Budgetary control has been used and researched for years by both Western academics and practitioners. In China, it is re-emerging as a tool to implement management control, but might be used in different ways both in terms of understanding and operation. The research objective of this thesis is to examine the applicability of Western theories of change in management accounting in the context of budgeting in Chinese corporations. Challenges can exist because of the differences between Western assumptions and Chinese reality. The current thesis focuses on difficulties Chinese companies encounter in practical and deeper ideological ways: firstly, Western market-based ideology conflicts with an ideology which has been shaped by central-planning for decades; secondly, difficulties stem from the different cultural context of China which emphasizes hierarchical politeness, kinship ties, trust based on personal relationships, collectivism and social harmony, diligence and individual modesty, and less developed modern legal regulatory systems – these all contribute to China’s own way of doing things. This thesis also focuses on the transition process in China. Based on the assumption that budgetary changes do not happen in isolation from other management accounting changes, this thesis discusses these changes which synchronically took place while the case-study companies were implementing budgetary systems. This thesis adopts a longitudinal and in-depth qualitative case study research design, after adjustments made during the learning experience of the pilot study. It takes an interpretive and constructive philosophical underpinning, which allows the researcher to observe and understand the process of change, as well as the differences between Chinese practices and Western theories. Findings show that certain Western management accounting theories of change and Western theories of budgeting work in the case study Chinese corporations. Management accounting theories using an interpretive approach (for example, Berry et al., 1985; Scapens and Roberts, 1993; Ahrens and Chapman, 2002) lead the researcher to interpret management accounting practices from the practitioner’s points of view, and they have provided a range of terms to explain success or failure of management accounting changes. This approach together with Scapens et al.’s Institutional theory approach in management accounting have been found especially useful, in explaining the differences between Chinese vs. Western context. Furthermore, the contingency theory approach in management accounting gives a ‘platform’ which allows the researcher to assess a wide range of possible factors and their relationships with budgetary systems in studied companies. This approach is found useful in this thesis to present changes in other management accounting perspectives. Last but not least, this thesis finds existing Western literature in technical perspective of budgetary objectives, budgetary evaluation and participation, and budgetary effectiveness useful in a different context of China. By describing the change management process, an aspect which is not addressed frequently in the research literature, this thesis argues that to sufficiently understand Chinese companies’ budgetary changes, one also needs to understand unique cultural, social-economical and religious circumstances, and to adjust literature and methodology to adapt to these circumstances. This thesis provides an empirical experience concerning these issues. This thesis contributes to the understanding of management accounting change in China, and the tension which exists when Chinese companies are moving into Western management accounting practices.

Universities around the world are increasingly engaging in activities of technology transfer, intensifying knowledge flows of academic-based research to firms. It is expected that these institutions play an active role in the development of the local economy. In fact, there was a sharp rise in patenting activities by universities over the last years. Moreover, universities have used different mechanisms to support university-industry technology transfer, as for example the implementation of regulatory frameworks and the creation of internal organizations aimed at facilitating interactions with firms. Although prior studies have comprehensively increased our understanding of the ways in which academic knowledge is disseminated, several important questions remain open. In this sense, the purpose of this dissertation is to investigate how university technologies are disseminated to firms, also examining the relationship between idiosyncratic attributes of universities, their regional context and university-industry technology transfer. The essays in this dissertation build on the knowledge spillover and technology transfer literatures, addressing different dimensions of the diffusion of academic knowledge. The dissertation consists of a general introduction, three essays, and a conclusion. The first essay relies on US patent databases, whereas the second and third use data in the context of Brazilian universities. Each essay, from a different perspective, explores dimensions that have not yet been addressed by prior literature. Investigating the dissemination patterns of technological knowledge embedded in university inventions is critical to understanding how and under circumstances scientific research disseminates and is deployed by firms. Along this line, this dissertation contributes to the field of innovation and technology management in several ways. / Universidades ao redor do mundo estão cada vez mais envolvidas em atividades de transferência de tecnologia, intensificando os fluxos de conhecimento da pesquisa acadêmica para empresas. Espera-se que essas instituições desempenhem um papel ativo no desenvolvimento da economia local. De fato, houve um crescimento significativo nas atividades de patenteamento por parte de universidades nos últimos anos. Além disso, as universidades têm utilizado diversos mecanismos para apoiar atividades de transferência de tecnologia, tais como a implementação de regulamentações e a criação de organizações internas destinadas a facilitar as interações com empresas. Embora estudos passados tenham ampliado de forma abrangente a nossa compreensão sobre a disseminação do conhecimento acadêmico, várias questões fundamentais permanecem em aberto. Desse modo, o objetivo desta tese é investigar como tecnologias acadêmicas são disseminadas para empresas, examinando também a relação entre atributos idiossincráticos das universidades, seu contexto regional e atividades de transferência de tecnologia. Os capítulos que seguem se baseiam nas literaturas de spillovers de conhecimento e transferência de tecnologia, abordando diferentes dimensões da difusão do conhecimento acadêmico. Esta tese consiste em uma introdução geral, três capítulos e uma conclusão. O primeiro capítulo baseia-se em dados de bases de patentes americanas, enquanto o segundo e terceiro usam dados no contexto de universidades brasileiras. Cada capítulo, de uma perspectiva diferente, explora dimensões que ainda não foram abordadas pela literatura. A investigação dos padrões de disseminação do conhecimento tecnológico embutido em invenções acadêmicas é fundamental para o entendimento de como e sob quais circunstâncias a pesquisa científica é disseminada e utilizada por empresas. Desse modo, esta tese contribui para o campo da inovação e gestão da tecnologia de diversas maneiras.

Scholars in strategy, economics, and sociology of science and technology have studied technology development as a source of firms’ economic gains as well as institutional changes. Drawing on the extant research of technology and innovation strategy, I investigate the problem of knowledge generation and flows in technology development. Specifically, I explore how firms generate novel technology and develop technological breakthroughs; how knowledge flows between firms affect interfirm cooperation in a knowledge network; and how science and technology programs impact the institutions of knowledge production. In Essay 1 (Chapter 2), I examine the antecedents of knowledge recombination and technological breakthroughs. Conceptualizing a firm’s exploration as a combinatory search of prior new-recombination (an original technology component), I investigate the impacts of prior new-recombination and search boundary (local vs. boundary-spanning) on the characteristics of focal invention. In particular, I theorize and juxtapose the contrasting effects of the boundary of technological search of prior new-recombination on the propensities that the focal invention generates new recombination and becomes a technological breakthrough. Specifically, I hypothesize that, when the technological search involves new recombination in prior inventions, 1) the likelihood of generating new recombination in the focal invention is greatest for a boundary spanning search, smallest for a local search, and intermediate for a hybrid search (which involves both types of search); but 2) the likelihood for the focal invention to become a technological breakthrough is greatest for a local search, smallest for a boundary spanning search, and intermediate for a hybrid search. I find supporting evidence from the analysis of U.S. nanotechnology patents granted between 1980 and 2006. The purpose of Essay 2 (Chapter 3) is to determine the effect of knowledge flows on the formation of interfirm cooperation. By distinguishing codified knowledge flows from tacit knowledge flows, this paper demonstrates that antecedents of interfirm cooperation lie in codified knowledge flows that precede interfirm cooperation. Two properties of asymmetry in directional codified knowledge flows, intensity and uncertainty, underpin this paper’s arguments and empirical tests. The main finding in this study is that intense codified knowledge flows weaken the formation of interfirm cooperation. By mapping dyadic firms to a center and a periphery firm within a knowledge network, I theorize that the uncertainty of directional codified knowledge flows induces the center and the periphery firms to pursue interfirm cooperation differently. The results show that while uncertainty caused by distant technology components in knowledge flows hinders a center firm from pursuing interfirm cooperation, uncertainty stimulates a periphery firm to pursue interfirm cooperation. A statistical analysis performed on a sample of enterprise software firms between 1992 and 2009 supports the hypotheses of this paper. In Essay 3 (Chapter 4), I examine how the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), a most recent U.S. government’s science and technology (S&T) program launched in 2000, impacts the nature of university research in nanotechnology. I characterize the NNI as a policy intervention that targets the commercialization of technology and a focused research direction to promote national economic growth. As such, I expect that the NNI has brought about unintended consequences in terms of the direction of university-industry knowledge flows and the characteristics of university research output in nanotechnology. Using the difference-in-differences analysis of the U.S. nanotechnology patents filed between 1996 and 2007, I find that, for the U.S. universities, the NNI has increased knowledge inflows from the industry, diminished the branching-out to novel technologies, reduced the research scope, and decreased the likelihood of technological breakthroughs, as compared to other U.S. and non-U.S. research institutions. The findings suggest that, at least in the case of the NNI, targeted S&T programs of the government may increase the efficiency of university research, but potentially do so at a considerable price.

Submitted by Emanuel Varela Cardoso (emanuel.varela@ufcg.edu.br) on 2018-09-18T18:49:51Z No. of bitstreams: 1 CATYELLE MARIA DE ARRUDA FERREIRA – DISSERTAÇÃO (PPGRN) 2018.pdf: 10865165 bytes, checksum: fa993acb537bd0108b623d90ec133b7d (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-09-18T18:49:51Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 CATYELLE MARIA DE ARRUDA FERREIRA – DISSERTAÇÃO (PPGRN) 2018.pdf: 10865165 bytes, checksum: fa993acb537bd0108b623d90ec133b7d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-08-20 / CNPq / Este estudo teve por objetivo analisar a efetivação da Política Nacional de Educação Ambiental na Universidade Federal de Campina Grande-PB, campi Campina Grande, visando promover o debate da Educação Ambiental nos processos do ensino formal como determina a Política Nacional de Educação Ambiental. A pesquisa pretendeu despertar na comunidade acadêmica a importância e a necessidade da institucionalização da Educação Ambiental na Universidade, cabendo à mesma, desenvolver ações, projetos, metodologias e práticas em todos seus setores e unidades acadêmicas. Neste contexto, e com base no tripé Ensino, Pesquisa e a Extensão, o estudo em um primeiro momento analisou os fluxogramas dos 105 cursos de graduação da instituição. Posteriormente, foram aplicados questionários com discentes, técnicos administrativos e docentes dos cursos de Graduação de Licenciaturas em História, Letras, Pedagogia, Ciências Sociais, Filosofia e Geografia, de Engenharia Agrícola e Enfermagem, que também subsidiaram a identificação do nível de percepção ambiental dos entrevistados. No tocante as atividades de Pesquisa e Extensão foram analisados os projetos desenvolvidos na instituição no período entre 2004 a 2015, bem como o quantitativo das dissertações e teses que abordaram a temática ambiental em seus estudos. Sabe-se que, deste ambiente educacional, sairão profissionais de diversas formações e competências, e, portanto, faz-se necessário a solidificação de conhecimentos e aplicabilidades dos princípios de Educação Ambiental em sua prática profissional cotidiana. Foi identificado que a Lei 9.795, que institui a Política Nacional de Educação Ambiental não está presente nas atividades voltadas para o Ensino, Pesquisa e Extensão. Por fim, mesmo com o nível de percepção ambiental dos entrevistados atingindo um índice de 93,69%, sendo este considerado altíssimo, a Instituição carece de uma maior inserção da temática ambiental nas práticas de sua conjuntura. Importante enfatizar que, este estudo permitiu uma visualização panorâmica da realidade da Universidade e ao mesmo tempo, demonstrou a necessidade de um olhar institucional mais acentuado na temática ambiental, possibilitando também, o embasamento e direcionamento de estudos futuros que tenham como base o que é preconizado na PNEA. / This study aimed to analyze the effectiveness of the National Environmental Education Policy at the Universidade Federal de Campina Grande in Campina Grande campus, aiming to promote the debate of Environmental Education in the processes of formal education as determined by the National Environmental Education Policy. The research aimed to awaken in the academic community the importance and necessity of the institutionalization of Environmental Education in the University, being the same, to develop actions, projects, methodologies and practices in all its sectors and academic units. In this context, and based on the Tripod Teaching, Research and Extension, the study at first analyzed the flowcharts of the 105 undergraduate courses of the institution. Subsequently, questionnaires were applied with students, administrative technicians and teachers of undergraduate courses in History, Literature, Pedagogy, Social Sciences, Philosophy and Geography, Agricultural Engineering and Nursing, which also subsidized the identification of the level of environmental perception of the interviewees. Regarding the activities of Research and Extension, the projects developed in the institution between 2004 and 2015 were analyzed, as well as the quantitative of dissertations and theses that addressed the environmental theme in their studies. It is known that, from this educational environment, professionals from different backgrounds and skills will emerge, and therefore, it is necessary to solidify the knowledge and applicability of the principles of Environmental Education in their daily professional practice. It was identified that Law 9,795, which establishes the National Policy for Environmental Education, is not present in activities related to Teaching, Research and Extension. Finally, even with the level of environmental perception of the interviewees reaching an index of 93.69%, which is considered to be very high, the Institution needs a greater insertion of the environmental theme in the practices of its conjuncture. It is important to emphasize that this study allowed a panoramic view of the reality of the University and, at the same time, demonstrated the need for a more intense institutional look at the environmental theme, also allowing the foundation and direction of future studies based on what is advocated in the PNEA.

Im Jahr 2009 sind die deutschen Hochschulen für beruflich qualifizierte Bewerber ohne schulische Hochschulzugangsberechtigung geöffnet worden. Der Beitrag fragt, inwiefern sich diese nicht-traditionellen Studierenden hinsichtlich des Studienerfolgs von traditionellen Studierenden mit Abitur unterscheiden. Auf der Basis von Überlegungen zu Kompetenzunterschieden aufgrund unterschiedlicher Bildungsverläufe und der kulturellen Schließung des akademischen Feldes für Personen mit niedrigerer sozialer Herkunft bilden wir Hypothesen zu Leistungsunterschieden. Diese überprüfen wir anhand von Studien- und Prüfungsleistungsdaten von 4.224 B.A.-Studierenden eines Fachbereichs einer deutschen Universität. Die Analysen zeigen, dass nicht-traditionelle Studierende im Vergleich zu Personen mit Abitur im ersten Studienjahr 7,4 Prozent weniger Lehrveranstaltungen bestehen, eine um ein Fünftel geringere Wahrscheinlichkeit aufweisen, das Studium innerhalb eines Zeitraums von mindestens neun Semestern zu beenden und das Studium mit einem durchschnittlich um 0,15 Notenpunkte schlechteren Endergebnis abschließen. Aufgrund der spezifischen Bedingungen des analysierten Fachbereichs schlussfolgern wir, dass diese Leistungsunterschiede in der Breite der deutschen Hochschullandschaft stärker ausgeprägt sein müssten als in dem untersuchten spezifischen Fall.