Problem definition and methodological approach Companies seek the highest possible level of performance and competitiveness. In order to reach this goal, the company's location has to provide a number of so called location factors to offer the optimal business environment. Traditionally, this includes numerous criteria (e.g. traffic connection, markets for labour, sales and education) that are important for the individual economic success of an enterprise. Accordingly, there is a catalogue of various location factors that determines new companies' choice of and established businesses' satisfaction with their location. As legal requirements force the companies to interact with the local public administration concerning enquiries, applications and permits, the municipal administration also seems to influence the choice. Accordingly, the study addresses the question whether the public administration needs to be included as an independent key element in the theoretical discourse of local factors. To do so, the relevance of municipal administration is explored from the companies' perspective. In addition, the analysis questions the influence of local business development agencies on the location satisfaction. Besides the theoretical discussion of aspects of both administration science and economic geography, the analysis primarily includes a survey of municipal administrations, companies and local business development agencies and is thus incorporates multiple perspectives. The chosen methodological approach uses a mixed methods design in which qualitative and quantitative survey methods are connected in several ways and are also partly recursively. The research objectives are a theoretical description of the municipal administration as a local factor on the one hand and the presentation of practical approaches to improve the mentioned local factors by optimizing administrative services on the other hand. Theoretical foundations and insights An introductory discussion will illuminate the interdisciplinary background of the research in administration science and geography in order to define the problem in terms of the theory. A brief historic outline will then show that the importance of public administration for companies' location decisions has been sufficiently acknowledged by neither administration science nor geography. The theoretical approaches of New Economic Geography and New Public Management reveal that the nature of the interaction at a location is gaining importance. Thus, it becomes clear that the public administration is currently transforming into a service provider for companies. This move is also characterized by a growing “entitlement mentality” within the companies that now expect better service quality from administration. Numerous determinants of social and economic development such as globalisation, municipal financial crisis and administrative integration, just to name a few, reinforce this transformation. It will be shown that this development influences the location choice made by companies and is thus also affecting aspects of companies' location satisfaction concerning municipal administration. Empirical analyses The empirical analyses take up the implications of the theoretical considerations and look at the relevance of municipal administration and business development services for location decisions. In order to do so, the employees of communal services as well as the companies have been polled in contrasting surveys. The analyses point out that municipal administration service has a high relevance for location satisfaction but nonetheless does not meet the companies' requirements. Furthermore, there is the realistic danger of companies relocating due to constant insufficient administrative service, which would imply loss of workplaces and falling tax revenue for the municipality. Formative features of the administration as a local factor are several service criteria concerning administrative procedures. Of highest importance is the processing time of enquiries and applications. This point is even more important to the companies than the legal reliability of the information provided. The empirical results furthermore prove an overall transformation of the companies' “entitlement mentality” towards the local administration. The authorities' employees are very well aware of their importance but not of the negative ratings given by the local companies. Even though both parties describe similar quality expectations for administrative procedures, the administration employees are not able to provide the best possible service due to internal processing problems or legal barriers. Local business development agencies and their services are in a similar situation. Assessment of the relevance of local business development varies, but the overall rating is rather low. The companies wish the institutions to have more power to enforce processes within authorities as well as to offer a bundling of procedures. Conclusions for theory and practice Concerning the theoretical discourse, these results mean an inevitable modification and extension of the classic local factors model to include the influence of municipal administration as a separate factor. For questions of practical administration, the results show that reliable quality criteria are essential for the optimal location satisfaction of companies. To meet these service demands, changes in process management and bundling of procedures at key positions such as entrepreneurial service agencies have proved as suitable measures for a modernization of administration. Nevertheless, considering the increasing virtualization of service processes in public administration, it remains uncertain in what way the local significance of municipal administration services will develop in future.

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Purpose – The aim of this thesis is to explore the possibility of text mining social media, for consumer insights from an organizational perspective. Design/methodology/approach – An exploratory, single case embedded case study with inductive approach and partially mixed, concurrent, dominant status mixed method research design. The case study contains three different studies to try to triangulate the research findings and support research objective of using social media for consumer insights for new products, new ideas and helping research and development process of any organization. Findings – Text mining is a useful, novel, flexible and an unobtrusive method to harness the hidden information in social media. By text-mining social media, an organization can find consumer insights from a large data set and this initiative requires an understanding of social media and its building blocks. In addition, a consumer focused product development approach not only drives social media mining but also enriched by using consumer insights from social media. Research limitations/implications – Text mining is a relatively new subject and focus on developing better analytical tool kits would promote the use of this novel method. The researchers in the field of consumer driven new product development can use social media as additional evidence in their research. Practical implications – The consumer insights gained from the text mining of social media within a workable ethical policy are positive implications for any organization. Unlike conventional marketing research methods text mining is social media is cost and time effective. Originality/value –This thesis attempts to use innovatively text-mining tools, which appear, in the field of computer sciences to mine social media for gaining better understanding of consumers thereby enriching the field of marketing research, a cross-industry effort. The ability of consumers to spread the electronic word of mouth (eWOM) using social media is no secret and organizations should now consider social media as a source to supplement if not replace the insights captured using conventional marketing research methods. Keywords – Social media, Web 2.0, Consumer generated content, Text mining, Mixed methods design, Consumer insights, Marketing research, Case study, Analytic coding, Hermeneutics, Asynchronous, Emergent strategy Paper type Master Thesis

Family language policy (FLP) focusses on how languages are dealt with within the home; typically how languages are used and how they are maintained or promoted by family members. The present study investigates families living in the UK, where one parent is a native English speaker, and the other a native speaker of another language, the minority language. By use of a mixed-methods design, utilising questionnaires, interviews and logs, this paper answers the questions: what are the reported language practices of children and parents in bi- or multilingual families, what ideologies about FLP do parents in these families possess and what strategies do families reportedly employ in their homes. Through a nexus analysis approach, the paper establishes connections between the historical bodies, the interaction orders and the DIP of the families in order to account for their language behaviours in the home. The nexus analysis suggests that although parents show positive attitudes towards minority language use, it is the macro-level societal factors that are most powerful in determining language use within the home. That is, space plays an important role in choice of language practices. This finding suggests that children need more minority language exposure outside the home, therefore this paper suggests that the UK government could promote and encourage minority language maintenance through the implementation of language policy.

Design idea generation is a significant part of the designer’s work and most frequently associated with creative problem-solving. However, an outstanding challenge in design is translating empirical findings or other inspirational sources into ideas or knowledge that inform design, also known as generating implications for design. Though great efforts have been made to bridge this gap, there is still no overall consensus on how to appropriately incorporate research data and external sources into the design ideas generation process. Besides, design ideas generation is a process that is rooted in personal knowledge. It is often considered a precedent-based type of reasoning where knowledge is continuously transformed to frame new insights and this creative leap across the divide is perceived to be difficult, especially for novice and student designers. Based on the grounded theory, the author conducted open-ended, semi-structured qualitative interviews with eighteen designers, including design professors, practitioners and students to learn about the knowledge on how the contemporary designers select inspirational sources and transform them into ideas with appropriate methods in different contexts, the design mindset involved during the iterative and generative ideation process, and the criteria of evaluating design ideas. The results indicated seven commonly used categories of sources: ‘personal,’ ‘daily stuff,’ ’media,’ ‘technology,’ ‘knowledge of other disciplines,’ ‘fieldwork’ and ‘design practice.’ The methods could be allocated to three stages: investigation, analysis and synthesis. In each specific phase, designers applied different methods to cope with various sources for various purposes, depending on different situations. A general framework was built for designers to conduct a proper selection of sources and methods to transform them into the knowledge that informs design. The study emphasized the flow of inspirational sources, the relationship between sources and methods, and the transformation procedures which tried to help the designer get more scientific structure and give design students more practical guidance in idea generation. The comparison was continuously made within the matrix structure on the matter of sources and methods selection, the role of design research and ideation process among different groups of designers in academics and practice, which revealed the knowledge and skills missed or ignored in university education and challenges in the design project development. The implications for design education were discussed, such as the development of design students’ competence, especially the skills that should be learned in a new digital society to help design education refine idea generation methods and improve corresponding techniques to discover a dynamic balance between theory and practice. / Das Hervorbringen von Designideen ist ein wichtiger Teil der Arbeit eines Designers und wird meistens mit kreativer Problemlösung assoziiert. Eine besondere Herausforderung ist dabei die mentale Verarbeitung von Informationen und Inspirationsquellen und deren Umsetzung zu Gestaltungsentwürfe. Dieser kreative Prozess wird vor allem von Anfängern und Designstudenten als schwierig wahrgenommen. Trotz vielfältiger Forschungsanstrengungen gibt es noch immer keinen allgemeinen Konsens dazu, auf welche Weise Informationen in den Designprozess einbezogen werden und wie sich diese präzedenzbasierte Art des Denkens vermitteln lässt. Da dieser Prozess stark auf Erfahrung basiert, wird er oft als Präzedenz-basierte Art des Denkens betrachtet, bei welcher Wissen fortwährend in neue Erkenntnisse umgeformt wird. Dieser kreative Akt wird vor allem von Anfängern als schwierig wahrgenommen. Dem Paradigma der 'grounded theory' folgend hat die Autorin ergebnisoffene, teilstrukturierte und qualitative Interviews mit Designern durchgeführt. Interviewt wurden Designprofessoren, Praktiker und Studenten, um zu erfahren, wie zeitgenössische Designer Inspirationsquellen recherchieren und mit welchen Methoden sie diese in unterschiedlichen Kontexten zu Ideen umwandeln. Weiterhin werden die Vorgehensweise der Designer während des Gestaltungsprozesses und die Evaluationskriterien der Designideen untersucht. Anhand der Untersuchungsergebnisse lassen sich sieben Informationskategorien unterscheiden: Persönliches, alltägliches, mediales, technologisches Wissen sowie Wissen aus anderen Fachbereichen, aus Feldforschung und aus der Designpraxis. Diese Methoden finden im Designprozess innerhalb von drei Phasen Anwendung: Untersuchung, Analyse und Synthese. In jeder dieser Phase wenden Designer dabei verschiedene Methoden an, um Informationsquellen aufzubereiten und in den Designprozess einzubeziehen. Ausgehend von einem Prozessmodell untersuchte die durchgeführte Studie insbesondere die Einbeziehung von Inspirationsquellen, die Beziehung zwischen Quellen und Methoden und die mentalen Verarbeitungsprozeduren. Mit den erzielten Ergebnissen unterstützt die Untersuchung die Designforschung und gibt Designstudenten eine fundierte Anleitung für die Entwicklung von Ideen. Ein besonderer Fokus der Studie lag auf dem Vergleich von verschiedenen Gruppen von Designern – insbesondere auch mit Blick auf den Unterschied zwischen tären Ausbildung vermittelten Kompetenzen mit den praktischen Anforderungen korrespondieren. Darauf aufbauend diskutiert diese Arbeit Empfehlungen für die Designausbildung, z.B. hinsichtlich des Kontexts der digitalen Gesellschaft oder der Verfeinerung von Methoden der Ideengenerierung. Damit soll die Arbeit dazu beitragen, die Designausbildung zu verbessern und ein dynamisches Gleichgewicht zwischen Theorie und Praxis zu ermöglichen.

Background: Information Communication Technologies (ICT)-mediated support can reduce family caregiver burden and may bridge service gaps caused by time constraints and language or cultural barriers. (Non)-usage behaviour can be explained using Andersen’s Behavioural Model of Health Service Utilization, Venkatesh’s Unified Theory of Use and Acceptance of Technology, Eysenbach’s Law of Attrition, and Wilson’s and Chatman’s Information Behaviour Theories. Purpose: This study aimed to describe and explain (non)-usage behaviour of ehealth services among Chinese caregivers. Method: This two-phase study used a mixed methods design involving 46 Chinese caregivers who cared for a family member with dementia. Usability of the ICT tools designed in the study was tested. Phase I participants (N=28) had access to a bilingual information site and personalized email support from professionals. Phase II participants (N=18) were randomized to use one of three enhanced features. Pre- and post-intervention data were collected, and qualitative interviews were conducted. Results: The Phase I ICT tools supported the core functions without major usability issues. Perceived efforts to use the ICT-mediated services influenced the consent decisions of Phase I caregivers (p=.036). Caregivers initiated service earlier if they had a higher acceptance of the service (p=0.017). Frequent users of email support experienced a decline of perceived burden compared with an escalation of perceived burden by non-users (p=0.023). An older age, greater caregiving competence, and lower English or computer proficiency explained non-usage behaviour. Requirements were identified to enhance the Phase I ICT tools. In Phase II, a test of three enhanced features showed there was no major usability issue. The intervention study found the enhanced features did not influence email use as hypothesized. Qualitative analysis showed usage patterns were explained by caregiver needs, caregiving beliefs, personal capacity, social support, ICT factors, and style of use. Non-users preferred Chinese to English compared with users (p=0.046). Integrating the theories and empirical findings, three concepts were developed to explain (non)-usage behaviour: usage in context, usage paths, and stages of use. Conclusion: Usage and non-usage behaviour can be explained by the service needs in the caregiving context, the use of non-ICT-mediated resources, and the access barriers to Internet use. Use of ICT-based support can be beneficial to caregivers if they do not drop out of the service.

Background: Information Communication Technologies (ICT)-mediated support can reduce family caregiver burden and may bridge service gaps caused by time constraints and language or cultural barriers. (Non)-usage behaviour can be explained using Andersen’s Behavioural Model of Health Service Utilization, Venkatesh’s Unified Theory of Use and Acceptance of Technology, Eysenbach’s Law of Attrition, and Wilson’s and Chatman’s Information Behaviour Theories. Purpose: This study aimed to describe and explain (non)-usage behaviour of ehealth services among Chinese caregivers. Method: This two-phase study used a mixed methods design involving 46 Chinese caregivers who cared for a family member with dementia. Usability of the ICT tools designed in the study was tested. Phase I participants (N=28) had access to a bilingual information site and personalized email support from professionals. Phase II participants (N=18) were randomized to use one of three enhanced features. Pre- and post-intervention data were collected, and qualitative interviews were conducted. Results: The Phase I ICT tools supported the core functions without major usability issues. Perceived efforts to use the ICT-mediated services influenced the consent decisions of Phase I caregivers (p=.036). Caregivers initiated service earlier if they had a higher acceptance of the service (p=0.017). Frequent users of email support experienced a decline of perceived burden compared with an escalation of perceived burden by non-users (p=0.023). An older age, greater caregiving competence, and lower English or computer proficiency explained non-usage behaviour. Requirements were identified to enhance the Phase I ICT tools. In Phase II, a test of three enhanced features showed there was no major usability issue. The intervention study found the enhanced features did not influence email use as hypothesized. Qualitative analysis showed usage patterns were explained by caregiver needs, caregiving beliefs, personal capacity, social support, ICT factors, and style of use. Non-users preferred Chinese to English compared with users (p=0.046). Integrating the theories and empirical findings, three concepts were developed to explain (non)-usage behaviour: usage in context, usage paths, and stages of use. Conclusion: Usage and non-usage behaviour can be explained by the service needs in the caregiving context, the use of non-ICT-mediated resources, and the access barriers to Internet use. Use of ICT-based support can be beneficial to caregivers if they do not drop out of the service.

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(in English): The diploma thesis deals with the use of design methods among Czech UX designers in the design of web and mobile applications. The aim of this work is to find out and critically describe how Czech UX designers use design methods in practice. The thesis analyse the design process of website, web and mobile applications, its various stages and procedures. The theoretical part of the thesis introduces the basic terminology of the User Experience field and current research in the field, with emphasis on relevant terms and processes that occur in design practice. This part of the thesis is based on data obtained in the practical part, according to which popular approaches, frameworks, processes and methodologies of the UX field will be identified and described on the basis of professional literature. In the research part, qualitative research will be carried out in the form of semi-structured interviews with Czech User Experience designers, focused on the identification of methods, procedures and principles and ways of their usage. At the end of the thesis, the obtained data will be evaluated and it will be identified whether Czech designers in their practice adhere to academic approaches, or what existing and theoretically described methodologies and procedures their design process...