abstract: In spite of the existence of successful humble CEOs, the current strategic leadership literature has little understanding regarding what humility is and how humble CEOs influence organizational effectiveness by creating a context to motivate managers. After applying the self-concept framework to integrate the humility literature, I proposed four mechanisms through which CEO humility were related to middle manager ambidextrous behaviors and job performance: CEO empowering leadership, empowering organizational climate, top management team integration and heterogeneity. After developing and validating a humility scale in China, I collected survey data from a sample of 63 organizations with 63 CEOs, 327 top management team members and 645 middle managers to test the research model. Except for top management team heterogeneity, the other three CEO-middle manager mediating mechanisms received moderate support. Specifically, I found that humble CEOs were empowering leaders; their empowering leadership behaviors were positively associated with top management team integration and empowering organizational climate, which in turn correlated positively with middle manager ambidexterity and job performance. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Business Administration 2011

abstract: Policymakers at the national level have recently initiated K-12 education reforms focused on teacher quality and teacher evaluation. Far-reaching legislation was subsequently enacted in the state of Arizona requiring schools to adopt standards-based teacher evaluation systems and link them to student outcomes. The end product is to result in annual summative measures of teacher effectiveness. Because of this, Arizona school administrators have become concerned about rapidly becoming experts in high-stakes teacher evaluation. Principals rarely have time to come together to talk about teacher evaluation, and consider the reliability of their evaluations and how to use teacher evaluation to help teachers improve their practice. This action research study focused on a group of nine administrators in a small urban district grappling with a more complex and high-stakes teacher evaluation system. An existing community of practice was engaged to help administrators become more effective, fair, and consistent evaluators. Activities were designed to engage the group in dynamic, contextualized learning. Participants interacted in small groups to interpret the meaning of newly adopted evaluation instruments and professional teaching standards, share practical knowledge, and compare teacher evaluation experiences in classrooms. Data were gathered with mixed methods. Prior to, and immediately after engaging in this 20-week innovation, principals and district administrators were given two surveys and interviewed about teacher evaluation. Additionally, a detailed record of this project was kept in the form of meeting records and a research journal. Quantitative and qualitative data were triangulated to validate findings. Results identified concerns and understandings of administrators as they attempted to come to a shared consensus regarding teacher evaluation, increase inter-rater reliability, and use teacher evaluation to improve professional practice. As a result of working and learning together administrators lowered their concerns about inter-rater reliability. Other concerns, however, remained and grew. Administrators found the process of gaining a common understanding of teacher evaluation to be complex and far more time-consuming than anticipated. Intense concerns about alignment of the evaluation system with other reforms led these administrators to consider modifications in their evaluation system. Implications from this study can be used to help other administrators grappling with common concerns. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ed.D. Educational Leadership and Policy Studies 2012

Background and context: Given the constant evolving developments in information technology (IT) in healthcare in Canada and Ontario, and the relatively nonexistent body of literature on IT management issues from the perspectives of top IT managers (i.e. Chief Information Officers, IT directors, IT top managers) in hospitals, a follow up study of IT management issues to the study done by Jaana et al. is conducted. Purpose: To develop an authoritative list of IT management issues in Ontario hospitals and compare the results to the earlier study and the literature. Methods: Using the Ranking Type Delphi technique, the responses from IT top managers in three main panels of Ontario hospitals were solicited through a controlled iterative feedback process. The hospitals were divided into the academic panel (n = 6), community panel (n = 12), and the rural panel (n = 8) for a total of 26 out of 33 participants who completed the study. Results: 26 issues were raised and a total of 24 issues were ranked in the study. Among the 14 common issues between the three panels, the top five issues were limited funding, keeping infrastructure current, external security threats, increasing cost, and managing demands for IT projects. Comparing with the study by Jaana et al. (2011), a total of 7 new issues emerged which are concerned with technology, regulatory challenges, and human issues. A total of 10 issues were dropped from the earlier study spanning areas of strategic, technological, organizational, and human issues. The participants in the study did not significantly differ individually based on their background characteristics, where the only significant difference observed between the hospital panels was due to hospital characteristics. During the brainstorming phase a total of 195 issues were provided which were consolidated by two researchers to form a list of 26 IT management issues, with an inter coder reliability of 88%. The issues with a 4.5 out of 7 rating and higher on a Likert scale were retained to narrow down the list. This resulted in 19 issues for the rural and community panels, and 21 issues for the academic panel, with 14 of the 26 issues being common to all three panels. The ranking phase was conducted with two rounds of ranking due to the low consensus levels during the first round. The consensus level after two rounds was; W academic = 0.235, W community = 0.254, and W rural = 0.381. Contributions: This study presents a significant contribution to the management of medical informatics field by providing an approach to categorize IT management issues to observe trends overtime as well as present the application of a seminal framework to explain the changes in these issues as organizations change and grow overtime. At the management and practical levels, the list of prioritized issues provides an evidence base for top IT managers to make IT related decisions at the organizational level. The list also acts as a second benchmarking tool to evaluate hospital performance overtime with the various issues. At the policy development level, provincial governments can use the list to devise comprehensive IT management strategies to address the various regulatory issues reported. Future research can focus on exploring the resonating behind the rankings provided and replicating this study over time and across various geographies so that a large survey can be developed to follow the evolutions of IT management issues in healthcare over time.

I have dealt in my thesis with biomanipulation on the water reservoir Hamry. The reservoir is located near the village Hamry in the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands, it is meso-eutrofního character and its size (about 42 ha of water surface) and an average depth of 2 m is ranked among the smaller, shallow tank. Biomanipulation measures are there implementation and monitored in the long term (since 2008).Biomanipulation implemented in 2015, which mainly consist of removing unwanted species of fish from the reservoir were implemented by different methods at all ontogenetic levels of fish. That means collecting eggs perch Perca fluviatilis, L., seinings of juvenile stages panktivorous species of fish, as well as seinings and elimination of adult unwanted fish species. Part of the seinings were catching spawning shoals of bream Abramis brama, L. and roach Rutilus rutilus, L. With those biomanipalition actions was carried collection and evaluation of samples of zooplankton, phytoplankton, hydrochemical analyzes and physico-chemical parameters of water. Also were investigated phosphorus content in sediments. Some of the data I obtained and evaluated actively (especially zooplankton), other data were evaluated by specialists from ÚBO AV ČR Brno, or employees of the Department of Fisheries and Hydrobiology at the Institute of Zoology, Fisheries, Hydrobiology and Apiculture MENDELU Brno and I have only used this data to compare the efficiency of the imlpemented biomanipulation.

Submitted by Rubens Bonon Filho (rubensbonon@globo.com) on 2016-03-30T15:24:15Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Rubens Bonon Filho.pdf: 338169 bytes, checksum: 1785df26ce138c196ec6243a8ebe94f9 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Pamela Beltran Tonsa (pamela.tonsa@fgv.br) on 2016-03-30T16:08:52Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Rubens Bonon Filho.pdf: 338169 bytes, checksum: 1785df26ce138c196ec6243a8ebe94f9 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-30T16:21:07Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Rubens Bonon Filho.pdf: 338169 bytes, checksum: 1785df26ce138c196ec6243a8ebe94f9 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-03-03 / The early adoption of internationalization used by companies to achieve the international markets is a growing phenomenon that has been challenging the Multinational Enterprise Theory. Many studies have been developed with high technology companies in Brazil taking into consideration the Born Global phenomenon including entrepreneur and firmlevel effects like the presence of technological advantages, innovation and networks among others. The aim of this study is to investigate the role and influence of the venture capital investor (VC Investor) in this process using the Resource-Based View theory. Using case studies, the intention is to contribute to better understanding of the VC Investor influence in the internalization process of Brazilian high echnology companies, to investigate the contributionsr regarding the origin of these investors and finally the role of the Top Management Team in this process. This study found strong evidence dentifying the VC Investor as a rare and valuable resource for the development of the companies, aligned with the Resource-Based View theory, and as a contributor in the Internationalization process in one of the cases. The VC Investor was recognized as a source of financial and human resources, bringing legitimacy in new markets, and also as a source of knowledge and expertise in the consolidation and expansion processes faced by the companies / O processo de internacionalização acelerada pelo qual algumas empresas buscam o mercado internacional é um fenômeno crescente que vem desafiando as teorias sobre a empresa multinacional. No Brasil diversos estudos foram realizados, principalmente com empresas de base tecnológica, sobre o chamado fenômeno Born Global que considera fatores do empreendedor e da própria empresa tais como a presença de vantagens tecnológicas, inovação e o uso de parcerias, entre outros. O objetivo geral desse estudo é avaliar o papel e a influência do investidor de risco no processo de internacionalização acelerada de empresas de base tecnológica no Brasil usando como lente teórica a Visão Baseada em Recursos. Através de um estudo comparativo de casos espera-se contribuir para um melhor entendimento da influência desse stakeholder no processo de internacionalização, investigando as possíveis diferenças de contribuições decorrentes da sua origem e analisando o papel do Top Management Team nesse processo. Foram encontradas fortes evidências identificando o investidor de risco como um recurso valioso e raro para o desenvolvimento das empresas estudadas, em linha com a Teoria da Visão Baseada em Recursos, bem como contribuidor do processo de internacionalização ocorrido em uma das empresas. O investidor de risco foi identificado como fonte agregadora de recursos financeiros e humanos, capaz de trazer legitimidade às empresas investidas em novos mercados, além de conhecimento e experiência necessários para consolidação e expansão dos negócios.

LES APPORTS DE LA CLINIQUE DU TRAVAIL À L’ANALYSE DE LA « PRÉSENTATION DE SOI » CHEZ LE DIRIGEANT D’ENTREPRISE Cette recherche se propose d’explorer ce qui, dans la rencontre entre la subjectivité du dirigeant d’entreprise et son travail, permet de mieux comprendre ses conduites souvent jugées irrationnelles. A l’issue d’une lecture critique des travaux de psychologie et de psychosociologie des organisations portant sur le dirigeant et des travaux de gestion portant sur son activité, la psychodynamique du travail s’impose comme la référence théorique de cette recherche et ce, bien qu’elle n’ait jamais investigué le terrain des directions d’entreprise. Nourrie de connaissances de gestion et de concepts issus de la psychodynamique du travail, cette recherche propose une approche clinique du travail du dirigeant, soit une clinique du décalage entre son travail prescrit et son travail réel. Source de connaissance du travail prescrit du dirigeant, les textes de management mettent en avant la « présentation de soi » comme l’une des composantes de ce travail. Dès lors, le cadre de cette recherche se centre sur l’analyse de cette « présentation de soi » dont les entretiens menés avec quinze dirigeants et dirigeantes révèleront la triple dimension : agir expressif et moyen de faire face aux exigences de la prescription de maîtrise, forme d’accès à la reconnaissance et enfin, stratégie de défense contre la souffrance au travail révélant la rationalité subjective de leurs conduites. Enjeux théoriques et méthodologiques pour la psychodynamique du travail, apport aux sciences de gestion et éthique managériale sont alors discutés, ouvrant la voie d’une réflexion pour définir une méthodologie d’intervention auprès de cette population. / THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE CLINICAL APPROACH TO WORK AS APPLIED TO THE ANALYSIS OF THE CEO’S “SELF-PRESENTATION” The purpose of this research is to explore what it is that, in the cross between CEO subjectivity and his work, allows to better understand behaviors that are often considered irrational. Following a critical review of the literature of organizational behavior and psycho-sociology that deals with the CEO, as well as of the management literature relating to his activity, the field of work-psychodynamics establishes itself as the theoretical reference for this research, despite never actually having penetrated the field of top management. With its grounding in an understanding of management as well as in concepts drawn from the field of work-psychodynamics, this research proposes a clinical approach to the work of the CEO, in other words a clinical study of the gap between prescribed work and actual work. As a source of knowledge of the prescribed tasks of the CEO, management literature tends to point to “self-presentation” as one aspect of that work. Consequently, the scope of this research focuses on the analysis of this “self-presentation”, whose triple dimension is revealed in interviews conducted with fifteen male and female CEOs: firstly, a means of expressive action and a way of coping with the constraints of prescribed mastery, secondly, a means of achieving recognition and finally, a strategy of defense against suffering at work, thus revealing the subjective rationality of their behaviors. We then discuss the theoretical and methodological implications on work-psychodynamics, the contribution to management science, as well as implications on managerial ethics, thereby opening the way to defining a methodology of intervention for this specific population.

This thesis aims to design a test equipment for positive change the adhesion contact between the wheel and the rail head. This can be achieved by changing the size of the coefficient of friction, which are eliminated negative effects accompanying the operation of the rail transport (acoustic emissions and excessive wear). Reducing friction must not be compromised traction or braking. Equipment ranks among to Top of Rail systems where as medium is used the friction modifier. The study includes an overview of available types of friction modifiers and applicators Top of rail system. The design of the applicator is built based on the off-board system that is placed in front of the arc track with a small radius of curvature.

India’s IT-capital Bangalore is experiencing rapid urbanization causing diminishing greenery and biodiversity. Urbanization contributes to disconnecting humans from nature, further contributing to environmental degradation, since connecting with nature is crucial for fostering pro-environmental behaviour and stewardship which is required for urban resilience. The city’s long legacy of home gardening has been threatened by the city growth, however, Bangaloreans are finding new ways of engaging in gardening. This study gives an inside perspective of how and why middle class Bangaloreans choose to engage in gardening, building on interviews with 24 terrace and community gardeners, and identification of 6 community garden initiatives. The terrace gardening movement emerged during the 1990s, and have now spread to engage several thousands of citizens, growing on their rooftops across the city, however, community gardening is a ‘new’ phenomenon. The motivations expressed by gardeners are, in this study, categorised in motivational drivers and direct benefits. Motivational drivers affect the gardener’s desire to engage and these drivers are identified as memories, cultural values and beliefs, experiences of urbanization, perception of risk and external influence. Direct benefits are the benefits they get from gardening, identified as material, psychological and social benefits. The main motivations stated were the benefits of healthy food and connecting with nature. Terrace gardeners have a strong network and the main platform for interaction is social media, and many community gardeners are also part of that forum, where experiences and knowledge are shared. Gardeners use natural and organic practices and many have a desire to preserve traditional species and methods. This indicates that urban gardening is a way of stewardship of urban (agro)biodiversity and thus requires increased attention, for overcoming challenges related to management and lack of perseverance, and for contributing to city resilience through human and nature connections through gardening. / FOR 2432

Da Gama Textiles, based in the Eastern Cape has seen its sales of Jacquard products being affected in recent years by cheaper imported products. A study was required to enable its senior management to develop a branding strategy for its Jacquard products. In addition, senior managers required information about how to take advantage of the 2010 World Cup. Data collection was conducted in July to September 2009, using two population groups. The first one was bed and breakfast managers in KwaZulu-Natal, with the second one being top ten Jacquard customers by volume in South Africa. Results showed that awareness levels for Da Gama’s Jacquard products are low, although more than half of respondents would be willing to receive literature from Da Gama in the future relating to Jacquard products. Among the top ten customers, loyalty levels were found to be high, however customers were not satisfied with Da Gama’s price levels and felt that designs and delivery lead times could be improved. A suggested branding strategy was drafted, targeting both population groups. A strategy to build brand awareness and brand loyalty levels was suggested for bed and breakfast managers, while a strategy to improve brand loyalty levels was suggested for the top ten customers. / Business Administration / M. Tech. (Business Administration)

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) are persistent organic pollutants used in industrial applications and are globally distributed in the environment. A group of PFASs that are difficult to measure with today’s method are perfluoroalkyl acid precursors (PFAA precursors) that, when degraded, serves as indirect sources of PFAAs. This study has optimized a previously developed method for quantification of PFAA precursors in soil; through total oxidizable precursor assay (TOP assay) under alkaline conditions, to be applicable on sewage sludge. To achieve and maintain an alkaline environment during the entire oxidative treatment, several parameters were tested: concentrations of NaOH, persulfate and sample; additional clean-up with graphitized non-porous carbon and reaction time. Solid phase extraction-weak anion exchange (SPE-WAX) was used for clean-up and separation of analytes, and LC-MS/MS was used for quantification. The optimal conditions with the highest levels of PFAAs detected was obtained with 1.33 M NaOH, 60 mM persulfate, 3.57 g/L sludge with a reaction time of 6 hours. The use of graphitized non-porous carbon reduced matrix effects on oxidative conversion resulting in a higher pH as well as a higher degree of oxidation, but with some analyte loss.