Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 1964. / Also available in print.

Thesis--Ph. D., University of Hong Kong. / Copy 2: MM23. Mimeographed. Also available on microfilm.

In this thesis I address oversights in the socio-cultural understanding of the brand by demonstrating the failings of three prevailing views. First, the brand is commonly captured through two dimensions: the functional and the symbolic. This conception results from an oscillation between two distinct worldviews: the material and the communicative. Second, the brand is conceptualized as the direct result of the motives of individuals, who are not reflexive of broader socio-cultural formations. Third, the brand is portrayed as a commercial entity that is coupled with a single ideology for competitive advantage. However, the multi-dimensional brand is neither essentially economic nor culturally one dimensional. Using Niklas Luhmann’s social systems theory, I observe communications media and the brand as self-reproductive social systems. Merging his methodology of functional analysis with Michel Foucault’s archaeology, I analyze the relevant academic literature and subject an actual brand to empirical examination. Herein I show how communication technologies and media make up ‘the communications system’, through which the society is not simply communicated but is created. Like all social phenomena, the brand as a social system (and its meanings) arises within the communications system by observing itself in relevant communicative events. The self-reproductive brand system exists within society by differentiating itself from its environment comprised of disparate social systems. The brand interpenetrates and then differentiates from each of these environmental systems via a particular distinction. The plurality and the interplay of these diverse distinctions enable the brand system. In turn, the brand as a social system of interpenetration fulfils its macro function in society by translating and synchronising these otherwise detached social systems. By understanding this broader societal function of the brand and its resulting dispositions, marketers can elevate their micro perspective in relation to a long-term macro view and thereby better guide the brand.

Interactions driven by Information Communications Technologies (ICT) have gained significant acceptance and momentum in contemporary organisational settings, this is illustrated by their massive adoption and varied deployment across the various levels of an organisation’s hierarchy. ICTs such as mobile telephones, Personal Digital Assistants (PDA), videoconferencing, BlackBerries and other forms of portable and immovable computing technologies provide enduring bases for mediated interactions in human activities. This thesis looks into the dynamics of ICT-driven interactions and, distinctively, focuses on the manifestations and implications of mediated control in a collaborative environment. The study draws on the concept of administrative behaviour which leads to the observation that the nature of mediated control is not static, but evolutionarily dynamic that springs from highly unpredictable contexts of work. Thus, interactions driven by ICTs influence and change the dynamics of mediated control against the background of the rhythm, structure and direction of an organisation’s purposeful undertakings. Findings indicate, quite paradoxically, that networks set up through the instrumentality of technology mediated interaction discourage domination and inspire individual discretion in spite of their promise of electronic chains. The analysis reflects the notion that mediated control is not only about the predetermination of targets that are attained at the subordinate level. Indeed, the study advocates a fundamental conceptualisation of mediated control as double-sided concept, integrating the use of discretion that, occasionally, makes subordinates drive and initiate key control techniques that steer organisational life. Therefore, through the application of philosophical hermeneutics for a rigorous data interpretation, this study develops an innovative and holistic understanding of mediated control which not only adds to, but also extends, the current organisational perception of control by the incorporation of discretion and, in the process, makes a distinctive contribution to scholarship.

This thesis examines the understandings and meanings of personal blogging from the perspective of blog authors. The theoretical framework draws on a symbolic interactionist perspective, focusing on how meaning is constructed through blogging practices, supplemented by theories of mediation and critical technology studies. The principal evidence in this study is derived from an analysis of in-depth interviews with bloggers selected to maximise their diversity based on the results of an initial survey. This is supplemented by an analysis of personal blogging’s technical contexts and of various societal influences that appear to influence blogging practices. Bloggers were found to have limited interest in gathering information about their readers, appearing to rely instead on an assumption that readers are sympathetic. Although personal blogging practices have been framed as being a form of radically free expression, they were also shown to be subject to potential biases including social norms and the technical characteristics of blogging services. Blogs provide a persistent record of a blogger’s practice, but the bloggers in this study did not generally read their archives or expect others to do so, nor did they retrospectively edit their archives to maintain a consistent self-presentation. The empirical results provide a basis for developing a theoretical perspective to account for blogging practices. This emphasises firstly that a blogger’s construction of the meaning of their practice can be based as much on an imagined and desired social context as it is on an informed and reflexive understanding of the communicative situation. Secondly, blogging practices include a variety of envisaged audience relationships, and some blogging practices appear to be primarily self-directed with potential audiences playing a marginal role. Blogging’s technical characteristics and the social norms surrounding blogging practices appear to enable and reinforce this unanticipated lack of engagement with audiences. This perspective contrasts with studies of computer mediated communication that suggest bloggers would monitor their audiences and present themselves strategically to ensure interactions are successful in their terms. The study also points the way towards several avenues for further research including a more in-depth consideration of the neglected structural factors (both social and technical) which potentially influence blogging practices, and an examination of social network site use practices using a similar analytical approach.

In order to deal with the competitive environment surrounding the air transport industry, civil aviation authorities have undertaken several approaches to improve airport efficiency, such as investing in the infrastructure and privatising airport ownership or governance. Among these methods, airport privatisation policy has been implemented for around 25 years in the U.K., closely followed by other European countries. By contrast, decision makers elsewhere, such as in the Asia-Pacific region, are now interested in privatisation and in doing so evaluate the impact of this process elsewhere. Focussing on the most popular method for assessing airport efficiency, with Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) a unit can appear efficient simply because of its pattern of inputs and outputs rather than any inherent efficiency. But only using DEA may not provide useful results about the efficiency of airports as different decision makers may weight the relative importance of inputs and outputs differently (for example, airport managers, and airline companies). In this research, another aim is to develop and demonstrate the applicability of different analysis techniques within the AEES. For this reason, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) analysis is adopted to calculate the importance of each variable. These results are then integrated into both DEA and DEA, Assurance Region (AR) models, to reflect the different importance of the metrics. In the context of air transportation, an integrated AHP/DEA and AHP/DEA-AR model are applied for the first time to evaluate airport efficiency. A sensitivity analysis with different variable sets is carried out. In conclusion, an AEES is established and the result shows that the approach by adopting AHP/DEA-AR model in particular can provide more accurate values of relative efficiency than using the traditional DEA approach. There are also different priorities between stakeholder groups and these can affect the efficiency scores of airports. However, the results for each of the different analysis techniques show that there is no statistically significant relationship between airport ownership and efficiency. Therefore, the primary aim of this research is to examine the relationship between airport privatisation and efficiency, through an Airport Efficiency Evaluation System (AEES). The study covers Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, reflecting different attitudes towards the role of government within airport management. Focussing on the most popular method for assessing airport efficiency, with

The thesis traces the development of transportation policy formation at regional and local levels of government in the Detroit region since 1945. Three postwar transportation policy climates are identified. The first, to the early sixties, was marked by a reasonable degree of regional consensus on freeways as the basis of regional transportation policy. The second, covering the period to the 1970's, saw this consensus begin to break down. The subsequent period to the present has been marked by an almost total collapse in regional consensus on transportation policy. Within the maintenance of a sensitivity to the dangers inherent in structuralist Marxist theorizing, the hypothesis is explored that class relationships have been of primary influence in accounting for this "macro dynamic" of transportation policy formation. The role of physical planners and implications for planning theory is a particular focus of study. The research concludes that, at a time when "grand" Marxist theorizing is coming under criticism, the primacy of class relationships as an explanatory variable can be sustained in the case of Detroit but in terms of the development of a more adequate theory of planning the research points to the need for supplemental theory construction on the discretion and influence of planners within the class pattern (as opposed to determination) of events.

This thesis investigates the role of media and information communication technology (ICT) in Japanese society, exploring how, in their various ways of engaging with the media in everyday life, Japanese audiences reflexively 'create' and 'recreate' their sense of self and the social groups to which they belong. Changes in everyday life, linked to the proliferation of media forms and coupled with the communications revolution, underscore the complex relationships between people's lives and the media. The primary aim of this thesis is to analyse the complex and diverse ways in which audiences engage with media in the context of domestic social change and globalisation. I provide an integrated framework for understanding the complexity and dynamism of individuals, social groups, and cultures, replacing the concept of 'audience activity' with 'audience engagement', and the paradigm of the active audience with the paradigms of everyday life and complexity. Further, this analysis of the Japanese audience can serve as a modest step towards the de-Westernisation of media studies. In the process, key Japanese emic concepts are employed, adapting them in ways that reject as myth the homogeneity of the Japanese, in order to highlight culturally specific ways of constructing self and other. Methodologically, the qualitative approach employed is intended to complement the characteristic quantitative emphasis in audience research within Japanese academia. Specifically, the present study is an ethnography of so-called 'modern' Japanese families having in the media-rich Tokyo Metropolitan Area. The research demonstrates how (l) multiple dimensions of audience engagement, (2) the transformation of the notion of uchi (social groups) in a media-rich environment, and (3) the role of media and ICT in the process of self-creation are related to complex processes of globalisation and social change in Japan. From an analysis of this relationship I indicate future possibilities for Japanese society and the future of globalisation addressing the cultural, social, and political question of universalism set against cultural specificity.

The missing component in studies that have attempted to assess the affects of advanced-telecommunications on urban form, and/or the location of economic activity in space, is the consideration and application of the urban system. Thus, in an attempt to justify the urban system as a framework for analysis as well as establish the context of the study, chapter 1 identifies the general characteristics of the urban system from the regional and spatial economic perspective. While the increased ability with which to interact across space and the Internet have and will no doubt continue to have wide ranging implications in, for example, a social and political context, the perspective of this study is purely a spatial economic one.

No description available.