A research project submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MA by coursework and Research Report in the field of Organisational Psychology in the Faculty of Humanities. University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, November 2017 / The current study utilized the Attention Restoration Theory to investigate whether plants in an office context produced restorative effects that enable employees to perform better. The Attention Restoration Theory asserts that individuals will experience increased concentration after spending time in or viewing nature. This study was one of the first attempts to empirically investigate the effect of indoor plants on experiences of performance outcomes and perceptions of Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) within South Africa. The researcher aimed to assess whether the individual’s nature identity moderated the impact of the plants. Most previous studies on the outcomes of indoor plants have been conducted in Western, Northern hemisphere contexts. In this experimental study, 120 participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: (1) no plants or pictures of plants; (2) only plants; (3) only canvas pictures of plants. The rooms were identical in every other respect. Participants completed two tasks (a card-sorting task and a reading task) and two questionnaires, namely the connectedness to nature scale to assess participant’s nature identity and a previously developed questionnaire that aimed to assess task performance. Additionally, SE controls IEQ monitors were positioned in each office to measure fluctuations of air quality (i.e. temperature, humidity and carbon dioxide levels) in order to assess IEQ. The results from a series of ANOVA’s demonstrated a reduction in participants’ errors (F (2, 117) = 7.137, p = 0.001), a positive reaction to the given task (F (2, 117) = 8.904, p = 0.000), as well as a reduction in participants’ task completion time (F (2, 117) = 43.422, p = 0.000) in the plants condition. These results demonstrated a statistically significant effect on performance in the presence of plants as well as an improvement in air quality through a reduction of carbon dioxide (F (2, 117) = 6.429, p = 0.000). The results revealed that the plants condition was statistically significantly different from that of the pictures of plants and the control condition with regards to the performance outcomes. The result from the two-way ANOVA’s demonstrated that nature identity did not moderate the above relationships (Errors: F (1, 114) = 2.060, p = 0.132; Completion time: F (1, 114) = 0.967, p = 0.383; Reaction to the task: F (1, 114) = 0.017, p = 0.983). This study enhances knowledge regarding indoor plants within the South African context as well as practically influencing working environments where employees are expected to be productive. / MT 2019

No description available.

As societies evolve, offices have become the places were the majority of working activities take place. Occupants’ comfort in office buildings has always been a very important issue in the building sector and therefore guidelines regarding indoor comfort standards have been developed throughout the years. Nevertheless, there is a need for investments on new and innovative ideas which will go beyond the existing guidelines and move towards a more sustainable and human oriented office environment.The present thesis aims at promoting this idea of sustainable offices by developing and presenting an innovative technological method which will provide the opportunity to measure the office workers’ perceived comfort in real time. This in its turn will enable the building sector stakeholders to operate office buildings in a more sustainable way in terms of building services provision to their occupants.In order to achieve these objectives, the first part of the thesis is dedicated in describing the basic indoor environmental components of the office environment as well as the possible associations between improved indoor environmental quality and occupants’ health, wellbeing and productivity. The second part aims to provide a detailed presentation of the existing or emerging methods which are currently used in order to predict or directly measure occupants’ perceived comfort in office places while in the same time discussing their current capabilities and limitations. In the final part, our proposed method, which could be used for the purposes of real time perceived comfort measurements, is presented. This proposed method includes four different steps which are separately presented with detailed instructions regarding their proper implementation.

Managers in federal executive branch agencies administer public programs and policies in a complex legal environment. To assist managers, each agency has an organization that is responsible for providing them legal advice, typically called an "Office of the General Counsel" (OGC). Existing literature from public administration and administrative law has addressed, to varying degrees, what OGC lawyers do or ought to do, but has primarily focused on providing legal advice, not obtaining it. This discrete literature is disconnected from major streams in public administration. The purpose of this study was to update and extend the literature by exploring managers' and lawyers' perceptions of the role of managers as advisees of OGC. This study made managers the focal point of exploration and used concepts from organizational role theory to clarify the term "role" and highlight the structural and interactional elements of the manager's part in the manager-lawyer relationship. Four research questions guided this study by inquiring about the expectations managers and lawyers have regarding: (1) the organizational arrangement for obtaining legal advice; (2) decision making in the context of obtaining legal advice; (3) the closeness of their working relationship; and (4) being a "client" of OGC in the context of obtaining legal advice. Data were collected from in-depth, semi-structured interviews conducted with 20 practitioners (14 managers; six lawyers). This study found that managers and lawyers preferred to remain separate from each other in the agency because of the expectation that managers obtain and lawyers provide objective legal advice. Regarding decision making, managers and lawyers expected managers to make decisions in the sense of seeking guidance from OGC rather than permission, being comfortable questioning legal advice, and choosing among options and alternatives; although, lawyers indicated some managers prefer not making decisions. The expectation of making decisions in the sense of choosing whether to follow legal advice remains contested among managers; among lawyers, they expect managers to consider legal advice and decide whether to follow it. Managers and lawyers expected to have a close working relationship marked by assistance with formulating legal questions and full disclosure of information. As for expectations associated with being a "client" of OGC, managers' and lawyers' expectations diverged on what being a "client" of OGC entails. Managers viewed themselves as clients, but associated the term "client" with customer service; lawyers, on the other hand, viewed managers as clients provided their interests are aligned with the agency's interests. Beyond exploring the role of managers when obtaining legal advice, this study's focus on the interaction between managers and lawyers within a federal agency suggests a way connecting public law more directly to public management, as well as extending insights from governance to activities inside an agency. / Ph. D.

I have analyzed and improved the area of Alviks strand with a number ofcontributions, with the main goal of reprogramming existing office buildingsinto housing and to create a vibrant urban district. The buildings are allowedto remain, and not demolished and replaced. This saves roughly 16000 tons ofcarbon dioxide.I enhance the postmodern architecture, transform the office plans into apartments,reprogram the streets, develop the conference building and add a newelevator to the tram. Changes and additions that strengthen the existing buildingmass. The relatively new curved buildings are built to stand for 100 yearsand with my transformation, Alviks strand becomes a lively and accessiblepart of the city.

An architectural territory is an area of human settlement that exhibits consistent architectural conditions or elements. In this thesis, three primary aspects of territory are considered: massing patterns, circulation networks, and typological structure. Many European architects work to extend, delimit, and join territories through their architectural interventions. In this way buildings function both as objects in themselves and as linking or delimiting parts in an urban whole. This thesis presents an American's understanding of a typically European approach, gained during a year of study at the Accademia di architettura in Mendrisio, Switzerland. Combining observations of Accademia pedagogy with the presentation of two projects undertaken there, it offers a definition of territory and two territorial discourses. In the first project, located in Padua, the intent is to strengthen the definition of two adjacent territories by means of an interstitial housing and office complex. In the second the territory of a service island at the edge of Venice becomes the primary influence for the form of a rock venue and contemporary cultural center. The social and political territories in a city, powerful forces for architecture, are also discussed in the context of Padua. An aging and shrinking population may not need or want a building typology that interests elite political and economic actors. / Master of Architecture

A successful architect often finds, during the course of his life and practice, that he needs to expand both his office and his house. The object of this thesis is to investigate various ways of satisfying these needs, for an anonymous architect of considerable repute, in order to arrive at the desirable and economical solution under present economic conditions in Danville, Virginia. / Master of Science

Ma thèse se compose de trois articles. Les deux premiers ont pour ambition d’apporter une contribution à la littérature de la microéconomie de la corruption. Le dernier article aborde le problème de la provision de biens publics depuis un angle inédit, qui pose le bien public comme un bien de confiance. Le premier article de ma thèse s’intitule «La corruption bureaucratique et la corruption politique ne sont pas l’endroit et l’envers d’une même pièce». Il s’agit non seulement d’offrir une revue de littérature à jour sur le thème de la microéconomie de la corruption, mais aussi de rappeler l’urgence d’établir une distinction claire entre les corruptions bureaucratique et politique dans la science économique. La ligne de démarcation entre ces deux phénomènes étant jusqu’à présent restée floue, les avancées réalisées dans la modélisation de la corruption bureaucratique - en recourant au modèle principal-agent - ont paradoxalement conduit à un vide de la littérature pour ce qui est de la formalisation de la corruption politique. Néanmoins, deux branches de l’économie politique se concentrent sur les rentes et les transferts monétaires associés à la corruption politique. Je défends l’idée que les rentes proposées dans les modèles d’agence politique s’apparentent davantage à des détournements de fonds publics qu’à de véritables pots de vin politiques. De plus, les transferts monétaires présentés dans la littérature de la représentation d’intérêts (lobbying) ne correspondent pas non plus exactement à la définition du pot de vin, ce qui ne manque pas d’alimenter la confusion entre lobbying et corruption politique. Dans le second article intitulé «Quand les politiciens prennent des décisions inefficaces. Un modèle d’agence commune appliqué à la corruption politique», je propose un modèle d’agence commune simple, dans lequel deux principaux (groupes d’intérêts) tentent d’influencer la décision d’un agent (politicien). La nouveauté théorique de ce modèle réside dans l’introduction d’un écart d’information entre les principaux: tandis que le premier groupe d’intérêts est toujours en mesure d’observer l’action posée par le politicien, le second doit faire confiance à un organe de surveillance imparfait pour faire la lumière sur le choix effectif de ce dernier. Dans ce contexte, le politicien a la possibilité d’opter pour une action inefficace, pour laquelle il accepte des transferts monétaires privés (pots de vin politiques) du groupe d’intérêt disposant de plus d’information. Mon principal résultat est que l’augmentation du degré de transparence (soit la réduction de l’écart d’information entre principaux) aboutit à faire monter les pots de vin attendus. Cela ne signifie pas pour autant qu’une transparence accrue soit une mauvaise politique. En fait, en augmentant la transparence, on améliore le bien-être attendu. L’article propose un second résultat ayant trait à l’inefficacité des salaires fixes des politiciens comme outil de lutte contre la corruption. «La provision de biens publics de confiance selon l’agence commune», le troisième et dernier article de ma thèse, montre que dans un modèle d’agence commune utilisant des biens publics de confiance, même le moindre degré d’asymétrie d’information est susceptible de conduire à l’inefficacité. Le bien public est une forme de bien de confiance, étant donné que chaque principal observe avec une certaine probabilité (au moins) un de ses attributs. Ainsi, les principaux ne sont pas nécessairement en mesure de distinguer un projet public d’un autre, et ils n’ont pas d’autre choix que de faire confiance à la parole de l’agent au moment de faire leurs contributions. Au-delà de l’inefficacité résultante, je décris le comportement des principaux vis-à-vis de leurs contributions. Le fait d’avoir accès à davantage d’information (soit le fait de pouvoir distinguer adéquatement plus souvent les projets publics les uns des autres) peut, au final, amener les principaux à contribuer moins. Enfin, je dérive la probabilité de choisir le projet inefficace. Et comme cette probabilité mesure le bien-être attendu, je conclus sur quelques considérations politiques liées à l’accès des principaux à l’information. / My thesis is composed of three articles. The first two articles aim to bring a contribution to the microeconomics of corruption literature. The last one deals with the problem of public good provision from a new perspective: the public good is also a credence good. The first paper of my thesis is called “Bureaucratic and political corruption, the same side of two different coins”. It is not only an up-to-date review of the microeconomics of corruption literature, but also a caveat that a clear distinction between political and bureaucratic corruption is direly needed in economics. Because the line separating bureaucratic and political corruption has been fuzzy, the success in modeling bureaucratic corruption - by employing the principal-agent framework - has paradoxically left a gap in the formalization of political corruption. Nevertheless, two branches of political economy focus on rents or monetary transfers associated with political corruption. I argue that the rents proposed by the political agency models resemble rather the embezzlement of public funds than actual political bribes. Moreover, the monetary transfers proposed by the lobbying literature don’t fully fit the definition of political bribes, generating confusion between lobbying and political corruption. In the second paper entitled “When politicians make inefficient decisions. A common agency model of political corruption” I present a simple common agency model in which two principals (interest groups) try to influence the decision of an agent (politician). The theoretical novelty of the model is the presence of an information gap between principals: while one interest group always observes the action implemented by the politician, the other has to rely on an imperfect court to investigate the politician’s actual choice. In this context the politician may choose an inefficient action by accepting private monetary transfers (political bribes) from the better informed interest group. My main result is that an increase in transparency (i.e. the information gap between principals diminishes) will rise the expected bribes. This doesn’t mean that increasing transparency is a bad policy. In fact, increasing transparency improves the expected welfare. A second result concerns the ineffectiveness of politicians’ flat salaries in fighting corruption. “The provision of credence public goods under common agency”, the third paper of my thesis, shows that in a common agency model featuring credence public goods even the smallest degree of information asymmetry may lead to an inefficient outcome. The public good is also a credence good as each principal observes only with some probability (at least) one of its attributes. Therefore, the principals may not distinguish a public project from another and they have to trust the agent’s word when making contributions. Besides this inefficiency result, I characterize the principals’ contributing behavior. Getting access to more information (telling the difference between the public projects more often) may, surprisingly, bring the principals to contribute less. Finally, I derive the probability of choosing the inefficient project. And since it measures the expected welfare, I reach some policy considerations regarding the principals’ access to information.

''Thèse en cotutelle, Doctorat en histoire, Université Laval, Québec, Canada, Philosophiæ doctor (Ph. D.) et École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris, France'' / Ce travail prend appui sur une source jusqu’ici largement sous-exploitée et qui appartient à la communauté des procureurs au parlement de Paris sous l’Ancien Régime. Source aux apparences familières en ce qu’elle se rapporte à un ordre disciplinaire commun à de nombreuses compagnies judiciaires et corps de métiers de l’époque, son objet est pourtant passé inaperçu : la pratique. En 1670, est établie sous l’autorité du Parlement une Chambre de la postulation qui a pour objectif de poursuivre les faits d’entreprise supposée sur le ministère de procureur au parlement de Paris. Les registres par elle produits entre 1670 et 1738 forment la matière première de ce travail en consignant des usages qui forment autant d’écarts à une mise en ordre opérée par la communauté que de fenêtres sur le monde de la pratique. La postulation saisie dans ses rapports entre le postulant et le procureur qui prête son nom devient, une fois sortie des registres et articulée à d’autres corpus de sources, un outil pour sonder la vie des études de procureurs, la difficulté du métier et son accès disputé par divers praticiens sans titre. En tant que manifestation d’une inscription sociale et professionnelle, la postulation mise en lumière par la communauté des procureurs éclaire divers usages du monde de la pratique où le déploiement de l’exercice du procureur s’accommode mal de l’étroitesse du titre. / This work is based on a source hitherto largely underused and which belongs to the community of attorneys (procureurs in French) in the parliament of Paris under the Ancien Régime. The source seems familiar in that it relates to a disciplinary order common to many judicial systems and trades of the time, yet its object has gone unnoticed : la pratique. In 1670, a Chambre de la postulation was established under the authority of Parliament, the objective of which was to prosecute alleged corporate acts against the ministry of the attorney in the Parliament of Paris. The registers produced by this chamber between 1670 and 1738 form the raw material of this work and reflect uses which form as many deviations from an order made by the community as windows on the world of practice. The postulation, caught in its relations between the postulant and the attorney who lends his name, becomes, once out of the registers and articulated with other corpora of sources, a tool to probe the life ofthe attorney’s office, the difficulty of the profession and its access as disputed by various untitled practitioners. As a manifestation of social and professional registration, the postulation, brought to light by the community of attorneys, sheds light on various uses inthe world of the pratique where the deployment of the attorney’s pratique is ill suited to the narrowness of the title.

Submitted by JOSIANE SANTOS DE OLIVEIRA (josianeso) on 2018-12-14T12:22:34Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Débora Nardelli_.pdf: 4898439 bytes, checksum: 907a2956a3838c5a0006e0c33c92c6fa (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-12-14T12:22:34Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Débora Nardelli_.pdf: 4898439 bytes, checksum: 907a2956a3838c5a0006e0c33c92c6fa (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-08-10 / Nenhuma / É sabido que a maioria das pessoas investe grande parte de seu tempo em ambientes internos, como escritórios, empresas, fábricas etc. Com o surgimento de novas teorias sobre produtividade relacionadas ao ambiente de trabalho e em decorrência de grandes avanços tecnológicos, novos formatos de trabalho surgiram, e, em consequência, novas demandas ligadas ao trabalho se refletiram em necessidade de mudança em novos ambientes e espaços físicos. Com demandas cada vez maiores e com a preocupação com o bem-estar do funcionário, a busca por ambientes flexíveis e por mais escritórios abertos vem se tornando comum com o passar do tempo. Pesquisas mais recentes evidenciam a importância de um ambiente de trabalho flexível e preocupado com o design relacionado ao funcionário, o qual proporciona melhor desempenho, produtividade e satisfação. Assim, constitui-se como objetivo deste trabalho analisar a percepção dos trabalhadores em relação aos escritórios abertos e flexíveis e como esse tipo de escritório pode influenciar a satisfação do usuário. Para tanto, foram selecionadas duas empresas que foram reformuladas de escritórios fechados para escritórios abertos a fim de se analisar a satisfação do funcionário após a reformulação. Posteriormente, realizou-se uma pesquisa qualitativa exploratória em cada empresa e foram realizados questionamentos individuais com oito funcionários de cada empresa, totalizando dezesseis entrevistados, para se analisarem questões relacionadas à satisfação baseada em elementos como desempenho, bem-estar, ruído, interação e autonomia. A pesquisa realizada aponta, com base nas opiniões dos funcionários, que os aspectos positivos e negativos são percebidos de maneiras diferentes entre os funcionários. Alguns percebem as mudanças e as consequências da transição como algo positivo, enquanto outros percebem o contrário. Dessa forma, impossibilita-se uma conclusão clara referente à satisfação. As contribuições que prevalecem desta pesquisa são o aumento do campo de visão, dado pelas informações e pelas análises aqui trazidas, referente à teoria e à prática da satisfação dos funcionários na transição de escritórios fechados para escritórios abertos. / It is known that most people spend the majority of their time in indoor settings, like offices, companies, factories, etc. With the emergence of news theories about productivity related to indoor settings and big technological advances, new formats of work activity emerged and, consequently, new work-related demands reflected that changes of indoor settings and physical spaces is needed. With demands getting bigger and bigger and the concern of the well-being of the employee, the search for flexible and open settings are becoming common with time. Recent studies show that, the importance of a flexible workspace and with design that attends to his need, can improve his productivity, performance and satisfaction. The objective of this work is to analyze the perception of the workers in relation with their newly renovated, open-plan office environment. For that, it was selected two companies that were renovated from a closed-plan office to an open plan office and the employee satisfaction analyzed. After that, an exploratory qualitative research was made in each company, individual questioning was made with eight employee each, totalizing sixteen people interviewed, of which were analyzed questions about their satisfaction based on elements like performance, well-being, noise, interaction and autonomy. The research points out, taking in account the opinions of the employees, that positive or negative aspects can be perceived differently by them. Some perceive that the changes and consequences that occurred in the office by the transition as something positive, and others feel the opposite. And so, making a clear conclusion about the satisfaction impossible. The contributions that prevail from this research it’s the widening of the field of view about this topic, granting it more information and analyses that the research provided relating to the theory and practice of the employees on the transition to closed-plan offices to open-plane ones.