Many management studies report poor implementation of organisational strategy into practice (Yukl and Lepsinger, 2007; Li et al., 2008) and the absence within the literature of the question of how to translate strategy into effective practice provides the encouragement for this study. There are suggestions that by adopting a project management approach, organisations can better implement their overall strategies, meaning that what they do is properly and totally aligned with their goals (Pellegrinelli and Bowman, 1994). However, recent studies have concluded that project management makes little contribution to the achievement of organisational objectives, and possibly causes failure in this respect (Young and Grant, 2014). That said, Young and Grant (2014) have not provided any detailed information on the reason for such failure. At the same time, some management studies have revealed a number of challenges that confront organisations when approaching strategy implementation. Given these observations, this study aims to explore how organisations in Saudi Arabia are practising project management. It does so by adopting a qualitative method, involving thirty (30) face-to-face semi-structured and unstructured interviews undertaken in two phases with five organisations from the banking, property development, and higher education sectors. Two exploratory case studies (IT and Construction) were used to investigate the translation challenges in respect of strategy and project management implementation. From these, the study has identified a number of challenges confronting the participating organisations, and shows these challenges to be inter-related. Furthermore, it arrives at an understanding of why these challenges arise by investigating how the practice has been translated in these organisations. The tools and materials which resulted as objects from the translation are used to establish common knowledge, but are insufficient to create a clear view of the strategy within the participating organisations. Three main challengers related directly to the translation of project management practice emerged, namely: change, individual influences, and the role of the objects. The study makes several recommendations to improve the translation concept so that strategy implementation and overall project management practice can be enhanced. Additionally, it makes recommendations for further research to continue the efforts in this field of enquiry.

The proposed research aspires to provide new insight on issues of applied Roadmapping and advance the state of the art in Roadmapping and its practice. It provides a conceptual model and an integrated process framework for the development of a Third Generation, Meso-level, Co-innovation Dynamic Roadmapping (from now on called ‘Dynamic Roadmapping’), which integrates policy, research, industry, and organisational roadmapping methodologies, in order to manage the development and adoption of systemic innovations in complex domains. It has been developed to meet the needs of increasingly complex systemic innovations where multiple organisations are involved as co-innovators and many other intermediaries and decision makers need to be included in the innovation adoption process. These types of innovations are usually driven by the interplay of multi-dimensional and cross-impacting factors derived from changes in social, market, economic, political and technology systems. Thus, the ‘Dynamic Roadmapping’ does not presuppose a single desired future for complex domains, but several futures, based on the complementary strategic perspectives of inter-dependent stakeholders, which need to be contextualised and negotiated at various sectoral, national and regional levels in order to be adopted. The ‘Dynamic Roadmapping’ approach supports the achievement of the realisation of the desired futures through two main components: a ‘co-innovation group’ and an ‘observatory function’. The co-innovation group is formed from all the necessary co-innovators, adopters, decision makers and users that are needed in order for the innovations to be developed and adopted. Their function is predominately ‘normative’ describing “what they want to happen” and “how” it will happen. The observatory function provides foresight and sense making methodologies to the co-innovation group, in order to constantly review and adapt their roadmaps in light of the emerging changes that can impact the roadmaps’ realisation and adoption. A conceptual model and its theoretical grounding have been built in order to bridge support for roadmapping activities among different innovative communities (e.g. in policy, research, industry and practice) and foster their collaboration via stakeholders’ innovation networks. The proposed conceptual model and its process framework have been evaluated in a case study in order to establish its validity in the European context and provide implications to theory and practice. A pilot of this framework is first implemented for the area of Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL). The impact of this research is: - Managing uncertainty in Future planning - Managing and implementing emergent Roadmaps for systemic innovations - Monitoring and adapt the produced Roadmaps according to change factors in emerging reality - Ensure their adoption in complex domain This research work has been funded by an EU Marie-Curry Fellowship grant via the DYRECT project no. 255182. The proposed integrated framework has been adopted by the EU TEL-Map project (in education sector) and EU CRe-AM project (in creative industry sector). It has been documented in many European project deliverables as well as in international conference papers, and in journal papers.

A large number of studies suggest that the content of strategy becomes more multifaceted and elaborate and characterised by progressive development over time. Recently, a growing number of researchers argue that strategy can become simple, stable and inert over time. This study investigates how changes of sociocognitive processes at individual, group and organisational levels influence organisational processes and strategic decisions. It adopts configurational approach to strategy development and its concepts (configurations, transformations, archetypes) as a framework. Thus, the purpose is to provide a characterisation of strategy development by analysing the integration of four key research dimensions (social, cognitive, organisational performance and contextual) into one coherent theoretical structure - the model of organisational archetypes. This four-dimensional model is developed from the analysis of fifty one Ukrainian organisations using quantitative and qualitative research methods (questionnaire, interview and group interview) according to the logical structure of configurational research (modelling the sociocognitive basis, modelling the "fit between research dimensions and modelling configurations and archetypes). Following on from this, the model of organisational archetypes is validated in four other organisations through the development of a test of organisational internal creative environment in order to identify their configurations (current conditions) and archetypes (strategic perspectives). The procedure of this test includes the following sequence of actions: identifying sociocognitive characteristics of organisational members and the organisational internal creative environment, identifying periods of transformation and configuration in the process of organisational development, researching characteristics of the business-environment, and identifying appropriate organisational archetypes. The model of organisational archetypes developed in this thesis allows the identification of current and prospective organisational conditions and making relevant strategic decisions that reflect and anticipate changes in organisational internal and external environments. Thus, changes in the organisational internal creative environment (sociocognitive characteristics of organisational members) reflect changes in the business-environment and organisational performance and transform the characteristics of strategic decisions from multifaceted and elaborate to simple and inert and vice versa.

Originating in, and framed by, warfare, the term strategic management first appeared in the business literature in the 1950s (Carter et al., 2008). The term then started to gain more importance as organisations’ needs for implementing strategic changes increased significantly. Despite this importance, the concept is still considered to be under-developed, with complications arising from a wide variety of disciplines. In the early literature two major schools of thought could be identified: Porter’s economic deliberate content (Porter, 1979), and Mintzberg’s emergent process view (Mintzberg, 1979). The literature has shown that the majority of studies have mainly focused on large organisations, taking the traditional Porter’s content approach. However, relatively few cases have considered smaller organisations and/or explored cases from the contemporary process view, which is considered more realistic in today’s dynamic world, where extra flexibility and speed are paramount. This thesis builds on the work of Pettigrew (1987), who viewed strategy implementation (SI) as a process. His work is extensively analysed and some recommendations are made to strengthen his ‘Triangle Model’. These recommendations allow for the development of a primitive framework for SI. The framework provides a deeper understanding of contemporary SMEs and their surrounding contexts, and can be useful for future exploratory studies of undiscovered contexts and/or for organisations of differing sizes. The paucity of research on SI in SMEs in general, and particularly in the non-Western context (e.g. Middle East, and Gulf Cooperation Council), is the major motivation for this research adopting an interpretive, qualitative and exploratory approach. Using inductive semi-structured interviews, data have been collected on the SI process of SMEs in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). SMEs represent 96% of the country’s enterprises and contribute to almost one third of the national economic activity (Bokhari, 2013). Their development is a major concern of the Saudi government, which aims to reduce the dependency on the oil sector (Bokhari, 2013; Sfakianakis, 2014; McKinsey Global Institute, 2015). In addition, SMEs have the potential to contribute to reducing the accelerating unemployment rate among the ever increasing youth population (Bokhari, 2013).Theoretically, this thesis contributes to a deeper understanding of SI and its enablers/ barriers in the SME sector. Following the approach suggested by Stacey (1996a), Mintzberg et al. (1998), and Okumus (2001), this research provides a more holistic understanding of the SI process. It sheds light on the individual dynamics of strategy implementation, as well as the organisational and external environment perspectives. By exploring these factors over the longitudinal process of SI (including initiation, process, and outcome), this research contributes a SI framework based on Mintzberg’s (1979) and Pettigrew’s (1985a) emerging process view. In so doing, this research adds to the SI process literature at the individual level, as an epistemological tool, and does so in order to consider the dynamic nature of SMEs and the impact that non-controllable events have on their daily routines, on ontological ground (Hart, 1992). At the methodological level, evidence from multiple cases in different Saudi industries is provided, reflecting a developing country context, rather than the dominant Western views (Okumus, 2003; Van der Maas, 2008). From the empirical research, lessons are identified to inform owners of SMEs, policy makers and future research.

Please read the abstract in the section 00front of this document. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Human Resource Management / unrestricted

The previous research has illustrated that knowledge management (KM) is an important source of a competitive advantage, and there is a relationship between organizational culture and knowledge management. This dissertation extends the concept from knowledge management to knowledge business (k-business), and explores the relationship between organizational culture and KM strategies. This research intends to determine: Can k-business transform an organization? What are the antecedents that affect the choice of codification and personalization strategies? A survey containing four instruments was used: Cameron & Quinn's (1999) OCAI, Lawson's (2002) KMAI, Choi & Lee (2003)'s Knowledge Management Strategy Instrument, and Skyrme's (2001) K-Business Readiness Instrument. The survey link was forwarded to the companies who have been acknowledged for their knowledge management achievement by KMWorld; a total of 193 complete responses were analyzed. The results revealed that k-business can create a competitive advantage for organizations; different culture types can be the antecedent of different types of KM strategy. Clan culture is positively related to personalization strategy; significant association exists between hierarchy culture and codification strategy; and there is a significant correlation between adhocracy culture and personalization strategy. Market culture does not significantly affect knowledge management strategies.

This diploma thesis deals with human resources management in a selected company with an emphasis on revealing deficiencies in the analyzed area of management and suggesting possible improvements. The main objective of the thesis is to analyze human resources management in a particular company, to reveal the strengths and weaknesses of this system and then to propose real improvements. The subject of this diploma thesis is the human resource management system of selected company. The object of the research is an anonymous company. The diploma thesis is divided into three main parts. In the first part of the thesis based on the theoretical backgrounds in human resources management and personnel management the basic concepts were formulated and defined as the main pillars of the research. The second analytical part is devoted to the results of research conducted in the company and, in particular, to direct interviewing methods through structured interviews, questionnaires and workshop prepared with external company. The third, final part brings suggestions and therefore presents the strengths and weaknesses of the human resources management system described in the previous section and provides recommendations on how to improve it. At the end of the thesis, the most important research findings are presented.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・論文博士 / 博士(情報学) / 乙第12942号 / 論情博第91号 / 新制||情||102(附属図書館) / 32152 / (主査)教授 林 春男, 教授 田中 克己, 教授 牧 紀男 / 学位規則第4条第2項該当 / Doctor of Informatics / Kyoto University / DFAM

This thesis proposes a novel framework for solving the energy management problem of Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs). We aim to establish a practical and effective approach targeting an optimal Energy Management Strategy (EMS). A situation-specific Equivalent Consumption Minimization Strategy (ECMS) is developed to minimize fuel consumption and improve battery charge sustainability while maintaining an acceptable drive quality. The investigated methodology will be broadly applicable to all HEV applications; however, it will be well-suited for hybrid electric delivery applications. / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

Personal vehicles have made great contributions to our life and satisfy our daily mobility needs. However, they have also caused societal issues, such as air pollution and global warming. Further to the recent attention to low-carbon energy technologies and environmentally friendly mobility, hybrid electric vehicles play an important role in the current automotive industry. As a leading center and an educational institution in Canada, McMaster University wants to build a Hybrid Electric Vehicle Powertrain Laboratory for introducing undergraduate students to hybrid powertrain architectures, instrumentation and control. A phased development of the hybrid powertrain teaching laboratory is being pursued. The first phase is to design a electric motor laboratory, as a platform for demonstrating motor characteristics. A LabVIEW based interface is designed to enable electric motor characterization tests. This laboratory set-up is still under construction. Real experiments would be implemented, once finishing the utility connections. For the hybrid powertrain laboratory, an innovative design architecture is proposed to enable different hybrid architectures, such as series, parallel, and power-split modes to be investigated. Instead of a planetary gearbox, bevel gearboxes with a continuous variable transmission (CVT) are used for making the laboratory more compact and flexible for demonstrating hybrid functionalities. The additional generator provides the ability of input power-split for allowing the engine to operate at a narrow high efficiency region. After designing the hybrid laboratory, a novel rule-based energy management strategy is applied to a simplified simulation model. / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc)