This dissertation will explore how gender wage gap and political capacity represented by relative political extraction affect change in economic growth rate of a country. The main argument of the study is that gender wage gap is affecting the labor market by discouraging productive female labor force from entering the labor market. This in turn affects the efficiency and productivity of the labor market reflected in negative economic growth or economic growth potential being compromised. Here the case of Indian economy is examined. The important policy implication of this study is that it could account for the wage differential between genders and it could show how economies are missing out on the labor productivity and in turn negatively affecting the rate of economic growth. Various sociological literatures have dealt in depth with the gender wage gap and its effect on the socio-cultural fabric of a society. While the current study recognizes existence of extensive sociological theories on gender wage gap, the focus is on the economic impact of gender wage gap on the growth rate change of a country. The argument is that gender wage gap negatively affects the economic growth rate change. Economic growth literature have proved beyond doubt that economic and political factor together contribute to the economic growth of a country. Political variables such as political capacity reflects the efficiency of the government in resource extraction, its reach and allocation of those resources extracted. Such an efficient government provides the necessary environment for the economic growth. However, this political variable alone is not enough to increase economic growth of an economy. Rather governments must also possess the economic tools necessary, such as capital stock, human labor and labor force. These economic and political variables together can contribute towards an increased economic growth. How these political and economic factors combine to achieve economic growth of a country? Hence this study looks at both the economic and political variables in a model to see how they affect economic growth.

As of 2014, union density in the United States had dropped compared to union density during the 1950s. Collective bargaining agreements are the foundational agreement for all issues related to salary, benefits, and working conditions. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore how collective bargaining agreements hindered or enabled managers from creating and sustaining high performance work practices. The conceptual framework included Walton and McKersie's work on behavioral theories for labor negotiations, human capital, and collective bargaining, and Huselid's work on high performance work practices. Fifteen respondents across 5 labor unions in Washington DC were selected through a randomized purposive sampling strategy for face-to-face and telephone semi-structured interviews. Additional sources of data included current and archived collective bargaining agreements, a reflective journal, and personal memos that were analyzed using Yin's 5-step analysis process. The following 5 themes were identified: performance management and accountability, organizational and union culture, intrinsic motivation and performance recognition, management practices, and the future sustainability of unions. These findings may help unionized organizations in the Washington DC metro area consider changing negative hiring and retention practices. Collective bargaining agreements, without a partnership framework linked to organizational sustainability, can hinder the creation and sustenance of high performance work practices in labor unions.

This dissertation examines the course-enrollment behavior of first-year students at a public Midwestern university. Using the student choice construct, modern college choice theory, and the constructs of habitus, human capital, financial capital, social capital, cultural capital, along with background variables such as gender and locus of control, a course selection theory is proposed to explain students' voluntarily enrollment in a seminar designed to assist with the academic and social transitions to college. The literature review shows numerous studies have been done examining the impacts these courses may have on first-year students' academic performance, retention, and graduation rates. In many of these studies, however, subsets of students were targeted for enrollment and participation in the seminars was not voluntary. In others, students self-select into the first-year transition seminars, raising questions about whether or not their subsequent success is attributable to their participation in these courses. Prior to this study, few, if any, studies have examined enrollment in these first-year seminars as the dependent variable and attempted to explain how various factors impact whether or not students voluntarily choose to enroll. This quantitative research looked at 7,561 first-year students enrolling in 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 and, using logistic regression, attempted to explain whether or not students chose to enroll in a transition seminar. Data was gathered from institutional offices (Admissions, Registrar, and Student Financial Aid) and through an Entering Student Survey completed by 99% of each entering cohort. Of the 52 independent variables included in the model, 17 were significant in one or more steps (or blocks) of the model. This study found that students more advantaged in their individual or family college-going resources (e.g., higher ACT-Composite scores or a higher self-evaluation of their ability to appreciate fine arts, music, and literature) are less likely to enroll in the college transition seminar than students that could be described as more disadvantaged in terms of their college-going resources (i.e., an external locus of control, receiving a Pell Grant, and less access to various forms of capital). There is also evidence that students with past experiences where they may have learned the value of community or teamwork through in- and out-of-class experiences may see the first-year transition seminar as a way to begin creating these same types of connections or communities on the college campus. The dissertation concludes with a consideration of implications for future research, theory development, and institutional policy and practice.

This thesis takes a phenomenological approach to the examination of the organizational need for shared office space. Questions are developed in a reflexive narrative that introduces challenges to the assumption that space is a given in organizations. The narrative also uses the process of questioning this basis assumption to develop a new understanding of the role of space in organizations in supporting the development of common language needed for the creation of organizational knowledge. Key ideas from systems theory, autopoiesis, organizational theory, semiotics, and psychology are utilized as resources developing the ideas.

Seminal papers of Solow (1957) and Swan (1956) stimulated debate among economists on the role of technical change in productivity improvements and for that matter economic growth. The consensus is that technological change accounts for a significant proportion of gross national product (GNP) growth in industrialised economies. In the case of Australia, the aggregate productivity performance was poor in the 1970s and 1980s, but picked up very strongly by the 1990s, and was above the OECD average growth level for the first time in its productivity growth history. However, this high productivity growth rate could not be sustained and Australia started to experience a slowdown in productivity growth since 2000. This study empirically measures the performance of productivity in Australia’s economy for the period 1950-2005, using an econometric approach. Time-series data are used to develop econometric models that capture the dynamic interactions between GDP, fixed capital, labour units, human capital, foreign direct investment (FDI) and information and communication technology (ICT). The Johansen (1988) cointegration techniques are used to establish a long-run steady-state relation between or among economic time series. The econometric analysis pays careful attention to the time-series properties of the data by conducting unit root and conintegration tests for the variables in the system. / This study finds that Australia experienced productivity growth in the 1950s, a slow down in the mid 1960s, a very strong productivity growth in the mid 1990s and another slowdown from 2000 onwards. The study finds evidence that human capital, FDI and ICT are very strong determinants of long-run GDP and productivity growth in Australia. The study finds that the three, four and the five factor models are likely to give better measures of productivity performance in Australia as these models recognise human capital, FDI and ICT and include them as separate factors in the production function, This study finds evidence that the previous studies on the Australia’s productivity puzzle have made a very significant omission by not considering human capital, FDI and ICT as additional exogenous variables and by excluding them from the production function for productivity analysis.

In an increasingly competitive environment an organisation‟s intellectual capital is the key to its ability to generate wealth. The intangibility of intellectual capital makes it difficult to replicate and therefore it is a crucial differentiator in the business environment. The objective of the research was to develop and test a model for the managing of intellectual capital. An examination of the literature provided the foundation for developing a model to illustrate the various facets an organisation must consider when managing intellectual capital. The Intellectual Capital Management Model specifies that management of intellectual capital is derived from the corporate vision and strategy. Three sources of intellectual capital – human capital, internal capital and external capital – contribute to the outcomes essential to differentiate the organisation in the marketplace. Within each of the three sources of intellectual capital, aspects of intellectual capital management were identified and described, according to the research literature. A case study approach was used to assess the extent to which an organisation was managing its intellectual capital. Nine chief executives of the independent business units in a large New Zealand company were interviewed to understand why and how they managed the company‟s intellectual capital. Additionally, 18 employees were interviewed and 44 employees were surveyed in a questionnaire, to determine their views about issues relating to intellectual capital, especially sharing knowledge within the company. Findings indicated that although most of the aspects of the Model were present in the company, conscious management of intellectual capital was not occurring. Metrics was one characteristic frequently mentioned in the literature, but not evident in practice. Behavioural changes and socialisation were two characteristics that emerged strongly from the interviews, but were not widely addressed in the literature. From the perspective of the theoretical model greater attention should be given to behavioural changes and the importance of socialisation; and from the view of the practice model, management needs to address the issue of metrics.

<p>Migration is a process that begins with the mere thought of moving, but it continues long after the individual arrives in her or his new home. The process is constrained by certain factors such as capital, immigration policy, and the existence of kinship networks. Individuals who are able to overcome these constraints and decide to migrate, must overcome a new set of challenges upon arrival in the host county. These challenges include the need to adapt to a new labour market, use of a new language, and integration with the rest of society. Human and social capital are important tools that allow immigrants to successfully meet these challenges. </p><p>Human and social capital play different roles in the migration process of these individuals. Human capital allows Mexican individuals to overcome the barriers to initial migration, but it does not ensure successful social or labour market integration. Social capital is a more effective tool in the resettlement process, and it also helps to strengthen transnational bonds. </p><p>The Mexican community in the Vancouver CMA does not rely on a complex set of kinship networks. However, this study found that there is an ongoing process to create social capital. This process simultaneously encourages the formation of nationality-based social capital (i.e. bonding social capital) and bridging social capital. These types of capital are important because they help the community to overcome the challenges of integrating into the labour market as well as the larger society. Furthermore, the person-to-person contact between Mexicans and the rest of society fosters mutual understanding. Since much of the Mexican community maintains strong ties to the source country, integration is an important point of reference for further engagement between Mexico and Canada.</p>

In this dissertation, I examine individual decisions in occupational choice, labor supply, and health care utilization. Occupational choice decisions of female college graduates on whether to teach or not are analyzed to understand the role of fertility and relative wages using a panel estimation method. I also compare the behavioral changes in the labor force participation among teachers and non-teachers conditional on the presence of a new-born baby. Using the human capital model where a worker decides her hours of work responding to wages, and her human capital is accumulated proportional to her hours of work, I predict that the positive relationship between entry wages and post wages. Empirical evidence suggests that the shock in entry wages may be attributed to post wage differentials. I examine individuals?? choice of health insurance plan and utilization of health care services. Empirical evidence shows that there is favorable self-selection into health maintenance organizations (HMOs) plans and that HMO members use more of office-based and hospital outpatient services. It suggests ineffectiveness of HMO plans in reducing utilization.

Migration is a process that begins with the mere thought of moving, but it continues long after the individual arrives in her or his new home. The process is constrained by certain factors such as capital, immigration policy, and the existence of kinship networks. Individuals who are able to overcome these constraints and decide to migrate, must overcome a new set of challenges upon arrival in the host county. These challenges include the need to adapt to a new labour market, use of a new language, and integration with the rest of society. Human and social capital are important tools that allow immigrants to successfully meet these challenges. Human and social capital play different roles in the migration process of these individuals. Human capital allows Mexican individuals to overcome the barriers to initial migration, but it does not ensure successful social or labour market integration. Social capital is a more effective tool in the resettlement process, and it also helps to strengthen transnational bonds. The Mexican community in the Vancouver CMA does not rely on a complex set of kinship networks. However, this study found that there is an ongoing process to create social capital. This process simultaneously encourages the formation of nationality-based social capital (i.e. bonding social capital) and bridging social capital. These types of capital are important because they help the community to overcome the challenges of integrating into the labour market as well as the larger society. Furthermore, the person-to-person contact between Mexicans and the rest of society fosters mutual understanding. Since much of the Mexican community maintains strong ties to the source country, integration is an important point of reference for further engagement between Mexico and Canada.

<p>This study employs the Human Capital Theory (HCT), which postulates that the education of women is positively related to the likelihood of their labour force participation, in order to investigate quarterly dynamics in the labour force. This approach is an advancement of knowledge gained from previous studies such as Serumanga-Zake and Kotze (2004) and Ntuli (2004) who investigated the annual dynamics in FLFP. Investigating quarterly dynamics in FLFP is prudent as the market economy is very dynamic particularly at a point when the world economy is experiencing recession. Data for the study are extracted from the 2008 Quarterly Labour Force Survey conducted by Statistics South Africa. Logistic regression analysis modeling was employed with the dependent variable, FLFP, as a binary outcome. Other variables controlled in the analysis are gender, population group, age, marital status, education status, sector, main industry, main occupation and province. The results show that there is association between education status and FLFP status. Findings from this research are expected to contribute to the knowledge about trends in FLFP in South Africa and aid in planning of interventions aimed at improving the status of women as one of the critical steps in achieving the Millennium Development Goals.</p>