The dominant view in the information systems (IS) and software engineering literature is that the application of a rigorous pre-investment evaluation methodology is the key to ensuring the selection of the best IS projects ?? that is those with the highest expected value for the organisation and with the highest probability of success. While the literature is replete with methodologies that take a narrow view of IS evaluation, there is insufficient attention given to the evaluation process itself and to what constitutes successful IS evaluation. Whilst some within IS argue that the development of more elaborate evaluation methodologies, especially calculations of costs and benefits, is necessary for the advancement of the field, many report that it is not methodologies as such that need improvement. What is missing is an understanding of IS evaluation processes in practice and how organisations can adopt and apply evaluation methodologies so as to improve these processes. This thesis aims to provide in-depth knowledge of IS evaluation processes in practice and re-conceptualise the notion of the IS project proposal, the evaluation process and evaluation methodology that reflect the needs and critical issues in practice. These aims are achieved by conducting an in-depth case study of IS project evaluation processes in a company with a history of high success rates of its IS projects ($3 billion worth of successfully delivered IS projects in the past few years). By adopting Actor-Network Theory as a philosophy, approach and theoretical lens to the investigation of IS project evaluation processes in the case company the thesis demonstrates that: a) IS project proposals are dynamic, evolving and relational entities that become ??focal?? objects around which the actor-networks of aligned interest tend to emerge; b) that the evaluation process both creates an IS project proposal and its assessment within a core actor-network within which multiple business realities are enacted and continually negotiated; c) the evaluation methodology plays an important role of an actant (a non-human actor) by acting from a periphery of the core actor-network of an IS project proposal evaluation d) the evaluation methodology acts on behalf of management to regulate communication within actor-networks, ensure that company strategy is effectively implemented and that different IS Project Proposals are consistently presented in a mutually comparable manner; e) by defining a series of processes (steps), inscription aids (inscription forms, norms and rules) and mandated checkpoints the evaluation methodology engenders the evaluation process as ??science??; f) by allowing a degree of freedom in conducting the evaluation processes the methodology is also enabling the evaluation processes to emerge as ??art?? thus stimulating creativity and innovation, and finally, g) by balancing the science and the art of IS project proposal evaluation, the methodology is enabling, assisting and inspiring numerous actors in taking on ??journeys?? of IS project proposals and evaluation and thereby making a difference in their business environments. The thesis makes important contributions to knowledge in the IS discipline. Theoretically, the adoption and use of ANT revealed that the IS Project Proposal is not dormant but rather active, and key to the IS evaluation effort. The IS Project Proposal has thus been re-conceptualised as emerging, relational and dynamic. This thesis also makes a contribution to the re-conceptualisation of the evaluation methodology as being multi-purpose and active as it defines the ??science?? and enables the ??art?? in IS evaluation. The thesis also makes a number of contributions to practice, firstly by showing that documents in IS evaluation are not simply ??outputs?? that are archived away, but are active and are used to attract the right stakeholders. Secondly, it reveals that the ultimate success of the IS Proposal relies on finding a balance between the science and the art in IS evaluation and that the evaluation methodology can play a key role in promoting this balance.

Open access (OA) to scholarly publishing is encouraged and enabled by new technologies such as the Internet, the World Wide Web, their standards and protocols, and search engines. Institutional repositories (IR) as the most recent technological incarnations of OA enable researchers and their institutions to make accessible the outputs of research. While many OA repositories are being implemented, researchers are surprisingly slow in adopting them. While activists promote OA as emanating from the ideals of scholarship, others revile OA as undermining of scholarly publishing's economic base and therefore undermining quality control and peer review. Change is occurring but there are contested views and actions. This research seeks to increase understanding of the issues by addressing the research questions: "How and why is open access reassembling scholarly publishing?" and "What role does introducing an open access institutional repository to researchers play in this reassembly?" This thesis contributes to answering these questions by investigating two IR implementations and the research communities they serve. The research was conducted as an Actor-Network Theory (ANT) field study, where the actors were followed and their relations and controversies explored in action as their landscape was being contested. The research found that central to our understanding of the reassembling of scholarly publishing is the agency emerging from the sociomaterial relations of the OA vision, IR technology and researchers. Being congruent with the aims of scholarship, and also being flexible and mutable, the OA vision enrols researchers to enact it through OA IR, thus transforming scholarly communications. This is counteracted by publishers aligned with the academic reward network within traditional publishing networks. In this delicate choreography the OA IR, its developers, researchers, university administrators and policy makers are merging as critical actors with their more or less congruent vision of OA enacted in their network. The comparative ANT account of the two IR life stories shows how such enactment depends on the degree to which different OA visions could converge, enrol and mobilise other actors, in particular institutional actors, such as a mandate, in transforming researchers' publishing behaviour. This thesis contributes to a novel and in-depth understanding of OA and IR and their roles in reassembling scholarly publishing. It also contributes to the use of ANT in information systems research by advancing a sociomaterial ontology which recognises the intertwining of human and material agency.

The purpose of this study is to examine how the learning process of four Swedish firms in the emerging market Angola works. Theoretical framework developed identified different theory streams such as; experiential learning, networks and incremental steps derived from internationalization theory. These theories we believed would explain the learning process in a market characterized by growth and risk factors. We have interviewed managers operating in Angola at four Swedish MNC‟s, in which we identified patterns of learning between the firms. Having analyzed elements from empirical and theoretical framework it can be clearly seen that firms learn through experiential learning and networks. These two factors can take different pattern forms as it depend on the MNC‟s industry and the firms experience from previous activities in Angola and nearby countries i.e. incremental steps. Added to the developed framework are previous experience and the institutions in the market. These five elements are interrelated, however, firms can learn about the market in a more effective way by understanding the institutional factors that are present.

En möbel som har ett tydligt program, en tydlig funktion kan vara begränsande. I min metod har jag utgått ifrån en möbel och förbisett dess program för att vidga mitt sökfält när jag har gjort om den. Jag har sett begreppen funktion, upplevd funktion och materiell funktion som värden som går att höja eller sänka. Möbelns nätverk av komponenter har tillåtits bli instabilt för en stund, för att sedan se till helheten och göra nätverket stabilt åter igen - programmet får komma tillbaka men med en ny gestaltning.

The interest in further expansion of wind power has increased significantly during the last decades, as it is an environmentally and financially competitive energy source. Wind power is an important part of achieving energy goals and climate commitments in several countries, not least in Sweden. The localisation of the wind turbines has, however, appeared to be controversial and local resistance occurs more frequently as the energy source expands. This creates a complex environmental conflict where various actors struggle to obtain differing goal settings. Such a situation occurred in Ödeshög municipality, when wind power entrepreneurs expressed their interests in establish wind turbines in forest and transition areas of the municipality. This thesis aims to emphasise how wind power expansion became such a controversial environmental conflict in Ödeshög. To be able to do this, the conflict is analysed from an Actor-Network Theory perspective. This theoretical framework has been used with the ambition to describe how the involved actors strategically have acted to possibly influence the outcome of the conflict. The situation in Ödeshög have much to say about how these conflicts occur and by learning from this situation several similar conflicts may be avoided.

Despite interest in the influence of religion on economic activity by early economists like Adam Smith, modern economists have done little research on the subject. In light of the apparent religious fervour in many parts of the global economy, economists' seeming lack of interest in studying how religious cultures enhance or retard the globalization of economic activity is especially surprising. In general, trade theories have given less weight towards the reason for trade explanation on demand side. As a contrary to H-O theory Linder had proposed a theoretically sound and empirically consistent trade theory with a new claim for the reasons why countries trade on the demand side. To fill this gap, I use international survey data on religiosity for a broad panel of countries trading with US to investigate the effects of church attendance and religious beliefs on trade. The beliefs are, in turn, the principal output of the religion sector, and the believer alignment to a specific denomination measures the inputs to this sector. Hence, I used an extended gravity model of international trade to control for a variety of factors that determine trade, and I used two regression methods, OLS and WLS, to exploit the model to its fullest. I find that the sharing of same religious cultures by people in different countries has a significantly positive influence on bilateral trade, all other things being equal. These results accord with a perspective in which religious beliefs influence individual traits that enhance trade and economic performance in general. And my attempt to magnify religion as a means to trade is only a derivation of Linder’s overlapping demand theory.

No description available.

Abstract Taiwan Tobacco and Wine Board Logistics Division¡¦s response strategies to Taiwan¡¦s entry into the World Trade Organization -from an integrated view of resource-base, resource-dependence, and network theories. The three theories including resource-base, resource-dependence, and network stress how companies obtain competitive advantage from inside to outside of the company. The synergy coming from integrating all three theories should further strengthen a corporation¡¦s competitiveness. After Taiwan¡¦s entry into the World Trade Organization, the tobacco and wine industry in Taiwan have faced fierce competition from new competitors. This poses both as a threat and as an opportunity for Taiwan Tobacco and Wine Board¡¦s Logistics Division. Through the analysis of the aforementioned three theories, this paper hopes to gain insight into how much competitive edge the Board has in terms of its advantages and disadvantages, its interdependence and relationship within the tobacco and wine industry as well as with other industries. Thus this paper hopes to combine and integrate the Division¡¦s external and internal resources and then make response strategies and policy suggestions accordingly. The results of this research include: 1. Products, price, distribution and sales channels, assets, and the competence of Taiwan Tobacco and Wine Board Logistics Division were all greatly affected by Taiwan¡¦s entry into the WTO. 2. Both assets and competences are considered as the company¡¦s internal resources. Advantages should be further made use of where disadvantages should be taken care of. 3. The Board¡¦s Logistics Division is currently most closely related to the tobacco and brewage factories under the same company. However, this relationship will be looser in the future due to the competition and the struggle to survive both entities face. On the other hand, the Logistics Division¡¦s relationship with transport companies, retailers, hypermarkets, convenience stores will be closer through investment, franchise, or partnerships. Its relationship with private sector manufacturers, domestic and oversea agents, cross-industry suppliers, distributors will also become much closer. 4. The Board¡¦s dependence on factories under the same company will decrease from highly dependent to a much lower degree ; its dependence on private sector manufacturers and domestic and oversea agents (who imports products from overseas after entry into the WTO) will grow from nil to highly dependent (dependence on importers already importing products before entry into WTO will decrease from an already meager degree to much less); dependence on cross-industry suppliers and distributors will become higher from a previously low degree; dependence on transport companies, retailers, hypermarkets and convenience stores will also become much higher from an already close relationship. 5. The Logistics Division should, after Taiwan¡¦s entry into the WTO, start from developing its internal advantages and disadvantages and search for ways to establish external links, as well as reducing its dependence on external sources. The three essential elements including resource-base, resource-dependence, and networks should be integrated through complement of resources, natural production, and increased interdependence. This and together with other strategies including diversification, strategic alliances, cooperating within the industry and across industries both domestically and internationally, should all be taken into account in the drawing up of response strategies in order to create competitive advantage for the Division. In view of these findings, this paper proceeds to make the following recommendations: 1. Increase retailer margins and encourage a more diversified range of promotional tactics. 2. Develop high-value products and improve package design. 3. Leverage existing advantages in distribution and sales channels and engage in the agency, distribution, and diversification into non-tobacco and nonalcoholic products. 4. Cut down distribution and sales channels and strengthen direct sales channels. 5. Intensify logistics and distributional functions. 6. Strengthen employees¡¦ professional knowledge and competence and improve information systems. 7. Accelerate the expansion of overseas markets, especially mainland China. 8. Speed up the company¡¦s privatization process. Based on an integrated view of resource-base, resource-dependence, and network theories, this paper presents a brief overview of how Taiwan Tobacco and Wine Board¡¦s Logistics Division¡¦s relationships with other companies in the same industry as well as cross-industry alliances had been affected post Taiwan¡¦s WTO entry. In view of these changes that have taken place, this paper also proceeds to make a few suggestions with regard to how the Logistics Division could respond to the challenges it now faces. Key Words¡G WTO¡AResource-base¡AResource-dependence¡ANetwork Theory¡AIntegrate

Univ., Diss.--Göteborg, 2005. / Literaturverz. S. [289] - 313.

Thesis (M.A.)--Victoria University of Wellington, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.