Information search and acquisition is one of the important tasks in industrial procurement. The main issues of the present study are whether the needs of information and their patterns of importance would be affected by the following variables: product type, position of the supply chain, factors of individual participant (position, current unit, experiences of departments), organization structural factors, innovational resources commitments. The empirical study contexts are six machinery related sub-industries, including: vehicle, casting, die and mold, fastener, hand-tool, and machinery industry. From the 345 valid survey samples, the current research tested several hypotheses, of which significant findings include: (1) Different positions at a supply chain would cause difference of information needs. (2) Factors of individual participant also bring about different buying information needs: the current unit and experiences in different departments would significantly affect importance of the finance-cost, technique, salesperson information. (3) Organizational factors, including authority, horizontal interaction, vertical division, would give rise to more positive effect on buying experiences, country-of-origin, salesperson information. On the other hand, solicit negative effect on finance-cost information. (4) The product type would significantly moderate the causal relation between organizational factors and buying experiences, country-of-origin, or salesperson information. (5) Finance-cost information is less important for the higher innovational commitment companies than the lower ones

The main purposes of this study are to investigate the environmental literacy of the Kaohsiung City civil servants, their education and training needs, and the correlation between the two. The subjects of this study were civil servants of the Kaohsiung City Government, and data were collected by quantitative research methods. The study was built mainly on the theoretical framework of Hungerford and Volk¡¦s responsible environmental behavior model, and an environmental behavior model consolidated by San-Pui Lam was also consulted, in order to carry out investigation and analysis. Environmental concern was categorized into 5 levels, and general environmental attitude into 4 levels. These two variables were not used to decide the level of environmental literacy. The object of categorization was to provide a reference for environmental education and training. However, having less concern for environmental issues than other issues or placing less emphasis on environmental values than other civil values was considered as an indicator of poor literacy performance. Other variables were categorized into three levels (A, B and C) according to the scores, with A representing the highest level of performance, followed by B representing a medium level of performance, and C representing poor performance. The following conclusions were obtained: 1. In the performance of environmental literacy, more than 75% of the responding Kaohsiung City civil servants had an environmentally friendly attitude, with at least a medium level of environmental knowledge and skills. In the environmental behavior aspect, however, poor performance in behaviors other than ecomanagement was shown. It was evident that the respondents were unable to apply their environmental knowledge, skills and positive attitude, and transform them into active environmental behaviors. 2. With regard to the education and training needs, the study proposed the following benchmarks for strengthening environmental education and training: (1) those who had not achieved the high level in terms of the scores of environmental knowledge, skills and behaviors; (2) those who had less concern for, or placed less emphasis on, environmental issues or values than other issues or civil values. Test results showed that 25% of the responding Kaohsiung City civil servants had not reached the high level for their knowledge of issues, 66% had not reached the high level for their knowledge of action strategies, and 78% had not reached the high level for their skill in using action strategies. In terms of their self-assessed training needs, 90% of the respondents indicated a high level of need for knowledge, and 85% indicated a high level of need for skills. It showed that respondents¡¦ subjectively-assessed needs for environmental education and training in terms of knowledge and skills were slightly higher than their actual needs for education and training. However, only 20% of the responding civil servants had participated in environmental education and training in the past three years, representing a paradox formed by a high level of needs and a low level of participation. 3. Regarding the difference in environmental literacy of respondents with different backgrounds, it was shown that respondents who had participated in environmental education and training in the past three years generally had better performance in literacy indicators than those who had not, except for these 5 variables: knowledge of issues, knowledge of action strategies, persuation, general environmental attitude, and locus of control. For other backgrounds, it showed no significant difference in the environmental literacy performance. 4. For the difference in environmental education and training needs of respondents with different backgrounds, those who had participated in environmental education and training in the past three years had a higher level of needs than those who had not. Other differences in respondents¡¦ backgrounds made no significant difference in their environmental education and training needs. 5. On the correlation between environmental literacy and environmental education and training needs, 7 variables were shown to be significantly correlated: the knowledge aspect of environmental education and training needs, environmental concern, environmental attitude, general environmental attitude, specific environmental attitude, locus of control, as well as skill in using action strategies. In the aspect of skills, variables that showed significant correlation with environmental literacy were the same as those for the knowledge aspect of training needs, except for general environmental attitude. Finally, recommendations on civil servants¡¦ environmental education and training were made based on the literature review and the study results, to provide a reference for the competent authority of civil servants and the training organizations.

Abstract Intangible resources are the sources of competitive advantage in the knowledge economy. Knowledge management (KM) is popular within the businesses. With increasing investment in KM projects, companies are looking forward to find better ways to obtain the competitive advantage. KM literature also highlights the fact that the achievement of sustained competitive advantage depends on its knowledge-based resources. Even though many people believe that technology is the main driving force of transformation. In fact, technology merely brings superficial change or allows people to perform routine jobs fasters. In this sense, the objective of research on knowledge management should not overlook the fact that an enterprise is operated by many official and unofficial units, which are formed by people. The discussion on knowledge management should be focused on people as the subject. This thesis restudy Nonaka¡¦s SECI model of knowledge creation and its constraints, we revisit the fundamental points of tacit knowledge in the model and provide a critical review on the role for business organization. First, in the discussion of knowledge creation, this study argues that the capabilitie of knowledge creating is the most important source for firms to get competitive advantage. Based on the literature on KM, we thought the competitive advantages come from continue improvement in business, and the ideas of improve are from Km of both organization and individual. So, the total KM is complete explain for getting competitive advantage than only knowledge creation. Secondly, we review the situation of the SECI model fit the business current KM project, and develop a framework to assess the relationship of KM activities between organization and individual. Focuses on verifying the relationship between the organization and individual knowledge management. The framework uses a set of key KM activities by IPO model as lead indicators within KM flow. To prevent the discussion of ¡§knowledge¡¨ limited to ¡§technology¡¨, this study is based on the objective and subjective opinions to discuss the shift context of the tacit and explicit knowledge. The formation of the knowledge cycle based on this context, the generation, transformation and shift of knowledge from the knowledge cycle. The organizational KM activities include acquiring, re-engineering and extending. The personal KM activities include creating, application and sharing. The results show that organizational knowledge management has positive correlation with individual knowledge management, but the knowledge type and focus of the knowledge management differ. Therefore, the key of successful knowledge transformation is to keep the individual and organizational goal consistent. The organizational and individual knowledge management should both focus on improving the work. The scenario interference results show that employees¡¦ perception of organizational culture has significant interference effect on work performance due to knowledge management. During the knowledge management promotion process, the organizational culture perception is reflected on the mental perception and behaviors of the employees, thus, the context performance and task performance. As verified by research hypotheses, higher ¡§perception of innovative culture¡¨ leads to more obvious interference to ¡§individual creation and sharing of knowledge¡¨ and ¡§task and context performance¡¨. Higher ¡§perception of supportive culture¡¨ leads to more obvious interference to ¡§individual utilization and sharing of knowledge¡¨ and ¡§task and context performance¡¨. On the other hand, though the direct effects of ¡§growth need strength¡¨ on ¡§Job performance¡¨ has been supported, it shows that its reciprocal interaction with ¡§individual creation and sharing of knowledge¡¨ has no effect on ¡§task and context performance¡¨.

This research aims to investigate three issues :(1) how the consumer needs of pop music and the product attributes of records affect consumer satisfaction, (2) this research also focuses on how the match between the consumer needs of pop music and the product attributes of records affect consumer satisfaction, and (3) how the consumer satisfaction contributes to the repurchase intention is also discussed. Our study shows that listening to music, acquiring the information about music and adoring idols are main consumer needs. When the CD products satisfy these consumer needs, the consumer satisfaction will be high. In addition, consumers identify three major product attributes: function, idolatry and fashion. The interaction between listening to music, acquiring music information and functional attributes will affect consumer satisfaction positively. Similarly, the interaction between the idolatry and symbol of idol will affect consumer satisfaction positively. Consumer satisfaction has also been found to affect the repurchase intention. Compare to consumer needs, the perceived value of CDs has a stronger effect on consumer satisfaction. Therefore, if business models may need to be developed to reform the compact discs industry.

Thesis (M.S.)--Marshall University, 2001. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains xi, 75,6 p. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 71-72).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 240-253). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

This study seeks to investigate the impact of globalisation on the architectural behaviour in the United Arab Emirates, to clarify the benefits and risks of globalised architecture in architectural behaviour. Although there are several supporters of globalisation who see the phenomenon as a means of progress and development, many experts have indicated that this phenomenon has been demolishing local culture and regional considerations, and ignoring residents’ requirements. As a result, this study presents all the views about this phenomenon from many aspects, such as political, social, economic and environmental, whereby it investigates the changes in architecture and urban planning due to global standards, methods of construction, and building materials. The literature review was the first part of the study and the theoretical studies were divided into three pivots in this thesis: The globalisation impacts and features, the relationship between globalisation and architecture and the last pivot concentrates on the human needs in architecture. The study also concentrates on the impact of globalisation on architecture through the terminology of “globalised architecture”, and focuses on some global phenomena in the architectural domain, such as skyscrapers, multi-storey buildings and iconic landmarks. The empirical study examines this argument about globalisation through questionnaires and interviews. A comparison is drawn between two groups: globalised houses is the first group, which reflects globalisation’s impacts on architecture, where this provides easier ways to specify features, elements and specifications for the era. In contrast, the non-globalised sample is the opposite of the first group, because it reflects the features of houses without the impacts of globalisation. Ultimately, the findings indicated that there are differences between the two groups. Both samples occurred in the same place and time, but the form of architecture and urban design has affected human behaviour. Thus, this study suggests a paradigm that could provide more humanitarian elements in architecture and urban design. It also suggests some general recommendations supporting human needs, and local considerations such as standards and codes.

This study aims to investigate how special needs teachers work with dyslexic pupils who are not reaching the goals of the subject of English. In addition, the focus is to examine dyslexic pupils’ experienced areas of difficulties and also how to structure the language teachings in order to facilitate for the pupils with dyslexia. The method of collecting data for this essay is based on a qualitative research approach through semi-structured interviews with special needs teachers. The results conclude that the informants do not support the pupils directly since their assignment is instead to coach the teachers, which mean that their main responsibility is to work primarily with school organization. Also, through this essay it became evident that dyslexia exists in every language and the specific learning disability is not equal with a failed grade in English.

This study examines the experiences and perceptions of graduate students who are mothers. Based on discourse analysis, one-on-one interviews, and focus groups, this study argues that institutional discourses and practices place graduate students who are mothers in untenable and irreconcilable positions between "mom" and "student," between "family" and "the academy," between "self" and "success." These irreconcilable differences are created in discourse, enacted in institutional policies, and lived by the participants. The study offers action-based alternatives to the status quo policies of the university based on the self-described needs of these women. It reveals that support from all fronts--the home, the institution, departments--is instrumental in altering the discourse of exclusion and inadequacy to one of inclusion and adequacy.

Background: To date, there is a lack of research that has focused on the needs of late cochlear implanted adults with prelingual deafness. The specific study aims were: (1) to explore the met and unmet long-term needs of late cochlear implanted adults with prelingual deafness from their own perspectives and those of the employees at SCIP; and 2) to identify a consensus of the most important met and unmet long-term needs of late cochlear implanted adults with prelingual deafness. Method: This study used a modified Delphi technique with two rounds. In the first round, nine adults who were considered experts on this topic participated in semi-structured in-depth interviews. The participants were five late cochlear implanted recipients with prelingual deafness who were involved in the Southern Cochlear Implant Programme in New Zealand, and four clinicians from the programme. The interview transcripts were analysed using qualitative content analysis. The results from the first round were used to inform the development of the survey for the second round. The second round of the study involved surveying the same participants who participated in the first round. These surveys were quantitatively analysed so as to discover which needs were considered important and met, and important and unmet for the cochlear implant recipients, from the perspectives of the two categories of participants. Results: The first round of the study revealed 42 met needs and 39 unmet needs that fell into 15 categories. Of these needs, 26 met needs and 18 unmet needs were identified as being important by a majority of the participants in the second round. Conclusion: The results from the study may impact potential CI recipients’ and their families’ expectations of what the device can provide, as well as the development of future services and governmental policies in the area.