This thesis is on inequity-averse decisions in operational research, and draws on concepts from economics and operational research such as multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) and mathematical modelling. The main focus of the study is developing systematic methods and modelling to help decision makers (DMs) in situations where equity concerns are important. We draw on insights from the economics literature and base our methods on some of the widely accepted principles in this area. We discuss two equity related concerns, namely equitability and balance, which are distinguished based on whether anonymity holds or not. We review applications involving these concerns and discuss alternative ways to incorporate such concerns into operational research (OR) models. We point out some future research directions especially in using MCDM concepts in this context. Specifically, we observe that research is needed to design interactive decision support systems. Motivated by this observation, we study an MCDM approach to equitability. Our interactive approach uses holistic judgements of the DM to refine the ranking of an explicitly given (discrete) set of alternatives. The DM is assumed to have a rational preference relation with two additional equity-related axioms, namely anonymity and the Pigou-Dalton principle of transfers. We provide theoretical results that help us handle the computational difficulties due to the anonymity property. We illustrate our approach by designing an interactive ranking algorithm and provide computational results to show computational feasibility. We then consider balance concerns in resource allocation settings. Balance concerns arise when the DM wants to ensure justice over entities, the identities of which might affect the decision. We propose a bi-criteria modelling approach that has efficiency (quantified by the total output) and balance (quantified by the imbalance indicators) related criteria. We solve the models using optimization and heuristic algorithms. Our extensive computational experiments show the satisfactory behaviour of our algorithms.

This thesis analyses small firms and local economic development in a semi-peripheral country, Turkey. The study argues that small firms in Turkey, as in other Southern European countries, have different characteristics from those in third world countries and in advanced economies. Therefore, they cannot be fully understood and conceptualized within dualist approaches, or the flexible specialization and post-Fordist theories. The thesis suggests that these approaches cannot explain all the dynamics of small firms and their role in local economic development in the Southern European semi-periphery. Instead, small firms have to be understood for their role in the generation of personal income within family and social networks within the local economies of these countries. The fieldwork for the thesis is designed to reveal spatial and sectoral dimensions of small firms. l'hree sub-sectors from commerce, manufacturing, and construction were chosen. Three medium-sized cities from three different regions in Turkey were selected as the survey areas. In each survey city, small firm owners, chambers of commerce and industry, training schools and local informants were approached. In total 216 structured questionnaires were conducted with small business owners. In addition, a series of semi-structured interviews and in-depth analyses were developed throughout the field survey. Research findings show that the city economies in the survey areas are dominated by indigenous small and medium-sized firms. These are important elements for wealth and income generation for entrepreneurs, and their immediate family and relatives. While geographical variations between cities were found to be relatively small, there are significant sectoral differences in terms of role, transformation and change of small businesses. Contrary to the flexibility theory, small firms are not innovative and internationally competitive. They are vulnerable to macro economic problems and policy changes. This survey revealed numerous characteristics of Turkish small firms which are similar to those found by researchers working in other countries. These are the highly personal and unstructured nature of business practice, the informal style of management, and the importance of family and friend involvement and networks. Anthropological aspects and entrepreneurial strategies were found to be very important for the growth and survival of small firms in Turkey in the absence of institutional support and complex business networks. This research opens new channels to investigate small firms in medium-sized cities in the European semi-periphery.

This thesis consists of three studies of social intervention in Sudan. The first offers a critique of institutional voids, a concept used to describe contexts lacking neoliberal market institutions, intermediaries, and practices. Notions of voids underpin much liberal peace thinking and justify postwar interventions that seek to build institutions to support peace and recovery. Similarly, the concept of voids is increasingly used in management and organization studies to describe emerging market and poverty contexts. The question 'What institutional arrangements exist in institutional voids?' motivates an in-depth examination of a state-led intervention to remobilize thousands of fighters through agricultural cooperatives in the Blue Nile. The analysis suggests settings conceptualized as 'voids'are in fact rich in state institutions, bureaucracy, and disinterested agency.' The second study employs the institutional theory notion of actorhood—templates of social identities, roles, and practices—in a thematic analysis of a postwar intervention to reintegrate thousands of fighters using agricultural cooperatives in the Blue Nile. The analysis points to a postwar professions narrative, where formerly warring actors adopt new roles as agents of development and former combatants are reclassified as beneficiaries. Postwar intervention resources, such as tractors, finance, and the cooperative enterprise model are theorized to be institutional anchors, or techniques for organizing specific practices. Findings also point to a postwar intervention paradox: though institutional anchors may be effective for promoting new social practices, they risk reproducing institutional inequalities in intervention settings. The third study critically deconstructs how a simple domestic technology—fuel-efficient stoves—came to be promoted a global solution to sexual violence in conflict zones. Using the concept of problematization—the process linking problems with solutions—as an analytic tool in combination with a discourse analysis of humanitarian advocacy documents. The analysis reveals a set of racial, spatial, gendered, and interventionist frames that enable stoves to emerge a viable intervention to reduce sexual attacks against displaced women and girls, first in Darfur then globally. This study postulates a significant role for advocacy and discourse-infused technology in the emergence of humanitarian 'solutions' and the unintended consequences for beneficiaries.

The perceived organizational support (POS) construct has received a significant degree of attention within the literature, helping scholars and practitioners alike to better understand and interpret the relational dynamic between the employee and their employer. However, this thesis contends that there are a number of assumptions, gaps and confounds that limit the extent to which POS can offer greater construct validity. As such, this thesis presents a collection of three stand-alone scholarly papers that aim to further develop and extend the POS construct as well as organizational support theory (OST), both theoretically and empirically. The first paper explores the theoretical assumption that an individual’s POS is increased by both the direct (i.e. idiosyncratic) receipt of supportive organizational treatment, as well as the observation of coworker (i.e. the group/collective) receipt of such treatment. This presents a potential confound in that OST also holds that POS is systemic of notions that the individual is treated fairly; thus hypothetically, an individual’s appraisal that, in comparison, other coworkers have received more supportive organizational treatment, could lead to notions of unfair treatment due to relative under-benefit. As such this paper explores the influence the social context and social comparison processes have regarding POS, with findings suggesting that employees can and do differentiate between their idiosyncratic receipt of organizational support in comparison to others (perceived organizational support social comparison – POSSC), and that such a perception accounts for unique and meaningful variance with regards to the measurement of POS as well as possessing unique motivational and predictive influence on prosocial outcomes. The second paper examines the assumption that whilst accounting for organizational benevolence, the POS construct also accounts for organizational malevolence. By utilizing the recently proposed theoretical construct of perceived organizational cruelty (POC), this paper explores POS and POC’s convergent and discriminant validity, both theoretically and empirically, and suggests that whilst POS specifically concerns organizational benevolence, POC in turn specifically concerns organizational malevolence. Findings elucidate that the constructs are (antithetically) related, yet are distinct such that each construct possesses differential characteristics as they relate to certain attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. Finally, the third paper explores the mechanisms and motivations that exist within the POS-prosocial outcome dynamic. Extant OST holds that this dynamic is subject to conscious and rational rules and norms relating to social exchange and reciprocity. Conversely, by utilizing conservation of resources and self-determination theories, this paper reasons that the POS-prosocial outcome dynamic could also be subject to subconscious influences relating to self-relevant resources and needs for relatedness. Findings that POS functions through emotional engagement (as opposed to cognitive and physical engagement) offer support for this reasoning, suggesting that rather than being instrumental in nature, POS acts as an emotional resource that facilitates greater emotionally based prosocial outcomes. Overall, in order to test hypotheses in each paper, data from one or a combination of three samples was utilized; with these samples being a longitudinal survey of employees from a large hospital/healthcare provider in the UK, a longitudinal survey of employees of a graduate development scheme within a large international logistics company based in the UK, and a convenience sample of individuals employed in the USA.

The services industry is the fastest growing sector of the global economy, and central to its success. This research is concerned with observations of service recovery and its impact on customer satisfaction, and focuses on recovery after service failure, including factors such as compensation, speed, and apology, and their effect on customer perceptions of justice, including distributive, procedural and interactional justice. This exploratory and explanatory study seeks to provide information and understanding of the impact of service recovery and customer satisfaction on each other, by investigating the effect of service failure and recovery on customer perceptions of justice in two Libyan airlines. The theoretical framework of the study is derived from the literature, and is based on a set of interlinking relationships between elements of service recovery (apology, speed and compensation), their effect on customer perceptions of justice (interactional, distributive and procedural) and their logical outcome, which is customer satisfaction. Central to the framework is the conceptualisation of a model of service failure, perceptions of justice, and service recovery as a single continuous process which has as its outcome a level of customer satisfaction. The study starts from the theoretical view point that justice is a necessary component of customer satisfaction, and uses a questionnaire to collect data relevant to the three issues (service recovery, justice and customer satisfaction), which appear in the theoretical model. A total of 584 questionnaires were distributed to the customers of two Libyan airlines at Tripoli‟s international airport, collecting data customer perceptions of service failure recovery efforts. The statistical package SPSS was employed to analyse the raw data and the findings represent a set of relationships established between elements of service recovery and perceptions of justice. The study represents a contribution to knowledge about the relationships between service recovery and justice, using data collected in a developing country and in an industry of vital importance to national development yet opens to international competition. Theoretical and methodological contributions in the form of the study‟s model and questionnaire establish a basis for further research into this area in other developing countries and other industries.

The introduction of information technology, or IT, has brought increased possibilities to work outside of the traditional office. One of these possibilities is telework. Telework refers to work carried out away from the usual place of business, often via electronic means. This investigation provides a unique contribution to the lack of empirical studies on telework in France. Despite its predicted growth, telework has not developed in the French public sector. This study uses role set analysis to assess the experiences of part-time teleworkers (who telework on average two days per week as part of their full-time schedules) at the Conseil Général du Finistère, or CGF, a regional government in Brittany, France. Role set analysis claims that the expectations of role set holders can be evaluated. In this exploratory case study, role set holders are represented by teleworkers, their non-teleworking colleagues and their line managers. Questionnaires, containing attitude scales and open-ended questions, were distributed in three versions to each group of role set holders to gather data. The use of frequency tables and the extraction of Meaning Units, or MUs, indicated perceived advantages and disadvantages of telework, which were revealed through the lenses of role expectations. Teleworkers experienced more advantages due to role complexity: temporal and spatial flexibility were beneficial to teleworkers, despite increased difficulties for non-teleworking colleagues and line managers. Non-teleworkers experienced more disadvantages due to increased role expectations: working with part-time teleworkers generated increased logistical and co-ordination difficulties. Line managers experienced more disadvantages due to multiplied role expectations: managing teleworkers and non-teleworkers in the same departments meant increased burdens in terms of work organisation, control and resentment from non-teleworkers. From an academic viewpoint, the analysis of role sets through a tripartite perspective brings to light thresholds which regulate perceived advantages and disadvantages of telework and reveals that role set holders do not interact in a static fashion. In terms of business practice, the findings argue that telework upsets work relationships in the French context because it relies on less face-to-face contact. Results also suggest that despite the perceived success of the telework programme, the CGF has not adopted a remote working culture.

This study examines the nature of Libyan managerial work and the effects of external environment factors on it. It is interested in understanding managers’ work and behaviour, and in exploring and investigating the impact of national context on the role and work of managers. The study adopts an interpretive approach and uses qualitative methods to collect data on the perceptions of Libyan managers with regard to their work and behaviour. It seeks to understand the effect of the external environment on the work of these managers, which was considered to consist of economic, legal, political and regulatory constraints as well as cultural and social obligations and responsibilities. The oil and banking industries were chosen based on a number of factors: these two sectors are the backbone of the Libyan economy and represent the nation’s main source of income and the means of its disbursement; they are both affected by foreign partners and competitors; they provided ease of access for the researcher. In the pilot study, a questionnaire survey of 111 Libyan executives as well as five interviews with key individuals within the banking and oil sectors were carried out in Libya in order to elicit their views about the main issues affecting the nature of Libyan managerial work in general and the influences of external environment on their work in particular. The existing literature and the findings from the first phase (the pilot study) informed the second stage of the empirical work of this thesis (the main study) examining the managerial work of Libyan executive managers in four different organisations in Libya: two banks and two oil companies. The research collected qualitative data from 25 Libyan managers based on semi-structured interviews designed to investigate their attitudes to their managerial work. These data were supported by observations made by the interviewer during the data collection and by analysis of documentary evidence. Initially, grounded analysis of the individual interview data collected from the main study established 24 constructs of managerial work in Libya, which the researcher divided into five categories. Grounded analysis was adopted due to the shared cultural and language background of the researcher and interviewees, and because it enabled the organisation of large quantities of data into emerging constructs. Then, case study analysis was undertaken on and within each of the four companies and the constructs. The most important findings of the study include: the work of Libyan managers is strongly affected by the external environment; these effects result in a division in Libyan managerial work between functions that fulfil the formal requirements of their roles and others that fulfil their informal (tribal, familial and social) obligations; managers devise individual strategies to balance their divided responsibilities; in terms of managerial work and job roles there is a lack of vii structural clarity and designated responsibility within Libyan organisations that results in confused and inefficient allocation of workloads and resources. The key contributions of the study lie in the findings outlined in the paragraph above; these findings are discussed in chapter 8 and result in a diagram of Libyan managerial work (see figure 8.2) that reflects the data captured in the study, and builds on previous models of managerial work derived from the literature, particularly that of Mintzberg (1973). This diagram reflects the findings that in Libya the external environment influences managers’ work not only at a formal but at an informal level, and this has the effect of shaping managers’ work activities in ways that may be at odds with the aims and intentions of their employers. As a further theoretical contribution, a diagram illustrating the impacts of the external environment upon the work of Libyan managers has been developed (see figure 8.3), which will enable Libyan managers to better understand the forces and constraints they operate under, and help other researchers to take account of the forces at work in their own national contexts and develop culturally sensitive management practices as a result.

Matrix organizations were successfully pioneered in the U.S. aerospace industry in the 1960s, which motivated many multinational corporations (MNCs) to implement matrices as a response to a more complex business environment. A vast number of research studies were conducted primarily seeking a single relationship between the strategy and the structure of the MNCs. The approach was mainly quantitative and consisted of studying large samples of MNCs that operated in different industries and countries. Since the late 1980s researchers have lost interest in matrix organizations of MNCs despite the fact that today most MNCs use a matrix organization. This thesis proposes to breach gaps of the present literature and addresses the questions of ‘how’ and ‘why’ German technology MNCs distribute the decision power between headquarters and local subsidiaries. The present study follows a qualitative approach. 31 semi‐structured interviews were conducted with experienced managers in order to gain deep understanding of the challenges faced and to reveal recommendations and conclusions with regard to the ideal fit between strategy and structure. As conclusion the thesis suggests the following six answers to the research questions. First this thesis shows that contemporary MNCs employ various kinds of matrix organizations simultaneously in different parts of the organization because matrices offer a flexible and effective way of concurrently balancing various competing interests. Management and staff are better prepared to mitigate the ambiguity and stress caused by matrix organizations. Both conditions were viewed as primary weaknesses of matrix organizations since its appearance in the 1960s. Second there is no permanent and universally applicable point of decision power distribution, but rather a constantly changing continuum. Decision power depends on many factors such as maturity of the product, capabilities of the local subsidiary, the national historic heritage of the MNC and the general market environment. There is always a matrix and all matrix dimensions are important because of legal, tax and national regulations or because of customers’ requests. Third this study reveals that the distribution of power is primarily applied to decisions regarding financial investments, human resources and customer strategy. These elements represent the three most important stakeholders of MNCs namely shareholders, employees and customers. The fourth assertion of this thesis suggests that MNCs implement the strategy‐structure fit primarily in the matrix dimensions products, regions and customers. This is because these matrix dimensions can be run and measured with an own Profit & Loss (P&L) statement and therefore treated as quasi-independent companies within the MNCs.

Purpose – The purpose of this thesis is to explore the implications of value co-creation on lean service operations. Given that only customers are able to create value, the integration of customers becomes more and more important. This thesis investigates customer integration through applying and enhancing lean principles. The overall goal of this study is to develop and test a model to integrate customers into service operations in a lean way, considering value co-creation theory. Design/methodology/approach – The overall research strategy of enquiry consists of action research and mixed methods approaches. A systematic literature review is conducted on customer integration methods considering 27 relevant studies. Afterwards, a meta-synthesis of these studies is provided to develop a model for lean customer integration. Seven propositions are formulated to test the model. Therefore, the model is implemented in two independent pole case companies (SMEs) within pure service businesses. Six different mixed methods are applied to investigate effects of model implementation. Beside interviews, process observations and customer workshops, document analysis, Monte Carlo Simulation, regular debriefing sessions are conducted. To clarify arising anomalies, an experiment is conducted with 46 participants in 4 different groups. Finally, a revised model is presented. Findings – The findings show that through synthesizing selected studies, a model is developed that should facilitate customer integration into firm’s service operations in a lean way. Application of the model in the case companies reveals that it enables a company to enhance operational performance, as well as value creation. Findings further show that a significant portion of unavoidable waste can be turned into either functional or emotional value. This emphasizes the relevance of developing and applying service specific lean tools in order to cope with service specific challenges. Research limitations and practical implications – As the findings are based on a systematic literature review and tested within a pure service environment (SMEs), the proposed model should be tested in other circumstances to further improve the results. The findings may be of interest to scholars in the field of lean or service operations, as well as practitioners seeking to enhance their operational performance through lean customer integration. Originality/value – This thesis contributes to knowledge in the field of lean service operations, as it provides the first validated model to integrate customers in operations in a lean way. It also provides a new approach to practitioners seeking not only to ‘streamline’, but also to ‘valueline’ their value creation processes. In particular, the role of customers as value (co-) creators is considered from an operational perspective and provides important insights on how customer value can be enhanced in pure services.

This research study provides insights into “How to manage foreign subsidiaries in a multinational company (MNC) belonging to the German Mittelstand” by applying a contingency perspective. Existing MNC knowledge focuses on large MNCs whereas contributions regarding an application to the German Mittelstand are scant. In particular, a framework for multinational sales management with patterns for foreign subsidiaries is missing for both academia and management. Thus, the findings of this research study contribute to existing MNC knowledge and provide ideas and guidance for managerial practice. A review of the literature identifies MNC typologies (Bartlett & Beamish, 2014; Bartlett & Ghoshal, 1988), subsidiary role models (Bartlett & Beamish, 2014; Bartlett & Ghoshal, 1986), and the corresponding MNC factors. This serves as a starting point from which a conceptual framework is derived accordingly. Thereafter, a plausibility check with industry experts verifies and ensures the suitability of the identified MNC factors to the characteristics of the German Mittelstand. Then, an in-depth case study consisting of documentary, semi-structured interviews, and focus group interviews, applies the conceptual framework to the selected case of the German Mittelstand. The described research design operationalizes and modifies the selected MNC models in such a way that they suit the identified Mittelstand characteristics. This facilitates an application of the framework for multinational sales management consisting of the selected and operationalized MNC models for the MNC typology and the foreign subsidiaries. The main contribution of this research study is the framework for multinational sales management, which fills the gaps identified in existing knowledge. In particular, this research study contributes existing to knowledge by: (1 and 2) operationalizing the models for MNC typology and subsidiary roles for the German Mittelstand, (3) providing the key MNC factors for the German Mittelstand, and (4) elaborating the patterns for multinational sales management to improve the subsidiary competences and to increase the market importance of their local market with respect to their subsidiary role.