Written with a contemporary European context of economic, social and reproductive crisis in mind, this thesis presents research about, from and for social movements that struggle against precarity, austerity and capitalist accumulation. Based on accounts and analyses of feminist-autonomist militant practice and networks, this research project revolves around two terms: care and creativity. It maps out a historical-genealogical shift from a paradigm of creativity (reflected in neoliberal governance as well as in social movements of the decades before and after the millenium) to one oriented around care (reflected in the neo-communitarian policy as well as practices of commoning that arise with social and economic crisis in Europe). Structured into three broad sections on work, organisation and governance, the questions at stake here revolve around the possibilities and imaginaries of politics that affirm care and creativity in relation to one another. On the level of work, this means struggles within and against precarity, reproductive and illegalized work; on the level of organisation, it means relating the figure of the network to that of the care chain and the family, confronting new transnational forms of alliance and care; and on the level of governance, it is the relation between neoliberalism and its new communitarian forms that is in question. What the collectives, campaigns and networks constituting the ‘field’ of this research have in common is that they re-think the contemporary relations between autonomy and heteronomy, the global and the situated, as well as macro- and micropolitics. Dwelling on collective experiences and knowledges, this investigation takes care to articulate the dimensions of subjectivity, relation and association with those of economy and governance. Concerned and engaged with contexts of struggle and commoning in the face of crisis politics, precarity and dispersed sociality, a methodology of militant participatory-action research serves to map out contexts of practice in Spain, the UK and Argentina as of 2010-2013.

This thesis is a phenomenology of understanding in the context of development practice in East Africa. It is framed by stories of my life and work, experiences rooted in European traditions and provoked and expanded in encounter with African traditions. My question began with methods for dealing with poverty and suffering. Even with all my goodwill and education and the might of large institutions behind me, I found myself part of a series of analytical interventions that seemed to make the problem worse. Yet I would like to contribute to a world where people live together well. This thesis is the story of how I laid siege to this conundrum, working on it from various angles until I saw development intervention for the incoherent prejudice that it was. How could something as co-operative as living well with others be achieved by something so domineering as methodical intervention? Western development consciousness has not noticed that other cultures cannot and will not bear such hubris. So I questioned the notion that a good method (or a good institution, analytical technique or moral code) is the first requirement for fair co-existence. Development, I realised, is conversations that we join, not instructions that we give. I asked instead how I and others come to agree, a question that many people in my profession have never asked. In a close examination of the way I have come to understandings in my own life, I draw on the work of German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer. His philosophical hermeneutics bring together multiple aspects of understanding: its consciousness, historicity, eventfulness, and linguistic and conversational nature. With the help of African thinkers, I gain more perspective - I take part in understandings that are held, provoked and renewed in conversation across time, geography and entire societies. Through the journey represented by this thesis I have come to understand that understanding speaks the world, its history, diversity and potential. I have come to know that from understanding comes method, not the other way around. It is an insight that has profound implications for those of us who work in the development field.

Capacity, the emergent combination of attributes that enables a human system to create developmental value (Morgan, 2006, 2008), is the point of arrival of an inquiry journey through a personal territory and the Portuguese non-profit world. Inspired by the metaphor of the Portuguese golden age of the maritime discoveries, and by Action Research, in line with Reason and Bradbury’s notion of inquiry into the “quality in our acting” (Reason and Bradbury, 2001), the author defies several borders in her exploration of answers to the question of “how to build capacity?”. This multi-level question is unfolded in three – the individual, the non-profit organisations and the society, in a journey that find points of connection. The author defies the border of her worldviews, embracing a participatory worldview that offers her an extended epistemology, which she explores in its multiple-level understanding of knowing comprised of experiential, practical, propositional and presentational knowing, in a process of personal and professional development in a concrete project – the Acreditar project. Through stories, another border the author defies, meaning is explored through layers of personal reflections and through shared meanings in a Learning History developed by the Acreditar team members. The stories presented are a result of a commitment to highlight the learning in capacity-building endeavours. In a particular story, and in a twist of irony, the learning emerges from an experience of dis-capacity. But that experience would serve as the departing basis for another re-start the author initiates, in a process of forgiveness that acknowledges the past as irreversible but redeemable. It is my intention to engage you in this journey from the beginning, and I hope this is also a useful journey for you. Ultimately its account is here to serve as basis for further dialogue I would be very glad to engage with you.

This thesis seeks to elaborate the inner qualities of integrity and presence in professional practice. It is offered as a contribution to the growing body of literature that shifts the emphasis in professional development from the transfer of skills and knowledge to the transformation of practice. Professional education has been viewed as the acquisition of the knowledge and skills required to address the presenting problems of daily practice. It has been assumed that the answers to these problems can be identified, codified and passed on to others, resulting in a kind of professionalism by protocol. But, as Dreyfus & Dreyfus (2005) have pointed out, there is a qualitative shift in the practice of experts when compared to novices and beginners. The expert evidences a deliberative skill that does not rely on the application of protocols but on extensive case by case experience. Indeed professionalism may be understood as the quality of practice that is evident at the very moment when protocols no longer apply (Coles 2002).Professional practice is not a simple concept as Kemmis (2006) has shown. The thesis contributes to this field by suggesting that professionalism is acquired through prolonged inquiry into the contingencies of quotidian practice and that this shapes the inner qualities the practitioner brings to their practice. It is offered as a first person inquiry (Reason 2001) that probes fractals of my own professional practice over a five year period. In telling my personal story, I give an account of an emergent methodology that engages with action research and narrative inquiry. A narrative mode of knowing (Bruner 1986) notices the complex, many sided and sometimes conflicting stories of professional life resulting, not in a set of propositional claims, but in an account that provides the reader with the imaginal space to enter the process and participate, with me, in making sense of professional practice.

The Ilford Carnival was a procession of costumed individuals and decorated vehicles held annually in this then outer-lying London suburb between 1905 and 1914 to raise funds for establishing a local hospital. This thesis utilises the carnival to provide an insight into how different suburban organisations and social groups came together in a particular performance of community. It argues that the carnival's administrative body, and other organisations involved, provided opportunities for inclusion and social capital attainment. It also demonstrates how a local culture of voluntary action provided the basis of a large-scale charitable initiative with an ethos of communal self-help. The suburban setting demonstrates the continued relevance of carnival, originating in the premodern ritual year, within a modern urban environment. In the wake of Ilford's drastic expansion, the carnival's annual recurrence provided reassuring familiarity, and an opportunity for inversionary performances, with the carnival's philanthropic rationale providing a justification for what might have otherwise been seen as transgressive. The thesis illustrates that the procession functioned as a suburban public sphere. Performances throughout operated between poles of artifice and sincerity, with dominant ideals about national and imperial identity, or class and gender roles, being projected through acts of dressing up, while such ideals were both transgressed and upheld through practices like crossdressing and blackface. The suburb too was reimagined, as both rural idyll and metropolitan tourist attraction. It also highlights how the carnival's timing, structure and content were impinged upon and influenced by expanding cultural industries, with the carnival commodified by participating businesses and media, but also appropriating fundraising models and imagery from commercialised formats like sport and theatre, connoting the topicality and recognisability that enabled it to compete within the metropolitan market for people's spare time and money.

Investigo nesta tese o problema da unidade épica da Tebaida a partir da hipótese de que o emprego do apelo se vincula diretamente ao andamento da ação. A metodologia consiste na teorização antiga, segundo preceitos aristotélicos e horacianos a respeito da disposição das partes e do todo em um poema, como modo de leitura do corpus e como forma de esclarecer aspectos até então não de todo estabelecidos pela fortuna crítica. Ademais, verifico quais usos do apelo nesta epopéia de Estácio se mostram ou não modelados segundo pré-figurações na Ilíada e na Eneida, assim como no Édipo e nas Fenícias senequianos. Parto da premissa de que o furor constitui o cerne da ação na Tebaida e, demonstrando-a, concluo que a função principal do apelo é conferir unidade ao poema. / In this doctoral dissertation I investigate the problem of epic unity in the Thebaid through the hypothesis according to which the use of appeal is directly connected to the development of action. My method dwells on ancient theory and thus follows both Aristotelian and Horatian principles regarding the disposition of the parts and the whole of a poem as a means of reading the corpus and also clarifying aspects that have not hitherto been wholly established by critics and commentators. Furthermore, I proceed to verifying which uses of appeal in Statius epic reveal themselves as being modelled or not according to pre-figurations in the Iliad and the Aeneid, as well as in Senecas Oedipus and Phoenissae. By demonstrating the assumption that furor makes the center of action in the Thebaid I conclude that the unity of action in the poem builds on through appeal, thereby proving this to be its prevailing function.

Thesis. 1979. Ph.D.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Alfred P. Sloan School of Management. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND DEWEY. / Includes bibliographical references. / Ph.D.

Investigo nesta tese o problema da unidade épica da Tebaida a partir da hipótese de que o emprego do apelo se vincula diretamente ao andamento da ação. A metodologia consiste na teorização antiga, segundo preceitos aristotélicos e horacianos a respeito da disposição das partes e do todo em um poema, como modo de leitura do corpus e como forma de esclarecer aspectos até então não de todo estabelecidos pela fortuna crítica. Ademais, verifico quais usos do apelo nesta epopéia de Estácio se mostram ou não modelados segundo pré-figurações na Ilíada e na Eneida, assim como no Édipo e nas Fenícias senequianos. Parto da premissa de que o furor constitui o cerne da ação na Tebaida e, demonstrando-a, concluo que a função principal do apelo é conferir unidade ao poema. / In this doctoral dissertation I investigate the problem of epic unity in the Thebaid through the hypothesis according to which the use of appeal is directly connected to the development of action. My method dwells on ancient theory and thus follows both Aristotelian and Horatian principles regarding the disposition of the parts and the whole of a poem as a means of reading the corpus and also clarifying aspects that have not hitherto been wholly established by critics and commentators. Furthermore, I proceed to verifying which uses of appeal in Statius epic reveal themselves as being modelled or not according to pre-figurations in the Iliad and the Aeneid, as well as in Senecas Oedipus and Phoenissae. By demonstrating the assumption that furor makes the center of action in the Thebaid I conclude that the unity of action in the poem builds on through appeal, thereby proving this to be its prevailing function.

In capital-intensive organizations formed to plan new infrastructure development projects, the promoter of the project (as a single organization or as part of a coalition) rarely controls all of the critical resources required to achieve the system-level goal. Instead, the direct control of interdependent resources is diffused across multiple legally independent stakeholders (Lundrigan, Gil and Puranam, 2015). As such, the core structure in these so-called 'megaproject' meta-organizations is a classic empirical instantiation of a pluralistic setting (Denis, Langley and Rouleau, 2007). In pluralistic settings, the authority to make strategic decisions is diffused across actors with heterogeneous objectives, interests, values and expertise. Hence, to achieve the goal, the promoter needs to cooperate with multiple stakeholders. Since some critical resources are not transactional or measurable, the cooperation problem is not a 'buy' problem. Instead, resolving the cooperation problem necessitates a search for mutually consensual solutions that reconcile conflicting interests. Moreover, this search unfolds without recourse to top-down authority characteristic of unitary organizations. Therefore, the promoter has to play a coordinating role that traverses organizational boundaries to coalesce competing preferences into a one-off plan. Against this backdrop, this doctoral research investigates how designed rules and structures influence consensus-building during the collective development process. We conduct the research by drawing on two cognitive lenses consolidated in two vast bodies of literature that have remained largely disparate: organization design (Puranam, Alexy and Reitzig, 2014; Burton & Obel, 1984; Lawrence & Lorsch, 1967; March & Simon, 1958; Mintzberg, 1979) and collective action (Ostrom 1990, 2005). Combining these two research streams allows us to investigate how to resolve the coordination and cooperation problems inherent in pluralistic settings. Our research method is a single case study with embedded units of analysis. This method allows us to probe deeply into operational details while maintaining the holistic features of the focal phenomena (Yin, 2009; Yin, 2013; Siggelkow, 2007; Eisenhardt & Graebner, 2007). Our focal case is the planning stage of High Speed 2 (HS2), a new multi-billion-pound cross-country railway project in the UK. The scheme is promoted by the UK Government. However, the planning effort has required that the Government share local decision rights for planning choices related to the stations along the route with multiple local authorities. These local authorities are independent, resource-rich stakeholders who are impacted by local choices, and they have deep knowledge of local needs and constraints. Thus, in the HS2 case, organizing for collective action is a prerequisite for achieving the system-goal. Our research presents two major theoretical contributions. First, we contribute to organizational design literature by advancing our knowledge of how organizations can be designed to achieve system-level goals when decision-making authority is diffused across multiple organizational boundaries. Specifically, we advance our conceptual understanding of polycentric systems--a form of organizing that distributes decision-making authority across multiple local groups of independent stakeholders. As such, we illuminate the designed processes and structures that enable the core actors in a polycentric system to integrate effort and reconcile their differences over time. Organization design choices are about designing governance structures that enable and constrain collective action. Hence, we also contribute to the project management literature with insights on the governance of the planning stage of megaprojects. Specifically, we offer a deeper understanding of how to organize an inter-organizational setting to make planning decisions and manage interdependencies with the environment. Furthermore, we reveal that ambiguous evaluations of megaproject performance are rooted in collective efforts to resolve coordination and cooperation problems. Our research is grounded in the planning effort for the HS2 project and thus embedded in the UK context. We, therefore, encourage future studies to investigate the generalizability of our claims on organizing for collective action in other institutional contexts.

目標設定理論已被廣泛應用於組織，以提高性能和有效性。然而，採用目標設定可能帶來偏差行為的潛在性還沒有得到深入的探討。本研究旨在探討框架效果和自尊對偏差行為的影響。實驗穫取了114個香港本科生的數據。實驗的目的在於探索目標設定在性能方面和偏差行為潛在的影響。除了審查設定目標的效果，另外兩個條件是目標達到後能避免處罰或得到獎勵。實驗中衡量自尊使用了一個特定任務的自尊量表（Greenhaus & Badin, 1974）。偏差行為定義為虛假報告（誇大）自己在8個字謎任務中的分數。據推測，框架效果（獎勵與處罰）和自尊（高與低），會影響一個人從事偏差行為的可能性。結果表明，四個條件（盡自己所能，被分配目標，被分配獎勵目標和被分配處罰目標）在努力程度上有所不同，在兩個框架條件的參與者相比“盡自己所能“ 和 “被分配目標“ 的參與者創造了更多的字。此外，誇大的虛假報告的頻率和幅度在框架條件中也更為嚴重。自尊水平之間沒有顯著差異。 / Goal setting theory has been widely used in organizations to enhance performance and effectiveness. However, the potential engagement in deviant behavior when concrete goals are adopted has not been thoroughly explored. This study examined the effects of framing and self-esteem on unethical behavior among 114 undergraduate students in Hong Kong. It aimed to underscore the potential pitfalls of goal setting in terms of performance and ethical tradeoffs. Apart from examining the effects of the mere presence of a goal, two other conditions are framed as either offering a reward for goal attainment or a punishment in the case of failure. Self-esteem was measured by an adapted task specific self-esteem scale (Greenhaus & Badin, 1974). Unethical behavior was operationalized as the number of false reporting (overstatement) in completing a series of anagram tasks across eight trials. It was hypothesized that framing (reward versus punishment) and self-esteem (high versus low) would affect the extent to which one engages in unethical behavior. Results showed that the four conditions (do your best, assigned goal, assigned goal with reward and assigned goal with punishment) differed in effort levels; participants in the two framing conditions created more words compared to the “do your best“ and “assigned goal“ conditions. In addition, overstatement of results was also more prevalent among the framing conditions in terms of frequency and magnitude. No differences were found across self-esteem levels. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Lau, Ka Yan Stephanie. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2013. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 42-50). / Abstracts also in Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / 摘要 --- p.ii / Acknowledgements --- p.iii / List of Tables --- p.vi / List of Figures --- p.vii / Chapter Chapter 1: --- Introduction --- p.1 / Goal Setting Theory and Demonstrated Effort --- p.2 / Workplace Deviance --- p.4 / Goal Setting and Unethical Behavior --- p.5 / Goal Framing and Demonstrated Effort --- p.7 / Goal Framing and Unethical Behavior --- p.10 / Self-esteem and Demonstrated Effort --- p.13 / Self-esteem and Unethical Behavior --- p.15 / Overview of Hypotheses --- p.18 / Chapter Chapter 2: --- Method --- p.19 / Measurements --- p.19 / Participants --- p.19 / Procedures --- p.20 / Ensuring Anonymity --- p.22 / Chapter Chapter 3: --- Results --- p.23 / Effort level: goal conditions and self-esteem effects --- p.23 / Overstatement: goal conditions and self-esteem effects --- p.25 / Goal Proximity and Unethical Behavior --- p.28 / Chapter Chapter 4: --- Discussion --- p.30 / Goal Conditions and Demonstrated Effort --- p.30 / Self-esteem and Demonstrated Effort --- p.31 / Goal Conditions and Unethical Behavior --- p.32 / Self-esteem and Unethical Behavior --- p.34 / Goal Proximity and Unethical Behavior --- p.35 / Chapter Chapter 5: --- Limitations and Future Directions --- p.37 / Chapter Chapter 6: --- Conclusion --- p.40 / References --- p.42 / Appendix --- p.51