Purpose – The presented research aims to explain, describe and analyze the process of dynamic strategy development in high growth firms. Accordingly the research seeks to investigate how dynamic strategies are used within high growth firms and how strategic learning affects the process. Design/methodology/approach – The authors presents a review of theoretically relevant studies of high growth related to strategy, and two original studies examining the impact of dynamic strategy on high growth. A theoretical framework for the study of dynamic strategy processes is developed. The study comprehends eight interviews divided over five high growth firms, where high growth is defined by the OECD (2008) standard. Findings – In the study, the researchers finds significant evidence for the active and deliberate use of dynamic strategy in the high growth firms of the study. The implication of strategic learning on the dynamic strategies is found to be substantial. The findings shows that dynamic strategy development are used to a large extent and considered vital for achieving growth within in the high growth firms of the study. Research/theoretical implications/limitations – The findings demonstrate that dynamic strategy development is actively used in high growth phases of the firms studied. This has implications on the extension of previous research, as it shows the actual use of dynamic strategy and further emphasizes the importance of strategic learning within this process. With the important limitation that the study is considered too small to generalize over a larger population, which implies that further research on the subject is needed. Managerial implications – The findings provide guidelines for managers of how to handle strategy development in high growth, however due to the previous limitation this is presented as the way the high growth firms within this study handles this development. The guidelines could be used by anyone in managerial positions, thus increasing the understanding of how high growth firms handle strategy.

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This dissertation consists of three essays on the impact of non-market financial flows in developing countries. The first essay answers two questions. First, to what extent are remittances (as private transfers) differentiable from grants (as public transfers) in their effects on capital formation and growth? Second, how might the motivations to remit inform the nature of the relationship between remittances and growth? Using a sample of four developing countries, results suggest that remittances and grants, in fact, do behave differently. Remittances have no significant relationship with investment for all but one country (remittances are positively correlated with growth for Bangladesh). Grants’ impact on investment is negative in Egypt, positive in Pakistan and Syria and insignificant in Bangladesh. Migrants’ motivations to remit are found to be different across countries. Enlightened self-interest motivation to remit is the most likely cause of growth impacts in Egypt. A combination of self-interest and enlightened self-interest explains the growth impact in Bangladesh. Finally, a combination of migrants’ altruistic behavior and self-interest attitude explains the growth impact in Pakistan and Syria. The second essay demonstrates the allocation of foreign aid between consumption and investment with special emphasis on the importance of reverse flows in developing countries. Using a panel of 61 countries from 1980 to 2006, results indicate that, on average, 23 to 25% of any increase in foreign aid has been directed towards financing reverse flows. 78% was consumed and an insignificant amount was invested. Additional investigation suggests that almost 50% of aid is used for reverse flows in Sub-Saharan Africa, 19% in the Americas and 16 to 20% in North Africa, Asia and the Pacific. The third essay examines how remittances are allocated between consumption, investment and reverse flows in developing countries. Using a panel of 36 countries from 1980 to 2006, results suggest that almost 80% of any increase in remittances/GDP was consumed. With respect to investment, remittances had to statistically discernable effect on rate of investment. Additionally, 20% of any increase in remittances was diverted as reverse flows and contributed neither to increase consumption nor to investment.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a prelude to the Anatomy Act of 1832, which indulged the anatomists’ scientific ambition, granting a legitimate and sufficient source of cadavers to dissect legally. When read in concert with the history of anatomy and the historical record of body snatching, including case law and anatomy legislation, Frankenstein exemplifies the issues in medico-legal history at the turn of the nineteenth century, for Victor Frankenstein and the Creature’s stories are set amid the context of anatomical study, grave-robbery, crime, punishment and the illicit relationship between medicine and murder. This thesis accordingly addresses the medico-legal history of anatomy, the anatomist’s ambition and complex inhumanity, and the mingled identity of the anatomical subject as illegitimate and criminal. This analysis demonstrates that Frankenstein sheds light upon the anatomist’s ambition, the identity of the human cadaver, and the bioethical consequences of meddling with nature.

Sarada Devi (1852-1920) was the Hindu child bride of the famous nineteenth-century renouncer Ramakrishna (1836 -1886). While Ramakrishna was alive, he worshiped Sarada as a goddess, a woman to be revered but never touched, and ultimately making of her a figure of popular adoration. This thesis addresses the ways in which Sarada has been constructed in devotional and academic texts, in order to not only determine the ways in which different types of followers viewed her and her religious practices, but also to analyze scholarly assumptions about Sarada. It argues that despite Sarada’s renunciatory practices, both scholars and devotees of Ramakrishna, continued to write about Sarada primarily as a helpmate to Ramakrishna rather than as a guru in her own right. Such constructions fail to adequately take account of the advanced Hindu practices adhered to by Sarada herself. This failure is the result of an over-reliance on traditional (i.e. patriarchal) understandings of what it meant to renounce in colonial India and speaks to the neglect of the study of female renouncers in general. In the case of Sarada, a rereading of key texts through postcolonial and feminist lenses enables us to see more clearly the manner in which her idealization as the Mother of India by the Bengali bhadralok, masks the complexities and contradictions of her life as a renouncer and guru.

During the 19th century, British imperialism and Canadian colonialism aspired to subdue, subjugate and assimilate the Plains Cree (cf. Tobias 1992:148). This particular brand of colonialism employed Indian policy – a form of structural violence—rather than military force. I argue that structural violence was both legitimized and supported by cultural violence. The distortion of history is a prime example of cultural violence. That Canada followed an honorable and just policy in its dealings with Plains Indians (cf. Tobias 1983:519) is the contemporary residue of a myth created during colonial times in political circles to justify the dispossession of Aboriginal lands and resources. In the 19th Century, Cree leaders, Piapot and Big Bear, who were perceived as threats to Canadian “progress,” were routinely publicly maligned. The “official” historical literature often uncritically reflected these prevalent ethnocentric views of the day. Critical historical theorists, however, have offered a number of opposing views. This thesis focuses attention on the literature which takes a more critical and culturally informed approach to Canadian nation-building. It places a discussion of structural constraints at the centre of an exploration of the strategies Plains leaders used to resist a variety of Indian policies including reserve settlement.

A sample of 2,435 Canadian pre-retirement women aged 45 to 64 from Statistics Canada’s 2007 General Social Survey was used to examine the effect of sources of financial advice and information, controlling for 7 demographic and socioeconomic factors. The results of logistic regression indicated that levels of income, being in a relationship, having a better state of subjective health, and being born in Canada, were positively associated with women’s perceived adequacy of financial resources for retirement. Retirement planning experts, financial institution employees, accountants, partners, and employers were the key sources of financial advice and information that increased women’s perceived financial security for retirement. The results of this research can be used to better understand who among pre-retirement women are more or less likely to perceive their financial resources for retirement as adequate and whether the use of financial advice and information affects their perceived adequacy of financial resources for retirement.

This study used LA-ICP-MS on a documented sample of modern teeth to sample from a continuous line across the cementum increments thus creating a temporal line graph of the elemental composition against distance. The knowledge of cementum was extended through (1) a more complete elemental composition analysis and (2) the relation of element distribution to the ultrastructure structure throughout the life of a tooth. This study was exploratory and demonstrated that lead, zinc, mercury, and barium follow the same general line of changes, and most likely represent changes in health and exposure to these metals in the general environment. Copper, manganese and vanadium varied very little. Technological limitations prevented the examination of element levels in any one annulation.

The Canadian-descendent Old Colony Mennonites first arrived in Bolivia from Mexico in 1967. Their collective identity has been shaped by a series of migrations through several countries, including Russia, Canada and Mexico. In this thesis I look at which memories are retold and how they are used to define their identity as an anti-modern people, and vice versa, how this identity filters their memories. I also look to see what it is that the Old Colony Mennonites recall of their migration history: the years before arriving in Bolivia in the 1960s, the pioneer years and succeeding decades of life in Bolivia. In addition, I examine how they have used their history to define their worlds and how their views on technology, language, and clothing are articulated by historical accounts.