Thesis (Master of Military Art and Science)--U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 2006.

According to the predominant image, applied science is a linear, sequential process, the application of science. First scientists or applied scientists develop knowledge that satisfies the epistemic criteria of science, and applied scientists then find ways to use this certified knowledge to solve society's problems. There is, therefore, a sharp distinction between epistemic or scientific criteria and social criteria. The historical development of the applied ecological discipline called range science or range management demonstrates instead that applied science is a simultaneous process. Range science developed at a time when America increasingly looked to science to solve social, political, and economic problems in the hope that science's ability to predict could provide the basis for organization and rational management. The institutionalization of range science industrialized ranching. Ranchers appealed to a variety of traditional American values in response to this industrialization, but in the new context surrounding ranching those values had become illegitimate. From the outset, range science acquired a dual orientation toward both the epistemic criteria of science and the social criteria of society. That dual orientation introduced a tension into range science because it was not obvious how range scientists should satisfy both sets of criteria simultaneously. Researchers in different institutional contexts developed distinct resolutions to that tension. The most significant difference between the institutions were their political objectives and a difference in the power relations between range researchers and their audiences. Those institutional contexts defined the social criteria and provided the background to judge the acceptability of particular resolutions of the tension, in the process providing the motivation and justification for range science. Nevertheless, range science was not just politics by another means because range scientists also satisfied the epistemic criteria of science. The distinction between epistemic and social criteria therefore did not exist in the historical development of range science because range scientists simultaneously satisfied the epistemic criteria of science and the social criteria that flowed from different political objectives and different power relations between researchers and ranchers. / Ph. D.

POD (Point of Dispensing)-based emergency response plans involving mass prophylaxis may seem feasible when considering the choice of dispensing points within a region, overall population density, and estimated traffic demands. However, the plan may fail to serve particular vulnerable sub-populations, resulting in access disparities during emergency response. Federal authorities emphasize on the need to identify sub-populations that cannot avail regular services during an emergency due to their special needs to ensure effective response. Vulnerable individuals require the targeted allocation of appropriate resources to serve their special needs. Devising schemes to address the needs of vulnerable sub-populations is essential for the effectiveness of response plans. This research focuses on data-driven computational methods to quantify and address vulnerabilities in response plans that require the allocation of targeted resources. Data-driven methods to identify and quantify vulnerabilities in response plans are developed as part of this research. Addressing vulnerabilities requires the targeted allocation of appropriate resources to PODs. The problem of resource allocation to PODs during public health emergencies is introduced and the variants of the resource allocation problem such as the spatial allocation, spatio-temporal allocation and optimal resource subset variants are formulated. Generating optimal resource allocation and scheduling solutions can be computationally hard problems. The application of metaheuristic techniques to find near-optimal solutions to the resource allocation problem in response plans is investigated. A vulnerability analysis and resource allocation framework that facilitates the demographic analysis of population data in the context of response plans, and the optimal allocation of resources with respect to the analysis are described.

The purposes of the study were to (1) investigate similarities and differences in household production of men and women in Finland and the United States, and (2) develop and test a structural equation model of socioeconomic factors (age, education, employment and family situation) for household production across countries and across sexes. The results indicate that (a) total household production of Finnish men is only slightly more than that of U.S. men (7 minutes); (b) total household production of U.S. women (417 minutes) is noticeably more than that of Finnish women (323 minutes; (c) equality ratios strongly suggest differences at almost all employment levels being smaller in Finland than in the United States and indicate that men contribute less time to household production; (d) socioeconomic variables explain a modest amount (3-5 percent) of men's household production but a substantial amount (21-23 percent) of women's household production; (e) the fit of the structural model across sexes and across cultures is significant, i.e., the variables explained similarly the causal effects for household production over groups. The results have implications for further development of cross-national time-use research tools and methods; for the development of a theoretical framework that includes both quantitative and qualitative factors related to sex role behavior in household production; and for the need to design separate models for the study of men and women. Data supported the conclusion that women in both countries still contribute the most time to household production. / Ph. D.

This is a historical study of the intersection of political economy with natural resources management, as played out on the national forests between 1945-1991. Specifically, it focuses on two core national forest management policies; sustained yield and multiple use. These two policy directives represent an attempt by the public and elected officials to apply principles of sustainable development to publicly-owned forest lands, and to ensure that a wide variety of both market and nonmarket forest values are preserved for the benefit of present and future generations. Interest groups, the Forest Service, and policy makers have conceived of sustained yield and multiple use in different and evolving ways over the years. This study explores how these principles have been variously defined and either implemented or thwarted. After World War Two, with escalating demands on national forest resources, the U.S. Forest Service turned to "intensive management" as a technological method of enhancing natural forest productivity and mitigating the environmental effects of increased use. But the agency's optimistic vision of efficient, sustained production of forest commodities through technical mastery over nature has met overwhelming fiscal, environmental, technical, and political obstacles. Nevertheless, agency leaders, industry advocates, and politicians have consistently promulgated an optimistic faith that intensive applications of labor, capital, and technology can maximize and harmonize multiple uses, rehabilitate damaged resources, and sustain high levels of outputs in perpetuity--despite repeated failures to achieve balanced multiple use management and to manage grazing and timber extraction at sustainable levels. The conspiracy of optimism ideologically justifies continued unsustainably high levels of resource extraction. Changing public values since the 1960s and the popularization of ecology have initiated a growing skepticism toward the premises of intensive management. At the same time, field level forest managers have grown frustrated with top-down imposition of resource production quotas and the lack of adequate political, fiscal, and organizational support for sound forest management. As the last old growth forests fall to the chainsaw, and as the federal subsidies required to access these remote timber stands on the national forests escalate, public controversy deepens. In this decade of the national forest centennial a revolt of conscience has erupted among grassroots Forest Service personnel, and a strong challenge from the environmental community has gained momentum. Another major period of policy evaluation and revision appears to be taking place. Whether the conspiracy of optimism can continue to sustain the old status quo is questionable.

This study investigated the current practices of strategic human resources planning (SHRP) at large industrial and service companies in the United States and compared these practices with Walker's Four Stages of Human Resources planning model. The data for this study were collected from 130 industrial companies and 117 service companies listed in Fortune directories of the largest 500 industrial and largest 500 service companies in the United States. The study investigated also the impact of internal and external environmental factors on these companies' practices of SHRP. MANOVA, Factor Analysis, and Percentile Analysis were used as prime statistical methods in this study. Environmental factors studied were found to explain 78 per cent of the variances among large American companies. No significant difference was found between industrial and service companies in their SHRP practices. Significant improvements have taken place in large United States business corporations' practices of SHRP since the introduction of Walker's model (1974). These improvements took place in human resources information systems, forecasting human resource needs, human resource planning and development, and evaluation of SHRP projects, but the improvements were unbalanced. The improvements in corporate-centered SHRP activities were greater than the improvements in employee-centered SHRP activities. The reasons for unbalanced developments were explained and future directions were predicted. The findings of this study were compared to the findings of many recent studies in SHRP fields and future directions of the developments of SHRP were discussed. The conclusions of this study suggested that United States corporations are in need of balanced development in both employee-centered and corporate-centered SHRP. American companies are in need of advanced models to shape their practice in SHRP fields. Walker's model has been evaluated as the best available model. The study showed that mediumsized companies in the United States will benefit from SHRP and that they are able to pay the cost of SHRP projects. Several implications and recommendations for future studies and for business and educational institutions are listed.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Science, Technology and Society, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (295-338). / In this dissertation, I trace methods for organizing skilled workers engaged in creative, limited-term projects in the United States between the nineteenth century and the 1950s. Examining eras of system building in technical fields-civil engineering in the nineteenth century, laboratory administration in the 1910s and 1920s, aircraft design in the 1930s, and electronics in the 1950s-I show that recent discourse on the management of innovation and change is a manifestation of a cyclically recurring conversation. This story complicates prevalent views of management theory and practice before World War II by recovering a thread obscured by emphasis on the organization of integrated, divisional companies and operative labor within them. Applying ideas from recent work in organization studies to distill common aspects of the management problems and labor processes individuals have confronted and theorized, I find common patterns: managers of construction firms, engineering departments, and research laboratories have again and again theorized the fast-moving, knowledge-intensive, relational organization, doing so long before these terms were available. Such thinking has been driven both by practical needs and because external pressures have forced explanation of seemingly uncontrolled, irrational work. Practically, the transferability of management techniques among settings such as construction and research has reflected kinships between labor and communication processes: each has involved skilled workers producing complex artifacts in uncertain physical, technical, and social environments. / (cont.) The need to explain such work, though, has been as much about external representation as internal control. From origins in government oversight of appropriations and military use of esprit de corps to cohere organizations under stress, tools used to manage project-based enterprises have been applied in response to the speed, scale, and complexity of the work itself. At the same time, engineers have explained the management of their work to deflect pressures to apply the logics of factory production and Taylorist scientific management to the organization of skilled labor. As explanations of the differences between building and operating and as delineations of points and terms of physical and cultural contact, representations of engineering work in schedules, budgets, organization charts, and narratives have both controlled and insulated work. / by Benjamin W. Pinney. / Ph.D.

by Leung Man-Wai, Dannie. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 68-70). / ABSTRACT --- p.i / TABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.ii / Chapter / Chapter I. --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Chapter II. --- METHODOLOGY --- p.5 / Chapter III. --- LITERATURE REVIEW --- p.7 / Reengineering --- p.7 / What is Reengineering? --- p.7 / Approaches to Reengineering --- p.10 / The Role of Management in Reengineering --- p.11 / Why Reengineering Project Failed and Succeeded? --- p.13 / Relationship Between Reengineering and Information Technology --- p.14 / Human Dimensions in Reengineering --- p.16 / The Concept of Selling Chain Management --- p.18 / Chapter IV. --- REENGINEERING THE SELLING CHAIN AT DATA GENERAL CORPORATION --- p.20 / Company Background --- p.20 / Call to Action --- p.21 / The Reengineering Competency Group --- p.22 / Reengineer the Selling Chain --- p.24 / Problems Before Reengineering --- p.24 / Three Phases of Reengineering --- p.27 / Redesign Concepts Applied --- p.37 / The Lessons Learnt --- p.38 / The Reengineered Data General --- p.42 / Critical Success Factors of Data General Reengineering --- p.42 / Chapter V. --- TECHNOLOGY-ENABLED SELLING --- p.45 / Aligning Technology-Enabled Selling with Selling Chain Management --- p.45 / What Is Technology-Enabled Selling? --- p.46 / The Impact of the Sales Organization on SCM --- p.46 / A Transition in Customer Relationships --- p.47 / Moving the Decision Point --- p.47 / Fact-Based Presentation --- p.48 / Optimizing the Selling Chain and Maximizing Profit --- p.49 / The Building Blocks of Technology-Enabled Selling --- p.49 / Opportunity Management System --- p.49 / Marketing Information System --- p.50 / Sales Configuration System --- p.51 / Sales Order Management System --- p.53 / The Interactive Selling System --- p.53 / Which Building Block Should be Implemented First? --- p.54 / Leveraging the Benefits of Technology-Enabled Selling --- p.55 / Avoiding the Cost-Reduction Pitfall --- p.55 / Understand the Market Force --- p.56 / Demonstrating Customer Value --- p.57 / Selling Models Consideration --- p.58 / Chapter VI. --- REDESIGNING DATA GENERAL'S SELLING CHAIN IN ASIA --- p.62 / Chapter VII. --- CONCLUSION --- p.67 / BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.68

The "global marketplace" has been a driving force for change, resulting in a dramatic increase in competition and expectations of consumers. With more mailing options available, consumers are scrutinizing service and cost performance at a level never-before experienced by the United States Postal Service. For an organization that has operated as a relatively stable government agency for 224 years, the environmental changes are severe, and necessitating the need for change. This thesis studied the impact of a management intervention on performance at a USPS processing and distribution center. The intervention installed a performance measurement system. A quasi-experimental methodology utilizing a nonequivalent comparison group was utilized to evaluate the impact of this intervention on both management process variables and operational performance indicators. The framework for the management process variables originated from the sociotechnical literature. There was evidence to support that operational performance improved and several process management variables changed following the intervention. / Graduation date: 1999

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