What are the cognitive processes used by negotiators in uncertain and complex environments? What are the task environments which may induce negotiators' cognition towards intuition and quasirationality? These are the questions raised in this thesis. The dominant negotiation research literature, on the basis of insights from Bounded Rationality theory and the school of cognitive illusions, replies to it by normatively prescribing the use of analysis and by advising against the use of intuition and quasirationality. In the same time, there is a dearth of literature and empirical data about this topic with professional negotiators in real negotiation tasks. Facing such a situation, this thesis reviews the available literature and highlight gaps in our current understanding of the cognitive processes of negotiators in uncertain and complex task environments, and of intuition in particular. The thesis then builds on this discussion to develop the analytical framework based on Social Judgment Theory's insights. This framework in turn guided the subsequent qualitative investigation, through the use of the explicitation interviewing technique, of the cognitive processes of professional negotiators in the EU institutions, particularly in complex and uncertain task environments. Through this empirically grounded and theoretically informed approach, this thesis highlights the widespread use of non analytical cognitive modes (intuition and quasirationality) in some key negotiation tasks, the importance of trust in such a case to ensure a match between the cognitive mode used and that induced by the task, and, conversely, the impact of political expediency in the choice by negotiators of a cognitive mode different from that induced by the task. Last, it highlights the possible cognitive conflicts resulting from the use of different cognitive modes by agents and principals. This thesis suggests that the mainstream negotiation literature fails to give enough importance to the cognitive impact of tasks and to the use of non analytical cognitive modes in negotiation tasks. In particular, it does not factor in that, in certain tasks, negotiators may not have any other cognitive choice, but also for good cognitive reasons, than using intuition and quasirationality. As a consequence, the thesis makes an argument in favour of a more systematic attention to the cognitive impact of tasks in negotiation, and concludes that further research on this topic is essential to arrive at a better understanding of how tasks influence negotiator's cognition , how and to what extent a cognitive match between the cognition used and that induced by the task can impact the outcome of a negotiation.

The present study examines the storytelling surrounding the organisational crisis at the Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust over the period from March 2009 to November 2010, based on the data collected from twelve sources and 1274 documents relevant to the case. The study addresses three core questions: How does storytelling relating to one event unfold into multiple stories? How do the roles of storyteller and audience change over time? How does the evolution of storytelling bring about the unintended consequences? The study is grounded in the critical management studies and “managerialist” literatures on stories and storytelling in organisation and derives from these three main elements of its theoretical framework: ante-narrative, poetic delivery, and message simplification. The study suggests that these elements share a unifying notion of speculation. Speculation here is seen as an antidote to the potential stultification of the relationships between the storyteller and the audience in the accounts of storytelling. To counteract such stultification, the study brings the dynamic nature of storytelling to the fore and examines the evolution of storytelling over time using the methodology of frame analysis. Frame analysis identified and traced seven frames that emerged as the storytelling surrounding the crisis evolved. The study found the role of the storytellers and audience became mutually dependent and blurred as the events unfolded. The storytellers and audience were intertwined through a need to maintain a shared account of the events at MSFT. They were bound together through their speculative storytelling in order to answer the questions of “did it really?” and “so what?” The analysis has also identified two unintended consequences of the storytelling surrounding the crisis: sacralisation and memorialisation. Together, these consequences have produced a shield (metaphorically speaking) that has served to protect the organisational structures of the NHS from a more radical questioning.

For the past decades, China has been undergoing strong economic growth and social transformation in a way it has never experienced before. Against such significant movements in the country, managers of the foreign firms operating in China are increasingly faced with greater challenges of managing the local employees whose mindsets, beliefs, and values are embedded in the local culture that shows the country’s unique characteristics shaped by its historical development in various aspects. Each nation state’s specific cultural environment inevitably creates the parameters within which the systems or practices espoused by a firm should be formulated and carried out in a fashion that they will not upset the stakeholders and, in particular, the local workforce as it comprises the human resources deployed to execute the firms’ strategies and performance plans. Therefore, it is important for foreign firms with presence in China to know whether and how any of the Chinese cultural characteristics may impose any impact on the way their performance management (“PM”) practices should be formulated to ensure that the local employees can perform according to the firms’ expectations and objectives. The aim of this thesis is therefore to explore the knowledge that the author considers as useful for foreign firms to acquire so that they can better plan their PM strategy to pursue more optimal business performance based on a better understanding of the cultural idiosyncrasies in China. The paper considers five research questions that explore the effect of Chinese culture on foreign firms in China. For this study, the author carried out a quantitative survey within nineteen foreign firms in China and a qualitative study of a MNC to assess those firms’ PM system and the response of Chinese employees as to whether there is any impact of Chinese culture on PM in foreign firms which are operating in China.

The key concern for business entities in the twenty-first century has become being 'socially responsible', which led to the adoption of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as their main strategy of management. Today, it has become common to see the notion of CSR from the majority of the top companies globally, regardless of their socio-cultural background. However, despite such major change, the majority of the literature is lacking in respect of multi-level analysis of social perspectives and their relationships with CSR activities of corporate organisations from different cultural backgrounds. Therefore, this research is designed with the intentions of filling the existing intellectual gaps and further expanding the understanding of CSR within an international context. This research attempts to discover the extent to which the social characteristics of a nation can affect the nation's CSR policies by exploration and analysis of two nations' corporate organisations' CSR policies and actions, which have distinctive business system and social norms from one another: the UK and Japan. To understand the two nations' CSR policies and actions, this research performed indepth analysis and exploration of data collected from the six case studies, which measured the organisations' CSR policies and actions in respect of four key normative stakeholders (customers, suppliers, employees, NGOs/Shareholders). The research reveals that, by and large, the two nations' CSR policies and actions take similar approaches. However, the extent of each level's involvement (individual, organisational, and institutional) as well as the stage of the involvement (predictor, mediator, moderator, and outcome) is different in each nation. The key factor behind such difference is societal values and social norms, which over time determined how the business system is organised in each nation. Hence, the concept of CSR may have been globally accepted, its adaptation yet to be dependent upon each nation's business system that is conditioned by institutional settings.

Given the increasing complexity of innovation and entrepreneurship, Chinese innovators and entrepreneurs often develop guanxi in order to establish collaborations. In this pattern of open innovation, mutual resources based on guanxi are able to benefit the guanxi actors. Therefore, how innovators and entrepreneurs develop guanxi may have an impact on the outcome of their innovation and entrepreneurship. Existing guanxi development models taking de-relational substantial ism treat guanxi development processes as comprised of individual guanxi constructs, which are substantial elements acting by their own powers. In consequence, the focus of existing studies is placed on investigating the guanxi constructs, and the processes of guanxi development are intended to reduce to these isolated guanxi constructs. However, Chinese guanxi is an intricate social phenomenon, and people develop guanxi within certain contexts. Thus, no guanxi construct can be separated from its situated contexts and act independently. In practice, guanxi constructs relate to each other dynamically, so their relational nature is more significant in developing guanxi. This research criticises the existing studies on guanxi development as static and lacking the support of empirical research. A combined philosophical approach of structuralism and relationism has been taken to explore the processes and dynamics of guanxi development among Chinese innovators and entrepreneurs. This approach addresses the relational nature of guanxi constructs, which then reflects the intricacy of the Chinese guanxi phenomenon and the dynamic nature of guanxi development. Therefore, this relational and structuralist approach is more relevant for understanding the guanxi development processes. Drawing on relational sociology and structuration theory, a theoretical framework is constructed to show the pattern of structural interactions involved throughout the entire process of guanxi development. With empirical evidence collected from fieldwork, it is demonstrated that the structural interactions between guanxi actors and their situated relational contexts constitute the dynamic processes of guanxi development. This research challenges existing models, especially their philosophical perspective of de-relational substantial ism . By extending the focus of study to include the relational nature of guanxi constructs, this research fills the gaps in the literature on the dynamics of guanxi development, and proposes a theoretical framework of dynamic guanxi development processes with empirical support.

Research on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in developing countries is still underdeveloped. By studying CSR in the Zambian mining industry, this research not only tries to fill this gap but also assesses CSR practices in a sector which suffers high CSR challenges despite its significant economic contribution. In developing countries, the role of the State in promoting economic development is enormous. The State should, therefore, play a key role in driving CSR (Moon, 2002) as it is the business contribution to sustainable development. However, the State has been weakened by the growing power and influence of the multinational corporations, which increasingly are assuming a 'political' statelike role (Matten and Crane, 2005). The complementary role of Civil Society, which represents the interest of the citizenry, and hold corporations (and government) accountable becomes important (Scherer and Palazzo, 2011). The purpose of CSR is to promote a more open, transparent and democratic society (Gray, 2002). A democratic evolution would be promoted through increased accountability and transparency, particularly of powerful institutions and organisations, by recognising the rights to information of the polity (Brown and Fraser, 2006). Deliberation becomes a process through which the information rights are acknowledged for decision making purposes and the protection against potential abuses of corporate power. This research assesses current CSR reporting practice, in the Zambian mining industry, and seeks to improve (in context) upon this via State and a process of deliberative democracy. The potentiality for democratic dialogue is explored in attempting to highlight the needed change for "true" accountability to occur. It argues for "small steps" of constant improvement and transformation of real democratic processes and institutions, according to the Habermasian deliberative model adopted, in order to realise the positive effects of deliberation.

While the business environment in Saudi Arabia is generally considered to be favourable, inadequate strategic planning and management have been implicated in the suspension or de-listing of a number of firms from the stock exchange; in that respect, the study is an examination of potential ‘best practices’ in strategic management in the context of the use of strategic management tools. The main research question is on how the application of strategic management tools is reflected in firm performance. This is measured by the perceptions of managers within firms about the tools’ effectiveness in terms of information-gathering, developing objectives, and performance management. The primary research consists of a questionnaire administered to 213 managers at Saudi-listed firms, representing a cross-section of various business sectors. Follow-up semi-structured interviews were then conducted with 18 of the questionnaire respondents to gather further insights into their assessments of strategic management tools and the decision-making processes behind their selections of particular tools. The study’s findings are that strategic management tools use is widespread among firms, with all of the surveyed managers identifying one or more tools used by their firms. Managers in firms with significant foreign relationships – local subsidiaries of foreign firms, or firms with operations outside Saudi Arabia – reported using tools more frequently and using a greater variety of tools than their domestic counterparts, although the difference was slight, and there were no notable differences in the perceptions of tools’ effectiveness that could be associated with the ownership structure. Overall, managers reported that the use of strategic management tools positively impacted their firms’ performance, and the results of statistical analysis revealed that the perceived effectiveness of strategic management tools is positively associated with the type of firm rather than with the type of tool. The results of the study have beneficial implications for improving the performance of other firms in the Saudi business environment, and suggest areas for further study to enhance the use of strategic management tools.

In the dynamic business environment, the importance of information sharing drives organisations to adopt information systems in order to achieve optimal performances. Enterprise information systems, in particular, have been widely utilised to enable information sharing across the whole organisations. However, the business processes and information flows in organisations and enterprise information systems are often not thoroughly aligned. As a result, the implementation and utilisation of enterprise information systems remain troublesome, which further hinders information sharing. Business processes provide the context for information to be used by people. Business process modelling is the process of identifying and specifying the formal and informal characters of human activities within organisations through a systematic manner. The results of business process modelling are commonly used to support the development of information systems. Hence, this research aims to improve information sharing through business process modelling in enterprise information systems and organisations. In order to achieve this aim, this research follows the design science research paradigm and develops an artefact-oriented concept along with an artefact-oriented business process modelling method. Developed from activity theory and organisational semiotics, the artefact-oriented concept views the elements within organisations as being artefacts, activities, and agents. Based on the ontological dependency, artefacts can be used to collect and categorise information from relevant activities and agents. The use of artefacts as a modelling basis allows the scalability of business processes. The results from business process modelling can, therefore, be used to enable artefact-based information sharing in enterprise information systems and organisations. The concept and method were validated and evaluated through case studies. The case study findings suggest that the artefact-oriented concept and artefact-oriented business process modelling method are suitable for organisations to align information sharing with their business processes.

This research identifies the key components necessary for the integration of business intelligence (BI) into the design of information systems (IS) applications, which are used to develop a new framework for integrating BI into IS design (FIBIISD). The research observed a trend, whereby, the design of BI is treated as an afterthought to the design of IS applications. Currently, BI requirements are given almost negligible consideration during the design of IS applications. Bf requirements are considered, when stakeholder groups of the already implemented IS applications begin to make demands for capabilities to report, inquire, analyse, synthesise or explore information held in such IS applications. Thus, BI design is done, mostly, after the design and implementation of Is applications. Often, when a number of disparate IS applications have been in use for a while and are generating varieties of data at high volumes and velocity. Such approach to BJ design creates many problems that may not be immediately understood or appreciated by either the designers or the many stakeholder groups involved in taking business actions, making business decisions and managing business performance. The question this research sought to answer was whether BI requirements could be considered during the IS application design phase? Therefore, the research combined practical observations with the examination of published literature from academia and industry. The focus of such practical observations and literature review converged on the need to integrate BI requirements into the design of IS applications.

Businesses depend on Information Technology (IT) more than ever. Disruptions in a IT infrastructure causes disruptions in business processes which lead to financial losses, legal consequences, losses in reputation and may cause bankruptcies. Business Continuity Management (BCM) addresses these problems by conducting a Business Impact Analysis (BIA) and providing a Business Continuity Plan against various expected threats and disruptions. For Business Continuity Management an integrated and coherent view of all involved business processes, IT and facility level resources services is essential. Creating such a view using ' conventional methodologies is, however, time consuming and error prone. Dealing with large, heterogenous, and complex IT infrastructures further demand automated process impact analyses, Service Level Agreement (SLA) translations and recovery plan validations. The major contributions of this research are: * A non-intrusive approach to extend business process modelling environments with BCM analysis and a model-driven methodology to create a coherent view on all important IT and facility level elements, * A novel methodology for automated Business Impact Analyses * A first ever Petri-Net based solution which permits to translate Business Process Continuity Requirements into SLAs and prop- agate these SLAs across an IT landscape.