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This study uses the Self Determination Theory (SDT) to describe and analyse what motivates pilots whilst having limited control over working hours. Pilots work in a challenging environment with variable working hours and high operational demands. This affects the pilots autonomous, intrinsic, extrinsic and controlled motivation. The study uses a qualitative approach interviewing eight Swedish pilots working at different airlines. This study describes and analyses the sense of autonomy, sense of competence and sense of relatedness, and how autonomous motivation, intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and controlled motivation affects pilots´ motivation. This study finds that pilots value the sense of autonomy that comes from empowerment to take decisions within the strict framework of rules they operate in. The pilots feel a strong sense of competence from training programs and knowledge transfer colleagues, and relatedness to colleagues through a sense of being cared for, all these seems to promote autonomous and intrinsic motivation. Further, intrinsic motivation arises from a passion for flying and executing leadership. Extrinsic motivation arises from salary, and fear of punishment. The pilots lack of ability to control their working hours leads to controlled motivation and stress. The findings of this study could be used to improve pilot welfare and motivation. By understanding and addressing pilot motivation airlines can develop strategies to support its workforce more effectively.

This study investigated the effectiveness of staff training and development programmes and policies at the Unisa Library. The aim of the study was to establish how staff training and development needs were met and also how staff felt about the centralisation of the Human Resources Department. Self-administered questionnaires were distributed among the Unisa Library staff including the Unisa Branch Libraries. Interviews with four divisional managers were also conducted. Staff development is an ongoing process that, by means of a systematic approach, serves to orient, train, and develop each member of the library staff to work together and to serve their customers with the skills necessary to deliver a quality service. As a result, training can be viewed as an essential vehicle to efficient and effective performance by staff and also as a process that develops the skills, awareness or expertise of staff. This is important for both professional and non-professional employees. Chapter one of this dissertation provided the orientation of this study. Chapter two looked at how the study was conducted, including the research design and methods. Chapter three provided information on the legal aspects of training and development in the workplace and what employees need to be aware of and to know. Chapter four dealt with staff training and development and a literature survey. Chapter five gave an analysis and interpretation of the research findings. Chapter six described the situation at Unisa with respect to staff training and development, while in chapter seven recommendations were made based on the findings of this study. It was found that the personal development of staff was hindered as only job - related training is supported by the Library's STD workgroup. It is recommended that a training needs analysis be compiled in the Library based on the individual staff training requirements expressed during annual performance appraisals. Fifty percent of the staff who were surveyed thought it was good to centralise the Human Resources Department. / Information Science / M. A. (Information Science)

Organizational learning causes organizational change. Different descriptive models have been proposed, but little research on variables influencing these processes has been done. Needs govern our behavior and motivate our acting. It has been shown that their identification and satisfaction effect value-creating and knowledge-intensive activities, such as innovation processes, strategy development, and product design. However, needs are usually implicitly anchored in organizations and people can hardly articulate them. Despite the fact that a focus on needs does not prescribe any concrete strategy, but extends opportunities to act, an initial consideration of needs often lacks. Consequently, their role as an influencing variable for organizational learning has not been investigated yet. Addressing this gap, this dissertation explores the nature of needs and how they can enhance organizational learning processes. It introduces a novel theory on needs for organizational practice which emphasizes the potential of a focus on needs. It argues why considering needs is beneficial for learning initiatives, such as vision or strategy development, in which various expectations which presumably emerge from shared needs have to be combined. Shared needs within a social system can trigger organizational learning and facilitate the design of new consensual satisfaction strategies (satisfiers). The theory allows for understanding the motivational forces of organizational learning and exploiting the postulated one-to-many relation between needs and satisfiers. Moreover, it points at influencing variables for the organizational transition from needs to need satisfaction and illustrates that by a knowledge perspective resulting in the concept of "need-based solution knowledge". This knowledge enables people to propose viable satisfiers in organizations. We introduce the methodological framework "Bewextra" that targets at the capacity to identify needs in organizations. It rests upon theories from various scientific fields and utilizes "learning from an envisioned future" as a core method. This enables to literally envision a desired future scenario in which all needs are intuitively fulfilled, and thereby allows for the creation of knowledge about needs. The research follows the action research paradigm which proposes a combinational interplay between rational and empirical research processes, in which various (qualitative) research methods are used. Besides theoretical considerations, the dissertation reports about four research projects in which the theories and methods were applied, reflected, and refined. More specifically, it presents how "Bewextra" was implemented and adjusted and demonstrates that a combination of conventional learning from the past and "learning from an envisioned future" enhances the outcome of organizational learning in various domains. Moreover, it investigates the differences between organizational strategies, that emerge with reference to needs, and strategies, that are developed without explicitly considering needs.

[pt] A capacidade de conexão afetiva parece faltar às crianças com autismo o que prejudica as experiências intersubjetivas primária e secundária e, consequentemente, o desenvolvimento simbólico. As pesquisas desenvolvidas para a compreensão dos déficits na capacidade simbólica das crianças com transtorno do espectro autista (TEA) identificam dados quantitavos em relação aos comportamentos sociais, comunicativos pré-verbais e verbais e afetivos. No entanto, existe uma lacuna na tentativa de compreender como é a qualidade das interações sócio- afetivas iniciais destas crianças. Sabe-se que a conexão afetiva é pré-requisito básico para o desenvolvimento típico (DT) da capacidade de simbolizar. Esta pesquisa teve como objetivo investigar se e como ocorreu a conexão afetiva de 2 crianças TEA estando elas em interação com uma terapeuta. Foi incluído um grupo controle composto por 2 crianças DT. A descrição qualitativa de 5 cenas de filmagem mostrou que, apesar de haver diferenças qualitativas entre o grupo TEA e o grupo DT, é possível observar sinais sutis da conexão afetiva entre crianças autistas e a terapeuta. / [en] The ability to establish affective relatedness appears to be lacking in children with autism. As a result, the primary and secondary intersubjective engagements with others are impaired and affect the development of the child`s ability to symbolize. Research conducted on children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has identified quantitative data in connection with social behavior, pre verbal and verbal communication behavior, and emotional behavior. However, this research has not yet addressed the quality of the initial social and emotional relationships established by children with autism. It is widely known that the emotional connection is an important prerequisite for the symbolization ability in typical development (TD). The present research focuses on the investigation of two ASD children`s affective relatedness during their interaction with a therapist. A control group formed by 2 TD children was included in the investigation. The description of 5 taped scenes demonstrates that regardless of the qualitative differences among the ASD and TD groups, it is possible to observe a subtle trace of affective relatedness between the autistic children and the therapist.

Syftet med den här kvalitativa intervjustudien var att undersöka hur personal i ett omsorgsföretag ser på sig själva och sitt arbete i relation till kompetens, samhörighet och autonomi. Dessa tre begrepp är centrala i Self-determination theory. Resultatet visade att samhörigheten främjades av ett nära samarbete med kollegor och genom många gemensamma aktiviteter, både på arbetstid och utanför. Det främsta hindret för att uppleva samhörighet var om arbetsgruppen strävade åt olika håll eller om det uppstod konflikter i samspelet. Kompetens innebar för respondenterna att känna sig trygga i sitt bemötande av brukarna och att de visste vad de skulle göra i olika situationer. Även om de uttryckte en viss saknad av kunskap inför utagerande- och självskadebeteende så upplevdes ändå de lagar och regler som styrde verksamheten vara det som skapade störst osäkerhet och kunde vara hindrade för känslan av att uppleva sig kompetent. Resultatet visade också att respondenterna, trots att verksamheten till stor del styrdes av lagar och regler, upplevde en känsla av autonomi så länge de fick vara delaktiga i att planera och organisera arbetsuppgifternas utformning. / The main objective of this qualitative interview study was to examine how personnel elemployed at a company providing social care services, view themselves and their work in relation to competence, relatedness and autonomy. These three concepts are an essential part of Self-Determination Theory. The result showed that relatedness was promoted by close cooperation between colleagues and by frequent common activities during the workday, but also by activities with colleagues outside work. Main obstacles to relatedness appeared when the staff were striving in different directions and when conflicts emerged. The respondents felt competent in interaction with the clients and when it was clearly stated how they were supposed to act in specific situations. The respondents expressed the need for more of knowledge of self-harming behavior and similar behaviors of acting out. However, the main obstacle to feeling competent was insecurity of what laws and regulations that govern their workplace. Despite the fact that laws and regulations govern a large part of their work, the respondents expressed that they felt reasonable autonomous as long as they participated in the planning and organization of different tasks.

The international marketer is challenging new factors in the present globalized world. Such marketer has often to solve conflicts resulting from different laws, cultures and societies, and overcome a variety of constraints when entering or establishing foreign markets. Entering and establishing new markets is a complicated process affected by both, external and internal factors. To be successful in new markets, said marketers must formulate market entry strategy with regard to those factors. This paper was written with the purpose to investigate the relationship between relatedness of core business and business regarding the market in question, government policies and regulations, and entry strategy of companies entering the U.S. renal services market. We have carried out the exploratory research based mainly on secondary data obtained from annual reports from 1995 to 2005. The one case study on the Swedish health care company Gambro was conducted in order to formulate hypotheses, which can be proven in prospective research. The whole paper is written in the context of PSE market entry model developed by Anders Pehrsson. Based on the analysis we suggest that if the perception of barriers is low and the relatedness between core business and business regarding market in question is high, companies prefer a non-organic growth when entering the market.

<p>The international marketer is challenging new factors in the present globalized world. Such marketer has often to solve conflicts resulting from different laws, cultures and societies, and overcome a variety of constraints when entering or establishing foreign markets. Entering and establishing new markets is a complicated process affected by both, external and internal factors. To be successful in new markets, said marketers must formulate market entry strategy with regard to those factors. This paper was written with the purpose to investigate the relationship between relatedness of core business and business regarding the market in question, government policies and regulations, and entry strategy of companies entering the U.S. renal services market. We have carried out the exploratory research based mainly on secondary data obtained from annual reports from 1995 to 2005. The one case study on the Swedish health care company Gambro was conducted in order to formulate hypotheses, which can be proven in prospective research. The whole paper is written in the context of PSE market entry model developed by Anders Pehrsson. Based on the analysis we suggest that if the perception of barriers is low and the relatedness between core business and business regarding market in question is high, companies prefer a non-organic growth when entering the market.</p>

Developing countries are increasing their adoption of information systems at the country level now. One important aspect distinguishing the implementation of information systems in developing countries from that in developed countries is that developing countries usually lack the resources and capability for training and support, and the workers need to learn to use the system from their own experience. Thus, a better understanding of the workers’ learning-by-doing after the implementation of an information system in developing countries may have important theoretical and practical implications, but empirical evidence on this issue remains limited. This dissertation seeks to fill in the gap by investigating workers’ learning-by-doing after the implementation of an information system at two levels. First, it studies how an individual customs agent’ experience preparing and submitting customs documents influences her performance in document preparation and submission tasks. Second, it also examines how an agent-inspector dyad’s experience working together affects the performance of customs inspection tasks completed through the cooperation of the dyad. The first chapter provides an overview of the dissertation. The second chapter examines how the relatedness of workers’ prior experience affects their learning-by-doing and operational performance in service work. Prior research has viewed relatedness along a single dimension. However, tasks and the underlying knowledge required for task performance can vary along multiple attributes. This chapter extends prior conceptualizations of relatedness by defining it as a multi-dimensional construct and also accounting for the level of task relatedness between different categories in each task dimension. It separates the level of workers’ experience from the relatedness of their experience, and then link the two constructs to workers’ task performance, including their efficiency and quality. Analyzing data on the processing of 998,258 import customs declarations in Costa Rica from 2006-2010, the second chapter finds that customs agents, the major workers processing the customs declarations, learn from their experience to improve their time to complete the task but not their quality of completion. Moreover, it finds that the relatedness of customs agents’ experience to their current task is positively related to the quality of task completion but has a U-shape relationship with completion time, such that the completion time first decreases with and then increases with an increase in customs agents' experience relatedness. The chapter also finds that the impact of customs agents’ experience relatedness is enhanced when the agents have more experience. Overall, the results highlight the role of experience relatedness in workers’ performance in learning-by-doing service work, and help to identify ways for managers to improve different operational performance measures. Many service tasks are completed by dyads rather than by an individual worker. In this setting, the individuals in the dyad not only need to acquire knowledge about the task, but also have to learn to work with each other. Thus, individuals’ experience working together may have significant performance implications for dyads. However, this effect remains largely unexamined, especially when there are conflicts within the dyad. In the third chapter, it theorizes how a dyad’s experience working together influences the dyad’s task performance, and label it as a learning-by-working-together effect. The chapter further proposes that the impact of dyad experience can vary across tasks with different levels of complexity, goal conflict, and combinations of the two. It examines learning-by-working-together in a setting where there is goal conflict, but the dyad must work together to complete the task: customs inspections. Based on a field study on data of 323,520 customs inspections in Costa Rica, the third chapter shows that the number of prior interactions between a customs agent and a customs inspector is positively associated with the agent-inspector dyad’s efficiency in customs inspection. In addition, it demonstrates that the impact of an agent-inspector dyad’s experience working together is greater for high-complexity tasks than for low-complexity tasks, and weaker for high-conflict tasks than for low-conflict tasks. It also shows that due to a joint effect of task complexity and task-level goal conflict, dyad experience exhibits the largest impact on the performance of high-complexity, high-conflict tasks. The chapter discusses the implications of our results for the study of learning curves and for the practice.