<p>Malaysia is one of the developing countries in the world that is on the verge to become de-veloped (Internationella Programkontoret, 2003). In 2004, Malaysia had a growth rate around 7% (United Nation Statistic Division, 2005) and it is implied that the Malaysian market is continuously growing. One factor that can increase the growth rate in Malaysia is foreign direct investments (FDI), which is, according to Chino (2004), one factor of sus-tainable growth. It has been noticed that the world is getting smaller and more companies are looking for opportunities outside the country boarders and in this situation Malaysia is an attractive alternative for establishment.</p><p>The purpose of this study is to investigate and deepen the understanding of cultural factors affecting the establishing process for Swedish companies in Malaysia, and through that cre-ate an awareness that can simplify the establishing process.</p><p>To answer the purpose of this study, a qualitative research has been used. Interviews with Swedish companies newly established in Malaysia have been performed. The respondents have been asked about the establishing process in Malaysia and the Malaysian culture. Ad-ditional interviews with the Swedish Trade Council and the Swedish Embassy have also been performed. The interview guides have been based on theories about FDI, the estab-lishment process and culture. Hollensen’s market entry strategies, Hollensen’s network model and Hofstede’s cultural dimensions are the main theories used throughout this study.</p><p>The authors have found through this study that the different ethnic groups in Malaysia are highly influential on the business environment and that foreign companies establishing in Malaysia have to be aware of this situation. The multicultural society is an advantage for Malaysia, through the locals’ ability to adapt to different cultures and the many different languages in the country. However, foreigners moving to Malaysia need to be aware of the special treatment of the Malays and how that affects the business environment. Two main problems have been found by the authors; the Malaysian bureaucracy and the locals unwill-ingness to let foreigners into their networks. This can be problematic for foreign compa-nies, but can be handled through the help of governmental functions such as MIDA or MSC, or through a company secretary or auditor.</p><p>Through this visualization of the cultural factors that affect the establishing process of Swedish companies in Malaysia, the authors hope to minimize the risk of them running into the same problems and obstacles.</p>

The widespread proliferation (or 'encroachment') of trees and shrubs in grasslands over the past 150 years is embedded in both natural and human systems. This dissertation addressed the following ecological and ethnoecological questions. Can seedling traits help us understand why so few woody species have encroached markedly into North American desert grasslands, and the conditions likely to promote their proliferation? What is the role of informal knowledge of the environment in efforts to manage woody plant abundance? Woody seedling survival often depends on rapid taproot elongation. In glasshouse experiments, initial water supply markedly affected taproot elongation in young seedlings. Response patterns may help explain recruitment patterns in Larrea tridentata, the principal evergreen woody encroacher in Sonoran and Chihuahuan Desert grasslands, and in Prosopis velutina and Prosopis glandulosa, the principal deciduous woody encroachers in Sonoran and Chihuahuan Desert grasslands, respectively. P. velutina and P. glandulosa showed greater sensitivity to water supply levels at the seedling stage than did the similar, related non-encroachers, Acacia greggii, Parkinsonia florida and Parkinsonia aculeata . This enabled the Prosopis species to overcome lower seed and seedling biomass to achieve similar taproot length to A. greggii and the Parkinsonia species. Consequently, population level advantages of lower seed mass, such as high seed numbers, may enhance encroachment potential in the Prosopis species without being negated by corresponding seedling survivorship disadvantages. I used semi-structured interviews to document informal rangeland monitoring by ranchers in southeast Arizona. Ranchers used qualitative methods to assess forage availability, rangeland trends and responses to woody plant suppression measures. Informal rangeland assessments informed ranchers' management decisions on sub-yearly, yearly and multi-year timescales. Informal monitoring appeared largely compatible with formal monitoring and natural science, and most ranchers integrated the two systems. Informal rangeland assessments can be valuable in planning woody plant suppression measures, particularly in light of the small number of formal long-term studies of brush suppression. Ecological studies may help predict places and periods of relatively rapid encroachment, perhaps enabling early or pre-emptive brush suppression measures. Thus, both seedling ecology and informal environmental knowledge are likely to be useful in managing woody plant populations in desert grasslands.

The thesis examines the establishment size distribution over time and across groups of regions, using data on Swedish establishments during period 1994-2009. The size distribution of establishments is highly skewed and approximates the Pareto distribution. The shape of size distribution is invariant over time and across groups of regions. The distribution of total number of establishments and incumbent distribution are found to rise from the same distribution. Moreover, the invariance of establishment size distribution is highly determined by the invariance of distribution of incumbents, entry and exit distributions. Larger establishments have more chances to survive and higher probability to remain in current size group comparing to smaller ones, whereas higher probabilities of growth would be attached to smaller establishments.

Valdymo motyvacija iškyla kaip viena iš svarbiausių švietimo įstaigos vadovo asmenybės charakteristikų. Ji iš esmės įtakoja jo profesinės veiklos charakterį ir specifiką, apibrėžia gyvenimiškos ir valdymo elgsenos strategiją. Amžiaus ir lyties skirtybės, gimimo tvarka ir vaikų šeimoje skaičius yra valdymo motyvacijos formavimo proceso psichologiniai faktoriai, užtikrinantys valdymo siekimo ir vengimo lygį, pasireiškiantį švietimo srities valdymo veiklos būdo specifikoje. Egzistuoja tarpusavio ryšys tarp švietimo įstaigos vadovo valdymo motyvacijos išreiškimo lygio ir tokių psichologinių faktorių, kaip pedagoginės veiklos stažas ir vadovaujamo darbo patirtis. / Motivation of authority acts as the important characteristic of the person of the head of establishment of education; it essentially influences character and specificity of his/her professional work, defining strategy of vital and administrative behavior. Age and gender distinctions, the order of birth and number of children in the family represent itself as psychological factors of process of formation of motivation of authority, providing a level of aspiration and avoiding of the authority, shown in specificity of style of administrative activity in sphere of formation.

No description available.

Our research investigated whether priming switchgrass seeds with water or ethephon would increase stand establishment in the field. ‘Alamo’ seed germinated faster and grew taller than ‘Cave-in-Rock.Seeds primed for six days in water or for one day in ethephon 10 mM had the greatest seedling densities. In growth chamber environments seed priming were tested to hasten germination velocity. Seeds primed for two, four or six days in water germinated faster than unprimed seeds. Ethephon treatments reduced overall germination and germination velocity. Accent and Accent Q herbicides containing nicosulfuron are used to control weeds. To test ‘Alamo’ sensitivity to these herbicides, greenhouse evaluations were conducted. Seedlings treated with Accent Q had lower shoot fresh and dry weights than Accent treated seedlings. Seedling atrazine tolerance was examined in a greenhouse study at various growth stages (1, 2 and 4 true leaves). One and two true leaf were more sensitive to herbicide damage than the 4 leaf seedlings. To investigate difference in atrazine tolerance due to differential atrazine metabolism, 14C atrazine metabolism was examined in 1, 2 and 4 leaf ‘Alamo’ seedlings. 24-48 hours after exposure, 4 leaf seedlings metabolized atrazine at a greater rate than 1 and 2 leaf stage seedlings.

International marketing studies have extensively examined the antecedents of firms' marketing standardization/ adaptation decisions. However, it is unclear whether such decisions, once planned, codetermine the choice between buying and building foreign subsidiaries. Analyzing a sample of 150 foreign entries by Dutch firms, the authors find that the level of marketing adaptation planned for a wholly owned subsidiary is positively related to the likelihood that the subsidiary will be established through an acquisition rather than through a greenfield investment. Moreover, the authors find substantial evidence that this positive relationship is stronger for firms that (1) are establishing relatively larger subsidiaries, (2) have less experience with the industry entered, or (3) are entering less developed countries. The findings show that firms pursuing higher levels of marketing adaptation assign more value to the marketing adaptation advantages of acquisitions over greenfields, especially if the risks associated with implementing the planned adaptation level are high. In addition, firms typically strive for a fit between their international marketing strategy and their mode of foreign establishment. (authors' abstract)

No description available.

Multi-agent systems are increasingly popular for modeling distributed environments that are highly complex and dynamic such as e-commerce, smart buildings, and smart grids. Often in open multi-agent systems, agents interact with other agents to meet their own goals. Trust is considered significant in multi-agent systems to make interactions effectively, especially when agents cannot assure that potential partners share the same core beliefs about the system or make accurate statements regarding their competencies and abilities. This work describes a trust model that augments fuzzy logic with Q-learning, and a suspension technique to help trust evaluating agents select beneficial trustees for interaction in uncertain, imprecise, and the dynamic multi-agent systems. Q-Learning is used to evaluate trust on the long term, fuzzy inferences are used to aggregate different trust factors and suspension is used as a short-term response to dynamic changes. The performance of the proposed model is evaluated using simulation. Simulation results indicate that the proposed model can help agents select trustworthy partners to interact with. It has a better performance compared to some of the popular trust models in the presence of misbehaving interaction partners. When interactions are based on trust, trust establishment mechanisms can be used to direct trustees, instead of trustors, to build a higher level of trust and have a greater impact on the results of interactions. This work also describes a trust establishment model for intelligent agents using implicit feedback that goes beyond trust evaluation to outline actions to guide trustees (instead of trustors). The model uses the retention of trustors to model trustors’ behaviours. For situations where tasks are multi-criteria and explicit feedback is available, we present a trust establishment model that uses a multi-criteria approach to help trustees to adjust their behaviours to improve their perceived trust and attract more interactions with trustors. The model calculates the necessary improvement per criterion when only a single aggregated satisfaction value is provided per interaction, where the model attempts to predicted both the appropriate value per criteria and its importance. Then we present a trust establishment model that integrates the two major sources of information to produce a comprehensive assessment of a trustor’s likely needs in multi-agent systems. Specifically, the model attempts to incorporates explicit feedback, and implicit feed-back assuming multi-criteria tasks. The proposed models are evaluated through simulation, we found that trustees can enhance their trustworthiness, at a cost, if they tune their behaviour in response to feedback (explicit or implicit) from trustors. Using explicit feedback with multi-criteria tasks, trustees can emphasize on important criterion to satisfy need of trustors. Trust establishment based on explicit feedback for multi-criteria tasks, can result in a more effective and efficient trust establishment compared to using implicit feedback alone. Integrating both approaches together can achieve a reasonable trust level at a relatively lower cost.

A study, as part fulfilment of the MBA requirements, was undertaken to establish the critical success factors within the township establishment process through the Townplanning and Township Ordinance 15 of 1986. The study included a literature survey and evaluation of current practises to get a thorough understanding of the present requirements and procedures available to developers to do township establishment. This created a knowledge base from which a guideline was extracted to determine what activities are critical to the township establishment process in terms of the Township Ordinance. This was supported by personal interviews and questionnaires with experienced relevant role players i.e. developers, project managers, engineers and town planners to draw on their experiences with regard to the factors which they deem critical to the successful establishment of a township. The study found that there are four critical success factors that can have a detrimental impact on the profitability of a project. These factors include the quality of the professional team, preliminary investigations, geotechnical and environmental investigations. However, with the current skill shortages and lack of enthusiasm experienced within the local and external governmental bodies, obtaining statutory approval from these authorities seems to have a more significant impact on the timely transformation of land into residential, commercial or industrial stands. The findings of the study concluded that the crux of a successful township application lies in the pro-active management, integration and coordination off all activities within the scope of the professional team, local and external bodies: Obtaining statutory approval from local and external authorities is becoming increasingly difficult as local authorities lack the necessary expertise and enthusiasm to facilitate the application process. This places further emphasis on the pro-active management of all activities to optimize the township establishment process in order to minimize the risk of project delays, cost overruns and loss of income. It is therefore recommended that careful consideration supported by further research be conducted to identify the managerial activities and requirements to manage the township establishment process successfully within the present environment of an uncoordinated approach, acute shortage of skills, lack of knowledge and even corruption as a new simplified bill will not necessarily remove all the present short comings. This should include the structures required to develop the necessary capacities within the governmental authorities to facilitate the process. Copyright / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Graduate School of Management / unrestricted