The expectation that employees of large organisations will work extended working hours (EWH) is a phenomenon of discourse at the societal and organisational levels. This occurs in spite of the detrimental effects that working long hours can have on employees’ mental and physical health and the well-being of their families. This thesis investigates why employees comply with this expectation by focussing on managers and professionals because they are the categories of Australian employees who work the longest hours. Texts derived from a focus group and extended interviews of 30 managers and professionals are analysed and interpreted using a computer-assisted text analysis program, linguistic analysis, and discourse linguistic interpretation. Of particular emphasis is the deontic modality that research participants use to express their obligation to expectation and their attitudes about other organisational imperatives. Also crucial to this research is the agency of the participants in terms of their capacity to make and follow their own decisions. This investigation is informed by critical post-structuralist theory of Foucaultian origin involving a pragmatic distinction between analysis for meaning potential at the text level and context for meaning at the discourse level. This empirical research found that participants commonly feel cognitive dissonance from the contradiction that EWH and work-life balance (WLB) co-exist in their same organisational discourse. This paradox complicates their responses to expectation whether the participants comply or resist. Participants’ agency is therefore judged on their level of reflexivity to these organisational challenges. The professional cohort was found to be more reflexive and thus agentically stronger because their work paths are clearer. They know what work is required and, even though their working hours may be long, they see them purely as the means to achieving prescribed ends. Public sector managers’ work is also extensive but they do not have clear boundaries and thus find the boundaries between work and nonwork non-existent or blurred. Financial service managers are more agentic than public sector managers but less than the professionals. The women in this research relate to work time and life balance differently and less easily than men, particularly those who break for motherhood and / or work part-time. The theory built in this thesis can inform organisations of the ubiquitous presence of the expectation of EWH and the dangers it provides for employees and organisations. It also provides practice guidance to organisations as to how EWH may be common but do not necessarily benefit organisations or their employees. This thesis finds that it is more sensible to support employees’ agency by acknowledging their diversity and giving them choice in determining for how long they should work. This would allow employees to identify and experience obligation to their organisation and their part in negotiated knowledge production.

The expectation that employees of large organisations will work extended working hours (EWH) is a phenomenon of discourse at the societal and organisational levels. This occurs in spite of the detrimental effects that working long hours can have on employees’ mental and physical health and the well-being of their families. This thesis investigates why employees comply with this expectation by focussing on managers and professionals because they are the categories of Australian employees who work the longest hours. Texts derived from a focus group and extended interviews of 30 managers and professionals are analysed and interpreted using a computer-assisted text analysis program, linguistic analysis, and discourse linguistic interpretation. Of particular emphasis is the deontic modality that research participants use to express their obligation to expectation and their attitudes about other organisational imperatives. Also crucial to this research is the agency of the participants in terms of their capacity to make and follow their own decisions. This investigation is informed by critical post-structuralist theory of Foucaultian origin involving a pragmatic distinction between analysis for meaning potential at the text level and context for meaning at the discourse level. This empirical research found that participants commonly feel cognitive dissonance from the contradiction that EWH and work-life balance (WLB) co-exist in their same organisational discourse. This paradox complicates their responses to expectation whether the participants comply or resist. Participants’ agency is therefore judged on their level of reflexivity to these organisational challenges. The professional cohort was found to be more reflexive and thus agentically stronger because their work paths are clearer. They know what work is required and, even though their working hours may be long, they see them purely as the means to achieving prescribed ends. Public sector managers’ work is also extensive but they do not have clear boundaries and thus find the boundaries between work and nonwork non-existent or blurred. Financial service managers are more agentic than public sector managers but less than the professionals. The women in this research relate to work time and life balance differently and less easily than men, particularly those who break for motherhood and / or work part-time. The theory built in this thesis can inform organisations of the ubiquitous presence of the expectation of EWH and the dangers it provides for employees and organisations. It also provides practice guidance to organisations as to how EWH may be common but do not necessarily benefit organisations or their employees. This thesis finds that it is more sensible to support employees’ agency by acknowledging their diversity and giving them choice in determining for how long they should work. This would allow employees to identify and experience obligation to their organisation and their part in negotiated knowledge production.

In examining the role of the �legal rule� in Indonesian law, and in particular environmental law related to water quality management, this thesis questions the often expressed view that laws in Indonesia are sound, they merely fail to be implemented. It proposes that this appraisal of the situation does not take a sufficiently deep assessment and that a cause for non-implementation lies within the drafting of the laws themselves. It is argued that the ineffective system for environmental protection in Indonesia can be related to a failure to recognise the role of the �legal rule� in environmental law. A proposition presented in this thesis is that the arrangements for environmental law making in Indonesia lacks a strong rule foundation and, for this reason, it is not capable of producing shared understandings by lawmakers about producing and reproducing environmental law as legal sub-system. Another central proposition is that Indonesian environmental law has a form and style, which negates the role of the legal rule in environmental management and control. Despite the changes brought by reformasi, the central position of the legal rule in environmental law and, indeed, the necessary rule foundation to the development of the legal system, has yet to achieve full recognition. If this situation is related to the system of water quality management and pollution control in Indonesia, it can be seen that environmental improvement will not be achieved until underlying issues concerning the structure, form and style of environmental law making are addressed.

Universiẗat, Diss.--Augsburg, 2007.

Thèse (Ph. D.)--Université Laval, 2007. / Bibliogr.: f. [297]-310. Publié aussi en version électronique dans la Collection Mémoires et thèses électroniques.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität St. Gallen, 2009.

Rev. doctoral diss. Univ. of Oxford, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [261]-274) and index.

Military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq highlighted a key characteristic of contemporary Western civil- military relations. Today, a small group of volunteers fights a distant conflict while popular familiarity with military service and war declines. There is a disconnect between this way of war and enduring cultural understandings of the appropriate normative relationship between gender (particularly masculinity), military service, and citizenship. This study examines "support the troops" (StT) discourses in the United States and United Kingdom during the "global war on terror" (2001-2010) as a representation of this on-going transformation in gendered/ing civil-military relations. Methodologically, the study employs structured discourse analysis to map an original data set of previously unexamined documents produced by UK and US state and military officials, pro-military non-governmental organizations, peace and anti-war movements, and media. It is the first systematic social scientific study of the "support the troops" phenomenon. The patterns inductively generated within the mapping are interpreted using a poststructural (re)conceptualisation of the military as a discursive structural effect, as well a formal institution and social relation. The study argues that StT is a means of addressing the gendered civilian anxiety that accompanies non-service in wartime. It finds that StT is a political contestation over the appropriate normative structure of gendered civil-military relations. Through the articulation of three ideal-typical, intertwined logics of gendered political obligation, StT discourse reconstitutes military support, rather than military service, as the sine qua non of contemporary normative citizenship. Via a series of gendered associations and contrasts with "the troops", support is further produced as a means of military participation. Correspondingly, ostensibly separate "civil" society is (re)masculinised. Together, the underlying logics of gendered political obligation work to discursively instantiate and (re)produce an idealised vision of the political community, extending and legitimating the transnational liberal social order.

Problembakgrund och problemdiskussion: Mellan åren 2006 och 2010 genomförde länderna i den Europeiska Unionen ett omfattande förenklingsarbete gällande de mindre aktiebolagen. Detta medförde vissa regeländringar. Syftet med förenklingsarbetet var att företagen skulle bli mer konkurrenskraftiga och detta skulle leda till fler växande företag som i sin tur skulle anställa fler. Den 1 november 2010 tog riksdagen beslutet att avskaffa revisionsplikten för mindre aktiebolag i Sverige i enlighet med förenklingsarbetet. Beslutet medförde att de aktiebolag som inte överskrider fler än ett av de fastställda gränsvärdena inte längre omfattas av revisionsplikten. Gränsvärdena är individuella för medlemsländerna men får inte överstiga de värden som Europeiska Unionen fastställt. Revisionspliktens avskaffande påverkade, år 2010 mer än 70 % av alla aktiebolag i Sverige. Vi har hittat studier som är genomförda i Storbritannien, Danmark och Finland men inte Sverige angående vad ägarna har för åsikt om avskaffandet. Därför vill vi undersöka ägarnas inställning till revisorn. Utifrån resultatet kan ägarna få en överblick över hur andra ägare resonerar. Syfte: Uppsatsen syfte är att identifiera och förklara vilka motiv ägare av mindre aktiebolag har till att anlita en revisor eller ej. Detta för att skapa en förståelse för ägarnas inställning till revisorn. Metod: Undersökningen har baserats på en kvalitativ metod med en abduktiv ansats. Där intervjuer utgjorde insamlingsmetoden av empirin som sedan analyserades med hjälp av en egenframtagen analysmodell. Det genomfördes sex intervjuer med ägare av mindre aktiebolag i Skövde och närliggande orter. Dessa ägare är verksamma i tre olika branscher; jordbruk, klädbutiker samt hälsa och sjukvård. Slutsats: Ägarna har olika synsätt på revisorn. Det vill säga att det finns ägare som anser att det är värdefullt att anlita en revisor trots att lagkravet togs bort men det finns också ägare som tycker motsatsen. Dock är den generella meningen bland de intervjuade att vid valet skall ägaren ta hänsyn till sina egna behov, företagets ekonomi och kostnaden för revisorn. Samtliga ägare utgår också från sig själva när de genomför valet och funderar inte över hur likartade organisationer gör. Det stämmer inte överens med den nyinstitutionella teorin som menar att organisationer strävar efter att bli mer lika varandra. / Background: Between 2006 and 2010, the countries of the European Union underwent massive simplification work regarding small businesses which resulted in some law changes. The main purpose with these rule changes was to make the companies more competitive and growing. This expects to lead the companies hiring more people. November 1st 2010 the Swedish government abolished the audit obligation for small businesses. The outcome of these changes was that companies that do not exceed more than one of the defined values do not need to hire an auditor. These values are different in each member state but are not allowed to exceed the values set by the European Union. The exception from the audit obligation affected more than 70 % of all companies in year 2010 in Sweden. Research has been made from owners’ perspective in other countries, like United Kingdom, Denmark and Finland, but not in Sweden. Therefore we wanted to analyze the subject from an owner’s perspective. The result can give the owners an overview of how other owners choose. Purpose: The purpose of the essay is to explore and explain what motives owner of small business’ have for hiring an auditor or not. This will create an understanding of the owners' views on the auditing. Method: The study has been based on a abductive approach applying qualitative methods. The data have been collected by interviews which have been analyzed by using our own model. Six interviews were made with owners of small companies in Skövde and nearby towns. These owners are active in three different industries: agriculture, clothing stores and health and medical care. Conclusion: The owners have different views on the auditor. That is, there are owners who consider it useful to hire an auditor even though the legal requirement was removed but there are also owners who think the opposite. However, the general opinion among the interviewees is that when the choice is made, the owner must take into account his or her own needs, the company's finances and the cost. It is also clear that the choice is based on themselves and not from other similar organizations, which is in contrast to the new institutional theory. Since the theory focuses on the organizations aim to be more alike each other, which this studies informants do not agree with.

Doctor Legum - LLD / This research project proposes that the social-obligation norm of ownership should be adopted as the ethic on which land restitution is carried out in South Africa. While there exists a subtle and indirect appreciation of the social-obligation norm in South African constitutional property law, this is veiled by the respect given to the classical liberal conception of ownership which gives more regard to an owner's ius abutendi and subsequently, accepts that owners can do as they please with their property as long as they do not break any law. Of course, South Africa no longer adheres to such a classical liberalist approach to ownership. An adherence to classical liberalist views of ownership has arguably, led to the neglect of arable restituted land. To this effect, the Constitution as well as the Restitution of Land Rights Act 22 of 1994 (RLA) need to clearly and more positively express the social-obligation norm of ownership in order to promote productive and sustainable utilisation of cultivable restituted land. The thesis argues that the current failures of the land restitution programme are linked to the absence of a social-obligation norm in the RLA as well as the negatively framed Property Clause in the South African Constitution. Even the envisaged changes to the land restitution process as outlined in the 2011 Green Paper on Land Reform as well as in the Property Valuation Act, will not solve the current problems of wasteful neglect of land. The thesis therefore suggests that a positive expression and formulation of the social-obligation norm in the RLA as well as in the Property Clause will promote active, sustainable, productive, and optimal utilization of all cultivable land acquired through the country's land restitution process. This will assist with meeting the developmental aspirations for the rural economy as envisaged in chapter six of the National Development Plan 2030. Furthermore, utilising the land productively through the socialobligation norm is an expression of Ubuntu, a key constitutional theme in South Africa. The experiences of Brazil and Germany deserve special analysis. This is because the socialobligation norm occupies a prominent and positive place in the constitutional property law of both these countries. Further, both countries respect private ownership of property as long as the property is utilised in a manner that permits others to flourish and improve the quality of their life.