published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

CHDS State/Local / Experts agree that the nation's chemical facilities are attractive targets for terrorists. This consensus is due to several conditions. First, there are thousands of facilities scattered across the country that use, manufacture or store large stockpiles of toxic and/or flammable substances. Many sites are clustered together in densely populated areas and are poorly protected. If terrorists cause catastrophic chemical releases or explosions at these key facilities, large numbers of Americans will be put at risk of injury or death. Second, such attacks may also have a devastating impact on the U.S. economy because so many other industries are dependent on a properly functioning chemical sector. Surprisingly in light of these risks, most chemical sites have not implemented sufficient measures to prevent, mitigate, deter, and/or respond to terrorist attacks. Although governmental entities (local, state and federal) and the chemical industry have initiated some safeguards, they only apply to a limited number of chemical facilities. The vast majority is still not adequately prepared for terrorism. This thesis proposes that private and public sectors should partner together to improve the preparedness of the chemical industry for terrorist acts. More specifically, key stakeholders from both sectors need to forge Regional Defense Units (RDUs). Their primary purpose is to effectively reduce the attractiveness of local chemical facilities as targets for terrorists without unduly hampering their operations. To achieve this goal, a mixture of mandates ("sticks") and incentives ("carrots") need to be regionally developed, implemented and sustained by RDUs. Collaborative regional efforts using an appropriately balanced and community-governed "carrot and stick" approach can be the most effective option for the Department of Homeland Security to improve chemical facility preparedness, and thus homeland security. / Lieutenant, Pasadena Police Department

China has been changing from a centrally planned to a market economy. Its journey has not been a smooth one and is not likely to be easy in the years to come. One of its industry sectors, the chemical industry, which represents approximately 4.6% of its national GDP, is facing challenges in the changing market dynamics. The Chinese government has applied administrative actions rather than simply relying on the market to address these challenges. Fragmentation has been reduced by closing down inefficient chemical plants; merging various companies to form groups. It has also attempted to privatise government owned enterprises by corporatisation and marketisation. Corporatisation of government-owned enterprise refers to alteration of their ownership to create joint stock companies. Marketisation refers to listing those privatised enterprises on the stock market. The objective of this research was to find out whether taking these administrative actions is the best strategy for the Chinese government-owned chemical industry rather than making it more effective by building up state owned chemical enterprises? core competencies and core capabilities. The principal argument of this thesis is based on the resource-based view (RBV). / thesis (PhDBusinessand Management)--University of South Australia, 2004.

As environmental protection problems become the global issues recently, China could not get rid of the responsibilities as being developing country. Thus, how to deal with the international regimes become more and more important toward Chinese government. How could China take balance between international regimes and domestic beneficial groups? In addition, it also briefly discusses how China deals with the environmental diplomacy through different international environmental regimes. In this thesis, it uses international environmental regimes as theory to discover the relations among countries and enterprises. Thus, in this thesis, it will divide into three parts which are the international environmental regimes such as Kyoto Protocol, China¡¦s environmental laws, and cases studying of chemical industries of China. The result of analysis implies that no matter the international environmental regimes or China¡¦s environmental laws are inefficient to avoid environmental crisis. The real power relies on the beneficial groups or other profit projects. Consequently, how China achieves its goal on environmental protection might be more and more important in the future.

AECI Bioproducts implemented the team concept as its management structure in it first ventures the lysine plant. The plant is AECI's first venture into Biotechnology. After a successful commissioning phase the plant was hampered by significant technological problems that prevented the plant from reaching design capacity. To compound matters the implementation of the Team Concept was not fully conceptualised resulting in poor implementation. The poor implementation resulted in teams being uncoordinated and often resulted in conflict between management and teams. The benefits that were envisaged from applying the team concept did not occur. The poor lysine prices and the inability to produce at design, resulted in significant losses being generated. This resulted in significant retrenchments at management level. The team structure remained intact despite the negative results achieved. The company recommitted to the team concept and structures were overhauled to ensurer the success of the teams. In 2001 Bioproducts is a vibrant thriving organisation. The productivity is above design and all benchmarks have been attained if not bettered. The organisation is one of the forerunners in the Biotechnology field and possesses skills and capabilities, which can be maximised in the future. The management question is how effective are teams and what is their relationship to job satisfaction. In this study we look at how effective teams are at Bioproducts and what is the level of job satisfaction among employees. We then determine the relationship using correlation analysis between perceptions of teamwork and job satisfaction. We also investigate the relationship between teamwork and organisational commitment, teamwork and work demands and teamwork and stress. Employees that were part of teams were given a questionnaire prepared by the author using the literature review conducted. There are seventy employees in the organisation and fifty-seven employees that belong to teams took part in the research. It was discovered that teams at Bioproducts are performing well within the organisation. Teams have high levels of autonomy, responsibility and accountability. There is a high degree of teamwork. Teams are interdependent and are co-operating and communicating well. There is a significant focus on job enrichment by management. The organisation is supporting and reinforcing teamwork well. The employees are committed to the organisation and there are high levels of job satisfaction among employees. Areas of concern that need to be looked at are the stress among employees, the insecurity surrounding ownership, communication within the organisation and training. The correlation analysis between teamwork and job satisfaction reveals that as individuals perception of teamwork increases job satisfaction increases and similarly as individuals perception of teamwork decreases job satisfaction decreases. The correlation between perception of teamwork and organisational commitment also reveals that as teamwork increases organisational commitment increases. One can conclude that team members that are happy in teams are more likely to be committed to the organisation and have increased job satisfaction. Stress of individuals increase as a result of teamwork, this is evident in the correlation analysis carried out. Organisations need to take heed of this since most individuals are not adequately equipped to deal with increases in stress levels. Teamwork places an increase in demands on employees and this factor together with stress levels need to be monitored. Overall the organisation is well equipped to deal with the ever-changing future and in terms of its human capabilities is well set to take advantage of its competitive edge once the issues that have been identified have been dealt with. / Thesis (MBA)-University of Natal, Durban, 2002.

Investment in the South African economy is acutely needed for it to absorb the high numbers of unemployed and to grow the economy. The valuation of potential investments needs to capture all sources of revenue so that the investor has all possible information about the enterprise. The current methods of evaluating capital investment in the South African Chemical Industry continue to be based almost exclusively on Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) methods. While these techniques are certainly useful, they are unable to capture all aspects of capital investment viability. A more recent valuation technique of regarding investments as options can substantially change the decision making process about capital investment. Investment in the chemical industry can be viewed as a strategic initiative to develop the long term potential of the industry. This investment can also contribute to growth in other sectors of the economy. While these benefits are difficult to measure, the criteria of maximizing investor returns remain the cornerstone of any investment decision. Using the DCF methods and real options framework for analyzing capital investments, a proposed investment to manufacture the chemical resorcinol in South Africa will be analysed. This study will illustrate how the real options approach, developed in this study, can more fully capture the dynamic and strategic value of the investment project, than the DCF methods. / Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2006.

Business-to-business exchanges have become a common form of procurement due to their advantages regarding flexibility (such as the ability of being able to quickly change business partners), although the mean procurement prices are generally higher compared to long-term contracts. On the other side, a lot of procurement managers still believe that long-term relationships are the key in the procurement process partly due to cost savings. Two main conflicting opinions on the optimal type of relationship - as it seems. In this thesis, a portfolio approach for risk-hedging supply chains in dynamic business environments is presented, where uncertainties are defined by value ranges in addition to target or mean values. This portfolio approach combines the advantages of both relationship types - spot market and long-term relationship - while avoiding influences of disadvantages. This portfolio approach uses simulation techniques in order to find portfolio and contract settings that coordinate supply chain partners and achieves cost-optimal supply chain performance in dynamic business environments. Furthermore, inventory is used as real option in an approach that is called speculative forward procurement. Speculative forward procurement is shown to be advantageous for the overall performance of supply chains in nearly all simulation settings. The presented model is developed and evaluated using a real supply chain process of the chemical processing industry. If procurement managers use a portfolio approach and speculative forward procurement, it is shown that cost savings of more than 10 % compared to only using the spot market and about 5 % compared to the use of long-term relationships for coordinating settings can be achieved. (author's abstract)

This study is an inter-disciplinary investigation into the nature of corporate strategy and the forces shaping industrial development with particular reference to a science based industry such as the chemical industry. The central objective of the study 1S to analyse the critical role of technological change as a major force ln strategic planning - a largely neglected area in the literature on corporate strategy. Traditional writings on corporate strategy tend to be self limiting 1n that they focus on a "single profit objective" and associated with this is the heavy emphasis placed on acquisition strategies in order to realize managerial profit objectives. The present study suggests that much more attention should be given to other than profit objectives, the conflict between them and their reconciliation. For this purpose a synthesis of the behavioural model of the firm and the managerial discretion model is proposed. The method uses four types of standards - historical, external, intentional and innovative - 1n setting multiple objectives at a target and at a constraint level. In this target constraint approach the difference between the two levels determines a margin within which conflicting claims of multiple objectives can be reconciled and a consensus level can thereby be reached. The study shows that the existence of a gap between the innovative and the other standards signifies that growth will mainly come through technological change. Theoretical aspects of technological change, in particular the economic and sociological approaches to diffusion of innovation are also discussed with special reference to the chemical industry. Against this background i i a generalized growth pattern for basic chemicals is developed and this pattern identifies the competitive and innovative modes of growth. In the competitive mode the individual chemical producer seeks to increase the level of usage of his material in its established end use categories. In the innovative mode, on the other hand, growth is sought by innovating new end use categories. Given a specialized producer willing to grow in his area, the competitive mode is characterized by the fact that marketing, financial and organizational measures can compensate for scientific and technological weaknesses, whereas intensive research and development activities are all important in the innovative mode . . The discussion finally leads to the formulation of a method of pinpointing technologically based opportunities. This method~ the technological growth tree, is developed as a managerial tool for mapping out strategic opportunities for the chemical industrialist. The tree consists of two principal branches, technological expansion and technological diversification, which subdivide into relevant strategies and tactics. Technological expansion strategies can be utilized in the competitive mode while the technological diversification strategies are appropriate in the innovative mode. The usefulness of the technological growth tree, in particular its diversification strategies, is illustrated by reference to the bromine industry where application of the former has resulted in a number of potential opportunities. These require further research and development efforts for their realization. ·Resulting from this, the principles outlined in the present study can also be applied in other science based industries for strategic planning.

China has been changing from a centrally planned to a market economy. Its journey has not been a smooth one and is not likely to be easy in the years to come. One of its industry sectors, the chemical industry, which represents approximately 4.6% of its national GDP, is facing challenges in the changing market dynamics. The Chinese government has applied administrative actions rather than simply relying on the market to address these challenges. Fragmentation has been reduced by closing down inefficient chemical plants; merging various companies to form groups. It has also attempted to privatise government owned enterprises by corporatisation and marketisation. Corporatisation of government-owned enterprise refers to alteration of their ownership to create joint stock companies. Marketisation refers to listing those privatised enterprises on the stock market. The objective of this research was to find out whether taking these administrative actions is the best strategy for the Chinese government-owned chemical industry rather than making it more effective by building up state owned chemical enterprises? core competencies and core capabilities. The principal argument of this thesis is based on the resource-based view (RBV). / thesis (PhDBusinessand Management)--University of South Australia, 2004.