The purpose of this study is to ascertain students’ perspectives on dual enrollment and dual credit in a south Mississippi community college. The problem is the need to understand the perceptions of students regarding dual enrollment and dual credit to help foster better policies surrounding the program, help promote positive benefits for the students, and overall improve dual enrollment and dual credit to better suit the growing need and demand for a college degree. Dual enrollment and dual credit have become prominent in the U.S. Many studies have shown to have positive outcomes including increased high school completion rates, improved college persistence, and higher degree completion. The research was conducted using a questionnaire by the National Alliance of Concurrent Enrollment Partnership (NACEP) that surveyed community college students at a south Mississippi community college to determine their perspectives of dual enrollment and dual credit. All participants were over the age of 18. Only those students who were dually enrolled or took dual credit classes in high school were allowed to participate in this study. The descriptive research study was used to obtain information that describes existing opportunities by asking past dual enrollment and dual credit students about their perspectives, attitudes, and beliefs about college preparedness and dual enrollment and dual credit. This study is constructed to give a detailed analysis of self-reported data by an elite group of individuals (dual enrollment and dual credit participants) at a specific time. The participants were asked a series of questions using a questionnaire to collect data about their dual enrollment and dual credit experience. Students in the study felt that dual credit and dual enrollment and dual credit was good, and they would recommend it to other students. These perceptions were especially true for those students with lower high school GPAs and in families where the mother had less education.

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Design frequently involves a series of trade-offs to obtain the "optimal" solution to a design problem. Green roofs have many different characteristics based on a variety of variables. Designers typically weigh the impacts of these characteristics in an implicit process based on intuition or past experience. But since vegetated roofing is a relatively complex and comparatively new technology to many practitioners, a rational, explicit method to help organize and rank the trade-offs made during the design process is useful. This research comprises the creation of a framework diagramming the decision process involved in the selection of vegetated roofing systems. Through a series of expert interviews and case studies, the available knowledge is captured and organized to determine the critical parameters affecting design decisions. A set of six case study projects in North America is analyzed and six critically important evaluative categories are identified: storm water management, energy consumption, acoustics, structure, compliance with regulatory guidelines and governmental incentives, and cost. These six factors are key decision-making parameters in the selection of vegetated roofing systems and they form the basis of this study. They are addressed in the context of a decision support system for green roof designers. A summation of the total importance of the advantages represented by each alternative is used to determine the most feasible green roof system for a particular project. The decision-making framework developed in this dissertation will ultimately be adaptable to digital processing and a computer-based design assistance tool. / Ph. D.

In light of the exponential growth of the nicotine pouch industry, major tobacco-industry players have shown increasing interest in newer nicotine and tobacco products, despite the lack of discernible differences them. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the differentiation strategies of companies within the Swedish nicotine pouch market, and further, the long-term competitiveness of these strategies. The study has applied an abductive and qualitative method to interpret non-numerical data of 14 companies through a document analysis, complemented by two semi-structured interviews. Empirical findings have been analysed using a conceptual model based on previous theories and research on product differentiation. The thesis identified five traditional, alongside three industry-specific modes of differentiation apparent within the market. Primarily, companies differentiate through branding and marketing, adaptiveness, health advocacy and sustainable branding. Interestingly, besides flavour innovation, technology and innovation-driven differentiation is less common within the industry. Most strategies identified within the market are, however, easily imitable, and therefore not competitive long- term. Ultimately, findings suggest the industry is at a crossroads: Consumers currently hold a significant amount of power with a variety of options and little to nothing swaying them in one direction or the other.

Submitted by Robson Campos (rcampos@uol.com.br) on 2016-02-22T12:19:25Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Master's Thesis_CIM2_RobsonCampos_Final Version_uploaded281215.pdf: 956324 bytes, checksum: efa8185ebe5e8bc92dbd2d369654082e (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Janete de Oliveira Feitosa (janete.feitosa@fgv.br) on 2016-02-25T14:14:37Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Master's Thesis_CIM2_RobsonCampos_Final Version_uploaded281215.pdf: 956324 bytes, checksum: efa8185ebe5e8bc92dbd2d369654082e (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Marcia Bacha (marcia.bacha@fgv.br) on 2016-02-29T12:18:56Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Master's Thesis_CIM2_RobsonCampos_Final Version_uploaded281215.pdf: 956324 bytes, checksum: efa8185ebe5e8bc92dbd2d369654082e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-02-29T12:19:07Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Master's Thesis_CIM2_RobsonCampos_Final Version_uploaded281215.pdf: 956324 bytes, checksum: efa8185ebe5e8bc92dbd2d369654082e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-10-28 / One of the challenges presented by the current conjecture in Global Companies is to recognize and understand that the culture and levels in structure of the Power Distance in Organizations in different countries contribute, significantly, toward the failure or success of their strategies. The alignment between the implementation and execution of new strategies for projects intended for the success of the Organization as a whole, rather than as an individual part thereof, is an important step towards reducing the impacts of Power Distance (PDI) on the success of business strategies. A position at odds with this understanding by Companies creates boundaries that increase organizational chasms, also taking into consideration relevant aspects such as, FSAs (Firm-Specific Advantages) and CSAs (Country-Specific Advantages). It is also important that the Organizations based in countries or regions of low Power Distance (PDI) between its individuals be more flexible and prepared to ask and to hear the suggestions from Regional and Local Offices. Thus, the purpose of this study is to highlight the elements of effective strategy implementation considering the relevant aspects at all levels of global corporate culture that justify the influences of power distance when implementing new strategies and also to minimize the impacts of this internal business relationship. This study also recognizes that other corporate and cultural aspects are relevant for the success of business strategies so consider, for instance, the lack of alignment between global and regional/local organizations, the need for competent leadership resources, as well as the challenges that indicate the distance between the hierarchical levels ─ Headquarters and Regional Office ─ as some of the various causes that prevent the successful execution of global strategies. Finally, we show that the execution of the strategy cannot be treated as a construction solely created by the Headquarters or by only one Board and that it needs to be understood as a system aimed at interacting with the surroundings.

Being able to read and write different kinds of texts in English is more important than ever, and previous research has shown that the latter of those two skills benefits from the former. The importance of reading is stressed in the curriculum for upper secondary education. The purpose of this study is to investigate the use of English literature at upper secondary school. Similarities and differences in attitudes towards literature among students in vocational and academic programs in the first year will be looked into. I wish to get an idea of how students experience literary studies in their English education. Further, I want to investigate the students’ own ideas on how to best make literary studies interesting and a good tool for learning. The results show that the academic program students read more often in their spare time, and also that they enjoy reading to a higher degree than the vocational program students. When it comes to practicing reading literature in English lessons in school, both groups think that they do this seldom and a slight majority of both groups are satisfied with this. However, nearly half of the academic program students and nearly a quarter of the vocational program students would like to read more in school. Moreover, it seems that academic program students see more advantages in literary studies for acquiring a second language, whereas the vocational program students do not know if literary studies are a good way of learning English or gaining knowledge of the English culture. Previous research has shown that students are not likely to find a task, such as reading literature, worth doing if they are not motivated in ways that make them understand the advantages that the task will provide. My conclusion is therefore that it is important that teachers strive to motivate their students in such a way. Further, it is important that teachers consider that even though students do not read a great deal in their spare time, they might still want to do so in school.

<p>The aim of this paper is to theoretically establish a framework for the basics of international trade between countries creating competitiveness. Since the environment in which trade takes place is changeable so is the concept of competitiveness. It is therefore argued in the paper that in order to understand the underlying factors of competitiveness one have to understand the environment in which trade takes place in. Today the concept of competitiveness will therefore be better understood by employing an industrial perspective. This approach can answer questions, which national aggregate estimates cannot. The question asked in the paper is; which industries in Europe, based on the assumptions of international trade theories is competitive? The European industries that came out as competitive were the one using high-skilled labor and produced or used ICT intensively in their production. The question also provided some answers to the always up-do-day wonder namely, in which direction European competitiveness is heading.</p>

<p>This essay investigates the development of the cash crop coffee. It gives a historical background of the good and shows how it developed to be one of the most important and traded community in the world. Tanzania’s position and how it came to that position in the world market is shown. During a three week field study in the Babati District in 2004, some interviews with coffee farmers were made. These interviews were made with interpreters and were gathered with the help from the LAMP project. The connection to Swedish coffee consumption is also shown. One of the results was that if farmers move on to grow organic coffee they could get a larger profit. There is also an increasing demand after organic coffee in countries as Sweden so LAMP instructs the farmers in Babati to start growing organic coffee. Another result was that the farmers in the Babati district intercropped their coffee with other crops to spread the risks and lower the dependence to the world coffee market.</p>

Internationalization of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) has been a considerable concern for international business (IB) scholars. Particularly, for those economies such as Sweden with small local markets, internationalization of SMEs could be fundamental. The firm-specific advantages (FSAs), including what the firm has and does, are crucial for SMEs to overcome in the face of their numerous different obstacles such as liability of smallness (LOS) and liability of foreignness (LOF). Examining the extant literature on the evolution of IB theories indicates that over time, IB scholars have been reaching to dynamic-based FSAs (what the firm does) as the source of developing and protecting sustainable competitive advantages (SCA) across national borders in a changing business environment. The nature of dynamic-based FSAs could be similar to dynamic capabilities. But, when it comes to determining specific component factors  of dynamic-based  FSAs  (as dynamic  capabilities),  there has been little agreement between IB researchers. In other words, the room of the dynamic capabilities is still dark. In this respect, shedding light into this room, particularly in the area of IB studies, is crucial. In addition, after determining the component factors of the dynamic-based FSAs, it is also critical to know the likely relationships between the identified component factors as well as their impact on the SMEs’ international performance (IP) as an important outcome of the internationalization. This means that there is a potential theoretical gap associated with the conceptualization of the component factors of the dynamic-based FSAs on one hand, and a potential empirical gap on the other. Given both theoretical and empirical research gaps, the purpose of this study is to examine, from a theoretical perspective, the nature of the dynamic-based FSA and its related component factors in the IB context, as well as empirically explore how SMEs’ IP is influenced by the identified component factors of the dynamic-based FSAs. To perform this study, first of all, based on lenses of the resource-based view (RBV) and dynamic capability view (DCV), the literature on organizational capability in the context of the IB studies was systematically reviewed to fill the theoretical gap. Consequently, three component factors of dynamic-based FSAs including networking capability (NC) as a relational-based FSA, innovative capability (IC) as an innovative-based FSA and absorptive capacity (ACAP) as a learning-based FSA were identified, all of which are pluripotent and dynamic in nature. Then, a deductive approach was followed to develop several hypotheses and the associated conceptual model. Furthermore, a survey strategy, collecting data from 330 Swedish internationalized manufacturing SMEs, was applied to accomplish the purpose of the study. Then, the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) as a quantitative method was used to analyze the collected data. The results of the PLS-SEM analysis show that the SMEs’ international performance (IP) is positively influenced by the three identified component factors, whether directly or indirectly. In this regard, ACAP and NC are the two reliable predictors (directly) of the SMEs’ IP. The results indicate that innovative capability (IC) does not have direct impact on the SMEs’ IP, and that its effect is fully transmitted on IP only by the mediating effect of the networking capability (NC). Further analysis showed that ACAP, as an endogenous latent variable, additionally has a positive indirect association with SMEs’ international performance (IP). Moreover, the results also indicate that innovative capability is directly and positively affected by ACAP (innovating-by-learning effect). It was also empirically revealed that ACAP is a very strong predictor for networking capability, which is labeled as the networking-by-learning effect. Another major finding was that in internationalized SMEs, NC is strongly, directly and positively affected by IC; this effect also is termed as the networking-by-innovating effect. The overall picture resulting from the PLS- SEM analysis indicates that ACAP in internationalized SMEs is a wellspring to develop both innovative capability and networking capability, as well as influence SMEs’ IP. Furthermore, these results suggest that the networking capability is a vital gateway to transmit the effect of the other two component factors on IP and, at the same time, directly influence IP.

A análise de custos tradicional apenas estuda os impactos financeiros das alternativas de decisão. Mas dentro de um ambiente de concorrência ágil, globalizada e cada vez mais acirrada, a obtenção de vantagens competitivas sustentáveis torna-se fundamental e portanto, os elementos estratégicos devem ser agregados aos dados de custos. Os conceitos de dinamismo, vantagens competitivas, competências essenciais, acabam possibilitando novas concepções de arranjos organizacionais tais como as redes de cooperação de empresas denominadas Empresas Virtuais (EV), e se constituem em enfoques dos mais importantes. Também o conceito de estratégia, principalmente aplicado a gestão de custos/lucros é uma realidade trazida pelo novo contexto global. A aplicação da Gestão Estratégica de Custos (Strategic Cost Managemant - SCM) e de suas ferramentas está associada a todas as atividades das empresas, especialmente àquelas relacionadas com a gestão de custos e lucros. É objetivo deste trabalho estudar e discutir os critérios de funcionamento de um modelo de Gestão Estratégica de Custos e as possibilidades de sua aplicação em Empresas Virtuais. A meta é a obtenção de conclusões e conhecimento a cerca da administração de custos de uma maneira estratégica para o setor de Empresas Virtuais. / The tradicional cost analysis only studies the financial consequences of alternative decisions. But in a environment of agile, globalizated and even more stronger competion, the obtention of sustenable competitive advantages becomes fundamental, thus the strategic elements must be aggregated with cost information. With the arrival of globalization, comes a new way to see the firm's environment and to operate inside it. The concepts of dinamism, competitive advantage, core competences, make possible new structures, for example, the cooperation networks called virtual organizations, and they are answers to the new managemant challenges. The organizations with tecnology basis, just their agility, have a profile to actuate in virtual organizations. The concept of strategie, specially the one related with costs, is coming by the globalization too. The aplication of Strategic Cost Managemant (SCM) and their instruments is associated with all of the organization's activities, specially, the one related with cost managemant. It's convenient study and discuss the operation rules of a strategic cost managemant model and the possibilities of aplication in virtual organizations.