This thesis explores the environmental and social responsibilities being increasingly shouldered by cement manufacturing sector and outlines a new approach for these companies to accept their responsibilities and to utilise professional approaches to address the economic, environmental and social dimensions of sustainable business. Managing these three dimensions in business translates corporate responsibility into an integrated responsibility for doing business profitably, ethically and in sustainable manner. This three-pronged approach is sometimes called the Triple Bottom Line. It helps companies to fulfil their more holistic Corporate Social Responsibility. A critical review of the literature led the thesis author to develop the theoretical framework for environmental and social reporting to proceed on TBL/CSR journey within the cement industry. Data were collected from TBL/CSR reports from cement companies on key environmental and social performances. Based upon those data, a questionnaire was developed to obtain more information from the leading worldwide cement companies. The combined results of the responses to the questionnaire and the quantitative data derived from the TBL/CSR reports were used to establish best practice benchmarks to serve as performance targets for the author's case study company, Oman Cement Company (OCC). The contribution to knowledge of this research is the summarisation and prioritisation of the cement industry's implementation of TBL/CSR management systems, which integrate the elements of TBL/CSR into their strategic plans and daily operational procedures. Guidelines were derived from the Global Reporting Initiative, the United Nations Global Compact and the new ISO 26000 standard, which promotes a new way of working towards innovation, value creation and incremental actions for transforming businesses to become more responsible. The contributions to practice of this research are the practical and procedural insights, gained by quantitative analysis of environmental and social indicators, into how cement companies are making improvements in their processes and products in response to climate change, economic, governmental regulations and social pressures for improvement. Based upon the findings, recommendations and timetables were developed and are being implemented within the OCC as it progresses on its TBL/CSR journey.

This study explored how course instructional format (i.e., online, face-to-face, or hybrid) is related to the frequency and duration of out-of-class communication (OCC) between college instructors and students, to student motives for communicating with teachers, and to perceived teacher approachability for conversation outside of class. Though differences in frequency of and student motives for engaging in OCC were not significant, students enrolled in face-to-face courses reported significantly more ongoing/durative OCC with their instructors compared to students enrolled other course types (i.e., online or hybrid). Students in fully online courses reported instructors to seem less receptive to but also less discouraging of OCC than students in face-to-face or hybrid courses. Overall, this study offers a sense of how students who seek informal interaction with instructors beyond the classroom are faring amid the increased reliance on web-based learning environments in higher education.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-29T14:23:34Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Emerson Leandro Goya.pdf: 3206658 bytes, checksum: 1d8938862ea359faa4c8e7c623ace749 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-02-05 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / FALCOM and learning environments: An interactive tool to potentiate educational storytelling is the title of this dissertation that has as its main objective the improvement the use of the OCC-RDD technique, creating an instrumental support that increases the educational experiences in face to face meetings. This technique encourages the use of script characters to establish interaction and dialogue between the professor and the student, which are favored by learning of software s development. The problem in the research originates from the idea to create a support tool to be used in the classroom, under the name of Mechanic Master ─ MM, combining with interactive computer graphics techniques, like Augmented Reality and the Virtual Reality. Resulting in an audacious and instrumental project that was abdicated in function of theoretical and methodological foundations of interdisciplinary practice: Information Technology and Education. As hypothesis is formulated, the idea that the use of a support tool to assist the professor of higher education in the narration on educational stories, then its use becomes relevant in improving the effectiveness of the narration in stages OCC and RDD. Therefore, the main contribution of this research is the improvement of the technique of scripting OCC-RDD for the professor over using the support tool in order to train and interact with the student. The methodology used follows four procedures, the first is for exploratory research that seek similar references to a support tool that allows the narration of educational stories; the second procedure, has the intention of mapping the intellectual production of technical narrative OCC-RDD; the third procedure deals witch the learning environment; and the fourth, is the use of technology for the development of its own support tool. The dissertation is structured in five chapters: the first covers the contextualization of the theme under discussion; in the second, the fundamentals that form the base of the research; the third refers to the theoretical and methodological contribution of the research, and the procedures for the development of the support tool; the fourth, covers to result and the conclusion of the research; and, finally, the fifth chapter seeks to indicate the projection in future research / FALCOM e ambientes de aprendizagem: Uma ferramenta interativa para potencializar a narração de histórias educacionais é o título desta dissertação que tem como objetivo principal aperfeiçoar o uso da técnica de roteirização OCC-RDD, criando um instrumental de apoio que potencialize as experiências educacionais em encontros presenciais. Tal técnica de roteirização favorece o protagonismo e o diálogo tanto do professor quanto do aluno, que se veem favorecidos pela aprendizagem no desenvolvimento de softwares. A problematização da pesquisa se deu a partir da ideia original de criar uma ferramenta de apoio educacional sob o nome de Mestre Mecânico ─ MM , que combinava técnicas interativas de computação gráfica, Realidade Aumentada e Realidade Virtual, resultando em um projeto audacioso e instrumental do qual se abdicou em razão da complexibilidade dos fundamentos teóricos e metodológicos da prática multidisciplinar: Tecnologia da Informação e da Educação. Como hipótese é formulada a ideia de que ao se utilizar uma ferramenta de apoio para auxiliar o professor de nível superior a narrar histórias educacionais, o seu uso torna-se relevante para melhorar a eficácia da narração nas fases OCC e nas fases RDD. Portanto, a principal contribuição desta pesquisa está no aperfeiçoamento da técnica de roteirização OCC-RDD para que o professor por meio da ferramenta de apoio possa treinar e interagir com o estudante. A metodologia adotada segue quatro procedimentos: o primeiro destina-se à pesquisa exploratória que busca por referências similares a uma ferramenta de apoio que narre histórias educacionais; o segundo tem a intenção de mapear a produção intelectual da técnica narrativa OCC-RDD; o terceiro se refere ao ambiente de aprendizagem; e o quarto procedimento aborda o uso da tecnologia para o desenvolvimento da própria ferramenta de apoio. A dissertação se estrutura em cinco capítulos, são eles: o primeiro compreende a contextualização do tema em discussão; o segundo trata dos fundamentos que embasam a pesquisa; o terceiro se refere à contribuição teórica e metodológica da pesquisa, aos procedimentos para o desenvolvimento da construção da ferramenta de apoio; o quarto destina-se ao resultado e à conclusão da pesquisa; e, por fim, o quinto capítulo busca indicar os possíveis desdobramentos em pesquisas futuras

In the field of artificial intelligence the production of believable emotions are vital to be able to produce believable behavior of virtual agents. This is done with a process called affective appraisal, which means that events and situations are appraised and emotions are produced accordingly. The Artificial Intelligence and Computer Graphics (AICG) lab at Linköpings University has been devel- oping an AI architecture for virtual agents. This architecture had an appraisal module in need of improvement. This M.Sc. thesis had the purpose of doing this. Several approaches to affective appraisal are discussed and compared and finally one approach, called the OCC model, is chosen for implementation. This model is suitable for a real-time AI architecture as it is simple, easy to implement and can produce a wide range of emotions. The implementation of the OCC model is described in terms of how its different parts are incorporated into the previously existing AI architecture. Three extensions to the OCC model are also implemented to improve the results: emotional memories, the appraisal of unexpected events and interaction between the produced emotions. Finally the implementation is tested and the results of the tests are discussed. It is found that the implementation produces sufficient results for the scope of the thesis and for the requirements of the AI architecture into which it is incorporated.

This thesis explores the environmental and social responsibilities being increasingly shouldered by cement manufacturing sector and outlines a new approach for these companies to accept their responsibilities and to utilise professional approaches to address the economic, environmental and social dimensions of sustainable business. Managing these three dimensions in business translates corporate responsibility into an integrated responsibility for doing business profitably, ethically and in sustainable manner. This three-pronged approach is sometimes called the Triple Bottom Line. It helps companies to fulfil their more holistic Corporate Social Responsibility. A critical review of the literature led the thesis author to develop the theoretical framework for environmental and social reporting to proceed on TBL/CSR journey within the cement industry. Data were collected from TBL/CSR reports from cement companies on key environmental and social performances. Based upon those data, a questionnaire was developed to obtain more information from the leading worldwide cement companies. The combined results of the responses to the questionnaire and the quantitative data derived from the TBL/CSR reports were used to establish best practice benchmarks to serve as performance targets for the author¿s case study company, Oman Cement Company (OCC). The contribution to knowledge of this research is the summarisation and prioritisation of the cement industry¿s implementation of TBL/CSR management systems, which integrate the elements of TBL/CSR into their strategic plans and daily operational procedures. Guidelines were derived from the Global Reporting Initiative, the United Nations Global Compact and the new ISO 26000 standard, which promotes a new way of working towards innovation, value creation and incremental actions for transforming businesses to become more responsible. The contributions to practice of this research are the practical and procedural insights, gained by quantitative analysis of environmental and social indicators, into how cement companies are making improvements in their processes and products in response to climate change, economic, governmental regulations and social pressures for improvement. Based upon the findings, recommendations and timetables were developed and are being implemented within the OCC as it progresses on its TBL/CSR journey.

本研究目的在於探究組織面對外在壓力下所形塑的組織變革能耐內涵，以及智慧資本觀點HRD實務在組織變革過程中所扮演的角色與實質內涵。研究個案來自於1994-2005年天下雜誌所選出的標竿企業，包括9家個案公司與21項變革事件，透過深度訪談與次級資料進行資料蒐集，並採用紮根理論進行資料分析。 研究結果發現，有二種路徑影響個案公司形塑或強化組織變革能耐，不同路徑的走向來自於在組織變革過程中遭遇變革阻力的類型。當個案公司未遭遇變革困境或員工心態衝擊程度小時，採行第一種路徑，即企業平時透過智慧資本觀點之HRD實務扮演的策略性角色所累積的智慧資本，有助於在變革當下轉化為組織變革能耐，並順利推展變革活動。另一方面，若遭遇內外部衝擊的交互作用，產生變革困境，原有的組織能力無法因應時，個案公司會採行第二種路徑自主性的調整與學習，透過促進性角色的智慧資本觀點之HRD實務，持續強化與形塑組織變革能耐，以克服組織困境，並有助於成功推行變革。 二種路徑所形成組織變革能耐內涵包括：穩固人心的企業文化價值、領導者的信任式領導能力、領導者持續性的執行力、專業導向的員工賦權、參與式的變革承諾、管理制度系統化、跨越邊界的系統化溝通、以及開放式的組織學習能力。外在環境壓力僅是引起組織改變的導火線，因為影響組織變革能耐內涵的差異化，同時包括了幾項連結性因素：變革驅動因子、變革行動類型、變革阻力的類型、與組織變革能耐的發展路徑，而外部環境壓力僅是變革驅動因子中的起始點。 在以上二種組織變革能耐發展路徑中，智慧資本觀點的HRD實務扮演了策略性或促進性的角色，有助於培植組織變革能耐，或強化組織變革能耐促使變革成功。除了策略性與促進性角色，智慧資本觀點之HRD實務在變革過程中也扮演維持性的角色，產生作業性能耐協助組織維持每天正常運作的績效。這些作業性能耐包括：員工的工作職能、員工的工作績效、組織成員平時的互動等等。 無論是扮演維持性、策略性、或促進性角色，智慧資本觀點HRD實務的組成內涵包括發展型、建構型與合作型的HRD構形，但是不同角色的HRD實務具有差異化的組成要素。透過發展型、建構型與合作型HRD構形，得以發展人力資本，建構組織資本，培養社會資本，而經由長時間所蓄積的智慧資本，有助於形成組織變革能耐或作業性能耐。本研究依據研究結果推展出10項研究命題，建構形塑組織變革能耐的變革模式，並提出相關的管理意涵。 / This study aims to explore the organizational capacity for change (OCC) under external pressures facing firms and the roles of intellectual-capital HRD practice in the organizational change process. Cases were obtained from benchmarking enterprises selected by Commonwealth Magazine from 1994 to 2005, including nine cases and twenty-one change events. In-depth interviews and secondary data were collected and analyzed by grounded theory procedures. The research findings show that the target companies adopted two paths to develop and shape OCC. Change resistance is obvious to be the influential factor. First, under low-degree of employee resistance, the intellectual-capital HRD practice plays the strategic role to accumulate intellectual capital, which is transformed into OCC during the organizational change. Second, change difficulties are generated from both external and internal shocks during transformation, then the target cases develop or strengthen new OCC to solve problems. And intellectual-capital HRD practice plays the facilitating role in the second path. Eight dimensions forming OCC are derived from the above two paths, including company culture value, trustworthy leadership, continuous execution, employee empowerment based on expertise, participative change commitment, systems management, systems communication across boundaries, and open organizational learning. External environmental pressure only is the fuse in change drivers, and the sequential process of change drivers, change types, change resistance, and the OCC path determine the differential OCC. Intellectual-capital HRD practice plays the strategic or facilitating role in different OCC development path to make change implementation successful. Besides, it is a maintaining role to generate operational capability, including employee competence, employee job performance, and employee interaction, to sustain operational performance. The components of intellectual-capital HRD practice are developmental, constructive, and collaborative HRD configuration, which yield human capital, organizational capital, and social capital, respectively. The long-term intellectual capital accumulation facilitates to shape OCC or operational capacity. Finally, the research proposes ten propositions to construct the change model shaping OCC and derived managerial implications.