Då kunskap ses som företagets viktigaste resurs är förvaltningen av denna avgörande för företagets vinning. Kunskapsdelning blir således vital för att resursen ska spridas inom företaget. Syftet med studien är därmed att studera, your ett medarbetarperspektiv, de organisatoriska faktorerna som anses ha en inverkan på kunskapsdelning. Detta i syfte att öka förståelsen för hur företag kan främja intern kunskapsdelning. Tidigare studier undersöker antingen en stor mängd företag med hjälp av kvantitativa enkäter och bekräftar hypoteser, eller djupintervjuer med ett fåtal företag med sikte att kartlägga någon specifik kunskapsdelningsstrategi. För att studera medarbetares upplevelse av kunskapsdelning och dess påverkansfaktorer, används i denna studie istället en kvalitativ enkät, vilken vänder sig till medarbetare på diverse företag i Sverige. Tematisk analys användes som analysmetod samt social utbytesteori och Swift's modell, som ramverk för att förklara hur medarbetare resonerar när de står inför valet att dela eller hamstra kunskap. Resultatet visar att flera organisatoriska faktorer anses främja kunskapsdelning, såsom företagskultur, kunskapsdelningaktiviteter, omständigheter samt organisatoriska rutiner. Saknas dessa faktorer kan kunskapsdelning komma att hindras. Studien har delvis bekräftat tidigare studier kring organisatoriska faktorer som påverkar kunskapsdelning. Samtidigt har nya fynd gjorts vilket tillför det vetenskapliga forskningsfältet. / Since knowledge is seen as the most important resource a company has, the management of it is vital to the company's profits. Knowledge sharing is therefore crucial so the resource can be spread in the company. The purpose of this study is therefore to study, from an employee perspective, the organizational factors that are considered to have an impact on knowledge sharing. This in order to increase the understanding of how companies can promote internal knowledge sharing. Previous studies either examine a large number of companies with the help of quantitative surveys and confirm hypotheses, or in-depth interviews with a few companies with a view to mapping out a specific knowledge-sharing strategy. In order to study employees’ experience of knowledge sharing and its influencing factors, a qualitative questionnaire is used in this study, which is aimed at employees at various companies in Sweden. Thematic analysis is used as an analysis method as well as social exchange theory,as a framework for explaining how employees reason when faced with the choice to share or hoard knowledge. The results show that several organizational factors are considered to promote knowledge sharing, such as corporate culture, knowledge sharing activities, circumstances and organizational routines. In the absence of these factors, knowledge sharing may be hindered. The study has partially confirmed previous studies on organizational factors that affect knowledge sharing. At the same time, new findings have been made, which adds to the field of scientific research.

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The current research examines the use of social media and its security settings using the Social Exchange Theory (SET) within a Saudi student environment. This research includes an introduction, literature review, methodology, results, and conclusion with the results section presenting the findings from the three essays. The first essay employs the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) methodology of SET. PRISMA's systematic and exhaustive approach to literature evaluation increases the likelihood of obtaining high-quality, reproducible findings. In the second essay, which focuses on awareness of X's (Twitter) security settings, a quantitative research approach was utilized. A sample of former and current Saudi students (graduate and undergraduate) at the University of North Texas participated in the investigation. This research provides an empirical examination of the use of X (Twitter) and its security features within this community by employing statistical analysis of the data from respondents. Likewise, the same sample of Saudi students from the University of North Texas was used for the third essay in which the use of Facebook's security settings was examined. Having a consistent sample across both studies enables a comparison and a greater understanding of the security awareness and practices of this group across various social media platforms. The findings across the different studies extend our understanding of the role of culture in privacy and security concerns related to social media.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Psychological Sciences / Gary Brase / Brand Equity is a common phrase in consumer research, but there is still a lot of ambiguity surrounding the measurement of this concept (Keller, 2008). Several methods of measurement have been proposed over the years, but no one method has been adopted as the ideal way to predict purchase intent and measure brand equity. The current research tested three theories—Social Exchange Theory (SET), Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), and the Yoo and Donthu model—to see which is the best predictor of purchase intent and brand equity. SET assumes consumers weigh the costs and rewards of purchasing the product. TPB uses consumers’ attitudes over purchasing the product, subjective norms of what others would do, and the perceived behavioral control consumers have in actually purchasing the product. The Yoo and Donthu model has been used most often of the three theories in measuring brand equity and includes measures of brand loyalty, perceived quality, brand awareness/associations, and overall brand equity. Study 1 assessed consumer durable products (TV and athletic shoes) and Study 2 assessed consumer non-durable products (soap and toothpaste). Consumers evaluated these products online based on a picture of the product, the brand name, price, customer reviews, quality ratings, and an advertisement and then indicated their likelihood to purchase the product. Theory of Planned Behavior was the best predictor of purchase intent across all four products assessed indicating that consumers look at external factors such as what others would do as well as how much control they have over purchasing the product as much as they consider their own attitudes.

Both flow and flourishing are highly favourable human states and have been described as optimal experience phenomena in the well-being literature. This being said, more research is required to gauge how these states can be more readily achieved – in general, but specifically in sport – and athletic contexts; where it has remained largely unexplored. The objective of this research was to ascertain whether specific contexts can influence the experience of flow and flourishing amongst athletes. It further investigated the state-like properties of these experiences, by evaluating whether certain resources in the environment of the athlete can promote flow and flourishing and assessing whether athlete flow is dynamic over time, i.e. whether it fluctuates over the course of a particular athletic cycle. The research comprised three separate studies, reported in article format. Manuscript 1 evaluated a structural model of athlete flow by investigating the role of both job (sport) – and personal resources in the experience of athlete flow among student athletes. The resources under investigation were teammate relationships and communication (job resources) as well as self-efficacy (a personal resource). Using structural equation modelling direct paths were revealed between teammate relationships, self-efficacy and athlete flow. The findings provide some evidence that athlete flow are associated with contextual factors that relate to the team environment as well as the personal resources of the athlete. Manuscript 2 focused on the flourishing of athletes. An exploratory study was conducted to evaluate relationships between athlete flourishing, team and individual strength use, team embeddedness and withdrawal behaviour. Results suggested that flourishing is related to team strength use. It also revealed positive paths from both the strength use dimensions to team embeddedness. Flourishing related positively to team embeddedness. Withdrawal behaviour was negatively associated with team embeddedness. The results revealed important information from the perspective of antecedents and outcomes of athlete flourishing. Manuscript 3 explored the state-like properties of athlete flow by conducting ecological momentary assessment of the experience amongst under-21 Currie Cup rugby players during a competitive stage of their athletic cycle. The objective of this study was twofold. Firstly, it sought to ascertain whether athlete flow will vary over time and during/ after specific key events during an athletic cycle. Secondly, it investigated whether the introduction of specific interventions during such cycle could influence athlete flow experience. The study, which adopted a longitudinal design, revealed that athlete flow was dynamic over time. Positive relationships were also established between challenging athletic activities, as well as strength-based team and individual interventions; and flow. This provides sport coaches and management teams with information that may assist them in assisting athletes to achieve more readily the favourable and optimum human state that is flow.

Both flow and flourishing are highly favourable human states and have been described as optimal experience phenomena in the well-being literature. This being said, more research is required to gauge how these states can be more readily achieved – in general, but specifically in sport – and athletic contexts; where it has remained largely unexplored. The objective of this research was to ascertain whether specific contexts can influence the experience of flow and flourishing amongst athletes. It further investigated the state-like properties of these experiences, by evaluating whether certain resources in the environment of the athlete can promote flow and flourishing and assessing whether athlete flow is dynamic over time, i.e. whether it fluctuates over the course of a particular athletic cycle. The research comprised three separate studies, reported in article format. Manuscript 1 evaluated a structural model of athlete flow by investigating the role of both job (sport) – and personal resources in the experience of athlete flow among student athletes. The resources under investigation were teammate relationships and communication (job resources) as well as self-efficacy (a personal resource). Using structural equation modelling direct paths were revealed between teammate relationships, self-efficacy and athlete flow. The findings provide some evidence that athlete flow are associated with contextual factors that relate to the team environment as well as the personal resources of the athlete. Manuscript 2 focused on the flourishing of athletes. An exploratory study was conducted to evaluate relationships between athlete flourishing, team and individual strength use, team embeddedness and withdrawal behaviour. Results suggested that flourishing is related to team strength use. It also revealed positive paths from both the strength use dimensions to team embeddedness. Flourishing related positively to team embeddedness. Withdrawal behaviour was negatively associated with team embeddedness. The results revealed important information from the perspective of antecedents and outcomes of athlete flourishing. Manuscript 3 explored the state-like properties of athlete flow by conducting ecological momentary assessment of the experience amongst under-21 Currie Cup rugby players during a competitive stage of their athletic cycle. The objective of this study was twofold. Firstly, it sought to ascertain whether athlete flow will vary over time and during/ after specific key events during an athletic cycle. Secondly, it investigated whether the introduction of specific interventions during such cycle could influence athlete flow experience. The study, which adopted a longitudinal design, revealed that athlete flow was dynamic over time. Positive relationships were also established between challenging athletic activities, as well as strength-based team and individual interventions; and flow. This provides sport coaches and management teams with information that may assist them in assisting athletes to achieve more readily the favourable and optimum human state that is flow.

In today’s society, environmental concern might be at a historical peak. 2778 companies in 60 countries have now acquired the Benefit-Corporation (B-Corp) Certification in attempts to demonstrate their environmental responsibility. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of implementing the B-Corp Certification in a USA automotive dealership on employee pro-environmental behavior and life satisfaction, with consideration of the moderating role of commitment to the B-Corp Certification. A within-group quasi-experimental design was used to investigate the effects of the certification over a 5-month period through self-reported measures. Thirty-three employees participated in this study. One-way repeated-measures ANOVA was conducted to measure differences in employee pro-environmental behavior before and after the implementation of the B-Corp Certification. Through bivariate correlations the relationship between employee pro-environmental behavior and life satisfaction was analyzed. Partial correlation was used to test the moderating role of commitment in determining the strength of the implementation on employee pro-environmental behavior. There was no difference between pre- and post-measurements of employee pro-environmental behavior. Commitment to the B-Corp Certification did not moderate the effectiveness of the implementation of the B-Corp Certification on employee pro-environmental behavior. Additionally, no relationship was found between pro-environmental behavior and life satisfaction. Finally, results are discussed within the context of industrial- and organizational(IO) psychology, as are the implications for future research and interventions aimed at increasingemployee pro-environmental behaviors.

Ineffective leadership that results from personality defects, ineffective core executive functions, and emotional decision making can lead to destructive actions and executive failures that affect organizational effectiveness. The purpose of this correlational study was to determine if athletic development personality factors correlate with decision making at the executive leadership level. The research questions focused on determining if there was a relationship between athletic development personality factors and decision making. Social exchange theory, social representations theory, and leadership theories comprised the theoretical framework. Participants included 124 executive decision-makers from the United States, the United Kingdom, South Africa, India, and Singapore who completed an online survey measuring self-assessed athletic development personality factors. The data analysis strategy using multiple regression showed that, while each variable was a positive significant predictor of personality factors, the regression approach eliminated redundant predictors from the 5 variable model. The resulting 3 variable model was significant; focus, ethicalness, and leadership found decision making scores to be higher for respondents with highest scores for focus personality (β = .43, p = .001) and ethicalness personality (β = .28, p = .001) and leadership personality (β = .21, p = .001) significantly contributed to the model. Organizational leaders might use the findings of this study on these key personality factors to enhance their knowledge and increase the relationship paths for positive social change by informing leadership development programs and executive training through educational strategies and best practices.

Background: The starting point of the thesis is the growing importance of negotiations that serve to establish a relationship between the parties involved as companies’ business activities are getting more complex. Purpose: The purpose of the thesis is to find and to analyze which elements are of importance for parties, when creating a successful negotiation with regard to building long-term relationships, and if those elements differ for sales and procurement negotiations in companies with business activities of various kinds. Research method: The study was realized with the help of twelve qualitative interviews. Result: The elements of importance when creating a successful negotiation with regard to building long-term relationships were mainly elements of co-operation and to some extent elements of competition. Complex and public companies did also exhibit particular elements that were of importance for these categories. The elements did not part considerably regarding purchasers, sales representatives or companies with business activities of various kinds. The elements of importance when building long-term relationships were to a great extent dependent on human elements.

Citizens’ trust in government institutions and their political support for development are important preconditions for a democratic and sustainable form of development. In the context of tourism, it is important that residents of a destination endorse development and tourism policies of the government to ensure sustainability and good governance of the sector. Recognition that communities are central to tourism development and one of the most important groups of stakeholders has led researchers to conduct numerous studies on residents’ support for tourism development and its antecedents. While early studies on this topic were of an atheoretical nature, researchers have increasingly made use of theories such as social exchange theory (SET), originally drawn from sociology, to understand the ways in which residents’ react to tourism development and the circumstances that prompt them to do so. While on one hand use of SET has strengthened the theoretical base of and has made significant contributions to this area of research, on the other hand, some researchers have found the theory to lack predictive power in explaining residents’ support for tourism development. This is probably because researchers have failed to consider all important variables of the theory simultaneously in an integrative framework. Key constructs such as power and trust have been left out by the majority of studies on this topic. It is also important that SET is complemented with other theoretical approaches so that new insights are uncovered in this area of study. Grounded in political economy, this study attempted to make a ‘complete’ use of SET by integrating its key components (trust, power, benefits, costs, and support) in a model that predicted residents’ trust in government actors involved in tourism and their political support for the sector’s development. The research drew widely from the political science literature and made use of two competing theories to investigate the determinants of residents’ trust in government actors: institutional theory of political trust and cultural theory of political trust. Based on the three different theories (SET, institutional theory of political trust, and cultural theory of political trust), the conceptual model of the study was developed. As postulated by SET, the model posited that political support is determined by residents’ trust in government actors, perceived benefits of tourism, and perceived costs of tourism. The latter two variables were also proposed to influence trust in government actors. An inverse relationship between perceived benefits and perceived costs of tourism was also hypothesized. The model further suggested that residents’ perceptions of their level of power in tourism influenced their perceptions of the benefits and costs of tourism development. As predicted by institutional theory of political trust, residents’ perceptions of the economic and political performance of local government actors and their perceived level of power in tourism were proposed to influence their trust in those actors. Drawing from cultural theory of political trust, interpersonal trust was hypothesized to be positively related to residents’ trust in government actors. Twelve hypotheses emanated from the model and were tested using responses collected from 391 residents of Niagara Region, Ontario, Canada, using an online panel. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to test the proposed hypotheses. In addition, the mediating effects implied in the proposed model were investigated (although no formal hypotheses were originally proposed) using Baron and Kenny’s (1986) recommended steps and the Sobel z test. Findings provided support for eight of the twelve proposed hypotheses. Contrary to what researchers have assumed so far, residents’ trust in government actors was a better predictor of political support that their perceptions of the costs of tourism development. Perceived benefits remained the best predictor of political support as advocated in several studies. Residents’ perceptions of the benefits of tourism were also inversely related to perceived costs, suggesting that interactions among residents’ perceptions of the different impacts of tourism exist. Residents’ perceived level of power in tourism was a significant determinant of perceived benefits, but did not significantly predict perceived costs. Residents’ perceptions of the political performance of government actors in tourism was the strongest predictor of their trust, followed by their perceptions of the economic performance of government actors, and their perceptions of the benefits of tourism development. Residents’ perceived level of power in tourism, their perceptions of the costs of tourism, and interpersonal trust were found to be insignificant predictors of their trust in government actors. Findings also suggested that residents’ perceptions of the costs of tourism and their trust in government actors partially mediated the relationships between perceived benefits of tourism and political support. The results partially supported SET because some of the theory’s postulates and predictions were not empirically supported. Findings also confirmed the superiority of institutional theory of political trust over cultural theory of political trust. The theoretical and practical implications of the study’s findings were discussed. The limitations of the study were recognized and some recommendations for improving future research were made. Overall, the study suggested that political trust is a promising construct in studies on community support for development policies and deserves further attention by researchers, scholars, and practitioners given the paucity of research on this topic in the tourism literature. The search also suggests that researchers should recognize that residents’ trust in government actors and their support for tourism development are complex issues that are determined by several factors. A single theory is unlikely to provide a comprehensive understanding of these concepts, raising the need for researchers to investigate these issues from different theoretical perspectives.