Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Resource Based Review'

This study uses academic literature from peer-reviewed journals to assess the literary consensus of the three perspectives. The literature has been found by using specific keywords and an assortment of scholarly databases. The analysis of the literature is structured according to explanations for alliance formation, the attainment of advantages, and disadvantages according to the perspectives. The study is written in article format. Conclusions: The perspectives both overlap and differ from one another but focus on different aspects and incentives. There are, however, more similarities between the resource-based and knowledge-based views. Transaction cost theory and the knowledge-based view are narrow explanatory models, whereas the resource-based view offers a broader view on alliances.

Die Arbeit befasst sich mit Methodenproblemen in der Strategischen Managementforschung. Auf Basis einer Meta-Analyse zum Zusammenhang zwischen Ressourcen im Sinne des Resource-based view und der Performance von Unternehmen werden verschiedene Erklärungen für die zu beobachtende Ergebnisheterogenität in den Primärstudien empirisch gegenübergestellt. Es kann gezeigt werden, dass die Operationalisierung des Konstrukts "organisationale Leistung" den größten Beitrag zur Erklärung der Varianz der Studienergebnisse erbringt. Die Appropriationstheorie liefert einen überzeugenden Erklärungsansatz zum systematischen Zusammenhang zwischen Leistung und Studienergebnissen<br>The dissertation thesis contrasts various explanations for heterogeneity in strategic management research findings using meta-analytical techniques. I evaluate research results for a well-known research questions in strategic management research, the relation between performance and resources in the framework of resource-based view, and find that the way how the construct ‘performance’ is being operationalized explains a significant part of the observed heterogeneity in research findings, distinctly more than problems like population selection or the unclear temporal link between dependent and independent variables. Appropriation theory is shown to provide a convincing explanation for the observed outcome

A reconnaissance soil sampling survey was carried out over Venda by Cycad (Pty) Ltd and the samples were analysed for 36 elements using XRF techniques, by Anglo American Research Laboratories in Johanuesburg. The data resulting from this survey forms the basis for the present interpretive study. Initially the sample positions were co-ordinated, then the geological, soil and sample types were allocated to each point. Twelve lithological groupings were chosen which incorporated most of the available data, retained significant geological characteristics and consisted of statistically significant sample populations. Statistical manipulation was undertaken for each of the lithological groups. Using a final population of 5768 samples, means were determined and anomalous values were identified using a threshold of mean plus two standard deviations. Due to time and budgetary constraints, 24 of the 36 elements were chosen for statisical manipulation and fourteen of these, with particular economic significance, were chosen for plotting, wherever significant numbers of anomalies were present. The element overlays were plotted so as to coincide with 18 of the 25, 1:50 000 topographic sheets covering Venda , the remaining 7 having inadequate sample coverage to yield meaningful contours. In this way a total of 175 element overlay sheets were plotted, each showing contoured element levels, with selected anomalous values. The treatment of the vast body of information made available by the Cycad sampling programme has thus been selective and has continually been aimed at highlighting and concentrating attention on the areas of greatest indicated mineralization potential, rather than on specific anomalies. In this regard it is felt that the present study has been successful, in spite of limited sample coverage in some areas. Combining the results of this study with a modern tectonically-based appraisal of mineralization potential and a knowledge of the local geology and previously known mineralization gleaned from an extensive literature review, the following types of mineralization are considered to have the highest potential in Venda: i) Nickel-copper-platinum mineralization as well as magnesite, in the olivine dolerite sills which intrude the base of the Karoo Sequence in Northern Venda. ii) Coal in the basal Karoo Sequence sediments in a broad zone from Jazz 715 MS in the west, and along the Klein Tshipise fault from Amonda 159 MT to the Mutale Copper Fields then east of these to the Kruger National Park. Where intrusives invade these lower Karoo sed iments the potential exists for amorphous graphite. iii) Hydrothermal copper and possibly gold and silver concentrations, in Nzhelele and Sibasa Formation rocks, particularly those associated with faults known to have been active in post-Soutpansberg times. iv) Sediment-hosted massive sulphide deposits (Cu-Pb -Zn) close to basin margin faults, near intersections with cross cutting faults that have resulted in localized basin formation. These are most likely in the Soutpansberg sediments. v) Martle, flake-graphite and late stage skarn mineralization (including lead, zinc, gold and tungsten), in calcareous rocks of the Gumbu Formation.

This case-study establishes the influences of power-knowledge relationships on capacity-building for sustainability in the European Union Funded ‘Wild Coast Spatial Development Initiative Pilot Programme’ (EU Programme). It aims to capture the lessons learned for capacitybuilding to support nature-based tourism initiatives on the Wild Coast. The EU Programme aimed to achieve economic and social development of previously disadvantaged communities through nature-based tourism enterprises, and to develop capacity of local authorities and communities to support environmental management. The study discusses common trends in thematic categories emerging from the research data, and contextualises research findings in a broader development landscape. This study indicates that power-knowledge relations were reflected in the EU Programme’s development ideology by an exclusionary development approach, which lacked a participatory ethos. This exclusionary approach did not support an enabling environment for capacity-building. This development approach, guiding the programme conceptualization, design and implementation processes, resulted in a programme with unrealistic objectives, time-frames and resource allocations; a programme resisted by provincial and local government. The study provides a causal link between participation, programme relevance, programme ownership, commitment of stakeholders, effective management and capacity-building for sustainable programme implementation. The study argues that the underlying motivation for the exclusionary EU development ideology in the programme is driven by a risk management strategy. This approach allows the EU to hold power in the development process, whereas, an inclusionary participative development methodology would require a more in-depth negotiation with stakeholders, thereby requiring the EU to relinquish existing levels of power and control. This may increase the risk of an unexpected programme design outcome and associated exposure to financial risk. It may also have a significant financial effect on donor countries' consultancies and consultants currently driving the development industry. This study recommends an interactive-participative methodology for programme design and implementation, if an enabling environment for capacity-building is to be created. In addition, all programme stakeholders must share contractual accountability for programme outcomes. This requires a paradigm shift in the EU development ideology to an inclusionary methodology. However, this research suggests that the current EU development approach will not voluntarily change. I, therefore, argue that South Africa needs to develop a legislative framework that will guide donor-funded development programme methodology, to support an enabling environment for capacity-building.

A related work report is a section in a research paper which integrates key information from a list of related scientific papers providing context to the work being presented. Related work reports can either be descriptive or integrative. Integrative related work reports provide a high-level overview and critique of the scientific papers by comparing them with each other, providing fewer details of individual studies. Descriptive related work reports, instead, provide more in-depth information about each mentioned study providing information such as methods and results of the cited works. In order to write a related work report, scientist have to identify, condense/summarize, and combine relevant information from different scientific papers. However, such task is complicated due to the available volume of scientific papers. In this context, the automatic generation of related work reports appears to be an important problem to tackle. The automatic generation of related work reports can be considered as an instance of the multi-document summarization problem where, given a list of scientific papers, the main objective is to automatically summarize those scientific papers and generate related work reports. In order to study the problem of related work generation, we have developed a manually annotated, machine readable data-set of related work sections, cited papers (e.g. references) and sentences, together with an additional layer of papers citing the references. We have also investigated the relation between a citation context in a citing paper and the scientific paper it is citing so as to properly model cross-document relations and inform our summarization approach. Moreover, we have also investigated the identification of explicit and implicit citations to a given scientific paper which is an important task in several scientific text mining activities such as citation purpose identification, scientific opinion mining, and scientific summarization. We present both extractive and abstractive methods to summarize a list of scientific papers by utilizing their citation network. The extractive approach follows three stages: scoring the sentences of the scientific papers based on their citation network, selecting sentences from each scientific paper to be mentioned in the related work report, and generating an organized related work report by grouping the sentences of the scientific papers that belong to the same topic together. On the other hand, the abstractive approach attempts to generate citation sentences to be included in a related work report, taking advantage of current sequence-to-sequence neural architectures and resources that we have created specifically for this task. The thesis also presents and discusses automatic and manual evaluation of the generated related work reports showing the viability of the proposed approaches.<br>La sección de trabajos relacionados de un artículo científico resume e integra información clave de una lista de documentos científicos relacionados con el trabajo que se presenta. Para redactar esta sección del artículo científico el autor debe identificar, condensar/resumir y combinar información relevante de diferentes artículos. Esta tarea es complicada debido al gran volumen disponible de artículos científicos. En este contexto, la generación automática de tales secciones es un problema importante a abordar. La generación automática de secciones de trabajo relacionados puede ser considerada como una instancia del problema de resumen de documentos múltiples donde, dada una lista de documentos científicos, el objetivo es resumir automáticamente esos documentos científicos y generar la sección de trabajos relacionados. Para estudiar este problema, hemos creado un corpus de secciones de trabajos relacionados anotado manualmente y procesado automáticamente. Asimismo, hemos investigado la relación entre las citaciones y el artículo científico que se cita para modelar adecuadamente las relaciones entre documentos y, así, informar nuestro método de resumen automático. Además, hemos investigado la identificación de citaciones implícitas a un artículo científico dado que es una tarea importante en varias actividades de minería de textos científicos. Presentamos métodos extractivos y abstractivos para resumir una lista de artículos científicos utilizando su red de citaciones. El enfoque extractivo sigue tres etapas: cálculo de la relevancia las oraciones de cada artículo en función de la red de citaciones, selección de oraciones de cada artículo científico para integrarlas en el resumen y generación de la sección de trabajos relacionados agrupando las oraciones por tema. Por otro lado, el enfoque abstractivo intenta generar citaciones para incluirlas en un resumen utilizando redes neuronales y recursos que hemos creado específicamente para esta tarea. La tesis también presenta y discute la evaluación automática y manual de los resúmenes generados automáticamente, demostrando la viabilidad de los enfoques propuestos.<br>Una secció d’antecedents o estat de l’art d’un articulo científic resumeix la informació clau d'una llista de documents científics relacionats amb el treball que es presenta. Per a redactar aquesta secció de l’article científic l’autor ha d’identificar, condensar / resumir i combinar informació rellevant de diferents articles. Aquesta activitat és complicada per causa del gran volum disponible d’articles científics. En aquest context, la generació automàtica d’aquestes seccions és un problema important a abordar. La generació automàtica d’antecedents o d’estat de l’art pot considerar-se com una instància del problema de resum de documents. Per estudiar aquest problema, es va crear un corpus de seccions d’estat de l’art d’articles científics manualment anotat i processat automàticament. Així mateix, es va investigar la relació entre citacions i l’article científic que es cita per modelar adequadament les relacions entre documents i, així, informar el nostre mètode de resum automàtic. A més, es va investigar la identificació de citacions implícites a un article científic que és un problema important en diverses activitats de mineria de textos científics. Presentem mètodes extractius i abstractius per resumir una llista d'articles científics utilitzant el conjunt de citacions de cada article. L’enfoc extractiu segueix tres etapes: càlcul de la rellevància de les oracions de cada article en funció de les seves citacions, selecció d’oracions de cada article científic per a integrar-les en el resum i generació de la secció de treballs relacionats agrupant les oracions per tema. Per un altre costat, l’enfoc abstractiu implementa la generació de citacions per a incloure-les en un resum que utilitza xarxes neuronals i recursos que hem creat específicament per a aquest tasca. La tesi també presenta i discuteix l'avaluació automàtica i el manual dels resums generats automàticament, demostrant la viabilitat dels mètodes proposats.

Research and Development engineering is at the corner stone of humanity’s evolution. It is perceived to be a systematic creative process which ultimately improves the living standard of a society through the creation of new applications and products. The commercial paradigm that governs project selection, resource allocation and market penetration prevails when the focus shifts from pure research to applied research. Furthermore, the road to success through commercialisation is difficult for most inventors, especially in a vast and isolated country such as Australia which is located a long way from wealthy and developed economies. While market leading products are considered unique, the actual process to achieve these products is essentially the same; progressing from an idea, through development to an outcome (if successful). Unfortunately, statistics indicate that only 3% of ‘ideas’ are significantly successful, 4% are moderately successful, and the remainder ‘evaporate’ in that form (Michael Quinn, Chairman, Innovation Capital Associates Pty Ltd). This study demonstrates and analyses two techniques developed by the author which reduce uncertainty in the engineering design and development phase of new product development and therefore increase the probability of a successful outcome. This study expands the existing knowledge of the engineering design and development stage in the new product development process and is couched in the identification of practical methods, which have been successfully used to develop new products by Australian Small Medium Enterprise (SME) Excel Technology Group Pty Ltd (ETG). Process theory is the term most commonly used to describe scientific study that identifies occurrences that result from a specified input state to an output state, thus detailing the process used to achieve an outcome. The thesis identifies relevant material and analyses recognised and established engineering processes utilised in developing new products. The literature identified that case studies are a particularly useful method for supporting problem-solving processes in settings where there are no clear answers or where problems are unstructured, as in New Product Development (NPD). This study describes, defines, and demonstrates the process of new product development within the context of historical product development and a ‘live’ case study associated with an Australian Government START grant awarded to Excel Technology Group in 2004 to assist in the development of an image-based vehicle detection product. This study proposes two techniques which reduce uncertainty and thereby improve the probability of a successful outcome. The first technique provides a predicted project development path or forward engineering plan which transforms the initial ‘fuzzy idea’ into a potential and achievable outcome. This process qualifies the ‘fuzzy idea’ as a potential, rationale or tangible outcome which is within the capability of the organisation. Additionally, this process proposes that a tangible or rationale idea can be deconstructed in reverse engineering process in order to create a forward engineering development plan. A detailed structured forward engineering plan reduces the uncertainty associated with new product development unknowns and therefore contributes to a successful outcome. This is described as the RETRO technique. The study recognises however that this claim requires qualification and proposes a second technique. The second technique proposes that a two dimensional spatial representation which has productivity and consumed resources as its axes, provides an effective means to qualify progress and expediently identify variation from the predicted plan. This spatial representation technique allows a quick response which in itself has a prediction attribute associated with directing the project back onto its predicted path. This process involves a coterminous comparison between the predicted development path and the evolving actual project development path. A consequence of this process is verification of progress or the application of informed, timely and quantified corrective action. This process also identifies the degree of success achieved in the engineering design and development phase of new product development where success is defined as achieving a predicted outcome. This spatial representation technique is referred to as NPD Mapping. The study demonstrates that these are useful techniques which aid SMEs in achieving successful new product outcomes because the technique are easily administered, measure and represent relevant development process related elements and functions, and enable expedient quantified responsive action when the evolving path varies from the predicted path. These techniques go beyond time line representations as represented in GANTT charts and PERT analysis, and represent the base variables of consumed resource and productivity/technical achievement in a manner that facilitates higher level interpretation of time, effort, degree of difficulty, and product complexity in order to facilitate informed decision making. This study presents, describes, analyses and demonstrates an SME focused engineering development technique, developed by the author, that produces a successful new product outcome which begins with a ‘fuzzy idea’ in the mind of the inventor and concludes with a successful new product outcome that is delivered on time and within budget. Further research on a wider range of SME organisations undertaking new product development is recommended.

Research and Development engineering is at the corner stone of humanity’s evolution. It is perceived to be a systematic creative process which ultimately improves the living standard of a society through the creation of new applications and products. The commercial paradigm that governs project selection, resource allocation and market penetration prevails when the focus shifts from pure research to applied research. Furthermore, the road to success through commercialisation is difficult for most inventors, especially in a vast and isolated country such as Australia which is located a long way from wealthy and developed economies. While market leading products are considered unique, the actual process to achieve these products is essentially the same; progressing from an idea, through development to an outcome (if successful). Unfortunately, statistics indicate that only 3% of ‘ideas’ are significantly successful, 4% are moderately successful, and the remainder ‘evaporate’ in that form (Michael Quinn, Chairman, Innovation Capital Associates Pty Ltd). This study demonstrates and analyses two techniques developed by the author which reduce uncertainty in the engineering design and development phase of new product development and therefore increase the probability of a successful outcome. This study expands the existing knowledge of the engineering design and development stage in the new product development process and is couched in the identification of practical methods, which have been successfully used to develop new products by Australian Small Medium Enterprise (SME) Excel Technology Group Pty Ltd (ETG). Process theory is the term most commonly used to describe scientific study that identifies occurrences that result from a specified input state to an output state, thus detailing the process used to achieve an outcome. The thesis identifies relevant material and analyses recognised and established engineering processes utilised in developing new products. The literature identified that case studies are a particularly useful method for supporting problem-solving processes in settings where there are no clear answers or where problems are unstructured, as in New Product Development (NPD). This study describes, defines, and demonstrates the process of new product development within the context of historical product development and a ‘live’ case study associated with an Australian Government START grant awarded to Excel Technology Group in 2004 to assist in the development of an image-based vehicle detection product. This study proposes two techniques which reduce uncertainty and thereby improve the probability of a successful outcome. The first technique provides a predicted project development path or forward engineering plan which transforms the initial ‘fuzzy idea’ into a potential and achievable outcome. This process qualifies the ‘fuzzy idea’ as a potential, rationale or tangible outcome which is within the capability of the organisation. Additionally, this process proposes that a tangible or rationale idea can be deconstructed in reverse engineering process in order to create a forward engineering development plan. A detailed structured forward engineering plan reduces the uncertainty associated with new product development unknowns and therefore contributes to a successful outcome. This is described as the RETRO technique. The study recognises however that this claim requires qualification and proposes a second technique. The second technique proposes that a two dimensional spatial representation which has productivity and consumed resources as its axes, provides an effective means to qualify progress and expediently identify variation from the predicted plan. This spatial representation technique allows a quick response which in itself has a prediction attribute associated with directing the project back onto its predicted path. This process involves a coterminous comparison between the predicted development path and the evolving actual project development path. A consequence of this process is verification of progress or the application of informed, timely and quantified corrective action. This process also identifies the degree of success achieved in the engineering design and development phase of new product development where success is defined as achieving a predicted outcome. This spatial representation technique is referred to as NPD Mapping. The study demonstrates that these are useful techniques which aid SMEs in achieving successful new product outcomes because the technique are easily administered, measure and represent relevant development process related elements and functions, and enable expedient quantified responsive action when the evolving path varies from the predicted path. These techniques go beyond time line representations as represented in GANTT charts and PERT analysis, and represent the base variables of consumed resource and productivity/technical achievement in a manner that facilitates higher level interpretation of time, effort, degree of difficulty, and product complexity in order to facilitate informed decision making. This study presents, describes, analyses and demonstrates an SME focused engineering development technique, developed by the author, that produces a successful new product outcome which begins with a ‘fuzzy idea’ in the mind of the inventor and concludes with a successful new product outcome that is delivered on time and within budget. Further research on a wider range of SME organisations undertaking new product development is recommended.

This thesis draws on David Harvey’s concept of “accumulation by dispossession” and an international political economy (IPE) approach centred on the institutional arrangements and power structures that privilege certain actors and values, in order to critique current capitalist practices of primitive accumulation by the global corporate extractive industry. The thesis examines how accumulation by dispossession by the global extractive industry is facilitated by the “free entry” or “free mining” principle. It does so by focusing on Canada as a leader in the global extractive industry and the spread of this country’s mining laws to other countries – in other words, the transnationalisation of norms in the global extractive industry – so as to maintain a consistent and familiar operating environment for Canadian extractive companies. The transnationalisation of norms is further promoted by key international institutions such as the World Bank, which is also the world’s largest development lender and also plays a key role in shaping the regulations that govern natural resource extraction. The thesis briefly investigates some Canadian examples of resource extraction projects, in order to demonstrate the weaknesses of Canadian mining laws, particularly the lack of protection of landowners’ rights under the free entry system and the subsequent need for “free, prior and informed consent” (FPIC). The thesis also considers some of the challenges to the adoption and implementation of the right to FPIC. These challenges include embedded institutional structures like the free entry mining system, international political economy (IPE) as shaped by international institutions and powerful corporations, as well as concerns regarding ‘local’ power structures or the legitimacy of representatives of communities affected by extractive projects. The thesis concludes that in order for Canada to be truly recognized as a leader in the global extractive industry, it must establish legal norms domestically to ensure that Canadian mining companies and residents can be held accountable when there is evidence of environmental and/or human rights violations associated with the activities of Canadian mining companies abroad. The thesis also concludes that Canada needs to address underlying structural issues such as the free entry mining system and implement FPIC, in order to curb “accumulation by dispossession” by the extractive industry, both domestically and abroad.

The present paper is conceived to assess whether or not the sustainable competitive advantage is still achievable and how the concept changed. The literature review of RBV, dynamic capabilities approach and exploration vs exploitation tradeoff underlines the evolution of the concept over time. All the frameworks analyzed stress the importance of the concept although indicating different causes. In addition, the exploitation vs exploration idea may provide a way to reconcile the other theories. The literature review suggests that the sustainability of competitive advantage is a valid concept even when the firms face environmental changes.

Die Arbeit befasst sich mit Methodenproblemen in der Strategischen Managementforschung. Auf Basis einer Meta-Analyse zum Zusammenhang zwischen Ressourcen im Sinne des Resource-based view und der Performance von Unternehmen werden verschiedene Erklärungen für die zu beobachtende Ergebnisheterogenität in den Primärstudien empirisch gegenübergestellt. Es kann gezeigt werden, dass die Operationalisierung des Konstrukts "organisationale Leistung" den größten Beitrag zur Erklärung der Varianz der Studienergebnisse erbringt. Die Appropriationstheorie liefert einen überzeugenden Erklärungsansatz zum systematischen Zusammenhang zwischen Leistung und Studienergebnissen.:1. Einleitung 1 1.1 Problemstellung 1 1.2 Forschungsfragen, zentrales Erkenntnisinteresse, Aufbau und Einordnung 5 2. Grundlagen 8 2.1 Die Rolle von Theorie, Empirie und Hypothese in der Wissensgenerierung 8 2.2 Der Leistungsbegriff 19 2.3 Strategische Managementforschung 25 2.4 Zwischenfazit 30 3. Theoriegeleitete Analyse 33 3.1 Überblick 33 3.2 Das Problem der Populationsselektion 34 3.3 Das Appropriationsproblem 44 3.4 Das Time-Lag Problem 70 4 Qualitative Literaturreview 77 4.1 Forschungsansatz 77 4.2 Ergebnisse 89 4.3 Diskussion 96 5. Metaanalyse 99 5.1 Forschungsansatz 99 5.2 Hypothesenentwicklung 103 5.3 Daten und Operationalisierung 106 5.4 Analyse 113 5.5 Diskussion der Ergebnisse 141 5.6 Abgrenzung und Limitationen 153 6. Zusammenführung und Diskussion 157 6.1 Zusammenfassung der Kernergebnisse 157 6.2 Diskussion und Ausblick 165 Anhänge 174<br>The dissertation thesis contrasts various explanations for heterogeneity in strategic management research findings using meta-analytical techniques. I evaluate research results for a well-known research questions in strategic management research, the relation between performance and resources in the framework of resource-based view, and find that the way how the construct ‘performance’ is being operationalized explains a significant part of the observed heterogeneity in research findings, distinctly more than problems like population selection or the unclear temporal link between dependent and independent variables. Appropriation theory is shown to provide a convincing explanation for the observed outcome.:1. Einleitung 1 1.1 Problemstellung 1 1.2 Forschungsfragen, zentrales Erkenntnisinteresse, Aufbau und Einordnung 5 2. Grundlagen 8 2.1 Die Rolle von Theorie, Empirie und Hypothese in der Wissensgenerierung 8 2.2 Der Leistungsbegriff 19 2.3 Strategische Managementforschung 25 2.4 Zwischenfazit 30 3. Theoriegeleitete Analyse 33 3.1 Überblick 33 3.2 Das Problem der Populationsselektion 34 3.3 Das Appropriationsproblem 44 3.4 Das Time-Lag Problem 70 4 Qualitative Literaturreview 77 4.1 Forschungsansatz 77 4.2 Ergebnisse 89 4.3 Diskussion 96 5. Metaanalyse 99 5.1 Forschungsansatz 99 5.2 Hypothesenentwicklung 103 5.3 Daten und Operationalisierung 106 5.4 Analyse 113 5.5 Diskussion der Ergebnisse 141 5.6 Abgrenzung und Limitationen 153 6. Zusammenführung und Diskussion 157 6.1 Zusammenfassung der Kernergebnisse 157 6.2 Diskussion und Ausblick 165 Anhänge 174

With rapidly advancing technologies and digital innovations, companies face the need to adapt to the new digital world and to digitally transform their business models. For executing the digital transformation process, more and more companies decide to entrust a new C-level manager with all challenges and complexity arising from digital transformation, the Chief Digital Officer (CDO). As the CDO position is still fairly new, research in this field is limited and requires further attention by scholars. Therefore, this study aims to address three fundamental research questions concerning the nature of the CDO position and corresponding implications not only to inform practitioners but also to enrich the scholarly discussion on CDOs. By understanding existing literature on CDOs based on a systematic literature review, this thesis answers the first research question regarding what characterizes the CDO position. Building on these insights and drawing from a comprehensive theoretical framework consisting of upper echelons theory, contingency theory, human capital theory and the resource-based view, hypotheses are developed for answering research questions two and three. While the second research question focuses on factors, which influence CDO presence within a company, the third research question addresses the impact of a CDO on company performance. Based on a large-scale sample of panel data comprised of S&P 500 companies, generalized estimating equations models, propensity score matching and fixed effects regression models are exploited in order to derive answers for both research questions two and three. As influencing factors for CDO presence, the results show that especially early tenure CEOs and CEOs of larger companies are more likely to employ a CDO. Although no evidence can be observed for positive performance implications of CDOs, also given different company contingencies, the insights of this study's analyses show that certain CDO characteristics as well as in combination with CIO presence and varying CEO characteristics are more favorable over others in terms of company performance measured by return on assets and Tobin's Q.

The study focused on the role of the local community in the management of wetland. The study was triggered by the lack of participation of the local community in the management of the wetland. It is important to note that wetlands perform a number of ecosystem services, some of which are well recognised, others less so, and are internationally recognised as being one of the most important ecosystems for the conservation of biodiversity. South Africa is a signatory to the international obligations, which makes it a legal responsibility to make sure that wetlands are managed appropriately. It is therefore important for these natural resources to be managed appropriately. Information for generating data was obtained through the assessment of the wetland health and from the investigation of the management of the local community. In order to achieve the objectives of the study, qualitative method was used to gather the necessary data. The findings indicate that the current state of the wetland is severely modified, which means large loss of natural habitat, biota and basic ecosystem functions has occurred. The results also indicate that the community is ill-equipped to manage the resource appropriately. The findings therefore imply that immediate management interventions must be developed to improve the health of the wetland. In improving the state of the wetland, the study recommends, amongst others, that mitigation measures aimed at improving the wetland health and participation of wetland users be promoted. An establishment of a community-driven and multi-stakeholder intervention mechanism to help the community manage and utilise the wetland properly is also recommended. The study concludes by indicating that the community must comply with the environmental legislation and takes a lead in the management of the wetland, for the aim of restoring the functionality and integrity of the wetland.<br>Environmental Sciences<br>M. Sc. (Environmental Management)

Yes<br>This article reviews the literature on human capital resources and develops a conceptual model incorporating social capital, relational capital and knowledge as the components of human capital resources and linking these to competitive advantage. Scholars from various disciplines expanded our understanding of human capital as important organizational resources but research in this field remains fragmented. Building on past research this review contributes to existing knowledge in human capital resources by introducing an integrated conceptual framework comprising of both micro-level human capital and macro-level strategic human capital resources. In so doing it provides alternative definitions for human capital resources with the aim to make their assessment and understandability more meaningful and clearer than what has been offered so far. Moreover, by bringing knowledge, social capital and relational capital under human capital, this review encourages a dialogue among scholars from various disciplines to investigate the creation and accumulation of strategic human capital resources holistically.

A student-based university environment for engineering design and development is much different from a product development environment within the aerospace industry. Therefore, a different approach to systems engineering should be considered. By its very nature, a university product development laboratory thrives on creativity and rejects bureaucracy. Experience shows that continuity and discipline within a project is crucial for success. The practice of systems engineering enables technical project discipline. Systems engineering is the art and science of developing an operable system that meets requirements within imposed constraints. The purpose of this thesis is to describe the systems engineering processes and techniques necessary for a student-based project, and explicitly show how to implement these processes. Although attempts have been made to utilize a few systems engineering techniques in past projects, many students did not properly and consistently apply those techniques to the technical design work. The goal of the thesis is to tailor the NASA systems engineering processes to a student-based design laboratory environment and to apply the methodologies to the mission design of Paradox. The Picosatellite for Autonomous Rendezvous and Docking on-Orbit eXperiment, or Paradox, is the second of four missions to demonstrate autonomous rendezvous and docking with a picosatellite-class satellite. A strong technical contribution highlighted within the thesis involves developing an open architecture rendezvous targeting algorithm for the Paradox mission in the face of large mission architecture uncertainties. The robust targeting algorithm builds from previous work utilizing an optimizer based on the Clohessey-Wiltshire equations and an iterative Lambert targeter. The contribution extends the rendezvous transfer times by including a multi-revolution Lambert targeter. The rendezvous algorithm will perform successfully given any launch vehicle and target spacecraft vehicle supporting the notion of an open architecture to satisfy the mission. The development of the algorithm is embedded within the context of the systems engineering processes to clearly showcase the intimate connection between systems engineering processes and the technical engineering design of a mission.<br>text