Thesis (M.B.A.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 2004 [first author]; and, (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 2004 [second author]. / "In conjunction with the Sloan Fellows Program." / Includes bibliographical references (p. 101-106). / The extreme competition in the automotive industry results in razor-thin profit margins as original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) compete for market share and profits which increase shareholder value. Product differentiation thus becomes a key strategy used by OEMs to attract consumers to their products. The typical product and/or service value proposition for an automotive manufacturer is composed of the following attributes: Quality (segment leading or equivalent); Reliability and Durability (segment leading or equivalent); Price (competitive within segment); Styling (meets or exceeds expectations of targeted segment); Performance (meets or exceeds expectations of targeted segment); and Features and Functions (competitive within targeted segment). To support an OEM's products in the marketplace, effective marketing and advertising strategies should build brand awareness and familiarity which induces consumers, both "loyal" and "avoiders," to traverse the purchasing funnel and eventually purchase. To this end, the concept of "Two-sided Messaging" is used by OEMs as one advertising strategy. The use of"Two-sided Advertising" has been widely studied and debated as to its effectiveness when compared to "One-sided Adverting" strategies. This thesis compares and contrasts the concepts of"Two-sided" and "One-sided" advertising. We discuss advertising strategies used in the automotive industry today, review past OEM (i.e., non-General Motors) Two-sided advertising situations, and review and discuss the current GM "Quality Advertising Campaign," also known as the "Road to Redemption" (R2R) advertising campaign. / by Jeffrey O. Luke [and] Charles M. Vessels. / S.M. / M.B.A.

Abstract Academic Leadership and Development Academy (ALDA) was instituted by the Tau Lambda-at-Large Chapter Sigma Theta Tau International (STTI). In 2011-2012 ALDA intended goal was to emancipate participants to be able to take professional leadership positions, generate a funded research project, professional networking muscle and collaboration, including publishing in an accredited journal. The purpose of the study was to explore and describe the needs of the fellows enrolled for the 2011-2012 ALDA leadership programme. The word ‘fellow’ refers to all candidates who were selected to participate in the ALDA programme. The programme was tailor-made to develop and prepare professional nurses for middle or high level leadership positions within the academic environment. Four African universities and colleges were involved. The research design was qualitative, exploratory, and descriptive in nature. The target population included all 2011-2012 fellows of the ALDA of the Sigma Theta Tau Lambda-at-Large Chapter Africa. The sample consisted of all 14 fellows of the 2011-2012 ALDA who were involved in programme. This programme was the first of its kind in Africa engineered by ALDA in Africa in 2011. Data gathering was a self-report through naïve sketches. Tesch’s eight steps of data analysis were applied. An independent coder was engaged to improve trustworthiness of the data. The results showed that fellows needed professionalism and recognition; communication and setting the stage; and more collaboration with research expects. At first the programme did not have a clear curriculum content outlined and as such fellows were dissatisfied for some time which affected the progress as expected by both the fellows and the faculty. Faculty refers to experts involved in the programme. However, fellows managed to work cooperatively with one another, thus promoting a social learning environment and providing opportunities of collaborative research studies in the future.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 2006. / "In conjunction with the Sloan Fellows Program on Innovation and Global Leadership." / Includes bibliographical references (p. 131-140). / At the time of this writing, the NYSE had just completed its historic merger with Archipelago, LLC, while changing its ownership structure to a public company. The conditions leading up to this transformation are descriptive of the overall changes in "exchange structures" and the infrastructure of equity trading in the United States and around the world. The document is written to be useful to an audience of both industry and non-industry executives. To accomplish this, we examine the historical underpinnings of exchanges, how they developed, identifying conditions that transcend structures themselves. We go on to describe the mechanics, governance, technology, and regulatory environment of exchanges today. From this we can examine the forces inducing and enabling changes in the market structures. The "investment supply chain" is introduced as a framework to understand the flow of capital in the economy and the changing position of the exchanges and industry players. We consider the anatomy of trading, evolving technologies and the experience of non-US exchanges in the process of demutualization, technology infrastructure change and business model evolution. The thesis also draws on inferences from similar economic shifts in other industries. / (cont.) The parallel industry discussion should serve as an intuition builder in understanding the forces at work, the time it may take to see an equilibrium state and the behavior of the participants. The thesis has relied heavily on interviews and perspectives of people close to these events: NYSE staff, ECNs, the buy and sell side, regulators and academics. As such, it attempts to provide an informed and balanced view of the current state of play and the momentum of events. / by James F. Walker. / S.M.

Most descriptions of the rise of the Canadian welfare state emphasize that traditional social welfare institutions were always inadequate and it took the Depression to demonstrate the need for better, more comprehensive arrangements. Beyond the enlightening influence of the Depression, the rise of current welfare state institutions is attributed to the efforts and influences of politicians, unions, social reformers, and intellectuals. This myth about the rise of the welfare state has been so widely accepted that there has been little effort expended in examining pre-welfare state social insurance arrangements. The findings of this case study of the Independent Order of Oddfellows of British Columbia (IOOFBC) sickness insurance indicate that before 1930 there was an extensive formalized system of social insurance. The study also reveals that rather than having demonstrated the inadequacies of the traditional welfare mechanisms, the severe economic conditions of the Depression devastated the existing social insurance arrangements which created the impetus for the rise of the welfare state. Up until 1930, membership in a fraternal organization, like the Independent Order of Oddfellows (IOOF), was one of the most important sources of sickness/health insurance and life insurance throughout the world. Fraternal insurers were able to provide insurance at a lower cost than commercial insurers through their non-profit motive and their use of screening and peer monitoring practices to alleviate problems of adverse selection and moral hazard. Until 1930, 13% of the population in British Columbia had sickness/health insurance coverage through fraternal membership. Critics of fraternal insurance argued that while fraternal insurers may have had low costs, they led a financially precarious existence due to their hazardous pricing practices. An analysis of IOOFBC lodges for the period 1891 to 1950 reveals that this is not a good explanation of the decline of fraternal insurance. Even with the most hazardous of pricing practices, IOOFBC lodges had almost no probability of being bankrupted by high claims. Early in lodge operations, surplus revenues were invested in assets, like the lodge hall, which generated revenues that subsidized lodge operations and benefit payments. Given that fraternal insurers were viable, why was fraternal membership not an important source of insurance coverage after the Depression? An analysis of the memberships of four IOOFBC lodges over the period 1891 to 1980 reveals that the devastation of fraternal memberships in the Depression promoted the growth of alternative (commercial and government) insurance arrangements. In the 1930s, more workers than ever before were without sickness insurance coverage. As the probability of suspension for non-payment of dues tripled, workers would have had little expectation of remaining in a fraternal membership long enough to collect sick benefits that were primarily needed after age 45. Through and after the Depression, IOOFBC lodges abandoned their insurance functions. Lodge memberships had "aged" so much between 1930 and 1945 that the increased lodge benefit liabilities made reforming the IOOFBC's beneficial systems impractical. If changes were not made to the IOOFBC subordinate lodges' dues and benefits, lodges would have had to potentially draw on their assets to meet their inflated obligations. The solution adopted was to abandon sick benefits altogether as members who had always been opposed to the insurance.

Most descriptions of the rise of the Canadian welfare state emphasize that traditional social welfare institutions were always inadequate and it took the Depression to demonstrate the need for better, more comprehensive arrangements. Beyond the enlightening influence of the Depression, the rise of current welfare state institutions is attributed to the efforts and influences of politicians, unions, social reformers, and intellectuals. This myth about the rise of the welfare state has been so widely accepted that there has been little effort expended in examining pre-welfare state social insurance arrangements. The findings of this case study of the Independent Order of Oddfellows of British Columbia (IOOFBC) sickness insurance indicate that before 1930 there was an extensive formalized system of social insurance. The study also reveals that rather than having demonstrated the inadequacies of the traditional welfare mechanisms, the severe economic conditions of the Depression devastated the existing social insurance arrangements which created the impetus for the rise of the welfare state. Up until 1930, membership in a fraternal organization, like the Independent Order of Oddfellows (IOOF), was one of the most important sources of sickness/health insurance and life insurance throughout the world. Fraternal insurers were able to provide insurance at a lower cost than commercial insurers through their non-profit motive and their use of screening and peer monitoring practices to alleviate problems of adverse selection and moral hazard. Until 1930, 13% of the population in British Columbia had sickness/health insurance coverage through fraternal membership. Critics of fraternal insurance argued that while fraternal insurers may have had low costs, they led a financially precarious existence due to their hazardous pricing practices. An analysis of IOOFBC lodges for the period 1891 to 1950 reveals that this is not a good explanation of the decline of fraternal insurance. Even with the most hazardous of pricing practices, IOOFBC lodges had almost no probability of being bankrupted by high claims. Early in lodge operations, surplus revenues were invested in assets, like the lodge hall, which generated revenues that subsidized lodge operations and benefit payments. Given that fraternal insurers were viable, why was fraternal membership not an important source of insurance coverage after the Depression? An analysis of the memberships of four IOOFBC lodges over the period 1891 to 1980 reveals that the devastation of fraternal memberships in the Depression promoted the growth of alternative (commercial and government) insurance arrangements. In the 1930s, more workers than ever before were without sickness insurance coverage. As the probability of suspension for non-payment of dues tripled, workers would have had little expectation of remaining in a fraternal membership long enough to collect sick benefits that were primarily needed after age 45. Through and after the Depression, IOOFBC lodges abandoned their insurance functions. Lodge memberships had "aged" so much between 1930 and 1945 that the increased lodge benefit liabilities made reforming the IOOFBC's beneficial systems impractical. If changes were not made to the IOOFBC subordinate lodges' dues and benefits, lodges would have had to potentially draw on their assets to meet their inflated obligations. The solution adopted was to abandon sick benefits altogether as members who had always been opposed to the insurance. / Arts, Faculty of / Vancouver School of Economics / Graduate

No description available.

Thesis (S.M. in Engineering and Management)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, System Design and Management Program; in conjunction with the SDM Fellows Program, 2012. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 65-66). / The optimal air temperature for datacenters is one of ways to improve energy efficiency of datacenter cooling systems. Many datacenter owners have been interested in raising the room temperature as a quick and simple method to increase energy efficiency. The purpose of this paper is both to provide recommendations on maximizing the energy efficiency of datacenters by optimizing datacenter temperature setpoint, and to understand the drivers of datacenter costs. This optimization and the potential energy savings used in cooling system can drive higher energy use in IT equipment and may not be a good trade off. For this reason, this paper provided a detailed look at the overall effect on energy of temperature changes in order to figure out the optimal datacenter temperature setpoint. Since this optimal temperature range varies by equipment and other factors in the datacenter, each datacenter should identify its appropriate temperature based on the optimization calculation in this paper. Sensitivity analysis is used to identify the drivers of the cost of ownership in a datacenter and to identify opportunities for datacenter efficiency improvement. The model is also used to evaluate potential datacenter efficiency. / by Heechang Lee. / S.M.in Engineering and Management

The number of English as a second language (ESL) students attending universities in the United States has increased during the 2011-2012 school year (Hagedorn & Lee, 2005), with, for the first time since 2001, more undergraduate international students than graduate students in institutions across the country (Davis, 2012). Given the wide range of backgrounds and English proficiencies represented by this group, their varying needs are frequently not being fully met, particularly in reading and writing, two areas that are often weak in ESL students but linked to academic success (Matsuda, 2004). Regarding writing, much research has shown that ESL students need feedback on various aspects of writing to improve (Ferris, 2009), ranging from content, to organization, to linguistic features. However, giving feedback on each of these components may not be possible for writing teachers, due to time demands. Alternatively, peer tutors may effectively work with ESL students to help them understand academic writing expectations in the U.S. and meet said expectations. This investigative study looked at a newly-developed ESL Writing Fellows (WF) program at Brigham Young University, focusing on the perceptions of the various stake holders (students, writing teachers, and Fellows themselves) regarding the success of the ESL WF program. Via pre- and post-program surveys, semi-structured interviews, and focus groups, the perceptions of the students were obtained. Via non-structured interviews, the perceptions of the teachers and Fellows themselves were obtained. From these data, themes that looked at the aspects of the program that were successful and that need to be improved were developed and analyzed, primarily from an administrative perspective. Overall, this study found that ESL students greatly appreciated having the individualized tutoring provided by the ESL WF program. Students valued the feedback given by the tutor on content, organization, and grammatical issues, and found the follow-up conferences with the tutor to be a great asset as the tutors could explain intended meaning. Additionally, tutors felt more comfortable negotiating intended meaning with the Fellow, which may be more effective at helping students develop the needed schema to apply Fellow suggestions to future writing assignments. However, much of the success of the program relies on the individual Fellow, with Fellows who neglect duties or provide feedback that conflicts with that of the teacher creating problems for students. Administrators should hire and train tutors accordingly. Teachers agreed that the Fellows generally were an asset to their classes, and the Fellows themselves appreciated the opportunity to work one-on-one with ESL students, feeling that this program afforded them experience that would make them more employable in the future.

Communication across the curriculum (CXC) programs are becoming increasingly common as institutions of higher learning recognize the need for improving communication skills in college students. Consequently, the University of Kentucky (UK) is piloting Presentation U, a multimodal communication across the curriculum (MCXC) program. This study examines the degree to which the Faculty Fellows program succeeds in helping faculty across the university integrate effective communication instruction and assignments into their courses. For this study, all faculty members participating in cohort #2 of the program responded to surveys and wrote reflection papers regarding their experiences. Their responses were analyzed and conclusions drawn. The study, grounded in the adult theory of transformative learning, found evidence of worldview transformation among faculty fellows as a result of their participation in the program.

Au Canada, les chercheurs postdoctoraux font face à de nombreux défis qui découlent d’une carence dans leur prise en charge par le système d'éducation supérieure. Puisque leurs données ne sont pas gérées de façon centralisée, leur population et leur contribution au système de recherche demeurent imprécises. Cette étude présente une analyse bibliométrique sur la production scientifique des stagiaires postdoctoraux financés par les organismes subventionnaires fédéraux canadiens et de la province de Québec de 2004 à 2008 (N = 3 454). Les résultats montrent que ces postdoctorants ont en moyenne une productivité égale ou supérieure à celle des doctorants et des membres du corps professoral québécois et que leur impact scientifique est supérieur à celui des deux autres groupes. On observe aussi que les postdoctorants ayant réalisé leur stage aux États-Unis présentent des indicateurs de productivité et d’impact plus élevés. / Canadian postdoc fellows represent an increasingly important group of researchers that faces various problems resulting from deficiencies on the higher education system. Additionally, their contribution to the research system remains largely unknown. This study presents a bibliometric analysis of the scientific production of postdoctoral fellows funded by the Canadian and Quebec granting agencies, whose grant application was submitted between 2004 and 2008 (N = 3,454). The results show that the scientific impact, as well as the number of papers authored by postdocs is equal or higher than the ones of PhD students and of faculty members from Québec. We also observe that postdocs who completed their training in the United States obtain higher productivity and impact indicators. This study is the first of its kind in Canada and helps identify the contribution of postdocs to the advancement of knowledge.