Esta pesquisa verificou o que faz com que as empresas intensivas em tecnologia decidam a favor da cooperação formal com universidades brasileiras para desenvolvimento tecnológico de seus produtos e/ou processos. O construto "características da decisão" foi desdobrado em características do decisor e características da decisão. No primeiro item foi analisado o perfil dos executivos que decidem sobre a realização de desenvolvimento tecnológico e a atitude que os mesmos demonstram com respeito à cooperação empresa - universidade. O segundo, foi operacionalizado por meio da análise dos aspectos relacionados à estrutura de decisão da empresa, à disponibilidade de informações e à existência ou não de incertezas e conflitos neste processo. A metodologia utilizada foi um levantamento, com amostragem intencional, realizado junto a 562 empresas intensivas em tecnologia, das quais 128 responderam ao instrumento de pesquisa. As técnicas de análise utilizadas foram testes qui-quadrado, teste t de diferença de médias, fatorial, clusters, discriminante e correspondência. / This dissertation analyses how technology intensive companies decide to cooperate with Brazilian universities in the development of their products and/or processes. The decision model was unfolded in decision-maker characteristics and decision characteristics. For the first issue, the decision-maker profile was analyzed, along with his/her attitudes with regard to company-university cooperation. For the latter one, the structure of the company’s decision-making, the availability of information on government funding and university research lines, and the existence of uncertainties and conflicts were studied. The methodology comprised a survey with intentional sampling in 562 technology intensive companies, which provided 128 valid answers. They were submitted to chi-square, t test averages differences, factorial, clusters, discriminant and correspondence analysis.

Ng Hoi Lam. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 138-149). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.ix / Acknowledgments --- p.xi / List of Abbreviations，Tables and Figures --- p.xii / Chapter Chapter 1 --- Introduction: Summit in Sino-American relations --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Magic Figure --- p.1 / Chapter - --- 30th Anniversary of Rapprochement between the US and China / Chapter 1.2 --- Puzzle --- p.3 / Chapter - --- The Central question / Chapter 1.3 --- Layout --- p.6 / Chapter 1.4 --- Argument --- p.6 / Chapter Chapter 2 --- Literature Review: Linking the internal politics to decision-making process of foreign policy Rational model VS Power model in High politics --- p.8 / Chapter 2.1 --- What is a Summit? --- p.8 / Chapter 2.2 --- Who is/ are the person(s) in-charge of foreign policy making process? --- p.11 / Chapter 2.3 --- Foreign Policy decision making model(s) / Chapter - --- Rationality model VS Power model --- p.16 / Chapter 2.4 --- Linking internal and external politics / Chapter - --- Two-level game instead of realism --- p.21 / Chapter 2.5 --- Value of summitry --- p.25 / Chapter - --- A photo-taking arena / Chapter - --- Symbolism or substance? / Chapter 2.6 --- Summitry in APEC --- p.32 / Chapter Chapter 3 --- Methodology & Theoretical Framework: Summitry for settling legitimacy dilemma by two-level game --- p.34 / Chapter 3.1 --- Focusing the subject --- p.34 / Chapter 3.2 --- Research Method and Data --- p.38 / Chapter 3.3 --- Nature of Sino-American relations --- p.39 / Chapter 3.4 --- Summitry under two-level game --- p.47 / Chapter 3.5 --- Pattern in APEC summits --- p.53 / Chapter 3.6 --- "Modeling in 3 'I's´ؤInternational, internal and individual" --- p.55 / Chapter Chapter 4 --- A Year of Presidential Elections: The case of 1996 --- p.61 / Chapter 4.1 --- Manila APEC --- p.61 / Chapter 4.2 --- Jiang's Taiwan Policy / Chapter - --- How did the 'Eight Points' work under internal politics --- p.62 / Behind the Third Strait Crisis / Repeating the same old tune / Chapter 4.3 --- Full embracement after APEC --- p.75 / Chapter Chapter 5 --- After Honeymoon Years: The case of 1999 --- p.78 / Chapter 5.1 --- Auckland APEC --- p.78 / Conflicts after the honeymoon: Old bottle with new wine / Chapter 5.2 --- Three Crises --- p.84 / A huge mistake´ؤupon mismatched timing / Missile on the Embassy / """Special State-to-State relationship""" / Chapter 5.3 --- """2As"" meetings´ؤplatform for saving face" --- p.90 / Chapter 5.4 --- Re-opening dialogue on WTO deals --- p.93 / Diplomat dead but diplomacy alive / Chapter Chapter 6 --- Starting a new Emperor: The case of 2001 --- p.99 / Chapter 6.1 --- Shanghai APEC --- p.99 / New doctrine: A potential enemy or ally? / Chapter 6.2 --- Conflicts again --- p.101 / Fool's Day joke / The art of apology´ؤnegotiation involved / "Taiwan and Tibet´ؤ“internal affairs""" / Chapter 6.3 --- Warming in relation --- p.109 / Ardent summer / "Death of asylum, birth of hamlet" / Green House in Winter / Chapter Chapter 7 --- Conclusion´ؤJiang's 'Core' Consideration --- p.118 / Chapter 7.1 --- Era unlike Mao and Deng --- p.118 / Chapter 7.2 --- Lesson for Policy makers --- p.120 / Chapter 7.3 --- Contributions/ Implications --- p.122 / Chapter 7.4 --- Limitation --- p.123 / Appendix I Chronology --- p.125 / Append ix II Pew Research Center of People and the Press --- p.136 / Bibliography --- p.137

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is an international organisation established in 1981 between six Gulf countries, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). According to the GCC Supreme Council, it was established to foster and manage cooperation between these countries and to serve their common interests. This thesis explores another factor, that it was established in response to specific security concerns in the context of the energy crisis that arose after the 1970‟s war between Egypt and Israel, the Soviet attack on Afghanistan and the Iranian revolution which was followed by the Iran-Iraq war. It is a doctrinal study that aims to determine where the GCC fits as an international institution within the framework of international law and international institutions particularly. Accordingly, the aim of this thesis is to analyse critically what the GCC is and does exactly. More specifically, it examines the type of organisation the GCC is, its relationship with member states and other international organisations and considers its future role as a key regional organisation. This thesis analyses the reason for its establishment, leaders‟ opinions about its nature, the GCC's methods for producing collective political attitudes and economic cooperation. It also assesses the kinds of laws the GCC produces, their status, whether hard and soft law, as well as their enforcement. This analysis is conducted from a combined legal positivist and international relations framework. From Nasserism to the Arab Spring, the GCC has withstood the waves of political movements in the Middle East. This thesis provide a critical analysis of the GCC‟s overall achievements and aims, with a particular focus on its response to key political developments such as these. This thesis argues that GCC members have been using the GCC as means to achieve their own ends. Due to the nature of their governing systems – absolute monarchy – they are using the GCC to maintain the security and stability of their own ruling systems. However, while the GCC has always focused on security and economic cooperation, its achievements are stronger in the latter because security is linked to external factors.

The aim of this dissertation is to define favourable conditions for a company to implement IceWarp Mail Server groupware product. In the first part of the dissertation the author defines the term "groupware" and analyses the market of groupware applications of similar functionality, presenting a basic comparison with IceWarp Mail Server. The second part is focused on functionality description of each IceWarp Mail Server module and its possible uses. The author also compares individual ways of accessing the functions of a supported client and their advantages and disadvantages. In the third part the author defines hardware and software requirements for implementation and operation of server and client. The author describes implementation of IceWarp Mail Server and clients in general, including ways of migration of present data from the old system, and points out the most common problems and questions connected to this process. The last part of the dissertation is focused on finished projects of IceWarp Mail Server implementation into various organisations. First, initial conditions and expectations are analysed, then the process of implementation is described along with the arisen difficulties and their solution.

This thesis examines Czech-German cross-border cooperation within intercultural communication, identifies problems and develops possible solutions. The thesis is divided into a practical and a theoretical part. The theoretical part first describes the Czech-German cross-border cooperation and then intercultural communication, followed by a discussion of the context and the research methods. In the practical part, the author first performs a sequential analysis of data collected via interviews conducted with people working in the Tandem organization. The results of the analysis are interpreted, problems within the cooperation of Tandem are identified, and possible solutions developed. A glossary divided into two parts, recapitulating the definitions of relevant terms from the first two theoretical chapters of this thesis, is listed at the end of this work. A French résumé summarizing all the important points and conclusions is enclosed with the thesis. The aim of this thesis is to answer the following research question: "Linguistic and intercultural challenges of Czech-German non-profit cross-border cooperation: The case of the Tandem organization."

The aim of this thesis is to analyze the influence of cross-border cooperation on the competitiveness of border regions, here Franco-German. For this purpose, the study focuses on two European integration models located on the eastern part of France on the border with Germany: Euroregion TriRhena and Eurodis-trict Pamina. The influence of cross-border cooperation on the competitiveness of Euroregions and Eurodistricts is analyzed through the presentation and evalua-tion of the organization, objectives, areas of competences as well as through the actions and funding of these organizations. The activities and the results of the two chosen examples are compared with respect to beneficial and unfavorable outcomes that may result, revealing also the development opportunities provided by each structure. After presentation of the theoretical context, different forms of cross-border cooperation and the European framework recommended for the integration models are outlined. Finally, discussions around the concept of com-petitiveness are reported. In a second part, the methodological approach includ-ing the choice of the case studies, the data collected and the analysis criteria, is outlined. In a third part, results are compared, evaluated and discussed in order to answer the research question: Does cross-border cooperation improve the competitiveness of Euroregions and Eurodistricts?

In this thesis, as an extension to [1], we propose a prioritized multi-layer network coding scheme for collaborative packet recovery in hybrid (interweave and underlay) cellular cognitive radio networks. This scheme allows the uncoordinated collaboration between the collocated primary and cognitive radio base-stations in order to minimize their own as well as each other’s packet recovery overheads, thus by improving their throughput. The proposed scheme ensures that each network’s performance is not degraded by its help to the other network. Moreover, it guarantees that the primary network’s interference threshold is not violated in the same and adjacent cells. Yet, the scheme allows the reduction of the recovery overhead in the collocated primary and cognitive radio networks. The reduction in the cognitive radio network is further amplified due to the perfect detection of spectrum holes which allows the cognitive radio base station to transmit at higher power without fear of violating the interference threshold of the primary network. For the secondary network, simulation results show reductions of 20% and 34% in the packet recovery overhead, compared to the non-collaborative scheme, for low and high probabilities of primary packet arrivals, respectively. For the primary network, this reduction was found to be 12%. Furthermore, with the use of fractional cooperation, the average recovery overhead is further reduced by around 5% for the primary network and around 10% for the secondary network when a high fractional cooperation probability is used.

Abstract not available

An alignment or “fit” between an organization’s objectives and knowledge management (KM) practices should be established in order for the organization to fully utilize its knowledge assets and to derive competitive advantages. The organization should deploy a holistic approach for KM that spans business strategy, information system (IS) strategy, organization culture, and human factors. This research has investigated the strategic alignment between knowledge strategy and business strategy - KMBS-SA and the strategic alignment between knowledge strategy and IS strategy - KMIS-SA in the banking sector among the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Using the proposed model, the study explored the impacts of KMBS-SA and KMIS-SA on the organizational performance. The main hypothesis of this research is that knowledge is the main resource in an organization, and by aligning this resource with the business strategy and IS strategy, the alignment will contribute positively on the performance of the organization. The research model was illustrated in two different conceptualizations hypothesizing the different relationships between knowledge strategies, business strategy and IS strategy. The first conceptualization illustrates the KMBS-SA and KMIS-SA, and an investigation on the contribution of theses alignments on the organizational performance. The second conceptualization of the research model aims at investigating the impact of different types or profiles of KMBS-SA and KMIS-SA on the organizational performance. This study examined different alignments between two profiles of knowledge strategy - Aggressive Knowledge Strategy (AKS) and Conservative Knowledge Strategy (CKS), with various types of business strategy according to Miles and Snow’s (1978) strategic typology, and, the alignment of the two profiles of knowledge strategy with various IS strategy based on the STROIS approach by Chan et al. (1997). Using both conceptualizations, the role of knowledge strategy as a moderator or a mediator in the contribution of the business strategy and IS strategy towards the organizational performance was examined. The primary data for this study was collected through a survey of 106 banks from the six Gulf countries: Kingdom of Bahrain, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Oman. The first overall conclusion demonstrated that there is a strong association between knowledge strategy and business strategy and that KMBS-SA clearly influenced the organizational performance. The second overall result of this research shows that in the context of GCC countries, knowledge strategy received stronger support as moderator of the IS congruence association with performance and that KMIS-SA is the primary determinant of the effectiveness of IS in the GCC banks. From the finding, it is recommended that the GCC banks should take KMBS-SA and KMIS-SA challenge seriously and should consider the alignment implication before moving ahead to implement a strategic plan. Furthermore, the research finding revealed that GCC bank should not ignore the different dimensions of knowledge strategic choices. The banks need to determine different profiles for their knowledge strategy in order to support all aspects of business strategy and IS strategic dimensions that are most important for the organization. They should then direct the organizational knowledge resources to support these profiles. Finally, it is recommended that the banks should define and establish a position in KM in order to oversee the knowledge strategy and KM issues.

Doctor of Philosophy / Buyer-supplier relationships have been increasingly considered a critical part of contemporary supply chain management. In response to dynamic and unpredictable market changes, buyers and suppliers enter into cooperative relationships to pursue individual goals and joint goals for better economic and non-economic performance of the supply chain. On the other hand, cooperation between channel members is surrounded by uncertainty, which can create a detrimental impact on the performance of a supply chain. Previous research has focused on various aspects of uncertainty that could affect supply chain member behaviour. The present research contends that relationship behavioural factors play an important role in increasing or mitigating channel members’ perceived uncertainty in their supply or purchase decision-making. Specifically, the purpose of this research is to investigate the impact of retailer-supplier cooperation and retailer/supplier’s decision-making uncertainty (DMU) on retail supply chain performance from the perspectives of both the retailer and the supplier. A holistic model was developed as the theoretical framework for this conceptualisation. A sample of 202 retailers and 64 suppliers in the sporting goods retail business in Taiwan was used to separately test a number of hypothesised relationships by using structural equation modelling (SEM). The findings indicate that both cooperation and DMU are the key determinants of retail supply chain performance, including financial performance and non-financial performance (i.e., supply flexibility and customer service). Financial performance is positively affected by retailer-supplier cooperation and negatively affected by DMU in both the retailer model and the supplier model. The five dimensions of retailer-supplier cooperation (i.e. trust, guanxi, dependence, coercive power and non-coercive power) have significant effects on cooperation. However, apart from guanxi with the retailer/supplier, neither other relationship dimensions nor retailer-supplier cooperation have any influence on retailer’s DMU or supplier’s DMU. The results also indicate that differences and similarities exist across retailers and suppliers with respect to the effects of several relationship dimensions on cooperation and uncertainty. 2 The holistic empirical model developed for this research contributes further to understanding the links, which have been lacking in the extant channel relationship literature and supply chain management literature, between buyer-supplier relationships, DMU, and supply chain performance. The findings that a retailer/supplier’s DMU can erode the performance of a supply chain in various aspects highlight the need for improvement in some areas of supply chain efficiency and effectiveness, through cooperation-enhancing actions between the retailer and the supplier. From a managerial perspective, the performance improvement in the supply chain, in turn, will motivate more reciprocal commitment and efforts from the retailer and the supplier to maintain their working relationship. As such, mutual trust and enriched guanxi, dependence and non-coercive power help both the retailer and the supplier to have less uncertainty in their purchase/supply decision-making process. It creates a win-win position for both parties in the supply chain.