China has been experiencing constraints to the sustainable development of its domestic economy in recent years due to a reliance on a low value-added oriented economy. The enhancement of innovation among local firms is, therefore, being encouraged by the Chinese government. The Chinese government regards the automotive industry as one of its strategic industries yet the local automotive firms in China still remain relatively under-developed due to a limited independent innovation capacity. Therefore, the enhancement of an indigenous innovation capacity in the automotive industry is badly needed. Favourable policies have been applied in the automotive sector in order to support the technological development of local automotive firms which includes the constraints on foreign direct investment (FDI) in the automotive sector. Automotive multinational corporations (MNCs) are strictly required to establish international joint ventures (IJVs) with local automotive firms and can own no more than a 50% share in an IJV. The logic behind this is to protect the local automotive firms and allow them access to the technological resources of the MNCs and the opportunity for organisational learning. This logic is supported by current literature as IJVs are, arguably, able to deliver innovation outputs through direct access to the resources of the parent companies and the interpartner learning effects. Despite this, real-life examples suggest a limited innovation performance in the automotive IJVs in China. The innovation achievements are largely limited to minor changes to established products and some new products based on existing technologies. Whilst there is little technological innovation apparent in the automotive IJVs in China, there is evidence of this emerging from local automotive firms without the assistance of an IJV partnership. This PhD thesis explores the underlying reasons for the gap between current academic theory and the reality in the automotive industry. Qualitative case studies of three Chinese automotive IJVs and one independent local automotive firm with a reputation for innovation were conducted to investigate the factors that limit innovation activities in automotive IJVs. The findings of this research suggest that the IJV partnership itself is a constraining factor in the context of the Chinese automotive industry. This is because the nature of automotive IJVs in China lead to a lack of strategic focus on innovation and the IJVs follow a closed innovation paradigm as they only benefit from the limited resources of their parent companies, with little or no access to other external resources. Furthermore, the mismatch of the technological capabilities causes ineffectiveness in the utilisation process of the transferred resources. This research contributes to knowledge by explaining the gap between current theories on IJV and the reality within the industry. Furthermore, a revised model of knowledge management is proposed in the context of IJVs. In light of the main research findings, recommendations are made regarding the policy and practice of using IJV partnerships for the enhancement of innovation capacity among Chinese firms.

This study aims to develop and establish an appropriately co-ordinated regime for infrastructure sharing facilities development and regulation in SSA that could be utilised by the various stakeholders involved in mining infrastructure related activities, as well as those not involved in mineral-related activities, to enable economic diversification and broad-based development within a country. The starting point of the study is the gap that exists within the mining legal framework of Sub-Saharan African countries regarding the development of large scale mining infrastructure related projects such as rails and ports infrastructure networks that require meticulous coordination and collaboration between the numerous stakeholders involved. Consequently, the thesis starts with an introductory chapter that introduces the subject area to be examined in the thesis and provides a rationale for why this topic has been chosen. It also outlines areas of concern within the research topic and sets out the research questions. Subsequently, it sets out the conceptual framework and the necessary analytical tools utilised to evaluate and analyse the concept of shared- use of rail and port infrastructure. Chapter 3 investigates mining infrastructure related projects in Australia, specifically those located in Western Australia, New South Wales and Queensland. Chapter 4 explores mining infrastructure related projects in SSA, specifically projects located in Guinea and provide recommendations to SSA countries in general and to the Government of Guinea in particular, on how best to develop shared-use mining infrastructure. Finally, Chapter 5 highlights the findings of the thesis based on the comparison between mining infrastructure development undertaken in Australia with that of the SSA region. The study finds that most countries on the continent suffer from governance gaps expressed in institutional dysfunction, as well as from structures that do not foster collaboration but, on the contrary, deficient environments for national strategies for infrastructure that works for development.

In recent years there has been an increase in metrics and indices measuring corporate social responsibility (CSR) (SuatainAbility, 2010; IBE, 2013). In legitimating the premise of these metrics focus has centred on the effects of inclusion, either in regard to financial impact for the firm (Beurden and Gössling, 2008; Griffin and Mahon, 1997), validity in gaining and conveying legitimacy (Chatterji et al, 2007; Agle and Kelly, 2001; Font et al, 2012; Graafland et al, 2004), or social impact in promoting responsible business practices (Slager et al, 2010; Slager, 2012; Adam and Shavit, 2007; Scarlet and Kelly, 2009). Yet, arguably these tools are now institutionalised elements of CSR (Waddock, 2008), and thus focus is no longer centred on gaining legitimacy, but rather on retaining it, as they 'face the need to evolve ... in the context of the changing demands of constituents and environmental change' (Durand & McGuire, 2005, p.168). However, little is known about how these effects (financial, social and validity) impact the valuation dynamics associated with participation in these tools over time. This thesis aims to fill this gap by exploring processes of legitimation and critique of participation in Business in the Community's Corporate Responsibility Index (BiTC's CRI). Through the lens of Boltanski and Thévenot's economies of worth (2006), the thesis examines the 'orders of worth' drawn upon in legitimating and critiquing participation in the CRI over time. Methodology is abductive, with data and extant theory explored simultaneously so as to establish contributions through a mutually-informed comprehension of what the data is a 'case of' (Tavory & Timmermans, 2014, p.5). Research-theorising applies Peircean semiotics (Peirce, 1909), by which, extant literature and theorising are applied, tested, and either set aside from/or built-upon, when set against the data of the empirical case. Data collection is qualitative, consisting of observations (4 formal and numerous informal), interviews (68) and documentary analysis. The research ultimately draws on Boltanski and Thévenot's Economies of Worth (2006), and the notion of 'composite assemblages', developed further by Mailhot & Langley (2017), Gond et al (2017) and Taupin (2012). The thesis supports Taupin's (2012) suggestion; that a rating's legitimacy is based on a collection of 'moral worths' (p.529), and conceptualises this through the 'composite assemblage' advanced by (Mailhot & Langley, 2017). Analysis contributes to scholarly understanding of processes of legitimation, by unpacking the relative 'robustness' of an assemblage, to internal and external 'tests' of worth. In unpacking these processes, the thesis brings together theory from EW, 'substantive and symbolic CSR', materiality, risk, and boundary objects; to uncover a complex 'web' of dynamic central, and peripheral value assemblages, which BiTC staff and participating CR practitioners draw upon, in legitimating and critiquing participation in the CRI.

Knowledge Management (KM) in this research refers to a process that dives deep into an organization and analyzes operational metrics to understand and help the enterprise make use of knowledge both explicit and tacit, facilitate a state of knowledge awareness and sustain the knowledge managing and learning process. This novelty of the research is its first attempt to combine China's KM implementation issues statistics, literature review on KM model and KM CSFs, integrating with research objectives findings to develop a KM framework for China SME shipyards. This framework interlinks the knowledge cycle of knowledge acquisition, application and improvement continuously within organization by 3 KM domains of organization entity, people interaction and organization memory, formulated by 12 KM CSFs derived. The uniqueness of this framework is it emphasis on people. Organization entity involves people support of top management to motivate and drive organizational culture to embrace KM. Continuous organization knowledge improvement involve people interaction to facilitate knowledge processes through socialization programs, training and building of trustworthy team. People are the one who contribute to organization memory by retain and update organization knowledge for effective reprocessing and retrieval via information technology. The survey took the form of structured interview in five stages of field study with eight sets of survey questionnaires. AHP method is applied to quantify practices and translate it into measurable absolute numbers. Result showed that one third of China SME shipyards are NOT Ready for KM implementation. Among the deficiencies, knowledge structure is the first limitation, followed by the knowledge content and training. The value of this research is to highlight and illustrate to enterprises the opportunity of the application of KM Framework could continuously improve their organization knowledge from operating processes through systematic knowledge acquisition and application, to gain their competitiveness and sustainability in long term. In short term, this KM framework by application could answer to the question that all China SME shipyards unanimously asked "Do you think my shipyard is ready to implement Knowledge Management?"

Land use optimization is a multifaceted process that entails complex decision-making which involves the selection of activities, the percentages to allocate, and where to allocate. It will also add a whole extra class of variables to the problem when combined with the inevitable consideration of spatial optimization. The related applications by linear programming (LP), "Pareto Front Optimal" based methods, heuristics methods and integration of GIS etc. for spatial multi-objective land use optimization are reviewed and analyzed on their advantages and disadvantages in this thesis. Accordingly, due to the nonlinearity and the complexity caused by the multiple objectives and increasing variables during the optimization process, the efficiency and effect would be the issues to be considered. The need for effective and efficient models for land use optimization is evident from the above discussion as the core content. In order to comprehensively fulfill all the requirements, the understanding of the sustainability of land use is translated into eight objectives to form the Multi-objective Optimization of Land Use (MOLU) model. Furthermore, an efficient model named Boundary based Fast Genetic Algorithm (BFGA) using goal programming is employed in the multi-objective optimization in Tongzhou Newtown. This algorithm is especially efficient for land use optimization problems derived from its special boundary based operators. Furthermore, considering the characteristics of planning support process and these two models mentioned above, the interactive spatial land use optimization prototype with a friendly interface and a simplified 3D visualization module could be established, thus yielding good effects and potential to support the planning process in the study area. Finally, in light of the study results and limitations, some directions are also provided for future research. / Land use optimization, a kind of resource allocation, can be defined as the process of allocating different land use categories (e.g., residential, commercial, and industrial, etc.) to specific units of area within a region. As one of the most popular words nowadays, sustainable development can be viewed as a process of change in which the exploitation of resources, the direction of investment, the orientation of technological development and institutional change are all harmonized. Sustainability is, hence, an important and imminent societal goal for land use planning. Land use optimization involves the active planning of land for future use by people to provide for their needs. In this thesis, the central goal is to develop a sustainable land use optimization prototype to enrich the field of planning support with regard to sustainability. / Cao, Kai. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 72-04, Section: A, page: . / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 132-139). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract also in Chinese.

This thesis consists of three self-contained studies on corporate tax avoidance of Chinese firms around the 2008 Corporate Tax Reform. In Chapter 1, we describe the background of this thesis, provide a general introduction of the Tax Reform and outline the motivation of this research. Chapter 2 studies how multinationals’ decisions of foreign direct investment (FDI) into China responded to the tax reform where exemption from the dividend withholding tax was repealed and investors from various jurisdictions faced different withholding tax rates due to their existing double tax agreements (DTA) with China, providing incentives to adopt an indirect strategy for foreign affiliates and thus to reduce host country taxation of foreign income. We find a significant rise in FDI flows sourced from low tax conduit jurisdictions with favorable DTA subsequent to the tax reform, while there is no similar increase in FDI flows sourced from other jurisdictions. In addition, our results suggest that the pattern of FDI changes is similar for jurisdictions adopting divergent double tax relief mechanisms. Overall, our findings are supportive of the existence of indirect investment structures in which investors use conduit strategies via chains of ownership in order to minimize their corporate tax burden. Chapter 3 investigates whether and how firms shift income across consecutive years in response to a known schedule of tax rate changes. Both accruals-based and real earnings management models are tested for firms with tax rate increase or decrease. We find that firms expecting tax rate increase are more likely to manage their earnings upward via accruals instead of real activities, while firms facing tax rate reduction do not exhibit significant downward earnings management behavior via accruals or real activities. Our tests also show that state or institutional ownership do not have significant impact on the extent of accruals-based or real earnings management in response to tax rate changes. Chapter 4 studies the changes in effective tax rates (ETR) and book-tax differences (BTDs) of firms in response to a rise or cut in statutory tax rate during a major tax reform in an emerging market, and offers insights into the interaction of financial accounting considerations with corporate tax avoidance. We find that firms located in special economic zones (SEZ) with a rising statutory tax rate after tax reform exhibit a rise in ETRs and permanent BTDs, but the temporary BTDs of SEZ firms dropped after CTR-08, suggesting a trade-off of time value benefits of deferring tax payment for the advantage of accelerating tax payment during a period of rising tax rate. DR firms, on the other hand, show a decrease in ETRs and permanent BTDs when they face a decrease in statutory tax rate. In Chapter 5, the main findings and implications of the thesis are summarized and future research directions are discussed.

Challenges faced today in the truck industry indicate a need for transformation in truck manufacturers’ business logic. First, current business models are based on the sales of new vehicles so truck manufacturers fail to capture substantial financial benefits from servicing the installed base. Second, the truck market is prone to regional market cycles, which necessitates truck manufacturers to find solutions to stabilize their revenues. Moreover, environmental legislation and social pressures encourage truck manufacturers to look for solutions to preserve natural resources and enhance social welfare. To address these challenges, this study examines a regenerative result-oriented product-service (RROPS) business model, which combines a result-oriented product-service system and a closed-loop supply chain. By adopting a RROPS business model, truck manufacturers can earn regular sources of revenues, because demand for services is counter-cyclical, while improving their environmental and social performance. Hence, the goal of this study is to establish how to generate sustainable value for truck manufacturers. The study follows a multiple methods research design and collects data from truck manufacturers and logistics firms. Based on relevant literature and findings from a case study of a truck manufacturer, this work operationalizes eight building blocks of a RROPS business model, using the Business Model Canvas as framework of reference. China, the world’s largest national truck market by volume, is chosen as context for the study because truck manufacturers in China face economic, social and environmental challenges (e.g low profitability, no value capture from used trucks) that a RROPS business model could help addressing. Referring to the resource-based view and the social exchange theory, two conceptual frameworks are developed to determine mechanisms of sustainable value generation. Research hypotheses are tested with a sample of 180 survey responses collected from 22 truck manufacturers. Qualitative and quantitative survey data from logistics firms are also collected to conduct a comparative analysis between truck manufacturers' and logistics firms' perspectives with respect to market-related building blocks of a RROPS business model. The resulting contributions to knowledge are threefold. First, this study adds to existing literature on sustainable business models by offering a comprehensive analysis of a RROPS business model from a triple bottom line perspective. Second, this work extends the resource-based view and the social exchange theory by identifying and testing how business model elements of a RROPS business model contribute to the generation of sustainable value for truck manufacturers. Finally, this study establishes individual and combined mediating effects of three business model elements and shows that RROPS key partners contribute the most to explain the variance in RROPS gains, followed by RROPS key resources and RROPS internal risk management. With respect to managerial implications, this research demonstrates the relevance of a business model approach and establishes key characteristics of building blocks in a RROPS business model as well as the interdependencies between these business model elements. Truck manufacturers should pay particular attention to grow relational exchanges with their business partners and develop firm's internal strategic assets such as information and communication technologies and internal risk management practices. Furthermore, outcomes of the comparative analysis highlight that truck manufacturers should make more efforts to comprehend truck owners’ business environments. In China, a RROPS business model appears as a suitable solution to comply with the triple bottom lines of sustainability in the truck sector, but changes in customer habits and Chinese legislations are required to promote this new business logic.

Food waste in recent years has become an international priority because of the large amounts of food wasted from farm to fork. In low-income countries like Nigeria, losses are significantly higher along the food chain from production to retail. There is a dearth of research that considers various crop value chains in different geographical regions and the prevailing conditions that influence these losses. Nigeria produces 3.9 million metric tonnes of citrus annually and it estimated that 30-70% is lost to postharvest losses. This study investigated the causes of losses from farm to fork along the citrus value chain in Nigeria. It adopted the ‘follow the thing’ framework to trace the journey of an orange from the farm to the consumers’ home. A multi-method methodological strategy was employed to capture the causes and impacts of losses from the perspective of core actors with the use of questionnaires, interviews and field observations. Empirical findings suggest that citrus postharvest losses are between 10-100%. Losses were found to result from an absence of processing facilities to provide a ready market for fruits. Other causes include improper postharvest handling in the form of poor harvesting techniques, inadequate storage, packaging and transportation facilities. These losses had negative impacts on the livelihood of the actors, as they directly reduced the income they obtained. The most important cause of losses identified was the lack of political willpower due to bad governance in the provision of processing facilities. This further provided a disabling environment for the citrus market to thrive. The thesis recommends ‘follow the thing’ as an adequate framework to study and understand postharvest losses.

The extent of youth unemployment in the UK in the years following the 2008 economic crisis, as well as the backdrop of longer-term concern regarding the rise of precarious work (Beck 2000, Standing 2011) prompted discussions of a 'lost generation' of young people set to feel the economic scars from embarking on their careers at a time of economic turmoil. The 2008-2009 recession was also (dubiously) labelled a 'mancession' and the first 'middle class recession'. Despite this, comparatively few sociology studies have adopted a quantitative approach to compare the class and gender dimensions of inequality in young people's employment trajectories prior to and following the 2008-2009 recession. This research makes an original contribution to the field by using longitudinal sequence analysis methods to contrast the employment trajectories of two cohorts of 16 to 24 year olds in the UK: a pre-recession and a recession cohort. In doing so, it establishes the extent to which the patterns of class and gender inequality amongst young people, not only in unemployment, but also in the movement in and out of 'precarious work', differed prior to and following the 2008-2009 recession. It finds that precarious employment was not as widespread as 'end of work' theorists suggested but that the recession brought an increased minority of young people who experienced employment difficulty. Furthermore, it argues that the recession did not advantage or disadvantage class or gender groups in a uniform way. Rather, changing trends in the recession highlighted a number of complex and shifting patterns of inequality amongst young people of different genders and from differing class backgrounds.

No description available.