The central purpose of this thesis is to explore the dimensions of labour market adjustment in Jamaica. The paper adopts a microeconometric approach, relying on new and more detailed Jamaica Labour Force Survey data for the period 1983-2006. Over this period, Jamaica has experienced significant expansion in its external trade which has been characterized by a severe import bias. Also, during this time, Jamaica's agricultural and manufacturing sectors experienced declines in their respective employment shares of 44% and 36% while service sectors expanded. One chapter of the thesis explores the empirical link between expanding trade flows and manufacturing labour market adjustment. The thesis also explores whether and to what extent sectoral labour market adjustment in Jamaica has been accommodated by an accompanying occupational transformation. Central to analyzing the issue of occupational adjustment however, is the careful definition of what constitutes a skill in order to elucidate the role of skill specificity in labour market adjustment. The thesis then investigates the incidence of unemployment in Jamaica in an attempt to identify key factors leading to escape from unemployment within a low skilled, high-unemployment, developing country context. The study finds an important role for worker characteristics, trade and industry information in affecting labour market adjustment in Jamaica. Using occupational skill definitions due to Dolton and Kidd (1998), the study also finds that most of the occupational and sectoral mobility in Jamaica, over the review period, took place among unskilled manual workers. As such, the Jamaican employed labour force experienced very little skill upgrading over the 24 year period covered. The very limited up-skilling observed over the review period was due to the emergence of relatively more highly skilled, sales and distribution related occupations. As far as adjustment costs are concerned, across all mobility types, simple sectoral moves were- in general, relatively less costly; with occupational transformation playing an accommodative role to the sectoral adjustment. Industry information, educational qualifications, geographic location, gender and the degree of skill specificity and were all critical determinants of the type of adjustment observed in the Jamaican labour market. Finally, the thesis underlines the very high incidence of long-term unemployment among uneducated, unskilled, young males in Jamaica. The study reveals negative duration dependence in the Jamaican labour market and suggests a critical role to be played by worker training in affecting unemployment escape probabilities.

Repercussions of the demographic shift for firms include issues such an incremental rise in the average age of the workforce, unequal inflows and outflows of labour and managing organisational skill levels. In the case of Germany, organisational responses to demographic change are exacerbated by a predominant early exit culture, legislation which protects against the dismissal of older employees and related provisions set out in collective bargaining agreements. The aim of the research is to examine how demographic shifts impacted on German companies in the steel, chemicals and utilities sectors. After discussing these challenges, the thesis analyses measures implemented by these firms and explains differences in the responses between the sectors. The empirical findings clearly indicate that far more was being done to prepare for, and to counter, the effects of demographic developments than the extant academic literature suggests. Companies which responded most proactively to demographic change issues perceived this to be part of their role as a responsible and caring employer. The end to the financial support of early retirement by the German government was found to be an important catalyst for firms to develop measures to accommodate older workers, instead of offering them an early exit from the company. Nevertheless, a failure to respond effectively to the end of state-funded support for early retirement, as well as the tendency of some firms to ignore deep-seated motivational issues in older workers, suggests that companies have some way to go before they can be described as effectively tackling demographic change. Hence, this thesis is unable to prove conclusively that critics of the German management of demographic in organisations are wrong in pre-empting that German firms run the risk of falling into a demographic trap (Thun et al, 2007). The thesis frames demographic change within a wider context of organisational shifts, by examining external and internal drivers of change. Variations in responses between sectors are explained by drawing attention to drivers of change within the three industrial sectors which have shaped the behaviour of firms, including past experiences of organisational restructuring. Finally, the thesis makes a number of important theoretical, empirical and practical contributions to the academic literature. The most important contribution is to provide qualitative, empirical data on how firms in Germany are dealing with demographic developments to address gaps in the literature on company responses to demographic change.

This study seeks to understand how agencies with strict land use requirements and plan formulate and translate land use objectives into budgets and spending priorities. Characteristics such as legislation, policy and management body structure were examined alongside various influences to determine the extent to which these decision processes are impacted and provide insight into how such influences may be usefully levered and potentially transferred to other situations. In particular, the research was focussed on some of the "drivers" to the budgeting and land use prioritising processes. It is often argued that objectives are established in the annual business or corporate plan for the area and the budget follows this. However the intention of the research is to show that finances do indeed affect achieving the objectives but not in a direct cost manner. The research is primarily qualitative given the nature of what was being evaluated; the discrepancy between the offici al view of what should be, and what is taking place from the decision makers view was brought to light through a study of the intervening processes. This study strongly suggests that, although the organisational structures and administrative processes have substantially changed and evolved over the past twenty years resulting in today's Parks Canada and Scottish Natural Heritage, the tools used by these agencies to translate land use objectives into budgets and spending priorities have not. As a result, external influences that could be anticipated and planned for are excluded along with recognition of any potential benefits these influences could bring. Further, efforts to facilitate collaborative management have had only limited successes due on the most part to the constituent authorities using these antiquated tools and the lack of a meaningful evaluation process to measure the success of collaborative management efforts. That is budgeting and planning/resource allocation processes do not reward or encourage collaboration and may, in fact, inhibit such efforts at a management level.

Inclusion of local knowledge in decision-making is recognized as important for land-use planning. However, this is prevented by communication constraints. Increasingly local communities throughout the world are using community mapping and simple Geographic Information Technologies (GIT) to communicate information about traditional lands to decisionmakers. This corresponds to the trend, primarily in North America, for practitioners to apply Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technologies in public participation settings. Claims have been made that use of Public Participation Geographic Information Systems (PPGIS) by disadvantaged groups can be empowering. However, others claim that PPGIS is disempowering due to the cost and complexity of the technologies, inaccessibility of data, restrictive representation of local geographic information, and the low level of community participation. The research described in this thesis sets out to contribute to the debate regarding PPGIS and empowerment. Participatory Geographic Information and Multimedia Systems (PGIMS) technologies were developed for this project in an attempt to overcome the weaknesses of PPGIS described above. A PGIMS project was introduced into two communities in West Kutai, Indonesia. The PGIMS technologies enabled local communities to gather information using a digital camera and video camera, and store, manage and access it. A participatory process ensured that communities made all decisions related to the project and were trained in the necessary technical skills. Functional PGIMS were created in both participating villages. These PGIMS were relevant to the communities’ needs to record information for future generations and communicate information about boundaries and land use to outsiders. The research question addressed in this thesis was: How does the PGIMS project empower or disempower local communities? The author developed a working definition of empowerment to enable evaluation: empowerment is an increase in social influence or political power. Furthermore the author determined that empowerment is achieved through a combination of internal changes in an individual or community as well as external factors. These are defined as changes in ‘empowerment capacity’. This thesis presents a framework to structure an analysis of empowerment. It enabled the author to examine how four catalysts related to the PGIMS project empowered and disempowered, as well as increased and decreased empowerment capacity of the individual and community. Catalysts included the information contained within the PGIMS, the participatory process used, the technological skills acquired and the tools applied to develop the PGIMS. Qualitative data were gathered in the field using participant observation, semi-structured interviews and questionnaires. Data were categorised into indicators of increased or decreased empowerment and empowerment capacity. These indicators were sorted into the relevant cells of the framework. The empowerment framework offered a logical structure to categorize the data and enable an analysis of how different components of the PGIMS project impacted individuals and communities. It was also useful for differentiating between empowerment and empowerment capacity impacts. There were weaknesses with the methods and framework. These included the inability to determine the extent to which the PGIMS project contributed to the observed indicators relative to other influences; the difficulty of interpreting the data to create indicators, and the difficulty of measuring some indicators or defining their relative importance in the framework. This research concluded that the PGIMS project empowered participating individuals and communities, and also increased their empowerment capacity, but it is difficult to determine how lasting or significant this is. It also disempowered individuals and communities. Individuals were more empowered by skills and processes, while communities more empowered by information and tools. The benefits of individual empowerment can conflict with community empowerment. Empowerment in the PGIMS project was highly influenced by pre-existing conditions in individuals and communities. / Graduate

The thesis explores the purpose of cooking education. The impetus for the research question - why teach (young) people to cook? – was the introduction of the 1988 National Curriculum for England & Wales. This changed the content and pedagogy of cooking education from a home and practical focus to an industrial and technological focus. Literature searches found little academic research into the purpose of cooking education. The research therefore set out to map the entire policy and pedagogical rationale(s) for what it defines as Food and Cooking Skills Education (FCSE). The research applied a dual focus on FCSE: as food policy and as pedagogy. A multi-method methodology was adopted, using a food systems conceptual approach, in order to capture the depth, range and breadth of possible rationales for FCSE. Methods used were: historical and documentary analysis, semi-structured interviews, questionnaire survey and an international comparative survey. Five qualitative studies were conducted: (1) a historical account of FCSE in England and Wales since the industrial revolution; (2) a survey of young people’s experience of cooking education in English schools; (3) a questionnaire survey of UK food industry FCSE perspectives; (4) an international comparative survey of thirty-five countries’ FCSE policies and pedagogy (including Scotland & N Ireland); and (5) élite interviews of policy-makers and activists from state related and civil society sectors. The five studies provide the first account of FCSE’s role and purpose, whether taught formally or informally. Seventeen rationales were identified, of varying emphasis. Historically, FCSE was found to have generated different purposes at different periods, with the modern era encompassing them all, and environmental sustainability now emerging. Internationally, countries vary in their modes of food cultural and skills transmission. A consensus of the importance of FCSE was recorded. The thesis concludes with nine cross-cutting themes exposed by the studies, which are presented as a preliminary theory of the purposes for and against cooking education. These include: food control, food literacy, skill types, culinary diversity, public health, resources, pleasure and environmental sustainability. Recommendations for policy and further research are made.

Environmental controls are becoming more and more expensive to implement, so environmental management is becoming more technologically advanced and efficient through the adoption of new techniques and models. This paper reviews the potential for storm water runoff for the city of Denton, Texas and with the main objective to perform storm water runoff analyses for three different land use datasets; each landuse dataset created with a different methodology. Also analyzed was the difference between two North Central Texas Council of Governments land use datasets and my own land use dataset as a part of evaluating new and emerging remote sensing techniques. The results showed that new remote sensing techniques can help to continually monitor changes within watersheds by providing more accurate data.

Adopting a socio–economic perspective and a multimethod field research approach this thesis investigates the correlation between trust and workflow in advertising communities of practice. Using a semiotic mode of analysis a comparative examination of offline and online communities will be conducted to inspect the practices of trust when multiple stakeholders follow the creative workflow process to fulfil creative briefs. The motivation to lead the research stems from a current lack of understanding of how trust is operationalized in online creative communities. Shortcomings from the literature 1) do not account for the significance of constructed workplace settings in the offline domain, 2) focus on providing generalisations through quantification, while fail to offer insights through qualitative methods and 3) overlook the weaknesses of trust in professional relationships. To address these shortcomings the thesis provides an extensive literature review to explicate the complexity of trust. The review forms the foundation of the thesis from which it makes original theoretical, analytical and empirical contributions. It 1) introduces a conceptual framework that correlates trust with workflow in offline and online advertising communities; 2) presents a novel thematic–narrative analytical method to interpret and map trust and workflow at the granular level; 3) reports from three sequential field studies that explores trust and workflow in professional relationships. These contributions highlight the operationalization of trust and that trust is an active determinant of workflow. The findings have implications to the study of trust and virtual workspaces in the digital economy that will influence their design, development and utilization. The first study examines trust and workflow in an offline advertising community. The findings indicate a positive correlation: trust is strongly aligned to workflow, inferred by strongly embedded situational and trust–warranting properties. The second and third studies examine trust and workflow in online advertising communities. The former indicates a negative correlation: trust is mediumly misaligned to workflow, inferred by weakly embedded situational properties. The findings of the latter also indicate a negative correlation: trust is strongly misaligned to workflow, inferred by weakly embedded situational and trust–warranting properties. In short, trust and workflow have a negative correlation online compared to the offline domain and is deficient in situational and trust–warranting properties. As a consequence the online domain does not perform to the same professional standard as the offline domain.

This thesis consists of three papers on the economics of corporate social responsibility (CSR). The papers study different aspects of CSR from the perspectives of consumers and firms. The first paper looks at how consumers value CSR and their willingness to pay for ethical attributes in a product. We include a CSR signal to examine how information on CSR affects individuals’ preferences and willingness to pay. The second paper builds on the study in the first paper, however, we also include a CSR nudge and the Big Five Inventory on personality to examine the interaction between information and personality traits on the willingness to pay for CSR. Finally, in the third paper we look at how firms’ CSR signal can influence their financial performance.

This thesis presents two studies of computer-mediated non-monetary exchange. The Internet has improved the potential for previously unconnected people to organise into interest groups with the intent of meeting offline. This has resulted in a range of organisations emerging with the explicit aim of helping people to give and share resources. These organisations typically reject money and markets, insisting that social interaction should occur through generosity alone. The first study presents a netnography and depth interviews which reveal how technology is used to enact and influence the management of identity, partner selection, ritual normalisation, and negotiation of property rights. The findings have significant implications for the design and management of systems that encourage non-monetary forms of collaborative consumption. In the second study a longitudinal social network analysis reveals how the social structures involved in these systems have no obvious historical precedent. This has implications for the way in which the social sciences should conceptualise reciprocal economic arrangements. It also raises some sociological implications for the possibility of designing economic systems in the absence of money. Finally, a new approach is proposed which advocates diachronic analysis of property rights as a means to explain how markets and institutions that try to subvert markets exist alongside each other.

<p> This thesis project created a landscape design framework for the Student Garden at the College of Charleston that took into account stakeholder needs and landscape constraints, thereby allowing the Garden to better fulfill its mission. Steps for this project were to perform a stakeholder analysis to determine perceptions of mission, vision, and needs for the Garden. This was then paired with a landscape suitability assessment. The assessment was performed in GIS using available soil data from the Soil Survey Geographic Database (SSURGO) to analyze for agricultural suitability.</p><p> Based on interview data, stakeholders considered the main mission of the Garden to lie in three areas: education, student research projects, and vegetable production. Landscape suitability analysis determined that the Garden was situated in the least favorable location within its available land area from an ecosystem standpoint. The landscape design incorporated the stakeholder needs of education, research, and production while proposing an expansion in a new, more centralized location that has soil better suited for agriculture along with new infrastructure. It incorporated a centralized building with office, rest area, and shaded work area that has facilities approved for vegetable processing for the CSA. Adjoining the building are beds showcasing sustainable agricultural techniques, greenhouses for seed starting and production, area for a food forest, and open fields for row crops.</p>