Thesis (D. Min.)--Columbia International University, 2000. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 115-122).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.P.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 83-86). Also available in print.

Thesis (M.P.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 131-146). Also available in print.

Thesis (M.A.)--Rowan University, 2005. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--Georgia State University, 2007. / Title from file title page. David M. Cheshier, committee chair; Jennifer Jiles, Arla G. Bernstein, committee members. Electronic text (122 p.) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed Oct. 18, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 113-122).

The existing literature does little to reveal the sources of escalation in international security crises. This thesis reveals some of them by means of a general analytical framework designed to sensitize us to the distinctive political context of individual cases. Most theorising about crisis focuses narrowly on decisionmaking: the cognitive and/or organisational processes that form and implement policy. Such an approach essentially treats decision-makers as autonomous actors more or less effectively securing their utility. Their broad political context--the nation-state they represent and the issue--are given. In these terms, decision-making is critical to policy. Technical prescriptions to improve the process should therefore also improve policy. However, both largely reflect political constraints immune to such ‘improvement.’ In crises such constraints apparently produce sloppy decision-making, because they drastically reduce the politically expedient options and thus the importance of the process of choosing. They can also increase escalation. I identify the escalatory political constraints of crisis, and argue for their importance by examining a case that reveals them unusually starkly: one ending in war. This is the basis of a framework for analysing the political dimension of crisis escalation. The political context is important because of the general political role of the foreign-policy-maker, and the kind of issue raised in a crisis. An individual acting for the state at least nominally represents the community--the nation--of which the state is the political expression. This is a role which, as long as he occupies it, he must in some measure perform. As such, he is constrained by the implicit or explicit obligations of his office. These are common to all states (defined as an institution with supreme authority to order the affairs of a community) though they vary greatly in form and substance. An international crisis is essentially a period of extraordinary threat to important national interests and extraordinary likelihood of war. Because crises involve the dispute of important national interests and the use of force--at least by implicit threat--they provoke unusual political and public attention. A coercive demonstration of force must be publicly legitimised, by defining the issue as important and the adversary as the wrong-doer. Depending on the salience of the issue and the character of the state, such a demonstration constitutes a lesser or greater commitment, a more or less constraining invocation of public expectations concerning the leader's obligations of office. To understand how and why such commitments tend to be more or less powerful and thus more or less escalatory, we must identify the sources of issue salience, in the character of the states and in the object of dispute. Different combinations of aspects of object and states will have more or less escalatory effects. Some will invoke a greater sense in the political constituency of that leader's obligations to escalate, for example, because the adversary has a despised political system, or because the issue involves territory populated by loyal subjects. Such a tenor of public or peer opinion, albeit ill-defined, imposes palpable political costs on conciliatory actions. The identified escalation-relevant variables are: the states' balance of power, political systemic distance, history of contact, current political instability, and the disputed object's indivisibility, preemptibility, emotive potential and utility. A crisis can be characterised according to how escalatory or de-escalatory are the effects of these variables. I characterise three case-studies thus to help us evaluate the 'characterisation' as an analytical instrument. The instrument does more than draw our attention nicely to the dynamics of crisis escalation. By emphasising the foreign-policy-maker's role as the notional person of the state, and his symbolically and practically important obligations to political constituency, it provides a more conceptually coherent alternative to the realists' anthropomorphic state, and to the crisis literature's autonomous decision-maker, as the focus of analysis. / Arts, Faculty of / Political Science, Department of / Graduate

This study describes a conceptual framework that portrays information system project failures as organizational crises. The main assumption of this study is that such failures will invariably happen and thus there is a need to make them less costly and more beneficial to organizations. To identify the behaviors and factors that influence an organization's ability to effectively manage a project failure, this dissertation reviews the crisis management literature. Based on this review, a three-stage model is formulated. To understand the mechanisms underlying this model, a number of hypotheses (which are informed by a number of related organizational behavior areas) are generated. These hypotheses focus on three key crisis management factors: the organization's ability to promptly detect an impeding failure, its capacity to manage the failure's impacts, and its propensity to learn from it. To empirically assess the validity of the conceptual model, three case studies of Canadian public organizations were conducted. The empirical findings provide strong support to the model's conjectures and indicate that project failures generate several crisis-related behaviors and responses. More specifically, the findings suggest that an organization's proactive preparation for a failure can have a significant moderating effect on its impact. However, the findings clearly show that an organization's ability to promptly detect (and prepare for) a failure is impeded by behaviors that are motivated by escalation of commitment. Such behaviors lead to a prolonged pre-crisis denial period and have a suppressing effect on whistle-blowing, which is pursued as a denial-curtailing strategy by non-management participants. The empirical findings describe both operational and legitimacy tactics used by organizations to cope with the aftermath of a project failure and indicate that credibility restoration is a significant concern during large crises. Finally, the empirical evidence indicates that organizational learning and adaptation are more likely to follow major project failures than less significant ones. This contradicts threat-rigidity arguments and provides support to the failure-induced learning theory. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

by Ma Ngok. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1990. / Bibliography: leaves [168]-[172] / ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS --- p.i / ABSTRACTS --- p.iii / LIST OF APPENDICES --- p.v / INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Chapter CHAPTER ONE --- CRISIS AND DEVELOPMENT´ؤ A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK --- p.3 / Chapter 1.1 --- What is a Crisis? --- p.3 / Chapter 1.2 --- Crisis and Development --- p.6 / Chapter 1.3 --- The Crisis Mechanism --- p.8 / Chapter 1.4 --- A Synthesis --- p.12 / Chapter CHAPTER TWO --- METHODOLOGY --- p.16 / Chapter 2.1 --- The Case of Hungary --- p.16 / Chapter 2.2 --- The Time Frame --- p.17 / Chapter 2.3 --- Major Variables and Operationalisation --- p.20 / Chapter CHAPTER THREE --- "HUNGARY, 1950-56" --- p.23 / Chapter 3.1 --- The Stalinist Era as Antecedent System --- p.23 / Chapter 3.1.1 --- The Ruling Coalition --- p.23 / Chapter 3.1.2 --- The Development Strategy --- p.24 / Chapter 3.2 --- The New Course Period --- p.27 / Chapter 3.2.1 --- Resources and Coalitions --- p.27 / Chapter 3.2.2 --- The Development Strategy --- p.31 / Chapter 3.2.3 --- The New Course as Environmental Change --- p.32 / Chapter 3.3 --- Further Environmental Changes --- p.33 / Chapter 3.3.1 --- The Opposition in the Making --- p.33 / Chapter 3.3.2 --- The Accelerators --- p.36 / Chapter CHAPTER FOUR --- "THE CRISIS STAGE, OCTOBER 23 TO NOVEMBER 4" --- p.39 / Chapter 4.1 --- "October 23-25, Stalinists Still in Power" --- p.40 / Chapter 4.1.1 --- The Course of Events --- p.40 / Chapter 4.1.2 --- Coalitions and Resources --- p.42 / Chapter 4.1.3 --- Coalitions and Positions --- p.47 / Chapter 4.2 --- "October 26-28, A Period of Transition" --- p.52 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- The Course of Events --- p.52 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- Coalitions and Resources --- p.54 / Chapter 4.2.3 --- Coalitions and Positions --- p.57 / Chapter 4.3 --- "October 28 to November 4, Seven Days of Freedom" --- p.61 / Chapter 4.3.1 --- The Course of Events --- p.62 / Chapter 4.3.2 --- Change in Resource Distribution --- p.66 / Chapter 4.3.3 --- The Councils and Nagy's Turn --- p.68 / Chapter 4.3.4 --- The Soviet Decision --- p.72 / Chapter 4.3.5 --- The Kadar Decision --- p.76 / Chapter 4.4 --- A Recapitulation --- p.80 / Chapter 4.4.1 --- Resources and Coalition Reformation --- p.80 / Chapter 4.4.2 --- The Role of Coercive Resources --- p.81 / Chapter 4.4.3 --- Issue Polarisation --- p.83 / Chapter CHAPTER FIVE --- "EARLY POST-REVOLUTIONARY HUNGARY, 1957-1965" --- p.87 / Chapter 5.1 --- The Politics of Restoration --- p.87 / Chapter 5.1.1 --- Coalitions and Resources --- p.87 / Chapter 5.1.2 --- The Reigning Ideology --- p.93 / Chapter 5.1.3 --- Political Restraints of Reform --- p.98 / Chapter 5.2 --- The Economic Reforms --- p.100 / Chapter 5.2.1 --- The Major Reform Directions --- p.101 / Chapter 5.2.2 --- The Nature of Reform --- p.104 / Chapter 5.3 --- Political Restraints and Nature of Reform --- p.106 / Chapter CHAPTER SIX --- CONCLUSION --- p.109 / Chapter 6.1 --- Analysis of the Hungarian Crisis --- p.109 / Chapter 6.2 --- Crisis and Development in Hungary --- p.111 / Chapter 6.2.1 --- The Posterisis Environment --- p.111 / Chapter 6.2.2 --- Effects on Early Postcrisis Stage --- p.112 / Chapter 6.2.3 --- Effects on Further Reforms --- p.114 / Chapter 6.3 --- Crisis and Development--A Theoretical Discussion --- p.118 / Chapter 6.3.1 --- Methodological Considerations --- p.118 / Chapter 6.3.2 --- The Uniqueness of the Hungarian Case --- p.119 / Chapter 6.3.3 --- An Explanatory Framework --- p.122 / EPILOGUE --- p.127 / NOTES --- p.129 / BIBLIOGRAPHY / APPENDICES