Inaug.-Diss.--Heidelberg. / Lebenslauf. Published also as Volkswirtschaftliche Abhandlungen der badischen Hochschulen, IX. Bd., 6 Hft., 1908.

Diss.--University of Wisconsin. / Bibliography: p. 271-275.

Thesis (M.Psych.Org.) - University of Queensland, 2007. / Includes bibliography.

M. Tech. / The financing needs of contractors, especially emerging contractors, need to be explored. In the case of the Small, Medium and Micro-Enterprises (SMMEs’) within the contracting sector, a type of “finance-PLUS” arrangement, which sees the lender, or an intermediary, offer additional support services to emerging enterprises, would be worth exploring. There are various perspectives and opinions on the format and context of the contribution. One of these perspectives embraces the obstacles involved in the entrepreneurial process hindering contribution and economic catalisation. This study follows a focused approach towards the investigation of a financial model for small, medium sized contractors in South Africa. Interviews were conducted and questioners were sent out to different constructors who have been successful in the business for more than five years and also contractors who are currently straggling and trying to survive and grow. Conclusions will be drawn from the analysis and recommendations will be made for further study and curriculum revision, if necessary. All types of businesses need capital before and after they start operating as well as for expansion purpose. The problem is people who have been listed on credit bureaus have their records count against them when they apply for a loan. A key factor mitigating against increased investment in the SMMEs’ sector is the structure of the financial sector. The findings of the study point to the fact that conventional financing mechanisms do not allow for cost-effective provision of finance to large numbers of entrepreneurs seeking small quantities of finance. Effects of poverty and lack of assets mean that many people do not have the collateral needed to access finance. The study also found that although there are different initiatives that are in place to assist small and medium size contractors the typical problems and challenges are still existing. The scopes of this study only focused on small, medium and micro-enterprise in the built environment (specifically the construction industry). In addition, the study focuses on the different financial programmes that are currently in place. An overarching concern is that previously disadvantaged individuals do not have adequate access to credit offered by formal financial institutions and therefore are forced to seek relatively expensive (and often inadequate) amounts of credit from alternative financial sources.

There is a lack of theoretically based, and empirically proven, team training methods for optimising and maintaining effective team performance. The aims of the thesis were to: (i) develop a method to carry out team training needs analyses, and use this to identify theoretically valid intervention techniques; (ii) develop and test a particular type of team training designed to improve team performance in high-reliability industries; and (iii) develop and utilise team training evaluation techniques. A team training needs analysis was carried out to identify the team training requirements of nuclear power plant operations personnel. This resulted in the design of a nuclear team skills taxonomy, in which the specific team competencies required by the team members were identified. Using this taxonomy it was possible to identify four training and three organisational interventions to improve the performance of the teams. The remainder of the thesis concentrated on the application of the most widely applied team training technique, Crew Resource Management (CRM) training. CRM has been used in the aviation industry for over 20 years, and is beginning to be applied in other high-reliability industries. However, a survey of UK aviation operators (n=l13) showed that the majority do not utilise formal evaluation techniques to assess the effects of their CRM training. The main reasons for this are a shortage of resources and a lack of guidance on suitable techniques for evaluating training. Several CRM evaluation techniques were developed and tested. A questionnaire was designed to assess the effects of CRM training on the attitudes of nuclear operations personnel. It was found there was generally an initial increase in the positivity of attitudes immediately after training, and then a decay in attitudes when they were measured again after a delay of six months. A prototype CRM training course was designed, and delivered to 77 offshore oild and gas production personnel Their reactions to the training were generally favourable and, as measured using a questionnaire, a significant increase in positivity of attitudes was found for decision making and personnel limitations, but not situation awareness or iii communications. The ability of the course participants to identify the causes of accidents in written scenarios was also not found to improve as a result of the CRM training. Finally, a European behavioural marker system designed to allow an assessment to be made of the non-technical (CRM) skills of flight deck crews (called NOTECHS) was tested. Data were provided from an experiment involving 105 training captains from 14 European airlines. Following an analysis of the validity and reliability, it was concluded that the NOTECHS system appears to be a satisfactory system for carrying out an evaluation of pilots' CRM behaviours in the aviation industry. The main findings of the thesis were: (i) A multi-faceted methodology was found to be useful in carrying out a training needs analysis, and to identify intervention techniques to improve team performance. However, these interventions must be applied and evaluated to assess their effectiveness. (ii) Researchers must take care when using a team training method, such as CRM, which has been successful utilised in one particular organisation, and applying the same model in another without first testing it in the new domain. (iii) There is a need to develop more reliable questionnaire items to assess attitudes to CRM skills such as decision making and situation awareness, and techniques to assess the CRM-related knowledge of participants. It is argued that properly designed and tested behavioural marker systems provide a method for evaluating the CRM skills of operations personnel, as long as the system is valid and reliable, and raters have received training to use it accurately. As industry becomes increasingly complex, there is a continuous challenge to design, deliver, and evaluate team training. Overall, this thesis has added to the research to address these challenges and indicated the areas in which further psychological research is required. It is only through this type of analysis that team training theory can develop and practitioners can be provided with the tools necessary to design effective team training.

Despite it being a global phenomenon, there is no formal process to guide governments’ offer of incentives to industry. Specific to South Africa, the offer of incentives to the automotive industry to support its competitiveness has had mixed results. Industry trade deficit has consistently increased and investment in R&D has remained minimal. The purpose of the study was to develop a formal model to determine the effect of changes in the value and basis of the Productive Asset Allowance (PAA) incentive on industry competitiveness and on industry trade balance. An overview of the South African automotive industry, automotive policy and industry performance under the country’s Motor Industry Development Programme (MIDP) was done. This was followed by literature review on investment, investment incentives, R&D and competitiveness. Quantitative and qualitative data was collected through observer participation in the study situation and expert opinion interviews. A formal modelling process of the PAA based on the system dynamics modelling protocol followed. The PAA model had to be extended to incorporate the Import-Export Complementation (IEC) incentive structure because of the intertwined nature of the effect of PAA and IEC on industry dynamics. The study findings as per the specific study objectives were as follows: • The prospect of the PAA to support the competitiveness objective was dependent on the extent to which the incentive would motivate technological innovation in the automotive industry. • The often-assumed positive relationship between investment and investment incentives was not universal. Each case of industry incentive offer has to be judged on its own merit. • The PAA had a significant and positive effect on industry investment, but limited ability to support long-term industry competitiveness though R&D and innovative activities. • The IEC rather than the PAA incentive was the major contributor to the industry trade balance trend. • The PAA-IEC incentive model exhibited time-bound constraints. The model demonstrated saturation as benefits awarded to industry tended towards the domestic market size over time. • The PAA-IEC incentive model had no specific policy lever to direct investment into R&D and innovative activities. By this measure the model was not a strong policy framework for supporting long-term industry competitiveness. For the South African automotive industry, the study introduced and showed the usefulness of applying system dynamics modelling in understanding causes of unintended consequences of government incentives to the industry. For countries in which offer of incentives is part of the national industrial policy, the study provided scientific means through which the question of how to structure incentives can be objectively investigated as a means of improving policy decisions on such industry intervention. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Graduate School of Technology Management (GSTM) / unrestricted

The Electricity Industry Reforms (EIR) is a worldwidephenomenon that is inducing an intensive business orientedcontext in the organization, processes and functions of theElectricity Industry (EI). The electric power grid is nowtreated as the electricity market, the consumer as thecustomer, the power system activities are related to marketactors (i.e. generators, distributors and retailers) and theElectricity Industry Control Centers (EICC) provide theessential coordination and economic trade functions andtransactions. The EICC are looking for solutions to introduce, amongstothers, emerging information processes in the business orientedcontext with all the Electricity Industry actors without losingthe technical reliability of the EI. The EIR is delineated as amajor change on the traditional EI relying heavily oninformation exchange amongst the market actors. In the Central American countries, these EIR started around1996. The EICC in this region are facing the demanded changeswith information legacy systems, in operation long time beforethe EIR and considered already obsolete. This thesis exploresand summarizes, as a researchcontribution, the main problems at the EICCs in CentralAmerica, in managing the incorporation of emerging informationproc-esses. An Information System Migration Framework (ISMF) for theEICC is proposed as a re-search contribution and solution tothe problems identified. The ISMF here presented provides a setof steps and guidelines to follow for managing any emerginginformation processes in a systematic, feasible and reliableway. The ISMF is a continuous description of emerginginformation processes, risk assessments, requirementelicitation and specifica-tions with traceable and incrementalimplementations without completely replacing the system. TheISMF has as fundamental characteristic that provides a feasibleview of the current operation of the EICC, a continuous anditerative process of controlled changes and a systematicprocess to update the EICC operation model with a set of stepsthat are implementation independent, technology independent,process ori-ented and user centered. The ISMF’s feasibility, replicability and useracceptance has partially tested at the EICC in El Salvador andNicaragua. <b>Key words:</b>Electricity Industry, Electricity IndustryReforms, Electricity Industry Control Centers, InformationSystem Migration, Information Systems Modeling andRequirements, Case Studies in the Electricity Industry inCentral America. / NR 20140805

Thesis (Ph. D. in Economics)--University of California, Berkeley, Dec. 1989. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 244-274).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Berkeley, 1987. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 142-157).

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration