The problem addressed is: How can an appropriate redevelopment option for an urban brownfield site be determined? A systems-based approach, Brownfield REMIT/RESPONSE (BRR), to assess the impact of brownfield redevelopment on the surrounding urban area has been developed. This utilises REMIT/RESPONSE combined with urban theory to develop a dynamic model of the generic impact of brownfield redevelopment that when combined with site-specific information can be used to identify and compare the impact of different redevelopment options. The development of a roadmap of the brownfield redevelopment process identified when decisions about the redevelopment option of a brownfield site were likely to be taken and was used to produce a list factors relating to the brownfield site and the surrounding urban area that could affect this decision. A review of the National Garden Festivals identified that the most important factor in delivering an appropriate redevelopment option where a site is initially redeveloped for a temporary event is the planning component of the characterisation, planning and design stage of the brownfield redevelopment process. An assessment of urban models determined that it was not possible to predict the impact of brownfield redevelopment on urban area as a means of comparing alternative redevelopment options. Therefore, it was necessary to develop a new tool to compare alternative redevelopment options. The developed tool, BRR, provides a means to assess the redevelopment options of brownfield sites in an integrated and systematic manner that considers the social, economic and environmental aspects of the redevelopment. To demonstrate that BRR could be applied to assess brownfield redevelopment it was applied to develop a systematic objective-based model of the redevelopment of the Radford site. By analysing the effects of policy identified within the model it was identified that, at the Radford site, there was no policy requirement to assess the sustainability of the redevelopment option chosen and that conflicting policies delayed the redevelopment of the site. BRR was applied to assess the proposed redevelopment options at three sites. At the first two sites, a single option was assessed to determine if it was appropriate. At the Shaw and Marvin site it was shown that the redevelopment option was appropriate and at the Willoughby Garages site it was shown that whilst the redevelopment option was not inappropriate, it was likely that a more beneficial option could be identified. At the third site, Basford gasworks three redevelopment options were compared and it was determined that industrial and commercial units were the most appropriate of three options.

In this dissertation, we empirically investigate the relationship between trade openness and economic growth across countries over the period 1960-2000. The main contribution of this dissertation is that we handle the model un-certainty problem by employing model averaging techniques, instead of estimating and reporting a number of cross-country growth regressions. Differently from many previous cross-country growth studies, our findings do not support the proposition that openness has a direct robust relationship with long run economic growth. However, we conclude that economic institutions and macroeconomic uncertainties relating to inflation and government consumption are key factors in explaining economic growth in the long run.

The widespread assumption that human capital development through education and training will improve the economic capabilities of people is the basis throughout the industrialized world for various support programs to assist the unemployed to "adjust to the labour market" by returning to work, and contribute to the prosperity of the region. Substantial investment of public funding is made in anticipation of fulfilling those expectations. Such was the case in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador in the early 1990s when, after the closure of the northern cod fishery and the subsequent displacement of about 30,000 workers, several government income and adjustment support programs were initiated. This research project relied upon a case study approach to develop an understanding of the complex social phenomena associated with assisting the workers to adjust and evoking economic renewal in Newfoundland. The research went beyond the standard statistical economic indicators, based on the notion that human capital development happens to individuals in the context of their lives in their home communities. Gaining an understanding of the "actual changes" that had occurred in people's lives by recording their perceptions and stories was a significant feature in the project design. Documentation, key informant interviews and focus groups were the instruments used. Statistical evidence revealed that the province is a region of sporadic growth, persistently high unemployment, high part-time and seasonal employment, increasing transfer dependency, and declining population size, but with potential for economic turn-around. The perceptions of the research participants added much detail to that image and, perhaps more importantly, added further enlightenment as to what is required to enhance that potential and successfully move employment beyond the traditional economic mainstay of their communities, the cod fishery. The strongest theme which emerged in people's estimation of the renewal events required was the need for "an integrated approach" to development support. Both the literature reviewed and the research findings indicate that the relationship between human capital development and economic renewal is not simple cause and effect, but a far more complex, multi-faceted and synergistic relationship--that education and training can make an effective contribution to economic renewal of a region struggling with a depressed economy, but only as a component of an integrated package of strategic interventions. This thesis identifies potential elements in that package and proposes an accountability framework for evaluating its impact as a contribution to informed planning and decision making in both social and economic development in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Supply chains today continue to have shorter life-cycle products as a result of high rates of innovation. The increasing number of electronic retailing and catalogue sales fulfil the requirement of home shopping. More liberal return policies have been introduced to protect customers' buying rights and at the same time generate more sales. A growing number of environmental regulations are created which involve a wide range of products. All of these circumstances contribute to the reverse flow of products which require manufacturing organisations to strategically manage and deal with the return flows. Reverse supply chains or reverse logistics have attracted the attention of many academics and practitioners and one of the important field studies in this area is of Supply Chain Management. To contribute to the field, this research is purposely carried out to study the performance measurement in reverse supply chains. Reverse logistics networks may be classified into several categories depending on the source of the reverse flow. This research will focus on customer and distribution return flows. The research is significant because there is a gap in the literature and it could help to give companies guidance in managing their reverse supply chains better. Case studies on five companies which include manufacturers and retailers in the UK provide empirical evidence for their practice of performance measurement in reverse supply chains. The research investigates the selection of strategic objectives for reverse supply chains and the impact of product returns' characteristics and the choice of product returns disposition channels. Learning from the performance measurement in a reverse supply chain, the research proposes a three-level performance measurement framework model for reverse and closed-loop supply chains. This framework model provides the decision makers with a formal and systematic approach to select strategic objectives and towards the use of meaningful performance attributes and performance metrics. Subsequently, it offers a practical approach to the decision maker to perform and manage the reverse supply chain more effectively.

Work-family interference (WFI) is becoming one of the principal hazards to occupational health, family satisfaction, well-being and job satisfaction in the 21st century, especially among women professionals. With obvious increases in female participation within the upper echelons of the labour force both in the developed and developing world (Wirth, 2000); the need to effectively combine work and family roles has become quite a critical issue in occupational and organisational psychology, as well as family studies. Thus identifying and assessing the nature and amount of work-family interference experienced by women professionals and the damage it causes to women’s well-being, organisational productivity, family cohesion and job satisfaction are therefore important questions for applied psychology. So too is the identification of whatever might attenuate or exacerbate the scale of WFI or its negative impact. Such fundamental knowledge has a vital role in informing action and intervention to improve the occupational, as well as family health of women professionals especially in emerging economies like Ghana. This thesis is built around three separate studies conducted among Ghanaian professional and their spouses, using face-to-face interviews, open-ended questionnaires and structured questionnaires. A number of research questions and hypotheses have been addressed in this research. Findings showed that women generally experience work-related stress and work family interference. However receipt of quality supervisor support moderates their experience of work-related stress whiles quality spouse and child support attenuates their experience of work-family interference. Additionally, work-family interference only affected women’s feeling of worn out and tense, but not family satisfaction or job satisfaction. Finally the findings of this research have highlighted the need of using mixed methods in organisational research in developing countries especially where published studies are lacking locally.

The rise of the internet coupled with advancements in computing technology has contributed to the increasing popularity of virtual team working. Virtual teams rely heavily upon the use of mediated communication as face-to-face interaction is limited. Many off-the-shelf collaborative technologies with multiple features are widely accessible in the market to support virtual collaboration. These technologies are being adopted to support uni- and multi-modal interaction in various workplace settings. However the influence of these technologies is often domain specific and is dependent on the type of tasks and teams, thus selecting the most appropriate tool to support a specific collaborative task is difficult. This thesis investigated the use and influence of communication modality when used to accompany shared workspaces in virtual collaboration, particularly in the design and engineering domain. Empirical studies were conducted in laboratory and field settings to evaluate the effects of modality and shared workspaces on collaboration. Novel and off-the-shelf technologies were examined at different development stages (i.e. from user requirements elicitation, to prototype evaluation, to workplace implementation and evaluation of off-the-shelf technologies). The focus of these studies was to compare audio, audio-visual, text-only and text with additional audio communication within the context of shared workspaces. The purpose was to identify whether these modalities have different effects when used in synergy with shared workspaces for collaboration on spatial and non-spatial tasks. The first series of studies investigated how these modalities were adopted in the workplace individually and/or to supplement other tools in collaborative work. Findings from these studies contributed to the understanding of how modalities are selected to support different aspects of various collaborative tasks. A field study was conducted to evaluate the implementation of an ‘always-on’ audio-visual feed to provide shared visual information in the workplace suggested that providing shared visual information for remote users could help maintain team awareness. The results suggested that a careful consideration is required to ensure that the context of use, technical constraints and the quality of the audio-visual feed satisfied the end user needs. Finally, to further extend this understanding, laboratory studies were conducted to compare these modalities. The findings suggested that audio-only compared to audio-visual had no influence on collaboration, while text-only communication required no additional audio to support a virtual design task, given that a shared workspace or screen sharing is provided in both settings. Shared workspaces reduce the necessity for virtual team members to verbalise lexically complex information, thus allowing users to concentrate on the core activities of collaborative tasks.

Increasing globalisation, neoliberal policies and migration inflows have in the last few decades transformed the United Kingdom into a largely cosmopolitan nation with a varied and growing population of ethnic minority owned and/or managed businesses. There is however very little knowledge of how the imperatives of social responsibility resonate within this ever expanding cluster of ethnic minority businesses. This study investigates how the concept of social responsibility (SR) is understood and practiced by African and Caribbean small business owner/managers in the UK cities of London and Nottingham. The social, business and institutional networks of owner/managers are examined in order to understand the embeddedness of their understanding and practice of social responsibility in particular places and spaces. The research also investigates the motivations underlining owner/managers' interpretations, attitudes and involvement in socially responsible practices and activities and identifies different styles of behaviour common within the African and Caribbean small business community. The research adopted an interpretive qualitative methodology to the empirical investigation. It combined semi-structured interview data from African and Caribbean small business owner/managers and key informants in the local small business community, together with participant observation data from case studies of a sample of small businesses, to examine the issue of social responsibility in the two study areas. The key findings of the study include: that African and Caribbean owner/managers of small businesses were oblivious of the terminology of corporate social responsibility and that their interpretation and practice of social responsibility was in many ways incongruent with normative notions of "Corporate Social Responsibility"; that the concept of social responsibility is generally interpreted as a moral imperative to contribute to the welfare of stakeholders and others in society, but in some cases, also understood as a responsibility exclusively owed to co-ethnics; that social responsibility as practiced by African and Caribbean owner/managers was generally inconspicuous, informal and motivated by their idiosyncratic predispositions towards cultural, moral and/or religious traditions; that while the embeddedness of SR practice in co-ethnic business and social networks predominates, nonetheless, second generation African and Caribbean small business owner/managers were more likely to locate their SR activities and practices within mainstream networks and communities; and that the different styles of BSR behaviour of African and Caribbean small business owner/managers can be understood as "insular", "clannish" and "eclectic", On the basis of these findings it was concluded that the SR attitude and behaviour of African and Caribbean small business owner/managers were influenced and shaped by their ethno-cultural and religious beliefs, as well as their embeddedness in social and institutional networks across space and time.

This thesis provides a review and empirical analysis of the determination of executive compensation components, long-term incentive pay ratios and the implication of tournament pay structures. The sample of 1,137 executive-year observations of comprehensive executive compensation packages from FTSE350 companies are exploited to advance our understanding of executive pay determination. The meta-analysis in chapter three provides a systematic review of prior literature on the pay-performance relationship and indicates that the true association between executive pay and firm performance is positive. The economic significance of the relationship, however, is low with less than one percent of executive pay rise is directly attributable to the improvement in firm performance. Chapter six examines the determinants of executive pay components and incentive pay ratios. The empirical results suggest that main determinants of executive pay components and incentive pay ratios are firm performance, firm size, executive tenure and the CEO position. The empirical results are sensitive to performance measures used in analysis. Chapter seven provides some evidence supporting a tournament pay structure in the UK companies with strong connection between executive pay and organizational hierarchy. The convexity of the pay-position relationship implies that extra compensation weight is placed on the most senior executive compensation and the pay-gap is increasing over time. No evidence of the effect of the number of contestants on the tournament prize suggests the growing trend of hiring external CEO candidates rather than internal promotion.

Consultants have diversified their offerings to include support for the formulation and implementation of complex public sector change programmes. Such programme leadership consultants provide mixed advisory-programme delivery support, which often translates into longer engagements. This growing phenomenon is less common and understood than the traditional view of consultants who act as advisors, and requires the focus of academia. The context of the research is a case study of the Maltese Public Service, wherein major change programmes were launched and sustained over a long timeframe. The case study spanned multiple legislatures and witnessed various changes in leadership and strategy. Interestingly Consultants were engaged throughout the case study in both an advisory and a programme leadership capacity, and contributed to the creation and maintenance of momentum for the change programmes, until the programmes eventually ran out of energy. These programmes were also confronted with resistance. The research builds on existing theory to inform our understanding of the contribution programme leadership consultants can make to the creation and maintenance of momentum for change programmes, and implications for the client sponsor of the change programmes. Whilst representing only one aspect of consultancy engagements, this presents important considerations for client sponsors. The case study was bracketed from the perspective of client sponsors of the change programmes into three policy cycles based on change archetypes adopted. The researcher developed a Theoretical Framework which guided the research process and comprised of a number of theory building themes. The theory building themes were translated into research questions for each policy cycle. Four theory building -chapters focus on the analysis of the case study, theoretical analysis and relationship to existing theory, and the formulation of theoretical propositions guided by the theory building themes. The thesis has contributed to knowledge development at two levels. Firstly a theoretical framework was developed and refined which defines and better informs our understanding the phenomenon and comprises five Theory Building themes: Leverage of the Consultants' Relationship with the Client (CL); Power and Political Strategies Deployed by Consultants (P&P); Consultants' ability to Adapt over time (AD); Resistance and Consultants' Mitigation Strategies (R&M); and Programme Leadership Techniques and Discipline adopted by Consultants (NA). Secondly the thesis has informed our current theoretical understanding of such consulting engagements, with implications on client sponsors of such change programmes by applying the theoretical building themes and research questions to examine three policy cycles wherein different change archetypes were adopted. The thesis also presents practitioner implications for Consultants and Client Sponsors of Change programmes, presents a discussion on generalisation of findings, highlights the limitations associated with the research undertaken and unresolved theoretical issues, and proposes pointers for future research.

The past two decades have seen extensive research on governance structures of the firm, executive compensation and performance. However, most of these studies are in the context of profit-making organisations with relatively very little attention being given to this subject in respect of non-profit making organisations. This study examines the determinants of executive compensation and firm performance in charities. Specifically this study attempts to answer the following questions: What are the main determinants of CEO compensation in the UK Charities? What performance measures do the UK Charities use? What are the factors that influence performance in the UK charities? Using both quantitative and qualitative methodologies, the study reports a number of interesting findings. Regarding the executive compensation, the study finds that organisational size, CEOs qualification and CEO’s tenure have a positive bearing on executive pay. However, the results suggest that the sector of the organisation and CEO duality have no impact while and CEO experience had significantly negative relations with CEO pay. Turning to the performance measures, it was found that five performance measures categories are used by the UK charities, namely, financial, the customer; the internal business process, benchmarking and learning and innovation. To get deep insights into performance, the study examined the managers’ opinions on the factors influencing performance. However, CEO pay and the sector of operations have a statistically negative influence on performance. The results indicated that four factors, namely, board size, board independence, CEO pay and sector of operations, have statistically significant influences on the overall performance of the UK charities. The also results suggest that board size and board independence have positive and significant influence on performance. In terms of individual performance measures, the size of the board has a positive and significant influence in respect to financial, customer, internal business and overall performance. The results also indicate that board independence has an influence on financial performance, internal business, benchmarking and overall performance. On the contrary, benchmarking has a positive, but not significant, relationship with CEO pay. This relationship is not surprising, as it supports the social comparison and equity theory. The results also show that the gender of the CEO appears to have a positive, but not significant, impact on the CEO’s performance, with the exception of innovation and learning.