South Africa is often described as a nation in transition since the societal and political transformation is an ongoing process. The South African employment environment is one area that now boasts a number of laws that are interrelated and aimed at achieving transformation of the workplace, as well as the economic empowerment of those who had previously been victims of racial segregation. The Employment Equity Act No. 55 of 1998 is regarded as central to the appreciation of equality of individuals in the workplace, irrespective of race, gender and/or disability. The management of communication is central to the process of corporate transformation as a result of this Act. (This fact is confirmed by the emphasis in the Act itself on organisations’ duty to inform and consult with stakeholders and several guideline documents.) Since previous research had pointed to broadly defined communication problems, the overarching research question of this study is: “How do South African organisations manage communication about Affirmative Action (within the context of Employment Equity)?” Chaos theory (a postmodern perspective) serves as the theoretical framework from which organisations’ approach to the duty to inform and consult with stakeholders, transformational change management, the management of communication and transformational leadership were investigated. A conceptual framework for the management of communication in this context, which is based on the ideas of the chaos perspective, is also proposed. Empirical evidence regarding the research question was gathered by means of a qualitative, multiple case study investigation. The most senior Communication, Human Resources and Employment Equity practitioners were interviewed in each of the three organisations, while the Employment Equity communication strategy of each organisation was compared to the theoretical framework by Thomas and Robertshaw (1999). The unique corporate philosophy of each organisation influences the manner in which Employment Equity strategies are implemented. The term “Affirmative Action” is not utilised in any of the organisations. Communication has strategic value in the external arena, while internal communication about Employment Equity is not satisfactory in two of the organisations. All types/levels of leaders have communication responsibilities in this context, while one organisation also relies on the philosophy of self-directed leadership. Only one organisation is currently managing communication according to a formalised strategy. Recommendations regarding the management of communication in this transformational context can be summarised with the overarching requirement that transformation should be approached as a “thinking science”. The multitude of paradoxes that were highlighted by the chaos perspective should be considered constantly: herein lies the real challenge for South African organisations. / Dissertation (MPhil)--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Communication Management / MPhil / Unrestricted

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Various forms of resistance are emerging in Human Geography in response to human caused environmental degradation and climate change. One such example is the Natural Change (NC) project, a World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) initiative about social change through a facilitated wilderness experience. Wilderness is seen as an affective quality, acting as a catalyst for an empirical embodied experience of the integral human connectivity to Nature. This connectivity is seen to inform the subject's framing of distanciated environmental issues and intends to re-territorialise their positionality as an ecological Self. The NC seeks to create an embodied connectivity with Nature, which desires immunising others as a form of self-protection. The WWF NC project began by selecting influential individuals from large organisations in Scotland. After two groups completed the NC, the project was deemed highly successful by the WWF and was then terminated by a change of leadership at the WWF. The creators of the NC went on to create the Natural Change Foundation (NCF) and offer the program to eco-facilitators so that they might integrate the NC experience into their work. This research explicates the changing positionality of individuals, before, during and after the NC course. The research showed that two spaces emerged after the NC course. In one space the subjects attempt to structure a diffluence of feelings and ideas and struggle to act, while in another space the subjects combine influence and agency with a grounding element of experiential connectivity, to move to a confluence of feelings that result in action. The research identified that a specific type of efficacy and agency is needed to empower individuals after the NC course, to enact social change through action. The research highlights the importance of access to, or the creation of situations, which are supportive of efficacy and agency. These findings have profound implications for Human Geographers interested in enacting policy in relation to climate change and environmental degradation, that results in social action for an ecologically sustainable future.

The “University” is under pressure to address both local and general requirements from society towards a phenomenon called globalisation. In Brazil, the Ministry of Education has tried, without success, to promote institutional change. Confronted by this situation a process initiated by an internal change agent and based upon the introduction of Action Research was itself the subject of this AR Study by the change agent. This thesis draws upon the findings of that AR and uses it to critically examine the potential to foster change within the higher education context in Brazil using AR. The research was designed in two synchronous processes taking place at two different levels. The first is the facilitation of the uptake of Action Research by a group of academic staff, and the second is the research into that process as a piece of Action Research in its own right by the change agent/facilitator. Facilitation of change has been described as taking place in three phases: a) Mobilization; b) Implementation; and c) Continuation. Throughout such phases in this case data were systematically gathered by the use of five instruments of data collection: 1) Observation; 2) Diary; 3) Questionnaires; 4) Interviews; and 5) Sociogram. Results show my personal learning in facilitating this process of change and two main contributions to knowledge. The first is one which, though local and specific, may nevertheless speak to the challenges faced by other practitioners. Exemplified in this study by the critical exploration of the ‘Daisy Model’ of introducing AR that led to its modification into the ‘Flower Model’. The second is that new knowledge which appears to be more generalisable and for which a case can be made for its wider applicability. Again exemplified in the continuous and disruptive process of change that unfolded to reveal a suitable framework for the use of Action Research as a vehicle of change in a rural university in Brazil where all actions were based on four central principles that emerged from the research: neutrality, voluntary participation, time and motivation. The future success and sustainability of the change processes begun are contingent upon the reaction of the current management of the institution. Five scenarios are examined and a second phase for this AR project is suggested that attempts to address the issues raised.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Irvine, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 85-96).

I use my art practice in conjunction with environmental behaviour research and Michel de Certeau’s practice of the everyday, to enable a re-examination of socially engaged art and through art to activate environmental behaviour change. Questions Clarify contemporary debate about demonstrable and desirable aspects and issues of socially engaged art practice and through my own practice identify its key characteristics. Examine the claim for change offered by many socially engaged practitioners. Context The socially engaged artist operates outside of the gallery, in everyday lives and real situations, often engaging in issues of meaning to society at large, where participation and facilitation of dialogue are the common characteristics. I identify participation, the ambition of social change, aesthetic representation and a failure to communicate beyond the participative event as key considerations. (Bishop 2004; Bourriaud 2002; Kester 2004; Kwon 2004) I propose an aesthetic of presence, to recognise community as a creative vernacular and as pooled knowledge. Drawn from Michel de Certeau’s research into everyday life (Michel de Certeau 1985; Michel de Certeau et al. 1998a) this also provides a refocusing on participation through conversation and describes rupture events, which signify change occurring. Method This thesis compares research in an alternative field, environmental behaviour, which investigates the impediments to change (the value-action gap), how change happens and identifies the change agent, as essential to encourage change at a personal level. (Ballard and Associates 2005b; Darnton et al. 2006) I use the value-action gap, the tension point between knowing about climate change and failing to make changes in our own behaviour, (Blake 1999; Darnton 2004b; Kollmus and Agyeman 2002) as a direct impetus to make participative artwork that examines the idea of a sustainable lifestyle. My art practice recognises a three-stage process: an admission of my own environmental behaviour; encouraging reciprocal participation and conversation and enabling personal reflection; representing conversation offering shared vernacular knowledge and enabling others’ engagement with the artwork and behaviour change. Equating the socially engaged artist with the environmental change agent, I synthesised the Model for Change Agents (S. Ballard and Ballard 2005a; Ballard and Associates 2005b) with research on participation in the arts (Matarasso 1997), as a basis for understanding how participation occurs and how change could happen in socially engaged artworks. An analysis of pilot artworks extends this model to identify the conditions for change, which also equate to the aesthetic aspects of the artwork, in a new model for Practice, Participation and Progression. Outcomes I propose key characteristics for socially engaged practice based on analysis of contemporary commentators and the model for practice, participation and progression. The role of the socially engaged artist is identified as comparable to the change agent. Representing conversation, addresses an issue of socially engaged practice to communicate beyond documentation of the event’s provocation and participation. I develop discussion of the discursive site beyond participation itself to a community of common sensibility and pooled knowledge as a demonstration of personal agency that is able to redefine the public ideal and challenge dominant culture. Re-presenting conversation is a means of sharing knowledge, stimulating change and expanding community. Contributing to environmental behaviour research my art practice reveals our ability to abstract behaviour, identifies our main areas of concern within lifestyle, our motivations for making change and the importance of the preservation of personal agency. I also comment on de Certeau, identifying the problems with individual resistance through the everyday, exploring mini-rupture events signaling change and proposing a reversal of the aesthetic of absence to an aesthetic of presence creating a new narrative that utilises personal agency.

En quarante ans, la Bretagne a subi en moyenne un naufrage de pétrolier tous les cinq ans. A chaque marée noire, le dommage écologique génère des mobilisations massives, des controverses sur la scène publique et la remise en cause des dispositifs de régulation. Malgré son évidence sensible, ni le régime international d'indemnisation (FIPOL) ni le Droit national n'intègrent l'atteinte environnementale comme motif supplémentaire de responsabilité financière pour les opérateurs. Les dommages de la pollution sont pris en compte à travers, d'un côté, les préjudices économiques et matériels et, de l'autre, les dommages purs à la biodiversité, sous la forme d'actions de restauration des milieux naturels. Les critiques pointent la faiblesse de la dissuasion : les coûts d'une marée noire pour les acteurs du transport maritime pétrolier sont considérés dérisoires au vu des profits et donc peu incitatifs à des comportements plus prudents. Elles réclament également la reconnaissance des dommages écologiques par le Droit, qui ouvrirait la possibilité de conséquences juridiques et économiques concrètes aux faits de pollutions et l'indemnisation des atteintes à l'environnement.Cette recherche s'intéresse aux processus de changement vers la reconnaissance des dommages écologiques des marées noires. Il ne s'agit pas de questionner l'efficacité de la prise en compte des dégradations environnementales par le dispositif de gestion ou les voies juridiques susceptibles de soutenir son intégration dans le Droit - déjà largement explorées - mais d'étudier les réalités du dommage écologique et d'analyser les actions de changement mises en oeuvre par des acteurs pour susciter leur reconnaissance. Cette analyse est conduite à partir de deux cas d'étude, la marée noire de l'Amoco Cadiz (1978) et celle de l'Erika (1999).Nous explorons une voie alternative et élargie de compréhension des atteintes de la marée noire, en considérant que la marée noire endommage aussi des relations plurielles entre hommes et environnement. Grâce à la sociologie pragmatique développée par Thévenot dans L'action au pluriel (2006) nous montrons les réalités plurielles du dommage écologique en termes d'attachements d’hommes à des non humains, que ni la description des écologues, ni celle des attachements de type marchand ne parviennent à saisir. Par ailleurs, à partir d'une analyse stratégique de la gestion de l'environnement (Mermet et al., 2005), nous étudions la manière dont les acteurs élaborent l'action de changement et comment celle-ci porte le dommage écologique. Nous nous intéressons tout particulièrement à la manière dont les enjeux de l'action induisent certains choix de qualification du dommage au tribunal.La recherche propose ainsi de nouvelles connaissances sur le dommage écologique, qui pourraient en renouveler la définition (intérêt théorique). Questionner les atteintes aux attachements pourrait également ouvrir une voie intéressante pour soutenir de nouvelles formes de justification sur la scène publique et favoriser la reconnaissance juridique des dommages écologiques (intérêt opérationnel). Enfin, elle articule deux cadres de pensée jusque-là disjoints en sciences humaines et qui se révèlent complémentaires. En donnant à voir les réalités plurielles, individuelles et collectives, des dynamiques environnementales, cette recherche propose d'enrichir la compréhension de la mise en oeuvre d'une action de changement au-delà des analyses de l'action collective (Cefaï, 2007). / Over the last forty years, an oil tanker has sunk off the Brittany coast of France every five years on average. Each time, the ecological damage from the oil slick has mobilised huge numbers of people to volunteer and demonstrate, and generated public controversy and criticism of regulatory procedures. Although oil spills provoke evident impacts, neither the International Oil Pollution Compensation Funds (IOPC Funds) nor French Law recognise environmental detriment as a motif for financial compensation by the operators. The damages and pollution are taken into account firstly as economic and material losses, and secondly in terms of damage to biodiversity requiring habitat restoration actions. Critics highlight the feeble deterrent and the lack of incentive for maritime oil transporters to reduce risks: in relation to their profits the costs of an oil slick to them is regarded as derisory. These critics also call for recognition of ecological damages by the law. This would allow environmental pollution to incur economic and juridical responsibilities, and for environmental harm to require compensation.This research project looks at change processes leading to the recognition of ecological damage from oil slicks. We do not add to the existing substantial debate over the efficiency or interest of integrating environmental concerns into conduct rules and the legal system, nor evaluate different methods for doing do. Instead we study the realities of ecological damage, and analyse actions for change implemented by different actors to provoke their recognition. This analysis is based on two case studies: the oil slicks from the Amoco Cadiz (1978) and the Erika (1999).We explore an alternative and wider approach to understanding the harm caused by an oil slick, by considering that it damages multiple relationships between man and the environment. Using the concept of pragmatic sociology (Thévenot, “L’action au pluriel”, 2006) we reveal the multiple realities of ecological damage in terms of the relations between humans and nonhumans. These relations cannot be described in purely commercial nor ecological terms. Using a strategic analysis of environmental management (Mermet et al., 2005), we study how actors elaborate an action for change and how the action represents environmental damage. We look particularly at how the challenge of the action leads to certain choices when qualifying the damage to the courts.Thus, the study proposes new information on ecological damage, allowing the definition to be renewed (theoretical interest). By examining ecological damage in terms of harm to human – nonhuman relations, it provides an interesting support for new forms of justification in the public arena, and promotes legal recognition of ecological damage (operational interest). Finally, the study brings together, and shows to be complementary, two conceptual frameworks hereto unarticulated in human sciences. The study reveals the multiple individual and collective realities of environmental dynamics, and thus allows a richer understanding of the implementation of an action for change than a standard analysis of collective action (Cefai, 2007).

Seit langem ist die Intelligenz des Menschen für viele Forscher und Philosophen ein faszinierendes Forschungsobjekt. Mit dem Aufkommen der Computertechnik erscheint nun zum ersten mal der Traum, einige dieser typisch menschlichen Fähigkeiten nicht nur zu verstehen, sondern nachbauen oder in Teilgebieten gar übertreffen zu können, als realistisch. Ein wichtiger Teil dieses mit "Künstliche Intelligenz" überschriebenen Forschungsgebietes ist das Schließen über Aktionen und Veränderung. Hier wird versucht, die menschliche Fähigkeit, die Effekte seiner Aktionen vorauszusehen und Pläne zum Erreichen von Zielen zu schmieden, nachzubilden. Ein aktives Forschungsgebiet in diesem Rahmen ist der Fluentkalkül, ein Formalismus zur Modellierung von Aktionen und Veränderung. Er stellt Mittel bereit, in der ein automatischer Agent seine Umgebung und die Effekte seiner Aktionen im Rahmen der mathematischen Logik darstellen kann, um mit Hilfe von logischem Schließen sein Verhalten zu planen. Obwohl zum Fluentkalkül viele Arbeiten existieren, die dessen Anwendungsbereiche und Semantik erweitern, gibt es doch noch relativ wenige Arbeiten zum effizienten Schlussfolgern. Dies ist ein Hauptaugenmerk der vorliegenden Arbeit. Es wird ein Algorithmus geschaffen, der Erkenntnisse aus effizienten Verfahren zum Modelchecking mit Binären Entscheidungsdiagrammen (BDDs) sinngemäß überträgt und für ein Fragment des Fluentkalkül erweitert. Damit können nun auch Planungsprobleme von Fluentkalkül-Planern gelöst werden, die der realisierten symbolischen Breitensuche besser zugänglich sind, als der bisher aussschliesslich verwendeten heuristischen Tiefensuche. Um eine leichtere Vergleichbarkeit Fluentkalkül-basierter Planungsverfahren mit anderen Planungsalgorithmen zu ermöglichen, wurde eine Übersetzung des ADL-Fragments der Planungsdomänenbeschreibungssprache PDDL in den Fluentkalkül geschaffen. Damit können zahlreiche Planungsprobleme aus der Literatur und Planungsdomänenbibliotheken auch mit Fluentkalkül-Planern bearbeitet werden. Die Übersetzung kann zugleich als formale Semantik des nur informal spezifizierten PDDL dienen.

In this thesis, we study advanced reasoning about dynamical systems in a logical framework -- the situation calculus. In particular, we consider promoting the efficiency of reasoning about action in the situation calculus from three different aspects. First, we propose a modified situation calculus based on the two-variable predicate logic with counting quantifiers. We show that solving the projection and executability problems via regression in such language are decidable. We prove that generally these two problems are co-NExpTime-complete in the modified language. We also consider restricting the format of regressable formulas and basic action theories (BATs) further to gain better computational complexity for reasoning about action via regression. We mention possible applications to formalization of Semantic Web services. Then, we propose a hierarchical representation of actions based on the situation calculus to facilitate development, maintenance and elaboration of very large taxonomies of actions. We show that our axioms can be more succinct, while still using an extended regression operator to solve the projection problem. Moreover, such representation has significant computational advantages. For taxonomies of actions that can be represented as finitely branching trees, the regression operator can sometimes work exponentially faster with our theories than it works with the BATs current situation calculus. We also propose a general guideline on how a taxonomy of actions can be constructed from the given set of effect axioms. Finally, we extend the current situation calculus with the order-sorted logic. In the new formalism, we add sort theories to the usual initial theories to describe taxonomies of objects. We then investigate what is the well-sortness for BATs under such framework. We consider extending the current regression operator with well-sortness checking and unification techniques. With the modified regression, we gain computational efficiency by terminating the regression earlier when reasoning tasks are ill-sorted and by reducing the search spaces for well-sorted objects. We also study that the connection between the order-sorted situation calculus and the current situation calculus.

In this thesis, we study advanced reasoning about dynamical systems in a logical framework -- the situation calculus. In particular, we consider promoting the efficiency of reasoning about action in the situation calculus from three different aspects. First, we propose a modified situation calculus based on the two-variable predicate logic with counting quantifiers. We show that solving the projection and executability problems via regression in such language are decidable. We prove that generally these two problems are co-NExpTime-complete in the modified language. We also consider restricting the format of regressable formulas and basic action theories (BATs) further to gain better computational complexity for reasoning about action via regression. We mention possible applications to formalization of Semantic Web services. Then, we propose a hierarchical representation of actions based on the situation calculus to facilitate development, maintenance and elaboration of very large taxonomies of actions. We show that our axioms can be more succinct, while still using an extended regression operator to solve the projection problem. Moreover, such representation has significant computational advantages. For taxonomies of actions that can be represented as finitely branching trees, the regression operator can sometimes work exponentially faster with our theories than it works with the BATs current situation calculus. We also propose a general guideline on how a taxonomy of actions can be constructed from the given set of effect axioms. Finally, we extend the current situation calculus with the order-sorted logic. In the new formalism, we add sort theories to the usual initial theories to describe taxonomies of objects. We then investigate what is the well-sortness for BATs under such framework. We consider extending the current regression operator with well-sortness checking and unification techniques. With the modified regression, we gain computational efficiency by terminating the regression earlier when reasoning tasks are ill-sorted and by reducing the search spaces for well-sorted objects. We also study that the connection between the order-sorted situation calculus and the current situation calculus.