Developing a Grid within High Energy Physics for the Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator is characterised as a highly collaborative, distributed and dynamic systems development effort. This research examines the way this distributed Grid is developed, deployed and provided as a service to the thousands of physicists analysing data from the Large Hadron Collider. The particle physics community has always been at the forefront of computing with a tradition of working in large distributed collaborations, therefore providing a "distinctive" case of distributed systems development practice. The focus of concern is the collaborative systems development practices employed by particle physicists in their attempt to develop a usable Grid. The research aims to offer lessons and practical recommendations to those involved in globally distributed systems development and to inform the information systems development literature. Global software development presents unaddressed challenges to organisations and it is argued that there is an urgent need for new systems development practices and strategies to be created that can facilitate and embrace the rapid changes of the environment and the complexities involved in such projects. The contribution of the study, therefore, is a framework of guidance towards engendering what the author defines as "Hybrid Experimental Agile Distributed Systems Development Communities" revealing a set of dynamic collaborative practices for those organisational contexts engaged in distributed systems development. The framework will allow them to reflect on their own practice and perhaps foster a similarly dynamic flexible community in order to manage their global software development effort. The research is in the form of an interpretative qualitative exploratory case study, which draws upon Activity Theory, and frames the Grid's distributed development activity as a complex overarching networked activity system influenced by the context, the community's tools, rules, norms, culture, history, past experiences, shared visions and collaborative way of working. Tensions and contradictions throughout the development of this Grid are explored and surfaced, with the research focusing on how these are resolved in order for the activity system to achieve stability. Such stability leads to the construction of new knowledge and learning and the formation of new systems development practices. In studying this, practices are considered as an emergent property linked to improvisation, bricolage and dynamic competences that unfold as large-scale projects evolve.

The scientific developments made during the twentieth century have provoked a profound re-conceptualisation of the nature of reality. Quantum mechanics in particular has produced a spectacular paradigm shift, the philosophical implications of which are still being debated and explored. This thesis explores these implications in terms of developing a framework for the analysis of live performance through three conceptual categories: identity, observation and play. Though there has been some recent theatre work, notably Copenhagen and Hapgood, that engage explicitly with quantum mechanics in terms of form and content, these performances are not the focus of this study, rather the scientific material is used to engage with a range of performance practice.

Mobile digital platforms provide an architectural basis for third party innovation of platform complements. Platform owners have property rights, enabling them to establish a boundary of permissible innovation demarcating the permitted from the prohibited. This allows for the curation of complements, which provides a means of controlling for value creation. Consequently, platform innovationthe innovation of platform complements is occasionally refused by platform owners. When this occurs tensions may arise between the two parties over where the boundary of permissible innovation should lie. Tussles may break out, embodied in complex interactions, as each party attempts to get its way. Eventually an outcome is achieved, and a platform innovation is either allowed or prohibited. A body of platform innovation literature is emerging from fields including information systems. Whilst this literature considers many aspects of platform innovation, the dynamics concerning the control of the innovation of platform innovation complements is overlooked. This research attempts to address that gap. Its relevance to information systems concerns the digitalisation of platforms as systemsdigital infrastructures, which affects their capacity for innovation and regulation. This research uses the method of narrative networks to analyse 45 examples of contested platform innovation. This approach, informed by empirical data sourced from over 4500 blog entries, identifies patterned sequences of actions across the examples. These sequences describe how tension builds, how control is asserted, and how control is then resisted. A theory of formal managerial control is used to explain how mechanisms of control are applied by platform owners as well as how developers respond to control. The principle contribution of this research is to theory. It develops and presents a theory to describe and explain the dynamics of contested innovation of complements on curated digital platforms. In doing so, iIt challenges the understanding that the platform owner alone controls platform design rules and concerning which platform complements are allowed, and which are notthe boundary of permissible innovation. Furthermore, tThe study indicates opens up the possibility that the forces of digitalisation provide third parties with the power to affect influence platform architecture, but at the cost of additional means of being controlled.

The first chapter is titled "Productivity As If Space Mattered: An Application to Factor Markets Across China”. Optimal production decisions depend on local market characteristics. This chapter develops a model to explain firm labour demand and firm density across regions. Firms vary in their technology to combine imperfectly substitutable worker types, and locate across regions with distinct distributions of workers and wages. Firm technologies which best match regional labour markets explain both productivity differences and firm density. Estimating structural model parameters is simple and relies on a two stage OLS procedure. The first stage estimates local market conditions using firm employment and regional data, while the second incorporates regional costs into production function estimation. The method is applied to Chinese manufacturing, population census and geographic data to estimate local market costs and production technologies. In line with the model, we find that labour markets which provide cost advantages explain substantial differences in firm productivity. Furthermore, regions which have lower optimal hiring costs attract more firms per capita. This is a joint work with Wenya Cheng and Dr John Morrow. The second chapter is called “Foreign Ownership Share and Property Rights: Evidence from Thai Manufacturing Firms”. Existing work based on property-rights theories treat ownership as binary and the degree of integration as exogenous. This chapter proposes a property-rights model where the degree of integration is endogenised and treated as a continuous variable. The model makes two predictions for firm behaviour under vertical integration. Firstly, foreign ownership shares should increase with the significance of foreign investors’ investment. Secondly, the effect of investors’ investment on ownership increases with the elasticity of substitution across product varieties. Both predictions find considerable support in firm-level data from Thailand. The third chapter, “Product Quality and Intra-firm Trade”, presents a partial equilibrium model with product quality differentiation where heterogeneous firms choose whether to vertically integrate their foreign suppliers or outsource input production. Quality is non-verifiable by third parties which causes the well-known hold-up problem. The severity of the problem increases with product quality. The model yields closed form expression for the productivity threshold that assigns firms into different ownership structures. The impact of quality related parameters on the threshold is analysed in detail.

In Children’s Centres in England professionals from different heritages including Education, Early Years, Family Support and Health have been required to work collaboratively together in order to meet the needs of children and families. Through my work with Children’s Centre leaders and other Children’s Centre professionals, I came to understand this was a complex process that whilst bringing many opportunities, also presented challenges. This study seeks to understand professional culture and how it influences collaborative working within this context. It is primarily a qualitative study and draws upon cultural and socio-cultural theory in order to provide a framework for understanding. It is also influenced by grounded theory and is based within the interpretive paradigm as it seeks to elicit the views of different professionals and to enable their voices to be heard. The first phase of the research involved the distribution of a questionnaire across one government region in England in order to conduct an initial scoping exercise. The second phase took the form of twenty eight semi-structured interviews with professionals from Health, Education, Family Support and Early Years. Sixteen of these took place within a Case Study Children’s Centre and twelve took place with others who became known as the ‘Bystanders’. Lastly a focus group interview within the Case Study Children’s Centre was undertaken. Ethical considerations in relation to British Educational Research Association (BERA) Guidelines were followed and particular attention was paid in relation to confidentiality and anonymity. In order to ensure reliability and credibility, the research has been shared and scrutinised with others in a range of forums including peer researchers, and experienced professionals who have worked in the field. The research findings suggest that professional culture does influence collaborative working in Children’s Centres but the personal qualities of the professionals themselves and intra-emotional challenges are also influential. Furthermore, different professional groups present with their own specific challenges and a culture of respectfulness needs to be developed based upon indicators described in the thesis. It is at the interface of respectfulness, professional culture and personal qualities that a new culture of the Third Space emerges and it is in this space that high quality collaborative working can take place. Furthermore, this new psychodynamic model of collaborative working has the potential of transferability to other contexts beyond Children’s Centres.

The thesis is essentially an explication of a research paradigm, referred to as the Creative Analytic Paradigm (CAP), which is a basic category of social research encompassed by a superordinate category, referred to as generative social research. The thesis presents a contrasting concept of social research to that of paradigms located within quantitative, qualitative or mixed methods research. The approach to writing the thesis has endeavoured to reflect the character of the research process by incorporating extracts from a memo dataset and by dispersing elements from the substantive content within the encompassing context of paradigm development. The thesis contributes to the burgeoning discourse related to the development of reflective practice and future of qualitative research, including prospects for post qualitative research. The substantive content of the thesis comprises five satellite topics illustrating the genealogy of the CAP with a particular focus on the Generative Divergent Analysis (GDA) model. The general area of interest, referred to as the primary sensitizing concept within the terminology of the CAP, is the early-years physical learning environment. The thesis presents a process model of research which supports a being-in-relation to evocative objects related to the physical learning environment. The contemplative dispositional nature of the paradigm valorises acquaintanceship and ongoing relationship as part of a personal aesthetic. The potential for professional practitioners utilising this approach to research in the context of an ongoing professional conversation is in the focus on fluency and flexibility of reflective thinking, the generation of unbounded ideas and differentiation of the perceptual and conceptual field. The thesis concludes by exploring the potential for developing approaches to research within an alternative generative social research category in contrast to quantitative, qualitative or mixed methods approaches.

This study piloted methodology applied in the fields of Major Depressive Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, Panic Disorder and Alcoholism, to investigate attentional bias towards sleep-related stimuli as a factor in the predisposition of insomnia. Following a ‘tired-state induction’ two groups of participants – ‘at risk’ children of adults with insomnia, and control children of good sleepers – completed a sleep-related Emotional Stroop task. Subsequently, they were asked to comment on the content of the Stroop words; whether or not the children reported sleep-related content was recorded. There was no evidence of attentional bias towards sleep-related stimuli in ‘at risk’ children relative to controls. However there was a trend regarding children’s reports of the words’ content; a greater percentage of the ‘at risk’ children reported sleep-related content, than controls. These results do not provide conclusive support for the role of attentional bias in the predisposition of insomnia. The results are discussed in the context of the methodological limitations of the pilot study. Suggestions for future modifications are put forward.

This thesis re-examines the relationship between finance and growth. Most previous studies that have dealt with different aspects of this relationship show that a well-developed financial system is important for economic growth. However, instead of concentrating on the aggregated perspectives of this relationship, this research investigates whether financial development influences the level of competition in the real sector, as one possible mechanism through which finance may influence growth. The study focuses on the changes in industrial structure and performance following a regime change in the financial system: from financial repression to financial liberalization. It has been suggested that financial liberalization may be a key policy to promote industrialisation as it removes the credit access constraints on firms, especially small and medium ones. Competition among financial institutions, which accompanies financial liberalization, leads to greater availability of finance and a reduction in the cost for firms of raising capital for investment. In turn, this encourages creation and entry of new firms and promotes industrial growth, particularly of those firms and sectors that are external finance dependent. The implications of financial liberalization on the real sector are investigated using industry-level panel data from Malawian manufacturing, a variety of econometric methods, and standard measures of industry structure and performance, as well as financial development indicators. The analysis aims to ascertain whether financial liberalization in Malawi has had any impact on the availability of credit for manufacturing firms and whether its effects, which are hypothesised to influence industry structure and performance, differ depending on characteristics such as the degree of external finance dependence of firms or firm size. The main empirical findings show that financial liberalization, even if it results in greater supply of credit and a larger number of lending institutions compared with the pre-reform period, does not remove financing constraints on firms, especially the small and medium ones. Instead, it is the large existing firms that benefit from a more liberal financial regime. Indeed the evidence is that financial reforms have mostly facilitated the expansion of existing establishments rather than the creation of new establishments, and have resulted in greater industry concentration. Further, profitability and output growth are disproportionately higher in large firms than in small ones. The implementation of financial liberalization in Malawi has been judged a success; nevertheless the evidence is that these reforms have been detrimental to competition in industry. What are the policy implications of these findings? This study shows that financial liberalization is not the key for the promotion of industrialisation. In the presence of pervasive market failures in financial resource allocation, as have been experienced in Malawi, the withdrawal of the state from credit allocation decisions is unlikely to result in industrial development.

From the oil boom in the 1970s up to present, Saudi Arabia, a leading oil producing country in the Middle East, has been encountering a serious shortage of skilled and qualified Saudi labour force, especially the private sector. Both the Saudisation policy and the current Ninth Five-Year Development Plan have addressed an urgent need to provide Saudi nationals with as many employment opportunities as possible to replace expatriate workers. To achieve this goal, the Saudi government has made great efforts to enhance the quality of education, as the key to a nation's future economic prosperity depends on the quality of its education and training. However, the current industrial education is still seriously blamed by private sector employers for failing to offer Saudi students of industrial education sufficient vocational skills training courses to obtain the kind of skills, knowledge, attitudes towards work at their request. In light of this serious vocational education issue, the purpose of this research was to investigate this skills gap between industrial education output and Saudi labour requirements in private manufacturing industries (excluding oil refining and petrochemicals), a sector that has been a major contributor to GDP growth since the late 1990s. A survey method was adopted to conduct this research by applying two research instruments: a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. The aim of this survey research is to explore the perceptions of the manufacturing skills training offered in Saudi industrial education from the perspectives of three groups of stakeholders: managers in private manufacturing industries, trainers of industrial education and trainees of industrial education. The survey results revealed that a skills gap exists between the labour demand for qualified Saudi manpower and the current industrial education output and that there were social, cultural and economic factors leading to such a gap. This gap is the result of three factors-work ethics, specialised knowledge and generic skills, which play a key role in private manufacturing employers’ decisions to employ Saudi workers. In order to solve this educational problem, based on the comments by the three groups of stakeholders, this research suggests a model, namely, knowledge-based industrial education, to modify the current industrial education curriculum in order that the output of Saudi industrial education may be improved to fill this skills gap in the future.

This thesis examines the nature of the relationship between the educational environment of UK universities and the graduate labour market through the lens of correspondence theory. This theory was developed by Bowles and Gintis (1976), who asserted that there is a structurally reproductive relationship between the conditions of education and labour. One of the key aims of this research is to test the usefulness of this theory to contemporary UK higher education. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 students and key staff members in the Law faculties of three different status universities; Elite, Old and New. The interviews covered a number of key topics including class sizes, relationships between students and staff, career preparation and routines of working. Documents outlining the nature of the courses (e.g. prospectuses) were also collected and analysed. These data revealed that at Elite University, subject specific knowledge is the primary purpose of learning and the students encounter an intense working environment but are afforded high levels of autonomy. At New University, the educational experience for students is much more structured, with much less pressure on students to perform and a central focus upon employability. Old University occupies a position between these two universities, offering a form of education that encourages some autonomy within a structured teaching environment and values both employability teaching and subject specific knowledge. The significant differences between the teaching and conditions at these three universities reflect characteristics associated with different levels of graduate work thus indicating the continued analytical value of the correspondence theory.