Statistics from the Health and Safety Executive show that the UK construction industry has approximately 80 fatalities per year, making the construction industry one of the most dangerous industries when compared to other industries. The reduction of construction accidents in the construction industry has led to the need for thoroughly analysed construction environment information which can be effectively utilised in formulating construction health and safety planning strategies, thus enabling the construction industry meet accident reduction targets. However, existing approaches to information analysis mainly focus on factors within construction health and safety information during analysis and do not shed light on the influencing socio-economic and spatially influenced issues within which the industry’s accident contributory factors are rooted. It is also clear that limitations of information usage in the construction industry are due to the fragmented nature in which health and safety information is availed to practitioners for ultimate utilisation in the construction process. There is, therefore, a need for more appropriate decision-support mechanisms that can take account of spatial contributory factors to accident occurrence. There is also a need for mechanisms that enhance the management, analysis and utilisation construction environment information from varied sources for integration in the construction process. The failure to utilise information from varied sources in the construction industry, means that adequately analysed information is lacking for integration in construction health and safety planning strategy formulation process. This study was initiated as a response to this challenge. This prompted further research into the utilisation of health and safety information and its integration in the construction process. A survey involving 215 construction stakeholders was conducted to establish the limitation and requirements of health and safety in the construction industry. Results derived through qualitative analysis further emphasised the need for enhanced health and safety information analysis and integration for use in decision making. The research explored how the spatial element present in all in construction environment information could be utilised to account for accident contributory factors. This led to the exploration Geographical Information System (GIS), a mechanism that takes into account spatial aspects of bodies of information of the phenomenon being explored, for its potential capabilities in management and analysis of construction environment information. The implementation of the GIS-based system known as Geographical Information System for Accident Prevention (GISAP) is then presented. The evaluation of the system by prospective end-users reveals the limitations and benefits of the system implementation and recommendations made for further research. In conclusion, it was clear from this study that this approach has the potential to provide a quick referencing GIS success that can link, organise, analyse and display accident data and other construction and non construction environment data. This can assist stakeholders in decision making during formulation of construction health and safety strategies. The approach can improve understanding of analyses and can enhance the handling of queries related to accident data and other data. This innovative approach can also offer an extra dimension of safety information management, identify trends and areas for effective accident preventive action and ultimately enable development and directions of future work and to engender wider debate.

This thesis is concerned with understanding the nature and impact of strategic management education upon management behaviour and performance. Previous research findings are limited, with continuing research being proposed. The aim of this research is to fill respective gaps. The research is carried out in the German machinery and equipment industry sector. This sector was selected because it is of strategic importance for Germany’s economy and it is faced with imminent and ongoing challenges. The research concentrates on small and medium sized companies as these companies dominate this sector. The desk research consists of a comprehensive literature review on the subjects: strategic management, SME community and research sector, previous empirical research results and management education. The field research adopts a quantitative methodology with a survey questionnaire in a cross sectional time horizon. The field research is complemented by six “micro case studies” using qualitative data from the questionnaire and publicly available information. Findings suggest that management education and, in particular, strategic management does not play an important role in German universities. Engineering faculties generally neglect strategic management education in their curricula. Evidence suggests that executives with engineering background have less knowledge in strategic management and generate a lower return on sales than those with business economic background or MBA qualified. From the research findings it can be concluded that German SMEs in the machinery and equipment sector profit from the implementation of strategic management. This thesis closes with recommendations to policy makers regarding management education in Germany and proposals for further research.

This thesis reports a research study to measure the impact of industrial sponsorship on student, academia, and industry. The thesis provides a review of the literature in the field of engineering education, university-industry collaboration and student sponsorship. It describes the design of the study and methods of data collection and data analysis. It then presents a discussion of the impact of sponsorship. The research project was conducted at Loughborough University from 2006-2009. It has captured existing practice across sponsored and non-sponsored programmes within the Engineering Faculty at Loughborough University together with a small number of national and international sponsorship schemes. Data were collected from the undergraduate engineering students, graduates, sponsoring/non sponsoring companies, and the academic staff of engineering departments using questionnaires, interviews and documentary analysis. This study highlights the values and issues of the relationship between employers and students during their undergraduate study from the perspective of students, employers and academic staff. It takes a mixed-method approach to assess the attitudes and perception of individuals from these parties and identify the barriers which limit further engagement in order to propose guidelines for further improvements. The results show that the majority of the stakeholders valued industrial sponsorship as a way of developing the quality of undergraduate degrees and generating enough of the high quality engineers that the industry needs. There was close agreement on these matters between the parties involved. Overall the findings of the research showed that the parties main expectations of sponsorship schemes were largely met by the reality of sponsorship. Greater awareness of the details of sponsorship schemes, including how they work and what is involved, would make employers more likely to offer sponsorship and encourage more students to apply for sponsorship. Conclusions are drawn on the benefits that sponsorship offers, the incentives for these stakeholders, the role of sponsorship in building a relationship between students and their future employers, its contribution to the attainment of learning outcomes, the degree of sponsorship attractiveness to the investigated companies, the obstructions which limit partnership and recommendations for further developments.

Construction is complex and comprises a multitude of knowledge-driven activities and business interests from participating organisations with the people involved being subject to different organisational and disciplinary practices. People are fundamental to success because human capabilities in learning, innovating and changing creative directions are vital to long term development of organisations. In the last two decades, researchers have found that human resource (HR) management has positive effects on the organisational performance. However, the processes through which HR management lead to organisational performance are contested. This research proposes a framework to investigate the effects of employees' behaviours and organisational learning on organisational performance and the impacts of HR practices on those effects in the context of Chinese construction enterprises. The research design adopts a multi-method approach, integrating positivism and interpretivism, to understand the complex relationship between HR practices, organisational learning, individual behaviour, and organisational performance. By consulting two experienced academic researchers and industry experts, the pilot study improves the understanding and implementation of the measurement instruments employed. Both quantitative and qualitative approaches are adopted in data collection and analysis: 326 valid respondents through questionnaire survey are received, and structural equation modelling is adopted to test individual behaviour and organisational learning as mediating variables of the relationship between HR practices and organisational performance respectively. Middle-level managers in Chinese construction firms are interviewed, and a cognitive map is produced to reveal the possible mediating variables and the cause-effect relationships between organisational learning and individual behaviour. The cause-effect route identified from the cognitive map is tested by structural equation modelling method, i.e., individual in-role behaviour as a mediating variable between organisational learning and performance. In conclusion, from the theoretical perspective, the results reveal the following. (1) Individual in-role behaviour has highly significantly positive effect on organisational performance. Organisational learning has very highly significantly positive effect on organisational performance. Both individual in-role behaviour and organisational learning have mediating effects on the relationship between HR practices and organisational performance. (2) HR practices positively affect individual in-role behaviour indirectly through organisational learning. Individual in-role behaviour mediates the relationship between organisational learning and organisational performance. (3) HR practices also affect organisational performance via the path-way of social capital, individual perceived organisational support, organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB), and co-worker productivity. For the practical implications, Chinese construction companies should implement the following to improve organisational performance. (1) Recognize the importance of employees' in-role behaviour, and design HR practices to motivate employees to apply their knowledge, skills and abilities in job-related performance, and to retain qualified and experienced staff. (2) View organisational learning as an important component of competitive advantage in the process of organisational development, and motivate and enhance organisational learning by the employment of HR practices and the creation of social capital. (3) Recognize the importance of OCBI (i.e. organisational citizenship behaviour directed toward the benefit of other individuals), and try to elicit employees' OCBI by improving employees' perceived organisational support.

Much of literature is predicated upon the assumption that learning occurring inside the workplace is related to developing expertise associated with the tasks for which the individual is employed and has a background in. This research investigates those individuals who acquire expertise in other disciplines and how the application of that additional expertise changes and enhances the individual and the organisation. By combining perspectives across the disciplinary boundaries and developing multidisciplinary expertise, these individuals demonstrate better methods of achieving business objectives, leading to faster, more imaginative solutions, more frequently, and with significantly less effort. The literature review commenced with defining “multidisciplinary” before addressing communities that cluster around disciplines such as professional societies and Communities of Practice, Aspects of organisational, team and “learning by participation” (Ashton, 2004) literature were also considered. The study took an inductive approach using an ethnographical perspective to data collection and analysis to achieve its aim of determining the existence of multidisciplined individuals and how they acquire additional disciplines. The study used interviewing as its primary method yielding both qualitative and quantitative data from a cross sectional sample set inside a medium sized oil and gas consultancy offering technical and management advice. The disciplines inside the case organisation were mapped to ascertain boundaries where the richest learning opportunities lie. Measuring learning across the disciplines confirmed the existence of multidisciplined individuals with evidence pointing towards the integrated multidisciplined team being the ideal learning environment. The study was able to use Threshold Concepts (Meyer and Land, 2003) to demonstrate the multidisciplinary individual development process. Moreover, having examined the social interaction learning processes the potential negative impacts of Communities of Practice in encouraging this type of multidiscipline approach was highlighted. The study concluded that developing multidisciplined individuals was worthwhile but required organisations to be willing to provide the appropriate platform for such learning by more adventurous individuals who held the appropriate underlying abilities required by the additional discipline (s).

This study looks at the welfare implications of the minimum wage in China, and covers three topics: the minimum wage and wage inequality, the minimum wage and employment, and the minimum wage and the gender wage gap. The main finding is that the welfare implications of the minimum wage in China are mixed, with both positive and negative welfare effects. Four main conclusions are reached. Firstly, minimum wages can effectively reduce overall wage inequality at the municipal level (despite non-compliance) through raising individual wages at the lower end of the wage distribution. Secondly, minimum wages generally have significantly negative effects on urban employment with some indication of more marked effects for traditionally disadvantaged groups such as youth, older workers, and women. Thirdly, minimum wages significantly raise women’s wages relative to men’s at the lower quantiles of wage distribution, thus reducing the gender wage gap. Together with the second result, this means that the minimum raises women’s relative wages, while lowering their employment. Fourthly, these three results are especially robust during 2004-2007, when the minimum wage system was reinforced.

Recently concern about aviation security has focused on the work of airport security screeners who detect threat items in passengers' luggage. An effective method of training and screening is required for improving screeners' detection abilities and performance to cope with the unreliable human performance of screening. The overall aim of this thesis is to understand and define the potential visual and cognitive factors in the task of inspecting airport passengers' X-ray luggage images, examine usability of perceptual feedback in this demanding task and develop a new method of salient regions which assist screeners to detect targets. The result of this work would obtain knowledge and skills of X-ray luggage images examination, provide insight into the design of training system and develop a method to significantly enhance screeners' detection ability. A questionnaire was developed for screeners to extract the expertise of the screening task and investigate the effect of image features on visual attention. A series of experiments were designed to understand the screening task and explore how knowledge and skills are developed with practice. Results indicated that training under time stressed conditions is recommended for ensuring adequate high detection ability in real life situation as screeners have to balance accuracy and speed in time pressure. The advantages of screeners are better detection ability and search skills which were gained by experience of the search task. Hit rate of naive people was improved with the perceptual exposure of images of threat items. However, scanning did not become efficient. It has demonstrated that detection performance and search skills are improved by the practice of frequency exposure targets in the search task and such ability partly transfer to novel targets. Learning in visual search of threat items is stimuli specific such that familiarity with stimulus and task is the source of performance enhancement. Threat items should be updated constantly and massive amount of X-ray threat objects should be employed for airport security screeners training so as to enlarge object knowledge and enhance recognition ability. Perceptual feedback of circling areas with dwell duration longer than 1000ms does not Significantly improve observers' detection ability in the airport screening task. Features of bags and threat items influence initial attention and attention allocation in the search process. Salient regions, based on the pure stimulus properties, not only contain most of targets in X-ray images but also improve observers' detection performance of high hit rate by forcing observers to scrutinize these areas carefully.

The aim of the research was to investigate whether a construct-oriented approach to biodata modelling provides incremental validity over and above other instruments currently employed in the selection of managers. This aim was explored through the development of construct oriented biodata analogues of the constructs of critical thinking ability, extroversion and neuroticism. These models were developed on a pilot sample of 'potential managerial candidates'. The pilot analogue models demonstrated impressive levels of construct validity and the biodata instrument was then validated in a concurrent study based upon managerial job incumbents. Supervisor ratings of performance and a career progress variable provided subjective and objective indicators of managerial performance. Although the psychological constructs of critical thinking ability, extroversion, and neuroticism did not significantly predict either outcome, further analysis of supervisor ratings revealed that perceived conscientiousness and energy contribute much of the variance associated with overall performance ratings, suggesting the likelihood of halo error in the ratings and offering grounds for a social psychological explanation of the results relating to this criterion. Regression analyses revealed that biodata analogue models of critical thinking ability, extroversion and neuroticism demonstrate incremental validity of construct-oriented biodata analogue models over traditional psychometric measures of these constructs. Construct- oriented biographical life history analogues may add considerable utility when used in the pre-selection stage of managerial recruitment and selection.

Compensation is the remuneration which workers receive for their services or contributions to the organisation. The literature reviewed showed that compensation packages have relationship with workers’ motivation, job satisfaction, attraction and retention. On this basis, this study established a conceptual framework based on equity theory and used it to examine how compensation might be influencing workers’ motivation, job satisfaction, attraction and retention in the Ministry of Works and Transport of Jigawa State of Nigeria. The dependent variables considered in this study are limited to salary, allowance, gratuity, and pension as independent variables while the corresponding motivation, job satisfaction, attraction and retention are the dependent variables. The Positivist paradigm guided this empirical research; which holds the principle that knowledge is arrived at through the gathering of facts that provide the basis of laws. Thus, a quantitative research design was employed. A questionnaire was developed, pilot-tested and administered to gather data on workers’ motivation, job satisfaction, attraction and retention regarding four job compensable aspects, namely: salary, allowances, gratuity and pension. A total of 265 questionnaires were administered and 260 were collected through the early and late response technique. This represents a response rate of 98%. The respondents were selected using the stratified random sampling technique. The data collected was analysed using both descriptive statistics and structural equation modelling. The findings revealed that gratuity and allowance do positively and significantly influence workers’ motivation whereas salary and pension have no impact on workers’ motivation. Likewise, gratuity and pension do positively and significantly influence workers’ job satisfaction while salary and allowance have no impact on the job satisfaction of workers. Further, gratuity and pension do positively and significantly influence workers’ retention while salary and allowance have no impact on the retention of workers. Moreover, salary, gratuity and pension do positively and significantly influence workers’ attraction while allowance has no influence on the attraction of public construction workers in Jigawa state of Nigeria. Consequently, a framework was developed to reflect the factors that emerged for improving the motivation, job satisfaction, attraction and retention of the and equally address the pay disparity in Jigawa state. 67 respondents who participated in the main study were administered a second questionnaire to validate the framework. The subsequent findings revealed that the framework was relevant and could serve as a guide towards enhancing compensation practices and policies in the Ministry of Works and Transport. Thus, this study and its framework offer important policy recommendation to the Jigawa state government such as introducing new or improving the existing compensation packages of their workers.

Despite the decline of collective bargaining and trade union membership in the British private sector over the past thirty years, and much academic discussion of 'marketisation' in the public sector, national collective bargaining in English local government has remained remarkably robust - as demonstrated by the Workplace Employment Relations Surveys (Millward et al. 2000). Most academic research on employment relations in the public sector has focused on 'change'. In this study I wish to examine the roots of 'continuity' and a surprising institutional survival. After three decades of reform, national collective bargaining still remains central to the local government employment relations architecture, and contrary to the 'hollowing out' thesis, national agreements are still the bulwark upon which both national and local government (and the related actors: trade unions, management, politicians) rely upon to engage in the process of joint regulation in the workplace. The study has three main objectives: Firstly, to explore why the institutional actors support or do not support the national collective bargining framework in English local government. Secondly, the extent to which national collective bargaining is supported and promoted applying an institutional theory analytical framework. Thirdly, what institutional processes explain the resilience of national collective bargaining in English local government? A sectoral study is used to explore the political dynamics that underlie the survival of national collective bargaining in English local government. This follows a 'firm in sector' methodology (Smith et al., 1990), in which a benchmark authority is compared and contrasted with eight other local authorities. The authorities were chosen by taking account of factors such as size (employing more than 2000 workers); type (metroplitan (7)) and shire (2); geography (north (2), midlands (4), south west (1) and south east (2)); and status (are they part of the national collective bargaining framework or outside of it.) The 'firm in sector' methodology allows for the examination of issues at an organisational level, building on the Workplace Employment Relations Surveys, which have focused more at a macro level. The study will drill down in detail within the benchmark authority; however, the study is nevertheless dependent on understanding the wider sectoral landscape in which the benchmark authority is located and therefore considers how its experiences compare with local authorities who chose to belong or not belong to the national collective bargaining framework. The thesis makes three contibutions. Firstly, it raises the issue of continuity within English local government employment relations and why national collective bargaining has continued to survive and remain relevant. Secondly, it considers what makes English local government different from other parts of the public sector, and what we can learn from this difference. Thirdly, it highlights the value of a new institutional perspective, as a tool for employment relations analysis.