This thesis asks: ‘How can tertiary education nurture entrepreneurial creativity?’ Entrepreneurship is considered to be a vital determinant of economic growth and the entrepreneur is understood as someone who innovates and commercialises their own innovation. The setting is New Zealand which is struggling to make the shift from relying on primary production to becoming a ‘creative economy.’ The creative individual has been identified as a new mainstream but it is argued that in New Zealand, education provision is inadequate for supporting the development of the practice of entrepreneurship. The problem is not unique. Various writers are critical of business education generally, and of the mismatch between the passion and chaos in entrepreneurs’ lives and the way education programs are typically organised as a linear sequence of discipline-based courses with prescribed content, activities and outcomes. Rich data were gathered from in-depth interviews with twelve nascent, new or experienced entrepreneurs and two associates (one a marketer, the other a scientist). Each participant was drawn from a different area of economic endeavour. They were asked to share their stories and views about creativity, the connections between creativity and entrepreneurship, business success, formal and informal education, and ways to improve tertiary education programs. The research found that a suitable environment for nurturing creativity will most likely have structure but will also enable chaos. It will present opportunities for experiencing diversity, and will stimulate unconscious and conscious mental processes. It will provide scope for hard work that is fun and involves authentic risk-taking, and will enable both individual and purposeful teamwork. The study also found that business success is not based on knowledge but is rather about being resourceful. The becoming of the creative entrepreneur thus includes developing capability to network with peers and mentors and communicate with customers and staff, and developing passion for and resilience in the pursuit of a dream. The findings suggest that in an age of uncertainty, nurturing entrepreneurial creativity and resourcefulness requires learning to be viewed as a practice-based community process where knowing and doing are interwoven with being. It is argued that this needs to align with Ronald Barnett and Kelly Coate’s (2005) notion of ‘a curriculum for engagement.’ It is suggested that an entire program might simply invite students to work collaboratively to identify and exploit an entrepreneurial opportunity by producing and commercialising an appropriate product/service innovation; to undertake this work as two separate projects – one within an existing organisation, and the other as a new venture; and to theorise their work. It is proposed that a suitable framework lies in William Doll’s (2002) advocacy for a curriculum based on a matrix of five Cs: ‘currere,’ complexity, cosmology, conversation, and community. To these, creativity is added as a sixth C.

This in-depth cases tudy examinest he troubled introduction of a new computerisedr eservation system at French Railways. Socrale, based on the American Airlines Sabre system, had a disastrous beginning.I t wasb adly receivedb y the Frenchp ublic, led to strikes andg overnmentin quiries,a nd had to be modified substantially.T he literatureo n information systemsf ailure is reviewedf rom functionalistt o social constructivista nd critical perspectivesa nd the thesis aims to challengeb eliefs and assumptions about technological success and failure. The notion of 'symmetry' from the sociology of technology emphasisetsh at failures expresst he samed ynamicsa s successess,h owingh ow technologicalc hoicesa re not obvious or unproblematic. Differences between air and rail transporý between American and European transport deregulation and between the needs of national identity, regional development and public access to transporta re all reflectedi n the questiono f yield managementY. ield managemenist a crucial component of computerisedre servations ystemsa nd was first adoptedd uring the deregulationo f the US air transport industry in the early 80s. It requires complex optimisation software designed to manage passenger revenues and control demand, by manipulating the availability of full and discounted fares according to monitoredd emanda nds tatisticaal nalysis. Latour and Callon's sociology of 'translation' helps analyse how the Socrate project was undertaken and interpreted as: borrowing from airline pricing, aiming to gain competitive advantage, associatingS ocrate to the successo f high-speedt rains, attemptingt o changep assengersb' uying and travelling behaviour, transformingt he organisationa nd helping identify profitable market segmentsA. non-essentialisst tanceh elpsu nderstandh ow social and technicald istinctionsa re socially constructeda nd how the differentiation between what is technical and what is social, for instance in the conception and application of yield managementi,s a mattero f power and politics. Clegg's circuits of power are usedt o complement the sociology of translation in examining how power and political factors contribute to information systemsb ecoming( or not) obligatoryp assagep oints. Politically controversialc hangesin Frenchr ail transporta re associatedw ith the role of computer technology in deregulated European and global electronic markets and its effects on the concept of nationali dentity and sovereigntyin transportp olicy-making.

This research explores the development of discourses of information society and the claims which have been made as to the transformative capacities of information and communication technologies (ICT) in particular. It explores the experiences of groups affiliated to two women's centres in the city of Salford, England. These centres, and associated groups, are situated within two economically disadvantaged areas which could be said to be peopled with "the information poor". The research argues that the enthusiasm with which technology has often been placed before such communities has been inspired by debates which have largely taken place at a high level of abstraction and generalisation and have not been grounded and connected to the needs of the residents of "real world", physically based localities. The importance of locality, of "situated knowledge", of networks built around trust and shared experience it suggests, have been largely disregarded and the global, the expert and disembodied community unconstrained by the limits imposed by place have been perceived as the most significant relationships in contemporary western societies. This has distorted perceptions of more traditional and locally-based, face-to-face interaction which has been considered limiting, insular and in many ways as looking backward rather than forward. From these perceptions have arisen a terminology which places responsibility for success or failure on the individual and the community (the digital underclass) and which suggests that a need for experts and professionals to enlighten and educate certain groups (the information poor) in order that they can be enabled and empowered in the new digital age. The research argues that this discourse, and the assumptions which lie behind it, have infused policy agendas around widening access to technology and informed many models which aim to introduce these technologies into such communities. The research concludes that there has been a disproportionate interest in technology and its powers to transform and a concomitant disregard of the human potential and abilities which enable technology to work and the personal and social relationships which will facilitate its use.

As computers absorb an ever-increasing proportion of corporate resources, and spread into every sphere of business activity, the issue of achieving benefits from investments in information technology (IT) is assuming major importance. Research evidence to hand suggests that IT investments are failing by orders of magnitude to provide appropriate levels of payback. A major part of the difficulty lies in the fact that management appears to lack a framework or even a language for addressing the issues, and are bewildered by the speed and impact of the changes that are taking place. This is particularly apparent in smaller and medium-sized organisations. This thesis examines the causes of the problem, and suggests that it stems mainly from an undue emphasis being placed by management on finance-based techniques, a legacy from an earlier and much different environment. It seeks to establish that such techniques are not only inadequate, but potentially counter-productive. Using established research methodologies, a framework is developed which seeks to address the key issues involved in achieving business benefits from IT, yet which is understandable to, and applicable by, managers in medium-sized organisations. Uniquely among IT investment frameworks, the concept of business reengineering or business process redesign is introduced as a formal evaluation criterion, reflecting the degree of business transformation currently being experienced, and the central role of IT in that transformation. The framework is then validated and refined through being applied in actual investment decision making processes undertaken by five organisations covering a range of business arenas.

The role of information and communications technology, which has been mostly limited to use within business and government organisations, is now moving through society and touching all sections, groups and individuals therein. Information and communications technology is now pervading physical, or real, communities, as opposed to communities created through information technology, virtual communities. For the purposes of this research study, a traditional view of community is taken and defined as people sharing experiences and interrelations with others living in a physical locality, comprising all residents, workforce, official bodies and authorities that exist or have business within a defined physical area. There is potential for positive change within physical communities through the use of such technology to change the way people work, interact with local government, and the way people access information. There are also potential dangers that cannot be ignored. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the technology and the speed of advances in the technology, some dangers may be overlooked. Much of the research work concerning these issues tends to be focused on the technological aspects of the phenomenon, or takes a utopian view of the implementation of technological advances within communities. This research study takes a more critical view of the issues involved and is based upon an exploration of the issues associated with the introduction of information and communication technologies within the physical community. The study uses an ethics-based framework to explore these issues, together with a unified conceptual framework covering all aspects of the research study. An ethics-based approach was chosen because of its applicability to issues that have potentially harmful social effects, and was closely related to prior research work. An action case research method was employed to engage with a selected research subject. This allowed the researcher to conduct the study while acting close to the main participants within a community. Research uncovered a number of research findings or lessons, including, but not limited to, the finding that: the introduction of ICT into physical communities has divergent issues that stem from a broad spectrum of domains; arguments portraying aspects of projects as being amoral must be countered, that ethics is not just about big questions; that ethical analysis is important, both to the subject area of this research and others; the contingent nature of IS research in context means IS research cannot follow the waterfall model. Research also led to the formation of two important ideas, the notion engagement and in-situ ethical analysis.

The use of Zen - advertent or inadvertent - in the practice of artistic creation is not new. From Japanese Haiku poetry, the early poetry of Wordsworth and even aspects of Shakespeare's Hamlet, to the paintings of Cezanne and Dali, to the novels of Ben Okri and the work of Samuel Becket and Peter Brooke, we see differing efforts to transcend the dominant mode of understanding ourselves and the world around us: namely that of the duality of thought, of the kind our conscious, logical intellect can comprehend. One could even point to contemporary physics - and in particular the physics emerging out of quantum mechanics' - to see that efforts to transcend the limitations of our own intellect in the quest to understand the phenomena of life are not confined to artists. One could describe this quest as spiritual, in that it is concerned with understanding life predominantly through feeling. As a relatively young art form, first conceived and developed within a mechanistic paradigm, the film medium does not have a tradition that both filmmakers and audience alike can relate to in terms of transcending modes of dualistic thought and exploring our spiritual nature. With some notable exceptions who remain on the whole on the fringes of popular film culture - Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer and Tarkovsky being the most prominent of these - filmmakers have been confined to working predominantly within the idiom of cause and effect, conflict and resolution, and the logic of psychologically explicable character motivation and consequent plot development. With relatively few reference points, the process of examining and exploring the film form beyond this psychological realism is difficult, not least because of the economic restraints that have traditionally hampered innovation within filmmaking. While our conscious thoughts and emotional lives are amply studied within the bounds of largely Freudian and humanistic psychology, there remain aspects of human experience - feelings connected to our transcendental natures - which film does not adequately explore or express. Here, I shall seek to illustrate and evaluate the efforts I have made as a practicing filmmaker through three films - One Day Tafo, Reunion and Signs of Life - to explore and develop a film form which seeks to reveal a truth about myself and the world in which I live: a truth which goes beyond what may be psychologically and intellectually explicable, a truth which is essentially experiential and devoid of traditional concepts of meaning. I am tempted to refer to this as `Zen and the art of filmmaking'? For me, this work is only the beginning of a life-long process, the outcomes of which I hope others may be able to use for further research and exploration.

The processes of globalisation have led to a world which is more closely connected and interdependent than ever before. The use of information technology has been instrumental in facilitating these interconnections and as the processes of globalisation have unfolded, whole industries have developed which are not dependent upon location to trade with their customers across the globe. There is no industry more seemingly suited to the notion of time and place independence than software development and the relative labour costs have meant that some developing countries have become popular locations for the outsourcing of information systems development. There is no country more involved in the outsourcing of software than India which has rapidly emerged as a world leader in the provision of outsourced software development. There have been few studies which have holistically and longitudinally examined this form of software development as a process. This thesis is the result of such a study. The aim of this research is to investigate the process of information systems development across time and space involving teams located in different countries. The research is undertaken with an interpretivist approach and methodology derived from Context Process analysis. The analysis of data is informed by the sociologist Anthony Giddens's later writings on globalisation as well as theory derived from the study of culture and power in organisations. The data collection was undertaken using a range of qualitative techniques. The outcomes of the research include an improved understanding of the implications for information systems development involving teams located in different countries collaborating with information technology across time and space, with relevance to the context of Indian outsourcing. Theoretical outcomes include an improved understanding of the methodological, social and political dimensions of information systems development using teams separated by time and space. The implications for management include an exposition of the issues involved in undertaking projects where teams are separated by time and space and guidance for moves to global software outsourcing.

During the last two decades the bank marketing literature has been characterised by a concern for service quality and information technology (IT) within the industry. IT and customer service are relatively new `strategic weapons' for banks, both being concerned with the deployment of information. The two concepts relate to the building and maintenance of long-term profitable relationships between the customer and the bank. With increasing competition it has become necessary for banks to keep ahead of rivals by differentiating themselves and IT is seen as an opportunity to achieve a sustainable `competitive advantage', especially in terms of improving service quality. In the light of this, the aim of this study is to investigate the influence of IT on the quality of service in the Jordanian banking sector. To accomplish the study objectives a questionnaire survey was conducted with two independent samples (bank customers and branch managers). The empirical work involved the development of questionnaires which were used for data collection and the study sample consisted of 550 bank customers and 67 branch managers. Initially, the data in the questionnaires were analysed to provide a general description of the respondents' characteristics and their perceptions of individual variables of service quality, IT-based service, customer satisfaction / loyalty and bank selection criteria. The research hypotheses were tested using Kruskal-Wallis, Mann-Whitney, Spearman Correlation Coefficient and t-tests. The main results of the study show a significant and positive relationship between IT and customer service. The more IT is used, the better the perception of service quality be. The results also give another strong indication that IT is playing a crucial role, with regard to bank selection criteria. Additionally, the findings revealed that the least important factor in influencing customers' choice of their banks is higher interest on savings and deposits, which is strongly related to religion and cultural background. On the other hand, it has been found that the most important factors in motivating the adoption of electronic channels by customers are time-saving, followed by the convenience of these channels. The study suggests several recommendations in order to increase the effectiveness of IT in Jordanian banks and improve their strategic and `competitive positions'. Finally the thesis ends by setting out an agenda for further work.

During the early stages of a construction project, clients often have difficulties in identifying and communicating their actual requirements to designers or other project participants. This is mainly due to their difficulty in comprehending the vast amount of information involved. In order to effectively address this information during the briefing process, this study has modelled such information into structured data models using EXPRESS-G technique. These data models represent a framework for the presentation of the client's brief, with the aim of establishing a computerised tool to assist both clients and designers to carry out this process effectively. The process of developing the brief is then modelled using IDEFO technique. A two step process modelling has been undertaken. Firstly, in the form of an abstract representation of the briefing operations deduced from literature review, and secondly, within the context of the forthcoming prototype development. The latter considers two viewpoints; system architecture of the prototype and the information to be elicited from the user. The developed models establish the foundation for the development of a prototype which utilises an object oriented environment. The use of structured analysis techniques for the modelling process entails the relevant constructs of the developed models to be transformed into their equivalents in the object oriented environment. The implemented object oriented data models, then form the framework for the textual presentation of the client's brief. The resulting prototype is called AUTOBRIEF (AUTOmated BRIEF development). AUTOBRIEF is a prototype for the generation of the client's brief, which provides access to project information prior to the brief generation. The implementation of the prototype has been tested to reflect how effective it is in support of the briefing process, using IT as a tool. At the end of the study, conclusions are drawn and recommendations are made for future research.

This thesis is concerned with the development of an intelligent inventory management system. The aim of the system is to bridge the substantial gap between the theory and the practice of inventory management and to help industrial inventory managers to achieve an effective and successful inventory management. The proposed system attempts to achieve this by providing automatic pattern identification and model selection facilities. Such a hybrid knowledge-based inventory system consists of a collection of techniques (or pattern identifier) for identifying demand and lead time patterns and a knowledge base (or rule base) for subsequent selection of a suitable inventory model taking into consideration aspects of the practical situation. There are no previous attempts in the inventory literature to develop such a system to guide model selection. In order to integrate the system into the established computer-based intelligent inventory management system and facilitate the function of the pattern identifier, a data manager has been developed to manipulate the history data required for statistical analysis and to load the data into the system from other applications. In order to establish the system's model base, the study of the modelling of inventory and the features and evolution of expert systems are reviewed. The published models which deal with similar inventory problems have been compared based on its applicability, clarity, and being suitable to be computerised. It was necessary to further develop and amend published models to fill gaps in the model base. The overall structure and salient features of the proposed system and the development of the system using Visual Basic have been described. The system has been tested using real life data supplied by the co-operating companies. Finally, achievements and shortcomings of the system are discussed and some suggestions for further research are outlined.