O preço de um imóvel é definido como um preço hedônico, visto que sua formação é dada através de um conjunto de atributos que consideram, além das características do próprio bem, tais como número de quartos, vagas na garagem, área privativa, entre outros; as características do bairro onde este imóvel está inserido. Existe uma demanda crescente por imóveis localizados em regiões com uso de solo misto, densificadas e com fácil acesso a serviços. Essas características estão fortemente vinculadas ao conceito de caminhabilidade. Juntamente com facilidade de acesso ao transporte público, desenho urbano que favoreça o deslocamento dos pedestres e segurança pública, formam as 6 dimensões da caminhabilidade utilizadas nesse estudo. Bairros com essas características estimulam viagens a pé e estima-se que haja uma valorização imobiliária de seus empreendimentos, com consumidores dispostos a pagar mais por imóveis residenciais localizados em regiões caminháveis. Para testar o impacto da caminhabilidade no valor do preço, foram utilizados modelos de equações estruturais. Eles permitem que conceitos como os de caminhabilidade e segurança pública, que não podem ser diretamente medidos (variáveis latentes), possam ser explicados por medidas observáveis que atuam como formadoras desses conceitos. Os resultados obtidos confirmam a hipótese, com o preço do metro quadrado de imóveis residenciais a venda crescendo conforme aumenta a caminhabilidade. A segurança pública demonstrou ser o fator mais importante na explicação da caminhabilidade e consequentemente na valorização do preço. / Sale price of a property is defined as a hedonic price, since its value is formed by a set of attributes that cover more than just characteristics of the product itself, such as number of rooms, parking spots and private area. There is a growing demand for properties located in areas with mixed land use, densified and with easy access to products and services. These characteristics are strongly linked to the concept of walkability, usually named as walkability dimensions. Neighborhoods with these features encourage commutes by walking and are likely to have a real estate valuation, with consumers willing to pay more for residential properties located in walkable areas. Structural equation models were used to test the impact of walkability on sales price. This methodology allows to quantify concepts as walkability and security, that could not be directly measured (latent variables), by using the observable variables that compose them. The results confirm the hypothesis that increase in walkability will also raise the sales price. Security has proven to be the most important factor in the walkability explanation and consequently in price appreciation.

Residentes de um mesmo contexto urbano podem apresentar padrões distintos de deslocamento. A distinção desses padrões pode estar relacionada às diferenças na percepção acerca da caminhabilidade do entorno. Para estimular mudanças no padrão de deslocamento dos usuários de transporte motorizado é importante compreender como os fatores do ambiente urbano, percebidos por esses usuários, se diferenciam em relação aos usuários de transporte ativo, e a partir disso montar estratégias eficientes para cada público alvo. A partir de uma pesquisa realizada com moradores de bairros da zona leste do município de São Paulo, este trabalho compara os usuários de transporte ativo, coletivo e individual em relação a três questões: (i) os fatores que influenciam a percepção da caminhabilidade (dentre eles a segurança pública), (ii) o impacto da caminhabilidade na satisfação com o bairro e (iii) a relação entre percepção de caminhabilidade, satisfação com o bairro e o impacto nos hábitos de deslocamento ativos (frequência e tempos de viagem semanais) reportados para os três grupos. Para analisar tais relações, foram desenvolvidos modelos de equações estruturais, que permitem testar uma hipótese entre múltiplas variáveis e que diversas variáveis observadas representem conceitos que não podem ser diretamente medidos (variáveis latentes), como a percepção de caminhabilidade e a sensação de segurança pública Os resultados obtidos mostraram a existência de diferenças na percepção do ambiente construído entre usuários de transporte ativo, transporte coletivo e transporte individual motorizado. As diferenças principais foram encontradas entre os usuários de transporte ativo e os usuários de transporte motorizado (coletivo e individual), tanto em relação à percepção do ambiente, quanto em relação à sua influência no comportamento do usuário relativo à viagem. A preocupação com a segurança pública parece ser superestimada por aqueles que não realizam deslocamentos ativos regularmente. Investimentos em segurança pública e na qualidade do ambiente mostram ter um efeito positivo em todos os usuários, tanto no que se refere à satisfação com o bairro quanto à utilização de modos ativos de deslocamento. O impacto da percepção do ambiente na satisfação com o bairro foi maior para os usuários de transporte coletivo e individual. / Residents of a same urban context may present different travel patterns. The distinction of these travel patterns may be related to differences in the perception of the environment walkability. To stimulate changes in the travel pattern of motorized transport users, it is important to understand how the environmental factors perceived by these users differ in relation to the users of active transport, and from that, create efficient strategies for each target public. Based on a survey with residents of neighborhoods in the eastern part of the city of São Paulo, this study compares users of active, public and private transport in relation to three issues: (i) the factors that influence perceived walkability (among them public security) (ii) the impact of walkability on neighborhood satisfaction, and (iii) the relationship between perceived walkability, neighborhood satisfaction, and the impact on active commuting patterns (weekly frequency and travel times) reported for all three groups. To analyze such relationships, structural equation models have been developed, which allow testing a hypothesis among multiple variables and that several observed variables represent concepts that cannot be directly measured (latent variables), such as perceived walkability and sense of public security The results showed the existence of differences in the perception of the built environment between users of active, public and private transport. The main differences were found between users of active and users of motorized transport (public and private), both in relation to the perception of the environment and its influence on travel user behavior. Concern about public safety seems to be overestimated by those who do not regularly commute by active means. Investments in public security and environmental quality have a positive effect on all users, both regarding neighborhood satisfaction and the use of active modes of travel. The impact of perceived environment on neighborhood satisfaction was greater for users of public and individual transport.

A series of studies aimed to examine the role of perceived behavioural control in Ajzen's (1985) Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) in a physical activity context with children aged 12-14 years. A broader, more differentiated role of perceived control was envisaged in the theory based on the conceptualisation of control and perceived competence put forward by Skinner (1995). The first two studies examined the role of control with respect to the TPB model variables and past behaviour. Study 1 investigated the relations between intention, behaviour, attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control in 181 children. It was hypothesised that attitude, perceived control and subjective norms would be related to intention and intention to behaviour. In addition, it was hypothesised that the covariation between control and attitude observed in previous studies could be better explained by the specification of a direct path between perceived control and attitude. Path analysis confirmed the theoretical relations between the TPB variables and, uniquely, the existence of a perceived control- attitude path forming a triadic arrangement with attitude and intention. It was concluded that perceived control governed two routes to the formation of intentions: a direct, spontaneousp ath and an indirect, more deliberative path via attitudes. This relationship was subsequently confirmed in a sample of 382 children in Study 2 using latent measures of attitude and control. The study demonstrated that direct attitude-intention and attitude-behaviour paths regulated the intention-behaviour relationship and attenuated the control -intention relationship to zero. Further, past behaviour predicted control but not intentions or prospective behaviour suggesting that perceived control includes judgements regarding previous control experiences. Since Studies I and 2 indicated the diverse influence of control on the TPB variables, Study 3 diversified the perceived control variable according to Skinner's (1995) conceptualisation of control. This was achieved through the inclusion of a measure of self-efficacy alongside perceived control in a study of 1152 children. The resulting non-standard model using both latent and observed measures, indicated that self-efficacy regulated the control-intention relationship, while control remained an indirect predictor of intention via attitudes. It was concluded that the spontaneous pathway was largely due to the aspects of control related to past experiences of confidence or self-efficacy. This justified the diversification of the perceived control variable and indicated that when young people consider the control they have over certain behaviours, they refer to a number of different perceptions. To further examine the role of perceived control and examine the origins of the cognitive variables in the TPB, Study 4 examined perceived control from a human needs perspective in 1088 children. The measures included more general, domain-specific rather than behaviour- specific measures of perceived control and locus of causality (PLOC). The latter variables represented the human needs for competence and autonomy, which are hypothesised to be motivational in nature (Deci & Ryan, 1985). Results indicated that relative autonomy predicted perceived behavioural control and attenuated the control-intention relationship to zero. This suggested that autonomy was the driving force behind the process of intern ali sation, in which a person assimilates a behaviour by continual competence satisfying experiences. A final study aimed to confirm the triadic relationships between attitude, perceived control and intention in the TPB by a cumulative analysis of these relationships using the data from Studies 1-4. Meta-analytical techniques were used to produce cumulative correlations corrected for measurement and sampling error between the TPB relationships. Results indicated that the variation in the correlations may have been due to more than just sampling error, indicating the existence of moderating variables. A path analysis using these correlations indicated that the atti tude- intention relationship in the triadic arrangement tended to be attenuated by the control-intention relationship. This series of studies indicate that Perceived behavioural control is an important and diverse predictor of intention in the TPB. In particular, control was shown to be an antecedent of attitudes as well as a direct predictor of intentions and that spontaneous intention formation from control perceptions may have been due to self-efficacy beliefs and past behavioural beliefs being encompassed by perceived control. Finally, the adoption of self-determination theory indicated that more general motives for engaging in physical activity behaviour were antecedent variables of control, attitudes and intention from a social cognitive approach. Such theories helped interpret the relationships in the TPB, in particular the role of control as an important variable in the process of internalisation.

It has long been argued that underlying values should hold a central role in political analysis. This would seem particularly relevant in an era of de-alignment and catch-all parties in which political actors often make direct values orientated appeals to the electorate. With the expansion in appropriate data and measures available to empirical researchers, the last two decades have seen a substantial increase in the number of studies directly addressing the values-voting relationship. Values based explanations of vote choice have contributed to a more nuanced understanding of the processes underlying voter preferences and the structure of public opinion within democratic electorates. This existing empirical literature has generally focused on analysing the role of values on voting in single electoral contexts. While this approach has generated many useful findings that establish the role of values in differentiating political choice, it has only partially explored the contextual mechanisms through which values influence vote choice. This is necessary in order to understand under what political conditions values are likely to become more relevant to vote choice decisions. This thesis is an attempt to address three aspects of this gap in the cross-national research literature on values and voting using analyses of data from the 1990 and 2008 waves of the European Values Survey. Firstly it provides a cross-national analysis of core political values that enables a comparison of the role of values in structuring electoral competition across 15 West European countries. Secondly, it estimates the role that left-right political identity has in mediating the influence of values on vote choice using a structural path model. This provides a cross-national test of this mechanism and therefore assesses variation in the values-voting relationship across different national contexts. Thirdly, the thesis provides a systematic empirical analysis of the influence of political context on the values-voting relationship by testing the effect that macro level system factors, such as polarisation and the number of parties, have on the influence of values. The headline findings of the thesis are that political values are dynamic constructs that can demonstrate subtle variations in the preferences of voters across different electoral contexts. Political values have a multi-dimensional influence on electoral choice; with variation in voter preferences being highlighted by both value differentiation (having opposite preferences for the same value dimension) and emphasis (having a preference for different values). Left-right identity can act as both a mediator and a confounder of political values influence on vote choice. Political context is primarily relevant to the influence of values on voting through the content of supply side party competition as opposed to the structure of that competition. Overall, the study argues the findings show that supply side political context plays a crucial role in defining the parameters and strength of the values-voting relationship in each specific electoral arena.

Organizations depend upon ever greater levels of information technology (IT), such as big data and analytics, a trend which shows no sign of abating. However, not all organizations have benefited from such IT investments, resulting in mixed perceptions on the value of IT. Organizations must be knowledgeable in order to properly utilize IT tools and be able to apply that knowledge to create unique competencies in order to gain sustained advantage from IT investments. Organizational learning (OL) has been proposed as the mechanism to accomplish this task. Existing empirical research demonstrates that OL may indeed act as a mediator for the effect of IT on organizational outcomes. Yet, these studies are not consistent in their conceptualizations of the relationships involved, nor in their definitions and measurement of OL. Many use a descriptive measure of OL despite theory suggesting that a normative measure may be more appropriate. This study aims to address these concerns in a Canadian setting by using structural equation modelling (SEM) to compare the effectiveness of descriptive and normative measures of OL as mediating variables in knowledge-intensive organizations. Survey results support OL as a mediator between IT and organizational performance in addition to normative measures of OL outperforming descriptive measures. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

With the increase in quality of life (QoL) research in recent years and its relationship to physical and mental health, building a model of these relationships is an important pursuit for researchers with the aim of creating targeted social policy and programs. Two studies were designed to test a model of the relationship between quality of life, physical health, and mental health on two different groups in the National-Capital region: a housed sample and a homeless and vulnerably housed sample. Study 1 consisted of 1,339 adults who took part in the 2007-2008 Canadian Community Health Survey and were stably housed in either a rented or owned residence. Study 2 consisted of 395 single adults who participated in the City of Ottawa baseline measure of the Health and Housing in Transition (HHiT) study (Hwang, Aubry, et al., 2011) and were homeless or vulnerably housed. Subjective levels of various physical and mental health indicators were measured for each of the samples, along with subjective quality of life indicators. Of interest in each of the studies was: 1) The effect that physical and mental health factors have on quality of life in each of the samples, and 2) determining if mental health or physical health is a better predictor of quality of life. Structural analysis of the housed sample model resulted in both physical and mental health having a significant positive effect on QoL, although neither physical nor mental health was a better predictor of quality of life. For the homeless and vulnerably housed model, structural analysis determined mental health to have a significant direct positive effect on QoL, while physical health showed a non-significant negative effect. Mental health was determined to be a significantly better predictor of QoL in the homeless and vulnerably housed model, accounting for 30.47 percent of the variance in quality of life. Implications of this research are discussed.

This thesis focuses on one key theme, which is to understand the construct of organizational networking behaviors in business-to-business markets. It is concerned with two main issues, which are built into the research program of three empirical studies. The first issue is concerned with a systematic understanding of organizational behaviors in response to the embeddedness and interconnectedness of the network of business relationships that every organization has to deal with. Study 1 of the research program explores the concept termed ‘organizational networking behaviors’. This study adopts an industrial network approach, the central tenet of which is that firms undertake a continuous process of interaction with their important partners in the embedding context of the business network. A multi-informant approach, using semi-structured interviews, was used to collect qualitative data from thirty-one executive managers (in fifteen manufacturing firms in the UK). This study identified information acquisition, opportunity enabling, strong-tie resource mobilization and weak-tie resource mobilization as four types of organizational networking behaviors, which are reflected by their respective sub-types. The resulting conceptualization of organizational networking forms the basis for the operationalization of the construct in Study 2. While Study 1 takes an exploratory qualitative approach, Study 2 deploys a confirmatory quantitative approach since it is necessary to confirm/refute the resulting conceptualization and its types from Study 1. A rigorous scale construction and validation process was followed in this study. The conceptualization of the measurement model was carefully considered based on its theoretical underpinning. A second-order formative measurement structure was conceptualized, which required the employment of a multiple indicators and multiple causes (MIMIC) model for the validation of such a measurement model. A dataset of 603 responses was collected and analyzed to confirm the structure of the four types of organizational networking behaviors, which is in line with the results of Study 1.The second issue that the thesis is concerned with is the influences of such organizational networking efforts, which are examined from a firm’s behavioral perspective. Study 3 examines how organizational networking behaviors serve as the driver of a firm’s customer-oriented, competitor-oriented and relationship-oriented behaviors due to the sensing and seizing aspects of networking. It was also hypothesized that a firm’s customer-oriented, competitor-oriented and relationship-oriented behaviors positively affect firm performance. The test of these hypotheses required survey data collection, which was done through an on-line questionnaire. A dataset of 354 responses was collected from UK managers, whose organizations operate in business-to-business markets in either the manufacturing or services sectors. The use of statistical modeling techniques is similar to that of Study 2. The research results indicate that a firm’s network-oriented behaviors positively impact on the development of customer-oriented and competitor-oriented behaviors. They also foster relationship coordination with its important business partners within the network. In addition, the effective management of the firm’s portfolio of relationships is found to mediate the positive impact of network-oriented behaviors on firm profitability.

In the educational literature on peer effects, attention has been brought to the fact that the mechanisms creating peer effects are still to a large extent hidden in obscurity. The hypothesis in this study is that the Frame Factor Theory can be used to explain these mechanisms. At heart of the theory is the concept of “time needed” for students to learn a certain curricula unit. The relations between class-aggregated time needed and the actual time available, steers and hinders the actions possible for the teacher. Further, the theory predicts that the timing and pacing of the teachers’ instruction is governed by a “steering criterion group” (SCG), namely the pupils in the 10th-25th percentile of the aptitude distribution in class. The class composition hereby set the possibilities and limitations for instruction, creating peer effects on individual outcomes. To test if the theory can be applied to the issue of peer effects, the study employs multilevel structural equation modelling (M-SEM) on Swedish TIMSS 2015-data (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study; students N=3761, teachers N=179). Using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) in the SEM-framework, latent variables are specified according to the theory, such as “limitations of instruction” from TIMSS survey items. The results indicate a good model fit to data of the measurement model. The SEM-model verify a strong relation between the mean level of the SCG and the latent variable of limitations on instruction, a variable which in turn has a great impact on individual students’ test results. Thus, the analysis indicates a confirmation of the predictions derived from the frame factor theory and reveals that one of the important mechanisms creating peer effects in student outcomes is the effect the class composition has upon the teachers’ instruction in class.

The aim of this study is to contribute to the standardization of the new diagnostic tools assessing the motor manifestations of laterality in adults and children aged 8 to 10 years, both in terms of determining the theoretical concept and the selection of appropriate items, and the verification of structural hypotheses concerning the design of acceptable models, including the diagnostic quality of individual parts of the test battery. Moreover in this study we try to suggest new approach in assessing of motor laterality manifestation by means of relationship between cerebellar dominance and hand performance. The first part of this thesis deals with the concept of laterality, its manifestations and meaning in non-living systems and living organisms. As a human characteristic, laterality is manifested in a variety of functional and structural asymmetries. This part also discusses ways of diagnosing motor manifestations of laterality and the issue of cerebellar dominance, including its reflection in the form of asymmetry of the extinction physiological syndrome of upper limbs. The second part focuses on the process of the standardization study, the statistical method of structural equation modelling, and the actual design of test battery construction. The last part of this thesis presents the results...

This study explores the previously less researched impact of corporate reputation on employees, more specifically on employee engagement. Employee engagement and corporate reputation are concepts that have been receiving attention in both business and academia alike, especially in view of the economic turmoil of the past decade as both constructs have been shown to affect profits. The study was designed in a way to measure the impact of employees’ perceptions of corporate reputation on their engagement with the corporation, while controlling for the state of their psychological contract with the organisation. An online survey of 509 employees from a large South African bank provided the data to which a Structural Equation Model (SEM) emanating from the theoretical background was fitted. The results of the model unequivocally confirmed that corporate reputation perceptions are an important predictor of employee engagement. It was also found that psychological contract breach influences both perceptions of reputation by employees and employee engagement directly. The implication is that corporate reputation can have a strong influence on tangible results through employee engagement. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted