The development of nuclear weapons and their proliferation: A comparison of Iran and North Korea Master Thesis Author: Martin Marek Supervisor: PhDr. Vít Střítecký, M.Phil., Ph.D. Year: 2016 Abstract The text deals with nuclear proliferation in the cases of Iran and North Korea. The motives of nuclear ambitions are examined using models of Scott D. Sagan and other selected theoretical concepts. Gradual analysis of exposed states in the perspective of historical development, national security, domestic politics and norms forms the basis for understanding the perception of nuclear weapons by these states and approach to them as to a mean to accomplish certain objectives. Subsequent comparison reveals both similarities and difference between examined states in the perspective of motives of nuclear proliferation and shows explanatory potential of each model, which is various, in given cases. The effort of ensuring national security seems to be the strongest motive in both examined cases. It is followed by domestic influences, whereas norms stand rather for additional factor. Nevertheless, variety in explanatory power of the models is apparent in the cases of Iran and North Korea, notably in relation with their limitations. Other factors, such as regime type or parallel development of other type of weapons of...

The global business industry is greatly affected by revolutionised human knowledge that requires a continued understanding of human preferences, needs and wants. Motivation to innovate must be understood when marketers aim for business success. Business success is seen in customer satisfaction and employee performance. The starting point for success is the miraculous ideas of employees. These ideas can be anything from the creation of a product or service to the execution of that product or service. Exploring the factors affecting the motivation to innovate on product development may lead marketers to business success by increased profitability, a bigger customer base, and retaining motivated skilled employees with the ability to innovate. This research is based on the South African multinational retailer Woolworths, with the focus on food and design packaging. A qualitative research approach was followed where data was collected from 11 participants using semi-structured individual face-to-face in-depth interviews and structured questionnaires. This study followed a manual thematic approach in an inductive manner. The needs of the participants in this study were categorised into three sections: Need for power, need for achievement and need for affiliation. This study also introduced McClelland's extended needs, and the motive for self-expression stood out among the cohort, confirming their creative skills. With the aid of individual components, domain-relevant skills, intrinsic task motivation and creativity stimulants, the study was able to link the presence of creativity to motivation and innovation. It confirmed that once the creativity intersection combines with organisational components there is a motivational synergy that produces innovation. The results of the study further indicated that internal motivation factors had a greater impact than external factors. As per organisational components, business values were shown to have an influence on the development of a product design. Legislation policies were deemed beneficial to forced creative thinking, yet it was also regarded as a limitation that can be improved through creative flexibility. Other factors that emerged were organisational socialisation, aligned stakeholder communication, sufficient market research, and respecting the emergence of seasonal trends. Future research should explore ways of improving organisational components that act as external influences on individual creative thinking. Moreover, future research should explore how effective training can help stakeholders learn and acquire the rights needs together with the continuous support from the business.

The project is based on cross-sector partnerships to address societal problems (CSSP’s). CSSP’s are increasingly needed to address sustainability around the world. Previous studies on partnerships literature mostly investigated the organizational motives and key success factors. Regarding organizational motives, many studies investigated the motives of the organization to join partnerships in the context of dyadic partnerships such as non-profit and business partnerships. There is a need to investigate further the motives of the organization to join the social partnerships project with more than two sectors participated in the project. Meanwhile, the complexity of partnerships is increasing when more than three-sectors partnerships involved in the project. Some scholars also argued that cross-sector partnerships have a higher failure rate of partnerships rather than within sector partnerships.Therefore, this study aims to explore organizational motives to join and participate in cross-sector social partnerships project on a local level, and organizational challenges during implementation of it. A case study of Tillväxt Malmö project was chosen in this study as the project consists of more than three-sectors partnerships, which are a non-profit organization as the focal organization, and their partners are private sector (companies and investors), university and local governments.This study found there are four themes of organizational motives, which are society, resources, legitimacy, and competency that emerges from empirical finding. Most of the motives that are mentioned by organizations who joined and participate in the Tillväxt Malmô project is to address societal issues, to promote positive change, to bring benefits and help the growth of local business in Malmö city, and to support the development of social incubator in Malmö. This study also discovered four types of challenges which are (1) the different and changing of organizational mission and objectives, (2) the different of language, logic and perspective, (3) the difficulty to make organizational to work together and see each other as equal, and (4) the lack of transparency. Furthermore, the study also found that organizational motive has an important role that determines the sustainability of partnerships, whereas the different organizational motive between the partners to participate in CSSPs project could present as a barrier that strains the relationships between the partners.The paper illustrates the organizational motives and challenges in cross-sector social partnerships project which includes more than three-sectors in the domain to support the local economic development. Theoretically, this contributes to providing comprehensive literature about the motives and challenges in cross-sector social partnerships. In practical, it also gives an insight for project leaders or managers to address the relevant issues that face during implementation of cross-sector social partnerships project.

In this study, the relationship of autobiographical memory, implicit motivation, sociocultural orientation, and childhood variables was investigated cross-culturally. A German sample reflecting a prototypical independent context (n=100), and a Chinese (n = 77) and Cameroonian sample (n = 68) from a prototypical interdependent context were selected. Participants were asked to report their earliest childhood memories, to answer socio-demographic questions, to complete the Operant Multimotive Test as a measure of their implicit motivation, and two self-report scales to indicate their sociocultural orientation. Special attention was given to considerations of methodological equivalence across cultures.It was expected that (1) Chinese and Cameroonian participants recall more oriented towards others than German participants, and that (2) individuals from a social-oriented childhood context make more use of the social function of autobiographical recall, and finally that (3) implicit motivation and sociocultural orientation predict autobiographical memory across cultures.Results indicate that Cameroonian and Chinese participants generally make more use of the social function of autobiographical memory than do German participants. Furthermore, the more siblings an individual has, the more she/he makes use of the social function. Missing effects of implicit motivation and sociocultural orientation on interindividual differences in autobiographical memory are accounted for by methodological constraints.

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China is today the global leader and innovator of sharing economy, and the Chinese government has included it in their Five Year (2016-2020) development plan. China has during the last 30 years been the most rapid economically developing country in the world, but it has also brought along some negative consequences. It has become evident that the quick development of China has taken place at the expense of the environment. It is also described that the country has an economic development model heavily based on investment, export and high consumption which is arguably not sustainable.  The sharing economy presents great potential to change how consumers use resources andgoods, and also presents an opportunity to solve sustainability challenges such as decreasingenvironmental, economic and social conditions. There are today little research on this subject, especially empirical, and more research is preferred.  The purpose of this study is to investigate and explore how the sustainability work and marketing of three selected sharing economy companies in Shanghai correspond to customers’ motives for using sharing economy services. To collect data, three interviews were conducted with three different companies that utilize the sharing economy model in Shanghai, China. These companies are major players in the industries of ride-sharing, bike-sharing and house-sharing. Additionally, an online consumer survey regarding customers’ primary motives for using sharing economy services were conducted in order to fulfill our purpose and answer our research questions.  Results from this study conclude that the primary motives for consumers to use sharingeconomy is convenience (bike-sharing and ride-sharing) and to experience something unique (house-sharing). Other important motives are time-saving, accessibility and low cost aspects. The companies, on the other hand, tend to emphasize low cost, environmental and socialaspects. That is, consumer views are often in line with the three companies' marketing andsustainability views. However, there are several cases in this study where it differ.

The environmental issues in the world are critical and sustainability becomes more important. There is a certain lack in the textile industry, where the production of clothes is responsible for water pollution, landfill waste and greenhouse gas emission. A more sustainable way of consumption is required, and one way is to shop for pre-owned and pre-used clothes. The demand for second-hand goods rapidly increases and the market is expected to continue to grow the next coming years. Internet has opened up for a new marketplace and the number of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) platforms increases and become more and more popular to buy and sell second-hand through. Generation Z are the young consumers that were born with technology, and this has led to a change in young people’s behavior, and attitudes and lifestyle which need to be perceived differently from previous generations. However, there is still a lack of research regarding Gen Z as consumers and no previous research has focused on their behavior when it comes to Online Second-hand Shopping Clothes (OSSC) using digital P2P platforms. Hence, this led us to our research question “What are the motives for Generation Z to shop second-hand clothes on digital P2P platforms?”. The aim is to give important insights to managers who are developing marketing strategies in the environment of OSSC, through exploring motivations and dimensions that could impact the behavior of this amongst Gen Z. We also want to give insights of OSSC through not only incorporating theories on shopping motivations, but also include Impulsive Buying Tendency and Perceived Risk. Based on theories of motivations towards Second-Hand shopping such as economical, ideological, fashionability, convenience, ethical and theories of Impulse Buying Tendency and Perceived Risk we constructed a conceptual framework with several hypotheses. To answer our research question and achieve our research purpose we conducted a deductive quantitative study where we through a web survey targeted people born in Gen Z who had experience of OSSC. The findings revealed that as a motive in our baseline regression analysis, ideological and convenience was significant. In our analysis on bivariate correlation, convenience and ethical motives was significant. In the multiple regression with multiple-items measures, convenience was the only significant motivation. Perceived Risk was only significant in our alternative model where it would affect the consumers perception of monetary spending on OSSC. We found no support that fashionability and impulse buying traits are motives for OSSC. Economical motives were not found to be significant as a motivation, but it can be considered a hygiene factor for OSSC. In conclusion, the findings reveal that all motives are important in different aspects, but convenience and ethical motives are strongly supported to be important drivers towards OSSC amongst Gen Z.

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are currently achieving massive growth but the problems and challenges associated with them are less understood. A goal in supply chain management is to maintain a solid flow of goods from raw materials to manufacturers and distribution of the final product. In managing all of these moving parts, warehousing plays a vital and central role to streamlining the supply chain. Furthermore, expanding a firm’s business to one or more locations as trends in markets, and consumer demands are continuously changing has proven vital to succeed. Yet, there is under developed research in the are of geographical expansion as it pertains to warehouse operations as an SME. In understanding these challenges and motivations to expand, SMEs have a greater chance to succeed. This thesis uses a combination of the existing literature surrounding global warehouse expansion as well as a field study that was conducted to gain further insight into an SME that is currently undergoing a warehouse expansion in both Germany and the United States. The motives for expansion to these locations are explored through semi structured interviews of six employees involved in the warehouse project. There is great complexity in this case, where unfamiliar locations and market potential are unknown, making this sector within supply chain management of SMEs an important one to investigate.