published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

published_or_final_version / Real Estate and Construction / Master / Master of Science in Real Estate and Construction

published_or_final_version / Sociology / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Although requirements in relation to indoor environment quality (IEQ) have been made in green building rating systems such as LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) and China GBL (Green Building Label) to promote occupant comfort, health and productivity, in practice, very little is known about user perception and satisfaction with IEQ in green buildings. Recruitment and post-occupancy evaluation of 10 office buildings (8 green buildings and 2 non-green buildings) and their 696 occupants for this study generated a dataset representing many potential avenues of inquiry. From the occupant’s point of view, the green offices in buildings with whole-building certification were significantly more satisfactory than the non-green offices, whereas the green offices certified only on the basis of their interiors were comparable to the non-green offices. Mixed-mode ventilation performed much better than other ventilation types (central air-conditioning and split air-conditioning). However, the mixed-mode green buildings were invariably perceived to be too cold in winter. A correlation model showed that green building users tended to appreciate a well ventilated, daylit, and quiet indoor environment for their health and productivity. The findings in the study made critical suggestions with regard to pursuing green building certification and addressing human factors in sustainable building design and research. The strengths and weaknesses of this study were discussed to inform future studies. / published_or_final_version / Architecture / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

As Hong Kong is famous for its image of leading international financial metropolis, many high-rise office buildings are confined inside some developed commercial districts of Hong Kong. A place for provision of greenery in such districts seems impracticable. However, greenery can exist in forms of green roof onto office buildings, it seems a practical way to embellish this concrete city. Academic studies from other countries have proven that having green roof onto buildings is able to bring numerous psychological benefits to the building occupants, but is this fact still true for office building occupants of Hong Kong? Besides, what do office building occupants think about the presence of green roof onto the building they are working inside? In this study we would like to explore the perceptions of office building occupants in Hong Kong toward green roof, as well as their mode of green roof usage in case green roof is present. The opinions on how office building occupants get satisfied with the green roof they have visited during their working time may give us a glance to the direction of green roof development in the future. What they expect on green roof is the best source of evidence in designing an optimal green roof on human-based consideration. Study result features that green roof on office building can provide a decent leisure place to occupants for relaxation, although they seem do not treat green roof as a vital place where they must go. Office building occupants are generally satisfied with green roof having appropriate provisions such as large variety of vegetation, attractive appearance and good management level. Some crucial characteristics of green roof have been identified in the viewpoints of office building occupants such as its aesthetic nature and location for convenient access. In considering the numerous benefits of green roof, every visitor, as office building occupants, agrees that green roof should be present for their needs. It gives positive and supportive evidence as incentive to the industry and developers for future green roof development. / published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

M. Tech. Business Administration / Leveraging information technology (IT) is important to maximise business value. For this to be possible, companies must ensure that IT objectives are supportive of business objective. Business needs to take the responsibility in ensuring that IT capabilities support, enable, and, where appropriate, lead business strategy. Such alignment will maximize the effective, efficient and economical use of IT resources in a strategic context. One of many challenges facing organisations is that IT strategy appears to be separate from business strategy, maintaining a common direction with business strategy but at a distance. Furthermore business unit leaders do not consider IT as a key strategic enabler for them achieving their strategic business unit level objectives. This study established the perceptions of senior managers and executives of the Auditor General of South Africa (AGSA) regarding the alignment of IT strategy and the business strategy. It also determined which of the alignment factors (people, processes, organisational infrastructure, etc.) are most important for strategic alignment at the AGSA and how successfully they have been implemented.

M. Tech. Public Management / The primary objective of this study was to research the effects of crime risk in the Postal services that are located in the North East (postal) Region of South Africa, and to recommend some measures which can be explored to ameliorate the problem from a Public Management and Administration point of view.

The residents of Union City, NJ— a 1.2 square mile metropolis across the Hudson from Manhattan—are fond of taking to the task of adorning their city streets on their own. In the business sector of the city (that is to say, most of it) the business owners garnish their windows with red, white, and blue, and more often than not their decoration is accompanied by the uncomfortably warm smile of a middle-aged bespectacled Irish man. The man, so comically out of place in the majority Spanish-speaking, 82.3% Latino city, is referred to interchangeably as Mayor and State Senator Brian P. Stack. On the city’s border is official proof of his status on the “Welcome to Union City” sign, mirrored by its North Bergen, NJ counterpart and the name Nicholas Sacco: mayor, state senator, assistant superintendent of North Bergen schools, and principal of Horace Mann Elementary. For decades, New Jersey politicians have viewed multiple office holding as an integral part of the urban power structure. To rise up in the totem pole, one must collect public office jobs until rising to one high enough to stand on its own. While not particularly common in the less populated areas of the state, urban centers like the aforementioned Hudson County, Newark, and Camden have a tradition of sending their leaders off to Trenton without making them relinquish their jobs at home. And yet it was these very state legislators that passed a ban on the practice into law in February 2008. Supported by senator-turned-governor Jon Corzine, the ban passed with the support of political leaders like Stack and Sacco. On paper and in the pages of the New York Times it read like a rare and barely believable victory for political morality in what longtime NJ political journalists Bob Ingle and Sandy McClure call “The Soprano State”. If it sounded barely believable, it is probably because in practice it was not. A grandfather clause in the law keeps those currently in two positions of power safe from the wrath of the law. And since elections were held in between the passing of the law and the enacting of it, there are actually more dual office holders in the Legislature today than there were when the law was passed according to state newspaper the Star Ledger. This study intends answer several questions regarding the phenomenon of multiple office holding and its sudden “extinction” in New Jersey. I hypothesize that the introduction of such a law was merely cashing in on a long-standing bit of political credit that, due to the highly salient role of the practice in building machines, could not be touched. As the number of political bosses engaging in this practice diminished, and as the need to hold various offices lessened because of an increase in income and power from other sources, dual office holding became an obsolete relic of the 1990s political machine structures. Thus it became feasible to ban the practice with a grandfather clause for those that had established themselves through this old system, with much credit in the field of ethics to be gained by all involved—every dual office holder, legislator, and the governor himself. On a micro level, it aspires to investigate why early 2008 was an opportune time for such a law and where this grandfather clause arouse from and why. Although the tradition has existed previously in less populated areas of New Jersey, especially in the 1940s, at some point (peaking in the 1990s) dual office holding became an essential component in the structure of an urban political machine. On a macro level, this study seeks to explain the place of such a practice in the creation and maintenance of the traditional urban political machine, a structure with a lush history in New Jersey that is still alive and kicking today. It attempts to begin a dialogue with existing literature on urban politics centered around the practice of dual office holding. To do this, the study needs to paint as vivid a portrait as possible of the modern urban political machine, its bosses, and every gear that moves its structure. For this it will heavily rely on literature describing the initial development of political machines of Tammany Hall and similar structures around the country, paying especial attention to the impact of immigration, given that preliminary research is showing a pronounced impact on the system from the wave of Latino immigrants beginning with the rise of the Cuban Revolution in 1958. This new wave of immigrants appears to have jump-started the machines and replenished them with an entire new wave of fodder ready to be introduced to the patronage system post-naturalization (a matter of five years’ time). Of particular note in this body of urban political research is Steven Erie’s Rainbow’s End, which I have discovered to be the definitive work in the field of immigration and its impact on urban political machines. Working with this broad field of urban politics in mind, I also intend on illustrating in detail the specific political machine structures of the three largest urban communities in New Jersey: Newark, Camden, and the general Hudson County area (as the cities of Hudson County tend to be about 1-2 square miles in area excepting Jersey City, there is little that distinguishes one from another culturally and politically). In order to do this, I must work with data specific to the state, beginning with a database of multiple office holders over time. I have constructed this database over the course of several decades and am currently developing it in the 1930s using biographical sketches in the New Jersey Legislative Manuals published yearly in the New Jersey State Archives of Trenton. Unfortunately, this means that my research is limited to multiple office holders who have one job in the state legislature, but as all signs point to most dual office holders preferring to have a state and local job rather than two of either, I do not believe this will seriously hinder my research. Supplementary research will also come from personal stories, which I plan on gathering from interviews with those deeply involved in urban politics. The study will include interviews with multiple office holders from these regions themselves, as well as those close to them—journalists, chiefs of staff, and those receiving patronage and practicing loyalty to the leaders. The goal of this study is to shed some light on the dark, backroom world of urban politics through the lens of this one common practice among the machine leaders. This one practice, currently a topic of much controversy due to this recent law, could very well be the key to understanding the development of machines, their power over citizens and their ability to maintain themselves over such extended periods of time.

Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att identifiera hur framfarten av online-banking påverkar de fysiska kontoren. Metod: Vår studie har genomförts med en kvalitativ metod och en abduktiv ansats. Valet av datainsamlingsmetod  resulterade i semistrukturerade intervjuer. Urvalet för respondenterna har varit litet med bara 9 respondenter. Respondenterna valdes strategiskt och utefter vad som fanns att tillhandahålla. Vi använder både personal på bankkontor och bankkunder. Teoretiskt referensram: Utgångspunkten för vår studie är tidigare genomförd forskning på relaterade ämne. Även beslutsteorier och forskning om hur individer reagerar på förändring har legat till grund för vår studie. Dessutom använder vi oss av teorin diffusion of an innovation. Slutsats: Resultatet av denna studie blev att vi identifierade ett cirkulärt händelseförlopp när det gäller förhållandet mellan online-banking och bankkontor. Utefter analyser av de semistrukturerade intervjuerna kom vi även fram till att de fysiska bankkontoren fortfarande behövs både ur kunders och bankers perspektiv. / Purpose: The purpose with this study is to identify how the online-banking services has a impact on the physical branch offices. Methodology: The research strategy for our study has been of a qualitative nature and with a abductive approach. We have been using semi-structured interviews to collect our empirics. Our selection of respondents is fairly small with only 9 respondents. There has been an strategic selection of respondents. We are using both staff at branch office and banking customers. Theoretical Approach: The base for our study is earlier research on similar subjects. We have also been using decision making theories and proven research about how individuals react on changes. Furthermore, we are using the diffusion of innovation theory. Conclusions: The result of our study is that we identified a circular course of event that describe the relationship between online-banking services and bank offices. The analysis that was made on the semi-structured interviews shows that the branch offices still is desirable both from customers and from banks.