Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Annals of collective economy'

Diese Arbeit möchte verstehen, was es bedeutet gleichzeitig eine Gemeinschaft und ein Unternehmen zu sein, und welche Herausforderungen dadurch für die intraorganisationale Koordination entstehen. Wie vereinbaren alternative Betriebe unterschiedliche Menschen und Rationalitäten miteinander, ohne auf formale Hierarchien zurückzugreifen? In einer vergleichende Fallstudie von drei kleinen, direkt-demokratisch organisierten Kollektivbetrieben wird der Beziehung zwischen Koordination, Bewertung und Moralvorstellungen nachgegangen. Die Arbeit nutzt hierfür Laurent Thévenots pragmatischer Soziologie des Engagements. Die Ergebnisse der Arbeit liefern einen Beitrag zu drei Forschungsbereichen: Die Arbeit liefert einen Beitrag zum Feld der „valuation studies“. Es wird gezeigt, dass die mit Bewertung verbundene Unsicherheit zu Prozessen führen kann, die mehr einer kollektiven Entdeckung, als einem Konflikt entsprechen. Darüber hinaus wird die zentrale Rolle von legitimen Differenzierungs- und Äquivalenzprinzipien für Kommensuration aufgezeigt. Die Arbeit liefert einen Beitrag zur Forschung zum Verhältnis von Koordination, Bewertung und Moralvorstellungen in Organisationen. Sie zeigt, dass ein theoretischer Rahmen, der unterschiedliche Grade der Generalisierung von Koordination beachtet, wichtige Erkenntnisse für das Verständnis intraorganisationaler Koordination liefert. Die Arbeit liefert einen Beitrag zur Forschung über Kollektivbetriebe und Genossenschaften. Indem die eingenommene Perspektive über die Analyse von Governance-Strukturen hinausgeht, wird die Dualität von Kollektivbetrieben als ein Problem der Balance zwischen unterschiedlichen Koordinationsmodi gerahmt. Aus dieser Perspektive ist die zentrale Spannung, die Kollektivbetriebe ausbalancieren müssen, eine zwischen auf Vertrautheit basierender Koordination und Koordination, die auf Generalisierung von Beziehungen beruht.
This thesis wants to understand how alternative firms deal with the complexity of balancing different rationalities in their intraorganizational coordination, in the absence of formal hierarchies. In a comparative case study of three small, democratically governed collective firms, the relationship between coordination and morality is analyzed. The majority of research on collective firms focuses on democratic governance structures, which risks to underestimate the importance of coordination that is based on intimate knowledge and personal relations. This is especially important to understand collective firms, which are dependent on lateral accountability and cooperation between their members. Consequently, this work is informed by the work of Laurent Thévenot which allows to understand coordination based on different levels of generalization. The results of this thesis contribute to three different areas of research: First, contributions are made to the field of valuation studies, by further developing insights on the notion of the test. The thesis also points out the central role of legitimate principles of difference and equivalence for successful commensuration, and the tension between particularity and generalization in standardizing evaluation devices. Second, the study contributes insights for scholarship on coordination and morality in organizations. It demonstrates that considering coordination based on different degrees of generality yields important insights on intraorganizational coordination. Finally, this study contributes to scholarship on cooperatives and collectivist organizations. The often noted duality of collective firms is reframed as the need to balance and mediate different modes of coordination. The study develops a heuristic concept, the composite relation, which explains how collectives are held together despite their central tension between particular and collective goods.

Our paper focuses on a non-standard sharing example that harbors the potential to disrupt received wisdom on the sharing economy. While originally entering the field to analyze, broadly from a governance perspective, how the 2015 refugee crisis was handled in Vienna, Austria, we found that the non-governmental organization Train of Hope - labeled as a "citizen start-up" by City of Vienna officials - played an outstanding role in mastering the crisis. In a blog post during his visit in Vienna at the time, and experiencing the refugee crisis first-hand, it was actually Henry Mintzberg who suggested reading the phenomenon as part of the "sharing economy". Continuing this innovative line of thought, we argue that our unusual case is in fact an excellent opportunity to discover important aspects about both the nature and organization of sharing. First, we uncover an additional dimension of sharing beyond the material sharing of resources (i.e., the economic dimension): the sharing of a distinct concern (i.e., the moral dimension of sharing). Our discovery exemplifies such a moral dimension that is rather different from the status quo materialistic treatments focusing on economic transactions and property rights arguments. Second, we hold that a particular form of organizing facilitates the sharing economy: the sharing economy organization. This particular organizational form is distinctive - at the same time selectively borrowing and skillfully combining features from platform organizations (e.g., use of technology as an intermediary for exchange and effective coordination, ability to tap into external resources) and social movements (e.g., mobilization, shared identity, collective action). It is a key quality of this form of organization to enable the balancing of the two dimensions inherent in the nature of sharing: economic and moral. Our paper contributes to this Special Issue of the Academy of Management Discoveries by highlighting and explaining the two-fold economic and moral nature of sharing and the organization of sharing between movement and platform.

In 2001 the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) was created by some of the world’s leading natural gas producing and exporting countries in order to promote their mutual interests through cooperation, in particular with regard to extracting the maximum value from their natural gas exports. My core research question is: Does cooperation among GECF member countries explain those exporters’ market power in highly import-dependent natural gas consuming countries? To determine the influence of the GECF’s cooperative actions and policies, I study the GECF’s cooperative behaviour and measure the role of (collusive) producer conduct in terms of its contribution to achieving the main GECF objective: attaining gas prices that are measurably above the cost of production and hence help producers earn significant economic rents. I employ a variety of methods from the international relations literature on cooperation and cartelisation, collective action theory and an economic measurement model in three case studies. I find that cooperation among GECF members partly explains their market power in a number of import-dependent gas markets. This is so despite the GECF’s weak degree of institutionalisation. The reasons for the GECF’s influence on effective cooperative results are: first, conducive structural conditions in many gas importing markets favouring cartelisation; second, GECF members use methods such as artificial market entry barriers (e.g. long-term term contracts negotiated in a non-transparent way) to secure their market power and third, the GECF faces less severe internal procedural challenges that plague other cartels such as collective action problems, especially cheating. Cooperation among GECF exporters hence contributes to high(er) prices of natural gas. This causes economic inefficiencies and a transfer of wealth—and political power—from gas consumers to producers. It also hinders climate change mitigation as cleanerburning gas remains too expensive to replace ‘dirty’ coal in power generation.

Access to basic water and sanitation services, the local public health goods, is a human right and a public health necessity. Provision of these services is typically devolved to Local Governments to ensure they correspond to the local needs. In rural India, such a correspondence is sub-optimal, with high local needs and poor provision by the Local Governments (Panchayats). The citizen participation in Panchayat's public deliberative meetings (Grama Sabha) is weak. The community context is characterised by social fragmentation and high socio-economic inequality. This research examined, whether and how better deliberative participation in Panchayat meetings was associated with better provision of these services by the Panchayats. The research used a three-staged systematic sampling method. Using correlational field survey design it gathered primary data from 99 panchayats in Karnataka State, and from 99 villages and 396 individuals within these Panchayats. Factor analytic and multivariate regression techniques were used to analyse the data in the statistical software, Stata® v.13. Results suggest, better Grama Sabha meetings (that were convened more frequently, attended by a higher number of people with better representativeness, where discussions approximate to the deliberative norms: reciprocal, pro-social and accountable; and decisions taken have a common good orientation) were associated with better provision of water and sanitation services by the Panchayat. Further analysis suggested two possible explanations for this association: First, the individuals who participated more frequently in deliberative meetings of the Panchayat and where discussions approximated to the deliberative norms; were associated with: • Better information on availability and accessibility to services; • Better external political efficacy, a perception of greater responsiveness of the Panchayat to their needs and their efforts to influence it; and hence engage evenly in discussions; • Better sense of community, a greater willingness to cooperate and coordinate, to find mutual needs and seek convergence when they are heterogeneous. Above findings suggest, in a participatory setting, these individuals can be associated with better capability to collectively engage; to articulate, communicate and identify the mostii common of their service needs and frame it as a collective demand, through policy objective, for provision by the Panchayats. Second, better Grama Sabha meetings were associated with better rule of law in policy administration at the Panchayat level. This suggests, rule-bound conversion of policy objectives into actual service outputs; a reflection of responsiveness and accountability of the bureaucratic action in achieving administrative commitment to the legislative goals. In conclusion, better deliberative participation can be associated with better capability of the individuals to engage in collective action. This can improve the correspondence between the needs and the provision; by strengthening individuals' collective demand for the services and by improving the responsiveness of the Panchayat in the supply of these services.

Today our city cores are being transformed. Not only have they been transformed from a place of production to a place of consumption, but more recently also the city core as a place of work are being challenged by increasing land prices and the desire to live centrally and urban. An urban lifestyle has in some ways become an exclusive benefit for the most wealthy, and the tall residential towers symbolizes this new urban, transnational elite, that wants the qualities of a living city center but prefers to live high up in the sky. Though this elite sometimes never lives there, since they only see the apartments as investments, as a “money deposit”. These buildings increase gentrification and segregation since they push up the housing prices of the city cores and provide no public functions, we get excluding cities rather than including. In my thesis project I speculate how we can prevent our city centers from becoming an excluding and exclusive gated community, and I develop a general redesign strategy for the exclusive residential tower typology. I have searched for a collective rather than individualistic approach, that considers both environmental and social sustainability.

Cette recherche vise à saisir les conditions d’émergence, de stabilisation et de déstabilisation de l’organisation de la vitiviniculture instituée en France dans la première moitié du XXe siècle. Au cours de cette période, l’État accorde aux Appellations d’Origine Contrôlée (AOC), érigées en modèle d’excellence et de rareté, le pouvoir de contrôler leur propre réglementation, tandis qu’il place sous sa tutelle les autres catégories de vin, établies en problème public en raison d’une surproduction chronique. Mais l’intégration européenne, dès les années 1970, s’accompagne d’un changement d’échelle réglementaire et de nouvelles régulations politiques sectorielles. Dès lors, et contre toute attente, les vins d’AOC sont graduellement concurrencés, en prix et en réputation, par ceux qui étaient autrefois les moins valorisés. Nous montrons historiquement que la forte indépendance des vins d’AOC, d’une part, et la dépendance des autres vis-à-vis des autorités, de l’autre, ont posé les conditions de ce bouleversement. La Gironde et le Languedoc-Roussillon, territoires administrativement différents, mais structurellement dominants à l’échelle nationale, constituent deux terrains d’observation appropriés. Les deux conceptions vitivinicoles qui divisent la vitiviniculture nationale s’y sont développées de façon emblématique. Les syndicats qui en ont été les fers de lance ont noué des relations asymétriques avec les autorités. L’entrée en vigueur de la réglementation communautaire les a alors atteints différemment, de sorte que des évolutions en ciseau ont été enregistrées. Sur cette base, la thèse engage une problématique de portée générale. Le cas de la vitiviniculture permet d’interroger dans la longue durée l’incidence des changements d’échelles sur la régulation politique de l’économie. En articulant des schémas d’analyse et des outils fournis par la science politique et la sociologie économique, la démonstration livrée permet de préciser les conditions dans lesquelles une politique publique (nationale puis communautaire) en arrive à déstabiliser les conduites économiques sans que ce résultat ait été visé ni même anticipé
This research aims to understand the conditions that emerged and caused the stabilization and destabilization of the organizational structure of the wine industry, which had first been established in France in the first half of the twentieth century. During this initial period, the State granted to certain wines the “controlled designation of origin” or Appellations d'Origine Contrôlée (AOC) – established as a singular model of excellence – the power to control their own regulations, while also placing other categories of wine under its guidance due to the public interest issue of chronic overproduction. However, with the deepening of European integration as of the 1970s, a rescaling of regulatory changes began, including new sectoral policy regulations. Since then, and against all expectations, AOC wines gradually began to compete in price and reputation against those which had once been valued the least. This thesis reveals, on the one hand, the historically strong independence of AOC wines and, on the other hand, the dependence of the others wines vis-à-vis public authorities, set the terms of this upheaval. Gironde and the Languedoc-Roussillon, while administratively different territories, but both structurally dominant on a national level, have been the two most relevant fields of observation. The two conceptions of wine emblematically developed in those two regions have divided the national wine industry. The unions who spearheaded each of the two types of wine also developed asymetrical relations with the authorities. Moreover, the implementation of European Community legislation affected them differently, thus creating a price ‘scissors’ phenomenon. By examining the tensions this caused, this thesis tackles a wider problem. The case of the wine industry thus enable analysis to examine the long term impact of scaled changes with regards to the political regulation of the economy. Through the application of analytical frameworks and tools provided by political science and economic sociology, this example allows to focus on the conditions under which public policy (national and communautaire”) came to destabilize economic behaviour without the results that occurred having been aimed for, or even anticipated

The Stockholm Archipelago has a unique natural landscape - rugged nature that blends with wooded islands, rocky cliffs and sandy beaches enriched by cultural and ecological values. The islands, dating back to the Viking Age are faced with a progressively uneven growth compared to the city developing an inevitable socio-economic dependency on the city core through infrastructural connections. Emigration from already diffusely scattered settlements made life unaffordable on the islands for both permanent residents and municipalities. According to official surveys and analyses, the islands claimed to lack a live-work-play balance and social potential that could be developed better for the residents. This struggle is loaded with the seasonal influx of tourists who exploit the landscape, leaving the responsibility for care onto those who live there. This situation added to climate change, strains energy and (water) resources causing summer droughts. All these struggles raise a question for the future - “How can urban planning and design help re-imagine the potential of existing systems to adapt to a more sustainable Archipelago?” The project envisions to transform the fragmented, protected landscape of the Stockholm Archipelago into a continuous productive landscape, bringing meaning to the scattered and dynamic context. With an approach that closely integrates fields of planning, landscape and design, the goal is realised through a three-layered strategy - (1) continuous blue-green systems of resource capture and nutrient circulation, (2) building local economy through collective production and diversification through exchange, and (3) community exchange through robust networking and production as a way of life. For design possibilities on the local scale, the island of Runmaro is explored with the aim of building synergies with the existing context of landscape, mobility networks, food production, resident villages, local businesses and popular landmarks. The idea is to strengthen existing socio-economic nodes while developing new ones through programs offering shared production and exchange, a year-round activation and continuous accessibility (circulation and systemic) that bring continuity to the overall experience.

For decades, union membership and activity has been declining in North America; employers have demanded greater flexibility and have successfully weakened workplace and worker protections. Modern workers increasingly use alternative strategies to negotiate conditions of employment with managers who have limited their discretionary power. Negotiated order theory provides a useful tool for analyzing the mesostructural arrangements of bargaining parties during labor disputes. This thesis applies negotiated order theory to explore how and why the National Football League (NFL) players have twice decertified their union and sought court intervention to challenge the legitimacy of the League's highly restrictive reserve system. An outcome-focused content analysis was designed as a preliminary investigation to ascertain why an alternative strategy was sought and if the strategy proved more effective in securing the players' preferred ends than conventional collective bargaining. The NFL case offers a fixed market from which to formulate a negotiation context of the interorganizational structures and bargaining interactions of its members.

It is the argument of this dissertation that states become tax havens as a conscious economic development strategy. These states – more properly referred to as "jurisdictions" because some lack the sovereignty of the traditional Westphalian state – do not have the natural resources or the population to pursue more traditional economic development strategies, but they do have the ability to write or implement laws that create a virtual resource: banking secrecy. These jurisdictions are able to carry out this strategy because they tend to be well-governed, stable, and relatively wealthy, making them attractive partners for the international banking, legal, and accounting firms that drive offshore finance, and then for their customers – both individual and corporate – as well. The qualities tax havens possess also enable them to calculate that the benefits they reap from pursuing this strategy outweigh any penalties assessed by anti-tax haven international collective action activities, such as the naming and shaming campaigns of 2000.

O artigo desenvolve o conceito de \'Empreendedor Político\' de Russell Hardin (1982), a partir da abordagem da Escolha Racional e da Teoria do Bem Público. Originalmente aplicado à Ciência Política, o objetivo é transformá-lo em um instrumento de análise para a avaliação do desempenho da ação de Estados nas Relações Internacionais. Para isso, o artigo lança mão da taxonomia de Soares de Lima (1990) para designar o comportamento \'empreendedor\' de países emergentes, e assim qualificar o desempenho do Brasil como empreendedor político em dois estudos de caso que serão objeto de consideração no artigo empírico.
The article develops the concept of \'Political Entrepreneur\' of Russell Hardin (1982), from the approach of the Rational Choice and of the Theory of the Public Good. Originally applied to the Political Science, the objective is transforming the concept in an instrument of analysis for the evaluation about the performance of States in the International Relations. For that, the article utilizes of the taxonomy of Soares de Lima (1990) for assessing the behavior of developing countries, and qualifies the performance of Brazil as \'entrepreneur\' in two case studies that will be object of consideration in the coming empirical article.

L’économie circulaire rencontre un succès grandissant dans la société et apparaît comme un levier majeur pouvant être mis au service de la transition écologique. Mais de manière assez paradoxale, l’engouement actuel autour de ce nouveau modèle semble plus lié à sa dimension utopique qu’à sa solidité scientifique. Ce constat soulève plusieurs questions telles que : pourquoi autant d’acteurs sont attirés par un concept qui reste encore flou ? Qu’est ce que les sciences de gestion peuvent-elles nous apprendre sur ce phénomène ? Comment l’économie circulaire peut-elle contribuer à favoriser une transition écologique ? Jusqu’à présent la littérature académique s’est peu intéressée à la dimension utopique de l’économie circulaire et à son impact en termes d’action collective. Afin d’étudier ce phénomène, la thèse s'intéresse aux mécanismes cognitifs, organisationnels et inter-organisationnels qui sous-tendent la transition d’un territoire vers l'économie circulaire. A partir du cas de la commande publique dans le secteur de la construction, nous questionnons ensuite les "transition studies" (Markard et al., 2012) pour proposer un modèle de transition conceptualisant les mécanismes qui peuvent permettre à des acteurs économiques, sociaux et politiques d’accompagner la transition de leur territoire vers l’économie circulaire. Ce modèle part des processus qui amènent des entrepreneurs à concevoir des innovations, puis conceptualise les mécanismes qui conduisent des organisations publiques et privées à coopérer avec ces entrepreneurs, avant d’expliciter les mécanismes à partir desquels cette dynamique d'action collective peut matérialiser la transition d’un territoire
Circular economy is meeting with growing success in society and appears to be a major lever that can be put to the service of the ecological transition. But paradoxically enough, the current craze around this new model seems more linked to its utopian dimension than to its scientific solidity. This observation raises several questions such as: why are so many actors attracted by a concept that is still unclear? What can management science teach us about this phenomenon? How can circular economy help foster an ecological transition? Until now, academic literature has paid little attention to the utopian dimension of circular economy and its impact in terms of collective action. In order to study this phenomenon, the thesis focuses on the cognitive, organizational and inter-organizational mechanisms that underlie the transition of a territory to circular economy. Using the case of public procurement in the construction sector, we then question the transition studies (Markard et al., 2012) to propose a transition model conceptualizing the mechanisms that can enable economic, social and political actors to support the transition of their local area to circular economy. This model starts from the processes that lead entrepreneurs to design innovations, and then conceptualizes the mechanisms that lead public and private organizations to cooperate with these entrepreneurs, before explaining the mechanisms from which this dynamic of collective action can materialize the transition of a territory

A presente pesquisa pretende ser útil nos esclarecimentos da maneira pela qual a experiência advinda do processo de industrialização na Inglaterra, e aperfeiçoada pelos estadunidenses, denominada contrato coletivo de trabalho, poderia servir de parâmetro para o Brasil e México, em termos da contribuição que este instrumento tem dado ao bem-estar social dos trabalhadores. As relações históricas de trabalho no contexto da economia política e na contemporaneidade destes relacionamentos com blocos econômicos diversos são analisadas, bem como as implicações para as relações de trabalho, em especial para os contratos coletivos. As análises feitas visam contribuir para uma melhor compreensão histórica do conflito do capital versus trabalho para elucidar a maneira pela qual seria conveniente atentar para uma melhor compreensão do equilíbrio necessário para valorizar estas relações. Propõe analisar a situação econômica básica versus o processo político e a dinâmica do relacionamento das classes sociais trabalhadoras tendo em vista a influência da doutrina monetarista-liberal de Milton Friedman, chamada de neoliberal, incluindo-se aspectos do peso secundário que a América Latina tem no cenário estratégico dos grandes países capitalistas, por isso as análises foram realizadas tendo em vista preliminarmente uma distinção metodológica fundamental entre direito objetivo e direito não objetivado para que se compreendesse sob a luz dessa distinção as influências recíprocas da economia e da política sobre o homem no horizonte das indefinições da práxis social. Procurou-se, também, o espírito da investigação histórico-estrutural, imiscuir-se nas influências externas comuns, questionando as facetas do internacionalismo trabalhista e suas ramificações, e a maneira como se desenvolveram comparativamente.
The present study should be of interest for the understanding how the experience of labor collective bargain contract, allowed by the industrialization process in England and improved by the North Americans, should be used as parameter for Brazil and Mexico, in terms of the contribution that this instrument has been giving to the workers\' social welfare. It analyzes also the history of the political economy and its contemporariness and the relationships with several capitalist blocks and the implications for the collective bargain contracts. It seeks for a best understanding the conflicts between capital versus labor, trying to elucidate the way should be better to comprehend the necessity of equilibrium, to promote the best value to the workers. It analyzes moroever the basic economy status versus the political process and the dynamics of the relationship of the working classes, considering the influence of the monetarist-liberal doctrine of Milton Friedman, called as neoliberal, included aspects of the secondary influence that Latin America has in the great capitalists\' strategic scenery. The analyses were done in terms of the fundamental methodological distinction between the objective law and nonobjectified law as a way to comprehend, under the focus of this distinction, the reciprocal influences from economics and politics concerning the man in the indefinite horizon of social praxis. The spirit of the historical-structural investigations also attempts for a critical look of the external influences, questioning about labor internationalism faces and their ramifications that has been developed comparatively

Tese de Doutoramento em Ciências Sociais, Especialidade de Serviço Social
O conceito de responsabilidade social é geralmente associado aos contextos empresariais. Neste trabalho, consideramos que estas preocupações são extensíveis a outros contextos, nomeadamente o das organizações da economia social e solidária. Procurámos analisar as perceções de responsabilidade social de dirigentes e de profissionais de Serviço Social nestas organizações, que se constituem como das mais relevantes entidades empregadoras de profissionais de Serviço Social em Portugal. Foi desenvolvido um estudo de natureza predominantemente qualitativa, tendo sido delimitado territorialmente ao Município da Amadora. Após uma abordagem exploratória e a aplicação de um inquérito por questionário, recorreu-se a entrevistas centradas a dirigentes e a profissionais no sentido de aprofundar os dados obtidos. A análise e discussão dos dados permitiram verificar a falta de reflexão acerca da responsabilidade social no âmbito do Serviço Social, bem como a emergência de um conjunto de tensões na atuação dos profissionais. Destaca-se, à escala macro, a frágil participação numa dimensão sociopolítica da intervenção, que parece não ser suficiente para apoiar a concretização do princípio de responsabilidade coletiva inscrito na agenda internacional do Serviço Social. Desta forma, a redescoberta da solidariedade surge como fundamento de uma prática socialmente responsável que permita retomar o projeto sociopolítico do Serviço Social.
Social responsibility concept is generally associated with business contexts. We consider that these concerns can be extended to others, namely social and solidarity economy organizations. We have tried to analyse the perceptions of social responsibility of managers and social workers in these organizations, which are one of the most important employers of social workers in Portugal. A study with a predominantly qualitative nature was developed, in the Municipality of Amadora. After an exploratory approach and of a questionnaire survey, interviews with managers and social workers were used to have more detailed analysis about their perceptions. The analysis and discussion of the data showed the lack of reflexivity about the social responsibility in the scope of Social Work, as well as the rise of a set of tensions in the work of the professionals. At the macro level, the fragile participation in a sociopolitical dimension of intervention is emphasised, which may not be able to support the implementation of the collective responsibility principle included in the international agenda of Social Work. Thus, the rediscovery of solidarity emerges as the foundation of a socially responsible practice that helps to restore the socio-political project of Social Work.
N/A

This research applies C. Wright Mills’ theory of vocabularies of motive to reveal the collective narratives, which were used to justify the atypical founding of an urban Jewish congregation in the 1970s. Prior to and during this period, US Jewish communities were migrating out of city centers into their surrounding suburbs. Most Jewish congregations followed their congregants and moved into the suburbs. This study identifies the collective justifications within the Hatchala Chadasha community, which are the accepted reasons for the organization’s atypical urban location and organizational structure. The findings of this research are based in the examination of interviews with individuals who were community members during the earliest years of Hatchala Chadasha’s existence. Patterns of similar accounts across the interviews revealed the collective narratives that defended four of the congregation’s fundamental decisions: why the congregation was founded, where the congregation chose to locate, how the congregation acted politically, and what organizational structure the congregation employed. These justifications are further examined, in relation to the behavior and values common within the broader Jewish community and other contextual components, to theorize why certain accounts became the accepted narrative within Hatchala Chadasha. Fundamentally, this research examines informants’ motive statements to discern and analyze the collective narratives formed in a community, which justify the community’s atypical behavior in the context of a predominant, external culture.

都市部においては、通常「マンション」と呼ばれる高層集合住宅での居住はごく一般的になっている。区分された居室に各世帯が生活するマンションでは、対面の機会が少ないことによる居住者間のコミュニケーション不足、プライバシー確保のための相互不干渉原則がもたらす無関心、その結果としての独居高齢者や病弱者の孤独死、子どもの社会性育成不全、災害対応力の脆弱性などの問題が生じている。本論は、ソーシャル・キャピタルやコミュニタリアニズム、およびシェアリングエコノミーの視点から、コミュニティの存在意義とその機能を理論的かつ歴史的に考察した上で、こうしたマンション特有の問題を解決するにはマンション内のコミュニティの形成と活性化を図ることが有効ではないかとの仮説を立て、その仮説を実証すべく、マンション住民による共同農作業等の社会実験を実施し、その結果を分析し、そこから得られた知見を基に、機能的かつ持続可能なマンション・コミュニティ実現のための方途や課題を提示したものである。
博士(ソーシャル・イノベーション)
Doctor of Philosophy in Social Innovation
同志社大学
Doshisha University

Made available in DSpace on 2017-07-10T18:33:38Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Leoveraldo C de Oliveira.pdf: 947386 bytes, checksum: 8c141dc506b6b4e6bf7714791ded23bb (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-03-31
This research analyzed the growth of the economy of the Bordering Counties to Itaipu Binacional's Lake, in the west of Paraná, and the impact of a possible change in the distribution of the royalties, and it was determined an economical prognostic for after 2023, when the Treaty of Itaipu will be reviewed. The research was made using the approach of the institutional economy. It was brought from authors such as Veblen, Mitchell, Galbraith, Myrdal and others, the understanding of some points of the economic and social scenery examined by nations, regions or even places in the process of development. The more evident contribution of the institutional economy is the consideration of non-economics variables in analyze of countries and regions. These non-economic variables understand worth, habits, cultures, and others, which one in its diffusing and social accept, crystallization in the society in the way to institutionalize. Conferring to each place or region their own particularities. To do analyze of the information coming from the research, without compromising the analytic and institutional character, to analyze it, was used the technic nominated as Speech of the Collective Subject. This know-how made possible the gathering of answers of the interviews, having as criteria the similarity and the conclusion of the speech. Thus it was possible to elaborate to each question the speeches that aggregate one more testimony, however, presenting as a speech of a unique person. The interviewed were divided in four groups that understood mayors/councilors, presidents of commercial associations and commercial/enterprise, public employees, syndicates presidents of public employees, delivered by 15 borders counties in the Paraná State. The members of the groups of each county, answered to an itinerary of nine questions divided in three parts, in September and November of 2007, which later were transcripts and put into analyze by the Speech of Collective Subject. The answers of the questions were classified by the similarity and the conclusion of the statement, which contemplated the inclusion and the heterogeneities of the statement. On the part I economic diagnosis is predominant the understanding of that the economy of the border counties that is good because of the royalties, but it could be better, if the resources were more efficiently managed. In the part II the importance of royalties in the border counties economy it is evident the conception that the borders counties are dependent of Royalties, otherwise, cutting the transference would affect the public and the private sector. Although, it is shown that the resources are pernicious to the solidity of the economy, by how it is being spent. In the part III prognostic to 2023 it is predominant to the conception that the ideal scenario to 2023 depends on the investments in the productive sector, prioritizing the industrial/agroindustrial activities, tourism and agricultural area, and of one alternative model of investment planning with an effective participation of the society.
Esta pesquisa analisou o crescimento da economia dos municípios Lindeiros ao Lago de Itaipu Binacional, no oeste paranaense, e o impacto de uma possível mudança na distribuição dos royalties, e traçou um prognóstico econômico para depois de 2023 quando será revisto o Tratado de Itaipu. A pesquisa foi realizada utilizando-se da abordagem da economia institucional. Buscou-se em autores como Veblen, Mitchell, Galbraith, Myrdal entre outros, a compreensão de alguns indicativos do cenário econômico e social percorrido por nações, regiões ou mesmo locais no processo de desenvolvimento. A contribuição mais evidente da economia institucional é a consideração de variáveis não-econômicas na análise da economia de países ou regiões. Essas variáveis não-econômicas compreendem valores, hábitos, culturas, entre outras, as quais, pela sua disseminação e aceitação social, acabam por se cristalizar na comunidade de modo a se institucionalizar, conferindo a cada local ou região particularidades próprias. Para a análise das informações da pesquisa, sem comprometer o caráter analítico institucional, utilizou-se da técnica de análise de entrevistas denominada de Discurso do Sujeito Coletivo. Assim foi possível elaborar para cada questão os discursos que agregassem mais de um depoente, no entanto, apresentado como um discurso de um único indivíduo. Os entrevistados foram divididos em quatro grupos que compreendiam prefeitos e vereadores, empresários e presidentes de associações comerciais e empresariais, funcionários públicos e presidentes de sindicatos de servidores públicos, distribuídos pelos 15 municípios Lindeiros paranaenses. Os membros dos grupos de cada município responderam a um roteiro de nove questões divididas em três partes, no mês de setembro e outubro de 2007, as quais posteriormente foram transcritas e submetidas a análise pelo Discurso do Sujeito Coletivo. As respostas das questões foram categorizadas pela semelhança e complementaridade dos depoimentos. Assim, em cada questão construiu-se um número de Discursos do Sujeito Coletivo que contemplasse a abrangência e a heterogeneidade dos depoimentos. Na parte I diagnóstico econômico é predominante o entendimento de que a economia dos Lindeiros está bem por força dos royalties, mas poderia estar melhor se os recursos fossem mais eficientemente geridos. Na parte II importância dos royalties na economia Lindeira é patente a concepção de que os Lindeiros são dependentes de royalties, ou seja, um corte das transferências afetaria tanto o setor público quanto o privado. Contudo, apontam que os recursos dos royalties são perniciosos à solidez da economia, pela forma como vêm sendo despendidos. Na parte III prognóstico para 2023 é predominante à concepção de que o cenário ideal para 2023 depende de investimentos no setor produtivo, priorizando as atividades industriais/agroindustriais, do turismo e agrícola, e de um modelo alternativo de planejamento de investimentos com a efetiva participação da sociedade.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-29T14:17:09Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Maria da Conceicao Almeida Vasconcelos.pdf: 6552988 bytes, checksum: 07648f372df17fe23f228d4224a2e597 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-09-17
This thesis has as study object the solidary economy. It is its intention to analyze the solidary economy, while a possibility to generate work and income and of exercise of the participation, being had themselves as reference previous the personal and work experiences of cooperated/the associates, the experiences of the collective work in the solidary economical enterprises, including also the formation continued. One is about a research developed in three located solidary economical enterprises in the State of Sergipe, with activities in the branches of solid residues, confection and improvement of the shrimp. In the research, the qualitative method was used, understanding the collection of depositions gotten by means of half-structuralized interviews, participant and research bibliographical and documentary comment. Moreover, they had been used given statisticians for the characterization of the enterprises and it s cooperated/associates. The theoretical landmark has as base authors who study thematic of the solidary economy and the participation. The results had disclosed that the searched enterprises come propitiating the generation of work and income for cooperated/the associates, even so still are limited the financial results. However, the experiences show that the insertion in the enterprises, goes beyond the generation of work and income. Such experiences are bringing significant changes for the cooperated lives of/the associates, being distinguished: the learning of the automanagement collective work; the personal growth; the discovery and the development of potentialities; the magnifying of the vision of world and the importance of the participation in other social instances. It has, still, a long way to cover, as much in the direction of the consolidation of the enterprises and an effective generation of income as in the perspective of the automanagement and construction of a solidary and participative culture that assures the effective exercise of the citizenship
Esta tese tem como objeto de estudo a economia solidária. É seu propósito analisar a economia solidária, enquanto uma possibilidade de gerar trabalho e renda e de exercício da participação, tendo-se como referência as experiências pessoais e laborativas anteriores dos cooperados/associados, as vivências do trabalho coletivo nos empreendimentos econômicos solidários, incluindo-se também a formação continuada. Trata-se de uma pesquisa desenvolvida em três empreendimentos econômicos solidários localizados no Estado de Sergipe, com atividades nos ramos de resíduos sólidos, confecção e beneficiamento do camarão. Na pesquisa, foi utilizado o método qualitativo, compreendendo a coleta de depoimentos obtidos por meio de entrevistas semi-estruturadas, observação participante e pesquisas bibliográfica e documental. Além disso, foram utilizados dados estatísticos para a caracterização dos empreendimentos e de seus cooperados/associados. O marco teórico tem como base autores que estudam a temática da economia solidária e participação. Os resultados revelaram que os empreendimentos pesquisados vêm propiciando a geração de trabalho e renda para os cooperados/associados, embora ainda sejam limitados os resultados financeiros. Todavia, as experiências mostram que a inserção nos empreendimentos, vai além da geração de trabalho e renda. Tais experiências estão trazendo mudanças significativas para as vidas dos cooperados/associados, destacando-se: o aprendizado do trabalho coletivo autogestionário; o crescimento pessoal; a descoberta e o desenvolvimento de potencialidades; a ampliação da visão de mundo e da importância da participação em outras instâncias sociais. Há, ainda, um longo caminho a percorrer, tanto no sentido da consolidação dos empreendimentos e uma efetiva geração de renda como na perspectiva da autogestão e construção de uma cultura solidária e participativa que assegure o efetivo exercício da cidadania

When collective action for community is defined as local development or as a struggle for survival different understandings are in focus. Politically, this kind of community action is defined as local development and understood in terms of growth and economics. An economic approach to community action is also emphasised in the EU-programmes that support local development groups and projects. On the other hand local groups describe their activities as a struggle for community and community survival. Inspired by feministic research approaches and with an interest in human aspects and values this study investigates meanings of community action as experienced and expressed by rural inhabitants and activists. The study is based on fieldwork that was carried out in a small rural community in the northern inlands of Sweden: Trehörningsjö. Since the middle of the 1990s, the women in Trehörningsjö have driven collective action to uphold the community. With its point of departure in the community and expanding into the arenas of reserach and politics, the study takes on the form of a reflexive research process in which the researcher's former knowledge and new understandings are made visible and discussed parallel with the interpretations made. The main focus of the study is the activist's demand of voice, visibility and worth. The first chapter presents the local community and provides a background to the study. The chapter includes an account of the reflexive approach that widened the field of research from a local to a translocal study of community action. In chapters two, three, four and five the struggle for community is reflected through fieldwork experiences in Trehörningsjö and other arenas beyond the village. Situated events and instances of collective action such as the fight for the local health care centre, are analysed as symbolic expressions of community values and rural importance. From chapter two and onwards, the study follows the footsteps of the leading female activist in and beyond the community itself; that is, the day-to-day work, meetings, conferences and other places where community action is acted out. The struggle for community is proven to focus on translocal rather than local action. In chapter six the fieldwork experiences - that tell about resistance and a struggle for community values and perspectives - are placed in the wider context of the rural development movement, local development research and governmental rural policy in Sweden. On all these arenas community action tend to be interpreted as local development in line with a growth perspective, rather than as community protests and struggles that expresses other meanings. Chapter seven takes the analyses and discussion further, and relates community struggle to concepts such as civil society and social economy. Anthony Giddens concept of life politics and Alberto Meluccis concept of collective action are used to deepen the analysis on how humane meanings and relation based aspects of community action are made invisible on the political "growht and development" agenda. Community struggle presents a possibility for rural inhabitants to (re)define and reclaim their community and themselves as important and valuable. However, to be able to understand what the concept of community struggle expresses, and demands, it needs to be acknowledged as a form of action that has the potential to challenge established bureaucratic and political defintions, which, in practice, proves to be difficult.

Dans un contexte économique instable, résultant notamment de la mondialisation des échanges, de la financiarisationde l’économie et de l’accélération des mutations technologiques, caractérisé de surcroît par l’apathie endémique de lacroissance économique française, la prospérité et la survie des entreprises dépendent de leur capacité à s’adapter enpermanence aux évolutions du marché pour pouvoir sauvegarder leur compétitivité, assurer leur développement etfaire face à une concurrence toujours plus vive. Si les restructurations sont indispensables pour assurer la pérennité desentreprises dont dépendent le maintien de l’emploi, le dynamisme du marché du travail et la création de richesse, ellesmettent fréquemment en péril les intérêts des salariés. Nombre d’entre elles menacent ainsi leur emploi et partant leursécurité économique et matérielle, mais également leurs droits collectifs qu’il s’agisse des avantages issus de leurstatut collectif ou de leur droit à participer à la détermination de leurs conditions de travail et à la gestion del’entreprise via leurs représentants, dont le mandat peut être affecté par une restructuration. Si ces opérations mettenten péril les intérêts des salariés et génèrent un coût social largement assumé par la collectivité nationale, le droit, enparticulier le droit social, ne peut remettre en cause les projets de restructuration. Ces décisions et leur mise en oeuvrerelèvent en effet de la liberté d’entreprendre des dirigeants de l’entreprise à laquelle le droit social ne saurait porteratteinte en s’immisçant dans leurs choix économiques et stratégiques. L’objet de cette étude est donc d’exposercomment, en dépit de son incapacité à influer sur les décisions de restructurations, le droit social tente d’en limiter lecoût social, en préservant au mieux les intérêts des salariés
In an unsettled economic climate, the result in particular of globalisation of trade, the financialisation of the economyand accelerating technological change, further marked by the endemic apathy of French economic growth, theprosperity and survival of companies depend on their capacity to adapt constantly to market trends in order tosafeguard their competitiveness, to ensure their development and to stand up to ever increasingly harsh competition.Whilst restructuring is essential to ensure the long-term survival of companies, on which maintaining jobs, a dynamiclabour market and the creation of wealth all depend, it frequently endangers the interests of employees. Manyrestructuring operations thus threaten their employment and consequently their economic and material security, butalso their collective rights when it comes to advantages resulting from their collective status or their right to participatein determining their working conditions and in the management of the company through their representatives, whosemandate may be impacted by a restructuring operation. While such operations endanger the interests of employees andgenerate a social cost borne to a large extent by the national community, law, and in particular social law, cannotchallenge restructuring projects. Such decisions and their implementation fall within the purview of the freedom to actenjoyed by corporate managers that social law cannot in any way impede by interfering in their economic and strategicchoices. The purpose of this study is therefore to show how social law, despite its inability to influence restructuringdecisions, seeks to limit the social cost by preserving as best as possible the interests of employees

Si le Japon est reconnu comme un pays émetteur de touristes internationaux durant la seconde moitié du XXe siècle, son gouvernement met en œuvre dès le début du XXIe siècle des politiques visant à inverser cette tendance : l’Archipel veut s’imposer comme une destination touristique majeure au niveau international. L’enjeu que représentent les touristes étrangers dans les politiques nationales est souligné à travers l’histoire du pays. Un état des lieux sur la situation actuelle du tourisme des étrangers sur le territoire japonais est ensuite proposé sur la base de plusieurs indicateurs, débouchant sur des modèles structuraux. Parmi eux, le département d’Okinawa apparait comme la zone la plus touchée par le phénomène touristique, d’autant plus que la structure spatiale des espaces touristiques dans ce petit archipel reproduit le système observé à l’échelle nationale, justifiant de focaliser l’analyse sur cette collectivité territoriale. Pour évaluer la pertinence du tourisme international à Okinawa, l’approche adoptée repose sur une analyse cartographique et des travaux de terrain. Centrés sur le chef-lieu d’Okinawa, la ville de Naha, ces travaux regroupent des enquêtes d’opinion à propos des touristes étrangers menées auprès des commerçants, des entretiens avec des fonctionnaires et des entreprises, mais aussi des relevés relatifs à l’affichage des langues étrangères dans les boutiques. Les résultats de ces travaux sont ensuite décomposés en quatre catégories : l’impact économique, les rapports sociaux, les représentations symboliques et les échanges culturels. Des disparités émergent au sein de la ville, ainsi qu’un manque d’adaptation de la part des locaux vis-à-vis de la clientèle étrangère, notamment en matière de communication. L’appareil touristique local est conçu pour répondre à une clientèle domestique et, en ce sens, la croissance des arrivées de voyageurs étrangers s’accompagne d’une série de problèmes. Néanmoins, une « proximité culturelle » s’établit à l’égard de certaines nationalités de touristes. En parallèle, non seulement une hiérarchie des attraits culturels se dessinent mais aussi l’ensemble du système de représentation touristique se complexifie lorsqu’il est appréhendé à travers le spectre des touristes internationaux.Le champ d’observation prend ensuite du recul afin de recontextualiser cet état des lieux dans la perspective des politiques nationales. Ces dernières ont gagné en cohésion au fur et à mesure qu’émerge au Japon une volonté décentralisatrice. Aujourd’hui, le tourisme relève en grande partie de la responsabilité des collectivités territoriales, vis-à-vis desquelles Okinawa fait figure de précurseur, sinon de pilote. En outre, la gestion publique du tourisme est largement inscrite dans une tendance libérale, marquée par des privatisations et un rapprochement entre acteurs publics et privés. Le tourisme international apparait comme une solution pour résoudre en partie des problèmes internes (baisse démographique, contraction future de la demande intérieure, dynamisme socioéconomique des espaces en déclin), de même qu’il doit amener, du point de vue culturel, une meilleure compétitivité du pays en termes de rayonnement (en particulier par rapport aux autres pays asiatiques), ainsi qu’une « ouverture » identitaire.En somme, cette thèse emprunte essentiellement à la géographie du tourisme, usant de concepts tels que la touristification, l’attrait et l’attractivité culturelle. Elle propose une étude inédite du territoire japonais perçu en tant qu’espace du tourisme international, de même qu’elle intègre dans cette analyse la question du rapport à l’Autre, de l’interaction entre trois échelles (locale, nationale, transnationale). Surtout, elle met en lumière de nouveaux éléments de connaissance sur Okinawa, ce Japon « autre » qui révèle certaines réalités de l’Archipel
Even though Japan is considered as a providing zone for international tourists during the second half of the twentieth century, since the early twenty-first century its government has been setting up policies aiming to reverse this trend. Japan wants to brand itself as an important tourist destination in the world. Inbound tourism is emphasized in Japanese history as an important stake in its national policies. The analysis on the current situation of inbound tourism in Japan is then proposed by a series of indicators, leading to structural models. In doing so, the Japanese territory “consumed” by foreign tourists is organized through a space trend called “multipolar binuclear”, including a main axis followed by pioneer fronts. In order to evaluate the relevance of inbound tourism in Okinawa, the proposed approach is based on map analysis and fieldworks. This was centered around Okinawa’s capital, Naha city. These fieldworks gathered surveys from shopkeepers about foreign tourists, interviews with the public and private actors and samples concerning the visibility of foreign languages in local shops. The results are divided in four categories: economic impact, social relations, symbolic representations and cultural exchanges. Disparities are revealed among the citizens, but also a lack of adaptation to foreign customer service, particularly in terms of communication. Local tourism production is still targeting toward Japanese customers, which is why the growth of foreign tourists arrivals is accompanied with a range of issues. However, a “cultural proximity” is felt towards two kind of foreign tourists, according to their nationality. Also, a hierarchy is drawn about the inner “cultural appeal elements”. While the entire system of tourist symbols is becoming more complex, it is observed through the prism of inbound tourism.The scope of observation is then widened in order to recontextualize these elements within the processes of national policies. Tourism related policies became gradually a coherent whole as the decentralization measures have developed in Japan. Nowadays, tourism is mainly handled by local governments, among whom Okinawa Prefecture is appearing as a precursor, as a guide. Besides, public administration of tourism is obviously involving in a liberal trend, leading to privatizations and hindered relations between public and private actors.Indeed, national policies are aiming to promote inbound tourism as a response to certain issues. The growth of foreign tourist arrivals is conceived as a solution to internal problems (demographic slump, upcoming contraction of the national demand, socioeconomic revitalization of declining areas). It also must lead to evolutions in terms of culture, meaning a reinforced influence worldwide (particularly towards Asian countries) and an identity-related “openness”.Concerning all these aspects, Okinawa Prefecture provides an important function as an experimental area. Each of its success are being reproduced in other parts of Japan. Furthermore, Okinawa is playing a complementary role, influencing and guiding national models in terms of public management, in symbolic representation, or even in terms of transculturality.In other words, this dissertation borrows some tools to the French geography of tourism, using concepts such as touristification, appealing elements and cultural attractiveness. It provides an unique analysis of the Japanese territory seen as an international tourism destination, including thoughts about the relation with the “Other” in Japan, about interactions between three scales (local, national, transnational). Above all, the thesis enlightens on a new kind of knowledge concerning Okinawa, this distinctive piece of Japan , which reveals unexpected realities of the nation

Today’s market for companies doing statistical surveys is a market consisting of mostly standardized methods where differentiating your company from the competitors is hard. Simultaneously both the society at large and technology in specific is under constant development and everything needs to be done at a faster pace with better precision.

 

One of the companies on the market mentioned above is Tradewell Group AB. During 2008/2009 Tradewell has developed a new method for doing statistical surveys. The method named by Tradewell is called Cellphone Survey System, CSS and include using existing technology in a, for this market, unknown way. By doing so Tradewell offer their customers fast and price worthy surveys where the results can be viewed online where they are constantly being updated.

 

At this very moment CSS is about to be launched och so the purpose of this master thesis is to identify and analyse those factors impacting the success of product development and product launching and also to do a mapping over the market at which Tradewell is an actor. The goal is then to combine the above mentioned analyse and mapping with results given from my own market survey to discuss Tradewell at large and CSS in more detail which then will lead to recommendations regarding how to move further, both as a company and with their launch of CSS.

 

The master thesis consists of a literature study where product development and product launching has been researched. It also includes a mapping over those methods most frequently used and offered on today’s market. Finally I did my own market survey among 72 of Tradewell’s potential customers, all respondents chosen in collaboration with the management at Tradewell. The purpose of the survey was to gain knowledge about potential customers and to see if there is any interest for a service like CSS.

 

Some of the most important factors when launching a product that were identified during the work of the thesis were pricing, timing, market orientation and market communication. The results from the survey showed, among other things, that most of the respondents already do customer surveys and also that there is an interest for a service like CSS. The conclusions drawn from the results of the survey together with the literature study lead to the final discussion. The discussion brings up how Tradewell are doing today, seen in the light of the different factors; what they do well and what needs improvement. Finally it is discussed what can be done to make these improvements and why they are necessary and I give recommendations for how to move along with the launch of CSS.

Dagens marknad för företag som genomför statistiska undersökningar är en marknad med många standardiserade metoder och det är svårt att differentiera sig gentemot konkurrenterna. Samtidigt utvecklas både samhället i allmänhet och tekniken i synnerhet hela tiden och allt skall ständigt utföras med bättre precision på mindre tid.

 

Ett av företagen på den ovan nämnda marknaden är Tradewell Group AB. Tradewell har under 2008/2009 utvecklat en ny metod att genomföra statistiska undersökningar med. Metoden, som de själva döpt, kallas Cellphone Survey System, CSS. Metoden utnyttjar den teknik som finns tillgänglig på ett, på denna marknad, ovanligt sätt och erbjuder kunderna snabba och kostnadseffektiva undersökningar där resultaten uppdateras i realtid online.

 

CSS befinner sig i skrivande stund i lanseringsstadiet och syftet med examensarbetet är att identifiera och analysera de framgångsfaktorer som styr produktutveckling och produktlansering samt att kartlägga den marknad på vilken Tradewell är en aktör. Målet med examensarbete är sedan att kombinera den ovan nämnda analysen och kartläggningen med de resultat som fås från min marknadsundersökning för att föra en diskussion kring Tradewell i allmänhet och CSS i synnerhet och sedermera komma med rekommendationer för hur Tradewell skall gå vidare, dels som företag, dels med lanseringen av CSS.

 

Examensarbetet har genomförts genom en litteraturstudie där teori om produktutveckling och produktlansering har behandlats. Arbetet innefattar också en kartläggning över de metoder på marknaden som i dagsläget är de vanligast förekommande och som flest undersökningsföretag erbjuder sina kunder. Slutligen gjordes även en marknadsundersökning bland 72 av Tradewells potentiella kunder, alla respondenter framtagna i samråd mellan mig och Tradewell, för att ge större kunskap om kunderna på marknaden och se om det finns intresse för en tjänst som CSS.

 

Några av de viktigaste faktorerna vid en produktlansering som identifierades är prissättning, timing, marknadsorientering och marknadskommunikation. Marknadsundersökningen som gjordes visade att utav respondenterna så gör en stor del av dem i dagsläget undersökningar. Den visade också att det finns ett intresse för undersökningar gjorda med CSS. Utifrån resultaten som marknadsundersökningen gav dras sedan slutsatser som tillsammans med den litterära studien utgör grunden för den slutliga diskussionen. Där diskuteras Tradewells nuvarande läge sett till de olika faktorerna; vad de redan i dagsläget gör bra och vad jag anser kan bli bättre. Slutligen diskuteras också hur och varför de skall förbättra dessa faktorer och rekommendationer ges för hur de skall gå vidare med lanseringen av CSS.

La presente investigación pretende abordar la relación entre cine y activismo. Más concretamente, la manera en que estos dos elementos se han articulado en la actual coyuntura -tras la última crisis económica y sus consecuentes protestas sociales-, en el marco de la ciudad de Barcelona. Proyectos que, adoptando diversas modalidades, coinciden en la voluntad de prescindir, lo más posible, de los mecanismos comerciales o institucionales a la hora de elaborar, distribuir o exhibir materiales fílmicos. Proponiendo, al tiempo, contenidos críticos, independientes, contrainformativos y de denuncia. ¿Cómo nacen? ¿Cuál es su conexión con los referentes del pasado? ¿Cómo es su estructura organizativa? ¿Cómo entienden la cultura?¿Por qué hacen del cine su herramienta para la praxis política?¿Qué temáticas son las que producen o difunden?¿Cuál es su incidencia en el entorno en que se sitúan? Interrogantes todas que encontrarán respuesta en la aproximación a cada uno de ellos, revelando sus experiencias, dificultades, logros y contradicciones cotidianas, así como la manera en que han asumido la labor cinematográfica desde el empoderamiento colectivo, la intercooperación y la autoorganización.
This investigation addresses the relationship between cinema and social activism. Particularly the way this two elements have been brought together nowadays in Barcelona-after the latest economic crisis and its resulting social protests. Several projects adopt different methods and agree to avoid as much as possible all commercial or institutional mechanisms when it comes to distributing or showing film material. They suggest critical, independent and denunciative content. How are they born? How they connect with past references? How are they organized? How they understand culture? Why they use cinema as a tool for politics? What topics are being produced and spread? How they affect their surroundings? All this questions will be answered reveling their experiences, difficulties, achievements, and daily contradictions, as well as the way they have assumed the cinematographic task from collective empowerment, inter cooperation and self-organization.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 2000.
Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 127-135).

I explore the hypothesis that women's land rights and participation in collective action are determinants of women's welfare, efficiency and intrahousehold bargaining power in Brazil. The first chapter utilizes data collected in 1999 on household and community gender relations on agrarian reform settlements in six states. The focus of the essay is the gender division of decision-making within dual-headed beneficiary households. Descriptive and regression analysis indicate that women's land rights and their membership in the Landless Rural Worker's Movement (MST) are associated with greater than average rates of joint decision-making and women's autonomous decision-making in the household. The second chapter compares children's school enrollment and attainment rates among dual-headed and lone parent families on agrarian reform land encampments and land settlements, using two datasets collected in 1999. Children of all ages on land settlements are more likely to be in school than children on land encampments, but teenage girls on land settlements are more likely to be in school than boys, and also attain more in school. There is evidence that the combined effects of household membership in the MST and in producer's organizations predict a greater likelihood of school enrollment and a higher rate of attainment for children in all households. Children are predicted to progress more rapidly through school than the norm in lone mother households in which mothers have land rights and are members of the MST. The third chapter contributes a comparison of men's and women's owner-operated farms, utilizing data collected in 1999. Descriptive analysis shows that female-owned and operated farms are less likely to have access to productive inputs and to belong to commercial farmers' associations. Regression analysis indicates that men's membership in commercial farmers' organizations predicts a 30 percent increase in the value of crop yields, but there is no membership premium predicted for female farmers. However, when controlling for other factors, female farm management is associated with a 48 percent increase in the value of crop yields per hectare.

This document presents the research I have undertaken over the last decade. It is both retrospective and prospective in the sense that, although it is obviously focused on my past activities, it also indicates ways for future research. The main topic of my overall research can be summarized as follows: I explore the development of online, open projects, or communities of creation, such as Free, Libre, Open Source Software (FLOSS), from an economics point of view. This means that in addition to renewing the answers to Olson's question about the individual participation to collective action (1965), it questions also the why and how companies participate in this process, renewing Arrow's dilemma (1962) on the incentives to produce innovation and the incentive to disseminate this innovation, and the way people organize themselves to transform participation into concrete pieces of knowledge, being software or encyclopedia articles.

abstract: 摘要 当前中国农村集体经济呈现出后劲不足、区域失衡等问题。在此背景下，如何破解集体经济发展困境、实现其从梯度到均衡的演进成为学术领域关注的热点。本文梳理总结了国内外集体经济的相关研究成果，阐述了主要涉及的基础概念、理论和方法模型；以2008~2015年无锡市滨湖区92个村为研究样本，分析了该区域集体经济的发展现状和演变进程；构建面板回归模型，探索了该区域集体经济发展的驱动因素与分布不平衡性；并从空间关联视角切入，探索了驱动因素的溢出效应；最后基于研究结果提出对策建议。主要结论如下： （1）2008~2015年，92个村的村级集体经济发展整体呈现上升趋势，但地区间的贫富差距明显；2008年、2011年和2015年92个村按村级集体经济总收入可划分为高、中、低3类，并且在不同时段，各等级间的村级集体单位会相互迁移；集体经济收入呈现明显的右偏分布，尖峰厚尾的特征显著。随着时间的推移，集体经济发展出现了“双峰趋同”的现象。 （2）普通面板回归显示，物质资本、经济工作能力、科技进步对于村级集体经济发展有正向的依次减弱的影响，人口数量的影响为负；面板分位数回归显示，随着分位数水平的提高，物质资本系数先上升、后下降再上升；经济工作能力系数逐渐减小；人口规模系数先下降后上升；科技进步系数波动上升。 （3）空间计量结果显示，各变量对于村级集体经济发展具有一定的溢出效应，其中，物质资本的溢出效应为正（不显著），经济工作能力的溢出效应为正（显著），人口因素的溢出效应为负（不显著），科技进步的溢出效应为正（显著）。 本文的创新之处在于使用较难获取的2008-2015年92个村面板数据进行回归，相比于截面数据，更准确地测度了各要素对集体经济的真实影响；将空间关联因素纳入研究视域，探究了村级集体经济驱动因素的空间溢出效应。
Dissertation/Thesis
Doctoral Dissertation Business Administration 2019

abstract: Governance of complex social-ecological systems is partly characterized by processes of autonomous decision making and voluntary mutual adjustment by multiple authorities with overlapping jurisdictions. From a policy perspective, understanding these polycentric processes could provide valuable insight for solving environmental problems. Paradoxically, however, polycentric governance theory seems to proscribe conventional policy applications: the logic of polycentricity cautions against prescriptive, top-down interventions. Water resources governance, and large-scale water infrastructure systems in particular, offer a paradigm for interpretation of what Vincent Ostrom called the “counterintentional and counterintuitive patterns” of polycentricity. Nearly a century of philosophical inquiry and a generation of governance research into polycentricity, and the overarching institutional frameworks within which polycentric processes operate, provide context for this study. Based on a historically- and theoretically-grounded understanding of water systems as a polycentric paradigm, I argue for a realist approach to operationalizing principles of polycentricity for contribution to policy discourses. Specifically, this requires an actor-centered approach that mobilizes subjective experiences, knowledge, and narratives about contingent decision making. I use the case of large-scale water infrastructure in Arizona to explore a novel approach to measurement of polycentric decision making contexts. Through semi-structured interviews with water operators in the Arizona water system, this research explores how qualitative and quantitative comparisons can be made between polycentric governance constructs as they are understood by institutional scholars, experienced by actors in polycentric systems, and represented in public policy discourses. I introduce several measures of conditions of polycentricity at a subjective level, including the extents to which actors: experience variety in the work assigned to them; define strong operational priorities; perceive their priorities to be shared by others; identify discrete, critical decisions in the course of their work responsibilities; recall information and action dependencies in their decision making processes; relate communicating their decisions to other dependent decision makers; describe constraints in their process; and evaluate their own independence to make decisions. I use configurational analysis and narrative analysis to show how decision making and governance are understood by operators within the Arizona water system. These results contribute to practical approaches for diagnosis of polycentric systems and theory-building in self governance.
Dissertation/Thesis
Doctoral Dissertation Environmental Social Science 2020

Thèse réalisée dans le cadre d'une cotutelle entre l'Université de Montréal et l'Université de Lille
En Bolivie et au Pérou, les régions de production de coca, principales cibles des politiques de lutte contre les drogues depuis les années 1970, sont souvent considérées comme en proie à une certaine « faiblesse », « défaillance » ou « absence » de l’État, et « dominées » par le pouvoir de groupes s’adonnant à des activités criminelles. Menée à partir des cas du Tropique de Cochabamba (Bolivie) et de la Vallée des fleuves Apurímac, Ene et Mantaro (VRAEM, Pérou), premiers foyers de production nationaux d’une coca majoritairement destinée aux marchés illicites, cette recherche s’inscrit à rebours de ces analyses, en montrant que non seulement l’État est bien là, mais qu’il aussi est maintenu et saisi par les organisations rurales de défense de la coca. À partir d’une enquête ethnographique, cette thèse analyse par le bas et dans une perspective comparée les intrications entre économie illicite, mobilisations et États. Elle montre comment fédérations agricoles et syndicales s’appuient sur la coca pour construire des pratiques communales de gouvernement, des identités régionales et des cadrages suffisamment mobilisateurs pour obtenir des politiques de développement censées compenser le « narcotrafic » ou le « narcoterrorisme ». Les dirigeants des organisations sociales construisent leur leadership politique dans la lutte et se positionnent ensuite comme intermédiaires auprès de l’État. Occuper des fonctions administratives et électives leur permet alors de diriger davantage de ressources publiques vers leurs régions d’origine, de défendre la coca dans les institutions, voire de retracer les frontières entre activités légales et illégales. Culture de la coca et politiques de développement deviennent alors des ressources constitutives de l’économie morale des cultivateurs. Ces processus se donnent néanmoins à voir différemment. Au Tropique de Cochabamba, il s’agit d’une saisie corporatiste, propre aux liens forts qui unissent les syndicats de cultivateurs de coca, le MAS, parti au pouvoir jusqu’en 2019, et l’État bolivien. Cette modalité a permis aux syndicats d’obtenir des ressources publiques, des droits, de désigner ses intermédiaires en échange d’un soutien au parti et au gouvernement. Au VRAEM, le faible ancrage des partis politiques dans la société péruvienne laisse le champ libre aux dirigeants de la fédération agricole pour saisir l’État selon une logique entrepreneuriale, par laquelle ils font valoir des ressources propres et des relations pour la plupart extérieures à leur région d’origine. Le détour par ces régions éclaire les relations entre secteurs populaires et État et contribue à décloisonner l’étude des mouvements sociaux. La comparaison en miroir offre une palette d’outils pour appréhender « l’art de saisir l’État » à travers une sociologie des organisations, des syndicats et des partis politiques.
The coca growing regions of Bolivia and Peru have been a focal point of drug control policies in these two countries since the 1970s. These regions are often portrayed as being subject to a weak, failed or even absent state, and under the control of criminal groups. Focusing on the Tropic of Cochabamba (Bolivia) and VRAEM (Peru) regions, the main national hotbeds of coca mostly destined for illicit markets, this research challenges this idea by showing that not only is the State present, but that it is also maintained and seized by rural coca-producing organizations. Based on an ethnographic survey, I study from the ground and in a comparative perspective the interplay between the illicit economy, social movements and the State itself. I show how agricultural and trade union federations use coca to build communal government practices, regional identities and frameworks to mobilize and obtain development policies meant to compensate for "narcotrafficking" or "narcoterrorism". The leaders of social organizations build their political leadership from the struggle and then place themselves as intermediaries with the State. Occupying administrative and elective functions allows them to channel more public resources to their native regions, to defend coca in institutions, and even to redraw the boundaries between legal and illegal activities. As such, coca cultivation and development policies become resources that constitute the moral economy of the growers. However, the views behind these political processes differ from one region to the other. In the Tropic of Cochabamba, it is a corporatist seizing process, inherent to the strong ties between the coca growers' unions, the MAS party in power until 2019, and the Bolivian state. This has allowed the unions to obtain public resources, rights, and the appointment of its intermediaries in exchange for support to the party and the government. In the VRAEM, the weak anchoring of political parties in Peruvian society enables agricultural federation leaders to seize the state through an entrepreneurial logic. They assert their own resources and relations, mostly outside their home region. The detour through these regions sheds light on the relations between the informal popular sectors and the State and broadens the scope of the study of social movements. The comparison thus offers a range of tools to apprehend the "art of seizing the state" through a sociology of organizations, unions and political parties.
En Bolivia y en el Perú, las regiones productoras de coca, principales blancos de las políticas de lucha contra las drogas desde los años 70, suelen ser consideradas como zonas afectadas por la "debilidad", el "fracaso" o la "ausencia" del Estado y "dominadas" por el poder de los grupos criminales. Partiendo de los casos del Trópico de Cochabamba (Bolivia) y del VRAEM (Perú), principales focos nacionales de producción de una coca mayormente destinada a los mercados ilícitos, la presente investigación contrasta con esos análisis. Demuestro que no sólo está presente el Estado, sino que también está mantenido y tomado por las organizaciones rurales de defensa de la coca. Sobre la base de un estudio etnográfico, esta tesis analiza desde abajo y con una perspectiva comparativa las interrelaciones entre la economía ilícita, las movilizaciones y los Estados. Muestro como las federaciones agrícolas y sindicales usan la coca para construir prácticas comunales de gobierno, identidades regionales, marcos de acción colectiva para obtener políticas de desarrollo que supuestamente compensan al "narcotráfico" o al “narcoterrorismo". Los líderes de las organizaciones sociales construyen su liderazgo político en la lucha y se posicionan como intermediarios con el Estado. Al ocupar funciones administrativas y electivas, pueden dirigir más recursos públicos a sus regiones de origen, defender la coca en las instituciones e incluso trazar los límites entre las actividades legales e ilegales. De esta forma, el cultivo de la coca y las políticas de desarrollo se convierten en recursos que constituyen la economía moral de los agricultores. Sin embargo, estos procesos se ven de manera distinta. En el Trópico de Cochabamba, se trata de una apropiación del Estado corporativista, caracterizada por los fuertes lazos entre los sindicatos de cocaleros, el MAS, partido en el poder hasta 2019, y el Estado boliviano. Esta modalidad ha permitido a los sindicatos obtener recursos públicos, derechos y la designación de sus intermediarios a cambio de apoyo al partido y al gobierno. En el VRAEM, el escaso asentamiento de los partidos políticos en la sociedad peruana permite a los líderes de las federaciones agrícolas apropiarse del Estado a través de una lógica empresarial. Hacen valer sus propios recursos y relaciones, en su mayoría fuera de su región de origen. El camino por estas regiones aclara las relaciones entre los sectores populares y el Estado y contribuye a ampliar el estudio de los movimientos sociales. Así, la comparación ofrece una gama de herramientas para aprehender el "arte de apropiarse del Estado" a través de una sociología de organizaciones, sindicatos y partidos políticos.

Throughout the Eurozone’s economic crisis, little attention has been given to wage-setting practices. This lack of attention is surprising given that wages have been considered an important instrument for managing the economy in a currency union since the 1960s and have even been emphasized in successive blueprints for Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). Recent scholarship has found differences in wage-setting practices a key feature distinguishing healthy and crisis-stricken Eurozone countries. Indeed, in this emerging literature, countries that coordinate wages effectively have remained competitive under EMU and had fewer troubles in responding to the crisis, while those with weakly-coordinated wages have struggled mightily. In effect, this literature finds differences in EMU members’ wage-setting regimes at the heart of the economic crisis now facing the Eurozone and the trade imbalances between its Northern and Southern members. However, very little work has examined the specifics of individual labour market models under EMU. Indeed, while this new literature on wage setting and the crisis places wage setting models at its centre, it does not delve into the differences among highly coordinated systems. This oversight is problematic given that scholars of monetary union have suggested that the single currency may amplify the effects of subtle differences in national socioeconomic models, while others have suggested that EMU may be corrosive to some labour market models that coordinate wage setting. This study addresses this gap in the literature, dissecting labour market models by the mechanisms that deliver horizontal and vertical coordination, as well as the indicators to which they are calibrated. Using this framework, it then traces the experiences of Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands under EMU, who use very different mechanisms to coordinate wages. It argues that while EMU has exacerbated longstanding problems in the Belgian wage-bargaining system, it has had little impact upon the German and Dutch systems. Rather, underlying changes in the institutions that manage wage setting in these countries, and changes in social partner organizations – particularly the trade unions – are far more consequential for their continued functioning under EMU. More broadly, these findings suggest that in fact, many designs of highly coordinated wage setting are capable of managing pressures from the single currency. For those Eurozone countries currently refashioning their labour market models, tighter coordination may be just as viable an option as dismantling their wage-bargaining institutions.
Graduate
0615
ifdumka@gmail.com

Ce mémoire s’intéresse à l’expérience de travail des livreur·euse·s de plateformes de la gig-économie, au prisme de la question de l’autonomie. Il apparaît hautement paradoxal que les plateformes numériques, tout en célébrant cette valeur émancipatrice qu’est l’autonomie, sapent simultanément toutes ses chances de réalisation effective par les travailleur·euse·s, en multipliant les sources, directes ou indirectes, de contrôle. Devant ce paradoxe, nous interrogeons la réception par les travailleur·euse·s du discours sur l’autonomie tenu par les plateformes numériques et tentons de déceler leur interprétation personnelle de l’autonomie, afin de comprendre les conditions sous lesquelles une autonomie au travail peut être exercée. En adoptant une conception large de l’autonomie, il s’agit également d’intégrer les niveaux individuel et collectif afin de tisser des fils entre rapport au travail et action collective dans le cadre d’une réflexion sur les ressorts de la mobilisation. À partir d’un corpus de 16 entretiens menés avec des livreurs de plateforme à Montréal, nous développons une analyse qui tente de faire la part entre les aspirations et les pratiques concrètes d’autonomie, tant à l’échelle individuelle qu’à l’échelle collective, en mettant l’accent sur les obstacles à leur réalisation. Au terme de cette analyse, nous mettons en évidence le fait que l’autonomie apparaît comme un enjeu des rapports sociaux de production, qui se trouve dans une tension constante avec son opposé dialectique, à savoir le contrôle. Ce qui se dessine alors apparaît bel et bien comme une « zone grise d’autonomie ».
This dissertation focuses on the work experience of platform-based delivery workers through the lens of autonomy. It appears highly paradoxical that digital platforms, while celebrating the emancipatory value of autonomy, simultaneously undermine all its chances of effective realization by workers, by multiplying direct or indirect sources of control. To address this paradox, we question workers’ reception of the discourse on autonomy held by digital platforms and attempt to identify their personal interpretation of autonomy, in order to understand the conditions under which autonomy at work can be exercised. By adopting a broad conception of autonomy, we integrate the individual and collective scales in order to weave threads between the relationship to work and collective action as part of a reflection on the dynamics of mobilization. Based on a corpus of 16 interviews conducted with platform delivery workers in Montreal, we are developing an analysis that attempts to distinguish between aspirations and concrete practices of autonomy, both at the individual and collective levels, by focusing on the obstacles to their realization. At the end of this analysis, we highlight the fact that autonomy appears to be an issue in the social relations of production, which is in constant tension with its dialectical opposite, namely, control. What then emerges appears to be a "grey zone of autonomy".

Dissertação de Mestrado em Direito apresentada à Faculdade de Direito
A 4ª Revolução Industrial ou Indústria 4.0 é caracterizada por novos desafios advindos da era digital, notadamente diante da utilização inovadora de plataformas digitais como meio de negócio. Em paralelo aos grandes avanços tecnológicos, nascem diferentes formas de organização do trabalho caracterizadas por tecnologias disruptivas, que vêm trazendo importantes reflexões em todo o mundo, especialmente pelo fato de não se enquadrarem aos tradicionais modelos jurídicos até então conhecidos. A dissertação buscará exatamente entender essa tendência de utilização de plataformas digitais como meio de aproximação das pessoas, configurada como economia compartilhada, e descrever suas repercussões jurídicas e sociais que têm movimentado relevantes discussões no âmbito acadêmico e nos tribunais em razão de seu distanciamento da tradicional relação capital-trabalho. Para isso, inicialmente se fará uma breve exposição dos modelos econômicos da sociedade moderna que dominaram o século XX até se alcançar a pós-moderna do século XXI, baseada na informação e na informática (info-info). Em seguida, serão analisadas as relações de trabalho que têm se expandido nos últimos anos, adentrando em conceitos como uberização, gig job, crowdwork, work-on-demand e outros, além dos padrões de subordinação jurídica para possível enquadramento legal, tais como subordinação objetiva, parassubordinação, subordinação estrutural, subordinação integrativa, subordinação algorítmica e subordinação potencial. O estudo se aprofundará nas especificidades de cada uma dessas obscuras relações jurídicas; o fenômeno da uberização em vários países; os desafios tecnológicos; as alternativas de proteção dos direitos laborais e humanos; os desafios de enquadramento e representação coletiva.O trabalho lançará mão de entendimentos doutrinários, de resultados de decisões judiciais e legislações referentes ao tema.Por se tratar de reflexão inovadora, não se pretende dar respostas conclusivas, mas um olhar prospectivo e ponderado entre o inevitável desenvolvimento da tecnologia da informação digital e suas repercussões nas relações de trabalho do mundo globalizado.
The 4th Industrial Revolution or Industry 4.0 is characterized by new challenges arising from digital age, nodded to the innovative use of digital platforms as a means of business. In parallel to the great technological advances, different forms of job organizations emerge characterized by disruptive technologies, which have brought important reflections around the world, especially because they do not fit the traditional legal models that have been known.The dissertation will seek to understand exactly this trend of using digital platforms as a means of bringing people closer, configured as a shared economy, and describe its legal and social repercussions that have moved relevant discussions in the academic community and in the courts due to its distancing from the traditional capital-work relationship.For this, initially, a brief display of the economic models of modern society that dominated the 20th century will be made until the postmodern period of the 21st century, based on information and information (info-info) is reached.Then, the labor relationships that have expanded in recent years will be analyzed, entering into concepts such as uberization, gig job, crowdwork, work-on-demand and others, in addition to the standards of legal subordination for possible legal framework, such as objective subordination, parasubordination, structural subordination, integrative subordination, algorithmic subordination and potential subordination.The study will delve into the specificities of each of these obscure legal relationships; the phenomenon of uberization in several countries; technological challenges; alternatives for the protection of labour and human rights; the challenges of framing and collective representation.The work will use doctrinal understandings, results of judicial decisions and legislation on the subject.Because it is an innovative reflection, it is not intended to give conclusive answers, but a prospective and thoughtful look between the inevitable development of digital information technology and its repercussions on the working relationships of the globalized world.

Trade unions have been in existence for many years. Although their introduction was generally met with resistance, since their establishment trade unions have been important agents of social change worldwide. Over the years, trade unions have been involved in politics and other societal activities. In South Africa, trade unions for many years not only fought for worker’s rights within the workplace but also beyond the workplace. Trade unions started as friendly societies aimed at assisting their members with various matters, including offering financial help for education purposes and also in cases of illnesses. Although the main purpose of trade unions is to regulate relations between employees and their employers, trade unions perform other functions in society which can be broadly referred to as their social responsibility role. Unlike corporate social responsibility, which is recognised and formalised, trade union social responsibility is not, with the role and importance of social responsibility for trade unions having been largely ignored. This thesis aims at changing this by investigating their core responsibilities and their social responsibilities and subsequently making recommendations on how trade unions could recognise and accommodate their social responsibilities in their activities. It also considers factors that could assist trade unions in fulfilling their social responsibilities. Trade unions generally obtain legislative support for their core responsibilities, but not their social responsibilities; however this should not obstruct trade unions in such endeavours. As modern organisations it is high time that trade unions make a contribution towards sustainable development through their social responsibility role.
Private Law
LLD

As a social worker practising in long-term residential care for people living with dementia, I am alarmed by discourses in the media and health policy that construct persons living with dementia and their health care needs as a threatening “rising tide” or crisis. I am particularly concerned about the material effects such dominant discourses, and the values they uphold, might have on the collective provision of care and support for our elderly citizens in the present neoliberal economic and political context of health care. To better understand how dominant discourses about dementia work at this time when Canada’s population is aging and the number of persons living with dementia is anticipated to increase, I have rooted my thesis in poststructural methodology. My research method is a discourse analysis, which draws on Foucault’s archaeological and genealogical concepts, to examine two contemporary health policy documents related to dementia care – one national and one provincial. I also incorporate some poetic representation – or found poetry – to write up my findings. While deconstructing and disrupting taken for granted dominant crisis discourses on dementia in health policy, my research also makes space for alternative constructions to support discursive and health policy possibilities in solidarity with persons living with dementia so that they may thrive.
Graduate
0452
0680
0351
macsuz@shaw.ca

While decision-making under uncertainty is a major universal problem, its implications in the field of transportation systems are especially enormous; where the benefits of right decisions are tremendous, the consequences of wrong ones are potentially disastrous. In the realm of highway systems, decisions related to the highway configuration (number of lanes, right of way, etc.) need to incorporate both the traffic demand and land price uncertainties. In the literature, these uncertainties have generally been modeled using the Geometric Brownian Motion (GBM) process, which has been used extensively in modeling many other real life phenomena. But few scholars, including those who used the GBM in highway configuration decisions, have offered any rigorous justification for the use of this model. This thesis attempts to offer a detailed analysis of various aspects of transportation systems in relation to decision-making. It reveals some general insights as well as a new concept that extends the notion of opportunity cost to situations where wrong decisions could be made. Claiming deficiency of the GBM model, it also introduces a new formulation that utilizes a large and flexible parametric family of jump models (i.e., Lévy processes). To validate this claim, data related to traffic demand and land prices were collected and analyzed to reveal that their distributions, heavy-tailed and asymmetric, do not match well with the GBM model. As a remedy, this research used the Merton, Kou, and negative inverse Gaussian Lévy processes as possible alternatives. Though the results show indifference in relation to final decisions among the models, mathematically, they improve the precision of uncertainty models and the decision-making process. This furthers the quest for optimality in highway projects and beyond.