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Strategic initiative implementation has evolved in recent years as a new and progressive form of strategy making. In this regard, strategic initiative implementation constitutes one of the central topics of strategic management regarding how firms can renew their most valuable sources of competitive advantage: the firm's idiosyncratic resources and knowledge base. Strategic management concepts and practical guidelines are still lacking on how strategic initiative implementation affects a company's idiosyncratic resources and knowledge base and what kinds of challenging effects may evolve during the strategic initiative implementation. Therefore, the aim of this dissertation is to enhance our understanding of how strategic initiative implementation affects a firm's most valuable sources of competitive advantage. To achieve this aim, a qualitative case study approach is used to collect empirical evidence and describe the phenomena of strategic initiative related dysfunctions in the context of renewing a firm's sources of competitive advantage. The fieldwork started in October 2004 and finished in June 2007, and it comprised three in-depth case studies, based on three strategic initiatives; namely, the Sun Sigma initiative, the CRM Convergence initiative and the Balanced Scorecard initiative. The collected data were used to conceptualise strategic initiative related dysfunctions in accordance with the principles of grounded theory. The study contributes to the strategy making literature in the area of resource based theory, the theory of dynamic capabilities, and know ledge based theory of the firm by extending the strategic initiative related strategy making concepts through proposing a new theory that depicts the dysfunctional effects of strategic initiative implementation. New relations between the resource based view and the strategic initiative concept are proposed in the context of strategic initiative implementation and the interactions between ongoing initiatives. Furthermore, the study highlights the role and value of strategic initiative related dynamic capabilities. New insights into the challenges and limitations of extending and recombining the emerging knowledge bases from ongoing initiatives depict the evolution of dysfunctional knowledge.

Corporate governance refers to the set of mechanisms that affect the decision-making process taken by managers of quoted firms where the ownership and control are separate. The impact of corporate governance on corporate performance has been the main theme of research in accounting and finance at least since Jensen and Meckling (1976) published their work. Typically, empirical studies investigate whether different corporate governance mechanisms have an impact on directors' behaviour or corporate performance. However, corporate governance studies are complicated by the endogenous relationship that exists between control forces such as capital markets-the-regulatory system, factor markets, and internal governance mechanisms operating on a company and its decisions. This implies that the findings of empirical studies are questionable if these studies do not deal with endogeneity problems. A considerable number of empirical studies suggest that certain corporate governance mechanisms improve corporate performance, but those studies are affected by endogeneity issues. Roberts and Whited (2011) state that "endogeneity leads to biased and inconsistent parameter estimates that make reliable inference virtually impossible". The main purpose of this study, therefore, is to respond to these endogeneity concerns by using a well-developed generalised method of moments regression model (GMM) developed by Wintoki et al. (2012). The study examines the relationship between the board of directors' structure and corporate performance. Specifically, it investigates whether the presence of non-executive directors, duality, board size, director ownership, and the presence of board sub-committees have an impact on corporate performance. In addition, it also develops a governance index to find out whether the level of compliance with corporate governance regulations has an impact on corporate performance measured by ROA and Tobin's Q. To investigate these issues, the study adopts a comprehensive strategy which consists of three regression models, namely ordinary least square (OLS), fixed-effects model (FE), and generalised method of moments (GMM). Data for the analysis are extracted from annual reports, BoardEx database and Datastream databases for the period 1999 - 2009. The final sample includes a total of 634 UK firms listed on the London Stock Exchange. The results indicate that the level of compliance with corporate governance regulations and board structure are both partly determined by past corporate performance. After controlling for this, the results show that there is no relationship between current board of directors' structure and corporate performance. Further, the level of compliance with the recommendations of corporate governance has no impact on profitability measured by ROA. The results further reveal that the level of compliance with the Combined Code on Corporate Governance also has no impact on Tobin's Q as a proxy of corporate performance. These findings are inconsistent with many prior empirical studies and policy recommendations on corporate governance, which suggests that corporate governance mechanisms develop corporate performance. In addition, the findings indicate that the results of the earlier corporate governance studies that do not take into account the dynamic nature of corporate governance may be affected by bias.

Corporate governance has emerged as a decisive business issue. Less corporate governance research is undertaken in civil law countries like Germany. In this thesis, the role of institutional investors in Germany is studied with the aim of providing an answer to the following research question: What role do independent institutional investors play in the corporate governance of listed German companies? This study follows an inductive qualitative research approach. The research model is based on six variables - board oversight, board nomination, identifying weaknesses, making recommendations, introducing changes in corporate strategy and exercising institutional power - to determine the role of institutional investors and to provide answers. Overall, the results show that the participants of the research study experience the role and responsibilities of institutional investors in the German two-tier corporate governance system as weak to medium across all six variables. The handling of recommendations from institutional investors to companies is not structured or executed in a systematic way by the study participants. The results indicate that the interviewees are convinced that institutional investors could be valuable partners in strengthening and improving corporate governance. They can play a role in corporate governance and can add value because they have a good understanding about the strategy and business model of the companies, expertise in research & analysis as well as a good sector expertise. However, the type of institutional investor matters in corporate governance. The strongest players are private equity and hedge funds. The weakest players are endowments and insurances. The most common company situations when institutional investors prompt change are underperformance, special companysituationsicrisis, corporate finance issues and management remuneration. The majority of the study participants expect a higher shareholder engagement in the future. Most of them have a positive point of view about the future role of institutional investors in corporate governance. III R The managerial implications of this study are that the investor relations function is well established and the programmes are sufficiently executed in German companies. Communication is the most appropriate measure. However, other typical and presumably more powerful measures like use of voting rights, engagement in the AGM, regular contact to the members of the supervisory board, taking a seat in the supervisory board, owning a meaningful company stake and collaboration with other shareholders seem to play a minor role. There is still potential for institutional investors to improve their role in corporate governance in German companies. In order to improve their influence in corporate governance institutional investors need to be prepared to pursue an escalation strategy. This encompasses for example to increase their stake to a meaningful and powerful level and/or they need to collaborate effectively and systematically with other shareholders to increase their acceptance vis-a-vis the company and to .ask for a seat in the supervisory board. However, such an approach also needs a strong long-term commitment and investment perspective as well as an attitude that also considers the long-term interests of the company. It can be concluded that institutional investors with a high level of expertise can contribute to the widely discussed improvement of the competence and independence of German supervisory boards. Important prerequisites of institutional investors to play a role in corporate governance are no conflict of interest and a sufficient sector expertise. Therefore, disadvantages like conflict of interest and lack of expertise have to be addressed properly. The results from this research can be used to draw lessons for (1) members of supervisory boards, members of the management board (in particular CEOs, and CFOs), as well as investor relations officers of listed companies, who want to improve governance and the relationship with their institutional shareholders; (2) institutional investors who want to enhance their engagement in their portfolio companies; and (3) standard setters like institutions and commissions that want to improve corporate governance.

This study explores the place of the notion of negative capability in user responses to information systems change. Much has been written about information systems change, significantly less about negative capability, and there has been no research, at all, that links the two. User responses to the implementation of new IT have been researched since the advent of computers in organizations. Most of the existing research, however, examines situations where use is optional. This study argues that IT use is now often mandatory in most forms of organization – whether public, private or charitable. This has significant implications not only for people working in organizations that implement new IT but also for the research of such events. Negative capability has, over the past several years, started to appear in the management literature as a capacity that is uncovered when people hold an open mind during experiences of uncertainty and anxiety and resist the urge to grasp impatiently for any solution. This is sometimes contrasted with positive capabilities, which are based on a particular skill or knowledge base. Without the practice of negative capability, we observe people engaging in ‘dispersal’. This is the tendency under conditions of uncertainty to lose focus on the task and to disperse into intellectual, emotional and/or behavioural responses that do not serve the intended purpose. This paper adds to the body of knowledge by expanding our understanding of the notion of negative capability in responses to mandatory use of new IT with field studies. The research consists of two cases. The first case involves the experiences of paramedics when they convert from paper- to electronic-based reporting. The second case explores the implementation of an ERP system in a manufacturing organization. This research contributes to the body of knowledge in three ways. It is the first time that negative capability has been considered in the context of information systems/information technology change. It is novel in that it considers the emergence of negative capability after the demonstration of dispersal behaviours and it identifies instances in which such dispersal behaviours may be beneficial. A significant outcome is the development of a new analytical framework for researching and understanding negative capability during organizational change, exploring the capacity to practice negative capability at three organizational levels: organizational, relational and personal.

This thesis concerns the concepts associated with 'organisation-level competence'. Its focus is on the internal nature of organisation-level competence and with its application to company strategic management. The topic generated considerable interest in the early to mid 1990s amongst practitioners. This interest reflected the increased importance of the internal resource perspective on company strategy arising through increased global competition and the influence of rapidly developing technology. However, this interest generated much confusion as the concepts were often poorly defined, and although a prior theoretical base existed this was poorly linked to the practical use of the concept. This thesis demonstrates the theoretical roots of the concept and shows how it has been interpreted from the perspective of different research paradigms. It reports on research that has challenged the concept empirically and shown how it can be operationalised in several contrasting technology-based organisations. The focus of the work was an internal approach to the analysis of competence, in contrast to much of the literature on competence which concentrates on its external application. In view of the undeveloped status of the topic, and the desire to build theory and understanding rather than to make empirical generalisations, the research was concentrated on idiographic case studies. One of the outcomes of the research has been to provide a foundation for further work which can now build on better established concepts. The central theme of the research was to establish an improved understanding of the nature of competence in organisations. The concept has been delineated more precisely than hitherto and a framework has been derived for integrating related concepts. This is important since vagueness has arguably been limiting to the application of the concept. Competence has been delineated in terms of the new concepts of 'potential competence' and 'realised competence'. In doing so the paradox has been addressed that competence appears to be both a persistent and a contingent property. Another paradox, between competence and rigidity, has been addressed by proposing the unifying framework of a 'Resource utility matrix'. In addition the way in which the factors influencing competence can interact has been described. The research also provides an empirically derived and theoretically informed basis for techniques of applying the competence concept to the practice of strategic analysis. The questions of language and definition have been addressed. Limitations have been identified with analysis approaches in common use that are based on a hierarchical breakdown and a new approach has been proposed and tested which avoids such a breakdown. The approach makes use of a framework which has also been found to form a successful representation of company competence, within certain limits. A set of complementary representations has been suggested. The studies have also produced implications for the management of competence in organisations, including the potential and limitations of managerial action and the transferability of competence.

This thesis presents a critical review of the candidate’s Portfolio of Public Output, which is based on research conducted in the period November 2000 to date, and which consists of 21 peer-reviewed, publicly available papers published since 2001. The subject area which forms the basis of the thesis is the communication and exchange of information between ‘the state’ (i.e. parliaments and governments at the local, devolved, national and European levels, as well as those who aspire to become part of the state during parliamentary elections) and its ‘stakeholders’ (i.e. citizens, businesses, interest groups, etc.). Within this overarching theme, the thesis focuses on three distinct but interrelated sub-themes: 1) the provision and communication of information by, and within, parliaments; 2) the use of the Internet for information provision and exchange by political parties and candidates during parliamentary election campaigns; and 3) the exchange of information between government and stakeholders during formal public consultation processes. Within all three sub-themes, the thesis demonstrates the candidate’s contribution to the advancement of knowledge in two key and closely linked areas: the investigation of users’ information needs and informationseeking behaviour; and the critical evaluation of information service provision. The thesis begins by placing the Portfolio of Public Output in an historical, political context, by discussing the various parliamentary and government openness, transparency and consultative agendas that have influenced or driven the research on which the 21 papers are based. It continues by describing some of the candidate’s earlier research work, to illustrate his long-standing interest in state-stakeholder information provision and exchange, before outlining the various research projects from which the Portfolio outputs have emerged. In the core part of the thesis the 21 Portfolio outputs are synthesised and considered as part of a narrative whole, which reflects critically on their contents and which illustrates the candidate’s empirical, methodological and theoretical contribution to the field of library and information science (LIS). Here, the candidate argues that he has contributed significantly towards developing a better understanding of the information behaviour of stakeholders when engaging with the state, and a greater awareness of the ways in which government and parliamentary information systems and services might be more responsive to their stakeholders’ information needs, thus theoretically enabling a more informed, engaged and participatory body politic. In terms of the candidate’s empirical contribution, the thesis demonstrates that his papers have largely been unique, relevant and timely additions to the literature, written in a conscious effort to address gaps in our knowledge of: parliamentary information services and the ways in which citizens, elected members and officials engage with parliamentary information; the nature and the extent of online information provision and exchange by political actors during parliamentary election campaigns, as well as the online behaviour of voters when attempting to determine their democratic choice; and the accessibility and communication of information during government consultative processes. With regard to the candidate’s methodological contribution, the thesis records his key role in the design of innovative and effective data collection and analytical techniques, including: a series of protocol analysis codes to record citizens’ use of parliamentary websites; frameworks and schemata for the content analyses of political actors’ election campaign websites and social media sites; the use of covert research to measure politicians’ responsiveness online; and, perhaps most significantly, the interactive, electronicallyassisted interview in a roadshow setting. In terms of his theoretical contribution, the thesis discusses the candidate’s part in the development of the theory of Information Interchange, which considers the roles and aims of both the information provider and the information user in assessing the effectiveness of the information communication process, and which is built upon the dichotomy that appears to exist between the two perspectives. The theory recognises the significance of the different agendas and objectives of the actors involved in information interchange, in what can be a complex interaction between two or more parties with potentially conflicting conceptions of the purpose of the interchange process. Throughout the thesis, the candidate considers the actual and potential impact of his work on the LIS academic and practitioner communities. His 21 Portfolio outputs have created considerable academic interest internationally, and have been discussed and critiqued in numerous text books, journal articles, conference papers, research reports and doctoral theses; although there is only minimal evidence of others adopting, or adapting, his data collection and analytical techniques. While interest has been most significant amongst those in the LIS field, the multidisciplinary relevance of the candidate’s work has resulted in it being cited by authors from a wide range of other disciplines, from business administration to computing, and from engineering to public relations. In terms of the more practical impact of the candidate’s research work, on government and parliamentary information services and practices, the picture has been mixed. Research commissioned by the European Parliament has had the clearest and most significant impact, on its Library’s marketing and service strategies. In some cases, although a number of the candidate’s recommendations — relating to parliamentary public information services in the UK, and Scottish Government website deficiencies — have subsequently been addressed by these bodies, no direct causal relationship can be established. In other cases — particularly in relation to Scottish Government consultative processes, and the online electioneering of parliamentary candidates in Scotland — his recommendations have been ignored completely, and information practices have remained idiosyncratic, inconsistent and flawed. The thesis concludes by considering some of the candidate’s future research plans and opportunities in the specific field of state-stakeholder information provision and exchange.

The purpose of this research is to critically examine a concept that has been termed the 'Legacy of Leadership'. This study examines the values and beliefs that underpin leadership behaviour. Through such an examination, leaders are provided with the opportunity for personal reflection that could enable the enhancement of their own leadership performance.

Understanding the origins of persistent superior firm performance has in the past few decades emerged as one of most important areas of research in the field of strategic management. Existing empirical studies on performance variability, however, remain inconclusive, and a significant portion of the variance in performance is still unexplained. The purpose of this dissertation is to deepen our understanding of the firm-level sources of sustained competitive advantage. It is one of the few empirical studies that attempt to explore firm-level sources of sustained competitive advantage from inside the organization. This study adopts a resource-based perspective and an exploratory multicase study research design to empirically explore and inductively analyse firm-level differences and their links to competitive advantage. The study is based on 26 semi-structured interviews with senior management team members, drawn from a purposive cross-sectional sample of 11 high-performing firms in Switzerland and adjacent countries. The findings of the study suggest that nine firm resources are most closely associated with competitive advantage: firm reputation, culture, brand reputation, management team, employees, relationships, innovation capability, controlling employee fluctuation, and national reputation. This study makes a number of significant theoretical and managerial contributions. Most notably, it indicates that much of the performance variance previous studies have failed to explain is attributable to firm resources that have heretofore been ignored or handled in an overly abstract manner, such as innovation capability and national reputation. The study also calls researchers' attention to performance-relevant resource characteristics, suggests that the links between resources and firm performance may be more complex than often assumed, and indicates that defining strategic resources in terms of their use value alleviates the problem of tautology that the RBV i is sometimes claimed to suffer from. Finally, the study is of service to managers by suggesting firm resources that can lead to a sustained competitive advantage.

The Chief Learning Officer (CLO) of an organization is the executive responsible for learning and workplace performance, and is often a member of its top management team. Practicing human resource development (HRD) strategically, the CLO creates and conducts learning and development activities designed to increase workers’ capabilities and outcomes. This thesis establishes a theoretical description of the path HRD practitioners take to become CLOs, examines how they perform strategic HRD and where they go when finished in that role, and delineates the structure-agency dynamics they function within. Additionally, the thesis explores and explains the CLO phenomenon through the use of sociological theories of structure and agency. Particularly, it applies strong structuration theory to the CLO. Combining these theories provides a thorough theoretical explanation of the basic social process of the CLO phenomenon, grounded in the data. Using grounded theory as its qualitative research method, it gathers and analyzes the lived experiences of CLOs. The results from 20 semi-structured interviews with current and former CLOs are presented and analyzed to explore how HRD practitioners become CLOs, how CLOs practice strategic HRD, and where CLOs go in their careers. A foundational theoretical model for the CLO is offered, which includes several contributing theories. It is demonstrated that CLOs are constructing their roles and the social structures while simultaneously performing in them. Also, CLOs are shown to come from a variety of vocational backgrounds with varying degrees of experience in HR. They practice strategically whether or not they are members of their organizations’ top management teams. When they leave the CLO role, they also tend to move away from organizationally defined careers and towards self-defined ways of practice. Also offered are recommendations for further research and implications for HRD scholarship and practice.