This PhD research started from an interest in how corporate social responsibility (CSR) works in practice and in identifying how to motivate companies to actively and meaningfully engage in CSR. It was further motivated by findings from previous research projects (Bondy et al 2004, Bondy 2006, Bondy 2007, Bondy et al 2008 forthcoming) which highlighted both the need for research in the area of CSR implementation, and the interesting issues around how corporations deal with the complexities of governing themselves in a global marketplace. Therefore, this research investigates the systems and processes involved in developing and implementing CSR strategy in a transboundary environment, so as to create academically relevant and practically useful results. To accomplish this task, a range of literatures were evaluated, focusing on CSR and how it is implementation, and NI theory as an analytical framework for understanding CSR in its broader context. A review of these literatures revealed a number of gaps from within CSR and NI theory to which this research responds. The two most significant gaps for this research are 1. the need for empirically based, practically useful and detailed guidance on developing and implementing CSR that is relevant in the transboundary context, and 2. a need to better understand the role of agency at the level of the single organization and of the individual. The research is underpinned by a subjectivist ontology, an interpretive epistemology and a multi-method design. It is exploratory, inductive research with two primary data sets gathered from managers who are functionally responsible for implementing CSR strategy (40 semi-structured key informant interviews), and from individuals within a company struggling to develop and implement CSR on a daily basis (single 'typical' case). Each data set is used to better understand development and implementation of CSR strategy from two different perspectives (presentational and operational) for a more holistic investigation of this underdeveloped area in the literature. This resulted in a range of contributions to CSR and NI literature primarily through providing shape and definition to the existence of an institution of CSR. The data provide empirical evidence to suggest the nature of the constraining and enabling characteristics of CSR, through such contributions identifying a set of standardized practices, the key internal and external pressures for engaging in CSR and strategic responses to it. The institution of CSR also acts as a competitor to the traditional business model, providing opportunities for political behaviour and the destabilization of both institutions. Therefore, this research provides a contribution to knowledge by providing conceptual and empirical insights into how CSR is developed an implemented in a transboundary environment, by providing a partial characterization of an institution of CSR, and identifying a novel mode of institutional change. This study also contributes to management practice by providing guidance to companies on how to develop and implement CSR strategy, and some of the strategic responses they may use to respond to the pressures and opportunities presented by CSR.

'Career', as a term, has been described as difficult to define yet frequently used, as if it is commonly understood what it means. Its relevance as a topic of investigation lies in its prevalence in people's accounts of themselves and their work. There has been a growing awareness of the constructed nature of the term 'career' which merits new empirical research. In addition, the relationship between identity and career from a constructionist perspective has rarely been explored. In the present thesis an empirical investigation of graduate employees' talk about workplace experiences aims to add to understanding about career and identity as resources which may be drawn on in interaction. In keeping with the social constructionist perspective of the thesis, a discourse analytic methodology was adopted. The data was selected from transcripts of fifty-four interviews, a group meeting with graduate employees and the recruitment literature of one, large, well known, high street retailer. Given the assumption that career is drawn on as a resource in talk we see that it functions in order to account for work-appropriate behaviour. The implications of the findings are relevant to both theory and practice. In theoretical terms, in contrast to much of the previous work in the field, the fore grounding of the language of career and identity provides new insight into commonly held assumptions about meaning. In this way the findings of the study extend previous notions of career, for example through the exploration of how the participants constructed differentiation as one part of a tension between two desirable states, fitting in yet standing out. In addition, the exploration of how identity, or ways of talking about the self, is deployed in interaction highlights a new and important theoretical area for future research. In practical terms the findings are of relevance to business and individuals. For business, a focus on the constructions of development, self, skill and career highlights one perspective of the relationship between the individual and the employing company. For individuals the findings have emancipatory potential as they illustrate how alternatives to a dominant understanding about career and progression may be made plausible in interaction. NB. This ethesis has been created by scanning the typescript original and may contain inaccuracies. In case of difficulty, please refer to the original text.

The research examines the financial and economic viability of transferring land presently under agricultural use into multipurpose farm-forestry in Wales. Three woodland benefit streams are examined in detail: the value of open-access recreation; the production of timber and; the net carbon storage generated by afforestation. Modelling of the spatial variability determining the production of these benefits is enhanced by the novel application of a geographical information system(GIS). Monetary evaluation of non-market recreation benefits is achieved by reference to both the contingent valuation and travel cost methods with prior studies being reviewed and new work presented. By contrast carbon storage benefits are valued purely by reference to the existing literature. Both of these analyses yield social values whereas our study of timber production produces both shadow and market valuations. Our GIS-based methodology is also applied to the modelling of agricultural values for the two major farm sectors (mainly sheep and mainly milk production) of the study area. Again both social and financial values are calculated. By comparison of the various values estimated across the above analyses we estimate both the financial and social values associated with potential transfers of land from conventional agriculture into farm-forestry. The financial values generated by our analysis support the present low levels of conversion out of agriculture. However, the social values estimated suggest that the present situation constitutes a significant market failure, particularly in the mainly sheep farming sector where cost benefit analysis suggests that substantial net social benefits could be generated through conversions into multi-purpose woodland.

Most ideas of industrial Quality Management (QM) originated in the USA and Japan, and have since spread globally. New QM models and concepts have been developed, disseminated and adopted (or indeed adapted) in many countries. Considering the evolution QM thinking over the last few decades, many QM models and concepts involve both 'hard' and 'soft' aspects. The former may involve use of procedures and a range of tools and techniques; whereas soft aspects are concerned with human factors such as culture. Much current literature in the QM field tends to emphasize the hard aspects. The author, however, argues that it is important to understand and investigate the soft aspects (particularly the organizational culture and management practices, the relationships between QM and culture) in an organization, which are key success factors for successful QM implementation. On the other hand, many researchers have studied QM dissemination and adoption phenomena from the perspectives of both management fashion and diffusion theory. Following Abrahamson (1996), this research proposed that QM initiatives can be considered as management fashions, disseminated from 'fashion-setter' (i.e. the supply side) to 'fashion-consumer' (i.e. the demand side), and the impact and results being influenced by various adoption factors. While trends in academic and professional publication rates related to QM initiatives can help to identify fashionable approaches on the supply side, there was lack of empirical evidence to explain the behaviour of 'fashion-consumers' on the demand side, in an international context (e.g. why do managers adopt certain QM tools? What are their criteria for decision-making on QM adoption?). This research aimed to explore the behaviour of 'fashion-consumers', so as to fully understand the QM dissemination and adoption process, in a Chinese context. Because of its economic importance, large manufacturing industry and distinct culture, China plays an important role in the global supply chain, and has attracted academic interests from various fields. Therefore, the author focused on the . management of quality in Chinese manufacturing industry; to provide insights into the relationships between QM, organizational culture and national culture; and explain the phenomenon of dissemination and adoption of QM from the perspective of Chinese fashion-consumers, based on multiple case-studies of Shanghai manufacturing industry. The research was based primarily on interviews with managers at six case-study companies, supplemented by interviews with quality experts and professionals. The Competing Values Framework (CVF) was used to characterize organizational culture, in the context of this primarily qualitative study. The key outcomes of this research relate to: 1) the development and current status of QM implementation in companies with different ownership types; 2) the organizational culture issues in companies with different ownership types; 3) the relationships between QM and culture; and 4) a dissemination and adoption framework for QM that contains nine observed dissemination and adoption factors, and is compatible with current theory relating to management fashions and also diffusion of innovations. The research has made a contribution to knowledge in all these four areas, while extending general understanding of QM dissemination in the context of current theory. It has provided framework and a richer knowledge of dissemination, adoption and 'soft' aspects of QM in the Chinese context, and of relationships between QM and culture from organizational and national culture perspectives. The differences observed among enterprises with different ownership types are of particular note. The application of CVF to complement qualitative research is also considered a methodological advance.

The theme of this research is the conservation of open dry-deciduous forest areas of West Bengal, India, through the socio-economic progress of forest dwellers. The use of Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs) is manifold in the livelihood of this area. Systematic and sustainable harvesting of NTFPs could improve the standard of living of forest dwellers and play an important role in the conservation of forest ecosystems. The research was conducted in Purulia, Bankura and West Midnapur districts, in the south-western part of West Bengal, India. Firewood is the main source of fuel for the forest fringe dwellers of these three districts. Due to the high demand firewood harvesting is an important occupation for a large number of forest communities. The incessant collection of firewood is adversely affecting forest cover and the type and quality of plant species. In this circumstance, sustainable and systematic harvesting of NTFPs can play a potential role in creating job opportunities for forest dwellers. The enhancement of organised NTFP marketing channels could improve the economy and thus reduce the major dependence on firewood. Therefore, the aim of the thesis is to examine NTFPs-based economic development of forest fringe dwellers and to protect the forest cover. The thesis starts with a brief introduction to NTFPs and its present importance in forest livelihoods in India (with reference to West Bengal) and in international context, highlighting work by geographers, forest researchers, economists and sociologists who are becoming more interested on NTFPs and forest livelihoods from their respective disciplinary perspectives. To have an idea about NTFPs based forest livelihood of West Bengal, it is necessary to study the geo-physical features of the State and the study area. This will reveal the reasons why this area has been selected for this research. A variety of complementary sources and methodologies were used for the collection and analysis of data and information. Detailed archival research at the British Library, London provides insight into the pre-colonial and colonial NTFP-based forest livelihoods of the Presidency of Bengal. An exploration of the socio-cultural characteristics of forest communities through interviews and surveys helped to reveal the use and importance of NTFPs. After collection of NTFPs, it is necessary to store those products for gradation and value-addition. The research reveals that the organised markets are quite away from forest villages. Therefore, the knowledge of systematic and sustainable collection and storage of NTFPs needs to be enhanced at the grassroots level. After the collection and processing of NTFPs, the most important thing is marketing. Through the organised marketing system, forest dwellers can earn more money selling the same amount of products. It was discovered that a large number of intermediaries are involved in the NTFPs business and these intermediaries often try to purchase NTFPs from actual collectors at a very low price and then sell them at a high price. The reasons for the presence of middlemen and how the formal marketing channels can be stronger than the present informal channels were all revealed to be important issues which bolster the formal marketing channels, in which actual collectors might earn reasonable price for their collected NTFPs. It is argued that the efficient and sustainable harvesting of NTFPs can promote opportunities for marginal forest dwellers of these three districts. The increasing production of value-added products from different NTFPs can improve the economic status of these forest dwellers and will reduce rampant demolition of forest resources. The socio-economic improvement can also shift forest dwellers to other professions, which will reduce the dependency on forestry and subsequently it will help to promote the dry-deciduous forest ecology. Therefore, the research begins with an investigation of historical perspective of human-forest interactions in the Presidency of Bengal and subsequently explores the contemporary forest-based livelihoods of the socio-economically deprived forest fringe dwellers in the dry-deciduous forest areas of West Bengal. The research draws on interdisciplinary areas including historical geography with reference of indigenous knowledge regarding forest products, development geography of the forest-based livelihoods and economic geography of the systematic and sustainable harvesting of NTFPs for the enhancement of formal marketing channels. The study demonstrates that there is a need for intensive research at the grassroots level that will address all the aspects of NTFPs and forest livelihoods, before devising any precise NTFP policy to improve the status of forest livelihoods through the sustainable harvesting of forest products.

This thesis presents an analysis of how one UK Regional Development Agency (RDA) used scenario planning in its construction of the region’s Regional Economic Strategy (RES). Strategists are broadly defined to include those within the RDA charged with developing and enacting a consultative strategy making process, the consultants engaged to provide advice and expertise to ensure workshops were conducted effectively, and, individuals representing stakeholder organizations that attended these workshops and responded to written consultations. Four scenarios depicting the region in the year 2020 were produced, which were subsequently presented as an evidence-base for the strategy process. A draft RES was created and issued for consultation. Previous RES development processes had been criticized for their lack of consultation, in this iteration strategists skilfully utilized a recognized strategy making practice as a means of responding to this. The scenario planning approach they adopted bore little resemblance to to the sanitised and context-free recipes commonly presented in the strategy textbooks. The research is a reflective, longitudinal study with data drawn from forty-six semi-structured interviews producing an authentic rich description that illustrates how actors enacted a strategizing process in the complex environment of the UK public sector. The analysis highlights how the strategists were influenced by sometimes conflicting desires and aspirations, and that to reconcile these and ensure deadlines were met inductive, interpretive and subjective acts were required. This analysis presents strategists as bricoleurs, with the documents and draft strategies produced being socially situated co-constructions emerging from negotiated, temporally-bound, power-laden and politically-infused interactions.

The objective of this thesis is to identify various determinants of human capital development among Canadian youth. Three mediating agents are examined: parents, schools, and government. Considerable attention is paid throughout to identifying causal relationships with empirical data. The first chapter introduces the thesis by discussing its main goals, as well as the importance of the topic. This chapter also summarizes each of the following substantive chapters. I explore the relationship between family size and various components of the child quality production function in the second chapter. The findings suggest that larger families lead to reduced parental investments in children. Despite this, standardized test scores do not decline with family size. Three possible reasons for this puzzle are explored. In the third chapter, I estimate the relationship between fertility and the allocation of paid and unpaid labour among couples. Results indicate that additional children lead to a reduction in paid hours and to an even larger increase in unpaid hours among mothers. Additional children are not related to paternal paid hours, although fathers spend slightly more time performing unpaid childcare. In the fourth chapter, I estimate the impact of schooling on academic performance in high school. Additional schooling is associated with significant improvements in reading, mathematics, and science performance, but it confers the same benefits in each area to students across the conditional distribution of academic performance, as well as to both sexes and to students from high and low income families. I examine the relationship between prospective student debt load and postsecondary attendance in the fifth chapter. The results indicate that reduced prospective debt load raise university enrolment only among students facing lower net returns to attending. The final chapter summarizes the findings, highlights the contributions to the literature, discusses policy implications, and sets forth directions for future research.

The goal of this dissertation is to understand what supply chain quality risk management (SCQRM) is and how SCQRM can help firms improve product quality and firm performance. This dissertation attempts to reveal and understand the SCQRM practices in order to provide new insights in dealing with supply chain quality risk. Thus, this dissertation aims to address three research questions: RQI) What should SCQRM entail in order to reduce the risk to the quality of products being handled along the supply chain? RQ2) What would a valid measurement scale of SCQRM entail? RQ3) What is the impact of SCQRM on product quality and firm's performance? In this research, a comprehensive SCQRM framework is proposed. SCQRM is conceptualised as a multidimensional, second-order construct that is represented by a system of four interrelated and complementary dimensions: risk shifting, risk sharing, risk avoidance, and risk remedy. These four SCQRM dimensions are subsequently examined in the conceptual model in relation to performance, and three key approaches are adopted: (a) statistical analysis to validate the measurement instrument of SCQRM; (b) measurement model analysis technique to investigate multi-dimensionality of SCQRM; (c) structural model building technique to examine the relationships between SCQRM dimensions and performance. In such, quantitative analysis techniques, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modelling (SEM), are adopted to analyse survey data from 289 companies. Three contributions to knowledge are made in advancing the literature of SCQRM. Firstly, this study reports a 7-stage procedure for developing a reliable and valid measure of SCQRM. Secondly, the measure of SCQRM is found to be a multidimensional construct consisting of four unique dimensions. Thirdly, this study examines the significant positive effect of the complementarity system of SCQRM on product quality and on firm performances. Moreover, the findings imply that a successful SCQRM results from building a complementarity power in risk management resources and routines. The multiple manifestations of the four SCQRM dimensions are all driven by a cohesive, yet unobserved synergy, which also forms one of the competences of the firm. Moreover, the managerial implication suggests that complementary benefits arise from the adoption of a more holistic approach to the management of supply chain quality risk at the firm-level.

During the last two decades, ISO 9000 standards have become one of the most important management approaches in the world. Currently, the standards are used by more than one million companies in more than 170 countries. ISO 9001 audits are the most widely used performance measurement (PM) method to assess ISO 9001 quality management systems (QMS). However, in recent years the effectiveness of ISO 9001 quality auditing has been questioned for: (1) only focusing on compliance; (2) failing to detect problems in products and processes; (3) failing to predict QMS failures; and (4) failing to provide added value to organisations. To overcome these problems, two main conversations have taken place in the literature. The first advocates changing the current compliance focus of auditing for a performance oriented one, to promote improvements in business processes and the QMS. The second theme seeks to develop different methods, guidelines, tools and techniques to improve auditing practice. In order to generate a change of focus from compliance towards improvement, some recent research has also advocated incorporating concepts and techniques from the PM field into the ISO 9000 world. However, there have been no substantial previous attempts to provide internal quality auditing with a performance focus, which was the aim of this research. Hence, this thesis intends to establish how ISO 9001:2008 certified organisations can better measure their QMS performance using internal audits. In order to provide answers to this question, an empirical study using mixed methods research was conducted. Firstly, the current state of the art of the ISO 9001:2008 internal auditing process was determined using a mixed methods study, including two surveys of 272 ISO 9001 experts and 25 interviews. This allowed the identification of the current problems that ISO 9001 certified organisations face when conducting audits, as well as the impacts on the performance of the QMS due to deficient internal auditing. Secondly, using the statistical technique of path analysis, a model identifying the relationships between internal audit problems and their impacts on QMS performance was developed. The model indicated that an intricate network of individual and organisational deficits link auditing and QMS performance. Finally, ‘Audit+’ a detailed and comprehensive procedure for conducting ISO 9001:2008 internal audits with a focus on the performance of the QMS was developed. The procedure was thoroughly tested and validated by a further mixed methods study, including three in-depth case studies and a survey of 174 ISO 9001 auditors. Although some minor changes were recommended, the results of the Audit+ validation were encouraging, showing that PM approaches can be successfully incorporated into the ISO 9001 world, to help organisations to better measure their QMS performance.

Past research on organisational citizenship behaviours (OCBs) has often prescribed to a number of preconceived assumptions predominately focused on the positive aspects of OCB performance. Using a sequential mixed-method approach, this thesis tests some of these assumptions considering whether researchers, organisations and other stakeholder should subscribe to the notion that OCBs are always positive. Specifically the thesis examines how OCBs are conceptualised by the employees who experience them in their organisational lives and the extent that culture plays in performance and outcomes of OCB. Study one interviewed five British and five Asian participants on their experiences and conceptualisation of OCBs. The interviews were analysed using the Grounded Theory approach which allowed two main theories to emerge from the data. Firstly, congruence or incongruence of employee and supervisor perceptions of OCB as in or extra role effects the motivation, performance and outcomes. Secondly, employees perform impression management motivated OCBs to facilitate the obtainment of their goals. In addition, cultural differences between the responses of the British and Asian participants were found, suggesting a more complex cultural relationship. Based on these findings, the second study presented OCB and impression management scenarios to 64 British participants and 70 Indonesian participants. The results of this study found that participants were able to distinguish between OCB and impression management behaviours. In addition, the perception of these behaviours as OCB or impression management affected the outcome of the behaviours. British participants' ratings of the effect of OCB and impression management behaviours were found to be more distinct than their Indonesian counterparts, suggesting that Indonesian employees may be more accepting of their co-workers performance of impression management behaviours. The final study examined the relationship between OCB motives, performance and outcomes of OCB performance by 141 Indonesian employees. Results showed that prosocial motives predicted the performance of affiliative and challenging behaviours; however other OCB motives did not predict OCB performance. In addition, affiliative and challenging behaviours predicted positive outcomes for employees, while compulsory citizenship behaviours were associated with negative outcomes. Collectivists and individualists were found to react in converse manners to the performance of affiliative and challenging behaviours. The findings of this thesis found some support for the basic assumptions of OCBs; however, the findings also found contradictions to the assumptions, as well as identifying cultural differences in the conceptualisation, performance and outcomes to OCB performance.