The significance of capacity development programmes, as key driver for sustaining development goals, is anchored in all international fora. This research complements and extends our present understanding of the contribution of capacity development approaches to development and achievement of the SDGs. This is achieved by critically assessing the impact of capacity development initiatives sponsored by the World Bank. This thesis has focused on analysis of implementation strategies and critical assessment of the impact of the projects using multidisciplinary approach, utilising a range of quantitative and qualitative methods. It provides a sound empirical basis for assessing the complexities of these projects. This empirical investigation has identified a wide range of disparities of implementation strategies utilised for capacity development initiatives among the major international players (World Bank and UNDP). These findings clearly indicate that there is no single strategy for the implementation of capacity development initiatives. Thus, based on empirical evidence, as well as a critical review of the literature, the study proposes a model for achieving critical sustainable capacity development based on broad and long-term strategies; input, process, output, and outcome which defines the appropriateness of policies and practices that support sustainable development. It is concluded that capacity development initiatives are relevant and essential ensuring national development and sustainable results. The recommendations include the focus on individual, organisational, and societal factors when planning, developing and adopting strategies for implementing all government/national programmes.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) has received increasing attention among organizations and in research as the world becomes increasingly globalized and internationalized. However, there is still limited research on how diversity management is performed in organizations and a neglected focus on social sustainability linked to DEI, which underlines the need to further study implemented practices to promote DEI in organizations. Thus, the aim of this study is to broaden the knowledge of how diversity management is performed in organizations. The research questions are (1) What strategies and practices are implemented by diversity and HR managers to integrate DEI in organizations? and (2) How are the results of DEI strategies and practices measured in organizations?  A case study of DEI as a phenomenon was conducted to explore the strategies, practices, and measurements used in organizations to increase DEI in the recruitment, retention, and promotion of employees. A qualitative research method based on semi-structured interviews was used to examine DEI from the perspective of diversity and HR managers in nine organizations. The theoretical framework was based on practice theory.  The empirical findings show that organizations use various strategies and practices to integrate DEI in the recruitment, retention, and promotion of employees. Organizations focus mainly on gender and ethnicity in the context of DEI and the most common practices are awareness training on DEI, bias, harassment, and discrimination. Furthermore, the findings show that most organizations do not use DEI measurements or targets systematically, making it difficult to measure the progress and outcomes of DEI practices. Moreover, there is a need for specific targets covering DEI parameters besides gender and ethnicity, to include other minorities and discriminated groups. This thus requires structured efforts to create measurement tools for DEI practices to facilitate the monitoring and evaluation of progress and outcomes of DEI practices.

The significance of capacity development programmes, as key driver for sustaining development goals, is anchored in all international fora. This research complements and extends our present understanding of the contribution of capacity development approaches to development and achievement of the SDGs. This is achieved by critically assessing the impact of capacity development initiatives sponsored by the World Bank. This thesis has focused on analysis of implementation strategies and critical assessment of the impact of the projects using multidisciplinary approach, utilising a range of quantitative and qualitative methods. It provides a sound empirical basis for assessing the complexities of these projects. This empirical investigation has identified a wide range of disparities of implementation strategies utilised for capacity development initiatives among the major international players (World Bank and UNDP). These findings clearly indicate that there is no single strategy for the implementation of capacity development initiatives. Thus, based on empirical evidence, as well as a critical review of the literature, the study proposes a model for achieving critical sustainable capacity development based on broad and long-term strategies; input, process, output, and outcome which defines the appropriateness of policies and practices that support sustainable development. It is concluded that capacity development initiatives are relevant and essential ensuring national development and sustainable results. The recommendations include the focus on individual, organisational, and societal factors when planning, developing and adopting strategies for implementing all government/national programmes.

Yes / In previous decades, the perception of Japan¿s employment practices has been strongly intertwined with its economic fortunes. From the 1970s, Japan¿s employment practices came to be seen as one of the cornerstones of its economic success. However, this perception changed, albeit with a substantial delay, when the economy proved incapable of returning to its former path of growth after the `bubble¿ burst at the end of the 1980s. Like so many of its economic institutions, the employment practices became the subject of substantial criticism in a debate on the revitalisation of Japan¿s economy. This study takes its position within this debate by discussing the likelihood, character, and economic consequences of change. Environmental changes, like the ageing of the population and the substantial decrease in economic growth, require Japanese firms to adapt their human resource management. However, the embeddedness of national practices limits the scope of firms to make these adjustments; and change is determined by the dialectics between their strategies and existing practices. The firm, as an institution, thus experiences the impact of both the embedded employment practices and the economic impact of environmental changes. Accordingly, it is at the centre of this study. Theories of the firm are used to discuss the contribution of employment practices on efficiency, capabilities, and competitive strength. Case-studies from four different industries ¿ automobile, electronics, construction, and retailing ¿ describe the adaptations made by individual firms. Subsequently, these findings constitute the basis for a discussion of industry-specific employment practices and provide an answer to whether developments such as the rise in performance-based pay and labour mobility have altered the logic of Japanese employment practices.

Dans un contexte de concurrence exacerbée pour les meilleurs jeunes diplômés du marché, les Graduate Programmes (GP) s’imposent progressivement au niveau international comme le modèle de référence dans la gestion de ces populations. Or, ces programmes de recrutement, d'intégration, de formation et de développement semblent négligés par la recherche en sciences de gestion. Pour combler cette lacune, nous mobilisons dans cette thèse le courant de la Stratégie comme Pratique (SCP) afin d’explorer en détail la dynamique de mise en place d’un tel programme dans une banque de financement de d’investissement française.Plus concrètement, nous étudions le contexte d’émergence de ce programme et les praxis et activités quotidiennes entreprises par les praticiens RH pour élaborer et déployer ces dispositifs. Nous explorons de même les pratiques qui constituent un GP du point de vue de la SCP et les apports, limites et conditions propices à un tel programme. Ce faisant, nous dressons un portrait approfondi d’un concept incontournable dans la gestion contemporaine des jeunes diplômés. Plus généralement, nous revendiquons l'intérêt d'accorder une place centrale à la SCP dans la compréhension de l’activité RH des organisations. / In the current context of extreme competition for the best young Graduates available on the market, Graduate Programmes (GP) are becoming the model of reference in the management of this population at an international level. However, these recruitment, integration, training and development programmes seem overlooked by management research. We mobilize here the strategy-as-practice (SAP) approach to explore in detail the dynamics of implementation of such a programme in a French corporate and investment bank.More concretely, we study the context of emergence of this programme and the day-to-day praxis and activities of HR practitioners in the design and implementation of this programme. We also explore the practices that constitute a GP from the SAP perspective and the benefits, limits and suitable conditions for such a programme. Doing that, we propose a sound portrayal of a key concept in Graduate management nowadays. We therefore claim the importance to be given to SAP in the study of corporate HR activities in the coming years.

The research aims to study how the communication context within the Arab cultures influences the employees' perception of equity and reaction to inequity. Specifically, the study explores how employees from Arab cultural backgrounds communicate with each other within the Saudi working context; and how they collect, interpret and use the different contextual information - from the contexts in which they live and work - in order to make judgements about issues related to the perception of equity and reaction to inequity. In order to study the research topic, a conceptual framework is developed to reconcile between Equity Theory, Social Comparison Theory and Hall's Context Model; and as a base serving the process of designing/choosing the methods of collecting and analysing the data. Three main research questions are developed which are about (i) how the communication context is related to employees' willingness and ability to react to inequity (ii) how the communication context shapes the nature of inequity reactions executed by employees and (iii) how the communication context is related to the way equity is perceived among employees. A modified version of critical realism is adopted to focus on exploring the mechanisms, within the communication context, which influence the perception of equity and reaction to inequity. A combination of retroduction and abduction is developed in a sense that retroduction is used to direct the research toward exploring the structure and mechanisms within the research setting, while abduction is used to draw conclusions about how the phenomena studied in the research are evolving by the structure and mechanisms. A mixed methods approach is adopted in the research. The research includes data from thirty-five semi-structured interviews which are conducted in mainly three Saudi private-sector organisations located in Jeddah with twenty-nine male employees and six male managers of six different Arab nationalities. Template analysis is used to analyse the qualitative interview transcripts and field notes, while cluster analysis is used to group the research participants based on their quantitative responses. The research finds that there are no clear-cut areas separating the activities linked to the perception of equity and reaction to inequity. I also conclude that the perception of equity norms and equity comparison components can sometimes be separate activities. Some factors such as the religious interpretation, face-saving, and contextual norms and powers influence the employees' willingness to react to inequity by altering the way in which those employees perceive equity norms. Here, unwillingness decisions are often made not as a result of personal conviction but as a compromise based on the personal evaluation of the surrounding context, realising the inability of the self to react to such situations in the first place. Thus, it can be concluded that inability to react to inequity can reduce the employees' willingness to react against under-rewarded situations. The process of perceiving equity comparison components is found to be related to the type of reaction adopted to re-establish the equity; this relationship is represented by groups affiliated by a hidden factor or factors, which is more influential than the ethnicity/nationality of the group's members. The research makes a methodological contribution to knowledge by suggesting a new approach to study human relations through the communication context; a conceptual contribution by combining the concepts of equity perception, social comparison and communication context in one conceptual framework; and an empirical contribution by providing a fresh insight to contextual themes in the Saudi working environment.

This study examined impact of national culture on human resource management (HRM) functioning in present-day Pakistan. / No digital full text provided

Mergers and acquisitions(M&A) are strategic route for companies to grow inorganically. Despite its complex nature and higher failure rate, companies continue to pursue this route. A plethora of research is available on mergers and acquisitions. However, most of them are either quantitative studies focused on financial aspects, or some qualitative studies done to explore the aftermath of post-merger integration (PMI). This qualitative case study aims to explore the motivations for companies to choose M&A as a strategic route for growth, and also highlight the key lessons derived from previous experiences of both pre- and post- acquisition phases. While doing so, it also sheds light on Human Resource Management (HRM) technology market where currently M&A is a dominant strategy for growth. The literature review is divided into two parts: motivations and M&A process which covers both pre- and post-acquisition phase. The case study is conducted in an organization that continues to pursue this route and has significant experience of M&A. People from senior leadership, management were interviewed, and a data-driven thematic analysis was conducted. The findings were discussed in relation to the existing theory as well as three dimensions: strategic logic, organizational behavior, and finance. These dimensions are used as a theoretical guidance to interpret the motivations and lessons with regards to the M&A performance. Some of the findings resulted in association with more than one dimension, highlighting the multi-dimensional nature of M&A and that its success or failures should be viewed in combination of these dimensions rather than only focusing on one aspect. In addition to it, the findings also reveal the opportunities and potential for M&A in the HRM technology market emphasizing on the need for more studies of M&A in this field.

Approved for public release, distribution is unlimited / The purpose of this thesis is threefold. Firstly, to attempt to provide validity for the two-sided matching process; secondly, analyze FITREP attributes to determine their suitability for a weighted criteria evaluation system and; thirdly, compare the USMC promotion and assignment process with contemporary human resource management practices. Using data from the USMC Officer Accession Career file (MCCOAC), a logit model is used to estimate the effects of TBS preference and other officer characteristics on retention to the seven year mark. Findings indicate that there was little difference in the probability of retention throughout most preference levels except for the bottom sixth. Using USMC FITREP data, an ordinary least squares model is used to estimate the effects of rank and MOS on FITREP scores across all attributes. Multiple comparison tests demonstrated that there are statistical differences at the 0.05 level between the means of the MOSs. Additionally, reporting creep is continuing across all attributes. Surveys were also conducted. The first survey indicated that USMC officers believe the FITREP attributes were not all equally important within, and across each MOS - although the USMC assesses them as such. The second survey indicated that the USMC promotion and assignment process can be strengthened through a clearly defined HRM plan that extends beyond 'faces' and 'places', and provides very clear links to the organizational strategy. Based on the findings it is recommended that the USMC review its HRM processes and conduct further analyses on the FITREP data for: (1) correlation, (2) longitudinal analysis as a predictor for success and, (3) relevance and relationship to MOS characteristics, position descriptions, and organizational strategy. / Major, Royal Australian Infantry Corps / Major, United States Marine Corps

This study examined impact of national culture on human resource management (HRM) functioning in present-day Pakistan.