For a retailer, who has a close and everyday contact with its customers, understanding the customers can be of benefit if they know how to use the information in the right way. One way of using the customer is to integrate customers when developing new services, to enhance the possibility of the new service gaining market acceptance. Customer insight, Omnichannel retailing and Big Data are areas that recently have caught the interest of retailers. The latter two are of interest as these provide retailers with better possibilities of gaining customer insight, by taking the opportunities to observe the customers’ virtual footsteps to a whole new level. This thesis is a study made with the market research company Nepa as employer of the thesis, in order to develop their B2B offer with end-customer integration. Why and how customers are integrated were further studied through the frame of reference. The factors that were chosen to describe from a theoretical standpoint how customers can be integrated were type of integration, role of the customer, type of customer and timing of the integration. The underlying factors that were chosen to answer why retailers choose different alternatives among the above mentioned factors were market orientation, service/goods dominant logic, environmental uncertainty and market maturity. The study was made with a qualitative, positivistic approach using a collective case study. The case study is a good way to be able to answer both how and why-questions and was therefore chosen as method. By investigating multiple cases and performing a cross case analysis the authors were able to draw more generalizable conclusions. Five retailers took part in the study and for each of these a developed service was chosen as case for investigation. By doing low structured interviews using a method called story-telling, the authors let the respondents from each company speak freely about the chosen case, and that information could then be analyzed. The conclusions of the study concern the different ways retailers choose to integrate customers and the reasons they do it in different ways. A company’s market orientation affects if and what type of customer integration is used in the idea-generating phases. The degree of market orientation also affects the amount of occasions and what type of customer integration is used in the execution-oriented phases. Retailers’ turbulent technology environment has influenced their general perception of risk and the risk of unacceptance with the specific project. This results in that a company can initially integrate customers proactively to let them guide the company or the company can consider customer integration to be secondary. Retailers generally are guided by a goods dominant logic which leads to them not choosing to integrate the customers in active roles in the innovation process. Instead, the retailers combine different integration techniques to gain some of the advantages that active customer could have brought. This is also connected to the retailers wanting to get quickly through the early phases of the process and instead use agile development after the launch of the service. The retailers do not choose different types of customers for integration, but the combination of integration techniques can still provide them with some of the characteristics of the more knowledgeable customer.

This thesis reviews and analyses the potential impact of maintenance on the fulfilment of Green Production Systems. Overall aim is to highlight how maintenance may contribute to decreasing the environmental impact of production. The thesis is based on the combination of literature studies and set of qualitative interviews conducted in selected companies. Three Swedish manufacturers were interviewed about their way of working, as well as their views on sustainability within operation management including maintenance. The results of the research explains why some organisations fail to recognize maintenance’s role to achieve sustainability, and how maintenance has been characterized in these organisations, namely by: short term pressures, reactive approach, neglecting hidden costs, lack of teamworking between production and maintenance departments, and low focus (hierarchical low status) on maintenance importance, resulting in lack of skilled labor available in organizations. In contrast, practices and strategies to succeed found to be based on the following: long term thinking, structured way of working, a proactive approach to maintenance, aiming to integrate core values into operational work, and establishing an environment which fosters continuous improvement and employee development. Same study identifies areas and "effects of poor maintenance" to be dealt with in the journey toward sustainable production, these are: economic, quality, processes wastes, emissions, resource consumption, safety and work environment related. It is therefore suggested that organizations may choose a proactive approach to maintenance that is best suited to their needs, which allows efficient production and long-term profitability, while considering safety and environmental aspects. Various concepts are available, but the organisation has to optimise on the combination of various practices. Following to the findings, a proposal is made that proactive culture should be integrated into daily work in a practical way such as Safety-Quality-Environment becomes everyone's responsibility. Sustainable perspective and sticking to best course of proactive measures are prioritized against short term pressures. To support this proposal a toolkit is developed that can be used at team/level continuous improvement programs, based on the PDCA model. Finally, the thesis emphasizes what benefits the optimum maintenance can provide on the fulfilment of competitive and resource-efficient production systems.

Most employers agree that the effectiveness and success of their organisations depend on the effective utilisation of their human resources. Ill health in the workplace is a threat to optimal productivity, reduced absenteeism, provision of sustainable employee benefits, a motivated workforce, staff retention and maximisation of profits. Burnout and engagement are therefore important fields of investigation in the industrial psychology field. The aim of this study was to: test a model of work-related well-being; develop and evaluate a resilience intervention programme for a large financial services institution in South Africa. Article 1 used a cross-sectional survey design. The participants were predominantly in the administrative, call centre and IT divisions (N = 192). Article 2 was the development of a resilience model, which was based on the integration of thinking from an extensive literature review by the researcher. Article 3 used an experimental design, with a control group (n=51) and an experimental group («=55). Information was collected in a longitudinal research. The research method for each of the three articles of this study consisted of a brief literature review and an empirical study. The measuring instruments used in this study were the Maslach Burnout Inventory - General Survey (MBI-GS), Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES), Job Demands-Resources Scale (JD-RS), Health subscales, Organisational Commitment subscales, the ASSET questionnaire, the Life Orientation Test - Revised (LOT-R) and a biographical questionnaire. In both article 1 and article 3, descriptive statistics were computed to describe the data; as were Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients to specify the relationship between the variables. In article 1, multiple regression analyses were conducted to determine the proportion of variance in the dependent variable that is predicted by the independent variables. In article 3, paired-samples f-tests were used to determine the difference in results for year 1 and year 2. Article 1 showed the central role that low optimism plays in contributing to burnout, and high optimism plays in work engagement. Interestingly, high social support was linked to increased cynicism, whilst low social support contributed to dedication. Burnout contributed to both physical and psychological ill health. Dedication and low cynicism contributed to affective commitment, whilst engagement and low cynicism contributed to behavioural commitment. Article 2 was the development of a multidimensional, proactive coping approach which consistently strives to develop and enhance the individual's resilience coping reservoir pools (mental, spiritual, socio-emotional and physical) leading to improved resilience, wellness and quality of life. Each reservoir pool has activities that enhance the fitness of the individual, namely physical (rest and relaxation, exercise and nutrition), mental (stimuli, reflection and empowering thinking), spiritual (coat of arms, pay it forward and gratitude), socio-emotional (breaking destructive relationships and nurturing relationships, responsibility). Article 3's results showed that the resilience intervention resulted in a statistically significant difference decrease in psychological ill health. Recommendations for future research were made. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2009.

Most employers agree that the effectiveness and success of their organisations depend on the effective utilisation of their human resources. Ill health in the workplace is a threat to optimal productivity, reduced absenteeism, provision of sustainable employee benefits, a motivated workforce, staff retention and maximisation of profits. Burnout and engagement are therefore important fields of investigation in the industrial psychology field. The aim of this study was to: test a model of work-related well-being; develop and evaluate a resilience intervention programme for a large financial services institution in South Africa. Article 1 used a cross-sectional survey design. The participants were predominantly in the administrative, call centre and IT divisions (N = 192). Article 2 was the development of a resilience model, which was based on the integration of thinking from an extensive literature review by the researcher. Article 3 used an experimental design, with a control group (n=51) and an experimental group («=55). Information was collected in a longitudinal research. The research method for each of the three articles of this study consisted of a brief literature review and an empirical study. The measuring instruments used in this study were the Maslach Burnout Inventory - General Survey (MBI-GS), Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES), Job Demands-Resources Scale (JD-RS), Health subscales, Organisational Commitment subscales, the ASSET questionnaire, the Life Orientation Test - Revised (LOT-R) and a biographical questionnaire. In both article 1 and article 3, descriptive statistics were computed to describe the data; as were Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients to specify the relationship between the variables. In article 1, multiple regression analyses were conducted to determine the proportion of variance in the dependent variable that is predicted by the independent variables. In article 3, paired-samples f-tests were used to determine the difference in results for year 1 and year 2. Article 1 showed the central role that low optimism plays in contributing to burnout, and high optimism plays in work engagement. Interestingly, high social support was linked to increased cynicism, whilst low social support contributed to dedication. Burnout contributed to both physical and psychological ill health. Dedication and low cynicism contributed to affective commitment, whilst engagement and low cynicism contributed to behavioural commitment. Article 2 was the development of a multidimensional, proactive coping approach which consistently strives to develop and enhance the individual's resilience coping reservoir pools (mental, spiritual, socio-emotional and physical) leading to improved resilience, wellness and quality of life. Each reservoir pool has activities that enhance the fitness of the individual, namely physical (rest and relaxation, exercise and nutrition), mental (stimuli, reflection and empowering thinking), spiritual (coat of arms, pay it forward and gratitude), socio-emotional (breaking destructive relationships and nurturing relationships, responsibility). Article 3's results showed that the resilience intervention resulted in a statistically significant difference decrease in psychological ill health. Recommendations for future research were made. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2009.

The overall aim of this thesis is to, through a case study of a local disaster organization, study the prerequisites for building functional Hastily Formed Networks in disasters and also how HFN:s can be linked to a proactive disaster organization.The study looks upon HFN:s from the organizational, cognitive aspects of communication – not the network/information technology – and focus on the issue of local empowerment. To set the theoretical framework the thesis makes use of Peter Senge's model on learning organization, Karl Weicks organizational and communication theory of microlevels in systems, commitment and enactment. The method is a case study with interviews and field observation of a proactive disaster organization in Indonesia, in the Sultanate of Yogyakarta on Java. The results shows that Yogyakarta is actively working with a model to take advantage of the experience from earlier catastrophes, spread the learnings to other, integrate community in the learning and trying to build local empowerment including a bottom-up approach. In the interviews topics raised as important to create a good collaboration in a HFN are: 1) Provide local leaders with professional support and coordination based on a common vision. 2) Establishing local empowerment and common visions. 3) Development of the organization and individuals. 4) The need for formal and informal structures and communication. 5) Need for local mandate for coordination and increased competence in local management. The themes all deal with challenges for HFN:s, presented in earlier research, and link strongly to Senge’s theoretical model for learning organization, trying to build trust and also micro committment for uncertain periods. This contributes to the capacity to be prepared for the unprepared.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-15T19:26:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Meiry Kamia.pdf: 647658 bytes, checksum: 268c81bd30bfe84fdd2a05221e8488bd (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-08-13 / Fundo Mackenzie de Pesquisa / Due to the increase of complexity and competitiveness in the global economy, researches on pro-activity have gained strength in the last fifteen years. From this perspective, the proactive behavior has acted as one of the most critical determinant for the organizational success. The proactive behavior is defined as a set of non-formal behaviors that allow the workers to spontaneously search for changes in the work environment, looking forward to solutions and aiming to long term goals that provide benefits to the company. Literature points to the fact that personal values are strongly connected to the behavior. However, up to the moment, little has been investigated regarding the relation between personal values as the antecedent of the proactive behavior in the organizational environment. This study aimed to investigate the relation between personal values and its impact on the proactive behavior in organizations. It is characterized as a descriptive and transversal research. Some instruments were used as measurement tools, such as the Personal Values Questionnaire (PVQ) already validated and the scale of Proactive Behavior in Organizations (ECPO), which has been developed, used and validated in this study. The ECPO presented good levels of reliability, being nominated to be used in researches and organizational diagnosis. Those two scales were answered by a sample of 369 workers. After eliminating extreme cases, the sample was constituted of 325 employees. The linear regression analysis showed that values predict the proactive behavior, and the most significant motivational type is Stimulation. However, the impact of the values over the proactive behavior was low, justifying only 6.7% of the behavior. This low prediction may indicate the existence of variable mediators that affect the impact of the values on the behavior. The implications and limitations of this research are argued in this work. / Pesquisas sobre proatividade ganharam força nos últimos quinze anos por conta do aumento da competitividade e complexidade da economia global. Nesse contexto, o comportamento proativo tem se mostrado um dos determinantes mais críticos para o sucesso organizacional. O comportamento proativo é definido como sendo um conjunto de comportamentos extrapapel em que o trabalhador busca espontaneamente por mudanças no seu ambiente de trabalho, solucionando e antecipando-se aos problemas, visando metas de longo prazo que beneficiam a organização. A literatura aponta para o fato de que os valores pessoais possuem forte relação com o comportamento. Entretanto, até o momento, pouco foi investigado a respeito da relação entre os valores pessoais como antecedentes do comportamento proativo no ambiente organizacional. Este estudo buscou investigar a relação entre os valores pessoais e seu impacto sobre o comportamento proativo nas organizações. Este trabalho caracteriza-se por ser uma pesquisa, descritiva e transversal. Foram utilizados como instrumentos de medida o Personal Values Questionaire (PVQ) já validado, e a escala de Comportamento Proativo nas Organizações (ECPO) que foi desenvolvida e validada neste estudo. O ECPO apresentou bons índices de confiabilidade, sendo indicado para utilização em pesquisas e diagnóstico organizacional. As duas escalas foram respondidas por uma amostra de 369 trabalhadores. Após eliminação dos casos extremos, a amostra ficou constituída por 325 funcionários. A análise de regressão linear mostrou que os valores predizem o comportamento proativo, e o tipo motivacional mais significativamente relacionado foi o tipo Estimulação. Entretanto, o impacto dos valores sobre o comportamento proativo foi baixo, explicando apenas 6,7% do comportamento. Essa baixa predição talvez indique a existência de variáveis moderadoras que afetam o impacto dos valores sobre o comportamento. As implicações e limitações dessa pesquisa são discutidas no trabalho.

Applikationsövervakning är en term för att i realtid övervaka applikationer och kunna upptäcka fel innan slutanvändaren märker av ett problem. Med övervakning av applikationer menas inte bara den enskilda programvaran utan allt som rör applikationen i fråga. Trafikverkets önskemål är att leverera en hög kvalité i sina applikationer. I nuläget har utvecklare ingen eller dålig insyn i hur en applikation levererar i en skarp miljö efter att de lämnat över ansvaret till drift. För att kunna hålla en bra kvalité i sina applikationer så vill de undersöka hur applikationsövervakning kan hjälpa till att se behov av ändringar i applikationer innan större problem uppstår. I en fallstudie bestående av intervjuer och dokumentstudier kommer genom användning av situationsbaserad FA/SIMM nuvarande arbetssätt fångas. Samt fånga mål och problem som uttrycks i verksamheten kring utveckling & förvaltning och drift av applikationer. Dessa kommer sedan analyseras för att undersöka på vilket sätt applikationsövervakning skulle hjälpa utvecklare & förvaltare, men även driftspersonal i deras arbete. Resultatet av detta visar att de problem och mål som tas upp dels är organisatoriska i sin natur och arbetssättet DevOps framhålls som en möjlig lösning. Även att applikationsövervakning de facto skulle kunna bidra till en ökad kvalité i applikationerna genom att tillföra en möjlighet att arbeta mer proaktivt. / Application monitoring is a term for real-time monitoring of applications to be able to discover faults before they reach the end-user. Application monitoring does not only mean the individual software but also everything surrounding it, which can have an impact on the application. Trafikverket wishes to deliver high quality in their applications. At present the developers have no or little insight in how an application delivers in a live environment after they handed over the responsibility to the operations. In order to maintain a good quality of their applications they want to explore how application monitoring may help to see changes in the needs of applications before major problems occur. In a case study consisting of interviews and document studies and through situation based FA/SIMM present ways of working will be produced. It will also identify wishes/concerns expressed by the developers and operations departments in the managing of existent applications. These will then be analyzed to examine in which way application monitoring would help developers, but also operations, in their work. The result shows that the problems which are brought forward are in a sense organizational of nature and that DevOps is a possible way for solution. But also that application monitoring could contribute to the delivery of high quality in applications in a proactive manor.

The present study examines relationships among differences in personality, financial planning behaviors, and retirement life satisfaction. The hypothesized sequence of relationships is: PersonalityàFinancial Planning BehavioràRetirement Life Satisfaction. The study adds to prior research by clarifying the hypothesized role that proactive personality (as opposed to other personality variables such as the Big Five) has as a predictor, and also by showing how differences in discrete types of financial planning behavior influence retirement life satisfaction and mediate effects of proactive personality on satisfaction. This study tests these linkages while also addressing limitations and ambiguity in prior research regarding these potentially important effects among disposition, financial planning and a satisfactory retirement.

A MCC (Manutenção Centrada em Confiabilidade) é uma metodologia criada na década de 50, que visa a melhoria no gerenciamento e planejamento da manutenção, focando nos componentes críticos, e com adoção de elementos de confiabilidade. A bibliografia utilizada neste estudo aponta inúmeros benefícios, comprovando a sua eficácia, como: o aumento da disponibilidade operacional, redução do tempo de intervenção, redução dos custos operacionais de manutenção, maior previsibilidade nas tarefas, e por fim, maior confiabilidade dos equipamentos. A indústria da construção civil, possuindo equipamentos de grande porte e de custos operacionais relativamente altos, e ainda com o agravante de serem móveis, necessita de um modelo de manutenção de alto nível, visando maior confiabilidade operacional para assegurar disponibilidade. Com isso, a adoção de uma metodologia que visa a preservação do ativo, como a MCC, passa a ser uma grande aliada de uma produção de alto valor e lucratividade. O presente trabalho apresenta uma análise da viabilidade da implementação da metodologia MCC no gerenciamento da manutenção de equipamentos móveis, de uma empresa de construção civil. A nova metodologia trouxe à manutenção da empresa um novo panorama para com planejamento de suas atividades de manutenção, e por reflexo a produção. A implantação desta contou com a sistemática de implantação tradicional, porém utilizando o SIGM para elencar os dados de manutenção, sob seu histórico, e em conjunto com brainstorming, para priorização e apuração das falhas e modos de falhas. A MCC possibilitou a reformulação de planos de manutenção já existentes, a elaboração de novos planos preditivos e preventivos, e a alteração de periodicidades de planos preventivos sendo para estes, reduzidos em 1000 l consumidos, o intervalo entre estas intervenções. / The RCM (Reliability Centered Maintenance) is a methodology created in the 50s, to improve the management and maintenance planning, focusing on critical components, and adoption of reliability elements. The bibliography indicates numerous benefits, proving its effectiveness, as increased operational availability, reduced intervention time, reduce operating costs of maintenance, greater predictability in the tasks, and finally, reliability. The construction industry, having operating large equipment and costs relatively high, and with the aggravation of being mobile, you need a high-level maintenance model, seeking greater operational reliability. The adoption of a methodology aimed at the preservation of assets, with a focus on reliability. This paper analysis of the viability of implementation the RCM method in managing the maintenance of mobile equipment, in a construction company. The new methodology brought to the company maintaining a new outlook towards planning their maintenance activities, and reflective production. The implementation of this included the systematic traditional deployment, but using CMMS to list the maintenance data, in its history, and in conjunction with brainstorming, prioritization and for investigation of failures and failure modes. The RCM enabled the redesign of existing maintenance plans, the development of new predictive and preventive plans, and changing periodicities preventive plans -For these being , reduced in 1000 l consumed , the interval between these operations.

Thesis (MPA.) -- University of Limpopo, 2017. / The aim of the study was to investigate elements that compromise the success of Proactive Land Acquisition Strategy (PLAS) in Mopani District, Limpopo Province. There is a general view that PLAS intended to fast track the land reform process. The emerging farmers as soon as they get the land through PLAS are expected to use the land for production so as to improve their socio- economic status and contribute to the local economic growth. The Department of Rural Development and Land Reform proactively acquires the land and redistributes it to the previously disadvantaged people in a lease contract. Emerging farmers do not need to own the land and have title deeds as the land belongs to the government. PLAS is state driven because only the government can proactively acquire the land and lease it out to prospective productive emerging farmers from previously disadvantaged groups. Qualitative research design was used to collect data. The target group in this study were direct beneficiaries of PLAS or emerging farmers. Data was collected using focus group discussions with emerging farmers and one-on-one interviews in all three local municipalities: Ba-Phalaborwa, Tzaneen and Maruleng. One- on- one interviews were conducted with the key participants from the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform and the Limpopo Department of Agriculture. The results of the study show that the emerging farmers are not effectively using the land as expected. They do not have the necessary support from government or Department of Rural Development and Land Reform. It was also revealed in the study that the Limpopo Department of Agriculture is expected to support the emerging farmers with technical support. In practice there is no visible form of support from the provincial department and farmers are left to fend for themselves. Emerging farmers usually lack farming skills and need regular training and support to be able to continue with their farming and businesses. The findings further reveal that the emerging farmers face serious challenges such as a lack of funding, water shortage, and lack of access to markets and their recapitalisation is reduced. These findings show that the strategy is not responsive enough because of lack of resources from the government. While there are instances where the white farmers are willing to sell their land, the government do not always have resources to acquire such lands. Also most of these land prices are often inflated and it is where these sellers are taking advantage of the government. This study recommends that the government should support the emerging farmers by all means possible. That will lead to profitable farming and the lives of the people will change qualitatively, leading to social and economic development. It is recommended further that the emerging farmers be given appropriate training so that they can be equipped with skills and be able to run and manage their farms