M.A. (Industrial Relations) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

Total cost of ownership is a great factor to consider when deciding to deploy cloud computing. The cost to own a data centre or run a data centre outweighs the thought of IT manager or owner of the business organisation.The research work is concerned with specifying the factors that sum the TCO for medium scale service providers with respect to technology and security. A valid analysis was made with respect to the cloud service providers expenses and how to reduce the cost of ownership.In this research work, a review of related articles was used from a wide source, reading through the abstract and overview of the articles to find its relevance to the subject. A further interview was conducted with two medium scale cloud service providers and one cloud user.In this study, an average calculation of the TCO was made and we implemented a proposed cost reduction method. We made a proposal on which and how to decide as to which cloud services users should deploy in terms of cost and security.We conclude that many articles have focused their TCO calculation on the building without making emphasis on the security. The security accumulates huge amount under hidden cost and this research work identified the hidden cost, made an average calculation and proffer a method of reducing the TCO. / <p><em></em></p>

Magister Artium - MA / Cape Town is a unique city. It has a global biodiversity hotspot, in the midst of an urban area. Historically, nature conservation practice excluded and marginalized certain groups of people based on their race and class. This has led to peoples‘ disconnection from nature. Rapid biodiversity loss is a major concern for conservators. In the last three decades, there has been a paradigm shift in conservation practice in certain parts of the world. The Cape Flats Nature programme based in Cape Town followed suit and aimed to stimulate a bottom-up participatory approach to conservation and replace the traditional top-down management strategy. The programme was tasked to reconcile the challenges of complex and conflicting relationships between urban poverty, unequal access to resources and biodiversity conservation.This study was aimed at investigating the relationships between conservation management, community partners and urban conservation areas. These relationships are vital for the progression of new conservation practice in places where people live and work. In addition, the transformative aspects of conservation in relation to social inclusion and the shift in conservation approaches was investigated. The study was conducted at five of Cape Town‘s nature reserves, Edith Stephens Wetland Park, Macassar Dunes, Harmony Flats, Wolfgat and Witzands Aquifer Nature Reserves. Data collection included in depth interviews with key informants from various conservation organizations, the Cape Flats Nature Programme team, the managers of the selected reserves and community partners. Others included observational methods and analysis of secondary data.It was found that relationships between conservators and local communities are not easily created and maintained but relationships regardless of its depth are equally beneficial to communities and the conservators. Balancing social needs with conservation needs is a struggle for conservators but many successes came in cases where this balance was realized. In addition, the transformation of conservators‘ identity has changed community perceptions of conservation practice holistically. Although, many informants feel that transformation continues to remain unequal.

Magister Economicae - MEcon / China has embarked on a wide range of economic reforms in the past thirty years. One of the major reforms was to restructure state-owned enterprises (SOEs) into public listed companies (PLCs) to improve the performance and quality of corporate governance of SOEs. However, the unique phenomenon of China’s equity market is that the state continues to hold a controlling stake in PLCs with less than 40% of shares tradable in the stock market. This seriously affects the performance and quality of corporate governance of China’s PLCs. This mini-thesis investigates the effects of split-share structure reform on SOEs in China, with particular focus on an analysis of the relationship between ownership structure and firm performance of listed companies. By using a sample of the top 50 companies based on the ranking of the 2004 Fortune top 100 PLCs, a negative correlation was found between the state ownership structure and firm performance of China PLCs before the announcement of split-share structure reform. However, by using the same samples and techniques, the analysis shows that the improvement in the diversified ownership structure had a positive impact on firm performance in China PLCs after the reform.

Master of Regional and Community Planning / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional & Community Planning / Gregory Newmark / Concerns about climate change, environmental impacts and resources needed for transportation infrastructure, require new and different approaches to planning, designing, and operating transportation solutions on a global scale. College campuses are prime locations to focus on various methods of sustainable transportation, specifically walking and bicycling and the related infrastructures needed for these systems. The necessary infrastructures for these modes of transportation are different than the conventional road system utilized by automobiles. As a result, cities, planners, campuses, and the individuals who will be traveling must understand why changes to transportation infrastructures are important. This may require a mindset change before it becomes incorporated in their everyday lives. Universities can play a large role in this by offering increased infrastructure for bicycling. This paper examines the travel behaviors of students that live on campus at Kansas State University Campus in Manhattan and examines their bicycle ownership and usage habits, through the use of a survey. The survey results suggest that the Jardine Apartments is the area most used for bicycle travel. The survey provides the most perceived prevalent impediments to cycling more often as well as the top elements the University could utilize to promote cycling. This report conducted three binomial logistic regression models to predict bicycle ownership and usage. It was found that being male, residing in the Jardine Apartments, and having a high bicycle comfort level are all important factors.

Since the inception of economic reform, China has undergone comprehensive changes which have stimulated substantial research on various aspects of Chinese society. In recent years, research on management and organisation in China has grown rapidly, but with relatively little attention being devoted to the ethnographic analysis of private enterprises, despite the fact that such enterprises play a crucial role in China’s economy and make a significant contribution to labour employment. A lack of close, personal and meaningful access to everyday organisational activities is often cited as one of the main reasons preventing such research. This thesis attempts to fill the gap through investigating the everyday nature of management and managerial work in seven large private shipbuilding enterprises in China. In so doing it seeks to provide ethnographic answers to one main question – what are the characteristic features of the emerging management systems employed in private enterprises in contemporary China? In so doing the research investigates how such systems have evolved and the ways in which they impact on the nature of everyday managerial work.Research that seeks to understand the reality of management and managerial work however is not research that deals exclusively with static or structural organisational phenomena. Instead it is also research that requires sensitivity to changing events and processes – ones that interact constantly with elements of a complex and dynamic environment. It is argued here that such research demands a theoretical framework capable not only of appreciating the diversity of formal management systems in contemporary China, but which can also incorporate informal social and cultural factors into its analysis. To establish sensitivity both to structural and cultural phenomena the research approach developed here is one that combines two, very different, sociological theories - labour process theory (LPT, derived from Braverman, 1974) and Chaxugeju theory (derived from Fei, 1947). On the one hand, LPT offers a framework for appreciating structural forces stimulating changes to management systems and managerial work. On the other hand, Chaxugeju theory facilitates appreciation of how cultural, historical and social factors are synthesized in rules and principles that characterise the operation of society and the values and logics that guide human action, Taken together, the combination of LPT and Chaxugeju facilitates the analytical connection of micro and macro forms of analysis, and thus the appreciation of a range of interacting systems (economic, ideological, social etc.) of relevance to understanding the nature of management and work organization in contemporary China.Given the nature and form of both the research questions and theoretical framework, a research design based on ethnography is chosen as the primary methodological approach. As the research not only studies the systems of management in China’s private enterprises, but also managerial experiences, behaviour and subjectivity in relation to changing circumstances, an ethnographic approach that commits extensive time to the field, interacts extensively with actors, generates rich data, and detailed and ‘thick’ description of the observed works well for this research. As to the case study organisations, shipbuilding companies were chosen for three main reasons: (i) the importance of shipbuilding industry to the Chinese economy, (ii) the rapid growth and significance of private enterprises in the industry, and (iii) (at a more personal level) the extensive connections and previous work experience of the researcher in the shipbuilding sector. At a general level, the findings reported in the thesis reflect that the evolution of management systems in China’s private enterprises is the product of the interaction of a range of internal factors specific to the firm and many external forces related to China’s transitional economy. As such, issues of cultural, social and historical inheritance are assessed together with those of economic interaction/processes of globalisation to document how these forces influence events at the organisational level. On the one hand, the research describes trends towards convergence with the status and nature of ‘global’ managerial work, despite a Chinese firm’s specific ownership origins, current ownership status, and (re)structuring strategies. In so doing the data demonstrate how managerial work in China’s private enterprises is experiencing fundamental changes; for example, the on-set of greater job scope, knowledge/skill levels, organizational control, responsibilities, incentive mechanisms, and relationship-based managerial ethics. On the other hand, the findings also suggest that within China’s transitional economy, private firms still incorporate aspects of traditional Chinese management. Such methods are often reminiscent of erstwhile state-owned practices and can function as a strategy for minimizing internal resistance to change. Findings suggest that the current ‘hybrid’ character of management in private enterprises in China will endure for a considerable period of time. China’s traditional management and its values still have a strong influence on firm practices, especially in terms of people management. In many respects the social character of the workplace functions in the spirit of Chaxugeju, with the fundamental organisational rules and behavioural patterns remaining largely unchanged, as individual-based social relationships substitute for formal institutions in the firm. These findings are all explained through detailed ethnographic description and analysis. Finally, perhaps the major contribution of the research which underpins this thesis is to reduce the gap between the perception and reality of management and managerial work in China’s private firms. Insights into the daily working lives of managers are provided which reveal the deep philosophies underlying apparently rationalized practices and behaviours. Research on such intimate management phenomena is of benefit to organizational research in that it supplements the more ‘global’ style of analysis common in appreciations of Chinese corporate behaviour. The study thus adds a deeper, qualitative level of analysis to the mainstream managerial research landscape on China. Theoretically it shows the practicability and value of combining an indigenous Chinese theory (Chaxugeju) with an established western paradigm (LPT) to analyze and interpret ethnographic organisational phenomena. It thus reminds us of the importance of looking beyond the boundary of specific academic theories when developing and applying our ideas, especially when exploring international and transitional economies.

This diploma thesis discusses about possibilities of housing financing and is especially focusing on mortgage market in Czech Republic. First part of this thesis has theoretical character and describes different types of housing: property housing, cooperative housing and rental housing and their specific features. This part also contains general characteristics of the basic ways of housing financing: building saving and mortgages. Besides, building savings is here compared with mortgages and there are described advantages and disadvantages of those both possibilities of housing financing. In this part there are also put examples of "future mortgages", which are not offered by Czech banks yet. The second part of the diploma thesis is focusing its attention on actual world crisis. Defines reasons of its origin, describes its impact on European and Czech economy. Also, discusses about impact the actual crisis has on estate market and market with loans and mortgages in Czech Republic. The third part of the thesis is concerned on standard procedure while disposing the mortgage and contains short example of buying an apartment by fictive person.

This diploma thesis deals with the issue of marketing communication of Škoda Fabia third-generation cars. It is focused on previously unused, yet a very convincing sales argument, that enables a complex quantification of expenditure related to the car ownership. The tool is known as TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) and it has been mostly used by large corporate fleets so far. One of the aims of the thesis is to analyse competitiveness of the Fabia model from the viewpoint of the TCO indicator. This analysis is implemented by means of a specialized tool CarCostExpert by EurotaxGlass´s. A concept of communication strategy based on TCO will be suggested according to its comparison with competitors and interviewing sales network. An estimation of financial potential of the suggested solution as well as analysis of related threats and opportunities are constituent parts of this concept.

This dissertation investigates the following questions. How does the structure of ownership, board governance, and board monitoring influence the corporate entrepreneurship behaviour of privatised firms in Vietnam? Furthermore, does uncertainty regarding the changing business and institutional environment moderate the relationships among corporate governance, ownership structure, and corporate entrepreneurship?In the dissertation, Stewardship Theory, Institutional Theory, Resource Dependence Theory, are integrated with Agency Theory to provide a framework to investigate the relationships between board composition, ownership structure and corporate entrepreneurship in post-privatisation environments. The theoretical arguments are tested using a mixed-method approach, based on a survey of privatised Vietnamese firms and data collected and collated from in-depth interviews of board and top management team members in six selected privatised firms. The study findings indicate that a reliance on any single theoretical lens is ineffective in explaining the phenomenon in the context of privatised firms in transition economies, and that the employment of multiple theories is crucial for providing a complete understanding of context-dependent phenomena, such as corporate governance. Empirically, the results show that the board composition and characteristics have little impact on corporate entrepreneurship and ownership structure almost plays no role in enhancing the entrepreneurial activities of privatised firms. In particular, the study highlights that there are no unique corporate governance practices that can be employed in every context. The practices are effective only in certain conditions and specific environments. The study provides a set of policy and managerial implications for shaping corporate governance in order to foster corporate entrepreneurship in Vietnamese privatised firms.

The existing literature on household wealth accumulation has hitherto recognized the lifecycle effects, household socio-economic characteristics, bequest motives, and intergenerational transfers as important factors affecting household net wealth. The two empirical essays in this thesis expand the literature by emphasizing the likely roles that a household's tenure choice and home equity borrowing decisions have in its wealth accumulation process. The first essay, entitled "Homeownership and Household Wealth Accumulation", tests whether homeownership has placed the owner household on a more favorable wealth accumulation path, based on past observations that the values of owner-occupied housing have grown at a real rate greater than those of financial or other tangible assets. The premise is that, while the tenure choice decision is affected by a household's net wealth, the housing tenure chosen could place a household on different wealth accumulation paths over its life-cycle. Controlling for selection bias arising from tenure status, the results indicate that typical homeowners and renters have distinct wealth accumulation processes. While homeownership improves the wealth position of homeowners, the renter households are, however, better off in their existing tenure than otherwise. It appears that households self-select themselves into the appropriate tenure that optimizes their wealth accumulation paths. The second essay on "Household Consumption/Investment Behavior and Home Equity Loans" investigates which behavioral model underpins the homeowners' consumption and investment decisions of home equity loan funds, and how these decisions impact portfolio decisions and wealth accumulation. It concludes that the 'life-cycle model' and the 'precautionary savings model' prevail over the 'bequest motive model' in motivating the household consumption/investment decisions of home equity loans. Home equity loans alter the illiquid nature of housing investment through convenient tapping of housing equity, and reduce household preference to hold liquid assets to meet precautionary needs. Their presence encourages loan users to hold smaller shares of liquid cash and financial assets in total assets, and to diversify from housing asset to business, real estate and illiquid nonhousing assets. They generally reduce homeowners' net wealth, reflecting a tendency for borrowed funds to be consumed or invested in loss-incurring assets. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate