Bochum, Universiẗat, Diss., 2003.

Univ., Diss.--Göttingen, 2006.

Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) is a dynamic process in which a coordinated strategy is developed and implemented for the allocation of environmental, socio-cultural, and institutional resources to achieve the conservation and sustainable multiple use of the coastal zone. The present study titled “Coastal Zone Management in Dubai with reference to ecological characterization” is an effort to consider critical water quality and ecological issues in the current and future coastal zone of Dubai Creek. The work included water quality, ecology and numerical modeling for predicting future conditions. This study is utmost significant due to management of critical coastal environmental issues (fish mortality, bad odour, unaesthetic view, algal bloom etc.) in Dubai Creek besides protection of internationally recognized bird sanctuary (Ras Al Khor Wildlife Sanctuary) and sustainable multibillion dollar of property developments as an extension of Dubai Creek. Comprehensive attempt made to collect primary data on water quality and ecology during 2005 and 2006 from specific monitoring stations spreading along Dubai Creek. The pragmatic results in Dubai Creek are alarming; the upper region is susceptible to high organic pollution which exhibits 3-122 folds high nutrients levels while biodiversity in the same region at the seabed is almost died and non-existing. The current assessment suggests a policy for the ICZM and an “Immediate Action Plan” for the beneficial and sustainable development of Dubai Creek. The study recommends the following mitigation as a tool for the management strategies of Dubai Creek lagoon: Dredging in the lagoon of Dubai Creek. -- Tertiary treatment of wastewater from Awir STP prior to discharge into the Creek or divert the discharge from the lagoon of Dubai Creek. -- A new Government Decree for the water quality thresholds in Dubai Creek.

The aviation industry is in a state of radical antagonisms. Passengers demand quick and cheap transport on the one hand, but expect the highest comfort in terms of service, schedule convenience or non-stop travel on the other hand. The development of more efficient and economical aircraft supports the trend of falling tariffs together with better accessibility. Aspects of comfort on the ground as well as in the air are changing, since falling yields force airlines to reconsider their strategies to attract passengers. The market has become instabile somehow. Customers have interesting choices, when it comes to select the favourite airline for their European-Asian travel. They are free to choose the transfer point of their journey. Dubai has emerged to become a reasonable alternative to the overcrowded classic mega-hubs (London, Paris or Frankfurt) in Europe. The airport convinces with little minimum connecting times, low aeronautical charges and a growing number of new destinations. Rising traffic figures justify an evaluation of this Arabian hub. This paper analysis, if a shift to Dubai makes sense for the international traveller, when he has to travel from Europe to Asia; discussing the idea of the hub and spoke system, measuring customers, their demands along with their expectations. It aims to offer more insight into the problem with the help of accessibility methods in general including theories applicable to the aviation industry. Hub-structures as well as -models are evaluated to understand airports' problems and demonstrate passengers' demands. The main part of the study seeks to develop and interpret air travellers' individual choices among a representative selection of connecting airports on the basis of a large number of empirical surveys.(...)(author's abstract) / Series: Schriftenreihe des Instituts für Transportwirtschaft und Logistik - Verkehr

Based on primary and secondary evidence, the purpose of this thesis is to answer why people from Kerala have been migrating to Dubai for work since the early 1970s. Reflecting upon theories of migration and adopting Sassen’s position that any migration stream ought to be examined with precision, it concludes that the Kerala-Dubai migration system is a product of its unique political, economic, sociological, geographic and religious dimensions, bound in historical perspective, that have linked both places together. More specifically, the thesis demonstrates that the Keralite, Dubai, Indian and Emirati governments largely encouraged international migration since the 1970s through specific policies and institutional arrangements. This behavior shifted to a sense of discouragement by the UAE government in the mid 1990s as a result of ‘Emiratization’. The thesis also analyses the Kerala-Dubai migration system through a remittance-led perspective, explores the socio-economic, religious and regional composition of migrants, calculates the stock of Keralites in Dubai, the volume of remittances they send back home, and discusses the future migration relationship between both places. While arguing that conventional ideologies represent a narrow way of thinking about why migrations begin, the thesis demonstrates that migration is more than an act of coming and going; it is about the realities of migrant workers, how they are connected to different places and the historical, political, economic and social elements that link them together.

Based on primary and secondary evidence, the purpose of this thesis is to answer why people from Kerala have been migrating to Dubai for work since the early 1970s. Reflecting upon theories of migration and adopting Sassen’s position that any migration stream ought to be examined with precision, it concludes that the Kerala-Dubai migration system is a product of its unique political, economic, sociological, geographic and religious dimensions, bound in historical perspective, that have linked both places together. More specifically, the thesis demonstrates that the Keralite, Dubai, Indian and Emirati governments largely encouraged international migration since the 1970s through specific policies and institutional arrangements. This behavior shifted to a sense of discouragement by the UAE government in the mid 1990s as a result of ‘Emiratization’. The thesis also analyses the Kerala-Dubai migration system through a remittance-led perspective, explores the socio-economic, religious and regional composition of migrants, calculates the stock of Keralites in Dubai, the volume of remittances they send back home, and discusses the future migration relationship between both places. While arguing that conventional ideologies represent a narrow way of thinking about why migrations begin, the thesis demonstrates that migration is more than an act of coming and going; it is about the realities of migrant workers, how they are connected to different places and the historical, political, economic and social elements that link them together.

Zugl.: Göttingen, Univ., Diss., 2005

Job satisfaction is one of the methods used to establish and maintain a healthy organisational structure. It has been frequently investigated in studies that deal with organisational strategies because of its potential impact on work attitudes such as job performance, productivity and organisational commitment. Although researchers have identified many factors that relate to job satisfaction, the majority of these factors can be grouped into two broad categories: (a) personal factors, and (b) environmental factors. Although personal and environmental factors are utilised as distinctly competing models of job satisfaction, researchers argue that the work environment is a better predictor of job satisfaction. Most, if not all, scales used to measure job satisfaction have been developed in Western countries. The aim of this study is to identify the determinants of job satisfaction in one of the largest public sector organisations in the United Arab Emirates, namely, the Dubai Police Force (DPF), and then, to develop a model of job satisfaction linking antecedents and consequences to job satisfaction. The police, like any other public sector organisation, needs to develop and maintain a strong relationship with its human resources in order to effectively perform crime fighting and service provider roles. The issue of job satisfaction, particularly amongst Middle East police force employees, has received only limited research attention. Although some studies have tried to identify the indicators of job satisfaction among police employees, empirical findings on those indicators have generally been sparse and inconclusive. The study employed a mixed method approach to meet its aims and to increase the reliability and validity of the results. The research strategy adopted involved sequential procedures. A qualitative study was conducted first to explore the research issue and to provide in-depth evidence for the research objectives (stage one). The results from the qualitative study were used to develop a scale. The quantitative study was carried out to explore the determinants of job satisfaction among the DPF employees (stage two). Five separate data collections (in-depth interviews, focus group, expert panel, pilot testing, and survey-DPF employees) were conducted, involving a total of 1,075 respondents. The results of this study support the conclusions of previous research that the work environment is a better predictor of job satisfaction than individual demographic variables and that personal factors are of little value to understanding job satisfaction. The results show that 47% of the variance in job satisfaction scores can be explained by eleven environmental and four personal variables (in order of importance): salary and incentives, nature of the work, public perception, organisational policy and strategy, relationships with co-workers, supervision, promotion opportunity, performance appraisal, professional development, communication, job stress, nationality, sex, shift work and public contact. Accordingly, several policy implications of the findings and recommendations for future research are discussed.

World-over, E-Government has been recognised as a tool for radically improving the way governments interact with their citizens. While the obvious benefits of E-Government include providing convenience and easy access to customers thereby resulting in improved services to citizens, reduction of costs (by re-deploying resources from back-end processing to front-end customer service); providing easier access to information, increasing transparency and communication between government departments and with the public, the long term benefit of E-Government is also to make it easier for people to conduct their daily lives and business in the nation, thereby making it an attractive location to attract global talent. On the other hand, introducing E-Government requires a transformation in the way the government structure functions – thereby requiring a change in the organisational culture, managerial styles, systems and procedures apart from large financial investments towards technology upgrades. In order to ensure that e-Government is actually bringing about the changes that are desired (via the benefits) it is vital that strict performance measures be instituted on a continuous basis to check the effectiveness of e-Government. This study investigates 8 government departments employing e-Government in Dubai through a case study method and seeks to identify the challenges faced by each department in providing their services to their customers, the performance measures that have been instituted by these departments to evaluate the effectiveness of their e-services and the benefits that they have derived there from. The key challenges and performance issues have been studied and how these challenges could be managed effectively has been analysed. The study utilised the case study method by interviewing key members from each of the 8 departments studied. Important documents were reviewed and the researcher made personal observations from visiting the websites and portals of each of these departments. The results show that while the e-Government initiative in Dubai is quite advanced in comparison with the similar initiatives in countries across the world, there are several challenges faced by these departments. These include – no clear and standardised performance measures being used across the board, lack of technological knowledge and education initiatives for department staff and perhaps not enough organisational learning to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the e-Government Initiative.

Recognized as one of the main obstacles to sustainable development, climate change is caused and accelerated by the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions generated from all energy end-user sectors. The building sector alone consumes around 40% of all produced energy worldwide. Reducing this sector’s energy consumption has therefore come into focus as one of the key issues to address in order to meet the climate change challenge.Implementing sustainable construction practices, such as LEED, can significantly reduce the building’s energy and water consumption. Prescribing these practices may however encounter several barriers that can produce other than intended results. Since the beginning of 2008 Dubai mandates a LEED certification for the better part of all new constructions developed within the emirate, nevertheless the success of this regulation is debatable.This thesis identifies the barriers the introduction of the sustainable construction practices in Dubai faced and analyses the reasons why the regulatory and voluntary policy instruments were not effective in dealing with these barriers. Understanding these barriers as well as the merits and weaknesses of the policy instruments will help future attempts to introduce sustainable construction practices.To put the research into context a literature review of relevant printed and internet sources has been performed. In order to further understand the barriers the construction market in Dubai faced, qualitative observational research methods have been used. In addition the input of different key stakeholders with unique knowledge of the construction market was deemed to be necessary. Finally, for purposes of verification, the research relied on quantitative methods using different databases that provide detailed information about construction projects in the United Arab Emirates.The thesis concludes that several barriers, such as a) financial, b) market related, c) behavioral and organizational, d) political and structural, d) technical and e) information barriers hindered the introduction of sustainable construction practices in Dubai. Furthermore the introduced policy mechanisms were not effective in providing clarity on the scope of the policies and environmental goals, failed to provide financial incentives to investors or developers and considered only weak enforcement mechanisms.As a final outcome the thesis presents a number of suggestions that should increase the number of LEED certified projects. These suggestions include changes in the current regulations, the introduction of new policy mechanism such as a building code and major changes to the energy policy such as the correction of the utility prices and the liberalization of the energy market.