This thesis introduces two general classes of models for analyzing proportion response variable when the response variable Y can take values between zero and one, inclusive of zero and/or one. The models are inflated GAMLSS model and generalized Tobit GAMLSS model. The inflated GAMLSS model extends the flexibility of beta inflated models by allowing the distribution on (0,1) of the continuous component of the dependent variable to come from any explicit or transformed (i.e. logit or truncated) distribution on (0,1) including highly skewed and/or kurtotic or bimodal distributions. The second proposed general class of model is the generalized Tobit GAMLSS model. The generalized Tobit GAMLSS model relaxes the underlying normal distribution assumption of the latent variable in the Tobit model to a very general class of distribution on the real line. The thesis also provides likelihood inference and diagnostic and model selection tools for these classes of models. Applications of both the models are conducted using different sets of data to check the robustness of the proposed models. The originality of the thesis starts from chapter 4 and in particular chapter 5, 6 and 7 with applications of models in chapter 8, 9 and 10.

This covering statement introduces the nine published outputs in this submission, and explains their genesis. It considers the implications of the growing visibility of the sexual orientation strand for individuals and organisations operating in the UK context before and after the introduction of the Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003 (hereafter the Regulations). The PhD advanced knowledge and understanding of the following: the rationale for and drivers of sexual orientation equality work in UK trade union, public, private and voluntary sector organisations over the last two decades; the equality/diversity structures, policies and practices introduced by organisations in order to become more inclusive of lesbian gay and bisexual (LGB) people; LGB people’s perceptions and experiences of these sexual orientation equality and diversity policies and practices; LGB people’s voice, activism and agency in influencing the changes which have been taking place. The covering document provides details of the research projects and the interpretivist case study methodology on which the published outputs draw. It summarises and links the aims and principal findings of each output demonstrating that they form a coherent body of work. It concludes that although the introduction of the Regulations has been a positive trigger to sexual orientation equality work in the UK, progress remains uneven within and across organisations. Thus, it identifies voice mechanisms such as LGBT trade union and company network groups as key tools for inclusion. The conclusion locates the PhD as an original contribution to the advancement of sexual orientation organisation equality/diversity research. It does so by discussing its empirical and theoretical contributions to a sexual orientation research agenda which has been developing in waves subject to social, political and legal change and mobilisation in LGBT communities in different parts of the world.

Over 55,000 new breast cancer cases are diagnosed each year and the figures are rising. Most studies show that women want to get back to ‘normal’ and describe how returning to work helps to achieve this. For some, there are wider health implications which may affect their mobility or return to work (RTW). Disabilities are sometimes hidden, for example fatigue and emotional stress may result in a loss of confidence and work ability. Few studies focus on how the structural relations of organizations impact women’s decisions to RTW after treatment. This study contributes to our knowledge and understanding of how employers view disability, how work place adjustments are made and the support that women are offered on their RTW. This study explores the process of return or non-return to work after breast cancer diagnosis and treatment. It examines the relationship between the personal narratives of women with breast cancer and discourses around workplace discipline and practice. It records women’s attitudes towards work, their career aspirations and how support networks played a part in influencing their return or non-return to work. It illustrates how women’s embodied experiences are not only about immediate experiences located in a specific context i.e. the breast cancer diagnosis but also how the body intersects with culture: how it is marked by categories of gender, age, class, ethnicity, and (dis)ability and is subject to regulation and control. Interviews were conducted with sixteen breast cancer respondents and HR directors from five major employers based in the South West of England. The cases in this research show that women’s safe return to work is limited due to employers’ lack of understanding of their working [dis]ability with few or no adjustments in place to accommodate their needs. Breast Cancer patients consider a RTW allows them to move on from their cancer diagnosis but struggle to overcome the barriers in the process of returning. Whilst some women struggled to retain their jobs, others changed career paths or retired early due to ill-health continuing long after diagnosis.

Many organisations view leadership as a feature of competitive advantage and competent leaders as instrumental in achieving organisational performance and productivity. In the hotel industry, there is a strong relationship between leadership culture and leader behaviour with employee satisfaction, loyalty, and productivity that has a subsequent impact on service quality, profitability and growth. Consequently, many hospitality organisations invest significantly in the development of their leaders using a variety of internal and external Human Resource Development HRD interventions and practitioners. A key challenge for HRD practitioners in this setting is to design and deliver effective leadership development interventions that provide relevant learning that is transferred to the workplace for individuals and management teams. However, the learning approach is not the only concern and transfer is a crucial element of effectiveness, particularly where the practice setting of the workshop, where skills and knowledge are gained, is very different from the business setting where they are to be applied and so the concept of far-transfer must be factored in to the design and delivery. This case study reviews the evolution, design, delivery, evaluation and training transfer of a large scale Leadership Development programme for managers in a single organisation in the hotel industry, carried out by an independent HRD consultant practitioner and submitted as a thesis for a Practitioner Doctorate in Personnel and Development. The participants were all members of management teams operating within the UK and Continental Europe. This action research account treats the stages of the programme as four separate yet connected cycles, each with discrete practitioner-researcher concerns. Researcher and practitioner questions arising out of an initial diagnostic and alignment activity led to programme design and delivery considerations. These were followed by evaluation and subsequent transfer enquiries. Through these cycles, core questions at the heart of HRD consultant practice in a real world situation were explored. These relate to creating and providing effective interventions that facilitate the required sustainable behaviour changes within the client system, recognising that the criteria for how effectiveness is defined, identified and evaluated are multi-variant and highly likely to be unique in each case. A key outcome is the development of the concept of Inspirational Leadership as a potentially relevant model for developing leader effectiveness in this setting underpinned by Fundamental Interpersonal Relationship Orientation (FIRO) Theory as the central behavioural model. A structured Training Intervention Framework (TIF) is also proposed as a holistic methodology for the diagnosis, design and delivery of similar interventions in order to create a robust strategy and tactics for training interventions to occur. This is presented as a theoretical contribution to professional practice for HRD practitioners for future interventions in similar settings.

This thesis investigates migration aspirations and experiences of female Polish migrant workers and returnees, who have been working and living in the UK. In the face of theoretical debates and a lack of knowledge on the experience of Polish women as migrant workers in the UK, a contextualised study prioritising the narratives of the interviewees was established. The theoretical and methodological approach is characterised by grounded theory methodology informed by theoretical sensitivity, which is combined with the analysis of biographical narrative interviews, semi-structured expert interviews, and secondary quantitative data. Through this approach, the conditions and influential factors that shape female Polish migrant workers’ aspirations and experiences, as well the way in which they make meaning of them, are scrutinised. Different patterns of migration aspirations have been constructed by the informants’ narratives – migration as a solution, as a family strategy or as an opportunity. Furthermore, specificities of working and living in the UK have been established, marked by different routes into employment, migrant and feminised work, and different patterns of work trajectories; as well as social networks, transnational lives and experiences of women and family life. Constructions of return decisions or the lack of return motivations, as well as experiences after return, bring forth the relevance of expectations resulting in the question: ‘return to what?’ Additionally, return plans have been adapted in the face of structural constraints or because of individual preferences, which were at times overruled in the context of return as a family strategy. Return was also constructed, however, as path to personal or professional fulfilment, as an opportunity, or as a result of disappointment. In the context of the conditions of the enlarged EU providing the freedom of movement, the post-transformation labour market in Poland, and the gendered and migrant labour market segmentation in the UK, as well as gender regimes, female Polish migrant workers actively mediated their migration aspirations and experiences.

This case study research focuses on the experience of Migrant Student Mothers (MSM) as a particular stakeholder group in an inner city Higher Education Institution (HEI) within a context of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Widening Participation (WP) and the Employability agenda of the contemporary Higher Education (HE) environment are given a particular focus as relevant aspects of the discussion with regard to MSM and the importance of considering a CSR approach to HE stakeholders. Affect Theory was utilised as the lens through which the data was thematically analysed, given the affective attributes that mothers assign to CSR and the affective overarching embodiment of affects as emerged from this research. This study argues that the central theme attributed to affects in the individual's experiences is hope. The findings highlight the invisibility of MSM in HE and that the significance of a reciprocal relationship between material experiences and affective understanding, enables this particular subgroup of the students, to act and progress, both as migrant mothers and as students, through their migration and education trajectories, enabling both themselves and their children to occupy a place as future global citizens. The findings support that the material vehicles available to stakeholders groups are paramount in facilitating such hope and therefore the needs for business entities to actively respond to the needs of these stakeholders. The research approach that was undertaken, adopting an interpretivist paradigm, was carried out through case study method, utilising several data collection tools in order to gain a rich and in-depth picture of the chosen case. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken at two key points of the academic year with four different stakeholder groups, including over 230 hours verbatim transcription; biographical personal self-definition forms, research diary; and, an in-depth investigation of the University's policies, documentation, existing statistics, generic emails, management address and publicly available information such as the university website. The thesis points out that across the many CSR definitions and research there is still an untouched discourse that fails to recognise the heterogeneous complexity of stakeholder groups and within them 'invisible stakeholders'. Building on a synthesis of Hopkins' (2016) CSR definition which adopts a stakeholder orientation, the thesis builds on current stakeholder theory by promulgating a three-phase CSR process, encompassing a new CSR model: The Triplex-Invisible Stakeholders, which recognises the heterogeneity of different stakeholder groups through exploring linkages between them, and thus making the invisible stakeholders visible.

Evolution in the world of work has led to the adoption of outsourcing. These evolutions have not being without challenges hence indicating the need for greater attention to be paid to the complexities surrounding the potential impact of outsourcing on employees. This study focused on the effects of outsourcing on the employees' perception of the psychological contract. The study explored whether applying a relational content analysis model will give better insight into the complexity of the psychological contract and provide in-depth understanding of what influences the psychological contract. Key relational content analysis concepts and tools such as; reactions and coping strategies, diagrammatic representations and tabular mapping were used. Thirty (30) interviews from five departments (Property management, IT and Administration, Brokerage, Marketing and Valuation) of two estate management organisations were conducted. Data gathered from these interviews were analysed to draw out the reactions and their resulting responses between employees and the organisation. The findings showed that the outsourcing experience was perceived as a violation of the psychological contract by a majority of employees and an in-depth analysis model indeed provides in-depth understanding of the effects of outsourcing on the employees' perception of the psychological contract and experience of violation. Through the implementation of research approaches the study fully addressed the research questions meeting the requirements for the research objectives.

This study of women in management was initiated to explore, through women managers themselves, the barriers they thought were hindering their progress up the management hierarchies in BT. To facilitate this study the first former utility organisation to be privatised was approached to be the case study. At the time the organisation, which was undergoing a major organisational change programme aimed at taking it from the utility provider it had been to the dynamic private company it wanted to be, was gaining a reputation for enlightened equal opportunity policies. It had a vigorous gender champion and an equal opportunities department that had ensured circulation of the organisation's equal opportunities policies to all members of staff. BT employed a large number of women managers in different functions, working in different locations throughout the UK and in a number of positions in the management hierarchy short of the most senior management or director levels. It therefore presented a unique opportunity to study women in the management pipeline from across a broad spectrum of jobs and backgrounds, women who were not being promoted in the same proportions as their male counterparts. To examine their circumstances a mixed methodology was used drawing on aspects of feminist, positivist and pragmatic models because each offered an essential element of the mix needed to satisfy the requirements for undertaking the study. As the researcher was both a manager employed by the case study organisation and a woman there were elements of feminist methodology that guided involvement and personal interest in the study. The culture of the case study organisation was such that it was driven by the quantitative measures offered by positivism. An implicit element of the agreement between researcher and case study organisation was therefore that elements of the findings should reflect this requirement. Finally, a pragmatic approach to undertaking the study underpinned the dialogue between researcher and case study organisation as ways were explored for carrying out the investigation. While it cannot be assumed that the same barriers to progress for women managers found in the case study organisation exist for women managers in other organisations, the findings of this study have nevertheless highlighted issues beyond the borders of the organisation. Firstly, they confirm the conclusions of previous research that women have been both horizontally and vertically segregated in areas of organisations from which progress into top management positions is more difficult to achieve. Secondly, the study casts new light on the pressures that women face when trying to reconcile the needs of work and caring responsibilities. Women's ambitions are still tempered by their place in the home as carer and partner and many are prepared to subordinate their career opportunities to the needs of their family. Most crucially, the study highlights the extent to which women's aspirations are bounded by their work experiences. It has been assumed that organisational cultures have been becoming more sympathetic towards the inclusion of women managers and more prepared to encourage women to progress but the evidence of this study is that this operates at the level of rhetoric instead of action. The organisational structures and management styles presented barriers that flattened the ambition of women and exposed them to bullying, intimidation and harassment. Nurtured by an uncompromisingly macho company culture underpinned by an old boys' network, the barriers that women encountered served to suppress initiative and detain them at lower levels of management. Many women felt that because of this they were stifled, inhibited from improving their own or the organisation's performance. Furthermore, this study demonstrates that the nebulous nature of these insidious discriminatory practices renders them almost impenetrable. Just as BT shares a history and culture similar to several other former utility organisations so it is probable that these practices are mirrored in other organisations. Finally, the assumptive base of some recent analysts question the ways in which women are likely to progress in management. It has been assumed that the excellent educational achievements of women in recent years will automatically translate into increased opportunities for high office in organisations. However the findings of this study show that the organisational climate in which women find themselves has a larger impact on their progress. In this study the women with the highest qualifications were clustered in the lowest ranks in the division of the organisation that showed most resistance to gender diversity. Therefore while education may enhance a woman's opportunities, it does not automatically position her for higher office. The other assumption that women are increasingly limiting their own career opportunities by making positive decisions to remain at the lowest positions in the management pipeline, through positive lifestyle choices, are challenged by the findings here. It was only when women found themselves hampered and unlikely to progress or thought that the harmony of their home lives was threatened that they decided to limit their options. Otherwise, many of them stated, they would have relished the challenge of higher office. As this study shows, it would clearly be a disservice to these women managers to confuse their forfeiture of ambition because of the prevailing hostile organisational climate or for family reasons, with their positively deciding to limit their careers.

User resistance to information system (IS) change is an important issue in the IS literature. However, despite a large body of user adoption literature, there is far less literature addressing user resistance to IS change, especially in organisational contexts. Moreover, there are still left a number of open questions regarding the why and how resistance takes place. Particularly, previous research failed to explain these questions for two reasons. First, none of the previous research explained the reasons for IS resistance from a multilevel perspective. Second, previous research, with few exceptions, was empirically conducted after IS had been implemented in organisations. Hence, it can be considered to be observations made on downstream results of the upstream resistance process. The two reasons above were used as drivers for this research at the AlphaBank during the preliminary phases of its core banking system (CBS) upgrading project. The ultimate purpose of this study is to develop a framework which will be of use to practitioners for understanding and managing resistance to IS change. Given the complexity of the resistance, explanatory theories guiding the study were argued, discussed, and developed. These guiding theories were based on the open system theory, the political variant of the interaction theory, and the status quo bias theory. The study employed an interpretivist philosophical standpoint and a collaborative practice research (CPR) was adopted. During the study, different methods were designed and conducted including informal discussions, documentation, semi-structure interviews, staff meetings and workshop. In total, twenty eight participants covering different levels of the bank’s hierarchy were involved in the study. Based on the findings, it was concluded that comprehending resistance from a multilevel lens helped the AlphaBank’s managers move beyond a search for a simple explanation of this phenomenon and enabled them to create more meaningful and actionable solutions. The findings contribute to knowledge in a multilevel model for understanding and managing resistance to IS change.

This research work develops a novel framework for experimental designs of liberalised wholesale power markets, namely the Agent-based Computational Economics of Wholesale Electricity Market (ACEWEM) framework. The ACEWEM allows to further understand the effect of various market designs on market efficiency and to gain insights into market manipulation by electricity generators. The thesis describes a detailed market simulations whereby the strategies of power generators emerge as a result of a stochastic profit optimisation learning algorithm based upon the Generalized Additive Models for Location Scale and Shape statistical framework. The ACEWEM framework, which integrates the agent-based modelling paradigm with formal statistical methods to represent better real-world decision rules, is designed to be the foundation for large custom-purpose experimental studies inspired by computational learning. It makes a methodological contribution in the development of an expert computational laboratory for repeated power auctions with capacity and physical constraints. Furthermore, it contributes by developing a new computational learning algorithm. It integrates the reinforcement learning paradigm to engage past experience in decision making, with flexible statistical models adjust these decisions based on the vision of the future. In regard to policy contribution, this research work conducts a simulation study to identify whether high market prices can be ascribed to problems of market design and/or exercise of market power. Furthermore, the research work presents the detailed study of an abstract wholesale electricity market and real UK power market.