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The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of Human Resources Management Practices on the re-organisation and performance of the civil service in Nepal. The entire study is focused on analysing the motivational tools needed to improve performance among civil servants in Nepal. It is a well-known fact that employees working in an organisation are considered as their most valuable resource and their lack of motivation can automatically lead to a decline in the performance of the business. Therefore, motivation as a tool has been adopted by every organisation so that management can effectively achieve organisational objectives. In a country like Nepal, employees working for government organisations have a low level of motivation and due to this basic reason, they are ineffective in rendering service for service users. The main purpose was to understand the reason why Nepalese civil service is failing and how effectively different motivation techniques and modern HRM can help to reorganise civil service on a results-oriented basis. The study starts from the premise that there was a need to re-organise the structure and performance of the civil service in Nepal especially after the country had achieved the status of a Republic in 2008. Nepal had been ruled by Monarchs until the Monarchs of King Gyanendra was abolished in April 2006. Nepal in history had suffered from political instability and the country's civil service also suffered from poor organisation and inflexible working practices. After the duration of the Monarchy, the immediate priorities of the new government included addressing human resource management and the development of the civil service. The rationale behind doing this research is to try and understand how HRM practices can improve the performance of the Civil Service in Nepal. At the same time, it was important to discover how Civil Service reform and its re-organisation might bring about improved performance. The Researcher collected data from both primary and secondary sources. Survey Questionnaires were used to collect primary data. Secondary data and document analysis included reviewing literature such as policy documents and other semigovernment organisations. The questionnaire method enabled the researcher to review responses directly. The researcher concluded that several factors contributed towards civil service reform and its re-organisation in Nepal. These included monetary incentives as well as non-financial factors such as employee involvement in the decision-making process. In this thesis, the researcher had adopted a positivism research philosophy. Initially, Based on a review of the literature on the impact of employee motivation, reorganisation and the performance of civil service in Nepal. Interviewees and group discussions were conducted to get in-depth knowledge about the topic. After that questionnaire was prepared and distributed to 50 civil servants who had been working for civil service for a minimum of 2 years. Out of 50 respondents, 17 respondents were female, and 33 respondents were male. Analysis of the primary and secondary data demonstrated that the new government is seeing the importance of civil service and the importance of employee motivation to reorganise civil service on a resultoriented basis but it's in the early stage and there are still gaps. Therefore, this study is designed to explore and critically analyse the main HRM practices that can bring about efficiency and improved performance of the Nepalese civil service. The researcher examined some motivational theories such as the incentive theory of motivation, to discover how the theory might contribute towards improved morale and performance of the Nepalese civil service. Some of the main research questions that this thesis had answered are: ways in which civil services in Nepal are structured, does Nepal civil services use modern HRM practices, practices adopted to motivate civil servants, influential factors that impact the performance of the Civil Service in Nepal, contributory HRM practices that support in the re-organisation of the Civil Service in Nepal, challenges in the Civil Service administration in Nepal, and pre-conditions for the success of the Civil Service in Nepal. The analysis of data and responses demonstrated that civil services can only be improved by planning appropriate civil service practices, which can be done by implementing an effective plan. It was further identified that it is extremely important to adopt appropriate employee motivation techniques to effectively reorganising civil services The result indicates that employee motivation plays a significant role in the development of any organisation. On this basis, it is recommended that in the context of Nepal civil service the implication of modern HRM practices, employee motivation and performance management could potentially be the key to success to reorganise of Nepalese civil service on a results-oriented basis.

Since 2012, restructuring of the securities market has been the primary strategic project in Vietnam - the top-performing Asian economy in recent years, and several regulatory changes have been made to enhance the market stability and efficiency as well as facilitate its sustainable development. This study strives for investigating the Vietnamese stock market efficiency and evaluating the impacts of market behaviours on listed companies due to recent regulatory changes in the stock market. The mixture of quantitative, qualitative, and documentary data is utilised to meet the research requirements. The quantitative analysis in this study show that HOSE is firmly efficient while HNX is inefficient. On this subject, the managers and experts in the stock market consistently support that HOSE has better market efficiency than HNX. In the key factors of the Vietnamese stock market efficiency, the access to the information and the market valuation are the two most crucial ones from the viewpoint of the managers of the listed companies, the officer of HOSE, and the experts in this field. In comparison with the existing studies on this stock market efficiency, there is an improvement of the Vietnamese stock market efficiency in general and the market efficiency of HOSE in specific. The informational efficiency of this stock exchange market is enhanced from the inefficiency to the weak form efficiency. The findings in this research consistently show that recent regulatory changes designed to improve the operations and the efficiency of the Vietnamese market have been effective. Listing, trading, and conforming to the current regulations in the stock market create tremendous opportunities and beneficial impacts on the performance of listed companies regarding business management and development, enhancement of funds as well as value and brand growth. Furthermore, the current regulations in the market and especially on HOSE greatly encourage and support the listed companies, but few limitations exist from the perspectives of the managers of listed companies on HNX and the experts in the stock market. The original contribution of this study is providing a theoretical framework to examine the responses of the stock market efficiency to crucial regulatory changes in the emerging stock exchange markets as well as evaluate its impacts and implications on the business performance. This research methodological design allows the researcher to investigate at the market level and the market participants' levels by using the mixture of quantitative and qualitative approaches to provide a thorough understanding of the linkages between stock market efficiency and business performance in emerging markets. This study also analyses different sizes of the listed companies in various sectors in addition to the market indices to ensure the reliability and the validity of testing the Vietnamese stock market efficiency. The findings and contributions of this thesis identify major implications for financial policies and management practice to further improve the stock market efficiency and enhance the benefits of the listed companies.

Canine Scent Detection training has taken the form of a master/apprentice approach for many years, whereby the training principles have been based upon the transference of knowledge by word of mouth, from senior to junior. This training is by no means homogenous, as many different trainers use only their preferred techniques which they pass on to others, leading to a restriction of methods and the possible formation of entrenched communities. This thesis aims to deploy and develop a canine training establishment that will better enable the inclusion of humanistic learning theories, encourage the exercise of reflective practice, and permit the use of an educational exchange model that will assist in the transference of tacit knowledge.

Customer complaints are a valuable source of information for service providers to identify problems and improve their products or services. Evidence has shown that more than two-thirds of dissatisfied customers do not necessarily express dissatisfaction with the service providers through complaints. Some dissatisfied customers would rather spread negative word-of-mouth or switch to other service providers, which adversely affects the reputation and revenue of the service provider. Customer complaining behaviour has been extensively researched, however, very few researchers have explored the customer non-complaining behaviour (CNCB). The concept of CNCB and why some dissatisfied customers do not complain after service failure are relatively unclear. Therefore, this study aims to explore the non-complaining behaviour of dissatisfied customers by determining and explaining the factors that influence non-complaining intention and behaviour through an extended model of the reasoned action approach. Using the Reasoned Action Approach (RAA) model as a starting point but extended it by adding more relevant factors (situational factors and, service provider and marketplace-related factors), two-stage data collection fieldworks were conducted to gain a comprehensive understanding of non-complaining behaviour. In the first stage, 555 questionnaires were collected from non-complainers and analysed to identify factors that influence non-complaining intention and behaviour. In the second stage, 20 semi-structured interviews were conducted with survey respondents to gain a deeper understanding of the factors that affected their non-complaining intention and behaviour. The findings show that the extended RAA model is a valid model to explain dissatisfied customers' non-complaining intention and behaviour. Inclusion of additional factors was supported in the RAA as they can help better explain the non-complaining behaviour. Attitude against complaining, social group pressure, perceived control of complaining circumstances have a positive influence on intention not to complain. Although dissatisfied customers are inclined not to complain, their non-complaining behaviour is predominantly determined by their actual control of complaining circumstances (e.g., the inability to communicate with the service provider), situational factors (e.g., time and energy required, perceived low benefits from complaining, etc) and, service provider and marketplace-related factors (e.g., perceived management ineffectiveness in collecting feedback and service recovery, etc). RAA proved to be a sufficient model to explain why people complain, but it is insufficient to explain why people do not complain. This study contributes by providing an extended RAA model of CNCB, with the inclusion of situational factors and, service provider and marketplace-related factors to explain non-complaining intention and behaviour. The model can serve as a theoretical foundation for future CNCB research. Managerially, the findings in this study reinforce the importance of manager and staff proactiveness to solicit feedback and establish long-term service improvement efforts and a customer engagement system.

My aim in this thesis is to investigate the nature of the relationship between Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and heterodox economics in general and then to explore the potential for MMT to contribute to an alternative heterodox paradigm. First, I examine the key principles and antecedents of MMT and compare its explanatory power with that of mainstream macroeconomic theory under different exchange rate systems. Second, I consider the most influential literature in relation to the methodology of economics and analyse the methodology employed by mainstream economists and their attitude towards academic freedom in order to establish the reasons why mainstream economics was apparently able to retain its hegemonic status in the aftermath of the global financial crisis (GFC). This is despite its inability to predict its occurrence or provide an adequate explanation for it. Such an analysis is a critical pre-cursor to the specification of an alternative paradigm. Third, I assess the applicability of critical realism both to the study of economics and to the behaviour of the economics profession itself. Following on from this, I utilise a qualitative primary research programme, explicitly based upon critical realism, to examine the possibility of constructing a methodologically-based heterodox paradigm. The nature of such a paradigm and the potential role for Modern Monetary Theory as a key contributor are then evaluated. Finally, I consider whether such a structure might be considered as a feasible alternative to the mainstream or, alternatively, should the advocates of MMT operate primarily as stand-alone school.

The purpose of this thesis to investigate the potential mediating influence of strategic planning practices and moderating impact of organisational culture dimensions on the leadership-performance relationship within SMEs operating in Egypt. To achieve the research aim, and answer the research questions, five empirical models were developed based on a review of the existing literature in order to test the research hypotheses. This research adopted a quantitative, positivist, deductive approach using self- administered questionnaires to elicit data from SME managers operating within an Egyptian context. Convenience sampling was employed to collect data from target respondents followed by a snowballing technique. In total one thousand questionnaires were sent out to a range of SME management levels operating in Egypt using a postal survey method. 309 questionnaires were returned representing a response rate of 30.9%. Of these 283 questionnaires were complete and were subjected to analysis using multiple linear regression to interrogate the research questions. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis were conducted (CFA) to ensure the proposed measurements scales used in the questionnaire are appropriate for the study. Overall findings revealed that leadership styles namely: transformational and transactional have a positive significant impact on SME performance while passive- avoidant do not. Secondly, results demonstrate that the transactional leadership style has the most impact on strategic planning, followed by the transformational style. In addition, the results indicate that the passive avoidant style has a negative impact on the practice of strategic planning within SMEs. Findings show that internal orientation and strategic techniques are positively correlated to SME performance, whereas, external focus and involvement of key personal have an insignificant impact on performance. Mediation analysis shows that impact of leadership styles on performance is mediated by strategic planning practices. Finally, the moderation regression result indicates that the hierarchy culture dimension moderates the impact leadership styles on performance. This research contributes to the literature regarding the mediation influence of strategic planning on leadership-SMEs financial performance relationship, as it is the first study to test mediation and moderation of strategic planning and organisational performance on leadership-SMEs financial performance. Also, the current study enhances the existing body of knowledge of strategic planning and resource-based view (RBV) by being the first study to report the practice of strategic planning in SMEs operating within a developing economy. Moreover, this study provides a novel contribution to the growing literature on leadership, strategic planning, organisational culture and SME performance, particularly for developing countries, the Middle East and North African countries (MENA) such as Egypt. The study presents a new, valid and comprehensive model that provides practical implications for SME managers on the important role of the mediating influence of strategic planning and the moderating effect of organisational culture. The Leadership-SME performance model could be used as a guide for implementing organisational change including cultural or managerial styles to improve SME performance. Where, the proposed model serves as a blue print for managers to improve efficiency of operation within SMEs, as well as enhancing market competitiveness within the industry they serve. In conclusion, this study provides empirical evidence on the connection among leadership styles, strategic planning practices, organisational culture dimensions, and SME performance in Egypt. Thereby stimulating the need for further research that incorporates a cultural context in leadership and organisational performance studies for large organisations. Furthermore, it provides practical implications for managers/leaders by identifying the leadership behaviours and organisational mechanisms required to enhance strategic planning practices and overall performance.

Chinese firms are experiencing a rapid increase in technological diversification, which is referred to as maintaining their capabilities in multiple technologies. However, the research on the relationship between technological diversification and firm performance is inconclusive. This PhD thesis tries to re-investigate the technological diversification-firm performance relationship from three different perspectives using data on Chinese listed firms from 2003 to 2014. First, the thesis tries to overcome the shortcomings of previous technological diversification research by unpacking technological diversification into explorative and exploitative technological dimensions from the mechanical view and studying their roles in firm performance. The findings suggest that technological diversification that combines explorative and exploitative dimensions is positively related to firm performance. This relationship is conditional on intangible complementary assets and firm type (high or low-tech firms). Second, this thesis tries to investigate the technological diversification-firm performance relationship through an institutional view that has hardly been mentioned in the previous literature. Here it is argued that firms try to use technological diversification as a way to gain legitimacy. In order to do so, firms' technological diversification need to be similar to the industrial norms. The results reveal a positive relationship between firms' conformity in technological diversification and their performance. The results further delineate the boundary conditions that influence this relationship. While environmental dynamism strengthens the conformity-performance relationship, environmental munificence reduces it. Finally, this thesis tries to integrate both a mechanical view and an institutional view of technological diversification and find evidence to support the optimal distinctiveness view that firms should reach a balance between these views. The results reveal a curvilinear (inverted U-shaped) relationship between firms' conformity in technological diversification and their performance. I also test the boundary conditions of this relationship. While firm age strengthens the conformity-performance relationship, state ownership weakens it.

Since the booming of the internet and the “.com” (e-commerce) in the 1990’s, everything has changed. This improvement created different areas for researchers to investigate and examine, especially in the fields of human computer interaction and social media. This technological revolution has dramatically changed the way we interact with computers, buy, communicate and share information. This thesis investigates multimodal presentations of social media review and rating messages within an e-commerce interface. Multimodality refers to the communication pattern that goes beyond text to include images, audio and media. Multimodality provides a new way of communication, as images, for example, can deliver an additional information which might be difficult or impossible to communicate using text only. Social media can be defined as a two-way interaction using the internet as the communication medium. The overall hypothesis is that the use of multimodal metaphors (sound and avatars) to present social media product r views will improve the usability of the ecommerce interface and increase the user understanding, reduce the time needed to make a decision when compared to non-multimodal presentations. E-commerce usability refers to the presentation, accessibility and clarity of information. An experimental e-commerce platform was developed to investigate the particular interactive circumstances that multimodal metaphors may benefit the social media communication of reviews of products to users. The first experiment using three conditions (text with emoji’s, earcons and facially expressive avatars) measured the user comprehension, understanding information, user satisfaction with the way in which information was communicated and social media preference in e-commerce. The second experiment investigated the time taken by users to understand information, understanding information correctly, user satisfaction and user enjoyment using three conditions (emoji’s, facially expressive avatar and animation clips) in ecommerce platform. The results of the first set experiments of the showed that the text with emoji’s and the use of facially expressive avatar conditions had improved the users’ performance through understanding information effectively and making decisions quicker compared to the earcons condition. In the second experiment, the results showed that the users performed better (understanding information, understating information faster) using the emoji’s and the facially expressive avatar presentations compared to the use of the animation clip condition. A set of empirically derived guidelines to implement these metaphors to communicate social media product reviews in e-commerce interface have been presented.

Manufacturing firms have vigorously pursued opportunities for profitability and growth through service-led growth strategies. A major part of the existing literature has focused on such strategies and has shown that this phenomenon is prevalent and growing in most developed economies. However, very little systematic evidence regarding the extent or consequences of servitization, based on comprehensive survey research, yet exists. Furthermore, the current body of research presents contradictory findings regarding the impact of servitization on firm performance. Drawing on the theoretical framework of the resource-based view, this research seeks to shed some light on this question by exploring the effect of servitization on firm performance. Through a survey of 185 U.S. and European manufacturing firms, along with the use of secondary financial data, this thesis provides empirical evidence that servitization has a direct, positive effect on firm performance. The study also finds that for the vast majority of manufacturers, the development of learning capabilities has served as a significant driver of servitization. Furthermore, the relationship between servitization and firm performance is moderated by industry dynamism. The original contribution of this research to the field of knowledge is twofold, including a theoretical contribution through the validation of the theoretical model and its implications for the literature, and a pragmatic contribution through the managerial implications of the findings. The findings have significant managerial implications because achieving superior bottom-line results is contingent upon the integration of those learning-and service-specific capabilities that transform the nature of an offering. Such integration enables the manufacturing firm and its customers to achieve radically improved operation within their ecosystems.

It's a complex time to be in business - the world is volatile and uncertain, and the global business landscape is changing fast. Organisational change is at a crossroads as a result of the creative destruction caused by digital technology, which is radically developing the possibilities of the Internet. This creative surge is demanding new business models that can respond more effectively to expanded time dimensions, unprecedented ubiquity of information, new market behaviours, unparalleled access to global masses, more demanding consumers and the redesign of humans in organisations. Change management is trying to address this challenge with thousands of books, and the mountains of research articles published on the topic of change. However, we also know that over 70% of organisational transformations fail (Beer and Nohria, 2000), and that failure rate may even be increasing. It seems that, despite prolific output, the field of change management hasn't led to more successful change programmes. Most change programmes die a slow, lingering death, often destroying leaders' careers and hard-earned reputations in the process. This is because traditional business models and systems are no longer yielding the same result, existing change models are not dynamic enough to cope, and many leaders, in failing the change test, perish. Change however, is easier said than done. To many, change is experienced and viewed as an abnormal process that demands a response. This is leading to individuals and organisations seeking out new ways to normalise the change process itself. The purpose of this research is to provide a greater understanding of both the content and process of organisational change, and to represent that greater understanding in a new and more dynamic framework. Many theories and analyses of organisational change seek to explain why organisations change, as well as the consequences of that change. On reviewing the empirical research on both questions, the results were found to be at best fragmentary, and often contradictory. As an output of this process, many models and frameworks of change were examined within this research. Further the metaphors, characteristics that underpinned these models were examined to establish the critical dimension of organisational change and to establish a blueprint for a new model. This model was built to capture both the process and content of organisational change in a more dynamic way, which will ultimately lead to a more digital way.

The Knowledge-Based View (KBV) is a well-regarded theory that places knowledge as the most strategically significant resource of the firm. Grant's (1996) paper: Towards a Knowledge-Based Theory of the Firm triggered a wave of research and was one of the most cited papers in subsequent years. Yet, just over 20 years after the appearance of the KBV, there are still academic disputes on what the KBV has contributed to the competitive strategic management literature. The reason for prolonged debate stems from the nature of the theory itself. In short, that which is held to make the approach effective renders it as unclear to researchers seeking to explain it as it is to competitors seeking to replicate it. Researchers have tried to overcome the problem of causal ambiguity by isolating individual themes which consequently, makes them only partially useful in explaining both the overall strategy formulation of the firm and its subsequent effects. This thesis makes its contribution by deliberately seeking a context where KBV would be most evident. The goal is to analyse how different KBV-themes are interlinked with each other and hence, this study will enable insight into holistic KBV strategy formulation. Special focus will be given to the role of knowledge among firms that engage in knowledge production and knowledge coordination. The chosen context to unveil the KBV as an act of strategy is knowledge transfer partnerships (KTP) since the main purpose of a KTP is to fill a strategically important knowledge-gap to achieve competitive advantage by using knowledge production and integration mechanisms. The overall goal is to unveil, ex-post and through a newly constructed knowledge-based value chain, how the different KBV-themes, as a holistic view, explain the achievement of competitive advantage and how such advantage could be sustained. The individual, project-based nature of KTPs require a qualitative, case-based research method which is applied to four KTP projects. This study has the following theoretical, methodological and practical knowledge contributions: First - By extrapolating a specific KBV value chain which comprehensively links the primary knowledge processes of knowledge production, coordination and decision making with identified KBV knowledge elements. This allowed for a unique holistic view of the KBV of strategy which no other model in the identified literature provided. Second - By creating a distinctive KBV value chain construct, this thesis enables a reflective case study analysis in the understanding of complementary use of knowledge elements and knowledge processes more linked to SCA. Third - Identifying and defending the use of KTP as a strategic-fit case study environment for the KBV value chain construct. In doing so, this thesis is the first study to have successfully demonstrated how and why the KBV can be used for strategy formulation, while understanding latent dynamics of a holistic KBV of strategy to explain the success and failures within KTP projects. Fourth - The contribution to practice is through the creation, understanding and implementation of a complexity of knowledge model in developing strategy formulation for managers requiring to implement a knowledge-based view of strategy within knowledge production, coordination and decision making.

This thesis provides an analysis and evaluation of the development of effective interventions for alleviating the psychological impact experienced by redundancy envoys. Redundancy envoys for this purpose included management, employee collective representatives and HR professionals with roles specific to the implementation of the redundancy process. The aim of this study is to investigate the key stressors for redundancy envoys, identify the idiosyncrasy of redundancy envoys, explore the best coping methodologies deployed by redundancy envoys and finally to identify the best strategies to alleviate the negative psychological impact for redundancy envoys. The data for this thesis was collected through action research where four iterations of restructures took place within a specific organisation. Through the process of action research, I designed and tested various redundancy models to drive continuous improvement. The main source of data collection was through semi-structured interviews with a total of 36 interview respondents from various industries and organisations. Additional sources of primary data collected included; ethnography through observation and diary keeping, 'lessons learned' sessions, employee committee consultative meetings, restructure and change management workshops, workshop feedback questionnaires, management strategy workshops and director application interviews. Analysis of data led to the design of three bespoke restructure stakeholder models to address key stressors and challenges for redundancy envoys. This model was piloted within the second and third iteration with the final amendments taking place in the fourth iteration. The implementation of the model resulted in an increase in engagement during a challenging time of change. Evidence indicates that the business has improved its financial position by 21.7 % over a 4 year period, from loss to profit making whilst undergoing four redundancy programmes. The data highlighted that this research project is one of the rare examples where a company can reap economic success through the implementation of redundancies, which is the exception to the rule in accordance with Gandolfi's findings (2008) that most firms adopting downsizing strategies do not reap economic and organisational benefits. Knowledge is contributed in several areas with the key focus on the implementation of the restructure stakeholder model which addresses emerging themes which demonstrated that the mitigation of guilt during the implementation of redundancy programmes is one of the most powerful methods to reduce the psychological impact on redundancy envoys. Contribution to knowledge also indicate, contrary to existing knowledge that physical distancing was not favoured (Claire and Dufresne; 2004) and that the use of empathy reduced the negative impact on redundancy envoys.

This research explores the link between human resource development (HRD) interventions and leadership competencies in retail supermarkets in Nigeria and the UK, in order to understand better how Nigerian supermarkets can improve their leadership competencies by adopting the appropriate HRD interventions learnt from their UK counterparts. The retail supermarket literature in Africa recognises the inability of indigenous retail supermarkets in the continent to outcompete some foreign entrants in their own local market. The thesis, therefore, starts by reviewing the challenges facing these indigenous retail supermarkets in Nigeria, including the specific competencies they may be lacking in comparison with their foreign rivals. With this established in chapter one, the literature review chapters then explore issues of competency creation, including the theories of learning and HRD, since competency is learnt, and the HRD construct is in the forefront of learning in the organisation. The methodology adopted was a constructivist ontological stance coupled with an interpretivist epistemology. 40 qualitative interviews were conducted and the data analysis method adopted was a thematic analysis, particularly the deductive-inductive strategy, while the method of data reduction was via categorisation, unitisation, and detecting a relationship between the empirical and secondary data collected. A set of core competencies were identified, and of these the key difference in the responses (gathered from the two countries) was ‘reflective action taking’, and which was a major competence identified in the responses from the UK supermarkets, especially, Tesco. The thesis, therefore, matched the Tesco options programme (which is a leadership development programme in Tesco) with David Kolb’s experiential learning theory (ELT), and, both correspond neatly well. The thesis, thus, recommends that the ELT should form a fundamental part of our curriculum design, pedagogy and delivery of HRD related modules in schools, but also should be adopted in leadership development programmes, especially, in developing countries. However, by building on the current debate on the link between HRD, leadership competencies and organisational transformation, this study helps to address the lack of empirical data on HRD in retail supermarkets in developing countries, and suggests ways of improving the competencies of retail supermarket leaders in Nigerian.

This thesis aims to provide a subjectivist account of women and people of colour's leadership experiences within a specific social context, in order to offer a contribution to the largely acontextual leadership literature. A multi-level, intersectional analytical framework was used to explore the experiences of people who are marginalised in their attempt to access and practice leadership. The study used the South African private sector as a social context with unique and interesting gender and race dynamics to conduct this case study. The experiences of significantly underrepresented groups in organisational leadership were explored by means of 60 in-depth, face-to-face interviews with women and people of colour in strategic leadership positions, aspiring leaders in leadership development programmes and key informants, all from the South African private sector. Interviewees were grouped according to their intersectional identities and responses were analysed considering individual-level challenges and enablers, organisational-level challenges and enablers and also by considering responses within the socio-historic and socio-legal context. Key findings include evidence of the problematic nature of theorising leadership as an element of the leader; support for theoretical frameworks of occupational segregation and embodied social identities; evidence of the internalisation and rationalisation of institutionalised discrimination; evidence of social identities being mutually constituting, reinforcing and naturalising; evidence of the conflation of gender, race and merit in the equality debate; as well as a strong aversion among research participants towards positive discrimnination initiatives. The findings also suggest several areas of possible further research. This study addressed the limitations of leadership research, which is characterised by leader-centricism, romanticism, objectivism, gendered and racialised norms and additive theorising. Findings make theoretical and policy contributions by problematising merit, exposing leadership in the South African private sector organisations as a site of intersectional identity salience, disrupting key assumptions underpinning leader-follower relations, highlighting the potential for leveraging adversity and also by demonstrating the importance of leadership language in either disrupting or reinforcing inequality.

This thesis investigates the profitability of the Momentum and Contrarian strategies in international equity markets. In particular, I introduce for the first time the use of countries' indices performance to momentum and contrarian portfolio selection. I show that investors can switch back and forth from one country to the other in designing worldwide strategies. The global momentum strategy is consistently profitable between 1969 and 2014. The most successful momentum strategy selects stocks based on their previous performances over 9 months and then holds the portfolio for the next 3 months. This strategy yields 3% per month (42.57% per year). Interestingly, countries' indices' portfolios formed based on prior 48 months; prior losers outperform prior winners by 0.83% per month (10.40% per year) during the subsequent 60 months. The reversal effect is substantially stronger for emerging countries where it yields 1.37% per month (17.70% per year). It remains profitable in the period post-globalization. In addition, I examine for the first time the role of world risks factors in explaining the global momentum and contrarian profits and find that the global momentum strategies obtain significant abnormal returns after adjusting consecutively for world Fama and French risks (0.9% per month or 11.35% per year), and world market states risks (1.31% per month or 16.76% year). Of particular interest, I find a strong relation between world macroeconomic risks factors, notably world industrial production and the momentum return. Second, I find no substantial relation between world risks factors and the contrarian profit. These results suggest that excess return can be earned in the long run by using global investment strategies based on historical prices, challenging the weak form of the Efficient Market Hypothesis. In Chapter 1, I explain the momentum and the contrarian strategies, motivate the importance of what I propose as global momentum and contrarian strategies, and present the results obtained. In chapter 2, I review the Efficient Market Hypothesis' literatures in conformity with the Standard Finance theory. Additionally, I review the Behavioural Finance literatures with a focus on the psychology of investor decision, and the stock market under-reaction and overreaction approach of explaining the momentum and contrarian profitability. In chapter 3, I explain in details the main methodologies used to examine the global momentum and contrarian strategies profitability, and motivate the dataset used. In Chapter 4, I examine the new global momentum strategy profitability internationally. In Chapter 5, I examine the new contrarian strategy profitability internationally. In Chapter 6 I examine the role of global risks factors in explaining the momentum and contrarian profits. Finally, in Chapter 7 I conclude and highlights the limitations of the thesis.

Technological upgrading, as the key engine of Chinese economic development, does not take place in isolation, but is largely dependent on access to external knowledge sources. FDI has long been regarded as an external knowledge source because of its intra- and intercity technological spillovers. Meanwhile, both foreign expansion time-based characteristics and industrial structures could affect technological upgrading, but there is a heated debate about whether they enhance FDI spillovers in host cities. In this PhD thesis, I integrate these two streams of literature into a theoretical framework, and hope to investigate how foreign expansion time-based characteristics and industrial structures moderate both intra- and intercity relationships between inward FDI and technological upgrading in Chinese cities. Moreover, I link cluster theory to FDI spillovers, and establish a theoretical model in which government and market orientations can affect knowledge transfers and disseminations between domestic and foreign firms. Overall, this research aims to extend the existing literature by bridging literature of FDI spillovers, foreign expansion process, and industrial structures from a contingency perspective. It deepens our understandings about both intra- and intercity dimensions of FDI technological spillovers in explaining host city technological upgrading. Based on specific panel datasets from the Chinese Urban Statistical Yearbooks and the Annual Industrial Survey Database, I adopt Pooled OLS and Spatial Durbin Model to explore intra- and intercity externalities of foreign expansion process and industrial structures in FDI spillovers. My results indicate that FDI spillovers contribute to both intra- and inter-city technological upgrading in China. Irregular foreign expansion process diminishes FDI spillovers within a given city, but facilitates intercity knowledge dissemination. Cities with a high degree of related variety can reap benefits from FDI technological spillovers. However, such empirical results may change between different urban groups, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and Shanghai-Yangtze River Delta respectively. Therefore, the findings of this PhD thesis not only provide convincing evidence for the debate regarding the relationship between FDI and host city technological upgrading, but also highlight government and market orientations to assist with policy making in the future.

In this thesis I show how various theories and methodologies borrowed from complexity science, organisation science, and network science can be suitably integrated to provide a comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach to the study of innovation processes. I study the network foundations of success in innovation ecosystems and I conduct several empirical investigations to identify those network characteristics that are expected to correlate with positive outcomes and success. I assess the extent to which the diversity and the strength in the networks of relationships boost the performance and success of scientists and early-stage firms. To this end I analyse two large-scale data sets about scientific publishing and start-up firms by making use of already existing topological network measures and by proposing novel measures to characterise the degree of interdisciplinarity and access to diverse pools of knowledge in scientific collaborations. Results provide empirical support to the idea that collaboration sustains innovation and performance by facilitating knowledge diffusion, acquisition and creation. First, results indicate that the networks of interaction between start-ups have a strong impact on the firms' longterm success. Second I find that, while abandoning specialisation in favour of moderate degrees of interdisciplinarity deteriorates scientific performance, very interdisciplinary scientists tend to outperform specialised ones. Additionally, I address the computational challenges related to the size of the data sets used and their time-varying nature. In particular I focus on the scalability challenges of incremental graph algorithms. The thesis contributes in this direction by proposing new efficient algorithms and data structures to handle and to analyse large graphs whose nodes and edges change rapidly over time. These efforts have been collected and made available to the public in the form of a web platform (http://lab.startup-network.org/) and an open-source python package, NetworkL (https://networkl.github.io/).

This integrative doctoral report describes how my own experiential learning as a former practicing police investigator, artist and my current academic position in professional work-based education have been utilised to enable me to make a contribution to workbased education. To capitalise on my experience and on-going development as a critically reflexive researcher, I explored my own transformative learning through the storied accounts of key experiences, events and transitions in my professional work-based learning journey to develop a storied pedagogic approach to facilitate critical self-reflection and reflexivity in the transformative learning of professional work-based students. Using an action research approach with autoethnography as the method of inquiry, the report tells a story of my learning journey through the research process. The combination of action research and the inherently experimental spirit of autoethnography proved complimentary and the research developed from an initial individual approach to a more co-operative and collaborative endeavour between teacher and student, enhancing the critical self-reflection, reflexivity and transformative learning of both, evidenced in collective voices of teacher, participant and researcher. My contribution of knowledge to the theory and work-based practice of transformative learning has been made through the development of a conceptual model of 'Transformative Reflection', which extends Kolb's experiential learning cycle. My contribution to practice has been through a facilitated workshop in which the transformative reflection model is used to foster critical self-reflection and reflexivity through the autoethnographic use of alternative narrative perspectives and the creation of artefacts in a liminal learning space, thereby fostering transformative learning for the work-based learner.

Payment by Results (PbR) is increasingly popular. £15B-worth of schemes in the UK public sector had a PbR element (National Audit Office 2015) and Payment by Results is widely used in the United States and Australia (Webster 2015). Despite this, there is no framework for target achievement in PbR to guide principals, agents and other stakeholders. In my experience at a local level, this omission means that Payment by Results does not automatically lead to success. The research project explored how to develop a practical framework, rooted in business and management literature, for the effective implementation of PbR programmes in the public sector. The three research objectives of a better understanding of the National Troubled Families Initiative’s geographic and socioeconomic context and target cohort and how success can be achieved both in the programme and in Payment by Results provision contributed to this. The key Payment by Results literature was reviewed with the theoretical framework of Stakeholder Theory and Agency Theory. The case study methodology then reviewed the National Troubled Families Initiative – an eight-year Payment by Results programme launched in England as a response to the 2011 English disturbances - to identify the gaps in the PbR literature and successful provision from the UK and US was then presented as a benchmark of good practice. In order to provide empirical content and support to the framework, I used a pragmatic research philosophy, which was further along the continuum of interpretivism than positivism. Mixed methods mainly influenced by qualitative data analysis led to the ethical qualitative analysis of Phase One secondary quantitative data from the Department of Communities and Local Government – the ‘Troubled Families’ principal – and one agent from the North-East of England to identify key themes and relationships. These were then explored further by ethically gathering primary qualitative data from key stakeholders from another Northeast city, a Southeast county and a Northwest consortium of authorities. This data was then analysed using thematic narrative analysis and thematic analysis. 8 The research findings expanded upon the guidelines for principals considering commissioning Payment by Results provision (National Audit Office 2015) and the six elements of an effective outcome (Webster 2016). They provided a new, sevenstage practical framework for achieving targets in Payment by Results provision. This incorporated best practice guidelines for stakeholder analysis, principal identification, agent identification and the establishment of an Expert Body and incorporated a practical process for successful strategy and operations implementation, delivery, data collection and analysis, and findings and action. The framework can be applied to all types of PbR provision across the public sector. This is something, which renders the research project extremely commercially attractive. The PbR framework will better use scant resources, reduce wastage, generate efficiencies, create additional jobs, return work from the private to the public sector and provide the public sector with a model, which they can market and sell to other providers. It therefore creates a win-win situation for key stakeholders including the principal, the agent, the service users and the taxpayer. Recommendations were also provided to achieve the requisite performance in Phase Two of the National Troubled Families Initiative in Local Authority One and across England.

The Nigerian banking industry plays a critical role in its economy because of a number of jobs generated, contributing to financial stability due to the financial services provided by the banks. As Nigeria becomes tirelessly active in its pursuit of global economic integration and recognition, the entry of international banks in the Nigerian banking industry will increase, therefore, competition will, too. As a result, recognising the importance of competencies and competency frameworks to the bank's performance becomes important in improving the bank’s core competencies and competitiveness. A critical review of the literature reveals that many researchers lay emphasis on the importance of competencies on performance. However, there is a lack of empirical study on competence in Nigerian banks. Therefore, this study investigates the influence of competencies on the performance of Nigerian banks. In order to achieve this aim, the researcher conducted a field survey of ten Nigerian banks and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) with the use of qualitative semi-structured interviews. The researcher conducted thirty-one interviews with the staff of the ten selected banks and the CBN. Consequently, the interview data collected was analysed using Nvivo in order to achieve the aim of the research. The findings revealed that Nigerian banks do use competencies which are influencing the performance of the banks. Findings from this research support the findings of other international research on competencies; therefore, suggesting the theory of competency and performance applies to Nigerian banks. This research contributes to existing literature, which highlights the strategic and operational importance of competencies on performance by focusing on Nigerian banks. In conclusion, this research proposes a wider sample size covering all the banks in Nigeria and using both qualitative and quantitative research methods to provide a more accurate finding on the influence of competency in Nigerian banks.

This thesis attempts to explain why the Pahlavi regime chose imprudent macroeconomic policies in response to the 1973 oil boom. It argues that the macroeconomic policies that were selected by this regime after 1973 were shaped by the economic policies that it had been pursuing in the 1960s. In 1963, the Pahlavi regime initiated the policy of import substitution industrialisation (ISI). The economic success of this policy in the 1960s generated spillover effects on the ideology, geopolitical standing and class coalition of the Pahlavi state. As this state moved from the first phase of ISI (1963-1967) to the second stage (1968-1972), its developmentalist ideology became stronger, its geopolitical standing in the Gulf was elevated and its economic alliance with the industrial elite grew deeper. A combination of these spillover effects generated a self-reinforcing process, whereby the political elite constantly sought to maximise oil prices in OPEC and use the resulting oil revenues domestically to push the ISI process deeper towards heavy and intermediate industries. Importantly however, this self-reinforcing process of ISI deepening set the stage for imprudent macroeconomic policymaking at the time of the 1973 oil boom. After the boom, the elite accelerated ISI to an extreme through a massive fiscal and monetary expansion and refused to reverse this policy despite its macroeconomic consequences. This indicates that it was the interaction of the 1973 oil boom with the self-reinforcing process of ISI deepening (which had been underway since 1963) that led to poor macroeconomic policymaking in the 1970s. Theoretically, this case study shows that, once chosen, an economic policy can possibly become self-reinforcing over time (by generating spillover effects) and shape future policy choices. This thesis, therefore, introduces the element of path dependency and dynamic analysis into the study of rentier states.

This doctoral research explored extracurricular university-based Business Plan Competition (BPC) participation as an entrepreneurial learning experience for the nascent entrepreneur. Entrepreneurial learning is vital to nascent entrepreneurs and their entrepreneurial process. As a mode of entrepreneurship education, the BPC has been widely proffered as a mechanism for the supply of entrepreneurial learning, primarily on account of its affordance of experience and necessary knowledge, skill and mind-set development. An enduring presence of BPCs on university campuses globally reflects such an entrepreneurial learning rhetoric. However, despite the ready espousal of the BPC as a relevant and valuable learning experience it can be observed that there is a lack of evidence to substantiate such a view, particularly from the perspective of the nascent entrepreneur participants and their experiences of participation but also in light of sustained scepticism toward the business plan within entrepreneurship contexts. Underpinned by a constructivist paradigm, the study responded to the aforementioned research problem through a Longitudinal Qualitative Research design. In-depth interviews were carried out with the same sample of nascent entrepreneur participants at the start, end and six months after their participation in a UK-based extracurricular BPC. The narratives of participation generated were thematically analysed at the end of each wave of data collection and then longitudinally at the conclusion of the nine month data collection period. This enabled the identification of ‘know-why’, ‘know-what & how’ and ‘know-who’ as conceptual themes. These themes signified change identified in the participant with regards to whether BPC participation was viewed and realised as an entrepreneurial learning experience. The research found that entrepreneurial learning featured strongly within the participant’s initial rationale for competition participation. However, there was generally limited application of the competition experience and learning afforded within continued venture implementation. This was indicative of a narrowing relevance of the BPC as an entrepreneurial learning experience, and the knowledge, skills and attitudes afforded, as the nascent entrepreneur moved from a business plan-led to effectual approach to entrepreneurial new venturing. The implication is that the espoused role, scope and usefulness of the BPC as an entrepreneurial learning experience is undermined and therefore in need of a rethink. Through presenting a new understanding of the BPC as an entrepreneurial learning experience from the perspective of the nascent entrepreneur participant, this study makes a timely and original contribution to the theory and practice of BPC provision and methods for exploration of impact.

This thesis investigates the relationship between intergovernmental structures and financial stress in local government. The research compares three European constitutional systems: England, as a centralised case; Germany, representing a federation; and the Netherlands, constituting a unitary-decentralised system. The impact of intergovernmental structures on local finances is identified by concentrating on three core institutional arrangements: intergovernmental financial regulations, grant funding systems, and local tax space. The thesis applies a mixed methodological approach. Based upon a unique panel dataset, the econometric research identifies the institutional causes of local financial stress. The statistical results are complemented by 48 elite interviews, conducted among intergovernmental stakeholders across the three systems. The thesis applies an innovative policy dynamics framework. Findings demonstrate that local financial stress should be primarily understood as a manifestation of a set of inter-related institutions. The results show that despite the constitutionally stronger position of local government in Germany, local financial error accumulation is stronger than in the English system, with the Dutch system occupying a position between the two. A more centralised structure carries a high risk of implementing intergovernmental design failures; however its fluid institutional structure generates a higher capacity to comprehensively address financial errors. More decentralised structures, in contrast, prolong institutional adjustments, resulting in intergovernmental arrangements that are stable over time but contain larger risks of local financial error accumulation. The research findings have both theoretical and practical implications. The thesis expands second-generation fiscal federalism beyond its dominant focus on the meso-level and demonstrates that a higher sensitivity to constitutional varieties improves the cross-system applicability of political economy theories. The thesis also develops an integrated policy dynamics framework that contributes to stronger theory building in public administration studies. Practically, the thesis provides relevant knowledge to policymakers on how to improve the sustainability of local government finances within different institutional contexts.

Inward foreign direct investment (FDI) is believed to be a carrier of advanced knowledge to host countries, but how regional factors might impact FDI spillover effects is still uncertain. Meanwhile, regional industrial structure, i.e. specialization and diversity, has been frequently discussed in the literature, but there is no consensus about which type of industrial structure can promote regional innovation. In this thesis, the above two streams of literature are integrated and a theoretical model is proposed in which regional FDI and industrial structure are hypothesized to have direct and interactive effects on regional innovativeness. Provincial- and firm-level panel datasets (2000-2010) were compiled for empirical analyses. The results indicate that a foreign presence is beneficial for both regional and firm innovation capability while these associations are contingent on the level of industrial structure, namely the degree of specialization and diversity. A greater level of regional specialization is less likely to facilitate regional innovators to gain positive spillovers from FDI while an increase in diversity is more likely to reinforce the positive effects of foreign presence on regional innovativeness. As China has become the biggest FDI recipient country in the world in recent years and the Chinese industrial structure has been changing rapidly during the last few decades, an empirical study in the Chinese context would be ideal to examine the debate on the roles of industrial structure and FDI in promoting regional innovativeness. Overall, this research aims to advance the understanding about the moderating role of regional industrial structure in affecting the spillover effect of FDI on regional and firm innovation. The findings not only provide empirical evidence for the specialization versus diversity debate, but also highlight the essential role of contextual factors in facilitating regional innovativeness.

Written with a contemporary European context of economic, social and reproductive crisis in mind, this thesis presents research about, from and for social movements that struggle against precarity, austerity and capitalist accumulation. Based on accounts and analyses of feminist-autonomist militant practice and networks, this research project revolves around two terms: care and creativity. It maps out a historical-genealogical shift from a paradigm of creativity (reflected in neoliberal governance as well as in social movements of the decades before and after the millenium) to one oriented around care (reflected in the neo-communitarian policy as well as practices of commoning that arise with social and economic crisis in Europe). Structured into three broad sections on work, organisation and governance, the questions at stake here revolve around the possibilities and imaginaries of politics that affirm care and creativity in relation to one another. On the level of work, this means struggles within and against precarity, reproductive and illegalized work; on the level of organisation, it means relating the figure of the network to that of the care chain and the family, confronting new transnational forms of alliance and care; and on the level of governance, it is the relation between neoliberalism and its new communitarian forms that is in question. What the collectives, campaigns and networks constituting the ‘field’ of this research have in common is that they re-think the contemporary relations between autonomy and heteronomy, the global and the situated, as well as macro- and micropolitics. Dwelling on collective experiences and knowledges, this investigation takes care to articulate the dimensions of subjectivity, relation and association with those of economy and governance. Concerned and engaged with contexts of struggle and commoning in the face of crisis politics, precarity and dispersed sociality, a methodology of militant participatory-action research serves to map out contexts of practice in Spain, the UK and Argentina as of 2010-2013.

This disssertation investigates spillover effects in the South African SA banking sector using a number of different perspectives and methods. First, I used an adapted model developed by Claessens et al., (2001) and extended by Uiboupin (2005) to identify the effect of the foreign banks’ re-entry on the domestic banks’ performance after the apartheid regime change. The results show that the foreign banks’ entry has an effect on the before-tax profit of domestic banks and increases the competition in SA banking market. Then I further the investigation from an efficiency perspective using a cost efficiency model for the same bank panel. The results show that on average foreign banks are 28% more efficient that domestic banks. But the results show that over the period 2000-10 both categories of banks increased their efficiency level by around 10% and that the origin of the banks as well as their size were the main factors responsible for the efficiency gap. Then results from the implemention of a survey I designed, using an adapted version of Kraft (2002) for the foreign banks and branches, confirm that the entry of foreign banks contributed to the modernisation of the SA banking sector and to the introduction of new products and best practices, leading to the conclusion that spillover effects were localised in the limited segment of the SA wholesale banking. I analyse the impact of recent FDIs in SA banking sector, in terms of knowledge transfer and spillovers. The results show that the acquisition of ABSA (an SA big four) by Barclays (a British bank) generated increased efficiency. That was not the case for the Standard Bank (another of the SA big four), of which a 20% share was acquired by ICBC. The results show that these recent FDIs have no significant impact on competitiors’ behaviour and strategy.

The loss of experienced employees in project organisation leads to the loss of valuable knowledge and experience gained over many years. Knowledge management (KM) has the ability to challenge this situation. This research study is focused on the field of knowledge management in Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) type contracts in Libyan oil and gas industry projects. The research study aims to put forward guidance on how KM should be implemented in practice as a convincing case for the oil and gas construction industry. Adopting a practical «in project environment» KM scheme is a means of becoming more efficient, with greater ability to continuously learn and adapt in a dynamic mode. In Libya’s oil and gas industry, and in particular, in project development, there has been very little guidance on how KM should be implemented in practice. The existing available KM mostly takes the form of tacit knowledge and almost none was identified as explicit knowledge. Emergent in nature, the research work is comprised of three phases: initial interviews, case study «A», and case study «B». Each of the phases was combined with a review of relevant literature, primary research (including interviews, questionnaires, case studies and action research) and grounded theory in analytical processes. Phase (1) - Initial interviews were conducted with project managers and senior managers from three different oil and gas companies; many gaps were identified by investigating issues related to KM. It was evident that KM within the projects organisation was kept in tacit format by individuals. Phase (2) - Case study (A): Review and analysis of a KM implementation initiative made by a Project Manager (PM) with his team between 2006-2008, was found to be not successful and non-contributory in real-world terms, but in academic terms it gives an opportunity to identify and evaluate challenges to be faced in adopting a KM model in organisations. The role of the Projects Department emerged as essential in the articulation of KM between project and organisation. Phase (3) - Case study B: The researcher was involved through a live EPC project, making observations and organising interviews when necessary and analyse the created knowledge life cycle during the project. The research gives much attention to the phenomena of knowledge development during an EPC project; the knowledge created in any of the project phases will take a different shape due to the technical development of the project work from one phase to the next; as such, if the project is not tracked during its development, it will lose its context and dramatically decrease the effectiveness of its re-usability in subsequent project phases and new projects within the organisation. The added value of this research is the development of a practical organisational model for managing effectively the knowledge created during projects execution, based on an integrated, optimised, and suitable lessons learned tracking system.

The primary elements of the travel experience are transportation and accommodation. Travellers choose between various suppliers with the final choice being determined by an evaluation of a number of criteria. In the case of hotel accommodation, the choice is based on a multi-criteria assessment of a hotel’s perceived attributes. The aim of the thesis is to determine and analyse the weighting and ranking attributed by potential customers to a number of criteria used in selecting a 5-star hotel framed in the four perspectives of the balanced scorecard and confront with those made by hotel managers. The customer decision criteria identified in this study mirror key result areas used in hospitality management performance measurement tools such as the balanced scorecard. The 5-star hotel industry in Malta has performed exceptionally well in recent years, in a dramatically changed scenario in which the source of bookings for Malta visits changed from 70% package tours in 2006 to 45% in 2014, with 55% individual bookings. This was driven by the introduction of low cost carriers. Disintermediation necessitated a customer-centric approach by hotel managers entailing their full awareness of what the customer expects from a 5-Star hotel. This research study set out to confirm or otherwise reject this hypothesis by a survey of potential 5-star hotel customers complemented by a survey targeting managers in 5-star hotels in Malta. Strong correlation between survey results is noted and both sets of findings are subjected to sensitivity analysis, and practical implications are drawn.

This work takes the model of a climate of organisational engagement provided by Kahn (1990) as the theoretical basis for renewed research within the context of UK policing. It is argued that the fiscal, structural and political environment of UK policing has changed to such an extent as to both render some aspects of classic police cultural commentary out-dated, but also create an environment in which material job resources, such as equipment and the allocation of officers, are of crucial importance to police officer psychology. It is argued that this emphasis on material job resources is a necessary development of Kahn’s (1990) original theory of the preconditions for engagement due to the context of the policing environment which exhibits instances of physical danger, distinct from Kahn’s (1990) original case setting. The application of a critical realist research paradigm to a comparative study of employee engagement in two contrasting police forces produces a model that modifies Kahn’s (1990) psychological preconditions for engagement. To create the conditions in which officers can fully engage in their roles, policing organisations must provide a benchmark level of material job resources as a precursor to furnishing an environment in which officers feel psychological safety, availability and meaningfulness. Without these benchmark material resources it is argued that officers cannot psychologically engage in their work. Collectively it is argued that both the material and psychological preconditions form the climate of engagement that predicts in role personal engagement. In pursuit of study for a professional Doctorate in Business Administration the work then reflects upon this theoretical development in context, suggesting a number of HRM interventions which may be particularly applicable to achieving improved engagement within the organisational setting.

Innovation and entrepreneurship are dynamic and holistic processes that are not restricted to the initial activity of a new undertaking. Many studies link and draw parallels between, not only corporate entrepreneurship and innovation but also innovation and the ability to enhance an organisation’s competitive positioning and to provide outstanding value to its customers. However, a lack of research has been identified regarding the synergy between innovation and entrepreneurship, noting that the synergy between the two concepts helps organisations to prosper. Likewise, continuous service innovation has been described by many authors as the most valuable means for companies to achieve long-term success and organic growth. It is also suggested that for service firms to achieve even greater success, a customer-orientation perspective should be adopted. Although many studies concerning the service sectors and in particular service innovation have been carried out, they have rarely been conducted in the context of healthcare, and in particular, that of mental healthcare. Also, few studies have focused on the interaction and involvement of patients in the development of new health services. The study contributes to the related literature by providing conceptually developed and exploratory-based research, examining the Greek mental healthcare sector. The study contributes in two significant ways: It develops (1) a useful conceptual framework, which introduces a new perspective to the literature of both innovation and entrepreneurship, and (2) the new business model, which presents the means by which patients contribute to opportunities identification, illustrating their participation in the development process. More specifically, this study investigates the influence of user involvement on new health service development and presents the means by which the outcome can enhance a hospital’s entrepreneurial activity. On one hand, this study advances previous service innovation theory by associating with the entrepreneurship theory, while on the other, extends previous knowledge regarding the benefits of customer participation in new health service development.

Social groups are a fundamental part of our lives. From early beginnings humans lived in family groups and formed 'tribes' that not only provided protection from the many dangers they faced but by combining their efforts humans learnt that a group could be more than the 'sum of its parts'. Collective action has, and still, provides the basis for much of human activity, while shared knowledge contributes equally to the advancement of humankind. Study into groups has revealed that humans instinctively know when cooperation is the best strategy and that not only is collective action often more efficient and effective than that of independent effort but that groups are good problem solving mechanisms, often making better decisions than individuals through the use of 'collective mindfulness' and a group 'trans-active’ memory. People do not just create a group memory, there is evidence they also ‘become’ the group. As social integration rises, people feel, think, and act more like group members. They automatically associate themselves with the groups that they identify with. Tajfel and Turner’s theory of Social Identity suggests that people not only join groups but take on the ‘group identity’ as their own self-image in a process of ‘depersonalization’. To achieve effective collective action requires more than just 'being' and 'feeling' part of a group. Effective cooperation requires cohesion between group members, good communication and a coherent purpose or goal. Social Identity Theory does not provide evidence of how these mechanisms work other than to identify the formation of group norms. For that we have to turn to cybernetics, the study of 'purposeful action' and Stafford Beer's Viable Systems Model in particular. The Viable Systems Model provides an epistemology for examining the viability of systems. Viability is the ability of systems to achieve cohesion and coherence through autonomy, recursivity and ultimately closure with their environment. This study brings together these two powerful theories to create a more complete picture of purposeful collective action and group membership. By building a Viable Systems Model of salient social groups the research provides a mechanism to understand how individual human social behaviours form and maintain purposeful social groups capable of self-awareness, self-maintenance and the ability to sustain their identity, autonomous from perturbations in the environment. Not every social group is able to maintain viability. Many groups form and expire as the circumstances dictate. Only a few are able to achieve organisational closure from their environment and sustain their identity, This research seeks to identify what is meant by social viability and what factors make some groups achieve it while others do not. It investigates the formation of social groups under different environmental conditions in order to 'tease-out' the invariances that contribute to viability and it tests the validity of the Viable Systems Model of Social Identity Theory developed for the study. In order to answer the research question the study had to address the difficult issue of conducting research on complex social systems and to utilises a process of deduction, induction and abductive reasoning through both analysis and synthesis to achieve its findings.

Credit Default Swaps (CDS) instruments - as an indicator of credit risk - were one of the most prominent innovations in financial engineering. Very limited literature existed on the drivers of CDS spreads before the financial crisis due to the opacity of this market and its lack of transparency. First, this thesis investigates the drivers of CDS spread in the UK banking sector, by considering the role of the housing market, over the period of 2004-2011. I find that, in the long-run, house price dynamics were the main factor contributing to wider CDS spreads. In addition, I show that a rise in stock prices lead to higher availability of capital and therefore increased bank borrowing activities, which led to lower credit risk. Furthermore, findings show that with higher aggregate bank liquidity, banks tend to grant more loans to low-income consumers, thus increasing bank credit risk. In addition, in the short-run, I employ the Structural VAR by imposing short-run restrictions to identify the five shocks arising from the CDS spread, the house price index, the yield spread, the TED spread, and the FTSE100. The SVAR findings indicate that a positive shock to house prices significantly increases the CDS spread in the medium-term, in the UK banking sector. In addition, apart from its own shock, the house price shock explains a big part of the variance (nearly 20%) in CDS spread. These results remained robust even after changing the ordering of the variables in the Structural VAR. Second, considering the bank-level factors across 30 countries and 115 banks, I find most significant bank-level drivers of the CDS spread were asset quality, liquidity and the operations income ratio. As such, banks with better asset quality, high levels of liquidity and operations income ratio were subject to lower CDS spreads and credit risk. Furthermore, larger banks were found to be more risky than smaller banks. We have conducted the U-test and our results indicate the presence of a U-shape relationship between bank size and bank CDS spread. It should be noted that in order to ensure that our results are robust, we used several estimation frameworks, including the FE, RE and alternative Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) approaches, which all prove the existence of a U-shape relationship between the CDS spread and bank size. In addition, we find a threshold level of bank size, which shows that banks growing beyond this point are subject to wider CDS spreads. Finally, I consider the difference in financial systems at country-level and regulatory structures at bank-level, in a panel setting, over the period of 2004-2011. At country-level, my findings directly link financial deepening to higher credit risk, reflecting a sign of credit bubble. Besides, at bank-level, I confirm my previous findings whereby asset quality, liquidity and operations income remain significant drivers of the CDS spread.

This study was conceptualised within the Aristotelian tradition of phronesis and dialectics (Eikeland, 2006; 2012) where the focus of the study was the identification of teacher's voice (Sutherland et al., 2010) using Songs of Praxis, an art-based reflexive account within a reflexivity paradigm of uncovering biographical perspective of identity (Alheit, 1992; 2009). This had two reflexivity contexts; within research (e.g. Rolfe, 2011a; 2011b; Rolfe, Jasper and Freshwater, 2011; Etherington, 2007; Simon, 2013; Ellis, 2004; 2007; 2011) and within critical reflective practice (e.g. Gardner, 2009; Gardner, 2014; Rolfe, Jasper and Freshwater, 2011). This reflexive process led to teacher voice development and transformation through a hybridity of creative pedagogy, teaching for creativity and creative learning (Lin, 2011; 2014; Sawyer 2004; 2011). This visualization was completed using reflexive accounts (referred to as Songs of Praxis) which created space for a reflexive relationship (Etherington, 2007; Ellis, 2004) allowing for emotional recall (understanding biographical identity) through to therapeutic inquiry by dealing with my Mask of Self-Hate (the name I use to describe my bipolarity). This facilitated my authentication and transformation as a scholar of learning and teaching. This study was conducted within an auto ethnographic action research and reflexive accounts methodology using cycles of critical reflection. The cycles of critical reflection are; teacher voice identification stage 1, the reimagination of professional voice framework leading to teacher voice identification stage 2, the multiplicity of voice prism. This led to teacher voice development stage1, the reflexive provocateur toolkit which developed into the Reflexive Classroom, teacher voice development stage 2. This led to the teacher voice transformation through the creation of reflexive spaces of creative pedagogic practices; digital reflexivity; and employability practices. This allowed for teacher voice identification, development and transformation which I illustrate within the 'portfolio' which I conceptualised around an 'Album', Songs of Praxis: Teacher Voice Identification, development and transformation'. This corroboration of the data (experience) has led to the contribution of this study to creative teaching practices, digital reflexivity and employability practices. I propose Songs of Praxis create reflexive space for the identification, development and transformation of teacher's voice.

In 2014, Ireland launched its first National Plan on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), published with the key objective of setting out a framework to foster best practice in CSR among enterprises and organisations in Ireland. In addition, the plan sought to raise the profile of CSR in Ireland. Against this backdrop, there has been an increased interest in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) among both scholars and practitioners. Much of the academic debate has focused on the role of business in society, what constitutes the social responsibilities of firms, the link between CSR and financial performance and, more recently, the link between CSR and corporate strategy. Furthermore, it is not clear how such aspects of CSR are integrated in the minds of those carrying out the work. In other words, how CSR integrates with strategy for those CSR decision makers or managers within the firm. The thesis seeks to establish the key components of CSR and their relationship to strategy in the minds of these managers, through the Whittington Generic Perspectives on Strategy Model (1993). This framework forms the basis of the cognitive mapping of thirty one managers operating in Ireland, across diverse sectors. In addition, this thesis argues for a typology or framework for four distinct theme profiles, in relation to the relative importance of CSR components in the minds of these managers. The four theme profiles are as follows: Outcomes and Stakeholders Focus, Outcomes Only Focus, Values Focus and Business Objectives Focus.

This dissertation is a collection of five essays examining different aspects of consumer and firm behavior in dynamic markets. The first essay combines clickstreams of users at a major news website with Facebook activity data, to study if social networks complement or compete for online browsing time. This is the first empirical study to show that Facebook activity increases time spent on news sites. Online news consumption is a shared experience, as the activity of social network friends strongly influences the behavior of other network members. We also find that visitors’ own browsing patterns are important predictors of online content consumption. The second essay examines consumer attitudes to risk and uncertainty vis-a-vis their purchase and search decisions for air tickets online. Using a two-stage model of purchase incidence and carrier choice, we find that browsing experience, search costs and product characteristics are important predictors of purchase incidence. Implications for website managers are also discussed. The third essay provides insights on the impact of customer heterogeneity and preference stochasticity on behavior based price discrimination. While customer heterogeneity intensifies competition, resulting in greater price discrimination, preference stochasticity reduces the incidence of price discrimination. Overall, the effect of preference stochasticity is more salient. The fourth essay presents models of strategic interaction to analyze the impact of dominance and concentration on pricing strategies. We show that lack of market dominance is a sufficient condition for discounts to existing customers. We further test our predictions via an experiment with pricing professionals. The behavior of professionals confirms that price discrimination increases with market dominance and concentration; however, lack of dominance is not a sufficient condition for loyalty discounts. We contend that increasing competition is a more effective means of improving consumer welfare compared to regulating dominant firms. The fifth essay considers the role of identity and customer type recognition in influencing pricing behavior in dynamic markets with symmetric and asymmetric players. When customer identity is detectable firms charge higher prices to repeat customers while new customers are offered lower prices. However, pricing behavior changes when information on customer type is available and this behavior varies with market structure. Age, education and experience of managers are also found to significantly influence pricing behavior.

IT projects are temporary organizations of strategic importance. Companies invest large amounts of money, time, and resources into business-embedded IT projects in order to change and gain a competitive advantage. Extreme cases of failures were previously only analyzed as case studies, e.g., Denver Airport, London Stock Exchange Taurus, London Ambulance Service. The research poses an important question: What is the risk of these outliers, that is markedly deviant observations of IT project performance? What causes outliers in IT project performance? Only very few studies problematized the frequency of outliers directly. Reported numbers range from 33% to as low as 0.2%. The variation has been explained through biases in planning processes of organizations and as artefact of data collection. An alternative explanation is that the true nature of IT projects contains more variation than commonly assumed. A rich body of organizational, project management, and IT project management literature offers antecedents of outliers. The extant literature falls broadly into three schools of thought: (1) system-centric, (2) event-centric, and (3) process-centric theories of why outliers occurred. System-centric explanations focus on the question of system design, based on theories of normal accidents and high reliability organizations. Event-centric explanations focus on how organizations respond to rare events that impact the organization, based on theories of crisis management, management of organizational turbulence, and strategic surprises. Process-centric explanations focus on the role of managing uncertainty and risk over time, based on theories of man-made disasters, escalation of commitment to a failing course of action, and the normalization of deviance. The study is based on the archival research of 4,307 IT projects from 190 organizations. The findings show that the tail of the cost, schedule, and effort performance distributions is best fitted by a power law, with overwhelming goodness of fit. Moreover, the findings show that system-centric explanations and process-centric theories offer explanations for the thickness of the tail and the odds of an outlier occurring. In particular five variables were associated with outliers: estimated cost and duration, perceived uniqueness of the project, the qualification and motivation of the project team, and the effectiveness of monitoring and controlling. The results show that outliers are not chance events; they follow patterns that are describable. The study showed how design factors, that are often conceptualized as system complexities, and execution factors, that are often conceptualized as the effectiveness of project processes, explain project outliers. Lastly, the thesis draws implications for research and practice.

This thesis considers from a theoretical and historical standpoint the different political implications of experiencing togetherness as a source of pleasure and joy. The first part critically reflects upon the discourse of “sociability” developed from early modernity to the 19th century and examines the most significant institutional formations that characterised its practice, with a particular focus on the passage from aristocratic salons to the bourgeois world of cafes. The sociability of the upper classes is then compared and contrasted with the forms of collective joy of the plebs, critically accounting for the way in which subjectivity and the body are differently implicated in the discourses surrounding carnivals, collective dancing and ecstatic practices. The second part focuses on the 20th century arguing that from this point the conflict between high and low sociability diminishes its political relevance to give way to increasingly ambivalent forms of togetherness based on the consumption of experiences and situation. The paradigms of the scene, the brand and the game are discussed as the primary institutions of a new dominant form of sociability deeply embedded in economic cycles. Finally, in the last part the notion of “militant conviviality” is introduced as a concept-tool to describe an emerging body of practices that are raising the stakes of sociability as an important component of radical political action today.

In the UK, as in many western nations, there have been a number of progressive pieces of legislation enacted with the intent to eradicate discrimination on the basis of sexuality in the workplace. The pace and scale of acceptance of gay equality laws has been relatively rapid in recent years. To cite an example, in 2004 gay marriage was only legal in Belgium and Holland, whereas in 2013 it is legal in 11 countries (The Guardian, 2013). Up until this legislation came into force, the focus of previous research probably unsurprisingly has been predominately around two strands; sexual minorities’ experiences of discrimination in the workplace and the issue of disclosure/non-disclosure of a gay identity. There has been little exploration ‘beyond the closet’, in how gay men manage their identity post anti-discrimination laws combined with more liberal attitudes towards homosexuality. In particular, there has been a paucity of research on the ways gay men challenge, negotiate and conform in the two way process of managing their identities; this thesis aims to address this gap. Data were gathered from forty-five semi-structured in-depth interviews with self-identified gay men in a wide range of occupations and ages working in a seaside resort on the South coast of England. A qualitative methodology was used in order to obtain a deeper understanding of the ways gay men manage their gay identity in their interaction with others. Furthermore, by using reflexivity this thesis aims to show how the sample of respondents had modified and changed the ways they presented their gay identity throughout their working lives. In particular, the thesis aims to uncover critical incidents based upon their sexuality that respondents confronted in their interaction with others. The key findings that emerged from the data include; the identification of a range of strategies gay men deployed in how they managed their identity and dealt with discrimination from confrontation to conformity; the multiple constraints and opportunities that impacted upon the ways gay men both managed and disclosed their gay identity; the perceived incongruity around positions of authority, professionalism and a gay identity; and finally how silence was used as a form of exclusion creating significant barriers in the ways gay men could make themselves visible and use their voice within organisations. These findings considerably extend our understanding of the pervasiveness of heteronormativity in the workplace; the impact of contextual influences on managing a gay identity, and gay men’s experiences against a back drop of post-anti-discrimination laws in the U.K. The thesis will aid HR practitioners in giving them a better understanding of the dilemmas gay men face in their interactions with others in the workplace.

This thesis explores the intersectional commodification of migrant labour from post-socialist EU Accession 8 (A8) countries and its effects on Polish and Slovenian migrant workers in the UK. Using historical and macro socio-economic contexts as its point of departure, the thesis aims to uncover how a postcolonial narrative surrounding A8 countries' transition to market economies and their accession to the EU has legitimised on-going colonial processes that construct A8 countries and their nationals as second class EU citizens and re-evaluate subjectivities in relation to the market. Further, it explores how this narrative has been appropriated by transnational employment agencies that colonise A8 countries and as such play an active role in commodifying A8 workers and supplying them to the UK. Moreover, the thesis sets out specifically to explore how this colonisation and its narrative affect workers' (self)value and emigration from Poland and Slovenia, as well as the value extraction possibilities and strategies of diverse actors involved in transnational labour relations between East and West. Through a transdisciplinary adoption of a Bourdieuian conceptual framework, this research offers an original theoretical and methodological toolkit for complex intersectional analyses that uncovers the multiple and misrecognised power relations associated with embodied categories, spatial and temporal dimensions and varying modalities of knowledge. As such, it uncovers on-going colonial processes that characterise a contemporary post-socialist world marked by changed transnationalised consumption and production processes and the marketization of cultural, diversity and identity politics. In this way, the research uncovers symbolic economy hidden under neoliberal (self)colonisation, which enables strategic utilisation of migrant labour and disciplines, segments and divides the global poor. By providing a broader comparative analysis of diverse actors and A8 groups, the thesis widens our understanding of A8 labour migration to the UK and also leads to insights into the remaking of class, race and gender politics on the local and global scales.

This research starts with hackers’ communities, focusing on open processes as the key to volunteer driven cooperation. While theoretically hackers’ communities allow contributions “from each according to their ability”, I argue the inequalities continuously reproduced by capitalism hinder developments towards such production by placing socially created limits on allocation, understood as “to everyone according to their needs”. My thesis is the following: workers’ struggles and political organizations have made decisive contributions to the construction of another form of wealth creation. We can see examples of this in socialist states and in the public sector in capitalist states, where production and allocated occurs primarily to meet needs. I call this the egalitarian mode of production. Two modes, two standpoints – the capitalist and the egalitarian one – struggle to expand against each other: while the public sector introduces products to meet needs directly, capital strives to privatize everything it can – using commodities and markets. For capital, commodities are necessary for the realization of surplus value. For workers, it is provision according to needs, the outcomes, and the growth of equality, where wealth is realized. Aiming towards the full development of human capacities of all, from this developmental-egalitarian perspective, I propose to broaden the category of those who work to include: future workers (children, youth, students), former workers (pensioners, the elderly), the informal (household labourers, care workers), formal unwaged workers (interns, volunteers) and those deprived of an opportunity to work (the disabled, unemployed, and undocumented migrants). Building on the work of Michael Lebowitz and engaging with national accounting, instead of a narrow focus on commodities allocated via markets and according to an individual’s ability to pay, my field of study includes a wide variety of products that workers consume.

There is a growing body of research demonstrating the effects of age-related changes on product usability and the value derived from consumption experiences. In particular, difficulties with packaging have been identified as a source of dissatisfaction and a key barrier to older people maintaining their independence. Despite this, marketing literature into older consumers’ packaging experiences is limited. Likewise, packaging development has been afforded scant attention in the new product development literature. Whilst there is extensive design literature exploring packaging openability among older consumers, these studies focus largely on biological ageing, thus overlooking aspects of psychological and social ageing. As such, these studies only capture a small part of the various consumer-packaging interactions. Based on these limitations, the purpose of this study is twofold: to explore how ageing affects packaging needs; and to examine how the management of packaging development affects firms’ abilities to deliver value to older consumers. The findings highlight the importance of packaging development in contributing to older people’s abilities to access, open and consume fast-moving consumer goods products independently. Maintaining this independence is found to positively contribute to quality of life. However, a variety of organisational factors and development team characteristics are found to inhibit firms from targeting older consumers and identifying and exploiting a variety of new packaging opportunities. This study contributes to the literature by providing new insights into the packaging needs of older consumers. The conceptual framework presented contributes to new product development literature by providing a new perspective with which to view fast-moving consumer goods product development; one where packaging development is used to offer value to older consumers.

The themes of poor communication, lack of measurement and erratic supply-chain performance are common issues that we either encounter in our every-day working life, or have read about in our professional journals. In 2001 a large business within Case X initiated a programme to tackle a number of these issues by embarking on a mission to improve internal service quality which eventually led to a sizeable number of ServQual activities across a wide-range of services engaging in excess of 2,000 individuals. A common theme seen during this programme were that departments had difficulty describing who their customers were, the services they provided to those customers, coupled with this was a lack of measurement of the attributes that were or thought to be import to the customer. This eventually led to the research into a toolset that can assist organisations to understand the supply-chain that they operate within. The toolset is styled, Developing a Customer-focused Approach (DaCfA) a Model and Toolset (suite of matrices and templates) designed to capture and facilitate the review supply-chain information. This Research takes the DaCfA Model, and Toolset developed within Case X, and through a suite of case studies applies both to inside and outside the Case X environment as well as in the internal and external supply-chain. This Research shows that the DaCfA Model and Toolset have made a valuable contribution to knowledge. Research, enhanced by literature identified a number of themes (referred to as Theoretical Themes) that were observed within business units undertaking DaCfA activities, these themes were independently observed within the write-ups of the case studies that participated in this Research. The Research concludes that the research aim and objectives were fully achieved and the following contribution to knowledge concerning:  The DaCfA Model  The DaCfA Toolset, specifically around the: o Customer/supplier interfaces and relationships o Measurement definition  A set of themes (styled Theoretical Themes) that are readily observed within organisations undertaking a Customer-focused activity.

The aim of this thesis is to use qualitative research to investigate and analyse how human resource risks are understood and managed in practice and how to efficiently manage HR risk in a cost effective way. The research – adding to a very limited corpus in the literature – was conducted in public sector organisations in the UK. The author argues that HR risk management should be conducted in a systematic way. The Managing HR risk framework proposed in this thesis could be used as a practical guide to enable HR practitioners to manage HR risk more effectively. The thesis finds that, in order to effectively manage HR risk, a culture change is required at both HR department and organisational level; the prevailing risk averse culture should change to a more flexible, strategically-focused and less formalised process. From the analysis of case studies, the author notes that HR practitioners should be aware of their position in a HR conflict; they need to be neutral, fair, and supportive during the process of managing HR risks. It is concluded that qualitative factors will influence the process of managing HR risk such as power, organisational culture, management style and skills/competencies… It further suggested that organisational isomorphism learning enables organisations to learn from past experiences, and to improve HR risk management. It also recommended that simulations offer an excellent vehicle for improving the process of managing HR risk by equipping HR practitioners with the right skills and experience. Through the analysis of the results of interviews, two valuable case studies, and simulation, this thesis offers new directions for the future research of human resource risk management: Simulation could be used to help HR practitioners to improve the ways of managing HR risk, simulation use real-life cases for training to improve players’ or decision makers’ understanding of holistic events, and apply new skills, attitudes in practice.

Academia and business could benefit significantly from a framework allocating scarce resources to corporate social responsibility (CSR) programmes while considering the stakeholders’ importance. Methodologies that are capable of integrating CSR into business models in an operational way could be of great use. This thesis makes a contribution to knowledge by the development of a decision support methodology to allocate resources to CSR programmes. The research introduces the concepts of CSR and decision analysis, while identifying a hybrid integrated framework combining several decision analysis techniques allowing elimination of the deficiencies of mono-methodologies and facilitating resources allocation to CSR projects. Despite the high levels of awareness, the process of implementing CSR at the project level is difficult, as implementation of CSR at the design stage requires effective allocation of scarce resources in addition to considering diverging objectives of stakeholders, multiple criteria and uncertainty throughout the decision-making process. A three phase research programme involving a pilot study, framework building, framework testing and validation is conducted to understand the principles of CSR practices and related implementation issues. The research explores and identifies methodologies of decision analysis that can be applied in an integrated manner to address problems in CSR. The result is a sequential and iterative methodology that fills the gap identified through a literature review and practitioner survey. The documented framework, derived from the structured development and test programme, has shown to be feasible. It makes a significant contribution to knowledge, attained through the provisions of procedural fairness. The key stakeholders are fully engaged in the process of framework building as well as throughout the entire decision-making process. The research provides a framework to allocate resources to CSR programmes in an efficient manner by considering the stakeholders’ diverging objectives, companies’ competitive advantage, interdependent criteria, and limited resources.

With over forty institutes of higher education in Lebanon, each offering undergraduate and graduate degrees in Computer Science and IT-related majors, it is surprising and disappointing not to have any academic publications in IT managerial issues. This complete silence may be partly due to the fact that the focus of such programs is more technical than managerial, and partly because the majority of Lebanese universities are “teaching-oriented”, rather than “research-oriented” institutions. One of the major contributions of this thesis is to pioneer IT managerial research in Lebanon and pave the way for future research in this vital area. The main scope of this thesis is to determine how to derive business value from enterprise IS investments, and what conditions maximize that value. While each of the extant theoretical models provides insight on one key aspect of the IT value proposition, what seems missing is a model that combines the salient points from each of various models, and one that incorporates both a process and variance orientation, providing a more comprehensive explanation of the IT value proposition. Therefore, the main contribution of this thesis is development of a comprehensive new IT value model, providing a framework of the processes and factors needed to derive optimal business value from such investments. The new model incorporates salient features of extant IT value models, and is grounded in the data gathered in this thesis. The strength of the new model lies in combining three individual IT value research threads. The first is the RBV research stream, which posit that to derive business value from IS investments, organizations must invest in organizational resources, and must develop individual and organizational IS competencies. The second is the IS process research stream, which evaluates the path that IT investments take from value conception to value creation, and proposes a sequence of phases and activities that must be followed during that investment journey. The third research stream stresses the importance of considering additional contextual factors when engaging IS investments. A review of the extant literature is conducted to develop an initial conceptual framework combining salient features of existing IT value models. Next, using multi-grounded theory and multiple investigative methods, primary data is gathered from thirty-six large Lebanese organizations representing several business sectors. In order to ensure validity and reliability, data is gathered in iterative phases, starting with one-on-one structured interviews with CIOs, followed by a survey and CIO group discussions using the “communities of practice” method, and culminates in one-on-one structured interviews with all other stakeholders involved in the IS value proposition at four of the thirty-six participating organizations using the “deep case study” method. The data is analyzed to determine the key challenges inhibiting the success of IS investments, the key competencies and factors needed to derive business value from such investments, to validate and refine the initial conceptual IT value model, and to ground the attributes of the new model to reflect the Lebanese experience. The thesis concludes by suggesting guidelines for how organizations may develop and nurture the proposed organizational competencies. It also paves the way and suggests possible future research opportunities in Lebanon and beyond.

This thesis addressed the bystander intervention gap in the workplace bullying literature. Bystanders are employees, other than the bully or target, who are present when bullying occurs. They are well placed to intervene but often they do not. Previous research suggested that increased bystander intervention may lead to a reduction in workplace bullying. Although suggestions for bystander intervention in workplace bullying were found in the literature none had been implemented or measured. As field research this thesis addressed a real-world problem. The participating employees were from a large, mainland UK organisation where workplace verbal bullying had been identified as a problem. Therefore a strategy for bystander intervention in workplace verbal bullying was designed, implemented and measured. The new Responsible Intervention Decision Strategy (RIDS)model combined existing theories on the bystanders' decision process and responsibility to support bystander intervention. This quantitative study developed and validated a new 15 item Responsible Bystander Intervention in Verbal Bullying (RBI-VB) metric. The concise metric was incorporated into a practical, single-page survey to test the RIDS model in the field. Shop-floor employees participated in pre and post-intervention surveys (N = 1501) and one of four conditions. The RBI-VB metric demonstrated that responsible bystander intervention was positively correlated to bystander willingness to intervene in workplace verbal bullying. This could be increased with RIDS-based training or the in-house campaign; and was positively correlated to self-reported bystander intervention. The study is limited as it took place within a single UK organisation. However, the findings demonstrated the efficacy of the RIDS model and the practical application of the RBI-VB metric for baseline measurements, monitoring and to assess bystander intervention programmes. Willingness to intervene can be increased and this relates to actual intervention but most bystander intervention was carried out by previous targets of workplace verbal bullying. The implications are discussed.

Renewable Energy (RE) is about more than reducing our environmental impact on the planet and the opportunity to develop RE for the UK is one of economic and social benefit as well as environmental. Furthermore, the UK is legally bound to deliver 15% of total energy supply from renewable sources by 2020 and beyond. This equates to approximately 30% of UK electricity generation but there exists significant technological and commercial barriers to the development, financing and implementation of renewable energy projects. The aim of this dissertation is to assess the current challenges and barriers to investment in the UK’s RE sector. This is done by analysing various stakeholders’ perspectives of the key factors, namely Regulation, Risk Resourcing (financing), and Return, in developing a model which will serve as a decision support framework for the investors in the RE space. The research develops an interpretive understanding through a mixed methods approach, using the implicit and explicit knowledge from energy industry experts and senior practitioners currently involved in energy companies and consortia who sponsor, develop, finance and manage RE schemes and projects. To support delivery of this research aim, the following research question is addressed: “What is the impact of Regulation, Risk and Resourcing on Return on investment in developing renewable energy projects in the UK?” This study investigated and examined the key factors that influence investment decisions in the UK’s RE sector and has focused on the aspects of Regulation and Risk in both at the macro and project levels. The research strategy used qualitative data derived from questionnaires and interviews with leading industry stakeholders and practitioners, including senior executives at prominent financial institutions, technical consultants, project developers and regulatory experts to validate a model of decision making support for investors. The study validated an R4 model that considers the impact of Regulation (R1), Risk (R2), Resourcing (financing) (R3) and Return (R4) in supporting investment decisions. The regulatory regime was found to be the primary Risk driver when Resourcing the finance of RE projects. The impact of these key parameters is not linear and varies through the three main project phases; namely i) during Project Inception, Development and Mandate to proceed, ii) during Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC), and lastly iii) the Operation and Maintenance and revenue generating phase. It is concluded that the influence of R1, R2, and R3 on Return on investment (R4) is shown to be a crucial output of the final, income generating phase of renewable energy projects. The findings have been already disseminated and presented at prestigious energy conferences in Oman, 2010; Milan, 2011; London, 2012; Cologne, 2012 & 2014; Vienna, 2013; and accepted for presentation at Powergen Europe conference in June 2015 in Amsterdam. Additionally, a journal paper is being submitted to the Energy Policy Journal for publication in 2015. Furthermore, the study has added to the epistemological approach in this research area and supports the business case for promoting the development of an Energy Centre at the University of Portsmouth.

This research study is focused on the field of Talent Management (TM) as part of the Portsmouth DBA programme. The study aims to help address existing gaps in the academic and practitioner knowledge around TM. TM is one of the most important areas for Human Resources Management and is also one of the key challenges for organisation and management (Thunnissen, Boselie, & Fruytier, 2013). For the practitioner the study adds the perspectives of the senior executive, line managers, and HR practitioners. From an academic perspective the study looks at emotions, feelings, and understanding of a number of key individuals, with the intent to build a broader focus for TM that has more than a process or outcome focus. The study also looked at the roles and skills of the key stakeholders – senior executives, line managers, and HR practitioners. The study uses a case study method to analyse the VT Group, a multinational corporation and explore the introduction of a TM programme in the Group between 2006 and 2009. The VT Group was also transforming at the time from shipbuilding to a services organisation. The approach was to use VT Group as a case study and utilise semi-structured interviews and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to analyse the interview data. The aim was to gain insights into how the different individuals and stakeholder groups saw the introduction and implementation of TM. Little is known about the perspective of the stakeholder groups in terms of their perception and understanding of TM. In addition the study looked at the role and skills required of the different stakeholder groups to implement TM. It was also important to understand TM in relation to strategic human resource management as many organisations have shifted their HR functions towards the “Ulrich” model (Ulrich, 1997), and how this related to the HR function in the case study organisation. The findings of the study were that the concept of TM was ambiguous in its introduction and implementation and that there were multiple understandings of what Talent is, and TM was aiming to achieve. The findings were mirrored in the literature review around TM. In addition the findings pointed to the challenge of managing emotions in the organisation and the need for Emotional Intelligence skills when implementing TM and also the importance of aligning TM to the organisation strategy. It was also found that the different stakeholder groups also had very different views of TM between themselves, and that the HR function especially had broad differences in their views of TM and its implementation. From a roles and skills perspective the different stakeholder identified broad strategic role and strategic skills required and also soft skills like coaching, communication, and facilitating as well as process and project management skills. The results of the study highlights opportunities for further research into leadership and Emotional Intelligence required in implementing TM; closer alignment of TM and business strategy; and also improved understanding of the roles and skills required of the stakeholder groups. There is an opportunity for further research in these areas.

As depicted in Chapter I, 2-oxoglutarate- (2OG) dependent oxygenases are ubiquitous in living systems and display a wide range of cellular functions, spanning metabolism, transcription, and translation. Although functionally diverse, the 2OG oxygenases share a high degree of structural similarities between their catalytic sites. From a medicinal chemistry point of view, the combination of biological diversity and structural similarity presents a rather challenging task for the development of selective small molecules for functional studies in vivo. The non-selective metal chelator 8-hydroxyquinoline (8HQ) was used as a template for the generation of tool compound I for the KDM4 subfamily of histone demethylases via application of the Betti reaction. Structural analogue II was used as the corresponding negative control (Figure A). These compounds were characterised in vitro against a range of 2OG oxygenases and subsequently used for studies in cells. I displays selectivity for KDM4 and increases the level of the H3K9me3 histone mark in cells. It has an effect on the post-translational modification pattern of histone H3, but not other histones, and reduces the viability of lung cancer cells, but not normal lung cells, derived from the same patient. I also stabilises hypoxia-inducable factor HIF in cells via a mechanism which seems to be independent from prolyl hydroxylase inhibition. This work is described in Chapters II and III. The chemical biology research in epigenetics is complemented by qualitative analysis conducted in the social sciences at Said Business School. With a global view on how innovation occurs and may actively be fostered, Chapter IV focuses on the potential of epigenetics in drug discovery and how this process may actively be promoted within the framework of open innovation. Areas of focus include considerations of incremental and disruptive technology; how to claim, demarcate, and control the market; how knowledge brokering occurs; and insights about process, management, organisation, and culture of open innovation. In contrast to the open-skies approach adopted for the development of a tool compound in Chapters II and III, a focused-library approach was taken for the generation of a tool compound for the OGFOD1 ribosomal prolyl hydroxylase. The development of a suitable in vitro activity assay for OGFOD1 in Chapter V enabled the development of lead compound III in Chapter VI. III is selective for OGFOD1 against the structurally closely related prolyl hydroxylase PHD2.

Although a growing number of scholars suggest that the construction of identity is an important form of institutional work, the complex interactions between identities and institutions remain under-explored. In particular, few studies consider how the affective aspects of identities may inform institutional work. This thesis examines the experiences of lawyers who volunteered to create and support a legal charity. As these volunteers grew to more than twenty thousand over fifteen years, the charity gradually centralized charitable work across law firms for the first time. In this way, it transformed the institution of pro bono work within the English legal profession. Drawing on this case study, this thesis employs a grounded theory methodology to generate a conceptual framework that connects emotion work, identity work and institutional work. This framework suggests that some professionals work to re-assert and ‘remember’ aspects of their traditional identities that compete with some contemporary demands. This can prompt identity contradictions that inspire reflection on professional practices. This identity work may also encourage professionals to evoke emotions of guilt that can imbue contradictions with enough significance to create a purpose for remedial institutional work. When enabled by meso-level processes, such micro-level work can reinvigorate traditional practices and accomplish institutional change.