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Culture plays an integral role in shaping Human Resource Management (HRM) practices and policies within any organisation. This role is manifested through determining the norms and accepted behaviours in any given society. However, the extent of this societal cultural influence has been deemed to be greatly unexplored among researchers. Societal culture has been defined by Prasad and Babbar (2000) as the compilation of values and ideologies that are shared among an assembly of individuals in a certain country or region. Researchers have been concerned by the relationship between societal culture and HRM practices in developing countries; HRM practices are defined by Armstrong (2006) as all aspects associated with the management of people within the organisation. Therefore, this research represents an investigation of the link between Saudi Arabian societal culture and existing HRM practices within the public and private sectors. Taking into consideration elements affecting Saudi societal culture, such as changing economy and globalisation, these elements impact organisations in Saudi Arabia on two levels. First, the local level, where public organisations are gradually transforming into private organisations with a focus on profitability. Second, the global level, represented through multinational organisations adapting to societal culture elements in order to achieve success. As a result of both levels, HRM practices are changing in order to be effective. Therefore, the aim of this research is to explore this particular development and discover how Saudi societal culture impacts five specific HRM practices – highlighted following a comprehensive review of literature – and the role they play in shaping those practices. These practices are: job desirability, recruitment sources, performance appraisal, compensation and rewards, and training programmes. For the purposes of this research, a case study has been conducted in order to provide an in-depth examination. This benefits from a unique opportunity to investigate an ongoing privatisation process within a leading organisation in the Middle East. Saudi Arabian Airlines (SAA) represents an ideal candidate for this study, as the technical services section of the company, SAEI, is going through a privatisation process; this started in 2009 with expected completion in 2015. As the research data collection took place over seven weeks in 2013, this timeline allowed the examination of the transition from public to private sector within one organisation with the same workplace environment. Furthermore, having both sectors within the same organisation creates the possibility of making comparisons between them, as it would have been impossible to find two organisations from each sector possessing the same organisational structure, financial level and operational levels. Moreover, this study involved adopting a mixed-methods approach to incorporate qualitative and quantitative methods. This approach included semi-structured type interviews with eight senior HR managers as well as non-HR managers, and disseminating questionnaires among 200 engineers within the SAEI department. The findings and results of this case study have shown the extent to which each HRM practice interacts with Saudi societal culture. There have been HRM themes greatly influenced by the societal element, while other themes remained neutral and did not reflect any cultural influence. Furthermore, the findings produced mixed results when compared to those in the existing literature. As for the HRM practices affected by societal culture, three were affected based on the collected data: compensation and rewards, job desirability, and training programmes. These practices show clear indication they were influenced by Saudi Arabian societal culture. As for the HRM practices that remained neutral – performance appraisal and recruitment sources – they remained independent of any societal influence. However, after concluding the study and its discussion, this research provides several contributions to the field of HRM practices in Saudi Arabia on two main levels. On the theoretical level, the outcomes confirm a link between Saudi Arabian societal culture and compensation and rewards, training programmes, and job desirability practices. On the other hand, recruitment sources and performance appraisal practices are not greatly influenced. A further contribution is the up-to-date investigation of the impact that Saudi Arabian societal culture has on HRM practices, which helps to address well-known and documented gaps in the literature. As for practical contributions, one contribution is providing a first-hand review of the ongoing transition using primary and secondary research methods for SAA. This is 00considered beneficial for practitioners and multi-national corporations, as this study provides an action guide and insight into preferred HRM practices in Saudi Arabia. Further practical contribution is associated with the developed framework utilised in this research, where this particular framework can be used in the future to accommodate similar privatisation processes or make comparisons with international organisations.

The Diploma thesis is dealing with the usage of the private-public partnerships in the form of PPP projects. The main aim of this work is an evaluation of the PPP method whilst providing the public good as one of the main tools of financial projects from the public sectors. The thesis is briefly introducing the principles of public sector, its role and functions along with securing public good and their financing. The first part discusses the history of PPP projects, its characteristics and typology, as well as various advantages and disadvantages compared to traditional public contract model. The analytical part is dedicated to the implementation of the private projects and to public partnership in Czech Republic. The pilot projects are the D3 motorway and judicial complex in Usti nad Labem. Foreign projects are represented by M1/M15 motorway in Hungary and its comparison with the D3 motorway. The main section of the analytical part then focuses onto the analysis of the PPP projects, in terms of their effectiveness, financial aspects and the overall merits. In particular, a critical stance on the subject guarantees its objective evaluation. The conclusion of the thesis is evaluated whether it has indeed an effective method as it's sometimes called.

The diploma thesis deals with the topic of the Private-Public-Partnership (PPP) projects, as a tool for mutual financing of the public projects by private sector. Its main goal is to confirm or disprove the hypothesis, that the PPP projects are more effective form of the financing of the public projects and solve the problem of the debt trap into which countries entered in last decades. The thesis also defines the problem of the PPP project, their advantages and disadvantages and possible risks, analyses their usage in the Czech Republic and compares the experiences from the Great Britain in first two decades of the 21st century. The theoretical part of the thesis copes with the topic of financing of the projects of public sector and PPP projects. The descriptive and comparative methods will be used. In the practical part of the thesis will be performed the comparison of the chosen projects by synthetic analysis and the recommendation for the Czech Republic will be formulated based on the findings.

Public Private Partnership (PPP) is a well established methodology for procuring public works projects. By incorporating the private sector’s expertise, efficiency, innovation, business sense, risk sharing, financing etc. into public works projects, the quality of public services and facilities can be uplifted. Like many jurisdictions, Hong Kong is also keen to take aboard this methodology which is so familiar but yet so distant. Although they have been one of the first jurisdictions to utilise the private sector in public works projects, their comfortable financial reserves has meant that there has been no urge to push the movement until recently. PPP has become increasingly popular amongst governments. The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government is no exception. Some of the more active works departments have commissioned studies to investigate the best ways to deliver these projects, others have even trialed the method themselves. The efficiency Unit of the HKSAR government has also become an active arm in conducting research in this area. Although so, the information that is currently available is still very broad. Building from their works there is a need to develop a best practice framework for implementing PPP projects in Hong Kong by incorporating international experiences. To develop a best practice framework will require thorough investigation into the benefits, difficulties and critical success factor of PPP. PPP should also be compared with other procurement methods. In order to do so it is important to clearly understand the local situation by an analysis of projects conducted to date. Lessons learnt can further be derived from other countries and incorporated to those derived locally. Finally the best conditions in terms of project nature, complexity, types, and scales for adopting PPP should be derived. The aim and objectives of this study were achieved via a comprehensive literature review, in-depth case analyses, interview survey with experts from both Hong Kong and overseas, and finally a large scale data collection was conducted via a questionnaire survey with PPP practitioners. These findings were further triangulated before they were used as the basis to form the best practice framework presented in this thesis. The framework was then further validated by PPP experts to ensure it is comprehensive, objective, reliable and practical. This study has presented a methodology that can be adopted for future studies. It has also updated our knowledge on the development trends of PPP as well as opened up the experiences of other jurisdictions. The findings have shown that the local industry is familiar with “what” should be done in PPP projects but they are unsure of “how” these goals can be achieved. This framework has allowed this further knowledge to be delivered to PPP practitioners. As a result, the development of this framework can help to resolve the current economic crisis by encouraging more developments and business opportunities for the private sector. In addition, the correct projects can be delivered by PPP, the advantages of PPP can be maximised, and the general public can benefit from the private sector’s participation.

This research examined the role of facilitating agencies in promoting public-private partnerships (PPP). Bangladesh's solid waste management sector was taken as a case study. As is the case in many developing countries, municipalities in Bangladesh could not cope with rapid urbanization resulting in a large proportion of solid waste remaining uncollected. The private sector took the opportunity to fill this gap in service. They started providing house-to-house garbage collection and charging citizens for this service. Therefore, two streams of service providers-public and private-became active in the sector. In some cities the two streams remained separate without coordination. In other cities the two sectors formed partnership with support from facilitating agencies. This research investigated the roles played by the facilitating agencies. Three broad aspects were investigated: (1) necessity of facilitating agencies, (2) the role of a facilitating agency in sustainability of partnership, and (3) the role of a facilitating agency in effectiveness of partnership. Four cities were included in the study with varying degree of PPP and facilitation. Primary data were collected from public and private sector staff, elected representatives, and citizens through interview, questionnaire survey and observation. PPP is a promising mechanism for urban service delivery. This study on the role of facilitating agencies may illustrate how to achieve and sustain PPPs in developing countries.

The aim of this thesis is to analyze evaluation and motivation of employees in public and private sector, make comparison between these sectors and propose measures leading to elimination of deficiencies. At the beginning of this thesis there are described issues and the aims of this thesis. Theoretical part is focused on evaluation, motivation and remuneration of employees in both sectors including new knowledge from this area. Comparison of both sectors is done by questionnaire. It focuses on evaluation, motivation and fair remuneration by employer from employee point of view. Practical part consist of research results, verification of work hypothesis and based on findings propose possible actions to improve current situation. By research it was found that employees from private sector obtain formal evaluation much more often than in public sector. Most important motivation for job performance improvement is for employees from public sector work certainty, for private sector it is career progress. Results of this thesis gives proposals to employer for improvement.

Sustainable urbanization is crucial for the Agenda 2030. The purpose of this study is to provide insights into how organizational structures of public institutions can be optimized for sustainable urban development.  This study utilizes an explorative research design. A cross-case analysis had been chosen to investigate cross-sector collaboration for environmentally sustainable urban development by studying two areas in Malmö: Västra Hamnen and Sege Park. Cross-sector Collaboration and Community Governance theories are selected as a foundation of the study. Empirical data was collected through semi-structured interviews with municipality representatives, residents, representatives of the third organizations, and external experts in sustainable urban development. Thematic coding was used to identify patterns in the interviews, and was followed by the empirical analysis.  The present study uncovered key findings related to public governance, sustainability evaluation, cross-sector collaboration and communication in complex sustainable development projects. The findings indicate that balancing stakeholder interests with project’s requirements and embodying the responsibilities of each actor in formal agreements followed by interim follow-ups are vital for successful cross-sector collaboration in sustainable development. Another finding suggests that sustainability should be a central element in a municipality's strategy, as politics and power dynamics play a significant role. In the studied cases the use of climate-friendly materials in construction fell short due to industry lobbying and the lack of national regulations. Finally, the research reveals contradictions between environmental and economic sustainability, as well as environmental and social sustainability. These contradictions, though, are arguably solvable with proper project management and cross-sector communication. Overall, there is room for improvement in recognizing the need for socially just and inclusive development that prioritizes the desires and well-being of the people. These findings shed light on the complex nature of sustainable urban development and emphasize the importance of aligning diverse interests to achieve long-term environmental and social goals.