This thesis is an empirical investigation into the control mechanisms of headquarters (HQ) exercised over their subsidiaries and is conducted with the help of primary data collected from 147 Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) operating in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Following on from the literature review, this study proposed that the headquarters-subsidiary mechanisms could be linked to agency theory (with the 'classical' principal-agent relationship as its core) and to resource dependency theory (implying relations between the subsidiary and other partners based on interdependence). Our results show that the agency and resource dependency mechanisms are indeed used side by side and complementary to each other to exercise control. The Headquarters-subsidiary model used in this study has four components of control in it: personal centralised control (PCC), bureaucratic formalised control (BFC), output control (OUT) and informal control (INFO). These controls (as an agency mechanism) provide a solid platform on which other mechanisms can be built. The complementarities of these control mechanisms may be linked to earlier studies that show that successful organisations combine tight control with more open, informal and flexible information and communication exchanges. A focus that bends too much towards formal control or too much towards informal control may threaten a company's existence. Our research provides an empirical explanation on this premise. The study found that Anglo-Saxon countries heavily use impersonal types of control mechanisms, specifically bureaucratic formalised control and output control. Compared to the US, the level of control in Oriental subsidiaries is less; or, put differently, the latter enjoy a greater degree of autonomy than US subsidiaries. Once a unit is operational, Oriental parent companies grant many more degrees of freedom than US parent companies. When we deconstructed the results for Europe, comparing German and British MNEs as a group to Oriental MNEs, we found that the latter exercised greater overall control. With regard to output and bureaucratic control, we found that both US MNEs and those from the Middle East exercised greater control than Oriental MNEs. The study drew the aspect of international transfers into the picture and investigated the role of expatriates in controlling subsidiaries. It has been recognised that expatriates can form both direct and indirect means of control. In executing direct types of control, expatriates directly supervised decisions taken at subsidiaries. The study found that this role is particularly strong in MNEs from Asia-Pacific countries and German MNEs, and is much less important in subsidiaries of Anglo-Saxon MNEs. We found that subsidiaries of German MNEs experienced a very high level of control; indeed, the only control mechanism that German MNEs did not implement among subsidiaries was control by socialisation and networks. German and Japanese MNEs are perhaps more rooted in business systems concerned with the management of issues internationally than American or British companies. The second group reflected that Anglo-Saxon countries heavily used impersonal types of control mechanisms, specifically bureaucratic formalised control and output control. When we deconstructed the results for Europe, comparing German and British as a group to Oriental MNEs, reveals the latter as possessing greater overall control. With regard to output and bureaucratic control, we found that both US MNEs and those from the Middle East exercised greater control than Oriental MNEs. Headquarters can strategize to implement control by the informal and social means method by positioning a sizeable number of managers from the home country within the subsidiary. Indeed, our results revealed this as true. It seems that their presence has positive and significant effects on most levels of control: personal, output, bureaucratic and informal. Contrary to this, however, we found that the presence of a sizeable number of expatriates (as opposed to headquarters managers) leaded to greater autonomy in subsidiaries. In terms of strategy and structure, we indicated that the three distinct organisational models identified for MNEs could be recognised in our study. Control INFO was significantly, positively related to global strategy, multi-domestic and transnational strategy compared with PCC, BFC, and OUT control mechanism. Conversely, BFC had a significant, negative and weak relationship with global strategy and transnational strategy, and no relationship with multi-domestic strategy. In general however, we can deduce the existence of a tendency for global, transnational and multi-domestic MNEs to use indirect control mechanisms and informal control suited to their integrated organisational models to a larger extent. Our results confirmed previous studies in the field of organisation theory, in the sense that size is an important explanatory factor for differences in control mechanisms. In contrast to these studies, however, a dominant effect was found only for the indirect control mechanisms. Few detailed studies that have investigated the effect of size on the two indirect control mechanisms; in actuality, most previous studies have focused on the direct control mechanisms (personal centralised control and bureaucratic formalised control) only. As such, our study reconfirmed the importance of the variable size, but concluded that it is mainly associated with higher levels of indirect control. The age of the subsidiary does not seem to have a significant influence on the type of control mechanism that is exercised by headquarters towards a particular subsidiary. Our study investigated the importance of various MNE characteristics in an attempt to explain performance differences between MNEs. The advantage of this study is that many of the characteristics that have been identified in previous literature as being important factors influencing performance were included in our research design, in order for us to be able to answer the other research questions. This therefore allowed us to assess the relative importance levels of different variables in explaining performance differences between companies, such as: country of origin, industry, size, interdependence, local responsiveness, knowledge flows, and the strategy and structure of the MNEs.

Contraint de respecter les réglementations environnementales concernant les émissions de CO2, les industriels du secteur automobile se doivent de lever certains verrous technologiques associés à l’allègement des structures au sein de leur véhicule. L’introduction des matériaux composites dans le développement et la production de pièces structurantes est envisagée comme étant une des solutions les plus efficaces à moyen et long terme. L’optimisation des coûts matière, caractéristique de cette industrie de masse, nécessite de maîtriser le comportement physique de matériaux composites à matrice thermoplastique et à fibres de verre continues tissées. En termes de coût et de variétés d’applications, ces derniers sont considérés aujourd’hui comme une alternative pertinente aux onéreux composites utilisés dans l’aéronautique. Un renfort de porte pour crash latéral a été ainsi développé et les travaux présentés dans cette thèse sont une contribution à la compréhension, la caractérisation et à la prédiction numérique du comportement jusqu’à rupture de cette pièce, qui lors d’un crash est soumise à de forts gradients de vitesses. Au regard de l’absence de normalisation ou de consensus liés aux essais dynamiques sur matériaux composites, nous proposons une procédure expérimentale robuste, garantissant la représentativité de la caractérisation du comportement sur un spectre de vitesses quasi-statiques et dynamiques. La validation des étapes de la procédure et l’utilisation d’un montage d’essais dynamiques développé dans ces travaux permettent d’aboutir à une base de données riche, et utile à une procédure d’identification des paramètres d’un modèle phénoménologique prenant en compte l’influence de la vitesse sur l’évolution des phénomènes dissipatifs jusqu’à rupture. Fort d’une identification majoritairement directe, la précision de la réponse numérique issue de la loi de comportement identifiée est évaluée et validée à l’aide de calculs de structures faisant intervenir d’importants gradients matériels et structurels. / Car manufacturers are looking for solutions to lighten their vehicles in order to meet pollutant emission requirements – for thermal engines – or to extend their range – for electric vehicles. Composite materials, among other solutions, offer excellent strength and durability. However increased per unit cost and manufacturing time are among the main drawbacks material producers have to overcome in order to make composite solutions viable for mass-market production. In that prospect, woven glass fibers and thermoplastic matrices respectively are more serious contenders than aeronautic-grade composites. The objective application is a door reinforcement module, whose main function is to act as a safety net, adding its own stiffness and strength to that of the steel door and preventing any foreign object from entering the passenger compartment. A main preoccupation is therefore the constitutive behavior of that material under strain rates varying from 10-3 s-1 to approximately 50 s-1. The study objective is to develop a physically-based constitutive law modelling in order to take into account strain-rate sensitivity on behavior. A new and consistent experimental procedure aiming at capturing the influence of speed solicitation on non-linear internal mechanisms is developed and allows identifying non-linear constitutive law parameters over a wide range of strain rates until failure. Resulting mainly from direct evaluations and direct identification procedure, the accuracy of the implemented constitutive law is guaranteed through numerical computations involving effects of material and structural heterogeneities.

Dans cette thèse, nous nous intéressons aux relations qui peuvent exister entre des prédicats verbaux(ex : to regulate) et des prédicats nominaux (ex : regulation) dont les structures argumentales mettent enjeu des informations communes. Nous nous livrons à une formalisation des conditions dans lesquelles se réalisent des relations d’équivalence entre les constructions verbales et nominales. La mise en évidence de l’équivalence des structures argumentales de ces deux types de constructions est fondamentale pour pouvoir réaliser, par exemple, des systèmes d’extraction automatique d’informations très performants. En se basant sur les données du lexique The Specialist Lexicon, nous proposons une prédiction raisonnable du comportement syntaxique des arguments nominaux, de différents groupes nominaux prédicatifs(GNpréd), lorsqu’ils sont en position de postmodifieur. Cette étude nous a conduit à concevoir un ensemble d’algorithmes et à développer une plate-forme, Predicate DB, qui nous a permis de produire un lexique de nominalisations. Pour chaque entrée appartenant à ce lexique, nous avons caractérisé ses structures argumentales et ses réalisations dans des GNpréd dont les arguments sont marqués par des prépositions spécifiques. / In this thesis, we focus on the relation that may exist between verbal predicates (e.g., regulate)and nominal predicates (e.g., regulation) whose argument structures involve common information.We make a formalization of the conditions in which equivalent relations between verbal and nominalconstructions are carried out. Bringing out the equivalence of argument structures between these twotypes of constructions is fundamental for achieving, for example, very efficient Information Extractionsystems. Based on data from the Specialist Lexicon, we propose a reasonable prediction of the syntacticbehavior of nominal arguments, which belong to different predicate noun phrases (PNPs), when theyare in postmodifier position. This study has led us to design a set of algorithms and develop a platform,PredicateDB, to produce a lexicon of nominalizations. For each entry belonging to this lexicon, we havedefined its argument structures and achievements in PNPs whose arguments are marked by specificprepositions.

Text in Afrikaans / Drug dependent adolescents do not display a clear understanding regarding the value of social work intervention during the process of rehabilation, causing them to not utilize the profession of social work effectively during drug rehabilitation. This study aimed to explore and describe the nature and contribution of social work service delivery to drug dependent adolescents from their own perspective. A qualitative research approach, an explorative research design, and a snowball sampling technique were implemented. The sample consisted of drug dependent adolescents from the Western Cape. Semi-structured interviews were executed determining the participant’s perception of the nature and contribution of social work service delivery. Amongst others, the findings indicate that: • social workers are not sufficiently prepared, trained or committed to render effective, professional services to drug dependent adolescents; • social workers need to continuously revisit their knowledge, skill and attitude regarding this specialised field of service rendering. / Social Work / M.A. (Maatskaplike Werk)

L'analyse des impacts environnementaux de la production de biens et de services est aujourd'hui devenue un enjeu majeur. L'analyse en cycle de vie est la méthode consacrée pour modéliser les impacts environnementaux des activités humaines. L'inventaire en cycle de vie, qui est l'une des étapes de cette méthode, consiste à décomposer les activités économiques en processus interdépendants. Chaque processus a des impacts environnementaux et la composition de ces processus nous donne l'impact cumulé des activités étudiées. Plusieurs entreprises et agences gouvernementales fournissent des bases de données d'inventaires en cycle de vie pour que les experts puissent réutiliser des processus déjà étudiés lors de l'analyse d'un nouveau système. L'audit et la compréhension de ces inventaires nécessite de s'intéresser à un très grand nombre de processus et à leurs relations d'interdépendance. Ces bases de données peuvent comporter plusieurs milliers de processus et des dizaines de milliers de relations de dépendance. Pour les experts qui utilisent les bases de données d'inventaire en cycle de vie, deux problèmes importants sont clairement identifiés : - organiser les processus pour avoir une meilleure compréhensibilité du modèle ; - calculer les impacts d'une modélisation (composition de processus) et, le cas échéant, détecter les raisons de la non convergence du calcul. Dans cette thèse, nous : - mettons en évidence de l'existence de similarités sémantiques entre les processus et leurs relations d'interdépendance et proposons une nouvelle approche pour modéliser les relations d'interdépendance entre les processus d'une base de données d'inventaire. Elle se base sur un étiquetage sémantique des processus à l'aide d'une ontologie et une modélisation multi-niveaux des relations d'interdépendance entre les processus. Nous étudions aussi deux approches déclaratives d'interaction avec ce modèle multi-niveau. - étudions les différentes méthodes de calcul des impacts basées sur des notions classiques d'algèbre linéaire et de théorie des graphes. Nous étudions aussi les conditions de non convergence de ces méthodes en présence de cycle dans le modèle des relations de dépendances. Un prototype implémentant cette approche a montré des résultats probants sur les cas étudiés. Nous avons réalisé une étude de cas de ce prototype sur les processus de production d'électricité aux États-Unis extraits de la base de données d'inventaire en cycle de vie de l'agence environnementale américaine. Ce prototype est à la base d'une application opérationnelle utilisée par l'entreprise. / Environmental impact assessment of goods and services is nowadays a major challenge for both economic and ethical reasons. Life Cycle Assessment provides a well accepted methodology for modeling environmental impacts of human activities. This methodology relies on the decomposition of a studied system into interdependent processes in a step called Life Cycle Inventory. Every process has several environmental impacts and the composition of those processes provides the cumulated environmental impact for the studied human activities. Several organizations provide processes databases containing several thousands of processes with their interdependency links that are used by LCA practitioners to do an LCA study. Understanding and audit of those databases requires to analyze a huge amount of processes and their dependency relations. But those databases can contain thousands of processes linked together. We identified two problems that the experts faces using those databases: - organize the processes and their dependency relations to improve the comprehensibility; - calculate the impacts and, if it is not possible, find why it is not feasible. In this thesis, we: - show that there are some semantic similarities between the processes and their dependency relations and propose a new way to model the dependency relations in an inventory database. In our approach, we semantically index the processes using an ontology and we use a multi-layers model of the dependency relations. We also study a declarative approach of this multi-layers approach; - propose a method to calculate the environmental impacts of the processes based on linear algebra and graph theory, and we study the conditions of the feasibility of this calculation when we have a cyclic model. We developed a prototype based on this approach that showed some convincing results on different use cases. We tested our prototype on a case study based on a data set extracted from the National Renewable Energy restricted to the electricity production in the United-States.

Text in Afrikaans / Drug dependent adolescents do not display a clear understanding regarding the value of social work intervention during the process of rehabilation, causing them to not utilize the profession of social work effectively during drug rehabilitation. This study aimed to explore and describe the nature and contribution of social work service delivery to drug dependent adolescents from their own perspective. A qualitative research approach, an explorative research design, and a snowball sampling technique were implemented. The sample consisted of drug dependent adolescents from the Western Cape. Semi-structured interviews were executed determining the participant’s perception of the nature and contribution of social work service delivery. Amongst others, the findings indicate that: • social workers are not sufficiently prepared, trained or committed to render effective, professional services to drug dependent adolescents; • social workers need to continuously revisit their knowledge, skill and attitude regarding this specialised field of service rendering. / Social Work / M.A. (Maatskaplike Werk)

Malgré la déliquescence du nationalisme afrikaner causée par la chute du régime de l’apartheid et la prise du pouvoir politique par un parti non raciste et non ethnique en 1994, nous observons depuis les années 2000, un renouvèlement du mouvement identitaire afrikaner. L’objectif de cette thèse est donc de comprendre l’émergence de ce nouvel activisme ethnique depuis la transition démocratique. Pour approfondir notre compréhension du phénomène, nous nous posons les questions suivantes : comment pouvons-nous expliquer le renouvèlement de l’activisme afrikaner dans la « nouvelle » Afrique du Sud ? Comment sont définis les nouveaux attributs de la catégorie de l’afrikanerité ? Comment les élites ethnopolitiques restructurent-elles leurs stratégies pour assurer la pérennité de la catégorie dans l’Afrique du Sud post-apartheid ? Qu’est-ce que la résurgence d’une afrikanerité renouvelée nous apprend sur l’état de la cohésion sociale en Afrique du Sud et sur la mobilisation ethnolinguistique en général ? La littérature sur le mouvement post-apartheid fait consensus sur la disparition du nationalisme afrikaner raciste, mais offre peu d’analyses empiriques et de liens avec les nombreux écrits sur le mouvement nationaliste afrikaner pour comprendre les dynamiques de ce nouveau phénomène et effectue peu de liens avec les nombreux écrits sur le mouvement nationaliste afrikaner. Notre argument est que le nouvel activisme afrikaner est en continuité avec la trajectoire du nationalisme afrikaner, plus précisément avec le courant conservateur. Les entrepreneurs ethnopolitiques suivent les voies tracées par leurs prédécesseurs en reproduisant des stratégies politiques, institutionnelles ainsi qu’une structure idéologique dont les fondements sont semblables à ceux du mouvement nationaliste. Les entrepreneurs ethnopolitiques structurent l’activisme afrikaner selon trois processus. D’abord, ils procèdent au cadrage des nouveaux attributs de la catégorie en faisant notamment de l’autosuffisance communautaire, le cœur de l’afrikanerité. Ensuite, ils essayent d’institutionnaliser une nouvelle catégorie identitaire, qu’ils appellent les minorités discrimines raciales et ethniques. Ce processus de group-making vise à susciter une action collective déployée autant au niveau national qu’international, pour exercer une pression sur le gouvernement de l’ANC, accusée de discriminer les Afrikaners. Enfin, les entrepreneurs ethnopolitiques mettent sur pied un réseau d’organisations ethniques pour assurer la reproduction de l’afrikanerité et assurer la survie ethnique. Ces niches écologiques permettent de se substituer à l’État en offrant aux membres de la communauté des services et en créant des espaces réservés à la routinisation de l’afrikanerité. / The thesis aims at understanding the restructuration processes of the Afrikaner movement following the South African democratic transition. Despite the collapse of Afrikaner nationalism caused by the end of the apartheid regime and the seizure of political power by a non-racist and non-ethnic party in 1994, we have seen a renewal of the Afrikaner identity movement since the 2000s. The aim of this thesis is therefore to understand the emergence of this new ethnic activism since the democratic transition. To deepen our understanding of the phenomenon, we ask the following questions: how can we explain the renewal of Afrikaner activism in the « new » South Africa? How are the new attributes of the Afrikaner category redefined? How do the ethnopolitical elites restructure their strategies to ensure the reproduction of the category within the new national context? What does the resurgence of a renewed Afrikanerity tell us about the state of social cohesion in South Africa and the ethnolinguistic mobilization in general? The literature on the post apartheid movement makes consensus on the death of the racist Afrikaner nationalism but offers little empirical analysis to understand the dynamics of this new phenomenon and the links with the many writings on Afrikaner nationalism are not made. To remedy these empirical shortcomings, our argument is that the new Afrikaner activism is in continuity with the trajectory of Afrikaner nationalism, more precisely with the conservative current. Ethnopolitical entrepreneurs follow the paths traced by their predecessors by reproducing political and institutional strategies as well as an ideological structure whose foundations are similar to those of the nationalist movement. However, continuity means that institutions must adapt to changing contexts in order to persist over time. In our case, the democratic transition has paved the way for institutional adaptation processes and historical awakening. Afrikaner activism is restructured through three processes. Ethnopolitical entrepreneurs are engaged in a framing process of the new attributes of the category in which community self-sufficiency is defined as the heart of Afrikanerity. Then, these elites try to institutionalize a new category as the new foundation of the political action of the movement. This is how ethno-political entrepreneurs mobilize what they call discriminated racial and ethnic minorities. This group-making process aims to stimulate collective action by depicting a frame of injustice to prove that Afrikaners are discriminated against by the government. This political strategy is deployed both nationally and internationally to exert pressure on the ANC government. Finally, ethnopolitical entrepreneurs have set up a network of ethnic organizations to ensure the reproduction of Afrikanerity and ensure ethnic survival. These ecological niches make it possible to replace the State by offering the members of the community services and by creating spaces for the routinization of Afrikanerity.

Bakgrund: Fysisk aktivitet har identifierats som en möjlig komponent i tillfrisknande för personer med beroendeproblematik. Studier visar en positiv inverkan av fysisk aktivitet på abstinenssymtom och återfall. Trots detta finns det begränsad forskning om vardaglig fysisk aktivitetsnivå hos individer med beroendeproblematik. Ett ökat fokus på detta område kan leda till utveckling av effektiva interventioner och bättre resursallokering inom beroendevården. Syfte: Studien syftade till att undersöka aktivitetsnivåerna hos personer med beroendeproblematik  Metod: En tvärsnittsstudie genomfördes där data samlades in genom en enkätundersökning bland deltagare inom öppenvården för beroendeproblematik. En analys av aktivitetsnivåer, kön, ålder och boendeform genomfördes för att undersöka möjliga samband. Resultat: Studien hade 27 deltagare varav majoriteten var män (82%), med 63% som uppnådde lägsta rekommenderade aktivitetsnivå, vilket är lägra än samhället i stort. Trots få deltagare indikerar studiens resultat tendenser till att boendeform och stigande ålder påverkade aktivitetsnivåer negativt, där egen bostad associerades med lägre aktivitet än gruppboende. Konklusion: Baserat på studiens resultat krävs riktade insatser mot att förbättra aktivitetsnivåer hos individer med beroendeproblematik, särskilt de som bor i eget boende. Integration av fysioterapeutiska insatser i behandlingsplaner och ökat samarbete mellan socialtjänst och sjukvård rekommenderas för att förbättra vårdkvaliteten. Denna studie, vars resultat kan jämställas med en pilotstudie understryker behovet av fler och större studier för att bekräfta och utveckla studiens resultat. / Background: Physical activity has been identified as a potential component in the recovery process for individuals with substance use disorders. Studies show a positive impact of physical activity on withdrawal symptoms and relapse rates. Despite this, there is limited research on the daily physical activity levels of individuals with substance use disorders. Increased focus on this area could lead to the development of effective interventions and better resource allocation within addiction treatment services. Purpose: The study aimed to examine the activity levels of individuals with addiction issues.  Method: A cross-sectional study was conducted where data was collected through a survey among participants in outpatient care for addiction issues. An analysis of activity levels, gender, age, and housing form was conducted to examine possible correlations.  Results: The study had 27 participants, the majority of whom were men (82%), with 63% achieving recommended physical activity levels, which is lower than the general population. Despite few participants, the study's results indicate trends where housing form and increasing age negatively affected activity levels, with own housing associated with lower activity than group housing.  Conclusion: Based on the study's results, targeted efforts are needed to improve activity levels among individuals with addiction issues, especially those living in their own homes. Integration of physiotherapeutic interventions into treatment plans and increased collaboration between social services and healthcare are recommended to improve the quality of care. This study, which can be seen as a pilot study, underscores the need for more and larger studies to confirm and develop the study's results.