This thesis explores two main hypotheses: the first is that the Thessaloniki Biennale fulfils an instrumental role linked to financial and political interests, particularly tourism and cultural diplomacy. The second hypothesis concerns the possibility that the Thessaloniki Biennale may have alternative potential(s), and explores to what extent and in what ways this was realised. This thesis draws on the debates raised in the literature on art and culture’s instrumentalisation for ‘non-artistic’ purposes, art and culture’s potential for ‘subversion’, and the burgeoning literature on the biennial exhibitions of contemporary art. The analysis is interdisciplinary, applying a broad range of methodologies and theories: semiotics, social history of art, social theory of art and culture, the analysis of cultural policy formulation, and discourse analysis. The aim of this thesis is to synthesise these different methodologies to provide a rich, multi-faceted account of the Thessaloniki Biennale. In this thesis, I contend that the Thessaloniki Biennale attempted to ‘re-brand’ Thessaloniki as historical and multicultural, as well as a centre of contemporary art. In this way, it contributed to enhancing the city’s competitiveness and attractiveness as well as its influence in the broader area. Thus, the art event became entangled to official Greek cultural policy, and the agenda of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture. At the same time, the Thessaloniki Biennale challenged stereotypical interpretative frameworks as regards art practice in regions outside the so-called West, and avoided exhibition practices which commercialise ‘cultural difference’. Also, certain artworks undermined the privileged narrative on the city’s identity, by highlighting aspects of the city and its history which were largely ignored in the official written texts of the art event. The ‘subversive’ potential of the art event could be deepened and expanded by democratising the processes of selection of participating artists, and by working more closely with independent artistic groups, citizen and activist groups.

The thesis examines Flexible Work Arrangements (FWAs) in the Greek labour market and theoretical perspectives that may explain employers’ and employees’ perceptions of flexible working in Greece. Its objectives are: (1) to contribute to the sociology of work and labour economics literatures, by revisiting theoretical perspectives, applying them to the Greek labour context and adding empirical evidence on different FWAs; (2) to contribute to the literature on flexible working and new forms of management practices, by not only focusing on a context that has been neglected, but also by developing a two-level study of both employers’ and employees’ perspectives; (3) to assess potential implications of flexible working by focusing on the job quality of flexible workers and, in doing so, contribute to the growing literature on the impacts of new forms of work. In Chapter 3, the datasets are presented. First, the fourth European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) and the second European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS) are described and employed to benchmark employee use of FWAs in Greece. Second, a survey conducted in Greece during the period 2010-2011 is described. The resulting Greek Dataset on Flexible Work (GDFW) covers 40 companies and 492 employees. The second part of the thesis reports three empirical studies. In Chapter 4, EWCS and EQLS show that the use of FWAs in Greece is significantly lower (compared to other EU countries) highlighting the question: why is the incidence of flexible working lower in Greece? Four FWAs forms are studied: part-time, temporary, telework and work from home as well as a hybrid category, “no contract”. The findings suggest that part-time, temporary and “no contract” employees characterise a secondary labour market, while telework and work from home, though rare are more noticeable than previously observed in the literature and demonstrate characteristics of a primary labour market. Overall, this first empirical study enabled a reassessment of the research questions, data needed and provided further insights into how chosen theoretical perspectives could be further explored to set hypotheses concerning employers’ as well as employees’ perspectives. The first study (Chapter 5) analyses the GDFW through institutional theory. Its purpose is twofold: first, to examine at an organisational level the environmental factors that may impact on employer offer of FWAs. Second, to explore characteristics, that are directly associated with employee use of / interest in FWAs. Additionally, the relationship between FWAs with Work-Life Balance (WLB) and life satisfaction is examined. Results show that pressures coming from competition, EU, legislation and labour market are significant predictors of employer offer. With regard to employees, the results suggest that the use of FWAs and employee interest in FWAs are associated with: their role in the organisation, tenure and family obligations. Implications of these findings for human resource management, industrial relations and the spread of flexible working in Greece as well as future research are discussed. The second study investigates FWAs quality in Greece through dual labour market theory (Chapter 6). Hypotheses are set and tested using the GDFW. Perceptions of employees and employers on FWAs show that these are associated with low job quality. Flexible workers are mostly females, younger employees and those with lower educational background, suggesting a segmented workforce and a distinction between full-time employees (“insiders”) and flexible workers (“outsiders”). These inequalities are likely to remain, thus showing that convergence in the labour market is a distant European goal. Chapter 7 summarises the research objectives of the thesis. It summarises the results obtained for the Greek case, and compares them to the European context. It further describes how findings may be generalised. Most importantly, it provides the practical implications of the thesis, acknowledges its limitations and addresses how what has been learnt by this research can foster future research.

The central purpose of this thesis is to explore the dimensions of labour market adjustment in Jamaica. The paper adopts a microeconometric approach, relying on new and more detailed Jamaica Labour Force Survey data for the period 1983-2006. Over this period, Jamaica has experienced significant expansion in its external trade which has been characterized by a severe import bias. Also, during this time, Jamaica's agricultural and manufacturing sectors experienced declines in their respective employment shares of 44% and 36% while service sectors expanded. One chapter of the thesis explores the empirical link between expanding trade flows and manufacturing labour market adjustment. The thesis also explores whether and to what extent sectoral labour market adjustment in Jamaica has been accommodated by an accompanying occupational transformation. Central to analyzing the issue of occupational adjustment however, is the careful definition of what constitutes a skill in order to elucidate the role of skill specificity in labour market adjustment. The thesis then investigates the incidence of unemployment in Jamaica in an attempt to identify key factors leading to escape from unemployment within a low skilled, high-unemployment, developing country context. The study finds an important role for worker characteristics, trade and industry information in affecting labour market adjustment in Jamaica. Using occupational skill definitions due to Dolton and Kidd (1998), the study also finds that most of the occupational and sectoral mobility in Jamaica, over the review period, took place among unskilled manual workers. As such, the Jamaican employed labour force experienced very little skill upgrading over the 24 year period covered. The very limited up-skilling observed over the review period was due to the emergence of relatively more highly skilled, sales and distribution related occupations. As far as adjustment costs are concerned, across all mobility types, simple sectoral moves were- in general, relatively less costly; with occupational transformation playing an accommodative role to the sectoral adjustment. Industry information, educational qualifications, geographic location, gender and the degree of skill specificity and were all critical determinants of the type of adjustment observed in the Jamaican labour market. Finally, the thesis underlines the very high incidence of long-term unemployment among uneducated, unskilled, young males in Jamaica. The study reveals negative duration dependence in the Jamaican labour market and suggests a critical role to be played by worker training in affecting unemployment escape probabilities.

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.