This thesis focuses on ways that rhetorical theory can assist in better understanding the dysfunctions of the modern organizational environment. At its root, organizational dysfunction refers to those parts of our organizations that do not function as we think they should. Dysfunction points to actions of organizational members that defies and violates shared organizational norms and expectations or core societal values, mores and standards of proper conduct.1 As an element of focus, this thesis uses Kenneth Burkes theory of dramatism and dramatistic methods such as pentadic criticism and cluster criticism to analyze leadership actions within the fictional BBC television programme The Office. Using The Office as a representative case study, the analysis applies Burkes theories, and particularly the pentadic elements of Agent, Scene, and Act to gain a more complete picture of the role an office manager can play in an organizations dysfunction. A more complete picture can then assist in finding solutions to that dysfunction.<p> Burkes methods allow for a critic to gain multiple perspectives on the same situation by attributing different terms of the pentad to the same elements of the situation being described. When looking for causes of dysfunction in an organization, often formal leaders are held accountable. But what does it mean to blame the leader? What specific role have they played in the dysfunction? Using Burkes pentad, this thesis explores three roles that office manager David Brent plays in the organizational dysfunction.<p> The first chapter explores office leader Brent as an Agent of dysfunction and analyzes his own dysfunctions in order to understand the offices dysfunctions. The second chapter looks at the ramifications for labeling Brent as part of the Scene and analyzes how Brent and other scenic elements combine to create office dysfunction. In the final analysis chapter, Brent is labeled as an Act of dysfunction himself which positions Brent as a mere symptom of a larger dysfunction within the organization. The perspectives are combined and contrasted to reveal insights that may have been previously hidden proving that rhetorical theory is a valuable approach to better understand organizations and the people within them.<p> 1 Y. Vardi and Y. Weiner. Misbehaviour in Organizations: A Motivational Framework, Organizational Science, (7,1996) 151-65.

In the environment of globalisation, international purchasing is the strategy most commonly adopted by enterprises to obtain or maintain competitive advantages. The region encompassing Taiwan, Hong Kong, and mainland China is a global manufacturing centre, providing a variety of price-competitive products to entice multinational enterprises to purchase from this area. The international purchasing office (IPO) is the intermediary of international purchasing, which connects international clients with regional suppliers to establish win-win strategic partnerships, improving competitive advantages for both parties and maximizing the value of the supply chain. International merchandisers directly contact clients and suppliers, playing the roles of buyer and sales people simultaneously, which is the essence of providing excellent service and creating value in IPO. This study investigates small-sized IPOs. The objectives of this study are to conduct an exploratory survey of the necessary competencies of current international merchandisers and provide concrete classifications and basic behavioral descriptions thereof. This study interviewed current international merchandisers in case IPOs in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Mainland China through behavioral event interviews. The subjects provided critical cases and described their behavior, thoughts, and how the cases were handled. The interviews were recorded and transcribed. This study coded, analysed, and identified the competencies according to the transcripts, and referenced the five types competence characteristics given by Spencer and Spencer to classify the competencies. This study concludes that among the five competencies of international merchandisers, the competencies of motives, traits, and self-concept at the base of the iceberg model are the fundamentals of good work performance. The five competencies are motives, traits, self-concept, knowledge, and skill. The motives include achievement orientation and incentives; traits include customer service orientation, a positive and active disposition, and great adaptability; the self-concepts are self-affirmation and optimism; knowledge includes product development, pricing, compliance, market trends, and international transportation; and the skills are influence, relationship building, analysing and thinking, information seeking, negotiation skills, and language competence. The conclusions of this study propose suggestions for managers of small-sized IPOs, personnel in human resource management, and international merchandisers, in the hope of providing a reference concerning management measures or career development for these parties.

Due to the change of thought and external environment, design of the physical environment is more and more important than before. Based on the interview with the office designers, four cases and the questionnaires, this research tried to find out: 1.The design of the current working environment, 2.The key factors of the workplace which affect worker¡¦s performance, 3.Try to offer the corporations useful suggestions when design or redesign workplace. The main conclusions of this research are as following: 1.The basic is more important than esthetics 2.Office layout is according to level 3.The setting of amenities is limit to the total area of a company 4.The office design which could make the work easier is the most important, the second one is the design make workers feel comfortable, and the third one is aesthetic factors.

Since ¡§The City of Sadness¡¨ won the first Golden Lion Award of International Venice Film Festival, winning an international award has become a rule that Taiwanese film do its marketing strategy. However, although ¡§The City of Sadness¡¨ created a high profit in its sales, other awarded movies seem not so lucky in the sales performance. This research mainly bases on the aspect of marketing to study the phenomenon that Taiwanese film industry devotes in attending international film festival as its marketing strategy and further to analyze the relationship between the movie box office and this phenomenon. Secondary data would be employed in this research. As a result, besides ¡§The City of Sadness¡¨, both ¡§The Wedding Banquet¡¨ and ¡§Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon¡¨ also have good performance in their sales. However, the success of these two movies not only resulted from getting awards but also the stories of the movies could attract people to go to the theater. According to the result of this research, we can find that there are more than 400 international film festivals in the world, but only Oscar Award is related with the sales of the film. On the other hand, other film festivals have not been able to attract people as much as ¡§The City of Sadness¡¨ did. Moreover, this situation also can prove one thing: the movie should be developed by commercial mode in order to be accepted by most audiences. To sum up, Taiwanese movies are on purpose (e.g. increase profit and government support) to attend international film festival. However, there are not any benefits to the market of the Taiwan movie and it will let audiences to be distant from their owner entertainments product of their country. If Taiwan government cannot identify the real direction of the Taiwan movies, there is no future of Taiwan movies.

The globalization and frequent contact with other nations not only change the private enteritis but also the governments. Government offices related to the public service are seeking ways to improve their efficiency and quality of service in order to boost the competitive advantage of the country. Household Registration Offices is one of the department in the government that closely connect to people¡¦s daily life and its performance represents a part of the government performance, too. Therefore, how to improve the efficiency of administration and service quality of Household Registration Offices is one of the hottest issues currently. The goal of this paper is to investigate how to improve the service quality and satisfactions of the Household Registration Offices in communities of the Kaohsiung county area. This research is based on the survey conducted in the communities within the Kaohsiung County, Taiwan. The design of the survey employs the modified SERVQUAL measure in the PZB service quality concept model combining with 5 major aspects of the Household Registration Offices : ¡§reliability¡¨, ¡§the ability to response¡¨, ¡¨availability¡¨, ¡§assurance¡¨ and ¡§carefulness¡¨ and the other 26 attributes to measure the difference between the service quality providing to the public and the services quality expected from the communities. Moreover, we have conducted deviation analyses on the service quality awareness and satisfaction of the Household Registration Offices according to the population variables in the communities. The analyses include statistic analyses such as description analysis, T test and ANOVA. The conclusion obtained is listed as following points: 1. The expectation to the service quality of the Household Registration Offices from the communities is between important and very important. 2. The actual satisfaction of the communities reports that the service quality provided by the Household Registration Offices is above the satisfy level. 3. The analyses show that the actual service quality observed by the communities and the expected service quality is significantly different. In general, the actual service quality provided is less than the service quality expected. 4.The statistical analyses show that variables such as ¡§gender¡¨, ¡§age¡¨, ¡¨education¡¨, ¡§Household Registration Offices district¡¨ and ¡§overall satisfaction¡¨ has significant differences in the awareness of the service quality. 5. The statistical analyses show that the ¡§age¡¨, ¡§Household Registration Offices district¡¨ and ¡§overall satisfaction¡¨ variables have significant differences in the level of satisfaction. Finally, base on the conclusion of the paper, we also provide suggestions on how to improve the service quality of the Household Registration Offices and its satisfaction rate. We hope our suggestions can be served as the reference for the future studies as well as the guidelines for the government departments.

Local land administration office is to execute registering of lands and buildings. Its objective is to implement local land policy. In the mean time, its functions are about citizen¡¦s property rights. Because the social, economy and political environment have been changed rapidly, demands for land administration and service quality have been growing as well. Therefore, the first priority work for government is to improve whole administrative efficiency and effectiveness, by using modern technology. It thus needed to electronic-wise land office, to set up a computerization system of land information management so as to provide complete land information, to execute modern administration, to promote competition, and to provide convenient and efficient services. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to research these first-line local offices so as (i) to promote its efficiency after being computerized (ii) to compare the implementing result before and after the computerization in Kaohsiung county and city, and (iii) to study the influences of the computerized process, finally (iv) to suggest local offices decision makers the future direction of improvement. This study uses DEA and SFA to compute their efficiency after computerization of the local land offices in Kaohsiung county and city. To do this, we collect annually statistics and use DEA-Solver software and Frontier 4.1 computer program to evaluate their productivities, and to make an efficiency analysis. The results revealed that the annual average technology efficiency descended before computerization and ascended after computerization for all land offices. CCR model revealed that annual averages of technology efficiency are stable before computerization and it ascended after computerization for all land offices. SFA analysis revealed that annual averageefficiency score slightly ascends before computerization and ascends after computerization except for year 2001. For technology changes, their productivities slightly descends for all land offices in Kaohsiung county but ascends for all land offices in Kaohsiung city. For efficiency slack analysis, all five land offices must reduce their inputs in Kaohsiung county. For output slack, only Chi-Shang land office must expand its output 13.01% so as to reach a relatively inefficient DMU. Between the Kaohsiung county and city, information difference between city and country has influences on efficiency. Land offices in Kaohsiung city have general higher average technology efficiency than those in Kaohsiung county. This study uses DEA and SFA to analyze land offices in Kaohsiung county and city, and it was found that whole efficiency scores increased after computerization. And it is suggested several important problems and the possible directions of productivity improvement in the future for all land offices.

Gemeinsamer Workshop von Universitaetsrechenzentrum und Professur "Rechnernetze und verteilte Systeme" der Fakultaet fuer Informatik der TU Chemnitz. Workshop-Thema: Mobilitaet Analyse der Verwendbarkeit der aktuellen Version von KOffice unter Linux/KDE2 zur Gestaltung von Geschäftsdokumenten (Texte, Rechentabellen, Vektorgrafiken, Präsentationen).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oklahoma, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 210-216).

Thesis (M. Soc. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 1981.