The aim of this study was to examine personal running histories of one successful and one less successful Swedish female runner. The focus was on finding the motivating and demotivating factors in becoming a runner, and major differences between the successful and the less successful runner. The theoretical frameworks- transtheoretical model and selfdetermination theory- were used as guides when conducting two narrative interviews. Data analysis was based on the recommendations of the Narrative Oriented Inquiry (NOI) model. Sjuzet and fabula, holistic content and categorical content analyses were the three analyses chosen out of the six recommended in the NOI model. The holistic content analysis resulted in narratives about each participant life background and previous training, personal history to become a runner, and present time and future plans for running. The categorical-content analysis revealed eight motivating factors for running, four demotivating factors for running and three themes contrasting the participants. Results are discussed in relation to the theoretical frameworks and previous research.

Objective: The substantial prevalence of HIV in Africa underscores the urgent need for effective HIV prevention programs. This paper reports the results of an effectiveness trial for the I Choose Life-Africa (ICL) HIV prevention program carried out among Kenyan university students.Methods: Longitudinal data was analyzed from182 student volunteers, randomized to an intervention or control group. The intervention group received training as HIV prevention peer educators with a 32 hour theoretically based curriculum. All students were given a pretest survey assessing HIV related attitudes, intentions, knowledge and behaviors and repeated the survey 3 times over the next 6 months. Data was analyzed using Linear Mixed Models (LMM) or Generalized Linear Models (GLM) to compare the rate of change on 13 dependent variables that examined sexual risk behavior (broadly defined). Monitoring data on the types of HIV prevention messages delivered by the peer educators was obtained.Results: Based on multi level models, the slope coefficients for 4 variables showed small but reliable change in the hoped for direction: abstinence from oral, vaginal, or anal sex in the last two months, condom attitudes, HIV testing, and refusal skill. The intervention demonstrated evidence of non-zero slope coefficients in the hoped for direction on 12 of 13 dependent variables. Trained peer educators delivered HIV prevention messages in a one- to- one format 1,862 times and reached 1,819 students through small group sessions. Messages were delivered at larger group thematic sessions that were attended by a total of 5,970 persons. Condom distribution projects resulted in 3,742 male and 796 female condoms being distributed, and 268 individuals were referred for HIV testing.Conclusion: The ICL peer education training appears effective in reducing sexual risk behavior and training students to promote HIV prevention messages.

Almost half of Americans between 17 and 24 years of age are enrolled in higher education. College is an important life transition period when many young adults establish independence and adopt lasting behavior patterns, especially with regard to diet and physical activity. The first years of college are often associated with weight gain therefore making weight loss and weight gain prevention interventions necessary in this population. Behavioral weight loss programs (BWLP) have shown to be effective in adults, however, to our knowledge, there have been no reports of BWLP focused solely on college-aged young adults. This study compared a 10-week online behavioral weight loss program to a 10-week face-to-face program on the main outcomes of weight loss, change in body fat percentage, and change in physical activity among college students. Correlates of weight loss including self-monitoring, social support, attendance, selfefficacy, and motivation were also examined. Results showed motivation decreased over time, motivation was positively correlated with weight loss, and self- efficacy increased over time.

Health behaviors are triggered and reinforced by a system of environmental cues that only dimly impact conscious awareness. When people try to change their eating habits, they often struggle to break out of the self-defeating scripts that keep them entrenched in undesirable behavioral patterns and fail to take into account the environmental cues that undermine their efforts. By redesigning their personal environments, people can facilitate their own behavior change to promote wellness. This thesis explores the ways in which individuals can redesign their everyday personal environments, from kitchens to desks to cars, to disrupt unhealthy patterns and create positive cues to support their desired behavioral transformation. Research conducted through literature review, surveys, interviews, journals, and generative modeling reveals needs for personalized wellness education, design inspiration, guidance that promotes self-efficacy, and long-term support for prioritizing and managing environmental and behavioral redesign. A proposed web-based tool called Seeds of Health provides an adaptive framework for personal wellness transformation in an iterative, four-phase process: (1) exploration and assessment, (2) planning and preparation, (3) practice and tracking, and (4) reflection and adjustment. The tool is intended to serve as a personal wellness guide, planning tool, and evolving record of an individual’s behavioral and environment changes.

The research presented in this thesis is an exploration of readiness for change within a municipal energy supplier. The literature review revealed a particular gap of the concept of organisational readiness for change in the context of public sector companies with specific characteristics that may impede change. With a high rate and intensity of change due to radical changes within that industry, especially energy suppliers are under increasing pressure to adapt. Increasing forces for change combined with little change experience created an extreme context for the research presented. The concept of organisational readiness was chosen as the research focus with the aim to account for these characteristics and environmental specifics. The work of key authors in this field, including Armenakis and collaborating authors (Armenakis & Harris, 2009, 2002; Armenakis, Bernerth, Pitts & Walker, 2007; Armenakis & Bedeian, 1999; Armenakis & Fredenberger, 1997), Holt et al. (2007) and Mossholder et al. (2000) provided the main theoretical basis for the research. The research objectives were to gain a richer understanding of managers’ and other employees’ perceptions and beliefs concerning Stadtwerke Bielefeld’s readiness for change and key issues for successful change implementation. I adopted a constructivist paradigm with the focus on meanings and understanding using a qualitative approach and a local knowledge case study as the research design. The main element of the data collection was semi-structured interviews with a sample of senior managers identified as key informants, in order to interpret the phenomena in their unique setting. This was complemented by a questionnairebased survey of non-managerial employees’ assessments of readiness for change. The focuses of the applied content analysis were the context and the understanding of the situation as a whole. A striking finding among the management sample was a predominant focus on the rational side of leadership and a lack of acknowledgement of emotional aspects of change and its implementation. While in broad terms the non-management employees generally shared the managers’ confidence that change could successfully be implemented, there were significant and thus enriching differences at the detail level between the perceptions and beliefs of the two groups. The research makes a significant contribution to the understanding of change in public sector organisations. A methodology for change readiness assessment and analysis for these companies is proposed and successfully implemented during the research project. A notable finding was the very different and sometimes contradictory perspectives of managers and employees regarding readiness for change, which demonstrated the value of conducting research within two different groups of organisation members.

In the late 1970s, China’s party leaders realized that China was not able to develop in isolation. Their aim of “learning from advanced countries” also implied bringing change to China on all business-related levels. However, both Chinese and Western practitioners and scholars agree on the inappropriateness of any change approach alien to Chinese specification. To bridge this void, this research directs its interest towards a substantive theorizing upon the Jesuits’ Accommodation approach in China (1583-1742). To do so, Hermeneutic Phenomenology, rooted within the Utrecht School and following Max van Manen, establishes a renewed contact with the Jesuits’ Accommodation experience outside its traditional research environment. Grounded in an exhaustive description of the Accommodation phenomenon along its meaning-units, a reflective analysis into the structural aspects of the Jesuits’ lived Accommodation experience allows eight essential themes to be abstracted. Becoming the building blocks of a substantive Theory of the Unique, these themes summarize all requirements that are reflected in, and/or concern Context, Course, and Content of any Sinicized change approach able to in-culturate/accommodate (foreign) persons|change-agents, (unfamiliar) ideas|concepts, and (alien) approaches|international bestpractices into a Chinese environment. As a result, research into the Jesuits’ Accommodation approach provides Chinese and Western management practitioners and scholars with one new substantive approach to act towards the Chinese Others with thoughtfulness and tact in a fresh and systematic way. Further conceptualized and Sinicized, applying The Chinese Change Concept—The 3C-Approach in a contemporary Chinese organizational environment finally allows to effectively manage change in Chinese organizational settings today.

The SAP Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system is a leading software solution for corporate business functions and processes. Business Process Management (BPM) is a management approach designed to create and manage organisations’ business processes. Both promise an improvement of business processes in companies and can be used together. In conjunction with the SAP ERP system and BPM approach, BPM maturity models can be used as diagnostic tools that allow an organisation to assess and monitor the maturity of its business processes. This research analyses the complex relationships between the three topics of SAP, BPM and BPM maturity models and the impact of SAP on the use of BPM maturity models. This study is based on eleven personal interviews that were conducted with participants with many years of practical experience within the three subject areas. Four maturity models, which feature in the interview statements, are examined in more detail. The results of the interviews are then compared with the documentation of the four BPM maturity models for possible dependencies. The connections between SAP and BPM maturity models have not yet been discussed in the literature. This research illustrates that SAP ERP is a dominant system in many companies and has an impact on the utilisation of the BPM approach. To identify and improve the dependencies within an organisation, this research develops ten principles which any organisation can use as management guidelines to use the SAP system in a more optimised way. Collecting data from multiple sources strengthens the validity of the data. For this reason, a web survey is used to examine whether the ten developed principles are supported by SAP users and process consultants. More than 150 participants took part in this web survey and evaluated the developed principles. This research uses the method of triangulation from various data sources to examine the relationship between BPM and BPM maturity models from the point of view of a SAP ERP system, and to develop principles that enhance collaboration.

The importance of managing organisational culture for the sustainable implementation of lean systems in shared services is of increasing interest to researchers and practitioners. The current state of research demonstrates that companies have failed to establish a sustainable lean system with a virtuous continuous cycle of improvements. People and conflicting organisational cultures are conceived as the predominant reasons for lean failures. This study explains and explores the interdependencies of organisational culture and lean systems in captive shared services with regard to their potential of sustained performance and competitiveness. Hence, the research identifies the organisational cultural attributes and types that are addressed by a lean system, explores how culture management happened during a lean system implementation, and challenges the sustainability of the implemented lean system. So far, research has looked into the topics of organisational culture, shared service organisation, and lean system in isolation. This study is original as it synthesises all 3 topics. As this research places organisational culture influenced by leadership at the centre of its investigation, it critically applies not only Cameron and Quinn’s competing values framework (CVF), but also Martin’s 3 perspectives of culture as well as a synthesis of different relationship frameworks demonstrating the link between leadership, organisational culture, and organisational performance. This study is ground breaking as it critically looks at lean systems and their sustainability through the lens of organisational culture. Drawing on an in-depth case study conducted in a shared service organisation (SSO) of a global service company, this investigation applied a critical realist-based mixed-methods approach with a variety of primary data collection techniques. Different types of secondary data were used, also for the purpose of triangulation. A critical realist approach to thematic analysis was used to identify relevant stratified, institutional mechanisms. By applying a critical realist worldview, this research offers a multilevel understanding of the dynamics, contradictions and complexities when establishing a lean system. As a result, the study reveals that the implementation of lean systems in the service industry is not a linear approach as each instance and stage of culture management is unique. This multidimensional, culture-oriented interpretation, based upon pioneering empirical evidence from a global service company’s SSO, extends and deepens the understanding of the dynamic contradictions and complexity of lean system implementation that both constrain and enable organisational change. Key words: culture, shared services, lean, performance, leanness, lean sustainability, visual management, Competing Values Framework, leadership, mixed-methods, critical realism, culture management, continuous improvement.

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether preschool staff who participated in a previous health project retains the good behavior change, and to explore their perceived barriers and opportunities for this. The study was conducted on a "feel good" preschool and the selected population was preschool teachers and/or child minders. The selected method was qualitative, descriptive, and through the interviews the respondents got questions about their behavior changes and their experiences of this. The result of the survey showed that nearly all of the participants in the study had maintained the good behavior changes and most of them had implemented them in their lives. The obstacles that individuals perceived were mainly time constraints and the opportunities they saw were planning, motivation and positive experience. The conclusion was that almost all respondents maintained the previous behavior changes and they have also understood the importance to be physically active and eat a healthy diet. One of the obstacles that individuals considered to be difficult is when there is insufficient time and all of the participants then usually remove the workout. Opportunities that individuals perceived were that planning is important for the success of change unhealthy behaviorsandthat there is a strong motivation. The individuals who participated in the study are driven and well aware of the health benefits they have gained by maintaining their good habits. During the interview it has shown that these people have a very strong will and faith in themselves. They are also motivated to continue their work so that the healthy lifestyle one day will be permanent and a natural part of their lives.

Overweight and obese women who lose weight prior to pregnancy have fewer pregnancy complications than those who do not (Forsum, Brantsaeter, Olafsdottir, Olsen, & Thorsdottir, 2013; Schummers, Hutcheon, Bodnar, Lieverman, & Himes, 2015). Research findings suggest there are missed opportunities to provide diet and physical activity counseling during preventive care visits. Providers cite a lack of time and resources as barriers (Morgan et al., 2006; Yamamoto et al., 2014). This was a two-group, randomized, pilot-study of 19 overweight or obese women in Central Georgia. Participants completed surveys related to their perception of risk for obesity-related pregnancy complications, readiness to change nutrition and physical activity behaviors, nutrition and physical activity self-efficacy, actual physical activity, and dietary history at baseline, after completion of the study, and at follow-up. Those in the intervention group participated in one face-to-face meeting, reviewed eight online education modules, and received weekly booster messages. The control group participated in a similar protocol; however, information was limited to general women’s health topics. Nineteen women (intervention = 11, control = 8) completed all instruments related to primary outcomes—perception of risk, readiness to change, and self-efficacy. The average age of participants was 28.7 years (SD = 6.35). The average body mass index was 36.54 kg/m2 (SD = 5.52). Women were predominately Caucasian (68.4%) and married (52.6%) with children (57.9%). Most had a college degree (42.1%) or higher (15.8%), and a yearly income between $25,000 and $75,000 (42.1%). Evaluation of completion data, resources, and intervention management indicated that the intervention may be feasible during preventative care visits. Participant responses to exit interview questions demonstrated the intervention may be acceptable for women of childbearing age. Effect sizes ranged from small (ƞp2= .00, p = .88) to large (ƞp2= .27, p = .08) indicating the intervention may be effective in an adequately powered sample. Future research should focus on the further development and implementation of programs that assist with pre-conception weight loss. Providing women with information regarding the complications associated with being overweight and obese, as well as the information or tools necessary to reduce weight prior to pregnancy, may be instrumental for improving short and long-term pregnancy outcomes for both mothers and their offspring.