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This study employed upper echelon perspective, social capital perspective, and strategic leadership and leadership style perspectives to examine the effects of CEO transformational leadership and CEO dominance on the three internal social capital dimensions, i.e. structural, relationship, and cognitive capital, of top management team (TMT). It also investigated the effects of the TMT internal social capitals on firm performance, and the mediating roles of the TMT social capital in the CEO leadership-performance relationship. The unit of analysis is at the firm level. Structural equation modeling conducted with LISREL was employed to test the fitness of overall hypothesized model and the significance of hypothesized relationships among studied variables. Empirical results showed that the theoretical models fit the data very well, and most of hypotheses are supported; the significance of top executives and interactions on firm outcomes were significantly ascertained. Specifically, CEO dominance may produce negative effects on TMT network density and trust while CEO transformational leadership may promote TMT network density, trust, and shared vision. On the other hand, TMT network density may foster firm performance. Finally, results showed that TMT network density mediated the relationships of CEO leadership and firm performance. This study has significant implications for upper echelons perspective, the integration of strategic leadership and leadership style research, and the applications of social capital perspective. Research findings also exhibit valuable insights for the strategic implications of TMT dynamics in business practices. Limitations and future directions were discussed for further extensions.

As new information technology (NIT) has become a critical instrument for an organization to gain its competitive edge, the issue of how best to exploit and adopt NIT is now a pressing challenge for organizations and researchers alike. Based on upper echelon theory and individual differences literatures, this research paper endeavors to address the issue concerning the knowledge gap present in previous literature: the correlation between a top manager¡¦s personal traits and his NIT championing behavior. To bridge this gap, this paper attempts to explore to what extent a top manager¡¦s personality, ability, and belief characteristics can affect NIT championing behavior. We venture to propose in this paper a comprehensive model in which top managers¡¦ individual characteristics are integrated to facilitate the analysis of NIT adoption in organization. To test research model, Partial Least Squares (PLS) is used to verify the feasibility of the model proposed. Survey results from 130 top managers in Taiwan strongly support our proposition that a top manager¡¦s personality, ability, and belief have significant influence on NIT championing behavior. At the conclusion section of this paper academic and practical implication is discussed.

<p>The economical importance and value of small businesses is today recognized by scholars as well as government institutes. The small business does not only contribute with a great amount of entrepreneurial activity and innovations but also as a significant tool in creating jobs. The statistics are however displaying a negative trend in the development of small businesses with over 350.000 – 400.000 business closures every year in UK. In Sweden 35,000 new enterprises entered the market in 2001 but only 62% were still active in 2004.</p><p>There are two major factors from which all other explanations are derived from when discussing why a company fails which is the external and internal factor. From the failure model created by Sharma and Mahajan and supported by other researchers, it is known that the problem initiating the failure may have been caused by uncontrollable factors. However the most significant factor behind a failure is derived from insufficient and ineffective management in the strategic process.</p><p>In order to understand how and most importantly why the top-managers decisions and actions contributes to a business failure the study focused on exploring the strategic process in numerous of failure cases of small businesses. This understanding is further strengthened by considering the limitations and resistances in the strategic process. There is also a link between the crisis management and strategic management which further provides with valuable insights of the process. Four different small businesses were therefore investigated in the report through an inductive and semi structured approach to explore the contexts of the failures in-depth. From the analysis of the empirical data collected from the top-managers and other employees, owners or managers evidence were collected to study the top-managers contribution to the failure.</p><p>The most significant contributing factor found in the business failures were the inefficient internal and external assessments. This was further found to be directly linked to the inadequate knowledge and experience possessed by the top-manager and his staff. Nepotism was also a factor that was found to be a very contributing source to the inadequate assessments. The managers staffed by the top-manager possessed a close relationship with the top-manager and may have been hired due to this reason and not based on the required knowledge which was proven to have a significant impact on all the studied cases.</p>

<p>I EU råder det idag en tänkt etableringsfrihet för företag inom gemenskapen. EUD har genom ett antal avgörande domar gett en bild av hur tolkningen av den stadgade etableringsfriheten ska ske. På grund av etableringsfriheten och EUDs praxis genom åren har möjligheter kommit upp för medlemsstater att konkurrera med varandra för att erhålla den bästa lagstiftningen för bolag att starta upp sin verksamhet i.</p><p>Vissa förespråkare anser att möjligheten till regelkonkurrens riskerar att försämra medlemsstaternas bolagsregler ur ett arbetstagarperspektiv då medlemsstaterna i framtiden kommer att utforma lagar som är förmånliga för bolagen men med ett sämre skydd för arbetstagare, ett såkallat <em>race to the bottom</em>. Andra menar att regelkonkurrens tvärt om stärker den inre europeiska marknaden då medlemsstaterna aktivt strävar efter att utforma de bästa lagarna ur allas perspektiv och att en sådan konkurrens behövs inom gemenskapen för att aktivt lyfta och utveckla kvalitén på medlemsstaternas bolagsregler, ett såkallat <em>race to the top.</em></p><p>Inom EU diskuteras idag förslag till ett gemensamt privat europeiskt aktiebolag (SPE-bolag) som ska gälla inom hela EU och där bolagsreglerna är desamma i alla medlemsstater. Gemensam harmonisering bland medlemsstaterna kan tänkas motverka en negativ utveckling av regelkonkurrensen (<em>race to the bottom</em> med försämrat arbetstagarskydd som följd) men kan även medföra att den goda utvecklingen som kan ske genom fri regelkonkurrens mellan nationella bolagsregler stannar upp bland medlemsstaterna. Vad gäller SPE-bolaget så motverkar inte det möjligheten för negativ regelkonkurrens mellan medlemsstaterna ur ett arbetstagarskyddsperspektiv utan snarare öppnar upp för mer negativ regelkonkurrens.</p><p>En möjlighet till god regelkonkurrens bland medlemsstaterna utan att konsekvenserna av att ett <em>race to the bottom</em> skulle uppstå är att den europeiske lagstiftaren utfärdar en gemensam arbetstagarskyddslagstiftning vilket alla medlemsstater måste följa. En sådan lagstiftning skulle reglera alla väsentliga arbetsrättsområden som skulle kunna förbises om en negativ regelkonkurrens skulle utvecklas mellan medlemsstaterna. Därefter skulle det råda en fri regelkonkurrens. En sådan lösning skulle ta de bra delarna ur regelkonkurrens samtidigt som de negativa delarna förhindrades.</p>

<p>Attityder gentemot kvinnors i företagsledningar har under de senaste åren haft en positiv förändring. Trots det har människan länge förutsatt att högt positionerade ledare är män. Detta tyder på att kvinnor som strävar efter toppositioner möter hinder som försvårar deras väg upp för karriärstegen. Med detta i åtanke är syftet med denna uppsats att skapa en förståelse för viktiga dimensioner som påverkar kvinnors strävan mot toppositioner.</p><p>Som hermeneutiker var teorin utgångspunkten i vår forskningsansats. Efter genomförda interjuver, som berikade oss med en djupare förståelse inom ämnet, återgick vi och utvecklade teorierna. Vi önskade att värdera attityder bland de intervjuade kvinnorna och valde därför en kvalitativ vetenskaplig forskning. Vi erhöll en djupare förståelse för hur kvinnor når toppositioner, eftersom vår forskningsansats tillät oss att komma nära de studerade kvinnorna. Den empiriska informationen insamlades genom djupgående intervjuer med sex högt positionerade kvinnliga ledare. De utvalda respondenterna är i alfabetisk ordning: Amelia Adamo, Eivor Andersson, Gunilla Forsmark-Karlsson, Lena Herrmann, Anitra Steen, and Meg Tivéus.</p><p>De främsta teoretiska områdena, bidragande till att kvinnor når toppositioner är; självmedvetenhet, motivation, mentorskap, nätverk samt att ha en balans i livet. Hinder kvinnor möter längs vägen måste också övervägas för att få en helhetsförståelse för fenomenet; hur kvinnor når toppositioner. Den empiriska studien, framtagen via djupgående intervjuer med högt positionerade kvinnliga ledare, analyserades med hjälp av existerande teorier.</p><p>Det är inte en enkel uppgift att förstå faktorerna bakom underrepresentationen av högt positionerade kvinnor i företagsledningarna. Vårt samhälle idag är väl utvecklat och gör det därför svårt att förstå svårigheterna för kvinnor att nå toppositioner. För att skapa en förståelse måste vi kanske se bort från detaljerna och hindren och istället fokusera på kvinnorna som faktiskt har tagit sig den långa vägen till toppen. Detta leder oss till frågan; kvinna, hur kom du så här långt? Resultaten gjorde det möjligt att dra slutsatsen att de största hindren, när kvinnor strävar mot toppositioner, är interna faktorer inom kvinnorna själva. Kvinnorna måste våga tro på sig själva och utnyttja sina kunskaper och erfarenheter. Trots detta är kvinnorna inte isolerade individer. På grund av detta är inte personliga egenskaper tillräckligt för att förklara fenomenet om kvinnors strävan mot toppositioner. Det sker även en stor inverkan på de potentiella kvinnorna genom exempelvis nätverk samt mentorer.</p> / <p>Social attitudes towards women’s role in management have during the last decades had a positive change. However, people have for long assumed that a top executive is a man. This indicates that women striving for top positions often come across barriers that are blocking their attempts to climb the career ladder. With this in mind, the purpose of the thesis was to provide an understanding of important dimensions for women who strive for top positions.</p><p>As hermeneutic researcher, we used theory as a starting point. After the interviews, which enabled us to get deeper into the subject, we were able to move back to the theory again. We wanted to rate attitudes, beliefs and motivations among the interviewed women, and therefore a qualitative research choice was made. We were then able to get a deeper understanding of how women reach top positions, since the method permits us to come close to the research subject. Data was collected through in-depth interviews with six top positioned female leaders. The respondents selected for this study were, in alphabetical order: Amelia Adamo, Eivor Andersson, Gunilla Forsmark-Karlsson, Lena Herrmann, Anitra Steen, and Meg Tivéus.</p><p>The major theoretical areas, which are touched upon, are factors contributing to women’s strive for top positions within organizations. Important topics are self-confidence, motivation, mentoring, networking, and balance in life. Barriers must also be considered as obstacles coming across women’s way to top positions. The empirical data, received through the in-dept interviews with top positioned women, was analyzed with assistance of the theories.</p><p>It is not a simple task to understand the underrepresented part of women on top positions in the business life. The society today is very well developed and it is hard to realize the difficulties for women to get to the top. To understand we might have to look away from the details and barriers and start looking at the how women who actually are in the top made it so far. This guides us to the question; woman, how did you come this far? The findings enabled us to conclude that the major barriers, when striving for top positions, are internal factors within the women themselves and if they want to become top executives. However, the women are not isolated individuals. Therefore, not only the personal characteristics are enough when striving for top positions. There are still huge influences from people around the potential women, like networks and mentors.</p>

Die vorliegende Ausgabe beschäftigt sich mit dem Thema Umweltkennzahlensysteme für die Umweltleistungsmessung. Ziel der Arbeit ist es, Unternehmen ein Hilfsmittel zur Integration von Umweltaspekten ins allgemeine Unternehmensgeschehen an die Hand zu geben. Angestrebt ist die Konzeption eines Umweltkennzahlensystems zur Umweltleistungsmessung für Prozesse. Im ersten Schritt wird ein Öko-Controlling-Modell vorgestellt und Umweltkennzahlensysteme in dieses eingeordnet. Umweltkennzahlensysteme sind der Informationsversorgung zuzurechnen. Sie dienen der Information der Informationsverwender, die mit ihrer Hilfe Planen, Steuern und Kontrollieren sollen. Es wird ein Anforderungsprofil für Umweltkennzahlensysteme erstellt, dieses Anforderungsprofil beinhaltet allgemeine Anforderungen, wie die ?Anforderungen der Informationsverwender? und ?formale und logische Anforderungen? und spezielle Anforderungen. Vorhandene Ansätze zu Umweltkennzahlensystemen werden vorgestellt und hinsichtlich des Anforderungsprofils analysiert. Aus dieser Analyse ergibt sich der Schluss, dass es kein Umweltkennzahlensystem gibt, das alle Anforderungen erfüllt. Die Auswertung der an ausgewählte Führungskräfte der SIEMENS AG verschickten Fragebögen zu Umweltkennzahlen bestätigt die gewonnene Aussage der Nicht-Existenz einer first-best-Lösung hinsichtlich eines Umweltkennzahlensystems für alle Unternehmen, da sie verdeutlicht, dass schon die Kennzahlensysteme innerhalb eines Unternehmens stark (aufgrund zu unterschiedlicher Strukturen, Ziele und Strategien) differieren. An die Auswertung der Analyse der vorhandenen Ansätze und der Fragebögen schließt sich die Entwicklung einer Vorgehensweise zur Konzeption von Umweltkennzahlensystemen in Unternehmen an, die in den Schritten Festlegung der Umweltleistung von Unternehmen, Definition der Zielebene, Festlegung und Auswahl von Kennzahlen abläuft.

Visual attention can be voluntarily focused on a location or automatically attracted by salient features in a visual scene. Studies using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) suggest two networks of visual attention involved in these complementary mechanisms: a dorsal frontoparietal network and a ventral frontoparietal network of visuospatial attention respectively. However, most studies so far have applied non‐natural schematic stimuli. The present study investigates visual attention in images of natural environmental scenes. Adopting previously used eye‐tracker paradigms, we study the influence of task instruction and luminance contrast modifications in pictures on both eye movements and neural activity using Eye‐Tracking and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging simultaneously. We expect increased top‐down control of attention in a search task compared to a free viewing condition visible in enhanced neural activation in the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) as part of the dorsal frontoparietal network. Strong modifications of luminance contrast should foster bottom‐up processing activating the temporoparietal junction (TPJ) a crucial area in the ventral frontoparietal network of visual attention. Although the obtained eye‐tracking data shows the expected shift of fixations towards locations of increased luminance contrast, we do not find an influence of luminance contrast modifications on neural processing. Comparison of instructions reveals diverse results across participants possibly due to the long presentation duration of stimuli which allowed participant’s attention to wander independently of task instruction. We find bilateral activation in IPS and parahippocampal place area (PPA) as well as bilateral deactivation in the TPJ region independent of task context. This might indicate similar contributions of these areas to free viewing of and search in visual scenes. However, dissociation of target detection and attention during search by deconvolution analysis of data obtained in this study might reveal a more detailed picture of functional involvement of the IPS and TPJ region in processes of visual attention. Remarkably, results show robust activation of the PPA in both tasks, suggesting that the PPA region might not only be activated by houses and open scenes but by narrow scenes (bushes, leaves) of natural outdoor environment as well.

<p>This thesis work aimed at increasing the knowledge regarding phenomena occurring when gas is injected using a top-blown lance on to a bath. All results are based on physical modeling studies carried out both using low and high gas flow rates and nozzle diameters ranging from 0.8 mm to 3.0 mm. At the low gas flow rates, the penetration depth in the bath was studied. The experiments focused on studying the effect of nozzle diameter, lance height and gas flow rate on the penetration depth. It was found that the penetration depth increases with decreasing nozzle diameter, decreasing lance height and with increasing gas flow rate. The results were also compared with previous work. More specifically, it was studied how the previous published empirical relationships fitted the current experimental data. It was found that the relationships of Banks [1], Davenport [2], Chatterjee [3] and Qian [4] agreed well with the experimental data of this investigation for nozzle diameters of 2.0 mm and 3.0 mm. However, for smaller nozzle diameters there were considerable deviations. Therefore, a new correlation heuristically derived from energy conservation consideration was suggested and showed better agreement for small nozzle diameters.</p><p>The experiments carried out at higher gas flow rates focused on the study of swirl motion. The effects of nozzle diameter, lance height, gas flow rate and aspect ratio on the swirl motion were investigated. The amplitude and period of the swirl as well as the starting time and the damping time of the swirl were determined. The amplitude was found to increase with an increased nozzle diameter and gas flow rate, while the period had a constant value of about 0.5 s for all nozzle diameters, gas flow rates and lance heights. The starting time for the swirl motion was found to decrease with an increased gas flow, while the damping time was found to be independent of gas flow rate, nozzle diameter, lance height and ratio of depth to diameter.</p>

<p>A set top box is an embedded device, much like a computer with limited capabilities. Its main purpose is to decode a video signal and output it to a TV. The set top box market is constantly growing and to be competitive in it, a set top box has to be able to do more than only TV. One way to make an attractive product is to give it an appealing user interface. This thesis is a part of a larger work at the company to find new ways to create graphical user interfaces. Its goal is to investigate what SVG implementations that exits, which one that is most suitable for an integration attempt and then perform the integration.</p><p>Several SVG engines were investigated and one provided by the company was selected for integration. Three ways to integrate the SVG engine were identified. One of these alternatives was to extend the callback interface be- tween the engine and the underlying platform. Because of the good fit with the current architecture this alternative was chosen and implemented. As a part of this investigation a demo application suite of SVG content was also constructed.</p><p>This investigation resulted in a working integration of the chosen SVG engine on the platform. It has also showed that SVG is a suitable language to build graphical user interfaces on set top boxes.</p>