Whilst recent evidence suggests that the fifth ‘wave’ of global merger and acquisition (M&A) activity is coming to an abrupt end, the growth of M&A activity continued apace throughout the last decade of the twentieth century, with the year 2000 seeing an unprecedented US$3.5 trillion worth of deals worldwide (The Economist, January 25th 2001). Considering the monetary values involved, it is perhaps surprising that only around half of the combinations will deliver the value or savings upon which the deals are justified. Mergers and acquisitions can therefore be deemed extremely risky ventures. In response to this dilemma, this thesis brings together the fields of project risk management and mergers and acquisitions, an overlap that is particularly under-developed in the extant literature. Adopting a grounded theory approach (Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Strauss and Corbin, 1998), a four-year worldwide integration programme within a FTSE100 healthcare company was analysed. The research aimed to secure an understanding of the complex dynamics of human actions and interactions relating to the phenomena of risk management whilst developing scenarios during the post-merger and acquisition integration phase. Through the development of a substantive theory of ‘risk bartering’, the research has discovered that whilst operating within a ‘confidentiality bubble’, some individuals were using an (often unfounded) increase or decrease in potential risks for ulterior motives. Rather than, as is the case in contemporary project risk management, the scenarios being developed and then the risks being assessed, the risks were being used to develop and shape the final scenarios. As a result, risks were being transposed from the individual to the organisation. This central finding has the potential to adversely affect the risk efficiency of the organisation, especially where levels of risk management maturity (Hillson, 1997) are ‘naïve’ or ‘novice’. Recommendations are made to ring fence the level of risk bartering, with the view to striking a balance between gaining individual ownership of the resultant change programme and optimising the organisation’s risk efficiency, thereby increasing the chances of a successful integration.

Thesis (M.M.S.)--Victoria University of Wellington, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references.

Well into the 21st century strategic decisions remain at the forefront of organisational managerial activity. The ever increasing complexity and uncertainty of the modern world dictates the need for effective strategic decision making. In the attempt to pool together the necessary capabilities strategic decisions in large organisations take place in group settings thus bringing at the forefront the role of group decision making. Group decision making is fundamentally a communicative activity riddled with the intricate processes of negotiation. With negotiation comes conflict with group participants’ differences over perspectives and worldviews being viewed as the fundamental cause of it. Not all conflict is destructive. Benefits are also to be reaped if conflict is managed effectively. A number of techniques and methods have emerged in the field of the Management Sciences and Information Systems that intent to alleviate the destructive and promote the productive aspects of conflict. One technique that follows a rational approach to decision making and incorporates strong elements of facilitation and qualitative modelling has been termed as Facilitated Modelling (FM). The key distinction between FM and other approaches is the use of qualitative models as transitional objects argued to enhance the effectiveness of group conflict management. In the past two decades numerous calls for evaluating the impact FM models may have on conflict have been made with little to no response. This thesis is an exploratory attempt to offer partial insights and inform these calls. The theoretical perspective of Adaptive Structuration Theory acted as the under-bed guiding this exploration. The exploration adopted a multiple case study approach as the methodological avenue for collecting data. Interaction data derived from three workshops, during which strategic decisions were made, have been micro-coded and analysed using both statistical as well as flexible mapping techniques. The results revealed complex relationships between the manner in which the model is appropriated and the resulting conflict management processes. Specifically, findings indicate that when models are appropriated they will reduce the ineffective conflict management behaviours. The concept of Model Appropriations Complexity (MAC) has been introduced as a moderating variable between the model appropriations and conflict management effectiveness with the findings supporting a positive relationship between MAC and effective conflict management. Additional preliminary analyses indicate prior FM-related experience of group participants as another potential explanatory variable for future research to explore.

Existing research into leadership has relied on individualistic theories which do not provide a satisfactory understanding of the leadership process, particularly in organisations where focus has moved away from vertical, hierarchical leadership, towards more distributed or emergent models (Avery, 2004; Dess & Picken, 2000; Denis, Lamothe & Langley, 2001). It is assumed that individuals will emerge as leaders, and be viewed as effective, when they are rewarded as prototypical, or representative, of the group they are attempting to lead (Hogg, 2001b; Hogg & Terry, 2000), and when they exhibit stereotypical leadership behaviours (Lord, Brown, Harvey & Hall, 2001a; Offermann, Kennedy, & Wirtz, 1994). To date, research has assumed that the two identity concepts are compatible, with little consideration given to groups whose professional identity is dissonant with expected leadership stereotypes. The question therefore arises: how does professional identity influence ability of individuals to construct a leadership identity, when those identities are orthogonal? To address this research gap I focus on leadership in nursing, a profession who have traditionally been defined by their subordination to doctors (Abbott, 1988; Allen, 1997; Campbell-Heider & Pollock, 1987). Combining real-time participant observation of two leadership development programmes with over 60 hours of longitudinal semi-structured interviews from 32 participants, I provide new insights into the chronic identity conflicts encountered by subordinate professionals, and the identity work they use to overcome those conflicts. Drawing on my analysis I develop a typology of four resulting identity constructions, with differing levels of leadership influence and identity conflict. In doing so I illuminate the processes through which subordinate professionals mediate de-coupled identities, challenging the assumption that the existence of a group identity is always beneficial and complementary to leadership behaviours (Hogg, 2001a), and highlight an arena where it can actually be detrimental to the emergence of a leadership identity.

What are the benefits of involving decision makers in simulation model development? Do decision makers learn more about their problem if they are involved in model development than if they had been excluded? This thesis presents an experiment which compares decision maker learning outcomes and process in two different types of discrete-event simulation (DES) study. The first is a traditional simulation project where decision makers take the role of domain experts and are involved in the building of a simulation model through to its use. The second is where a model is reused rather than built. Sixty four undergraduate participants were individually involved in one of three experimental conditions: development of an A&E simulation model and its subsequent use; development of the same model, but with less time for model use; or were presented with the model already developed and asked to reuse it. Participants of each condition were then allowed to run the model, change variables and review results in an attempt to improve the performance of the system. Learning was measured at two levels: attitude change, to infer learning about a business problem, and transfer of learning, to infer a deeper learning. Results indicated that, firstly, model building aided participant's discovery of aspects of the problem that were previously unconsidered. However, attitudes about these novel aspects of the problem were only converted to transferable knowledge when experimentation was not limited. Secondly, participants that reused the model learnt about the model through quick cycles of experimentation followed by validation, although these tended to be focused on factors with which participants were most familiar. In fact, model reuse participants learnt more following this approach than by scrutinizing the results of each scenario in detail. Little empirical evidence exists to support the discussions and the view that involvement in model building aids learning. This thesis contributes to this debate by providing insight into the mechanisms that in uence learning. Moreover, results suggest that learning from experimentation when reusing a model is also valid, although the process followed may be different. Of course, there are limitations to the approach used to perform the comparison. For instance, the experiment uses novice decision makers and measures attitude immediately after the experiment. Refl ection on such points is used to aid the generation of testable hypotheses that can be explored in future research.

Non timber forest products are the neglected resource of Scotland’s woodlands, used by many, but with little provision in law, policy or management. Drawing on new research conducted in Scotland, and comparative studies in Finland, the Pacific Northwest USA and Canada, this thesis examines issues relating to the practice, politics and ecology of NTFPs. The methodological approaches used in the field research are set out in Chapter One. Chapters Two to Five explore the perspectives of stakeholder groups, who either use NTFPs directly or who influence the availability of resources and the ability of others to access them. The first of these groups is harvesters, with Chapter Two examining how issues of legal pluralism or the coexistence of both legal and customary rights for harvesting has resulted in the dominance of common practice over management and policy. Chapter Three discusses buying and processing activity, focussing on its contribution to both livelihood and lifestyle and its position ‘somewhere in between’ commercial and non-commercial benefit. The influence of land managers is examined in Chapter Four, reviewing the contrast between the privileged knowledge that enables harvesters to use resources, and the reliance on professionalised knowledge that renders land managers comparatively powerless. In Chapter Five the influence of organisations is explored, particularly in relation to the difficulty of accommodating the interests of such disparate groups without formal channels for representation. The thesis concludes by addressing policy and management concerns, both practical and ideological, and considering mechanisms for the management of NTFPs as a resource. It demands that ethical questions over benefits, values and rights be addressed, as well as issues surrounding sustainability and resource use. The conclusion seeks to present a new system for the self-governance of NTFP resources by the stakeholders themselves.

This study investigates the relationship (or correlation) between the performance of employees and their remuneration in the United Kindgom (UK) food industry. Within the study, remuneration systems which involve a correlation between the performance of employees and their remuneration are referred to as Performance Related Remuneration (PRR). Since the early 1980's, the use of performance based remuneration within UK organisations has increased to a level never witnessed before. Such remuneration systems have generally been employed as part of a wider management strategy to improve employee and organisational performance. In the companies of the 1990's, it has become `normal' to find part of the total remuneration package tied to individual, group or organisational performance. There are many systems of PRR in use in the 1990's and these include various forms of merit pay, profit related pay, payment by results, commission, profit sharing and employee share ownership plans. This thesis is motivated by the increasing use of performance based remuneration systems and focuses on the use of such systems within one specific industry - the UK food industry. The aim of the thesis is to identify trends relating to the use of PRR within the industry and in particular examine the extent to which PRR is used, why such systems are used, the various systems in operation, and the way in which the various systems are implemented and managed. The first part of the thesis contains a substantive literature review which examines several important aspects of PRR. The remainder of the thesis is concerned with the data gathered on the use of PRR within the UK food industry.

This study explores the phenomenon of the social construction of IS investment evaluation in the financial services industry. The extensive literature on information systems (IS) evaluation stretches back more than thirty years and it is widely agreed that IS evaluation is an important and complex issue. Constructivist evaluation, which serves to develop the interpretivist strand of the literature, concentrates on the notion that evaluations are the outcomes of an interaction and argumentation process between various interested parties. The purpose of this research is to shed further light on the IS investment evaluation area. Explaining the practice of IS evaluation within the dynamic and technologically sophisticated financial services industry would benefit academics and financial services firms alike. This context is relatively neglected in the existing literature. The chosen case study reflects the demands in the financial services industry to upgrade their infrastructure in order to manage an ever increasing number of transactions, as well as increased regulation. The fieldwork produced extensive data concerning traditional trading, brokerage, high frequency algorithmic trading and transaction clearing. The rapid rise of derivative transactions during the last few years caused problems in terms of clearing and managing the transactions. At the same time, hedge funds‘ growing demand for low latency execution services and changes in regulations increased, pressuring firms in the industry to invest heavily. Actor-network theory (ANT) is used in order to describe and explain the formation of networks between human and non-human actors. The theory‘s specific vocabulary allows IS evaluation to be seen in a new light and the study uses ANT analysis to produce insight into the longstanding problem of IS evaluation, human and non-human interactions and roles within the context if IT investment appraisal. Building on ANT, this thesis is an in-depth case study of the employment process of an IT evaluation method at a global financial services company.

Although much has been written about knowledge management and information systems, there is little empirical evidence of their actual effect on organisational performance and their interrelationship. Aiming at addressing this gap, this thesis investigates the relationships between knowledge management capabilities, information and communication technologies (ICT) capabilities and organizational performance in SMEs. Drawing mainly on the knowledge-based view (KBV) theory, this study suggests that knowledge management capabilities and ICT capabilities are potential sources of competitive advantage and, thus, those firms possessing these capabilities will achieve superior organisational performance. Building upon the KBV and other complementary theories such as the dynamic capabilities and evolutionary theories, a conceptual model is developed, which a range of research questions and hypotheses emerge from. These hypotheses are tested on a sample of 159 manufacturer SMEs within the mechanical engineering sector and located in the UK, using diverse statistical techniques. The results suggest that knowledge management capabilities have a significant and positive impact on innovation, responsiveness and adaptability, while they barely influence results such as success, market share, growth and profitability. On the other hand, both human and technical capabilities regarding ICT have an impact on all types of performance indicators. Interrelationships between knowledge management and ICT capabilities are found, supporting the idea of capabilities complementarity. The level of turbulence which firms undergo has also been found an important influence on innovation, responsiveness and adaptability. Based on these findings, practitioners and policy makers are given advice about which aspects they should focus on, in order to implement knowledge management practices and manage ICT successfully.

Performance improvement is an activity that all organisations must undertake to gain competitive advantage or simplify to maintain parity with the progress of competitors. Such improvement efforts are frequently undertaken in an ad-hoc manner. These are usually ineffective, with projects failing to improve the aspects of the organisation that deliver customer value, and inefficient with resources being wasted. In response to this situation a methodology was developed to aid business processes diagnosis and to design appropriate improvement projects that possess the potential to deliver exceptional improvement. The methodology was designed using time as the key performance metric for analysing business processes and practices. The time-based approach makes the methodology powerful yet simple. The simplicity enable users from within a company to adopt and apply the methodology, a feature that gives the methodology considerable strength. Applications of the methodology in twenty-five organisations found it effective in providing insightful analysis and designing solutions that, when implemented, led to significant performance improvements. The methodology demonstrated a high level of generality, having been applied in organisations as diverse as multinational corporations and Small and Medium sized Enterprises, SMEs, across both manufacturing and service business sectors. Application of the methodology uncovered the need to find better approaches to supply chain modelling and to managing programmes of performance improvement projects. In response, two new techniques were developed and validated. The first was the Time-based Supply Model. This device models the effectiveness of the processes that thread together supply networks using time as the key performance measure. The second was a structured idea-management system for performance improvement projects that uses a stage-gate approach to programme management. Combining this approach with the time-based methodology produced the Performance Improvement Model. This device provides a structure for managing the strategic direction and resource allocation of multiple performance improvement projects.