This thesis investigates methods for assessing reliability equivalence factors for several common systems that comprise independent components or subsystems. We consider improving the reliability of the systems by (a) a reduction method and (b) several duplication methods: (i) hot duplication; (ii) cold duplication with perfect switching; (iii) cold duplication with imperfect switching. Two measures for comparing system improvements are considered in this study, survival reliability equivalence factors and mean reliability equivalence factors. We apply our study to: (1) some simple systems including parallel-series and series-parallel systems, with flexible lifetime distributions including generalized quadratic failure rate and exponentiated Weibull lifetime distributions; (2) networks and complex systems with multiple types of components. We choose the exponentiated Weibull and generalized quadratic failure rate distributions because they are flexible and enable comparisons with other reliability equivalence studies. We use the concept of survival signature to derive the reliability equivalence factors for any coherent system with any structure and with different lifetime distributions. In order to implement this approach, we use the ReliabilityTheory R package to derive survival reliability equivalence factors and mean reliability equivalence factors for networks and complex systems with multiple types of components. Numerical examples for simple and complex systems are presented, to illustrate how to apply the theoretical results and demonstrate the relative benefits of various system improvements. We explain and discuss the results obtained by presenting summary tables and figures, before presenting conclusions and recommendations that arise from this study. In particular, we deduce that considerable advances in reliability equivalence testing are made possible by specifying and analysing the survival signature, especially for the increasingly common context and practice of modelling networks and complex systems.

With the increase in globalisation, mass customisation becoming ever more ubiquitous, product life cycles becoming shorter, midlife upgrades becoming more popular; with some product based solutions transitioning to service based solution, the supporting industry supply chains are becoming ever more complex. There is a likelihood that this complexity will increase with increasing access to emerging market cost effective capabilities and an international customer base. Working with this complexity is one of the challenges facing the supply chain executive, and there is no reason to think this increasing complexity will go away over the coming few years. Creating and managing an effective supply chain structure will be a key performance target and potentially a key differentiator. One element of the management task will be the understanding of structure and how it impacts on the overall key performance indicators. Structures can be represented as activities and connections. These structures can be set out to reflect the complexity of the structure necessary to cover all potential business scenarios. A key determinant of a structure will be how ‘mixed up’ it needs to be to cope with the demands of complexity, flexibility and agility necessary for all the business scenarios. It is possible these structures can be represented as a matrix and, using information theory, analysed to measure complexity. This thesis looks to use a matrix approach and address these challenges by offering a revised model for structural complexity in the supply chain. Like most research in this field, this thesis will be experimental and laboratory based; however, the scenarios used in the analysis will be validated externally. The aim of this research is to make a contribution to the research in this field by distinguishing between complexity, variability and structural complexity; providing a framework and quantifiable measure of complexity for a supply chain governance structure using information theory and graph theory; analysing the impact of language aggregation on the hierarchical business process. Additionally the research assumptions have the aim of making this research practical for the management practitioner.

The performance and success of the African nations in the 2012 London Olympic Games was considered to be poor and well below expectation, taking into account the number of African countries that participated in the Games and the size of their teams. Generally, the continent has recorded minimal success in the Olympics as a result of repeated poor performances evident in the small number of medals won, low positions on medal tables and the inability to achieve other performance objectives. This research explored the performance and success of African nations in the 2012 London Olympics in light of literature from both sports science and project management. It investigated the views of key stakeholders on the measurement criteria for success of these countries, their actual achievements in the Games and the issues and challenges that impeded their performance and success. The results derived from the research findings were used to propose a framework for improving the performance and success of African countries in the Olympics, with a view that the proposed framework could also be useful in the context of other major sporting tournaments. The philosophical paradigm upon which this study was rooted is interpretivism. Owing to the inductive nature of the study, the researcher adopted a qualitative research design, which supported a cyclic collection and analysis of data. The method of data collection was primarily through interviews conducted with the participants who were NOC executives, athletes and coaches from the African countries. The findings from this study indicated that, apart from socio-economic factors, the poor performance of African countries in Olympic Games is also linked to sport policy issues and an absence of key project management critical success factors (CSFs) in the development of elite sports in these countries. The contribution of this study to the body of knowledge is therefore evident in a) the provision of valuable insight into the performance of African countries in the 2012 London Olympic Games, with an identification of targets set and challenges faced b) the proposition of a framework which integrates project management CSFs with sport policies and procedures to improve the performance and success of African nations in the Olympics and c) the provision of theoretical benchmarks for subsequent studies in the area of sport performance and success, as well as recommendations to the industry on strategies for improving elite sports performance in major sporting tournaments.

This thesis explores the socio-economic and political history of the rural community on the Marquis of Anglesey’s Dorset and Somerset estate through the correspondence, rental accounts and estate vouchers of the Castleman family. Existing historiography which relates to both the role of the land agent and the rural community remains sparse. The research for this study has taken a new and unique approach which challenges many of the existing theories. Through close textual analysis it has examined six broadly defined themes which relate to all aspects of the rural society. Firstly an in depth and detailed survey of how the rural community was organised, worked and changed over time was undertaken. Secondly it investigates the tripartite relationship between landowner, agent and tenant rather than the more traditional affiliation of landowner, tenant and labourer. Using this new configuration the archive explains how this association worked in practice with regard to estate improvement, repairs and functional schemes to relieve tenant distress. Thirdly this thesis surveyed the political landscape of Milborne Port and in particular it sought to define the role of the election agent in pre-reformed England. Fourthly it analyses the labouring poor, with particular attention to the issue of low wages, under- and un-employment and the role of the landed estate in the economy of makeshifts. The plight of the poor culminated in the Swing riots of 1830 and this archive provides new and important information in the on-going debate of this phenomenon. Fifthly the estate vouchers which contain the minutiae of estate life have never been examined and yet in the absence of recognisable accounts these contain essential quantitative information. Finally this thesis assesses the ways and means that large estates sought to exert social control, through the creation of a deference community, education and the accruing of rental arrears. Significantly this study illustrates the pivotal role played by the land agent in maintaining the equilibrium within the rural community.

This thesis investigates the relationship between legal families and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in both developing and developed countries. Recent statistics report that developing countries absorb nearly half of the global FDI inflows and repeatedly generate record levels of FDI outflows in 2010 and 2011 (UNCTAD 2010 and 2011). This thesis finds empirical support for the hypothesis that ‘institutional quality’ matters, with the metrics developed for institutional quality influenced by the activities of the former colonial powers of the past, during the colonial era, and currently in the post-colonial period. During the colonial era, nearly all the major colonisers exploited benefits from most of their colonies, in particular in the regions of Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa. They had no intention to educate the inhabitants to become skillful workers, there was limited infrastructure to support communication and transport and there was an absence of the ‘rule of law’ to protect the investors’ property related assets. These countries had low development and thus became economically lagging. In the post-colonial period, the colonisers have maintained strong ties to the former colonies under a sense of on-going solidarity and responsibility, providing their corresponding ex-colonies with substantial support, often through economic subsidies. They also played an essential role in the colonies’ political and institutional reforms. A coding of legal and colonial history is developed by which all the nations are categorised in groups of ‘legal families’, a proxy variable representing the manner in which the colonial powers treated the colonies. A framework is provided which includes both ‘legal origins’ and ‘colonial powers’ as instrumental variables alongside other independent variables including non-legal institutional, economic and financial variables for the empirical analysis. Our regression analysis indicates an increasing trend of FDI flowing to the developing countries, particularly those in Latin America and the Caribbean. This suggests that the institutional quality is a likely determinant of FDI. It illustrates that once these nations are able to provide a solid grounding in education, improved infrastructure and a legal system which enforces the protection of the investors’ knowledge-based assets, then whilst formerly economically lagging, they will be able to attract foreign investment and catch up. The findings provide a possible explanation as regards the recent trend in FDI activities and give an indication as to future key FDI movements. The evidence from regression analysis further suggests that legal families as classified under Klerman et al. (2011) more fully explain the levels of FDI movements than methods of classification adopted under La Porta et al.’s (1997, 1998, 2008) legal origins theory.

Effective communication between different specialisms within complex or large scale projects is critical to keep such expensive and time consuming projects on time and on budget. Considerable literature exists in the field of project management concerned with the importance of effective communication in complex projects however relatively little research into establishing new ways of communicating across discourse community boundaries exisis. Social scientists such as Latour and Callon have underpinned the use of Actor Network Theory as a means to identify actors and networks and have outlined how aspects of quantification could be applied to what are often considered as purely qualitative elements of a project. Other social scientists such as Henry, MacEachren and Corrigan have identified the potential ability of ‘the visual’ to allow information to be transmitted across discourse boundaries and how this use of ‘the visual’ may permit greater levels of investigation into social phenomena through the development of an ‘emergent semantic’. Through an investigation of meetings undertaken as part of a complex project within the UK Space Science sector, this thesis investigates the use of ‘the visual’ as a means to more effectively communicate across discourse community boundaries and pays greater heed to the ‘softer’ emotions which are involved during the communication process but which are often treated differently or not considered as important by members from a different community.

This dissertation explores the literature relating to organisational complexity, organisational measurement, educational institution measurement and qualitative research methods with a specific focus on participant-centredness. This is with a view to seeing whether complexity can provide a suitable underpinning for the exploration of educational institution assessment; whether effictility is a more useful and measurable construct than efficiency for school assessment; and whether the participant-guided tour is a viable first round research tool for recognising effictility. Early on, apparently immeasureable efficiency is replaced with measureable effictility: the efficient and effective utility of human and non-human resources within the constraints of a spatial and temporal context. The study is cross-disciplinary because it draws from such fields as management, human geography, sociology, educational management theory, education policy and philosophy, and the theoretical and real threads of complexity, space and time wend their way through the discourse. The first four literature-based chapters build together to provide the foundation for the practicalities explored in two case studies. These are set up to consist of a four-phase process at two technically similar and yet operationally very different schools. Greatly contrasting measures of success are achieved which in turn richly inform the discussion on the realities of institutional measurement. The research process also throws up some interesting themes through experimentation with innovative interview stimuli. Thus, the study’s contribution to knowledge is four-fold. It juxtaposes a theory and context that have rarely been put together – namely, complexity and education. It provides evidence to support the controversial notion that organisational efficiency cannot be measured. It introduces the concept of effictility and the methodological innovation: the participant-guided tour.

The growth of ethical consumerism has produced numerous ethical consumption studies in the field of management. However previous studies are often criticised for assuming that ethical consumers are rational decision-makers and that ethical consumption is narrowly understood in an individualistic, rational, and free-choice context. This thesis argues that consumers are essentially meaning-making beings whose identities are symbolically presented in society and culture. Increasing attention in consumption studies of identity is now being paid to the role of expression and the socio-cultural aspects of consumption. This thesis builds on this to explore the socio-cultural aspects of ethical consumption. It takes an ethnographic approach, using multifaceted qualitative research methods, participant observation and semi-structured interviews to investigate ethical consumption in a self-defined ethically conscious consumer group, the BORA in South Korea. The empirical data indicate that the notion of ethical consumption is much more complex than purchasing ethical products. It is understood and presented by various activities and meanings which are located in a socially constructed world. The notion of a perfect form or type of ethical consumption is rejected as unattainable and participants adopt the notion of always becoming ethically conscious. Ethical consumption is found to operate in the micro-practices of the everyday. Ethical consumption is revealed to work ‘quietly’ as a subtle and inconspicuous kind of activism embedded in a group context. Ethically conscious consumers are found to generate a form of collective identity through socialisation within a voluntary organisation. This thesis contributes to establishing an understanding of the complex dynamics of ethical consumption by looking at how ethical consumption is conceived and performed. This thesis also offers a method-in-practice contribution as it reports on the influence linguistic and cultural characteristics play on the way qualitative research is conducted in a different culture context, South Korea.

This thesis investigates the determinants of capital structure in Asian countries. The aim is to provide new evidence on the role of firm’s specific factors, industry characteristics and institutions on firms’ capital structure decision. The Asian markets have significantly benefitted from economic expansion and have experienced a series of financial system reforms in the recent decades. The rapid growth attained by the Asian economies, was also accompanied by periods of financial turmoil. These factors collectively call for investigating the factors affecting the decision of capital structure particularly in the last decade. The study thus provides new empirical evidence on the determinants of capital structure in Asia during the period 2006-2011. The result reveals that financing patterns of firms can be driven by their own firm characteristics, industry nature, general economic condition and institutional attributes. Firstly, profitability, administration expenses, firm size, firm liquidity, market-to-book ratio have shown significant association to firm’s capital structure decision in Asia. There empirical evidence supports the existence of dynamic capital structure, which is in line with trade-off theory. During the recent financial crisis (2008-2009), the results show no evidence of adjustment to target capital by Asian firms. In general, the firm-specific factors have a more powerful explanation on firm’s financing decisions in mature industries compared to growing industries. In particular, firms from technology or healthcare sectors, most of these types of firms are still young and at start-up stage in Asia and they hardly rely on debt finance with lesser credit record, higher R&D expenses, higher risk and more future uncertainties. The institutional and macroeconomic factors have a more significant impact on a firm’s long-term financing decision compared short-term financial decision. In Asia, the firms tend to excessively rely on short-term debt to meet long-term financing requirement under a weaker institutional environment.

This thesis wanted to operate two tasks. First, this thesis sought to perform a description of the contemporary functioning of the economy, that is to say of capitalism. This entailed an analysis of the current financialisation of world capitalism. Second, this thesis wanted to identify a revolutionary resistant subjectivity to financialisation. This implied to look for a subjectivity which could successfully resist the power of finance. The first task, that is to say the description of the contemporary economy, was performed through an engagement with an interdisciplinary and Marxian literature that problematised financialisation as a process related not only to the economy and production, but also to the State, social reproduction and even subjectivity. Marxism allowed me to understand the dynamics of capitalism and the current centrality of finance, which was expressed by the concept of financialisation. However, Marxism was unable to provide a sophisticated political strategy which would be based on a specific revolutionary subjectivity. Marx’s oeuvre never provided very effective political strategies. Therefore, the political economy of Marx was often complemented by Leninism as a form of political strategy, based on party politics and the vanguard of the proletariat. However, Leninism was connected to Fordist capitalism. Therefore, a new political strategy was needed in the context of financialisation. The work of Deleuze and Guattari provided a novel conceptualisation of subjectivity which could articulate a revolutionary resistance to financialisation. My revolutionary understanding of the oeuvre of Deleuze and Guattari was situated by an analysis of their reception by political philosophy because alternative interpretations existed. Therefore, this thesis sought to operate a fruitful dialogue, that is to say a resonance between Marx and Deleuze and Guattari.