Thesis (M.S. in Contract Management)--Naval Postgraduate School, March 2004. / Thesis advisor(s): David V. Lamm, Peter T. Capozzoli. Includes bibliographical references (p. 49-50). Also available online.

Thesis (D. Jur.)--York University, 2001. Graduate Programme in Law. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 403-466). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pNQ66353.

This study examines the influence of organisational climate upon training effectiveness, and to a lesser extent, considers the impact of organisational climate upon business performance. This impact will be considered in relation to the results of employees' training, as assessed by themselves and by supervisors and managers of the firms concerned in the Minas Gerais state of Brazil, the third most important economic region in the southeast part of Brazil. In addition, this study also examines the relationship between training effectiveness and business performance, as assessed by managers and deputy managers. A survey was undertaken with forty-five small and medium-sized metal, pharmaceutical and electronic firms and a total of 225 workers, 90 supervisors and managers were interviewed for this study. Based on the correlational analysis performed, the results of this research indicate that a favourable and positive organisational climate as perceived by workers, does account for training effectiveness, in terms of results of workers' training, as assessed by themselves, supervisors and managers alike. Also, the findings of the research indicate that a favourable and positive organisational clImate greatly accounts for business performance, as assessed by managers only. Finally, the study concludes that training effectiveness and business performance are related, but not as strongly as it could be expected. The area covered in the survey was the capital city of the Minas Gerais state, Belo Horizonte; the industrial city of Contagein, the second most important city in economic terms near Belo Horizonte, and finally, the industrial cities of Itauna and Divinopolis, in the southwest part of the Minas Gerais state. The study raises a number of practical issues: firstly, at the level of national Training Policies, the Brazilian Government might like to re-direct its training policies and strategies, in terms of the effectiveness of training courses/programmes; secondly, at an organisation level, the managers and entrepreneurs need to give more emphasis to organisational climate; thirdly, at the level of the workforce, the employees of the industry need to be more aware of the benefits of a positive organisational climate within the firms in which they work. Finally, at the level of researchers and writers, this study gives an opportunity to either replicate the conclusions reached or to widen the field by doing further studies in this area.

The thesis aims at studying the Entrepreneurial Development initiatives in Malaysia with specific reference to training and development initiatives. The concept of entrepreneurial development itself suffers from a lack of consensus as to whether entrepreneurs can be developed or not. Gibb's model maintains that the development of entrepreneurs can be influenced. This is supported by empirical evidences from investigations in both developed and undeveloped countries. The Malaysian entrepreneurial development initiatives are targeted at the indigenous people known as the Bumiputera who do not form the business community of the country. The research issue is whether the emergence of Bumiputera entrepreneurs can be explained by the government initiatives that have tried to overcome (or compensate for) the disadvantages of their background and culture. In implementing the entrepreneurial development policy the Malaysian government creates a range of assistance. One of the most important instruments which the Malaysian government has used is entrepreneurial training aimed at overcoming the technical and management handicaps of the indigenous people who tend not to be exposed to the business/private sector. To analyse the role of entrepreneurial training and other development initiatives primary data have been collected from 202 respondents, out of which 200 were used in the final analysis. The results of the study show that the background and culture of the Bumiputera are important elements in understanding Bumiputera entrepreneurs. The general environment is not found as being important but the specific environment created by the various initiatives is found to be significant. It was found that the entrepreneurs themselves considered the initiatives as inadequate but nevertheless were benefitting from them. It was also found that there were no significant differences between the retailers and the manufacturers and the entrepreneurs in the developed and less developed areas of the country.

Interactions between small businesses and their customers often involve some form of electronic transaction. With the growing proliferation of portable computing, many of these transactions are taking place on a “smart device,” such as an iPhone or iPad. Many businesses will want to create their own custom apps to better serve their customers. Currently this process can be difficult and expensive to do well. This report proposes a method to make app production a little easier and cheaper. / text

published_or_final_version / Management Studies / Master / Master of Philosophy

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This study investigates how knowledge is created in a small business organization. Knowledge creation refers to organizational learning which results in innovation. The research design was a qualitative, single site case study of three firms in the point of sale industry. Data collection took place during a six month field study and employed multiple methods including participant observations, interviews, document reviews, and field journal entries. The study was informed by a conceptual framework which focused on the importance of both tacit and explicit knowledge forms, multiple modes of knowledge conversion (socialization, externalization, combination, internalization), and a knowledge spiraling process. Six themes emerged from the data. The first theme, "the people are the business" indicated that individuals become a knowledge creating structure that transcends office boundaries. A second theme, "we just spend tons of time talking", emphasized the importance of dialogue and informal communication structures to the sharing of tacit knowledge. A third theme, "there hasn't been a new idea in a million years", illustrated the predominance of incremental rather than radical innovation, the strategy of mimicking concept successes, and the importance of learning with other organizations through strategic alliances. A fourth theme, "you learn from your mistakes", represented the experiential nature of learning within the firm. A fifth theme, "it's one of those crystal ball kind of things" depicted the intuitive nature of personal knowledge and its limitations. Finally, the sixth theme, "a day late and a dollar short" explored how time and money pressures both enhance and hinder knowledge creation within a small business context. By comparing the themes to the conceptual framework the study concluded that small business organizations create knowledge in accordance with the nature of interpersonal interactions as they occur in context. The theoretical knowledge spiral was reconceptualized as a web structure in order to accommodate more diversity of approaches to knowledge creation and the complex nature of innovations.