This dissertation focuses on strategy formation of firms as it unfolds over time and in context. The research questions are defined to take into account the complexity of this phenomenon, in that the themes emanating address the involved structures, processes and managerial agency as the roles and influences of managers.A "semi-deductive" methodology is introduced in order to make use of the richness of theories that pertain to the research questions. The logic behind this conduct is to first construct an interdisciplinary interpretation system based on a thematic bridging of theoretical texts. In a second stage of creating knowledge, the themes are not only retained but also extended by virtue of empirical texts. A case study covers both the organizational and sectorial level of analysis during a period of six years; thus including all the competing firms within an industry, as well as the broader context in which these companies operated. The individual level is represented by the top management groups of all firms. On both theoretical and empirical grounds, a socio-cognitive perspective emerges in which an emphasis is placed on the reciprocity between individuals as acting subjects and their social contexts. The interaction is seen as the linkage that binds actors, structures and processes. Strategy formation of the firm is uncovered as a process of structuration encapsulating distinguishable structures, interaction processes and actors. The managerial role of coupling interactions is featured. The influence of managers is discussed in terms of a freedom of interpretation and a freedom of physical action. This study carries empirical as well as theoretical implications for several research fields such as industrial evolution, the management of strategic change and the theory of the firm in general. Here, the socio-cognitive framework generated may serve as a basis for uniting individual and social aspects. The "semi-deductive" methodology may also find a broad field of application. / <p>Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 1993</p>

The aim of this thesis is to describe and analyse pupils’ and teachers’ views on pupils’ responsibility for their schoolwork and how this relates to a more comprehensive ideology of school and today’s high modern society. The analysis is inspired by Anthony Giddens’ structuration theory and the concepts of discursive consciousness, practical consciousness, rules, routines and resources. At school level pupils’ and teachers’ views of pupils’ responsibility is shown in their practical and discursive consciousness. To capture this consciousness, observations were made during fifteen lessons in school year 9 (15-16 years of age). These lessons - “study times” - were introduced to increase freedom of choice, flexibility and responsibility. Sixty-eight pupils and twenty-two teachers were interviewed. The ideology expressed in pupils’ and teachers’ views on pupils’ responsibility was related to the official school ideology expressed in the national curriculum. Finally, an analysis was carried out inspired by Anthony Giddens’ and Ulrich Beck´s concepts used in their descriptions of the high modern society, individualism and value-relativism. The results showed a discursive consensus between teachers and pupils concerning their views pupils’ responsibility for their schoolwork. The meaning of responsibility was taken for granted and implied doing the school tasks and to complete them in time. Both teachers and pupils expressed that many pupils’ have difficulties in taking this responsibility. A discrepancy between the pupils’ discursive and practical consciousness was found. Rules and routines were created by the teachers to control the freedom of space offered during the “study times”. The pupils legitimated the teachers’ controlling function but in practice they offer resistance against the demand for responsibility. The overall analysis identified three issues that are important for further discussions in research and educational practice. Responsibility and learning: Responsibility was observed as a part of a “culture of doing” separated from learning as such. Also, responsibility was linked to individual work. The freedom offered during the “study times” was used by both pupils, and teachers, to build relationships. This means that relationships were not created through work but rather despite it. Responsibility and the view of the pupils’: In pupils’ and teachers’ view of responsibility pupils were easy going, ruled by lust and/or responsible but not always according to the conditions stipulated by the school. The pupils were offered a freedom to choose but they were also held responsible for the consequences. While they could make the choice not to work, this would influence the evaluation of the achievements, and in reality make it a “non-choice”. The freedom was limited and conditioned. Responsibility as a democratic principle: The connection between responsibility and pupil participation expressed in the national curriculum was not to be found in pupils’ and teachers’ views of responsibility. While the pupils were offered participation in relation to which assignments to choose to work with during the “study times”. They were not invited to shape the rules and the routines for the schoolwork or to have influence on the contents of the work or the working environment. The pupils’ did not ask for more participation, but rather feared it would lead to chaos. The separation between participation and responsibility indicated in the study is suggested to weaken the idea of responsibility as one of the democratic principles. In conclusion: The view of pupils’ responsibility for their schoolwork was built upon an individualistic ideology. known from Giddens and Becks description of high modernity. In contrast to their description, however my results show no signs of value-relativism

Les rencontres avec Monsieur* VIELLEDENT, Directeur de l'Ecole* Supérieure des Mines de Saint-Etienne, très intéressé par Les problèmes pédagogiques et avec Monsieur MAHL, Directeur du département informatique de cette école, ont contribué à définir les buts de notre recherche* : implémenter un système de banques de données accessibles à des utilisateurs "étudiants" (aide à l'enseignement) "ingénieurs et techniciens" (aide à la conception assistée par ordinateur) ou "gestionnaires" (aide à la gestion). Cet objectif fixé, nous avons étudié les réalisations françaises et étrangères dans ces domaines. Ainsi, une importante bibliographie a été consultée. Son analyse critique nous a conduits à préciser les grandes lignes de notre recherche. Ces éléments sont résumés dans la première partie (introduction générale) de ce mémoire qui montre comment notre travail s'est orienté suivant deux axes principaux a) La conception et l'implémentation d'un système de gestion de bases de données ( SOMINE ) b) Les recherches montrant comment ce système peut être appliqué à des domaines aussi divers que l'E.A.O., la C.A.O. ou l'optimisation de la structuration des informations.

In recent years, due to severe global market competition, increase of manpower costs and decrease in foreign trade, plus low-price labor costs from China and southeastern Asia countries (eg. Vietnam), all these factors enforce Taiwan manufacturing, such as motorcycle industry, moving their production factories to those countries. This phenomenon has been brought to Taiwan government¡¦s attention, and this crisis has encouraged our industrial circles to develop higher-level R&D and design center. Furthermore, the official department (eg. Industrial Development Bureau) also supplies enterprises with expenses support to conduct R&D and design. Within New Product Development (NPD) is one of the major subsidiary entries. Take Taiwan motorcycle industry as an example. To develop NPD is an essential competitive strategy for enterprise. On the one hand, this strategy has helped Taiwan motorcycle industry to be independent of technical domination from Japan; on the other hand, it has created differentiation in motorcycle industry and consolidated the foundation marching into international market. This is also what internal manufacture enterprises strive for. NPD process involves several stages. For example, in 1994 Cooper brought up product composition, initial evaluation, concept design, product development, product test, engineering trial production and limited quantity to market, these 7 stages, and NPD participant units or departments are quite a lot. For example, in motorcycle development process, participant units include merchandise plan, sales, R&D, manufacture, mold design, and quality control departments, and even parts supplier or motorcycle agent. This kind of collaborative development method has the advantages of putting heads together so as to get better results and cooperation. However, it remains existing problems with wasting time and efforts on inter-department interaction and manual data communication, and data accuracy (eg. version of design chart). To cope with the above problems, most enterprises are solving via existing IT system, such as simplex e-mail, more complex ERP (enterprise resources planning, ERP) or PDM (product data management, PDM). These systems have their own functions. E-mail focuses on communication; ERP integrates information of manufacture, human resources, finance, and marketing; PDM puts emphasis on engineering data management. In the viewpoint of NPD, these systems can only provides partial functions, but are incapable of support the requirements of entire collaborative process. For example, e-mail cannot supplies simultaneous communication; ERP lacks of design mold required by R&D department; PDM only has engineering data. If other departments need related data, they must develop other software to obtain. Because of swift progress in IT plus the cooperation demands in business operation among enterprises, departments and individuals, all these arouse attention on collaborative commerce, and it can also recover the disadvantages of e-mail, ERP or PDM while operating in NPD process. Collaborative commerce contains collaborative scheme, collaborative marketing, collaborative product commerce (or development) and collaborative service, these system classifications. Within them, collaborative product development binds NPD most. In current, the main manufacturers are PTC, HP and IBM. The merits of the system lie in effective controlling NPD process, constructing NPD operation standard, and accumulating experiences in new product design and manufacture. For example, in1995 Airbus in France had used PTC Windchill to conduct collaborative aircraft design. In 1999, there was Taiwan manufacturer under government¡¦s subsidy applying this system on new motorcycle model design. The main objective to introduce collaborative product development software is applying IT to support NPD process. IT introduction process is an important period for enterprises to identify whether it is successful or not, and the adaptation during the process is the key accordance to determine success or failure of IT. Therefore, some scholars discuss IT introduction process from adaptation point of view. For example, Leonard ¡V Barton¡]LB¡^¡]1988¡^addresses mutual adaptation mode between technology and organization to resolve misalignment during introduction process in technology (original IT specification), delivery system (training courses), performance criteria (impact upon activity). Susman et al.¡]2003¡^addresses that while using collaborative technology, the misalignments between technology and work, team and organization should be solved. DeSantics and Poole¡]1994¡^ bring up adaptive structuration theory¡]AST¡^. The theory emphasizes on appropiration in technology, work, organizational environment and group. The higher the appropiration is, the higher the decision performance will be. Tyre and Orlikowski¡]1994¡^deem the technology adaptation is not gradual and continuous, but highly discontiunous. They indicate that in adaptation discrepancy events will discontinuously occur. This event provides enterprise an opportunity to review the suitability of existing process or a method to modify present process. Although above researches have provided vital results, research result from Majchrzak et al.¡]2000¡^about new technology introduction process still cannot clearly describe all phenomena. Hence, they have discussed adaptation in project process via rocket design project and used collaborative technology (such as e-mail, data sharing or electric board) Majchrzak et al. has connected collaborative technology and NPD, but the research has discussed small and simple collaborative technology only (such as e-mail), but lacked of result of large and complex collaborative product development software. Meanwhile, although the result is the application of NPD, it does not provide the adaptation of each NPD stage (such as engineering trial manufacture). Furthermore, the mature experiences from western countries, such as Airbus in France, in introduction of collaborative product development software in NPD is worthy of consultation, but the specific situations in different countries should be taken into consideration. In Taiwan, cases which application of collaborative product development software supports NPD are still rare, but these introduction experiences are worthy of making thorough inquiry for other enterprises¡¦ reference. Therefore, the article has selected a case closed study of Taiwan manufacturing that introduced collaborative product development software and accompanied with related adaptation theory (such as LB mode, AST, discrepancy event, etc.) to thoroughly investigate adaptation conditions and result analysis before, in the middle of, and after introduction.

This paper explores the political behavior process in information system implementation process. The organizational politics is the critical success/failure factor in the IS implementation process. We expect to understand, in different organizational contexts, what kind of political behavior will occur? What will be the events and processes of these political behaviors? Who's idea? At what time? In what setting? What will be the interaction among these dimensions? How will these political behaviors affect IS outcome and organization? This study will explain political behavior in IS implementation process from different interpretations and perspectives. This study relies on qualitative data collected from two cases--manufacturer Theta and government enterprise Delta--in the forms of interviews, documented data, archival data, and observation over eight month. The data are interpreted through five internally coherent theoretical perspectives: personal perspective, strategic contingency theory, conflict theory, social exchange theory, and structuration theory. Contributions include the following. In practice, we group 35 kind of political behavior into four types: aggression, defense, strengthen, withdrawal. Besides the adverse effects, some kinds of political behavior can lead to the success of the project. The detailed descriptions we use to describe the political behavior process in IS implementation process can help in similar cases to show how to reduce or prevent any negative consequences. Academically, we conduct contextual and process theory analyses of these processes, and use five theoretical perspectives to interpret these phenomena.

As attention of scholars shift from perils of presidentialism to perils of semipresidentialism in the recent decades, French style of cohabitation power sharing mode in the executive merits our endeavor to understand the micro-dynamics that is embedded in it. It includes how it emerged, how it was practiced and what consequences it produced. Such effort, if wisely applied, can probably be helpful in slowing down the rate of political system breakdown in many of the newly emerged democratic systems that emulate the French model. After an introduction to the blackbox of French cohabitation, the remainder of the dissertation is divided into eight chapters. Chapter 2 briefly reviews the existing literature on French cohabitation. Chapter 3 introduces the interpretive paradigm of qualitative research that is employed to analyze data and to facilitate theory building. In the 4th theoretical discussion chapter, three elements of practice theory approach ¡V temporality, duality of structure and unanticipated consequences are elaborated respectively. The three elements correspond to answer three research questions comprising how cohabitation emerged, how it was practiced and what kinds of consequences it produced. Chapter 5 to 8 display findings to the questions. They unravel for us other faces of French cohabitation which can be an active outcome of rationalization, a dynamic generator and a collective inevitable self-deception. Chapter 9 concludes by delineating theoretical and practical contribution of the dissertation.

Dans le cadre du dépôt légal de la télévision, nous proposons une méthode de structuration automatique des flux télévisuels afin de procéder au catalogage des émissions.<br />La stabilité des grilles de programmes nous permet d'en proposer une modélisation statistique basée sur un modèle de Markov contextuel et un arbre de régression. Entraîné sur les grilles de programmes des années précédentes, ce modèle permet de pallier l'imprécision des guides de programmes (EPG, magazines). En rapprochant ces deux sources d'informations, nous sommes en mesure de prédire les séquences d'émissions les plus probables pour un jour de l'année et d'encadrer la durée des émissions.<br />A partir de ces grilles de programmes prédites et d'un ensemble de règles indiquant les éléments<br />caractéristiques d'une transition entre deux genres de programmes (images monochromes, silences ou logos), nous sommes en mesure de localiser ces ruptures à l'aide de d´etections effectuées localement dans le flux.

Le travail présenté dans ce mémoire est une contribution au domaine de l'analyse et de l'identification du comportement dynamique des structures non linéaires. Le premier objectif est la mise au point et la comparaison de quatre techniques de calcul des Modes Normaux Non linéaires (MNNs) : l'approche de Shaw et Pierre, l'approche de Bellizzi et Bouc, l'équilibrage harmonique et la méthode de tir. La combinaison des trois dernières méthodes avec la méthode de continuation permet de détecter les points de bifurcation et de trouver les nouvelles branches de solutions. Le deuxième objectif est l'identification des paramètres caractérisant le comportement dynamique des systèmes linéaires et non linéaires à partir des réponses libres ou des réponses au bruit ambiant. Les outils présentés sur le traitement du signal réel modulé en amplitude et en fréquence par la transformation en ondelettes continue permettent d'atteindre cet objectif. Le dernier objectif est l'extension de la méthode de sous-structuration linéaire de Craig-Bampton au cas non linéaire. Lorsque l'hypothèse de couplage faible entre les sous-structures est faite, le modèle réduit de la structure globale est obtenu par assemblage de modèles réduits de sous-structures avec interfaces de couplage fixe. Ces modèles réduits sont calculés en utilisant l'approche des MNNs de Shaw et Pierre. La robustesse et l'efficacité des méthodes présentées sont étudiées au travers d'exemples numériques ainsi que de tests réels.

Afin de poursuivre la tendance de réduction des dimensions des dispositifs optiques ou électroniques, les nanostructures sont pressenties comme une solution aux limites des technologies micro-électroniques actuelles. Néanmoins, leur exploitation n'est possible que si leur taille, leur densité et leur positionnement latéral sont précisément contrôlés. Pour un gain de temps, ces nano-objets sont réalisés par croissance collective, et l'ordre latéral n'apparaît en général que si la surface est préalablement préparée. Dans ce contexte, nous avons développé un substrat nanostructuré par la révélation d'un réseau régulier bidimensionnel de dislocations enterrées obtenu lors d'un collage par adhésion moléculaire de plaques de silicium (001). L'utilisation de gravure chimique préférentielle a été optimisée pour révéler les lignes de dislocations formant en surface un réseau carré de nano-plots de silicium séparés par des nano-tranchées plus ou moins profondes. Ce type de surface a été testé pour induire un ordre latéral d'îlots de Ge et de nanostructures métalliques (Ni, Au, Ag). Nous avons montré que l'auto-organisation de ces nanostructures n'était possible que si la barrière énergétique induite par les profondeurs de tranchées était suffisamment grande pour bloquer les effets cinétiques. Dans ces conditions, les îlots ordonnés de Ge ont été analysés par des techniques de rayons X et les nanostructures métalliques par des mesures de résonance plasmon.

L'analyse sismique des structures de génie civil est une problématique majeure pour la sécurité des personnes et la pérennité des ouvrages. L'étude expérimentale permet de comprendre le comportement réel de la structure mais occasionne des problèmes de coût important et d'effet d'échelle souvent inévitable dû aux dimensions des structures. D'un autre côté, l'étude numérique propose une bonne approximation du comportement global mais la représentation précise des phénomènes locaux (fissuration, perte de matière, flambement, grands déplacements) dans les zones fortement endommagées est délicate et souvent insuffisante. Ce travail de thèse propose l'élaboration d'une technique de sous-structuration hybride pour coupler un modèle numérique à une plateforme expérimentale. Ainsi, la partie faiblement endommagée de la structure est modélisée numériquement tandis que la partie fortement endommagée est testée expérimentalement. Cette méthode permet de coupler le réalisme de l'expérimental avec le faible coût numérique sans toutefois perdre en précision. Après avoir élaboré une méthode de couplage hybride peu intrusive pour le code de calcul (Cast3m), un modèle d'endommagement anisotrope adapté aux chargement sismique (effet unilatéral, déformations permanentes) est développé dans le cadre de la thermodynamique des milieux continus. Afin de valider la méthode hybride, une étude expérimentale est menée sur une structure type en béton armé. La fissuration de la partie expérimentale est étudiée grâce à la corrélation d'images. Ce travail expose donc une alternative intéressante aux analyses classiques des structures importantes soumises à des sollicitations complexes.