Cette thèse aborde l'histoire d'une entreprise familiale réunionnaise de sa fondation à la fin du XXe siècle. Les Isautier ont développé leurs affaires autour de la distillation du rhum (filière cannes/rhum). En 1918, le rachat par Alfred Isautier de la distillerie du front de mer de Saint-Pierre, une des plus anciennes de l'île, marque une césure avec les stratégies familiales. Il agrandit son domaine, fonde l'entreprise « Établissements Alfred Isautier » et l'ancre dans l'histoire familiale. A la fin des années 1950, Ses fils développent des activités dans divers domaines, profitant des atouts de l'île et de la politique de développement liée à la départementalisation. Sensible à la crise des années 1970, l'entreprise est restructurée et se concentre à nouveau sur son corps de métier, le rhum. Ce travail de recherche a pour but de montrer l'évolution de l'entreprise, ses relations avec l'économie locale, et son incidence sociale. Les établissements Isautier se sont adaptés aux difficultés inhérentes au contexte insulaire et local et aux grandes crises internationales, les stratégies menées permettant d'assurer la survie et la transmission de l'entreprise. / This doctoral thesis is about a family company in Reunion in the 19th and 20th century from its birth to 1990. The Isautier family developed their business around the sugar cane industry (sugar cane and rum). In 1918, Alfred Isautier bought the distillery, one of the oldest in the island, from the family, purchased new lands and founded his own business “Etablissements Alfred Isautier”. In the early fifties (1950), his sons started new business strategies owing to the resources of the island, and its recently acquired status of “département”. Later in the seventies, because of the crisis, the company went through a major restructuring based on rum industry. This work demonstrates the importance and influence of the company on the local economic trend and its social consequences. The “Etablissements Isautier” had a great ability in facing the insularity and the international situation, the survival and continuity of the family business issuing from the numerous strategies developed by the company.

Although tourism has been recognised as an important subfield in nation branding little research have focused on its role in the nation branding process. A managerial perspective was assumed to examine what role tourism has in nation branding. This study adopts a deductive approach reviewing existing literature on nation branding, brand management strategies and tourism stakeholders. A case study on how tourism is integrated in nation branding strategies and how stakeholders operating in the tourism sector perceive their own influence on the nation-brand was conducted in Sweden using a qualitative method. Data was collected through interviews with managers in organisations that directly or indirectly work with tourism while being involved in the strategic nation branding of Sweden. A conceptual framework was developed to illustrate how the nation-brand is created and communicated through tourism. The study concludes that tourism can have a significant role in nation branding and affect other subfields if the right circumstances are given. Strong collaborations are a prerequisite for effective nation branding and strategies should incorporate national identity and country-of-origin for authenticity. Future research could focus on comparing the role of tourism in nation branding with other subfields as well as comparing how organisations on the same level work with nation branding strategies.

We analyzed soils in Alder Bald, Grassy Bald, and Rhododendron Bald communities on Roan Mountain to infer the influence of vegetation on soil and to help guide management strategies. In all vegetation types, soils were acid (pH = 4–5) sandy loams. We found vegetation-associated differences for organic content, cation exchange capacity, acidity, two plant macronutrients (K, Mg), and three cations (Fe, Na, Zn). We predicted that nitrogen compounds would be highest in the Alder Bald because Alnus viridis ssp. crispa (Green Alder) can harbor nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Organic content was highest at the alder-bald sites, ammonium was similar among vegetation types, and nitrate was high at only some sample sites. The unique soil properties of the Alder Bald community, its likely role in primary succession, and its documentation as a long-standing community type on Roan Mountain suggest that management should be directed towards its conservation.

L’étude conduite porte sur l’exploration de la période d’intégration des nouvelles recrues se reconnaissant une orientation sexuelle homosexuelle ou bisexuelle. A partir d’une recherche qualitative, nous posons l'hypothèse générale selon laquelle les processus d’intégration, de socialisation organisationnelle et de construction des intentions professionnelles d’avenir seraient influencés par la présence de normes hétérosexistes et d’une discrimination perçue au travail, d’une part, et par l’identité sexuelle construite antérieurement dans les différentes sphères de vie d’autre part. Nos données ont été recueilles auprès de douze jeunes se reconnaissant comme LGB, récemment intégrés dans les milieux professionnels de la justice et des transports à l’aide de deux études : l’une conduite avec des entretiens de type récit de vie pour d’étudier le sens attribué aux expériences subjectives avant et pendant la période d’intégration dans l’organisation, l’autre menée et à partir d’entretiens de type IMIS pour mieux comprendre les dynamiques identitaires en analysant les relations subjectives entre l’individu et son environnement Les résultats soulignent que les normes hétérosexistes restent dominantes et montrent la non-neutralité de la sphère professionnelle où les échanges incluent des aspects de la vie privée. Dès l’entrée dans l’organisation les jeunes LGB font face à un dilemme entre la divulgation ou la dissimulation de leur orientation sexuelle qui nécessite un aménagement de l’identité en milieu de travail. Parmi les stratégies de présentation de soi, la dissimulation fondée sur la feinte et l'évitement de l’orientation sexuelle est majoritairement utilisée pour éviter les différentes formes de discriminations et d’homophobie anticipées au travail. / The study focuses on an exploration of the integration time of recently-recruited professionals who identify themselves as homosexual or bisexual. Based on the qualitative analysis, we draw the general hypothesis that the processes of integration, organisational socialisation, and the construction of a future career path that are influenced both by the presence of heterosexist norms and perceived discrimination in the workplace as well as by sexual identity previously built in other parts of life. Our data were collected from twelve self-identified LGB young people who recently recruited in the workplace in the transportation and law using two studies: the first conducted with informal interviews to study the meaning given to subjective experience before and during the integration period in the organisation, and the second built from IMIS interviews to understand better the identity dynamics by analysing the subjective relationships between the individual and his environment. The results highlight that heterosexist norms remain dominant and show non-neutrality in the part of the professional world where the conversations include aspects of private life. From the moment of their arrival in the organisation, the young LGB people confront a dilemma between dissimulating and divulging their sexual identity, which requires identity management strategy handling to tackle different forms of discrimination and perceived homophobia. Among the identity management strategies, dissimulation based on pretending or avoiding of sexual orientation are the strategies that are used in the majority to avoid the different forms of discrimination based on sexual orientation that are anticipated in the workplace.

Companies globally have lost profit each year because of the lack of intra-organizational knowledge sharing. The purpose of this descriptive, multiple case study was to explore the knowledge management practice strategies that project management business leaders use to improve knowledge sharing in project-based organizations. Nine project management business leaders from 4 project-based organizations in metro Atlanta, Georgia completed individual Skype/phone semistructured interviews, and 5 project team members completed an in-person focus group discussion and an interview questionnaire. Knowledge management was the conceptual framework for this study, the basis for understanding the world around project management business leaders, and the implementation of knowledge management practice strategies for knowledge sharing. The individual interviews, focus group discussion, and interview questionnaire yielded the lived experiences of project management business leaders and the perceptions of project team members regarding knowledge sharing in their project-based organizations. The data were analyzed through data source triangulation and cross-case synthesis, which resulted in various themes such as communication, practices to overcome barriers, and a centralized resource center. The findings of this study may effect positive social change and the improvement of knowledge sharing by promoting the worth, dignity, and development of individuals, communities, organizations, cultures, or societies.

Multinational corporate leaders acknowledge that a lack of business direction by senior leadership results in a 68% failure in the execution of organizational strategies. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore what best practice solutions automotive manufacturing senior leaders created to help front-line managers execute organizational strategies. The population consisted of 20 automotive manufacturing senior leaders located in Michigan with significant years of automotive experience and at least a year of experience employed as an automotive manufacturing senior leader. Vroom's expectancy theory served as the conceptual framework for the study describing the enhancement of employee performance related to their skills, knowledge, abilities, and workplace expectations. Data were collected through semistructured interviews using open-ended questions. Methodological triangulation and a modified van Kaam data analysis approach were used with field notes and interview data to guide the coding process, theoretical saturation, and trustworthiness of interpretations. Five themes emerged that senior leaders identified important for creating best practice solutions: benchmarking, training, communication strategies, organizational change, and integrity. These findings may influence positive social change by offering management strategies, objectives, and actions that help to promote the development of employees and collaboration between individuals, government institutions, local businesses, and communities.

Dependence on technology brings security compromises that have become a global threat that costs businesses millions of dollars. More than 7.6 million South Carolinians incurred effects from the 162 security breaches reported in 2011-2015. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore the risk management strategies small business leaders use to prevent and mitigate operational security threats that produce financial losses. The population for this study consisted of 6 business leaders in South Carolina who have demonstrated successful experience in preventing and mitigating operational security threats. Transformational leadership theory provided the conceptual framework for exploring the overreaching research question. Data collection consisted of semistructured interviews with each participant and the collection of company documents that pertained to security procedures, audits, and reviews. Conducting semistructured interviews allowed participants to provide details of real-life experiences. Recorded interviews and transcriptions were analyzed through Moustakas's modified van Kaam method of analysis to identify emerging topics. The 4 themes that emerged were: (a) operational security training and awareness, (b) operational security culture and behavioral effects, (c) operational security policy and compliance, and (d) operational security challenges and risk management. By developing strategies and processes that reflect these themes, small business leaders can reduce financial losses to improve profitability and reduce unemployment, achieving social changes that can benefit society as a whole.

Replacing an employee can cost a firm as much as 200% of that employee's annual salary, and small business owners may be especially sensitive to voluntary employee turnover due to their limited resources. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore the strategies that some owners of small professional services businesses in the midwestern region of the United States used to reduce voluntary employee turnover in their firms. The conceptual framework for this doctoral study was Barney's resource-based theory. Data were collected from 4 participants whose firms were at least 5 years old and had experienced lower turnover than the average as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, using semistructured interviews and a review of company policies and procedures found in employee handbooks, as well as publicly available information on company websites. Data were analyzed by compiling all the data, using coding to organize the data, identifying themes that emerged, and then making observations about those themes as they pertained to the research. Member checking, along with the review of company documents, served as methodological triangulation for reliability and validity of the research. The 3 major themes that surfaced were how voluntary employee turnover impacts small professional services firms, how hiring reduced voluntary employee turnover, and how corporate culture and employee engagement reduced voluntary employee turnover. Data about strategies for reducing voluntary employee turnover may bring about positive social change in local economies by helping to ensure stability in local commerce and national economies by supporting the success of small businesses that account for many businesses in the United States.

This research develops the social psychological study of lay perception of human rights and of rights-based reactions to perceived injustice. The pioneering work by social representation theorists is reviewed. Of particular interest is the use of rights-based responses to perceived relative subgroup disadvantage. It is argued that these responses are shaped by the historical development of the legal concept of unique subgroup rights; rights asserted by a subgroup that cannot be asserted by outgroup members or by members of a broader collective that includes all subgroups. The assertion of unique subgroup rights in contrast to individual rights was studied by presenting participants with scenarios suggestive of human rights violations. These included possible violations of privacy rights of indigenous Australians (Study 1), civil and political rights of indigenous Australians under mandatory sentencing schemes (Study 2), privacy rights of students in comparison to public servants (Study 3), refugee rights (Study 4), and reproductive rights of lesbians and single women in comparison to married women and women in de facto relationships (Study 5). The scenarios were based on real policy issues being debated in Australia at the time of data collection. Human rights activists participated in Studies 4 and 5. In Study 5, these activists participated via an online, web-based experiment. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected. A social identity theory perspective is used drawing on concepts from both social identity theory and self-categorization theory. The studies reveal a preference for an equality-driven construal of the purpose of human rights law (i.e. that all Australians be treated equally regardless of subgroup membership) in contrast to minority support for a vulnerable groups construal of the purpose of human rights (i.e. that the purpose of human rights law is to protect vulnerable subgroups within a broader collective). Tajfelian social belief orientations of social mobility and social change are explicitly measured in Studies 3-5. Consistent with the social identity perspective, these ideological beliefs are conceptualised as background knowledge relevant to the subjective structuring of social reality (violation contexts) and to the process of motivated relative perception from the vantage point of the perceiver. There is some indication from these studies that social belief orientation may determine construals of the purpose of human rights. In Study 5 the observed preference for using inclusive human rights rhetoric in response to perceived subgroup injustice is explained as an identity-management strategy of social creativity. In Studies 4 and 5, explicit measurement of activist identification was also made in an attempt to further explain the apparently-dominant preference for an equality-driven construal of the purpose of human rights law and the preferred use of inclusive, individualised rights rhetoric in response to perceived subgroup injustice. Activist identification explained some action preferences, but did not simply translate into preferences for using subgroup interest arguments. In Study 5, metastereotyping measures revealed that inclusive rights-based protest strategies were used in order to create positive impressions of social justice campaigners in the minds of both outgroup and ingroup audiences. Ideas for future social psychological research on human rights is discussed.

This thesis aims to assess the environmental consequences of management strategies for wood waste in Sweden. There is a special focus on separation strategies and in what way such measures influence environmental aspects such as the presence of heavy metals in the waste. Actors’ incentives and capacity to influence wood waste management are analysed, emphasising the importance of driving forces such as governmental regulation and market interactions. The results show that, in comparison to present dilution practice, separation of contaminants would lead to decreased heavy metal emissions during combustion of wood waste while still recovering a similar energy yield from the waste. Such measures would also increase possibilities for resource-saving reuse of the generated ash. For most metals, however, long-term pollution concerns related to accumulations in landfills and unintentional co-recycling are difficult to address, regardless of separation strategy. An exception is industrial preservative-treated wood waste that according to regulation is to be separately handled as hazardous, for which separation measures also would address such future concerns. This indicates that governments could play an important role in environmental policy by, for instance, stimulating separate handling of certain discarded products. Actors in the energy sector involved in fuel and heat production have quite restricted capacities for separation of contaminants in wood waste. Instead, achieving substantially less contaminated wood waste seems to require actors in the waste and construction sectors to develop source separation measures. The fact that such measures often involve actors lacking professional standards for waste management constitutes a fundamental obstacle to efficient separation. Perhaps even more hampering is that source separation at present leads to increased waste disposal costs for actors in the construction sector. Such economic outcomes of source separation are unfavourable, since these actors consider wood waste as a disposal problem for which the costs should be minimised. Despite these obstacles, however, the results show that some actors have proved capable of achieving relatively efficient separation. At present, only a minor share of industrial preservative–treated wood waste is separately handled as hazardous. For actors in the energy, waste and construction sectors, the incentives for such measures appear low even though introduced regulations potentially could have created such incentives. It appears as if a lack of steering mechanisms such as communication and supervision have neutralised the inherent pressure from regulation in many cases. Quality requirements, on the other hand, can be concluded to be of outmost importance for motivating separation measures. Unfortunately, market forces encourage actors in the energy sector to practice inconsistent enforcement of quality requirements. As a consequence, actors in the waste and construction sectors do not experience any strong pressure for separation of contaminants from their customers. In fact, such an inconsistent enforcement of quality requirements seems to have counteracted legal pressures for separation, due to present customer-oriented business management. / Avhandlingens mål är att utifrån ett miljöperspektiv analysera strategier för hantering av träavfall i Sverige. Fokus är på strategier för separering och hur såna åtgärder påverkar miljöaspekter relaterade till förekomst av tungmetaller i avfallet. Vidare studeras aktörers incitament och kapacitet att påverka hanteringen med tonvikt på betydelsen av drivkrafter såsom lagstiftning och kundkrav. I jämförelse med dagens hantering där föroreningar ofta späds ut, visar resultaten på att utökad separering skulle leda till minskade emissioner av tungmetaller vid förbränning av träavfall samtidigt som samma mängd energi utvinns. Vidare skulle såna åtgärder öka möjligheterna att återanvända de askor som bildas vid förbränningen. Oavsett om föroreningar separeras eller späds ut är det dock svårt att minska risken för framtida emissioner av tungmetaller till miljön från deponerade och/eller återvunna askor. Ett undantag är impregnerat trä, som enligt rådande lagstiftning ska hanteras som farligt avfall, för vilket separeringsåtgärder även förbättrar möjligheterna att kontrollera framtida föroreningsproblem. Rådande lagstiftning har stark påverkan på miljökonsekvenserna av separeringsåtgärder. Myndigheter kan således spela en viktig roll i att nå ett kretsloppsanpassat samhälle, till exempel, genom att stimulera separat hantering av uttjänta produkter såsom impregnerat trä. Andra faktorer som påverkar miljökonsekvenserna av att införa separeringsåtgärder i hanteringen av träavfall är ett väl utbyggt fjärrvärmesystem och tillgång på sofistikerade anläggningar där förorenat material kan energiutvinnas. Resultaten visar på att aktörer i energisektorn, som förädlar träavfall till ett biobränsle och använder detta till fjärrvärmeproduktion, har begränsade möjligheter att få bort föroreningar. Att åstadkomma en effektiv separering av förorenat material bygger istället på att aktörer i avfalls- och byggsektorn utvecklar metoder för källsortering. Det faktum att många av dessa aktörer inte har tillräcklig kunskap för att åstadkomma en effektiv sortering utgör ett fundamentalt hinder för såna åtgärder. Vidare leder ofta källsortering av träavfall till ökade avfallskostnader för aktörer i byggsektorn. Detta är problematiskt eftersom dessa aktörer i huvudsak ser träavfall som ett kvittblivningsproblem för vilket kostnaderna ska minimeras. Trots dessa hinder visar resultaten på att det redan idag finns aktörer som åstadkommit en relativt effektiv separering av förorenat träavfall. I dagsläget sorteras endast en liten andel av impregnerat trä ut och hanteras som farligt avfall. De studerade aktörerna i energi-, avfalls- och byggsektorn har svaga incitament för utökad separering trots att styrmedel införts som potentiellt kunnat stimulera såna åtgärder. I många fall har brist på kommunikation och tillsyn lett till att den avsedda effekten med lagstiftningen uteblivit. Kundkrav har, å andra sidan, stor betydelse för aktörers intressen av att utveckla metoder för separering. I nuläget uppmuntrar dock marknadskrafter ofta aktörer i energisektorn att inte fullt ut följa upp sina kvalitetskrav. Följaktligen upplever inte aktörerna i avfalls- och byggsektorn några större påtryckningar från sina kunder att förbättra sin sortering av träavfall. Beroende på att många aktörer tenderar att fokusera på kundkrav leder en bristfällig uppföljning av dessa till att de drivkrafter för separering som avsågs med lagstiftningen motverkas.