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This work analyses the impact of landownership on the physical development and other factors affecting settlements in south-west Cheshire between 1750 and 2000, seeking to demonstrate the hypothesis that landownership was the overriding influence on settlement growth or decline. To assist in this the work also addresses the related problem of how most accurately to analyse landownership in townships. It therefore presents an original methodology using the Herfmdahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) in an historical context to determine the amount of landowner concentration in a township. The use of HHI as a measure of landownership concentration (indicating the extent of large landowner control) is presented as a more accurate, easy to use, quantifiable method of analysis than the traditional distinction between 'open' and 'closed'. Following a demonstration of HHI's superiority over the traditional terms using examples in south-west Cheshire, HHI is used to analyse the effect on settlement development of landownership trends in the area. HHI is then used to analyse the effect of dominant landowners on the main population trends, transport infrastructure, farming, enclosure and twentieth-century planning and legislation in relation to settlement development in the area. HHI supports the main conclusion that decisions made by large landowners and subsequently planners in south-west Cheshire had a continuous and profound effect on settlement patterns and development from the mid-eighteenth century up to the end of the twentieth century. The intervention and influence of the major landowners and twentieth-century planners hindered settlement growth. Landowners had both a direct influence on settlement development through the buying and selling of land and an indirect influence through their role in determining the transport infrastructure and their bequest of a prevailing pattern of land use, which in turn was preserved via modern planning decisions. Following the decline of major landowners during the early twentieth century, planning laws restricted building in agricultural areas with the aim of preserving agricultural land. Analysis of land tax records in conjunction with HHI shows that although landownership consolidation took place, the number of smaller landowners was maintained and even increased in places and such building as took place was focussed on the increasing number of smaller plots. HHI also demonstrates the discernible trend that in south-west Cheshire the settlements that were the larger, more open settlements of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were those that increased in size both physically and in terms of population throughout the period while the smaller closed settlements tended to stagnate or decline. Overall the research has demonstrated that settlements flourished in low HHI townships with less control by large landowners, that settlements in high HHI townships were rarely allowed to grow, and that patterns established in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were perpetuated into the late twentieth and early twenty-first century by a conservative approach to planning.

The concept of sustainable development is commonly used worldwide. In the public sector, characterized by a rationalization focus, conclusions about the sustainability of lean production (lean), as a management concept for organizational change, are contradictory. This thesis aims to identify conditions promoting sustainable development in the public sector, in particular the healthcare sector, when implementing lean. Two qualitative and one quantitative case study were conducted using longitudinal data collection: focus group interviews, semi-structured interviews, analysis seminars, steering board meetings, and a questionnaire. The empirical data was collected from national lean programs in Sweden. The results describe that socio-technical principles may be used as indicators of sustainability as well as a guide in the implementation of lean in healthcare. Active ownership among stakeholders, a developmental view in the organization, stakeholder participation, organized joint innovative learning activities, role and goal clarity may be conditions influencing the sustainability of lean in the public sector. Furthermore, when supported by a favorable lean context, the results show that the lean tools value stream mapping, standardized work and 5S (housekeeping) may promote a sustainable implementation of lean in healthcare by the promotion of employees and managers’ working conditions and/or employee individual innovation. Visual follow-up boards may inhibit employees and managers’ job satisfaction, when not supported by job resources. Personnel stability, time for development, and information to be able to participate were in this context shown to be central job resources. In conclusion, conditions which may promote sustainable development in the public sector, when implementing lean are: stakeholder values of inclusive social well-being, an implementation process including stakeholder ownership and joint innovative learning, and a favorable lean context: balancing job resources and job demands. Lean tools may empower public healthcare employees to engage in development and counteract a poor implementation process and a poor lean context but only to a limited degree. The lean contexts studied were unfavorable, i.e., a weak implementation process and job resources not balancing the job demands. Hence, the lean implementations studied could not be considered sustainable. / <p>QC 20160901</p>

The purpose of this study is to gain answers an opinions from both companies offering stock ownership plans for their employees and from unions who participate or have members that participate in plans. In order to obtain answers from both companies and unions concerning plans, this study describes broadly the types of plans that are now in existence. An attempt was made to determine the most popular features of stock plans from both company and union viewpoint, and where possible, to gain recommendations leading to the formulation of more efficient and more popular plans.

New technologies have given rise to digital versions of many goods including photographs, books, music, and movies. This dissertation examined whether people ascribe greater value to physical or digital goods with self-report and incentive compatible designs. I report ten experiments that elucidate the preference and identify greater establishment of psychological ownership for physical goods as the mechanism responsible for their greater valuation. I found that participants ascribed a higher value to physical versions of a variety of goods, whether measured in an incentive compatible pay-what-you-want paradigm, willingness to pay, or purchase intention. In Experiment 1, tourists paid more for a printed photograph of themselves with a costumed historical figure at a historical site than a similar digital photograph, even when controlling for the perceived cost of production. Experiment 2 found that this difference in valuation generalizes to other product categories such as books, music, movies, and magazine subscriptions. Experiment 3 suggested that the differences were not due to perceived consumption utility. Although participants ascribed greater value to physical goods, they believed their digital counterparts were more useful on every dimension measured. Experiment 4 ruled out a social signaling motive, as participants exhibited the same greater preference for physical versions of both high and lowbrow goods. Experiment 4 also found that estimates of the retail prices of digital and physical goods does not explain this preference. Experiment 5 identified psychological ownership as a driver of the higher valuation ascribed to physical goods. Psychological ownership and not assessments of permanence or anticipated consumption enjoyment mediated the effect of product format on willingness to pay (WTP). Experiments 6A and 6B provided further evidence for the ownership account. College students reported their WTP for buying or renting a digital or print copy of a course textbook. The WTP gap between physical and digital versions of the textbook was considerably greater in the purchase condition than rent condition. Whereas students were WTP more to buy than rent a physical textbook, they were not WTP more to buy than rent the same digital textbook. The rest of the studies further explored the ownership account and its implications. / 2018-06-22T00:00:00Z

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The increase in direct personal investment in capital market assets by Australians over the past two decades represents an unprecedented engagement with that sector of Australian economic life. This dissertation critically investigates claims that this engagement heralds a shareholder democracy. Increased economic participation based on private direct ownership of corporate securities could be interpreted as a weak form of democratisation. Using a class-theoretical framework, the dissertation conceptualises the private shareholder phenomenon as a process of embourgeoisement and argues that the development of a macro-level mass consumer financial products market is the result of capitalist class development and expansion. A thesis of strong democratisation proffers the notion that the private shareholder, as an ascendant class of financial actor, engages with real democratic processes in addition to simply owning securities. To test this thesis the dissertation measures the extent to which small shareholders control the objective conditions under which they accumulate greater wealth by seeking evidence of potential or actual engagement with macro-market and meso-corporate level social processes. The dissertation assesses macro-level practice by drawing on the work of Bourdieu and on notions of the social field. It considers the entry of the new class of financial actor to the financial field and analyses their capacity to accumulate and deploy informational capital, and compares their ability to influence a state-sponsored economic reform process (CLERP) with that of other actors. The dissertation analyses longitudinal ownership and shareholder voting data from a set of over 30 major Australian companies. It finds that the new class of economic actor is most prevalent in privatised state-owned enterprises and mutuals. In the context of an ideal Habermasian public sphere, the study considers the potential for small shareholders to participate in meso-level, corporate agenda-setting and deliberation. Using the ideal political space of Arendt, it searches for methods of achieving democratic outcomes. The dissertation finds that while the personal ownership of tradable financial assets may constitute a weak form of economic democratisation, small shareholders?? inability to influence real outcomes, even in companies in which they constitute the majority, places substantial restrictions on the overall strength of the share ownership-as-democracy thesis.

<p>The purpose of this investigation is to further the current discussion of how the Swedish market for district heating can be made more competitive and effective. This is done by investigating how price, costs of production and profitability of district heating varies with ownership, a variable frequently held accountable for financial performance variations in natural monopoly markets. The investigation is based on financial and technical performance data from 203 firms from 2007 and 2008, compiled by the Swedish Energy Market Inspectorate. The results strongly indicate that private firms are more profitable than firms owned, fully or partly, by local government. Furthermore, the results find that higher profitability tends to be positively correlated with prices, rather than negatively with costs of production. The results speak in favor of private ownership under regulation, rather than the current mixture of public and unregulated private ownership.</p>

The purpose of this investigation is to further the current discussion of how the Swedish market for district heating can be made more competitive and effective. This is done by investigating how price, costs of production and profitability of district heating varies with ownership, a variable frequently held accountable for financial performance variations in natural monopoly markets. The investigation is based on financial and technical performance data from 203 firms from 2007 and 2008, compiled by the Swedish Energy Market Inspectorate. The results strongly indicate that private firms are more profitable than firms owned, fully or partly, by local government. Furthermore, the results find that higher profitability tends to be positively correlated with prices, rather than negatively with costs of production. The results speak in favor of private ownership under regulation, rather than the current mixture of public and unregulated private ownership.