Thesis (M.D.S.)--University of Sydney, 1993. / Title from title screen (viewed Apr. 23, 2009) Degree awarded 1993; thesis submitted 1992. Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Dental Surgery to the Faculty of Dentistry. Includes bibliography. Also available in print form.

Qatar in the Arabian Gulf is one of many states worldwide trying to improve governance. In 2008, Qatar introduced various ‘human resources management (HRM) practices to improve management of employees. However, there is a growing belief that importing undiluted systems based on other cultures may potentially erode local Arab culture significantly and harmfully. The research project aimed to evaluate if Government Ministries in Qatar can use principally Western HRM theory and practice to manage employees successfully while still allowing them to preserve and strengthen Arab and Islamic values and identity. Some months into the project which commenced in 2006, the State initiated further major reforms and introduced new Ministers and top executive teams in each of 13 newly created Ministries. This created much additional noise in the data making it difficult to separate the effects of wider reforms from those caused by new HRM practices. Given the difficulties of using more conventional statistical analysis techniques, research then adopted a Mixed-Methods Exploratory Sequential Research Design the research completed extensive and detailed research into HRM systems in place in each Ministry. It also collected data and information about perceptions of executives about HR reforms, leadership and management style and other salient factors. The research reached eleven important findings. Among these, the findings showed the people management systems bore much closer resemblance to classic personnel management system. This negated any likely benefits of introducing HRM. The findings also found considerable differences between the national culture of Qatar and that of the West, from where the State drew many of its new ideas for reform. Adoption of such culturally dissimilar systems had the potential to offset efforts to preserve the Gulf’s highly distinctive culture. The work also make practical recommendations with which reform efforts could be improved, though not at the expense of local culture. The thesis completes with recommendations for further research.

Voltage-gated calcium channels (CaV) are key regulators of cellular excitability; they translate electrical information into biochemical responses in excitable cells such as nerve and muscle cells. CaV are separated in three families: CaV1, CaV2 and CaV3. CaV1 and CaV2 typically comprise a pore-forming alpha1 with auxiliary β and alpha2delta subunits. The alpha2delta enhances surface expression and modulates the biophysical properties of CaV. It has been implicated in pain and epilepsy, and the target for anti-epileptic and anti-nociceptive gabapentinoid drugs. Despite its clinical significance, the relationship between the structure and function of this subunit remains poorly understood. Fitzgerald and co-workers recently showed that the N-terminal region of alpha2delta-1, termed the R domain (Rd), is both necessary and sufficient to replicate the effects of full-length alpha2delta on CaV2.2 channels. In order to understand the functional role(s) of Rd and the regions downstream of it, the biochemical and cell biological properties of alpha2delta were explored producing a set of alpha2delta-truncated proteins, in which the delta protein was inserted into an inert type-1 transmembrane reporter protein (PIN-G). The construct was then extended towards the N-terminal of the alpha2delta-1 (C- to N- PIN-constructs). Other sets of constructs, lacking the delta protein, were prepared after successive additions of stop codons (TGA) in the alpha2delta (N- to C- PIN-constructs). The MIDAS motif within the VWA domain of alpha2delta-1/-2 has been suggested to be critical for trafficking of alpha2delta to the cell surface. Whilst the present study supports a role for MIDAS in surface expression of alpha2delta, it is the Rd that appears essential. Mutation of MIDAS reduced expression, whereas the removal of Rd completely abolished the presence of alpha2delta at the cell surface. Examination of the electrophysiological effects of N- to C- terminal truncated constructs (PIN-Rd, PIN-Rd-VWA and PIN-alpha2) on CaV2.2/β1b channels revealed that, in contrast to the full functionality of Rd alone, extension to the end of the VWA domain, or the alpha2 region, abolished typical alpha2delta-mediated current enhancement. Nevertheless, both constructs increased rate of voltage-dependent inactivation, indicating that they interact with the channel via Rd. Thus, Rd appears to contain all the machinery required to support the electrophysiological and trafficking effects of alpha2delta. Preliminary work has generated tools that could be used to conduct competition-based assays to identify the extracellular loops of the CaV2.2 alpha1 subunit that interact with the Rd. Such an approach could be applied to other alpha1 subtypes to determine discrete alpha2-Rd interactions, information that is critical for further therapeutic exploitation of alpha2delta. Finally, the data from this thesis and the existing literature have been used to propose a revised model of how alpha2delta interacts with CaV.

This thesis argues that Roger Fry should, in part at least, be placed within a tradition of British, Protestant, art criticism. To this end I compare his work with that of the leading nineteenth-century British art critic John Ruskin. I discuss the problems both men had in engaging with a predominately Catholic art form, and place their work within a wider British tradition. I consider their personal histories and how they gave a similar interpretation of art history. I explore the work of both men on Venetian art and artists with particular references to Ruskin’s The Stones of Venice and Fry’s writings on Bellini and Giotto. I examine how Fry sought to distance artworks from the culture that produced them and how this affected his view on art history. I compare Fry’s aesthetic ideas with the Theocentric theory of art advanced by Ruskin in the second volume of Modern Painters. Here I compare their respective formalist ideas. I discuss how Fry’s formalism led him to reject Impressionism and champion the Post-Impressionists. I examine the controversy surrounding the 1910 and 1912 Post-Impressionist exhibitions and how they raised the question of the moral value and use of art. I end with a discussion of Ruskin’s concept of the Theoretic faculty and contend that Fry held a similar concept. Overall I argue for the presence of continuity between Fry’s early and later ideas on art criticism and history that can partly be explained by his religious background.

The research problem was to ascertain the effect of providing financial information to employees. After reviewing the different literatures concerned with financial information, industrial democracy, influence, power and social psychology, a model of the various types of financial information and contexts for its presentation was constructed. The model posited that over time an employee. with suitable opportunities for Involvement in decisions and training to understand the financial information, would desire to become involved at a higher level in the organisation with its concomitant increase in financial Information. As the intention was to find out what employees made of financial Information. It was considered logical to investigate their construing of the Information. This together with the difficulties of making the model operational and testable lead to an approach involving the psychology of personal constructs thus reformulating the problem in terms of personal constructs. Previous research was of orthodox experimental design and took an organizational or social view and rarely the view of the individual. Longitudinal field studies were conducted in three different organisations. These field studies were not orthodox in design for the approach was to focus on the individual and it was considered. In the main, more appropriate to use an idiographic analysis rather than the straight-jacket of orthodox (nomothetic) experimental design. It was found that the construing of employees generally altered after financial Information had been provided. The alterations were more profound in situations where some training relating to financial Information was provided. There are that in suitable conditions, employees do begin to understand the financial Information which becomes more Integrated into the construing of employees, simultaneously some employees construe more power, actual and desired influence, and wanted more financial Information. Future research could well pursue this rich area with studies of larger numbers in similar situations receiving more comprehensive training.

There appears to be a lack of research into user perceptions of technology and the office. Five studies of user perceptions of technology and the office were completed using questionnaires devised by the author (Studies 1-3), evaluation of videos produced by manufacturers (Study 4), and content analysis of media articles about computer-based technology (Study 5). In Study 1 eight factors were identified: information-handling, human contact, paper-handling, financial security, communication, technology, work, and health preservation. These factors reflected key features mentioned by respondents and accounted for 80.4% of the variance. In Study 2 subjects perceived that they would choose technology significantly more often than non-technology for document preparation, information management, and communication, and non-technology significantly more often than technology for decision-making. In Study 3 it was found that users and the computer industry seem to share broadly similar views of the nature of the Ideal Office’. However, while users appeared to emphasize an enhanced version of existing systems current developments seem to have the potential to create radical changes in the way people work and live. In Study 4 evaluation of video presentations about two prototype computer systems suggested that user perceptions could be deployed to evaluate the suitability of computer systems for application in different situations. In Study 5 content analysis of media portrayal of the computer industry supported the idea that the perceptions of technology and the office held by both users and the computer industry can also be categorised according to the eight dimensions identified above - thus, showing some convergence between the findings of different studies using different methodological approaches. However, whereas the users regarded all the dimensions as of broadly similar importance, the computer industry as represented by journalists appeared to regard technical details and financial issues as paramount. The thesis highlights the role of understanding user perceptions when evaluating technology and considering office work.

abstract: Throughout generative syntax, verb movement has been discussed and debated to varying degrees. Syntacticians have attempted to describe this unique form of head movement and its constraints cross-linguistically. Pollock’s (1985, 1997) elaborate comparison of French and English verb movement restrictions has been considered one of the major contributions to the discussion. His analysis has led to the general understanding that auxiliaries are the only variety of verbs in English capable of moving to a higher position in the TP-layer—i.e. the T. In order to prove this claim, Pollock and others (e.g. Roberts 1993, Ernst 2002, Engels 2012, etc.) have examined the placement of other constituents—i.e. adverbs, negation, etc. In terms of adverb placement, Cinque (1999) assigns a position for each adverb in a rigid hierarchy. Claiming the adverbs are in the specifier position, this syntactic representation follows the rich Cartographic framework. I agree that adverbs are base-generated in the specifiers; however, I argue that such a specific ordering of adverbs is rather difficult to justify. Therefore, I adopt the scope-based approach, which groups adverbs into “zones” throughout the TP-layer. By analyzing spoken corpus data, this thesis provides empirical evidence of auxiliary verb movement occurring in Modern English. I argue that, despite being considered optional, English speakers move auxiliaries to the T more frequently, which is consistently indicated by the analysis of adverb placement in the TP-layer. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis English 2017

Dynamic capabilities have been widely discussed in the academic literature for over twenty years. Yet there remains a lack of consensus or conceptual clarity on a common definition. The priority for researchers is therefore to pursue further theoretical development of the concept. In addition, most empirical research to date has been based on quantitative research. Qualitative, granular treatment of the topic has been encouraged (see p.44). Accordingly, in this thesis, the data from the main study was collected from in-depth interviews with change consultants, and the emerging theory was tested in a follow-up study using further interviews with case study participants. The data from both studies was analysed using a grounded theory approach. The emergent and flexible nature of grounded theory complements the use of semi-structured interview questions, because both grounded theory and semi-structured interviews facilitate the drilling down into, and the microscopic exploration of, those data which are of greatest interest. I identify a phenomenon in the primary data from the main study, which I call ‘orchestrated stakeholder dialogue’– the purposeful orchestration of dialogue amongst the organisation’s stakeholders. Some empirical examples of this phenomenon are presented. The follow-up study further examines the phenomenon of orchestrated stakeholder dialogue in order to explore: 1) the relationship of this phenomenon to dynamic capability theory; 2) the context of the phenomenon; 3) how it is deployed; and 4) its potential for securing sustainable competitive advantage. The thesis uses an instrumental reading of stakeholder theory in order better to depict and locate orchestrated stakeholder dialogue in relation to the organisation’s traditional boundaries. I conclude that the phenomenon of orchestrated stakeholder dialogue is a foundational, underlying component of the dynamic capabilities concept, which underpins all dynamic capabilities. The identification of orchestrated stakeholder dialogue represents a significant step in developing a conceptual theory of dynamic capability in which dialogue is a consistent component. Further research could build on this advance in dynamic capabilities theory. The detailed depiction of orchestrated stakeholder dialogue in the thesis also represents a significant empirical contribution for strategy as practice. The thesis offers two steps towards advancing the practical value of the concept of dynamic capabilities to practitioners: (i) the organisation is encouraged to use dialogue to map more fully the sources of value derived by particular stakeholders from their relationship with the organisation and its capability; and (ii) where possible, organisations must reconceive and reconfigure the relationships with stakeholders in order to accommodate and harness heterogeneous perceptions of value.

This research sets out to contribute knowledge about developments and implementation of corporate social responsibility. The six papers used in the submission (thesis) bring together different perspectives of corporate social responsibility garnered from empirical investigations of corporate entities in the UK which was originally termed by scholars as CSR 1.0 model consisting of - defensive, charitable, promotional and strategic Visser (2010), Claydon (2011), Idowu and Schmidpeter (2016) and Camilleri (2017). It revolved round the following dominant paradigms - greed, philanthropy, marketing, management and responsibility. It became apparent that there was the need to use a different model of CSR to deal with social and environmental issues of the 21st century Visser (2014). That old model of CSR - CSR 1.0 was originally the strand of CSR which was perceived, propagated practiced and understood by different actors in the field of CSR in the United Kingdom – a country which is an acknowledged leader in the field worldwide Ward and Smith (2006) and elsewhere. CSR 1.0 model was noted to have failed to have any significant impact on many of the most serious global CSR challenges (Visser, 2014). Hence, the need for CSR 2.0 model which is now in vogue became urgent. The areas covered by the studies in the submission are – motivations for CSR reporting by corporate entities, practicing CSR by corporate entities in the UK, corporate secretaries contributions to corporate entities’ embedding of CSR into their strategies and operational practices, using accounting information for decision making purposes in an attempt to promote sustainable development, piecing together in a logical sequence the history of CSR in the UK and the ideological source of CSR. The sole objective of the exercise is to derive a coherent view of how CSR has journeyed through its different stages of metamorphosis in the United Kingdom up to the period of the sixth paper used in the submission (2012). This thesis therefore presents an analytical account of the research projects at different times namely 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011a, 2011b and 2012 which have culminated into the six papers that form the cornerstone of the submission. The research problem it explores is divided into six research perspectives which culminated into the six papers noted in Table 1 of Section 3 and made up of six research questions in four components. In 1987 the Brundtland Report had brought the issue of sustainable development and the consequences of our failure to operate sustainably to our consciousness. Similarly in June 1992, the Earth Summit of the UN Conference on Environment and Development had set what is often referred to as Agenda 21, which documented the United Nation’s plan for the world in the 21st century in CSR terms. At the beginning of the second millennium, the quest to put into action and demonstrate some reasonable awareness of what social responsibility is and what corporate entities and individual citizens around the world should do in terms of CSR had already been put in place around the globe. The United Nations had initiated a Millennium Summit of 189 world leaders at the UN Headquarters in New York to set the Eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 2015. The putting in place of the MDGs 2015 brought about calls for more understanding of many of the issues surrounding CSR a number of new scholars in the thriving field of CSR had emerged. It had downed on this researcher some three years into the 21st century that a number of areas in CSR need more understanding, this heralded the commencement of his studies and journey in the field of Corporate Social Responsibility and all its related areas. What follows has chronicled six of this researcher’s studies in CSR.

Many public sector organisations worldwide have implemented performance management systems to improve performance. Performance management was initially designed by the private sector in Western countries and then adopted by the public sector. Now, performance management has become a global reform also implemented in the public sector of countries in transition such as Russia. A system of performance management has been designed and introduced by the federal government of the Russian Federation in 2007 as a part of the Administrative reform agenda. Success in implementing the performance management in the public sector organisations has varied. The thesis explores the experience of implementing a system of performance management in the local governance of the Russian Federation for the period of time 2013-2014. It addresses a series of questions prompted by the process of implementation. First, the thesis explores the actual process of performance management implementation in the context of the Russian local government. Second, it provided the insights on the attitudes and perceptions of the local authority managers regarding the performance management purpose and implementation. Third, it explores the major challenges encountered during the process of the implementation. Drawing upon theoretical assumptions of the policy transfer theory, institutional theory and the integrated approach to performance management system, this thesis proposes a richer understanding of the Russian local government performance management implementation in practice as it is looking at the same phenomenon from different angles. The thesis employs a single method qualitative case study approach. Data is collected mainly through semi-structured interviews, with support of documentary research and participant observations. Study particularly looks at the local governance of the Russian public sector by using Krasnoyarsk City Administration as a case study. The study gives effect to the basic principles and values of public administration in relation to the implementation of performance management system. The study contributes to the current theories and debate on the mainstreaming and institutionalizing of public service delivery to determine organisational performance by governmental institutions. Particularly, this contributes to the existing body of knowledge regarding challenges encountered during the implementation of Performance Management System in the public sector organisations. It adds to understanding of the public managers’ experience of implementing a performance management system in local government and it contributes to the research in this field conducted in transition countries.