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Previous research has indicated the prevalence of customer violence towards workers in the service sector, but few studies have looked at the impacts of this violence for LGBTQ2S+ workers. Drawing from survey results (n=208) and interviews (n=11) with LGBTQ2S+ service sector workers in Windsor and Sudbury, Ontario, this thesis explores the rates and experiences of customer violence for these workers, using chi-square analyses to identify relationships between customer violence and independent variables related to workers’ identity and workplace. Further analysis was conducted on qualitative interview data to understand how this violence was experienced, as well as how workers resisted and perceived management’s response. Customer violence was found to be widespread among survey and interview participants, with participants who were racialized as non-white, union members, and in precarious work situations reporting higher levels of violence. Interviews also showed how participants often resisted customer violence through individual means, and perceived support from management to be lacking and contingent upon economic motivations. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA) / This project explores the rates and experiences of customer violence against service sector workers in Windsor and Sudbury, Ontario, using data drawn from a survey and interviews. Customer violence was found to be common in the sample, and rates of violence were higher for participants who were racialized as non-white, members of a union, and in precarious work situations. Interviews showed how participants often resisted customer violence individually as opposed to with co-workers, and perceived support from management to be lacking and determined by economic considerations.

This thesis examines the implementation of HR practices within Cypriot sub-units of service sector MNCs. It attempts to shed light on the decision-making process which takes place at the local unit and highlight the forces which shape this. Existing literature, albeit influential, seems to be constrained by the underlying notion that HQ seek to transfer HR practice to the local unit. Hence, researches have attempted thus far to explore the factors which facilitate or hinder the transfer. However, this thesis uses a bottom-up approach and shifts the emphasis from the top to the bottom level without assuming proactive, vertical transfer of practices. However, influence from the top level is by no means ignored. On the contrary, intra-organisational aspects and pressures have been incorporated in the integrated model used for this analysis. The integrated model, as such, incorporates influences from four different theoretical approaches in order to study HRM within sub-units. Indeed, findings from this thesis illustrate how external and internal forces interplay to shape HR policies and practices locally. The multi-dimensional approach suggested in this thesis contributes to the literature by highlighting the interplay of factors which shape HRM within MNCs. This allows for a deeper understanding of how HRM occurs at local level. Findings from this thesis can also be extended beyond to a range of other countries and sectors.

This thesis is written with the purpose to analyze immigrants’ effect on new firm formation. Immigrants can ease future sustenance problems of decreasing population growth and growing life expectancy. Immigrants start new firms to a higher extent than ethnic Swedes. Two reasons to that immigrants start new firms is to get out of unemployment and to satisfy a demand of products preferred by certain groups. This thesis point out cultural and structural factors that contribute to higher immigrant new firm formation rates and what in general diverges from ethnic Swedes’ new firm formation. Also, push and pull effects are discussed. The ordinary and the advanced service sector in Sweden, where 76 % of all new firms were started in 2005, are studied. The result that emerged shows that immigrants from non-Nordic countries have a positive effect on new firm formation. However, people from FIND-countries (Finland, Iceland, Norway and Denmark) did not have a positive effect on new firm formation.

<p>This thesis is written with the purpose to analyze immigrants’ effect on new firm formation. Immigrants can ease future sustenance problems of decreasing population growth and growing life expectancy. Immigrants start new firms to a higher extent than ethnic Swedes. Two reasons to that immigrants start new firms is to get out of unemployment and to satisfy a demand of products preferred by certain groups.</p><p>This thesis point out cultural and structural factors that contribute to higher immigrant new firm formation rates and what in general diverges from ethnic Swedes’ new firm formation. Also, push and pull effects are discussed. The ordinary and the advanced service sector in Sweden, where 76 % of all new firms were started in 2005, are studied. The result that emerged shows that immigrants from non-Nordic countries have a positive effect on new firm formation. However, people from FIND-countries (Finland, Iceland, Norway and Denmark) did not have a positive effect on new firm formation.</p>

Over the fifty years from the end of the First World War, the experience of work in England was increasingly shaped by a concern for industrial welfare which manifested itself in various forms. Large-scale employers, in both the manufacturing and service sectors, often saw the provision of sports and recreational facilities as an important aspect of their commitment to industrial welfare and as a way of maintaining harmonious industrial relations. Sport, along with various recreational activities, increasingly provided a way of encouraging workers to identify with their employer; it was as important in this respect as the company outing or the annual dance. This thesis seeks to build on the existing historiography relating to the ‘sports and social’ side of corporate industrial welfare. Whereas historians to date have focussed on single companies or on a particular sector, it examines four separate case studies – two (Robinsons of Chesterfield and Raleigh of Nottingham) located in the manufacturing sector and two (Lyons and the Bank of England) located primarily in the service sector – to provide an account of this aspect of industrial welfare that is cross-sector in its scope. Company magazines, which played an important part in sustaining clubs and societies by publishing their activities, are the principal primary source used in each case. While underpinning previous work which has emphasised the commitment of employers to industrial welfare, it is argued here that workers themselves had an important part to play in the making of sports and social provision in factories and offices and other places of work, such as the catering establishments and hotels run by Lyons. Often the role of management was simply to respond positively to suggestions made by employees, providing the strategic support that enabled an activity to take off and then sustain itself. In all four case studies here the day-to-day organisation of particular activities was usually undertaken by interested employees. Thus, the characteristics of works-based recreation in a particular workplace could be shaped as much by ‘bottom-up’ initiatives as it was by ‘top-down’ directives. This especially applied to the numerous hobby or interest-based societies – amateur dramatic societies, camera clubs and horticultural societies, for example – which were an important feature of works-based recreation. It is argued here that the importance of such activities has been underestimated in studies to date. They have attracted less attention than company commitment to sport, for example, which manifested itself in the provision of expensive facilities. Yet, clubs and societies which could appeal to employees beyond the age at which most were likely to engage in sport were a relatively inexpensive way of extending the reach of an organisation’s welfare strategy. Accordingly, they are given substantial coverage here.

This thesis aims to research on the concept of national culture in regard to project management. We mainly aim to find out whether national culture poses an influence on the conduct of innovation management in the microfinance sector in Kenya and Germany.  The motivation for our choice of sector and aim are multiple; culture, particularly national culture, in projects and project management, is to  our understanding still an undeservedly under-researched area. Furthermore, the integration of solutions and concepts developed in countries other than the own increasingly takes place in the globalized world. We therefore consider research on the integration ability of such “imported” concepts into a national culture’s existing frame of reference a valuable, yet under-researched area.   This led to the development of our research aim as addressing two aspects: firstly, whether national culture poses a perceivable influence to product innovation approaches, and secondly, how the integration of culturally foreign, “imported” concepts might be undertaken in the two countries. The selection of product innovation in Microfinance was informed by the assumption that this would allow us to study the multifarious interrelationships between culture, innovation, and project management in a dynamic context; and hence pose a favourable setting to study the approach towards novelty and integration of culturally foreign concepts. Kenya and Germany were selected due to our personal backgrounds, being our countries of origin.   A perceived lack of differentiated scientific sources covering our needs led us to develop our own theoretical culture model which reviews cultural aspects from a joint African-European perspective. The model was developed based on seminal works in the field of culture and intercultural research. It is comprised of six dimensions deemed influential for innovation. Each of these six dimensions is based on the works  of two to four authors. This model comprises an African-European perspective and merges existing concepts into a novel conceptual model with a clear focus on culture and  innovation. In order to derive empirical findings, a qualitative multiple case study has been conducted in Microfinance institutions in Kenya and Germany. The findings of these case studies were consecutively analyzed based on the theoretical culture model in due consideration of the research aim.    We consider our research offering a contribution in a field that is still coming to the fore; that is, a novel perception of project management as being “more” than simply a temporary endeavour determined by scope, cost and time. The perception of innovation in the service industry is furthermore delved into, and it offers extensive insight into the national cultures of Germany and Kenya and the development and contribution of Microfinance in developing and industrialized nations.

<p> With fluctuations in energy price and the uncertainty of energy supply, particularly in the past decade, it has become increasingly important to forecast energy requirements. It is useful to know the response of energy demand to changes in both energy price and supply. In addition, the amount of substitution possibilities would allow forecasting demand for individual energy types. </p> <p> This study focuses on changes in energy intensities in the manufacturing and service sectors from 1962 to 1982. Trends for the sectors as a whole, and individual industries within each sector are analyzed on the basis of significant changes in; total consumption patterns and specific energy types. These trends are helpful in acting as a base for analyzing future energy needs in Canada. </p> / Thesis / Bachelor of Arts (BA)