Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Electronic media in organisations'

This study attempts to analyse the way foreign media organisations have used the Internet to inform, educate and mobilise citizens for participation in their national election. These foreign experiences provide a framework with which to analyse the implications for the SABC as a public broadcaster of the next elections in South Africa. The research was informed by theories of media and democracy. One of the most powerful features of the new technology is its technical ability to facilitate an interactive flow of information. This research examines the concept of cyberdemocracy and the implications for the SABC, especially as it is planning on launching an online election strategy. The democratic roles of journalism and the implications for the SABC are also discussed. As a public service broadcaster, the SABC is bound to educate, inform, and mobilise voters for participation, build community and national identity and scrutinise the poll in the interests of transparency, accountability and fair play. International journalists are advocating a new type of journalism, called public or civic journalism, which combines these roles. This research draws primarily on qualitative research methods, using a case study methodology. It draws upon direct observation and interview methodology in the fieldwork. However, it also uses some quantitative methods in the analysis of the websites and the SABC research.Finally, the research analyses the situation at the SABC and provides recommendations for the election website within this context

Autonomic systems, capable of self-management, are being advocated as a solution to the problem of maintaining modern, large, complex computing systems. Given this, we believe self-organising multi-agent systems provide a convenient paradigm to develop these autonomic systems because such self-organising systems can arrange and re-arrange their structure autonomously, without any external control, in order to adapt to changing requirements and environmental conditions. Furthermore, such systems need to be decentralised, so that they are robust against failures; again, this characteristic fits with the multi-agent paradigm. With this motivation, this thesis explores the area of self-organisation in agent systems, and particularly focuses on the decentralised structural adaptation of agent organisations. In more detail, self-organisation has been generated in agent systems using various approaches like stigmergy, reinforcement mechanisms, cooperative actions of agents and reward based mechanisms for selfish agents. However, none of these are directly applicable to agent organisations because they cannot be incorporated into deliberative agents working towards organisational goals. The few adaptation mechanisms that are applicable are either centralised or are based on restricted settings and also ignore the resources being used by the adaptation process. Here, we particularly focus on such problem solving agent organisations because they provide a suitable representation for autonomic systems. We investigate and develop mechanisms to incorporate decentralised structural adaptation in organisations to improve their performance. More specifically still, we provide a generic framework for representing problem solving agent organisations. This serves as the platform on which we investigate approaches for structural adaptation. Following this, we demonstrate a robust, decentralised adaptation method that enables the agents to modify the organisational structure. As the method is based on self-organisation principles, the agents use only their local views to change their structural relations to achieve a better allocation of tasks in the organisation. Particularly, the agents reason about when and how to adapt using only their history of interactions as guidance. We empirically show that, in a wide range of closed, open, static and dynamic scenarios, the performance of organisations using our method is close (70 − 90%) to that of an idealised centralised allocation method and is considerably better (10 − 45%) than the current state of the art decentralised approaches.

This research investigated the issues behind the slow intake of electronic tendering in construction. The study found that organisations are not ready for certain aspects that affect their readiness for electronic tendering. The researchers developed model includes a new hypothesis that could improve the organisation's readiness. The model has been empirically tested in Saudi Arabia. The results confirm that the hypothesis has the most important effect on the organisation readiness toward the uptake of electronic tendering.

This research studied the impact of popular third-party embedded social media within media organisations websites (such as widgets and applications). The research examined the experience of this phenomenon from both the media organisations and their website users/news readers perspectives. The findings demonstrated how embedded third-party code brings technical and business challenges to an organisation affecting their website users’ browsing experience. A set of 26 recommendations were presented to assist any organisations using social media to tailor their own IT based social media policies and assist in making websites more efficient and enhance their end user experience.

Submitted to the Faculty of Arts in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (D.Phil) in the Department of Communication Science at the University of Zululand, South Africa, 2004.
This dissertation focuses on the contribution of electronic communication (e-Communication) to knowledge management. It is based on an empirical survey of knowledge management practitioners in the private, public and NGO sectors in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The major findings of this study are (1) that many knowledge management practitioners have not received any formal training in knowledge management, (2) that for most of them their practices are not informed by explicit knowledge management policies, (3) that there is no culture of sharing knowledge established within particular organisations, and finally (4) that knowledge managers are not using e-learning facilities to keep their knowledge of knowledge management current.

The implementation of SM is considered an important criterion that influences the accomplishment of business performance and achieves competitive advantage. However, there is a limitation in SM research concerning the implementation of SM strategy and the selection of suitable SM platform for business. Therefore, the investigation and analysis conducted in this study provide an understanding of the application of SM in business by examining the implementation process and the selection of SM platform. Accordingly, a SM strategy framework was developed for a practical implementation of business which includes three stage-process. This empirical research context includes two field investigations in relations to the views and experience of the SM personnel who participated in this study. Both investigation phases were analysed using thematic analysis with respect to the interpretive qualitative analysis approach. The research revealed that companies do follow directly or indirectly some base guidelines in employing SM but do not have a strategic implementation process in carrying out this activity as described in the framework presented. Also, companies are required to consider selecting a suitable SM platform for business which leads to added value to the holistic strategically implemented process. The analysis of the SM strategy framework revealed that an alignment of SM strategy and business strategy could be established through strategic implementation. The implementation process of SM strategy would require company's readiness as described in the framework to ensure successful SM integration to support in achieving business goals. This research provides in-depth knowledge of how the implementation process can be conducted in stages and the application of this technological innovation. The results of the analysis of the framework indicated that companies establish a presence on platforms where their customers are located. Leading to further investigation in the second phase where Practice theory is employed. Revealing an in-depth understanding on how platform evaluation can be carried out by examining the actual act of enacting the selection process, understanding the routine and considering the individuals involved in shaping and implementing platform evaluation in the company. Therefore, the findings can be used by managers or key SM personnel to implement SM strategy efficiently to improve business performance and applied by researchers for further evaluation and analysis of this process.

This thesis examines the impact of social media on organisations, and in particular focuses on the way firms are using social media to construct 'online celebrity' and the way social movement organisations acquire legitimacy through a blending of offline and online illegitimate actions. This thesis embraces a perspective at the intersection between institutional theory, communications theory and strategy to deeply understand the impact of social media that enables and constrains organisational actions. The study finds that social media are affecting the information-intensive environment where organisations operate. Current shifts in communication technology, such as new patterns and modes of communication, provide a useful natural experiment to analyse how different types of organisations, including firms and social movement organisations, are strategically adopting social media to help maintain or acquire social approval assets. This research into social media strategy in one large technology firm and in one social movement organisation shows how social media may enable firms to achieve valuable strategic positions in ways that are underexplored by current organisation literature, ultimately leading to celebrity and legitimacy acquisition. This thesis makes several contributions to organisational strategy and institutional theory. First, it introduces and develops the concept of online celebrity, which is a firm's ability to attract public attention and affective investment from networked publics through social media. Second, it expands our understanding of legitimacy acquisition by including a blending of illegitimate offline and online actions by social movement organisations that challenge taken for granted cultural norms, dominant frames and powerful actors. Third, it outlines key social media tactics which focus on shaping the external organisational environment and the cognition and perception of key audiences. This thesis also presents future paths of research that organisation and management scholars should consider in order to develop a more comprehensive understanding of how shifts in communication strategies facilitate larger shifts in social institutions and in the way organisations construct their interaction with stakeholder audiences.

Social media presents new possibilities of creating knowledge that would not have been possible using other computer-mediated forms. Social media enables enrichment of organisations’ knowledge resources with the extracted insights; however, what is not certain is the factors that are at play when taking a decision to consider social media data as the source of insight that will translate into valuable knowledge that organisations may benefit from. The purpose of this study is to investigate how organisations integrate social media into their knowledge base. The dynamic capabilities and organisational resilience in turbulent environments framework was used as a lens to look into how organisations integrate social media into their knowledge base. A Systematic Literature Review (SLR) was performed to identify, evaluate and interpret all the relevant material or primary studies that are available to answer the research question. Furthermore, an empirical investigation was conducted through the use of interviews and questionnaires. The contribution of the current study to the body of knowledge is twofold. Firstly, synthesis of the existing literature on the uses of social media and knowledge management as well as the evaluation of the model resulted in a revised dynamic capabilities model (DCF) where three capabilities were added, namely validating capability due to questionable SM data quality, crisis management capability for safeguarding the organisations’ reputation, and innovating capability to stay ahead of the fiercely competitive dynamic environment. Secondly, this study produced a significant number of factors that both the literature and the research participants considered key to the implementation of the proposed model. These factors can be categorised into people, processes and technology aspects. The study is significant in the sense that 1) the research findings should be of interest to organisations that are open to innovation and therefore can be used as yardsticks for decision-making; 2) the emergence of the crisis management capability is a major contribution to the body of knowledge as it highlights the importance of proactivity and alertness to responding to conversations of the organisations’ audiences and avoiding the social media backlash suffered by organisations. As the study focused on only one case study, it serves a basis for further research in different sectors of the business with the aim of validating the generality of the proposed model.
Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2020.
Informatics
MCom
Unrestricted

Adolescent media use has been considered an important factor in shaping educational outcomes. In order to help adolescents succeed academically, it is important to understand how they utilize their time. The purpose of this study is to examine the culturally cultivated habits of adolescents in relation to academic outcomes. I argue that the relationship between media use and academics can be better understood when considering how adolescents develop their cultural habits. Using Pierre Bourdieu's theory of cultural capital to frame my analysis, I utilize secondary data from the Educational Longitudinal Study (ELS) for analysis. Overall, media use was associated with test scores, though the associations were not very strong. Visual media was negatively associated with test scores while leisurely reading was positively associated. Socioeconomic status, or SES, was shown to be the strongest predictor of math and reading scores; however, in my OLS models, the strength of SES declined when media use, student activities, and attitudes were accounted for. Moreover, the negative impact of consuming visual media is greater for higher SES students. Conversely, the positive impact of leisurely reading is larger for higher SES students. In conclusion, media is a cultural behavior and cultivated habits can affect educational outcomes.
Thesis (M.A.)--Wichita State University, Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Dept. of Sociology

Thesis (MPhil (General Linguistics))--University of Stellenbosch, 2011.
Bibliography
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis is interested in textual features of websites which cover the same kind of content, but represent different organisations and address different kinds of audiences. Specifically, it investigates how information on HIV/AIDS is multimodally represented on the webpages of two non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and two governmental organisations. First, the websites of the national Department of Health and of a provincial Department of Health (Western Province) are scrutinised. Second, the websites of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and Avert, NGOs with a special interest in the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS in southern Africa, are investigated. The aim of the research is to consider aspects of layout, the use of multimodality, and the introduction of selected themes and concerns foregrounded in the selected websites. The focus of the thesis is on the transmission of information, particularly through the electronic media, by investigating multimodal elements (language, images, sound, colours) and the layouts of websites, in order to identify possible interpretations which the intended audiences may afford the various texts. The analysis of the sites relies theoretically on the metafunctions developed by Halliday (1985) in his systemic functional linguistic framework. It also refers to an extension of Halliday’s work developed to allow multimodal discourse analysis that considers aspects of visual design and placement, developed by Kress and van Leeuwen (1996, 1998) and Kress (2003, 2005). These approaches focus on text, multimodal elements, the placements thereof on a page as well as the coherence between design of layouts and communicative modes that intend to send a convincing and meaningful message. The thesis also refers to Critical Discourse Analysis in that it considers matters of language and power in internet based communication. It seems that the governmental sites are set up with an audience in mind who needs to be informed on policy matters, while the NGO sites are set up with a more vulnerable audience in mind. One kind of web-communication is likely to alienate the exact people who should be receiving state support and treatment in the face of HIV/AIDS. Another is aimed more at supporting activism against the perceived lethargy of the state. A third supports various charities that reach out to communities where HIV-infection rates are particularly high. The interpretation of multimodal pages requires knowledge of website design for educational purposes as well as information on usage of the internet to get sufficient information. Further, access of the intended audience to electronic communication needs to be considered as this will determine whether the seriousness of the illness and possible prevention or treatment, is well communicated, especially to those who have been identified as most vulnerable to new infection. The thesis finds that electronic communication cannot be the first step to circulating information related to HIV/AIDS. Non-governmental and governmental institutions are still dependent on other forms of media than websites, thus on the printed media, radio and television, and on campaigns or community based projects to communicate with particular audiences. Electronic communication is complex in that it works with various modes (visual, verbal, audial) and requires some technical sophistication from producers and receivers of texts. Theories of communication and discourse analytic methodologies can assist in our understanding of how the internet succeeds or fails in circulating critical health care information. However, to gain a reliable understanding of how the internet functions in transmitting HIV-information to all interest groups, received knowledge of other areas of scholarly interest in health care communication, such as multilingualism, sociology, anthropology, behavioural sciences, cognitive psychology or brain research elaborations, would eventually have to be considered as well.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis stel belang in tekstuele kenmerke van webwerwe wat dieselfde tipe inhoud weergee, maar verskillende organisasies verteenwoordig en verskillende tipes gehore aanspreek. Dit ondersoek spesifiek hoe inligting oor MIV/Vigs multimodaal op die webbladsye van twee nie-regeringsorganisasies (NRO’s) en twee regeringsorganisasies aangebied word. Die webwerwe van die Nasionale Departement van Gesondheid en die Provinsiale Departement van Gesondheid (Wes-Kaap) word eerstens noukeurig ondersoek. Tweedens word die webwerwe van die Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) en Avert, NRO’s met spesiale belang in die voorkoming en behandeling van MIV/Vigs in suidelike Afrika, ondersoek. Die doel van hierdie navorsing is om oor aspekte van uitleg, die gebruik van multimodaliteit en die invoering van spesifieke temas en sake wat op die geselekteerde webwerwe beklemtoon word, na te dink. Die tesis se fokus in op die oordrag van inligting, veral deur die elektroniese media, deur multimodale elemente (taal, beelde, klank, kleur) en die uitleg van webwerwe te ondersoek, om sodoende verskillende moontlike interpretasies wat die bestemde gehoor aan die verskeie tekste mag heg, te identifiseer. Die analise van die webwerwe steun teoreties op die metafunksies wat deur Halliday (1985) ontwikkel is in sy grammatikale raamwerk, Systemic Functional Grammar. Dit verwys ook na ’n uitbreiding op Halliday se werk, wat deur Kress en Van Leeuwen (1996, 2005, 1998) en Kress (2003) ontwikkel is om multimodale diskoersanalise toe te laat wat aspekte van visuele ontwerp en plasing oorweeg. Hierdie benaderings fokus op teks, multimodale elemente, die plasing daarvan op ‘n bladsy en die koherensie tussen die ontwerp, uitleg en kommunikatiewe modusse. Dit kyk na hoe hierdie elemente saamwerk om ’n oortuigende en betekenisvolle boodskap uit te stuur. Hierdie tesis verwys ook na aspekte van Kritiese Diskoersanalise wat betrekking het op kwessies van taal en mag in internetgebaseerde kommunikasie. Dit kom voor asof die regeringswebwerwe ontwerp is met ’n gehoor in gedagte wat oor beleidskwessies ingelig moet word, terwyl die NRO-webwerwe ontwerp is met ’n meer weerlose gehoor in gedagte. Lg. gehoor word ingelig oor die siekte en behandelingsmoontlikhede eerder as beleid. Een soort web-kommunikasie sal waarskynlik dié mense wat juis regeringsondersteuning teen MIV/Vigs behoort te ontvang, vervreem. ’n Ander soort is meer daarop gerig om aktivisme teen die staat se vermeende traagheid te ondersteun. ’n Derde soort kommunikasie ondersteun verskeie liefdadigheidsorganisasies wat uitreik na gemeenskappe waar MIV-infeksiekoerse besonder hoog is. Die interpretasie van multimodale webwerwe vereis kennis van webwerf-ontwerp vir opvoedkundige doeleindes asook inligting oor die gebruik van die internet om voldoende inligting te bekom. Verder moet die bestemde gehoor se toegang tot elektroniese kommunikasie in ag geneem word, aangesien dít sal bepaal of die erns van die siekte en moontlike voorkoming of behandeling, goed weergegee word, veral aan dié wat s besonder blootgestel is en dus hoë risiko loop vir nuwe infeksie. Die tesis bevind dat elektroniese kommunikasie nie die eerste stap kan wees in die proses om inligting oor MIV/Vigs te sirkuleer nie. Nie-regerings- en regeringsorganisasies is steeds afhanklik van ander media as webwerwe, soos drukmedia, radio, televisie en veldtogte of gemeenskapsgebaseerde projekte, om met bepaalde gehore te kommunikeer. Elektroniese kommunikasie is kompleks omdat dit met verskeie modusse (visueel, verbaal, oudio) werk en tegniese sofistikasie van vervaardigers en ontvangers van tekste vereis. Teorieë van kommunikasie en diskoersanalise-metodologieë kan ons insig in hoe die internet daarin slaag (of nie) om belangrike gesondheidsorginligting te versprei. Om egter ’n betroubare begrip vir die werking van die internet as verspreider van MIV-inligting aan alle belange-groepe te verkry, moet kennis van ander areas van belangstelling in gesondheidsorg-kommunikasie, soos veeltaligheid, sosiologie, antropologie, gedragswetenskappe, kognitiewe psigologie of brein-navorsing, ook uiteindelik oorweeg word.

Background: As more people are using mobile phones to receive and read news, Twitter has become a popular communication tool, particularly for commercial brands in South Africa. This thesis investigates twelve South African organisations’ use of Twitter. It portrays Twitter as an informational network that allows conversational communication. It seeks to identify how commercial brands in South Africa use Twitter as a public relations/communication tool. Aim and Objective: In attempt to learn whether current South African tweets among certain organisations follow Western practices of public relations, the study aims to understand and identify how commercial brands in South Africa communicate with their publics through Twitter. Revealing the content of these organisations’ tweets facilitated the fulfilment of this objective.

This thesis examines the significance of social learning in community media and arts contexts. It takes as its focus the use of storytelling by organisations in the community cultural development and community media sectors as a way of enacting social change from within communities. These organisations exist as hybrid learning environments, and they must maintain certain standards of quality in their processes and outcomes to be of ongoing value in their communities and to funders. Such community organisations create networked social learning systems, and the co-creative media practice explored in this thesis is learnt ‘in situ’ in communities of practice.

In 1971, scientist Ray Tomlinson sent what is now considered the first email message. It was considered as “nothing short of revolutionary … deserv[ing] a spot in the list of great communication inventions such as the printing press, telegraph and telephone” (Festa, 2001). Whereas email was first used exclusively in the military (Arpanet) and in academic circles, it has now become almost ubiquitous, used widely for private, as well as for business correspondence. According to a Berkeley study (Berkeley, 2000), there were approximately 440 million corporate and personal [e-] mailboxes worldwide in 2001, of which more than a third was corporate mailboxes. As a result of the extensive use of email in the corporate environment, Information Officers have to ensure that the use of email adds business value. In an “always on” market place, the efficiency, immediacy and cost effectiveness of email communication are immediately evident. A study by Ferris Research, quoted by Nchor (2001), shows that there is “an overall productivity gain of US$9000 per employee as they send and receive emails to get projects done.” However, the use of email in the corporate envi-ronment also poses business risks that need to be uniquely addressed. Among these “key business risks” (Surfcontrol, 2001) are security risks, viruses, legal liability, pro-ductivity loss and bandwidth abuse. To address the risks mentioned above and to protect the business value of email, spe-cific policies have to be implemented that address email usage. Information Security Policies are defined in most corporate environments. In a study done by Elron Soft-ware (2001), 83% of respondents who have abused email have company policies regu-lating email usage. There appears to be a gap between policy conception and policy implementation. Various factors inhibit effective policy implementation – ethical, legal and cultural. The implementation of corporate policy becomes especially complex in multinational environments where differing information law Email usage is ubiquitous in the modern business environment, but few companies adequately manage the risks associated with email.

In recent years, the use of social media tools has grown significantly in our personal lives as a preferred method of communicating and connecting with others. Consequently, organisations have begun to introduce these tools to facilitate communication, cooperation, collaboration and connections. Despite the benefits that early adapters have gained, many organisations have been slow to adopt. The reasons for slow adoption include policies and procedures that inhibit change, privacy and security issues, and organisational culture. Additionally, organisations struggle with how to use the tools, measure the effectiveness and fail to realise their potential benefits. Thus, a key issue for organisations is the lack of preparedness prior to introducing enterprise social media tools. However, it is difficult for organisations to assess their level of readiness for enterprise social media, because a method or tool to produce an assessment of their readiness was non-existent. This limitation is addressed by investigating organisational readiness within information intensive organisations. Organisational Semiotics was adopted as an approach to identify the organisational readiness factors for enterprise social media to ensure that the social and technical relationships were considered in the solution. The readiness factors identified were resources (human, financial and technical), organisational climate (culture and awareness), new processes, values, discrepancy, benefit, management support and organisational controls (security! privacy, policies and procedures, accountability, communication procedures, and fall back). Additionally, a stages of growth model has been used to investigate the organisational environment and identify the phases in which enterprise social media is introduced in an organisations. The outcome of this is a readiness assessment method for organisations to introduce ESM. The results will indicate areas of improvement and can be used by organisations to build a strategic plan to introduce enterprise social media

During the Covid-19 vaccination in Croatia, there were inconsistencies and irregularities with the surplus vaccine and its recipients. Media coverage of the affair was extensive. The details were broadcasted in traditional media and social media. Like many other spheres of social life, the media system has progressed under the baton of technological and communication changes. The destabilisation of traditionally conducted communication required the adaptation and reshaping of all its actors. This study argues that we live in a hybrid media system, where traditional media and social media are in symbiosis (Chadwick, 2013) and are interconnected. The study aims to investigate what makes online content viral and discuss findings in a hybrid media context. The study conducts a content analysis, examining articles posted on media organisation web pages and their Facebook pages covering the vaccination affair. The variables in the analysis are based on the virality concept (taken from the field of marketing).

The sharing of personal information among health and social service organisations is a complex issue and problematic process in present-day England. Organisations which provide services to children face enormous challenges on many fronts. Internal ways of working, evolving best practice, data protection applications, government mandates and new government agencies, rapid changes in technology, and increasing costs are but a few of the challenges with which organisations must contend in order to provide services to children while keeping in step with change. This thesis is an exploration into the process of sharing personal information in the context of public sector reforms. Because there is an increasing emphasis of multi-agency collaboration, this thesis examines the information sharing processes both within and among organisations, particularly those providing services to children. From the broad principles which comprise a socio-technical approach of information sharing, distinct critical factors for successful information sharing and best practices are identified. These critical success factors are then used to evaluate the emerging national database, ContactPoint, highlighting particular areas of concern. In addition, data protection and related issues in the information sharing process are addressed. It is argued that one of the main factors which would support effective information sharing is to add a timeline to the life of a dataset containing personal information, after which the shared information would dissolve. Therefore, this thesis introduces Dynamic Multi-Agency Collaboration (DMAC), a theoretical model of effective information sharing using a limited-life dataset. The limited life of the DMAC dataset gives more control to information providers, encouraging effective information sharing within the parameters of the Data Protection Act 1998.

New media initiatives in Brazil's capital, Rio de Janeiro, are attempting to change mainstream ideas about favelas (poor districts) and their inhabitants. This thesis focuses on two of these initiatives that are being run by non-government organisations, Viva Favela and Imagens do Povo. This study takes an ethnographic and discursive approach to investigating and comparing two categories of professional photographers to determine how their working practices contribute to empowering the people living in Brazil's favelas. While mainstream photojournalists mainly cover human rights abuses in the favelas, community photographers challenge stereotypes by presenting images of the favelas' everyday life.

Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2014.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 107-109).
Digital materials are constructions assembled from a small number of types of discrete building blocks; they represent a new way of building functional, multi-material, three-dimensional structures. In this thesis, I focus on the construction of microelectronics from vertically assemble-able two-dimensional parts. With just a conducting and insulating part-type, I show that it is possible to make discretely assembled electrical networks. With a third resistive part-type, I show that it is possible to make any passive electronic component and complex impedance circuitry, including antennas and matching networks. Finally, with four semiconducting part-types I suggest that it is possible to assemble active components like diodes and transistors. This work details the part production processes to create two-dimensional micro-bricks, modeling and assembly strategies to create functional structures from discrete parts, the measurement and evaluation of the bulk properties of the assemblies, and experiments in assembly automation.
by William Kai Langford.
S.M.

The quest to transform the delivery of government services through innovative and electronic means has been embraced by public organisations worldwide in an ever rising phenomenon, sought after to reap some of the potentially rewarding benefits of the digitisation of government services. In this study, the author reports the experiences of four major public organisations in Dubai as its governing office have imposed a deadline for all of its public agencies to transform and deliver 100 per cent of their services electronically by the end of year 2009. Notably, despite the fact that worldwide reports have placed Dubai as the leader among its Arab peers in the provision of e-government services, technological infrastructures, government’s transparency and internet and mobile penetration rates. Yet, Dubai has missed its 2005 target of transforming 70 per cent of it services electronically facing a dilemma with its digital implementation efforts with achieving less than 45 per cent transformation rate. With e-government deployment failure rates reaching levels of 60 per cent worldwide, the challenges arising from the development of e-government initiatives have proven to be extensive. The complexity of the nature of e-government initiatives as well as the ambiguity surrounding its e-services development process makes reasonable justifications for the high failure rates associated with its deployment efforts all over the world and not just in Dubai. Furthermore, the lack of a universal model and theoretical studies to guide the deployment of this phenomenon have lead researchers and practitioners alike to focus their attention on finding ways and means of improving the adoption and implementation of e-government initiatives. Thus, it was established that it was necessary to find answers for the following questions: How are public organisations in Dubai are going about the diffusion of their egovernment initiatives and what determinates are necessary to be considered in the development process to achieve the initiatives’ success? In response to the aforementioned issues and in order to respond to the research’s objectives and questions, a theoretical framework guided by Roger’s (1995) Organisation Innovation Process theory and extended by Tornatzky and Fleisher’s Technological, Organisational, Environmental (1990) model have been developed to gain a holistic understanding of the phenomenon. The author reported using a multiple in-depth case study research design, drawing on empirical data from semi-structured interviews with e-government participants and gathering evidence from organisations’ documents and proceedings from local and regional Arabic e-government conferences, as well as on-site participants’ observations. This study documented the e-service development activities and identified the influential attributes driving the e-government phenomenon using both a descriptive and exploratory research strategy. Content analysis of the interview transcripts was used to extract answers given during the semi-structured interviews and to identify new themes that emerged from the data. Revision of research findings and comparison with literature have taken place from May, 2011 till April, 2012. The review has contributed to adding over 100 pages to the literature review chapter and over 20 pages to the final chapter of recommendation and conclusion. xi Upon the conclusion of the study’s data presentation and analysis, a further literature review has provided a significant improvement in refining the study’s conceptual framework. It has provides additional theoretical elaboration of key ideas, clearer definition and articulation of the e-services development process and contributed towards the formation of fourteen propositions. The empirical findings indicated three main stages (planning, transformation and deployment) similarly delineated by Rogers’ (1995) Organisation’s Adoption Process theory (initiation, adoption and implementation). However, the stages emerged in a more interactive looping patterns unlike Rogers’ linear model. Additionally, fourteen technological, organisational and environmental factors were indicated as being responsible for influencing the development process of e-services in Dubai public organisations. These propositions are to provide concerned academics with some guidance for further investigation into the e-services’ development practices in the region. This study also attempts to assist and guide government reformers, technological innovations’ team leaders and the implementing staff in Dubai in initiating, deploying, and sustaining their technologically integrated initiatives in a systemic and educated manner.

Governments have become more and more interested in embracing Information and Communication Technology (ICT), and have made a remarkable progress over the last few years. Electronic Government (e-government) - described as the strategic use of ICT to transform the public sector - is presently recognised as a driver and a key enabler of citizen-centric, cooperative, and seamless modern governance. E-government implementation implies not only a profound transformation in the way government interacts with the governed, but also a reinvention of its internal processes and how public organisations carry their business both internally as well as externally while interacting with the other segments of the community. Based on the literature, it is frequently claimed that the availability of an effective E-Government Readiness (EGR) assessment framework is a necessary condition for advancing e-government proper implementation. Most e-government appraisal models address the Electronic Service (e-service) dimension of e-government that focuses on the services provided by the government to the citizens on the Internet. This gives a very narrow perspective to e-government ignoring a key dimension: the Electronic Administration (e-administration), that highlights the importance of modernising the public sector, increasing government productivity, and transforming its internal processes. Furthermore, developed models assess E-Government Readiness (EGR) on a country as a whole without conducting an in-depth assessment on a public organisation scale. In addition, the majority of these models do not take into consideration the opinion of the civil servants involved in such e-government programs, a key stakeholder that affects their success. The objective of this thesis is to develop a framework that assesses EGR focusing on e-administration within public organisations through obtaining its employees‟ feedback. The suggested framework investigated the internal factors affecting EGR categorised into four dimensions: (i) strategy, (ii) people, (iii) technology, and (iv) processes. A number of measuring constructs are identified under each dimension. The framework components, relationships, and hypotheses were derived from the literature on Electronic Readiness (e-readiness), EGR, Information Systems (IS) and Electronic Commerce (e-commerce) success. In order to test the proposed framework, the thesis examined the relations and interactions of these components in an emerging e-government environment using four case studies of different characteristics to represent public organisations in Egypt. These organisations cover municipalities, investment, tax payment, and health sectors. Quantitative data collection method was through distributing a questionnaire to a sample of employees in each organisation. Data obtained from the questionnaire in each organisation was triangulated with data gathered from other sources of evidence: (i) interviews with top management, (ii) documentations, (iii) archival records, and (iv) observations. Findings of the empirical research were evaluated against the framework suggested in the beginning leading to a final framework that assesses EGR of public organisations. Findings revealed that framework's hypotheses were all confirmed. Concerning Egypt's EGR assessment, results proved that processes, technology, and people have a high effect on EGR, whereas strategy has a modest impact on it. This reflects that strategy is not given a high value in terms of e-government and that top management need to further promote e-government within public Egyptian organisations. Findings revealed also the modest impact of strategy on the two dimensions: technology and processes compared with its high effect on people. The research highlighted also the different measuring constructs that have the highest weights in each of the four dimensions. This helps in understanding e-government environment of public organisations in Egypt, showing the main components that affect EGR. The thesis though provides a rich insight into investigating e-administration within public organisations especially in a developing country such as Egypt, and presents a systematic approach to assess EGR of public organisations based on the four e-government building blocks: (i) strategy, (ii) people, (iii) technology, and (iv) processes. Therefore the thesis contributes to research areas in the literature related to assessments of information systems, e-commerce, e-readiness, and e-government readiness.

The sharing of personal information among health and social service organisations is a complex issue and problematic process in present-day England. Organisations which provide services to children face enormous challenges on many fronts. Internal ways of working, evolving best practice, data protection applications, government mandates and new government agencies, rapid changes in technology, and increasing costs are but a few of the challenges with which organisations must contend in order to provide services to children while keeping in step with change. This thesis is an exploration into the process of sharing personal information in the context of public sector reforms. Because there is an increasing emphasis of multi-agency collaboration, this thesis examines the information sharing processes both within and among organisations, particularly those providing services to children. From the broad principles which comprise a socio-technical approach of information sharing, distinct critical factors for successful information sharing and best practices are identified. These critical success factors are then used to evaluate the emerging national database, ContactPoint, highlighting particular areas of concern. In addition, data protection and related issues in the information sharing process are addressed. It is argued that one of the main factors which would support effective information sharing is to add a timeline to the life of a dataset containing personal information, after which the shared information would dissolve. Therefore, this thesis introduces Dynamic Multi-Agency Collaboration (DMAC), a theoretical model of effective information sharing using a limited-life dataset. The limited life of the DMAC dataset gives more control to information providers, encouraging effective information sharing within the parameters of the Data Protection Act 1998.

Meetings are very important in any organisation and the Australian public service is no exception. Unfortunately, meetings are costly and time consuming, and often are ineffective and inefficient. Participants are regularly left with feelings of dissatisfaction after the meeting. Electronic meeting systems (EMS) were first developed in the United States in the 1980s to make meetings more effective and efficient. They are now more user-friendly, internet-connected and support multimedia. However, EMS have not been adopted to the extent that could be expected. This study draws from an extensive literature review supplemented by three case studies of Australian companies that provide EMS products and services (Global Learning Pty Ltd, Grouputer Pty Ltd and Zing Technologies Pty Ltd). The study provides answers to six questions: • What are electronic meeting systems (EMS)? • What is the evidence that using an EMS does improve meeting productivity (efficiency and effectiveness) and satisfaction? • Are there other benefits from using these systems? • How does the use of an EMS bring about these improvements in meetings and group collaboration? • What factors need to be managed in order for the organisation to obtain the most benefit from these systems? • Could EMS be used to improve meetings and business processes in Australian (including state/territory) government organisations? The study concluded that EMS could be used to great benefit to improve meetings and their outcomes for an enormous range of tasks that are carried out in all levels in the Australian public sector. EMS have successfully supported meeting sizes from two people to 700, and an even larger number of participants is possible.

This study reviews the literature in relation to virtual strategic alignment models and strategies. From this the researcher develops a framework to test two new strategic alignment instruments designed to measure the espoused preparedness of organisations to operate virtually and the readiness of an organisation to collaborate virtually. These instruments are designed to assist organisations in recognising and exploiting their degree of virtuality and can support organisations in developing new organisational forms that fully leverage the value of their ICT assests. Prior research has attempted to address strategic alignment issues either internally, externally or holistically. A new approach was necessary.

As computers absorb an ever-increasing proportion of corporate resources, and spread into every sphere of business activity, the issue of achieving benefits from investments in information technology (IT) is assuming major importance. Research evidence to hand suggests that IT investments are failing by orders of magnitude to provide appropriate levels of payback. A major part of the difficulty lies in the fact that management appears to lack a framework or even a language for addressing the issues, and are bewildered by the speed and impact of the changes that are taking place. This is particularly apparent in smaller and medium-sized organisations. This thesis examines the causes of the problem, and suggests that it stems mainly from an undue emphasis being placed by management on finance-based techniques, a legacy from an earlier and much different environment. It seeks to establish that such techniques are not only inadequate, but potentially counter-productive. Using established research methodologies, a framework is developed which seeks to address the key issues involved in achieving business benefits from IT, yet which is understandable to, and applicable by, managers in medium-sized organisations. Uniquely among IT investment frameworks, the concept of business reengineering or business process redesign is introduced as a formal evaluation criterion, reflecting the degree of business transformation currently being experienced, and the central role of IT in that transformation. The framework is then validated and refined through being applied in actual investment decision making processes undertaken by five organisations covering a range of business arenas.

This study examines the evolution of online news strategy in South African and American newspaper companies, and compares the approaches used in the two countries. The Internet has had a major effect on news worldwide, and has contributed to sweeping changes in the news industry in all media. This study looks at the changes and the evolving strategy wrought by online news in the newspaper industry in two countries. In order to do this comparison, a model of the US experience has been constructed, using material published in the US academic and professional journalism press. Since there is no equivalent published material available dealing with the South African experience, interviews were conducted with staff at two newspaper companies (Johnnic and Naspers), and a broad historical overview was created for each company. These “narrative histories” were then compared with the US model, and areas of commonality and difference were highlighted and discussed. Several structural and national differences be tween the two countries were also raised and analysed. Finally, a conclusion as to how applicable the US model is to the South African experience is drawn, and suggestions are made for further study.

This thesis examines internal and external influences on news content at four Omani news organisations, Oman and Al-Watan (Arabic-language dailies) and Oman Observer and Times of Oman (English-language dailies). Three theoretical frameworks guided this study: the political economy approach, the cultural approach, and the social organisation of news. The study is divided into macro and micro levels of analysis. At the macro level, the study focuses on ownership and control, economic determinations, and media-society relationships. At the micro level, the study investigates newsgathering and news selection processes by focusing on journalists' backgrounds, journalistic practices in newsrooms, news values and journalists/sources relationship. Three methods are employed to collect the data in this study: content analysis of the selected news media, personal interviews (with journalists, editors, and editors-in-chiefs) and participant observation of the newsrooms at the Omani dailies. The findings of this research show that Omani daily newspapers, either private or government owned, are political projects working under government control. Most of the Omani news workers observed in this study were aware that they were not doing professional journalism work. The channels for gathering domestic news items at all four Omani newspapers in this study were very limited. The four main news sources for gathering domestic news items were (1) Oman News Agency (ONA), (2) public relation and information offices (PR), (3) reporters and (4) correspondents. News workers heavily depend on the national agency, and on ready-made news from the PR offices. Poor writing from correspondents leads to poor, similar domestic content in all daily newspapers. Because of the limitation of the news gathering channels, the selection processes were also limited. The findings of interviews and observations show the long process of decisions-making routines at the government-owned dailies. In contrast the private dailies work with less bureaucratic processes. Nevertheless, both private and government owned papers face the same problems in routines for selecting news items and the same difficulties gaining access to information, not only from the official sources, but also from ordinary people. The news workers face pressures from official sources, readers, advertisers, news organisations' administrations, and personal financial pressures. The findings of this research support the theoretical approaches to media content while focusing on Omani context. However, the findings match some perspectives more closely than others. The organisational, extra-media level and societal factors work stronger than the individual communicator perspective.

This thesis explores various factors that may influence the production of value for charities on social media websites. A mixed methods triangulation-based approach is used in order to improve understanding around why charities use social media and what they want to achieve by doing so, why supporters interact with charities on social media, and how this behaviour actually occurs on two popular social media sites: Facebook and Twitter. Qualitative sources of data are utilised in order to establish the reasons behind why social media are used, while quantitative sources provide evidence of interaction on these sites to establish whether or not the motivations of the charities are portrayed through their actual behaviour. An argument is made that because there are so many influencing factors on the resulting value, it is extremely difficult to measure this—and to distinguish success on these sites—through the use of automated tools that do not take into account the context of the organisation involved and what they are actually trying to achieve in the first place. Furthermore, this thesis suggests that analysing what the charity does in relation to their strategy can help to indicate whether or not a social media strategy has the potential to create the desired levels of value, and a classification system of communication styles is presented in order to assist with this process. This thesis therefore provides contributions that help to understand the value of social media for charities, and as such has implications for future social media research, charitable strategy planning and Web Science as a wider discipline.

In this thesis I wish to analyse the complex relationship between actors’ media- related practices, legitimacy and long-term engagement. Based on a qualitative approach my research investigates two cases –Citizens for Europe, a civil society organisations involved in issues relating to European citizenship, and the Chaos Computer Club, one of the world’s oldest and largest hacker organisations. More concretely, through face-to-face interviews, participant observation and media analysis I analyse the role media practices play for the two organisations to establish legitimation and to sustain their political engagement over time. Accordingly, my thesis seeks to provide an empirically informed interpretive account of the meaning media-related practices have for actors’ political endeavours. From a more operationalised perspective, I am trying to make a convincing argument that practices circulating around and oriented towards media technologies and infrastructures play a configurative role for actors’ ability to co-determine democratic constellations. Instead of suggesting a straightforward causal chain my thesis conceptualises the entanglements between media practices, legitimation and long-term engagement as interlocking arrangements grounded in relational dynamics. Overall, my thesis aims to compliment existing research on the role media technologies and infrastructures play for the formation of political arrangements by looking at organisation-based engagement. In doing so, my research partially bridges a current research gap concerning the relationship between organisational actors’ media-related practices and their ability to establish legitimacy and to perpetuate political engagement over time.

Prior to 1994 I had little interest in the activities of the police. As a mass media consumer I was aware of the prominence of crime in the daily news agenda and I watched, read and listened to potted summaries of rape, mayhem and murder. Frequent too, were stories of police malpractice, incompetence and corruption. Police stories were also a significant part of television drama with programs like the long running British series The Bill, and a range of Australian productions: The Feds, Halifax f.p, Rafferty's Rules, Blue Heelers, State Coroner, and Water Rats. The police also featured at the cinema with crime genre movies Natural Born Killers (Oliver Stone, USA), Once Were Warriors (Lee Tamahori, New Zealand) and Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, USA) becoming box office hits. My interest in the portrayal of police change dramatically when on the 7th of October 1994, I was appointed Officer-in-Charge of the Media and Publications Branch of the Australian Federal Police (AFP). I was responsible for all aspects of the communication function including: media liaison, crisis management, media management, publications and internal communication. My branch dealt with media inquiries from local, national and international media across the gamut of issues facing the AFP. These ranged fiom industrial issues about budgets and overtime, allegations of corruption and incompetence, and operational matters as diverse as burglaries, alleged Nazi war criminals, peace-keeping operations and drug 'busts'. Needless to say my police stakeholders did not always see things the same way as my media colleagues. I was seeing at a practical day-to-day level the complex taxonomy of police/media relations outlined by Putnis (1996). Putnis noted the ubiquity of the police and the media as social institutions and observed that their daily operations involved a complex, dynamic, relationship constructed out of many thousands of interactions, across all levels of the organisations, in many different settings. My experiences in dealing with the media became the genesis of this study. My aim is to expand our understanding of the police/media relationship by exploring characteristic forms of print news-media reports about policing, the impact these reports have on police, and on law and order policy. The possibility of bias towards police in this study is acknowledged given I was a member of a police service fiom 1994 until 2002 and the research relies heavily on 'participant observer' techniques (Kay 1997; Potter1 996; Schofield 1993). Every effort has been made to maintain a critical perspective on the subject matters raised and it should be noted my association with police ended prior to the writing-up phase of the research. In addition to comments fiom my supervisory panel, ongoing discussions with media colleagues were another strategy adopted to ensure balance in the writing-up of this study. This is a unique study in that it offers an insider's perspective of police/media relations and at a time that represented a watershed for police. The early 90s was a period of straightened finances for public sector agencies and police, like other agencies, were under pressure fiom governments to demonstrate the efficient use of public monies (AFP 1995; Grieve 2000). Reform programs swept through policing with many, like the AFP, being organised along business lines (Palmer 1995; Etter 1995; Rohl 1999; WAPOL 1999). The 90s were also a watershed for criminal organisations with the emergence of transnational criminal syndicates, such as drug traffickers, that had the potential to impact on crime at a local level without even entering the country, let alone the jurisdiction, in which the crime took place (Bliss and Harfield 1998; Palmer 1995; McFarlane 1999). In order to combat these syndicates, police began to work in a more cooperative fashion and formed loose coalitions, often across countries, in a manner similar to the criminal syndicates they were trying to combat (Palmer 1995). The 90s also saw the continuation of committees of inquiry and royal commissions into police malpractice (Landa and Dillon 1995) and the inevitable bad press for police (Wood 1996; Munday 1995). The media and police have a symbiotic relationship and it is a critical one as most members of society have little direct contact with the criminal justice system. Information about crime, and the efforts of police to combat it, is obtained second hand through fictional accounts from such vehicles as television dramas, and from the news media. As aptly described by Hall et al. (1975), nearly thirty years ago, the media is the link between crime and the public. The police are therefore heavily reliant on the media to provide a balanced account of the panoply of issues surrounding the criminal justice system (Cowdery 2001). At its most fundamental, police require the support of the communities they serve in order to be effective, and the news media can have a major impact on perceptions about police performance (Reiner 1997; Surette 1992). As organisational entities, police need to compete with other bureaucracies for public hnding, and the media is an essential tool in generating positive publicity about successful operations and policies. The media is, therefore, critical to the maintenance of positive relationships with the two most important stakeholders in the policing function: the community and the government. McGregor (1993) provides a useful summary of the literature relating to print media coverage of policing issues: there are substantial discrepancies between official accounts of criminal activity and press reports of crime; the media tends to homogenise crime by concentrating on a limited range of crimes (mainly violent crime) and drawing facts from a limited range of sources (police/court reports); the media over-report serious crimes, especially murder and crimes with a sexual element; and, the press concentrates crime reportage on events rather than issues, so crime incidents and specific crimes form the bulk of crime news as opposed to analyses of the causes of crime or remedies, trends or issues. McQuail (1994, p.256) reminds us that assessing media performance on the basis of media content, measured against the extent to which content relates to reality, is open to question. He argues that there is no general answer to questions of meaning construction, but media research has pointed to several elements in a more general framework of social and personal meanings including clues as to what is more or less important, salient or relevant in many different contexts (1994, p. 379). An important research question concerns the impact of news media practices, particularly given the significant costs to the community flowing from the commission of crime, its investigation by police, and the processing of offenders through the criminal justice system. The Australian Institute of Criminology estimates the cost of crime in Australia is approximately $19 billion, while the cost of dealing with crime is another $13 billion (Mayhew 2003). The news media, articulated through radio talk-back hosts, are seen as having undue influence on how public funds on crime control are spent (ABC, The Media Report, 1 August 2002; Chan 1995; Cowdery 2001; Dixon 2002; Weatherbum 2002). These commentators have pointed to the serious public policy issues arising from the contribution made by the media towards what Weatherburn describes as an irrational public debate about law and order (2002, p. 12) and Hogg and Brown have coined 'the uncivil politics of law and order' (1998, p. 4). As Hogg and Brown (1998, p. 4) observe: crime is depicted as a problem of ever-increasing gravity set to overwhelm society unless urgent, typically punitive measures are taken to control and suppress it. The influence of the media on public policy has long been recognised. As Paletz and Entmann (l981, p. 6) observe: they influence the decisions and actions of politicians; they are open to manipulation by the powerful which insulates the powerful fiom accountability to the public; they reallocate power amongst the already powerful; they decreased to a marked extent the ability of ordinary citizens to judge events; they foment discontent among the public; and they preserve the legitimacy of the political, economic and social system. Ethnomethodological approaches (Ericson and Haggerty 1997) underpin the research in this study. The ethnomethodological approach was used because of its wider scope, employing as it does, observation, interviewing, and document-analysis techniques (Ericson et al. 1987, p. 77) and its ability to provide meaning and context to the phenomena under observation (Hall 1978; Willis l981). Ethnomethodological approaches are complemented by news framing analyses (Barkin and Gurevitch 1987; Blood, Putnis and Pirkis 2002; Capella and Jamieson 1996; Coleman 1995; Entman 1993; Kitzinger 2000; Keely 1999; Darling-Wolf 1997; London 1993; Pan and Kosicki 2001; Miller and Riechert 2001; Pirkis and Blood 2001; Reese, Gandy and Grant 2003; Scheufele 1999) to explore the news media frames employed in the genre of print crime reporting. What emerges from the study is evidence of a one-sided, highly negative, discourse about policing implemented through a range of media frames centred on conflict and broader xenophobic and egalitarian narratives. Despite the advantages police have as information gatekeepers, their attempts to manage the media environment have met with little success (Hughes 2004; Williams 2002) and the need for police to restrict access to police communications is being challenged (Crime and Misconduct Commission 2004, Inquiry into the effects of a Queensland Police Service decision to adopt digital technology for radio communications). There are exceptions, of course: the news media are not all bad. Routine reporting of crimes, where details of offenders are publicised, greatly assists the work of police as reflected in the case of 43-year-old Mr Colin George Dunstan which is discussed in Chapter Eight. Dunstan sent a series of explosive devices through the mail system in Canberra and police provided the media with photographs of the devices, Mr Dunstan (who was the main suspect), and his vehicle. The media coverage restricted Mr Dunstan's movements and led to his early arrest. Similarly, publication of the details of missing persons, warnings about lethal batches of drugs and crimes such as drink-spiking, enable police to reach a mass audience efficiently and quickly. And at a more abstract level, as noted by McQuail (1994, p. 34), modem communication vehicles can make a positive contribution to cohesion and community. The emergence of the 'yapping pack' form of journalism (Tiffen 1999, p. 207) has resulted in elements of the media exercising a worrying degree of influence over what should be a broader and better informed debate about criminal justice issues. An illustration of this process occurred toward the end of this study with the widely reported spectacle of the Premier of New South Wales presenting his replacement police minister before radio presenter Mr Alan Jones for his endorsement; the subsequent involvement of that minister in operational police matters (Williams 2002); and the departure of the state's police commissioner as a result of sustained media attack (ABC, The Media Report, 1 August 2002; Weatherburn 2002). These incidents say much about the influence of the news media in relation to police matters and makes this study a timely one. What follows is a literature review examining contemporary trends in policing and the media; a detailed analysis of two major case studies involving complex police operations; an analysis of a number of examples of print media reports about policing, to identify typical, or characteristic, media frames; the findings from nearly 50 interviews with senior people involved in the policelmedia interface; and an examination of changes in the milieu in which media reports about policing occur.

La presente tesis contiene tres ensayos sobre la Economía de las Organizaciones y el Desarrollo Económico. Cada capítulo se centra en un tópico distinto, cuya relevancia ha sido destacada por la literatura sobre Desarrollo Económico en la últimas dos décadas.

La motivación del primer ensayo reside en el hecho de que el inapropiado funcionamiento de las instituciones políticas y económicas constituye un obstáculo severo para el progreso económico. El ensayo analiza el rol de la concentración de la propiedad de las empresas de media para restringir la corrupción burocrática. El segundo ensayo está inspirado por la literatura sobre los determinantes del progreso tecnológico. El capítulo estudia el impacto de la competencia y la liberalización de la entrada en los mercados sobre la dirección del progreso tecnológico. El ensayo se centra en la comparación de las ventajas y desventajas de orientar el cambio tecnológico hacia la creación de bienes de mayor o menor calidad. El último capítulo explora cómo las diferencias tecnológicas entre empresas que se fusionan afectan la eficiencia productiva de la nueva organización.
This thesis contains three essays on the Economics of Organisations and Development. Each essay focuses on a different topic that has received special attention by the Development literature over the last two decades.

The first chapter is motivated by the fact that malfunctioning institutions constitute a severe obstacle for economic progress. It centers the analysis on the role of the media to constrain bureaucratic corruption. The second chapter is inspired by the large and influential literature on the determinants of the technical progress. The chapter focuses on the role of market competition and entry liberalization to affect the direction of the technical change. It analyzes the trade-off between doing quality up-grading or creating new but low-quality goods. The third chapter explores the role of conflicting organisational technologies to affect the economic performance of merging firms.

Mechanical, physical and chemical changes in the surface of commercial thin film metal evaporated magnetic recording media have been correlated to recording error and signal degradation measurements. Modified and adapted commercial Hi-8 video recorders have been used for sample generation whilst analytical techniques such as SXPS,IMS and SEM have been employed in the surface characterisation. The durability of the media was assessed through stop motion (still frame) and cycling tests, where error growth and signal degradation were measured as a function of running time. The tests were performed under ambient (22°C, 40% RH) and high humidity (22°C, 80% RH) conditions. Characterisation of the lubricant layer on each tape was performed through models based on XPS and angle resolved XPS. The lubricant thickness can significantly affect the durability and signal output level of a thin film tape and thus it is important that reliable quantification can be achieved. Various models were considered for determining the lubricant thickness although ultimately, the most suitable technique was deemed to be a model that assumed a uniform layer structure. In addition to thin film metal evaporated media, equivalent durability tests and surface analysis experiments were performed using a commercial metal particle tape in order that comparisons could be made between the two types of recording media. The signal performance of the thin film metal evaporated media was found to be quite different from that for the metal particle tape since dropout errors and signal degradation increased at a much earlier stage. Extensive surface analyses enabled the mechanisms responsible for media failure and error growth to be identified in the ME and MP tapes and these were found to result from cyclic stressing and fatigue on the immediate substrate of the media.

This thesis investigates trust in companies. Some authors have proposed trust as the explanatory variable for organisational performance. The thesis starts with an overview of how the notion of trust, as an essentially personal phenomenon in Medieval Christianity at the beginning of the millennium, became secularised in early sociology in the first half and economised in the second half of our century. After a literature review, this thesis goes on to show that authors from different social disciplines describe trust in the language and using instruments of social psychology. More specifically, they use the language and instruments of the construct known as `attitude'. The thesis defines trust as attitude: as a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favour. In the empirical part of the thesis hypotheses on the communicative antecedents of trust toward a company in a population and the consequence of trust for organisational performance are tested on time series data for three companies: British Airways, Shell and The Post Office. Hypotheses establishing functional relationships between media exposure, media favourability, awareness and trust on one side, and between trust and organisational performance on the other side are rejected. In the final chapter results are discussed and four major conclusions are suggested. First, that trust in and around organisations can not account for organisational functional performance, but for organisational contextual performance, which refers to what people do to environments affecting organisational task performance. Second, communication has amplifying effects on trust, but is irrelevant as far as the direction of the trust term is concerned; units of communication have different weights, and thematic analysis is needed to capture it. Thirdly, trust is a multidimensional concept that is composed of the subject's functional components (utilitarian, value-expressive, ego-defensive and knowledge functions) and the trust-object's functional components (ability, capability and willingness). Fourthly, when measuring trust, the principles of aggregation and compatibility developed in the attitude research field need to be respected.

Combining the different modes of communication into a singular and universal manner has truly created a new revolution. It is literally a revolution in the literal meaning of the vwrd-a radical change in the constitution of an entity. Being able to provide the spontaneous circulation of all information with disregard to format, graphical limitations, and separated sources, has "overthrown out traditional perception of the world," radically changing the importance of format into no importance at all. The history of computer evolution is relatively short in comparison to other major events of history, and now is the initial time for the role of architecture to put its foot in the door. Designers need provide an environmental conducive to the technology yet encourage and foster the basic human need of physical interaction. Since computers are usually enhoused within some type of construct, can a thoughtful, sympathetic, and reflective architecture act as a constant reminder not to loose the humanistic component of managing data, information, and decision making process.This creative project found how this role of environment as not being merely an office setting, but a global microcosm of electronic and physical interaction. The focus and the time frame of my thesis deals with the user of contemporary electronic hardware and need to control also their physical environment. The project found not to make my own interpretation of tomorrow s future of electronic communication, but to be concerned of today's user's freedom of decision personal environment and need of varying degrees of social interaction.
Department of Architecture

The aim of this study is to understand the importance of public relations activity in non-profit organisations. The study emphasizes the bearing public relations activities can have on non-profit organisations in the contemporary world. This is especially true in an over communicated society where the vast majority of organisations compete to gain access to the scare media resources to put their message across to their potential clients, supporters and customers. Non-profit organisations generally have to depend on the donor agencies and therefore fail to attract a sizeable public relations budget. On the one hand, these organisations lack the resources to launch a successful public relations campaign and on the other the lack of knowledge and interest among general staff members makes it even harder for a public relations campaign to be developed or successfully launched. In this study, I used both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies to collect and analyse data. The data were collected from two non-profit organisations based in New Zealand working in the area of child welfare. The primary data were collected through semi-structured interviews and survey questionnaires. A single semi-structured interview was conducted with each team leader of the two selected organisations. However, this was like skimming the surface and in-depth interviews would have helped me to collect richer data. On the other hand the data collected was sufficient for this research and it helped me to create a holistic understanding of the topic. The findings of the research highlight that most non-profit organisations working in the area of child welfare find it hard to market themselves due to a lack of funds and employee involvement. Although the findings from the study are significant; caution is necessary in applying the results to other scenarios and in making generalizations. One of the key findings from this research is that both organisations did not use public relations as a strategy. Most decision related to public relations was made on random basis and no long term strategic plan was made to adopt public relations as a core strategy to build creditability among their stakeholders.

This thesis presents a case study of value creation in the social media based brand communities of two Australian cause organisations. It improves understanding of how value is created in this increasingly important environment by examining participants' posts and practices, organisational strategies and supporters' perceptions of value creation. The thesis shows that while value creation is complex, value is generated for supporters and organisations alike, and positively influences the outcomes for recipients of the vital services provided by the cause organisations. Value creation in this context thus manifests social good for supporters, service recipients and society at large.