This study is designed to investigate the relationships between cognitive, emotional, and intentional readiness of teachers towards organizational change and their resilience traits. The main assumption of this study is that readiness of teachers towards organizational change might be associated with their resilience traits. The study aimed at finding a correlation between readiness for change and resilience traits. The sample for this study was composed of 691 teachers who were working at primary and secondary public schools in Ankara. To assess the readiness of teachers, a new readiness scale was developed by the researchers and a previously used resilience scale was conducted to examine the resiliency level of teachers. The results of the multiple linear regressions between the variables of two scales indicated that some of the factors of resiliency were found to be significant predictors of readiness of teachers towards organizational change.

UK (United Kingdom) infrastructure networks are fundamental for maintaining societal and economic wellbeing. With infrastructure assets predominantly founded in the soil layer (< 1.5m below ground level) they are subject to a range of soil-related geohazards. A literature review identified that geohazards including, clay-related subsidence, sand erosion and soil corrosivity have exerted significant impacts on UK infrastructure to date; often resulting in both long-term degradation and ultimately structural failure of particular assets. Climate change projections suggest that these geohazards, which are themselves driven by antecedent weather conditions, are likely to increase in magnitude and frequency for certain areas of the UK through the 21st century. Despite this, the incorporation of climate data into geohazard models has seldom been undertaken and never on a national scale for the UK. Furthermore, geohazard risk assessment in UK infrastructure planning policy is fragmented and knowledge is often lacking due to the complexity of modelling chronic hazards in comparison to acute phenomenon such as flooding. With HM Government's recent announcement of £50 million planned infrastructure investment and capital projects, the place of climate resilient infrastructure is increasingly pertinent. The aim of this thesis is therefore to establish whether soil-related geohazard assessments have a role in ensuring climate-resilient UK infrastructure. Soil moisture projections were calculated using probabilistic weather variables derived from a high-resolution version of the UKCP09 (UK Climate Projections2009) weather generator. These were then incorporated into a geohazard model to predict Great Britain's (GB) subsidence hazard for the future scenarios of 2030 (2020-2049) and 2050 (2040-2069) as well as the existing climatic baseline (1961-1990). Results suggest that GB is likely to be subject to increased clay-related subsidence in future, particularly in the south east of England. This thesis has added to scientific understanding through the creation of a novel, national-scale assessment of clay subsidence risk, with future assessments undertaken to 2050. This has been used to help create a soil- informed maintenance strategy for improving the climate resilience of UK local roads, based on an extended case study utilising road condition data for the county of Lincolnshire, UK. Finally, a methodological framework has been created, providing a range of infrastructure climate adaptation stakeholders with a method for incorporating geohazard assessments, informed by climate change projections, into asset management planning and design of new infrastructure. This research also highlights how infrastructure networks are becoming increasingly interconnected, particularly geographically, and therefore even minor environmental shocks arising from soil-related geohazards can cause significant cascading failures of multiple infrastructure networks. A local infrastructure hotspot analysis methodology and case-study is provided.

Collaborative studies between Quaternary scientists and archaeologists increasingly provide new and informative discussions about the nature and timing of cultural change and links with variation in the natural world (particularly climate). In the Eastern Mediterranean region, connecting the human past with palaeoclimate is an important research theme but the complex interactions between them are still poorly understood and past climate records have often been collected from regions distant from the human record. The thesis aims to derive a record of past climatic and environmental changes from lake sediment cores and synthesise this with archaeological data in order to reconstruct human-climate interactions at the regional scale. Annually laminated sediment data collected from Nar Gölϋ crater-lake and archaeological archives from the same region, Cappadocia (Turkey) allow problems of chronological uncertainty between records of the human past and palaeoclimatic archives, and spatially variable datasets to be addressed. New sediment cores collected from Nar Lake in 2010 cover the last ~14000 years based on varve counting and climate-stratigraphic correlation. The changing chemical composition of these sediments has been obtained using high-resolution Itrax XRF core scanning, mainly at 200μm resolution over 21.6m. Temporal differences in Ca and Sr are interpreted as a record of regional moisture levels, while Ti and Fe are elemental proxies that detail changes in catchment in-wash. These and other sedimentary data (e.g. total carbon analysis) document lake evolution from a predominately stable and moist early Holocene climate dominated by high authigenic Ca precipitation to a drier and less stable IV late Holocene dominated by increased authigenic Sr and Mg (and higher lake salinity levels). The most arid climatic conditions occurred during Bronze and early Iron Age times, but frequent and intense centennial-scale climatic shifts between wet and dry are also evidenced during the last 2600 years from Ca/Sr data. Peaks in Fe and Ti, along with Si, K and Rb indicate two distinct phases of increased sediment influx into Nar Lake, namely ~9200 to ~8000 yr. BP (ceramic Neolithic) and again – more importantly – during the last 2600 years (Iron Age and later). These appear to be related primarily to increased human impact on vegetation and soils in the lake-catchment, but volcanic activity and intense rainfall events and/or water deficits may also have played a role. To determine the degree to which climatic variability and cultural change are interlinked, the geochemical record from Nar Lake is correlated against long-term settlement histories which have been derived from systematic archaeological site survey and excavation data from Cappadocia. One of the key outcomes of the project is an examination of periods of climatic stability and instability which are identified by amplitudinal changes from the mean state using correlation of coefficient statistics on the Nar Lake geochemical record. This information about the predictability of climate has been coupled to data in settlement density and location within the resiliency model framework of Holling and Gunderson (2002). Together these data suggest that a series of four long-term adaptive cycles (Neolithic, Chalcolithic-Bronze Age, Iron Age-Classical, Byzantine-Ottoman) characterise the dynamic inter-play between people, climate and their environment. In each adaptive cycle, environmental change contributed (both positively and negatively) to community resilience, although at no point during the Holocene is climatic variability seen as the sole driver of societal change. There were times such as the post-Roman Dark Age (1300 to 1100 yr. B.P.) when increased climatic variability and environmental degradation may have heightened social vulnerability.

Rapid environmental changes linked to human-induced increases in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations have been observed on a global scale over recent decades. Given the relative certainty of continued change across many earth systems, the information output from climate models is an essential resource for adaptation planning. But in the face of many known modeling deficiencies, how confident can we be in model projections of future climate? It stands to reason that a realistic simulation of the present climate is at least a necessary (but likely not sufficient) requirement for a model’s ability to realistically simulate the climate of the future. Here, I present the results of three studies that evaluate the 20th century performance of global climate models from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). The first study examines precipitation, geopotential height, and wind fields from 21 CMIP5 models to determine how well the North American monsoon system (NAMS) is simulated. Models that best capture large-scale circulation patterns at low levels usually have realistic representations of the NAMS, but even the best models poorly represent monsoon retreat. Difficulty in reproducing monsoon retreat results from an inaccurate representation of gradients in low-level geopotential height across the larger region, which causes an unrealistic flux of low-level moisture from the tropics into the NAMS region that extends well into the post-monsoon season. The second study examines the presence and severity of spurious Gibbs-type numerical oscillations across the CMIP5 suite of climate models. The oscillations can appear as unrealistic spatial waves near discontinuities or sharp gradients in global model fields (e.g., orography) and have been a known problem for decades. Multiple methods of oscillation reduction exist; consequently, the oscillations are presumed small in modern climate models and hence are rarely addressed in recent literature. Here we quantify the oscillations in 13 variables from 48 global climate models along a Pacific ocean transect near the Andes. Results show that 48% of nonspectral models and 95% of spectral models have at least one variable with oscillation amplitude as large as, or greater than, atmospheric interannual variability. The third study is an in-depth assessment model simulations of 20th century monthly minimum and maximum surface air temperature over eight US regions, using mean state, trend, and variability bias metrics. Transparent model performance information is provided in the form of model rankings for each bias type. A wide range in model skill is at the regional scale, but no strong relationships are seen between any of the three bias types or between 20th century bias and 21st century projected change. Using our model rankings, two smaller ensembles of models with better performance over the southwestern U.S. are selected, but they result in negligible differences from the all-model ensemble in the average 21st century projected temperature change and model spread. In other words, models of varied quality (and complexity) are projecting very similar changes in temperature, implying that the models are simulating warming for different physical reasons. Despite this result, we suggest that models with smaller 20th century biases have a greater likelihood of being more physically realistic and therefore, more confidence can be placed in their 21st century projections as compared to projections from models that have demonstrably poor skill over the observational period. This type of analysis is essential for responsibly informing climate resilience efforts.

The objective of this multi-perspective qualitative research study was to explore the phenomenon of Inclusivity and to develop a theoretical Inclusivity Framework. Inclusivity is defined by the researcher as a radical transformational methodology with the intent to achieve sustainable results. A case study, in which an Inclusivity Transformational Strategy was implemented, was introduced to provide context. Six years after initial implementation of this strategy, with the purpose to investigate the sustainability thereof, in-depth interviews with a phenomenological nature were conducted with national leaders (n=4) responsible for the strategy and provincial leaders (n=13) that participated in the interventions. Furthermore, a round table discussion was conducted with the executive team (n=12), and three focus groups were held on regional leader level (n=32) and three on employee level (n=28). The essence of the phenomenon namely Inclusivity was synthesised through Phenomenology. Emerging theory was built through Grounded Theory principles. Meta-insights were derived through content analysis. Post Intervention Investigation was done in the case organisation. This strategy and the Inclusivity Framework, derived from literature, were adapted and presented as contributors to the theory of Inclusivity. Positive trends were found in the case organisation, in profitability, retention, compliance to legislation, levels of emotional intelligence of leaders and organisational climate indicators. Six years after the initial stages of the strategy were implemented, evidence of the principles of Inclusivity was still found. It was derived that Inclusivity leads to higher levels of commitment, trust and engagement. Fundamental to the achievement of success were leadership�s emotional intelligence, and willingness to allow differences. A key finding was that although aligned around strategy, individual styles were allowed to manifest in the case organisation. Creating Inclusivity in one system may however lead to the exclusion of other systems. It was concluded that Inclusivity as defined by this study is a radical transformational methodology that may result in sustainable transformation. / Graduate School of Business Leadership / D.B.L.

The objective of this multi-perspective qualitative research study was to explore the phenomenon of Inclusivity and to develop a theoretical Inclusivity Framework. Inclusivity is defined by the researcher as a radical transformational methodology with the intent to achieve sustainable results. A case study, in which an Inclusivity Transformational Strategy was implemented, was introduced to provide context. Six years after initial implementation of this strategy, with the purpose to investigate the sustainability thereof, in-depth interviews with a phenomenological nature were conducted with national leaders (n=4) responsible for the strategy and provincial leaders (n=13) that participated in the interventions. Furthermore, a round table discussion was conducted with the executive team (n=12), and three focus groups were held on regional leader level (n=32) and three on employee level (n=28). The essence of the phenomenon namely Inclusivity was synthesised through Phenomenology. Emerging theory was built through Grounded Theory principles. Meta-insights were derived through content analysis. Post Intervention Investigation was done in the case organisation. This strategy and the Inclusivity Framework, derived from literature, were adapted and presented as contributors to the theory of Inclusivity. Positive trends were found in the case organisation, in profitability, retention, compliance to legislation, levels of emotional intelligence of leaders and organisational climate indicators. Six years after the initial stages of the strategy were implemented, evidence of the principles of Inclusivity was still found. It was derived that Inclusivity leads to higher levels of commitment, trust and engagement. Fundamental to the achievement of success were leadership�s emotional intelligence, and willingness to allow differences. A key finding was that although aligned around strategy, individual styles were allowed to manifest in the case organisation. Creating Inclusivity in one system may however lead to the exclusion of other systems. It was concluded that Inclusivity as defined by this study is a radical transformational methodology that may result in sustainable transformation. / Graduate School of Business Leadership / D.B.L.