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One of the central areas of focus in organizational theory that has been of particular interest is the organization-environment interface. While various theories have made vital contributions to the study of organization-environment relations, their emphasis on organization adaptation is varied. However, research and practice have amply demonstrated that organizations do not exist in a vacuum; that if an organization is to survive and meet its goals, it has to adapt to or somehow make accommodations with its cognitive and normative environment. This study explores the issue of an organization trying to adapt to its normative environment by deeply examining the situation of a national private nonprofit organization, with ties to the land-grant university and college system, which found itself in the midst of a turbulent environment. Specifically, the study discusses how that nonprofit was affected by this turbulence when it accepted funding from the nation's largest tobacco company to develop and implement a tobacco prevention program. The act of this nonprofit accepting funds from the tobacco corporation caused challenges in internal management, worsened relations with some of its core constituencies, and fomented discord within leading non-profit organizations. The notion of turbulence, the mechanism of isomorphism as espoused by the new institutionalists, and the role of agency was explored, supplemented by a strategic approach that included components of contracting standards that organizations could adapt to attain congruency with elements of their turbulent normative environment. In particular, this strategic approach utilized a framework borrowed from research conducted by Oliver (1991), emphasizing strategies of Defiance, Manipulation and Avoidance. What this study offers is a strategic approach to help non-profit organizations when they partner with a controversial source of funding, especially in cases where they are faced with these kinds of management dilemmas. / Ph. D.

In this study, I will examine the beliefs and conceptual understanding of instructors and students from two abstract algebra classes. This research takes the form of a case study in which I answer four research questions, each addressing a relationship between instruction and beliefs or conceptual understanding. Specifically, these research questions are: 1. What beliefs do the instructors have about math, teaching, and learning and what relationship exists between these beliefs and instructional practice? 2. What is the relationship between instructional practice and students' beliefs about math, teaching, and learning? 3. What conceptual metaphors do the professors use to describe isomorphisms and homomorphisms and what relationship exists between these metaphors and the mathematical content in instruction? 4. What is the relationship between the mathematical content in instruction and conceptual metaphors the students use to describe isomorphisms and homomorphisms? In terms of beliefs, the instructors articulated considered positions on the nature of math, math learning, and math teaching. These beliefs were clearly reflected in their overall approaches to teaching. However, their instruction shifted in practice over the course of the semester. Students' beliefs seemed to shift slightly as a result of the ways their instructors taught. However, their core beliefs about math seemed unchanged and some lessons students took away were similar in the two classes. In terms of conceptual understanding, the instructors provided many conceptual metaphors that related to how they understood isomorphism. They struggled more to provide an image for homomorphism, which requires thinking about a more complicated mathematical object. Their understandings of isomorphism and homomorphism were largely reflected in their instruction with some notable differences. Students took away similar understandings of isomorphism to the instructors, but did not all take away the same level of structural understanding of homomorphism. In short, relationships between instructors' beliefs and instruction and between instructors' conceptual understanding and instruction were evident. However, certain elements were not made as clear as they perhaps intended. Relationships between instruction and students' beliefs and between instruction and students' conceptual understanding were also evident. However, relationships between instruction and beliefs were subtler than between instruction and conceptual understanding. / Doctor of Philosophy / In this study, I will examine the beliefs and conceptual understanding of instructors and students from two abstract algebra classes. I address four relationships: between instructors’ beliefs and instruction, between instruction and students’ beliefs, between instructors’ conceptual understanding and instruction, and between instruction and students’ conceptual understanding. Relationships between instructors’ beliefs and instruction and between instructors’ conceptual understanding and instruction were evident. However, certain elements were not made as clear as they perhaps intended. Relationships between instruction and students’ beliefs and between instruction and students’ conceptual understanding were also evident. However, relationships between instruction and beliefs were subtler than between instruction and conceptual understanding.

Submitted by JOSIANE SANTOS DE OLIVEIRA (josianeso) on 2018-08-13T12:09:49Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Fernando Marcelo Gossler Wawginiak_.pdf: 918794 bytes, checksum: ec9ff495a604b812ceeaf39fcb850311 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-13T12:09:49Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Fernando Marcelo Gossler Wawginiak_.pdf: 918794 bytes, checksum: ec9ff495a604b812ceeaf39fcb850311 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-04-06 / Nenhuma / Almejando crescimento e maiores retornos financeiros, muitas empresas estrangeiras acabaram internacionalizando suas atividades para além de suas fronteiras. No Brasil, este movimento teve maior destaque após a abertura do mercado brasileiro ao capital estrangeiro na década de 1990, período no qual empresas de diversas nacionalidades iniciaram ou incrementaram sua participação no mercado nacional. A entrada destas empresas no Brasil trouxe consigo um forte aumento da competitividade entre essas organizações, que atuando em um ambiente de rápidas mudanças econômicas e avanços tecnológicos, necessita atender aos anseios de consumidores cada vez mais exigentes. Partindo deste cenário, o desenvolvimento de novos produtos torna-se um ponto crítico quando relacionado ao sucesso de uma empresa. Dentro do contexto do desenvolvimento de novos produtos em subsidiárias de empresas multinacionais, em especial no caso brasileiro, existe uma prática de estratégica importância, comum entre as subsidiárias de montadoras instaladas em nosso país, este processo é denominado tropicalização. Esta prática pode ser entendida como o processo de adaptação de um projeto de produto oriundo de outros mercados para o contexto local. O objetivo desta dissertação é investigar os antecedentes da tropicalização de produtos em empresas multinacionais montadoras de máquinas agrícolas, bem como explorar as práticas e os desafios que influenciam neste fenômeno. Esta pesquisa apresenta aos gestores de projetos de novos produtos em início de carreira, os principais desafios aos quais estarão sendo submetidos para que possam conduzir o desenvolvimento de seus projetos em sintonia com pontos estratégicos da alta direção, bem como com as pressões do ambiente externo à organização. A pesquisa está dividida em três etapas: Na primeira etapa, apresenta-se uma revisão da literatura, onde conceitos e definições relacionadas aos constructos da pesquisa são expostos; a etapa seguinte é composta por um estudo de caso em duas empresas multinacionais montadoras de máquinas agrícolas; a etapa derradeira apresenta os resultados da pesquisa, evidenciando que o nível de centralização dos projetos de engenharia exerce influência nos projetos de tropicalização a partir de fatores como a escolha do design control, o acúmulo de competências da subsidiária e o nível de complexidade do projeto. Da mesma forma, a pesquisa aponta que as pressões isomórficas normativas, coercitivas, miméticas e competitivas também exercem influência no processo de tropicalização através de fatores como a otimização do processo produtivo, medidas regulatórias exercidas pelo governo, pelas necessidades dos produtores rurais, entre outras. / Striving for growth and greater financial returns, many foreign companies have decided to internationalize their activities beyond their borders. In Brazil, this action had more prominence after the opening of the Brazilian market to foreign capital in the 1990’s, a period which companies of different nationalities started or increased their participation in the national market. The entry of these companies in Brazil brought with them a strong increase in competitiveness among these organizations, which work in an environment of rapid economic changes and technological advances, needs to meet the increasingly demanding consumers. Starting from this scenario, the development of new products becomes a critical point when related to the success of a company. Within the context of the development of new products in subsidiaries of multinational companies, especially in the Brazilian case, there is a practice of strategic importance, common among the subsidiaries of automakers installed in our country, this process is called “tropicalization”. This practice can be understood as the process of adapting a product project from other markets to the local context. The objective of this project is to investigate the antecedents of the tropicalization of products in multinational companies assembling agricultural machines, as well as to explore the practices and the challenges that influence in this phenomenon. The research presents the project, to managers of new products of multinational companies at the beginning of their career, the main challenges to which they will be submitted so that they can conduct their activities in tune with the strategies of the top management, as well as the pressures of the external environment to the organization. The research is divided into three stages: in the first stage, a literature review is presented, where concepts and definitions related to the research constructs are exposed; the next stage is composed of a case study of two multinational companies assembling agricultural machinery; the final stage presents the results of the research, evidencing that the level of centralization of engineering projects exerts influence in tropicalization projects based on factors such as the choice of design control, the accumulation of competences of the subsidiary and the level of complexity of the project. Similarly, the research points out that the normative, coercive, mimetic and competitive isomorphic pressures also exert an influence on the tropicalization process through factors such as optimization of the productive process, regulatory measures carried out by the government, the needs of rural producers, among others.

Research problem: The purpose of this study is to extend existing knowledge on the determinants of sustainability reporting. Institutional theory, legitimacy theory, CSR and TBL are used to find out if: (1) audit firms’ sustainability reports are an influencing factor on non-audit firms’ sustainability reports, (2) if audit firms’ sustainability reports are an influencing factor on their clients’ sustainability reports. Methodology: To find out if there is a relationship between the content in sustainability reports of audit firms and non-audit firms, the study conducts a content analysis using a quantitative strategy and a deductive approach. The sample consists of three of the Big 4 audit firms as well as 30 Swedish publicly listed companies, small and large cap. Their sustainability reports are analyzed from 2010 to 2020. Conclusion: The findings show that, first, firms do imitate audit firms when they issue sustainability reports, thus a case of mimetic isomorphism can be concluded. Second, clients of audit firms do not imitate their external auditors more than other audit firms when issuing their sustainability reports.

Cette thèse est consacrée à une classe de groupes, appelés groupes de Kac-Moody, qui généralise de façon naturelle les groupes de Lie semi-simples, ou plus précisément, les groupes algébriques réductifs, dans un contexte infini-dimensionnel. On s'intéresse plus particulièrement au problème d'isomorphismes pour ces groupes, en vue d'obtenir un analogue infini-dimensionnel de la célèbre théorie des homomorphismes 'abstraits' de groupes algébriques simples, due à Armand Borel et Jacques Tits. Le problème d'isomorphismes qu'on étudie s'avère être un cas particulier d'un problème plus général, qui consiste à caractériser les homomorphismes de groupes algébriques vers les groupes de Kac-Moody, dont l'image est bornée. Ce problème peut à son tour s'énoncer comme un problème de rigidité pour les actions de groupes algébriques sur les immeubles, via l'action naturelle d'un groupe de Kac-Moody sur une paire d'immeubles jumelés. Les résultats partiels, relatifs à ce problème de rigidité, que nous obtenons, nous permettent d'apporter une solution complète au problème d'isomorphismes pour les groupes de Kac-Moody déployés. En particulier, on obtient un résultat de dévissage pour les automorphismes de ces objets. Celui-ci fournit à son tour une description complète de la structure du groupe d'automorphismes d'un groupe de Kac-Moody déployé sur un corps de caractéristique~$0$. Nos arguments permettent également de traiter de façon analogue certaines formes anisotropes de groupes de Kac-Moody complexes, appelées formes unitaires. On montre en particulier que la topologie Hausdorff naturelle que portent ces formes est un invariant de leur structure de groupe abstrait. Ceci généralise un résultat bien connu de H. Freudenthal pour les groupes de Lie compacts. Enfin, l'on s'intéresse aux homomorphismes de groupes de Kac-Moody à image fini-dimensionnelle, et l'on démontre la non-existence de tels homomorphismes à noyau central, lorsque le domaine est un groupe de Kac-Moody de type indéfini sur un corps infini. Ceci réduit un problème ouvert, dit problème de linéarité pour les groupes de Kac-Moody, au cas de corps de base finis.

We will explore progenitors extensively throughout this project. The progenitor, developed by Robert T Curtis, is a special type of infinite group formed by a semi-direct product of a free group m*n and a transitive permutation group of degree n. Since progenitors are infinite, we add necessary relations to produce finite homomorphic images. Curtis found that any non-abelian simple group is a homomorphic image of a progenitor of the form 2*n: N. In particular, we will investigate progenitors that generate two of the Mathieu sporadic groups, M11 and M11, as well as some classical groups. We will prove their existences a variety of different ways, including the process of double coset enumeration, Iwasawa's Lemma, and linear fractional mappings. We will also investigate the various techniques of finding finite images and their corresponding isomorphism types.

<p>De flesta företag har visioner. En visions syfte är att fungera som en kompass som vägleder individer och grupper så att de lättare kan fokusera på företagens mål. Visioner har en förmåga att inge hopp om en bättre framtid, en framtid som är tillräckligt attraktiv att den anses vara värd hårt arbete för att en dag nå dit. Visioner ska fungera som en bas i företaget för att påminna om vad som är viktigt i organisationen, hur den bör relatera till omgivningen och hur intressenter ska bemötas. Tidigare studier visar att nästan alla anställda vid företag har svårt att förstå eller är helt omedvetna om företagets vision. Vad beror det på att företag trots detta väljer att lägga ner resurser på att skapa visioner?</p><p>I denna uppsats har 22 anställda vid tre olika företag - NCC, Setra AB och Manpower - intervjuats. Utgångspunkten har varit att studera de anställdas medvetenhetsnivå av visionen på företaget som de arbetar på. Tanken var att undersöka om visionen är så effektiv för organisationen som företagen anser att de är och om den kan ersättas med någon annan typ av motiveringsfras som de anställda lättare kan förstå samt arbeta efter.</p><p>Studien visar att 73 % av respondenterna känner inte till visionen så pass väl att de kan berätta om den. De företagen som har värderingar som en del av visionen har lyckats bättre med att implementera dessa värderingar bland de anställda än visionen.</p>

Explanation-based Generalization requires that the learner obtain an explanation of why a precedent exemplifies a concept. It is, therefore, useless if the system fails to find this explanation. However, it is not necessary to give up and resort to purely empirical generalization methods. In fact, the system may already know almost everything it needs to explain the precedent. Learning by Failing to Explain is a method which is able to exploit current knowledge to prune complex precedents, isolating the mysterious parts of the precedent. The idea has two parts: the notion of partially analyzing a precedent to get rid of the parts which are already explainable, and the notion of re-analyzing old rules in terms of new ones, so that more general rules are obtained.

De flesta företag har visioner. En visions syfte är att fungera som en kompass som vägleder individer och grupper så att de lättare kan fokusera på företagens mål. Visioner har en förmåga att inge hopp om en bättre framtid, en framtid som är tillräckligt attraktiv att den anses vara värd hårt arbete för att en dag nå dit. Visioner ska fungera som en bas i företaget för att påminna om vad som är viktigt i organisationen, hur den bör relatera till omgivningen och hur intressenter ska bemötas. Tidigare studier visar att nästan alla anställda vid företag har svårt att förstå eller är helt omedvetna om företagets vision. Vad beror det på att företag trots detta väljer att lägga ner resurser på att skapa visioner? I denna uppsats har 22 anställda vid tre olika företag - NCC, Setra AB och Manpower - intervjuats. Utgångspunkten har varit att studera de anställdas medvetenhetsnivå av visionen på företaget som de arbetar på. Tanken var att undersöka om visionen är så effektiv för organisationen som företagen anser att de är och om den kan ersättas med någon annan typ av motiveringsfras som de anställda lättare kan förstå samt arbeta efter. Studien visar att 73 % av respondenterna känner inte till visionen så pass väl att de kan berätta om den. De företagen som har värderingar som en del av visionen har lyckats bättre med att implementera dessa värderingar bland de anställda än visionen.