The research regarding best practice transfer complexity is limited and mainly focused on a Western perspective. Thereby, it overlooks the emerging market context. Further, previous research has not examined the constraints affecting the transfer success from several dimensions. Therefore, this thesis aims at answering what the main constraints are to a successful best practice transfer from a Swedish multinational corporation headquarter to a Chinese subsidiary. Additionally, this thesis aims to examine how these constraints affect the transfer success from both a process and outcome perspective. In order to investigate this, the theoretical framework explains the potential internal and external constraints that can affect the transfer and defines success. This study was conducted through a qualitative case study based on a Swedish regional HQ’s transfer to its Chinese subsidiary. The data was mainly collected through semi-structured interviews with respondents from both Sweden and China. Conclusively, the findings showed that relational, organizational and contextual constraints were present. However, the qualitative research showed that there are often trade-offs between constraints and their effect on success, which previously have not been shown in quantitative research. In addition, the results suggest that the context is important to acknowledge when transferring best practices.

Although academic interest in TQM increased substantially in the last decade, still the gap in the literature is hardly surprising given that research and theory in TQM implementation are still at a very early stage in the West. To-date, there are only a handful of empirical researches reported in the literature that have attempted to identify what constitute as constructs of TQM that can be manipulated to effectively implement TQM. All but very few are studies done in developed economies. Moreover, knowledge of TQM in developing economies is almost totally lacking. Against this backdrop, this researcha ddressesth e identified gaps in the literature on TQM. Thus this thesis focuses on the effective implementation of total quality management in Palestine, a developing economy, through an empirical investigation of critical quality factors. The research methodology involves combining quantitative and qualitative methodologies to identify the key quality factors cited in the literature and considered by consultants and experts as essential to successful TQM implementation. The research design also included: Lan empirical investigation to assessth e level of TQM awarenessa nd understandingi n the Palestinian context, 2. determining which key quality factors are critical to successful implementation using a survey questionnaire, 3. determining what tactics and techniques are used in addressing and implementing these critical quality factors by Palestinian organisations, using semi-structured interviews, 4. determining the prerequisites of effective TQM implementation in the pre-launch stage using in depth interviews. By complementing and integrating the findings, an implementation framework was constructed with the support of the knowledge acquired from the literature review. A simple and practical step by step with implementation guidelines framework aiming at assisting Palestinian organisations in planning on effective implementation of TQM was constructed. The research findings indicate that top management commitment and involvement, employee commitment and involvement, managing by customer-driven system and processes and continuous performance improvement, are essential to effective implementation of TQM. This implies that Palestinian organisations recognise and implement the same critical quality factors found in Western countries. The proposed framework is built around four major constructs that relate to top management commitment, employee commitment, customer-driven system and processes, and continuous improvement. It emphasises an implementation approach of top-down deployment and bottom-up participation focussing on businessp rocessesth at add value to customers atisfaction. In conclusion, this empirical research revealed that TQM could be implemented in the developing economies (such as Palestine) as Palestinian organisations subscribe to the same quality factors as those found in the developed economies.

Perceptions of college Disability Support Services (DSS) and school system personnel regarding emerging best practices, adequacy of preparation of students with disabilities to access accommodations in college, and communication across systems were examined in this study. Once in college, students with disabilities have a lower rate of completion/success than their peers. Accommodations promote success in college, yet students with disabilities are not accessing them, thereby reducing their success. Adequacy of student preparation to access accommodations and communication across systems affects the access of accommodations by college students with disabilities. This study is qualitative, with 43 participants. It includes DSS personnel from five, four-year and five, two-year colleges/universities and transition personnel from five public school divisions in Virginia. Snowball sampling and a guided interview format were used. Rigor was addressed through triangulation, including document and web review. Results indicate that differences between the ADA and IDEA require students, teachers, and parents of students with disabilities to have knowledge of students’ rights and responsibilities under the ADA to prepare them for accessing accommodations in college. Students were more likely to be prepared when they had knowledgeable and supportive parents, transition teams, and teachers/case managers. Characteristics of individual students also help determine the effectiveness of student preparation. School system participants feel they have lack of access to students with disabilities transitioning to college to effectively prepare them for accessing accommodations in college. They also lack feedback about preparation effectiveness. Participants believe additional communication is needed. Existing communication is directional with school system staff making requests of DSS staff. There is also need for additional college outreach to school systems and a structure for ongoing communication is desired. It is recommended that best practices in preparation and communication be identified, knowledge of transition teams/parents be improved, and usefulness of the Summary of Performance be determined. Development of a system for students with less severe disabilities for transition preparation and a system for increased feedback and communication between systems personnel is needed. The VDOE and SCHEV should work to improve avenues for joint preparation and develop goals and an action plan for implementation.

Igor Baluch, Inovation of the human resource management system, Department of information technology at the Faculty of informatics a statistics at the University of economics in Prague, head of the dioploma work doc. Ing. Norbert Žid, CSc., Prague 2011, 77 pages The diploma work brings and systematize the latest knowledge at the field of human resource management and it`s support by information technology. Focus of this work is addressed to the most suitable solution of a human resource information system in the VUB Bank, inc. Great attention is paid to the individual phases of the implementation of HRIS: HR strategy, company analysis, selection and implementation of appropriate solutions. The possible structu-re of the RFP is suggested for potential suppliers of solutions.

The review of the literature and the results gained from this research suggest an important link between the effectiveness of a board, including its corporate governance practices, and organisational effectiveness. This link attests to the importance of a greater focus upon the governance approach used by organisations. There is extensive literature about corporate governance in the business sector and there is emerging research into corporate governance in the Third Sector. However there is very little literature about the community service component on the Third Sector in Australia and none in relation to community service organisations that are incorporated under the Tasmanian Associations Incorporation Act 1964. This thesis aims to discover what is defined as best practice in the area of corporate governance for Tasmanian community service organisations and if selected organisations have adopted that best practice. For this purpose a research problem and three research sub-problems are identified. The research adopts a case study approach as the main research methodology using interviews, document reviews and a short self assessment questionnaire as data collection tools. The researcher approached six incorporated community service organisations funded by the Tasmanian Department of Health and Human Services and they agreed to participate in the research. Following data collection and data analysis the following major findings emerge. Firstly, that case organisations have adopted a range of governance practices. There are significant gaps in some organisations and there is room for improvement in all of the case organisations. Secondly, that some case organisation boards are approaching corporate governance by managing compliance to a minimum standard although others are offering strategic leadership with a commitment to quality and best practice. Thirdly, the research identifies a number of factors that impact upon corporate governance in case organisations. Those factors include the role of the Chief Executive Officer; the quest for competitive advantage; implementation of governance maintenance strategies and the impact of religion for religious-based organisations. Finally, the research also identifies three factors that were not determinative upon case organisations. They are the size of the organisation, the governance model being used, and the influence of the regulator (the Business Affairs Office) and the funding provider (the Department of Health and Human Services). Consequently it is concluded that the principle based approach to corporate governance can be extended to Tasmania. Furthermore the implication of this research for community sector organisations is that they need to implement governance maintenance practices including board training, board performance review and governance review. There is also a call to both the Business Affairs Office and the Department of Health and Human Services to be more proactive in requiring community service organisations to adopt additional corporate governance practices. Hence, based on the literature review and the analysis of the research data, a list of “Best practice features and practices guiding community service organisation governance” has been developed. This list can be used by organisations to provide direction for their approach to corporate governance. Finally, the conclusions provide a solid foundation for further study. This will be useful in order to obtain a broader understanding of the issues involved.

'Good governance' is an evolving and increasingly influential discursive agenda that introduces new ideas about public policy, specifically targeting managerial behaviour and promoting modern administrative strategies. Most scholars agree that as a notion, good governance combines liberal democratic principles with a 'new public management' (NPM) approach to economic policy-making. What is less clear is who the agenda actually targets. In other words, is the good governance agenda aimed at rulers in particular or the broader population? Implicit in the answer is whether good governance concepts are simply useful tools to help build political credibility, or the agents for better managerial and administrative outcomes. In countries with advanced economies, good governance is invariably used to describe corporate and public administration strategies that invoke ethically grounded 'World's best practice' standards and procedures. However, in developing economies, good governance can take on quite different, and often unintended meanings. This thesis finds that in developing countries good governance is being expressed more as a political tool than as substantive practice and policy reform. This is occurring in an increasingly 'post-Washington consensus' environment that explicitly recognises the importance of the social impact of structural adjustment programs and broader issues of human rights. And importantly as far as this thesis is concerned, during Southeast Asia's current economic recovery, good governance has taken on a whole new relevance. This analysis commences from the assumption that good governance is a discursively created phenomenon that can be understood as a complex notion with both structural and ideational elements. The term is couched in a structure that is both economically technical and socially normative. It has overlapping central tenets driven by regulation and the institutional environment, and should not be viewed as a set of constructs in isolation from the context in which it is being used. And it is based on assumptions about common sense attitudes and shared common good objectives. And as this thesis will demonstrate, good governance functions within an unpredictable and often hostile political environment in which powerful actors are learning to use this new discourse to satisfy political expediencies. Put simply, good governance is nourishing a politics of its own. The thesis uses the ASEAN 4 countries of Southeast Asia: the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, as individual and comparative case studies. The studies examine how the concept is shaping the institutional structure of these countries, and includes commentary on the role of good governance in the 2004 round of election campaigning. A genealogy of good governance will be developed in these local contexts, and more generally. This will assist in mapping the concept's evolution in relation to development trajectories and local politics. The hypothesis under examination is - that the good governance agendas in the ASEAN 4 states primarily focus on improving representative rule rather than encouraging self-regulation. Two questions in particular are asked in each of the case studies dor the purpose of testing this hypothesis. What defining features of good governance discourse have been instrumental in the emergence of the politics that surrounds the agenda, and how is the discourse used to expand or limit the democratic possibilities theoretically inherent in good governance strategies and processes? These questions are important because they're designed to bring clarity to the intent of government and the role that the governed play in states where good governance is an increasingly important political issue. Good governance is more than merely a set of prescribed policies and practices. It is an agenda that reflects a specific set of 'neoliberal' ideas, predicated upon generally unarticulated assumptions about the universality of modern administrative practices supported by normative behavioural change. And it appears to privilege specific interests with potentially unjust implications for wider social formations. This assertion pivots on the finding that in various ways good governance discourages the advancement of open politics beyond nominal democratic procedures because it is theoretically grounded on governance principles that are not easily transferred to developing countries with diverging political, cultural and historical experience. Nevertheless, the attempt is underway. Ostensibly it is taking a form that is schooling targeted populations in what is 'good' and 'bad' in the economic interest of the nation. However, these efforts don't appear to be succeeding, at least not in the way the international architects of good governance intended. This thesis finds that this 'mentality' transformation project is clearly informed by Western experience. And this informs the theoretical approach of the thesis. Specifically, a 'governmentality' framework is used, largely because it has been developed out of analyses of rationalities of government in advanced liberal societies, in which the objectives of good governance are firmly grounded. And as this expanding research program has seldom been used to study government in developing countries, this thesis also puts a case for using governmentality tools beyond the boundaries of its modern Western foundations.

The library profession is now heavily involved in providing access to information through library web sites and it is a challenge to design a web site that has reliable content and a user interface that is intuitive to those who use it. As web accessibility and usability are major issues in the design of library Web sites, this paper suggests that the design will be most successful when a usability analysis tool is used throughout the design and redesign of academic library web sites. The research drew on the literature of Human-computer Interaction and usability engineering examining best practice usability and accessibility design guidelines. It identified those guidelines that were relevant to academic library web sites. In order to establish the extent to which Australian academic library web sites met usability guidelines a usability analysis tool was developed and used to evaluate a randomly selected sample of web sites. The web sites were categorised under higher education institutional archetypes as suggested by DETYA (1998) and the results were discussed in light of these groups. The research found that there was no correlation of the usability of the web sites between the archetypes. In fact the pattern of usability was randomly distributed across all institutions, with the best and worst results appearing in each archetypical category. The study concluded that the web has provided a whole new start for all institutions and after examining the results, it suggested that the design of early web sites was not based on the size or the past history of the institution that it belonged to, but rather reflected those factors, already established in the literature, that faced library web managers at that time, when designing the library web page.

PURPOSE: To describe 1) smoking cessation (SC) interventions by Family Practice Nurses (FPN) during prenatal visits, and 2) the predictors and barriers of FPN-provided SC counselling for pregnant women. DESIGN: Non-experimental, descriptive, correlational design. Onetime, cross-sectional questionnaire using a previously validated questionnaire, modified and converted to electronic format. METHODS: Descriptive and multivariable analysis. Predictors investigated included nurses’ age, beliefs about their role in SC, self-efficacy to provide effective counselling, SC training, and interest in updating SC knowledge. PARTICIPANTS: Eighty-nine members of the Ontario Family Practice Nurses’ interest group (18% response rate) working in primary care settings across Ontario. RESULTS: Nearly one quarter (21.5%) of respondents never offer SC counselling to pregnant women. Nurses with higher levels of self-efficacy were more likely to provide SC counselling. Nurses are less likely to provide concrete assistance in the quitting process or arrange follow-up. The most commonly cited barriers included lack of time and cost of medication. CONCLUSIONS: FPNs are not consistently providing evidence-based SC interventions for pregnant women. Training to enhance self-efficacy may increase the frequency, efficiency and quality of FPN-provided SC interventions.

This thesis argues that the management of environmental impacts has many analogies with the management of risk and practice can be improved by using ideas, concepts and principles found in the management of risk in other spheres of human activity. An overview of the challenges faced by environmental impact practitioners in New Zealand and reinforcement of its importance to the sustainable management of natural and physical resources under New Zealand's Resource Management Act is provided. Key risk management ideas, concepts and principles drawn from a variety of sources are listed and parallels drawn between these and existing environmental impact assessment practice in New Zealand. From this list a number are selected and opportunities for improving environmental impact assessment practice are explored. A number of opportunities are identified, starting with the need for a common language and methodology amongst practitioners. Categorisation of impacts to assist transparency of analysis and expression using frequency-consequence curves to aid and promote consistency of decision-making are further areas of opportunity. Risk management has several well-developed techniques for dealing with uncertainty and selection of assessment endpoints. The connection between communication of risk and public perception is an area with significant potential for communication about environmental impacts. Challenges with effective public participation in environmental decision-making are backgrounded and risk management practised in two high profile areas examined for opportunity for improved practice. Neither appears to offer opportunity for improvement in key decision-making areas. A relatively new indicator approach towards risk assessment called "healthy systems method" appears to have significant potential for cost-effective analysis of systems of various types and at various levels. This thesis identifies a number of other areas of risk management requiring further research to determine potential for achieving better practice in environmental impact assessment.

Problem – Companies are increasingly focusing on sustainability issues in response to internal and external pressure. Research on sustainable performance of focal companies is vast; however there is a lack of guidelines for managing sustainability in extended supply chains. Scholars claim a need for additional research on intra- and inter-organizational diffusion of best sustainable practices. Besides, the outcomes of sustainable sourcing practices are still uncertain. The gap between potential benefits of sustainable sourcing and actual performance is attributed to lack of capabilities, instruments, and efficient processes. Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore existing sustainable sourcing practices which are used by leading multinational companies. Based on the obtained knowledge we aim to develop a framework that will suite as a guideline for enforcing sustainable sourcing practices. Method – The research has been conducted through the method of grounded theory, enabling the researchers to constructively interpret data from documentary primary data and semi-structured interviews. This approach was utilized in order to explore what are the most common practices of managing sustainable sourcing applied by the companies awarded as Industry leaders by the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. Conclusion We found that a commonly accepted approach towards managing and enforcing sustainable sourcing is absent both in theoretical discourse and practice. However, the most frequently mentioned tools and approaches were defined. They include the adoption of suppliers’ code of conduct, establishment of dedicated sustainability departments, procurement personnel training, suppliers’ capability building, risk assessment and categorization of suppliers, IT platforms for information sharing, supplier self-assessment, audit, joint projects with suppliers, meetings and conferences, and suppliers’ scorecards. Finally, we developed a Sustainable Sourcing Enforcement framework which could serve as a guideline to enforce supplier’s commitment to act sustainably. The framework consists of five chronologically connected pillars: Objectives alignment, Commitment creation, Supplier selection, Ongoing development and Work with stakeholders.