The objective of this research was to investigate the generation of uncertainty within industrial supply chains. Since the late 1950's it has been recognised that the systems used internally within supply chains can lead to oscillations in demand and inventory as orders pass through the system. The uncertainty generated by these oscillations can result in late deliveries, order cancellations and an increased reliance on inventory to buffer these effects. Despite the best efforts of organisations to stabilise the dynamics generated, industry still experiences a high degree of uncertainty from this source. Greater understanding of the generation of uncertainty within the supply chain could result in improved management of the systems and consequently competitive advantage being gained by organisations. The investigation used simulation models of real industrial supply chains to identify possible sources of uncertainty. The complexity of the models was adjusted by increasing the number of echelons and the number of channels in the supply chain. One source of uncertainty investigated was the generation of deterministic chaos and a methodology was developed to detect and quantify this within the supply chain. Parallel interactions, which occur between suppliers in the same tier in the supply chain, were also modelled and quantified. In addition to demand amplification, which has been recognised as a source of uncertainty by both academics and industrialists, two additional sources of uncertainty were identified: namely deterministic chaos and parallel interactions. The relationship between these causes of uncertainty was established and the original concept of the "supply chain complexity triangle" is proposed. The "average prediction horizon" was calculated by the use of Lyapunov exponents and was used to quantify the amount of chaos experienced by supply chain members. This chaos was found to be dependent on the number of echelons, which also impacts on the amount of chaos experienced by all members of the supply chain, both up and down stream. Parallel interactions impact on all the members of the supply chain resulting in reduced performance. However, the number of channels in the supply chain modelled had little effect on the amount of chaos. Implications for reducing supply chain uncertainty either by managing or removing these effects is also discussed.

The governance of information technology (IT) service provision entails all those elements of the structure and process of contracting and organisation that are necessary in order to deliver effective and efficient IT services within today's organisations. This thesis develops a framework integrating those elements of governance with a view to explaining actual governance structures and to guiding relevant decisions in practice. Until the late 1980s, the principal concerns with respect to the organisation of IT activities revolved around the issues of centralisation versus decentralisation and end-user computing versus specialist control. Whilst contracts for various systems and services have always been a significant part of the IT department's activity, the issue of structuring such contracts took a prominent position on the management agenda in the beginning of 1990s with the proliferation of large contracts of the 'total outsourcing' kind. IT outsourcing rekindled interest in and reshaped the agenda of the organisation of IT provision. The debate on IT outsourcing provided the motivation and the starting point of this thesis. Thus, chapter 1 reviews this debate and, following on the opinion of others, recasts the question of 'whether to outsource or not' as 'how to set up the governance (i. e. the structure and process of contracting and organisation) of IT service provision'. In order to shed some light on the elements of governance, chapter 2 turns on a range of economic theories of the firm. These theories are critically reviewed and some preliminary suggestions as to how they might inform the governance of IT are put forth. The chapter concludes by setting the theoretical foundations for the rest of the thesis. The notion of a governance continuum between the ideal pure market and the ideal pure hierarchy is introduced. Actual governance structures, it is argued, can be placed on this continuum as individual instances. Before advancing onto more substantive work, chapter 3 pauses to reflect on the epistemological basis of this research project. The main principles of the epistemological position adopted here are taken from the philosophical arguments of transcendental realism. The implications of this epistemological position for the empirical methods and the theoretical claims made in this thesis are also examined. Chapter 4 documents an intensive case study at British Petroleum Plc. The purpose of this case study was to draw lessons from practice and to assess the relevance of the theories of chapter 2. This case study was an interactive learning process through which the researcher sought access to management practice in order to assess economic theories, while the managers at BP sought a broader understanding of IT outsourcing. The outcome of this interaction was the S-CAGE framework which coupled theoretical insights with practical relevance. The S-CAGE (Service Clustering And Governance Establishment) framework is described in detail in chapter 5. It is put forth as both an explanatory and a normative account of the governance of IT service provision. It is based on the notion of governance continuum, it introduces the idea of grouping services into clusters and it provides a classification of the elements of governance that should be customised to the characteristics of each cluster of services. Chapter 6 presents two further case studies aimed at evaluating the usefulness of SCAGE in understanding and explaining alternative outsourcing practices. ICI and Anglian Water have been visited for this purpose. On the basis of these cases, the concluding chapter summarises the strengths and limitations of the proposed framework. An attempt is also made to set forth some preliminary theoretical ideas extending the notions of clustering and governance continuum. The thesis concludes with a final short illustration of the use of the S-CAGE framework.

The relationship between organisational behaviour research and commercial companies is complex, primarily because academic researchers and companies expect different outcomes from participation in the research. Businesses are usually looking to improve organisational performance and seek immediate, practical and applicable outcomes. Academic researchers seek an extension of theoretical knowledge and a contribution to the advancement of their field. Thus a researcher with a foot in both camps is seesawing between organisational behaviour and managerial practice. The task is to manage the tension to satisfy both parties. The study is an example of a piece of research aiming to satisfy the academic criteria for a PhD thesis and the commercial criteria of the sponsoring organisation, in this case British Airways (BA). BA had noted a number of business costs associated with senior managers who joined the organisation from outside. The aim was to find a way of reducing the costs and improving the joining experience for these individuals in a way which got them to high performance quickly. The theoretical field of organisational socialisation, described as having no unifying and coherent 'theory' of socialisation (Saks and Ashforth 1997:235), provided a substantially appropriate conceptual lens through which the current research could be analysed and subsequently applied in a commercial setting. In summary the two aims of this study were, first, to extend theoretical knowledge of organisational socialisation, specifically by confirming or disconfirming the relationship between investiture and performance found by Ashforth and Saks (1996) to a standard which met PhD award criteria. Second, to find a way reduce the cost and improve the experience of senior managers joining BA in a way which met this and other organisations' needs to improve performance.

This thesis is concerned with the development of decision support systems for determining performance targets and allocating resources in multi-unit organisations. These organisations are organised into networks of decision making units (DMUs) that seek to satisfy demand for services in the public sector or attract demand for services in the for profit making sector. Mathematical programming methods in general, and data envelopment analysis in particular are the methods chiefly used throughout the thesis. The decision support systems sought to address two distinct problems faced by multi-unit organisations. The first is concerned with the allocation of recurrent type of budgets to decision making units which use their resources without interference from their headquarters. This type of problem is called a-posteriori decision support and it is addressed by developing a framework of effective target setting. Data envelopment analysis models are developed for setting targets at the DMU and the global organisational levels. Two target-based resource allocation models are then developed seeking to encapsulate alternative organisational structures and objectives of resource allocation, namely equity, effectiveness and efficiency. The second case concerns problems where the allocation of resources is made directly to prespecified DMUs. This problem is called a-priori decision support which includes a phase of managerial diagnosis and planning. In the diagnostic phase performance targets for different management tiers are assessed, and systematic procedures of micro level benchmarking are developed. In the planning phase targets for improving the scale size of individual units are assessed, the long & short run viability of the network of outlets is examined and, fmally, the marginal impacts of past investments on the performance of DMUs are investigated. The two phases of the decision support system would aid management in making decisions regarding the future of individual DMUs (e.g. investment, expansion, divestment). Application of the method to a network of 154 public houses is incorporated throughout the relevant chapters of the thesis.

This is a study on organizational knowledge and capacity, with a particular focus on how learning takes place and how capacity can be developed to improve public service organizations. It has wider implications for how we think about learning in all types of organization. The study adds theoretically and empirically to the limited literature that addresses organizational capacity in public organizations. It examines explanations of capacity that may be associated with better performing local authorities and organizational sharing of knowledge and service improvement. The research design and methodology incorporate a conceptual framework and an empirical measurement instrument designed to investigate factors that explain organizational capacity. A longitudinal, quantitative survey of the population level of all 388 English local authorities examined comparisons of organizational capacity between better performing and lower performing councils. The findings provide empirical evidence of the relationship between better performing organizations and greater organizational capacity. Those organizations with greater capacity for learning can draw on prior knowledge to increase their current capacity. Capacity contributes to explanations of the relationship between an organization’s particular environment, and utilization of its internal potential, including organizational knowledge, for future performance. The study concludes with a reformulated definition of organizational capacity. It also finds that capacity building derives from different perspectives and is conceptually different from organizational capacity. It draws attention to the importance of context for organizational studies, and calls for definitions and operational measures that are suitable for all sectors.

Over the last two decades, supply chain researchers have sought to find appropriate ways of achieving lean and agile “LeAgile” supply chains. However, the differences in the priorities of the lean and agile paradigms multiply the challenges in lean and agile combinations. The most discussed approaches in the literature are the decoupling point and the late customisation (postponement) strategies. Supply chain visibility as a solution is less frequently discussed though the ‘Smarter Supply Chain of the Future’ report states that ‘70% of supply chain leaders view Supply Chain Visibility as their number one challenge ... the need to ‘see’ and act on the right information’ (IBM, 2010). Technologies such as EDI and RFID have been implemented to improve visibility, have not gained general acceptance. Newer, low cost ‘Cloud’ solutions may be able to address the need better. Previous research has suggested that increasing information visibility improves supply chain performance, though the relationship between the degree of visibility and resulting performance does not appear to have been addressed. Therefore, a role playing simulation methodology was devised to evaluate the effect of supply chain visibility on improved LeAgile supply chain performance. Role playing simulations better emulate the human control actions in supply chains, but can also suffer/benefit from traits such as learning. A low cost Web and Cloud based system was devised to enable visibility and communication in the simulation. Different information sharing configurations (visibility levels) were evaluated for a typical four-echelon supply chain. The results show a correlation in improved supply chain LeAgility with the degree of visibility of demand and/or operational information, but this was not a linear relationship. A degree of ‘digital’ waste eroded performance with increasing levels of visibility. Comparison simulations were then conducted to compare the supply chain visibility strategy with ‘decoupling point’ and ‘postponement’ strategies for the same four-echelon supply chain. The results suggest that after adopting the supply chain visibility approach, the overall performance of the simulation supply chain increased by 26.3% and 26.4% compared to the decoupling point and postponement approach scenarios. Further simulation experiments with different supply chain configurations are required to test the wider applicability of the results.

This thesis develops a contemporary problematisation of software requirements. It departs from traditional conceptions of requirements as simple, tamed objects with deterministic force over socio-technical actors and based on assumptions of stability. Such views can lead to a narrow, ultimately unfruitful understanding of the significance of requirements and denied wider consequences of their modes of articulation. Instead, the thesis builds on perspectives where requirements are complex and interactive actors. The thesis uses openEHR—an open source health IT project aiming to build interoperable Electronic Health Records (EHRs)—as a case study. Studying open source practice offers a good opportunity to consider the nature of requirements because there is an ongoing debate about requirements’ role and influence on development activities and project organisation. The analysis uses Deleuzian concepts of assemblage, multiplicity and becoming. These themes align with a larger body of work influenced by STS and process oriented theorisations, which see the world as dynamic and performative. The philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari in particular provides a counter-balance to any assumed stability in the world. The thesis presents a new account of the nature of requirements, one that reflects their complex entanglement within software development and open source in particular. Requirements are not insipid descriptive statements that abstract and simplify the world deterministically. They have an intricate existence which serves to hold the potential in the assemblage to become many things. In particular, requirements insinuate themselves into a project’s identity, guide a project through territories—some to be explored, some to be disregarded—and demand specific ways to be recognised, engaged, and cared for. The thesis argues that requirements are more virtual than originally thought, having a subtle, not necessarily visible influence on their assemblages and the way socio-technical actors can potentially relate to the project itself.

Given the increasing concerns over insecurity caused by terrorism, and the difficulty in quantifying the risk of crime or violent outbreaks in general, several experts have highlighted the importance of understanding the objectives and motivations of terrorists. If one could infer their preferences, it would be possible to understand better their possible nefarious actions in order to guide efforts towards proper counter-terrorism measures. Indeed, one way to anticipate terrorists’ actions in counter-terrorism analysis is to consider their judgments when modelling the decisions they might make. Such judgments will drive their chosen actions. Current efforts in modelling terrorist decision making make several assumptions such as rationality of the agents, agents who have a set of constant and ordered preferences, with the ability to perform a cost benefit analysis of their alternatives, among others. However, are such assumptions reasonable? This research seeks to analyse the types of assumptions made across various models for counter-terrorism analysis that represent the agents’ judgments and discuss their suitability from a descriptive point of view by drawing knowledge from the fields of behavioural decision analysis, politics, philosophy of choice, public choice and conflict management in terrorism. This research then explores the modelling implications resulting from this insight and provides some recommendations as to how some of these assumptions could be modified in order to describe terrorists’ preferences more accurately. An empirical research is also carried out, to analyse the effect of anger on the prioritisation of objectives, and to confirm the findings drawn from secondary research. Subsequently, we present a way of addressing some of the areas highlighted in the critical analysis. We suggest modelling state-dependent judgements of a terrorist organisation - making the assumption it behaves as an individual via a multi-attribute utility model that incorporates state-dependent priorities to account for preference change caused by exogenous triggers and representing the environment as a system dynamics model.

Organisational justice is dedicated to the study of perceptions of fairness within the workplace. Hundreds of studies converge on the notion that justice matters, such that profound negative implications arise when individuals perceive unfairness. Previous research has sought to manage and repair violations of fairness through three distinct means: managerial excuses and justifications, training interventions for managers, and remedies distributed by the organisation. There is an ironic shortcoming with this research: it ignores the victim who is at the centre of an injustice. Herein lies the starting point of the present thesis. Putting the victim back into the forefront of justice research, this thesis examines the role of a victim of workplace injustice in their own recovery process. It asks: can victims recover from the negative effects of a fairness violation, and more specifically, can talk, that is, conversation with others, aid such a recovery process? Recovery is defined as the emotional, cognitive and behavioural journey an individual goes through in order to work towards a resolution to their experience: it is a victim’s ongoing efforts to manage an injustice. Three empirical studies sought to examine if, when and how talk can assist victims with recovery, drawing on research within the justice literature as well as clinical and social psychology. Study 1, a mixed-methods design, provided support for the presence of talk in the context of workplace injustice, and led to the creation of a new measure of talk to reflect this. Study 2, a twice repeated cross-sectional survey, uncovered antecedents and consequences of talk; anger and thwarted justice needs were found to trigger talk, with an interaction between emotion and cognition talk driving victim-centred outcomes of rumination, self-affirmation and active solutions. Study 3, a ten-day daily diary investigation, found support for the notion that talk leads to positive recovery outcomes for victims of injustice. Contributions of this thesis, as well as implications and avenues for future research are discussed.

Organisational projects, a multifaceted socio-technical phenomenon that evolve in plural contexts often characterised by a high degree of interconnectedness, have become ubiquitous in strategy delivery. The traditional project management literature emphasises the significance of project and organisational objectives to project success, yet it is not clear how these objectives guide action at project level. Aiming to fill the gap, this empirical research studied project decision-making in two organisations with strong rational orientation that communicate strategic direction through objectives hierarchies, and define and manage projects by objectives. To study decision-making practices in project praxis, this thesis introduces the concept of a “decision site” as an area shaped by a triad of mutually constituting practitioners, sociomaterial context and decisionmaking practices, as well as the concept of “praxis domains” used to analyse entwinement between decision-making practices and sociomaterial context. The environment and participants’ perception was analysed based on semi-structured interviews with practitioners, review of existing organisational documentation, and daily project meetings were audio recorded through silent observation. Twenty eight decision episodes were identified and described in their organisational project context. Two process representations aided analyses of decision episodes, one tracing discursive reference to praxis domains, and the other diagramming decision-making activities which manage a decision site. Decision-making practices of “Neguesstimation” and “Querying Praxis Domains” were defined and differentiated by schemes and degree of entwinement with praxis domains. The thesis findings do not support the notion of project and corporate objectives as being instrumental in project decision-making. Instead, one of the observed practices queries praxis domains as proxies for complex hierarchies of organisational objectives and constructs decision site imbued with local practical logic. The thesis argues that practical logic could be successfully employed in aligning project level activities to complex and dynamic organisational context and suggests potential for development of practice based decision-making approaches.