The environmental concern starts to be a key challenging issue for organizations nowadays. In fact, we find a growing trend towards “green” consumerism, which in turns affects companies’ strategy. The hospitality industry is not considered as one of the biggest pollution emitters, neither the one consuming the biggest quantity of non-renewable resources, but it is particularly interesting because of its increasing economic importance and the higher environmental concern it is showing. The whole process by which the hotels define policies, strategies as well as develop environmental practices in order to reduce their negative impact on the natural environment is named as Environmental Management. Those hotels that have followed this process and strive to be more environmentally friendly through the efficient use of energy, water and materials while providing quality services are defined as “green hotels”. Thus, in the present study we discover what motivated hotels in Sweden to become green, as well as the steps they followed in turning into green, including the definition of goals, the implementation of practices and the potential barriers that make this process difficult to execute. In a first approach, we found in the literature review some theories related to the factors that influence companies to become green, as well as how to define a green strategy. In a second section, we focused on how the goals must be defined and which indicators can be used to evaluate the environmental performance. Finally, we presented possible barriers, relating this fact to the prioritization of objectives. We led a qualitative approach by running semi-structured and structured interviews to the manager and one employee, respectively, of three different hotels in Abisko and Umeå. The results showed that the main reason why hotels become green is because of the pressure the stakeholders exert on them. The main steps hotels followed to achieve this objective were the establishment of plans and goals, involving the department´s level, its implementation (practices), review, evaluation and improvement of the environmental strategy. But this process is not easy; hotels have to manage with the big cost associated to become green. At the end of the study, some suggestions will be given to hoteliers (e.g. define specific goals) as well as some suggestions for future researches (study of hotels from different cities of Sweden).

Objective: The IFRSs are getting more popularity all over the world. IAS 39 is one of the most sophisticated standards included in the IFRS jurisdiction, which mainly addresses the recognition and measurement of financial instruments and hedge accounting. When these instruments had been off-balance sheet hidden, accounting scandals were the consequences. Capturing these risky instruments in the body of the financial statements, according to IAS 39, implies diverse accounting choices where the selection is tied to managers' judgment. The Swedish GAAPs have been criticized in the literature of being less conservative than the US GAAPs. Sweden as an EU member has mandated the adoption of IFRSs in the consolidated financial statements of all listed companies, since 2005. No published research has studied the effect of IAS 39 diverse accounting practices on de facto harmonization and comparability in Sweden. The current study fills this gap in the literature, and goes beyond to investigate whether the selected accounting choices are associated with the industry sectors. Methods: A sample of 50 companies listed in NASDAQ, Stockholm in the financial and the industrial sectors is selected. Secondary data are obtained from the 2007 annual reports of the selected companies. Six accounting practice categories are detected under the standard. Herfindahl (H) index and Chi- square test are applied on the data. Results: The results show a relatively low harmonization and comparability in most of the accounting practices, and variation in associations between accounting practices and sectors. This infers to the risk of producing non-comparable financial statements that may distort the value of accounting numbers, the content of financial statements and negatively affect market participants. Conclusion: Much effort is still needed to enhance de facto harmonization and comparability of financial reporting. Further research is also motivated in order to develop a harmonization theory that support standard setters in revising the existing standard to eliminate inconsistencies in accounting choice selection and enhance comparability.

The purpose of this study was two-fold: (a) to identify, in a large representative sample of Canadian children, the age-related trajectories of overweight and obesity from toddlerhood into childhood and (b) to investigate the associations between these trajectories and children’s temperaments, their parents’ parenting practices and their interactions. Potentially important familial characteristics (i.e., the parents’ or surrogates’ age, income level, and educational attainment) were considered in the models. The sample for this study was drawn from the Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY). Group-based mixture modeling analyses were conducted to identify the number and types of distinct trajectories in the development of obesity (i.e., to explicate the developmental processes in the variability of childhood obesity) in a representative sample of children who were between 24 to 35 months of age, at baseline, and followed biennially over a 6-year span. Discriminant analysis was conducted to assess the theoretical notion of goodness-of-fit between parenting practices and children’s temperament, and their association with membership in the BMI trajectory groups. The results of the group-based modeling established three different BMI trajectories for the boys, namely: stable-normal BMI, transient-high BMI, and j-curve obesity. The analyses revealed four different trajectories of BMI change for the girls: stable-normal BMI, early-declining BMI, late-declining BMI, and accelerating rise to obesity. The multivariate analysis revealed that the combined predictors of the obesity trajectories of the girls (group membership) included having a fussy temperament, ineffective parenting, and parents’ educational attainment. Predictors of the boys’ obesity trajectory (group membership) included household income, parental education, and effective parenting practices. Understanding the different ways in which a child may develop obesity will allow nurses and other health professionals to take different approaches in the assessment, intervention and evaluation of obesity and obesity-related health problems. The results of this study further our understanding of factors associated with the development of obesity at a young age and hence may inform the development of early preventive programs.

Background:  As enterprises focus on their core competence, outsourcing other activities other firms can do better, the necessity of managing supplier relationships and upgrading the inter-firm relationships become evident. Supplier development as a potential attempt, tries to fill the gap between ideal criteria and the particular suppliers’ actual capabilities and performance in the supply chain. The buying firms initiate the supplier development efforts in order to increase their abilities to create and deliver a superior value to their own customers. In this respect, it is essential to investigate the practices and story of what the buyer and the supplier do in relation to supplier development and what factors contribute to the success of the program and benefits of the dyad. Furthermore, acknowledgment of difficulties that might bring failure in the SD should be taken into consideration so as to possibly avoid them. The supplier development is widely neglected a dyadic view in literature review. The importance of this study is adding the supplier’s standpoint to the buyer’s view in order to achieve the dyadic perspective associated with the practices, the success factors and the barriers. Purpose: This research aims to identify and describe the practices of supplier development in buyer-supplier dyads. The success factors of the supplier development program and the barriers to the supplier development programs are also investigated based on the buying and supplying firms’ perspectives. The main goal is to contribute to a better understanding of the supplier development from a dyadic standpoint. Method: This study is conducted from an interpretivism standpoint with the use of a deductive approach and qualitative strategy. A holistic multiple-case study of two plastic manufacturing firms as the buyers and their three main suppliers (three dyads) is applied in Iran. The empirical data is gathered via 6 different semi-structured interviews. The empirical evidence is analyzed by using within-case, cross-case and pattern matching analysis. The study considers the ethical issues; harm to participant, informed consents, invasion privacy and deception. The research quality is based upon trustworthiness and authenticity.   Result, conclusion: Thanks to within-case analysis which generates the dyadic view with respect to practices, success factors and barriers to supplier development, amazing result is achieved that rarely mentioned by the previous research. A number of conflicting views between the buying firm and the supplier is found due to dyadic investigation which demonstrates the gaps between the buyer and supplier’s perceptions in dyadic relationship. The dyads are simultaneously involved in both direct and indirect supplier development practices. Based on the level of buying firm’s involvement in supplier development activities, the dyads partially follow the degree of sequence from low, moderate to high involvement levels. Each dyad can eliminate or keep the lower level of buyer’s involvement activities when they start the moderate and high level of buyer’s involvement practices. However, the specific position cannot be identified for a particular dyad and the supplier development activities are scattered in all three levels. Based on the dyadic standpoint, the factors that contribute to success of the supplier development program in each dyad can be seen as buyer-, supplier-specific and interface success factors. In this regards, this dyadic multiple-case study confirms the reviewed literature associated with success factors and finds supplier’s top management support and previous supplier development experiences as the additional factors in supplier-specific area that contributes to the successful inter-firm relationship and the supplier development that are not pinpointed by the previous studies. Barriers to the supplier development are factors which hinder the success of the supplier development program. According to the literature review, the barriers could be divided into buyer-, supplier- specific as well as buyer-supplier interface barriers. This study partially confirms the previous studies and reveals some surprising results. One of the most useful findings of the research is that only one barrier in buyer-specific category is verified by one of the dyadic cases. However, in addition to identified barriers, lack of supplier’s top management support and supplier’s indolence are seen as the supplementary supplier-specific barriers to the supplier development. Interestingly, there are other types of barriers that cannot be found in the previous research which is categorized as context barriers. This type includes those kinds of barriers that are originated in the context of relationship in a dyad.

This thesis examines the retention of best practices by clinicians after the implementation of an integrated care pathway for patients with congestive heart failure. While the literature suggests there are many reasons why the implementation of best practices is difficult, there is little information on the sustainability of best practices once implemented.<p>Using a qualitative research design guided by Rogers theory of Diffusion of Innovations the researcher interviewed seven clinicians who participated in the implementation of the pathway. A thematic analysis revealed several themes that ran throughout participants responses. <p>While the participants indicated they see value in best practices, they also identified barriers to getting that knowledge into practice and keeping it there. A spectrum of factors, including individual autonomy, time, resources, organizational support and the organization of the system all played a role.<p>In the end, participants revealed that although small pieces of the pathway remain in practice, the pathway itself is no longer used by clinicians to manage patients with congestive heart failure.

In the dominant North American imagination, the asylum has always been a place of the other in society. Stories of Saskatchewan asylums and their reincarnations as mental hospitals are filled with early twentieth century horror narratives and redemptive tales of mid-century scientific progress: the monstrousness of the labyrinthine asylum structures and its arcane treatments, the modern marvels of the experimental therapies and the lives saved by the scientific authorities. Still some of the most infamous buildings to haunt provincial imagination, mental hospitals became more than buildings designed to treat disease in Saskatchewan: they were a cultural phenomenon. The hospitals themselves became social objects invested with meanings which shaped social relations.<p> This thesis investigates how the built structure of the asylum and in particular the North Battleford and Weyburn Mental Hospitals were perceived, experienced and theorized in early twentieth century and post-war Saskatchewan society. In analyzing architectural drawings, floor plans, television documentaries, photographs and patients' personal stories, this dissertation takes a critical look at how patients and staff were situated within the built structure at certain points and in particular during the Weyburn Mental Hospitals extensive earlier twentieth century history and its mid-century re-birth as a modern psychiatric research centre. Feminist and post-colonial debates about the history of medicine and eugenics, spatial and socio-practices of power within built structure and the representation of patients and health professionals in colonial and modern society are also examined as a means to situate the discussion of the mental hospital within the broader context of the discussion on spatial discourses.

The purpose of this study was to observe pre-kindergarten through fifth-grade public school classrooms to examine differences among instructional practices and technology use by teachers, students and the overall classroom. The current study differed from and built upon previous classroom observational research in a number of major ways. First, the observational data examined both student and teacher technology use and the availability of technology in the classroom. Second, authentic classroom behaviors were examined in relation to technology use; specifically, behaviors related to the impact of technology use on student engagement as well as differences among technology use in classrooms and differences by student socio-economic status. Finally, unlike previous studies, this study focused specifically on pre-kindergarten through fifth-grade classrooms from the same large public school district that was diverse by both socio-economic status (SES) and by student ethnicity. Overall, the results of this study suggest that technology has not been adequately implemented into the observed classrooms. Technology was available but was not used to a great extent. When technology was implemented, teachers were primarily observed using it to present material and students were observed using it almost exclusively for basic skills activities. This low-level of technology integration occurred in elementary schools of a high performing school district which had a technology plan in place, a low student to computer ratio, and 100 percent of the classrooms had Internet access. Furthermore, only 15 percent of teachers were observed integrating technology to a great extent; however, students in these classrooms were observed on task significantly more frequently than students in classrooms where technology was observed less or not at all. On the other hand, students were observed off task significantly more in classrooms where either no technology integration was observed or where it was only observed a moderate amount. These findings support and build upon previous observational studies. There is still a need, however, for strong, empirical research to be conducted to further examine the use of technology in elementary classrooms.

This thesis investigated the literacy practices of a group of Somali refugee women participating in Canada’s federally‐funded ESL program LINC (Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada). Assuming that many Somali women arrive in Canada with limited experience with print literacy, and so encounter novel challenges in their settlement and learning experiences, I interviewed 4 Somali women about their uses and perceptions of the value of literacy in their lives and their experiences of learning to read and write in Canada. A cross‐case analysis revealed how social forces constrain and enable the women’s literacy practices, shaping both how they access and use literacy, as well as the ways in which they understand and value literacy. Implications are outlined for ESL educators, researchers and policy makers.

La actual crisis económica ha reabierto el debate sobre la importancia de la productividad empresarial en el crecimiento económico de una región. Es en este contexto que el análisis de los factores que contribuyen en la mejora de la productividad empresarial se ha convertido en un elemento esencial, especialmente en las regiones con bajos niveles de productividad, como por ejemple Cataluña. El objetivo de esta tesis es analizar los efectos del capital humano en la productividad empresarial en el contexto de las pequeñas y medianas empresas Catalanas, considerando la posible existencia de sinergias entre el capital humano y otros factores productivos como pueden ser el capital tecnológico o las nuevas prácticas organizativas del trabajo. Adicionalmente, esta tesis también incluye un análisis sobre como las pequeñas y medianas empresas ajustan sus niveles de capital human con la finalidad de dar una mejor respuesta al nuevo contexto competitivo con el que se enfrentan. / The debate over the relevance of firm productivity to economic growth has been reviewed as a consequence of the current economic crisis. In this context, the analysis of elements that contribute to improve firm productivity becomes more important, especially in regions with low productivity levels, such as Catalonia. The purpose of this thesis is to analyse the effects of human capital on firm productivity in the context of Catalan SMEs, taking into account the existent synergies between human capital and other production factors such as, technological capital or the new work organisational practices. Additionally, this thesis also includes an analysis of how SMEs adjust their human capital levels in order to give a better answer to the new competitive context.

The monitoring of nitrate mass load through the unsaturated zone below agricultural land was proposed as a novel technique to assess the effect of agricultural best management practices (BMPs). The objectives of the study were to: develop field techniques and apply computational models for the quantification of unsaturated zone nitrate mass flux; scale the point mass flux results to a nitrate mass load across an agricultural parcel; and assess the resulting nitrate mass load measurements as indicators to evaluate the effect of a BMP. At several locations across the study site, groundwater quality and profiles of soil water content and temperature were regularly monitored, and several rounds of geologic cores were collected for analysis of bulk soil nitrate and an applied bromide tracer. The field data were applied in several analytical techniques for estimating recharge, and in two unsaturated zone numerical models used to refine the recharge estimates. The recharge rate at each measurement location was then combined with unsaturated zone nitrate data to quantify nitrate mass flux. Upscaling of the flux values to field-scale mass load was based mainly on topography, geology and field observations. The calculation of stored nitrate mass in the shallow subsurface showed some correlation to changes in surface nitrogen application, with the greatest decreases in stored mass observed at locations underlain by sand where there was a switch to a grass crop. In contrast, the calculation of nitrate mass load suggested that the post-BMP value (4.1 t NO3-N/yr) was greater than the pre-BMP value (2.2 t NO3-N/yr). However, the calculation of nitrate mass load was limited by several factors, including a lack of nitrate concentration data from the deep unsaturated zone and an above-average annual precipitation rate; as a result, the findings suggesting an increase in nitrate mass load in response to decreasing nutrient inputs should be interpreted with caution. Continued monitoring of nitrate mass load and stored nitrate mass in the unsaturated zone is recommended to determine whether further benefits from the BMPs are observed as the measurement period lengthens and the unsaturated zone is progressively flushed.