Traditionally human resource functions are performed in house, but recently the subject on outsourcing human resources is becoming more and more popular. According to an article published in 2004 by the INC. 500 magazine, 18 human resource service providers were chosen to be the most fast growing corporations in the US, in the mean time, the Fortune 500 and Forbes 500 corporations lists both had human resource business process outsourcing firms listed inside. The development of global temporary help service industry has been around for more than fifty years and the growth rate of temporary help industry in each country has been increasing steadily. Meanwhile, the Executive Yuan of Taiwan has chosen this business as one of the most industry among its 12 selected important developing service industries. The competition in temporary help has getting more and more severe than usual, but restricted to its uncompleted legal regulation, there are many staffing vendor didn¡¦t obey the legal regulation, besides the difference between temporary help service and outsourcing is still ambigious. In this study, case study approach and the in-depth interview technique were employed. The main objective is to find out what current difficulties are the temporary help agencies facing and what kind of solution do they use to cope with the business needs. Furthermore, by applying relevant solution to form the suggestions to provide to staffing industry for the operation reference The inference of this study is that Taiwan is more cost oriented compared with other countries in US, Japan and Germany in the consideration of using temporary help service; as for the development of professional temporary help service, there is no clear definition on it, besides, the temporary help service agency in Taiwan is not yet able to provide this service. The temporary help service agencies in Japan expect relevant law in temporary help service can be loosen to develope this industry better, the temporary help service agencies in Taiwan expect a clearer definition between responsibility and obligation in user enterprise and temporary help service agency. The pricing war in this industry in Taiwan would form the barrier of better service due to limited profit while other countries had understood different service level deserves different price. New pension policy implemented in Taiwan in 2004 would encourage more enterprises understand the advantage of using temporary help service, but not definitely boost the promising development of this industry.

Analysis of the managing contingent workers at an outsourcing system ¡VA case study of the China Steel Corporation and its subcontractors Abstract Nowadays, employment flexibility and Labor Cost Reduction are highly emphasized in the competitive business environment. As the job design becoming more and more specific and professional, the labor cost becoming higher and higher, companies cannot but change their operation style, and contingent workers have become an important source of competitive advantage. This case study was intended to understand the mutual relationship between China Steel Corporation and its subcontractors: why it uses subcontractors, and how it manages them. This study also explored the benefits and working conditions of contingent workers to find out the potential problems of outsourcing. This study has the following preliminary findings. First, Two factors are important determinants on outsourcing decisions: Strategically, the goal is to reduce labor cost and enhance the employment flexibility. Technically, the demand of professional skills, rudimentary skills and special facilities can be satisfied through outsourcing. Second, the relation between China Steel Corporation and its subcontractors has changed after its privatization. According to China Steel Corporation, their interaction has become better because of the flexibility gained after privatization (for example, the budget is no longer controlled by legislative yuan.) But from the subcontractors¡¦ point of view, their interaction has become more difficult because the elimination of their profit and increasing constraints on outsourcing projects. Third, the employees of China Steel Corporation enjoy better wages, benefits, working conditions and training opportunities than employees of subcontractors. Fourth, among the two kinds of employees of subcontractors¡Xpermanent and temporary¡X permanent employees have better wages than temporary ones. As for training, there is not much difference. Fifth, safety is the most serious problem on contingent workers management. The reasons include highly dangerous work environment, workers¡¦ unfamiliarity with the environment, and being recklessness about the work environment rules. One other important management issue for China Steel Corporation is that outsourcing does not necessarily reduce labor cost. High turnover rate among contingent workers and low quality resulting from insufficient skills are combined together to increase the labor cost of China Steel Corporation on supervision, coordination, and quality control. Key words: human resource management, contingent working arrangement, outsourcing, subcontractor, temporary workers.

Atkinson proposed a concept of ¡§flexible firm¡¨ in 1984, and distinguished workers into three parts: core workers, peripheral workers and external workers. In 1997, Handy considered that organization would be composed of core work team, temporary employees, and flexible workers in the future. Therefore, Work in the organization would be divided into two parts: core work and non-core work. Core workers are responsible for core work, and non-core work are outsourced or distributed to other contractors. Then, atypical employment rises and develops. The use of this kind of employment will become a trend, and companies can save money this way. The purposes of this thesis are: (1) to understand the situation of atypical employment in the Bureau of National Health Insurance (the NHI); (2) to find out the reasons of unionization for temporary workers in the NHI; (3) to understand the restraints on unionization of atypical employees; (4) to provide suggestion to government and government-run companies. According to the results of interviews and analysis, the reason that the NHI continues to employ temporary employees is to stabilize business. The NHI can continue to employ temporary employees since these temporary employees are not included into Labor Standards Law. Three reasons that temporary employees of the NHI can unionize are: (1) work time and worksites of temporary employees of the NHI are fixed; (2) insurance industries are covered by Labor Standards Law, and temporary employees of the NHI are included into Labor Standards Law; (3) organizational system of the NHI is a government-run financial and insurance organization, so it is not limited by the fourth clause of Labor Union Law.

Ett allt vanligare fenomen i dagens arbetsliv är inhyrning av personal. För många företag ses det som ett sätt att öka flexibiliteten och därmed minska osäkerheten i företaget, och för många människor ses det som en väg in i arbetsmarknaden. Men hur ser möjligheterna till lärande och utveckling ut för dessa individer? Syftet med denna studie har varit att belysa relationen bemanningskonsulter och deras lär- och utvecklingsmöjligheter i arbetet. För att belysa syftet utvecklades tre frågeställningar; ”Hur upplever bemanningskonsulten att lärande och utveckling sker på kundföretaget när denne är inhyrd?”; ”Hur upplever bemanningskonsulten att kundföretaget bidrar till lärande och utveckling på arbetsplatsen för denne?” samt ”Hur upplever bemanningskonsulten att bemanningsföretaget bidrar till lärande och utveckling för denne?”. Utifrån dessa granskades sedan tidigare forskning som gjorts på området bemanningskonsulter och arbetsplatslärande för att ge en bakgrundsförståelse. Därefter genomfördes åtta semistrukturerade intervjuer med bemanningskonsulter från två olika bemanningsföretag. Empirin från dessa intervjuer analyserades utifrån ett sociokulturellt perspektiv med hjälp av Lave och Wengers teorier om situerat lärande och praktikgemenskaper. Resultatet diskuterades därefter i relation till den tidigare forskningen. Det visade att något som var viktigt i bemanningskonsulternas lärprocess var det sociala samspelet med kollegor, samt att delaktighet upplevdes som positivt för lärandet. Denna delaktighet såg dock olika ut i kundföretaget och bemanningsföretaget. Kundföretaget kunde erbjuda ett bemötande som var likvärdigt med övrig personal för att bidra till lärande och utveckling. Bemanningsföretaget kunde å andra sidan skapa möjligheter för lärande genom att fungera som en plattform mellan bemanningskonsulter samt ge förutsättning för utveckling genom att placera dem på utvecklande uppdrag. / An increasingly common phenomenon in today’s working life is the use of temporary workers. To many companies this is seen as a way to increase flexibility and thus reduce uncertainty in the company, and for many people it is seen as a way into the labour market. But what do the opportunities for learning and development look like for these individuals? The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between temporary agency workers and their learning and development opportunities in client companies. In order to highlight the purpose three questions were developed; “In what way do temporary agency workers perceive that learning and development take place at the client company when they are working there?”; “In what way do temporary agency workers perceive that the client company contributes to learning and development in the workplace for them?” And finally “In what way do temporary agency workers perceive that the temporary agency contributes to learning and development for them?”. After that previous research done in the field of temporary agency work and workplace learning was audited to provide a better understanding of the subject. This was followed by eight semi-structured interviews with temporary agency workers from two different temporary agencies. Empirical data from these interviews were then analyzed on the basis of a socio-cultural perspective, with the help of Lave and Wenger's theories of situated learning and communities of practice. The result has been discussed in relation to the previous research. It has shown that something that is important to temporary agency workers’ learning process is social interaction with colleagues, and that participation is seen as positive for learning. This participation was, however, different in the client company and the temporary agency. The client company could treat the temporary agency worker equally with other staff to contribute to learning and development. The temporary agency could, on the other hand, create learning opportunities by serving as a platform between temporary agency workers, as well as provide good conditions for development by placing them on challenging assignments.

In the last several decades the number of the fatalities related to criminally inflicted cranial gunshot wounds has increased (Aarabi et al.; Jena et al., 2014; Mota et al., 2003). Back-spattered bloodstain patterns are often important in investigations of cranial gunshot fatalities, particularly when there is a doubt whether the death is suicide or homicide. Back-spatter is the projection of blood and tissue back toward the firearm. However, the mechanism of creation of the backspatter is not understood well. There are several hypotheses, which describe the formation of the backspatter. However, as it is difficult to study the internal mechanics of formation of the backspatter in animal experiments as the head is opaque and sample properties vary from animal to animal. Performing ballistic experiments on human cadavers is rarely not possible for ethical reasons. An alternative is to build a realistic physical 3D model of the human head, which can be used for reconstruction of crime scenes and BPA training purposes. This requires a simulant material for each layer of the human head. In order to build a realistic model of human head, it is necessary to understand the effect of the each layer of the human head to the generation of the back-spatter. Simulant materials offer the possibility of safe, well‐controlled experiments. Suitable simulants must be biologically inert, be stable over some reasonable shelf‐life, and respond to ballistic penetration in the same way as the responding human tissues. Traditionally 10-20% (w/w) gelatine have been used as a simulant for human soft tissues in ballistic experiments. However, 10-20% of gelatine has never been validated as a brain simulant. Moreover, due to the viscoelastic nature of the brain it is not possible to find the exact mechanical properties of the brain at ballistic strain rates. Therefore, in this study several experiments were designed to obtain qualitative and quantitative data using high speed cameras to compare different concentrations of gelatine and new composite material with the bovine and ovine brains. Factors such as the form of the fragmentation, velocity of the ejected material, expansion rate, stopping distance, absorption of kinetic energy and effect of the suction as well as ejection of the air from the wound cavity and its involvement in the generation of the backspatter have been investigated. Furthermore, in this study a new composite material has been developed, which is able to create more realistic form of the fragmentation and expansion rate compared to the all different percentage of the gelatine. The results of this study suggested that none of the concentrations the gelatine used in this study were capable of recreating the form of the damage to the one observed from bovine and ovine brain. The elastic response of the brain tissue is much lower that observed in gelatine samples. None of the simulants reproduced the stopping distance or form of the damage seen in bovine brain. Suction and ejection of the air as a result of creation of the temporary cavity has a direct relation to the elasticity of the material. For example, by reducing the percentage of the gelatine the velocity of the air drawn into the cavity increases however, the reverse scenario can be seen for the ejection of the air. This study showed that elastic response of the brain tissue was not enough to eject the brain and biological materials out of the cranium. However, the intracranial pressure raises as the projectile passes through the head. This pressure has the potential of ejecting the brain and biological material backward and create back-spatter. Finally, the results of this study suggested that for each specific type of experiment, a unique simulant must be designed to meet the requirements for that particular experiment.

published_or_final_version / Public Administration / Master / Master of Social Sciences

This research is about disaster relief semi-temporary housing in China which based on disasters database, area selection and climate data in Yunnan Province, attempting to develop an effective and comfortable earthquake relief temporary shelter which can be processing both physical relief and psychological relief. The major components of this research are post-disaster analysis, project design, and computer simulation. By designing a new shelter model, we will try to identify different functions and reorganize them for the shelter in order to satisfy all special requests after disasters. After computer simulation, it will allow more energy efficient considerations and taking social responsibility to both the designing part and disaster relief process.

Leva för att jobba eller jobba för att leva? En undersökning om arbetsmotivation Ann-Catrin Jansson Tidigare forskning visar att kommunalanställda trivs bättre på jobbet jämfört med övriga sektorer som industri- tjänste- och statlig sektor. Ett uttryck för arbetsmotivation är trivseln. Syftet med studien var att identifiera vilka psykosociala faktorer som påverkar trivseln på ett kommunalt servicehus. Studien genomfördes med en enkät som deltagarna (n = 36) besvarade. Enkäten hade 72 frågor, varav 63 frågor togs från QPS. En multipel linjär regressionsanalys (metod stepwise) användes för att analysera associationerna mellan QPS och trivsel, resultatet visade att låga arbetskrav och hög arbetsmotivation var signifikant associerade till trivseln. Associationen mellan ålder och QPS var emellertid låg. Undersökningen, som kan ses som en förberedande pilotstudie på grund av det låga antalet respondenter, visade på tendenser som kräver vidare forskning.

In an organisation, escalation of commitment represents behaviour of decision makers who become committed to failing courses of action. This behaviour usually derives from the decision makers’ reluctance to acknowledge their failed action in the initial allotment of time and resources, and thus taking actions to manifest their prior decision were correct and they will be achieving the planned goal.   In a single day of 1996 during a climbing expedition destined to summit Mt Everest, eight people lost their lives, including the climbing team leaders, in part due to the decision made that led to the teams to engage in escalation behaviour.  The climbing teams in the 1996 Mt Everest expedition serve as examples of temporary organisations in an extreme setting. The purpose of the research is to explore insights on the aspects promoting escalation on the Mt Everest tragedy and shed some light into how escalation manifests in temporary organisations. The factors that might be found will be applicable only to this particular case; nevertheless they might contribute on the overall development of how escalation comes about in temporary organisations. The research question of this study is how aspects promoting escalation where present in the 1996 Mt. Everest expedition?   For many years different theories attempted to explain the factors that promote escalation behaviour. The most important theories were combined together into a theoretical framework developed by Staw and Ross (1987a), which contains four major determinants of commitment in escalation: project, psychological, social and organisational. This framework is applied in this qualitative study based on the 1996 Mt Everest case. The study was executed through the analysis of the firsthand accounts of the survivors and observers present on the mountain that year as well as mass media outputs, the framework of escalation was used as an assistance tool for making sense of the findings the research may produce.   The results of the study managed to place the line of events in the determinants framework and identified all four types of determinants of commitment taking place through the progress of the expedition. A new organisational determinant of commitment was found (pursuit of enterprise growth) which yielded significant practical implications and might also lead the way for future research on escalation of commitment in temporary organisations.

The face of the workplace has changed dramatically over the past decade and most organisations have to survive in a fiercely competitive global economy. The impact of the competitive changes, especially in the service environment has become critical and quality service is considered an essential strategy for success and survival in today's competitive environment. Organisations are continuously searching for ways to improve their performance and create a sustainable competitive advantage. Consumers are also continuously being made more aware of their rights and in today's fast paced world, with time constraints and increased stress, tolerance levels have been considerably eroded. In view of this, customer satisfaction has become a focus area, in particular, to investigate ways that it can be enhanced to gain a competitive edge. A better understanding of how organisations can apply resources to achieve these goals will be a useful instrument towards gaining sustainable competitive advantage. One way of doing this is for service firms to manage their capacity to achieve maximum and/or optimum utilisation at all times, if possible. But having trained staff on hand at the right times is no easy task. Overstaffing can lead to budget blow-out, while understating adds to staff stress levels, and can contribute to both customer and staff dissatisfaction. As a possible solution many employers tackle this problem by employing casual staff who are more flexible in their working hours and can be deployed to meet peak demands in service. The objective of this study was to investigate the importance of customer satisfaction and whether the utilisation of temporary staffing solutions could positively contribute in improving service levels. A survey research design was used with a questionnaire as data-gathering instrument. The study population consisted of customers (N=507) that visited Absa branches in the Vaal Triangle and were serviced by either permanent or flexi tellers. Contingency tables were used to record and analyse the relationship between the different variables, and statistical significance tests were used to show that the results are significant. Chi-square and Cramer's phi or V test were used as the basis of the analysis. The research confirmed that customer satisfaction has definite financial benefits for an organisation and that the effective application of temporary staffing solutions could further enhance these benefits. The results of the statistical analysis of the survey further confirmed that there was no significant difference in the perceived level of service received from either permanent or flexi tellers. Limitations in the research are identified and recommendations for future research are made. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.