M.Com. (Business Management) / The main objective of the study is to measure the relationship between the practices of corporate entrepreneurship and lean six sigma within the South African financial sector. Although studies on these management styles are prevalent in the literature, few of them provide a direct comparison of the styles. There is a further gap in the literature that addresses the South African context. The study design included anonymously submitted questionnaire data on the levels of corporate entrepreneurship, lean six sigma and organisational performance from employees at South African banks. 248 potential participants were contacted, with a snowball sampling method being utilised. The final response rate was 41% (102 completed surveys), and this is the number used in the study. Respondents were employees at South African banking institutions. Likert scales were used to score the various constructs of corporate entrepreneurship and lean six sigma. The study looked to determine if there are statistically significant relationships between these constructs. In addition, the relationship between organisational performance, corporate entrepreneurship and lean six sigma was reviewed. The findings were that there are low-level practices of entrepreneurship and lean six sigma in the South African financial institutions. The main findings showed that in general the elements of corporate entrepreneurship had a correlation to the elements of lean six sigma, as evidenced in four out of the six possible correlations. This being said; the correlations were weak to slightly moderate in nature. As for the correlation to organisational performance, four out of the five potential correlations were statistically significant, all be it either weak or almost moderate. There was a positive direction to the correlation in all instances. The main implications of the findings are that corporate entrepreneurship and lean six sigma, though vastly differentiating in history and styles can co-exist in a single organisation. There were no instances of negative correlation as may be expected from the seemingly incomplete and incompatible nature of the two methods. The recommendation is that these two strategies can and should be implemented in conjunction, given their explicit impact on organisational performance. The main limitation of the study was that a small sample used. Another limitation was the focus on banks and not the entire financial sector. Future research could target other financial institutions that are not full service banking operations. The study could contain more detail to determine if, the size and age of the organisation impact on the practice of corporate entrepreneurship and lean six sigma.

Masters of Arts / District Six was a community that was forcibly removed from the centre of Cape Town after its demarcation as a white group area in 1966. In 1989, the District Six Museum Foundation was established in order to form a project that worked with the memory of District Six. Out of these origins, the District Six Museum emerged and was officially opened in 1994 with the Streets: Retracing District Six exhibition. The origin moments of the museum in the 1980s occurred at the same moment that the social history movement assumed prominence within a progressive South African historiography. With the success of Streets, the decision to ‘dig deeper’ into the social history of District Six culminated in the opening of the exhibition, Digging Deeper, in a renovated museum space in 2000. Oral history practice, as means of bringing to light the hidden and erased histories of the area, was embraced by the museum as an empowering methodology which would facilitate memory work around District Six. In tracing the evolution of an oral history practice in the museum, this study aims to understand how the poetics involved in the practices of representation and display impacted on the oral histories that were displayed in Digging Deeper. It also considers how the engagement with the archaeological discipline, during the curation of the Horstley Street display as part of Streets, impacted on how oral histories were displayed in the museum. / South Africa

This thesis presents extended program notes for a sixty–minute vocal graduate recital consisting of the following repertoire for soprano: the arias “Soffri, o cor” and “Dimmi qual prova mai” from Alessandro Scarlatti’s cantata Dal Bel Volto d’Irene; a role study of Zerlina from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni, including her arias “Batti, batti, o bel Masetto” and “Vedrai, carino;” Francis Poulenc’s song cycle Cocardes; selections from Arnold Schoenberg’s song cycle Das Buch der Hängenden Gärten; “Der Hirt auf dem Felsen” by Franz Schubert, a chamber work written for soprano, piano, and clarinet; and selections from American composer Ricky Ian Gordon’s song cycle Orpheus and Euridice, composed as a companion piece to the Schubert “Der Hirt auf dem Felsen.” These works span three centuries and cover four languages and multiple genres and musical styles. The content of this thesis contains detailed information on these works through historical study, musical analysis, and research in performance practice.

This thesis deals with possibilities of strategic measurement of performance in Czech industrial firm and application of distinguished metrics using Business Intelligence tools. In particular it is a firm called Linde Pohony s.r.o. that produces axes and half axes for forklifts. This thesis is based on contemporary information about strategic performance management and its tools. The main aim of this thesis is to demonstrate possibilities of using Business Intelligence in order to measure key performance metrics. Microsoft's SQL Server 2005 with its Analysis and Integration services are used to prove it. It was necessary to create model of metrics at first. First part of the thesis deals with several ways and methods how to measure firm's performance. Then a proper method to measure performance is chosen. In following chapters ways how Business Intelligence tools can contribute to industrial firms are discussed. Then the real implementation of few metrics is described following with an outline of firm's software architecture. Main contribution of this thesis is particularly in demonstrating power of Business Intelligence tools when they are used along with Balanced Scorecard methodics in small or medium sized Czech industrial firm. Also Linde Pohony s.r.o. can profit from this work -- considering that many administrative tasks are much easier and faster and management has much better view into their firm. Keywords Business Intelligence, industrial firm, Balanced Scorecard, Six Sigma, Theory of Constraints, Strategic performance management, metric

The graduation thesis is focused on the methods which are frequently used for racionalization of organization structures in the banking sector. Thesis discribes practical examples to present racionalization organization methods, theirs practical using, compare them and assess their effectivity and relevancy for the banking sector.

Diploma thesis looks into the application of system dynamics and system thinking principles into the projects of quality management. This application offers the new perspective of project of quality management, which uncovers concealed relationships among entities of the system. The principles are specifically applied on the DMAIC cycle of the Six Sigma methodology. The goal of this thesis is to reveal the relationships between the key entities of the cycle, the revelation of the system archetypes with the negative impact on project management triangle and to propose recommendations to eliminate or minimize the negative impact. The goals of the thesis are fulfilled with the methods of analysis of the theoretical ground and its synthesis based on mutual characteristics across the examined areas of System dynamics, Project dynamics, Project management and Quality management. In the practical application the used methods are generalization, deduction, analysis and synthesis of the new systemic and dynamical perspective of the DMAIC cycle. The technical tool used in this process is Causal Loops Diagram. The research has proven the presence of free kinds of system archetypes in the DMAIC cycle, for which are suggested recommendations to eliminate the negative impact on the key indicators. The main contribution of the thesis is the systemic and dynamic approach of the quality management projects, which reveals nonlinear relationships and potentially harmful behavior, which would remain undiscovered under the linear perspective of the system relationships.

The goal of this Master's Thesis is Lean Six Sigma application to solve problems occurring during brand changes in production in Philip Morris CR, a.s. In the first part of this thesis there is described the Lean Six Sigma methodology, which draws from current world literature. Moreover the thesis describes the company Philip Morris, production of tobacco products in Kutná Hora and there is high level process description of cigarette production. In the thesis there is thorough description of process brand change, 7 measurements of this process on different types of machines, analysis of these measurements. In case there are problems identified there is the counter action to solve them designed. At the end of the thesis there is evaluation if the goals described in the introduction were achieved.

The main aim of the Thesis is to evaluate the impact of introduction of so called Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure (MIP) on the european economic governance system. This procedure was adopted as one of many measures by which the EU has responded to the economic crisis. The crisis has fully revealed, inter alia, inadequate coordination of economic policies in the EU. For a long time has been the tighter form of the coordinaton focused only on indicators of fiscal discipline. The first chapter of this thesis provides an explanation of the concept of european economic governance and its development since the signing of Treaty of Rome. The second chapter is devoted to the development and impact of the economic crisis in the EU and the measures that have been adopted at EU level in order to improve european economic governance. The core of the thesis is the third chapter which focuses on the analysis of development of indicators monitored during MIP. The fourth chapter provides an overview of the aspects that are newly included in European economic governance thanks to MIP.

The concern of society about the environmental impact mainly post-consumer waste is increasing every day. The degradation that the environment suffers from the dump this waste and the lack of sustainability that the current economic model predicts, are factors that influence the search for alternatives to solve or minimize these effects. The objective of this paper is to present the application of Lean Six Sigma in packaging reverse logistics activities in a soft drink industry. The Reverse Logistics has become important in organizations because it deals with the reverse flow of resources among members of the traditional supply chain. Can help the most points explored by organizations: maximize profit while minimizing costs. The Lean Philosophy and Methodology Six Sigma are two important and innovative trends in business and the joint application of the two methodologies can bring significant benefits to organizations. The research methods were Bibliographic Search, Documentary Research and Case Study. Applied to Lean Philosophy in the process to reduce waste and also applied up to the practical Six Sigma reduce variability. After the diagnosis of waste and variability, we applied the solutions proposed in the improvement plan and the gains were the reduction of operating costs and reduced lead time of the process. The conclusion was that Lean Six Sigma process improvement and provided significant financial gains for the organization. / A preocupação da sociedade com o impacto ambiental principalmente dos resíduos de pós-consumo vem aumentando a cada dia. A degradação que o meio ambiente sofre com o despejo destes resíduos e a ausência de sustentabilidade que o atual modelo econômico prevê, são fatores que influenciam a busca por alternativas que solucionem ou minimizem esses efeitos. O objetivo deste trabalho é apresentar a aplicação do Lean Seis Sigma nas atividades de Logística Reversa de embalagens em uma indústria de refrigerantes. A Logística Reversa tornou-se importante nas organizações, pois trata do fluxo reverso de recursos entre os integrantes da cadeia produtiva tradicional. Pode auxiliar nos pontos mais explorados pelas organizações: maximizar o lucro ao mesmo tempo minimizando custos. A Filosofia Lean e a Metodologia Seis Sigma são duas importantes e inovadoras tendências no mundo dos negócios e a aplicação conjunta das duas metodologias pode trazer benefícios significativos para organizações. Os métodos de pesquisa foram a Pesquisa Bibliográfica, a Pesquisa Documental e o Estudo de Caso. Aplicou-se a Filosofia Lean no processo para reduzir os desperdícios e aplicou-se também as praticas Seis Sigma para reduzir a variabilidade. Após a realização do diagnóstico dos desperdícios e da variabilidade, foram aplicadas as soluções propostas no plano de melhorias e os ganhos obtidos foram a redução do custo operacional e diminuição do lead time do processo. A conclusão foi que o Lean Seis Sigma proporcionou melhoria do processo e ganhos financeiros significativos para organização.

abstract: ABSTRACT Parental involvement is vital to student success academically as well as socially (Jeynes, 2007; Kim & Hill, 2015). The purpose of this mixed-methods action research study was to examine the perceptions of parental involvement of parents and teachers in a Title I school. A training session intervention, Social Hour, was designed using the Heath and Heath change model (2010) to create an opportunity to learn about parental involvement and educate the school community on the Epstein’s six-types of parental involvement (Epstein, 1987). The goal of the Social Hour workshop was to address the challenges and barriers to parental involvement, previously listed in the literature. Using the lens of Critical Race theory (Blalock, 1967) ensured that the research gives a voice to those who are often marginalized while also helping parents and teachers build a relationship of trust and understanding using principles of Community of Practice (Wenger, 2009). The results of this study indicate that Social Hour-type learning events are significant in the change to perceptions of parental involvement. The participants had a lower level of confidence at the beginning of the session than at the end. Additional qualitative results also suggest a change in attitude after attending the Social Hour. Participants noted they had more energy about parental involvement and were encouraged that parental involvement does not require them to volunteer more; that it is more about being engaged in their child’s education. Overall, participants reported an increase in confidence and had a positive view of parental involvement based on attending the Social Hour workshop. Keywords: Parental involvement, Critical Race theory, Epstein Six Types of Parental involvement / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Leadership and Innovation 2020