Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Complex organizations – Case studies'

Thesis (M.B.A. (Rhodes Investec Business School)) - Rhodes University, 2009.
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Business Administration (MBA).

Smallholder agricultural cooperatives have potential to play a vital role in the Malawi economy where smallholder farmers comprise the majority of the agricultural producers. Smallholder farmers individually have little power in the market place but when organized into cooperatives they enjoy protection from exploitation. The formation of cooperatives among smallholder farmers has therefore been accelerated and they now account for more than 55% of all cooperatives in Malawi. However, studies have concluded that the performance of the smallholder agricultural cooperatives is poor, and this research study has also confirmed this conclusion. This thesis therefore attempts to address the research problem: “How to improve the performance of smallholder agricultural cooperatives in Malawi”? The primary aim of this study was to develop a framework for improving the performance of smallholder agricultural cooperatives in Malawi. The research study utilized an interpretive paradigm to explore and describe the various factors that contribute to the poor performance of smallholder agricultural cooperatives. The multiple case study approach was used to gather data for this research study. A total of 8 case studies were conducted among smallholder agricultural cooperatives, and the empirical data that was collected was further analyzed using grounded theory analysis. The findings took the form of factors which contribute to the poor performance of smallholder agricultural cooperatives. A total of 18 factors were identified as contributing to poor performance of smallholder agricultural cooperatives. Thereafter, a performance improvement framework called the Maganga PISHAC Framework was developed by combining the identified factors into four core categories, namely; objectives, knowledge, skills and attitudes. The Maganga PISHAC Framework was constructed by integrating the findings of this study with the current literature in both the cooperative and performance improvement arenas. The Maganga PISHAC Framework can also be customized for use in other countries.

Guatemala's Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo (GAM) and the Asociacion de Mujeres Nicaraguenses Luisa Amanda Espinoza (AMNLAE) in Nicaragua exemplify the resurgence of social movements arising from the turmoil in Central America. They are female collective agents pursuing the self-defined interests of their membership. Via humanitarian activism, the GAM struggles to locate the desaparecidos, while AMNLAE exercises institutional activism as a means to incorporate women and promote gender-specific interests. Women in both groups became active to protect "practical gender interests" and, as a result, women's level of consciousness is growing but the acquisition of a gender awareness does not necessarily follow political conscientization. The growing level of political participation and consciousness provides the women with training to become active and efficacious participants in the dynamics of their country.

This study investigates the phenomenon of a communal Jewish organization, the National Budgeting Conference (NBC). In essence, the NBC is in charge of allocating money to national organizations through contributions collected from each local community. This unique arrangement doesn't exist in other Jewish communities around the globe; the common procedure is that every local federation allocates money for the local needs.
The objective of this dissertation is to follow the activities of the NBC from a strategic management point of view. So far, almost the entire body of literature on Jewish organizations stem from a political science and an ethnicity point of view. My assumption is that by conducting the study from a management perspective, I have been able to research topics that usually do not receive a lot of attention in literature about Jewish organizations; some of these topics include whether and to what extent environmental elements in the community, as well as power relations, influence the decision-making process. I also focused on the NBC's structure, outcomes, and chances of survival. I concluded that the NBC operates within a very fluid and unstable environment, and as a result, it will have to monitor its interests carefully and adapt in a slow, incremental fashion if it wishes to increase its chances of survival.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, June 2009.
This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.
"May 2009." Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references.
An emerging requirement for 21st century enterprises is operational flexibility, a requirement particularly important for the U. S. Department of Defense (DoD). To achieve flexibility, most practice and research emphasizes process improvement, robust collaboration and "flattened" or "networked" organizations. Lateral alignment has also been proposed as a means to enable flexibility. Missing from these approaches is an appreciation and understanding of the role of architecture and hierarchy as well how to apply these ideas at the enterprise level of organization. The DoD has embraced information technology as one means to achieve flexibility via these methods. Within DoD the Air Force is a uniquely flexible combat arm, but it has proven particularly difficult to integrate air power at the level of inter-service (Joint) military operations in order to leverage this flexibility. Kometer (ESD Ph.D., 2005) used a complex, large-scale, interconnected, open, socio-technical (CLIOS) systems analysis to examine command and control of the Combat Air Operations System (CAOS), proposing new command and control concepts to gain flexibility. This thesis extends Kometer's research by using a qualitative architectural analysis to explore the twin ideas of hierarchy and laterality in enabling flexibility. We define lateral interactions as those within the same layer of an enterprise hierarchy. Lateral interactions enable formalized collaboration among peer entities, which can enable more operational alternatives and make these alternatives executable on more responsive timelines than possible with classic hierarchical structures.
(cont.) We identify previously unexamined trends in the operational architecture of combat air operations that are related to flexibility and examine the trade-offs between flexibility and other enterprise properties. We find a pattern of increasing enterprise laterality from beginning to end of the case studies and an association between upper- and lower-echelon laterality, overall system flexibility and strategic coherence. To enrich the analytical framework, an analogous example of flexibility in the New England Patriots football team is developed and presented. We find that our architecture framework provides a rich addition to existing empirical research on combat air power and addresses difficult socio-technical analysis issues in a way that complements other approaches. We also find that traditional perspectives on flexibility, efficiency and effectiveness trade-offs are strongly dependent on hierarchical level of analysis. Our framework lays a foundation for rigorous holistic enterprise design efforts in the area of military operations and other socio-technical enterprises such as health care, disaster relief and large-scale defense acquisition.
by John Q. Dickmann, Jr.
Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Case Western Reserve University, 2009
Title from PDF (viewed on 30 July 2009) Department of Organizational Behavior Includes abstract Includes bibliographical references Available online via the OhioLINK ETD Center

Abstract

Type of thesis: Bachelor thesis

Number of pages: 98

Title: Understanding leadership in successful Non-profit organizations: a case-study of IKSU

Authors: Linnéa Larsson, Peter Storhannus

Supervisor: Jessica Eriksson

Date: 2008-01-24

Summary:

Most leadership research has made within regular corporations or public sector organizations in the business world. However, the research on leadership in the non-profit organizations (NPOs) has been scarce even though these organizations play an important part in society and the economy as well. It is argued that leadership in NPOs is different from that of a for-profit organization due to the different preconditions that exist in a non-profit organization.

The research question of this thesis is therefore; “what characterizes leadership in NPOs and what leadership styles can be found?”.

Our purpose with this thesis is to provide an understanding of the leadership in a successful non-profit organization. More specifically, understand the leadership at IKSU. We identify IKSU as a combination between a mutual benefit organization and a voluntary association. We have chosen to make a case study by interviewing managers in different positions at the successful non-profit organization IKSU located in Umeå.

The interviewees also answered a questionnaire about their leadership as a complement to the interviews. Further, a questionnaire was sent out to the interviewed managers’ employees in order to receive better contextual understanding about their self-perceived leadership. Literature about NPOs and leadership in both NPOs and for-profit organization has been used. Two frameworks are central throughout the thesis; the situational leadership model constructed by Hersey & Blanchard (1981) have been used to analyze and understand the leadership styles and the four cornerstones of leadership by Ekstam (2002) have been used to construct the interview guide and to analyze the leaders’ roles in the organization.

The results have shown that he leadership styles that we can find at IKSU are supporting and coaching and that the leaders most developed roles are the roles as developers and teambuilders. We conclude that the use of high supportive behaviour might be due to both the fact that they have such close relationships between leaders and subordinates that the leaders feel uncomfortable adopting a low task/low relationship style, as that could instead damage the close relationship and lead to lower motivation and commitment from the employee. Another reason to use high relationship leadership style is due to that there exist no clear goals within the organization. The leaders work close together with their employees and the employees seem to work independently, thus with the support from the leaders. They let the employees be part of the decision making processes and they take care of the employees skills and knowledge rather than doing everything themselves. Further, they lead the employees through the constantly changing organization and understand that the organization have to develop since the profits have to be reinvested which will lead to further development of the organization.

Abstract

In recent years funding aid operations has dramatically increased, along with the concern about the real impact of its initiatives. Despite considerable amount of money have been invested world widely and a great number of projects already implemented changes have been considered inconsistent. As a result, major donors are pressuring Non governmental organizations (NGO) to evidence their achievements and legitimate their cause. There are several factors which distinguish the NGO as unique within project management environments, such as the social accountability claimed and the nature of the impact aimed. Therefore, traditional project management practices might not be suitable in the case of NGO’s project. This study analysed project methods most applied for NGO’s project and discussed about it accountability challenges related to project management. Willing to further understand how in practice NGO managers are dealing with those challenges, a case study was developed with a NGO that works with environmental issues. As a result, it was evidenced that practical methodologies are applied to embrace the organization own needs. It was apparent that project management methods were adapted to the institutional purpose, even though adjustments might not be completely in accordance with internal procedures. Project management tools are assumed as a semi structure basis and can be adjusted if the work is justified. A flexible approach relies on the trust and expertise of the organization staff. As a conclusion, it was evidenced that NGO’s projects carry particular aspects and expectations over project accountability and management methodologies must be adapted and complementary methodological approaches are being developed.

This thesis discusses the challenges of modern organizations in their efforts of designing relevant project governance systems. To address the challenge the paper proposes using resource-based view on project-based organizations in order to evaluate and identify key governance resources. Given that prevailing rational and standardized models in project-related literature provide organizations with homogeneous resource-base, this paper invites attention to those resources, which have the potential to deliver unique character to the organizations. The thesis first discusses the relevance of exploring projects as governance resources at project-based organizations, next screens the projects through VRIO framework of resource-based theory. Derived intangible resources and organizational resources are further explored at a case study organization. The findings are analysed through complex adaptive systems theory, where intrinsic motivations appear as sources for emerging project governance systems, while principal trust serves as a resource for self-organization of projects and project governance unit.

Thesis (MA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2002.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: A century of clinical observations and literature has repeatedly noted that trauma responses occur in across a spectrum and on a continuum of severity. The existing, DSMIV trauma response classifications include Acute Stress Disorder and PTSD as anxiety disorders. Complex PTSD or DESNOS was considered as a proposed, alternative classification during the DSM-IV PTSD Field Trials. It was not included as a separate diagnosis, but briefly mentioned as an associated feature ofPTSD. Subsequent research and replica studies have not proved conclusively whether Complex PTSD should be a separate or associated feature ofPTSD, and the controversy continues to date. Childhood traumatization is strongly associated with adult psychopathology, and various Axis I and Axis II disorders, especially Borderline Personality Disorder, and to a lesser extent, Antisocial Personality Disorder. Prolonged, repeated traumatization during adulthood is also associated with subsequent Axis II pathology, including Borderline, Obsessive-Compulsive and Avoidant Personality Disorders. Chronically traumatized people with Axis II pathology often present with comorbid Axis I disorders including Major Depression, PTSD, Substance Abuse, Somatization Disorder, and Dissociative Disorders. There are divergent views regarding the etiology of personality disorders in chronically traumatized individuals. On the one hand, repeated, prolonged trauma could cause enduring personality dysfunction in individuals despite normal premorbid functioning. On the other hand, genetics, temperament, environmental factors and even a pre-existing stress diathesis in the pre-trauma personality could contribute to the development of post-trauma personality disorders. These two views do not necessary contradict each other, but illustrate the complexity the human stress reaction. Despite the controversy the inclusion of DESNOS into the diagnostic canon, it is a valuable measure of predicting prognosis to existing treatment options. The present main psychological treatment for post-traumatic stress disorders has been a cognitive-behavioral based, exposure intervention. Alternative therapies include psychodynamic approaches, pastoral interventions and more recently, ecological and recovery based models. The Complex PTSD conceptualization contributes to a better understanding of the personality structure of chronically traumatized people. There are three main areas of disturbance. Firstly, a complex symptomatic presentation including somatization, dissociation, and affect dysregulation. Secondly, deep characterological shifts including deformations in concepts of relatedness and identity. Thirdly, and increased vulnerability to harm, either self-inflicted or at the hands of others. The usefulness of integrating these three concepts into the personality conceptualization of chronically traumatized individuals is illustrated a case study.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die literatuur en kliniese waarneming vand die afgelope eeu dui herhaaldelik op trauma reaksies oor 'n spektrum. In die bestaande DSM-IV stelsel, val trauma reaksies net Akute Stress Steuring and Post-Traumatiese Stress Steuring. Hoewel Komplekse PTSD in 1992 voorgestel was as 'n alternatiefin die DSM-IV, is dit nie as aparte diagnose ingesluit is nie, maar wel wel gelys as geassosieerde symptoom van PTSD. Latere navorsing en duplikaat studies het nog nie konklusiefbewys of Komplekse PTSD 'n geassosieerde or aparte simptoom van PTSD is nie, en debat duur nog voort. Trauma gedurende kinderjare word sterk geassosieer met volwasse psigopatologie en verskeie As I en As II steurings, veral Grenslyn Persoonlikheids Steuring, en tot In mindere mate, Antisosiale Persoonlikheids Steuring. Langstaande, herhaalde traumatisering gedurende volwassenheid word ook geassosieer met latere As II patologie, insluitende, Grenslyn, Obsessief-Kompulsief en Vermydende Persoonlikheids Steurings, Kronies getraumatiseerde individue met As II patologie presenteer ook dikwels met komorbiede As II steurings insluitende Major Depressie, Post-Traumatiese Stres Steuring, Somatiserings Steuring, and Dissosiatiewe Steurings. Daar is uiteenlopende sienings oor die etiologie van persoonlikheids steurings in kronies getraumatiseerde individue. Aan die een kant, kan langstaande, herhaalde trauma persoonlikheids veranderinge veroorsaak ongeag normale premorbide funksionering. Aan die ander kant, kan genetika, temperament, omgewing en'n pre-morbide stressvatbaarheid almal bydra tot die ontwikkeling van post-trauma persoonlikheids steurings. Hierdie twee sienings weerspreek mekaar nie noodwendig nie, maar dui op die kompleksiteit van die menslike stres reaksie. Ongeag die akademiese debakeloor die insluiting van die Kompleks PTSD konseptualisasie in DSM-IV diagnostiese stelsel, is dit 'n waardevolle praktiese meetinstrument van prognose onder bestaande behandelings opsies. Tot dusver word die primere sielkundige intervensies gebaseer op 'n kognitiewe-gedragsterapie model. Alternatiewe terapieë sluit in psigodinamiese, pastorale en meer onlangse ekologiese en herstel-gebasseerde intervensies. Die Kompleks PTSD konseptualisasie dra by tot beter kennis oor die persoonlikheids struktuur van kronies, getraumatiseerde mense. Daar is drie hoof areas of versteuring. Eerstens, a komplekse simptomatiese presentasie insluitende somatisering, dissosiasie en affek disregulasie. Tweedens, diep veranderings in karakter insluitende versteurings in identiteit en interpersoonlike verhoudings. Derdens, in groter vatbaarheid vir seerkry, of aan hulle eie hande, of aan die hande van ander. Die waarde van die integrasie van hierdie drie konsepte in die persoonlikheids konseptualisasie van kronies getraumatiseerde individue word geillustreer deur 'n gevallestudie.

This thesis looks in depth at the efforts of Palestinian NGOs to build 'civil society' during the period after the transfer of power from Israeli occupation to Palestinian National Authority (PNA) in 1993 till 1998. The process of building civil society is shown in the thesis to be understood differently by NGOs, the PNA and international donors in the functions that it involves and the position that NGOs ought to occupy within the Palestinian community. Drawing on the civil society literature, a working definition of the process of building civil society is developed for the purposes of the study which emphasises three dimensions: (i) NGO efforts to gain public influence either by influencing public debate, rights and duties or public policies; (ii) NGO attempts to strengthen community solidarity and (iii) NGO work to promote democratic organisational practices within their own organisations. A set of four NGO case studies was collected and the data analysed with reference to social theory literature, drawing in particular on Bourdieu's concepts of habitus, field and capital. It was found that a set of internal and external obstacles limited NGO efforts to build civil society. These included lack of support from the PNA, the continuation of Israeli occupation in different forms and lack of interest in the community. These obstacles reduced the ability of NGOs to realise this role effectively. Of the three dimensions of the process of building civil society it was only the second one - that of strengthening community solidarity - that NGOs focused on as a way of combating the difficult economic circumstances that Palestinian Territories were experiencing. The thesis concludes that Palestinian NGOs had the potential to build civil society but they needed more appropriate external and internal circumstances to be entrusted with carrying out this role.

There is a potential as well as a growing interest amongst researchers to utilise simulation in optimising maintenance systems. The state of the art in simulation-based optimisation of maintenance was established by systematically classifying the published literature and outlining main trends in modelling and optimising maintenance systems. In general, approaches to optimise maintenance varied significantly in the literature. Overall, these studies highlight the need for a framework that unifies the approach to optimising maintenance systems. Framework requirements were established through two main sources of published research. Surveys on maintenance simulation optimisation were examined to document comments on the approaches authors follow while optimising maintenance systems. In addition, advanced and future maintenance strategies were documented to ensure it can be accommodated in the proposed framework. The proposed framework was developed using a standard flowchart tool due to its familiarity and ability to depict decision structures clearly. It provides a systematic methodology that details the steps required to connect the simulation model to an optimisation engine. Not only it provides guidance in terms of formulating the optimal problem for the maintenance system at hand but it also provides support and assistance in defining the optimisation scope and investigating applicable maintenance strategies. Additionally, it considers current issues relating to maintenance systems both in research and in practice such as uncertainty, complexity and multi-objective optimisation. The proposed framework cannot be applied using existing approaches for modelling maintenance. Existing modelling approaches using simulation have a number of limitations: The maintenance system is modelled separately from other inter-related systems such as production and spare parts logistics. In addition, these approaches are used to model one maintenance strategy only. A novel approach for modelling maintenance using Discrete Event Simulation is proposed. The proposed approach enables the modelling of interactions amongst various maintenance strategies and their effects on the assets in non-identical multi-unit systems. Using the proposed framework and modelling approach, simulation-based optimisation was conducted on an academic case and two industrial cases that are varied in terms of sector, size, number of manufacturing processes and level of maintenance documentation. Following the structured framework enabled discussing and selecting the suitable optimisation scope and applicable maintenance strategies as well as formulating a customised optimal problem for each case. The results of the study suggest that over-looking the optimisation of maintenance strategies may lead to sub-optimal solutions. In addition, this research provides insights for non-conflicting objectives in maintenance systems.

To understand what makes organizations alike, neo-institutional scholars explore institutional demands and argue that organizations become isomorphic because specific legitimacy demands in their institutional environments require organizations to comply with given rules and norms. But, what if the institutional demands in the given environment conflict with one another? In response to this question, extant literature recognizes the existence of conflicting institutional demands and studies organizational responses to such demands. However, prior studies on conflicting demands tend to explore organizations with a single identity in a specific field. In extension, this study pays attention to organizations that possess conflicting identities across different sectors. Applying an ethnographic approach, this study takes an in-depth look at government-run non-governmental organization (GONGO) and addresses three research questions: first, how does an organization with conflicting identities come into being? Second, what conflicting demands does such organization encounter? Third, how does such an organization respond to those demands? This study collects data through three months of fieldwork in two GONGOs located in Beijing and Guiyang. The findings illustrate three types of institutional contexts where conflicting demands can arise. This classification is based on two variables, which are the complexity of an organization’s identities, and the multiplicity of fields where dominant actors occur. The S-S, M-S and M-M types are therefore identified in this framework. Beyond this, the nature and features of conflicting demands faced by GONGOs are also explored in these types. Additionally, this study introduces inter-organizational power dynamics between dominant actors into its analysis of organizational responses. Given the inter-organizational politics, GONGOs develop four strategies to cope with conflicting demands. These strategies include dilatoriness, negotiation, replacement, and exploitation. The conditions under which particular strategy is more likely to be adopted are also discussed. In sum, this study hopes to shed light on conflicting institutional demands encountered by organizations with conflicting identities and draw attention to inter-organizational politics in institutional environments. Empirically, this study hopes to better understand the special organization creature—GONGOs—and its implications on globalization in China.
published_or_final_version
Sociology
Master
Master of Philosophy

Open-source software becomes increasingly popular nowadays. Many startup companies and small business owners choose to adopt open source software packages to meet their daily office computing needs or to build their IT infrastructure. Unlike proprietary software systems, open source software systems usually have a loosely-organized developer collaboration structure. Developers work on their "assignments" on a voluntary basis. Many developers do not physically meet their "co-workers." This unique developer collaboration pattern leads to unique software development process, and hence unique structure of software products. It is those unique characteristics of open source software that motivate this dissertation study. Our research follows the framework of the four key elements of software engineering: Project, People, Process and Product (Jacobson, Booch et al. 1999). This dissertation studies three of the four P's: People, Process and Product. Due to the large sizes and high complexities of many open source software packages, the traditional analysis methods and measures in software engineering can not be readily leveraged to analyze those software packages. In this dissertation, we adopt complex network theory to perform our analysis on open source software packages, software development process, and the collaboration among software developers. We intend to discover some common characteristics that are shared by different open source software packages, and provide a possible explanation of the development process of those software products. Specifically we represent real world entities, such as open source software source code or developer collaborations, with networks composed of inter-connected vertices. We then leverage the topological metrics that have been established in complex network theory to analyze those networks. We also propose our own random network growth model to illustrate open source software development processes. Our research results can be potentially used by software practitioners who are interested to develop high quality software products and reduce the risks in the development process. Chapter 1 is an introduction of the dissertation's structure and research scope. We aim at studying open source software with complex networks. The details of the 4-P framework will be introduced in that chapter. Chapter 2 analyzes five C-language based open source software packages by leveraging function dependency networks. That chapter calculates the topological measures of the dependency networks extracted from software source code. Chapter 3 analyzes the collaborative relationship among open source software developers. We extract developer's co-working data out of two software bug fixing data sets. Again by leveraging complex network theory, we find out a number of topological characteristics of the software developer networks, such as the scale-free property. We also realize the topological differences between from the bug side and from the developer side for the extracted bipartite networks. Chapter 4 is to compare two widely adopted clustering coefficient definitions, the one proposed by Watts and Strogatz, the other by Newman. The analytical similarities and differences between the two clustering coefficient definitions provide useful guidance to the proposal of the random network growth model that is presented in the next chapter. Chapter 5 aims to characterize the open source software development process. We propose a two-phase network growth model to illustrate the software development process. Our model describes how different software source code units interconnect as the size of the software grows. A case study was performed by using the same five open source software packages that have been adopted in Chapter 2. The empirical results demonstrate that our model provides a possible explanation on the process of how open source software products are developed. Chapter 6 concludes the dissertation and highlights the possible future research directions.

This dissertation is a comparative study of the formal institutionalization of Chicana/o Studies programs in four-year colleges and universities between 1970 and the present, and of how variations in institutionalization create different community engagement dynamics for Latina/o populations both on- and off-campus. This research examines the impact of program and university-level characteristics on the formal institutionalization of these programs and the embedding of community engagement within program mission statements. Moreover, the dissertation examines tensions, balancing acts, and trade-offs between achieving program stability and satisfying legitimizing demands of academic labor. Program-level characteristics include formal classification as either a Chicana/o Studies program or cognate (e.g., Mexican American Studies, Hispanic Studies, Latin American Studies, etc.) or a more generalist ethnic studies program (e.g., ethnic studies, cultural studies, American Studies, etc.). University-level characteristics include locus of control (i.e., public or private universities), institutional wealth, total student body and minority enrollments, histories of campus protest, and regional diffusion. The findings indicate complex and distinguishable relationships among program classification, formal program institutionalization, and community engagement prospects; and that predictors for institutionalization partially predict efforts to work with minority populations off-campus. Complicating these relationships suggests a need to consider variations in program-level institutionalization and dedicate future work to this level.

This senior thesis is a study of Putnam’s two-level game theory and how it applies to the Israeli-Arab and later the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In particular, I analyze how Putnam’s theory explains the successes and failures of past negotiations and what this means about the future of potential negotiations. I conclude that win-sets between the Israeli and Palestinian governments are too far apart for the parties to reach a successful peace accord and that until their citizens are willing to make more significant concessions there will not be lasting peace.

Environmental Planning theory tells us that continued improvement in environmental outcomes will require new approaches that are voluntary; behavior change will come from within organizations, not imposed from outside. The concept of sustainability fits in this new phase of environmental planning and policy. In order for organizations to be successful in achieving sustainability goals, they must create an organizational context that produces innovative ideas (considered a strength of organic or learning organizations), along with an organizational context that effectively manages and implements continuous change (considered a strength of bureaucratic organizations). Effectively striking this balance appears to be a key component of making progress in sustainability for large public organizations. The research completed through this doctoral dissertation addresses gaps in the literature by asking the question: How have large public organizations implemented sustainability programs? A multiple case study design was used that examined three large public organizations that have adopted sustainability goals and established programs for achieving these goals. The data were analyzed based on a conceptual framework that predicts the types of activities and attributes organizations will exhibit to successfully achieve sustainability goals. The results demonstrate that sustainability implementation in these organizations is dependent upon leadership support, cross-functional teams, orientation to the external environment, effective management systems and consistent support over time. Bureaucratic organizations are structured to effectively accomplish the core mission, but if they also want to be more sustainable, they must adopt and promote more organic attributes to enable change, learning and innovation.

How do public organizations manage crises? How do public organizations learnfrom crises? These seemingly basic questions still pose virtual puzzles for crisismanagement researchers. Yet, the interest of the academic and practitionerrealms in crisis management has grown in recent years. In this doctoral dissertationEdward Deverell sheds light on the problems regarding the lack ofknowledge on how public organizations manage and learn from crises, with anumber of critical knowledge gaps in contemporary crisis management as thestarting point.   In the last few decades the interest in crisis management as a scholarly fieldhas grown. This developing field is composed of an increasing number of looselyconnected social science scholars concerned with issues of extraordinary events,their repercussions and the way in which they are managed by authorities,organizations, policy makers and other key actors. However, there are severallacunae to be dealt with in the emerging field of crisis management research.This dissertation sets the spotlight on four of these limitations of the crisis managementliterature to date.   First, influential scholars within the field call for increased structuration andfeasible models to help us understand and explain various important factorsinfluencing the crisis management process. In this dissertation I try to bridgethis gap by developing theory on crisis response and learning. Crisis responsesignifies organized activities undertaken by a stakeholder when a community ofpeople – an organization, a town, or a nation – perceives an urgent threat to corevalues which must be dealt with under conditions of uncertainty. Crisis-inducedlearning refers to purposeful efforts, triggered by a crisis event and carried out bymembers of an organization working within a community of inquiry, that leadto new understanding and behavior on the basis of that understanding.   Second, organizations play a key role in crisis management. Surprisinglyenough, however, crisis management research have only occasionally built theoryon how organizations respond to crisis. So far, the literature tells us moreabout crises as events than on how these events are actually managed. One reasonis the focus within crisis management research on highly unusual, big catastrophicevents and industrial accidents. Therefore, this dissertation explorescrisis episodes that affect specific organizations rather than entire communitiesor national governments. In addition, the dissertation brings together debateson crisis management and crisis-induced learning from a public managementand organizational perspective.   Third, crisis management researchers have to date dealt mostly with acutecrisis response and issues of preparedness, while the issues of crisis aftermathsand crisis-induced learning are still relatively unknown. However, althoughthis study recognizes the importance of crisis planning and sense-making, thisshould not lead to a relative neglect of the issue of learning from crisis. Crisisinducedlearning is important as crises are rare events with huge repercussions.Thus crises are opportunities to draw lessons in order to improve future managementand crisis response, and to mitigate the risk of future crises.   Fourth, the relatively few studies that have dealt with crisis-induced learninghave focused on learning after the crisis (intercrisis learning), while theoryon learning during crisis (intracrisis learning) is not as developed. My interestin both inter- and intracrisis learning obligates me to study crisis response andcrisis learning in conjunction. This means studying how organizations respondto crises and how they learn during and from these episodes. By focusing onprocesses of crisis response and learning under pressure – rather than pre-crisisplanning, threat perception, risk management and preparedness – the dissertationlooks into how organizations and their members manage the challenge ofcrises and how they take on, make use of and implement lessons learned fromone crisis to the next.   The lacunae outlined above are theoretical points of departure for this dissertation’sinterest in the extent to which public organizations learn from crises.Accordingly, the overall objective of the dissertation is to increase understandingof crisis response and crisis learning in public organizations. In doing so, Iconduct an abductive study of how public organizations respond to crises andhow they learn during and after these events. The term ‘abductive’ refers toa research strategy which is characterized by continuous movement back andforth between theory and empirical data.   The first step of the research process was grounded in the empirical world.The empirical contribution is a careful process tracing and case reconstructionof six cases involving Swedish public sector organizations. In the methodologychapter (Chapter 3) I describe the basis of the empirically bounded case study approach and case reconstruction and process tracing method. Six case studiesof organizational crisis management and learning were selected for furtheranalysis. The case studies were based on a variety of sources including posthoc accident investigations, articles, organizational documents and 129 extensivesemi-structured interviews with key crisis managers. The process tracingand reconstruction efforts led to case narratives, which were then dissected byidentifying dilemmas and critical decision-making occasions that were studiedin more detail. The following cases are explored in the dissertation: TheSwedish energy utility Birka Energi’s management of two cable fires that causedlarge-scale blackouts in Stockholm in March 2001 and May 2002; The cityof Stockholm’s management of the 2001 blackout and the repeated incidentin 2002; The Swedish Defence Research Agency’s (FOI) management of hoaxanthrax letters in 2001; and three Swedish media organizations’ (the Swedishpublic service radio Sveriges Radio, the Swedish private TV station with publicservice tasks TV4, and the Swedish public service TV station Sveriges Television)management of news work and broadcasting challenges on 11 September 2001(and to some extent following the murder of the Swedish Foreign MinisterAnna Lindh in September 2003).   As the case selection reveals, all organizations under study are not puregovernment organizations. Rather three organizations (Birka Energi, SverigesRadio and Sveriges Television) are publically owned corporations, while one(TV4) is a privately owned media organization. Accordingly, this dissertationclaims that ownership is not the only measure of ‘publicness’. Media organizations,for instance, are of great importance for democratic societies. The term‘public organization’ is thus in this dissertation not used in the sense of equatingto government, but rather in reference to the degree of which political authorityand influence impacts on the organization.   The theory generating approach that this dissertation takes on impliesthat the case studies are ‘heuristic’ case studies. The dissertation aims to promotenew hypotheses for further research rather than to produce generalizedknowledge. To this end the case studies are further analyzed by specific theoreticalapproaches suggested by prior research. This second step of the researchprocess is dealt with in some detail in the literature review. The literature reviewin Chapter 2 aims to bring an injection of organizational studies into the fieldof crisis management research. The review presents relevant studies from thefields of crisis management studies, organization studies (with special attentiongiven to organizational learning theory) and public administration and management.The review puts forth a twofold argument: There is a need of increasedknowledge not only about crises and how they develop, but also about how theyare actually managed by public organizations. However, prior crisis managementresearch with bearing on public management organizations are mostly based on either political executive foreign policy decision making or on veryspecific high reliability organizations operating in the pre-crisis phase. Hence,organization studies and public management studies should play a greater partin crisis management research.   The review also provides an overview frame for the study by highlightingrelevant research. The chapter discusses the problems of defining, categorizingand operationalizing key concepts such as crisis, crisis management and organizationallearning.   In the third step of the research process, the case studies are further analyzedusing theoretical approaches aimed at proposing propositions on how publicsector organizations may respond to crises, and how they may learn from theircrisis experiences. These analyses have been carried out with an aim to producestand-alone articles aimed for publication in international scholarly journals.Thus this dissertation differs somewhat from the typical public administrationdissertation as it is comprised of an analysis of several articles, as opposed to amonograph. The journal articles are published or accepted for publication inthe Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, the Journal of HomelandSecurity and Emergency Management, Public Management Review, and RiskManagement. The articles are reprinted in four empirical chapters (Chapters4-7), which make up the core of the dissertation. Introductory and concludingchapters aimed at bringing the discussion together have then been added.I present the first empirical analysis in Chapter 4. It looks into how organizationalculture affects strategy and adaptability in crisis management. The keyresearch question is: What mechanisms affect organizations’ ability to restructurein order to cope with acute crisis management challenges? In the study I propose atypology of temporal organizational responses to crises in public perception. Thetypology is based on organizations’ abilities to change strategy and adapt theirmanagerial and operational levels to deal with crises. The empirical data used toconstruct the typology covers three organizational crisis responses: 1) The utilityBirka Energi’s response to a cable fire that caused a thirty-seven hour blackoutin Stockholm in 2001; 2) The TV station TV4’s response in terms of how toreorganize and broadcast during the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks; 3)FOI, the Swedish National Defence Research Agency’s response to the anthraxletter scare of 2001 and 2002. The different organizational outcomes featuredby the typology reveal distinct aspects of organizational crisis management.According to the typology, the Fully Adapting Organization (TV4) managesto adapt both its strategy and its managerial and operational levels to deal withthe crisis. The Semi-Adapting Organization (FOI) changes its strategy but lacksthe capacity to change managerial and operational levels according to the newstrategy. The Non-Adapting Organization (Birka Energi) does not grasp theimportance of strategy change in the first place. Based on three inductive case studies, the study concludes that organizational culture plays an important rolein this process where the Semi-Adapting Organization and the Non-AdaptingOrganization were dominated by strong expert cultures which proved to be lessinclined to change. In contrast, the Fully Adapting organization had deliberatelyfostered an organizational culture in which flexibility – understood as thecapacity to readily adapt to changing demands – was a cornerstone.   The second empirical analysis is presented in Chapter 5. It deals with theissue of flexibility and rigidity in crisis response and crisis learning at two Swedishpublic organizations. The point of departure for the study is that the relationshipbetween crises, organizational crisis management response and learning hasto date been understudied. In an effort to broaden theoretical knowledge on therelation between crisis and learning, the study analyzes the crisis responses oftwo public organizations during a sequence of two failures. The empirical datais grounded in thorough process tracing and case reconstruction analyses ofhow the utility Birka Energi and the city of Stockholm managed two comprehensiveblackouts in March 2001 and in May 2002. The key research questionis: How does organizational rigidity and flexibility affect public organizations’ crisisresponse and crisis learning? A framework of rigidity versus flexibility in responseis utilized in the analysis. The findings are then discussed in relation to theirimplications for the nexus between crisis and learning. The study concludes byraising four propositions for further research.   The third empirical analysis is presented in Chapter 6. This study aims tocontribute to the debate on organizational learning from crisis by sheddinglight on the phenomenon of crises as learning triggers. In the study I pose thefollowing key research question: How can we analyze organizational learningduring and after crisis and what criteria should be part of the analysis? In an effortto unveil patterns of how organizational crisis-induced learning may appearand develop, I suggest a conceptual framework based on conceptual categoriesand answers to four fundamental questions: what lessons are learned (single- ordouble-loop)?; what is the focus of the lessons (prevention or response)?; whenare lessons learned (intra- or intercrisis)?; is learning carried out or blocked fromimplementation (distilled or implemented)? In the analysis section I explorethe practical applicability of the framework by using the same empirical casestudies as in Chapter 5. The final section suggests four propositions for furtherresearch.   The last empirical study is presented in Chapter 7. There I construct aframework of management, learning and implementation in response to crisis.My point of departure is a proposition from previous crisis managementresearch which posits that previous experience can shape crisis response as away of repeating former routines or as a precondition for improvisation. Thekey research question is: How do organizational management structures affect crisis response, learning and implementation? In the study I argue that flexibilityis closely connected to the way organizations learn – in behavioral or cognitivemodes. Moreover, these learning modes are connected to the role of managerialgroups, where I differentiate between centralized and decentralized top managerialgroups. In addition, two case studies of how two bureaucratic media organizations(Sveriges Radio and SVT) managed and learned from extraordinarynews events – most notably 9/11 and the assassination of the Swedish ForeignMinister Anna Lindh – are conducted. The findings show how the decentralizedmanagerial group learned in a behavioral fashion, by creating new formalpolicies and structures, while organizational members in the centralized managerialgroup relied on individual cognitive structures as a way of ‘storing’ lessonslearned. The study ends by discussing the findings from a crisis managementperspective, where I propose that the two modes of learning profoundly affectthe crucial issue of flexibility in organizational crisis response.The concluding Chapter 8 discusses and contrasts the findings and propositionsgenerated from the four separate empirical analyses. Here the role oforganizational structure and culture are highlighted by revisiting specific organizationalfactors that seem to impact on organizational crisis management andlearning processes, such as previous experience, flexibility and rigidity in crisisresponse and learning, and centralization and decentralization. These factorswere also outlined in the literature review. Further empirical evidence of howthe factors affect crisis response and crisis learning in organizations was foundin the four empirical analyses.   In addition, findings from the empirical studies also related to different types of learning processes such as intra- and intercrisis learning and singleand double-loop learning. Consequently these concepts are also deliberated upon in the concluding sections of the dissertation. As a final attempt to bring the propositions and arguments together, a framework of the crisis management and learning process is proposed. In regard to this venture, it is important to acknowledge the limitations of the framework, and of the dissertation as a whole. As it is only based on data from six cases of Swedish public organizational responses to crisis, the framework is merely a visual schematic of a number of propositions to be further tested and validated by further research. However, the framework also has a few virtues. It is an attempt to approach the ambiguous nature of crises and crisis management processes. The framework may also assist in providing more sensible and practical conceptualizations, and thus bring us closer to definitions that remain close to everyday operations of practitioners involved in crisis management. This dissertation thus makes an effort to bridge the gap between crisis management scholars and practitioners. This is also an overall goal guiding research activities at the National Center for Crisis Management Studies (CRISMART) at the Swedish National Defence College, where the research behind this dissertation has been conducted.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2013.
This electronic version was submitted and approved by the author's academic department as part of an electronic thesis pilot project. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.
Cataloged from department-submitted PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 153-157).
In transition to a new era of human space exploration, the question is what the next-generation space logistics paradigm should be. The past studies on space logistics have been mainly focused on a "vehicle" perspective such as propulsive feasibility, cargo capacity constraints, and manifesting strategies, with the arbitrarily predetermined logistics network. But how do we select an optimal logistics network? Especially if we can utilize in-situ resources on the Moon and Mars, it will add complexity to network selection problem. The objective of this thesis is to develop a comprehensive graph-theoretic modeling framework to quantitatively evaluate and optimize space exploration logistics from a "network" perspective. In an attempt to create such a modeling framework, we develop a novel network flow model referred to as the generalized multi-commodity network flow (GMCNF) model. On top of the classical network flow problems, the GMCNF model proposed in this thesis introduces three types of matrix multiplications (requirement, transformation, and concurrency), and also allows loop edges associated with nodes (graph loops) and multiple edges between the same end nodes (multigraph). With this modification, the model can handle multiple commodities that interact with each other in the form of requirement at nodes, transformation on edges, and concurrency within edges. A linear programming (LP) formulation and a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) formulation of the GMCNF model are described in preparation for the two case studies. For the MILP formulation, in addition to the flow, we introduce two more variables, capacity expansion and decision binary, and additional constraints including the big-M method. The first case study applies the GMCNF LP model to human exploration of Mars. First we solve the baseline problem with a demand that is equivalent to that of the NASA's Mars Design Reference Architecture (DRA) 5.0 scenario. It is found that the solution saves 67.5% from the Mars DRA 5.0 reference scenario in terms of the initial mass in low-Earth orbit (IMLEO) primarily because chemical (LOX/LH2) propulsion is used along with oxygen-rich ISRU. We also present one possible scenario with two "gateway" resource depots at GTO and DTO with orbital transfer vehicles (OTVs) running in the cislunar and Martian systems. Then we solve variant problems that have different settings to see the effect of each factor. Findings include: taking advantage of oxygen-rich ISRU, LOX/LH2 is preferred to nuclear thermal rocket (NTR), the aerobraking option as well as ISRU availability on the Moon make great contributions in reducing the total mass to be launched from Earth, and as the ISRU production rate decreases, ISRU in each location becomes worthless at a certain threshold and the network topology changes toward direct paths using NTR. The other case study applies the GMCNF MILP model to the complex infrastructure systems in Saudi Arabia, focusing on the couplings between water and energy. Considering the capacity of the online infrastructures as of 2010 as a basis, we solve the problems with the 2030 demand and the 2050 demand. The objective function is a weighted sum of the total cost and the total CO2 emission. The key findings include: the network tends to be less connected, more isolated when putting more emphasis on minimizing the CO2 emissions, and some of the resulting networks suggest the possibility of the long-distance pipeline network connecting the west coast and the east coast via the central region (trans-peninsula pipeline).
by Takuto Ishimatsu
Ph.D.

This study investigates the recovery efforts provided for low income and ethnic minority populations by organizations during the permanent housing phase of recovery in Watsonville, California, following the Loma Prieta earthquake of October 17, 1989. The case study format is used to discover what activities were performed and why each organization chose to perform them. Dynes and Quarantelli's (1968) typology of organization is used to explain how and why established, expanding, extending and emergent organizations participated in the recovery efforts. The findings indicate that the type of organization dictated the kind of tasks each organization performed. Organizations maintained activities during recovery for which they had experience, expertise and proficiency.

There has been limited research on the characteristics inside the nonprofit (NP) boardroom. Much of the prescriptive NP governance literature is based on for-profit (FP) assumptions. Following a contingency approach, this multiple case-study of two Alberta organizations looks into the NP boardroom to observe the board characteristics alongside organizational and environmental contexts as proposed in a framework by Bradshaw (2009). To build on the proposed framework, this study also explored the combination of internal and external social capital. Using a pattern-matching analysis, support was found for the theorized board characteristic and social capital propositions. While limited by the cross-sectional and exploratory nature, the findings support future research. Future studies can explore the implications of such characteristics and contingencies on board effectiveness and organizational performance.
ix, 95 leaves ; 29 cm

Problem: To compete effectively in today’s global market, organizations are eager to expand their operations abroad. Entering a partnership accounts as a preferred way of doing this. In order to be allowed to participate in many important markets, corporations must recognize the influence of cultural orientations other than their own. In many cases it appears that this is however neglected, considering that up to two out of three partnerships ends in dissolution. Causes related to the cultural aspect of a relationship are often mentioned to form the root of the problem. We noticed that a vast number of studies have focused on how culture affects single organizations, fewer studies however focused on how partnerships are affected by cultural aspects. And even fewer studies have tried to decipher the role that cultural compatibility has prior to entering a partnership. More so, throughout our extensive literature review, we have noticed that there has not been obtained a comprehensive understanding of what cultural compatibility entails. Purpose: The intentions of our research are twofold: first, we have theoretically derived a framework that allows a comprehensive understanding of cultural compatibility as well as its influence on alliance performance, and second, we have explored how this theoretically derived framework is reflected in practice. Method: To achieve the purpose of this study we completed a qualitative, exploratory research including five case studies and five interviews/consults. The case studies were well selected based on requirements such as industry significance and the implication of a high level of cultural diversity. Conclusions: The major conclusion to our research indicates that cultural compatibility is not necessarily a requirement prior to entering a relationship, but unveils to be moreover a foundation that partnering firms should strive for in the early stages of their coalition. Additionally, we have obtained many valuable insights, yet utmost we have experienced that the subject is extremely complex, and that further research on the topic as well as the framework is indispensable to further justify our findings.

Today the world faces a lot of societal challenges in the economical, social and environmental spheres that needs to be overcome. Global warming, poverty and increasing economic inequality are only some of these challenges. The public debate has been focused on finding solutions to them and one of these has been addressed as social entrepreneurship. This phenomenon is about the era of the new type of entrepreneurs – social entrepreneurs – that recognize these challenges as opportunities that can be exploited in a both profitable and sustainable manner. Social entrepreneurship has in this way emerged as an interesting phenomenon and a new area in the entrepreneurship research.

 

This study examines the phenomenon of social entrepreneurship by scrutinizing the concept SIFE - Students In Free Enterprise. SIFE is a non-profit organization that claims to be actively engaged in working with social entrepreneurship. The general purpose of this study is to bring a deeper understanding of the social entrepreneurship phenomenon, by describing the particular purpose, the case of SIFE Umeå University as a social entrepreneurship model. Our study is a qualitative case study using semi-structured interviews. Six respondents have been interviewed from different levels of the organization - SIFE Umeå University - in order to reflect the entire organization. We have used a deductive approach by establishing a theoretical framework that guided the interviews and has been used in the analysis of the empirical data.

 

The main conclusions in this study show that SIFE Umeå University’s work with social entrepreneurship is mainly about socioeconomic and personal development. Another conclusion is that cooperation with partners from different sectors of the society is an important fundament in their work with social entrepreneurship. Furthermore, SIFE Umeå University can be considered as hybrid of a voluntary organization and social enterprise since it includes similarities of both organizational forms. Moreover, the study shows that entrepreneurial skills play an important role in SIFE Umeå University’s work with social entrepreneurship. Finally, we can from this study draw the conclusion that SIFE Umeå University’s work with social entrepreneurship can be divided in six steps: Target group, Job/life training, Commercial enterprises, Personal development, Socioeconomic development, Partnership Network.

The concept of civil society has gained popularity among development organizations since the end of the cold war. Having a strong civil society is said to be an important foundation for democracy and even a necessity for an effective and prospering economy. This has resulted in large sums of money being funneled into programs meant to build civil society in developing countries and societies described as being in transition. Some scholars have argued that money intended to build civil society is being spent on programs that build on a top-down model. These scholars argue that a potentially valuable bottom-up model of civil society is often ignored or disrupted by donor organizations. I explore the validity of the idea of two models for civil society building within the context of case studies in Bulgaria. I further look into possibilities that a mix of the two models can occur between civil society organizations and also within them. This hybridization can give us potential solutions to the problems many scholars find with current donor practices.
Master of Arts

This thesis is concerned with an initial assessment of the implementation of Studio Schools, a novel and highly flexible model of secondary education, in England. Responding to the methodological challenges towards evaluating a 'standard' national social programme that is encouraged to be adapted to context by local schools, the thesis also reports the development, operationalisation, and testing of a new approach towards the concept of implementation fidelity for evaluation science. The thesis commences by presenting the modern-historic foundations and challenges of the current English secondary education system that gave rise to Studio Schools, and describing the nature and objectives of the schools. This is followed by a discussion of the general challenges involved in the development and evaluation of complex social interventions and the specific challenges presented by the case of Studio Schools. The remainder of the thesis reports the development, use, and assessment of methods to overcome these challenges - with particular focus on evaluating implementation as part of process evaluations - as well as the current state of implementation in the schools. Delphi-inspired consensus methods were used in order to develop an explicit programme theory for Studio Schools where none previously existed, involving stakeholders in the theory specification process. The process demonstrated that stakeholders without a background in programme evaluation can agree to a specific and explicit theory of change after a programme was designed but prior to its evaluation. Next, a novel conceptual approach towards defining and measuring implementation fidelity was developed to translate a standard programme theory into flexible implementation measures. This approach focuses on the functions - or targeted change mechanisms - of a programme alongside its form of a given set of activities. Implementation measures were developed in the form of quantitative, paper-based questionnaires that were used to rate form- and function- focused fidelity of implementation of project-based learning (PBL) and personal coaching in schools on ordinal Likert scales. These measures were piloted and refined, and subsequently tested for their psychometric properties through the use of factor analysis in addition to established methods for determining the reliability of instruments in terms of internal consistency and inter-rater agreement. Findings show that it is feasible to monitor programme functions alongside form in process evaluations, and that the validity and reliability of measures based on this approach can be established using common psychometric methods. The measures developed earlier in the thesis were used by the doctoral candidate as well as teachers and students to rate the current state of implementation practices of PBL and coaching in Studio Schools was monitored over a period of four months in four participating schools. Ratings were based on observations made in-vivo or based on video- and audio recordings made during repeated visits to the schools. Quantitative implementation scores were calculated per rater group for PBL and coaching by aggregating ratings given to individual sessions, and were compared within and between schools. Spearman's correlation coefficients were calculated to assess correlation between form- and function-focused fidelity scores. The results of this study imply that implementation in Studio Schools likely varies substantially between individual schools and can be improved in all of them, but also suggest that the model could be evaluated for its effectiveness as long as implementation and process are carefully monitored. The additions of this thesis to the evaluation literature are considered, as well as its strengths and limitations and implications for practice and research.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2000.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 61-62).
Efforts by community-based organizations (CBOs), such as community development corporations (CDCs), have incorporated small business development into their overall neighborhood revitalization efforts with mixed success, especially when working with minority, low- and moderate-income entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs often lack the technical skills and access to capital that they need to start, expand, or maintain their businesses. They face linguistic and social barriers that isolate them from traditional lenders and small business assistance providers. This thesis seeks to 1) provide a context for community-based organizations' roles in small business development for those unfamiliar with the challenges involved in minority, low- and moderate-income business development and 2) provide CBOs interested in pursuing small business development with some comparative guidelines for their own efforts. The thesis identifies three elements that contribute to the success of small businesses-social, human, and financial capital. Minority, low- and moderate-income entrepreneurs often face deficiencies in one or more of these elements. Community development corporations have attempted to provide technical assistance to businesses in their communities to address these issues, but are often faced with their own constraints of limited staffing and resources. One collaboration of ten Boston area CDCs is attempting to break down these constraints and combine and share the expertise of the member CDCs. This collaboration known as the CDC Community Business Network (CBN) provides one-on-one neighborhood-based assistance yet also provides access to the larger experiences and contacts of the other member CDCs. Even with the shared resources of its member CDCs, CBN still faces its own challenges of limited skills, capacity, and funding; an unclear role among other technical assistance providers; and the need to develop effective collaborations with other stakeholders in small business development. The thesis examines two other small business assistance networks and looks to them for lessons in addressing the deficiencies in the three types of capital and the challenges facing CBN. The two comparable networks offer alternative organizational and operational approaches to small business assistance. This thesis asserts that small business assistance organizations must have an understanding of the deficiencies in social, human, and financial capital in order to effectively assist minority, low- and moderate-income entrepreneurs.
by Ronald Quen-Lam Wong.
M.C.P.

What is civil society? This term is no longer new to Hong Kong people in the past 10 years. Nowadays we learn about the conflicts between the HKSARG and civil society groups from time to time given the increasingly weak governance under Hong Kong’s political landscape. A new type of nonprofits (NGOs) formed after 2000 in Hong Kong is closely related to the development of civil society. This paper attempts to argue that the state-nonprofit relationship in Hong Kong can be classified as statist-corporatist, a term used by Lee (2005a) with reference to Salamon, Sokolowski, and Anheier’s Social Origins Theory (2000). The “statist” character refers to the authoritarianism undertaken by the government to grip the control of nonprofits in order to consolidate its ruling; on the other hand, the “corporatist” character is displayed by its consistently generous support to social welfare through funding the non-government service providers. This paper further argues that with the rise of civil society, the non-profit regime also displays a “liberal” character, a term used in Lee and Liu (2011), which has been taking shape in the past 10 years. Under the liberal regime, there is a sizeable civil society comprising smaller individual nonprofits with state financing only one of the possible funding sources. Then, how are the NGOs or civil society groups performing under the liberal regime with respect to their relationship with the state? The majority of these nonprofits work on policy advocacy to fight against the government. The current study will use the case of Hong Kong Unison, an influential nonprofit serving ethnic minorities, to demonstrate how a self-funded NGO, deficient in financial support from the government, carries out advocacy works to call for policy change to suit the need of ethnic residents in the areas of education, employment, and race discrimination. It is found that its size, composition and financing are evident to the features of a liberal regime. Furthermore, with reference to Lee and Liu’s (2011) paper on factors influencing network formation among Hong Kong nonprofits, the present study seeks to explore how this policy advocacy NGO makes use of networking as an effective strategy to form alliance with like-minded parties, given its limited resources. The interactions with different parties such as politicians, government officials, private donors, ethnic minority community, human rights groups, and the media have been discussed. What is civil society? This term is no longer new to Hong Kong people in the past 10 years. Nowadays we learn about the conflicts between the HKSARG and civil society groups from time to time given the increasingly weak governance under Hong Kong’s political landscape. A new type of nonprofits (NGOs) formed after 2000 in Hong Kong is closely related to the development of civil society. This paper attempts to argue that the state-nonprofit relationship in Hong Kong can be classified as statist-corporatist, a term used by Lee (2005a) with reference to Salamon, Sokolowski, and Anheier’s Social Origins Theory (2000). The “statist” character refers to the authoritarianism undertaken by the government to grip the control of nonprofits in order to consolidate its ruling; on the other hand, the “corporatist” character is displayed by its consistently generous support to social welfare through funding the non-government service providers. This paper further argues that with the rise of civil society, the non-profit regime also displays a “liberal” character, a term used in Lee and Liu (2011), which has been taking shape in the past 10 years. Under the liberal regime, there is a sizeable civil society comprising smaller individual nonprofits with state financing only one of the possible funding sources. Then, how are the NGOs or civil society groups performing under the liberal regime with respect to their relationship with the state? The majority of these nonprofits work on policy advocacy to fight against the government. The current study will use the case of Hong Kong Unison, an influential nonprofit serving ethnic minorities, to demonstrate how a self-funded NGO, deficient in financial support from the government, carries out advocacy works to call for policy change to suit the need of ethnic residents in the areas of education, employment, and race discrimination. It is found that its size, composition and financing are evident to the features of a liberal regime. Furthermore, with reference to Lee and Liu’s (2011) paper on factors influencing network formation among Hong Kong nonprofits, the present study seeks to explore how this policy advocacy NGO makes use of networking as an effective strategy to form alliance with like-minded parties, given its limited resources. The interactions with different parties such as politicians, government officials, private donors, ethnic minority community, human rights groups, and the media have been discussed. The present study has certain limitations. However, it is meaningful as it provides insights into the state-nonprofit relationship as the society evolves. It argues that the tension between the government and policy advocacy NGOs cannot be resolved if Hong Kong is not to run democratisation as promised by the Beijing Central Government1. Recommendations are made to call for further research on the development of policy advocacy NGOs following the establishment of the Fourth Term Government of the HKSAR on 1 July 2012.
published_or_final_version
Politics and Public Administration
Master
Master of Public Administration