Managers have responsibility for implementing a firm??s executional strategy. An executional strategy is the selection of resources and capabilities and the arrangement of them into a supply chain that puts a firm??s espoused positioning into action (Porter, 1985). Executional strategies are selected to maximize economic rents. Firm resources (Barney, 1991) and the arrangement of supply chains (Chandler, 1962; 1990) are important to rent generation. In turn, the potential arrangement of activities into a supply chain is determined by a firm??s depth of architectural knowledge; this is knowledge of how supply chain elements can be linked (Henderson and Clark, 1990). The study provides a simultaneous test of the impact of resources and supply chain arrangements on the selection of executional strategies. The theoretical model is tested through a discrete choice experiment (Louviere et al., 2000). Findings suggest that resources and cost advantages dominate management decision-making with competition also an influence. Importantly, findings for a sub-sample of subjects whose firms are most impacted by Information technology (IT), confirms that architectural knowledge does play a role in the selection of executional strategies. These ??engaged?? subjects were significantly more experienced with the subject matter and more confident about their responses. These engaged subjects utilized architectural knowledge to select strategies that leveraged their resources more widely and to minimize the influence of transaction costs on their strategic choices.

Managers have responsibility for implementing a firm??s executional strategy. An executional strategy is the selection of resources and capabilities and the arrangement of them into a supply chain that puts a firm??s espoused positioning into action (Porter, 1985). Executional strategies are selected to maximize economic rents. Firm resources (Barney, 1991) and the arrangement of supply chains (Chandler, 1962; 1990) are important to rent generation. In turn, the potential arrangement of activities into a supply chain is determined by a firm??s depth of architectural knowledge; this is knowledge of how supply chain elements can be linked (Henderson and Clark, 1990). The study provides a simultaneous test of the impact of resources and supply chain arrangements on the selection of executional strategies. The theoretical model is tested through a discrete choice experiment (Louviere et al., 2000). Findings suggest that resources and cost advantages dominate management decision-making with competition also an influence. Importantly, findings for a sub-sample of subjects whose firms are most impacted by Information technology (IT), confirms that architectural knowledge does play a role in the selection of executional strategies. These ??engaged?? subjects were significantly more experienced with the subject matter and more confident about their responses. These engaged subjects utilized architectural knowledge to select strategies that leveraged their resources more widely and to minimize the influence of transaction costs on their strategic choices.

Software architecture is considered as a set of architectural design decisions. Capturing and representing architectural design decisions during the architecting process is necessary for reducing architectural knowledge evaporation. Moreover, managing the evolution of architectural design decisions helps to maintain consistency between requirements and the deployed system. In this thesis, we create the Triple View Model (TVM) as a general architecture framework for documenting architectural design decisions. The TVM clarifies the notion of architectural design decisions in three different views and covers key features of the architecting process. Based on the TVM, we propose a scenario-based methodology (SceMethod) to manage the documentation and the evolution of architectural design decisions. We also conduct a case study on an industrial project to validate the applicability and the effectiveness of the TVM and the SceMethod. The results show they provide complete documentation on architectural design decisions for creating a system architecture, and well support architecture evolution with changing requirements. / text

Considering the vital role that drawing plays in conceiving buildings and landscapes, the question of "knowledge" in relation to visual representations becomes a matter of importance. The conventional view of drawing considers it a passive and neutral means to communicate mental concepts in visual form. The present study, however, views drawing as an essential vehicle that both enlists our critical reasoning faculties, as well as engages our senses and imagination in an integrated way to generate new knowledge. As a means to acquire architectural/landscape knowledge, drawing becomes an essential vehicle for scholarship in the field. Depending on the circumstances, drawing can capture or cast (or both). When the drawing is a recipient of the external world, it captures or catches the qualities of an actual place. When the drawing is of a space that perhaps will exist, it can bring out or cast ideas, thoughts, or sensations to an external world and eventually to that envisioned space. After a discussion of the commonalities of drawing in architecture and landscape architecture, the present study concentrates on areas that distinguish landscape drawing from architectural drawing. In the end, the personal experiences of the author, in which the drawing served both as capturing and casting mechanism, is briefly depicted. / Master of Landscape Architecture

The need to define notions in one and a concrete way is actually a tendency to remove the contradictions that could blur their meanings. However, in the architectural discourse the different definitions and interpretations of a notion lead sometimes to an interesting and productive paradox through which a dual situation can emerge. The notion of type as one of these instances gained such a duality in time throughout the accumulated thoughts that were studied in different times and conditions since the eighteenth century by scholars like Marc-Antoine Laugier, Quatrem&eacute / re de Quincy, Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand, Le Courbusier, Giulio Carlo Argan, Aldo Rossi, and Peter Eisenman. These conditions which occurred between the relations type-nature, type-machine and type-city have a common point in that type was seen as a principle, to explain the architectural attitude in a particular period. And in these periodical conditions it can be said that type has, actually, a visual (in Leandro Madrazo&amp / #8217 / s terms) and non-visual (in Leandro Madrazo&amp / #8217 / s terms) aspect which leads to a discrepant problem in that it is sometimes defined as sensible in the sense of a physical construction and sometimes defined as conceptual in the sense of a conceptual construct. Therefore, in using the outline of Anthony Vidler&amp / #8217 / s essay the third typology as a loose framework in the context of a historical point of view from the eighteenth century to the twentieth century, the main problem of this thesis will be to expose this dual situation between the visual (sensible) and non-visual (conceptual) aspects of type. In addition, it is actually said that the visual aspect of type appeared in the sense how its non-visual aspect is re-constructed. Moreover, within its double-nature (in Leandro Madrazo&amp / #8217 / s terms) type seems to have a potential and power for its transformation towards a key for reading the architectural process in a re-constructed continuity. And because of this re-construction it is possible to follow the continuity of architectural knowledge, which designates the changing boundaries of the architectural discipline and gives the means for a tendency to define it as autonomous.