The research takes depth interview of the case study method. It focuses on the engineering department of the telecommunications industry which is transformed into an independent engineering company by spin-off. It also discusses the motive of diversification and the model of operation. The research expects to understand the interactive relation between successful entrepreneur, management abilities and resource using. The research chooses a successful spin-off company as it's case study. It discusses the strategy phase and implementation phase to find out the key success factors. By analyzing the documents about entrepreneur, the research investigates the managements and strategies of spin-off and integrates the theories and practices into a conclusion: 1. Strategy is the motive power of entrepreneur: The right strategy is "Do the right thing". Whether a start-up can start or not depends on the right combination of core strategies, strategic resources and value net. 2. Implementation is the driving power of entrepreneur: The good implementation is "Do the thing right". Whether a strategy can operate or not depends on the efficient combination of organization structure, human resource, technical R&D, manufacturing, marketing, customer relationship and financial planning. 3. Key success factor (KSF) is the accelerating power of entrepreneur: Only if the strategy phase and implemetation phase operate in coordination, the start-up possesses the condition of success. However, just a fast success is a real success in the speedily changing time. A start-up company cannot shorten the time to success unless it owns some special KSF. 4. The success in the entrepreneurial phase can't ensure that the start-up will also succeed in the future operation. It must transform the success factors in the entrepreneurial phase into the ones in the future operation.

Taiwan¡¦s auto industry began with Taiwan Yulon Motor Company in 1957, as well as with the development of the related auto parts and components industry. After more than four decades, most companies have developed flexible production skills that allow them to produce a comprehensive assortment of auto parts and components in small quantities that meet international quality standards. The new wave of electronics manufacturing companies have devoted a large percentage of their resources to automotive products, either at their home base, or at their manufacturing facilities abroad. The QS-9000 Quality management system is a fundamental requirement for automotive parts suppliers. The main purpose of this thesis is to research the relationship between the implementation of QS-9000 and customer satisfaction. This study is focused on this inter-action from three perspectives: formulation, implementation and customer satisfaction. Key success factors such as; steering team, organization, target, criteria, documentation, training, standardization and auditing have been defined and studied for their effects on the QS-9000 management system implementation. Developing and implementation quality system utilizing the criteria given in the ISO 9000 or QS-9000 quality system standard can achieve satisfying customer requirements. The successful implementation of a quality management system can contribute to the overall business efficiency of an organization, such as administration, accounting, engineering, marketing, maintenance and after-sales service. The company shall develop the internal and external customer satisfaction indices to check the customer expectation on their service and product. Quality cost are the costs of putting thing right. The monitor for cost of quality can reduce the non-productivity hours and material scrap then achieves the continual improvement management philosophy. In addition, the surveyed case firms disclosed that the QS-9000 standards indeed helped their organization to upgrade the efficiency and service quality of their operation and as such enhance their company¡¦s image as well as customer satisfaction.

Abstract This study is an exploratory study. It discusses the comparison of pet dog business sales paths about web-store and traditional store sale path. This study tries to find the suitable sales path of pet dog business.Through this study, we could find the pet dog business is thrived by the web-store in Internet. Due to some problems of safety trade and order in Internet, we suggest the pet dog business must combine the traditional store sales path and web-store to get more performance. In the conclusion, if we can handle and control the following key successful factors, we will get more competition in the pet dog business: 1. The key successful factors of traditional store sales path: the price of the product (the price of dog), pre and after service, the dog health. 2. The key successful factors of web-store: the friendly website design and safety trade.

Abstract The economic boost in the 1980s gave the ornamental fish industry a great opportunity to expand. However, in the 1990s Taiwan experienced a backlash in its local economy and stock market. The supply in the ornamental fish market was greater than the demand, and some importers started fish exporting businesses. Within only a few decades, Taiwan has become one of the major exporting countries of ornamental fish. Taiwan has long been reputed as the Kingdom of Cultivation. The cost for Taiwan fish farmers to raise food fish is higher than it is for fish farmers in other southeastern Asian locations. Taiwan has advanced technologies, but is losing ground in the market. Facing the challenges posed by globalization, ornamental fish is one of the few fish industries in which Taiwan has its niche. The research motivation is to find out how Taiwan can maintain its competitiveness in the global arena. Few websites, databases or research institutes provide a comprehensive introduction or analysis of the international competitiveness of ornamental fish industry. The information in open source is limited, fragmented and incoherent. In light of this situation, the research expects to systematically analyze Taiwan's and the global ornamental fish industries, and to determine the factors necessary for achieving success. Based on literature reviews, the research analyzes the major import and export countries of ornamental fish, and the information concerning Taiwan's ornamental fish industry. Key success factors of the industry include: (1) flight routes and shipment fare, (2) species of fish, (3) prices, (4) cultivation technology and quality, (5) the logistics management capability of exporters, (6) marketing, (7) service, and (8) government policies. Based on the key success factors, the research reaches a conclusion, and provides suggestions for government, exporters, and fish farms. It is expected that the ornamental fish industry in Taiwan will upgrade its international competitiveness. Keywords¡GOrnamental Fish Industry, Key Success Factors, International Competitiveness

With the rapid development of Internet technology, the higher demand for information and more convenient way to access information give the conduct of human life a dramatic impact. Most recent Internet users who would like to gather information will use the Search Engine first but lots of them will also focus in certain special Thematic Website to acquire more complete and in-depth information. Based on this demand, there are more and more such websites created and grown with high efficiency. This trend reveals that Thematic Website has equal scale of advertising business opportunity as Search Engine Website. However, there are numerous competitors providing the homogeneity website in this information-rich environment. Under this condition, how to grasp the unique value and correct operation of the direction for such websites is the focus of development strategy. Moreover, how to operate virtual community to create content (co-create) and gather the knowledge by network interaction is a main trend for Thematic Website to enhance competitiveness and cohesion of the user currently. Therefore, the research of this thesis was aimed to analyze the key success factors of Thematic Website by conducting the management and development of the virtual community within this kind of website, including their interaction behavior and the commercial activity. The main research way is to explore the relevant literatures that discussing the successful factor of information content website and management of virtual community, and then to compile a viable theme with these arguments about the successful factor related to the subject in this thesis. According to Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), we designed the questionnaire and invited the webmaster and senior users belonged to two successful Thematic Websites (BAHAMUT and Fashion Guide) to be the research objects. Through the calculating with the data weighting and further analysis, the conclusion is provided in this thesis to make recommendations for Thematic Website development and business strategy on the frame of reference.

<p>Enterprise Resource Planning systems are business systems that are expected to integrate all the business’ processes within organization, and since ERP systems are complex and re-quire extensive changes in the organization, it is crucial that the implementation is success-ful. However, the implementation of ERP systems is described as both risky and complex projects.</p><p>The purpose of this master thesis is to investigate the importance of different critical success factors across the ERP project life cycle within SMEs. Furthermore, we will compare our findings to see if there are differences between larger corporations in the USA and SMEs in the county of Jönköping, Sweden and try to explain the potential differences.</p><p>In order to fulfill our purpose, we used a quantitative approach to collect primary data from the SMEs in the county of Jönköping. Our data was thereafter qualitatively analyzed in order to describe our findings.</p><p>The conclusions drawn in this thesis is that the following critical success factors are per-ceived to be most important within the SMEs investigated:</p><p>• Infusion stage: Careful selection of package</p><p>• Adoption stage: Top management support</p><p>• Adaptation stage: Project champion</p><p>• Acceptance stage: Project champion</p><p>• Routinization stage: Education on new business processes</p><p>• Infusion stage: Vendor support.</p><p>It was apparent that the critical success factors identified in our research differed from the critical success factors identified for the Fortune 500 companies in the USA. However, we have failed to find any valid and reliable reasons for the differences even though we have discussed possible reasons for them.</p>

While most western hydropower sites are already developed or protected by legislation, the aging hydropower park requires refurbishment actions. Especially to tackle the challenges of an increased fluctuation at the grid coming from the expansion of other renewable energy sources such as wind power. The company Fortum is carrying out a number of major refurbishment projects every year and want to enhance their time performance during the outage. Delayed projects are resulting in unexpected costs and production losses. By investigating 20 historical refurbishment outages from a project manager perspective, the delays are related to different sections of the outage time. These sections are referred to as work packages, meaning a set of activities related to a functional part of the plant. The material is based on interviews and project documentation. The outages are divided into three groups depending on the amount of delay and some additional set of factors are used in a comparison. The results are discussed from a time management and a multi-project perspective. The study can be viewed as an initial study to address time management challenges in a company. The methodology proves to be an efficient way to get time management challenges at a company to the surface. The results displays late manufacturing deliveries and overruns of assembly and erection durations as the most common reasons of delay. A number of potential success/failure factors are suggested. It is also pointed out that small projects are at risk being more delayed compared to larger ones.

Substantial step-wise advances and efficient work processes geared towards leveraging the modularization strategy to an optimal extent are needed in industry in order to maximize its potential benefit for capital projects because the industry suffers from low levels of application of the strategy. Due to this, this research focused on what changes to the traditional work processes within the industry as a whole and on individual projects are required. The ideas presented in this thesis seek to guide individual professionals and engineering organizations to create an optimal environment in which broader and more effective use of modularization can occur. / text

This research studies project success in the context of decision-makers in young, entrepreneurial companies, namely startups. More precisely the companies are European companies that are independent, active and under 10 years of age, and furthermore identified as startups through a framework created from literature derived from Organizational Life Cycle theory and other pluralistic literature about startups. The main concentration is in the concepts related to project success: Project Success Criteria and Critical Success Factors, based on two research questions: 1. “What success criteria are perceived to be most relevant in the project management of startup firms?” 2. “What critical success factors are perceived to be most relevant in project management of startup firms and why?” Previous studies on project management have been mostly conducted in the context of large organizations and typically in a quantitative form. Studies in project management of startups have been scarce, and in project success, nonexistent. Researchers have called upon project literature that concentrates on particular organizational context. In this study, existing theories are studied to find the most suitable framework for success criteria. This study is conducted as a case study, wherein interviews were conducted with startup founders, partners and CEOs, located in Finland, Sweden and Germany. The data collection in the interviews consisted of both semi-structured questions and rating of importance regarding the elements of aforementioned theoretical frameworks of Project Success Criteria and Critical Success Factors, creating a rich set of data, forming holistic cases of the view of project success. The resulting indicate that the most relevant success criteria for startup decision-makers are connected to customer relations, which dictates also the importance of short-term and long-term goals. The economic goals as well the preparation for future were more polarizing. The concentration on customer criteria is not divergent from previous research, but the importance of team criteria is a noticeable difference and a common theme across cases. It is also noticeable in the statements of interviewees that in the startup context the uncertainty regarding products, customers, and economical factors create certain tensions in project success assessment. In Critical Success Factors, there were also clear themes that mirror the aforementioned results. It furthermore became apparent that startups do not have clearly established tools or methods for their project management, which may distinguish them from larger, more established organizations.

World-wide it is estimated that workers suffer 250 million accidents every year, with 330 000 fatalities. In South a c a , the fatality rate is 426 per annum. Sishen mine also experienced safety problems, namely a high injury rate, an average of one fatality per annum, and 85% of injuries being caused by risk behaviour. Furthermore, the safety culture at the mine was moderate. A proper safety management system requires continual attention to three domains, namely the environment (equipment, tools and housekeeping), the person (knowledge, skills, abilities, intelligence and personality), and behaviour. Sishen mine previously concentrated on the domains of environment and person, and virtually ignored safety behaviour. To correct this, Sishen mine adapted a behaviour based safety intervention programme. The aims of this research were to determine drivers that motivate safety and risk behaviour, to identify critical factors for the successful implementation of such a programme, and to determine if the safety culture and performance were affected by the implementation of a behaviour based safety intervention programme. A single-group non-experimental design was used. Questionnaires were used to conduct non-experimental surveys. The questionnaires addressed certain safety culture dimensions. A longitudinal survey was carried out before and after implementation of the behaviour based safety intervention programme. The results showed that the safety culture at the mine improved since implementation of the intervention programme. Management support for safety improved by 6%, peer support for safety by 13%, personal responsibility for safety by 7%, management systems by 6%, and employees actively caring for safety, by 3%. The improvement in safety culture also positively impacted on the injury rate at Sishen mine. Results indicated the following factors as being critical for a successful behaviour based safety implementation (in order of importance): participation, structured implementation, training, readiness for such a programme, communication, observation and feedback, target critical behaviours, flexibility, effective intervention actions, and data management. The study identified issues and challenges which must be dealt with, especially those applicable in developing countries like South Africa, with unique circumstances such as social and political diversity. The conclusion was that safety behaviour is mainly d i e d by activators, and motivated by consequences. The ABC model was identified as an important tool to analyse the drivers for safety behaviour in an effort to develop effective intervention actions. It is recommended that companies shift their focus from traditional safety approaches to the human dimension of safety. Thus, it is recommended that the behaviour based safety model must be applied by companies in order to focus on behaviour. Secondly, it is recommended that factors that are critical for a successful implementation must be identified and ranked in order of importance. The attention which is paid to each critical factor should then be related to its relative importance. It is also recommended that activators and consequences must be regarded as important drivers for safety behaviour when intervention actions are to be developed, and that the ABC technique should be applied in practice to analyse the appropriateness of the intervention actions. By way of conclusion, recommendations for future research are made. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2004.