Investors, stock exchanges and financial regulatory institutions can be used as strong levers for making firms accountable for achieving sustainable operational performance and not just maximizing profits. The objective of this research study is to enhance the quantitative tools available to stakeholders for evaluating relative operational performance of firms, thereby encouraging the financial investors to base their portfolio investment decisions on the basis of sustainable operational performance of firms. The study reviews the existing literature on evaluating relative operational performance of firms on sustainability metrics and proposes multi-level multi criteria decision making (MCDM) quantitative methods for measuring the same. The research work demonstrates the research framework proposed in the study by evaluating the 2014 Sustainable Operational Performance of firms in the oil & gas sector. The reason for choosing the oil & gas sector for this case study is in view of the relative large ecological and social impact which this industry has on different stakeholders. Due to the same reasons, the oil & gas sector is a bit more advanced in terms of its sustainability performance reporting standards. The review of past literature and the sustainability reports of firms for the year 2014 is initially used to develop the construct for measuring the firm operational performance on three pillars of TBL i.e. for the ecological, social and economic dimensions. / February 2017

<p>The need for effective multi-level governance arrangements is becoming increasingly apparent because of the high functional interdependencies between biophysical and socioeconomic factors in the realm of natural resource governance. Such arrangements provide a basis for the exchange, discussion, and deliberation of information, knowledge, and data across diverse user groups and entities. Multi-level governance is operationalized by using a microinstitutional analysis that links decision-making arenas across three distinct levels: operational, collective-choice, and constitutional. Within this context, I argue that the effectiveness and success of actors' participatory processes across these three levels depend on the amount of social capital among actors within the governance system. I assessed the concept of social capital using two different models: (1) a structural approach focused on resources embedded within an individual's network, and (2) a combined structural-cultural approach that incorporates various aspects of group membership with relations of trust, rules, and norms. To explore the effects of social capital on participatory processes related to the implementation and management of natural resources, I analyzed different small-scale fisheries governance regimes from the Gulf of California, Mexico. I collected data using surveys (n=371), interviews (n=82), and participant observation techniques conducted among the residents of four small-scale fishing communities that live adjacent to marine protected areas along the Baja California, Mexico, peninsula. Data analysis included both quantitative (logit regression model), and qualitative (narrative analysis) approaches. Overall, my results suggest that both social capital models reveal the multidimensional nature of social capital where none of its individual types form a consistent and statistically significant relationship with the six outcomes that I measured. However, these types are related in different ways to fishers engagement in participatory processess across the three levels. The extent of fishers' engagement in participatory processess across different levels was not high. Qualitative analysis revealed that participatory processes related to fisheries conservation and management, although present do not reach their full potential and are stymied by a historical context and a lack of general participatory culture.</p> / Dissertation

This thesis explores the capacity of local government to influence intergovernmental organizations’ policy frameworks during the formulation and implementation of their instruments and policies. It provides empirical insights into the decision making and implementation of international policy regimes, specifically within a European context, and contributes to the broader theoretical understanding of these regimes through the development of multi-level governance as a framework of analysis. The thesis extends multi-level governance as a theoretical framework in two ways. First, it does so by going beyond its usual development and application within the European Union. The role of local government is examined in the pan-European political context shaped by the Council of Europe. Second, it pays special attention to the upstream link between local authorities and international actors in the context of multi-level governance settings. To date, most research on local government in multi-level governance settings has focused on the new challenges brought by extended multiple tiers of jurisdictions and how local government has been affected by the internationally shaped political arrangements. Little attention has been placed on the upward flow of interaction of local authorities or their capacity to influence international decision making and policy implementation. Empirical research in this thesis has focused on the capacity of local government to share the meta-steering role with the multi-level governance framework. The potential of local government to influence the international policy frameworks has been investigated based on its unique value in enhancing good governance in line with international norms and principles. At the theoretical level, the research argues multi-level governance reflects not simply the redistribution of power resources among various actors, but also the process of reshaping understanding and preferences through direct communication between actors at different territorial levels. It suggests that local political preferences can be shaped and reframed by broader values and consequently generates significant influence on higher level policy outcomes. However, despite the existence of specific constitutional devices for involving local development in the legislative processes of the Council of Europe, empirical evidence shows local authorities have largely failed to take up this opportunity, and their influence remains limited. Implications hence can be drawn for wider utilization of local engagement in intergovernmental organizations; for example, within the context the Committee of the Regions of the Europe Union.

Background: Multi-level marketing (MLM) is a specific type of direct selling where distribution and sales are facilitated through various levels of independent distributors. The MLM industry has changed through social media and it has become a channel for the distributors to communicate with customers and potential distributors. The downside to this development is that Internet and social media has made lies and exaggerations, digital deception, more common. Purpose and research questions: The purpose of this research is to investigate deceptive social media practices done by distributors of MLM firms operating in Sweden and discuss them from an ethical perspective. 1. What characteristics drive distributors in MLM firms to participate in practices that can be perceived as deceptive? 2. What deceptive practices on social media by distributors can be identified? 3. How do former distributors view the ethics of their own practices versus the practices of other distributors? Is self deception an aspect to consider? Method: The study applies a qualitative method to an explorative, cross-sectional research design. The collection of empirical data was done by conducting 9 semi-structured interviews with former MLM distributors. Result: Characteristics that drive deceptive practices are training, authority, transferal of norms and validating behaviour. Six deceptive practices were identified: pretending to be consumers on other distributors’ posts, manipulating before and after pictures, lying and exaggerating about the benefits of the products, pretending to be potential recruits, falsely describing the benefits of the business opportunity and charging extra for shipping. Former distributors were more willing to blame other distributors for unethical behaviour than themselves, which may be due to self deception. Contribution of the study: This study contributes with a modern perspective of MLM distributors. It extends existing research of ethical issues within MLM and contributes with the addition of self deception to provide deeper understanding.

The aim of this thesis is to study the role and the influence of the Swedish local government association, SALAR, which is an interest group representing all of the Swedish local authorities and regions. As a result of a change in exercising public power from government to multi-level governance that has reinforced subnational level, including local authorities and regions, SALAR is today a significant actor. It has an intermediating role in the relation between the government and local and regional authorities. SALAR is a hybrid organization that has interest group and governmental characteristics. It is a player competing with other interest groups in a pluralistic system but it is also a corporatist negotiation partner of the government that has a privileged access to central government decision-making. This study uses a comparative case study method analyzing two policy processes to study and describe what kind of role and influence SALAR has in these processes and how the role and the influence of SALAR can be understood from an interest group perspective and a multi-level governance perspective. The described and analyzed policy processes are Kömiljarden, an effectivity effort in Swedish public health care system, and the introduction of the teacher license system in Swedish schools. The empirical material used in this thesis consists of official publications published by public authorities, the parliament and the government as well as interviews with officials representing public authorities, the government and SALAR. The results presented in this thesis show that SALAR in line with previous research on local government associations in other countries, has a role as an intermediator with a privileged access to central government and central decision-making. It is a partner that central government negotiates with and which has the task of informing about the local and regional circumstances. Its influence can also be analyzed in connection to these negotiations. SALAR is in many ways stuck in the structure of decision-making, which is operated by central government while still being in competition with interest groups, such as the teacher unions.

In this chapter, the author draws on a historical case study of the Australian wine industry to explore variations in collective agency. The inductively derived process model illustrates the emergence of a new profession of scientific win- emaking, which unfolds in three phases. Each phase is characterized by a dis- tinct form of agency: distributed agency during the earliest phase, coordinated agency during later phases, and orchestrated agency during consolidation. In addition to exploring the temporal shifts in agency, the study includes a detailed analysis of the early stages of distributed agency, examining how col- lective agency is achieved in the absence of shared intentions.

Over time, the position of the regions within the European integration process was gaining on significance. The emancipation processes of the 1970s and 1980s set off by advancing decentralization on one hand, and a wave of new regionalism on the other later evolved into a debate about a "Europe of the regions". Although it is obvious that this concept does not have a broad support any more, the regional level was able to seize the opportunity and secure itself a better position in the integration process -- not only as an object and instrument of EU policies, but also as another actor in the decision-making process. The aim of the thesis was to analyze the position of the regions in the European integration process as well as to deal with the topic in a broader theoretical perspective (regionalism, multi-level governance, paradiplomacy). To fulfill this aim the thesis answered following research questions: "What incited the debate about the Europe of the regions and what were the imminent outcomes of the debate?" "Which structures can the regions use to access the European policy level and what influences their efficiency?" and "To what extent are these structures used by Czech regions? Methods used to answer these research questions included analysis of available sources and literature, historical analysis and a survey.

This thesis analyzes the current status of the acquisition of human resources in the field of independent financial advice company Fincentrum, a. s. There are also analyzed the possibility of using Web 2.0 services supporting this activity on the basis of this analyses are given recommendations leading to more effective recruitment. This thesis focuses on the activities of managers. Describes the process of recruiting new employees from the first contact with candidates and period of the worker's adaptation.

This diploma thesis deals with running of the financial market and goals of financial consulting, but mostly is about crucial differences in selection, recruitment and breaking new workers in as employees compared to cooperation of entrepreneurs. These differences are shown on a specific example of financial consulting company OVB Allfinanz a.s. The biggest contrasts are: more possibilities for hiring new workers, variability of the selection process, impossibility of introducing directive leadership, the need to offer a goal of the work for the people and also the team vision.

Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) have grown in popularity beyond the original video game enthusiast audience. They have been embraced by the high-performance computing community due to their high computational throughput, low cost, low energy demands, wide availability, and ability to dramatically improve application performance. In addition, as hybrid computing continues into mainstream applications, the use of GPUs will continue to grow. However, due to architectural difference between the CPU and GPU, adapting CPU-based scientific computing applications to fully exploit the potential speedup that GPUs offer is a non-trivial task. Algorithms must be designed with the architecture benefits and limitations in mind in order to unlock the full performance gains afforded by the use GPU. In this work, we develop fast GPU methods to improve the performance of two important components in computational lung modeling - image registration and particle tracking. We first propose a novel method for multi-level mass-preserving deformable image registration. The strength of this method is that it allows for flexibility of choice for the similarity criteria to be used by the registration method, making possible the implementation of simple and complex similarity measures on the GPU with excellent performance results. The method is tested using three similarity criteria for registering two CT lung datasets - the commonly used sum of squared intensity differences (SSD), the sum of squared tissue value differences (SSTVD), and a symmetric version of SSTVD currently being developed by our research group. The GPU method is validated against a previously validated single-threaded CPU counterpart using six healthy human subjects, and demonstrated strong agreement of results. Separately, three GPU methods were developed for tracking particle trajectories and deposition efficiencies in the human airway tree, including a multiple-GPU method. Though parallelization was straightforward, the complex geometry of the lungs and use of an unstructured mesh provided challenges that were addressed by the GPU methods. The results of the GPU methods were tested for various numbers of particles and compared to a previously validated single-threaded CPU version and demonstrated dramatic speedup over the single-threaded CPU version and 12-threaded CPU versions.