The main purpose of this dissertation is to assess the relation between municipal benchmarking and organisational learning with a specific emphasis on benchlearning and performance within municipalities and between groups of municipalities in the building and housing sector in the Netherlands. The first and main conclusion is that this relation exists, but that the relative success of different approaches to dimensions of change and organisational learning are a key explanatory factor for differences in the success of benchlearning. Seven other important conclusions could be derived from the empirical research. First, a combination of interpretative approaches at the group level with a mixture of hierarchical and network strategies, positively influences benchlearning. Second, interaction among professionals at the inter-organisational level strengthens benchlearning. Third, stimulating supporting factors can be seen as a more important strategy to strengthen benchlearning than pulling down barriers. Fourth, in order to facilitate benchlearning, intrinsic motivation and communication skills matter, and are supported by a high level of cooperation (i.e., team work), a flat organisational structure and interactions between individuals. Fifth, benchlearning is facilitated by a strategy that is based on a balanced use of episodic (emergent) and systemic (deliberate) forms of power. Sixth, high levels of benchlearning will be facilitated by an analyser or prospector strategic stance. Prospectors and analysers reach a different learning outcome than defenders and reactors. Whereas analysers and prospectors are willing to change policies when it is perceived as necessary, the strategic stances of defenders and reactors result in narrow process improvements (i.e., single-loop learning). Seventh, performance improvement is influenced by functional perceptions towards performance, and these perceptions ultimately influence the elements adopted. This research shows that efforts aimed at benchlearning and ultimately improved service delivery, should be directed to a multi-level and multi-dimensional approach addressing the context, content and process of dimensions of change and organisational learning.

Despite the importance of new firms to the economy, determinants of start-ups have mainly been examined at a country level and discussion of regional entrepreneurial activity has received less attention. Since there are significant variations in entrepreneurship rates across and within countries, such an investigation at a regional level would help in gaining an in depth understanding of the impact of the individual level resource endowments and neighbourhood characteristics on an individual’s decision to engage in entrepreneurial activity. The main aim of the thesis is to explore various theories of entrepreneurship and develop integrated frameworks for examining the determinants of entrepreneurial activity at a neighbourhood level in the East Midlands region in England. The specific objectives of the thesis are to examine how the individual level resources and the neighbourhood characteristics: (i) combine to influence an individual to engage in the different stages of the entrepreneurial process, (ii) influence natives and migrants to engage in start up activity and (iii) influence women and men to become self-employed and ambitious entrepreneurs. In terms of the methodology, the empirical analysis is based on two databases combined: 2006 to 2009 GEM East Midlands region and the English Index of Multiple Deprivation dataset. Based on the critical review of the literature on entrepreneurship the thesis develop theoretical frameworks which led to formulate hypotheses related to the differentiated impact of both individual and neighbourhood level factors on the propensity of an individual to be involved in entrepreneurial activity. The findings indicate that the determinants of entrepreneurial activity vary with human, financial and the local environment factors affecting the entrepreneurial process. Finally, the thesis calls for caution when developing and applying generic and specific policy measures aimed at promoting entry into entrepreneurship.

Coined by Motorola in 1986 as a metric for measuring defects and improving quality, Six Sigma has evolved into a robust business improvement initiative. The success of Six Sigma deployment depends on a series of process/quality improvement projects undertaken by organizations. As learning and knowledge creation is vital to problem-solving environments, the primary objective of this thesis is to investigate the role of learning and knowledge creation on project performance and factors that impact them. The research addresses "Six Sigma-learning-performance" relationships through three related studies: (1) Develop a multilevel framework of Six Sigma linking organizational actions (macro), project execution (micro), and business performance (macro) (2) Identify the distinct learning behaviours exhibited by project teams and empirically investigate the impact of managerial factors (organizational and project level) on learning behaviours and in turn on project performance (3) Empirically examine how the motivational aspect of team and technical aspects of project execution interact to impact project performance through knowledge created (Goal theory and Sociotechnical systems theory perspective) The research adopts an explanatory sequential mixed- methods design, a survey followed by a multiple case study research (Quantitative Qualitative). In addition, the research observes the interaction between quantitative and qualitative research strands to achieve interpretive rigor. The quantitative data come from 324 members (project leaders and members) from 102 Six Sigma project teams and the qualitative data from five case projects from two European manufacturing organizations. Building on the existing literature which notes that Six Sigma supports learning and knowledge creation in teams, this research extends and helps refine our understanding of Six Sigma by explaining the mechanisms underlying the phenomenon and their antecedents and performance consequences. The thesis will be of interest to managers who are engaged in Six Sigma deployment and project leaders who lead process improvement teams. Researchers working in the field of Six Sigma will also benefit from this research.

Change in organisations is inevitable, especially in challenging economic times. Recognising that we need to engage our people in change initiatives not only facilitates buy in, it can also enable us to use the knowledge and insights that our people have to identify and embrace new ideas for transformation leading to long term viability. The literature is awash with models and theories of change, but few explain how to create and embed the conditions for change that enable stakeholder engagement, coordination of initiatives and sustainability of the management of change within organisations. Managerial cybernetics is the science of effective organisation, but little work has been undertaken to utilise managerial cybernetics in the design of change intervention which both engages those affected or embraces creativity techniques as part of the cybernetic change framework. Using action research, this thesis explores a number of organisational situations and the framework for cybernetic participatory intervention that engages stakeholders both in the design and implementation of change. The framework is refined and used within increasingly complex situations involving multiple change initiatives, multi company initiatives and cross industry initiatives. The framework embeds creativity tools to both engage stakeholders and enhance understanding of the situational context, allowing for new and enhanced situations to emerge. The thesis describes the application of the cybernetic participatory intervention framework in five specific contexts and goes on to present the framework as a model for others to use for the design of change interventions for their own situation.

This research aims to refine intercultural negotiation theory by providing a holistic picture of the dynamics of the intercultural negotiation process in order to develop a process model of the evolvement of negotiation process, and this is realised by understanding of national negotiation style as a major trigger of the dynamics of negotiation. The negotiation process was conceptualised as a three-stage process: preliminary investigation, business proposal and contract negotiation. Empirically, four qualitative case studies were pursued in a multi-stage data collection process to draw evidence from the Chinese context -specifically via a combination of semi-structured interview and documentation. This study proposes an integrative theoretical framework based on which this study identifies the dynamics constructs and develops a process model (i.e. the evolvement of the Sino-Western joint venture negotiation process). This study contributes to intercultural negotiation literature by extending Faure's (2000) 4-stage model of Sino-Western joint venture negotiation at the formation phase in specific, which expands our knowledge on international joint venture negotiation and intercultural business negotiation in general. The emphasis on the major Chinese negotiation style which is derived from high-context communication style (etic) and guanxi (emic) at different levels with the local partner / local government / central government provides a strategic perspective and holistic picture on understanding the complexity and evolvement of the Sino-Western joint venture negotiation process in China. Significant practical implications are derived for business practitioners to promote the development and growth of Sino-Western joint venture in particular, as well as international joint venture and as well as international business in general.

This study sought to explore the pressures and reconciliations of the Technological Change associated with social media adoption at both an internal and external level through the theoretical lens of Institutional Theory. It employed a qualitative approach, utilising semi-structured interviews to gather data from various human actors internal and external to the organisation. The research process consisted of interviews with social media managers and consultants through the United Kingdom (UK), Republic of Ireland (RI) and the United States of America (USA) over a 25-month period. Findings highlighted that Institutional pressures are significant at four levels: External stakeholder, Platform, Internal stakeholder and Independent forces. This study revealed that reconciliation of Technological Change pressures can be refined into four distinctive strategies, which are both implicit or explicit in nature: non isomorphic behaviour, utilise internal capabilities, strategies and utilise external resources. Among the theoretical contributions of this thesis, is the extension of the understanding of mimetic isomorphism, as the same pressures that constrain Technological Change can assist with the reconciliation of pressures. Further, it highlights that a cohort of Institutional Entrepreneurs can work together to achieve Technological Change. It confirms the rate of innovation is not only a critical concern once the technology has been adopted but it is also a concern in the pre adoption phase. The theoretical framework developed offers a significant contribution to the existing literature highlighting that Technological Change is an ongoing process and a layer of institutional pressures must be navigated through appropriate reconciliation techniques to achieve change.

Information systems (IS) are used almost everywhere around us and we cannot even conceive of a world without computerised systems. IS support essential functions in most areas and levels of society. These include education, business, leisure, and medical and scientific areas. Moreover, IS add to the competitiveness of companies and support the continuous change that takes place in business and its environment. Literature frequently reports on Information systems that fail or are abandoned in many domains and in many countries. Often IS are seen by users as underperforming, failing to meet expectations and not delivering value to customers. In order to reduce IS failures numerous studies have been conducted resulting in solutions being offered to improve the situation. Post-project reviews are often used to learn from mistakes. Social sciences regularly use narrative analysis methods to analyse stories to understand the experiences of people in settings such as psychology and education. This study borrows from the social sciences and proposes the use of narrative analysis in investigating IS failure research. A case history was identified in which IS stakeholders were asked to share their experiences regarding the development and use of the IS. Three narrative analysis approaches were applied in this study to analyse the accounts of the stakeholders taking into account the perspectives of multiple user groups. This was done in order to study the thesis statement: narrative analysis methods can be useful to make sense of Information systems’ failures. A multi-perspective framework for analysing IS stakeholders’ accounts was constructed, during the study, which could be used by developers to gain insight from the users of previous systems in order to learn from mistakes for subsequent systems. It is shown in this qualitative study, where narrative approaches were followed to gather, analyse and interpret the rich, multi-voiced and incoherent stories of IS stakeholders, that each approach helps to make sense from the accounts of stakeholders in different ways and highlight important elements. It is shown that narrative analysis methods that were used in this study can produce deeper insights into the experience of involved stakeholders. The insights obtained from applying narrative methods can be used for internal learning within organisations as well as externally within the discipline. It is shown in this study that all voices must be heard; the small stories of stakeholders should also be taken into account when listening to users. Reading between the lines reveals information that cannot be ignored if IS are to be developed to the satisfaction of all stakeholders. Indeed, systems become alive and take on a character of their own when the accounts are analysed on a deeper level and systems can therefore be designed in new ways that enable developers to address a wider set of constraints representing multiple groups of stakeholders. The contribution of this work is on more than one level. Information systems development practice can be influenced and enriched by gaining deeper insights that address the concerns of the diverse groups of stakeholders. The research methodology field of IS has also been impacted upon by the successful importing of methods from another domain and has thereby also given back to the discipline it has borrowed from. Narrative practice and theory can make use of the new insights gained in a new area of application, namely IS failures. The conclusion of this study is that narrative approaches and storytelling can be useful and applicable when investigating IS failures and improves the understanding of IS development and users’ concerns taking into account multiple perspectives of stakeholders.

Understanding a business organisation is a primary activity that is required for deriving service-oriented systems that assist in carrying out the business activities of an organisation. Business IT alignment is one of the hot topics that concerns with aligning business needs and system needs in order to keep a business organisation competitive in a market. One example in this area is the BPAOntoSOA framework that aligned business process architecture and the service-oriented model of computing. The BPAOntoSOA framework is a semantically enriched framework for deriving service oriented architecture candidate software services from a Riva-based business process architecture. The BPAOntoSOA framework was recently proposed in order to align the candidate software services to the business processes presented in a Riva business process architecture. The activities of the BPAOntoSOA framework are structured into two-semantic-based layers that are formed in a top-down manner. The top layer, the BPAOnt ontology instantiation layer, concerned with conceptualising the Riva business process architecture and the associated business process models. The bottom layer, which is the software service identification layer, concerned with the semantic identification of the service-oriented architecture candidate software services and their associated capabilities. In this layer, RPA clusters were used to describe the derived candidate software service. Ontologies were used in order to support addressing the semantic representation. However, the BPAOntoSOA framework has two limitations. First, the derived candidate software services are identified without considering the business goals. Second, the desired quality of service requirements that constrain the functionality of the software services are absent. This research is concerned with resolving these two limitations within the BPAOntoSOA framework. In this research, the original BPAOntoSOA framework has been extended into the GQ-BPAOntoSOA framework. A new semantic-based layer has been added into the two original layers. The new layer is concerned with conceptualising the goal- and quality- oriented models in order to address their absence in the original BPAOntoSOA framework. The new layer is called the GQOnt ontology instantiation layer. This extension has highlighted the need for aligning the models within the original BPAOnt intonation layer with the ones in the new layer. This is because the BPAOnt was the base for the identification of the candidate software services and capabilities. Therefore, a novel alignment approach has been proposed in order to address this need. Also, the original service identification approach is refined in order to adapt with the integration of goals and quality requirements. The GQ-BPAOntoSOA framework, which is a goal-based and quality-linked extended BPAOntoSOA framework, has been evaluated using the Cancer Care Registration process. This is the same case study used in the evaluation of the BPAOntoSOA framework. And this is required in order to investigate the implication of integrating goals and quality requirements into the pre-existing BPAOntoSOA framework-driven candidate software services. This has shown that: (1) the GQOnt ontology does not only contribute to the extension of the BPAOntoSOA framework, yet it also contributes to providing a semantic representation of a business strategy view for an organisation. The GQOnt ontology acts as an independent repository of knowledge in order to have an early agreement between stakeholders with regard to business goals and quality requirements. The semantic representation could be reused for different purposes with respect to the needs. (2) the alignment approach has bridged the gap between goal-oriented models and Riva-based business process architectures. (3) the Riva business process architecture modelling method and business process models have been enriched with the integration of goals and quality requirements in order to provide a rich representation of business process architecture and process models that reflect an important information for the given organisation. (4) The service identification approach used in the original BPAOntoSOA framework has been enriched with goals and quality requirements. This has affected the identification of candidate software services (clusters) and their capabilities. Also, the derived candidate software services have conformed to service-oriented architecture principles. Accordingly, This research has bridged the gap between the BPAOntoSOA framework and the business goals and quality requirements. This is anticipated to lead to highly consistent, correct and complete software service specifications.

This thesis examines the effects of board structure characteristics on firm performance within the context of the recommendations offered in the Securities and Exchange Commission's Code of Corporate Governance. The study adopts an integrated research framework combining four distinct theories including agency, stewardship, stakeholders and resource dependency models. The analyses were based on data drawn from a sample of 127 listed companies on the Nigerian Stock Exchange covering a twelve-year period (1999-2010), an era of significant corporate governance evolution in Nigeria. Consistent with the directions of previous studies, six sets of hypotheses were tested on the presumed effects of board size, CEO duality, independence, directors' educational qualifications, professional experience and ethnicity, across multidimensional performance measures. Through the use of a moderating approach and the deployment of econometric tools that are barely used in management science research, the study offers new sets of gap-closing evidence on the relationship between these board structure elements and firm performance. Empirical findings from the three clusters of regression models show that board independence, directors' educational qualifications and professional experience are positively associated with firm value and the return on assets. Board size was found to be positively but statistically insignificantly linked to an increase in firm performance.

This study examines the impact of corporate governance reforms (SECP code in Pakistan) on board structural characteristics, board roles and firm performance. Related research questions are: a) how and which board roles mediate the relationship between board structural characteristics and firm performance? b) And what is the influence of corporate governance reforms on this relationship? Based upon the existing literature, a model has been developed that relates board structural characteristics (Proportion of non-executive directors, CEO Duality, Diligence and Independence of Audit Committee) with firm financial performance (ROA, Tobin Q) through intervening variables of dual board roles namely board monitoring role (Frequency of board meetings) and board resource dependence role (Board size) using multi-theoretic lens. This thesis uses an exclusive balanced panel data set of 200 companies listed on Karachi Stock Exchange to examine the impact of SECP code on the model for the two equal time windows. The first panel comprises of the data for the years from 1999-2001 which is the era before the implementation of SECP code and second panel comprises of data for the years from 2003-2005. The data set straddles the year 2002 which is the year when SECP code was enforced. The study contributes to a sparse empirical literature on boards using data from Pakistan via multi-theoretic perspective to advance some understanding that if the boards’ monitoring and resource provision roles are strengthened through board restructuring, the financial performance (Tobin Q) of the organization has shown signs of improvement. However, the main findings of the study indicate that the mediated relationship between board structural variables and firm performance is stronger in the post SECP code era. The study also shows that firm value (Tobin Q) increased in the post SECP code era; however, the implementation of SECP code didn’t reflect any improvement in the profitability of the firm (ROA). This study has significant policy implications. It recommends the constitution of independent nomination committee on the board and envisaging an evaluation criterion for the board members performance. The study concludes that overall companies adopted a box-ticking approach for reporting corporate governance. The study concludes lastly that the SECP code overall proved ground breaking and the corporate governance canvas in the country embraced the global calls for the reforms.