<p>Since the late 1960’s, the hydromechanical term turbulence has been a part of the business administration vocabulary, but until the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, a relatively small amount of research was dedicated to this field. These studies and more contemporary ones conclude that where the business environment is paradoxical and of fast- changing and chaotic nature, successful corporate strategies are shaped by strategic flexibility founded in high innovation rates, networks and alliances, and organisational elasticity and adaptiveness. From this perspective, the purpose of this study was to track and examine the strategy formation processes of a company operating in a turbulent context, and to contribute to an understanding of how these turbulent conditions can be managed. The study was conducted with a hermeneutic, systems- oriented, longitudinal case-study method and with a contextcontent- process perspective in which the process was the key factor. To a large extent, our conclusions coincide with those of other researchers. Forming multidimensional networks and alliances coloured by voluntary initiatives and full attention seem to be an extremely important contribution to survival in turbulent contexts. Nevertheless, it is equally important to break up and build new alliances as the initial objectives of the arrangement have expired or been reached. Furthermore, in contrast to other researchers’ observations, we conclude that high innovation rates do not necessarily lead to a greater potential to be successful in a turbulent context. The issue is instead to present a product offering flexible in itself developed and marketed by a flexible organisation. Innovation rates are decided by self-initiated and unofficial activity on part of the r&d teams and other coworkers, and management’s task is to facilitate for this corporate creativity to develop.</p>

<p>IMIS (Integrated Mobile Information System for Diabetic Healthcare) aims at providing healthcare on both stationary and mobile platform, which is based on Engström’s triangle model in Activity Theory. It focuses on the need for communication and information accessibility between care-providers and their shared patients. Based on the identified need in the target area, IMIS has decided to construct a network-based communication system to support communication and accessibility to patients’ journal. Since the system integrates various roles from the heath care organization, it is a challenge to provide a useful software program to the group members. In order to facilitate the application and enhance the Human-Computer interaction of the system, agent technology is applied to increase the flexibility factor so that the system could be self-adapted to a wider range group of users.</p><p>Besides, this thesis also introduces the approach of using social-psychology — Activity theory in HCI, and discuss the integration of these different disciplines. The Multi-agents System is applied with Gaia methodology from micro perspectives. From the macro perspective Activity theory constructs the coordination mechanism of the different agents. A prototype is applied based on the different model of our research.</p>

This thesis concerns the relatively recent phenomenon of part-time managers and professionals. The focus is the part-time working arrangement (PTWA) and specifically the process by which it emerges and develops, building on existing literature on working-hours preferences, the role of the organization in part-time working and alternative work organization for temporal flexibility. Two large private-sector organizations, each operating in the UK and the Netherlands, provided four different research sites for narrative interviews with 39 part-time managers and professionals. The key contribution to knowledge is to identify the process of developing a PTWA as a combination of the formal negotiation of a flexibility task i-deal and an informal process of job crafting. In a situation of high constraint – where the individual’s goals conflict with organizational norms and expectations – the tensions between ‘being part-time’ and ‘being professional’ necessitated identity work at each stage, as individuals constructed a ‘provisional self’ which in turn enclosed each stage of the development of the PTWA. The four stages were: first, evaluation of alternative options, including postponing the transition to part- time until more appropriate circumstances arise; secondly, preparation of the individual business case for part-time; thirdly, formal negotiation of a flexibility task i-deal; and finally an informal, unauthorized adaptation of the arrangement over time. Collaborative crafting of working practices (predictability, substitutability, knowledge management) provided greater opportunities for adaptation than individual activities. This study’s contribution to theory in the nascent field of part-time managers and professionals is a process model which suggests how three sets of discourses act as generative mechanisms at each stage of the emergence and development of the PTWA, creating or destroying ‘action spaces’. These discourses are: the perceived ‘nature’ of managerial and professional work, the perception of part-time as a personal lifestyle choice, and the understanding of part-timers as either ‘other’ or the ‘new normal’.

Flexible working conditions is used extensively in organizations today as a way to create flexibility for the employer. Recently we’ve been reading in the newspapers that this approach is a growing problem and the EU has warned Sweden twice that abuse of these forms of employment must be stopped. The Government has recently submitted a proposed rule change to reduce the possibility of stacking one temporary contract after another. Borlänge kommun makes themselves more flexible with the intermittent employments. This study aims to examine why infrequent employments, such as the intermittent employment is used and preferred by Borlänge kommun and how it’s perceived by affected employees in the organization. The questions related, besides why the intermittent employment is used by the organization and how its perceived by those involved, also includes the management of intermittent employment and how the organization is handling work contracts. The background information on the employment law implications gives the reader an insight into how the regulatory framework works surrounding the topic. The theory section highlights the main theories about flexibility and its different shapes and perspectives. For the study a qualitative approach is used. A case study with semi-structured interviews was performed. The respondents were employees involved in the staffing of intermittent employees and also members of the staff with an intermittent employment. The results show that the employment and contracts is correctly handled by labour law regulations. This study shows that Borlänge kommun uses intermittent employments extensively, with its 1 320 intermittently employees. If this is abuse, or not, is not clear from the result. The authors discuss, however, if that is the case. The intermittent employment is used mainly because of the great needs. This is because society is changing and the average age is increasing, both by those using the services and the employees. All respondents perceive the intermittent employment as most flexible for the employees. Respondents working in the staffing department say that they are not flexible enough. The intermittent employees’ working today does not cover the great need. Borlänge kommun think that the flexibility should benefit them more and is currently trying to become more flexible. The employees were generally satisfied with their work situation. Some tendencies of insecurity and uncertainty could be inferred from the intermittent employees answers. The author’s conclusions are that flexibility and the intermittent employment contracts mainly benefit the employer and the employees who actively choose this type of work, such as students. This kind of employment affects, however, the society and those who need a secure lifestyle. The necessary permanent contracts are becoming fewer and replaced by precarious and flexible employment conditions. / Flexibla arbetsformer används i dag flitigt i organisationer som ett sätt att skapa flexibilitet för arbetsgivaren. Nyligen har man kunnat läsa i tidningarna att detta arbetssätt är ett växande problem och EU har vid två tillfällen varnat Sverige att missbruk av dessa anställningsformer måste upphöra. Regeringen har i dagarna lagt ett föreslag på ändrade regler för att minska möjligheten att kunna stapla tillfälliga anställningar på varandra. Borlänge kommun gör sig mer flexibla med den intermittenta anställningen. Studien syfte är att undersöka varför den intermittenta anställningen används av Borlänge kommun och hur den upplevs av vissa berörda i organisationen. Frågeställningarna berör förutom, varför den intermittenta anställningen används i organisationen och hur den upplevs av berörda, även hanteringen av den intermittenta anställningen. Bakgrundsinformation om den arbetsrättsliga innebörden ger läsaren en inblick i hur regelverket ser ut kring anställningen och vad som krävs när det gäller avtalshantering. De teorier som används belyser främst teorier om flexibilitetens olika former och perspektiv, då den intermittenta anställningen är en del av den flexibla arbetsmarknaden. För undersökningen användes en kvalitativ metod. En fallstudie med semistrukturerade intervjuer genomfördes. Respondenterna var personal som arbetar med bemanningen av intermittent anställda samt intermittent anställda medarbetare. Denna studie visar att Borlänge kommun använder sig av timanställda i stor utsträckning, med sina 1 320 intermittent anställda. Om detta anses vara ett missbruk eller inte framgår inte av resultatet, författarna diskuterar dock om så är fallet. Resultat visar att anställningen och avtalen kring den intermittenta anställningen hanteras efter arbetsrättens regelverk. Den intermittenta anställningen används främst i kommunen för att behoven är stora. Detta främst på grund av att samhället förändras och medelåldern blir allt högre, både bland brukare och medarbetare. Den intermittenta anställningen upplevs idag av de respondenter som deltagit i undersökning som mest flexibel för arbetstagaren. De respondenter som arbetar på bemanningsavdelningen menar att de idag inte är flexibla nog. De timvikarier som arbetar idag täcker inte det stora behovet. Kommunen vill att flexibiliteten ska gynna arbetsgivaren mer och arbetar idag för att bli mer flexibla, bland annat genom att utöka den numeriska flexibiliteten med hjälp av utvecklade system för intermittenta anställningar. Medarbetarna var överlag nöjda med sin arbetssituation. Vissa tendenser till otrygghet och osäkerhet kunde utläsas ur respondenternas svar. Författarna har dragit slutsatsen att flexibiliteten och den intermittenta anställningen främst gynnar arbetsgivaren och de medarbetare som aktivt väljer denna typ av tjänst, till exempel studenter. Anställningen drabbar dock de som behöver en säker försörjning och samhället i stort. Nödvändiga tillsvidareanställningar blir färre och ersätts av otrygga och flexibla anställningsförhållanden.

The scope of this work focuses on computationally modeling compounds with protein structures. While the impetus of drug discovery is the innovation of new therapeutic molecules, it also involves distinguishing molecules that would not be an effective drug. This can be achieved by inventing new tools or by refining old tools. Virtual screening (VS, also called docking), the computational modeling of a molecule in a receptor structure, is a staple in predicting a molecule's affinity for an intended target. In our Virtual Target Screening system (also called inverse-docking), VS is used to find high-affinity targets, which can potentially explain absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion (ADME) of a molecule of interest in the human body. The next project, low-mode docking (LD), attempts to improve VS by incorporating protein flexibility into traditional docking where a static receptor structure has potential to produce poor results due to incorrectly predicted ligand poses. Finally, VS, performed mostly on small molecules, is scaled up to cyclic peptides by employing Monte Carlo simulations and molecular dynamics to mimic the steps of small molecule VS. The first project discussed is Virtual Target Screening (also called inverse-docking) where a small molecule is virtually screened against a library of protein structures. Predicting receptors to which a synthesized compound may bind would give insights to drug repurposing, metabolism, toxicity, and lead optimization. Our protocol calibrates each protein entry with a diverse set of small molecule structures, the NCI Diversity Set I. Our test set, 20 kinase inhibitors, was predicted to have a high percentage of kinase "hits" among approximately 1500 protein structures. Further, approved drugs within the test set generally had better rates of kinase hits. Next, normal mode analysis (NMA), which can computationally describe the fundamental motions of a receptor structure, is utilized to approach the rigid body bias problem in traditional docking techniques. Traditional docking involves the selection of a static receptor structure for VS; however, protein structures are dynamic. Simulation of the induced fit effect in protein-ligand binding events is modeled by full articulation of the approximated large-scale low-frequency normal modes of vibration, or "low-modes," coupled with the docking of a ligand structure. Low-mode dockings of 40 cyclin dependent 2 (CDK2) inhibitors into 54 low-modes of CDK2 yielded minimum root-mean-square deviation (RMSD) values of 1.82 – 1.20 Å when compared to known coordinate data. The choice of pose is currently limited to docking score, however, with ligand pose RMSD values of 3.87 – 2.07 Å. When compared to corresponding traditional dockings with RMSD values of 5.89 – 2.33 Å, low-mode docking was more accurate. The last discussion involves the rational docking of a cyclic peptide to the murine double minute 2 (MDM2) oncoprotein. The affinity for a cyclic peptide (synthesized by Priyesh Jain, McLaughin Lab, University of South Florida), PJ-8-73, in MDM2 was found to be within an order of magnitude of a cyclic peptide from the Robinson Lab at the University of Zurich in Switzerland. Both are Β-hairpin cyclic peptides with IC50 values of 650 nm and 140 nm, respectively. Using the co-crystalized structure of the Robinson peptide (PDB 2AXI), we modeled the McLaughlin peptide based on an important interaction of the 6-chloro-tryptophan residue of the Robinson peptide occupying the same pocket in MDM2 as the tryptophan residue by the native p53 transactivation helical domain. By preserving this interaction in initial cyclic peptide poses, the resulting pose of PJ-8-73 structure in MDM2 possessed comparable active site residue contacts and surface area. These protocols will aid medical research by using computer technology to reduce cost and time. VTS utilizes a unique structural and statistical calibration to virtually assay thousands of protein structures to predict high affinity binding. Determining unintended protein targets aids in creating more effective drugs. In low-mode docking, the accuracy of virtual screening was increased by including the fundamental motions of proteins. This newfound accuracy can decrease false negative results common in virtual screening. Lastly, docking techniques, usually for small molecules, were applied to larger peptide molecules. These modifications allow for the prediction of peptide therapeutics in protein-protein interaction modulation, a growing interest in medicine. Impactful in their own ways, these procedures contribute to the discovery of drugs, whether they are small molecules or cyclic peptides.

In today's marketplace, firms' exposure to business uncertainties and risks are continuously increasing as they strive to meet dynamically changing customer needs under intensifying competitive pressures. Consequently, modern supply chains are continuously evolving to effectively manage these uncertainties and the allied risks through both operational and financial hedging strategies. In practice, firms extensively use operational hedging strategies such as operational flexibility, capacity flexibility, postponement, multi-sourcing, supplier diversification, component commonality, substitutability, transshipments and holding excess stocks as operational means for risk management. On the other hand, financial hedging which involves buying and selling financial instruments, carrying large cash reserves or adopting conservative financial policies, changes the cash flow stream of the firms and may help to reduce the firms exposure to business risks and uncertainties. Overall, in this dissertation we explore how risk management can be integrated with operating decisions so as to improve the firm value creating more wealth for the shareholders. In the first essay, we focus on capacity flexibility as a means of operational hedging for risk management in an MTO production environment under demand uncertainty. We demonstrate that capacity flexibility may not only be used to hedge against the demand uncertainty, but may also be employed to effectively protect against possible suboptimal operating decisions in the future. In the second essay, we focus on operational hedging in financially constrained startup firms when making short-term production and long-term investment decisions. We provide an analytical characterization of the optimal investment and operating decisions and analyze the impact of market parameters on the operations of the firm. Our findings highlight an interesting operational hedging behavior between the process investment decisions and the short-term production commitments of the firm when they are faced with financial constraints. Our third essay focuses on the value of integrated financial risk management activities by publicly traded established firms under the risk of incurring financial distress cost. Different from the existing operations management literature, we study the risk management by a public corporation within the value framework of finance; hence our findings do not require any specific assumptions about the investors' utility functions. Moreover, we contribute to the operations management research by examining the impact of the costs of financial distress on hedging and operating plans of the firm. Overall, in this dissertation, we examine the effective integration of operational and financial risk management so as to improve the firm value creating more wealth for the shareholders. / text

現今企業廣泛地採用整合資訊系統，旨在能夠獲得多方面的效益，並且達到提升競爭力的最終目的。然而，由於不恰當的系統控制與彈性配置，無法實現期望成效的情況十分普遍。本研究延伸Adler和Borys於1996年對於強制性系統和實現性系統的討論至過度應用的情境，並在本作中以「過度控制」和「過度彈性」詮釋。 為了回答整合資訊系統過度控制和過度彈性之「何種」、「為何」、及「如何」等面向的研究問題，本作用下列四步驟建立研究方法。首先進行文獻探討，以獲得時常相互衝突的兩種系統設置之問題還有可行解決方案的基礎認知。第二，透過訪談五家企業進行多重個案研究，以增進對現實情況的洞見。第三，展開跨案例分析討論過往研究和實務案例之間的異同，最後，建立結論彙整與總結本研究的發現。 響應於我們的研究問題，本研究對大部分於過往研究中提及的問題皆有所發現，並且提出在不同情境中的幾種新式解決方案。這些解決方案可以分為系統設計、人員、以及政策等三方面探討。對於系統過度控制的案例，本研究提出在特定的情境中，系統有維持控制的必要，而在系統的觀點之外，員工責任的重新配置以及外部專家的支援亦可被視為可能的解決方式。至於系統過度彈性的案例，員工教育訓練必須與系統重新設計須並行，並且使用者需求以及彈性政策在早期的系統設計階段必須詳加檢視。 / Nowadays, enterprises widely adopt integrated information systems to obtain various types of advantages for the ultimate goal of increased competitiveness; however, there are common circumstances under which the expected outcomes fail to be realized because of inappropriate control and flexibility system configurations. This research extends Adler and Borys’ 1996 discussion on coercive and enabling systems to situations of misuse, which is construed as over-control and over-flexibility in this work. To shed light on our research questions of “what,” “why,” and “how” dimensions regarding integration system over-control and over-flexibility, this paper’s research method is established with the following four steps. First, a literature review is conducted to acquire a fundamental understanding to the issues and the possible resolving approaches regarding the two often contrary system configurations. Second, multiple case studies are carried out with five enterprise interviews to gain insight into real-world situations. Third, a cross-case analysis is continued to discuss the similarities and the differences between previous research and empirical cases, and finally, conclusion of this paper is built to aggregate and summarize our findings. In response to our research questions, most of the problems that are discussed in previous studies are identified in our empirical cases, and several novel approaches to resolve the problems in different contexts are proposed as our findings, which could be discussed from the perspectives of system design, people, and policy. For system over-control cases, this paper proposes that in certain circumstances, system should remain control, and beside system perspectives, employee empowerment, responsibility redesign, and external experts’ support should also be considered as possible approaches. With regard to system over-flexibility cases, employee education should be carried out in parallel with system redesign, and user requirements and flexibility policy should be carefully reviewed at early system design stage.

Control and flexibility may appear an unlikely pair. However, I propose that effective management of dynamic environments, such as systems development under conditions of uncertainty, must still provide clear control mechanisms to manage the progress and quality of the resulting products. This dissertation presents research to understand the types of control used in the context of flexible software development processes. The dynamic capabilities extension to the resource-based view of the firm is used to understand dynamic environments. Within those environments, control theory is used to understand how activities are guided and controlled to achieve management objectives. Specifically, control theory acts as a lens to contrast the control mechanisms found in plan-driven and flexible processes. I extend current thinking to include emergent outcome controls for team coordination in a taxonomy of control mechanisms. These phenomena are studied through a qualitative field study. The results show that organizations will choose more flexible management approaches as uncertainty increases, and that more controlled-flexible approaches managed with emergent outcome controls will lead to better outcomes than uncontrolled, ad hoc approaches.

Network structures based upon metal-organic backbones represent a new class of functional materials that can be rationally constructed by employing the concepts of supramolecular chemistry and crystal engineering. The modularity of design strategies, the diversity of prototypal structures, and the dynamic features of networks have afforded great advantages over traditional materials syntheses. The research presented in this thesis is primarily concerned with developing an in-depth understanding of the basic principles that govern the supramolecular behaviors of metal-organic networks and gaining an experimental control over the structure and function of these new classes of hybrid materials.The use of rigid and angular organic ligands along with transition metal clusters gives rise to a wide variety of novel metal-organic architectures ranging from zero-dimensional nanostructures to three-dimensional frameworks. Conformational analysis of these structural models suggests the geometric foundations for the existence of superstructural diversity. Controlled crystallization experiments further reveal the synthetic factors that might determine the formation of supramolecular isomers.Careful selection of more labile organic components, on the other hand, leads to flexible metal-organic networks exhibiting dynamic characteristics that have not been observed in their rigid counterparts. The guest-dependent closing/opening of cavities and the ease of fine-tuning their chemical environments demonstrate the effectiveness of such a strategy in the context of generating tailored functional materials.

Following a series of reporting scandals in the early 2000s, several researchers studied the gradual shift toward more principles-based accounting systems. There seems to be a general belief that the adoption of international principles-based accounting standards will improve financial reporting quality worldwide, although little evidence is provided for this claim. At the same time several studies claim that heterogeneity in countries’ environmental factors will not lead to harmonized accounting practices and that important differences will remain even though there is common international accounting system. This study contributes to the literature regarding a shift toward more principles-based standards by investigating the effect of increased requirements’ flexibility on disclosure practices in an international environment characterized by harmonized accounting regulations but heterogeneous disclosure practices. The standards that are used are IFRS 8 Operating segment and its predecessor IAS 14R Segment Reporting. IFRS 8 took effect from January 1 2009. The countries included in the study represent the four largest economies in Europe, namely the UK, Germany, France and Italy. The methodology used is quantitative and follows a positivistic research approach. This study investigates the impact that a regulatory change has on disclosure practices by observing data reported in the annual reports and asserts the eventual differences between the two standards and across the four countries. The study provides evidence of only a marginal change in segment disclosure practices after the introduction of IFRS 8. The change is mostly characterized by a loss of key information indicating that more flexible requirements negatively impact accounting practices. This implies that if the purpose of a regulatory change is to assure a certain level of information, more rigid requirements are to be preferred. Further, this study shows that, opposed to expectations; disclosure practices are more heterogeneous under more rules-based standards. However, there is indication that the reason for increased homogeneity is that companies listed in the UK and Germany, presenting a higher amount of segment information under IAS 14R, have decreased the information under IFRS 8. It seems thus that standard enforceability decreases under more flexible disclosure requirements.