An enterprise information system distinguishes itself from other types of software as it is developed to facilitate the operation of an organization hence its requirement reflects its strategies, plans, organizations, processes, marketing etc. We believe that the requirements in the form of domain knowledge acquired in the early stage of system development can be organized and modeled in an Enterprise Architecture. Zachman Framework is one of the most widely used Enterprise Architectures Framework. However, in the original version of the Zachman Framework, there is neither a rigorous meta-model nor a well-defined sequence in which to instantiate the cells, which prevents it from being used practically during the requirement engineering phase of an enterprise information system project. To improve such a situation we develop a conceptual meta-model for the Zachman Framework by adapting and integrating the Bunge-Wand-Weber ontology and the Enterprise Ontology. Based on this meta-model, various requirement acquisition processes can be formulated by specifying a sequence to traverse the meta-model graph and instantiate its nodes and edges. In this thesis we present such a process, suitable for an enterprise system development project of a particular situation.

The aim of this thesis is to understand how fashion supply chain characteristics affect the implementation of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) at factory level for garment manufacturers in lower labour-cost countries that supply Western high street fashion retailers. A dynamic, challenging global industry, the high street fashion industry is one of few sectors under simultaneous pressure for short lead times and low costs. Additionally, increasing global dispersion of garment manufacturing to lower labour-cost countries has led to concerns about worker exploitation and firms are now under pressure to deliver societal goals as well as shareholder profits. CSR represents the business response to minimising the negative societal impact of global business operations; however, the very nature of the fashion supply chain with the pressure on cost and lead time compromises CSR implementation at factory level. A qualitative case study approach was selected in order to gain greater depth of understanding of CSR in fashion supply chains; specifically, to explore from a managerial perspective the impact of negative and positive forces within the fashion supply chain on CSR implementation, with a view to understanding how CSR implementation can be reconciled with the competitive challenges of the fashion sector. Fieldwork was conducted in Sri Lanka, a key global garment manufacturing location, within 7 case study companies which were selected to represent the range of business sizes and models in the export garment manufacturing sector. Data collection methods included on-site face-to-face semi-structured interviews with key informants and non-participant observation within factory environments. Analysis of interview transcripts was conducted manually, using Eisenhardt’s (1989) method of within-case and cross-case analysis, and triangulated with observational data and documentary evidence. The theoretical contribution is the synthesis and categorisation of factors within the context of fashion supply chains that impact both negatively and positively on CSR implementation at factory level in a lower labour-cost country, followed by an understanding of the interplay of global fashion supply chain characteristics and their impact upon CSR implementation at factory level. It was concluded that the inherent conflict between CSR principles and the characteristics of fashion supply chains may be reconciled by moving away from traditional adversarial supply chain relationships and adopting the Supply Chain Management (SCM) philosophy of long-term orientation and shared goals between trading partners. Furthermore, CSR implementation was influenced by product nature, the level of service provided by the supplier and the long-term partnership approach to buyer-supplier relationship management in the Sri Lankan context. The core basic nature of the product meant that orders were more likely to be long-running, so manufacturers were sheltered from the unpredictability in orders and frequent style changes characteristic of fast fashion. This level of stability enabled suppliers to invest in CSR implementation. Full package suppliers fostered strong relationships with retailers over considerable periods of time (10-20 years) and collaborated on initiatives to increase efficiency and agility, such as cost reduction and vertical integration of pre-production activities. However, contract manufacturers without value-added services were unable to develop strong collaborative relationships with buyers which would enable greater investment in CSR implementation. Although Sri Lanka is classed as a global leader in ethical garment manufacture, much is therefore dependent on the size and provision of services offered by the supplier, which dictates the nature of the buyer-supplier relationship: vertically integrated full package suppliers had closer links with buyers than contract manufacturers and hence greater ability to drive CSR implementation through the business.

China is the second largest economic entity in the world. It is well acknowledged that small businesses have made significant contributions to Chinese economic development in terms of employment generation, income generation and poverty reduction. Entrepreneurs are the key people who are driving small businesses forward, and the Chinese Government has invested substantially in science parks. However, our understanding of entrepreneurship activities, science parks and especially prior business experience and business performance in China remains under researched. Therefore, to fill this gap, this research explores entrepreneurs’ business performance of those who were on science parks against those whose businesses were off-park in Beijing China. Human capital theory experience and the RBV provide the theoretical framework which were used to test the entrepreneur’s prior business ownership experience against the performance of the businesses in terms of innovation, exporting activity, employment growth, profitability and the usage of e-commerce. This research adopted a quantitative methodology to analyse a new data set gathered by the researcher. In the year of 2009, 462 valid questionnaires were received from the firms located on and off ZhongGuanCun Science Park (ZSP), and that represented a 12% response rate. The results show that prior business ownership experiences and science park location have strong associations with business performances. In particular, firstly habitual entrepreneurs are more likely than novice entrepreneurs to be innovators, and in general to have a better business performance; secondly, business located on science parks generally performed better than off-park businesses and lastly, interestingly, there is no clear evidence showing that habitual entrepreneurs have better usage of e-commerce than novice entrepreneurs. According to these key research findings, implications are elucidated for Chinese practitioners and policy makers.

This thesis examines the entrepreneurial process in the context of the creative economy in the UK. It takes the music industry in Glasgow as its exemplar, drawing upon primary evidence to provide an empirical account of i) how the creative industry context influences the three stages of the entrepreneurial process (i.e. how entrepreneurs identify opportunities, acquire resources and manage their ventures) and ii) the transition of the individual from musician to entrepreneur. Welter (2011) and Zahra and Wright's (2011) contextualised view of entrepreneurship was the justification for including context in the study of process, while Baron (2008) and Moroz and Hindle (2012) provided the framework which was used to approach the process itself. The study assumes that Sarasvathy's (2001) causal and effectual logics drive the process at the level of the agent. The study takes an interpretivistic approach to data collection and analysis. Empirical data were collected via in-depth, semi-st ructured interviews with 15 music-entrepreneurs working within Glasgow's independent rock music sector, and with 11 representatives from public and private support agencies and 7 industry experts. Hence, the study is embedded within a unique creative and entrepreurial context, with multiple perspectives provided by the 33 respondents. The findings suggest that entrepreneurship in the music industry is expressed in a series of acts (projects), and that the entrepreneurial process is ongoing, with each act informing how the next is undertaken. At each stage, the entrepreneurial process is impacted by agency and context or both. The results suggest that causal logic inspires the initial search, recognition (following a systematic search or a chance encounter) inspires the fit between the individual and the idea and finally, effectuation logic underpins the exploitation stage and enables entrepreneurs to work within their given set of means. The findings also indicate the co identity transition process from being a musician to becoming an entrepreneur. The conclusions drawn from the study are placed within the context of the wider debate about creative entrepreneurship. They illustrate how both agency and context influence the entrepreneurial process, and contribute to our overall understanding of the creative-entrepreneur's move from art to commerce.

Information technology (IT) plays a crucial role in the running of most businesses and yet the success rates associated with IT investment are unsatisfactory. This is borne out by personal experience, regular surveys and in the literature suggesting that the current IT delivery model is incomplete or inadequate in some way. Given the nature of the current IT delivery model it is likely to be even less successful in the future as emerging and future technologies place new demands upon businesses and IT service providers. The research question asks what constitutes a new IT delivery model that can make successful business outcomes more likely both now and in the future. The research design was required to develop insight into what is known to be a complex, persistently problematic, and non-obvious phenomenon in a business-critical practitioner area that has been yielding very low rates of success for many years. The qualitative research was a large scale project using cross case primary data comprised of field notes from conversations with senior managers in some very large global enterprises where IT support to the business had to be improved. Grounded theory was used and a theoretical model, the business and IT relationship model, emerged where the total business experience was of central importance. The model has been found to have heuristic, deterministic, and controlling characteristics, but further research revealed that although a logically correct frame of reference for describing the relationship it doesn’t reflect behaviour in all cases. The research has shown that this can give rise to significant business and IT management problems. The proposed future delivery model, active management, is an over-arching management framework based upon the observed relationship and a managed business experience. It is explained how this can provide an improved basis for the assessment, alignment, management and governance of IT. Active management is technology agnostic and is shown to be valid in the context of current practice, emerging technologies and future scenarios.

No description available.

The size and profile of the social enterprise sector in the United Kingdom (UK) has increased considerably as support has grown for the values on which these organisations are based. While there is a rich literature on accountability in the private and public sectors, together with the wider not-for-profit (NFP) sector, social enterprise organisations (SEOs) have received comparatively little attention and remain a relatively under-researched organisational form. Furthermore, on the basis that SEOs have a duty to account to their stakeholders, little is known about the current extent of their accountability information disclosure. The overall research objective of the thesis is to investigate how UK SEOs discharge accountability. Based on the findings from the document analysis, and drawing on key themes from the literature review, the views of SEO stakeholders in relation to the discharge of accountability were sought from a series of semi-structured interviews. In terms of the theoretical contribution of the research, the findings suggest that whilst SEOs are talking publicly and presenting the image of the importance of discharging 'holistic' accountability, there is evidence of a dichotomy between 'what they say' and 'what they practice'. Moreover, the findings strongly indicate that, for SEOs, there is more emphasis on discharging legal (fiduciary), as opposed to constructive and voluntary accountability via the annual report and annual review. More specifically, and contrary to Donaldson and Preston's (1995) normative view of stakeholder theory, SEOs are not using their annual reports/reviews as a medium to account for their social and environmental impacts to their wider stakeholders, and that the annual report is being used as a legitimising device to ensure that legal obligations are complied with. In addition, despite recognising a 'felt' responsibility to wider stakeholders, those within the SEOs providing an account, are the ones deciding what information is actually provided.

In recent years there has been an increase in using Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems in large companies and government corporations mainly in developed countries. While there is wide adoption of ERP systems in Western economies, developing countries lag far behind. However, due to recent economic growth, developing countries such as Kenya are increasingly becoming major targets of ERP vendors. There is an urgent need for under- standing ERP implementation issues in developing countries, as ERP systems are still in their early stages in these countries. They face additional challenges related to economic, cultural and basic infrastructure issues. This research investigates the organisational and national context within which ERP is adopted and used in Kenya, and how the context and ERP influence each other. In general, this research is based on the need to study organisations in their societal contexts and information systems in their organisational settings. The research contributes to the controversial debate on the conflict between standardisation imposed by ERP systems and localisation of business practices. This study provides some key insights into the implementation and use of ERP systems in the public and the private sectors in Kenya. Case study findings suggest that the company sector plays an important role in ERP implementations in several key dimensions. ERP systems with in-built business practices express the tendency toward standardisation. In addition, the study investigates the challenges faced by organisations implementing ERP systems in Kenya and factors influencing ERP upgrade decisions. Findings of this research suggest that ERP implementation and upgrade is influenced by, but not necessarily bound by, existing contextual factors - national and organisational. Two models, namely, the Empirical ERP Implementation Model (EEIM) and the Upgrade Decision Model (UDM), are developed to represent ERP implementation and upgrade practices. The EEIM helps to identify why there will be particularly high variance in potential outcomes and further validates which organisational contexts and ERP implementation configurations create options during ERP implementation and usage. The UDM makes a novel contribution by showing how different forces interact to bring an aggregate of influences to a threshold level where an ERP system upgrade becomes necessary. The findings of this study also aid the management of organisations that are implementing ERP systems to gain a better understanding of the likely challenges they may face and to enable them to put in place appropriate measures to mitigate the risk of implementation failures. This study also proposes an IT strategy framework which can be used by organisations planning to implement ERP to align their business and IT strategy. Finally, the study provides practical guidelines to practitioners on ERP implementation and upgrade based on the experience of the case study organisations and the ERP consultants interviewed.

Regulatory Compliance Management (RCM) is a management process, which an organization implements to conform to regulatory guidelines. Some processes that contribute towards automating RCM are: (i) extraction of meaningful entities from the regulatory text and (ii) mapping regulatory guidelines with organisational processes. These processes help in updating the RCM with changes in regulatory guidelines. The update process is still manual since there are comparatively less research in this direction. The Semantic Web technologies are potential candidates in order to make the update process automatic. There are stand-alone frameworks that use Semantic Web technologies such as Information Extraction, Ontology Population, Similarities and Ontology Mapping. However, integration of these innovative approaches in the semantic compliance management has not been explored yet. Considering these two processes as crucial constituents, the aim of this thesis is to automate the processes of RCM. It proposes a framework called, RegCMantic. The proposed framework is designed and developed in two main phases. The first part of the framework extracts the regulatory entities from regulatory guidelines. The extraction of meaningful entities from the regulatory guidelines helps in relating the regulatory guidelines with organisational processes. The proposed framework identifies the document-components and extracts the entities from the document-components. The framework extracts important regulatory entities using four components: (i) parser, (ii) definition terms, (iii) ontological concepts and (iv) rules. The parsers break down a sentence into useful segments. The extraction is carried out by using the definition terms, ontological concepts and the rules in the segments. The entities extracted are the core-entities such as subject, action and obligation, and the aux-entities such as time, place, purpose, procedure and condition. The second part of the framework relates the regulatory guidelines with organisational processes. The proposed framework uses a mapping algorithm, which considers three types of Abstract 3 entities in the regulatory-domain and two types of entities in the process-domains. In the regulatory-domain, the considered entities are regulation-topic, core-entities and aux-entities. Whereas, in the process-domain, the considered entities are subject and action. Using these entities, it computes aggregation of three types of similarity scores: topic-score, core-score and aux-score. The aggregate similarity score determines whether a regulatory guideline is related to an organisational process. The RegCMantic framework is validated through the development of a prototype system. The prototype system implements a case study, which involves regulatory guidelines governing the Pharmaceutical industries in the UK. The evaluation of the results from the case-study has shown improved accuracy in extraction of the regulatory entities and relating regulatory guidelines with organisational processes. This research has contributed in extracting meaningful entities from regulatory guidelines, which are provided in unstructured text and mapping the regulatory guidelines with organisational processes semantically.

Even though there is a plethora of leadership training and coaching available worldwide, there appears to be a disparity between articulated best practice and some of the reported negative experiences of individuals within organisations. There appears to be a gap between the behaviours of leaders and the expectations of followers. This gap may be due, at least in part, to an absence of brave leadership, and also perhaps due to a lack of one to one coaching for leaders. In this study a small group of leaders helped develop and explore a coaching model designed to enhance bravery. An action research approach was undertaken with six leaders who undertook to help evolve and also be coached using this particular coaching model. The action research took place over a six month period in various locations within the U.K. The data was analysed using a retroductive and thematic approach. The use of this model appears to indicate that it can assist in decision making and that bravery may be enhanced, at least from a subjective perspective. It would also appear that the idea of brave leadership may complement other leadership theories. However, more work should be done to adapt and refine the model for use in different circumstances. Furthermore, it should also be explored more thoroughly in a purely coaching environment rather than one where research into the model is also being conducted.