During the last decades, it has been brought to light that well organized logistics processes have contributed to competitive advantages for companies. Mio AB, a chain store warehouse and the second largest furniture company in Sweden, is operating in the middle of an expansion phase with growing revenue. As a consequence, larger volumes of goods are handled, space utilization become more scarce and the everyday operations within the internal logistics are affected. Therefore, the processes within the warehouse department were measured by performing a frequency study, registering how time was distributed between the different work tasks. In order to fully understand the processes, interviews were held with management and personnel. After analyzing previous research that could help guide to ease the impositions and analyzing the result of the frequency study, wastes were identified and new ways of working were suggested. The result firstly presents how to organize internal logistics operations in chain store warehouses to gain competitive advantage. Secondly, keeping in mind that firefighting stressed situations usually is not sustainable and only eases loads temporarily, long-term sustainability and ethics were addressed. Concluding that in order to optimize internal logistics operations in chain store warehouses and gain a long-term competitive advantage in a sustainable way, are achieved through standardizing work tasks, ensuring commitment of management and personnel and applying systems to serve the people and processes. Lastly it is advised to keep in mind the impact a company have on its surroundings and the importance of engaging in sustainable and ethically friendly operations, in order to achieve long-term competitive logistics.

Thesis (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2003. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: People management, as a differentiating factor for an organisation in a competitive environment, has become a reality. This report focuses on practical best practices in making human capital the differentiating factor in any organisation. Eight topics are discussed, after positioning them against existing models and showing their relationship to the MARDEN diagnostic model of change management. The topics are: • Ensuring that your organisation's people management strategy delivers tangible results. • Entrenching a workplace culture that delivers optimum performance. • Creating high performance workplace practices. • Achieving growth through competency-based people performance and development. • Leveraging superior performance through team based leadership. • Strategy processes in developing supply chains and workplaces into major competitive advantages. • Transforming knowledge into power by becoming a true learning organisation. • Enabling your organisation to implement a successful change and transformation process. The topics are each evaluated in further detail, in order to drill down into specific practices and issues that need to be addressed by organisations. This ensures that practical best practices are positioned to ensure that the human capital, as a major intangible asset, is nurtured into high performing teams and a cohesive group. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Mensebestuur as 'n differensierende faktor vir 'n organisasie in 'n mededingende omgewing is 'n realiteit. Hierdie verslag fokus op praktiese beste praktyke vir die versekering om mense-kapitaal as die differensiasie faktor te vestig in enige organisasie. Daar word agt onderwerpe bespreek teen die agtergrond van bestaande modelle, asook die verwantskap met die MARDEN diagnostiese model van veranderingsbestuur as evaluerings basis. Die onderwerpe is: • Versekering dat die organisasie se mense-bestuur strategie tasbare resultate lewer. • Vestiging van 'n werkplek kultuur wat optimale resultate verseker. • Vestiging van hoë verrigting werkplek praktyke. • Groei stimulasie deur bevoegdheid gebasseerde mense-prestasie en ontwikkeling. • Hefkrag van buitengewone prestasie deur span gebasseerde leierskap. • Strategiese prosesse deur die ontwikkeling van waardekettings en werkplek tot mededingende voordele. • Omskakeling van kennis in mag deur 'n ware lerende organisasie. • Bemagtiging van 'n organisasie deur die implimentering van suksesvolle veranderings en transformasie prosesse. Elke onderwerp word verder ondersoek in meer praktyke en detail wat deur organisasies geadresseer moet word om te verseker dat die beste praktyke toegepas word. Sodoende word die organisasie by gestaan om mense-kapitaal te posisioneer as die belangrikste ontasbare bate en ontwikkel in hoë prestasie spanne en 'n samehorige groep.

Hållbar utveckling är ett begrepp som genom Brundtlandkommissionens rapport “Vår gemensamma framtid” och EU Kommissionens definition av Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) har fått en större påverkan på näringslivet. Denna studie hade som syfte att undersöka hur ledare på företag som enligt svenska konsumenter anses vara “hållbara” driver sitt interna förändringsarbete med hållbar utveckling. Hållbarhetsansvariga från sex företag har deltagit i en kvalitativ intervjustudie med målet att ge mer kunskap om hur samtliga leder förändringsarbetet i sin verksamhet, samt vilken strategi som finns i förändringsledningsarbetet i organisationen. Resultatet anger att styrgrupper, visioner samt kortsiktiga och långsiktiga mål är bra insatser och verktyg i ett framgångsrikt förändringsarbete. Internutbildning och kommunikation är viktigt för att öka kunskap och engagemang hos medarbetare i organisationen. Utmaningar med att driva förändring kan vara att få med sig medarbetare och leverantörer i arbetet. Tidsbrist, bevis på ekonomisk vinst och svårigheter att kvantifiera fördelar med hållbarhetsarbetet är aspekter som kan påverka hur väl förändringsarbetet prioriteras i verksamheten. / Sustainable Development is a concept that has developed and gained interest in business production through the report ”Our common future” written by the Brundtland Commission and the definition of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) by the EU Commission. The aim of this study was to investigate how companies who are considered ”sustainable” by consumers are managing there internal changes to participate in the development of a more sustainable society. Leaders from six companies have participated in a qualitative research with the goal to achieve information about how the change is managed in their businesses. The result shows that a steering committee, visions, short- and long term goals are actions stated to be useful to create a successful change management. Internal education and communication is important to improve the knowledge and engage the co-workers in the organisation. Challenges in the change management can be to increase interest for sustainable development among co-workers and suppliers. Short term pressure, difficulties to quantify intangible outcomes of action and evidence for economic benefits are aspects that can affect how well a change management is prioritized in the organisations.

This thesis examines the management of change in bureaucracies, with a study focus on the Egyptian civil service sector. The main research aims are to identify what are the main problems of the Egyptian civil service sector, identify the main barriers against the current change programmes undertaken by the Government of Egypt (GOE) and suggest ways to develop civil servants’ commitment towards those changes. Interview data was triangulated with archival documents and non-participant observation and were drawn from a sample of 33 civil servants working in the Egyptian Ministry of State for Administrative Development (MSAD) which is the civil service entity acting as the change agent responsible for managing the government administrative reforms plan in the civil service sector. All study participants were actually working in one of the change projects/programmes and had a minimum of 12 months of service in the civil service. Interviews were digitally-recorded and transcribed in the form of MS-Word documents, and data transcripts were analysed manually using MS-Excel worksheets and main research themes were developed and statistics drawn using those Excel worksheets. The main research findings suggested that the main problems of the Egyptian civil service sector are (1) the absence of a Reward and Punishment system, (2) the absence of a firm system of governance and control and (3) the current negative civil service culture. The research findings suggested that developing civil servants’ commitment towards change may be achieved by employee involvement and participation in the change process and the careful selection of inspirational change agents. The findings also suggested that change agents play an important role in inspiring civil servants to support change and that middle management is another crucial factor in the change move as it should act as liaison between change agents and employees.

Understanding the impacts of land-use change on biodiversity and the ecosystem services that it provides is of great importance given unprecedented growth of the human population. Past studies attempting to explore these impacts have described the overall structure of communities (i.e. species richness and trait diversity) across gradients of local scale degradation and fragmentation, and have sought to identify whether the loss of species following land-use change is non-random. Yet, despite a wealth of research we still lack a generalised understanding of how land-use change impacts on traits responsible for determining species sensitivity and their role within ecosystems, particularly for vertebrates. Moreover, despite the importance of niche-based processes in the assembly of communities, we have not yet elucidated whether these are important in mediating the collapse of communities in human-dominated landscapes. To fill these existing research gaps, I collated comprehensive avian species inventories from fragmented and degraded forests and compared their structure with communities existing in continuous forests. In Chapter 2, I tested whether sensitivity of species to forest fragmentation varies between the temperate zone and the tropics and whether there are key differences in the size of fragments required to maintain ecosystem processes in these regions. I found that sensitivity to fragmentation varies according to functional group and body mass, with the prevalence of insectivores and large frugivores declining in relation to fragment size, particularly in tropical fragments smaller than 100 ha. In Chapter 3, I tested whether functional diversity and the mean position of trait diversity of insectivores and frugivores, changed across a gradient of intensifying land-use change. I found a decline in the functional diversity of forest species and a shift in the mean community traits for both forest and non-forest species. In Chapter 4, I tested whether the structure of tropical bird communities are influenced by species interactions in a fragmented landscape. I found increasing over-dispersion in functional and phylogenetic trait relatedness among species with decreasing fragment size, suggesting that competitive interactions are important in the disassembly of avian communities. In Chapter 5, I modelled the impact of forest cover change on ecosystem function across the Brazilian Amazon, focusing on seed dispersal by birds. Furthermore, I tested whether ecosystem function declined linearly with decreased forest cover after accounting for differences in the underlying pools of species. I found the lowest levels of functional diversity along the southern arc of deforestation and that the dispersal of large seeds showed some resilience to declining forest cover. Taken together, my results suggest that the loss of species from communities in degraded and fragmented landscapes is strongly non-random. Insectivores and large frugivores are most sensitive to land-use change, with species located in the densest parts of trait space being most threatened by a decline in forest patch size, suggesting that species interactions regulate the collapse of avian diversity in human-modified forests. I conclude that land-use change has important implications for the provisioning of ecosystem services, including seed dispersal and the control of insect herbivores. The impact of future land-use change is likely to be mediated by the composition of the original pool of species and the amount of redundancy in the ecosystem services that they provide. I discuss the relevance of my findings to land-use management strategies and policy interventions, and in particular conclude that these should, where possible, maintain pristine forest patches above 1000 ha, improve connectivity among habitat patches, and ensure greater protection for logged and burnt forests. Future studies should focus on clarifying the link between shifts in vertebrate community structure and the functioning of forest ecosystems.

This thesis introduces a topic of current educational reform in Finland. The main goal is to describe a process of implementation of current curricula reform in Finland and evaluate a preparedness of teachers, students of teacher education and management of curricula to curricula reform. In theoretical part, we define "curriculum" and "curriculum reform", then we briefly introduce change management, reasons for successful or unsuccessful reform and specifics of finnish education system. The research part analyses the Finnish National Core Curriculum from 2004 and 2014 in detail. It also analyses interview with teachers, students of teacher education and management of reform. Based on research part of the thesis, we can say that teachers and students have been prepared in a field of knowledge, however they have not been prepared for implementing the ideas of reform into their everyday teaching. The management of reform has been prepared for implementation. Management includes teacher and other stakeholders into creating of the new curricula, the reform is communicated and finances for the reform are secured. Conclusion of the thesis summerize answers for research questions and brings recommendations for a further research.

Since the late 1980s in most European countries the public sector has been characterized by ongoing privatization/liberalization strategies. Challenges related to this development are the merging of public institutions or units, the (re)creation of efficient processes, the increase in revenues, and the balancing between public service obligation and private sector competition. Approaching a case of a large Austrian company in the public health sector with a mixed methods design (narrative interviews, surveys), three major changes could be identified: a) breaking the bottleneck - development of processes, tools and awareness, b) reduction and regulation - ongoing business integration, and c) the good, the bad and the ugly - changing roles and status of clients, employees and managers. Organizational cultural subgroups relevant to the case are functional, occupational, geographical, political and structural subgroups. The political and the structural subgroups are fairly new dimensions in M&A research. The different subgroups identified show different resource dependencies, define perceptions about the ongoing changes and related approaches to change, face different organizational strategies and professional challenges. This explorative case study contributes to the understanding of developments of the public sector and related types of organisations. It provides practical recommendations for successful integration processes and managerial action. Approaching the case with the model of organizational culture challenges organisational cultural theory. New constructs relevant to change management are combined and a contribution to the field of mixed method M&A studies is made. (author's abstract)

On the assumption that leadership involves individuals with distinct qualities who take much ingenuity, energy and skills to trigger greater capacity in the organization for moving people towards organizational vision and goal achievement, the aim of this study is to identify and describe the leadership shown by managers and lecturers for the successful implementation of academic programme change at National University of Rwanda. That includes investigating the improvement of academic practice in the higher education institution while implementing change, i.e. introduction of the Module-Based Teaching and Learning (MBTL) methodology which is a new approach to schooling, as well as defining an appropriate leadership style needed for the management of this implementation. The research was carried out at National University of Rwanda as a case study and supported by the aid of interviews with faculty managers and lecturers as they are the main developers and users of teaching and learning programmes. Next, data collected were complemented by means of textual analysis. The findings revealed that the MBTL introduced at NUR as an innovation in academic practice was a top-down decision made by the policy makers without consultation with academic staffs and implemented without adequate preparation whereas they are the main actors in the implementation. Coupled with the change in the language of instruction from French to English and the lack of educational material required by the MBTL approach, the situation had an unenthusiastic impact on the engagement of NUR academics for accurate successful implementation. The overall conclusion is that inadequate management of the introduction of an educational change programme leads to misadoption and reluctance at best and resistance by the implementers at worst.

AbstractChange is incorporated in our personal and professional lives and there is no argument about that. In today’s era of constant technological and economical evolution, businesses are forced to adapt to the new circumstances by leveraging efficiency, decreasing time of adaptability in order to gain competitive advantage and survive. For this reason, the change management field’s role is considered to be crucial for all organizations in all industries. The change management process obtains multiple components among others, communication, leadership and resistance to be the most significant but at the same time the most challenging and problematic. It is widely recognized that organizational culture does play a substantial role in the overall change management process, however culture is being defined by another attribute too; nationality. Thus, the purpose of this thesis is to investigate which cultural factors influence and challenge change management. Furthermore, this research intends to investigate how masculinity versus femininity as a dimension in Hofstede’s cultural framework is reflected in the change management process.In order to address there two research questions, a qualitative multiple case study took place by obtaining data from two international companies operating in Sweden and Greece. The results of this research indicated that national culture has an impact on the change management process throughout multiple dimensions of Hofstede’s cultural framework. Last but not least, masculinity versus femininity appeared throughout all the examined change management processes. Participation and inclusion are concepts substantial for the feminine cultures whereas competition and individual benefits for the masculine ones. All these concepts for each culture should be taken into account in order to reduce change resistance and enhance the leadership efficiency. Overall, companies should take into consideration the national characteristics of the country they operate when forming strategies and applying processes in order to work an efficient and beneficial way for their employees.

Bakgrund: Digitalisering är ett utav de mest diskuterade ämnena i dagens samhälle och det har förändrat organisationer likt ingen tidigare innovation. Förändringar är inte alltid lätta att hantera och kan skapa problem oavsett hur välplanerade de är. En av de största svårigheterna vid förändringsarbete är att få med sig de anställda. Något som har blivit vanligare är att se de anställda som en drivare av innovationsarbetet. Forskning visar att förändringsarbete i den operativa verksamheten inom ramen för digitalisering är ett outforskat område.   Syfte: Syftet med studien är att utreda hur Polismyndigheten inkluderar digitalisering i sin operativa verksamhet. Detta arbete möjliggörs genom att en kartläggning av myndighetens digitaliseringsarbete genomförs, vilket också avser att utreda hur Regeringens digitaliseringsstrategi återfinns hos myndigheten. Ytterligare ämnar studien bidra med kunskap om hur medarbetarna kan vara en del av förändringsarbetet i myndigheten samt andra organisationer som står inför liknande utmaningar.   Metod: För att lyckas uppfylla studiens syfte har fallstudie tillämpats som forskningsstrategi. Ett iterativt arbetssätt har används genomgående för sammanställningen av det teoretiska samt empiriska materialet. Insamlingen av det empiriska materialet skedde genom att flertalet dokument studerades samt genom semi-strukturerade intervjuer på Polismyndigheten.   Slutsats: Digitalisering som ämne finns presenterat i flera av myndighetens styrdokument, dock i väldigt generella drag. De fem delmålen från Regeringens digitaliseringsstrategi är hanterade inom myndigheten men endast indirekt. Myndigheten styr sitt förändringsarbete inom ramen för digitalisering genom sin styrmodell, verksamhetsbaserad IT-utveckling. Den är däremot i dagsläget mer använd av de i yttre tjänst än de i inre. För de i inre tjänst finns också ett större motstånd till att använda de digitala verktygen. Genom en tydligare styrning kan kulturen förändras och leda till att digitaliseringen blir en större del av verksamheten. / Background: Digitalization is one of the most discussed topics in today’s society and it has come to change organisations like no earlier innovation. Changes are not always easy to handle and can create problems regardless of how well structured the process is. One of the biggest challenges when it comes to change management is to involve the employees. To see the employees as a driver of innovation has become more common. Research show that change management in the operational business when it comes to digitalization is still yet an unexplored topic.   Purpose: The purpose of the study is to investigate how the Swedish Police include digitalization in their operational business. The work is made possible through a mapping of the authority’s work with digitalization, which also aims to investigate how the goals from the Swedish Government’s digitalization strategy is taken care of. Further, the study aims to contribute with knowledge about how employees can be part of the work with changes within the authority but also in other organizations, that are faced with the same challenges.   Method: In order to fulfill the purpose of the study, a case study is applied as research strategy. When compiling the theoretical material and gathering the empirical material an iterative approach was used. The empirical material was gathered through qualitative interviews with employees at the Swedish Police.   Conclusions: Digitalization as a subject are represented in many of the authority’s documents, but only in general. The five goals from the digitalization strategy presented by the Swedish government are handled but only indirectly. The authority is managing their changes caused by the digitalization through their control model. This way of working is more used by the people working in the external environment. The resistance to use digitalized tools is greater from the people working in the internal environment. With a clearer management accounting system, the culture can change which will make digitalization a bigger part in the authority.