Payment by Results (PbR) is increasingly popular. £15B-worth of schemes in the UK public sector had a PbR element (National Audit Office 2015) and Payment by Results is widely used in the United States and Australia (Webster 2015). Despite this, there is no framework for target achievement in PbR to guide principals, agents and other stakeholders. In my experience at a local level, this omission means that Payment by Results does not automatically lead to success. The research project explored how to develop a practical framework, rooted in business and management literature, for the effective implementation of PbR programmes in the public sector. The three research objectives of a better understanding of the National Troubled Families Initiative’s geographic and socioeconomic context and target cohort and how success can be achieved both in the programme and in Payment by Results provision contributed to this. The key Payment by Results literature was reviewed with the theoretical framework of Stakeholder Theory and Agency Theory. The case study methodology then reviewed the National Troubled Families Initiative – an eight-year Payment by Results programme launched in England as a response to the 2011 English disturbances - to identify the gaps in the PbR literature and successful provision from the UK and US was then presented as a benchmark of good practice. In order to provide empirical content and support to the framework, I used a pragmatic research philosophy, which was further along the continuum of interpretivism than positivism. Mixed methods mainly influenced by qualitative data analysis led to the ethical qualitative analysis of Phase One secondary quantitative data from the Department of Communities and Local Government – the ‘Troubled Families’ principal – and one agent from the North-East of England to identify key themes and relationships. These were then explored further by ethically gathering primary qualitative data from key stakeholders from another Northeast city, a Southeast county and a Northwest consortium of authorities. This data was then analysed using thematic narrative analysis and thematic analysis. 8 The research findings expanded upon the guidelines for principals considering commissioning Payment by Results provision (National Audit Office 2015) and the six elements of an effective outcome (Webster 2016). They provided a new, sevenstage practical framework for achieving targets in Payment by Results provision. This incorporated best practice guidelines for stakeholder analysis, principal identification, agent identification and the establishment of an Expert Body and incorporated a practical process for successful strategy and operations implementation, delivery, data collection and analysis, and findings and action. The framework can be applied to all types of PbR provision across the public sector. This is something, which renders the research project extremely commercially attractive. The PbR framework will better use scant resources, reduce wastage, generate efficiencies, create additional jobs, return work from the private to the public sector and provide the public sector with a model, which they can market and sell to other providers. It therefore creates a win-win situation for key stakeholders including the principal, the agent, the service users and the taxpayer. Recommendations were also provided to achieve the requisite performance in Phase Two of the National Troubled Families Initiative in Local Authority One and across England.

Within a global context of huge social, political and economic changes, this research explores the phenomenon of female under-representation in senior management in the public sector in Saudi Arabia. In recent years, the participation of women in the labour force worldwide has increased and women generally are continuing to gain professional recognition. Nevertheless, they remain under-represented in management, particularly at senior level. This study investigates the perceptions and experiences of a group of female managers in an attempt to identify those factors that either constrain or facilitate their careers. The women are also invited to offer suggestions about how their career opportunities can be improved. The study is qualitative and it is based on a phenomenological/interpretive approach. Data were gathered using in-depth semi-structured interviews with 28 female managers drawn from three organizations in the Saudi public sector in which there is a high concentration of female employees. The study findings reveal that women in Saudi public sector organizations are marginalized and excluded from key senior management positions. This situation is due to the fact that the women face a number of inter-related constraints, beginning with socialization in the religion-influenced family and education systems, which in turn, generates rigidly stereotyped gender role behaviours and expectations. This gender stereotyping is reflected in the structure and culture of organizations and it shapes the personalities and attitudes of the women themselves. Yet in spite of these constraints, the participants also reported a number of positive factors, namely, access to education, strong family networks, including support from male family members, the women’s own competencies, aspirations and improved access to the global world. It emerged that a complex and intertwined relation existed between the constraints and the facilitating factors. In order to illustrate this complexity and to create a greater understanding of the way in which these factors affect women’s access to management level positions, I have proposed a new framework: the social-institutional system, organization and gender. This study also makes a number of suggestions to improve women’s career opportunities. For example, political actions to overcome gender stereotypes and traditional attitudes, which can be achieved through the education system, the media and ‘joined-up thinking’ between various institutions; professional training and development programmes; family-friendly work policies, and proactivity on women’s part to build networks and demonstrate competence.

Motivated by the problem of crude oil price volatility, this research is examining interdependences between crude oil price and each of GDP, foreign account, gold price, futures price, and also, stock markets. The research was mainly directed at examining the impact of oil price volatility on the economic variables of the commodity’s export dependent economies, with particular reference to Nigeria. However the outcomes provide a framework for extensions and application to the economic conditions of net oil importing countries, other primary commodities, Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) and crude oil revenue management. As the research is motivated by the behaviour of a commodity (oil), economy or share (indices) over time, the study applies time series analysis in order to address the research questions. In examining if crude oil price volatility has any impact on the commodity’s export dependent economies such as Nigeria, chapter 4’s analysis found evidence of oil price volatility impact on the Bonny Light (BL) spot, GDP and also, foreign reserve account. In trying to identify an efficient price hedging mechanism for the BL, chapter 5 found that the West Texas Intermediate’s futures price is able to predict the BL spot. Chapter 6 examined potentials for market efficiency and volatility transmission between crude oil spot and the stock markets of selected oil export dependent countries. The results suggest evidence of volatility transmission in most tested series pairs. Thus, given the examined variables in this research, the overall outcome suggest a widening influence of crude oil price volatility on the commodity’s export dependent economies at large.

Disparities between men‘s and women‘s leadership styles are particularly salient in contemporary organizations in which recent trends suggest leadership styles link to both sex and gender. Some research suggests leadership style is associated partly with sex, and other research suggests differences are attributed better to gender roles. Thus, it is unclear whether gender moderates relationships among psychological mechanisms that produce leadership and its various styles. Complicating the matter is the fact that most researchers conduct leadership studies in contexts in which genders interact regularly. In Saudi Arabia, interactions between the genders are limited to one‘s relatives, though some interactions do occur among colleagues. Most Saudi Arabian organisations segregate employees based on gender since cultures governed by Islamic law commonly separate the sexes regarding institutions, education, employment, and even time spent in leisure. In such cultures, segregation acts as a means of respect and protection from sexual discrimination, regardless of any underestimation of women‘s management skills or characteristics, including leadership. The purpose of this study is to assess gendered leadership in segregated, Saudi Arabian work environments, a context in which interactions between the genders is limited. This study examines leader-member interactions to assess whether gender status moderates either leader behaviours or organisational commitment. Since interactions among the genders are uncommon in this context, this study uniquely explores whether leadership is gendered in the environment. A framework was developed based on both the full-range leadership model and leader-member exchange to assess correlations between the two models and predict employee organisational commitment. This study investigates relationships among both models‘ components, including transformational leader behaviours, transactional leader behaviours, passive leadership behaviours and quality of relationships between leaders and subordinates, and organisational commitment, especially concerning how these components operate in a gender-segregated context. Finally, gender as a moderator was also assessed among these relationships. Data were collected through a quantitative survey from a sample of three-hundred and ninety-six bank employees whose organisation follows a strict sex-segregation policy. The survey consisted of the Multi-factor Leadership Questionnaire, the LMX-7, and the Organisational Commitment Scale instruments. Data were analysed using structural equation modelling, and Partial Least Squares was used as an alternative method of evaluating hypothesised relationships among constructs. Results suggest idealised attributes, idealised behaviours, and developmental behaviours components of transformational leadership correlate strongest with leader-member exchange. Contingent reward, a component of transactional leadership, correlated positively with both leader-member exchange and organisational commitment. Management by exception (active) showed no correlation with leader-member exchange, but correlated with organisational commitment. Passive leader behaviours demonstrated a negative relationship with leader-member exchange. Finally, leader-member exchange mediated relationships among transformational leader behaviours, contingent reward, passive leader behaviours, and organisational commitment. This study suggests the paramount role quality of relationship with a leader plays in the Saudi Arabian context regarding transformational leader behaviours. The mediating role of leader-member exchange between transformational leader behaviours and organisational commitment is attributed to recognition that followers establish relationships in a context in which power distance is high and collectivist values are held. Gender did not moderate relationships among constructs, though non-significant correlations suggest disparities between the male and female groups investigated in this study. Results from this study fill several gaps in the literature concerning gendered leadership in segregated work environments, especially concerning the finding that leadership is not gendered in Saudi Arabian, segregated contexts. Saudi Arabian female managers appear to be as effective as their male counterparts; in fact, they scored slightly higher. These findings argue against a stereotypical view of gendered leadership and suggest an important message regarding the abilities of female managers in Saudi Arabian and other gender-segregated contexts. Saudi Arabian female managers appear accessible to followers through several leadership styles, offering disparate communication channels that encourage multiple avenues to interact with them. Based on the female model, Saudi female maagers were effective in the prediction of LMX using TRFLs, CR and PSVs, while men were effective in TRFLs and PSVs to predict LMX. Also female managers were effective in the prediction of OC using LMX, CR and MBEA, while Saudi male managers were effective to predict OC via LMX and MBEA. Results also suggest that the literature should pay more attention to minimising stereotyping of female managers regarding gendered leadership. Implications, limitations, and recommendations for future research are discussed in light of these findings.

The importance of customer engagement to sustain and foster business growth in an interactive environment has been recognised in the practitioner literature. It has also been observed that engaged customers become empowered in a given marketing communication environment. Yet, there has been very little, if any, academic enquiry examining these concepts within the mobile commutations context. This is surprising given that we are live in an increasingly mobile technology dominated world. Thus, the aim of this research is to examine customer engagement behaviour and its relationship to customer empowerment in the context of mobile communication. A conceptual model is built on the foundations of the technology acceptance model (TAM). This model seeks to explain the level of engagement and empowerment of customers in mobile marketing campaigns with subjective norms, information seeking, perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness as antecedents. The inquiry extends to examining the impact of moderating factors that influence customer engagement and empowerment along with behavioural intention as a consequence. Following Churchill (1979), a scale to measure engagement was developed. Given the positivist foundations of this study, an online questionnaire was used to collect data. Respondents were recruited from several popular electronic forums in Saudi Arabia. Following data collection, covariance based Structural Equation Modelling was employed in the analysis. The study makes a contribution both on a theoretical level and at a practical level. On a theoretical level, a new scale is developed to measure customer engagement. This will provide a basic understanding of customer behaviour in mobile marketing communication. The relationship between customer engagement and customer empowerment was significant. Subjective norms and information seeking were significant to customer empowerment, while only subjective norms were significant to customer engagement. Perceived usefulness was significant to customer engagement and customer empowerment, while perceived ease of use was insignificant to both of them. In addition, behavioural intention was significant to customer empowerment. On a practical level, the developed scale will help to improve customers’ relationships with businesses; as marketers are now able to enhance engagement by providing an outlet for social interaction, for example. Furthermore, a better understanding of customers’ behaviour will help marketing professionals to better segment and target the appropriate customers to enhance their loyalty.

Much has been written about fashion supply chains in recent years pertaining to the offshoring of production and sourcing by the companies in the UK fashion industry to other countries including inter alia Asia, as well as the attendant risks to such activities. Evidence suggests that businesses can experience disruptions from sustainability issues in their supply chains. In addition, there is an increasing focus on sustainability issues in global businesses and the UK fashion industry is not immune to these issues. Nevertheless, consideration of sustainability and its impact on risk pertaining to the supply chains in the UK fashion industry has not been actively pursued. Moreover, little is known about how sustainability issues manifest themselves as risks. Finally, the lack of a sustainability risk conceptualisation hinders the development of a sustainability risk management framework, which is critical to enable global fashion supply chains to survive and compete in a volatile and demand-driven sector. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to explore the phenomenon of sustainability risk and supply chain sustainability risk management processes within the context of the UK fashion industry. For the purpose of exploration, an inductive qualitative research approach and a multiple case study research method were adopted. The UK fashion industry has exhibited interesting dynamics in the last few decades. For example, UK textile and garment manufacturing has massively declined in size, yet the UK fashion industry demonstrates fierce competition and retailer concentration. Therefore, five fashion companies were theoretically sampled from the UK fashion industry. The selected companies were a good mix of small and medium size. All carried out their major operations such as sourcing, manufacturing, distribution, warehousing and customer service in the UK. This enabled the researcher to deeply explore and gain insights into the phenomenon of sustainability risk and supply chain sustainability risk management processes in the contemporary context of the UK fashion industry. Data was collected by semi-structured interviews, supported by observations and secondary sources. Interview transcripts were subject to narrative analysis based upon a social constructionist approach. This research identified seven major factors as barriers and drivers for supply chain sustainability risk management: organisational culture, growth of fast fashion, organisational resources, management structure, safeguarding brand reputation, stimulator of innovation and co-opetition. These findings were further grouped into a supply chain sustainability risk management typology. The typology implies that the case companies need to understand and should have knowledge about their current and potential future key sustainability risk and then need to have a certain organisational design and innovative management processes to manage their supply chain sustainability risk.

This thesis presents three interrelated empirical chapters on the Bursa Malaysia index series revisions effects on market microstructure. In the first empirical chapter, “The Effect of Changes in the Composition of the FTSE Bursa Malaysia Indices on Stock Price and Volume", the effect of re-constituents of the main indices (Big Cap, Mid Cap and Small Cap) on stock price and trade volume is investigated, using a data sample which comprises information dated from the time period between 2005 and 2012. An event-study methodology is employed to evaluate the effects of stock market reactions to extraneous event. I employ short term and long term event-window analysis for abnormal returns using cumulative abnormal return (CAR) and Buy and Hold Abnormal Return (BHAR). Harris and Gurel (1986) Volume Ratio (VR) methodology is used to test for abnormal trade volume. The results provide new empirical evidence supporting several hypotheses as previously studied in the literature. Empirical evidence supporting the Price Pressure Hypotheses (PPH) is found for both additions to and deletions from the Blue Chip Index, KLCI 30. There are positive abnormal returns for stocks added to the Mid Cap Index, KLCI 70 with a persistent increase in volume in the post event-window are observed, which supports the Information Cost Liquidity Hypotheses (ICLH) and results for the deletions support the Information Hypotheses (IH). The results support the Imperfect Substitute Hypotheses in the case of stocks added to the Small Cap index. The second empirical chapter studies “The Effect of the FTSE Bursa Malaysia Index Series Changes on Stocks Liquidity”. In this chapter, the effect of index revision on stock liquidity is investigated. This investigation is important particularly with regard to stocks added to the Mid Cap Index in order to assert my previous results regarding the ICLH as some researchers consider trade volume as an unsuitable liquidity proxy due to the double counting. Instead, a variety of liquidity measures are employed to capture multi-dimensional liquidity aspects. Specifically the study focuses on trading cost and price impact ratio as two different liquidity dimensions. Liquidity changes adapting Hedge and McDermott’s (2003) methodology is used; a pooled time series cross-sectional multivariate analysis of bid-ask spreads and also price impact ratios. Bid-ask spread (quoted), bid-ask spread (effective), Amihud’s (2002) RtoV, Florackis et al.’s (2011) RtoTR and a new price impact ratio, the RtoTRF (free float adjusted) are employed. The study is extended by examining the investability weight change in order to identify the type of shareholders that contribute more to the liquidity improvement. Evidence that supports the ICLH for stocks added to the KLCI 70 is found which confirms the earlier investigation using trade volume. More importantly, the finding support Florackis et al.’s (2011) argument on the advantages of their price impact ratio over Amihud’s (2002) liquidity ratio in terms of market capitalisation bias. Furthermore, the new liquidity measure, RtoTRF, prove to have better “encapsulation power” (at least for the Malaysian stock market) when compare to the Amihud’s (2002) liquidity measure, RtoV. The third empirical chapter investigates the effect of liquidity improvements on investment opportunities, entitled: “Does Liquidity Increase Investment Opportunity? Evidence from the Bursa Malaysia KLCI 70”. In this chapter, the relationship between improved stock liquidity and investment opportunity is investigated in light of the firms added to the Mid Cap Index. The liquidity premium hypotheses (LPH) is examined by testing whether investment opportunities increase with stock liquidity. Tobin’s Q, capital expenditures, Return on Assets (ROA) and Price Earnings (PE) ratio are used for growth opportunities and find a statistical significant increase in those depended variables after the stocks being added to the index. Amihud’s (2002) RtoV, Florackis et al.’s (2011) RtoTR and the RtoTRF ratios are proxied as liquidity measures and find that the firms whose stocks were added to the KLCI 70 had a significant increase in capital expenditures and PE ratio. The findings are consistent with those of Becker-Blease and Paul (2006). Therefore, it shows that the stock liquidity improvements associated with additions to the KLCI 70 affects firm’s investment decisions. For the LPH, it shows that investors demand lower returns on more liquid stocks and, which reduces the cost of capital and enhances growth opportunities.

There have been great concerns among stakeholders on how fraudulent financial reporting (FFR) can affect the reputation of public-listed companies (PLCs). The post Enron era has witnessed many FFR cases around the globe. FFR has impacted many countries around the world including Malaysia, the focus of this thesis. FFR not only causes significant ethical concerns to both individuals and companies but also involves a great amount of financial losses. A survey conducted by KPMG (2014) involving Chief Executives in Malaysian PLCs between January 2010 and December 2013 has found that 26% of respondents who experienced fraud were able to state the estimate of fraud losses experienced, which amounted to RM 2.41 million (≈ USD 0.72 million) on average. Thus, FFR is a major concern for the two primary regulators of the capital markets in Malaysia; Bursa Malaysia and Securities Commission Malaysia (SC). Both authorities continue to refine the parameters that help to ensure rigorous surveillance over Malaysian PLCs (Danial et al, 2014). Effective anti-fraud programmes which include the ability to predict the likelihood of FFR among Malaysian PLCs continue to be important not only for regulators, but also to the nation. Therefore, this research examines suitable determinants of the likelihood of FFR among Malaysian PLCs based on the fraud-risk factors identified in the Fraud Models [i.e. Fraud Triangle Model (Cressey, 1953), the Fraud Diamond Model (Wolfe & Hermanson, 2004) and Crowe’s Fraud Pentagon Model (Crowe, 2011)]. Based on previous literature on FFR and the Fraud Models, this research has identified five predeveloped hypotheses and ten pre-developed sub-hypotheses. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken to explore relevant fraud-risk factors from these predeveloped hypotheses and sub-hypotheses in the Malaysian context. Additionally, interview results have also suggested measurable fraud-risk factors as Malaysian specific results, which have not been tested before. These factors are ignorance and greed. Then, these factors were statistically tested in quantitative analyses (i.e. descriptive statistics and binomial logistic regression analysis). Utilising crosssectional data series, which involve 160 Malaysian PLCs (45 fraudulent PLCs and 115 non-fraudulent PLCs) for a 10-year period (from 2004 to 2013), this research examines sixteen proxy variables on seven hypotheses and fourteen sub-hypotheses. Ultimately, based on panel data models of binomial logistic regression analysis, this research has found a new fraud model with suitable fraud-risk factors that could fit current business environment and corporate governance culture in Malaysia. In short, utilising a mixed-method design, this research has explored a new perspective in suggesting suitable fraud-risk factors to predict the likelihood of FFR among Malaysian PLCs.

<p> The business problem is that some human resource (HR) professionals lack the skills necessary to effectively manage emotional labor (EL) in the workplace. HR professionals are responsible for managing potentially high-stress situations within organizations, yet little research exists that describes what skills help to prepare early-career HR professionals for these work situations. The research purpose of this qualitative single case study is to explore the necessary skills needed for HR professionals to effectively manage EL intensive situations within the workplace environment. This research adds to prior studies on emotional work, organization display rules, the socialization of EL, and the organizational impact on expression and feelings for early career HR professionals. The research question for this the research study was how early-career HR professionals developed the skills needed to manage EL in the workplace. The sources of data included nine early-career HR professionals with three or fewer years of experience, nine business leaders managing business organizations within the participating company, and a review of documentation related to HR skill development. Participants in the research studied agreed to participate through a purposeful sampling method and participated in semi-structured interviews. The key findings from the research study resulted in six dominant themes that were coded in Nvivo 11 qualitative analytics software: &ldquo;experience is the best teacher&rdquo;, surface acting vs. deep acting, reliance on HR, networking for different purposes, learning processes, and emotion regulation training. Both groups of participants indicated the desire for training on emotion regulation techniques and emotional intelligence early in the career of new employees to the company. One unexpected finding was that eight of the nine early-career HR professional participants indicated that surface acting was the selected style and nine of the nine business leader participants indicated deep acting was the selected style for managing emotional labor in the workplace. The contributions of the research to the practice of business may assist organizations in developing training content and additional support group structures for early-career HR professionals as they continue to develop within the corporate environment. The contributions of the research to the business literature will add to the body of practitioner knowledge by providing a better understanding of the significance of how early-career HR professionals experience and manage EL in the workplace.</p><p>

Purpose – Project business represents a large part of the business-to-business sector. The qualitative and quantitative scope of many project networks requires that several supplier firms participate in their development and delivery. Consequently, such project networks are characterized by a great heterogeneity with respect to the participating firms building a service ecosystem. This raises the question of how resource integration for value co-creation can be shaped successfully for all partners, not least because many projects are characterized by sometimes dramatic failures with respect to costs, duration, and scope. Specifically, the different organizational identities provide institutional frames of reference to the resource-integrating actors. As the organizational identities are typically not harmonious with each other, at least partial misalignments of the institutional arrangements that shape the resource integration processes may emerge, leading to imperfect value co-creation or even value co-destruction. The purpose of this thesis is to conceptualize and to empirically investigate the impact of organizational identity as an institutional context on resource integration in B2B service ecosystems. Design/methodology/approach – The thesis makes use of interpretive phenomenology in conjunction with a qualitative case study approach to access the lived experience of actors of different professional service firms who have experienced changes in resource integration into a single B2B service ecosystem. Findings – A conceptualization of organizational identity as institutional context for resource integration is developed and empirically investigated. The findings show a strong impact on the firms’ organizational identities and the actors’ resource integration experience and evaluation. Moreover, it is also very likely that if unmanaged, an at least partial misalignment of the institutional arrangements of multi-organizational B2B service ecosystems would represent a normal and also stable condition.