Building information modelling (BIM) is not only an authoring tool for architects and engineers, but also an analysis tool for all stakeholders in the supply chain procurement process. Analysis tools such as the code checking of building regulations and environmental simulations that can report on heating loads, daylighting and carbon use will influence the adoption of intelligent modelling faster and further than previously thought. The benefits for clients should not be underestimated either and some are already reaping them where project certainty is to the fore. However, the professional language that architects and engineers espouse is a latent force that can run counter to fostering collaboration. An emerging professional, the Architectural Technologist, can bridge that divide and adopt the adjunct role of manager in the integrated project delivery. The impact of digitalisation on the management role of architectural technology leads to four objectives namely; the practicalities of integrating drawing operations; the practicalities of design processes within the databased controlled programmes; the mapping of the overall process pitted against individual responsibility, data reliability and standard risk and the significant contribution to an understanding of how IMT’s will drive changes within the discipline of Architectural Technology through the next decade. These objectives were then tested to establish whether there was an evolution in the manner in which the design team is structured. They included; how the opportunities for BIM are impacting design strategies, how they are impacting associated management structures and a deeper analysis of the changing role of the architectural technologist as a result of adoption. In conclusion, two streams were identified where one points to the educational set-up where primarily there is an apparent latent talent shortage waiting to be filled. Secondly, to the industry where project certainty will evidently drive the adoption of building information modelling and integrated project delivery as both clients and contractors will require projects to be delivered in BIM formats.

This study proposed a new topic in exploring what factors cause most Chinese customers not continue to use their healthcare wearables after purchasing. Based on the framework of “the self-regulation of attitudes, intentions, and behavior” (Bagozzi, 1992), which is used to determine what factors impact satisfaction and how satisfaction can in turn impact stickiness, this study developed a new research model and proposed seven hypotheses. And based on the theories, firstly, this study used interview technique to understand what practical factors people think about would affect consumers’ satisfaction and stickiness towards healthcare wearables in China. Secondly, combined theories with all the hypotheses and the interview results, this study applied survey method to collect empirical data. As all the constructs were validated with exploratory factor analysis and reliability analysis, then the model was tested with linear multiple regression. The findings showed that the proposed research model fits in testing in this study, as three factors (value, quality and trust) have significant effects on Chinese consumers' satisfaction and stickiness towards healthcare wearables consumption. This study suggested that healthcare wearable companies need to put more emphasis on maintaining and increasing consumers’ trust, should continually improve consumers’ satisfaction, and should emphasize more on how to improve consumers’ attitudes of value and trust instead of putting more efforts on quality. These study results can help healthcare wearables companies make correct marketing strategies by putting efforts and resources on more valuable aspects, meanwhile, can help Chinese people to really improve health by using healthcare wearables.

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Studiens syfte var att undersöka individens upplevelse gällande samarbete, gruppsammanhållning, förtroende och kollegialt stöd i ett virtuellt team i jämförelse med ett traditionellt team. Studien genomfördes på en rikstäckande myndighet som arbetat med virtuella team i tio år. I studien deltog sju intervjupersoner varav fyra personer var män och tre personer kvinnor som valdes ut genom ett målstyrt urval. Personerna var mellan 28 och 62 år gamla och hade haft en anställning inom vald organisation under minst två år. Personerna ingick i samma team men hade olika platsbundenheter. Data samlades in genom semi-strukturerade intervjuer och analyserades med hjälp av en kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Resultatet bekräftade tidigare teori om utmaningar i utvecklande av samarbete, gruppsammanhållning, förtroende och kollegialt stöd inom virtuella team. Intervjupersonerna upplevde ett starkare samarbete, gruppsammanhållning, förtroende och kollegialt stöd för de kollegor som var samplacerade och såg därmed ingen nytta av det virtuella teamet.

Strong trust based relationships are one of the pillars of the communitarian model of industrial districts. District literature calls upon trust in order to explain several elements of the model. The existence of trust may explain how a highly fragmented and essentially local value chain reduces transaction costs compared with an integrated firm. It may also allow for closer ties where up to date pertinent information and innovative ideas are transferred between firms. Trusting, long term relationships and district networks are also evoked in the literature as being, in themselves, sources of competitive advantage. Yet despite large sections of district literature calling upon trust to explain the existence and efficiency of industrial districts, few scholars have investigated empirically the sources of trust in local ties. In depth semi-directive interviews with small firm managers in the Arve Valley industrial district near Geneva were analysed in order to examine the context and quality of intra-district relationships (mainly supplier and peers) which were then ompared with extra-district links with clients. The sources of trust are analysed by applying Möllering’s (2006) model of trust based on reason, routine and reflexivity. Findings indicate that managers rely more on a rational calculation of partner’s motives than ‘blind’ adherence to local, historical norms of behaviour. This finding contributes to the view that districts are organizational fields where agents possess large amounts of information about markets, technologies and partners. Managers also demonstrate a willingness to maintain local links over the long term, thus ensuring a crucial element of their firms’ competitive advantage and will adjust their behaviour accordingly. This thesis contributes to district literature by examining detailing the existence and foundations of close intra-district ties created between managers mobilising resources based on cognitive, organisational and geographical proximities. A major contribution to trust literature is the 5 analysis and discussion of the complex interplay between the three antecedents outlined in Möllering’s model in the creation of local trust and proposes that while trust decisions in information rich districts are based more on rational calculation than on local norms and institutions, other trust decisions (with external clients), in the absence of sufficient information are founded on very different bases. This comparison of the foundations of trust in two different contexts highlights the role of identity and routine in the ‘leap of faith’ or suspension of doubt that is trust.

Today flexibility is an important part of organizational work. This study investigated the relationship between level of flexibility in scheduling and conflict level in caregiving teams, while controlling for team cohesion, team trust, age, team size and how long they have been in the team. The study was conducted in two small towns in the southeast of Sweden in elderly care and handicap care organizations. The ages of participants varied from 16 to 65 years. Out of 109 participants who filled out questionnaires 61 worked with an adapted (flexible) schedule and 48 with the ordinary schedule. Results showed no significant difference between the scheduling types and the conflict level, even after controlling for the named variables. Overall, it was found that team trust and team cohesion were more important for conflict level than scheduling type. / Today flexibility is an important part of organizational work. This study investigated the relationship between level of flexibility in scheduling and conflict level in caregiving teams, while controlling for team cohesion, team trust, age, team size and how long they have been in the team. The study was conducted in two small towns in the southeast of Sweden in elderly care and handicap care organizations. The ages of participants varied from 16 to 65 years. Out of 109 participants who filled out questionnaires 61 worked with an adapted (flexible) schedule and 48 with the ordinary schedule. Results showed no significant difference between the scheduling types and the conflict level, even after controlling for the named variables. Overall, it was found that team trust and team cohesion were more important for conflict level than scheduling type.

published_or_final_version / Real Estate and Construction / Master / Master of Science in Construction Project Management

This dissertation includes three chapters that utilize experimental methods to answer questions relating to social choices. Social choice is a broad category that can incorporate an individual’s choices when it comes to charitable giving, providing a public good or creating externalities through one’s choices. In the first chapter “To Be or Not To Be Corrupt: An Experimental Study on Bribery” I designed a modified version of the bribery game used in Abbink et al. (2002) to study whether information on the prevalence of bribery activity within the experimental environment has an effect on behavior. In addition it also tests whether this prevalence effect can be reduced by implementing a strict punishment. In the second chapter “Can Cooperative Behavior Improve Efficiency in Public Good Provision?” laboratory experiments are used to test whether information about the cooperative behavior of the group members in a trust game affects contribution to a public good game. The first part of the design utilizes a trust game to measure the cooperative behavior of the subjects. This information is provided in the public goods game to see if there is an effect on contributions. The essay also looks at if there is an effect on contribution, and if that effect lasts over time or it merges towards a selfish-man equilibrium of no contribution. The third chapter “Means and Ends in Charitable Giving for Environmental Protection: A Discussion” conducts a discussion on the charitable giving literature related to environmental charities and builds a simple model of warm glow to show that the attributes of an environmental charity may affect giving. The model can also be used to consider attributes on how the money is used. For example, whether there is a difference when a market-based mechanism like Payment for Environmental Services (PES) is used versus more traditional mechanism like education on alternative livelihood. It then proposes a possible design for a field experiment to test the hypotheses.

可信度是網路服務首要解決的問題，我們從數位憑證，認證、授權、委任授權等安全層面去研究代理者可信度，並提出一套完整可信度規則分類機制當作信任度判斷的依據。在此篇論文中，我們論證如何將規則概念應用在代理者的溝通協定、服務流程控制上。我們並同時整合語意網規則和本體論的技術，以達到可信的網路服務環境。 / Trust is one of the most important issues for Web Services. We studied the agent trust problem based on security technologies, such as digital certificates, authentication, authorization, and delegation, etc. Furthermore, we propose a complete trust rule taxonomy mechanism to assistant us on the evaluation of agent trustworthiness. In this thesis, we justify the feasibility of using rule concepts on the agent communication protocol and service process control. We also demonstrated how to integrate the semantic web rules and ontologies to have a trusted web services environment.

We have introduced the notion of user profiling with trust, as a solution to theproblem of uncertainty and unmanageable exposure of personal data duringaccess, retrieval and consumption by web applications. Our solution sug-gests explicit modeling of trust and embedding trust metrics and mechanismswithin very fabric of user profiles. This has in turn allowed information sys-tems to consume and understand this extra knowledge in order to improveinteraction and collaboration among individuals and system. When formaliz-ing such profiles, another challenge is to realize increasingly important notionof privacy preferences of users. Thus, the profiles are designed in a way toincorporate preferences of users allowing target systems to understand pri-vacy concerns of users during their interaction. A majority of contributionsof this work had impact on profiling and recommendation in digital librariescontext, and was implemented in the framework of EU FP7 Smartmuseumproject. Highlighted results start from modeling of adaptive user profilesincorporating users taste, trust and privacy preferences. This in turn led toproposal of several ontologies for user and content characteristics modeling forimproving indexing and retrieval of user content and profiles across the plat-form. Sparsity and uncertainty of profiles were studied through frameworksof data mining and machine learning of profile data taken from on-line so-cial networks. Results of mining and population of data from social networksalong with profile data increased the accuracy of intelligent suggestions madeby system to improving navigation of users in on-line and off-line museum in-terfaces. We also introduced several trust-based recommendation techniquesand frameworks capable of mining implicit and explicit trust across ratingsnetworks taken from social and opinion web. Resulting recommendation al-gorithms have shown to increase accuracy of profiles, through incorporationof knowledge of items and users and diffusing them along the trust networks.At the same time focusing on automated distributed management of profiles,we showed that coverage of system can be increased effectively, surpassingcomparable state of art techniques. We have clearly shown that trust clearlyelevates accuracy of suggestions predicted by system. To assure overall pri-vacy of such value-laden systems, privacy was given a direct focus when archi-tectures and metrics were proposed and shown that a joint optimal setting foraccuracy and perturbation techniques can maintain accurate output. Finally,focusing on hybrid models of web data and recommendations motivated usto study impact of trust in the context of topic-driven recommendation insocial and opinion media, which in turn helped us to show that leveragingcontent-driven and tie-strength networks can improve systems accuracy forseveral important web computing tasks. / <p>QC 20130219</p>