The United States is one of the top destination countries for human trafficking, and Florida has the third highest number of reported cases of human trafficking. Despite the severity of this issue, Florida anti-trafficking legislation, reintegration programs, and awareness campaigns tend to contribute to the invisibility of the victims and undermine their recovery and reintegration into society, especially when the victims are immigrants. This project uses a multi-method approach including content analysis of anti-human trafficking campaigns to argue that portrayals of a “perfect victim” only amplify stigmatization and discrimination against immigrant victims. Through in-depth interviews and ethnographic observation highlighting the voices of immigrant survivors, law enforcement and service providers, I analyze the individual and structural challenges to reintegration. Using these insights, I offer several recommendations about the type of services and training necessary to help trafficking victims recover from their trauma and rebuild their lives.

Canopy gaps in many forests are thought of as resetting the successional sequence due to increased light availability. In this study, canopy gaps were identified with a LiDAR digital canopy model in a Key Largo hardwood forest. Sapling structure and composition were recorded in the gaps. Weighted averaging calibration was applied to relative abundances of trees to determine the successional age optimum for each tree species, and weighted averaging regression was used to calculate inferred stand ages for each gap’s saplings. The inferred stand ages were greater in young forest gaps than in surrounding, unimpacted forest, suggesting that succession was actually advanced. Canopy heights in Key Largo were shorter than many other tropical and temperate forests, canopy gaps were smaller and therefore light availability did not vary with gap area. This suggests that the largest gaps may not be big enough to produce the light conditions required to reestablish pioneer tree species. Soil and water conditions in young forest gaps may also favor mature rather than pioneer species. Resetting of the forest successional sequence may not occur without intense disturbances such as fires or major hurricanes that remove the entire canopy and consume or erode soils.

This Master’s thesis explores environmental corporate social responsibility (ECSR) in the alpine sport industry. A mixed methods case with a single alpine sport provider in Quebec was performed. The first study is a qualitative examination of how and why ECSR is employed and communicated. Results indicate ECSR is strategically motivated, and as such, the focal organization runs the risk of using several greenwashing techniques in communications that could jeopardize gaining competitive advantage. The second study quantitatively investigates alpine sport consumers’ environmental expectations, engagement with environmental products, and perceptions of the focal organization’s environmental reputation. The results show the focal organization’s customers do indeed have environmental expectations, but believe the focal organization’s environmental reputation remains neutral. The thesis supports arguments of corporate social responsibility (CSR) being strategically motivated and other findings of skiers having conflicting environmental values. Lastly, the thesis provides insight regarding greenwashing, a phenomenon that remains unexplored in sport management.

Cette thèse examine les thèmes d'appariement, de l'inégalité et de l'impact des changements technologiques sur le marché du travail. En particulier, elle aborde les questions sur l'appariement entre les salariés et les entreprises et comment cela influence les inégalités sur le marché du travail, à la fois dans la population entière, ainsi qu'entre les groupes démographiques et de compétences. Il examine également comment les changements technologiques affectent les conditions du marché du travail auxquelles sont confrontés les travailleurs et les entreprises. Ces questions sont abordées sur trois chapitres. Le premier chapitre, intitulé "Hétérogénéité multidimensionnelle et appariement dans un marché du travail frictionnel - une application à la polarisation" traite l'appariement des travailleurs aux entreprises selon des caractéristiques multidimensionnelles et quantifie l'impact du changement technologique sur l'évolution d'appariement, des salaires et de l'emploi de différents groupes démographiques. Je construis un modèle de recherche dirigée avec hétérogénéité multidimensionnelle et j'estime le modèle sur des données américaines. Je trouve que les complémentarités de production entre les compétences et les taches cognitives et interpersonnelles ont augmenté, par rapport à ceux-ci entre les compétences et les taches manuelles. Ce changement de technologie de production explique en grande partie la polarisation des salaires et des emplois aux Etats-Unis. De plus, même s'il ne tient pas compte des différences entre les sexes, le modèle peut expliquer une fraction substantielle du rétrécissement des écarts hommes-femmes des salaires et des emplois. Coécrit avec Nicolo Dalvit et Aseem Patel, le deuxième chapitre, intitulé "Hiérarchies intra-entreprises et disparité entre les sexes", étudient le classement des femmes dans les hiérarchies au sein des entreprises. Il utilise des données administratives françaises et examinent l'incidence des écarts de salaires et d'emploi à travers les hiérarchies au fil du temps. En outre, en exploitant une politique sur les quotas de conseil d'entreprise en France, il évalue l'impact d'une augmentation du leadership féminin sur les salaires et les résultats de l'emploi au sein des entreprises. Nous constatons que les hiérarchies comptent dans les écarts de salaires et d'emplois entre les sexes. Les écarts de salaires et d'emplois entre hommes et femmes augmentent avec chaque niveau de hiérarchie des entreprises, même si ces écarts se rétrécissent davantage au fil du temps dans les niveaux supérieurs. De plus, l'amélioration du leadership féminin a des impacts différents selon les hiérarchies. Tandis qu'une plus grande proportion de femmes membres du conseil d'administration réduit l'écart salarial entre les sexes dans les niveaux supérieures de la hiérarchie, elle n'a pas un tel impact sur les niveaux inférieurs. Au lieu de cela, il augmente la proportion de femmes dans les niveaux inférieures travaillant à temps partiel, au détriment de l'emploi à temps plein. Le contraire est vrai pour les femmes dans les niveaux supérieures. Le troisième chapitre, "Pénurie de main-d’œuvre et ajustements du marché du travail: une théorie des iles", coécrit avec Riccardo Zago, traite de l'incidence de la pénurie de main-d’œuvre et évalue si elle entraine des ajustements salariaux et salariaux. En utilisant des données uniques sur les postes vacants déclarés par les entreprises d'être difficile à pourvoir, nous documentons l'incidence de la pénurie entre les régions, les industries et les groupes professionnels. Nous constatons que la pénurie ne conduit qu'à des ajustements de salaires et d'emploi dans les professions non routinières, mais pas dans les professions routines. Nous montrons comment le déclin séculaire des occupations de routine, causé par le changement technologique, peut expliquer la persistance de la pénurie dans ce secteur et son incapacité à s'adapter. / This thesis examines the themes of sorting, inequality and the impact of technological change on the labor market. In particular, it addresses the questions of how workers sort within and between firms and how this influences labor market inequality, both in the workforce as a while, as well as between demographic and skill groups. It also considers how changes in technology affects the labor market conditions faced by workers and firms. These questions are tackled over three chapters. The first chapter, entitled `Multidimensional heterogeneity and matching in a frictional labor market - an application to polarization' deals with the sorting of workers to firms along multidimensional characteristics and quantifies the impact of technological change on the evolution of sorting patterns, wages and employment outcomes of different skill and demographic groups. I construct a model of directed search with two-sided multidimensional heterogeneity and estimate the model on US data. I find that production complementarities between cognitive and interpersonal skills and tasks have increased, relative to hat between manual skills and manual tasks. This change in production technology accounts for a large part of wage and job polarization in the US. Also, despite being gender-blind, the model can explain a substantial fraction of the narrowing of gender wage and job rank gaps from the 1980s to the present day. The second chapter, entitled `Intra-firm hierarchies and gender gaps' and coauthored with Nicolo Dalvit and Aseem Patel, studies the sorting of women into layers of hierarchy within firms, using administrative French data, and examines the incidence of gender wage and employment gaps across hierarchies over time. Further, by exploiting a policy on corporate board quotas in France, it assesses the impact of an increase in female leadership on gender wage and employment outcomes within firms. We find that hierarchies matter in gender wage and employment gaps. Gender wage and employment gaps increase with each layer of firm hierarchy, even if these gaps narrow more over time in the upper layers. In addition, improvements in top female leadership has differing impacts across hierarchies. While a greater share of female corporate board members narrows the gender wage gap in top layers of hierarchy, it has no such impact on lower layers. Instead, it increases the share of women in lower layers working part-time, at the expense of full-time employment. The opposite is true for women in upper layers. The third chapter, `Occupational Shortage and Labor Market Adjustments: a Theory of Islands', coauthored with Riccardo Zago, addresses the incidence of occupational shortage, and assesses whether it leads to wage and employment adjustments. Using a unique dataset on reported vacancies that firms find difficult to fill, we document the incidence of shortage across regions, industries and occupation groups. We find that shortage only leads to wage and employment adjustments in non-routine occupations, but not in routine occupations. We show how the secular decline of the routine occupations, caused by technological change, can account for the persistence in shortage in the routine sector and its inability to adjust.

No description available.

Over the past few years there is an increase in globalization and construction industry companies are becoming more aware of the environmental and social aspects in construction projects. Companies have to make a profit and carry out an obligation towards the community. The reason for introducing codes of conduct is to ensure that companies and persons within the construction industry become more socially responsible and adopt it into their daily businesses due to community pressures. It is essential to enforce codes of conduct throughout the construction industry professions, including all stakeholders and team members within the construction industry. This study has sought to determine the main reasons why some quantity surveyors might not always apply the code of conduct in an ethical and professional manner, as well as to identify possible ways how the code of conduct can be improved, be upheld and implemented more successfully in South Africa. Questionnaires were used to collect data from some quantity surveyors in South Africa. The aim of the questionnaire was to identify how some quantity surveyors implement the code of conduct, where the possible gaps in the code of conduct are and how the current code of conduct can be improved. The data determined that the code of conduct needs to be regularly improved in order to stay up to date with current ethical situations that quantity surveyors face daily in South Africa, as well as that some quantity surveyors have a lack of education and proper understanding of the codes of conduct, lack of keeping up to date with the Code and the guidance in which they serve. / Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2020. / Construction Economics / MSc (Quantity Surveying) / Unrestricted

Manufacturing industries have adopted globalization as a strategy to improve the reach of their products/services, bringing them closer to the customer and utilizing the cost advantage in emerging economies, better availability of resources such as raw materials, and cheaper workforce. However, with globalization came a fair share of obstacles in effectively managing the operations of a complex supply chain network spread across the globe. Failure of manufacturing firms in controlling their operations has led to a generation of wastes such as underutilization of resources, inefficient by-product disposal systems, and increased emissions from poorly managed logistics networks. Research on understanding the environmental impact of ineffectively managed supply chain networks shows that industrial operations contribute up to 20% of global carbon dioxide emissions creating a serious impact on the environment.  Realizing these adverse effects, many countries across the globe have taken steps to regulate and monitor the operations and by-products produced by manufacturing firms. Multiple countries and local governments have come together to become environmentally more responsible through encouraging sustainability initiatives. They have laid more stringent regulations to pressure the manufacturing firms to transform into more sustainable and reduce their carbon footprint. Moreover, the manufacturing firms are also experiencing pressure from local governments and private NGOs. With increasing awareness of sustainability, customers have also slowly started transforming towards sustainable products and boycotting products from firms that do not comply with sustainability standards. Consequently, manufacturing firms have realized the need to become more sustainable in order to adapt to the changing regulations and customer needs. To achieve the level of sustainability in their supply chain operations, manufacturing firms have adopted innovative strategies and made changes in their policies making sustainability one of their prime goals. To achieve the desired level of sustainability, firms need to transform their current ways by incorporating a sustainability perspective into their operations. However, integrating sustainability at the operations level is not as easy as said due to existing governance gaps which are a result of ineffective control and management in global supply chain networks.  This thesis aims at identifying, understanding, and analyzing the gaps in integrating sustainability into supply chains and providing suggestions on how to fulfill these gaps. Through this research three innovative sustainability strategies which can be applied at operational, organizational, and system levels are analyzed, and conclusions are drawn on how successful implementation of these strategies would help in fulfilling the governance gaps. Further, the research also analyses the plausible effects of implementing the strategies by understanding and comparing the firm performance before and after implementation. The firm performance is measured in three categories: environmental performance, operational performance, and financial performance.

Desired performance-related characteristics for entry-level managers are studied from the perspective of 106 Portuguese executives. The results indicate that soft characteristics and skills, such us leadership, entrepreneurship and organisational learning skills, appear to be more important than technical skills. While these skills and characteristics are valued by today's business organisations, the educational system does not appear to be preparing its graduates accordingly. The resulting educational gaps have important performance-related implications to both the business organisations and the higher education institutions.

Dogs and humans have through domestication and co-evolution established a close relationship and can communicate and understand each other. The objective of the present study was to deepen the understanding of the communication between dogs and humans, with focus on the vocalized communication. The study was based on video and audio recordings of dog-human communications from a total of 36 dogs in their home environment. The mean gap size in the communication ranged from 0.651.16 seconds and the overlap in communication had a percentage range of 14-50 %. These results are within the frame of other species communication with turn-taking. With these considerations, it clearly indicates that turn-taking occurs in interspecies communication between dogs and humans. The present study suggests that dogs intentionally communicate through vocalisation with their owners to gain the attention of the owner. In addition, age and sex of the dog influence their communication with their owners.

Forskning visar en ökad risk för förskolepersonal att drabbas av hörselnedsättning och andra hörselproblem trots att ljudnivåerna i förskolan inte uppmätts till över gränsvärdena på 85 dB(A) ekvivalent ljudnivå. Forskning saknas kring mätningar som mäter den centrala auditiva bearbetningsförmågan hos förskolepersonal. Syfte: Huvudsyftet med arbetet är att undersöka huruvida centrala auditiva bearbetningsproblem samt perifer hörselnedsättning föreligger hos studiepopulationen bestående av förskolepersonal. Metod: 19 kvinnor mellan 27–63 år, från åtta förskolor i Örebro kommun deltog i studien. Datainsamling gjordes via en enkät, tonaudiometri, tal i brus-mätning, gaps in noise (GIN) och dikotiska lyssningstest. Deltagarna delades in i två grupper baserat på hur de skattade sin hörsel. Mätvärden jämfördes med normvärden, data analyserades även statistiskt. Resultat: Elva deltagare hade resultat som avvek från normvärden på dikotiskt lyssningstest med stavelser som stimuli, nio deltagare hade resultat som avvek från normvärden på GIN. Sex deltagare hade lätt hörselnedsättning sett till deras tonaudiogram, medelvärdena skiljde sig knappt från en åldersmatchad referenspopulation. Populationen hade bättre värden än förväntat på tal i brus. Deltagare som skattade sin hörsel som mindre bra hade genomgående sämre medelvärden på mätningarna. Slutsats: De mätningar där flest deltagare hade avvikelser från normvärden var GIN och dikotiskt lyssningstest med stavelser som stimuli. Detta kan indikera en nedsatt central auditiv bearbetningsförmåga men även vara en följd av ålder och av att några deltagare hade perifer hörselnedsättning.