The successful elimination of the Y2K vulnerability from the information technology (IT) systems of a large, complex critical sector organization provided a model to study how organizations contend with problems affecting the security of electronically stored and transmitted information, and how context influences their solutions. This dissertation proposed that the institutionalized environments of sub-unit business areas influenced compliance solutions during the Year 2000 Program process at Delta Air Lines, Inc. The investigation applied rival organization theories. A comparative case study method was employed to explain the Y2K compliance solutions of four business areas as embedded sub-cases. Data for the study were the Delta Year 2000 Program archive, and personal interviews with individuals related to the Delta Year 2000 Program. Data analysis revealed characteristics of both the institutional and the rational-contingency models. Case results showed that: * A positive relationship among entities in the sectoral environment benefited the air transportation field in addressing the Y2K problem. In this cooperative setting, addressing common issues in one place helped a vast network of related organizations. Recognizing that all were stakeholders made it work. * Business area decisions were influenced by the institutionalized environments of their respective fields. * The Year 2000 Program team lacked awareness that the Y2K bug was an information security issue. * In the process of eliminating the Y2K bug from the Delta systems, new vulnerabilities were introduced. While tradeoffs are always required among security, functionality, and efficiency within the IT structures and systems of the present time, this negative effect might have been anticipated; but it was not. * The success of this complex, short-term project at Delta underscored the importance of leadership, understanding of IT, vision, motivation, IT skills, understanding of assets, and appropriate strategy. The Delta case study contributes to the fields of information security and organization studies. Results have implications for policymaking and for future research in the field of information security.

The aim of the study was to find out how working conditions in different music schools and schools of arts are, or has been, for teachers on oboe and bassoon, and how the conditions may affect the regrowth of these instruments. The interviews were performed with teachers on bassoon and oboe; two active teachers and one former teacher. Experience shows that it can be difficult to recruit these instruments to orchestra courses for young people. An assumption was made in the study that the conditions for these instruments in the schools of music and arts are not the best, which was indicative of the survey. The results of the study show that the interviewed teachers on these instruments struggle with a whole series of problems such as poor facilities, too short teaching time, few students that require many hourly based employments and many time consuming journeys. It also shows that adaption has occurred to different conditions on different schools where also the recruiting of students works differently. The problem can be traced to scarce financial resources, absence of a national structure for music development or principals with indifference, ignorance or lack of mandate from the politics to take responsibility for a good qualitative development that leads to diversity and a vibrant music scene. / Syftet med studien har varit att ta reda på hur arbetsförhållanden på olika musik- och kulturskolor, där några pedagoger verkar eller ha verkat, påverkar återväxten för instrumenten oboe och fagott. Intervjuer har genomförts med två aktiva pedagoger och en före detta pedagog. Erfarenheter visar att det kan vara svårt att rektytera dessa instrument till orkesterkurser för unga. Ett antagande gjordes i studien att förutsättningarna på musik- och kulturskolorna för dessa instrument inte är det bästa vilket var vägledande för undersökningen. Resultatet av studien visar att intervjuade pedagoger på dessa instrument brottas med en hel rad problem såsom dåliga lokaler, för kort undervisningstid, få elever som kräver många olika timanställningar och många tidskrävande resor. Den visar också att anpassning har skett till olika förhållanden på olika skolor där även rekryteringen ser olika ut. Problematiken kan härledas till för knappa ekonomiska resurser, avsaknaden av en nationell struktur för musikens utveckling, eller chefers ointresse, okunskap eller avsaknad av uppdrag från politiskt håll att ta ansvar för en god kvalitativ utveckling som leder till mångfald och ett levande musikliv.

This thesis traces the history of organization from the society of Ancient Athens, through the medieval Church, the Industrial Age, and the 20th century – the latter characterized by the Bureaucratic, Administratively controlled, and Hierarchical (BAH) organization – until today’s contemporary reality of Ubiquitous Connectivity and Pervasive Proximity (UCaPP). Organizations are rarely, if ever, entirely BAH or entirely UCaPP, but do tend to have tendencies and behaviours that are more consistent with either end of a spectrum delineated by this duality. Valence Theory defines organization as being an emergent entity whose members (individuals or organizations) are connected via two or more of five valence (meaning uniting, bonding, interacting, reacting, combining) relationships. Each of these relationships – Economic, Socio-psychological, Identity, Knowledge, and Ecological – has a fungible (mercantile or tradable) aspect, and a ba-aspect that creates a space-and-place of common, tacit understanding of self-identification-in-relation, mutual sense of purpose, and volition to action. Organizations with more-BAH tendencies will emphasize the fungible valence forms, and primarily tend towards Economic valence dominance; more-UCaPP organizations tend to emphasize ba-valence forms, and are more balanced among the relative valence strengths. The empirical research investigates five organizations spanning the spectrum from über-BAH to archetypal UCaPP and discovers how BAH-organizations replace the complexity of human dynamics in social systems with the complication of machine-analogous procedures that enable structural interdependence, individual responsibility, and leader accountability. In contrast, UCaPP-organizations encourage and enable processes of continual emergence by valuing and promoting complex interactions in an environment of individual autonomy and agency, collective responsibility, and mutual accountability. The consequential differences in how each type of organization operates manifest as the methods through which organizations accommodate change, coordination, evaluation, impetus, power dynamics, sense-making, and view of people. Particular attention is paid to the respective natures of leadership, and effecting organizational transformation from one type to the other. Set in counterpoint against Zen-like, artistically constructed conversations with a thought-provoking interior sensei, the thesis offers a new foundational model of organization for the current cultural epoch that enables people to assume their responsibility in creating relationships and perceiving effects in the context of a UCaPP world.

Corporate governance has been a hot bed for scholars from diverse disciplines. Managers whose interests are not congruent with that of shareholders‟ do not have the incentive to maximize shareholder value. Agency theory implicitly assumes corporations as arenas of the principal-agent conflict. On the other hand, organizational perspectives maintain that firms differ in their adopted corporate governance level depending on the environmental contingencies in which they operate. This study develops a contingency framework by synthesizing agency theory and organization theory. The aims of this study are to examine the effect of firm level contingencies on corporate governance and examine the moderating impact of firm level contingencies on the relationship between corporate governance and firm financial performance in the Ethiopian non-financial share companies. Data were collected from public and private sources for 42 companies covering the period 2009-2013. For the first time overall corporate governance index is constructed from board structure, ownership structure, and disclosure and transparency. By specifying fixed effect regression models the study accounts for the presence of unobserved firm heterogeneity. Moreover, a moderation fixed effect model is specified for the corporate governance-performance relationship. Results show that firms choose their corporate governance in response to contexts in which they operate. High-risk firms have good corporate governance. Corporate governance is enhanced if the largest owner is government or bank. Findings show not only the positive influence of corporate governance on financial performance but also the positive effect of corporate governance on financial performance is enhanced where there are high agency problems. Firm growth, firm level risk and identity of the largest shareholder moderate the relationship between corporate governance and firm financial performance. The study contributes to the literature by providing evidence that firms endogenously choose their corporate governance and the effect of corporate governance on performance depends on firm level contingencies. For practice, the positive link between corporate governance and financial performance informs us that instituting and enforcing corporate governance should be taken seriously. Areas that require priority include the legal frameworks and their enforcement, additional corporate governance standards, strong financial market particularly a stock market. Future research can build on the limitations of the study. For instance, researchers can increase the sample size, compare industries or perform cross-country studies. / Business Management / DBL

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T19:15:01Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 5756.pdf: 1502603 bytes, checksum: d1176e9b5fe9dd3dccd907e68a2617a0 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-10-02 / Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos / The present research seeks to explore the influence of international studies inside companies, this study is about managers hiring for transnational companies. The globalization of Brazilian businessare driven by the desire ofnew markets and growth capital, motivate by some Brazilian companies that occupy space in the global scenario. This is a result of several factors that make easy the transition of knowledge and managerial, people and capital, creating an open world market, and to receive strong competitors who aspire to work globally with consumers and employees. The consequences for thisprocess described are diverse within the internal scenarios in each country, both for those countries that receive foreign capital,or for those countries that allow the entry of foreign products, and for those who seek new horizons. Professionals who hold positions within these organizations turn into an international model. Their executives modify the professional profile of the field, transforming the way of hiring their successors to meet international requirements. The arrival of foreign structures to local, and mainly local expertise, renews the perception that agents have on the field of disputes, best professional positions in the job market also propose changes in the type of trajectory and how they make choices for desire positions of importance. Thus, besides the economic and cultural aspects surrounding the circulation of companies, it is interesting to note the changes in the social environment and internal policy related. To better understand the phenomenon described, was used this research in the Metalúrgica Gerdau S.A., its employees and its history. / A pesquisa procura explorar a influência de estudos internacionais no recrutamento de profissionais para postos de gerência, por empresas que passaram pelo processo de internacionalização. A expansão de empresas brasileiras, impulsionada pelos anseios de conquistar novos mercados e pelo crescimento de capital, causou um forte direcionamento de algumas empresas brasileiras em ocupar espaço no cenário global. Essa tendência é resultado de diversos fatores que facilitam o trânsito de conhecimentos e ferramentas gerenciais, pessoas e capital, criando um mercado mundial aberto à receber competidores fortes e que aspiram trabalhar em nível mundial com consumidores e trabalhadores. As consequências para o processo descrito são variadas dentro dos cenários internos de cada país, tanto para aqueles países que recebem capital estrangeiro, ou que permitem a entrada de produtos estrangeiros, quanto para aqueles que buscam novos horizontes através de seus representantes econômicos. Os profissionais que exercem cargos dentro das organizações que se transnacionalizam obedecem a um modelo internacional. Acompanhando as transformações nas empresas brasileiras, seus executivos modificam o perfil profissional do campo, transformando a forma de recrutamento de seus sucessores para atender às exigências internacionais. A vinda de estruturas alheias à cultura local e, principalmente, às expertises locais renova a percepção que os agentes têm sobre o campo das disputas por melhores posições profissionais no mercado de trabalho, causando mudanças também no tipo de trajetória de formação escolhida por aqueles que almejam cargos de importância. Dessa forma, além dos aspectos econômicos e culturais que envolvem a chegada ou envio de empresas, fábricas, pessoas e conhecimento estrangeiro aos países, é interessante ressaltar as transformações no ambiente social e político internos relativos. Para melhor entendimento do fenômeno descrito, foi usado o Grupo Gerdau S.A., seus funcionários e sua história.

The commons is a concept increasingly used by practitioners and social activists with the promise of creating new collective wealth (Bollier & Helfrich, 2014; De Angelis, 2003; Hardt & Negri, 2009; Klein, 2001). In recent years, a variety of scholarly research explained the different ways of organizing commons (Van Laerhoven & Ostrom, 2007). To that end, many streams of inquiry have emerged in various areas: organization theory (Ansari et al. 2013; Fournier, 2013; Tedmanson et al. 2015), institutional economics (Hess, C. & Ostrom, 2011; Ostrom, 1990, 2005, 2010), political philosophy and legal studies (Dardot & Laval, 2014; Holder and Flessas, 2008; Hardt & Negri, 2009), nonprofit studies (Aligica, 2016; Bushouse et al. 2016; Lohmann, 2014, 2016) and business ethics (Argandoña, 1998; Melé, 2009, 2012; O’Brien, 2009; Sison & Fontrodona, 2012; Solomon, 2004). However, these different theories are usually conceived and used separately. Empirical research on commons has mainly focused on natural resources at local and global levels (Ansari et al. 2013; Cody et al. 2015; Cox & Ross, 2011; Galaz et al. 2012; Ostrom, 1990, 2010; Poteete et al. 2010), and also on digital and scientific resources (Benkler, 2006; Boyle, 2008; Cook‐Deegan & Dedeurwaerdere, 2006; Coriat, 2015; Hess & Ostrom, 2011). Despite a long research tradition in local community organizations, there is little empirical scientific knowledge that uses the lens of the commons to study shared resources that are neither natural nor informational in nature. This dissertation aims to fill these gaps by analyzing social finance services and organizations from an interdisciplinary perspective. The aim is to understand whether communities can create financial commons. By analyzing the processes involved, the dissertation sheds light on the social and institutional components enabling the creation of human-made commons. We focus on community organizations linked to the solidarity economy movement in Brazil. Such movement aims to promote socio-economic alternative organizations, especially for poverty alleviation and inequality reduction.More specifically, the dissertation identifies the nature of two kinds of shared financial resources––microcredit services and complementary currencies––and looks at the functioning of community arrangements that provide them, the community components mobilized for creating commons organizations, and the institutional work strategies developed by intermediary organizations to adjust the scale of these social finance services.The dissertation is structured in four chapters, each of which addresses different research questions and uses different methods and units of analysis. The first chapter is conceptual and based on a literature review on complementary currencies in order to identify the commons dimensions of seven complementary currency systems. The second chapter is an in-depth single case study of Banco Palmas, a Brazilian community bank. This chapter analyzes the transformative power of governance on private goods when managed by self-governed grassroots organizations. Chapter three is a comparative case study of five community banks that focuses on the community components involved in creating commons as a grassroots response to contested market and state institutions. The final chapter focuses on the diffusion and institutionalization of social finance in Brazil and the role played by five intermediary organizations in this process.Starting from the observation that there is no definition of financial commons, Chapter 1 – Money and the Commons: Lessons from Complementary Currencies – proposes to assess the commons dimensions of monetary systems created and managed by local organizations. Specifically, we investigate the organizational features of seven complementary currency systems by making use of two main theoretical frameworks that are usually separate: the new commons in organization studies and the common good in business ethics. The findings show that these alternative monetary systems and organizations promote the common interest through the creation of new communities and can therefore be considered as commons according to the common good framework. Nevertheless, only systems relying on collective action and self-management fulfill the new commons framework. This allows us to suggest two new categories of commons: “social commons”, which fulfills both the new commons and the common good frameworks, and the “commercial commons”, which that fulfill the common good but not the new commons framework. Building on this, we define an ethos of the commons as a principle that consists in organizing commons practices through both collective organization and ethical concern for human flourishing.Chapter 2 - A Case Study of Microfinance and Community Development Banks (CDBs) in Brazil: Private or Common Goods? - looks at how governance mechanisms of self-managed community organizations affect the characteristics of microcredit services. Based on field research in Brazil, this chapter uses Elinor Ostrom’s design principles of successful self-governing common-pool resource organizations to analyze community banks’ microcredit systems. Our results suggest that private goods could be altered when governed by community self-managed enterprises. They become hybrid goods because they mix the characteristics of private and common goods. This change is facilitated by specific organizational arrangements, such as self-governance, that emerge from grassroots dynamics and the creation of collective-choice arenas. These arrangements help strengthen the inclusion properties of nonprofit microcredit services.In order to identify what components enable commons creation, we conduct a comparative case study of five Brazilian community banks in Chapter 3 – Building Commons in Community Enterprise: The Case of Self-Managed Microfinance Organizations. We analyze how community enterprises create commons whereas market and state institutions reproduce exclusion and inequalities. Our results suggest that four components are required to establish a new organization of commons: collective decision-making, community social control, servant leadership, and desire for social change. Building on this, we develop a model of commons organization and explain why these organizations are substitutes for existing marginalizing institutions. This study contributes to the literature by examining new elements for commons creation and shedding light on the emergence of new institutional arrangements for social change. Finally, after looking at commons institutional arrangements at local level in communities, we examine how commons organizations diffuse, institutionalize and organize in networks for consolidating their activities. Chapter 4 - Institutional Change and Diffusion in Institutional Plurality: The Case of Brazil’s Solidarity Finance Sector – explains how intermediary organizations help in this process. More precisely, we analyze the institutional work strategies deployed by five intermediary organizations in the Brazilian plural institutional context, where autonomous local state agencies and banks influence community banks' activities. We show how intermediary organizations support the institutionalization of community development banks (CDBs) through diffusing these organizations in different communities, performing external institutional work with governments and public banks at national and local levels, and accomplishing internal institutional work through structuring CDBs and CDB networks. / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Den här uppsatsens syfte är att utveckla Carnegieskolans organisationsteori med en kompletterande teoretisering om hur organisationer hanterar sin invävdhet i meta-organisationer när de fattar beslut och handlar. För att möta syftet fokuserar uppsatsen vid att integrera Carnegieskolans teoribildning med Ahrne & Brunssons teori om metaorganisationer för att utveckla en teori om medlemskap i metaorganisationer som en särskild typ av invävdhet och beskriva hur organisationer relaterar till sitt medlemskap i beslutsfattande och handling. Uppsatsens empiriska del består i en jämförande fallstudie över hur regeringskansliet agerat i samband med medlemskapen i Schengensamarbetet respektive FN:s hållbarhetsagenda, Agenda 2030. Resultaten visar att regeringskansliet svarar mot invävdheten genom aktivering och riktning av enskilda delar av sin organisation mot meta-organisationen för att hantera sådana krav och förväntningar som medlemskapet medför. Resultaten visar därtill på hur invävdheten inverkat på regeringskansliets strukturer för beslutsfattande genom att organisationen integrerade element ur metaorganisationen i sina interna beslutsstrukturer för att underlätta beslutsfattande och konflikthantering. Studien visar även på hur medlemskap i meta-organisationen på ett avsiktligt rationellt sätt används som en extern referenspunkt att rikta regeringskansliets arbete mot. Uppsatsen bidrar till organisationsteorin med begreppet aktivering från ett inomorganisatoriskt perspektiv, en beskrivning av hur medlemskap i internationella meta-organisationer inverkar på regeringskansliets beslutsfattande och handling, liksom med grunder för en fördjupad teoretisk förståelse av vilken roll medlemskap tilldelas inom en medlemsorganisation och varför organisationer aktivt väljer att väva in sina beslutsstrukturer i sin omgivning. / The purpose of this thesis is to further develop the organizational theory of the Carnegie school by contributing a theorization of how organizations handle being embedded in meta-organizations when making decisions and acting. To meet this purpose, the thesis focuses on integrating the theory of the Carnegie school with Ahrne & Brunssons theory of meta-organizations to develop a theory of membership in metaorganizations as a certain type of embeddedness and describe how organizations relate to their membership in decision-making and action. The empirical part of the thesis consists of a comparative cross-case study concerning how the government offices of Sweden responded to becoming members in the Schengen Area and the UN:s Agenda 2030 for sustainable development. The thesis’ results shows that the government offices responded to their embeddedness by activating and directing certain parts of its organization towards the meta-organization in order to handle the demands and expectations the membership entailed. The results further show that the embeddedness has affected the government offices’ structures for decision-making as the organization has integrated elements from the meta-organization into its own decision-structures to facilitate decision-making and handling conflicts. The thesis also show how membership in a meta-organization is used as an external point of reference for the organization’s operations in an intendedly rational way. The thesis thereby contributes to organizational theory with the concept of activation from a within-organizational perspective, a description of how membership in meta-organizations affect decision-making and action within the government offices, as well as foundations for a further theoretical understanding of the role membership is assigned within a member-organization and why organizations actively choose to embed their decision-structures in their environment.

Master thesis, Master of science in Innovation through Business, Engineering and Design with specialization in Business Administration Field of research: Business Administration, School of Business & Economics University: Linnaeus University, Växjö, Sweden Course code: 5FE07E Semester: Spring 2017 Author: Elias Gentili Examiner: Saara Taalas Tutor: Lena Olaison Title: Exploring Wellbeing in Small and Unconventional Dwellings Subtitle: Understanding living in small and unconventional dwellings through a multi- dimensional perspective of space Background: Urbanization and densification is happening in practically all parts of the world. Cities are becoming bigger, and questions about accessibility to the urban areas is a concern. Difficulties in finding affordable accommodation is one, and another one is wellbeing in homes. With the recent interests in the increasing tiny house movement, living solutions that are affordable, simple, and small are gaining in popularity. This is happening partly as a reaction to that the average home size in many parts of the western world have been increasing dramatically in the last decades. Both building regulation institutions and research are often connecting small space living with negative effects on wellbeing. But the tiny house movement seem to show that people can live well also in small dwellings outside of such regulations. The question of what brings wellbeing to a homes has never been more relevant, and the area of small and unconventional housing is lacking research. Research question: What is wellbeing living in small and unconventional homes? Purpose: The purpose of this study is to increase the understanding of wellbeing in small and unconventional homes. The objective of this research is to provide a holistic understanding of wellbeing in such homes, by going beyond firstspace and secondspace dimensions, into a thirdspace perspective. Method: Semi-structured, face-to-face interviews and observations of people chosing to live in small and unconventional dwellings. A thematical analysis strategy suitable for new concept development was adopted. An abductive approach was applied in order to frame the study being multi disciplinary, and in order to obtain increased understandings of the study phenomenon. However, the study focused heavily on the empirical data from my study. Conclusion: This study found that the wellbeing is experienced as a totality of different dimensions: not only does the physical dwelling in itself provide for wellbeing, but also dimensions relating to thoughts, meanings and lived experiences they associate to their dwellings. A holistic perspective is what best can provide an understanding of their experienced wellbeing, where physical, mental and lived dimensions are combined. Furthermore was found that the dwellings can work as facilitators to achieve wellbeing on several levels both relating to their inner space in their dwellings, bringing in other spatialities, and for their lives as a whole. Keywords: Small space living, tiny house movement, experienced wellbeing at home, housing beyond traditions and conventions, influences of spatialities, spatial theory

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This thesis aims to identify the principles that managers use in their work. The work of Stephen Covey "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" is used as an object of research. Primarily, a Covey's claim that the 7 habits are universal and timeless is analyzed, in an effort to identify universal principles of effectivity and their relationship to management. All of the habits are paraphrased and compared to the work of other popular authors from the area of social sciences. Subsequently, a comparison between the 7 habits and historical development of organization theory and its lessons is conducted. Further along, a description of critical reflection of the 7 habits from five standpoints is presented: post-modern, feminism, critical pedagogy, non-functionalism and exclusive representation. Finally, the author of the thesis presents his personal experience with implementing the 7 habits in his professional and personal life. From the findings, this thesis comes to the conclusion that Covey's system of 7 habits is possibly a quality source of information when searching for universal principles of effectivity. At the same time, it warns that it is possible that the habits are only universally applicable within the scope of the time and background of western thinking they were developed in. In the closing,...