Thesis (Ph.D.)--York University, 2008. Graduate Programme in Psychology. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 89-94). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:NR51705

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Research into the interrelationship between firm strategy and firm performance is fairly common. Not as common is the examination of firm behaviors as an intermediate construct between strategy and performance. Additionally, the construct of adaptability, found in previous research to be highly correlated with performance, has been inadequately examined as an important macro-level construct. This study develops a theoretical model of the interrelationships among these variables and individually tests each of the links in that model with data drawn from the hosiery industry and its experience with the adoption of Electronic Commerce. The use of the Strategic Orientation of Business Enterprises (STROBE) construct (Venkatraman, 1989a) and a rigorous development of an adaptability index are important components of this research. The STROBE construct has been used only twice before for comparative analysis of firm characteristics. Specification of adaptability has been inconsistent and non-rigorous in past research. Specifically, the study model hypothesizes relationships between (1) strategic orientation and adaptability, (2) strategic orientation and firm performance, (3) adaptability and firm performance, (4) strategic orientation, adaptability and the adoption of Electronic Commerce, and (5) the adoption of Electronic Commerce and performance. To assess the model a field study of executives and managers from twenty-one firms in the sock segment of the hosiery industry was conducted. Results of the study point to several important conclusions. STROBE appears to be a useful strategic construct with which to compare firms in an industry and to identify valid strategic groups. Adaptability was found to be insignificantly correlated with any individual STROBE dimension and a potentially useful managerial variable. Additionally, as in past research, adaptability is correlated with general measures of firm performance. Although the adoption of Electronic Commerce appears to be related to specific indicators of firm performance, the interrelationship among strategic orientation, adaptability, and the adoption of Electronic Commerce yielded ambiguous results. Further research is indicated to more clearly sort out these complex relationships. / Ph. D.

The primary objective of this study was to explore the relationship between personality and employability using a sample of 100 employees at a meat producing company in South Africa. A secondary objective was to determine if personality could be used to predict employability, and whether individuals from different demographic groups differed regarding their employability. The instruments used were the sixteen personality factor inventory (16PF) and the Van Der Heidje employability measure. The research findings indicated that the personality factors of submissiveness and seriousness correlated to the employability dimensions of anticipation/ optimization and occupational expertise respectively. Openness and corporate sense were also correlated, with anxiety in particular correlating with the overall employability measure. Differences between the race groups and employability were also noted. Particular interventions aimed at improving individual career decision making and employability practices within the organisation concluded the study. / M.A. (Industrial and Organisational Psychology)

Product adaptability is the capability to adjust a product by adding/replacing its constitu-ents for different applications. To acquire this capability, a product should be a modular structure that can form different modular combinations. The purpose of this thesis is pro-posing a design method to develop such products. The method includes the following characteristics: a product essentially implements its applications by providing proper ac-tions/reactions to interact with its surrounding conditions; such actions/reactions can be used to develop the subsystems of a product by building energy-flow or force-path con-nections; optional modules can be separated from the subsystems that contain optional applications; all modules are arranged as an open architecture to provide space and inter-face for each optional module; and each module is endued with the principal content of actions/reactions, inside energy flows or force paths, space, and interfaces constraints, so that it can be physically formed through a dual-domain formation process. Following this method, a multi-purpose electric vehicle (MEV) is developed. Adaptability Efficacy (AE) is proposed to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method. / February 2017

Thesis advisor: Mary Ann Glynn / This dissertation examines the organizational appropriation and deployment of cultural resources and, in particular, cultural capital (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977), i.e., “high status cultural signals used in cultural and social selection” (Lamont & Lareau, 1988: 164), in manners that account for broader social status dynamics and institutional pressures. I conduct three interrelated empirical studies, all situated in the context of the U.S. hotel industry, and particularly, the luxury market segment. Building from archival, interview, and observational data collected from multiple sources, the first study focuses on the industry level, examining sweeping changes in hotels over time (from 1790–2015) and linking them with shifts in broader socio-cultural sentiments; the second study examines how the luxury segment of the industry sought to maintain its high status by appealing to elite guests in the face of such changes; and the third study highlights the organizational level, examining how luxury hotels managed cultural resources to transform the meaning of luxury for guests and signal status in an age of egalitarianism. Taken together, the three studies offer insights on the cultural embeddedness of industries and especially, how macro-level processes (at the industry level) yield dominant cultural codes and, in turn, how micro-level processes (at the organizational level) deploy and contribute to legitimating those codes. My studies strengthen the theoretical connection between research on culture, status and market adaptation by integrating and extending applicable ideas from cultural sociology (DiMaggio, 1987; Hirsch, 1972; Swidler, 1986, 2001) and by illuminating these with empirical evidence to explain when, why, and how processes of cultural entrepreneurship are undertaken to enable change and adaptation to the market and to society. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. Carroll School of Management. / Discipline: Management and Organization.

This series of projects aims to explore the potential role of strategic flexibility in cognitive aging, and whether this construct can serve as an effective mechanistic proxy for cognitive reserve. Study 1 introduces the task designed for this series, based on stimuli from a classic test of fluid reasoning and formatted as a task-switching paradigm to explore strategic characteristics in a structured way. This study suggests that such a task is subject to age-related effects. Study 2 introduces a redesigned version of this task, matching it more closely to existing paradigms of task-switching, and explores how covariates interact with measured performance. Study 3 draws upon an existing sample of extensive neuropsychological and neuroimaging data, and aims to describe the associations among this set of data and measures of strategic flexibility. Results overall indicate that age negatively affects strategic flexibility, but cognitive reserve may mitigate this impairment.

O trabalho, composto de quatro experimentos, teve como objetivo geral avaliar a tolerância ao calor em ovinos, sua relação com a coloração do pelame e a presença ou ausência de lã em ovelhas de raças lanadas e deslanadas. Os experimentos foram conduzidos no Instituto de Zootecnia, localizado em Nova Odessa, Estado de São Paulo (22º42\'S e 47º18\'W, 570m de altitude). Nos primeiros três experimentos, avaliaram-se 83 ovelhas, das raças Santa Inês (31), Morada Nova (15), Texel (14), Suffolk (11) e Ile de France (12). O índice de tolerância ao calor (ITC) foi calculado pela fórmula 10 - (TR2 - TR1), através das temperaturas retais registradas às 13h (TR1), após duas horas em descanso na sombra, e às 15h, após uma hora de exposição à radiação solar direta e uma hora de descanso à sombra (TR2). No quarto experimento, 90 ovelhas, 18 de cada raça, foram avaliadas quanto à temperatura retal (TR) e freqüência respiratória (FR) às 8h, 13h (após duas horas em descanso à sombra), 14h (após uma hora de exposição ao sol), e depois a cada 15 minutos, na sombra, até às 15h, originando quatro TR2 para cálculo dos índices. Verificou-se que não houve diferença na tolerância ao calor entre animais da raça Santa Inês de pelagem clara e escura. A raça Texel (lanada) teve menor variação de temperatura entre os dois horários, e obteve melhor índice de tolerância ao calor (P<0,05) do que a raça deslanada Morada Nova. Ovelhas das raças Suffolk e Ile de France tiveram altos índices de tolerância ao calor, independente do fato de estarem ou não tosquiadas. No experimento 4, ovelhas da raça Santa Inês tiveram TR inferiores (P<0,05) à TR de algumas raças lanadas, às 13h, 14h, 14h30min e 14h45min. Em todas as raças, não houve diferença (P>0,05) entre as TR medidas às 8h e 13h, assim como não foram encontradas diferenças (P>0,05) entre elas quanto à TR da manhã e aos 60 min após o estresse (15h). As ovelhas deslanadas tiveram FR inferiores (P<0,05) às lanadas. Não houve diferença (P>0,05) entre o ITC calculado com base na TR2 aos 45 e 60 min pósestresse. Concluiu-se que o tempo de registro da TR2 para a espécie ovina pode ser antecipado de 60 para 45 minutos após o estresse, e que as ovelhas avaliadas estão adaptadas ao clima do Estado de São Paulo. / This study consisted of 4 experiments and had as main goal evaluate the heat tolerance in ewes, and its relation to hair color and presence or absence of wool in wool and hair breeds. The experiments were conducted at the Instituto de Zootecnia, located in Nova Odessa city, São Paulo State, Brazil (22º42\'S e 47º18\'W, 570m altitude). Three experiments evaluated 83 ewes of the following breeds: (31) Santa Inês; (15) Morada Nova; (14) Texel; (11) Suffolk and (12) Ile de France. The heat tolerance index is calculated on the formula 10 - (RT2 - RT1) through data on rectal temperatures (RT) as follows: RT1 at 13:00h, after 2 hours of rest in the shade and RT2 at 15:00h, after na hour of sun exposure and one hour of rest in the shade. The fourth experiment examined a 90 ewe flock, consisted of 18 ewes of each breed, which were evaluated for rectal temperature (RT) and respiratory frequency (RF) as follows: 8:00h, 13:00h (after 2 hour shade rest); 14:00h (after one hour sun exposure) and in the shade, every 15 minutes till the hour; which provided four RT2 for the index. There was no heat tolerance difference between light or dark hair colored Santa Ines. Texel ewes (wool breed) presented the lowest variation of temperature between the two timeframes and had best heat tolerance index (P<0,05) than the hair breed Morada Nova. Suffolk and Ile de France ewes had high heat tolerance index values, irrespective of having been sheared or not. In the fourth experiment, Santa Inês ewes presented lower RT (P<0,05), than some wool breeds at 13:00h, 14:00h, 14:30h and 14:45h. In all breeds, there was no difference (P>0,05) between the RT values taken at 8h and 13h. In addition, no significant differences (P>0,05) were found among the breeds between the RT values recorded in the morning and the RT taken 60min after heat stress (15h). The hair breeds presented lower RF (P<0,05) than the wool breeds. No difference was found amongst the heat tolerance indexes based on RT2 at 45 and 60min after stress. It was concluded that the registering time of RT2 for sheep can be advanced from 60 to 45 min after stress, and that the ewes in the experiment are all adapted to São Paulo State\'s weather.

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The high prevalence of compulsive-like behaviours in normal childhood suggests that these behaviours may play an important role in development. Furthermore, the similarities between the typical compulsive behaviours of childhood and the clinically significant behaviours that characterise Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) suggest that these two phenotypes may share similar neuropsychological profiles. In this study, two theories are investigated; one, that the neuropsychological deficits attributed to the pathogenesis of OCD also play a role in the manifestation of typical compulsive behaviours of childhood. Two, that compulsive behaviour supports the advancement of adaptive behaviour. / The participants were 48 elementary school children (19 males) between the ages of 72 and 152 months (M= 106.5, SD = 24.49). Parents rated the frequency of typical compulsive behaviour on the Childhood Routines Inventory (CRI; Evans et al., 1997). Adaptive behaviour was assessed with the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales---Survey Form (VABS; Sparrow, Balla, & Cicchetti, 1984). The measure of set shifting was the manual 64-card version of the Wisconsin Card Sort Task (WCST; Kongs, Thompson, Iverson, & Heaton, 1981). Response inhibition was tested with the Conners' Continuous Performance Test (CPT; Conners, 2000) and the Tapping Test (Diamond & Taylor, 1996). Stepwise multiple regressions were performed to examine the relationships amongst variables of interest. The participants were later divided into three groups (seven years and younger, seven to ten years, ten years and older) to examine relationships by age. Adaptive behaviour and response inhibition were predictive of levels of typical compulsive behaviour across the age range. Together, coping skills and play and leisure skills as assessed on the VABS emerged as the most important predictors of the repetitive compulsive behaviours. Response latency on the tapping task was the strongest predictor of increased levels of just right compulsive behaviour. Set shifting did not predict levels of compulsive behaviour although positive correlations were found in the youngest group. Overall, the data support the notions that clinical OCD and the typical compulsive and ritualistic behaviour of childhood share similar neuropsychological profiles, and that compulsive behaviour in childhood supports the development of increasingly advanced adaptive behaviour.