This thesis studied the slack - performance relationship under different external environments by taking advantage of the financial crisis of 2008-09, which provides a natural experiment opportunity for the study. Besides the management of slack, adaptation profiles are also examined by building the two-stage adaptation process model in concordance with different period of financial crisis. Based on empirical analysis and theoretical research, this thesis finds that slack management impacts the firms' performance as well as firms' adaptation to respond to financial crisis. Another novelty of this thesis is to examine ambidexterity in detail by employing constructs of alignment and adaptability from the perspective of organizational slack. Thesis tries to evidence that European manufacturing firms have various adaptation processes, profiles and risk-taking behaviors with varying performance implications based on their slack management in response to financial crisis. To that end, this study investigates empirically, publicly-held 671 western European manufacturing firms, by comparatively examining their organizational slack management and performance characteristics before, during and after the recent financial crisis period 2007-8 . This research employs longitudinal panel data. The data was drawn from Thomson one banker database for the period of2004-2013.

Over the last few decades, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) have become an integral part of the organisational landscape playing an intermediary role between donors and beneficiaries. To ensure the efficient utilisation of resources, NGOs are required to be accountable to the two main stakeholders: donors and beneficiaries (in what is termed upward and downward accountability respectively). Multiple institutional and environmental pressures have shaped and changed the face of NGOs’ response to accountability as a coping strategy, yet this dimension is inchoate in the literature. Therefore, the study examined the dimensions of accountability systems within an NGO in Ghana. Extending the new institutional sociology theory, particularly the normative forces elements to include the media and the other identified bodies, the study adopted an in-depth interpretive case study approach using a single community based organisation in Ghana. Data was gathered by way of interviews and documentary review. In total 35 interviews were conducted with diverse groups both within and outside the case organisation. The findings of the study are analysed and interpreted through the lens of institutional theory, particularly the new institutional sociology. It was found that the dominant accountability systems in the studied NGOs are upward towards donors. Generally, downward accountability is not given much prominence by NGOs in Ghana, largely due to lack of commitment by donors. It is clear from the study that institutional pressures shape accountability systems of NGOs in Ghana. The result has implications for understanding the operations and reporting systems of NGOs, particularly, in developing countries like Ghana. It is argued that NGOs can strategically and actively respond to these institutional pressures for legitimacy.

This research reviewed the history of motivation and performance modelling, with particular regards to the performance of employees in a work environment. The evolution of motivational theories was discussed before the motivational models arising from these theories were examined and critiqued. The wide range of, often conflicting, studies and theories in this area has led to a situation where no single model has been able to capture all the complexities of the internal and external influences on human motivation and performance. Models have broadly fallen into one of two categories: cognitive, focusing on the individual’s thought processes and social-cognitive, focusing on the influences from social and contextual variables. Bong [1996] suggested that a broader model of motivation may be developed by adopting either an integrative approach, whereby a general model is built that incorporates the wide range of potential motivational variables, or by building several models that focus on each dimension separately. Needs based and process based motivational theories, which will provide the foundation of any model of motivation, were reviewed in Chapter Three. Chapter Four then introduced the two existing models of motivation models that are the main focus of this study, Hackman and Oldham’s Job Characteristics model and Porter and Lawler’s Expectancy model. Each model was reviewed and critiqued before being amended and expanded to more fully explain the social and cognitive motivational processes and satisfy the criticisms identified. Although there are no obvious areas of overlap between the largely social-cognitive Job Characteristics model and the largely cognitive Expectancy model, Chapter Five explains that by changing the terms used to describe the variables in each model the similarities between them may be identified. Identifying the areas of overlap allows the two models to be integrated into one. This new model of motivation expands upon the original models in that it combines both the social-cognitive and cognitive approaches and also incorporates more of the motivational theories discussed in Chapter Three than either of the two original models. The new model of motivation was tested via a data survey in four organisations. In each case, the level of correlation between the levels of the recorded variables, such as satisfaction and motivation, and those predicted by the model were generally high. The results of the data survey and the performance of the model were discussed in Chapter Six. One of the main aims of this thesis was to produce a model of motivation that was of practical use to the management of an organisation. Such a model should go beyond the existing theoretical models and allow those responsible for motivating a workforce to experiment with alternative job design strategies and evaluate their likely effects upon motivation and performance. Chapter Seven describes the spreadsheet-based model that was built in this study.

This thesis addresses two main questions. Firstly “Are there significant differences between the level of academic achievement (qualification) of German senior managers and their British counterparts?” Secondly if so, “why should this be so?” These two questions lead to a third, “what impact, if any, do these differences have”? This third question, whilst it is not the focal point of this research, is discussed in outline in so far as it impinges upon our topic, it would however probably be more properly addressed as the subject of a further separate thesis. This thesis, supports the proposition that German senior managers are usually academically better qualified than their British counterparts and in particular that many more, by a factor of between 10 and 50 to one, have Doctorates. It identifies long standing and deep-seated cultural differences as being one of the principal reasons why this should be so. As to the third question the differing levels of productivity in the two countries, particularly in the manufacturing industry, have been the subject of much debate. This thesis supports the argument that lack of qualification both academic and vocational of British managers may contribute to this difference. However, it also indicates that the British less focussed more generalist approach may prove advantageous where the ability to innovate or to be entrepreneurial is concerned, an area where German managers it seems do less well.

This research applied a phenomenological approach to investigate the experience of final year undergraduate students who had undertaken 48 week paid management internships within the luxury hotel sector outside of the United Kingdom. There is an emerging research base in respect to students' responses to work integrated learning and co-operative work experience and this study has added to the limited qualitative evidence that exists on students' experience of extended international internships within the hotel sector. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 25 final year undergraduate students in a single British university. The interviews elicited information about how students made sense of their overseas work experience at a point when they were preparing to leave university and enter fulltime employment. Four superordinate themes emerged after the cross-analysis of individual participant's experience. Findings support previous studies into co-operative management education in identifying personal growth and confidence as important phenomena experienced by participants. Furthermore, participants indicated a sense of heightened human capital in the form of cosmopolitan human capital and expressed strong self-belief in their own employability as a consequence of their experience. This increased sense of employability remained true despite intention to work overseas again or to remain within the hotel sector. Original to this research are the phenomena of adversity and resilience coupled with the emergence of sub-themes clustering around positive psychological development that emerged through analysis of participants' internship experience. This study puts forward a theoretical model of international internships and positive psychological capital and contributes to practice in internship and employability mentoring and policy decision making regarding the internationalisation and employability agendas in higher education.

How does the SME internationalisation network develop across institutional distance and why? In order to understand and explain the process of SME internationalisation network development between a developed economy (the UK) and an emerging one (China), a conceptual research framework was first developed from the integration of theories of small firm internationalisation (Child and Hsieh 2014; Coviello 2006; Jones and Coviello 2005), social networks (Burt 1995; 2011; Jack 2010; Slotte-Kock and Coviello 2010) and institutions (North 2009; Peng 2003; Scott 2008). Welch et al.'s (2011) 'contextualised causal explanation perspective’ was then applied in an empirical context, through the in-depth study of three cases of SME network development between Scotland and China, which resulted in findings that underline the interconnectedness between formal and informal institutions and their effects on the phenomenon. The thesis ultimately offers a causal explanation process model of SME internationalisation network development across institutional distance, answering calls from the internationalisation literature (Jones et al 2011) for a greater understanding of how and why institutions (Eden 2010) - and informal institutions (Sartor and Beamish 2014) in particular – matter.

Developing an understanding of the employment of game based mechanics within an organisational context, is becoming an increasingly relevant topic of interest and research. This nascent field of study and practice has been termed Enterprise Gamification, and is progressively being adopted by organisations wishing to improve the use of their information systems across the workforce. However, there is limited understanding of the effective use of these elements and their influence on the actions of employees using gamified information systems. Thus, this research seeks to theorise the effective use by actors in the workplace of enterprise gamification systems embedded with game based mechanics. These elements were explored through an in-depth case study approach extending over a two year period with a global media agency comprising a large workforce. This approach enabled me to collect empirical data through interviews, archival materials and observations of information system use in the field of study, and to theorise about the mechanics of effective enterprise gamification system use by employees. In conceptualising effective enterprise gamification system use, and by uncovering the dynamics between user actions, system use, and performance effectiveness by which these may gamefully engage employees, this study offers a substantial contribution to the related streams of research concerned with understanding the effective use of information systems and enterprise gamification. Thus its original contributions to knowledge are: (i) uncovering new insights into gamified user actions and representations of game based mechanics; (ii) developing salient understanding of gamified system use across dimensions of effective use nature; (iii) offering novel insights into the relationship between game based mechanics and performance effectiveness in a gamified system use context; and (iv) research implications for the study of information system use with enterprise gamification. Contribution to practice also provides novel insights into the effectiveness of gamified information systems with employees, as findings suggest that potential benefits may be context specific as characterised by user interpretations and variations in states of engagement as influenced by game based mechanics.

This thesis integrates the cognitive modelling perspective into the literature on organizational slack by developing and validating a questionnaire-based instrument which measures managers’ attitudes towards slack resources. The literature is deeply polarized regarding the role played by slack in organizations. Researchers debate whether organizational slack is a sure sign of inefficiency in the workplace or a necessary cost to enhance the competitiveness of firms. Empirical studies have not been able to resolve this conceptual debate as the results are highly diverse. In order to explain conflicting empirical findings, scholars have made untested assumptions about the interaction between organizational slack and managerial psychology. However, despite repeated calls, managerial cognition regarding organizational slack remains a black box in empirical studies. This thesis addresses this shortfall in the literature by developing a new measurement instrument which reveals managers’ attitudes towards slack resources. The instrument, i.e. the Attitudes Towards Slack Resources Questionnaire (ATSRQ), consists of three five-item subscales reflecting attitudes towards HR, financial, and physical slack and a combined higher-order scale measuring overall attitudes towards slack. It is developed and validated by means of a rigorous and systematic paradigm. The psychometric properties of the ATSRQ are assessed with five empirical studies which provide evidence for the internal consistency reliability, test-retest reliability, convergent validity, discriminant validity, and criterion-related validity of the ATSRQ. Results of the empirical studies suggest that managers’ attitudes towards slack resources are related to some key organizational phenomena, such as managers’ trust in employees. The results also reveal that managerial attitudes towards slack resources predict various employee-related outcomes, including leader-member exchange, perceived organizational support, work autonomy, access to resources, and decision latitude. The thesis concludes with a discussion of results, as well as limitations and future research directions.

Firms are facing challenges in managing corporate social responsibility (henceforth CSR) in their offshore outsourcing relationships and often fail to meet the ever increasing expectations from stakeholders. The main cause of these challenges stems from the complexity of offshore outsourcing. This thesis attempts to advance understandings of the mechanisms through which key relevant factors operate and interact to influence CSR performance outcomes. Three pieces of research taking different approaches embedded in multiple theories and levels of analysis are presented. Paper 1 advances the theoretical understanding of firm performance outcomes in cross-border inter-organisational relationships, mainly informed by institutional theory, resource dependence theory, and relational view. By specifically looking at CSR in offshore outsourcing relationships, the study enables prediction of CSR performance outcomes under institutional and inter-organisational differences. Paper 2 empirically studies a specific type of CSR failure, corporate social irresponsibility (henceforth CSiR) exposed by the media. Using an extensive amount of longitudinal data, the study demonstrates that CSR performance is an outcome of the interactions between the way firms are perceived by key stakeholders and attention to the subject matter. The paper contributes to the attention-based view, the theoretical underpinning of the paper, by separating out depth and breadth of attention conceptually and empirically. Paper 3 narrows down the sectoral context of the study to the retail industry considering its representativeness in the subject matter. Drawing on resource dependence theory, the study provides conceptual insights into a shifting paradigm from dyadic to trilateral governance. The findings of the three studies examining an identical phenomenon, but adopting different approaches and research tools, suggest CSR performance outcomes are formulated by internal and external contextual conditions and firms’ strategic choices. Overall the thesis contributes to our understanding of CSR in offshore outsourcing by unravelling the mechanisms through which these crucial factors work.

The title, per aspera ad astra, the ‘struggle to the stars’, speaks to this thesis in two ways. Firstly, the theoretical focus of this research project rests upon understanding the joint pursuit of exploitation (efficiency) and exploration (innovation), a concept otherwise known as organizational ambidexterity. To date, studies have demonstrated that organizations with the ability to achieve ambidexterity are apt to become leading star performers in their industries. Yet the pursuit of ambidexterity is difficult and fraught with tension; for exploration and exploitation are considered incompatible and demand fundamentally different skill requirements and capabilities. The research herein contributes knowledge to the field of strategy and change management by addressing an important but underdeveloped area of inquiry in examining how, in practice, an organization transitions towards an ambidextrous strategy and manages the exploration-exploitation duality (Birkinshaw, Crilly, Bouquet and Lee, 2016). Herein, the study focuses on the exploration-exploitation duality and addresses the research questions ‘how does an established organization transition in strategic pursuit of organizational ambidexterity, and what underlying mechanisms support or impeded its transition?’ Secondarily, to address this question an empirical qualitative case study analysis was conducted of an organization undergoing strategic change towards achieving ambidexterity, namely the NASA Johnson Space Center who strive to advance science and technology through the difficult endeavor of human space exploration. Utilizing a multimethod approach, rich qualitative data was gathered and through inductive reasoning and a grounded theory approach, theoretical insights were generated to develop theory. Broadly speaking, the study finds that: (1) an organization’s approach to ambidexterity is not static but evolves progressively with antecedents arranged in a layered pattern over time due to a dynamic relationship between exploration-exploitation. Consequentially, structural and contextual antecedents to ambidexterity are employed in a hybrid manner, and this is enabled by various distinct skills, processes and structures resembling the micro foundations of dynamic capabilities; (2) the formal and informal organization are important organizational features whose interaction creates a practice-based mechanism which, under certain conditions, engenders the informal organization to promote long-term change supporting the effective pursuit of ambidexterity; and (3) an organization’s history, when punctuated with crisis events, can have a paradoxical influence that simultaneously supports and impedes its approach to exploration and exploitation. The study contributes to a richer understanding of organizational ambidexterity and how an organization pursues and implements this strategy in practice. It also contributes to expanding our understanding of the processes, structures and micro-features engaged in the development of ambidexterity at different levels of the organization.