A questão da saúde é um problema central e ganha destaque na inédita onda de protestos ocorridos em 2013 no país. Isso é ocasionado pelas deficiências de atendimento do Sistema Único de Saúde, utilizado por cerca de 80% dos brasileiros, e pela regulação para soluções privadas. Entretanto, há iniciativas, chamadas de negócios sociais, que utilizam mecanismos de mercado para que as pessoas tenham acesso a medicamentos, tratamentos médicos e odontológicos. Esses empreendimentos atuam na busca por bons resultados financeiros e pelo atendimento de alta qualidade à população carente. Entretanto, os objetivos não são alcançados facilmente, principalmente pela necessidade de monitorar a geração de valor social. Este estudo tem o objetivo de identificar como os negócios sociais na área da saúde lidam com as métricas, principalmente em relação ao impacto social. Foram entrevistados quatro negócios sociais e duas organizações de apoio para entender como essa questão foi abordada e quais foram as principais barreiras. Foi constatado que pouco é feito na análise de impacto, uma vez que o foco das empresas está voltado para a sustentabilidade financeira. Por meio da pesquisa, fica clara a importância da interação com os atores do ecossistema, que contribuem na superação de barreiras e dificuldades na gestão de métricas e, assim, melhoram a avaliação de indicadores. Pelo estágio da gestão de indicadores e pela formação recente desse ecossistema, ainda é precipitado dizer quais serão as consequências da falta de atenção a essas métricas, além de precisar sobre como torná-las ferramentas efetivas de decisões estratégicas - ponto que deverá ser aprofundado em futuras pesquisas. / The health issue is a central problem and gain prominence in the unprecedent wave of 2013 protests around the country. This is caused by deficiencies in the Public Health Care System, used by about 80% of all Brazilians, and by the regulation for private solutions. However, there are initiatives, called social enterprises, which use market tools for people to have access to medicines, medical and dental care. These actions seek good financial results and provide high-quality care to the poor population. The goals are not easily achieved mainly by careful measurement and generation of social value. This study aims to identify how social businesses in healthcare deal with the metrics especially in related to social impact. Four social businesses and two social support organizations representatives were interviewed to understand how these issues were addressed and what the main barriers were. It was noted that little has been done on the impact analysis, since the focus of the companies is facing the financial sustainability. Through research, the interaction with the ecosystem performers is clearly important, contributing to overcoming barriers and difficulties in managing metrics and thus might improve the indicator evaluation. According to the pace of management indicators and the recent formation of this ecosystem it is still too early to say what could be the consequences of the lack of attention to these metrics, also about how to turn them into effective tools for strategic decisions. This topic should be better explored in future research.

Reported cases of incest in Multnomah County, Oregon, as in the rest of the country, are increasing yearly. Effective networking between agencies is important in order to successfully work with the problem. The research problem of this study was to determine the effectiveness of the present network of agencies working with incest in Multnomah County. In order to evaluate network effectiveness the following objectives were established: to provide a "cultural" description of the major components of the Multnomah County network; to determine whether a common definition of incest among practitioners exists and to compare the networking system in this county with others throughout the country.

In maritime transportation, liner shipping accounts for over 60\% of the value of goods shipped. However, very limited literature is available on the study of various problems in liner shipping. In this thesis we focus on problems related to this industry. Given a set of cargo to be transported, a set of ports and a set of ships, a common problem faced by carriers in liner shipping is the design of their service network. We develop an integrated model to design service network for the ships and to route the available cargo, simultaneously. The proposed model incorporates many relevant constraints, such as the weekly frequency constraint on the operated routes, and emerging trends, such as obtaining benefits from transshipping cargo on two or more service routes, that appear in practice but have not been considered previously in literature. Also, we design exact and heuristic algorithms to solve the integer program efficiently. The proposed algorithms integrate the ship scheduling problem, a tactical planning level decision, and the cargo routing problem, an operational planning level decision, and provide good overall solution strategy. Computational experiments indicate that larger problem instances, as compared to the literature, can be solved using these algorithms in acceptable computational time. Alliance formation is very common among global liner carriers however a quantitative study of liner alliances is missing from literature. We provide a mathematical framework for the quantitative study of these alliances. For the formation of a sustainable alliance, carriers need to agree on an overall service network and resolve issues concerning distribution of benefits and costs among the members of the alliance. We develop mechanisms to design a collaborative service network and to manage the interaction among the carriers through the allocation of profits in a fair way. The mechanism utilizes inverse optimization techniques to obtain resource exchange costs in the network. These costs provide side payments to the members, on top of the revenue generated by them in the collaborative solution, to motivate them to act in the best interest of the alliance while satisfying their own self interests.

published_or_final_version / Politics and Public Administration / Master / Master of Public Administration

published_or_final_version / Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering / Master / Master of Philosophy

Archaeological fieldwork at the William Conner House Site, home of an early 19th century entrepreneur, was performed in 1990 by Ball State University. The house, listed in the National Register, was built in 1823, occupied until ca. 1916, restored in 1934, and has since functioned as a house museum. Although restoration disturbed portions of the site, substantial undisturbed remains were found to exist on-site. Archaeological testing yielded 26,000+ archaeological specimens and revealed 22 features, including a possible outbuilding, cobble walk, brick pad, fire pit, small refuse pit, and post holes/molds. Herein, the Conner House is described and the history of its usage is recounted. The archaeological research design and methods are explained. Results of investigation are presented. Socioeconomic status theory and indicators are identified, and the site is compared to other 19th century residential sites, socioeconomically. Conclusions are stated. Sites to which the Conner Site is compared are described in an appendix. A glossary is provided. / Department of Journalism

This thesis examines a comprehensive planning model to determine the level of citizen participation The purpose of this thesis was to document ways in which a local government can be a partner with its community development corporations (CDCs) rather than an obstacle. The paper used Indianapolis' CDCs and their support network as a case study. The research identified four needs of a CDC to build capacity: funding, technical assistance, political networking, and internal management. This document intended to find the sources of support to meet these needs in Indianapolis. In the end, the primary focus was not necessarily what local government gave to the CDCs, but how they delivered the needed resources.Interviews were conducted with several individuals in Indianapolis to explore the support network available to CDCs. Members of the Indianapolis support network included the Department of Metropolitan Development--Division of Community Development and Financial Services, the Indianapolis Neighborhood Housing Partnership (INHP), the Local Initiative Support Corporation (LISC), and the Indianapolis Coalition for Neighborhood Development (ICND). The questions asked of these individuals focused on how they fulfill the needs of the CDCs, and their perspective on the efforts of the local government.There are several characteristics and components to this support network in which another city could learn from or replicate. For instance, the local government should not be a reluctant supporter of it's CDCs. Building trust and long term relationships benefits the partnership between the city and CDCs. It is in the best interest of the CDCs if a local government encouraged a charitable environment. The local government needs to realize that the partnership with a CDC only works if there is a shared vision between the two. Finally, each member of the support network for the CDCs need to define what is really meant by the concept of partnership. / Department of Urban Planning

[Truncated abstract] This thesis investigates the influence the interpersonal relationship between the venture capitalist and the entrepreneur has upon the performance of the venture capitalist's investment. Its aim was to explore how venture capitalists add value (as opposed to what they do) to their investments in order to arrive at a fuller explanation of investment performance than that offered by agency theory – the current paradigm for the value adding relationship. The qualitative study that underpins this thesis found that in Australia, the quality of the interpersonal relationship between the venture capitalist and the entrepreneur during the value adding phase of the venture capital investment cycle positively predicts the performance of the venture capitalist's investment. The study was prompted by the researcher's personal experiences (as both a venture capitalist and as an entrepreneur in Australia) which suggested that the interpersonal relationship may influence the effectiveness of the venture capitalist's attempts to add value. Whilst the prior research had explored in depth the provision of value adding services (e.g. strategic advice, recruitment of key personnel, board participation), less progress appears to have been made in understanding the role of the interpersonal processes. Although several studies have attempted to fit an established social exchange theory to the value adding process, a published explanation of investment performance (process outcome) that includes interpersonal processes has not been identified. ... The exercise of power was found to be a negative predictor of investment performance. Power was typically exercised as the last resort measure in a failed interpersonal relationship and either precipitated or consolidated inferior investment performance. The failure of the venture capitalists to exercise their formal power in time to arrest underperformance was often due to their fear of the 'hold up' power of (threat of abandonment by) the entrepreneur. Agency theory's contribution to the explanation of investment performance was limited to (adverse) selection, at which point the combined competence of the dyad was determined. In addition to the new explanatory theory, some other insights into value adding were provided, including the key role of mutuality and the lack of explanatory power of the contract, information asymmetry, or goal alignment. The thesis offers contributions to knowledge and practice. Its contributions to knowledge include: the generation of new theory about value adding and investment performance in venture capital deals and some new theoretical concepts, the application of a methodological approach that is new to the area of interest, and a new insight into the Australian venture capital sector. It outlines the implications of the study findings for venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and policy makers, providing some fresh ideas for their consideration. It particularly highlights the need for cultural change in value adding relationships and the influence of heritage on the likelihood of the venture capitalist being successful.

Project (D. Min.)--Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, 2005. / Abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 159-160).

Diss. Stockholm : Stockholms universitet, 2008.