published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

The study focuses on the use of information systems in the Heavy Engineering industry in South Africa and the decision to make, buy or rent information systems. Special focus was placed on the factors that influence the decision to make, buy or rent information systems. It is undeniable that changes in the competitive environment, such as technological advances and globalisation, are driving organisations toward new ways of operating. In striving to become flexible, lean, and more competitive, organisations have been increasingly swift to externalise support service functions. Every organisation must adapt to the current economic environment, the technology available in its industry and consider the risk and rewards within the industry framework. Organisations should carefully analyse the impact of their decisions, especially in consideration of the extent to which organisational competencies and competitive advantage could be affected. An extensive literature study was conducted on the factors that influence the decision to make, buy or rent. The literature study portrays the ideal state or methodologies for acquiring information systems and the best practices used in evaluating the best option for the organisation. The literature indicated the criteria for evaluating the decision to make, buy or rent information systems are the business need, in–house experience, project skills, project management and the time frame. These criteria can be broken down into the factors that have an influence on the decision, competitive advantage, security, skills, expertise, available resources, cost, time, implementation, support, maintenance, performance, quality, documentation, vendor issues, size of organisation, expected annual transactions, software control, functionality, productivity and increased turnover. Calculating the benefit that can be achieved from information systems must also include measures to incorporate the total benefit, not only the financial benefit. The balance scorecard approach measures the total return accompanying an investment in information systems, broken down into four sections, the financial perspective that measures the tangible outcomes, the customer perspective that measures customer value (quality, delivery and skill), the internal process perspective that measures the internal processes that add value and have the greatest impact on strategy and finally the learning and growth perspective that measures the intangible assets which focuses on human capital. Information systems form part of the corporate strategy, competitive positioning and must be aligned with the overall strategy of the organisation. A survey was done to determine the opinions about the different options managers/organisations have to consider when seeking to fulfil organisational requirements for information systems. Methodological issues as well as considerations with regard to gathering the data were discussed. A questionnaire was designed to collect data to obtain the information needed to solve the research problem. The internal consistency of the questionnaire was tested and it was found that a moderate to high level of consistency exists. The survey results were then presented in frequency tables and were analysed using descriptive statistics as well as inferring possible trends or conclusions based on relationships between certain responses on specific related questions and referring to the literature study. A framework was compiled from the literature study and empirical study that can be used for the purpose of decision–making in the make, buy or renting of information systems in the heavy engineering environment in South Africa. Benefits from purchasing software from a vendor include competitive advantage, available resources, implementation of the system, support to the system, system performance, documentation and training, and business functionality. Benefits from open source offerings include the size of the organisation and the number of expected annual transactions by the organisation. Benefits from SaaS (Software as a service) include competitive advantage, expertise, system performance and business functionality. Benefits from the outsourcing of development and other IT functions include competitive advantage, security, skills, available resources, implementation of the system, support to the system, system performance, documentation and training, business functionality and technical functionality. Benefits from developing in–house all or part of the effort include competitive advantage, security, skills, expertise, available resources, time, implementation of the system, support to the system, maintenance and upgrades, system performance, quality, documentation and training, business functionality, technical functionality, productivity improvements and increased turnover. Overall the linkage between the literature study and the empirical study concludes / Thesis (MBA)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012.

The study focuses on the use of information systems in the Heavy Engineering industry in South Africa and the decision to make, buy or rent information systems. Special focus was placed on the factors that influence the decision to make, buy or rent information systems. It is undeniable that changes in the competitive environment, such as technological advances and globalisation, are driving organisations toward new ways of operating. In striving to become flexible, lean, and more competitive, organisations have been increasingly swift to externalise support service functions. Every organisation must adapt to the current economic environment, the technology available in its industry and consider the risk and rewards within the industry framework. Organisations should carefully analyse the impact of their decisions, especially in consideration of the extent to which organisational competencies and competitive advantage could be affected. An extensive literature study was conducted on the factors that influence the decision to make, buy or rent. The literature study portrays the ideal state or methodologies for acquiring information systems and the best practices used in evaluating the best option for the organisation. The literature indicated the criteria for evaluating the decision to make, buy or rent information systems are the business need, in–house experience, project skills, project management and the time frame. These criteria can be broken down into the factors that have an influence on the decision, competitive advantage, security, skills, expertise, available resources, cost, time, implementation, support, maintenance, performance, quality, documentation, vendor issues, size of organisation, expected annual transactions, software control, functionality, productivity and increased turnover. Calculating the benefit that can be achieved from information systems must also include measures to incorporate the total benefit, not only the financial benefit. The balance scorecard approach measures the total return accompanying an investment in information systems, broken down into four sections, the financial perspective that measures the tangible outcomes, the customer perspective that measures customer value (quality, delivery and skill), the internal process perspective that measures the internal processes that add value and have the greatest impact on strategy and finally the learning and growth perspective that measures the intangible assets which focuses on human capital. Information systems form part of the corporate strategy, competitive positioning and must be aligned with the overall strategy of the organisation. A survey was done to determine the opinions about the different options managers/organisations have to consider when seeking to fulfil organisational requirements for information systems. Methodological issues as well as considerations with regard to gathering the data were discussed. A questionnaire was designed to collect data to obtain the information needed to solve the research problem. The internal consistency of the questionnaire was tested and it was found that a moderate to high level of consistency exists. The survey results were then presented in frequency tables and were analysed using descriptive statistics as well as inferring possible trends or conclusions based on relationships between certain responses on specific related questions and referring to the literature study. A framework was compiled from the literature study and empirical study that can be used for the purpose of decision–making in the make, buy or renting of information systems in the heavy engineering environment in South Africa. Benefits from purchasing software from a vendor include competitive advantage, available resources, implementation of the system, support to the system, system performance, documentation and training, and business functionality. Benefits from open source offerings include the size of the organisation and the number of expected annual transactions by the organisation. Benefits from SaaS (Software as a service) include competitive advantage, expertise, system performance and business functionality. Benefits from the outsourcing of development and other IT functions include competitive advantage, security, skills, available resources, implementation of the system, support to the system, system performance, documentation and training, business functionality and technical functionality. Benefits from developing in–house all or part of the effort include competitive advantage, security, skills, expertise, available resources, time, implementation of the system, support to the system, maintenance and upgrades, system performance, quality, documentation and training, business functionality, technical functionality, productivity improvements and increased turnover. Overall the linkage between the literature study and the empirical study concludes / Thesis (MBA)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012.

The significance of the contract of rent (maintenance/support contract) in Lithuanian society is still rather low. That does not imply that there are no legal relationships arising from the limited use of the contract type. Several cases on the grounds of the contract of rent reached even Supreme Court of Lithuania. The contract of rent cannot boast of popularity first of all due to a low comprehension among common people. Therefore it is so important to research these types of contract, publicize and introduce it to the society. The contract of rent according to article 6.439 of Lithuanian civil code involves an obligation of the payer of rent (debtor) gratuitously or in exchange for the capital transferred to his ownership to perform periodical payments to the other party – the recipient of the rent – of a monetary amount determined in the contract (rent) or to grant maintenance to the recipient of rent in any other form. This contract differs from any other contract established in Lithuanian civil code such as purchase sale or donation contracts. Contract law theory characterizes three types of the contract of rent: rent in perpetuity (permanent rent), rent for life and life annuity. Each kind of the contract of rent has a very different object, subjects, terms and its purpose. The object of the contract of rent is capital transferred to the ownership of the payer of rent. Only life annuity differs with its special object – a dwelling house, apartment, land plot or other... [to full text]

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"Essays on Social Conflict and Reform" consists of four essays that study the political economy of policy reform. Social Conflict with Passive Groups examines conflicts over the distribution of income where groups that engage in appropriative activities as well as groups that are passive in this respect participate. Democratization, Rent Seeking, and Economic Transition uses a model of social conflict to determine the political and economic reform space and the economic performance in a society undergoing a transition from authoritarian rule to democracy and market economy. Constitutional Constraints and Redistributive Activities analyzes the effects of constitutional constraints against redistribution on the outcome of social conflicts. The Break-up of the Ruble Zone: Undertaking Monetary Reform while Building Democratic Institutions applies the theoretical findings of this dissertation to explain differences in monetary reform between countries in the former Soviet Union. / SITE, Stockholm Institute of Transition

This thesis consists of five chapters, based on four different articles. All of them are devoted to different aspects of spatial heterogeneity and its impact on economic equilibrium in space. The concept of heterogeneous continuous space is discussed in the introductory chapter.The first model "Equilibrium in Continuous Space under Decentralized Production" addresses the issue of the impact of differences across locations in exogeneous productivity on the structure of equilibrium prices, production and trade. The goal is to describe the general equilibrium in a spatially decentralized economy, when production, consumption and markets are distributed in continuous space and transportation costs are essentially linear. It is shown that an autarky equilibrium can exist only if transport costs are high enough. In the general case, the general equilibrium in this model includes some endogeneously determined trade areas, with flows of goods across space, and autarky areas where production and consumption activities take place only at the same point. An analytical solution in explicit functions is obtained; it contains equilibrium prices, labor supply and flows of goods as functions of the spatial variable. The model can be applied to a set of practical questions in regional economics. In particular, it is able to describe persistent price differentials across regions and non-local consequences of road construction and transportation cost shocks for the economy. The differences across locations in population density may have either historical or economic reasons.The second model "Hotelling's Revival" extends a well-known research of H.Hotelling (1929) to the two-dimensional case with spatially heterogeneous demand density, preserving the rest of his classical assumptions. It is shown that the problem of demand discontinuity in the one-dimensional model, which was discovered by d'Aspremont, Gabszewich and Thisse (1979), disappears in this case. This also holds for any bounded distribution of consumers on any compact set on a plane, which can describe real geographical situations. Demand continuity still holds for any transport costs, strictly increasing in distance and not necessarily linear. Although this is sufficient for the existence of Nash equilibrium in mixed strategies, in pure strategies it exists only for some subset of cases. Examples of both existence and non-existence are constructed, and for some family of densities the separation point between the two cases is found.The third model addresses locational choice of heterogeneous consumers, when land is also heterogeneous in quality. It is based on two articles. The first, "Dacha Pricing", is presented in chapter 4 and studies the problem of locational rent in a city-neighbourhood when utility includes both the impact of transport costs and time for transportation. For the case of identical agents the problem is solved explicitly and comparative statics with respect to exogeneous changes in transport cost and speed is studied. For the case of agents who are heterogeneous with respect to their income, a solution is also obtained. The model explains some evidence about dacha pricing in Russia and its dynamics during the transition period. The second article related to this model is "Location and Land Size Choice by Heterogeneous Agents". It generalizes the first one and form a separate chapter 5. A new approach about the general equilibrium allocation of heterogeneous divisible good (like land) among a continuum of heterogeneous consumers is proposed. The model is based on continuity of primitives which allow not only to finding a general equilibrium solution in a class of continuous functions, but also to treat the solution to a continuous problem as the limit of the corresponding sequence of discrete problems. This solves one of Berliant's paradoxes, related to spatial economics. The multiplicity of equilibria is shown to take place.

Zugl.: Freiburg, Universiẗat, Diss., 2005.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T20:39:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 5575.pdf: 2372691 bytes, checksum: 1edfece9248d9616b56dbbb612710a39 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-09-02 / Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos / The objective of this study was to understand the current relations of rent of land for sugarcane production in São Manuel and Barra Bonita - SP, with the guiding hypothesis that the current relationship between property and land rent keeps the agrarian question as pertinent issue in the understanding of what is termed as a new brazilian rural and that the current social relations of production and property present in rural areas are also expressions of the contemporary rural metamorphoses. From the research objectives, it was decided for a methodology of qualitative basis, with direct observation and unsystematic, and semi-structured interviews. The literature was reviewed, which pervaded themes as agrarian question in Brazil, new ruralities and land rent. In documentary research was conducted survey of municipal institutional records of the land uses, identifying genres produced and the quantity and size of farms. During the fieldwork were interviewed small farmers who rent or have rented - partially or completely - their lands for growing sugarcane, and representatives of the main rural local institutions. It was reported that due to the great regional demand of sugarcane and the difficulties in maintaining other crops, most growers began to devote himself to the production of sugarcane. This transition took place in the 60 and 70 - precisely the period of greatest State action on the sugarcane industry, with the policy of credits and other incentives. Later, with the need for mechanical harvesting and the use of more advanced technology, the maintenance of small sugarcane suppliers became more difficult. For this reason, and also due to the aging of the producers and the lack of interest of the heirs to maintain production, the rent of properties for mills or major producers of sugarcane appeared as a "solution". During the research it was discovered that in fact it not rent of land, but agricultural partnership. In the case studied smallholder cede their land for a large sugarcane agribusiness unit, for whom the partnership, and not the purchase of the land, it becomes more advantageous. It is stated that in this case the partnership do not appear as a remnant of past relationships, but as an expression of relations metamorphosed. With the presence of almost total rent properties is rare to have smallholder farmers, they are, in fact, small owners, who for years even live in the properties. The owners hold title of the land, but only in the legal form. The economic property of the soil, in other words, the appropriation of the economic excess of land, belongs to the mill partner. This theme is not only present in contemporary rural, but also a sign of its metamorphoses. As a final consideration it can be said that facing the transformations which the rural past has in recent decades, the issue of land rent appears as one more factor that should be considered. The debate that has guided the transformation of rural areas does not question the presence of land rent - even the agrarian question. In such a way that the changes concerning the relations between property and land rent are part of the rural areas and also point the metamorphosis of the contemporary rural. / O objetivo do presente trabalho foi compreender as atuais relações de arrendamento de terra para a produção canavieira no município de São Manuel e de Barra Bonita SP, tendo como hipótese norteadora que a atual relação entre propriedade e renda fundiária mantém a questão agrária como tema pertinente na compreensão do que se denominou como novo rural brasileiro e que as atuais relações sociais de produção e propriedade presentes no espaço rural também são expressões das metamorfoses do rural contemporâneo. A partir dos objetivos da pesquisa, optou-se por uma metodologia de base qualitativa, contando com observação direta e assistemática, e entrevistas de roteiro semiestruturado. Foi realizada revisão bibliográfica, que perpassou temas como questão agrária no Brasil, novas ruralidades e renda fundiária. Na pesquisa documental foi realizado levantamento dos registros institucionais municipais sobre os usos do solo, identificando os gêneros produzidos e a quantidade e tamanho dos estabelecimentos rurais. No trabalho de campo foram entrevistados pequenos proprietários rurais que arrendam ou já arrendaram - parcial ou integralmente - suas terras para o cultivo canavieiro, e representantes dos principais órgãos rurais municipais. Foi relatado que por conta da grande demanda regional de cana de açúcar e das dificuldades na manutenção de outros cultivos, a maioria dos produtores passou a se dedicar à produção de cana de açúcar. Essa transição se deu no decorrer dos anos 60 e 70 - justamente período de maior ação do Estado sobre o setor canavieiro, com a política de créditos e outros incentivos. Posteriormente, com a necessidade de mecanização da colheita e do uso de tecnologias mais avançadas, a manutenção de pequenos fornecedores de cana se tornou mais dificultosa. Por conta disso, e também devido ao envelhecimento dos produtores e da falta de interesse dos herdeiros em manter a produção, o arrendamento das propriedades para as usinas ou para grandes produtores de cana se mostrou como uma solução . No decorrer da pesquisa descobriu-se que na realidade não se trata de arrendamento e sim de parceria agrícola. No caso estudado pequenos proprietários cedem suas terras para uma grande unidade agroindustrial sucroalcooleira, para quem a parceria, e não a compra das terras, se torna mais vantajosa. Afirma-se que nesse caso a parceria agrícola não aparece como um resquício de relações passadas, mas como expressão de relações metamorfoseadas. Com a presença quase total de propriedades arrendadas, é rara a existência de pequenos produtores rurais; são, de fato, pequenos proprietários rurais, que há anos sequer moram nas propriedades. Os proprietários detêm o título da terra, mas o exercem apenas em sua face jurídica. A propriedade econômica do solo, isto é, a apropriação do excedente econômico da terra, é das usinas parceiras. Este tema não só está presente no rural contemporâneo, como também é sinal de suas metamorfoses. Como consideração final, pode-se dizer que frente às transformações pelas quais o espaço rural tem passado nas ultimas décadas, a questão da renda fundiária aparece como um fator a mais, que deve ser considerado. O debate que vem pautando as transformações dos espaços rurais não coloca em questão a presença da renda fundiária nem mesmo da questão agrária. De tal sorte que as alterações referentes às relações entre propriedade e renda fundiária são parte dos espaços rurais e apontam também as metamorfoses do rural contemporâneo.