This paper examines the wage premium to computer use in Sweden in the early 1990’s. I use simple regression model and interaction terms in my paper to examine the effect of computer use at work. Although the data is only one-year cross-section data, my results clearly show a wage premium to computer use in Sweden. There are also interesting findings in my paper by using Swedish data. From the results, I find wage premium to be related to intensity of computer use at work.

Upcycling in today’s society is still relatively rare, with most upcycling occurring in works by artists and product designers. This ‘creative reuse’ is a form of minimising waste products in a more effective process than recycling. This study deals with the design of an upcycling centre and how interior architecture is a framework for the upliftment of the host building in the Pretoria CBD, the model inhabitants (namely waste pickers and crafts people), waste materials and the surrounding environment. Many people perceive the self-starter occupation of streetwaste picking as being dirty and inferior. However, those who practice waste picking usually do so as a means of survival, and can offer valuable assistance in environmental sustainability. Waste pickers are often isolated as a social group – unable to reach higher income levels or living conditions. Ignorance around this informal economic sector has led to a divided and fragmented society, particularly within the Pretoria CBD (identified as the location for the intervention). Finding sustainable solutions to waste reuse and job creation, such as this proposed upcycling centre, which actively engage various members of society (in this case, waste pickers, crafts people and the broader community) is important. This is because such programmes can be beneficial to communities living in dense neighbourhoods, as they can provide the key blocks of cohesiveness and symbiosis for building a prosperous future. The interior architecture discipline is relevant here as being a tangible framework to enable cultural production of new objects, environmental sustainability, cultivation of human capital and a support system for model inhabitants. Waste material and discarded products can inform the character of an interior space, and reflect user intervention with built forms that echo the activity and daily routines within the community. As a facilitator, the interior architecture has been imagined to stimulate, inspire, revive and be perceived as a cyclic journey of renewal. This is the concept which governs the experience, activity and process for users entering the proposed upcycling centre. This proposed intervention of the identified Minty’s Tyres building utilises three theories to guide and inform its responses. Firstly, environmental psychology theory guides the alteration of the building to respond to community and social inclusion strategies. Secondly, adaptive reuse theory informs the alteration of the building in response to the new programme as a form of upcycling and improving the building’s user experience and resource efficiency. Finally, regenerative design theory based on restorative actions and technology is consulted to produce a system that is both efficient and sustainable. The architecture itself (i.e. the physical building, materials and structure) is developed alongside the actual site and ecological surroundings. / Mini Dissertation MInt(Prof)--University of Pretoria 2018. / Architecture / MInt(Prof) / Unrestricted

As the world rapidly changes, the relative competence within organisations is quickly diminishing. Recent research reveals that the half-life of knowledge ranges from two to five years, depending on the industry, with technology-driven sectors in the frontline. Given the fact that knowledge today quickly becomes outdated, researchers estimate that organisations need to allocate up to ten times more time to learning, than they currently do. Simultaneously, studies indicate that a majority of employees express dissatisfaction regarding competence development in the workplace, with only a small portion of invested time leading to actual upskilling. In the light of that, this study aims to explore potential quality issues in the field of competence development within professions characterized by increased complexity and rapid changes. Conducted within a department of a company in the financial sector, this study maps and visualises existing practices, employees’ perceived need of competence development, as well as identifies strengths and weaknesses from a quality perspective. The theoretical framework of the study includes well established models and principles within quality management and competence development, integrated with recent research.  Following the investigation, five quality issues have been identified, including a lack of consensus regarding the upskilling-process, an imbalanced stakeholder strategy, a number of obstacles to everyday learning, time constraints, and a lack of incentives for the top management to lead change. The final chapter of the study presents five proposals of improvement based on the conducted research, aiming to help the specific department, along with other organisations facing similar challenges, in achieving quality in their continued work with competence development.

This thesis explores the skill sets of the current American workforce, the skills required in modern, technically advanced U.S. manufacturing facilities, and the multiple approaches postsecondary education has employed to bridge the gap between the two. Millions of dollars are spent each year educating and training the incumbent workforce without any definitive measure of whether the financial investment or effort is actually providing a return. To illustrate, organizations typically require a projected return-on-investment (ROI) before committing funds to a project. However, the same approach does not seem to be applied when investing in human capital for the purpose of improving the technical skills required of the incumbent workforce in manufacturing. Training efforts and effectiveness are typically measured by the amount of training dollars spent and some form of post-training satisfaction survey. Adding to the dilemma is the fact that postsecondary education and workforce development organizations do not have performance metrics that align with manufacturing or industry metrics. The misalignment becomes more evident when trying to determine if the funding is actually paying off once an incumbent worker completes their training and returns to the shop floor. This project sought to determine if a return on training dollars could be quantified and measured so that industry can discern whether training is value-added or if postsecondary training providers should better align their product with customers’ expectations. Experiments were conducted with incumbent production workers to determine if an educational intervention translated to a quantifiable return on an organization’s training investment. Measurements in the time it took to repair a piece of production equipment were taken and compared to post-intervention times for the same activity to determine if hypothesized improvements actually occurred. Data was also collected and analyzed to determine if incumbent workers’ prior maintenance experience had an impact on the reduction of time to repair the production equipment. The experiment illustrated a statistically significant difference in the repair times for those who received the intervention. The second phase of the experiment that sought to determine if prior maintenance experience was beneficial to improving repair times did not support the hypothesized outcome.

Industrial Revolution 4.0 and Finance Technology are influencing firms to adopt the DigitalTransformation strategy to achieve their long terms goals and remain competitive. Thistransformation is driving an evolution in the way of working in Supply and Finance units andcreating an emerging demand to implicate digital skills and consider them as core competenciesneeded for the workforces in those units. Management takes a vital role in supporting theemployees to upgrade their digital skills and providing them with a culture that facilitates theirefforts throughout this shifting journey. Middle-aged groups of the workforce make a majorcontribution to the labour market, and they are likely to have a higher digital skills gap thanyounger groups. This requires firms to put more focus on upskilling and enhancing the digitalskills of this group to enable successful adoption of the increased interaction with technology.During the upskilling of digital skills processes, the experience of the workforce may includechallenges. It is important for the leaders and human resources to understand the mindsets ofthose employees and their challenges to consider when revising the digital skills learninginitiatives. Thus, this master thesis examines the mindset and challenges of supply and finance employeesfrom the middle-age group of the workforce during digital skills upskilling programs driven byDT. Additionally, based on the finding to develop a framework that can help firms wheninitiating digital skills upskilling programs. For this, an interpretive qualitative study wasconducted. The data was collected through semi-structured interviews and Lichtman 3 Csthematic analysis was used and generated five concepts. Those concepts represent the findingsof the master’s thesis research and are interpreted and discussed with the help of the theoreticalframework of the double-loop learning method of Organizational learning Theory for Argyrisand Schön (1997). The research findings show the scoped group embraces digital transformation and has anopen mindset to change and the ability to contribute, but they also face challenges that are:Incentive and Recognition, Organizational Communication, Working and Learning inparallel, Customized learning programs. Based on the identified challenges, a framework wasdeveloped to support human resources and supply and finance leaders to consider duringupskilling of digital skills programs, to provide a better experience for the digital onboardingof the workforces during DT. This study contributes to the existing knowledge of theinformatics research field. The practical contribution is to help organizations, and humanresources, in improving the digital skills upskilling programs and frameworks, additionally toorganizational learning.

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