<p><strong>Purpose</strong> – The purpose of this dissertation is twofold. First, to identify and design a theoretical model of different factors that are important when evaluating fast changing industry environment. Second, to conduct interviews designed after the model and determine what factors are important within the company’s specific industry.</p><p><strong>Design/methodology/approach</strong> – A range of published research literature on Industry environment such as clusters, innovation and hyper competition has been used in this thesis. Our main approach has been to follow Porter’s Five Forces Model and applying it on the modern IT-industry.</p><p><strong>Findings</strong> – This research identified three additional forces for evaluating industry environment, namely Innovation, Complementary product & Cooperation and Customer Readiness.</p><p><strong>Limitations</strong> – The research was limited to northeastern Öresundsregionen, Sweden. The interview questions where limited to pre-designed factors. </p><p><strong>Originality/value</strong> – The findings of this research provide the companies and researchers with a context for understanding this specific type of industry environment. It will also provide companies with a set of tools and best practices to apply when evaluating their own environment.</p>

Purpose – The purpose of this dissertation is twofold. First, to identify and design a theoretical model of different factors that are important when evaluating fast changing industry environment. Second, to conduct interviews designed after the model and determine what factors are important within the company’s specific industry. Design/methodology/approach – A range of published research literature on Industry environment such as clusters, innovation and hyper competition has been used in this thesis. Our main approach has been to follow Porter’s Five Forces Model and applying it on the modern IT-industry. Findings – This research identified three additional forces for evaluating industry environment, namely Innovation, Complementary product &amp; Cooperation and Customer Readiness. Limitations – The research was limited to northeastern Öresundsregionen, Sweden. The interview questions where limited to pre-designed factors.  Originality/value – The findings of this research provide the companies and researchers with a context for understanding this specific type of industry environment. It will also provide companies with a set of tools and best practices to apply when evaluating their own environment.

Olfactory sensing is ubiquitous across animals and important for survival. Yet, its characteristics, mechanisms, and functions in humans remain not well understood. In this dissertation, I present four studies on human olfactory perception. Study I investigates the impact of short-term exposures to an odorant on long-term olfactory learning and habituation, while Study II examines human ability to localize smells; Study III probes visual-olfactory integration of object representations, and Study IV explores the role of olfaction in sensing nutrients. Several conclusions are drawn from these studies. First, brief intermittent exposures to even a barely detectable odorant lead to long-term incremental odorant-specific habituation. Second, humans localize smells based on gradient cues between the nostrils. Third, there is a within-hemispheric advantage in the integration of visual-olfactory object representations. Fourth, olfaction partakes in nutrient-sensing and facilitates the detection of food. Some broader implications of our findings are discussed.

none

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This thesis examines a new kind of literary history developed in four postmodern historical romances: Michael Ondaatje’s In the Skin of a Lion and The English Patient, and Peter Carey’s Jack Maggs and True History of the Kelly Gang. By foregrounding their intertexts, these novels expose acts of violence and terror directed against scapegoats, particularly those constructed as criminals, who are perceived to threaten social stability. The novels of Ondaatje and Carey transform these criminals from social transgressors to heroes, from victimizers to victims. They first reconstruct and expose the social dynamics of specific historical contexts drawn from their precursor texts, The Epic of Gilgamesh, Herodotus’s Histories, Great Expectations and Lorna Doone, and then create a form of communal history, which for the first time voices the suppressed narratives of the disenfranchised. The theoretical framework used in the analysis of each text and its intertextual “double” is developed through analyses of desire and imitation in space as well as time. The thesis links René Girard’s theory of rivalry and violence in mimetic desire to Julia Kristeva’s and Susan Friedman’s theories of reading at the point of intersection between a text and its precursors, newly allowing the application of Girard to the complex intertextual dynamics of the sub-genre of metahistorical romance. This approach reconfigures this sub-genre as a form of simultaneous and paratactic history. It adapts Amy Elias’s and Brian McHale’s theories of spatial tropes as literary techniques which collapse, onto one plane, or juxtapose, different historical periods, characters and events, as a means to examine the ����dark areas” of history. In this process the thesis considers each modern text and its precursor to explore the role of Girard’s rivalrous doubles within and across texts in activating or interrupting cyclical violence. The historical scapegoats, given the opportunity to recognize and tell their histories in the modern texts, generate a new form of communal history, which challenges earlier depictions and celebrations of violence and the persecution of scapegoats. These new histories recoil from violence and reconstruct scapegoats through attention to the complex intersection of political and legal policies, cultural values and practices informing their previous historical representation. They allow Girard’s cycles of violence to be broken, reimagining the scapegoat not in terms of singular identifications as anarchist, spy, convict and outlaw, but as multi-faceted, able to be renewed in multiple identifications as heroic.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2007. / Adviser: Maureen Perry-Jenkins. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S. )--Air Force Institute of Technology, 2008. / "December 2008." Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 97-103). Also available via the Internet.

No description available.

No description available.

Most studies on rivalry analyze the phenomenon where participants are on opposing sides in business organizations or sports teams (i.e., inter-team rivalry). Currently, the rivalry literature is expanding to examine the effects of rivalry among team members if a manager or coach creates an environment marked by intra-team rivalry. Study 1 examined team member behaviors and individual and team performance within teams (i.e., intra-team rivalry) by having 311 collegiate students recall their experiences participating on a high school athletic team. Findings indicated that intra-team rivalry was positively related to individual performance and team performance. Social comparison mediated the positive relationship between intra-team rivalry and individual performance. In Study 2 adjustments to the research model allowed further exploration of team performance and intra-team rivalry. Study 2 surveyed 240 current collegiate student athletes twice examining the same hypotheses at the 1) individual level, and 2) team level via data aggregation. Findings consistent with both surveys indicated that social comparison was positively related to intra-team rivalry; intra-team rivalry was positively related to individual deviance; and both individual performance, and motivation were positively related to team performance. Unique to Survey 1, intra-team rivalry was positively related to motivation. Unique to Survey 2, negative relationship between individual deviance and team performance. Implications for team members, leaders, and organizations are compelling. / Business Administration/Interdisciplinary