Les progrès récents des technologies de l'information et de la communication (TIC) ont joué un rôle déterminant dans la transformation de la plupart des pratiques de travail traditionnelles et les structures organisationnelles. Le travail d'équipe équipes virtuelles mondiales/internationales (EVI) est un exemple. Les précédentes recherches sur les (EVI) identifient comme limite les différences culturelles et cette question doit être traitée pour une meilleure efficience de l’équipe virtuelle. Prenant appui sur l'étude de la théorie de la discontinuité de l'organisation (TDO), nous proposons l'intelligence culturelle (IC) comme l'une des modalités à travers lesquelles les discontinuités culturelles dans les EVI pourraient éventuellement être comblées. En situant le débat dans le modèle transactionnel du stress et de l'adaptation (MTSA), nous développons un réseau nomologique d’IC décrivant les interrelations et les mécanismes à travers lesquels différentes dimensions d’IC influencent la performance des EVI. En outre, tirant parti de la théorie de l'adaptation compensatoire (TAC) le rôle important de l'adaptation structurelle (IC d'adaptation) est l'hypothèse, en plus de l'adaptation comportementale (comportement d’IC), dans le cadre de l’IC proposée pour le contexte de l’EVI. Pour tester le modèle conceptuel « théorisé », l'étude utilise une conception séquentielle de la recherche reposant sur les méthodes mixtes. / Recent advances in information and communication technologies (ICTs) have been instrumental in transforming many of the traditional work practices and organizational structures. Global virtual teams (GVTs) are one such example.  Prior research on GVT identifies ‘cultural discontinuity’ as a salient boundary that needs to be bridged for better performance. Grounding the study in organizational discontinuity theory (ODT), in this research, we propose cultural intelligence (CQ) as one of the modalities through which cultural discontinuities in GVTs could possibly be bridged. Situating the discussion, in transactional model of stress and coping (TMSC), we develop a CQ nomological network describing the inter-relationships and mechanisms through which different CQ dimensions influence GVT performance. Further, leveraging compensatory adaptation theory (CAT) the significant role of structural adaptation (role structure adaptation) is hypothesized, in addition to behavioral adaptation (CQ behavior), in the proposed CQ framework for the GVT context. For testing the theorized conceptual model, the study uses a sequential mixed methods research design comprising a quantitative study followed by a qualitative The integrated findings enable us to propose a 'substantive theory of CQ for GVT performance' thereby making significant contributions to both theory and practice.

<p>U disertaciji je dato jedno rešenje automatskog operativnog<br />upravljanja dvosmernom brodskom prevodnicom sa jednom komorom.<br />Kreiran je ekspertski sistem zasnovan na rasplinutoj (fuzzy) logici.<br />Upravljački sistem je testiran na modelu brodske prevodnice koji je<br />kreiran na osnovu statističkih podataka o gustini saobraćaja na<br />hidrosistemu DTD (Dunav-Tisa-Dunav), na osnovu tehničke<br />dokumentacije brodske prevodnice i na osnovu razgovora sa<br />operaterima. Sistem je zatim optimizovan globalnim algoritmima<br />optimizacije. Dobijeno rešenje se pokazalo značajno bolje u poređenju<br />sa standardnim algoritmima odluke.</p> / <p>This thesis presents a solution to automatic control of a two-way one-channel<br />ship lock. Expert system based on fuzzy logic is designed. This control<br />system is tested on model of ship lock created using statistical data of<br />transportation density on DTD (Danube-Tisa-Danube) channel, using<br />technical documentation of ship lock and interview with operators. The<br />system is further optimized with global optimization techniques. Given<br />solution proved to be significantly better than standard decision algorithms.<br />&nbsp;</p>

<p>Faced with increasing domestic competition from non-U.S. firms and a growing global marketplace, U.S.-based engineering firms have turned their focus to globalizing their services. Understanding the multifaceted cultural aspects of marketing and penetrating the global engineering market requires heightened cross-cultural leadership competencies in tandem with a strategic market orienting activities. The purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to determine any relationship that may exist between the variables of cultural intelligence and market orientation of decision makers at U.S.-based engineering firms to the dependent variable of entering the global marketplace. Participants were composed of senior-level global engineering and marketing decision makers from U.S.-based engineering firms listed on ENR?s Top Global and International Design Firms listings. The study included an online survey consisting of the Cultural Intelligence Scale and the individual market orientation scale, the I-MARKOR instrument. Statistical correlational analysis of the collected data indicated some positive relationships between factors of cultural intelligence and global market orientation. The analysis indicated a significant relationship exists between the aggregates of cultural intelligence and global market orientation. The study conclusions should assist globally-focused engineering firms to better penetrate the worldwide marketplace and to recognize the benefits of cultural intelligence and global market orientation leadership skillsets. Since there was a significant relationship between cultural intelligence and individual market orientation, global-looking domestic engineering firms are encouraged to invest deeper in enhancing the factors that comprise cultural intelligent leadership decisions in the organization. The recommendations presented in the research study outline suggestions for future research and practice.

<p> Increased globalization and competition have forced companies to implement solutions at a rapid pace using new and evolving technology. As a result, companies are now initiating an increasing number of complex projects each year. Project management (PM) practitioners &ndash; the individuals responsible for leading a project team through the planning and implementation of these complex projects &ndash; need to understand the tools and techniques to implement a complex project successfully to meet the strategic goals of the organization. Emotional intelligence (EI) is a primary component of the leadership skills necessary to manage a complex project. The purpose of this study was to explore the EI competencies used by PM practitioners who managed a complex project as defined by Qureshi and Kang (2015). Using the Goleman model of EI, this study investigated 22 PM practitioners who managed a complex project and found the PM practitioner&rsquo;s ability to be adaptable, innovative, and trustworthy to be key personal competencies used in the management of a complex project. Furthermore, the ability to understand organizational politics and its effect on the team and the complex project, to maneuver around it, and to be influential, and deal with conflict are necessary social competencies when managing a complex project. These competencies are not limited to complex projects. This study also investigated EI competencies experienced in non-complex projects and found that trust, conflict management, influence, and political awareness were all EI competencies that held equal importance to PM practitioners when managing a non-complex project. People were the key. Findings from this study found that &ndash; although non-complex projects may not provide the innovative approaches or the need to adapt to change as found in a complex project &ndash; when people are involved, PM practitioners still need the ability to trust, resolve conflict, deal with and maneuver around the political climate, and influence the team.</p>

Magister Commercii (Information Management) - MCom(IM) / Companies are putting in place systems that might assist in attaining their business goals and vision to improve the running of their business processes. Companies are looking at Business Intelligence (BI) as a means to attain a competitive edge over competitors, predict future trends, improve strategic decision making, facilitate quick and reliable decision making, or make the day-to-day running of business easier. The study looks at the perspective of middle to top management on the context of BI, with main focus on the technical capabilities of BI within medium to large companies in South Africa. To obtain factors relevant to the South African business context, an online survey was conducted with various sectors of South African industry. The study is part of research conducted collaboratively by the University of the Western Cape and Neu-Ulm University of Applied Sciences in Germany. It focuses on exploring usage of Business Intelligence Systems (BIS) together with Corporate Performance. Online surveys were conducted that targeted medium to large companies in Germany and South Africa by questioning middle to top management on issues surrounding BIS and Corporate Performance. On this basis online survey approach was taken to ensure required number of participants would be covered and approached. Therefore, the research adopted stratified sample method for the online survey. Stratified sampling enabled the expansion of the research by gathering and collaborating participants responses on the research question and eliminate the possibilities of unreliable sample from large population.

Magister Commercii (Information Management) - MCom(IM) / Companies are putting in place systems that might assist in attaining their business goals and vision to improve the running of their business processes. Companies are looking at Business Intelligence (BI) as a means to attain a competitive edge over competitors, predict future trends, improve strategic decision making, facilitate quick and reliable decision making, or make the day-to-day running of business easier. The study looks at the perspective of middle to top management on the context of BI, with main focus on the technical capabilities of BI within medium to large companies in South Africa. To obtain factors relevant to the South African business context, an online survey was conducted with various sectors of South African industry. The study is part of research conducted collaboratively by the University of the Western Cape and Neu-Ulm University of Applied Sciences in Germany. It focuses on exploring usage of Business Intelligence Systems (BIS) together with Corporate Performance. Online surveys were conducted that targeted medium to large companies in Germany and South Africa by questioning middle to top management on issues surrounding BIS and Corporate Performance. On this basis online survey approach was taken to ensure required number of participants would be covered and approached. Therefore, the research adopted stratified sample method for the online survey. Stratified sampling enabled the expansion of the research by gathering and collaborating participants responses on the research question and eliminate the possibilities of unreliable sample from large population.

Milling is one of the most important and common processes widely used in manufacturing industry, which is a very competitive environment. For this reason, manufacturing companies are facing many different challenges. The offering of a variety of high quality products, the restriction of production time and costs, the increase of productivity, and the need for flexibility of production are the goals that manufacturers have to consider and achieve in order to succeed in their field. These aspects relate to the process study, optimization and control, and in recent years many attempts to find possible solutions and techniques to manage these steps in a proper way have been done. The first solution that a lot of enterprises were motivated to research and utilize relates to the application of the finite element modeling (FEM) techniques to study manufacturing processes or to highlight behaviour of products, for example of cutting tools, during the design phase. The second technique deals with the manufacturing process control, and is aimed at the increasing of automation level of modern production systems by evolving them towards the paradigm of Intelligent Manufacturing. The present work is focused on the study and evaluation of the effectiveness of both techniques. The first part of the research presented in this thesis is dedicated to the study of the application of Intelligent Manufacturing Systems to milling processes. In particular, in the Chapter 1 it is discussed the improvement of the artificial operator called Evaluation and Perception Controller (EPC) built by the Mechatronics group of the University of Trento within the national project Michelangelo in 2013. In this thesis it is proposed to improve the performance characteristics of the EPC system in terms of the process quality, described by the surface roughness value. In particular, it is proposed to associate the surface roughness term to the scallop height value, and to include a model that describes the mechanism of scallop height formation into the Optimal Control Problem formulation. Chapter 2 of this work is related to the application of FEM techniques to study milling processes. In particular, in this section the influence of CAD cutting tool models (STEP and STL) on 3D FEM AdvantEdge prediction accuracy in terms of the average and maximum cutting forces, and deformed chip thickness and curvature radius values are studied. In addition, this part of the thesis includes also the discussion of the problems related to the application of 2D FEM modeling techniques to study the influence of cutting tools geometries on the feed and tangential cutting forces that act in three-dimensional cutting processes. Chapter 3 of this thesis is dedicated to the development of a model suitable for prediction of cutting forces that act in non-tilted and tilted side down-milling processes performed with end mills. The development of this model has two purposes. First of all, it can be included into the EPC controller, thus extending the field of the possible applications of this system. The second purpose relates to the fact that in case the side down-milling process simulations are performed by using cutting forces coefficients identified based on 2D FEM cutting forces data, the proposed model allows to overcome the mismatches between real processes and 2D FEM, and to simulate two cutting forces, feed and normal, arising in three-dimensional processes.

No description available.

The decision-making process (DMP) is based on two elements: Organizational and technical (Poleto et al., 2015). The organizational element is related to managers’ everyday decisionmaking based on the organization strategy (Poleto et al., 2015). Its aim is to set up specific actions for the planned objectives for the business (Rouse, 2018). The second element is the technical DMP. According to (Poleto et al., 2015), it is related the set of tools that are used as an aid in the DMP, which includes information technology and big data. Business intelligence (BI) is the decisionmaking helping system (Ali et al., 2017). Consequently, BI helps make better decisions, and it has become popular in many organizations. As a result, it is important to show BI’s power over DMPs and to show how the tools used in BI facilitate the DMP. “Higher education institutions worldwide are operating today in a very dynamic and complex environment” (Kabakchieva 2015, p. 104). As a result, universities that are within higher education are threatened because competition is serious (Barrett, 2010). Moreover, higher education is another area that will potentially impact big data research (Ong, 2016). Consequently, the application and use of big data in higher educational institutions may result in better quality education for students and a better experience for the university staff (Ong, 2016). As a result, HEI is adopting new technologies with the aim of sustaining its position on the market. DMPs at higher academic institutions require structured data from a sophisticated system, which can be only done through efficient and effective use of BI tools. This thesis will investigate how the BI system is used at Linkoping University (LIU) and how its benefits have changed DMPs. We studied the BI tool (Qlikview) that has been used at LIU for 10 years. 10 To answer the research question, a theoretical framework was developed that was based on two models: Simon’s (1997) and Huber’s (1980) DMP models. The two models were combined with the BI benefits that were based in El Bashir et al.’s (2008) model. The research is done through a qualitative method of data collection and data analysis. At LIU, seven interviews were conducted with BI users and with strategic decision-makers. The findings show that the BI system, alongside Qlikview, has a positive effect on DMPs at LIU as a public HEI. The factors affected are the information gathering time, the quality of data provided and the accessibility to information by all BI users.

Yes / As big data (BD) and data analytics having gain significance the industry expects helping executives will eventually move towards evidence based decision making. The hope is to achieve more sustainable competitive advantage for their organisations. A key question is whether executives make decisions by intuition. This leads to another question whether big data would ever substitute human intuition. In this research, the ‘mind-set’ of executives about application and limitations of big data be investigated by taking into account their decision making behaviour. The aim is to look deeply into how BD technologies facilitate greater intuitiveness in executives, and consequently lead to faster and sustainable business growth.