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The principal purpose of this thesis is to investigate the relationships between film genres and the decision-making process of the tourist. Within the tourism industry, the specific type of tourism-Film Tourism-has recently been recognised and approached in several research projects and case-studies. As a result of these efforts, the researchers agree that, in certain conditions, a film may influence the decision of the viewer to travel to the destination that such film portrays. However, due to the recent recognition of this type of tourism and consequent low number of explanatory research in this area, there is an evident lack of understanding about the underlying reasons why films may have such a stimulating effect on tourist decisions. To develop deeper understanding of this newly emerged type of tourism, it is vital to research different elements of the film and their possible effects on tourism-related decisions of the viewer. This pioneering study focuses on the previously neglected “genre” element of the film and the role of this element in the overall influence of the film on the tourist’s decision making process. Accordingly, an extensive survey (n=241) was conducted, implemented via the Internet and to randomly selected Exeter residents. The survey was followed by a series of in-depth semi-structured interviews (n=10) of randomly selected respondents from Exeter. The results suggest that film genres may affect the motivational factors, such as Exciting and Achievement (Yoon and Uysal, 2005). Moreover, emotions are an important factor in the decisions of Film Tourists (Kim, 2012), and films of specific genres may infuse destination with such emotions, alter the destination image and create an interest in the destination. The major contribution of this study is the discovery that the effect of film genres on the Film Tourist is but a small subconscious part of the overall film influence, which encompasses a wider range of elements such as visual beauty, plot, actors, credibility and the atmosphere. Moreover, it would appear that, for most tourists, film is an additional and not a primary factor which creates a wish to travel. The visual portrayal of the destination is the key element which determines whether the film will affect the decision of the viewer to travel, but the genres of the film may allow the prediction of tourist type and possible travel behaviour.

To supervise the executive authorities to strengthen their public services and to deal with pleading cases effectively, The Executive Yuan promulgated ¡§the executive authorities dealing with pleading cases major points¡¨ in 1973 which was following amended in 1984, 1995. Nevertheless, while the ¡§Administrative Procedure Act¡¨ (APA) announced in 1999, this essentials was found its inconsistent with Article 150 ¡¨ the content of regulations and orders should stipulate the basis of its legal authority, and shall not exceed the scope authorized by law and the spirit of the legislation¡¨ and Article 15, Section 1, Paragraph 2 ¡§any regulation and order without authorized by law and deprive or limit people¡¦s freedoms and rights is void". In APA Article 174-1 "before implementation of this Law, the executive authorities according to the Central Regulation Standard Act: those have to be regulated by law or stipulate its legal authority shall be modified or specified by mandated regulations or stipulate its legal authority within two years after the implementation of this Act; overdue failure¡¨ and Article 175 ¡§the implementation of this Act (APA) starts from 1 Jan, 2001¡¨. Thus, according to the APA Article 170, Section 1, the Executive Yuan re-amended the 1973¡¦s ¡§the executive authorities dealing with pleading cases major points¡¨ to ¡§the Executive Yuan and its organs dealing with people¡¦s pleading cases major points¡¨, subtitle with ¡§All level authorities affiliated to Executive Yuan provide services for the people major points¡¨ in May 25, 2000. The APA has been implemented since 1 Jan, 2001. There is chapter 7 ¡§Pleading¡¨ is related with people¡¦s petition and its legalization. The appropriateness of pleading law making process is examined herein by the basic methods of administrative law, namely, the five major frameworks, including administrative principles, administrative organization, limitation of administrative power, administrative relief, and administrative supervision from every respect and viewpoint. Furthermore, practical implementation and suggestions for regulations and actions concerning executive authorities to deal with pleading cases are provided to achieve the goals of protecting people¡¦s right and maintaining social orders as well.

In this article, I discuss a new methodology for course of action comparisons within the Military Decision Making Process MDMP. I discuss the problem with the current methodology used to compare and recommend courses of action to operational or tactical level commanders, and I describe and demonstrate how using this new methodology gives commanders a better tool to select those courses of action. I also provide additional analysis of the comparison that can provide the staff and the commander with actionable information generated from sensitivity analysis. / text

As durables are essential in many households, the level of ownership is high and, due to the high degree of penetration, a vast proportion of the current sales are replacement purchases. Even though a lot of research attention has been paid to decision making and decision processes many models are oriented towards non-durable goods and although a majority of purchases of many durable goods are replacements, few studies seem to make a distinction between a replacement purchase decision and a decision to buy an item for the first time. The purpose of this thesis has been to increase the understanding of the consumer decision process in replacement purchase. More specifically, the research focus has been on the cognitive mechanisms behind the formation of a replacement decision and on factors affecting the timing of a replacement purchase of durable goods. Choosing to study the timing of replacement decisions reflects the emphasis on the ongoing process, not merely on what is happening at a certain moment. Many studies in the consumer behaviour research are cross-sectional and by using cross-sectional data, there is a risk of identifying cohort effects rather then identifying effects stemming from the individual process over time. This thesis' focus on the process is reflected in and emphasised by the choice of method, both a cross-sectional and a longitudinal study have been undertaken. In order to address the research question, a theoretical framework and model were developed. The model is based on the traditional idea that many actual purchase decisions are realised through the approach of problem solving, entailing problem identification, information search, evaluation of alternatives, choice, and action. The underlying assumption of the model is that purchase expectations are related to a comparison between an aspiration level, defined in accordance with Simon's (1956) satisficing principle, and an evaluation of the currently owned product (current level). Purchase expectations are believed to be the result of a cognitive process encompassing the comparison between aspiration level and current level. When the discrepancy between aspiration level and current level goes beyond a noticeable difference, a purchase expectation is assumed to be formed and the purchase process initiated. The results from this studyreveal that the cognitive mechanism behind a replacement decision can be explained in accordance with the proposed model: Consumers compare the currently owned product with requirements of product for the same usage and if the current product falls below the requirements, replacement plans are formed. The timing of the replacement is therefore argued to depend both on factors effecting the requirements of a product for the same usage (the aspiration level), and on factors affecting the perception of the current product (the current level). Moreover, the study indicates that problem identification initiated through a change either in aspiration level or in current level might evoke different decision strategies and consequently, the problem identification stage might be more important for marketing strategies than previously assumed. The results aslo highlight the importance of considering the consumers present stage in the decision process for achieving an efficient segmentation for market communication as product attributes important early in the process might not be important later in the process. / <p>Diss. Umeå : Univ.</p> / digitalisering@umu

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According to Harvard Business Essentials (2006) an organisation is a series of decisions linked by implementation and other activities. Decisions set the pace and direction; the rest is follow through. Paul Nutt has been studying how decisions are made for more than 20 years and have found that decisions fail half of the time, without realising any benefit for the organisation (Nutt, 2002). Decision making is an essential part of the management function of an organisation. But why do so many decisions fail? Why does the outcome of decisions sometimes not satisfy the initial problem or support the organisation’s goal? Four decision making processes were analysed for this dissertation, the conclusion was drawn that current decision making processes do not incorporate a clear system approach. The dissertation shows that a system approach, as defined by systems engineering,satisfies the need for ensuring decisions are made taking into account a holistic picture. By following a system approach when making a decision, a bigger picture view can be obtained. Having a bigger picture view, will aid the decision maker in identifying whether the decision to make is indeed the right decision to be made, or merely a symptom of another decision or problem. A system approach aids the decision maker to determine where the decision to be taken fits in and what impact it will have on the system. A system approach to decision making process was designed, incorporating the strengths of the decision making process and system approach methodologies researched. The system approach methodology can be applied successfully to management decisions. By using this methodology a holistic view is obtained of a decision regarding a problem, resulting in effectively handling and managing the decision or problem. / Dissertation (MEng)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Graduate School of Technology Management / unrestricted

This thesis presents a review of optimal production scheduling in the steel industry. Steel production encompasses various processes, such as the ‘’Blast Furnace’’ and ‘’Hot-Rolled Steel Sheets Mill’’. However, this thesis specifically focuses on the steel making process due to its intermediate nature and substantial influence on profits and costs. \\\\This paper presents a MILP scheduling method to tackle practical steel scheduling problems. The scheduling of steel process poses a significant challenge due to complicated constraints and machine rules, making it a time-consuming task to obtain an optimal solution. To address this problem, a strategy has been proposed to break down the huge and complex problem into smaller sub-problems. The foundational concept behind this approach was initially introduced by Harjunkoski and Grossmann (2001). However, further improvements are proposed in this thesis by introducing a more flexible model for process and grading selections, tailored to practical steel scheduling problems. The thesis presents a strategy to obtain optimal steel making process scheduling by using a MILP approach. In addition, this thesis shows an optimal steel making process scheduling under processing time uncertainty. Uncertain processing time can have great impact the schedule accuracy. To tackle with this problem, a stochastic scheduling model is represented. Moreover, this thesis illustrates an improvement to generate a practical scheduling of steel making process by making use of real processing time data. To validate the effectiveness of our proposed methods, we provide a small example for each step of the scheduling process. The results demonstrate that our approach yields reasonable scheduling solutions. / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc) / In this work, we propose a decomposition strategy for solving practical complex scheduling problems in the steel-making process within a sufficiently short computation time. While there are various processes involved, such as the Cold-Rolled Steel Sheets mill and Steel Pipe mill, we focus on the steel-making process. The optimal scheduling of this process is crucial for increasing profits, reducing waste, and minimizing costs. However, scheduling optimization for the steel-making part presents significant challenges due to complex constraints and specific process rules. To address these challenges, we suggest a decomposition strategy in Chapter 3 of this thesis. This strategy primarily involves breaking down the large and complex scheduling problems into smaller subproblems. While a basic solution strategy is provided in the work of Harjunkoski and Grossmann (2001), our research introduces several improvements tailored to practical scheduling problems. For example, the original paper suggests grouping products together only if they have the same grade. In practical scheduling, however, it is often necessary to mix products of different grades within the same group to maximize productivity and operate efficiently. Additionally, the original paper considers only a single machine for each downstream process. In reality, there are often multiple machines involved in each downstream process. Therefore, our research addresses this challenge by incorporating two refining machines and two continuous casting processes into the scheduling formulations for the downstream process. As a result, the suggestions presented in this paper contribute to handling more flexible patterns of scheduling problems. In Chapter 3, the formulation is based on the aforementioned idea, and its validation is confirmed through a case study. While the obtained scheduling results may not be optimal, they are reasonable for each step when compared to the perspective of an experienced person. Furthermore, the computational time required for each step is less than 1 minute. As a result, the proposed scheduling strategy can effectively solve practical scheduling problems within a limited time frame. The strategy is specifically designed to incorporate mixed grade grouping, as well as multiple and flexible structures for downstream processes. In addition, in the steel industry, fluctuation in process time is inevitable because of the high temperature and high-speed conditions to produce products. To address these problems, in Chapter 4, we propose a strategy to incorporate processing time uncertainty into a decomposition strategy. The strategy is based on the two-stage stochastic scheduling formulation. In practical steel industries, there are many preparations before producing the products such as setting a specific condition and maintaining the facilities, and the preparations are based on the scheduling product's order. Therefore, in this formulation, the variables defining the product's order are regarded as the first decision variables to reflect a practical scheduling problem. The formulation is based on this concept, and its validation is confirmed through application to a practical case study. The results are reasonable by comparing to the knowledge of an experienced person. Furthermore, the computational time required for this strategy is also less than 1 minute. Therefore, the strategies presented in this thesis offer an efficient approach for addressing practical steel-making scheduling problems.

Perceived quality in the context of e-commerce was defined and examined in numerous studies, but, to date, there are no consistent definitions and measurement scales. Instruments that measure quality in e-commerce industries primarily focus on website quality or service quality during the transaction and delivery phases. Even though some scholars have proposed instruments from different perspectives, these scales do not fully evaluate the level of quality perceived by customers during the entire decision-making process. This dissertation purports to provide five main contributions for the e-commerce, service quality, and decision science literature: (1) development of a comprehensive instrument to measure how online customers perceive the quality of the shopping channel, website, transaction and recovery based on the customer decision making process; (2) identification of the determinants of customer satisfaction and the key dimensions of customer behavioral intentions in e-commerce; (3) examination of the relationships among perceived quality, customer satisfaction and loyalty intention using empirical data; (4) application of different statistical packages (LISREL and PLS-Graph) for data analysis and comparison of how these methods impact the results; and (5) examination of the moderating effects of control variables. A survey was designed and distributed to a total of 1126 college students in a large southwestern university in the U.S. Exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and structural equation modeling with both LISREL and PLS-Graph are used to validate the comprehensive instrument and test the research hypotheses. The results provide theoretical and normative guidelines for researchers and practitioners in the e-commerce domain. The research results will also help e-commerce platform providers or e-retailers to improve their business and marketing strategies by providing a better understanding of the most important factors influencing customer behavioral intentions.

Dans un environnement économique décrit comme turbulent, la flexibilité est perçue comme un facteur clé de succès que les entreprises devraient maximiser. Pourtant, la notion de flexibilité est souvent présentée comme un concept relatif au domaine étudié. Celle-ci reste par conséquent un concept difficile à appréhender de façon globale et est souvent limitée à une fonction analytique malgré les nombreux travaux dont elle a fait l’objet depuis le début du XXe siècle. La complexité provient essentiellement de la multiplicité des domaines d’application, en témoignent les travaux portants sur la classification des différents types de flexibilités et de l’absence d’approche homogène pour traiter ces problématiques. L’enjeu, pour développer une gestion de la flexibilité au sein des niveaux stratégique, tactique et opérationnel, est alors d’intégrer cette dimension au processus décisionnel. Aujourd’hui, seules certaines décisions ont pour objet la flexibilité alors que tout processus de décision, par le changement d’état qu’il opère, modifie la topologie de l’espace des situations atteignables et par conséquent la capacité du système à être flexible. En vue d’établir une véritable politique de couverture du risque efficiente en univers incertain pour les entreprises, notre recherche s’est attachée à proposer une unité de gestion commune pour la flexibilité que nous avons nommée « potentialité ». Nous avons ainsi défini un cadre conceptuel sur lequel repose une méthodologie permettant de concevoir un système à flexibilité souhaitée. Nos travaux ouvrent des perspectives de recherches importantes sur deux axes majeurs. Le premier consiste à formaliser l’expression du besoin en termes de flexibilité dans le cadre de la méthodologie proposée. Le second, concerne le développement d’une politique de flexibilité basée sur la gestion d’un portefeuille de potentialités à l’instar d’une gestion de stock. / In an economic environment described as turbulent, flexibility is perceived as a key success factor which firms should maximize. Nevertheless, notion of flexibility is often presented as a concept relative to field studies. Therefore, flexibility remains a difficult concept to take on board in a global manner. Despite the fact that there are many studies on the subject since the beginning of XXth century, flexibility is often limited to an analytical function. Complexity results essentially from fields applications’ multiplicity and on lack of homogeneous approach to handle these problems as shown in carrying works on different flexibility types classifications. The aim in developing a flexibility management within strategic, tactical and operational levels, is to integrate this dimension into decisionmaking process. In today’s business, only few decisions process have for object flexibility while every decision making process, by the change of state that it operates, modifies space typology to reachable situations and consequently, modifies as well system capacity to be flexible. To establish a real policy for efficient risk cover in uncertain universe for today’s bussinesses, our research attempted to propose a unit of common management for flexibility, which we named "potentiality". Therefore, we defined a conceptual framework in which a methodology allows designing a “wished flexibility” system. Our works open on perspectives researches based on two major axes. The first one consists in formalizing expression of need in terms of flexibility within the proposed methodology framework. The second axe concerns developing a flexibility policy based on a potentialities portfolio management following stock management example.