The objectives of this dissertation are to: 1) identify the aspects of shopping environments that are important to people; and 2) identify strategies to maintain the cultural relevance and viability of traditional marketplaces in the new global economy. This dissertation uses a Content Identifying Methodology (CIM) to determine preferences of general Thai shoppers for different shopping environments in Bangkok, Thailand. The procedures include preference rating, scene description, and respondents' background surveys. Data were analyzed using factor analysis, content analysis, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), canonical correlation analysis, and Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA). In addition, interviews with designers and developers of shopping environments are used to establish implications for future development, design, and renovation of shopping environments. Three major factors, environmental, shopping, and background, were found to influence preferences for shopping environments. The environmental factors include the perceived environmental types; spacious and well-organized spatial configurations; physical content, such as fresh products, vegetation, and sitting areas; and environmental conditions, such as maintenance level, crowdedness, and cool temperatures. Shopping factors include recreational and value shopping. Respondent's background factors include shopping behaviors and socio-economic backgrounds, such as age and household economic status. Shoppers prefer certain shopping environments based on their shopping purpose: recreational versus value shopping. Recreational shopping appeals to young, single, and big group shoppers at modern malls, which provide the most opportunities for exploring, recreating, and socializing. Value shopping appeals to older, married, and large family shoppers at traditional markets that offer the high quality fresh products at low price. The dissertation's findings are consistent with previous studies and support theoretical explanations in the environmental perception and assessment field. Coherence, complexity, legibility, and mystery, and the concept of affordance influence preference; and are useful in making recommendations. The results indicate that, by identifying the preferences and perceptions of Thai shoppers, it is possible to preserve important aspects of the traditional Thai marketplace. This is achieved by incorporating aspects of traditional Thai markets into new shopping environments; and enhancing existing traditional markets to give them broader appeal and make them more viable in today's economy. / Ph. D.

Cloud computing is still in an early stage of development and Microsoft is now investing considerable amount of resources in the cloud. Microsoft Azure is a cloud platform developed by Microsoft and it is continuously evolving, new features are constantly being added and old features are being updated. Integration Software, which is a company that focuses on products for system integration strongly believes that cloud­-based solutions will have a significant impact on their future. This is why selling and developing solutions and services for the cloud are strategically important for them. The objective of this dissertation is to investigate Microsoft Azure in general and Azure Marketplace in particular. This investigation consisted of an implementation of a Microsoft Azure application and integrating this application with Azure Marketplace and evaluating the expenses for running the application. The purpose for this project is to gain practical experience and to work with new techniques and help Integration Software better understand Azure Marketplace. The application is a Log Agent which fetches data from an external source and resends the data to an external party (Integration Manager). Our first intention was to package and deploy the application to a newly updated Azure Marketplace. The new Azure Marketplace was never released during this dissertation so we decided to deploy the application to the existing version of Azure Marketplace. This was however not fully successful. We encountered some problems in successfully deploying the application to Azure Marketplace. The evaluations for the cost of running an Azure application were not carried out due to lack of time.

This essay explores the early experiences of Bangladeshi blue-collar service workers in digitalising their livelihoods. It is a qualitative study that surveys and interviews service-providers in Dhaka who use the business aggregator platform Sheba.xyz, an online service marketplace, and seeks to understand what brought these self-employed micro-entrepreneurs, previously outside the digital economy, to adopt an ICT-enabled solution. The study is guided by Diffusion of Innovations (DOI) theory, one of the historically dominant paradigms in the field of communication for development (C4D). The overarching research question is, “Why did blue-collar service-providers in Dhaka adopt and use a digital business aggregator platform?” The aim is to explore what motivated/discouraged and enabled/hindered innovation adoption among a group of users previously marginalised from digital and financial inclusion. The findings suggest that adoption of Sheba.xyz among service-providers was not driven so much by a desire to digitalise one’s business per se, and as a means of mitigating a previous inability to do so. Rather, the factors that emerge from the qualitative data are other perceived relative advantages of the solution – of increase in customers, income, and opportunity. Survey respondents and interviewees also displayed strong affiliation with, and trust in, the platform provider; an alertness for fair treatment; and a drive to prosper, suggesting that they embraced a comprehensive concept and altered life situation where belonging, respect, and self-fulfilment matters, rather than narrowly adopted a new mobile application.

The Lobby The Lobby är en marknadsplats, skapad av AMF Fastigheter med syfte att agera testplattform för den framtida detaljhandeln. Marknadsplatsen är en fysisk plattform där pop-up konceptet, upplevelsen och event används med helt ny innebörd för att attrahera kunder och varumärken att ställa ut på The Lobby. Syfte och forskningsfrågor Denna fallstudie om The Lobby syftar till att undersöka vilka primära faktorer som krävs för att skapa en marknadsplats där upplevelsen och pop-up konceptet är centralt samt kartlägga dess potentiella roll i framtiden. Med grund i detta syfte har två forskningsfrågor tagits fram: Vilka är de viktigaste faktorerna vid utformandet av en marknadsplats som The Lobby?  Vilken roll kan denna typ av marknadsplats komma att ha i framtiden? Metod Denna studie har baseras på en kvalitativ fallstudie av marknadsplatsen The Lobby. Forskningsansatsen är deduktiv med induktiva inslag. Det empiriska materialet består av åtta semistrukturerade intervjuer där respektive respondent har en direkt koppling till The Lobby. Förutom intervjuer har även två observationer genomförts. Teori Den teoretiska referensramen behandlar termerna köpcentrum, pop-up butik och kundupplevelse. I denna studie motsvarar köpcentrum en marknadsplats där flertalet aktörer möts på samma plats. Teorin kommer även redogöra för pop-up butikens innebörd samt dess fördelar. Slutligen behandlas kundupplevelsens roll inom detaljhandeln. Slutsatser Genom att ta hänsyn till marknadsplatsens varumärke, kontrakt för pop-up butikerna, teknologi, kundernas behov av socialisering och upplevelse kan marknadsplatsen optimeras och skapa återkommande kunder. Om en marknadsplats som The Lobby kommer ha en fortsatt central roll i framtiden återstår att se, däremot kan det konstateras är att pop-up butikens fördelar blir allt fler. / The Lobby The Lobby is a marketplace, created by AMF Fastigheter with the purpose of finding new alternatives for the future of the retail industry. The marketplace is a physical retail platform where the pop-up concept, experience based marketplace and events will be used to attract customers and brands to The Lobby. Purpose and research questions This case study about The Lobby aims to investigate the primary factors which are required to create an experience based marketplace where the pop-up concept is central. Furthermore what purpose this kind of marketplace will hold in the future. Based on the purpose, the following research questions were formed: What are the main factors while developing a marketplace like The Lobby?  What role can this type of marketplace have in the future? Method This study is based on a qualitative case study on The Lobby in Stockholm, Sweden. The study has a deductive approach, with some elements of inductive approach. The empirical data consist of eight semi structured interviews and two observations. All the respondents has a connection to The Lobby. Theory The theoretical references used for this study are shopping mall, pop-up store and experience based marketplace. The theory of shopping mall will be studied as a marketplace where stakeholders are cooperating in one place. The theory will also describe the pop-up stores pros and cons and also the role of the experience based marketplace in the retail industry. Conclusion If a marketplace like The Lobby, where customers, retailers and partners have the opportunity to try new things, will continue to play a central role in the future, remains to be seen. One thing that can be said, however, is that the advantages of the temporary store are increasing.

The 17thcentury’s marketplaces established in the peripheral areas of Fennoscandia were revealingly intertwined in inter-cultural encounters of minorities as they were in market exchange. Historical sources supply insight in the trade between Sámi and wealthy merchants, but nonetheless they are to be criticized for beingauthored from an outside perspective. The archaeological record, however, provides an alternative approach to knowledge about the history of trade in Sápmi. This paper proposes to shed light on what archaeology can reveal about two contemporary marketplaces: Arjeplog and Arvidsjaur. This is accomplished through compiling and presenting the archaeological record of each marketplace in two separate case studies. Sequentially, some observations are discussed within the context of each marketplace, and later the archaeological record of them both are juxtaposed to each other. Hence, minor deviations from the historical framework are considered and reviewed as the study settle in for a terminal discussion of the results. From here the archaeologically based reality of market exchange in Arjeplog and Arvidsjaur intend to function as non-biased means for the local community to raise awareness of their past, and to invoke interest in further excavations.

Thesis advisor: Joseph M. O'Keefe / This mixed methods sequential explanatory designed study applied the economic theory of marketplace competition as a way to frame superintendents' perceptions of the characteristics of students and parents seeking charter schools. Although studies on charter schools are abundant, there is limited literature on this particular aspect of market competition between traditional districts and charter schools. Through surveys and interviews with superintendents across Massachusetts, this study found that most of the superintendents reported a perception that charter schools "cream-skim" higher achieving students and under-serve or "crop" high needs or more costly students - particularly special education and English language learner students. Additionally, superintendents generally perceive that parents were most likely to choose a charter school because of a perception that it was a more elite option and that parents making those choices were more likely to have been engaged in a child's educational life. Many superintendents reported a strong pressure to find ways to retain high-achieving students while expressing resentment that charter schools under-serve high needs students. In three small urban districts, however, superintendents described charter schools that enroll high-needs students proportional to or exceeding the district's student population, filled a gap or met an unmet need, or provided a specialization from which the district could learn. / Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2014. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

Both practitioners and academics have recently begun referring to humanitarian agencies operating within an active 'aid marketplace' in which limited funding pits actors against each other in pursuance of their own projects and wider aims. This thesis seeks to explore how the pressures of a competitive environment impact on the motivations and actions of aid actors at an individual and organizational level. Based on the common saying that aid workers are 'mercenaries, missionaries and misfits', I construct a typology of pressures (interest-based, altruistic, and bureaucratic), which, it is argued, can be used to explain and understand much of this competitive and collaborative behaviour. A particular focus of the thesis is the impact of these various influences on the process and politics of information transfer and discourse creation regarding the process of needs assessment, monitoring and evaluation. I explore all of these issues through the medium of a case study of UNHCR's interventions in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2015, and seek to provide a detailed history of the agency's activities, politics and challenges during this period. In particular I am interested in the motivations driving the agency's actions; the strategies it has employed to achieve its aims; the calculated narratives that it has crafted to justify its interventions and attract greater support; and the very different ways in which it has approached the needs of different categories of displaced people.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-25T20:20:26Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Edson Rildo Penha de Alencar.pdf: 3200255 bytes, checksum: ffe81828f5e834eecbc423c89f844878 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-10-10 / This study aims to present how the current framework of Brazilian's of higher education model has been formed, its impact on education policies and the formation of the sector concentrating in the hands of the country´s businesses owners, which are supported by actions of ideological-policies lobbied on disputes for the State´s preferences and its uneasiness in the process of economic development since Vargas s government until Fernando Henrique Cardoso government. The dimensions of political- ideological preferences with liberal nature strong influencing the decisions of the State in the formation of the guiding lines to higher education, once observed before the creation of the 1961 (LDB) which was consolidated on FHC´ government, resultant from combinations between liberal sector´s pressure and its sympathizers, with a strong appeal of liberalization and decentralization actions from government decisions so that the private superior-teaching sectors can expand in the country. In this circumstances in order to expand the state arranged policies which facilitate financing, income transfer, lenience, connivance to break the laws that lead the sector, as well as establishing laws that make flexible the higher education sector in order to permit a trajectory of expansion and a faster consolidation in the offering of courses and placements to meet the demand in constant growth in the country, depriving the investment available to the higher education public sector. Being so, this study searches in its historic-politics trajectory s analysis comprehend how higher education which had been so far a public asset became a "commodity" with the suggestion of "democratization of access" for the country´s private higher education sector. Thus, it is possible to say that the State denied its role as promoting, regulator, corrector, of higher educational systems socially accepted in a true democracy, on behalf of modernization system led by business community owners / O estudo busca apresentar como se formou o arcabouço do atual modelo do ensino superior brasileiro, seu impacto na política educacional e a formação da concentração do setor nas mãos do empresariado no país, apoiados por ações político-ideológicas travadas dentro das disputas por preferências de Estado e de suas inquietações no processo de desenvolvimento econômico a partir do período Vargas até o governo de Fernando Henrique Cardoso. As dimensões de preferências político-ideológicas de natureza liberal como forte influenciador das tomadas de posição do Estado na formação das diretrizes para o ensino superior brasileiro, já observado no país anteriormente à criação da LDB de 1961 e que se consolidou no governo de Fernando Henrique Cardoso, resultam da combinação da pressão de setores liberais do empresariado e de seus simpatizantes, com forte apelo de ações liberalizante e descentralizante das decisões governamentais para a expansão do setor superior privado no país. Dentro da conjuntura de expansão do setor privado de ensino superior, o Estado dispôs de políticas facilitadoras de financiamento, transferência de renda, leniência, conivência com o descumprimento das leis que conduzem o setor, bem como instituindo leis que flexibilizam o setor de ensino superior a fim de permitir uma trajetória de formação, expansão e consolidação mais rápida na oferta de cursos e vagas para atender a demanda em constante crescimento no país, em prejuízo aos investimentos destinados ao setor público de ensino superior. Dessa forma, esse estudo busca na trajetória de sua analise histórico-político entender como a educação um bem público se tornou uma commodity com argumento de democratização do acesso por via do setor privado de ensino superior no Brasil. Assim como é possível dizer que o Estado recusou seu papel de fomentador, controlador, disciplinador e regulador do sistema educacional do ensino superior socialmente aceito em uma verdadeira democracia, em nome de uma modernização do sistema conduzida pelo empresariado do setor

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T14:53:20Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Edson Rildo Penha de Alencar.pdf: 3200255 bytes, checksum: ffe81828f5e834eecbc423c89f844878 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-10-10 / This study aims to present how the current framework of Brazilian's of higher education model has been formed, its impact on education policies and the formation of the sector concentrating in the hands of the country´s businesses owners, which are supported by actions of ideological-policies lobbied on disputes for the State´s preferences and its uneasiness in the process of economic development since Vargas s government until Fernando Henrique Cardoso government. The dimensions of political- ideological preferences with liberal nature strong influencing the decisions of the State in the formation of the guiding lines to higher education, once observed before the creation of the 1961 (LDB) which was consolidated on FHC´ government, resultant from combinations between liberal sector´s pressure and its sympathizers, with a strong appeal of liberalization and decentralization actions from government decisions so that the private superior-teaching sectors can expand in the country. In this circumstances in order to expand the state arranged policies which facilitate financing, income transfer, lenience, connivance to break the laws that lead the sector, as well as establishing laws that make flexible the higher education sector in order to permit a trajectory of expansion and a faster consolidation in the offering of courses and placements to meet the demand in constant growth in the country, depriving the investment available to the higher education public sector. Being so, this study searches in its historic-politics trajectory s analysis comprehend how higher education which had been so far a public asset became a "commodity" with the suggestion of "democratization of access" for the country´s private higher education sector. Thus, it is possible to say that the State denied its role as promoting, regulator, corrector, of higher educational systems socially accepted in a true democracy, on behalf of modernization system led by business community owners / O estudo busca apresentar como se formou o arcabouço do atual modelo do ensino superior brasileiro, seu impacto na política educacional e a formação da concentração do setor nas mãos do empresariado no país, apoiados por ações político-ideológicas travadas dentro das disputas por preferências de Estado e de suas inquietações no processo de desenvolvimento econômico a partir do período Vargas até o governo de Fernando Henrique Cardoso. As dimensões de preferências político-ideológicas de natureza liberal como forte influenciador das tomadas de posição do Estado na formação das diretrizes para o ensino superior brasileiro, já observado no país anteriormente à criação da LDB de 1961 e que se consolidou no governo de Fernando Henrique Cardoso, resultam da combinação da pressão de setores liberais do empresariado e de seus simpatizantes, com forte apelo de ações liberalizante e descentralizante das decisões governamentais para a expansão do setor superior privado no país. Dentro da conjuntura de expansão do setor privado de ensino superior, o Estado dispôs de políticas facilitadoras de financiamento, transferência de renda, leniência, conivência com o descumprimento das leis que conduzem o setor, bem como instituindo leis que flexibilizam o setor de ensino superior a fim de permitir uma trajetória de formação, expansão e consolidação mais rápida na oferta de cursos e vagas para atender a demanda em constante crescimento no país, em prejuízo aos investimentos destinados ao setor público de ensino superior. Dessa forma, esse estudo busca na trajetória de sua analise histórico-político entender como a educação um bem público se tornou uma commodity com argumento de democratização do acesso por via do setor privado de ensino superior no Brasil. Assim como é possível dizer que o Estado recusou seu papel de fomentador, controlador, disciplinador e regulador do sistema educacional do ensino superior socialmente aceito em uma verdadeira democracia, em nome de uma modernização do sistema conduzida pelo empresariado do setor

This diploma thesis deals with integration of Competitive Intelligence and Business Intelligence into one solution, which would provide small and medium enterprises with maximum amount of information to help them make the right decision. The primary goal of the diploma thesis is to define user's requirements for such system and find for these requirements suitable information resources. Secondary goal is to analyze new Microsoft service called Windows Azure Marketplace Datamarket and its information resources, which could possibly be beneficial for this thesis. Gained information will be used to design the integrated solution. This diploma thesis could be used by companies, which are interested in solution like this, or by companies, which develop these solutions.