more discussions and finds this third paradigm inadequate in some research circumstances. This implies that the debate is far from over.

Several studies reveal that knowledge management is crucial in enabling institutions gain and maintain a competitive advantage. Yet, institutions must leverage their internal quality assurance mechanisms as a prerequisite for gaining and maintaining an edge over competitors. Based on this revelation, the paper set out to examine how knowledge management can be used to build strong internal quality assurance framework in HEIs basing on institutional theoretical perspective. Using an in-depth literature review, it was revealed that knowledge of external stakeholders should constitute part of the knowledge used in developing quality assurance policies. In addition, HEIs will also identify internal knowledge sources that enhance designing of quality assurance mechanisms that satisfy normative prescriptions. Moreover, HEIs that embrace mimetic isomorphism by copying and incorporating best practices from other institutions will likely improve the teaching, staff development and pedagogical quality. These institutional logics act in the best interest of the HEIs by providing critical linkages for knowledge management-internal quality assurance nexus.

In the philosophy of science, an impression is created that scientific explanations are perhaps a preserve of physical and natural sciences. Although social scientists in organizational research have borrowed most modals of scientific explanations from natural scientists, they have met harsh criticism from their counterparts in the natural and physical sciences. This paper set out to explain how scientific explanations can be constructed successfully in organizational studies using modals borrowed from natural sciences. Basing on the critical literature review, the paper has successfully argued that, organizational research applies models of scientific explanations using sense making. In the case of the covering law model, it has been argued that the model connects well with sense making in organizational research in many respects since sense making recognizes explanandum in terms of organizational events that people experience in everyday life. The paper has also indicated that in the statistical-probabilistic model explanations are based on non-deductive reasoning and make it hard for the researcher to predict the explanandum with certainty except with some degree of probability. This applies in both organizational studies as well as in natural sciences. Like in the statistical probability model, causal-effect relationships can also be demonstrated statistically in organizational research. Moreover, the fact that organizational researchers have different traditions from those of 'number crunchers' does not make such traditions inferior. Lastly, the unification model portrays scientific explanations as constructed in a unified design. The paper has shown that in organizational research, unification manifests quite differently from the natural sciences. Organizations operate in unstable condition in the sense that there are so many disciplines under organizational research.

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