Over the last two decades, several studies have confirmed that there is a leadership crisis among the nation's community colleges. In response to this leadership crisis, the American Association of Community Colleges [AACC] commissioned the development of a leadership competency framework consisting of six leadership competency areas deemed "either `very' or `extremely' essential to the effective performance of community college leaders." Since the release of this framework, limited research has been conducted on the importance of and the preparation in the identified competencies. The majority of research that has been conducted has focused on the position of president, even though there are several leadership positions within community colleges that are facing a leadership crisis. One such position is that of academic affairs officer. This study had two purposes. The first was to extend the research that has been conducted on the AACC leadership competencies by examining how community college academic affairs officers perceived the importance of and their own level of professional preparation in the identified competencies. The second was to examine the leadership development experiences that academic affairs officers identified as the most beneficial to their professional development as academic affairs officers. This study was a quantitative, descriptive, correlational design and used a questionnaire to collect data. The population for this study was academic affairs officers at public community colleges in the United States. The academic affairs officers that were included in the population were identified from the membership directory of the AACC. The survey instrument used for this study was based on the AACC leadership competency framework, as modified by Duree, which included 45 leadership competencies summarized into six leadership competency areas: organizational strategy, resource management, communication, collaboration, community college advocacy, and professionalism. Using two four-point scales, academic affairs officers (n=102) were asked to rate the importance of and their own level of professional preparation in the identified competencies. The survey instrument also asked academic affairs officers to rank the top five leadership development experiences that they feel have been the most beneficial to their professional development as academic affairs officers. In general, academic affairs officers believe that the AACC leadership competency areas are important for effective leadership in leading academic affairs. The most important leadership competency area was communication, followed by organizational strategy, community college advocacy, collaboration, professionalism, and resource management. In addition, academic affairs officers perceive that they are moderately or very well-prepared to perform many but not all of the identified competencies. For those identified competencies that academic affairs officers did not feel as prepared to perform, several were rated as important for effective leadership. Academic affairs officers ranked progressive job responsibilities as the leadership development experience felt to be the most beneficial to their professional development as academic affairs officers. Academic affairs officers then ranked challenging job assignments; participation in institutional task forces, committees, and commissions; and networking as the second, third, and fourth most beneficial leadership development experiences, respectively. The fifth most beneficial leadership development experience was networking, followed by attendance at conferences and specialized workshops. Based upon frequency totals, university-based degree programs and mentoring (role as mentee, not mentor) were also considered beneficial leadership development experiences. The significance of this study is that it provides practical, relevant, and timely information for both current practicing academic affairs officers and those who aspire to lead public community colleges in the position of academic affairs officer. The results of this study have several implications for practice. These implications include: to inform those persons seeking academic affairs officer positions of the relative importance of the AACC leadership competencies and the leadership development experiences deemed to be the most beneficial by a sample of incumbents; to inform leaders of higher education and professional development programs of the leadership competencies that should perhaps be included in the curricula of their programs; and to provide resources to be used by search committees in formulating desired qualifications and, later, in interviewing candidates for the position of academic affairs officer.

Thesis (MTech. degree in Business Information Systems)--Tshwane University of Technology, 2010. / Information and Communications Technology has been accepted globally as an enabler of public and private sector businesses. This study argues that the correct positioning of a chief information officer (CIO) is vital to achieving effective service delivery. On the contrary, empirical evidence shows that CIOs in the South African public sector tend not to have the necessary influence to use ICTs strategically to change the plight of the millions of poor South Africans, through service delivery. Using Structuration Theory as a lens, the contribution of this study is towards improving the rigor with which we understand chief information officers and their place in the improvement of South African public service delivery.

Deep penetration of personal computers, data communication networks, and the Internet has created a massive platform for data collection, dissemination, storage, and retrieval. Large amounts of textual data are now available at a very low cost. Valuable information, such as consumer preferences, new product developments, trends, and opportunities, can be found in this large collection of textual data. Growing worldwide competition, new technology development, and the Internet contribute to an increasingly turbulent business environment. Conducting surveillance on this growing collection of textual data could help a business avoid surprises, identify threats and opportunities, and gain competitive advantages.Current text mining approaches, nonetheless, provide limited support for conducting surveillance using textual data. In this dissertation, I develop novel text quantification approaches to identify useful information in textual data, effective anomaly detection approaches to monitor time series data aggregated based on the text quantification approaches, and empirical evaluation approaches that verify the effectiveness of text mining approaches using external numerical data sources.In Chapter 2, I present free-text chief complaint classification studies that aim to classify incoming emergency department free-text chief complaints into syndromic categories, a higher level of representation that facilitates syndromic surveillance. Chapter 3 presents a novel detection algorithm based on Markov switching with jumps models. This surveillance model aims at detecting different types of disease outbreaks based on the time series generated from the chief complaint classification system.In Chapters 4 and 5, I studied the surveillance issue under the context of business decision making. Chapter 4 presents a novel text-based risk recognition design framework that can be used to monitor the changing business environment. Chapter 5 presents an empirical evaluation study that looks at the interaction between news sentiment and numerical accounting earnings information. Chapter 6 concludes this dissertation by highlighting major research contributions and the relevance to MIS research.

I organisationers begynnelse fanns en annan typ av verklighet mot den vi idag kan se. Dagens organisationssamhälle är starkt förändrat med en större globalisering och ett fragmenterat samhällsliv. Tillsammans med organisationers jakt på effektivisering och vinstmaximering skapas nya strukturer och former av organisering. Med dessa förändringar i organiseringen och organisationssamhället skapas även en ny verklighet för individer i VD-roller att verka i. Mer aktuellt än någonsin verkar också de många avhoppen och avskedanden av individer i denna roll vara. I min studie undersökte jag därför huruvida ansvar och krav på en VD är anpassade till dagens organisationssamhälle för att möjliggöra uppfyllandet av rollen. Denna frågeställning besvarar jag genom att studera vilka krav som ställs av omgivningen på individen i en VD-roll, hur individen i VD-rollen ser på sin roll och vad VD-rollen innebär i praktiken. Vad jag såg var att man i dagens organisering kan se en anpassning till den komplexitet som dagens organisationssamhälle innebär. Den ökade kunskaps-nivån i samhället och organisationerna som man kan se idag skapar en möjlighet till en ökad decentralisering som också medger en anpassning av ledarrollen. Jag såg dock en diskrepans i de krav som ställs av företagsstyrelsen på individerna i rollen mot hur de själva upplever innehållet i sin roll och där-igenom även sin person eftersom deras självidentitet påverkas till stor del av deras egenupplevelse av sin ledarroll. En diskrepans såg jag även mellan rollens praktik relaterat till både hur individen ser på sin roll samt hur omgivningen ställer krav på individen. Dessa delar anser jag bör ligga på företagsstyrelserna att arbeta med för att utforma sina krav anpassat till rollens praktik och individens egenupplevelse av rollen. Detta skulle kunna underlätta individernas möjlighet att uppfylla kraven på VD-rollen och lyckas i sitt arbete eftersom de idag har en mycket krävande arbetssituation med långa arbetsdagar och stora ansvar. / In the beginning of organisations there was a different kind of reality to what we see today. Today´s organisational society is profoundly altered with a greater globalisation and a more fragmented society. Together with the strive for increased efficiency and profit maximisation by the organisations, this leads to new structures and organisational models. These changes in the organising and organisational society also create a new reality for the individuals in a CEO´s role to operate in.  More topical than ever seem also the many defections and dismissals of individuals in this role to be. In my research I therefore studied whether responsibilities and requirements for a CEO are adapted to today´s organizational society to enable the fulfilment of the role. I reach the conclusion for this question by studying the requirements for the CEO role, the individual’s self-experience of the role and the practice of the CEO role. What I found was that an adaption to the complexity of today´s organizational society can be seen in today´s organisational models. The increased level of knowledge in society and organisations create an opportunity for greater decentralisation which also allows for an adjustment of the leadership role. I did, however, find a discrepancy in the demands made by the board of directors for the individuals in the role relative to their own self-experience of the role, and thereby also their persona as their self-identity is largely influenced by their self-experience of their leadership role. I also found a discrepancy between the practice of the role and the individuals self-experience of the role as well as the requirements made on the individual in the role. I consider these discrepancies to be the responsibility of the board of directors to ensure they are taken into account for when the requirements for the individuals in the role are defined. This could facilitate better possibilities for the individuals in the role to succeed as today´s reality includes a demanding working environment with long hours and great responsibility.

Įmonės vadovas yra neatsiejama įmonės organizacinės sistemos dalis, be kurios įmonė negalėtų įgyti teisių bei prisiimti pareigų. Tačiau ne tik buvimas juridinio asmens valdymo organu, bet ir jo darbuotoju, sukuria tam tikrą įmonės vadovo ir įmonės teisinių santykių kompleksiškumą. Šis kompleksiškumas pasireiškia tuo, kad iš vienos pusės įmonės vadovo, kaip juridinio asmens organo, santykiai su įmone yra reguliuojami civilinės teisės normomis, o iš kitos – jam, kaip ir kiekvienam darbuotojui, privalomas darbo teisės normų laikymasis. Toks įmonės ir jos vadovų santykių reguliavimas dviejomis savarankiškomis teisės šakomis, neretai sukelia sunkumų nustatant, kuri teisės norma vienu ar kitu atveju turi būti taikoma. Siekiant geriau suvokti įmonės ir jos vadovų tarpusavio santykių pobūdį, šiame darbe yra nagrinėjami pagrindiniai aspektai vienaip ar kitaip susiję tiek su darbo teisės, tiek su civilinės teisės reguliavimo dalyku. Todėl analizė apima įmonės vadovo teisinio statuso prigimties bei raidos tendencijų vertinimą. Įmonės vadovo teisinio statuso specifika sąlygoja kiek kitokį šio subjekto darbo teisinių santykių reguliavimą nei paprastų darbuotojų. Bandant atskleisti šiuos skirtumus yra analizuojami darbo sutarties, sudaromos su įmonės vadovu, skirtumai nuo panašių civilinių sutarčių, šių darbo sutarčių sudarymas, rūšys, sąlygos. Be to, aptariami kitokie nei paprastų darbuotojų darbo santykių su įmonės vadovu pasibaigimo pagrindai bei šių santykių pasibaigimo procedūros... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Chief executive is an essential part of company’s organizational system and a company could not obtain rights and assume obligations without it. However, being not only a governing body of a legal entity, but also its employee, gives a rise for certain complexity of legal intercourse between the company and its chief executive. This complexity means that on one hand intercourse between company and its chief executive as a governing body are regulated by the civil law, while on the other hand the labor law rules are also applicable to him as to every other employee. Such dual regulation of relations between the company and its chief executive raises some difficulties when determining which legal norm has to be applied in certain circumstances. With the intention to comprehend the nature of intercourse between the company and its chief executive, this paper deals with major legal aspects one way or another related to regulatory subject of both labor and civil law. For this reason the analysis include the assessment of the nature and the development tendencies of legal status of company’s chief executive. The particularity of its legal status determines somewhat different regulatory regime applicable to a chief executive comparing to labor law applicable to ordinary employees. Aiming to display these differences the employment agreements with chief executive are analysed in comparance with similar civil contracts, as well as conclusion, types and conditions of such labor... [to full text]

Where individuals standing outside of the corporation have been harmed by the acts of one of its directors or officers, the question becomes whether they have only a claim against the corporation or whether they may have also a personal claim against the executive inflicting the harm on them. / The issue of how far it should be possible to hold directors and officers personally liable for tort has been a contested one and even courts within one and the same jurisdiction provide different solutions. On the one hand, there is the general basic principle that individuals causing harm to others should be held responsible. On the other hand, the fact that directors and officers act as agents on behalf of the corporation might call for an exception to this basic tort law principle. / This thesis will compare the solutions proposed by Common law (with focus on the law of Ontario) and German law as an example of a Civil law jurisdiction. An attempt will be made to see in how far the proposed solutions are consistent with legal principles like the separate legal entity of the corporation and the concept of limited liability as well as with arguments related to economic efficiency.

Within the electric power industry, the average company's enterprise system - i.e. the overall system of IT related entities - is today highly complex. Technically, large organizations posses hundreds or thousands of extensively interconnected and heterogeneous single IT systems performing tasks that varies from enterprise resource planning to real-time control and monitoring of industrial processes. Moreover are these systems storing a wide variety of sometimes redundant data, and typically they are deployed on several different platforms. IT does, however, not execute in splendid isolation. Organizationally, the enterprise system embraces business processes and business units using as well as maintaining and acquiring the IT systems. The interplay between the organization and the IT systems are further determined by for instance business goals, ownership and governance structures, strategies, individual system users, documentation, and cost. Lately, Enterprise Architecture (EA) has evolved with the mission to take a holistic approach to managing the above depicted enterprise system. The discipline's presumption is that architectural models are the key to succeed in understanding and administrating enterprise systems. Compared to many other engineering disciplines, EA is quite immature in many respects. This thesis identifies and elaborates on some important aspects that to date have been overlooked to a large extent. Firstly, the lack of explicit purpose for architectural models is identified. The thesis argues that the concerns of a company's Chief Information Officer (CIO) should guide the rationale behind the development of EA models. In particular, distribution of IT related information and knowledge throughout the organization is emphasized as an important concern uncared for. Secondly, the lack of architectural theory is recognized. The thesis provides examples of how theory, or analysis procedures, could be incorporated into the Enterprise Architecture approach and hereby concretely drive the development of the architectural models. Due to the nature of enterprise systems, EA theories inevitable will be of an indicative character. Finally, in relation to the models as such, three aspects are highlighted. Firstly, the cost of collecting information from the organization to populate models is routinely neglected by the EA community. This expense should be evaluated in relation to the utility of analyses that the information can provide in terms of better informed decision making by the CIO. Secondly, models (and meta-models) must be kept consistent. And thirdly, the design of models is restricted by the limited mental capabilities of the minds of the model users. CIO concerns must consequently be easy to extract from the Enterprise Architecture models. Key words: Enterprise Architecture, Enterprise System, Chief Information Officer (CIO), Information Technology (IT) Management, Architectural Theory, Electric Power Industry

Detta projekt har utförts på ett charterflygbolag som verkar på den skandinaviska flygmarknaden, och är en första del i flygbolagets projekt (översatt till svenska) ”Världens bästa planeringsprocess”. ”Världens bästa planeringsprocess” skall kartlägga flygbolagets planeringsprocess sett till från det att en förfrågan kommer in till flygbolaget, till dess att ett svar kan lämnas till kunden. Detta projekt som behandlas i denna rapport studerar informationsflödesprocessen inom flygbolaget med fokus på den planering som sker efter att en kommande säsongs flygprogram är fastlagt. Det vill säga, detta projekt behandlar de förfrågningar som utgör förändringar och tillägg i flygprogrammet. Utifrån en kartläggning har informationsflödesprocessen analyserats utifrån Lean production-teori och tillämpbara åtgärder för att uppnå tidseffektivisering i flöden. Detta har sammanfattats i de följande möjliga åtgärderna för flygbolaget: - Omfördelning av flödet genom synkronisering, parallellisering och sekvensering - Omfördelning av arbetsuppgifter - Tillämpning av Alternate Chief Pilot Det rekommenderas att tillämpa samtliga åtgärdsförslag, vilket bedöms kunna ge en tidsbesparing på mellan 7 och 52 % i ledtid.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) can be applied to Chief Executive Officer (CEO) remuneration of companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) by defining inputs in terms of remuneration factors and outputs in terms of business factors in order to establish a benchmark for CEO remuneration. An exploratory study is conducted, using cross-sectional data from a secondary source. The sample consists of 221 companies listed on the JSE that disclosed their financial and non-financial information during 2010. The DEA was performed to estimate the relative technical efficiency of CEOs to convert their remuneration into company performance indicators. Base Pay, Perquisites and Pension, Annual Bonus Plans and Long-term Incentives were used as the inputs to the DEA model and company performance and size, measured by Return on Equity (ROE) and Total Assets respectively, were used as the outputs to the model. The empirical results prove that the DEA can be successfully applied as a benchmarking model for CEO remuneration that incorporates multiple inputs and outputs and establishes benchmarks and potential improvements for overpaid, inefficient CEOs. The CEOs from 80 of the 221 companies included in the sample emerged as the benchmark CEOs and formed the efficiency frontier against which inefficient CEOs were compared in order to determine the potential improvements for these CEOs. From a research perspective, this study contributes to the advancement of CEO remuneration research by introducing an alternative model by which CEO remuneration can be analysed. Future studies can analyse CEO remuneration by using other variables or time series data in the DEA model or combine the DEA with other methods like the regression analysis to perform more comprehensive investigations. From a practical perspective, the DEA can be used to establish a benchmark for CEO remuneration. Remuneration committees can use the results of the DEA as a guide to determine acceptable remuneration levels and decrease the pay gap between CEOs and the average worker. The originality of this study lies in the fact that it is the first South African study that used the DEA instead of the regression analysis to analyse CEO remuneration of companies listed on the JSE. This study also disaggregated Total CEO Remuneration into Base Pay, Perquisites and Pension, Annual Bonus Plans and Long-term Incentives to provide more accurate benchmark information. In addition, this is the first study that established benchmark CEO remuneration levels and suggested improvements to the remuneration package structure of overpaid, under-performing CEOs of companies listed on the JSE. / Thesis (MCom (Management Accountancy))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) can be applied to Chief Executive Officer (CEO) remuneration of companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) by defining inputs in terms of remuneration factors and outputs in terms of business factors in order to establish a benchmark for CEO remuneration. An exploratory study is conducted, using cross-sectional data from a secondary source. The sample consists of 221 companies listed on the JSE that disclosed their financial and non-financial information during 2010. The DEA was performed to estimate the relative technical efficiency of CEOs to convert their remuneration into company performance indicators. Base Pay, Perquisites and Pension, Annual Bonus Plans and Long-term Incentives were used as the inputs to the DEA model and company performance and size, measured by Return on Equity (ROE) and Total Assets respectively, were used as the outputs to the model. The empirical results prove that the DEA can be successfully applied as a benchmarking model for CEO remuneration that incorporates multiple inputs and outputs and establishes benchmarks and potential improvements for overpaid, inefficient CEOs. The CEOs from 80 of the 221 companies included in the sample emerged as the benchmark CEOs and formed the efficiency frontier against which inefficient CEOs were compared in order to determine the potential improvements for these CEOs. From a research perspective, this study contributes to the advancement of CEO remuneration research by introducing an alternative model by which CEO remuneration can be analysed. Future studies can analyse CEO remuneration by using other variables or time series data in the DEA model or combine the DEA with other methods like the regression analysis to perform more comprehensive investigations. From a practical perspective, the DEA can be used to establish a benchmark for CEO remuneration. Remuneration committees can use the results of the DEA as a guide to determine acceptable remuneration levels and decrease the pay gap between CEOs and the average worker. The originality of this study lies in the fact that it is the first South African study that used the DEA instead of the regression analysis to analyse CEO remuneration of companies listed on the JSE. This study also disaggregated Total CEO Remuneration into Base Pay, Perquisites and Pension, Annual Bonus Plans and Long-term Incentives to provide more accurate benchmark information. In addition, this is the first study that established benchmark CEO remuneration levels and suggested improvements to the remuneration package structure of overpaid, under-performing CEOs of companies listed on the JSE. / Thesis (MCom (Management Accountancy))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.