Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Abstract This thesis examines the experiences of Korean migrant women (KMW) in the Australian labour market. A review of the extant literature leads to two propositions, both of which assert that KMW are likely to experience labour market disadvantage or barriers to entry. These propositions take into account two significant theories of the labour market: segmentation theory and human capital theory. Segmentation theory argues that unchangeable gender and racial / cultural differences have the greatest impact upon labour market value, human capital theory describes the labour market value of individuals as based upon apparently objective and attainable skills (here English language skills). Using narrative analysis and, more specifically, antenarrative analysis, the study examines the life stories of 33 Australian KMW. In so doing, it identifies hitherto unheard discourses concerning the experiences of KMW in relation to the Australian labour market — discourses that challenge established academic thinking regarding this issue. Identification and analysis of these new discourses generates a number of alternative understandings of the labour market experiences of KMW. These alternative understandings both demonstrate the limitations of, and go beyond, the existing two propositions. In particular, the research shows that the impacts of gender and culture (segmentation theory) vary over time for KMW, do not always prevent labour market participation, and are experienced in terms of identity within a gendered Australian labour market. The research also demonstrates that while many KMW are in fact sufficiently skilled in the English language (human capital theory) to enter the Australian labour market, they nevertheless experience a sense of inferiority about their English language capacity that discourages them from entering, and limits their opportunities to participate in, the labour market. This in turn contributes to their social isolation. The thesis concludes that within the Australian academic literature, KMW have either been given little space and voice or have been misrepresented, reflecting and contributing to an ongoing ignorance of the experiences of Asian women in Australian workplaces. The KMW examined in this study are subject to numerous forms of subordination in Australian workplaces and society that cannot be adequately explained in terms of their human capital or their gender and cultural differences. The covert nature of the politics of difference within the work place makes exclusionary practices more difficult to identify and discuss. The thesis argues that in order to overcome these problems new policies of multiculturalism and productive diversity need to be developed. It asserts that narrative analytic techniques are an important means by which to inform such policy development. Abstract This thesis examines the experiences of Korean migrant women (KMW) in the Australian labour market. A review of the extant literature leads to two propositions, both of which assert that KMW are likely to experience labour market disadvantage or barriers to entry. These propositions take into account two significant theories of the labour market: segmentation theory and human capital theory. Segmentation theory argues that unchangeable gender and racial / cultural differences have the greatest impact upon labour market value, human capital theory describes the labour market value of individuals as based upon apparently objective and attainable skills (here English language skills). Using narrative analysis and, more specifically, antenarrative analysis, the study examines the life stories of 33 Australian KMW. In so doing, it identifies hitherto unheard discourses concerning the experiences of KMW in relation to the Australian labour market — discourses that challenge established academic thinking regarding this issue. Identification and analysis of these new discourses generates a number of alternative understandings of the labour market experiences of KMW. These alternative understandings both demonstrate the limitations of, and go beyond, the existing two propositions. In particular, the research shows that the impacts of gender and culture (segmentation theory) vary over time for KMW, do not always prevent labour market participation, and are experienced in terms of identity within a gendered Australian labour market. The research also demonstrates that while many KMW are in fact sufficiently skilled in the English language (human capital theory) to enter the Australian labour market, they nevertheless experience a sense of inferiority about their English language capacity that discourages them from entering, and limits their opportunities to participate in, the labour market. This in turn contributes to their social isolation. The thesis concludes that within the Australian academic literature, KMW have either been given little space and voice or have been misrepresented, reflecting and contributing to an ongoing ignorance of the experiences of Asian women in Australian workplaces. The KMW examined in this study are subject to numerous forms of subordination in Australian workplaces and society that cannot be adequately explained in terms of their human capital or their gender and cultural differences. The covert nature of the politics of difference within the work place makes exclusionary practices more difficult to identify and discuss. The thesis argues that in order to overcome these problems new policies of multiculturalism and productive diversity need to be developed. It asserts that narrative analytic techniques are an important means by which to inform such policy development.

Guanxi plays an important role in Chinese entrepreneurial networking activities, especially for micro entrepreneurial firms in China. Due to limited information and resources available to micro firms, micro firms are more dependent on entrepreneurs’ guanxi networks to get access to the necessary resources. Previous literatures have particularly discussed the impacts of guanxi networks for foreigners successfully doing business in China. Nevertheless, there are scant literatures that study on the role of the guanxi in Chinese entrepreneurship. The purpose of this study is to provide a better understanding of the role of guanxi in Chinese entrepreneurship. This study employs the relevant guanxi concepts, Western social capital theory, and network-based entrepreneurship as the main conceptual framework to examine how Chinese entrepreneurs utilize their guanxi networks during the development of micro firms. Furthermore, this study is based on ten case studies in China. Empirical Data are collected from semi-structured interviews with ten Chinese entrepreneurs in micro firms. The results show that guanxi networks are highly important for Chinese entrepreneurs to develop their business. Firstly, Chinese entrepreneurs make use of different guanxi governance mechanisms--qinqing, renqing and jiaoqing to acquire different information and resources for the development of their firms. The obtained information and resources constitute the social capital, which can be used to complement insufficient capital within the firms. Secondly, Chinese entrepreneurs intentionally enlarge their guanxi network size to obtain more resources. Moreover, Chinese entrepreneurs benefit from strong guanxi ties and closure network structures to obtain the cohesive social capital. While Chinese entrepreneurs gain greater benefits from weak guanxi ties and spare network structures for acquiring additional information, resources and business opportunities. Thirdly, guanxi-networking activities are different from Western social networking activities, as guanxi-networking activities put more emphasize on keeping harmony and mutual reciprocity. Furthermore, Chinese entrepreneurs are proactive to build and maintain guanxi networks through various approaches for their business development. Lastly, even though guanxi networks play important roles in the development of micro entrepreneurial firms, they cannot be sustainable competitive advantage in the long term. Indeed, the core competences such as high quality of products and services, advanced technologies and marketing channels could be sustainable competitive advantages for the entrepreneurial firms in today’s increasingly fierce competitive market.

Recent studies claims that Sweden has the lowest returns on education compared to other OECD countries. Other research made in the subject tend to focus on the gains from education, but forget to calculate the costs, both direct cost such as material, accommodation and food, but also opportunity costs from not working instead of investing in education. The purpose of this thesis is to study if an investment in an education is an effective way of monetary utility maximizing in Sweden, in other words income. This thesis will investigate whether education will be a profitable investment, and if so how many years of employment it will take an individual to gain from that investment. The Human Capital theory is the theoretical framework of this thesis and the result is in Swedish Crowns. This research quantifies that an education is an effective way to income maximizing and men’s payback time in monetary terms are more likely to be shorter than female’s.

This study deals with immigrants’ political participation in Sweden and the Netherlands. Scholars have recognized low level of political participation of immigrants in Sweden compared to the Netherlands. The main goal of this study is to analyze the institutional influence, mainly from political parties over immigrants’ motivation for active electoral participation. The modified actor-context model uses here as the main theoretical framework. In addition, social capital theory employs to analyze immigrants’ voluntary organizational membership. This study confirms that, Swedish immigrants have the lower participation rate in the political sphere, at lest to a certain extent, than its counterparts the Dutch immigrants. This study also confirms the argument that contextual factors can influence actor’s motivations in integration-oriented action, and similarly it validates the necessity of enlargement of the actor-context model.

<p>Scientists expect temperatures on Earth to get substantially warmer over the course of the 21st century, causing storm systems to intensify and sea-level rise to accelerate--these changes will likely have dramatic impacts on how the coastlines of tomorrow will evolve. Humans are also playing an increasingly important role in shaping Earth's coastal systems. Coastal scientists have only a general understanding of how these three factors--humans, storms, and sea-level rise--will alter the evolution of coastlines over the coming century, however. I conduct numerical modeling experiments to shed light on the relative importance of these factors on the evolution of coastline geomorphology.</p><p>In a series of experiments using a numerical model of large-scale (1 to 100's km) and long-term (years to centuries) coastline evolution that results from gradients in alongshore sediment transport, I explore how the patterns and rates of shoreline erosion and accretion are affected by shifts in 'wave climate' (the mix of influences on alongshore sediment transport of waves approaching from different directions) induced by intensified storm systems and the direct manipulation of the shoreline system by humans through beach nourishment (periodically placing sand on an eroding beach). I use a cuspate-cape coastline, similar to the Outer Banks, North and South Carolina, USA, as an important case study in my experiments. I observe that moderate shifts in the wave climate can alter the patterns of shoreline erosion and accretion, potentially increasing migration rates by several times that which we see today, and nearly an order-of-magnitude larger than sea-level rise-related erosion alone. I also find that under possible wave climate futures, beach nourishment may also induce shoreline change on the same order of magnitude as does sea-level rise.</p><p>The decision humans make whether or not to nourish their beach often depends upon a favorable economic outcome in the endeavor. In further experiments, I couple a cost-benefit economic model of human decision making to the numerical model of coastline evolution and test a hypothetical scenario where two communities (one 'rich' and one 'poor') nourish their beaches in tandem, under different sets of economic and wave climate parameters. I observe that two adjacent communities can benefit substantially from each other's nourishment activity, and these effects persist even if the two communities are separated by several tens of kilometers.</p><p>In a separate effort, I employ techniques from dynamic capital theory coupled to a physically-realistic model of coastline evolution to find the optimum time a community should wait between beach nourishment episodes ('rotation length') to maximize the utility to beach-front property owners. In a series of experiments, I explore the sensitivity of the rotation length to economic parameters, including the discount rate, the fixed and variable costs of beach nourishment, and the benefits from beach nourishment, and physical parameters including the background erosion rate and the exponential rate at which both the cross-shore profile and the plan-view coastline shape re-adjusts following a beach nourishment episode ('decay rate' of nourishment sand). Some results I obtained were expected: if property values, the hedonic value of beach width, the baseline retreat rate, the fixed cost of beach nourishment, and the discount rate increase, then the rotation length of nourishment decreases. Some results I obtained, however, were unexpected: the rotation length of nourishment can either increase or decrease when the decay rate of nourishment sand varies versus the discount rate and when the variable costs of beach nourishment increase.</p> / Dissertation

The importance of control in information system development (ISD) project has been widely emphasized. However, most studies focused on formal control and relative few efforts haven been entered to understand the effect of information control. In addition for those studies focus on informal control only viewed this issue from team level perspective. Drawing on the limitations of past studies, this study attempted to query possible antecedents of clan control effectiveness from aspect of the social control theory. In particular, we focus on the effects of personal beliefs, project commitment, team attachment and involvement on the compliance of individuals on group norm. We hypothesized that social bonds lead to compliance as well as extra-role behaviors for individuals within project team. Based on survey data collected from 205 members of ISD project teams. The results confirmed the hypothesized relationship between social bonds and compliance. The analysis also reveals that three factors, including personal beliefs, project commitment, and involvement are associated with external-role behavior. The results of this study can not only serve as a reference for future researches but also generate implications for practitioners.

With the common adoption of the Internet and Web in the recent years, the WOM has been changed to electronic WOM (e- WOM). E-WOM is the positive or negative statements made about a product, company, or media personality that are made widely available via the Internet. It has become an important source of information for the consumer to make decisions including purchase and more and more people have noticed the importance of its applications. The goal of this research is to investigate ¡§message passing along behavior intention¡¨ (MPBI) by using Social Cognitive Theory and Social Capital Theory from the viewpoints of people and environment. We use survey method to collect the data and use PLS to analyze it. And the results reveal that when people passing message along to others, they care about how close these messages are with them instead of how correct these messages are. It implies that MPBI has the nature of daily life, and therefore, people will be more willing to pass daily life messages. Besides, individuals tend to pass along messages to people who have substantial relationship with him/her. We also found people pass message along to people not for reputation but for expressing their affections to others. In addition, message passing Self-efficacy is also important to MPBI. We also classified MPBI into two types ¡X the one is hedonic and the other is utilitarian. The results indicate that people have different behavioral pattern when they deal with different kind of MPBI. In sum, MPBI is a channel for people to maintain the relationship with others and the findings of this study provides some suggestions for the e-WOM research.

Regardless of whether organizations are in the private sector or in the public sector, there is a general agreement that human resources are critical to keeping organizations effective as well as maintaining a high level of organizational performance. While more serious effort has been made to empirically examine how human resources influence organizational performance (e.g., studies about turnover consequences, studies about the relationship between human resource management practices and organizational performance) in the private sector, it is rare to find similar empirical studies in the public sector partly because it is hard to define public organizational performance. In my dissertation, I basically investigate how human resources are critical to organizational performance in the public sector with a question, "Do human resources really matter in the public sector, too?" Focusing on the crime control performance of municipal police departments, I examine the relationships among turnover, police performance, and human resource management (HRM) characteristics by surveying police departments of the U.S. cities whose population range is between 100,000 to 500,000 (Out of 205 surveyed cities, 65 cities participated). Firstly, I explore how human resource management practices (individually and systematically) influence crime control performance of the police. Based on universalistic HRM perspective (i.e., best HRM practices) and control theory perspective, I hypothesize that commitment HRM system (and individual practices) will have positive effect on crime control performance of the police. Secondly, I investigate more specific questions such as if turnover has significant effect on crime control performance and if HRM system has moderating effect on turnover consequence. Results about turnover effect confirm human capital theory that predicts the negative effect of turnover when employees with specific knowledge quit. However, no significant relationships are found between commitment HRM system (and individual practices) and organizational performance. The results might help municipal police departments deal with sworn officers' turnover as well as set up proper HRM practices.

Certain properties of individuals’ social networks within their organizations are known to be associated with benefits. However, these properties are not universally beneficial for all individuals. To explain the differing utility of social connections for different actors, network research has tended to focus on factors relating to the actor’s characteristics, agency and cognition. With this dissertation, I explore a different contingency affecting actors’ abilities to leverage their networks: how observers perceive and evaluate the behavior of actors as they craft and use their networks, and how these attributions impact actors’ job performance. I develop a theoretical framework that incorporates social capital theory to develop a taxonomy of networking behaviors. I build upon network cognition research to explore how observers’ perceptions and attributions of actors’ networking behaviors rather than perceptions of network ties or structure affect actors’ outcomes. I draw upon attribution theory to suggest how observers’ attributions about actors may affect observers’ behavior towards actors, thus impacting actors’ outcomes. Results suggest that networking behaviors that are seen as serving the collective positively impact actors’ outcomes, while networking behaviors that are seen as self-serving negatively impact the actors’ outcomes by limiting access to high-status friends. However, attributions about an actor’s self-serving behavior augment the benefits the actor receives when he or she has access to high-status friends. When it comes to performance, networks matter, but it also matters how observers evaluate actors’ networking behaviors.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Abstract This thesis examines the experiences of Korean migrant women (KMW) in the Australian labour market. A review of the extant literature leads to two propositions, both of which assert that KMW are likely to experience labour market disadvantage or barriers to entry. These propositions take into account two significant theories of the labour market: segmentation theory and human capital theory. Segmentation theory argues that unchangeable gender and racial / cultural differences have the greatest impact upon labour market value, human capital theory describes the labour market value of individuals as based upon apparently objective and attainable skills (here English language skills). Using narrative analysis and, more specifically, antenarrative analysis, the study examines the life stories of 33 Australian KMW. In so doing, it identifies hitherto unheard discourses concerning the experiences of KMW in relation to the Australian labour market — discourses that challenge established academic thinking regarding this issue. Identification and analysis of these new discourses generates a number of alternative understandings of the labour market experiences of KMW. These alternative understandings both demonstrate the limitations of, and go beyond, the existing two propositions. In particular, the research shows that the impacts of gender and culture (segmentation theory) vary over time for KMW, do not always prevent labour market participation, and are experienced in terms of identity within a gendered Australian labour market. The research also demonstrates that while many KMW are in fact sufficiently skilled in the English language (human capital theory) to enter the Australian labour market, they nevertheless experience a sense of inferiority about their English language capacity that discourages them from entering, and limits their opportunities to participate in, the labour market. This in turn contributes to their social isolation. The thesis concludes that within the Australian academic literature, KMW have either been given little space and voice or have been misrepresented, reflecting and contributing to an ongoing ignorance of the experiences of Asian women in Australian workplaces. The KMW examined in this study are subject to numerous forms of subordination in Australian workplaces and society that cannot be adequately explained in terms of their human capital or their gender and cultural differences. The covert nature of the politics of difference within the work place makes exclusionary practices more difficult to identify and discuss. The thesis argues that in order to overcome these problems new policies of multiculturalism and productive diversity need to be developed. It asserts that narrative analytic techniques are an important means by which to inform such policy development. Abstract This thesis examines the experiences of Korean migrant women (KMW) in the Australian labour market. A review of the extant literature leads to two propositions, both of which assert that KMW are likely to experience labour market disadvantage or barriers to entry. These propositions take into account two significant theories of the labour market: segmentation theory and human capital theory. Segmentation theory argues that unchangeable gender and racial / cultural differences have the greatest impact upon labour market value, human capital theory describes the labour market value of individuals as based upon apparently objective and attainable skills (here English language skills). Using narrative analysis and, more specifically, antenarrative analysis, the study examines the life stories of 33 Australian KMW. In so doing, it identifies hitherto unheard discourses concerning the experiences of KMW in relation to the Australian labour market — discourses that challenge established academic thinking regarding this issue. Identification and analysis of these new discourses generates a number of alternative understandings of the labour market experiences of KMW. These alternative understandings both demonstrate the limitations of, and go beyond, the existing two propositions. In particular, the research shows that the impacts of gender and culture (segmentation theory) vary over time for KMW, do not always prevent labour market participation, and are experienced in terms of identity within a gendered Australian labour market. The research also demonstrates that while many KMW are in fact sufficiently skilled in the English language (human capital theory) to enter the Australian labour market, they nevertheless experience a sense of inferiority about their English language capacity that discourages them from entering, and limits their opportunities to participate in, the labour market. This in turn contributes to their social isolation. The thesis concludes that within the Australian academic literature, KMW have either been given little space and voice or have been misrepresented, reflecting and contributing to an ongoing ignorance of the experiences of Asian women in Australian workplaces. The KMW examined in this study are subject to numerous forms of subordination in Australian workplaces and society that cannot be adequately explained in terms of their human capital or their gender and cultural differences. The covert nature of the politics of difference within the work place makes exclusionary practices more difficult to identify and discuss. The thesis argues that in order to overcome these problems new policies of multiculturalism and productive diversity need to be developed. It asserts that narrative analytic techniques are an important means by which to inform such policy development.