This study sets out to determine the process through which high performance work systems (HPWS) affect organizational performance. Previous research in the field of HRM has mainly supported the view that properly designed high performance work systems can enhance organizational performance. There is a growing debate, however, with regard to understanding the “mechanism” linking HPWS and organizational performance. Based on the theory of relational coordination, this study tested a model that examines the linkages and uses relational coordination among employees as a path way through which HPWS influence organizational performance in highly interdependent work settings. This study has been conducted in the banking sector of Pakistan. Primary data was gathered in the form of managers’ and employees’ perceptions about the extent of HPWS and relational coordination among employees in 340 sample branches. Performance measures were obtained from regional offices. The results indicate that the extent of HPWS predicted relational coordination among employees at individual, functional and unit levels. Results have shown that HPWS was significantly related to performance in terms of branch deposits, advances, and overall profitability. One of the more significant findings emerged from this study is that relational coordination partially mediated the relationships between HPWS and branch level performance. The findings from this study contribute to the literature on HPWS and performance, showing how relational coordination might help explain the process through which the two things are linked. The main findings indicated that there is a disconnection between managerial and non-managerial employees’ perspectives regarding the extent of HPWS and relational coordination. The implications of this study suggest that as important stakeholders, both managers and employees should be engaged in the design of HPWS and the plans for achieving relational coordination among employees. The findings also suggested that a coordinated approach to HPWS on the part of management and HR professionals to work more closely with branch managers and employees to develop greater levels of relational coordination would lead to higher levels of performance.

This thesis analyses and groups antitakeover provisions as they relate to CEO’s monetary benefits. It specifically focuses on the six provisions that were proposed by Bebchuk et Al. (2009) to conversely affect firm value. Although all provisions provide managers with a takeover protection, some provisions provide managers with a monetary outcome (Category A provisions) if a takeover was successful while others do not (Category B provisions). Findings indicate that CEOs with a role duality use their power to influence the adoption of takeover defences that provide them with a monetary outcome. Moreover, in the presence of CEO duality, the relationship between Category A provisions and firm value worsens. On the other hand, the relationship between Category B provisions and firm value is unaffected by the presence of CEO duality. This suggests that CEOs having a role duality do not feel the need to work in the shareholders’ best interest when entrenched with Category A provisions. The second model of this thesis explains the conflicting evidence found on agency theory in previous literature. This is achieved by introducing interaction variables between three of the main governance mechanisms used to mitigate agency problems: Shareholder rights, CEO ownership and board independence. Findings suggest that board independence and the market for corporate control act as substitutes. Board independence has a positive effect on firm value for firms with a weak governance structure. For firms having high levels of governance and shareholder rights, no extra monitoring by independent directors is needed. Such firms could benefit more from the firm-specific knowledge of insider directors. Results also show that both takeover defences and CEO ownership increase managerial power. Therefore, providing CEOs with antitakeover provisions and high levels of ownership increases the entrenching effect of CEO ownership on firm value. The overall findings of this thesis indicate that internal and external governance mechanisms interact in affecting firm performance. Suggestions of agency theory (increasing CEO ownership, increasing board independence and removing CEO duality) are valid for firms with low levels of external governance and shareholder rights. On the other hand, firms that are already enjoying a good level of governance benefit from providing managers with more power and leadership roles that are in line with the stewardship theory.

Research in the area of interpersonal trust within organisations has to a great extent focused on developing theoretical models identifying the nature, antecedents and outcomes of trust and empirically testing these models within the context of various organisational work relationships. However, the applicability of the propositions introduced by these models to cultural contexts different from those in which they were initially developed and to previously overlooked work relationship contexts has not been thoroughly understood or empirically examined. This thesis mainly examines trust, its antecedents and outcomes in co-worker relationship contexts involving permanent and contingent co-workers working within Jordanian organisations. The thesis reports the findings of two studies through which the applicability of the propositions of one of the most widely accepted theoretical frameworks pertaining to trust (the Mayer, Davis and Schoorman, 1995, integrative model of organisational trust) to co-worker contexts is empirically tested through the analysis of interview data collected from twenty employees and through the analysis of questionnaire data collected from two hundred employees (154 permanent employees and 46 contingent employee) from five different Jordanian organisations. Mayer et al.’s (1995) proposed model was mostly generalizable across co-worker contexts involving permanent and contingent employees. In addition, trust in a co-worker related significantly to interpersonal citizenship behaviours (ICB) towards the respective co-worker and unlike contingent employees, permanent employees differentiated between their permanent and contingent co-workers in terms of trust, trustworthiness perceptions and ICBs. However, both groups did not differentiate between their co-workers in terms of antisocial work behaviours. These findings indicate for academics and practitioners the importance of considering the employment status of employees when examining or managing the antecedents and outcomes of trust across various co-worker relationship contexts.

Although managerial Self-directed Learning (SOL) has been extensively researched, this research has largely been conducted within Western context. Thus, there is relatively little understanding of the influence of socio-cultural factors on managerial SOL in non-Western contexts. The significance of this research comes from being the first research that investigates the influence of factors that affect the form and extent of Syrian managers' engagement with SOL. Four subsidiary aims branched from this main aim; these concerned the reasons for Syrian mangers' engagement with SOL, the influences of organisational culture, the development in technology and the Syrian context on the Syrian managers' SOL. Drawing on literature from the fields of SOL, self-directed learners, learning, management learning, culture and organisational factors, this research investigated the influence of these topics on the Syrian managers' SOL. The research applied a qualitative interpretive approach involving twenty interviews with Syrian managers to collect the required data within a qualitative approach to examine their SOL, and the interview transcripts were analysed to understand how, why and what they learn. The main methods which were used to analyse the data are: observation, coding the interviews, deriving categories and conclusions, displaying the data and examining the relationships between all the findings. The analysis revealed their motivation for SOL, the difficulties and support that they have when they practice it, their aims of practicing it and the influence of the Syrian environment on their SOL.

This thesis develops identity theory in the context of experiential consumption through the creation of a contextual self. This unique feature of identity advances theory more commonly associated with service-dominant logic, under the proposition that experiences are a consumption activity in their own right which are under-valued when treated as a sub-activity of service consumption. Using a music festival as an experiential example, literature is identified based on the interpretive effects of symbolic interactionism. This highlights the importance of objective, inter-subjective, and subjective stimuli, namely the physical environment, the social environment, and the individual environment respectively. This provides a way of understanding contextual identity and subsequent value creation. This is explored using an in-depth study based on interactionist enquiry as a means to understand the lived experience of the festival-goer in their native habitat. Participant observations and in-field interviews with attendees are conducted using a semi-structured process, and analysed along thematic lines as a way to show the influence of existing theory as well as emerging lines of enquiry. Conclusions identify a 'contextual identity' – a unique identity formed by the persuasive effects of objective and inter-subjective stimuli. However, contextual identity only truly exists in comparison to individuals not attending the experience. During the experience itself, the strength of contextual identity diminishes, acting as no more than a primer for more dominant, deep-rooted identity concepts. The result of this experience-primed identity is the ‘contextual self’, which becomes the dominant behavioural guide during the actual experience. Implications are applicable across a number of contexts and provide not only a better theoretical understanding of identity within the experiential consumption process, but also practical suggestions to improve the consumer's experience.

The drive towards a more globally competitive market has led to an increase in demand for goods and services on a global scale. As a result of this increase in productivity, production systems are being designed and redesigned at an increased rate and that they are becoming more innovative as they progress with time. The challenge this research attempts to address is how to improve the ability of the UKbased manufacturing industry to make a more effective decision during manufacturing systems design/redesign by adopting simulation techniques as both strategic and operational decision making tools. The aim of this research is to develop a classification scheme based on cladistics and evolutionary analysis and to use this classification in the development of a template based modelling library. The research focused on identifying the existing manufacturing layout types, the various layout configurations that are being used and template based model generation. Some of the major developments of the research conducted were the construction of the manufacturing layout and component based cladograms and the RapidSim generator. A literature review on manufacturing systems layouts revealed the types of system layouts which are most commonly used in the manufacturing sector as well as the component configurations and characteristics which are found within each production systems. This research makes a major contribution by providing a cladistical classification of manufacturing systems layouts, an external interface for model building and development and a set of recommendations, which when adopted may help increase the use of template based simulation modelling. Based on the data analysis carried out, the findings suggest that there is room for the development and implementation of a template based modelling approach to the development of simulation based models. The most important result obtained from the validation of the model was that the time taken to build and run the model decreased significantly by around 65% when compared to the conventional model building process.

This research is focused on developing a methodology to quantify the support operational property or corporate real estate (CRE) is providing in pursuit of an organisation's core business. Literature suggests the extent CRE supports achievement of core business goals depends on how well CRE is aligned with corporate strategy. To measure how well property is aligned requires the identification and prioritisation of property attributes or criteria that reflect the CRE strategy and thus the corporate strategy. Management of CRE is a role under Corporate Real Estate Management (CREM) or Facilities Management (FM) and both these professions strive to added value to the property management process. Therefore a methodology to measure and enhance property performance in relation to core business through targeted CREM/FM interventions is potentially a means by which these professions could further demonstrate their added value. Evaluation criteria are required to measure the alignment performance of a property and thus develop the assessment methodology or model. Review of CREM and FM literature found a plethora of potential hard and soft property criteria. These were structured under three hierarchal levels giving 13 performance categories, 37 factors and 172 indicators. Following this the performance factors were filtered by an industry panel and the importance rated by a group of senior estate managers before further simplification using factor analysis. The final property performance assessment model (PPAM) construct contains 10 extracted performance areas and 34 performance factors. The PPAM was successfully tested on a sample group of eight properties to assess their performance, identify where performance could be improved, and evaluate the potential range of property interventions available. The PPAM can help aid CRE decision making within a public sector organisation by prioritising interventions and investment that are in alignment with corporate strategy.

This dissertation consists of three independent research projects aimed at gaining a better understanding of the economics of organizations. The unifying theme of the dissertation is the protection of knowledge in a hierarchy structure. This runs through all three chapters. In the first chapter, I develop a theoretical model that incorporates different communication costs into a knowledge hierarchy structure. The model shows that, for a knowledge hierarchy to be optimal while containing middle managers, it must be that middle managers are better at communicating with the owner than are the workers beneath them in the hierarchy. The middle managers must also be relatively adept at communicating with the workers, otherwise a two-tier hierarchy is optimal where they are the workers in the hierarchy. The second chapter, co-authored with Michael Sanders, examines the formation of knowledge hierarchies in a laboratory experiment. We use a simplified version of the model in Garicano and Rossi-Hansberg (2006a) to see if participants respond to changes in communication costs. We find that participants do respond to incentives but there is a strong preference for togetherness. Moreover, participants are strongly discouraged from trying to join groups if they have been (exogenously) rejected in the past, suggesting that disappointment is a factor in their deciding whether or not to join a hierarchy. In the final chapter, I develop another theoretical model which incorporates on-the-job-effort into a knowledge hierarchy structure. This model shows that workers exert less effort in a hierarchy than they would if they were self-employed and, the more layers there are in the hierarchy, the less effort they exert. However, middle managers exert more effort than they would if they were self-employed or if they were the workers in a two-tier hierarchy.

One of the most important capabilities that an organisation can develop is an effective strategy implementation process, which enables that firm to compete in a given market. Within the framework of strategy implementation, this study focuses in a comparative manner on the implementation processes for strategic management within conventional and Islamic banks in Saudi Arabia. In this thesis, a particular strategy implementation framework is adopted from Okumus (2001 and 2003). This framework offers in a systematic form an explicit explanation of the entire strategy implementation process, therefore providing a comprehensive framework through an integrated systematic understanding. An extensive review of the strategy implementation literature reveals fifteen factors that can influence the strategy implementation process and its outcomes, with these factors taking roles in enhancing the process and resulting in successful implementation outcomes. These factors are organised into four categories or groups: (i) organisational groups; (ii) project groups; (iii) process groups, and (iv) outcomes, each of which contains sub-factors to make them measurable. In operationalising the research, an inductive research approach has been adopted for this study; the data was collected via semi-structured interviews followed by a questionnaire survey used as a support tool. The whole sampled included two Saudi Arabian Islamic and two Saudi Arabian conventional banks as case studies. This study employs face-to-face semi-structured interviews with each of the selected bank’s decision-makers as its primary tool for data collection. The elite interview sample consists of in total eight top managers belonging to four banks: two Islamic and two conventional banks. Each bank has its recent strategic case implementations analysed through the primary data collected. The sample of the interview schedule consists of the top management who were involved in the strategic decision of two conventional and two Islamic banks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The primary criteria of choosing the sample were that those mangers should have a great influence and experience of the strategic decision as well as the ability of declaring the required information. In relation to the questionnaires, the sample included Middle management levels who are only involved in the strategic cases being implemented and studied. Consequently, 260 questionnaires were distributed among the banks; 120 were returned as complete, to be used in the analysis. The response rate, hence, is approximately 46%. The results show that there are clear trends in how the Saudi Arabian` banks’ approach in their strategy implementation, common factors influencing the strategy implementation process and its outcomes, and various considerations regarding the role of religion in both Islamic and conventional types of banks. The subsequent statistical and econometric analysis of the questionnaire data indicates that factors from three of the main groups significantly influence strategic decision outcomes, thereby determining successful strategy implementation. These influential factors are as follows: (i) process and personnel factors, including involvement and communication; (ii) project factors such as time and the priority of the decision; (iii) organisational factors, including top management support, religion, and organisational structure. Further, it is also revealed that in each case the correlation coefficients are positive between independent factors and the outcomes indicating the presence of positive correlation between the outcome and the process factors. The findings of this study contribute to the literature on strategic implementation management by providing a critical and empirical analysis of the sampled Islamic and conventional banks in Saudi Arabia. The findings may in addition prove useful to the leadership of those banks in their attempts to understand the interrelationship between the process and the outcomes of their strategy implementation decisions, by drawing out both tangible and intangible results of strategy decisions.

The term “Corporate Governance” always proliferates after large accounting scandals and crises; practitioners claim that governance mechanisms are the cause of these failures, and worldwide reforms take place after each failure; however, these reforms did not succeed in preventing the subsequent falls down. Although corporate governance mechanisms are introduced to monitor and control the managerial opportunistic behaviour in order to reduce the agency costs; most of the prior studies were directed towards investigating the role of governance mechanisms in enhancing firm performance as an indirect proxy of lower agency conflicts, and hence, lower agency costs. This study adds to the debate around the usefulness and the effectiveness of the corporate governance mechanisms in controlling the managerial opportunistic behaviour and reducing agency costs. This study contributes to the governance literature by investigating and comparing the impact of a comprehensive set of governance mechanisms reflecting a wide spectrum of board characteristics and ownership structure on agency costs over the period 2005-2011; in addition to providing a comparison of before and after the financial crisis periods using a large sample of firms listed in FTSE All-Share index. In doing so, two different agency costs proxies are utilised; asset utilisation which reflects the managerial efficiency; and the interaction of free cash flow with growth opportunities which reflects investment decisions agency costs. This comparative analysis extends the governance literature that investigated the pre and during the crisis periods by adding the pre and post the 2008 financial crisis comparison. Lastly, this study considers more than one theoretical paradigm; the empirical evidence lends the support to the agency and resource dependence perspectives and provides partial support to the stewardship view. The results clearly show that not all governance mechanisms lead to lower agency costs; thus, one prescribed structure does not fit all. Moreover, the efficiency of the governance mechanisms is directly affected by surrounding economic conditions (e.g., steady and abnormal conditions); in other words, governance mechanisms which help in reducing agency costs during the normal economic condition could turn out to be useless, inefficient and in some cases detrimental to the managerial effectiveness after the financial crisis. Moreover, the reported results support the claim that interrelation between the different governance mechanisms should be considered in future governance studies.