Sustainable Built Environments Senior Capstone / The study is on non-profit organizations use of data to analyze and plan projects. It looks at Geographical Information Systems as a tool that could benefit organizations in their data management, project creation, and community collaboration. Case study research was used to analyze three different tree maps created by non-profit organizations. The case studies looked specifically at the organizations’ use of GIS in the data management, project creation, and community collaboration aspects of the maps. By looking at these aspects, it was concluded that GIS is a beneficial tool for non-profit organizations, even on the most basic level. As the organizations become more financially able to afford better software, the GIS capabilities become more beneficial. Non-profits should try to incorporate GIS at any level into their organization.

No description available.

The thrust of this research is the "MARKET-ORIENTATION OF TANZANIAN BANKING INSTITUTIONS: A CASE STUDY OF CRDB BANK". Being the first of its kind within the context of the study, it is largely an exploratory study on the marketorientation (MO) with twin purposes of: (a) examining the extent of MO in CRDB Bank as perceived by employees and (b) exploring the development and implementation of MO culture in the bank, with a special focus on the facilitating and hindering factors. Emanating from these purposes are four main objectives of the research that underpinned the research namely (1) to explore the existing marketing philosophies in the bank, (2) to measure the employees perceived level of MO and its constituent dimensions, including the development of the MO scale that is suitable to a banking institution, (3) to explore whether the perception of the level of MO differs according to the following attributes (a) hierarchical levels of the organisation (top, middle and lower management and between head office and branches offices of the bank), (b) employee-specific(personal) attributes(c) size of branches ( large, medium and small), (d) location of branches ( between those in competitive areas and in least competitive areas) and (e) profitability performance ( between above-median and below-median performing branches), and (4) to explore the facilitating and hindering factors for the development and implementation of MO in CRDB Bank and Tanzanian financial sector in general. The main methodology used in this research is a case study. This enabled us to use method triangulation, whereby both qualitative and quantitative methods were used. Principally, we applied the following research tools/techniques in data gathering: interviews, documentary analysis, survey questionnaire and personal observation. The field research involved two phases. The first was a pilot study that entailed conducting discovery-oriented interviews with 9 bankers in six banks. The second phase was conducting the substantive research in CRDB Bank. The findings of the study are fascinating and may have far- reaching implications both in terms of theory and practice. From a themantic dimension, we successfully reconceptualised MO, by developing a scale for measuring the extended MO. We clarified this as the Simultaneous Market orientation, SMO, which composes five key dimensions: external customer-orientation, competitor-orientation, interfunctional orientation, internal 111 customer-orientation and profit-orientation. The scale was tested and validated for its psychometric properties. In other words, the SMO scale was found, reliable and valid, implying that the five components fully represented the SMO. External customerorientation and profit-orientation were ranked as first and second most important dimension of SMO in the bank. Competitor-orientation, interfunctional co-ordination and internal customer-orientation were ranked third, fourth and fifth, respectively. From the practice perspective, our findings indicates that marketing-orientation and salesorientation are the dominant marketing philosophies, while production-orientation and societal marketing-orientation are the less marketing philosophies. This in practice indicates a co-existence of different marketing philosophies in the organisation contrary to the main stream literature exhortations. Also, the research revealed an integration perspective of employees on SMO culture. Essentially, this has established the importance of internal customer-orientation in influencing or leading to employees' participation, morale, training, job satisfaction and retention as a critical determinants of successful SMO implementation. Furthermore, we have identified the main facilitative and hindering factors for the development and implementation of MO in the specific context of CRDB bank and the Tanzanian financial sector in general. These antecedent factors have a profound effect on MO implementation. In general, our findings have set a solid base and raised issues that are likely to chart the future direction of MO situation not only in Tanzania, but also in other African countries that are undergoing market-driven transformation of their economies. The main public policy implication of this study is that there is a need to strengthen the macroenvironment and to mount public education in order to foster MO behaviour and practice. Similarly, at the management level, there is a need for effective and adequate management leadership and support for adoption and implementation of MO culture and the need for sustained or continuous changes given the emergent internal and external environment. The essential role of informed "change agents" in fostering MO could not be discounted.

The theory of 'enforced maximisation' claims that whatever decision procedures individuals and firms adopt, maximisation of utility for individuals and profits for firms will be selected for by the forces of competition. Competition thus enforces maximisation. Evolutionary arguments are typically employed to support these claims, either individually or jointly. A behavioural economic theory may have three basic components: a theory of preferences, of beliefs, and of the behaviour of individuals in social institutions (particularly firms). To each of these the approach of enforced maximisation has been applied. Becker has argued that people have stable self-interested preferences as the result of selection along sociobiological lines; Muth has argued that individuals' beliefs can be assumed to be represented in a rational expectations fashion, because if they did not do so an arbitrage profit would result, and rational agents would therefore exploit it. Friedman has argued that firms' can be assumed to be profit maximisers because if they did not, analogous to natural selection, they would go out of business. This thesis argues that these claims are individually unsustainable, and in seme form jointly inconsistent. The demonstration uses a series of criteria for deciding between rival explanations. First, it is argued that the sociobiological account of preference formation is deeply problematic, particularly in its account of self-interest and altruism. Second, it is demonstrated that the selection-based argument for the rational expectations account of belief-formation fails. Third, it is shewn why profit maximisation is not necessarily enforced by the market. Finally, the selection for firm's profit maximisation behaviour relies on selection of utility maximising individual behaviour, and such a reliance may be inconsistent with the programme of the theory of 'enforced maximisation'.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Göttingen.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Köln.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2002. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 93-94). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2002. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 93-94). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio University, August, 2003. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 40-43)

No description available.