Talent retention, which can be defined as organizational practices aiming at maintaining the continued employment of high potential and high-performing incumbents to fill the key positions that have the potential to have an impact on the competitive advantage of an organization (Schneider, 1987; Coldwell et al., 2008; Zhang et al., 2014), has been identified by previous researchers (e.g. Lubatkin et al., 1999; Cooke, 2006; Hartmann et al., 2010; Makela et al., 2010) as a particularly important measure of post-merger and acquisition (M&A) performance in contemporary M&A situations in multinational organizations. Connected to this, research (e.g. Bass, 1985; Bycio et al., 1995; Ya-Anan and Bunchapattanasukda, 2011; Zhang et al., 2014) has shown that transformational leadership can be one of the most important factors in predicting talent retention, but little research has been conducted to understand the underlying mechanisms through which transformational leadership may influence retention strategies in post-M&A performance. The aim of this DBA study is to address this research gap by examining whether and how executive-level leaders‘ transformational leadership style influences talent retention in a post-M&A Chinese context. Three research questions guide this DBA study. Firstly, to what extent does executive-level leaders‘ transformational leadership exert direct influence on post-M&A talent retention in mainland China? Secondly, to what extent does executive-level leader‘s transformational leadership exert indirect influence on post-M&A talent retention in mainland China? Thirdly, what factors mediate the influence of transformational leadership on talent retention and why? In the first stage of this doctoral study it was identified that transformational leadership can exert direct influence on talent retention without any mediator (Bass, 1985; Bycio et al., 1995; Ya-Anan and Bunchapattanasukda, 2011), and among factors that mediate the indirect influence of transformational leadership on talent retention, job satisfaction (Locke, 1976; Petty et al., 2005; Mallol et al., 2007; Smith et al., 2011) and organizational commitment (Price and Mueller, 1981; Hom and Kinicki, 2001; Brown and Yoshioka, 2003; Mallol et al., 2007) are recognized by previous researchers as the most important two. A conceptual framework was therefore presented describing the relations of key variables. Allied to this 8 framework, and arising from the theoretical arguments for transf ormational leadership‘s influence on talent retention, are six propositions. To test these propositions and explain the associations among variables in the conceptual framework, a Chinese local company (known here as ‘FB’) located in Shenzhen city, acquired by a multinational corporation (known here as ‘FA’) in 2008, was chosen as the central study for this investigation as they have experienced post-M&A integration. A multi-method approach was taken to data collection and analysis. In the first phase, a fully-structured questionnaire was sent to 54 current employees recognized by the case company as talent, based on their performance, potential, and position. Correlation analysis and structural equation modeling enabled the relationship among variables to be examined. In the second phase, analysis of nine semi-structured interviews with talent was undertaken to map the relationships between different variables. Following this, a short, informal interview with the President of FB was conducted to gain information about his leadership style and FB‘s retention strategies. Results of this DBA study not only prove all six propositions but also indicate significant causal relationship among variables. Findings show that there are four approaches through which transformational leadership can influence talent retention: Transformational leadership directly exerts positive influence on talent retention. Transformational leadership‘s positive influence on talent retention can be mediated by job satisfaction of talent. Transformational leadership‘s positive influence on talent retention can be mediated by organizational commitment of talent. Transformational leadership‘s positive influence on talent retention can be mediated firstly by job satisfaction, and then by organizational commitment of talent. Results from survey and interviews indicate that executive-level leaders‘ transformational leadership style, especially their attributed charisma, idealized influence, and inspirational motivation, can directly exert positive influence on talent retention in the post-M&A Chinese context. Transformational leaders can also increase the rate of post-M&A talent retention through enhancing talent‘s satisfaction with regard to the job itself, learning and development opportunities, and some external job factors such as supervisor and co-worker relationship, organizational culture, and effectiveness of communication and working flow, or through enhancing talent‘s affective commitment. This DBA study contributes to the literature in several ways. Firstly, despite a significant degree of academic and practical interest, the topic of talent management remains under-investigated (Collings and Mellahi, 2009; Iles et al., 2010a; Zhang et al., 2014). This study increases this body of knowledge by defining talent and identifying critical factors that may affect the propensity of an individual to remain with or leave an organization. Furthermore, as Bass indicates in his works (1985; 1998), transformational leadership can be one of the most important factors to control talent turnover. However, although such association has been studied, it is surprising that little research has been conducted to understand the underlying mechanisms through which transformational leadership exerts its influence on talent retention. This study contributes an empirically-supported theoretical framework for relationships between transformational leadership and talent retention by describing four approaches through which transformational leadership can influence talent retention. It also contributes to this line of studies by recognizing transformational leadership‘s superior effectiveness in increasing the rate of talent retention over other leadership styles such as transactional and laissez-faire in Avolio and Bass‘ (1991) Full Range of Leadership Model. With regard to lessons for managerial practice, this DBA study recognizes the important role of executive-level leaders on talent retention strategies in the post -M&A context. Furthermore, although talent retention has been studied extensively in a western context, there are few studies addressing these issues with regard to Chinese companies (Cooke, 2008; Zhang et al., 2014). By using a case from mainland China, this study attempts to provide strategic guidance for multinational M&A practitioners who seek to increase their company’s rate of talent retention in the Chinese context. In addition, only a limited number of studies examine the underlying relationship between leadership styles and talent retention have been carried out in such a dynamic and unstable environment as post-M&A integration. Finally, the study attempts to provide a guidance for post-M&A executive-level leaders to adopt a suitable leadership style, or for multinational firms to select ‘the right leader’ for their acquisitions.

Energy costs now dominate IT infrastructure total cost of ownership, with datacentre operators predicted to spend more on energy than hardware infrastructure in the next five years. With Western European datacentre power consumption estimated at 56 TWh/year in 2007 and projected to double by 2020, improvements in energy efficiency of IT operations is imperative. The issue is further compounded by social and political factors and strict environmental legislation governing organisations. One such example of large IT systems includes high-throughput cycle stealing distributed systems such as HTCondor and BOINC, which allow organisations to leverage spare capacity on existing infrastructure to undertake valuable computation. As a consequence of increased scrutiny of the energy impact of these systems, aggressive power management policies are often employed to reduce the energy impact of institutional clusters, but in doing so these policies severely restrict the computational resources available for high-throughput systems. These policies are often configured to quickly transition servers and end-user cluster machines into low power states after only short idle periods, further compounding the issue of reliability. In this thesis, we evaluate operating policies for energy efficiency in large-scale computing environments by means of trace-driven discrete event simulation, leveraging real-world workload traces collected within Newcastle University. The major contributions of this thesis are as follows: i) Evaluation of novel energy efficient management policies for a decentralised peer-to-peer (P2P) BitTorrent environment. ii) Introduce a novel simulation environment for the evaluation of energy efficiency of large scale high-throughput computing systems, and propose a generalisable model of energy consumption in high-throughput computing systems. iii iii) Proposal and evaluation of resource allocation strategies for energy consumption in high-throughput computing systems for a real workload. iv) Proposal and evaluation for a realworkload ofmechanisms to reduce wasted task execution within high-throughput computing systems to reduce energy consumption. v) Evaluation of the impact of fault tolerance mechanisms on energy consumption.

The identification of best practices is a crucial aspect of benchmarking (Camp, 1989) but there is little published evidence to show that a framework exists which identifies such practices in the public sector (Kouzmin el al., 1999). This thesis examines how the benchmarking of local government services might be improved through using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). Seminal work in 1978 by Charnes, Cooper and Rhodes (CCR) provided the original ratio model of DEA for Constant Returns-to-Scale (CRS) and this was extended in 1984 by Banker, Charnes and Cooper (BCC) to include Variable Returns-to-Scale (VRS). Whilst it is recognised that DEA has sincc been developed, this research applies the primal CCR and BCC efficiency models to estimate productive efficiency over an II-year period (from 1993/94 to 2003/04) across 4 significant service areas provided by local government: Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit (HB and CTB); planning control; houschold waste collection and recycling; and highway maintenance. Input and output variables arc selected from published Audit Commission Performance Indicators (PIs), Best Value Performance Indicator (BVPI) data, and statistics produced by the Chartered Institute of Public Financial Accountants (CIPFA). Performance data is pooled into between 3 and 5 windows where the same input and output variables exist. DEA scores, run under CRS provide a ranked performance position for each council averaged across the data windows. Spearman's rank correlation confirms the statistical significance between each of the ranks across the data windows. A sample of 51 high and low-ranked councils across London borough, metropolitan borough, unitary, district and county councils (as applicable) is comparcd and contrasted with performance reviews published by the Audit Commission. A total improvement summary for each type of local authority is estimated against the frontier of best practice while scale effects are calculated under VRS constraints. The Malmquist index has been used to estimate productivity changes over time. Using data from one year only, hierarchical cluster analysis is calculated to identity benchmarking partners. The research identifies the issues of using published performance data in terms of breadth, availability, clarity, annual consistency, the lack of non-discretionary factors and the reporting of data on a per-unit basis. The study also highlights the limitation of applying DEA consistently, resulting from the absence of a framework for the selection of input and output variables for efficiency estimation in local government. Findings from this study demonstrate that DEA can be used to discriminate between high and low-efficient service providers. This allows improved benchmarking against best performing councils to be undertaken and total improvement estimates of £543m p.a. are projected across the 4 services, should best practices be adopted. Important similarities have been found between the high and low-ranked efficient councils and published Audit Commission performance reviews. Through the use of dendrograms, benchmarking clusters for each service area by council type are visualised on a stepwise basis. The contribution made by this research emanates from the discussion of how DEA has been applied in practice to provide an efficiency measure for local government services. Nevertheless, the research acknowledges the risks inherent in basing findings on the analysis of PIslBVPls and secondary data, which may be restricted in terms of availability and quality.

There is a growing body of research on turnaround management due to adverse global economic circumstances. Research on turnaround management aims to reduce/eliminate business decline. Reviewing the turnaround management literature revealed that it has not yet been able to provide managers and practitioners with reliable guidance, or a step-by-step guide to assist them through the turnaround process. This research aims to identify the key stages of the turnaround process and to select appropriate turnaround strategies in relation to particular factors, e.g. causes of decline. A phenomenological perspective was adopted in this study to investigate the key turnaround management issues in two multiple case studies, followed by a feedback analysis from interviews with a panel of experts. The first case study comprised of 14 large and medium sized UK food manufacturing companies and used secondary sources of evidence. The second in depth case study involved three companies, using primary evidence through semi-structured interviews. Interviews with turnaround and insolvency practitioners were conducted, to investigate the key issues of the revised model of successful turnarounds in the light of their daily practices and models. A general model and step-by-step guide on how to manage a successful turnaround was developed. The model identifies four key stages (i.e. first, decline; second, analysis of decline; third, formulation, implementation and stabilisation of the turnaround plan and fourth, recovery and return to growth). Once decline is recognised, a leadership decision is made to initiate the turnaround process, identify major obstacles/problems and select the best actions to stop decline and return to full recovery. The turnaround model can assist turnaround managers in evaluating the viability of a company. It also helps analyse a company’s weaknesses and develop strategies: in the short-term to stop decline and stabilise the situation; in the longer-term, to identify a company’s strengths and enhance its competitive advantage to achieve recovery and return to growth.

A prominent claim within the literature is that ‘green’ firms are fundamentally more resilient to financial, environmental and social shocks, relative to firms that take no environmental action. To test this, this study compared the financial performance of firms in the UK FTSE4good, and similar firms outside the FTSE4Good through selected financial, environmental and social shocks Firstly the FTSE4Good indices were compared to the performance of the FTSE All-Share through several shocks. The results of which indicated through average returns, ranking performance and descriptive statistics that the FTSE4good Benchmark did not provide resilience in excess of the FTSE All-Share. The lack of significance was thought to be the consequence of diversification caused by the heterogeneity of each firm’s core business. The FTSE4good UK 50 showed neither and advantage nor disadvantage in resilience performance relative to the FTSE All-Share but the higher moments in the distribution of the returns (skewness and kurtosis) shows evidence of decreased risk in producing extreme negative returns. Furthermore, the discrepancies were also thought to be a consequence of the level at which FTSE4good include firms in the index series. To account for this discrepancy, FTSE4good’s ESG ratings were used to identify the best in class firms, eliminating middle ground performance. Only firms classified according to social performance showed conclusive evidence of an advantage for investors who could reduce their risk profile by selecting only firms with relatively high social responsibility ratings. The results show that the assumption that green firms are more resilient to shocks is too imprecise, at least when analysed in terms of financial performance across the period covered by this study. To become a more effective indicator of environmental, social and governance performance the FTSE4good must demand higher levels of performance from constituent firms and punish any transgressions more severely.

The focus of this study is on the governance decisions in a concurrent channels context, in the case of uncertainty. The study examines how a firm chooses to deploy its sales force in times of uncertainty, and the subsequent performance outcome of those deployment choices. The theoretical framework is based on multiple theories of governance, including transaction cost analysis (TCA), agency theory, and institutional economics. Three uncertainty variables are investigated in this study. The first two are demand and competitive uncertainty which are considered to be industry-level market uncertainty forms. The third uncertainty, political uncertainty, is chosen as it is an important dimension of institutional environments, capturing non-economic circumstances such as regulations and political systemic issues. The study employs longitudinal secondary data from a Thai hotel chain, comprising monthly observations from January 2007 – December 2012. This hotel chain has its operations in 4 countries, Thailand, the Philippines, United Arab Emirates – Dubai, and Egypt, all of which experienced substantial demand, competitive, and political uncertainty during the study period. This makes them ideal contexts for this study. Two econometric models, both deploying Newey-West estimations, are employed to test 13 hypotheses. The first model considers the relationship between uncertainty and governance. The second model is a version of Newey-West, using an Instrumental Variables (IV) estimator and a Two-Stage Least Squares model (2SLS), to test the direct effect of uncertainty on performance and the moderating effect of governance on the relationship between uncertainty and performance. The observed relationship between uncertainty and governance observed follows a core prediction of TCA; that vertical integration is the preferred choice of governance when uncertainty rises. As for the subsequent performance outcomes, the results corroborate that uncertainty has a negative effect on performance. Importantly, the findings show that becoming more vertically integrated cannot help moderate the effect of demand and competitive uncertainty, but can significantly moderate the effect of political uncertainty. These findings have significant theoretical and practical implications, and extend our knowledge of the impact on uncertainty significantly, as well as bringing an institutional perspective to TCA. Further, they offer managers novel insight into the nature of different types of uncertainty, their impact on performance, and how channel decisions can mitigate these impacts.

This thesis considers the question, what do hoteliers do? Specifically, how do hoteliers interpret their personal narratives in a manner that informs the process of enacting their roles? It also asks, how do personal narratives mediate understanding of entrepreneurial leadership? The thesis synthesises leadership and entrepreneurship; it reconciles some of the disparate contributions made within these fields to inform our understanding of the role of the hotelier by way of a hermeneutical exploration of the personal narratives constructed by hoteliers. It also considers how these are used in the enactment of entrepreneurial leadership. The thesis contributes to the fields of entrepreneurship, leadership and hospitality studies by highlighting the importance of constructing and harnessing personal career narratives and using these to navigate the uncertain and emergent hotel industry. It begins by discussing entrepreneurship theory, specifically the importance of process, context and its role in the hotel industry. It then considers leadership theory to identify a field of enquiry that is populated by multiple definitions, informed by many methodological and ontological perspectives. Process and context are also discussed in relation to leadership and, from this, the literature relating to the hotel industry as a field of enquiry is discussed. Through a hermeneutical three stage reflective process, the construction of the hotel industry according to hoteliers as well as the components of their role is explored. Following this, a definitive articulation of what it is to be an entrepreneurial leader in the hotel industry is presented: someone who reconciles the ever-changing and dynamic industry context with a need to be strategic. This is seen as the positive harnessing of personal narratives to create a generative grammar for effectual processes. The thesis thus develops effectuation theory by exploring and explaining the means by which effectuation is actually enacted. Hoteliers select and recount episodes from personal narratives to inform the ways in which they enact their roles. The identification and analysis of this practice of relating positive professional outcomes to personal stories augments and contributes to knowledge of entrepreneurial leadership and the entrepreneurial process.

The focus of mainstream innovationresearchhas largely been on innovation as an output rather than innovating as a process. Thus, the dynamics of the messy process of innovating, characterised by its complexity, non-linearity, false starts, dead ends, ineffability and becoming, remain under theorised. Current process theories on innovating, notably the efforts of Kathleen Eisenhardt, Robert Burgelman, Andrew Van De Ven and Raghu Garud, which attempt to unravel the dynamics constituting the innovating process, have all emphasised that innovating involves change. However, the surfacing of the debate between the 'substantialist' and 'process' metaphysical perspectives in organisational studies has produced new insights on organisational change and adaptation. 'Process', in the former perspective refers to an epistemological position where change is construed as epiphenomenal and occurring between two stable states or structures or entities. 'Process' in the latter refers to an 'ontological' position where order and organisation are regarded as temporarily-stabilised accomplishments or relatively stabilised patterns of relations in a churning sea of change. These insights have triggered several theoretical and methodological debates which bear profound implications for our understanding of how innovations come into being. Specifically, these insights challenge four apparent paradoxes: a) persistence versus change; b) synchrony versus diachrony; c) necessity versus chance and d) structural determinism versus agentic free will; which have persistently puzzled the 'substantialist' innovation process theorists. Despite its ability to dissolve these paradoxes, the application of the 'processual' perspective to explore innovating remains, both theoretically and empirically underexplored. The objective of this thesis is to address this lacuna by exploring organising while innovating from a 'processual' perspective. 'Processual', here refers to both an ontological and epistemological position. Adopting this perspective requires theorists to pry open the proverbial black box which conceals the unfolding dynamics and their subsequent stabilisation while innovating. Put differently, the research must answer how organising and innovating entwine as they become. Doing so required designing a theory of method that is inherently sympathetic to process and movement as fundamental features of reality. Such a methodology was designed and deployed in this seven month long, real time, ethnographic field study of two new product development projects at a Scottish high value manufacturing firm. Analysis of the data illuminates the unfolding of three distinct yet intertwined dynamics which I've called the dynamics of preferential equivocality, the dynamics of temporal scaffolding and the dynamics of relational coherence. The findings also reveal that these three dynamics are regulated by a mechanism, called 'tensegrity' (portmanteau for tensional-integrity). I expand and elaborate on the tensegrity mechanism, which was seen to influence the entwinement and unfolding of organising while innovating. This study, offers four distinct research contributions. One, it develops a 'processual' theoretical approach to study the process of innovating. Two, it offers a theory of method that conceptually integrates and translates this framework to the practical activity of fieldwork in process research. Three, this research is among the few empirical field studies on innovating from a 'processual' perspective. And four, by identifying the dynamic processes and explicating the mechanism through which organising while innovating becomes, it offers theoretical and practical guidance to navigate the innovation journey. Overall, this study clears the ground for a more extended 'processual' inquiry within innovation research and organisational theory.

The thesis explores inter-organisational collaboration across the divide between public and voluntary sectors in the context of children’s services in the UK. It explores how voluntary sector leaders ‘make things happen’ (Huxham and Vangen 2000) in this context, where the formal authority, control of resources, and decision-making appear to be in the hands of the public sector. Findings highlight the challenges of influencing dominant public sector agencies, the tensions which voluntary sector leaders experience, and the impact of the continually changing policy environment. The study emphasises the significance to these leaders of a distinct sense of voluntary sector identity, and of the contribution which voluntary organisations can make to the collaboration, and ultimately to the lives of children and families. This leads them to engage in activities which question, challenge, and disrupt their collaboration partners, whilst also engaging in more supportive and facilitative activities. The empirical research focuses on the practice of voluntary sector leaders through interviews and observations, but also presents an analysis of key government policy documents from children’s services during the period 2003-2012. This analysis reveals the ambiguity of concepts and narratives of cross-sector collaboration in these texts. Although policies and formal collaborative entities change when government changes, the ambiguity remains. Despite the challenges of this context, voluntary sector participants weave together layers of connectedness, which build collaborative capacity for future collaboration. This connectedness frequently begins with interpersonal relationships, but over time becomes embedded in the collaborative environment. The research suggests that this longer term approach to building collaborative relationships may provide a more positive perspective for voluntary sector leaders, who are frustrated by the experience of responding to public sector dominance and short-term policy initiatives.

Via a series of case study investigations this programme of studies applies the related concepts of ‘interpretive communities’ (Fish 1980) and ‘communities of practice’ (Wenger 1998) to the contemplation of, and interaction with, a variety of seemingly mundane places and structures within the built environment (principally cemetery gravestones, trees, abandoned military bunkers and an industrial hillside). It takes from these and other related theorists a broadly social constructivist concern to show how discursive practices render phenomena known or noticed but also inflects these seemingly idealist notions with a materialist (and pragmatist) sensibility, namely that ideas give significance to matter, but that matter exists anyway, shapes human agency and can act back upon meaning-making. The programme explores and asserts the importance of this co-production, this matter/meaning entanglement (Barad 2007; Hodder 2012) by exploring the ‘as practiced’ imprint of law and hobbies upon the built environment. The concern is to show both the multiplicity and the robustness of particular ways of engaging with such structures and places amongst certain professional and recreational communities – and also of some of the structural similarities in their meaning-making. Thus we strangely find seemingly counter-cultural ‘urban explorers’ performing building surveying as a hobby, we find land managers projecting wild ‘learned’ anxieties onto nondescript (and perfectly safe) assets, and we find local communities excavating rich meaning – in play and reminiscence – in the detritus of a landfill site. The programme thus provides both a practical and theoretical contribution towards understanding how places and structures become feared (as liabilities) or loved (as treasures) and of the logics and processes by which this occurs. It thus contributes to studies of the geographies of law, enthusiasm, exploration and heritage and to the sociologies of lay knowledge, law, organisation and also to material culture studies.