<p> Successful collaborations take effort. This study analyzed the process followed by 20 groups of diverse professions that were brought together to solve a community health problem. To this goal a four part model of conflict was adapted and used to understand how conflict emerged, was managed or resolved. The model allowed for the identification of five routes to conflict. Conflict was either averted or managed constructively by most of the groups and a set of productive behaviors is associated with this ability. Experienced collaborators utilize these behaviors at various times throughout the collaborative process to promote group cohesion and the possibility of integrating differences and transforming them into more creative outcomes. Conflict is found to be neutral; for some groups it is stagnating while others are able to use it constructively.</p>

<p> The U.S. federal wildland fire management system continues to experience rises in the number of acres burned annually and increases in management expenditures surrounded by firefighter death and injury. Despite a wealth of relevant academic research regarding wildland firefighting operations, a prominent nexus of these dynamics, there is little research regarding the response organization used to facilitate these operations on the fireground. Owing to a lack of research, wildland firefighting operations have remained a black box, meaning something with unknown internal workings, between the top of the response organization and the environment. From the perspective of systems thinking, the absence of a complete understanding of wildland firefighting operations prevents the dynamics of the larger domestic federal wildland fire management system from being holistically understood. In response to this gap in knowledge, this thesis explores wildland firefighting operations from an organizational perspective through a secondary analysis of qualitative data.</p>

Written with a contemporary European context of economic, social and reproductive crisis in mind, this thesis presents research about, from and for social movements that struggle against precarity, austerity and capitalist accumulation. Based on accounts and analyses of feminist-autonomist militant practice and networks, this research project revolves around two terms: care and creativity. It maps out a historical-genealogical shift from a paradigm of creativity (reflected in neoliberal governance as well as in social movements of the decades before and after the millenium) to one oriented around care (reflected in the neo-communitarian policy as well as practices of commoning that arise with social and economic crisis in Europe). Structured into three broad sections on work, organisation and governance, the questions at stake here revolve around the possibilities and imaginaries of politics that affirm care and creativity in relation to one another. On the level of work, this means struggles within and against precarity, reproductive and illegalized work; on the level of organisation, it means relating the figure of the network to that of the care chain and the family, confronting new transnational forms of alliance and care; and on the level of governance, it is the relation between neoliberalism and its new communitarian forms that is in question. What the collectives, campaigns and networks constituting the ‘field’ of this research have in common is that they re-think the contemporary relations between autonomy and heteronomy, the global and the situated, as well as macro- and micropolitics. Dwelling on collective experiences and knowledges, this investigation takes care to articulate the dimensions of subjectivity, relation and association with those of economy and governance. Concerned and engaged with contexts of struggle and commoning in the face of crisis politics, precarity and dispersed sociality, a methodology of militant participatory-action research serves to map out contexts of practice in Spain, the UK and Argentina as of 2010-2013.

Thesis abstract -- Catholic University of America.

Thesis (PhD) - Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship, Faculty of Business and Enterprise, Swinburne University of Technology, 2006. / This thesis is submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy, Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship, Faculty of Business and Enterprise, Swinburne University of Technology - 2006. Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (p. 213-231).

Thesis (M.I.T.)--The Evergreen State College, 2007. / Title from title screen viewed (4/10/2008). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 184-206).

Thesis (M.B.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 59).

Thesis abstract -- Catholic University of America.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Duquesne University, 2009. / Title from document title page. Abstract included in electronic submission form. Includes bibliographical references (p. 91-95) and index.

<p> The purpose of this project was to write a grant for a youth development boxing program for adolescent males in Long Beach, California. An extensive literature review was conducted to investigate the best ways to incorporate combat sports into a youth development program with the goals of increasing self-esteem, enhancing social relationships with peers and adults, and supporting the development of healthy male identity. The program consists of two components: 1) boxing program and 2) group discussion. As many as 20 adolescent males would be served from three high schools in the city: Cabrillo High School, Jordan High School, and Polytechnic High School. </p><p> The program was developed to address the potential impact of growing up in economically disadvantaged and high-risk neighborhoods. Program goals will be achieved with a boxing program that includes post-training discussions. The integration of sports and group discussions will allow for an environment that can both support and empower adolescent males. Long Beach United Boxing Club, the program site, has a strong standing reputation of providing a safe and open environment in which youth can thrive. The Foundation for Global Sports Development was selected as the best potential funder because of its commitment to promoting the well-being of underserved youth. </p><p> If funded, this program would be a model upon which other programs could build. Combat sports involvement is an innovative and dynamic way to reach hard-to-engage youth and provide a supportive space in which they can thrive. The thesis project did not require the submission of the proposal.</p><p>