Os sistemas de avaliação ambiental de edifícios são cada vez mais empregados no mercado de construção, servindo de suporte para a realização de diversos estudos acadêmicos sobre esta matéria. Muitos autores e sites ressaltam os benefícios das certificações LEED e do Processo AQUA, porém poucos discutem quantitativamente os efeitos, dificuldades e motivos de sua adoção, evidenciando, dessa forma, a necessidade e a importância de pesquisas como esta. Neste contexto, este trabalho tem como objetivo geral traçar um panorama da certificação ambiental de edifícios no Brasil, através da percepção dos principais intervenientes (stakeholder) no processo. Os objetivos principais deste trabalho consistem na identificação das motivações para a certificação de sistemas de avaliação ambiental de edifícios (LEED e Processo AQUA) e dos benefícios e dificuldades inerentes a sua implementação. Foi possível ainda efetuar várias recomendações destinadas a orientar e facilitar o processo de adoção destes sistemas, que inclui a proposta de ações a serem desenvolvidas pelas empresas, organismos de certificação e autoridades governamentais competentes. O método utilizado foi de pesquisa survey, junto a vários agentes envolvidos no processo de certificação ambiental. Para tal, foram concebidos diferentes questionários destinados a caracterizar a adoção dos sistemas de avaliação ambiental de edifícios que foram encaminhados aos empreendedores e consultores de empreendimentos certificados ou em processo de certificação. Obtiveram-se em total 21 questionários válidos que indicaram que as principais motivações para obter a certificação estão ligadas à melhoria da imagem e do empreendimento e que os principais benefícios estão relacionados com o marketing e a redução dos custos operacionais. Estes resultados também indicaram que existem dificuldades para essa adoção principalmente com a falta de integração no processo de projeto e a falta de fornecedores para materiais e tecnologias sustentáveis. / The building environmental assessment systems over the world are employing increasingly and we can find several studies concerning this subject. Many authors and websites emphasize the benefits of LEED and Process AQUA, but few discuss quantitatively the impacts, difficulties and reasons for its adoption, showing thus the need and importance of research like this. In this context, this paper aims to outline a general overview of the environmental certification of buildings in Brazil, through the key stakeholders perception (stakeholder) of the process. The main targets of this work were to identify the motivations for the environmental assessment systems for buildings and the corresponding benefits and difficulties concerning of implementation. It was also possible to make some recommendations to orientate and support the adoption of environmental assessment systems for buildings. These recomendations include the identification of actions to be implemented by companies, certification bodies and governmental authorities. In order to accomplish the defined targets, it were developed surveys which can lead to characterize the adoption of environmental assessment systems for buildings (LEED and AQUA Process). These survey was sent directly to entrepreneurs and consultants of a sample of brasilian companies with building certified or certification process (LEED and AQUA Process). It was received 21 answers that indicated that the main motivations for certification are linked to improving the image and building and that the main benefits are related to marketing and reducing operating costs. These results also indicated that there are difficulties in adopting this especially with the lack of integration in the design process and the lack of suppliers for materials and sustainable technologies.

The aim of this thesis was to find out the motivations and attitudes of the students to study. Particularly of the students of the Faculty of Economics of the University of South Bohemia. Thesis is focused on finding answers on questions such as why did students choose this faculty for their studies, what factors were important in choosing a school, who contributed to this decision, for instance family or peers, with their opinion or advice. As well as how do students evaluate the course of study, whether there are any problems that should be solved at the faculty etc. Part of the work is qualitative and quantitative research. Data from quantitative research are were provided by the faculty. Qualitative research was done in the form of semi-structured interviews. In conclusion, interesting outcome from the evaluation of both surveys were summarized, whether the outcome of both surveys coincide or contradict what benefits each research has brought. Part of the outcome are also some recommendations for the faculty based on the results of the questionnaire survey and the interviews. Highlighted were also the most positive and negative opinions and perceptions of the students during their studies, so the outcome is useful with its qualitative data.

Despite the high occurrence of running-related injuries, master level runners, those aged 40 years and older, account for 50% of all marathon finishers. What is not known is the common motive sustaining participation, especially among this age demographic. The self-determination theory was the theoretical framework to support how behavior is regulated by the individual. The purpose of this quantitative research was to identify a difference in the motives (psychological, physical, social, and achievement) and their subcategorical motives (health orientation, weight concern, affiliation, recognition, psychological coping, life meaning, self-esteem, competition, and personal goals) via the Motivations of Marathoners Scales by master level runners according to their injury status and gender. Two hundred and twenty-five master level runners from social media marathon running groups completed the online survey. The responses were analyzed using an independent-samples t test and an ANOVA. The results showed female master level runners statistically significant in psychological coping, life meaning, self-esteem, health orientation, weight concern, and affiliation which contributed to psychological, physical, and social motives while male master level runners were statistically significant only in the subcategory of competition. The implications for positive social change include a better understanding of motivation, its sustainment, and the adherence of physical activity behaviors to improve the positive influence among the current beliefs about aging and activity for better health of individuals and their communities.

My research provided new information concerning the management, ecology, and conservation of greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus). I report the results of an experiment using strategic intensive sheep grazing to enhance the quality of greater sage-grouse brood-rearing habitat. Although forb cover, an important component of brood-rearing habitat, responded positively to the grazing treatment, the response of other habitat variables was suppressed because the plots were not protected from domestic and wild herbivores during the years following the treatments. Measurements taken in grazing exclosures confirmed that herbivory by both large and small animals had significant impacts on vegetation. However, despite the suppressed habitat response, sage-grouse preferred the treated plots over the controls. In another chapter, I modeled survival rates of sage-grouse chicks to 42-days of age. Average chick survival across my study was high (39%). Survival varied across years and was affected by demographic, behavioral, and habitat factors. The top habitat model indicated that chick survival was positively related to grass cover and was higher in areas dominated by black sagebrush (Artemisia nova) than in big sagebrush (A. tridentata). The top model with demographic/behavioral factors indicated that survival was affected by interactions between hen age and brood mixing as well as between hatch date and brood mixing. In my last chapter I report on a survey of Utah sage-grouse hunter motivations and satisfaction. In 2008 and 2009 I surveyed over 600 sage-grouse hunters in Utah to determine why they chose to apply for sage-grouse hunting permits and what factors contributed to a satisfactory hunting experience. Originally, I had hypothesized that the impending Endangered Species Act listing petition for greater sage-grouse motivated hunters to pursue the species before they lost the opportunity. This hypothesis was not supported by the data. The majority of hunters indicated that they chose to hunt sage-grouse because it was a tradition or because it provided an opportunity to spend time outdoors with family. Additionally, Utah sage-grouse hunter satisfaction was influenced by whether or not the hunter was successful in harvesting at least one bird.

: Pourquoi ce tel engouement pour les opérations de Public to Private au cours des dernières années ? Cette question nous a conduits à identifier d'une part les motivations qui incitent les sociétés à sortir de la bourse et à évaluer d'autre part l'impact qu'elles ont sur la richesse des actionnaires. Notre recherche porte sur la période 2000-2007 selon différentes zones géographiques : les Etats-Unis, l'Europe et l'Asie. Elle est organisée en deux parties. La première partie est consacrée au cadre théorique. Une analyse de la mise en place d'une telle opération et son évolution dans le temps font l'objet de notre chapitre 1. La revue de la littérature (chapitre 2) montre les limites de la recherche française et internationale en la matière, ce qui nous a encouragés à développer cette analyse internationale. Ensuite, nous avons formulé dans le chapitre 3, les différentes hypothèses à tester ainsi que la méthodologie employée. La deuxième partie est réservée aux analyses empiriques basées sur les motivations des opérations de Public to Private (chapitre 4). Ces dernières sont déterminées en faisant une comparaison entre l'échantillon de notre étude et un échantillon de contrôle dont ce dernier est constitué de sociétés cotées en bourse. Tous les deux comportent 413 firmes. L'évaluation de la richesse des actionnaires est mesurée par deux indicateurs : la prime et la rentabilité anormale moyenne cumulée (chapitre 5). Ces derniers représenteront les variables dépendantes de notre modèle étudiant l'impact des opérations de Public to Private sur la richesse des actionnaires (chapitre 6). Nos analyses confirment le rôle important de l'économie fiscale, du contrôle au sein de la société, des perspectives de croissance faibles, de la sous-évaluation comme déterminants des sociétés à sortir de la bourse et comme sources de richesse pour les actionnaires.

The Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) is a voluntary investor-led initiative, backed by the United Nations. Together, the six principles are meant to provide a ‘best practice’ code of conduct for institutional investors seeking to adopt responsible investment practices with a secondary goal of contributing to improved corporate performance on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues. Launched in 2006, the PRI has grown to be the single largest global investor initiative with over 700 signatory financial institutions representing assets under management in excess of $US20 trillion. Contributing to the broader literature on plausible explanations for why firms participate in voluntary initiatives, the thesis is primarily concerned with the question of what has motivated institutional investors to create and publicly commit to the PRI. A review of the broader trends behind the growth of responsible investment and the emergence of the PRI indicates the dominant utilitarian, cost-benefit logic is not wholly persuasive in understanding investor motivations. The research findings indicate that decisions to integrate ESG issues and publicly commit to adopting the PRI should be primarily viewed as a response to formal pressures by external stakeholders and actors in an investor’s institutional environment. Regulatory and stakeholder influences in the form of NGO advocacy campaigns have established normative standards directed towards the conduct of investors. As public opinion has shifted to put greater emphasis on sustainable development, the image and reputation of a pension scheme in relation to these trends have come under increasing scrutiny such that being perceived as a ‘responsible’ investor – sometimes even in the absence of a direct market rationale – has become a central driver behind the growth of responsible investment. The decision to adopt the PRI and establish beyond-compliance commitments to integrate ESG issues into investment decision-making should principally be seen as embedded in broader reputational risk management strategies. These findings support complex market rationalism explanations for firm participation in voluntary initiatives which suggest that firms commit to such principles or codes of conduct as a means of assuring stakeholders that their concerns are being internalized into corporate practices. A secondary focus of the thesis is to examine signatory implementation to-date, assessing the adequacy and effectiveness of the voluntary measure for the promotion of more socially-responsible and environmentally-sustainable investments. While substantial progress has been shown by a small group of PRI signatories, it remains unclear whether the PRI has generated significant improvement across the broader signatory base. The PRI suffers from several weaknesses commonly identified in the literature on voluntary initiatives. First, a lack of accountability measures limits incentives for investors to go beyond business-as-usual. Second, less stringent voluntary standards like the PRI are likely to suffer from adverse selection and free riding, therefore threatening the credibility of the initiative’s reputation over the longer-term. Ironically, weaknesses in the institutional design of the PRI may undermine the very reputational benefit sought after by signatories.

Food festivals and events are growing in popularity and warrant in-depth studies of festival visitors. Given the increasing socio-economic significance of this vibrant component of the world’s leisure industry, gaining knowledge of food festival visitors and their expenditure patterns is essential to festival researchers and destination marketers. This study examines the characteristics of food festival visitors and the determinants of their festival expenditures. Specifically, a conceptual model has been developed to delineate the correlations among festival spending patterns and the visitors’ event-related motivations, food-related motivations, and food involvement levels. Generally, the study was constructed around six hypotheses and five research questions, which were proposed based on a comprehensive review of literature related to events and festivals, culinary tourism, and food consumption. A questionnaire survey was designed to collect empirical data from festival attendees exiting the 9th China(Hefei) Crawfish Festival (CHCF) in Hefei city, Anhui province, China. Four aspects of food festival visitor characteristics were investigated: 1) festival expenditures in five categories (i.e., food and beverages consumed at the festival, food and beverages taken away, goods and gifts other than food and beverages, entertainment, and other expenses); 2) event-related motivations for attending, including eight individual motivators (i.e., relaxation, social, family, festival culture, excitement, escape, entertainment, and novelty); 3) food-related motivations for attending, including eight individual motivators (i.e., social, family, physical environment, food culture, celebration, sensory appeal, knowledge, and prestige); 4) food involvement traits, including four subsets (i.e., cooking, acquisition, eating, and preparing) and ten individual traits (i.e., food choice, food shopping, food processing, food presentation, cooking delight, cooking practice, taste judging, food preoccupation, and exotic food experiences). To gain a wider understanding of the food festival market, the study also investigated the visitors’ demographic and visit characteristics. A Tobit modeling procedure was applied to investigate the relationships between visitors’ festival expenditures (total and food-related) and their scores on festival motivations and food involvement scales. The results show that visitors’ total or food-related expenditures at the festival were not associated with their overall scores on event-related or food-related festival motivations, and visitors’ spending during the festival had negative correlations with their overall food involvement scale scores. However, a further investigation of sixteen individual motivators and ten food involvement traits revealed that within the event-related motivation category, “Novelty” and “Escape” were positively related to both the total and food-related expenditures, while “Social” and “Entertainment” were negatively related. Among the eight food-specific motivators, “Culture” and “Family” were negative correlates of both the total and the food/beverage spending and, respectively, “Sensory appeal” and “Social” were positive correlates of the total and food/beverage. In-depth investigations of the ten FIS items indicated that, in particular, the greater visitors’ interest in “Cooking practice” and “Exotic food experience”, the less they spent in total and on food/beverages. The only food involvement item that had a positive relation with the expenditures is “Cooking delight”. In terms of the relation between festival motivations and food involvement levels, the results of a series of t-tests reported that individuals who are more highly interested in food were more likely motivated to attend by food-related factors than individuals who are less interested in food, and those who reported less involvement with food showed equal interest in the food and event experiences available at the festival. With respect to visitor characteristics, empirical data gathered from the visitor survey provided a general description of the CHCF attendees’ age, gender, residence, and visit patterns. The findings illustrate that the visitors were typically young, and slightly more females than males attended the festival. The majority were local residents who came to the festival in a group with two or three family members or relatives/friends, and they tended to stay two to three hours at the festival. As could be expected with a food-themed festival, a great proportion of the visitors’ festival expenditures were related to food, especially, foods and beverages consumed at the festival. In terms of motivations for attending, generally, visitors were attracted to the festival by a synergy of food experiences available at the festival and the event itself. The most important motivations for attending were interpersonal, including both event-related and food-related “Social” and “Family” motivators. The event-related “Relaxation” and food-related “Physical environment” were also among the top three most important motivators in the two categories. With regard to food involvement, the visitors were relatively more highly involved with food than general food consumers; in particular, they were highly interested in “Cooking” and “Taste judging”. Overall, this study provides an in-depth examination of festival visitors and their consumption traits in a food festival context. When compared with those of the extant literature on culinary tourism and festival visitors, the results and discussion of the study confirm certain previous findings and, also, challenge some common assumptions. Based on the study’s key findings, the hypothesized conceptual model was extensively modified to illustrate the detailed correlations among a number of variables related to food festival visitors’ expenditures, event-related and food-related motivations for attending, and food involvement traits. Theoretical and practical implications of the study towards future research issues are subsequently drawn from the findings. It is suggested that the food festival market should be understood in a holistic sense within both the community festival and culinary tourism contexts, and future research endeavors should be directed towards a more comprehensive conceptual model that can thoroughly explain the food festival expenditure determinants.

This research explores aspects of small tourism businesses in a Canadian context. A number of authors (e.g., Getz and Nilsson, 2004; Hall and Rusher, 2004; Lynch and Tucker, 2004; Morrison and Teixeira, 2004a/b) have noted that while small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are acknowledged as an important parts of the tourism industry, they are underrepresented in the academic literature. Of the small business research that has been conducted, a sizeable portion has focused on industries other than tourism; the tourism-specific research on SMEs has predominately been conducted in Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand and has frequently focused on a single segment of the industry, often the small accommodation sector. Little research of this nature has been done in a Canadian context. The study was set in Stratford and Goderich, Ontario, and compares and contrasts two parts of the tourism industry: the accommodation and food and beverage sectors. The study focused on small business owners and examined three main aspects: their motivations for starting/purchasing the business, how they evaluated the success of the business and the experiences they had while running the business. The research also set out to examine the demography of Canadian tourism SME owners and how they defined small business. A mixed methods approach was adopted. Data were collected through mailed questionnaires which were followed up with semi-structured interviews. Findings showed that despite motivations being similar between study sites and industries, the paths that lead owners to their business varied greatly. Though ‘lifestyle’ motivations were predominately cited, financial considerations were also noted. Owners frequently used financial calculations to measure the achievement of their lifestyle motivations. The experiences owners had with their business were overwhelmingly positive and were grouped into six themes: changes in the industry, relationship building, staffing, the importance of customer service, financial costs of running a small business and time management. The results of this study confirmed that Canadian tourism SME owners in Stratford and Goderich, Ontario, possess similar motivations, measurements of success and experiences as their national and international counterparts.

Purpose: To identify among temporary agency workers at Proffice AB in Jönköping, which de-motivators constitute a problem with-in the industrial sector, and further propose a framework that can be used as an indicative tool for alleviating these prob-lems for companies working in the sector. Background: Temporary agency work is an increasingly growing industry. In the EU it has been the fastest growing market the last 20 years. At the same time, the rate at which temporary agency workers (TAWs) quit their jobs due to dissatisfaction is high-er than for most industries. Research on the subject has dis-covered that this is due to underlying reasons that emerge in the everyday work of the TAWs. These are labeled de-motivators. This research is aimed at the industrial sector, a sector within temporary agency work that has been over-looked in previous research. Due to the special working con-ditions, it contains many de-motivational factors, making it an interesting area to research. Method: In order to answer the purpose, interviews with managers at Proffice (a Swedish temporary agency), TAWs at Proffice, and managers at host companies have been conducted in or-der to test de-motivational theories, discover new de-motivators, and gain knowledge in order to develop a new framework for dealing with de-motivators subjected to TAWs within the industrial sector. Since the interviewees are differ-ent types of respondents, the methods of interviewing have varied between being semi-structured, and unstructured. Conclusion: As a result of the case study, the authors suggest a framework for how managers at temporary agencies and host companies could prioritize dealing with the most important de-motivators in accordance with the empirical findings. This framework indicates that previous research done on de-motivators among TAWs does not completely correspond to TAWs within the industrial sector.

The H.R. MacMillan Space Centre is a multi-faceted organization whose mission is to educate, inspire and evoke a sense of wonder about the universe, our planet and space exploration. As a popular, Vancouver science centre, it faces the same range of challenges and issues as other major attractions: how does the Space Centre maintain a healthy public attendance in an increasingly competitive market where visitors continue to be presented with an increasingly rich range of choices for their leisure spending and entertainment dollars?This front-end study investigated visitor attitudes, thoughts and preconceptions on the topic of space and astronomy. It also examined visitors’ motivations for coming to a space science centre. Useful insights were obtained which will be applied to improve future programme content and exhibit development.