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This qualitative study explored influences on three Canadian authors who present characters with disabilities in childrens fiction. Portraits of these authors are framed by a discussion of contemporary Canadian childrens novels, offering curriculum ideas within the framework of critical literacy. The research questions were: What patterns in the depictions of characters with disabilities appear in the context of Canadian novels, published since 1995, for children and young adults? What motivates and informs selected contemporary childrens authors construction of fictional characters with disabilities? Portraiture was used as a variation on case study research. Methods for data collection and analysis included semi-structured interviews, personal narratives, and content analysis regarding three author portraits, including a self-portrait; content analysis was also applied to fifty childrens novels. Bakhtins conceptualization of the literary chronotope was utilized as a lens to explore aspects of time and space internal and external to these texts, and further delineated by aspects of time, social context, and placethree categories borrowed from the field of narrative inquiry. Research on classic fiction illuminates particular patterns and trends regarding authors portrayals of characters with disabilities. This dissertation has identified and explored contemporary trends. While disability figured in all of the childrens novels in the study sample, ethnicity was strikingly absent, as were books for junior readers ages eight to eleven. The inquiry utilized Dresangs Radical Change theory to identify the landscape on which books about characters with disabilities reside, supporting the metaphorical conceptualization of the radical changes in childrens literature as a rhizome. The resonance of what has informed authors, in addition to the exploration of the childrens books in this study, offers perspectives that impact critical literacy classroom approaches delineated within Lewison, Flint, and Van Sluys four dimensions framework: disrupting the commonplace, interrogating multiple viewpoints, focusing on socio-political issues, and taking action and promoting social justice. The latter dimension, while not accomplished through reading the texts themselves, may be approached through attention to author influences. The implications of the study relate to curriculum development as well as promote further research in Education, English Literature, and Disability Studies. An annotated bibliography is included.

Background: There is an increasing amount of arguments made that new business models are the solution when companies and industries face radical changes in the environment. To be able to prosper in the long run, organizations must reinvent themselves over and over again. Many authors (e.g. Abernathy & Utterback, 1978; Christensen, 1997; Kim & Mauborgne, 2005; Ries, 2011) claim that big, radical, reconfigurations are needed in order to prosper in the long-term. Theories, concepts and framework have been developed to answer how this reconfiguration should happen within organizations. However, the concepts derived are just parts of the solution, and none take a holistic approach, trying to cover them in a practical framework that could be used by organizations. Aim: The aim of the thesis is to propose a framework that enables organizations to systemize their innovation processes, making them flexible enough to repetitively seize opportunities through business model innovation where new value can be created and captured. The proposed framework aims to enable organizations to start discussing how they should create and capture new value and give them a more pragmatic view on the innovation process. It also aims to act as a starting point for future research. Methodology: The thesis follows March & Smith’s (1995) design science methodology in order to build and evaluate the framework. This is done in three steps; first by building a model from theory. Second, the emergence of business models in three different case companies are compared and investigated qualitatively. Lastly the model and the factors derived from the data are contrasted and a framework is built and evaluated. Findings & Conclusion: The basis of the derived framework proposes for big steps to change, and create and capture new value; analyze the basis of competition in the macro and micro environment, analyze and experiment with different non-customer tiers, experiment with the creation of value and experiment and analyze the capture of the value created. More tangible tools are proposed for each of these steps. Actually testing the framework and further evaluating and theorizing of the framework is proposed as future research directions.

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Lean Production is one of the most generally accepted concepts for increasing operational effectiveness. However, its implementation is still challenging for many companies as it implies not only changes of technical systems and management systems but also changes in attitudes and culture. Generalizable implementation steps have still not yet emerged and there are many ways to implement Lean Production. A Lean Production implementation is a never ending process since it is always possible to become leaner. Thus, the implementation of Lean Production is a long-term commitment for a company in order to reach success. There is a need for research on how to develop and integrate improvement work in order to establish a successful implementation of Lean Production. Accordingly, the overall purpose of the research presented in this thesis is to contribute to an increased understanding of how to successfully implement Lean Production. Moreover, the objective is to develop a supportive framework for a successful Lean Production implementation and to describe this in a general process for the implementation of improvement work. Through literature reviews and three research studies, a supportive framework for the successful implementation of improvement work has been developed. The first study is an explanatory literature and interview study to build a concept model of improvement work. The second study is an exploratory embedded single case study that was conducted to validate the model. Finally, the third study is an exploratory multiple holistic case study that investigated enablers for continuous improvement after a radical implementation of Lean Production. The resulting supportive framework consists of important actions to consider during the different stages of a process for the implementation of improvement work. In the first stage after a radical implementation phase, actions important to sustain change and enable continuous improvement include for example a focus on good leadership on shop floor and efforts in the area of control and follow-up of results in production teams. To develop continuous improvement several actions are defined, like the importance of understanding the context of improvement work including important relations to operations and to develop the production strategy with objectives to align the improvement work. To reach long term success it is important to integrate continuous improvement into operations and important actions for this stage are for example to update the Operational Management System on the company-specific-production-system framework’s processes continuously, which includes visualisation of the overall improvement work process. / INNOFACTURE - innovative manufacturing development

Radical change theory (RCT) was conceived in a North American context in the mid-1990s, in order to explain changes in contemporary literature for youth related to the digitization of society. This study uses directed qualitative content analysis (DQlCA) to look at a select sample of contemporary award-winning Arabic picturebooks through the lens of radical change theory. The aim of the study is to ascertain whether and to what extent these acclaimed and promoted books display radical change characteristics (Dresang 1999). Children’s books that embody many such characteristics may be seen as products of an underlying ideology of childhood that is arguably gaining traction in contemporary societies–one in which children are seen as capable and seeking connection rather than innocent and in need of protection or depraved and needing to be controlled. All books in the present study were found to contain radical change. This can be viewed as revealing of larger trends affecting and perhaps changing the societies in which these books were published, distributed and promoted. In addition, radical change books are thought to be especially attractive to digital age children (by creating more interest and an elevated understanding), which is of special interest in the context of Arabic children’s literature because of the hurdles to accessibility that the use of literary Arabic creates.

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Notre thèse vise à montrer que les résistants au changement peuvent être considérés comme des parties prenantes à part entière du processus d’apprentissage organisationnel, notamment lorsqu’on considère les apports pour l’entreprise de leurs réactions de défense de l’identité. Pour atteindre cet objectif, nous suivons une démarche qualitative du type théorisation ancrée-nuancée (Paillé, 1996). Notre recherche associe donc un cadre conceptuel préliminaire à une étude empirique inductive pour élaborer un modèle schématisant les phénomènes associés aux apports des comportements de résistance. Notre revue de littérature permet d’abord d’envisager le changement à travers son impact sur l’identité organisationnelle (Corley et Gioia, 2004). Ensuite, nous prenons en compte les capacités des résistances à transformer significativement l’entreprise dans le temps (Courpasson et al., 2012). Enfin, nous développons une approche cognitive du changement qui nous amène à considérer les résistants pour leur participation à la diversité des points de vue à l’intérieur de l’entreprise. Issues d’un journal de bord, de 42 entretiens semi-directifs et d’une analyse documentaire, nos données permettent de comprendre comment le changement s’enracine progressivement dans l’organisation et comment les résistants participent à ce processus. Ainsi, notre analyse inductive aboutit à un modèle à deux niveaux. Le premier décrit le changement organisationnel radical à travers un cheminement par trois phases d’initiation, d’accentuation et d’enracinement. Nous nous intéressons notamment aux influences de l’identité organisationnelle, de ses dissonances avec des logiques identitaires alternatives et de l’implication des salariés dans l’ajustement du changement pour montrer comment ce cheminement aboutit à l’émergence d’apprentissages individuels et organisationnels associés à une gouvernance cognitive. Le deuxième niveau de modélisation se focalise sur les rôles des résistants dans ce cheminement. Il montre que les résistants sont des parties prenantes des étapes clés du changement et qu’ils permettent à l’entreprise d’évoluer progressivement vers l’idéal-type d’organisation apprenante. Nous proposons également une typologie de résistants (Oubliés, Suiveurs, Salariés émergents, Nouveaux rebelles) qui permet d’aborder la diversité des implications positives des comportements de résistance. / Our thesis aims to demonstrate that resistant individuals can be integrated as real stakeholders of the organizational learning process. This integration is possible when the consequences of their identity defense mechanisms for the organization are taken into account. To achieve this goal, our qualitative study follows a semi-grounded theory approach. This approach combines a preliminary theoretical framework and inductive empirical data to elaborate a model showing some positive contributions of resistance. Our research first addresses change through its impact on organizational identity (Corley & Gioia, 2004). Then, it considers how resisting activities can achieve significant organizational change (Courpasson et al., 2012). Finally, it develops a cognitive approach of change that brings us to consider resisting behaviors for their participation in the diversity of points of view inside the organization. Based on logbook extractions, 42 semi-directive interviews and a documentary analysis, our data provide a better understanding of how change takes root in the organization and how resistant individuals participate in this process. Thus, this inductive study results in a two-level model. The first level shows radical organizational change as a three-steps process: initiation, accentuation and rooting. In particular, we focus on organizational identity, its dissonances with alternative identity-related logics and the employees’ implication in the adjustment of change. This process results in the emergence of individual and organizational learning associated to a cognitive governance. The second level details the roles of the resistant individuals in this process. It shows that they can be real stakeholders of the key stages of change. In so doing, they allow the company to evolve towards the ideal of learning organization. We also propose a typology of resistant individuals (Forgotten, Followers, Emergent, New rebels), which allows us to develop some positive implications of resistance.

The objective of this study was to answer the following question: Do organizations that were defined as having successfully adopted the transnational model, as per Bartlett and Ghoshal (1989), and labeled as transnational companies (TNC), perform significantly better than other multinational companies (MNC) when going through radical transformation processes? This research question was answered through a mixed method research design. The first part used a quantitative research approach and evaluated the financial performance of TNCs selected from the Bartlett and Ghoshal (1989) research, using secondary data sources from 6 TNCs and 20 MNCs. The second part used a qualitative approach based on empirical research to answer the question, ""What is happening now, 25 years later?,"" through in-depth interviews. Qualitative data was analyzed to discuss the contribution of the characteristics of TNCs to the performance of these organizations and their capacity to successfully go through radical transformation processes. The term, transnational, as a type of MNC that was introduced by Bartlett and Ghoshal (1988) and expanded by Zanfei (2000), served as the theoretical basis for this study. TNCs have differentiated characteristics, such as an integrated network structure, where complex coordination and knowledge-sharing processes are in place; resources and capabilities are distributed among different sites; and information, technology, and resources flow among interdependent units. This research contributes to bringing the discussion of TNCs back to the forefront of international business strategy research by assessing the applicability of certain elements of the ""transnational solution"" (Bartlett & Ghoshal, 1998) as an evolutionary next step for MNCs that seek long-term sustainable grow. Several directions are suggested for future research, including mapping performance variations over a longer period of time in combination with strategic content analysis; studying the consistency in share price and revenue performance among TNCs as a differentiating factor when compared to other MNCs; and understanding the increasingly predominant role of regions and regional offices in the organizational model of multinationals. Finally, this research further reinforces the suitability and additional depth brought by the application of mixed method research models to academic research in the field of international business.

This thesis explores the themes of hope, empowerment, and belonging in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. Using three different frameworks, I analyze the portrayal of interconnected senses of hope, empowerment, and belonging in the texts through the Baudelaire orphans, and their promotion of the same in the child reader. C.R. Snyder’s psychological hope theory is used to analyze how hope is created in the child protagonists and encouraged in the child reader, through finding pathways to their goals and the will to utilize them. Eliza T. Dresang’s Radical Change theory provides a framework for exploring how child empowerment functions in the texts, which is largely connected to the pursuit of knowledge and autodidacticism. Lastly, I use the role of literary orphanhood, changing concepts of family, and sociological frameworks for belonging to address how the Baudelaire orphans, and the child reader, find home and belonging outside of the idealized nuclear family—namely through shared social locations, social solidarities, and a symbolic reunification of the Baudelaire family. Moreover, I analyze the role of the Gothic and what MariaNikolajeva calls aetonormativity—adult normativity that Others children—in creating the hopeless and disempowering conditions that paradoxically make way for the development of hope, empowerment, and belonging.