Corporate entrepreneurship has different strategies as referred to by researchers. An entrepreneurial orientation is one of these strategies. In the overall corporate entrepreneurial process, entrepreneurial orientation is referred to as entrepreneurial intensity. Corporate entrepreneurship is a process where organisations think differently to overcome barriers to improve the performance of the organisation. Entrepreneurial orientation is a process of decision making to develop new innovative products, services or processes to intensify the organisation’s performance. The South African banking system is supported with a well-managed regulated framework and is favourable in the global environment. South Africa is the financial gateway to the rest of Africa and the environment is highly competitive. During the last twenty years the banking industry went through exciting changes and turmoil when refering to the financial of 2008 crisis. Retail banks need to think differently and small competitors are more prominent than ever before. The lower end of the market created fierce competition between the retail banks in South Africa. The reason for this study is to focus on entrepreneurial orientations from a customer’s perspective. Customer perspective is critical for the survival of an organisation and banks are no different. Based on the literature, entrepreneurial orientation is the level of intensity of corporate entrepreneurship visible in the organisation. The results obtained in the empirical study enabled recommendations that can provide retail banks with useful information from a customer’s perspective that can assist retail banks in general. Recommendations found in the study include; retail banks need to reinvest in their own systems to mine useful information to assist customers, be more open to autonomy approaches and redesign job descriptions, re-look calculated risk areas that will have no influence on credit processes, regulate innovations better and involve the customer and be more unique to create a better customer experience. / MBA (Master of Business Administration), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

Corporate entrepreneurship has different strategies as referred to by researchers. An entrepreneurial orientation is one of these strategies. In the overall corporate entrepreneurial process, entrepreneurial orientation is referred to as entrepreneurial intensity. Corporate entrepreneurship is a process where organisations think differently to overcome barriers to improve the performance of the organisation. Entrepreneurial orientation is a process of decision making to develop new innovative products, services or processes to intensify the organisation’s performance. The South African banking system is supported with a well-managed regulated framework and is favourable in the global environment. South Africa is the financial gateway to the rest of Africa and the environment is highly competitive. During the last twenty years the banking industry went through exciting changes and turmoil when refering to the financial of 2008 crisis. Retail banks need to think differently and small competitors are more prominent than ever before. The lower end of the market created fierce competition between the retail banks in South Africa. The reason for this study is to focus on entrepreneurial orientations from a customer’s perspective. Customer perspective is critical for the survival of an organisation and banks are no different. Based on the literature, entrepreneurial orientation is the level of intensity of corporate entrepreneurship visible in the organisation. The results obtained in the empirical study enabled recommendations that can provide retail banks with useful information from a customer’s perspective that can assist retail banks in general. Recommendations found in the study include; retail banks need to reinvest in their own systems to mine useful information to assist customers, be more open to autonomy approaches and redesign job descriptions, re-look calculated risk areas that will have no influence on credit processes, regulate innovations better and involve the customer and be more unique to create a better customer experience. / MBA (Master of Business Administration), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

Maintaining rapid economic growth and protecting national sovereignty have been immovable national aims expressed in Chinese foreign policy behaviour since economic reforms were introduced in the late 1970s. Climate change, for its part, is a global concern and monetarily expensive issue which necessitates collective action. At face value, encouraging economic expansion and guarding national sovereignty could easily be viewed as conditions which oppose national actions to mitigate climate change and its potential effects. However in recent years, China has adopted a positive foreign policy tone expressing interest in mitigating climate change through the multilateral United Nations (UN) climate regime. Hence, China is a curious and perhaps contradictory participant in the UNFCCC regime’s institutions. This thesis seeks to answer the following research question: “Why is Chinese foreign policy able to balance supporting national economic development objectives and protect its sovereignty while also increasing UNFCCC multilateral cooperation to abate climate change?” In the course of answering this question, China’s foreign policy motivations in the climate regime are scrutinized using economic nationalism. Briefly, economic nationalism is applied here as an economically oriented ideological construct which incorporates sovereignty and national interests together with diverse economic policies, including interdependence. Supporting this thesis’ research is the three-fold argument which remarks that: First, China’s multilateral climate change engagement is consistent with established foreign policy goals to sustain national economic development and preserve national sovereignty. Second, China has redefined its foreign policy to accommodate the ideological construct of economic nationalism, embodied in the course of its international economic and image-status benefits. Third, as a consequence, comprehending Chinese climate foreign policy consistency will contribute to improving general knowledge and understanding of the climate regime and the methods it uses to encourage developing countries to increase their respective participation in mitigating climate change. This thesis studies China’s strategic cooperation with the climate regime using three climate-related cases, as well as a contrast case which compares contemporary climate mitigation with the abatement of ozone depleting substances (ODS), a precursor environmental issue to climate change. The four cases include: the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the Multilateral Fund (MLF), the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), and the Group of 77 (G77). On the first, the GEF is the climate regime’s original redistributive funding mechanism and China receives the largest quantity of GEF funding. Moreover, China’s experience with the GEF on climate change is contrasted with its earlier experience in combating ODS using the MLF financial redistributive mechanism. Second, the CDM is the foremost financial redistributive mechanism to pay for climate mitigation and clean development projects in developing countries. China, for its part, is host for the largest share CDM projects and the economically valuable GHG Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) they issue. Third, China is the de facto leader for developing countries in climate negotiations through the G77 negotiating bloc. The conclusions reached show that while China’s tone has changed through increased openness and participation, fundamentally, Chinese climate policy is based upon maintaining the continuity of its national interests. Modern economic nationalist ideology has deepened China’s foreign policy engagement on climate change by reconceptualising the global environmental issue as an economic development and image-status growth opportunity. Essentially, for China which is a country that prides itself on high rates of economic growth and whose foreign policy staunchly defends its national sovereignty, embracing forces of globalization through the act of multilaterally engaging on climate change is by no means a contradiction and is rather fully consistent with supporting its longstanding foreign policy objectives.

No description available.

Le Fonds pour l’environnement mondial (FEM) est la plus importante source individuelle de financement aux projets et programmes destinés à promouvoir des bénéfices environnementaux globaux dans les pays en voie de développement et en transition. L’objectif de la thèse est d’examiner le rôle du FEM comme un outil de financement des conventions environnementales et du développement soutenable, en soulignant sa contribution à la mise en œuvre du droit international de l’environnement et au débat concernant la gouvernance environnementale internationale. / The Global Environment Facility (GEF) is the most important single source of finance for projects and programs designed to promote global environmental benefits in developing countries and transition countries. The thesis aims at examining the role played by the GEF as a tool for financing environmental conventions and sustainable development, emphasizing its contribution to the enforcement of international environmental law and to the debate concerning international environmental governance.

The research addresses current shortcomings of autonomous service robots operating in domestic environments by considering the concept of a semi-autonomous robot that would be supported by human remote operators whenever the robot cannot handle a task autonomously. The main research objective was to investigate how to design the human-robot interaction for a robotic system to assist elderly people with physical tasks at home according to this conceptual idea. The research procedure followed the principles of human-centered design and is structured into four phases: In the first phase, the context of use of the system to be designed was determined. A focus group study yielded characteristics and attitudes of several potential user groups. A survey determined the demands of elderly people and informal caregivers for services a semiautonomous assistive robot may provide. An ethnographic study investigated the living conditions of elderly people and determined technical challenges for robots operating in this type of environment. Another ethnographic study investigated the work environment in teleassistive service centers and determined the feasibility of extending their range of services to incorporate robotic teleassistance. In the second phase, two studies were carried out to understand the interaction requirements. The first study determined common types of failure of current autonomous robots and required human interventions to resolve such failure states. The second study investigated how the human assistance could be provided considering a range of potential interaction devices. In the third phase, a human-robot interaction concept with three user groups and dedicated user interfaces was designed. The concept and user interfaces were refined in an iterative process based on the results of evaluations with prospective users and received encouraging results for user satisfaction and user experience. In the fourth and final phase the utility of two specific user interface features was investigated experimentally. The first experiment investigated the utility of providing remote operators with global 3D environment maps during robot navigation and identified beneficial usage scenarios. The second experiment investigated the utility of stereoscopic display for remote manipulation and robot navigation. Results suggested temporal advantages under stereoscopic display for one of three investigated task types and potential advantages for the other two. / Forskningen behandlar problem med autonoma robotar som agerar i hemmiljö. Specifikt studeras konceptet semi-autonoma robotar, vilket innebär att robotarna stöds av mänskliga operatörer när de inte klarar uppgifter på egen hand. Syftet med forskningen är att undersöka design av människa-robotinteraktion för robotsystem som stöder äldres behov av hjälp med fysiska uppgifter i hemmiljö. Forskningen är användarcentrerad och har strukturerats i fyra faser: I den första fasen undersöktes användarkontexten för systemet. I en fokusgruppsstudie utforskades karakteristika och attityder för flera potentiella användargrupper. Kraven på en semi-autonom robot för att assistera äldre och informella vårdgivare fastställdes. En enkätstudie undersökte levnadsvillkor hos äldre för att utforska tekniska utmaningar dessa omgivningar ställer på robotar. En etnografisk studie undersökte arbetskontexten på servicecenter för teleassistans och undersökte genomförbarhet i att utöka tjänsteutbudet till att även inkludera teleassisterade robotar. I den andra fasen utfördes två studier för att få kunskap om interaktionskrav. Den första studien fastställde vanliga typer av fel som inträffar med nuvarande typer av autonoma robotar och de typer av mänsklig assistans som krävs för att hantera dessa fel. Den andra studien undersökte hur mänsklig assistans kan utformas givet en repertoar av potentiella interaktionsanordningar. I den tredje fasen utformades ett interaktionskoncept för människa-robot interaktionen för tre användargrupper med dedicerade gränssnitt. Koncepten och användargränssnitten förfinades i en iterativ process baserat på resultat från utvärderingar med tänkta användare, och resulterade i uppmuntrande resultat vad gäller användarnas uppskattning och tillfredsställelse. I den fjärde och sista fasen studerades nyttan hos två specifika gränssnitt experimentellt. Det första experimentet undersökte nyttan med att ge operatörer på distans globala 3D-kartor under robotnavigeringen och identifierade användarscenarier där detta kan utnyttjas. Det andra experimentet undersökte nyttan med en stereoskopisk display för att manipulera och navigera roboten på distans. Resultaten visar på temporala fördelar med stereoskopisk display för en av tre undersökta uppgiftstyper och potentiella fördelar för de andra två.

科学研究費補助金 研究種目:基盤研究(C)(2) 課題番号:10680481 研究代表者:早川 直樹 研究期間:1998-1999年度

In years long negotiations on the new global climate change regime, financial support provided for adaptation and mitigation in developing countries have been one of the most contentious issues. Billions dollars are in questions annually, disbursed both by private investments, as well as substantially via public funds. The fundamental question resonating in the negotiations and elsewhere though is the issue of efficient delivery. Given the scale of resources, which should be mobilized and disbursed, given the current experience with inefficiencies in ODA, given the fact that existing climate change funds are now disbursing millions but not billions, the efficiency is really the key for success of future climate regime. Moreover, efficient delivery is a pre-condition for "preventing dangerous interference with climate change", which is the ultimate goal of climate change policy enshrined in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change envisages. It is a widespread belief that inefficiency in disbursing public funds remains at the recipient's side. This paper tries to approach the efficiency question at the case of the Global Environment Facility, the Kyoto Protocol Adaptation Fund and the World Bank Climate Investment Funds. It asks the question whether the existing funding mechanisms in climate change are set up optimally in order to disburse funds efficiently. When looking at their internal policies and guidelines, it focuses on the four leading questions -- how can funds be accessed, who decides, who and how implements and how are funds held accountable. It finds that there are major differences between the tree funds in how and by whom are priorities and objectives decided, what are the fund's requirements on recipients, and how does the fund control the efficiency of its spending. This paper brings an in-depth analysis of weak and strong policies in existing climate change funds with regard to efficient delivery.