För att kunna sträva efter en hållbar utveckling och lämna över en god miljö till nästa generation krävs ett samordnat arbete kring de källor som utgör påverkan på naturen och miljön. Jordbruket är en sektor som påverkar naturen och miljön genom dess näringsläckage till mark och vatten.  För att minska näringsläckaget krävs styrmedel som har till syfte att effektivisera för ett mer hållbart jordbruk. Greppa Näringen är ett tyrmedel i Sverige som startades som ett projekt för att stoppa framförallt utlakning av kväve från svenska åkermarker. En bättre förståelse av vad som ligger bakom lantbrukares val att inte ansluta sig till Greppa Näringen är avgörande för att kunna designa ett optimalt program anpassat för lantbrukarna. Denna studie har genomförts utifrån kvalitativa intervjuer för att identifiera faktorer och bakomliggande aspekter som ligger till grund för att lantbrukare inte väljer att ansluta sig till Greppa Näringen. Fem lantbrukare har intervjuats och de faktorer som har identifierats är kunskap, engagemang, tid, förtroende, påverkan utifrån och ekonomi. De mest betydande aspekterna som lantbrukarna nämnde var att verksamheten inte är relevant för Greppa Näringen (kunskap), att lantbrukarna har prioriterat annat inom verksamheten (engagemang och tid) samt att lantbrukarna inte tar till sig den informationen som Greppa Näringen ger ut (engagemang). Faktorerna ekonomi och påverkan utifrån har endast nämnts av en lantbrukare. / n order to strive for a sustainable development and hand over a good environment to the next generation, a coordinated work requires on the point- sources that has great impact on nature and the environment. The agriculture is a sector which has great impact on nature and the environment through its leaching of nutrients to soil and water. To reduce the leakage of nutrients, a set of instruments is required. Instruments, which aim to improve the efficiency of a more sustainable agriculture. Greppa Näringen is an instrument in Sweden that started as a project to mainly stop the leaching of nitrogen from Swedish arable land. A better understanding of what is behind farmers' decision not to participate in Greppa Näringen is crucial to be able to design the most ideal program adapted for the farmers. This study has been conducted from qualitative interviews to identify the factors and underlying aspects that explain why farmers choose not to participate in Greppa Näringen. Five farmers were interviewed and the factors that have been identified are, knowledge, commitment, time, trust, influence from the society and economy. The most commonly mentioned aspects were; that the farm is not of relevance for Greppa Näringen (knowledge), that farmers have prioritized other things within the farm (commitment and time) and also that farmers do not adopt information from Greppa Näringen, even though it is presented to them (commitment). The factors economy and influence from the society has only been mentioned by one of the farmers.

When can a contract constitute the relation of influence or control and their potential consequences? The aim of my thesis is the description of the regulation of group entities (with the exception of concern law) with emphasis on the possibility to establish such relationship by a contract. I am trying to prove that establishment of the relationship of influence and control is possible. I am further trying to prove that such situations are not common in practice. Controlling relationship established by a contract is even quite unique. Another aim of my thesis is to describe the legal consequences of group entities under the Act on Corporations, especially the compensation for damages. However I would also like to take into consideration other consequences of group entities within the Act on corporations.

Abstract Background: Female entrepreneurship in China is a practice which scholars have explored severally in recent years. Just as many Asian countries, the role of Chinese women has been undermined for a longer period. However, the 20 th century marked a positive turn in Chinese culture. The rate of discrimination and seclusion of women from economic empowerment started reducing significantly. Today, Chinese women are struggling to compete effectively with their male counterparts in entrepreneurial sector. The purpose of having women empowerment on the market economy is to generate more income to the country. Also, the practice lessens the rate of unemployment and high rate of dependency in China. Hence, it is apparent that the entrepreneurial actions in China are motivated by a number of factors that are presented in the paper. Purpose: The primary aim of the study is to determine influential and motivational factors for female entrepreneurs in China. Methods: The research has employed a qualitative research approach to determine influential factors and motivating aspects of female entrepreneurship in China. Random sampling tactic has been chosen as the methodology to discover data of women that have succeeded in the country. This approach can help to analyze a broader population of women entrepreneurs in China. Meanwhile, a semi-structured interview was involved in collecting data so that first-hand and unbiased information is obtained from interviewees. Findings: From the study of the influential factors and motivation for female entrepreneurs in China, it has been noted that the process of entrepreneurship among the current female entrepreneurs in the country can be categorized as either passive or initiative. While looking at the passive entrepreneurship among the female entrepreneurs, it is noted that those people are driven by the daily needs of their families. On the other hand, initiative entrepreneurship relies much more on human capital and social capital. The zeal and motivation that they possess lead them to developing far-sighted enterprises, hence contributing to the economic development of the country.

The researcher examined beginning teacher induction programs in large and small districts in Tennessee for the 1997-1998 school year. Types of induction, formal and informal, were examined. The study looked at the teacher attitudes of job satisfaction, job adjustment, and socialization into the profession of teaching. The research design included five questions with two hypotheses used for testing differences between teacher attitudes in large and small systems. Beginning first-year teachers were surveyed and asked to rate their induction program as to best practices. Teachers rated the occurrence of activities in seven areas and how supportive activities were in their roles as beginning teachers. The questions were tested and statistically analyzed using chi-square and analysis of variance procedures. No differences were found in the occurrence of induction activities in large and small systems. No differences were found in how supportive an event was in large and small systems. A difference was found in job adjustment between large and small systems, but not in job satisfaction or socialization into the profession. Recommendations for further research were made to augment the study.

This research takes the perspectives of employees¡¦ perception towards Organizational Change; explore the influential factors of Career Development of Marsh insurance brokers and its relationship with Emotional Intelligence. Besides, this research takes personal differences of population variable as independent variable, independently explore each influential factor and analyze its variance. Having gone through the process of literature review, consulting professionals and interviewing with the employees, the research framework was then finalized. Taking into account the issue of language and terminology differences, apart from consulting four insurance professional on questionnaire design, comment from the head of Human Resources of each country was also sought. Finally it was decided to have 3 versions of questionnaire, i.e. the Traditional Chinese version, Simplified Chinese version and English version. 107 valid questionnaires were finally collected with a valid sample return rate of 36.27%. Regarding the statistical analysis, firstly a confidence analysis was done on each variable factor to validate its confidence. Those inapplicable questions were then deleted. Then other statistical tools like Independent T Test, one-way ANOVA, Pearson correlation analysis, multiple regression analysis were employed to perform further analysis. It is shown that there are only a few findings of significant variance on personal background of population statistics and its independent variables, dependent variables, moderating variables. This matches with the characteristics of cultural difference. Besides, in the aspect of ¡§Perception towards Organizational Change¡¨, there are only a few factors which have significant relations on ¡§Influential Factors of Career Development¡¨, implying that personal factor and the need for teamwork are the key factors. This also matches with the fact that servicing corporation emphasizing team-spirit, but not only heroic individualistic operation. Finally, in the relationship of Emotional Intelligence on ¡§Perception towards Organizational Change¡¨ and ¡§Influential Factors of Career Development¡¨, it appears ¡§Emotion¡¨and¡§Behavior¡¨with moderating effect on partial Influential Factors of Career Development. This shows that personal elements and teamwork have significant impact on interpersonal relationship. Hence, effectively enhance the interaction of employees with the participation of senior management and team leaders take care of subordinates will help to build good team spirit and working environment.

This thesis contributes to influence analysis in nonlinear regression and in particular the detection of influential observations. The focus is on a regression model with a known mean function, which is nonlinear in its parameters and where the function is chosen according to the knowledge about the process generating the data. The error term in the regression model is assumed to be additive. The main goal of this thesis is to work out diagnostic measures for assessing the influence of observations on various results from a nonlinear regression analysis. The obtained results comprise diagnostic tools for detecting observations that, individually or jointly with some other observations, are influential on the parameter estimates. Moreover, assessing conditional influence, i.e. the influence of an observation conditional on the deletion of another observation, is of interest. This can help to identify influential observations which could be missed due to complex relationships among the observations. Novelties of the proposed diagnostic tools include the possibility to assess influence of observations on a specific parameter estimate and to assess influence of multiple observations. A further emphasis of this thesis is on the observations' influence on the outcome of a hypothesis testing procedure based on Rao's score test. An innovative solution to the problem of visual identification of influential observations regarding the score test statistic obtained in this thesis is the so called added parameter plot. As a complement to the added parameter plot, new diagnostic measures are derived for assessing the influence of single and multiple observations on the score test statistic.

This dissertation develops influence diagnostics for crossover models. Mixed linear models and generalised mixed linear models are utilised to investigate continuous and count data from crossover studies, respectively. For both types of models, changes in the maximum likelihood estimates of parameters, particularly in the estimated treatment effect, due to minor perturbations of the observed data, are assessed. The novelty of this dissertation lies in the analytical derivation of influence diagnostics using decompositions of the perturbed mixed models. Consequently, the suggested influence diagnostics, referred to as the delta-beta and variance-ratio influences, provide new findings about how the constructed residuals affect the estimation in terms of different parameters of interest. The delta-beta and variance-ratio influence in three different crossover models are studied in Chapters 5-6, respectively. Chapter 5 analyses the influence of subjects in a two-period continuous crossover model. Possible problems with observation-level perturbations in crossover models are discussed. Chapter 6 extends the approach to higher-order crossover models. Furthermore, not only the individual delta-beta and variance-ratio influences of a subject are derived, but also the joint influences of two subjects from different sequences. Chapters 5-6 show that the delta-beta and variance-ratio influences of a particular parameter are decided by the special linear combination of the constructed residuals. In Chapter 7, explicit delta-beta influence on the estimated treatment effect in the two-period count crossover model is derived. The influence is related to the Pearson residuals of the subject. Graphical tools are developed to visualise information of influence concerning crossover models for both continuous and count data. Illustrative examples are provided in each chapter.

abstract: This action research addressed teacher effectiveness in supporting students’ critical thinking skills by implementing differentiated instructional strategies in eight 3rd- and 4th-grade, self-contained, inclusive classrooms. This study addressed how third- and fourth-grade teachers perceived their instructional effectiveness, how differentiated instructional strategies influence third- and fourth-grade teachers, and how third- and fourth-grade teachers make further use of differentiated instruction to support students’ critical thinking skills across cultures, linguistics, and achievement levels to increase student achievement. Out of the enrollment in a southwest Phoenix elementary school, there was a 35% mobility rate; 76%, free and reduced lunches; 35%, Spanish-speaking homes; 10%, ELL services; and 10%, special education. The school was comprised of 52 certified teachers, out of which there were five related arts teachers, and four teachers who served gifted and special education students. Participants included all eight third- and fourth-grade teachers, 75% female and 25% males; 75% identified as Caucasian and 25% Hispanic/Latina, middle-class citizens. Professional development training was provided to these eight individual teachers during four months on differentiated instructional strategies to support students’ critical thinking. At this study’s beginning, these teachers perceived an obstacle to supporting students’ critical thinking as they struggled to learn new curriculums. Persevering through this challenge, teachers discovered success by implementing design-thinking, developing students’ growth mindsets, and utilizing cultural responsive teaching. These teachers identified three differentiated instructional strategies which impacted students’ academic progress: instructional scaffolds, collaborative group work, and project-based learning. Building upon linguistic responsive teaching, cultural responsive teaching, and Vygotsky’s socio-cultural theory, teachers revealed how to support students’ critical thinking through the use of graphic organizers, sentence frames, explicit instructions, growth mindsets, cultural references, and grouping structures. In addition, the outcomes demonstrated teachers can make further use of differentiated instruction by focusing on instructional groups, teachers’ mindsets, and methods for teaching accelerated learners. This study’s results have implications on teachers’ perception toward using differentiated instructional strategies as a viable method to support the multiple ways all students learn. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Leadership and Innovation 2018

During the last twenty years, Total Quality Management and Business Excellence Models [BEMs] have been very attractive to organisations as an improvement strategy, as there has been a push by governments to encourage this trend in both public and private sector organisations through the development of national quality awards. There remain difficulties in the successful implementation of BEMs, as there have been high implementation failures rates in various industrial settings. It appears that these failures have been the result of a failure to identify key influential factors that might be incorporated into organisations’ BEM implementation guidelines. Therefore, this research attempts to identify the key influential factors for the successful implementation of a BEM and then examines the role of these factors when they are incorporated with the implementation strategy of a BEM in a public sector organisation in the United Arab Emirates, the Abu Dhabi Police. The research takes a mixed-methods approach including a systematic literature review, a questionnaire survey of 300 employees and 25 interviews with top managers and BEM implementation team members in the Abu Dhabi Police. The quantitative data is assessed using descriptive and inferential statistical analysis. A paired-samples t-test is used to compare perceptions and the actual presence of key influential factors. Additionally, the correlation between these factors and the implementation efficiency of the BEM is investigated by using a Pearson’s correlation coefficient analysis. The interviews are also subjected to thematic analysis. The key findings are that there are 18 key influential factors which significantly impacted on the successful implementation of the BEM in this public sector organisation; therefore they should be considered as a whole during any such implementation. These factors can be grouped into associated stages of commitment, implementation and measurement, leading to the development of a conceptual framework to be used as a roadmap for the implementation of BEMs by public sector organisations.

Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction Programs / David S. Allen / Haijun Kang / Using technology effectively has been proven to enhance education. The status quo in Saudi Arabia reflects low-level usage of technology in K-12 classrooms. Preparing 21st Century teachers to integrate technology in their future classrooms for meaningful learning requires College of Education faculty to model using technology effectively. This study investigated the technology integration practices of faculty members in the College of Education at Taibah University, particularly to what extent these practices are aligned with ISTE NETS-T standards and what factors predict these practices. Based on the literature, the factors examined include attitudes towards technology use, pedagogical beliefs, technical skills, workload, professional development, technology access, technical support, and leadership support. The population of the study was the 257 faculty in the College of Education at Taibah University. The study used a web-based survey containing 66 closed-ended items to collect data, and 170 valid responses were obtained (66% response rate). Descriptive and multiple linear regression analyses were conducted to analyze data. Findings from the first research question revealed that faculty members’ technology integration practices were well-matched with ISTE NETS-T standards since the overall mean of these items was (M= 4.25, SD= .64). This indicates that faculty members had awareness of using technology effectively based on these standards to engage students in meaningful learning. Results from the multiple linear regression analysis revealed that the overall model was significant as it explains 43% of the variability in faculty members’ technology integration practices. Three significant factors statistically predicted faculty members’ technology integration practices based on ISTE NETS standards. Faculty members’ attitude toward technology had a positive relationship with faculty members’ technology integration practices [β=.35, p=.00]. Faculty technical skills had also a statistically significant positive relationship with faculty members’ technology integration practices [β=.19, p=.00]. However, leadership support was found to have a statistically significant negative relationship with faculty members’ technology integration practices in teaching based on ISTE NETS-T standards [β=-.23, p=.00]. These results, in addition to the means of the independent variables, showed that the highly rated technology integration factors, including technology attitudes and technical skills, predict their high technology integration practices based on ISTE NET-T standards. However, faculty members still need more support in several technology integration factors including professional development, technology access, workload, and leadership support. The study recommends education faculty members to model the effective use of technology for pre-service teachers through providing them with opportunities to observe it in a variety of instructional models and practice the constructivist use of technology in lesson plan assignments and projects during the program, which helps in developing positive attitudes toward technology use among pre-service teachers. College of Education leaders are recommended to have a clear shared technology vision and offer the resources and support needed to make instructional technology integration successful. Recommendations for future studies are also discussed.