In this dissertation, I investigate how organizations understand and apply shared meanings of sustainability. Integrating recent theoretical developments regarding organizational culture with findings from prior literature suggesting that corporate codes can be effective instruments for shaping employee behavior, I describe the flexible exchange of cultural meanings and practices between organizations and their environment with respect to the adoption of environmental certified management standards (ECMS). Taking an inductive, mixed methodological approach, I first use cultural consensus modeling survey techniques to analyze the types of situations vineyard managers in Oregon and Washington categorize as sustainable management conventions and the consistency of these categorizations among those organizations that have adopted ECMS and those organizations that have not. I then draw on interview and archival data to gain deeper insight into the survey findings, focusing on the nature of the relationship between the adoption of ECMS and managerial knowledge around shared meanings and practices regarding sustainability. I find that the adoption of ECMS is associated with an alignment among organizations regarding how they understand and apply sustainability, with three characteristics enhancing the effectiveness of ECMS in cultivating alignment: detailed practice descriptions, demanding objectives to achieve and maintain, and industry specificity. I further uncover that key activities involving the interaction of ECMS and ECMS members facilitate this alignment in cultural meanings and practices surrounding sustainability. From these findings, I develop a grounded conceptual model of cultural exchange, describing how organizations serve varying roles in the cultural exchange process and how each role leverages a set of specific mechanisms to facilitate the adaptation, generation, and transfer of existing and new cultural meanings and practices between organizations drawing on a shared cultural repertoire. The findings from this study contribute to enhancing our theoretical understanding of organizational culture as an open system through a more complex, intentional, and hierarchical account of cultural exchange, as well as develop insight into how the substantive adoption of ECMS practices is associated with alignment among organizations regarding cultural meanings and practices regarding a salient issue in an industry, such as sustainability.

Photocopy of typescript. / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

M.Ing. / The management of quality in companies has become more and more strategically important over recent years. The emphasis on quality is vital to managing projects and achieving excellence in today’s global economy. Modern petrochemical construction project management has incorporated quality management principles and initiatives in their activities. The Quality Management System is used to ensure that the project will satisfy the requirements for which it was undertaken. Improving project quality in construction requires consideration of culture within the project environment that is often associated with miscommunication and fragmentation. The focus of the thesis is to examine how quality culture can improve the quality in organisation and influence the implementation of Quality Management System in construction industry. The dissertation will comprise of extensive survey of the local academic literature and South African press reports concerning state of construction industry. A questionnaire conducted amongst professionals working in petrochemical industry is aimed to determine the impact of organisational culture on the successful implementation of quality management systems. The objective of this dissertation is to identify inefficiencies and possible improvements that can be achieved in current quality management systems. The dissertation concluded that an improvement in the quality management and quality of construction can only be achieved if quality is embedded in the entire operational and managerial processes of its organizations. The thesis recommends that the South African construction industry would benefit from the development of quality culture that fosters deeper human relationships to improve quality management.

VULCO es una empresa que opera en el Perú desde 1986, siendo su principal giro de negocio la venta de equipo y maquinarias a compañías de los sectores de minería y equipos para producción de agregados en el sector construcción. Sus principales clientes son del rubro minero, existiendo una oportunidad de negocio de mucha importancia para consolidarse como proveedor de servicios integrales. El presente trabajo de investigación consiste en determinar la influencia que tiene la aplicación de las buenas prácticas de la guía del PMBOK® quinta edición, en el montaje de 3 baterías de hidrociclones CAVEX en la planta de Separación de Molibdeno de una Gran Minera. La obtención del valor que generará la empresa en el ahorro de recursos, le servirá para obtener ventaja ante sus demás competidores. También le permitirá ejecutar obras con mayor calidad que dejen satisfechos a los clientes. Las conclusiones que se obtengan serán de mucha utilidad para la empresa VULCO, y servirán para decisiones de inversión en proyectos futuros, de forma que la investigación realizada formará parte de los activos de los procesos de la organización. La mayoría de los procedimientos que se siguen para este tipo de proyectos, se hacen en base a experiencias anteriores. Sin embargo, no se cuenta con una base de conocimientos sólida, ni tampoco con indicadores de medición que permitan conocer el momento que la empresa empieza a tener sobrecostos o retrasos; con la aplicación de los estándares del PMI al proyecto se podrán tener mayores y mejores controles del proceso de ejecución del montaje, así como también identificar oportunidades y amenazas. / VULCO is a company that has been operating in Peru since 1986. It is a company that sale an equipment and machinery for another companies in the mining and equipment for the production of aggregates in the construction sector. Its main clients are from the mining sectors. Thus, there is a very important business opportunity to consolidate as a provider of integral services. The present research, works on determining the influence that the application of the good practices of the PMBOK® fifth edition guide on the assembly of 3 CAVEX hydrocyclone batteries in the Molybdenum Separation plant of the Mining Company. Obtaining the value can significantly generate and saving the resources. It will also help the company to gain more advantages among the other competitors and so does in executing works with higher quality that automatically boost customers satisfied. The conclusions obtained will be very useful for the VULCO company, that will be used for investment decisions in future projects, so that the research carried out will be part of the assets of the organization's processes. Most of the procedures following these kind of projects are based on previous experiences. However, there is no strong knowledge base, nor with measurement indicators that allow us to know when the company begins to have cost overruns or delays. The application of PMI standards to the project will guarantee a better control for the assembly execution process, as well as identifying opportunities and threats. / Trabajo de investigación

Ces dernières décennies ont vu l'émergence et le développement de plusieurs pratiques managériales ayant rapport à la qualité et à l'environnement. Néanmoins, l'analyse des raisons de l'adoption de ces pratiques managériales par les entreprises et de leurs effets sur les entreprises et les salariés a été assez peu étudiée par les économistes. Cette thèse contribue à la littérature empirique sur les pratiques managériales liées à la qualité et à l'environnement dans les entreprises en France. Elle est construite autour de trois thèmes majeurs : (1) l'analyse des déterminants d'adoption de ces pratiques managériales, (2) l'étude de leur impact sur des indicateurs de performance d'entreprises et (3) l'étude de leur impact sur des mesures liées aux salariés. La thèse s'articule autour de ces trois axes de recherche en trois parties.Dans la première partie de la thèse, nous présentons les pratiques managériales de qualité et d'environnement, en se concentrant plus particulièrement sur les normes de qualité ISO 9000 et les normes environnementales ISO 14000. Nous étudions les déterminants de l'adoption des ces normes de qualité et d'environnement. Nous montrons dans un premier temps que les déterminants de l'adoption des normes de qualité sont différents dans les secteurs de l'industrie et des services, plus précisément du point de vue de la stratégie interne de ces entreprises (amélioration de la qualité, réduction des coûts et innovation). En revanche, certaines caractéristiques d'entreprises (taille, appartenance à un groupe financier, expérience avec d'autres normes) et des caractéristiques décrivant la stratégie externe des entreprises (niveau d'exportation et satisfaction des clients) ont le même effet dans l'adoption de ces normes dans les deux secteurs. Dans un second temps, nous analysons les déterminants de l'adoption de la norme ISO 14001 et de l'Engagement de Progrès dans des entreprises de l'industrie chimique. Nous montrons que les deux systèmes analysés ont des déterminants différents : d'un côté, les principaux déterminants de l'adoption de la norme ISO 14001 sont la taille de l'entreprise, l'expérience avec d'autres normes, obligations d'information et la localisation géographique des clients et d'un autre côté, les principaux déterminants de l'Engagement de Progrès sont la pression réglementaire, avoir rencontré des problèmes environnementaux dans le passé et prévoir des risques environnementaux futurs.Dans la deuxième partie de la thèse, nous analysons si les normes de qualité et d'environnement conduisent les entreprises à de meilleures performances, en utilisant une palette riche d'indicateurs de performance d'entreprises. Nous montrons que les normes de qualité ont un impact positif sur le chiffre d'affaires et certains indicateurs de performance d'innovation et de productivité. En revanche, elle n'ont pas d'effet sur le profit et sur d'autres mesures de performance d'innovation. Concernant les normes environnementales, nous montrons qu'elles améliorent le chiffre d'affaires et les pratiques de recrutement des personnels qualifiés et des personnels non qualifiés, mais n'ont pas d'impact sur le profit des entreprises. Enfin, notre investigation montre que le fait de mettre en place simultanément des normes de qualité et d'environnement améliore plus fortement les performances des entreprises par rapport à l'adoption séparée de ces normes.La troisième partie de la thèse étudie les effets des normes de qualité et d'environnement sur des mesures liées aux salariés. Les normes de qualité augmentent les risques d'accident, mais n'ont pas d'effet sur les accidents de travail entraînant un arrêt. Concernant les normes environnementales, nous montrons qu'elles améliorent significativement les conditions de travail à travers la diminution des accidents. De plus, les salariés qui travaillent dans des entreprises qui adoptent des normes environnementales considèrent que leur travail est davantage utile pour la société et ils ressentent une meilleure reconnaissance de leur travail. Ainsi, les normes environnementales augmentent le sentiment de bien-être des salariés.Nous montrons également que les salariés travaillant dans des entreprises ayant adopté des normes environnementales ne se déclarent pas plus impliqués dans leur travail et pourtant font davantage d'heures supplémentaires non rémunérées que les salariés d'entreprises n'ayant pas pris d'engagements similaires en matière de protection de l'environnement. / The scope and magnitude of changes occurring in business today has led to great interest in and widespread adoption of Quality and Environmental Management approaches. However, despite their prevalence, efforts at understanding the motives for their adoption, as well as their effects on firm and employee outcomes, are still in their infancy. This PhD dissertation provides useful theoretical and empirical contributions to three research topics dealing with Quality and Environmental Management approaches in the French institutional framework: (1) the determinants of their adoption, (2) their impact on firm outcomes and (3) their impact on employee outcomes. These three aspects make up the three parts of this PhD thesis.In part I, we define and characterise quality and environmental approaches with a special focus on ISO 9000 Quality Management standards and ISO 14000 Environmental Management standards. Furthermore, we empirically examine the determinants of quality and environmental standards adoption. Our findings reveal that the determinants of quality standards significantly differ between manufacturing and service firms, particularly when we examine features of the internal strategy of those firms (quality improvement, cost reduction and innovation). However, we have also obtained evidence which indicates that the characteristics of firms (firm size, corporate status and previous experience with similar standards) and features of their external strategy (export levels and customer satisfaction) play a significant role in quality standards adoption across both the manufacturing and service sectors. Moreover, we empirically investigate the determinants of chemical firms' registration for the ISO 14001 standard or the Responsible Care program. We show that most determinants are different for the two systems analysed: while firm size, previous experience with similar standards, information disclosure requirements and customer location are major determinants of ISO 14001 standard registration, regulatory pressure, past environmental problems and future risks are the main drivers of Responsible Care registration.In part II, we empirically investigate whether quality and environmental standards are related to better firm performance using various sets of performance measures. The evidence indicates that quality standards positively influence turnover and specific indicators of innovation performance and productivity, but have no impact on profit and some other innovation performance measures. Based on our empirical findings, we conclude that while environmental standards improve turnover and recruitment of both professional and non professional employees, they have no effect on profit. Moreover, the research shows that implementing both quality and environmental standards is likely to better enhance firm outcomes than implementing only one standard.Part III is focused on the effect of quality and environmental standards on employee outcomes. The estimation results show that quality standards increase the risk of employee accidents although more specifically they are ineffective on working accidents that lead to sick leave. On the other hand, our results lead to the conclusion that environmental standards add significantly to the enhancement of working conditions, via the reduction of accidents. Furthermore, the obtained evidence shows that environmental standards seem to improve employee well-being. More precisely, employees working for firms that are certified for an environmental standard report greater feelings of usefulness about their job and declare that they are more often fairly valued in their jobs. The evidence also shows that employees working for environmentally certified firms do not claim to be significantly more involved in their job but they are more likely, ceteris paribus, to work uncompensated for sup plementary work hours than “non green workers”.

published_or_final_version / Environmental Management / Master / Master of Science in Environmental Management

published_or_final_version / Environmental Management / Master / Master of Science in Environmental Management

The presented thesis discusses an investigation conducted into the improvement of employee experiences of stress in the workplace. It is estimated that 11.4 million working days were lost in 2008-2009 due to stress-related outcomes, and that stress was described as the top cause of long-term sickness absence in 70% of all public-sector organisations in 2010-2011 (CIPD, 2011a). Indeed major studies have associated chronic stress with individual outcomes such as increased cardiovascular disease, depression and burnout. The work, conducted within one department of a borough council organisation in the East of England, had two main objectives: the discovery of 'daily hassles' that comprise organisational stressors for staff and the intervention design aimed at improvement of stress. A novel mixed-methods approach combining quantitative surveys with Appreciative Inquiry (AI) was utilised, with five phases of inquiry conducted. The surveys (Stages 1 and 5) were utilised to assess the experience of work-related stress and Burnout. Stages 2, 3 and 4 were employee completion of daily logs, semi-structured interviews and focus groups. The ultimate aim of the qualitative work was to design a number of interventions for the improvement of stress. A local stress theory, designed via the mixing of convergent qualitative and quantitative outcomes, found that professional efficacy, relationships and creativity buffered the impact of three major stressors: (too many) demands, (lack of) managerial support and (poorly communicated) organisational change. These translated into concrete examples of procedural 'hassles' and a number of organisational interventions were designed with staff and subsequently implemented into the organisation. It is concluded that the methodology used was fruitful without being largely resource-demanding for either employees/participants or the organisation. Also while the mixing of AI methodologies with quantitative surveys can appear contradictory, it is demonstrated that the pragmatic approach taken led to strong research and practitioner-based outcomes. Lastly the work has demonstrated both originality and new knowledge in a variety of areas, as well as opening a number of future research questions and avenues.

Within the modern and globally connected business landscape, the information assets of organizations are constantly under attack. As a consequence, protection of these assets is a major challenge. The complexities and vulnerabilities of information systems (ISs) and the increasing risks of failure combined with a growing number of security incidents, prompts these entities to seek guidance from information security management standards. The International Organization of Standardization (ISO) Information Security Management System (ISMS) standard specifies the requirements for establishing, operating, monitoring, and improving an information security management system within the context of an organization's overall business risks. Importantly, this standard is designed to ensure the selection of adequate information security controls for the protection of an organization's information assets and is the only auditable international standard for information security management. The adoption of, and certification against the ISO ISMS standard is a complex process which impacts many different security aspects of organizations and requires significant investments in information security. Although many benefits are associated with the adoption of an information security management standard, organizations are increasingly employing economic measures to evaluate and justify their information security investments. With the growing emphasis on the importance of understanding the economic aspects of information security, this study investigated the economic value of the ISO ISMS standard adoption and certification. The principles of the efficient market hypothesis and the event study methodology were employed to establish whether organizations realized economic gains from obtaining certification against the ISO ISMS standard. The results of this research showed that capital markets did not react to the ISO ISMS certification announcements. Furthermore, the capital market reaction to information security breaches was not different between ISO ISMS certified and non-certified firms. It was concluded that the ISO ISMS certification did not create economic value for the certified firms

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Engineering, 11 August 2015 / This research set out to investigate two relationships; the relationship between technical qualifications and emerging contractor project performance, and the relationship between experience and emerging contractor project performance. The focus was on emerging contractors in the public sector. This study was motivated by the notion that emerging contractors generally fail and have poor project performance. The objective of the report was to determine the general factors that affect emerging contractor performance and demonstrate the relationship between competence and project performance. Information pertaining to progress and performance for thirty projects from a government institution in Mpumalanga Province was collected. This information included contact details of the contractors who conducted the 30 government infrastructure projects. The contact details were used to collect contractors’ curriculum vitaes and company profiles in order to extract information on qualifications and experience. Literature has shown that the most prevalent issues facing emerging contractors in South Africa can be attributed to the contractors’ competencies. These competencies include skills, experience, qualifications and project management knowledge. Other factors that affect emerging contractor performance include project delays caused by late payments by clients, shortage of labour and lack of financial resources and equipment. The results of this study showed that contractors with technical qualifications and experience generally perform better than those with no technical background. It was also found that where there is no technical background, the level of education also affects the level of project performance. This study demonstrated the importance of the number of technical or construction related projects conducted by an emerging contractor company as compared to the number of years that the company has been in operation. The number of projects conducted, regardless of timeline, is more beneficial to project performance than the number of years in operation in the construction industry. This study recommends that focus should be drawn to the definite need to develop emerging contractor competence through skills development, training, collaborations and knowledge sharing. Competence development should focus on transferring technical knowledge and experience through policy formulation, collaboration of government and educational or training institutes. Focus should also be drawn to developing project management competence of emerging contractors in the South African public sector.