Economic and other forces over recent years have resulted in the rise, in size and importance, of a group within the business community known as &quotknowledge-intensive firms". These organisations typically operate in such sectors as information and communication technology, specialist engineering and other services, consulting, research spin-out companies, multimedia, advertising and education and, in effect, trade in the development, management and adaptation of contemporary knowledge. They are often small-to-medium enterprises and use new business and operational models drawing together human and social capital, contemporary ICT, technologies and networks to produce intangible knowledge products. This research work investigates the interface between those firms and the commercial property assets that provide a platform and environment for their activities. The accommodation of significant change may hold challenges for such large-scale built assets. However, this work considers that evolutionary change is achievable and will present new opportunities for property as integrated and adaptable business environments, responsive to changing demands. The research methodology involves a literature review establishing key economic, business, built environment and social capital parameters for these emerging firms and their operations. That review is reinforced by both primary data collection from 36 knowledge-intensive firms and by the investigation of four relevant but diverse case studies. To allow this wide body of information to be distilled, a Delphi process, using a panel of ten experts, has been successfully applied to prioritise the demand drivers for start-up, established and mature knowledge-intensive firms in the South East Queensland environment. Consensus was secured after four rounds. These outcomes have been again tested against the four previous case studies and a further case study not previously investigated. Conclusions establish that these firms do have priority requirements in their demands for commercial property and that such demands evolve as firms progress through their various stages of development. Overall, firms through all development stages were strongly influenced in locational decisions by business plans parameters, the importance of attracting quality staff, and the provision of an office environment most conducive to the performance of these individuals and teams. Only in the early, start-up stage was accommodation cost a determining factor. Further, the research establishes that significant opportunities exist for the development sector, particularly in the re-use of older buildings and in the creation of clusters. To achieve this, however, new approaches to development and asset and property management may be required. As a result of this research, it is anticipated that asset owners and managers will be better able to align both new and existing commercial buildings to these emerging demands and opportunities.

The concept of sustainable development is increasingly common within international and national policy documents. Operationalising this concept has however proven to be problematic. The dissertation presents an explanatory model, which identifies that while economic factors are important within decision-making, ethical motivations are also changing the way firms operate. In response to a collective expression of environmentalism within society, government and industry, and proactive firms have begun incorporating sustainable development into decision-making. However, the organisational change necessary to implement these measures is identified as a complex process, dependant upon a strong organisational culture. Tourism agencies support the concept of sustainable development, citing a symbiotic relationship between product quality and the environment. However, with tourism numbers projected to double within the next 20 years, some question Australia’s capacity to maintain enduring environmental quality and to service the infrastructure demands of residents and tourists. To date, policy preference has predominantly focused on self-regulatory mechanisms that produce cost reductions and have promoted market driven corporate responsibility. While these factors have influenced proactive firms, within tourism accommodation this is generally not the case. This is due to the perception that sustainable practice impinges upon guest satisfaction and that evidence of a green consumer is yet to be identified and quantified in this highly competitive and price sensitive sector. The multi-disciplinary, mixed method inquiry process used in this study, employing quantitative and qualitative methods, provided rich data that supports the ethical and organisational propositions within the model. The study proposes that mechanisms designed in concert with critical sector issues are more likely to result in the development of effective policy to improve environmental performance. With accommodation properties tending to be either small or large multi-nationals, it was found that drivers are not consistent over property type, given differing decision-making frameworks. In addition, there was evidence of a lack of awareness of the environmental consequences of tourism and of practices to improve environmental outcomes. It is proposed, that incorporating the concept of environmental quality into existing service quality frameworks, currently supported by strong organisational cultures, are likely to moderate knowledge and performance deficiencies identified within the study.

<p>Many of today’s organizations are striving to find ways to make faster and better decisions about their business. One way to achieve this is to develop a data warehouse, offering novel features such as data mining and ad hoc querying on data collected and integrated from many of the computerized systems used in the organization. A data warehouse is of vital interest for decision makers and may reduce uncertainty in decision making. The relationship between data warehousing and business processes may be used at the pre-deployment stage of a data warehouse project, i.e. during the actual development of the data warehouse, as an opportunity to change business processes in an organization. This may then result in improved business processes that in turn may result in a better performing data warehouse. By focusing on the pre-deployment stage instead of the post-deployment stage, we believe that the costs for development will decrease, since needs for changes detected early in a development project probably will be detected anyway, but in a later stage where changes in the business processes may cause a need to restructure the finished data warehouse. We are therefore interested in which factors that may cause a need for changes in the business processes during the pre-deployment stage of a data warehouse project, the types of business processes affected, and also if there is any correspondence between factors that trigger changes and business processes affected.</p><p>Based on a literature survey and an interview study, general triggering factors to change business processes have been identified, such as needs for new organizational knowledge and for prioritization of goals etc. We have also found that needs for changes more often concern supporting processes than other types of business processes. We have also found a general correspondence at a type level between triggering factors and affected business processes.</p><p>In combination with the results and conclusions presented, we have also identified propositions for future work, which will refine and confirm the ideas presented here.</p>

1. Tyrime dažniau dalyvavo moterys (62 proc.). Savanoriais dažniausiai dirba 22-30 m. (32 proc.) asmenys, turintys aukštąjį universitetinį išsilavinimą. Didžiąją dalį tyrimo dalyvių (91 proc.) sudarė savanoriai. Daugiau nei pusė tiriamųjų (64 proc.) yra vieniši asmenys. Visi tyrimo dalyviai (100 proc.) savanoriauja „Kauno krepšinio lygoje“. 2. Savanoriška veikla yra teigiamai vertinama sporto organizacijų vadovų ir savanorių (p>0,05). Visi tyrimo dalyviai yra dalyvavę savanoriškoje veikloje (p>0,05). Savanoriai dažniau nei sporto organizacijų vadovai, nurodo, kad nuo savanoriavimo juos sulaiko laiko stoka (p<0,05), savanoriai dažniau atlieka administracinius vaidmenis organizacijoje, o sporto organizacijų vadovai – rengia ir apmoko organizacijos narius (p<0,05). Savanorystę sporto organizacijose skatina galimybė įgyti naujų įgūdžių bei patirties (p>0,05). Savanoriai dažniau nei sporto organizacijų vadovai, kaip priemonę, skatinančią dalyvauti savanoriškoje veikloje sporto organizacijose išskiria karjeros galimybes (p<0,05). Sporto organizacijų vadovai dažniau nei savanoriai nurodo, kad savanorystę riboja biudžeto limitai, įgalinantys suteikti tinkamą atsilyginimą savanoriams (p<0,05). 3. Sporto organizacijų vadovų ir savanorių nuomone, savanorių dalyvavimas sporto organizacijų veikloje yra teigiamas veiksnys (p>0,05). Savanoriai sporto organizacijoje turi skirtingą potencialą, pateikia naujų idėjų, yra lankstūs dirbti sutartomis valandomis, dėl ko jų įtaka sporto... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / 1. The study involved more women (62 percent). In sport organizations usually work 22-30 years (32 percent) volunteers with higher education. The majority of survey participants (91 percent.) were volunteers. More than half (64 percent.) of volunteers are single. All study participants are volunteers in “Kaunas basketball league”. 2. Volunteering is positively valued by sports organizations leaders and volunteers (p>0.05). All study participants have participated in voluntary activities (p> 0.05). Volunteers more often than managers of sports organizations, indicate that lack of time is keeping them from volunteering (p <0.05), volunteers more often perform administrative roles in an organization, and managers of sports organizations - develop and train members of the organization (p <0,05). Volunteering in sport organizations, encourages opportunity to gain new skills and experience (p> 0.05). Volunteers are more likely than managers of sports organizations promote mean of volunteering by distinguishing career (p <0.05). Managers of sports organizations more often than volunteers indicate that volunteering is limited by budget limits, what enables to provide adequate settling for volunteers (p <0.05). 3. Managers of sports organizations and volunteer consider that volunteering in sport organizations is positive factor (p> 0.05). Volunteers in sports organization have different potential, present new ideas, ate flexible to work flexible in agreed hours, that’s why they... [to full text]

This research is concerned with the pre-implementation evaluation of investments in Information Systems (IS). IS evaluation is important as organisations need to assess the financial justifiability of business change proposals that include (but usually are not limited to) the introduction of IS applications. More specifically, this research addresses the problem of benefits assessment within IS evaluation. We contend that benefits assessment should not be performed at the level of the IS application, as most extant evaluation methods advocate. Instead, to study the dynamics and the interactions of the IS applications with their surrounding environment, we propose to adopt the business process as the analytic lens of evaluation and to assess the impacts of IS on organisational, rather than on technical, performance indicators. Drawing on these propositions, this research investigates the potential of dynamic process modelling (via discrete-event simulation) as a facilitator of IS evaluation. We argue that, in order to be effective evaluation tools, business process models should be able to explicitly incorporate the effects of IS introduction on business performance, an issue that is found to be under-researched in previous literature. The above findings serve as the central theme for the development of a design theory of IS evaluation by simulation. The theory provides prescriptive elements that refer both to the design products of the evaluation and the design process by which these products can come into reality. The theory draws on a set of kernel theories from the business engineering domain and proposes a set of meta-requirements that should be satisfied by business process models, a meta-design structure that meets these requirements, and a design method that provides guidance in applying the theoretical propositions in practice. The design theory is developed and empirically tested by means of two real-life case studies. The first study is used to complement the findings of a literature review and to drive the development of the design theory's components, while the second study is employed to validate and further enhance the theory's propositions. The research results support the arguments for simulation-assisted IS evaluation and demonstrate the contribution of the design theory to the field.

Many of today’s organizations are striving to find ways to make faster and better decisions about their business. One way to achieve this is to develop a data warehouse, offering novel features such as data mining and ad hoc querying on data collected and integrated from many of the computerized systems used in the organization. A data warehouse is of vital interest for decision makers and may reduce uncertainty in decision making. The relationship between data warehousing and business processes may be used at the pre-deployment stage of a data warehouse project, i.e. during the actual development of the data warehouse, as an opportunity to change business processes in an organization. This may then result in improved business processes that in turn may result in a better performing data warehouse. By focusing on the pre-deployment stage instead of the post-deployment stage, we believe that the costs for development will decrease, since needs for changes detected early in a development project probably will be detected anyway, but in a later stage where changes in the business processes may cause a need to restructure the finished data warehouse. We are therefore interested in which factors that may cause a need for changes in the business processes during the pre-deployment stage of a data warehouse project, the types of business processes affected, and also if there is any correspondence between factors that trigger changes and business processes affected. Based on a literature survey and an interview study, general triggering factors to change business processes have been identified, such as needs for new organizational knowledge and for prioritization of goals etc. We have also found that needs for changes more often concern supporting processes than other types of business processes. We have also found a general correspondence at a type level between triggering factors and affected business processes. In combination with the results and conclusions presented, we have also identified propositions for future work, which will refine and confirm the ideas presented here.