Repercussions of the demographic shift for firms include issues such an incremental rise in the average age of the workforce, unequal inflows and outflows of labour and managing organisational skill levels. In the case of Germany, organisational responses to demographic change are exacerbated by a predominant early exit culture, legislation which protects against the dismissal of older employees and related provisions set out in collective bargaining agreements. The aim of the research is to examine how demographic shifts impacted on German companies in the steel, chemicals and utilities sectors. After discussing these challenges, the thesis analyses measures implemented by these firms and explains differences in the responses between the sectors. The empirical findings clearly indicate that far more was being done to prepare for, and to counter, the effects of demographic developments than the extant academic literature suggests. Companies which responded most proactively to demographic change issues perceived this to be part of their role as a responsible and caring employer. The end to the financial support of early retirement by the German government was found to be an important catalyst for firms to develop measures to accommodate older workers, instead of offering them an early exit from the company. Nevertheless, a failure to respond effectively to the end of state-funded support for early retirement, as well as the tendency of some firms to ignore deep-seated motivational issues in older workers, suggests that companies have some way to go before they can be described as effectively tackling demographic change. Hence, this thesis is unable to prove conclusively that critics of the German management of demographic in organisations are wrong in pre-empting that German firms run the risk of falling into a demographic trap (Thun et al, 2007). The thesis frames demographic change within a wider context of organisational shifts, by examining external and internal drivers of change. Variations in responses between sectors are explained by drawing attention to drivers of change within the three industrial sectors which have shaped the behaviour of firms, including past experiences of organisational restructuring. Finally, the thesis makes a number of important theoretical, empirical and practical contributions to the academic literature. The most important contribution is to provide qualitative, empirical data on how firms in Germany are dealing with demographic developments to address gaps in the literature on company responses to demographic change.

The thesis explores the purpose of cooking education. The impetus for the research question - why teach (young) people to cook? – was the introduction of the 1988 National Curriculum for England & Wales. This changed the content and pedagogy of cooking education from a home and practical focus to an industrial and technological focus. Literature searches found little academic research into the purpose of cooking education. The research therefore set out to map the entire policy and pedagogical rationale(s) for what it defines as Food and Cooking Skills Education (FCSE). The research applied a dual focus on FCSE: as food policy and as pedagogy. A multi-method methodology was adopted, using a food systems conceptual approach, in order to capture the depth, range and breadth of possible rationales for FCSE. Methods used were: historical and documentary analysis, semi-structured interviews, questionnaire survey and an international comparative survey. Five qualitative studies were conducted: (1) a historical account of FCSE in England and Wales since the industrial revolution; (2) a survey of young people’s experience of cooking education in English schools; (3) a questionnaire survey of UK food industry FCSE perspectives; (4) an international comparative survey of thirty-five countries’ FCSE policies and pedagogy (including Scotland & N Ireland); and (5) élite interviews of policy-makers and activists from state related and civil society sectors. The five studies provide the first account of FCSE’s role and purpose, whether taught formally or informally. Seventeen rationales were identified, of varying emphasis. Historically, FCSE was found to have generated different purposes at different periods, with the modern era encompassing them all, and environmental sustainability now emerging. Internationally, countries vary in their modes of food cultural and skills transmission. A consensus of the importance of FCSE was recorded. The thesis concludes with nine cross-cutting themes exposed by the studies, which are presented as a preliminary theory of the purposes for and against cooking education. These include: food control, food literacy, skill types, culinary diversity, public health, resources, pleasure and environmental sustainability. Recommendations for policy and further research are made.

Adopting a socio–economic perspective and a multimethod field research approach this thesis investigates the correlation between trust and workflow in advertising communities of practice. Using a semiotic mode of analysis a comparative examination of offline and online communities will be conducted to inspect the practices of trust when multiple stakeholders follow the creative workflow process to fulfil creative briefs. The motivation to lead the research stems from a current lack of understanding of how trust is operationalized in online creative communities. Shortcomings from the literature 1) do not account for the significance of constructed workplace settings in the offline domain, 2) focus on providing generalisations through quantification, while fail to offer insights through qualitative methods and 3) overlook the weaknesses of trust in professional relationships. To address these shortcomings the thesis provides an extensive literature review to explicate the complexity of trust. The review forms the foundation of the thesis from which it makes original theoretical, analytical and empirical contributions. It 1) introduces a conceptual framework that correlates trust with workflow in offline and online advertising communities; 2) presents a novel thematic–narrative analytical method to interpret and map trust and workflow at the granular level; 3) reports from three sequential field studies that explores trust and workflow in professional relationships. These contributions highlight the operationalization of trust and that trust is an active determinant of workflow. The findings have implications to the study of trust and virtual workspaces in the digital economy that will influence their design, development and utilization. The first study examines trust and workflow in an offline advertising community. The findings indicate a positive correlation: trust is strongly aligned to workflow, inferred by strongly embedded situational and trust–warranting properties. The second and third studies examine trust and workflow in online advertising communities. The former indicates a negative correlation: trust is mediumly misaligned to workflow, inferred by weakly embedded situational properties. The findings of the latter also indicate a negative correlation: trust is strongly misaligned to workflow, inferred by weakly embedded situational and trust–warranting properties. In short, trust and workflow have a negative correlation online compared to the offline domain and is deficient in situational and trust–warranting properties. As a consequence the online domain does not perform to the same professional standard as the offline domain.

This thesis consists of three papers on the economics of corporate social responsibility (CSR). The papers study different aspects of CSR from the perspectives of consumers and firms. The first paper looks at how consumers value CSR and their willingness to pay for ethical attributes in a product. We include a CSR signal to examine how information on CSR affects individuals’ preferences and willingness to pay. The second paper builds on the study in the first paper, however, we also include a CSR nudge and the Big Five Inventory on personality to examine the interaction between information and personality traits on the willingness to pay for CSR. Finally, in the third paper we look at how firms’ CSR signal can influence their financial performance.

This thesis presents two studies of computer-mediated non-monetary exchange. The Internet has improved the potential for previously unconnected people to organise into interest groups with the intent of meeting offline. This has resulted in a range of organisations emerging with the explicit aim of helping people to give and share resources. These organisations typically reject money and markets, insisting that social interaction should occur through generosity alone. The first study presents a netnography and depth interviews which reveal how technology is used to enact and influence the management of identity, partner selection, ritual normalisation, and negotiation of property rights. The findings have significant implications for the design and management of systems that encourage non-monetary forms of collaborative consumption. In the second study a longitudinal social network analysis reveals how the social structures involved in these systems have no obvious historical precedent. This has implications for the way in which the social sciences should conceptualise reciprocal economic arrangements. It also raises some sociological implications for the possibility of designing economic systems in the absence of money. Finally, a new approach is proposed which advocates diachronic analysis of property rights as a means to explain how markets and institutions that try to subvert markets exist alongside each other.

Agriculture represents a class or expression of complexity which researchers need to look at because of its immense contribution to rural development and poverty reduction. Scientists and researchers per their disciplinary training and specialisations differ in wider perspectives and methodologies. In addition to the compartment functioning processes of organisations, fluid interaction and collaboration of actors are further limited. This study examines how actors in Crops for the Future (CFF) interacted formally and informally as a complex agricultural research organisation to address the transdisciplinary communication challenges it faces. Using ethnographic methods with participant observation, interviews and official document reviews, the study revealed that, the structuring of CFF into themes and programmes was intended to network and work in their areas of disciplines. The study revealed that internal policies of CFF such as the research value chain (RVC), the doctoral support programmes (DTP) and flagship projects aim to improve research collaboration and as a research strategy, tend to support working together effectively. However, it further revealed that, though actors collaborate and network across different knowledge communities, elements of personal interest and power appear to play a significant role in that drive. Raising questions of communication and reporting process, revealed a mixed form of vertical and horizontal hierarchies, supported by a project and functional structures of management in CFF. The informal practices of actors in CFF (social networking, friendship, interactions etc.) tend to strongly support and enhance the formal structures and policies (programmes, themes, reporting and management structure etc.).

Chapter 1: Land Inequality and Human Capital: Evidence for the United States from the Homestead Act. This chapter uses historical records of land patents and county level census data to estimate the impact of the Homestead Act of 1862 |an egalitarian land distribution policy implemented in the United States| on land inequality, school enrolment, and literacy during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The results show that the Homestead Act reduced land inequality and increased school enrolment and literacy, and that there is not heterogeneous effects on school enrolment by sex, but the effect is driven by the impact on children of primary school age. Using the Homestead Act as an instrument for land inequality, the results show that land inequality had a strong negative impact on school enrolment. This result is relevant to the literature because identification does not rely on variation across geographic, climatic, or soil characteristics. These results are robust to the inclusion of state specific year fixed effects and are not driven by convergence. On the contrary, I argue that convergence in school enrolment was a consequence of the Homestead Act. Chapter 2: Land Redistribution and Crop Choice: Evidence from Reform and Counter-Reform in Chile. This chapter uses unique historical data on the Chilean land reform of the 1960s and 1970s to estimate the impact that redistribution had on land inequality and crop choice. The results show that land redistribution had a persistent negative effect on land inequality, and that areas that were treated with more reform increased their share of land cultivated with fruits, vegetables, and vineyards, and lowered the share of land destined to forest plantations. The fact that a military coup interrupted the reform process allows for the comparison of the effects of reform and counter-reform, which sheds light on the mechanisms through which redistribution operated. I find that land that was transferred to new owners drive the results for crop choice, but not those for land inequality. Chapter 3: Earthquakes and Birth Outcomes in Chile. This chapter estimates the e effects of earthquakes on birth weight and length of gestation. I use administrative data on the universe of live births in Chile between 1994 and 2011. I combine that data with GIS raster information from USGS ShakeMaps to assign a detailed measure of earthquake intensity for each birth during each trimester of pregnancy. I find that, although the baseline estimates suggest a weak negative effect, these results are not robust to the exclusion of births from a strong 8.8 magnitude earthquake that struck off the coast of south-central Chile, which caused approximately 500 casualties, heavy infrastructure damage, and significant disruption to the government's logistics.

China has been experiencing constraints to the sustainable development of its domestic economy in recent years due to a reliance on a low value-added oriented economy. The enhancement of innovation among local firms is, therefore, being encouraged by the Chinese government. The Chinese government regards the automotive industry as one of its strategic industries yet the local automotive firms in China still remain relatively under-developed due to a limited independent innovation capacity. Therefore, the enhancement of an indigenous innovation capacity in the automotive industry is badly needed. Favourable policies have been applied in the automotive sector in order to support the technological development of local automotive firms which includes the constraints on foreign direct investment (FDI) in the automotive sector. Automotive multinational corporations (MNCs) are strictly required to establish international joint ventures (IJVs) with local automotive firms and can own no more than a 50% share in an IJV. The logic behind this is to protect the local automotive firms and allow them access to the technological resources of the MNCs and the opportunity for organisational learning. This logic is supported by current literature as IJVs are, arguably, able to deliver innovation outputs through direct access to the resources of the parent companies and the interpartner learning effects. Despite this, real-life examples suggest a limited innovation performance in the automotive IJVs in China. The innovation achievements are largely limited to minor changes to established products and some new products based on existing technologies. Whilst there is little technological innovation apparent in the automotive IJVs in China, there is evidence of this emerging from local automotive firms without the assistance of an IJV partnership. This PhD thesis explores the underlying reasons for the gap between current academic theory and the reality in the automotive industry. Qualitative case studies of three Chinese automotive IJVs and one independent local automotive firm with a reputation for innovation were conducted to investigate the factors that limit innovation activities in automotive IJVs. The findings of this research suggest that the IJV partnership itself is a constraining factor in the context of the Chinese automotive industry. This is because the nature of automotive IJVs in China lead to a lack of strategic focus on innovation and the IJVs follow a closed innovation paradigm as they only benefit from the limited resources of their parent companies, with little or no access to other external resources. Furthermore, the mismatch of the technological capabilities causes ineffectiveness in the utilisation process of the transferred resources. This research contributes to knowledge by explaining the gap between current theories on IJV and the reality within the industry. Furthermore, a revised model of knowledge management is proposed in the context of IJVs. In light of the main research findings, recommendations are made regarding the policy and practice of using IJV partnerships for the enhancement of innovation capacity among Chinese firms.

In recent years there has been an increase in metrics and indices measuring corporate social responsibility (CSR) (SuatainAbility, 2010; IBE, 2013). In legitimating the premise of these metrics focus has centred on the effects of inclusion, either in regard to financial impact for the firm (Beurden and Gössling, 2008; Griffin and Mahon, 1997), validity in gaining and conveying legitimacy (Chatterji et al, 2007; Agle and Kelly, 2001; Font et al, 2012; Graafland et al, 2004), or social impact in promoting responsible business practices (Slager et al, 2010; Slager, 2012; Adam and Shavit, 2007; Scarlet and Kelly, 2009). Yet, arguably these tools are now institutionalised elements of CSR (Waddock, 2008), and thus focus is no longer centred on gaining legitimacy, but rather on retaining it, as they 'face the need to evolve ... in the context of the changing demands of constituents and environmental change' (Durand & McGuire, 2005, p.168). However, little is known about how these effects (financial, social and validity) impact the valuation dynamics associated with participation in these tools over time. This thesis aims to fill this gap by exploring processes of legitimation and critique of participation in Business in the Community's Corporate Responsibility Index (BiTC's CRI). Through the lens of Boltanski and Thévenot's economies of worth (2006), the thesis examines the 'orders of worth' drawn upon in legitimating and critiquing participation in the CRI over time. Methodology is abductive, with data and extant theory explored simultaneously so as to establish contributions through a mutually-informed comprehension of what the data is a 'case of' (Tavory & Timmermans, 2014, p.5). Research-theorising applies Peircean semiotics (Peirce, 1909), by which, extant literature and theorising are applied, tested, and either set aside from/or built-upon, when set against the data of the empirical case. Data collection is qualitative, consisting of observations (4 formal and numerous informal), interviews (68) and documentary analysis. The research ultimately draws on Boltanski and Thévenot's Economies of Worth (2006), and the notion of 'composite assemblages', developed further by Mailhot & Langley (2017), Gond et al (2017) and Taupin (2012). The thesis supports Taupin's (2012) suggestion; that a rating's legitimacy is based on a collection of 'moral worths' (p.529), and conceptualises this through the 'composite assemblage' advanced by (Mailhot & Langley, 2017). Analysis contributes to scholarly understanding of processes of legitimation, by unpacking the relative 'robustness' of an assemblage, to internal and external 'tests' of worth. In unpacking these processes, the thesis brings together theory from EW, 'substantive and symbolic CSR', materiality, risk, and boundary objects; to uncover a complex 'web' of dynamic central, and peripheral value assemblages, which BiTC staff and participating CR practitioners draw upon, in legitimating and critiquing participation in the CRI.

Knowledge Management (KM) in this research refers to a process that dives deep into an organization and analyzes operational metrics to understand and help the enterprise make use of knowledge both explicit and tacit, facilitate a state of knowledge awareness and sustain the knowledge managing and learning process. This novelty of the research is its first attempt to combine China's KM implementation issues statistics, literature review on KM model and KM CSFs, integrating with research objectives findings to develop a KM framework for China SME shipyards. This framework interlinks the knowledge cycle of knowledge acquisition, application and improvement continuously within organization by 3 KM domains of organization entity, people interaction and organization memory, formulated by 12 KM CSFs derived. The uniqueness of this framework is it emphasis on people. Organization entity involves people support of top management to motivate and drive organizational culture to embrace KM. Continuous organization knowledge improvement involve people interaction to facilitate knowledge processes through socialization programs, training and building of trustworthy team. People are the one who contribute to organization memory by retain and update organization knowledge for effective reprocessing and retrieval via information technology. The survey took the form of structured interview in five stages of field study with eight sets of survey questionnaires. AHP method is applied to quantify practices and translate it into measurable absolute numbers. Result showed that one third of China SME shipyards are NOT Ready for KM implementation. Among the deficiencies, knowledge structure is the first limitation, followed by the knowledge content and training. The value of this research is to highlight and illustrate to enterprises the opportunity of the application of KM Framework could continuously improve their organization knowledge from operating processes through systematic knowledge acquisition and application, to gain their competitiveness and sustainability in long term. In short term, this KM framework by application could answer to the question that all China SME shipyards unanimously asked "Do you think my shipyard is ready to implement Knowledge Management?"