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There has been much written about top teams, that is, existing teams that have the executive responsibility for leading their organisations each day, not specifically focused on one project or one change programme. However, little research has been carried out on meetings processes within ongoing top management teams and almost no research has been carried out over an extended period which has involved top management team members in their own Action Research. This research covers the period from earJy-2000 until mid-2004, and includes fieldwork with three organisations: Yorkshire Water, Loop Customer Management and A4e Work. An 'Iterative Meetings Model' has been developed that identifies what areas emerge when addressing team meetings; and within this model there has been developed a 'Dialogue Process for Top Management Team Meetings' which identifies how to communicate in meetings, if team members wish to be more effective. The dialogue process entails initially setting guidelines to be followed, which are replaced as team members gain confidence and awareness of themselves and what their own specific process and relationship principles need to be if they are to be even more effective. Their perceived progress, or lack of it, is also measured by using the four-stage group development model which, together with a specific review model, provide material for team discussion and a deeper understanding of the process, of relationship principles, of other team members, and of themselves. During the research, further insights were gained, amongst these were: that the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) plays a key role; the importance in having a top team purpose, as distinct from that of the organisation; the quality of conflict within the team changes as members progress through their stages of development; and there is an ongoing need for team relationship building.

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This thesis investigates corporate governance disclosure in companies' annual reports in relation to: 1) the robustness of the disclosure scoring methods and the sensitivity of association testing, and 2) the influence of corporate governance disclosure on market perceptions of a company. Companies listed in Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand for the financial year ending 2004 were chosen as samples in this study. This thesis employs both quantitative and qualitative methods of investigation. For the quantitative approach, theories related to corporate governance disclosure and environmental characteristics of Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand are employed to formulate testable hypotheses. To help validate and complement statistical findings, questionnaires and interviews with listed companies, investment analysts, external auditors and regulators have also been conducted. The contributions to knowledge are: 1) to contribute to theories on corporate governance disclosure, 2) to contrib ute a methodological extension to the understanding of factors influencing corporate governance disclosure and the impact of the disclosure on market perceptions of companies, 3) to understand corporate governance disclosure from different environmental perspectives such as culture and levels of economic and capital market developments, and 4) to provide possible suggestions for corporate governance codes or principles in relation to corporate governance disclosure. Key findings are: The regression results based on different scoring methods may bring out different sets of explanatory variables, suggesting that employing different scoring methods can help provide a clearer explanation/picture of corporate governance disclosure and its impact on market perceptions. Although financial disclosure theories can be applied to the area of corporate governance disclosure, the explanations of the theories should be interpreted with particular relevance to the context of corporate governance disclosure. Environmental determinism theory, which suggests that the environment in which companies operate can have an influence on their disclosure, is the dominant theory in explaining country differences in corporate governance disclosure.

This research has shown how the nature of the construction project has become increasingly complex and has highlighted how project management decision-making has been supplemented with the use of risk management strategies. Subsequently the use of risk management strategies in construction project execution has had some of its weaknesses exposed, namely the failure of such strategies to consider the role of the individual within the risk management process. Consequently this research has undertaken an investigation to ascertain and understand the nature and impact of individual decision-makers upon the decision-making process. The attributes of and influences upon individual decision-making, risk and uncertainty perceptions and preferences have been explored and discussed in some detail. From those the `risk prism', a metaphor for the perception and preference of risk and uncertainty, was developed to explore the manner in which these decision-making attributes function. An investigation was undertaken to replicate the `risky shift' phenomenon in decisionmaking groups populated by construction project management professionals. The results of this investigation ascertained the influence of the group environment upon construction management decision makers, namely that individuals were influenced to accept greater uncertainty in a group decision environment. Subsequently a case study investigation of an organisations attempt to introduce a new risk management strategy was undertaken from which an enhanced understanding of the group discussion and decision-making environment was ascertained. As a result of these investigations an improved risk management process was developed and is presented within this dissertation.

This research examines the cognitive construction of ‘Fit’ among male and female Chief Executives and Elected Members in Local Government. Using repertory grid technique, constructions of ‘Fit’ were elicited from 20 male and female Chief Executive and 20 male and female Elected Member pairs in England and Wales. Using a ‘grounded theory’ approach to content analysis, constructs were categorised into 16 categories. Results showed that the construction of ‘Fit’, among both Chief Executives and Elected Members contains elements of both P-J and P-O fit. Both Chief Executives’ and Elected Members’ notions of ‘Fit’ have some overlap with United Kingdom, public sector based constructs of Transformational Leadership. However, Elected Members’ construction of ‘Fit’ is qualitatively different, from that described by the Chief Executives in the sample. Male Elected Members lacked the relational and communal constructs expected in Transformational models. When the total sample was analysed by sex, male and female respondents also showed differences in their constructions of ‘Fit’. Males and females placed emphases on different sub-components of ‘Fit’ and these sex differences, although subdued, are broadly in line with previous repertory grid studies outlining perceived differences between male’s and female’s management and leadership styles. As a result it is concluded that ‘Fit’ is a gendered construct. This has important implications for (1) who is being appointed to senior positions in local government; (2) the assessment of leadership in more general terms; (3) the need for effective and close working relationships between Chief Executive and Leader of the Council; (4) the progress of the centrally driven modernising agenda in local government; and finally (5) the likelihood of significant culture change in local government in the near future.

Decision making problems are amongst the most common challenges facing managers at different management levels in the organisation: strategic, tactical, and operational. However, prior reaching decisions at the operational level of the management hierarchy, operations management departments frequently have to deal with the optimisation process to evaluate the available decision alternatives. Industries with complex supply chain structures and service organisations that have to optimise the utilisation of their resources are examples. Conventionally, operational decisions used to be taken centrally by a decision making authority located at the top of a hierarchically-structured organisation. In order to take decisions, information related to the managed system and the affecting externalities (e.g. demand) should be globally available to the decision maker. The obtained information is then processed to reach the optimal decision. This approach usually makes extensive use of information systems (IS) containing myriad of optimisation algorithms and meta-heuristics to process the high amount and complex nature of data. The decisions reached are then broadcasted to the passive actuators of the system to put them in execution. On the other hand, recent advancements in information and communication technologies (ICT) made it possible to distribute the decision making rights and proved its applicability in several sectors. The market-based approach is as such a distributed decision making mechanism where passive actuators are delegated the rights of taking individual decisions matching their self-interests. The communication among the market agents is done through market transactions regulated by auctions. The system’s global optimisation, therefore, raise from the aggregated self-oriented market agents. As opposed to the centralised approach, the main characteristics of the market-based approach are the market mechanism and local knowledge of the agents. The existence of both approaches attracted several studies to compare them in different contexts. Recently, some comparisons compared the centralised versus market-based approaches in the context of transportation applications from an algorithm perspective. Transportation applications and routing problems are assumed to be good candidates for this comparison given the distributed nature of the system and due to the presence of several sources of uncertainty. Uncertainty exceptions make decisions highly vulnerable and necessitating frequent corrective interventions to keep an efficient level of service. Motivated by the previous comparison studies, this research aims at further investigating the features of both approaches and to contrast them in the context of a distributed task allocation problem in light of environmental uncertainty. Similar applications are often faced by service industries with mobile workforce. Contrary to the previous comparison studies that sought to compare those approaches at the mechanism level, this research attempts to identify the effect of the most significant characteristics of each approach to face environmental uncertainty, which is reflected in this research by the arrival of dynamic tasks and the occurrence of stochasticity delays. To achieve the aim of this research, a target optimisation problem from the VRP family is proposed and solved with both approaches. Given that this research does not target proposing new algorithms, two basic solution mechanisms are adopted to compare the centralised and the market-based approach. The produced solutions are executed on a dedicated multi-agent simulation system. During execution dynamism and stochasticity are introduced. The research findings suggest that a market-based approach is attractive to implement in highly uncertain environments when the degree of local knowledge and workers’ experience is high and when the system tends to be complex with large dimensions. It is also suggested that a centralised approach fits more in situations where uncertainty is lower and the decision maker is able to make timely decision updates, which is in turn regulated by the size of the system at hand.

The safety literature describes senior managers as crucially influencing organisational safety. Yet, it is not fully understood, what contributes to their influence. This thesis investigated senior managers’ characteristics in relation to their impact on safety in air traffic management organisations. A review of the safety literature indicated research in this area would benefit from the introduction of a research model as a theoretical basis. The skills-based leadership model by Mumford and colleagues was proposed as a suitable model for senior managers’ influence on organisational safety. A safety–specific version of the model was devised, consisting of traits (Big Fives, regulatory focus), skills (problem solving, social competence) and safety knowledge as antecedents of safety commitment and organisational safety outcomes. Study 1 explored the relevance of these characteristics for senior managers’ work on safety using semi-structured interviews with senior managers (N = 9). Responses were coded into the characteristics with sufficient reliability using qualitative content analysis. The characteristics were found to be relevant for senior managers’ influence on safety and their content was refined based on the findings. Safety knowledge and social competence were frequently indicated. Interpersonal leadership emerged as additionally relevant. Study 2 investigated the characteristics’ relevance for safety managers’ and CEOs’ influence on safety with questionnaires consisting of open questions (N = 49). Responses were coded using qualitative content analysis with acceptable reliability. The results re-confirmed the relevance of the characteristics. As in the previous study, interpersonal leadership emerged. Furthermore, problem-solving, leadership and safety knowledge were found more frequently for CEOs than for safety managers, whereas personality was more frequently indicated for safety managers than for CEOs. Finally, Study 3 tested the characteristics’ influence on safety commitment, which was conceptualised as indicated through behaviours that reflect a positive attitude towards safety. Interview questions, scenarios and questionnaires were used to measure characteristics and safety commitment in a sample of senior managers (N = 60). Interview and scenario responses were quantified with acceptable reliability. The results indicated that not all characteristics that were previously found to be relevant for senior managers’ influence on organisational safety were also related to safety commitment. Mainly, problem solving was shown to influence safety commitment, with the ability to understand problems, to identify useful information-sources and to generate ideas that relate to changes in the organisation’s culture as most influential. The findings can inform guidance and training for senior managers. Future research in this area could benefit from a focus on the conceptualisation of safety commitment, the role of interpersonal leadership style, as well as safety knowledge and the skills included in the research model.

This research sought to find local evidence within the Israeli context that corporate social responsibility can have positive impact on corporate financial performance, similar to research findings in leading western economies. Such local based evidence, if found, would encourage the inclusion of CSR as part of strategic management of companies in Israel. The investigation focused on a sample of leading companies in Israel, forming part of the TA-100 stock exchange index, and was undertaken between 2005 and 2006. The research used quantitative investigation of secondary data on financial performance that is available for companies traded on the stock exchange. It included social responsibility ranking undertaken by the association of 'Business for social responsibility in Israel' – MAALA. This data was used to compare financial performance between groups of companies with different levels of social responsibility. The research found that higher social responsibility for companies in Israel was associated with higher financial performance, in comparison to their counterpart companies ranked as lower in social responsibility. However at the extreme, a very high level of social responsibility is associated with decline in financial performance. The research conclusion was that companies in Israel face the same CSR-to-CFP relationship, as their counterparts in leading western economies. This provides the rationale for Israeli companies to incorporate social responsibility as part of their business strategy aimed at improving financial performance.