This thesis addresses the paradigm shift required for an MBA qualification in a world order of inclusive globalisation (WOIG) – where humankind‟s security is assured, and where global poverty has been eradicated. A new research methodology, termed critical metasynthesis, which is the enrichment of critical management research with metasynthesis and Socrates‟ dialectic method of systematic inquiry has been used. The critical metasynthesis derives its outcome from the insights of global leaders from the developed and developing world, refuted by Nobel Laureates from the past decade. From the Socratic dialogue an end-purpose Statement of Visions for a new world order, society, business, business leadership, and the postmodern MBA emerged, namely: to deliver a WOIG; requiring a society that finds its greatness in protecting both its humanity and its economy as a whole; requiring world-class businesses – financially robust across business cycles, with global stewardship as the dominant business logic; requiring global business leaders with an ability to envision the WOIG, and then to lead thereto in an entrepreneurial and path-breaking manner exerting leadership qualities associated with the golden Rule of Humanity; requiring an MBA that educates and inspires the business leader to lead (and, to co-lead with societal and political leaders) the planetary turn-around to a WOIG. For this, a fundamental change of paradigm for the MBA emerged as a prerequisite. The first prerequisite is a Social Contract with Business as a trichotomy of global business responsibility towards society, politics and the Earth. This, becomes the raison d‟être of the postmodern MBA. The second prerequisite is an educational context aligned with the values and aspirations of a WOIG society. The outcome of the postmodern MBA is a fundamental personal re-orientation as thé kairos moment - through holistic critical reasoning excellence and achieving a WOIG mindset. Flowing from this to craft, build and to manage enterprises for the turn-around from today‟s world order of destructive globalisation to a WOIG. The thesis contributes a new educational context, vocabulary, and guidelines for a new canon of MBA knowledge. The thesis concludes by describing new vistas of follow-up research in four interlocking priorities for the professoriate, namely: discovering, integrating, applying and teaching a postmodern MBA in a WOIG – to deliver MBA graduates who can lead any business in any industry sector in any country towards positive sustained results for all stakeholders. / Business Leadership / D.B.L.

Die Arbeit befasst sich mit Methodenproblemen in der Strategischen Managementforschung. Auf Basis einer Meta-Analyse zum Zusammenhang zwischen Ressourcen im Sinne des Resource-based view und der Performance von Unternehmen werden verschiedene Erklärungen für die zu beobachtende Ergebnisheterogenität in den Primärstudien empirisch gegenübergestellt. Es kann gezeigt werden, dass die Operationalisierung des Konstrukts "organisationale Leistung" den größten Beitrag zur Erklärung der Varianz der Studienergebnisse erbringt. Die Appropriationstheorie liefert einen überzeugenden Erklärungsansatz zum systematischen Zusammenhang zwischen Leistung und Studienergebnissen. / The dissertation thesis contrasts various explanations for heterogeneity in strategic management research findings using meta-analytical techniques. I evaluate research results for a well-known research questions in strategic management research, the relation between performance and resources in the framework of resource-based view, and find that the way how the construct ‘performance’ is being operationalized explains a significant part of the observed heterogeneity in research findings, distinctly more than problems like population selection or the unclear temporal link between dependent and independent variables. Appropriation theory is shown to provide a convincing explanation for the observed outcome.

South Africa depends largely on afforestation programs for its timber supplies due to the great demands for fiber and wood products. This has brought discomfort to other water users who have advocated that the effects of afforestation on water resources are detrimental to the country as a whole since South Africa is known as a water scarce country. This study has undertaken to integrate a process-based model and remote sensing data to estimate water use and productivity of Eucalyptus grandis in the Zululand areas of South Africa. The remote sensing techniques and recently developed "process based model" that is 3PG-S were used to estimate water use and productivity of Eucalyptus grandis, an economically important plantation species grown in the summer rainfall areas of South Africa. The study utilized monthly Landsat Thematic Mapper datasets and climatic data as inputs into the 3PG-S model, determined the Leaf Area Index (LAI) and Specific Leaf Area (SLA) through direct (destructive sampling) and indirect measurements (LiCor- 2000) and assessed the relationships between various vegetation indices (VI's) using correlation and regression analyses. The results suggest that all the indices, except the ratio VI, correlated significantly with LiCor-determined and destructively measured LAI values with both normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and Ratio Vegetation Index (RVI) (r=0.86, p / Thesis (M.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritburg, 2007.

The state of the environment is increasingly present as an urgent concern for contemporary political, social, cultural and physical life. Yet the roles of the mass media (radio, television and newspapers) in shaping and influencing crucial public awareness, debates and environmental decision-making remain inadequately understood. Positioned as a critical studies inquiry into media representations and audience reception, this study forms part of a wider project amongst media scholars and culture critics on the relationship between media textual production and consumption. It explores how one radio station in Uganda, Central Broadcasting Service (CBS) radio, represents and constructs the environmental crises faced by Lake Victoria, especially pollution and overfishing. The focus is on the Victoria Voice radio documentaries aired on CBS radio in the year 2005. The study further explores how three lakeside communities negotiate these issues as radio broadcasts. It recognises that while the mass media contribute significantly to creating public awareness about such social concerns, their likelihood of having a direct and predictable impact on social behaviour is slight. The context and the lived experiences at the reception stage where the decisions are made on whether to adopt an innovation are ultimately the factors which impact on how they are negotiated. The thesis is informed by the theoretical and analytical framework of Cultural Studies as well as the Participatory Approach to Communication for Development perspectives. The study is specifically informed by the theories of ‘discourse’ (Foucault, 1980a, 1981) and the ‘circuit of culture’ (du Gay et al., 1997 and Johnson, 1987) and these provided the conceptual framework for investigating the representations, the production and the consumption of media texts. Predominantly qualitative methods have been employed in data collection and analysis. In the first place, a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) (Fairclough, 1995a, 1995c) of the radio texts has interrogated the discourses and discursive practices of CBS’ Victoria Voice environmental radio programmes in order to consider its representations of particular issues and consequently the discourses it privileged. Qualitative methods of participant observation, in-depth interviews and focus group discussions were deployed to investigate the negotiation of the texts by the lakeside communities. This research establishes that the Victoria Voice radio texts foreground three contesting types of discourses: the discourse of basic economic survival and livelihoods is articulated largely by the ordinary people, the lakeside communities; the discourse of sustainable development, particularly the protection and sustainability of Lake Victoria, by scientists and environmental experts; and the discourse of modernisation and corporate investment by politicians and/or policy makers and industrialists. The texts, to a large degree, reaffirm the hegemonic relations of power in Ugandan society, and thus contribute to the maintenance of the status quo. The selection of an elite category of informers (scientists, experts, politicians, policy makers) serves to marginalise the less powerful ordinary people (the fisher folk, farmers and other eyewitnesses). The construction of the elite as active and speaking subjects within the various debates introduced in these programmes, for example, works both to obscure and endorse the unequal power relations. At the reception side, while the lakeside communities attest to the relevance of the programmes in providing information on the issues concerning Lake Victoria and other aspects of their livelihood, they also recognise the power relations that underpin the sets of representations. Amongst these sets is government’s complicity with industry, in line with their economic policies and the global capitalist economy, while espousing the rhetoric of nature conservation. The study argues that sustainable solutions for the crises on Lake Victoria should take into account the socio-historical and cultural contexts of the lakeside communities. For the Ugandan media, particularly radio, there is a need to rethink the nature of the coverage, which tends to neglect the contextual factors, such as local socio-economic and cultural factors within which environmental issues and problems occur and which, as this thesis establishes, greatly influences the way people make sense of environmental issues and problems. I posit that the Participatory Approach that seeks to address the communities’ most pressing concerns should be adopted – to include more of the communities’ voices and involve them in the production of radio programmes.

This thesis addresses the paradigm shift required for an MBA qualification in a world order of inclusive globalisation (WOIG) – where humankind‟s security is assured, and where global poverty has been eradicated. A new research methodology, termed critical metasynthesis, which is the enrichment of critical management research with metasynthesis and Socrates‟ dialectic method of systematic inquiry has been used. The critical metasynthesis derives its outcome from the insights of global leaders from the developed and developing world, refuted by Nobel Laureates from the past decade. From the Socratic dialogue an end-purpose Statement of Visions for a new world order, society, business, business leadership, and the postmodern MBA emerged, namely: to deliver a WOIG; requiring a society that finds its greatness in protecting both its humanity and its economy as a whole; requiring world-class businesses – financially robust across business cycles, with global stewardship as the dominant business logic; requiring global business leaders with an ability to envision the WOIG, and then to lead thereto in an entrepreneurial and path-breaking manner exerting leadership qualities associated with the golden Rule of Humanity; requiring an MBA that educates and inspires the business leader to lead (and, to co-lead with societal and political leaders) the planetary turn-around to a WOIG. For this, a fundamental change of paradigm for the MBA emerged as a prerequisite. The first prerequisite is a Social Contract with Business as a trichotomy of global business responsibility towards society, politics and the Earth. This, becomes the raison d‟être of the postmodern MBA. The second prerequisite is an educational context aligned with the values and aspirations of a WOIG society. The outcome of the postmodern MBA is a fundamental personal re-orientation as thé kairos moment - through holistic critical reasoning excellence and achieving a WOIG mindset. Flowing from this to craft, build and to manage enterprises for the turn-around from today‟s world order of destructive globalisation to a WOIG. The thesis contributes a new educational context, vocabulary, and guidelines for a new canon of MBA knowledge. The thesis concludes by describing new vistas of follow-up research in four interlocking priorities for the professoriate, namely: discovering, integrating, applying and teaching a postmodern MBA in a WOIG – to deliver MBA graduates who can lead any business in any industry sector in any country towards positive sustained results for all stakeholders. / Business Leadership / D.B.L.

The purpose of this research was to explore how management explains the difference between the overall service quality ratings of staff at Company X versus the overall service quality ratings of Company X. The organisation conducts customer service measurements on a regular basis to monitor their customers overall service experience regarding the staff and the organisation. The results of the research identified a discrepancy regarding customer perceptions of the service they receive from the staff versus the service Company X is providing. Management was the focus of the study due to management having a direct or indirect influence on service gaps in the organisation. The SERVQUAL model, together with systems theory, was applied as a framework to explore management perceptions as to why a service quality gap exists. In-depth face-to-face interviews were conducted with management staff of Company X who are responsible for customer service. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the interviews and through content analysis six main themes were identified with various subthemes. The theoretical and empirical objectives were addressed and it was concluded that inconsistent practices within the organisation specifically the lack of consistent performance management can create an inconsistent service experience. The findings also revealed that Company X have various focus areas to improve the overall customer experience of the organisation. / Psychology / M.A. (Psychology (Research consultation))

<p align="justify">Partant du mouvement managérial de remise en cause de l'organisation classique aussi appelée bureaucratie mécaniste ou encore entreprise taylorienne et fordienne qui a pris vigueur au début des années 80, l'architecture de cette thèse se structure en trois parties étroitement interdépendantes.</p><p><p><p align="justify">La première partie porte sur l'innovation managériale, c'est-à-dire sur les doctrines et les outils de gestion qui, à partir de la fin du siècle passé et du début de ce siècle, ont façonné l'histoire du management. Le regard porté conduit à relativiser voire à rompre avec certains lieux communs. Ainsi force est de constater que l'entreprise classique a fait l'objet au cours du temps d'un certain nombre de critiques, d'un certain nombre de tentatives d'aménagement voire même de dépassement. Notons toutefois que, par rapport aux tentatives précédentes, celle qui a débuté au début des années 80 apparaît beaucoup plus profonde au niveau des intentions et surtout beaucoup plus largement partagée par les managers. Par ailleurs, la lecture avancée insiste sur la dimension cyclique de l'histoire du management. Enfin, concernant la période actuelle, l'idée de mode est réfutée au profit de celle d'un construit étalé dans le temps.</p><p><p><p align="justify">La deuxième partie est consacrée à une étude de cas portant sur une grande entreprise sidérurgique. L'analyse faite s'articule autour du concept de bloc sociotechnologique dont la paternité revient à Pierre Bouvier (Le travail au quotidien: une démarche socio anthropologique, Paris, PUF, 1989). Dans cette optique, l'histoire récente de l'entreprise peut être posée comme celle du passage d'un bloc à un autre, c'est-à-dire d'une articulation relativement cohérente entre des variables différentes sociale, économique, politique, technologique. à une autre. Pour le faire ressortir, trois histoires connexes ont été relatées et analysées en détail:</p><p><p><p align="justify">La première histoire est micro-économique. Elle fait une large place à la crise comme élément de rupture par rapport au passé et aux restructurations successives qu'elle a entraînées. Sur la durée, celles-ci sont particulièrement révélatrices de l'évolution des rapports de force entre les acteurs. Elles mettent également en lumière les "dégâts" humains et sociaux provoqués par la modernisation.</p><p><p><p align="justify">La deuxième histoire est relative à l'évolution technologique. En sidérurgie, comme dans la plupart des secteurs traditionnels, les nouvelles technologies de l'information et de la communication sont venues véritablement bouleverser les univers de travail. A ce niveau, l'analyse s'est centrée sur les multiples effets socio-organisationnels liés à l'informatisation des outils.</p><p><p><p align="justify">La troisième et dernière a trait à la modernisation managériale. Dans le cas particulier de l'entreprise, elle débute à la fin des années 70 avec l'arrivée d'un nouveau directeur général. Toutefois, ce n'est qu'au début des années 80 que la volonté de renouveau managérial commence réellement à se concrétiser avec le développement des cercles de qualité et de progrès. Par la suite, l'entreprise ne cessera d'innover. Ainsi, vers la fin des années 80, la direction adopte la qualité totale comme mode de management. Dans ce cadre, elle multiplie les nouveaux concepts et les nouveaux outils de gestion: plan d'amélioration de la qualité, assurance qualité, topomaintenance, statistical process control, prime de progrès, etc. Enfin, après avoir réalisé d'importantes économies et fiabilisé son processus de production, vers le milieu des années 90, la direction témoigne d'une volonté de repenser son mode d'organisation et de gestion du personnel. Ainsi, par exemple, il est de plus en plus question d'organisation apprenante ou qualifiante.</p><p><p><p align="justify">Chacune de ces innovations a fait l'objet d'une présentation et d'une analyse socio-organisationnelle approfondie. Sans entrer dans les détails, soulignons cependant que la mise en oeuvre d'une nouvelle organisation du travail et d'une gestion individualisée des carrières vient en quelque sorte finaliser l'émergence d'un nouveau bloc sociotechnologique.</p><p><p><p align="justify">Quant à la troisième partie, elle est consacrée à une lecture théorique de l'innovation managériale à partir des concepts de l'analyse stratégique. Toutefois, la mobilisation du cadre théorique développé par Michel Crozier et Erhard Friedberg a également conduit à en souligner certaines limites dont le rejet de la dimension historique de l'organisation et de ses acteurs.</p><p><p> / Doctorat en sciences sociales, Orientation sociologie / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This thesis is following up a concept of diversity management, in great detail we are talking here about age management, which is human resources management with respect to age and ability of the employee. The theoretical part deals with management of diversity in work teams, defines age management as the possibility of adapting the organization to the needs of aging employees. Highlights the demographic development of the society, bringing us near to age spread of the teachers in schools in the Czech Republic. The empirical part describes in detail the age management tools as suitable instrument for adapting the working conditions for the employees of age 50+. It contains three sub-surveys in three kindergartens, three Primary Schools and three Elementary Art Schools in Prague. Based on semi-structured interviews with the directors and also on answering questionnaires about the age management and the utilization of its tools in between the group of pedagogues of age 50+ and the group of operational staff of age 50+ at the surveyed schools compares the possibility of introducing the instruments of the age management to schools with needs of employees of age 50+. The aim of this work is to describe and compare the current state of use of the age management elements in kindergartens, Primary Schools...

Depuis la naissance des sciences de gestion, les chercheurs questionnent la pertinence de leurs travaux pour la pratique des entreprises. Interroger le rapport de la recherche à la pratique, c'est s'intéresser à la façon dont sont produites les connaissances managériales. Nous nous focalisons tout d'abord sur la controverse développée autour du rapport de la recherche à la pratique en développant quatre approches complémentaires par lesquelles les académiques appréhendent le rapport à la pratique. Dans un deuxième temps, nous nous intéressons à la façon dont chercheurs et praticiens développent ensemble des innovations managériales et conceptualisons un processus de développement spécifique aux innovations managériales développées entre recherche et pratique. Dans un troisième temps, nous étudions le concept de Stratégie Océan Bleu et nous montrons comment ses innovateurs ont performé leur concept suivant ses préceptes. Enfin, nous nous intéressons au chercheur-praticien, un acteur qui d'une part se situe à la fois dans le monde de la recherche et dans celui de la pratique et qui d'autre part participe à la production des connaissances managériales. L'objectif est de mieux appréhender les conflits de rôle auxquels ils font face et la façon dont ils équilibrent leurs rôles. Ainsi, par ces quatre études, cette thèse éclaire la façon dont sont produites les connaissances managériales. / Since the early days of management research, its relevance to practice has been the subject of vigorous debate. Understanding the relationship between research and practice implies studying how management knowledge is produced. We first aim at understanding the controversy surrounding the relevance of management research. We develop four complementary approaches on how academics apprehend the relationship between research and practice. Then, we develop a framework that allows the identification of four modes of interactions between scholars and practitioners and discover a developmental process that is specific to the management innovations that are developed between research and practice. Then, we study how the strategic concept of “Blue Ocean Strategy” is performed. We show how its innovators have performed the concept by applying its own principles. Finally, we are interested in scholar-practitioners given they straddle the worlds of research and practice to produce management knowledge. We seek to understand how they overcome role conflicts related to their activities in both research and practice. These four studies shed light on how management knowledge is produced.

Research policy has become increasingly important for policymakers in Europe as it is considered to be a driving force behind the global knowledge-based economy. An array of new tools for the evaluation and funding of research have been implemented both by the European Union and its Member States; particularly distinctive are those that have been developed in the Czech Republic and Sweden. This dissertation, through four cases studies, investigates why these tools have appeared and what effects they have on the practice of research. Using a conceptual framework of public administration ideal-type narratives, the dissertation shows that these new tools can be considered as New Public Management type reforms. Further, the dissertation creates a theoretical model in which institutional theories are operationalized and used to reveal the politics behind the policy tools and the way that they affect individual behavior in the academic environment. The results demonstrate that strong influences are exerted by the rational choice logics embedded in New Public Management tools, which do distort the practice of research, yet these influences are also tempered by other historically and normatively-based logics within the complex system of research in higher education institutions. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)