Outline As crises - ranging from mildly disruptive to disastrous - (1) become more frequent, corporate managers have no choice but to accept them as an inescapable reality to be factored into their planning and decision-making. When a crisis occurs, the performance of its crisis managers will determine the future of an organization. This thesis discusses four public crises that occurred in Taiwan in the 1990¡¦s which illustrate the key importance of a corporation¡¦s crisis management. After a thorough analysis of the four cases, we reached the following conclusions: Corporate culture is an important factor in crisis management. It determines how crises are perceived by people within the company, and the way in which they deal with the crises. Hence the corporate structure and reward system should be designed to encourage positive behavior. The management of stakeholder relationships is an integral part of crisis management. The concerns, views, and ideas of a wide variety of people ¡V employees, managers, customers, suppliers, the public and foreign trading partners ¡V need to be considered. (2) And the company must be willing to discuss all matters with the aim of achieving mutual trust and understanding. A carefully considered contingency plan is always the best solution. Careful attention paid to these processes will, without doubt, help to anticipate and avert crises.

Critics of the Olympic Games argue that rather than promoting the cherished values of Olympism, the Games have primarily been used as a means to leverage public funds to satisfy the economic interests of the elite, while typically returning to the community overdebtness of hosting the event, unusable post event facilities and negative impacts to accommodations and its resident’s standard of living (Andranovich, Burbank & Heying, 2001; Haxton, 1999; Hall, 2006; Hiller, 1990, Horne & Manzenreiter, 2006; Lenskyj 2003; Macintosh and Whitson, 1993). For Vancouver, host city of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, to overcome such criticisms the organizing committee must work with its stakeholders, those with a stake rather than stock in the Games, to ensure that social development benefits are maximized and negative impacts are mitigated. The city’s downtown eastside (DTES) has been singled out as the first area of focus by both the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) and the Vancouver Agreement (VA), a public collaboration aimed at addressing the social issues that plague the area including business decline, unemployment, poverty, crime, and drug use (Ference & Weicker, 2002; Pivot, 2006; Vancouver Agreement, 2006). The 2010 Winter Games Inner-City Inclusive Commitment Statement (ICICS), adopted by VANOC and the VA, outlines the goal for an inclusive and socio–economic responsible Games. Understanding how each organization aims to use these Olympic Games to address the social development issues in the DTES was the primary focus of this study. Using stakeholder theory, the specific research questions included: 1) How do the focal organization (VA) and the stakeholders (VANOC) define the social development issue(s) underpinning their involvement in the ICICS? 2) How does VANOC see its role/interests in the VA and how does this compare with the VA’s view of VANOC’s role? 3) What factors are facilitating or constraining the sustainability of the relationship between the VA and VANOC? 4) What outcomes do the VA and VANOC hope to accomplish and how will these be assessed? This case study from September 2005 to February 2006, used multiple qualitative research methods including document analysis of organizational reports, policies and media releases and purposive sampling to conduct 8 ‘elite’ face to face interviews with administrators from VANOC, the 2010 Legacies Now Society, a non-profit society that works with community partners to develop social and economic opportunities surrounding the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, and those involved at the VA. The study revealed the primary goal between these three organizations is to use determine how to effectively use these Olympic Games as a catalyst to address the social issues affecting the DTES. While acknowledging that these social issues will by no means be fully addressed by the time the Games are hosted, they continue to focus on building their relationships and within the community in order to accelerate this social agenda. Factors found to facilitating their own relationship and with the community include: inter organizational dynamics, the Olympic Games sectoral tables, and VANOC’s Board of Directors. While administrators also identified factors constraining the relationship to include: managing working relationships with the community, government politics, and inter organizational challenges.

Critics of the Olympic Games argue that rather than promoting the cherished values of Olympism, the Games have primarily been used as a means to leverage public funds to satisfy the economic interests of the elite, while typically returning to the community overdebtness of hosting the event, unusable post event facilities and negative impacts to accommodations and its resident’s standard of living (Andranovich, Burbank & Heying, 2001; Haxton, 1999; Hall, 2006; Hiller, 1990, Horne & Manzenreiter, 2006; Lenskyj 2003; Macintosh and Whitson, 1993). For Vancouver, host city of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, to overcome such criticisms the organizing committee must work with its stakeholders, those with a stake rather than stock in the Games, to ensure that social development benefits are maximized and negative impacts are mitigated. The city’s downtown eastside (DTES) has been singled out as the first area of focus by both the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) and the Vancouver Agreement (VA), a public collaboration aimed at addressing the social issues that plague the area including business decline, unemployment, poverty, crime, and drug use (Ference & Weicker, 2002; Pivot, 2006; Vancouver Agreement, 2006). The 2010 Winter Games Inner-City Inclusive Commitment Statement (ICICS), adopted by VANOC and the VA, outlines the goal for an inclusive and socio–economic responsible Games. Understanding how each organization aims to use these Olympic Games to address the social development issues in the DTES was the primary focus of this study. Using stakeholder theory, the specific research questions included: 1) How do the focal organization (VA) and the stakeholders (VANOC) define the social development issue(s) underpinning their involvement in the ICICS? 2) How does VANOC see its role/interests in the VA and how does this compare with the VA’s view of VANOC’s role? 3) What factors are facilitating or constraining the sustainability of the relationship between the VA and VANOC? 4) What outcomes do the VA and VANOC hope to accomplish and how will these be assessed? This case study from September 2005 to February 2006, used multiple qualitative research methods including document analysis of organizational reports, policies and media releases and purposive sampling to conduct 8 ‘elite’ face to face interviews with administrators from VANOC, the 2010 Legacies Now Society, a non-profit society that works with community partners to develop social and economic opportunities surrounding the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, and those involved at the VA. The study revealed the primary goal between these three organizations is to use determine how to effectively use these Olympic Games as a catalyst to address the social issues affecting the DTES. While acknowledging that these social issues will by no means be fully addressed by the time the Games are hosted, they continue to focus on building their relationships and within the community in order to accelerate this social agenda. Factors found to facilitating their own relationship and with the community include: inter organizational dynamics, the Olympic Games sectoral tables, and VANOC’s Board of Directors. While administrators also identified factors constraining the relationship to include: managing working relationships with the community, government politics, and inter organizational challenges.

Critics of the Olympic Games argue that rather than promoting the cherished values of Olympism, the Games have primarily been used as a means to leverage public funds to satisfy the economic interests of the elite, while typically returning to the community overdebtness of hosting the event, unusable post event facilities and negative impacts to accommodations and its resident’s standard of living (Andranovich, Burbank & Heying, 2001; Haxton, 1999; Hall, 2006; Hiller, 1990, Horne & Manzenreiter, 2006; Lenskyj 2003; Macintosh and Whitson, 1993). For Vancouver, host city of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, to overcome such criticisms the organizing committee must work with its stakeholders, those with a stake rather than stock in the Games, to ensure that social development benefits are maximized and negative impacts are mitigated. The city’s downtown eastside (DTES) has been singled out as the first area of focus by both the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) and the Vancouver Agreement (VA), a public collaboration aimed at addressing the social issues that plague the area including business decline, unemployment, poverty, crime, and drug use (Ference & Weicker, 2002; Pivot, 2006; Vancouver Agreement, 2006). The 2010 Winter Games Inner-City Inclusive Commitment Statement (ICICS), adopted by VANOC and the VA, outlines the goal for an inclusive and socio–economic responsible Games. Understanding how each organization aims to use these Olympic Games to address the social development issues in the DTES was the primary focus of this study. Using stakeholder theory, the specific research questions included: 1) How do the focal organization (VA) and the stakeholders (VANOC) define the social development issue(s) underpinning their involvement in the ICICS? 2) How does VANOC see its role/interests in the VA and how does this compare with the VA’s view of VANOC’s role? 3) What factors are facilitating or constraining the sustainability of the relationship between the VA and VANOC? 4) What outcomes do the VA and VANOC hope to accomplish and how will these be assessed? This case study from September 2005 to February 2006, used multiple qualitative research methods including document analysis of organizational reports, policies and media releases and purposive sampling to conduct 8 ‘elite’ face to face interviews with administrators from VANOC, the 2010 Legacies Now Society, a non-profit society that works with community partners to develop social and economic opportunities surrounding the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, and those involved at the VA. The study revealed the primary goal between these three organizations is to use determine how to effectively use these Olympic Games as a catalyst to address the social issues affecting the DTES. While acknowledging that these social issues will by no means be fully addressed by the time the Games are hosted, they continue to focus on building their relationships and within the community in order to accelerate this social agenda. Factors found to facilitating their own relationship and with the community include: inter organizational dynamics, the Olympic Games sectoral tables, and VANOC’s Board of Directors. While administrators also identified factors constraining the relationship to include: managing working relationships with the community, government politics, and inter organizational challenges. / Education, Faculty of / Kinesiology, School of / Graduate

This thesis investigates the social forces that shape and sustain community-based protest against proposed projects in the construction industry. It builds on current research which highlights the tendency for community concerns about proposed developments to escalate into long-term protests that have far-reaching implications for both the construction industry and the local community. A theoretical framework merges the facilitative role of movement networks, contagion theory and the cultural experience of activism to investigate their relationship with protest movement continuity. Three research propositions emerged from the model and are investigated within a grounded theory framework. The research method adopts a single case study of a mature protest movement and utilises a triangulation of methods that integrates qualitative and ethnographic approaches across two interrelated phases of data collection that continues to the point of theoretical saturation. The data is analysed in three ways: A thematic story telling approach is used to ground the data derived so as to identify patterns of influences on protest participation and their effect on movement continuity. Concept maps and network diagrams are also used to connect the themes and guide the use of stories to reveal influences on movement continuity. The research concludes by proposing a refined theoretical model of protest movement continuity against construction projects. The model also forms the basis for a grounded theory which consisted of three interrelated parts. The first part concludes that protest networks are deliberately complex and dynamic to cope with the transient nature of protest participation and promote movement continuity. The second part points to the contagious influence of network to generate two opposing network conditions that are both conducive and detrimental to movement continuity. The last part points to the importance of social relationships as shaping the context in which cultural meanings of activism are understood and have a direct effect on sustaining movement continuity.

This thesis investigates the social forces that shape and sustain community-based protest against proposed projects in the construction industry. It builds on current research which highlights the tendency for community concerns about proposed developments to escalate into long-term protests that have far-reaching implications for both the construction industry and the local community. A theoretical framework merges the facilitative role of movement networks, contagion theory and the cultural experience of activism to investigate their relationship with protest movement continuity. Three research propositions emerged from the model and are investigated within a grounded theory framework. The research method adopts a single case study of a mature protest movement and utilises a triangulation of methods that integrates qualitative and ethnographic approaches across two interrelated phases of data collection that continues to the point of theoretical saturation. The data is analysed in three ways: A thematic story telling approach is used to ground the data derived so as to identify patterns of influences on protest participation and their effect on movement continuity. Concept maps and network diagrams are also used to connect the themes and guide the use of stories to reveal influences on movement continuity. The research concludes by proposing a refined theoretical model of protest movement continuity against construction projects. The model also forms the basis for a grounded theory which consisted of three interrelated parts. The first part concludes that protest networks are deliberately complex and dynamic to cope with the transient nature of protest participation and promote movement continuity. The second part points to the contagious influence of network to generate two opposing network conditions that are both conducive and detrimental to movement continuity. The last part points to the importance of social relationships as shaping the context in which cultural meanings of activism are understood and have a direct effect on sustaining movement continuity.

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Yes / The chapter reviews existing literature to provide insights into the impact of gender and culture on women entrepreneurs in sub-Saharan Africa. It discusses how gender and culture influence business growth, resilience, and stakeholder management. The chapter further establishes that business growth in women-led entrepreneurial ventures is relative and may not be measured by conventional outcomes. We also found that educated women in Africa, with adequate social capital, are taking up entrepreneurship. But the socio-cultural and economic context within which they operate continues to challenge their enterprises. This review recommends further empirical studies on women’s entrepreneurship and the role of ‘charismatism’ as a religious affiliation. It also recommends studies into how societal stereotypes and expectations have evolved and how this enables or impedes women entrepreneurs. / The full-text of this article will be released for public view at the end of the publisher embargo on 07 Dec 2025.

Ur ett demokratiskt perspektiv är medborgaren en av de viktigaste intressenterna i kommunala projekt. I förhållande till andra intressentgrupper särskiljer sig medborgaren på det sättet att det finns ett uttryckligt stöd i lagstiftningen att medborgarna ska involveras. Trenden sedan en tid tillbaka är att utöka medborgardelaktigheten i syfte att komplettera den representativa demokratin. Syftet med studien är att undersöka på vilket sätt medborgare involveras i kommunala projekt, men även identifiera vilka utmaningar och möjligheter som hanteringen av medborgares delaktighet innefattar. Vidare syftar studien till att beskriva metoder som kan utgöra ett stöd för projektledaren i samband med medborgardelaktighet. I studien tillämpas en kvalitativ metod. Empirin grundas på material från semistrukturerade intervjuer med nio personer som haft uppdrag i olika kommunala projekt. Resultatet visar att de möjligheter som är förknippade med att inkludera medborgare i projektverksamhet är att skapa resultat som överensstämmer med medborgarnas behov, förankring av beslut samt att utveckla den lokala demokratin. De utmaningar som framkommit i hanteringen av medborgares delaktighet är den representativa problematiken, intern förankring, tidsaspekter samt att hantera inkomna synpunkter. Studien visar även att kommunerna först bör bestämma syftet med medborgardelaktigheten och till vilken grad medborgare ska involveras innan beslut tas om vilken strategi och metod som ska användas. Av det empiriska materialet framkommer dessutom andra erfarenheter från projektledare som kan utgöra framgångsfaktorer i projektverksamhet, exempelvis vikten av att medborgarna engageras så tidigt som möjligt i processen och att det tydliggörs vilken påverkansgrad medborgare kan räkna med. En annan viktig omständighet är att det finns en tillräcklig bredd av intressenter och att projektet förankras både externt såväl som internt i organisationen. Kontinuerlig återkoppling till medborgarna utgör också en väsentlig faktor samt att projektledningen genomför kontinuerliga riskanalyser. / From a democratic perspective, the citizen is one of the most important stakeholders in municipal projects. In relation to other groups of stakeholders, citizens differentiate due to legislative support of involving citizens. The trend for some time has been to increase citizen participation in order to complement the representative democracy. The purpose of the study is to examine the way in which citizens are involved in municipal projects, but also to identify the challenges and opportunities that the management of citizens’ participation includes. Furthermore, the study aims to describe the methods that can be a support for the project manager concerning citizen participation. The study applies a qualitative method. The empirical data is based on material from semi-structured interviews with nine people who have served in various municipal projects. The result shows that the opportunities associated with the inclusion of citizens in the projects are to create results that correspond to citizens’ needs, consolidation of decisions and to develop local democracy. The challenges that have emerged regarding the management of citizens’ participation are the problem with representativeness, internal support, time approach and managing opinions received. The study also shows that the municipalities firstly need to determine the purpose of citizen participation and the degree to which citizens will be involved before decisions are made on the strategy and method to apply. The empirical data also shows circumstances, which may constitute success factors in projects, such as the importance of engaging citizens as early as possible in the process and that it is clarified what degree of impact citizens can expect. Another important factor is that there is a sufficient breadth of stakeholders and that the project is supported both externally as well as internally in the organization. Continuous feedback to citizens is also an important factor as well as the project management conducting continuous risk analysis. / <p>1964</p>

This paper analyzes the effects of economic crises on firms' use of management control mechanisms and on their management of stakeholder relations. Moreover, the association between stakeholder management and management control system use is analyzed. In the wake of the economic crisis of 2008/2009, many firms were faced with severe threats that called for immediate short-term action to ensure firm survival. However, short-term action like massive cost-cutting and cash generation often are blamed for going at the expense of long-term health as key stakeholder relations may be irreversibly harmed. Hence, three interrelated questions are addressed theoretically and empirically: First, we analyze the impact of the recent economic crisis on firms' control strategies. More specifically, we investigate whether a high crisis impact on firms is associated with a shortening of reporting cycles, a more interactive use of control-relevant information, restriction of employee autonomy and a focus on liquidity and cost-cutting. Second, we examine from the viewpoint of stakeholder theory how firms can make use of active stakeholder management for crisis management. Third, we explore whether firms can take short-term measures for ensuring liquidity and cutting costs and at the same time pursue a stakeholder strategy aiming at the long-term survival of the firm. Using survey data from 204 major Austrian corporations, we provide evidence that firms significantly adjusted their control systems as a response to the economic crisis. Our data do not indicate an immanent contradiction between a "short-term finance focus" and the pursuit of a sustainable stakeholder strategy.