Feature refinement

Development by formal stepwise refinement offers a guarantee that an implementation satisfies a specification. But refinement is frequently defined in such a restrictive way as to disallow some useful development steps. Here we de- fine feature refinement to overcome some limitations of re- finement and show its usefulness by applying it to examples taken from the literature. Using partial relations as a canonical state-based semantics and labelled transition systems as a canonical event-based semantics, we degine functions formally linking the state- and event-based operational semantics. We can then use this link to move notions of refinement between the event- and state-based worlds. An advantage of this abstract approach is that it is not restricted to a specific syntax or even a specific interpretation of the operational semantic

An examination of Media24’s staff retrenchment action of 2020 in light of structural adjustments within the news industry and Covid-19.

Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.This study, situated within a media focused political economic framework, compares and contrasts the dominant narratives of Media24’s 2020 retrenchments in light of structural adjustments and Daily Maverick’s 2020 expansion and the launch of its print title, DM168, within the context of the transforming news industry and the socio-economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. A qualitative approach was necessary and appropriate for this study, as the researcher was seeking to examine competing narratives (the dominant narrative of Media24’s staff retrenchment and Daily Maverick’s alternative narrative during the same time period), rather than any quantitative data or evidence. The data gathered for this desktop study consisted of texts published during the period 1 July 2020 to 31 October 2020, thus covering Media24’s title closures and retrenchments on 7 July, the launch of their digital subscription on 13 July, and Daily Maverick’s launch of DM168 on 26 September. These texts were selected by the researcher on the basis of their ability to address the research objective. The researcher therefore employed purposive sampling, a method frequently used in qualitative research to identify and select data-rich cases in order to make optimal use of limited resources. The researcher was conscious of the possibility of bias, and therefore aimed to collect all published information possible during the specified time period, only eliminating articles that were clear reproductions of Media24’s press releases, with no significant additional information. The findings were grouped into convergent narratives, diverging contrasting narratives, and unique narratives. Broadly convergent narratives were the long-standing financial crisis in the news industry, the theft of revenue by Google and Facebook, social media as being inherently bad for news, the necessity of new business models that generate revenue from readers, journalism as an institution and as a professional, skilled activity, and ambivalent conceptions of change

A Longitudinal study of organizational capability development process : rendering project portfolio management capability (PPMC)

This dissertation analyzes the heterogeneous development paths of project portfolio management capability (PPMC). Earlier, modern literature has prioritized its focus on the performance-based classification of organizational capabilities, while their development process remained obscure. Consequently, scholarship advocating high performance organizational capabilities (such as a dynamic capability) are in abundance. However, the evidence of development path-affected performance dissimilarities is rather sparse or otherwise remained implicit due to the increasing conceptual differences among the prominent scholarship. Along with the longitudinal process research design of this research, a critical realism-based retroduction approach has enabled the discovery of the capability investigation framework. This capability dimensions, routines, and performance outcome based framework has been further extended to investigate project portfolio management capability (PPMC). This retroductive framework is operationalized to evidence the nine years of capability development path heterogeneity at three entities of a case company. The research case findings explain the effect of underlying mechanisms, which due to their context dependent outcomes, either positively reinforce the existing development paths or lead to an alternative path selection. The case findings also confirm that higher performance is not universally attributable to any specific organizational capability known in the literature. Instead, the actuation of all three identified learning mechanisms (of a learning organization) can develop high performing organizational capabilities. This research concludes that a capability development process endures through an extemporized mixture of refinement, reconfiguration, and transformation activities. As a result, an organizational capability always remains idiosyncratic in its details and, hence, produce diverse performance outcomes. Finally, this PhD research has created a critical realist model to extend the emergent theory of capability path dependence to the other organizational contexts.Tämä tutkimus analysoi projektiportfolion hallintaa koskevan kyvykkyyden moninaisia kehittämisvaihtoehtoja. Aiempi tutkimus on keskittynyt organisaation toimintaa tukevien kyvykkyyksien luokitteluun, mutta kyvykkyyksien kehittymistä on tutkittu vähemmän. Kyvykkyyden kehittymiseen (kuten dynaamiseen kyvykkyyteen) tähtäävä tutkimus keskittyy enimmäkseen organisaation näkökulmaan. Lisäksi kyvykkyyden kehittymistutkimusta vaikeuttaa se, että alan keskeiset tutkijat käyttävät keskenään erilaista terminologiaa. Tämä tutkimus on pitkittäinen ja siinä rakennettiin kriittisen realismin lähestymistavan avulla kyvykkyyden kehittymisen tutkimista varten viitekehys. Kyvykkyyden osatekijöitä, rutiineja ja toiminnan tuloksia kuvaavaa viitekehystä kehitettiin edelleen niin, että sitä voidaan käyttää organisaation projektisalkun hallinnan kyvyn selvittämiseen. Tämän viitekehyksen avulla osoitettiin tapausyrityksen kolmen yksikön kyvykkyyden kehittymispolku yhdeksän vuoden ajalta. Tapaustutkimuksen tulokset selittävät kyvykkyyden kehittymisen mekanismeja, jotka joko vahvistavat organisaation vallitsevia kehittymispolkuja tai johtavat uuden kehittymispolun valintaan. Tapaustutkimukset myös osoittavat, että tehokas toiminta ei ole kirjallisuudessa mainitun yksittäisen organisaation kyvykkyysosatekijän seurausta. Sen sijaan kaikki tunnistetut oppivan organisaation oppimiskeinot kehittävät tehokkaasti toimivan organisaation kyvykkyyksiä. Tämän tutkimuksen johtopäätös on, että kyvykkyyden kehittymisprosessi muodostuu improvisoiduista hienosäätö-, uudelleenkonfigurointi- ja muokkausvaiheista. Niiden tuloksena organisaation kyvykkyys säilyy aina yksityiskohdissaan omaperäisenä ja siten voi tuottaa vaihtelevia tuloksia. Tämä väitöskirja on luonut kriittiseen realismiin perustuvan mallin, jolla laajennetaan uutta kyvykkyyden kehittymispolkuriippuvuuden teoriaa muihin organisaatiokonteksteihin.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Appreciative merger and acquisition team coaching programme to facilitate managers' mental health in a cross-cultural context

D.Cur.(Psychiatric Nursing Science)One overarching research aim guided me in this research, namely to generate a worthy Appreciative Merger & Acquisition (M&A) team coaching programme to facilitate managers’ mental health in the context of a cross-cultural M&A. The context represented a hotel in Swaziland, which was situated in a Southern African hospitality environment. A variety of stories reflecting the paradoxical, alienating nature of M&As impelled me to enter the research context. At the same time, research and literature confirmed a preference for organisational change strategies that depart from a deficit orientation. These change strategies presuppose that something is broken in the organisational context, which needs to be repaired. Inherent power-driven organisational change processes are often employed as a strategy to try and repair the identified organisational brokenness. It was, therefore, from a position of curiosity regarding the cross-cultural M&A experiences of managers in the particular hospitality environment, as well as interest in positive organisational change initiatives, that I have gone on this journey. Positive organisational change initiatives celebrate the life-giving stories of organisational life. It departs from the assumption that something in an organisation does work. On entry, I hoped that the context would lend itself to implementing an existing M&A team coaching programme. Additionally, that the stakeholders involved would allow the transfer of such a programme in order to establish its worth while contributing to the advancement of theory in the field of business coaching. Two central research questions were asked. These questions related to the existence of an M&A team coaching programme that lacked scientific credibility at the time, as well as literature that confirmed the detrimental influence of mismanaged cross-cultural M&A implementation processes driven from a deficit orientation on the mental health of managers. • Can an M&A team coaching programme to facilitate managers’ mental health for sustained performance be applied to a cross-cultural M&A in a Southern African hospitality environment? • If the programme is applicable, how can it be refined, implemented and valuated as a foundation to generate a worthy Appreciative M&A team coaching programme to facilitate managers’ mental health for sustained performance in a Southern African hospitality environment

Back from the brink: Thailand\u27s response to the 1997 economic crisis

World Bank study describing the causes and response of Thailand to the currency, financial, and economic crise

The influence of lean thinking on discrete manufacturing organisational structure and behavior

In following a lean transformation specifically for discrete manufacturing, how and why will the organisational structure be affected? How will the employees deal with this profound change? Lean theory and literature propose that organisations should be restructured according to the value stream of the organisation; what does this imply and how can it be accomplished? The purpose of this study was to determine, from a new perspective, guidelines and theory that could indicate how and why organisational structures and behaviours might change with lean transformation. Two discrete manufacturing organisations in South Africa were purposively sampled for this purpose. A conceptual framework was used at the outset that indicated constructs for the independent lean variables and the dependent organisational structure and behaviour variables. Using a mixed methodology case study and quantitative multiple linear regression approach, hypotheses and propositions for the research were developed. Multiple linear regression was used to test the hypotheses, and case study methodology was applied to analyse and test the qualitative data. Findings confirmed the hypotheses and propositions that a flat structure consisting of business units that support manufacturing cells achieves effective lean transformations in discrete manufacturing organisations. The research revealed the components of an effective lean structure as open constructive leadership, an effective lean champions unit and business units that support linked manufacturing cells. These are led by cell leaders who cultivate supportive behaviours through cross-functional teamwork and through self-directed work teams who run manufacturing cells or flow support functions.Business ManagementD.B.L

An evolutionary theory of systemic risk and its mitigation for the global financial system

This thesis is the outcome of theory development research into an identified gap in knowledge about systemic risk of the global financial system. It takes a systems-theoretic approach, incorporating a simulation-constructivist orientation towards the meaning of theory and theory development, within a realist constructivism epistemology for knowledge generation about complex social phenomena. The specific purpose of which is to describe systemic risk of failure, and explain how it occurs in the global financial system, in order to diagnose and understand circumstances in which it arises, and offer insights into how that risk may be mitigated. An outline theory is developed, introducing a new operational definition of systemic risk of failure in which notions from evolutionary economics, finance and complexity science are combined with a general interpretation of entropy, to explain how catastrophic phenomena arise in that system. When a conceptual model incorporating the Icelandic financial system failure over the years 2003 – 2008 is constructed from this theory, and the results of simulation experiments using a verified computational representation of the model are validated with empirical data from that event, and corroborated by theoretical triangulation, a null-hypothesis about the theory is refuted. Furthermore, results show that interplay between a lack of diversity in system participation strategies and shared exposure to potential losses may be a key operational mechanism of catastrophic tensions arising in the supply and demand of financial services. These findings suggest new policy guidance for pre-emptive intervention calls for improved operational transparency from system participants, and prompt access to data about their operational behaviour, in order to prevent positive feedback inducing a failure of the system to operate within required parameters. The theory is then revised to reflect new insights exposed by simulation, and finally submitted as a new theory capable of unifying existing knowledge in this problem domain

Knowledge Utopias: An epistemological perspective on the convergence of museums, libraries and archives

Since 2005, convergence of museums, libraries and archives has emerged as a prominent trend in both the international and Australia collection sectors, made manifest through the development of digital platforms that allow integrated access to diverse collection databases, as well as collaborations and mergers of bricks-and-mortar cultural institutions to incorporate various types of collections and professional disciplines. The convergence phenomenon has led to significant investments in technology and infrastructure, provoking considerable scholarly and professional discourse across collecting domains. Yet, the existence of only a handful of empirical studies reflects a nascent field of study where the majority of research is characterised by inventory-style attempts to quantify and classify types of collaborative projects. This thesis extends current research by examining convergence through a dual commitment to both theory and fieldwork. Focussing on the interpretation of museum collections within converged institutions, I combine conceptual analysis of the epistemological implications of convergence with five detailed case studies of converged organisations in Australia and New Zealand. In a museological context, the research explores ways in which the integration of collecting institutions influences understandings of objects through its impact on museum practices. The findings suggest that convergence not only produces a new institutional framework for museum practice, but also that the integration of collecting institutions has the potential to reshape fundamental understandings of identity, place, heritage and culture

Knowledge Utopias: An epistemological perspective on the convergence of museums, libraries and archives

Since 2005, convergence of museums, libraries and archives has emerged as a prominent trend in both the international and Australia collection sectors, made manifest through the development of digital platforms that allow integrated access to diverse collection databases, as well as collaborations and mergers of bricks-and-mortar cultural institutions to incorporate various types of collections and professional disciplines. The convergence phenomenon has led to significant investments in technology and infrastructure, provoking considerable scholarly and professional discourse across collecting domains. Yet, the existence of only a handful of empirical studies reflects a nascent field of study where the majority of research is characterised by inventory-style attempts to quantify and classify types of collaborative projects. This thesis extends current research by examining convergence through a dual commitment to both theory and fieldwork. Focussing on the interpretation of museum collections within converged institutions, I combine conceptual analysis of the epistemological implications of convergence with five detailed case studies of converged organisations in Australia and New Zealand. In a museological context, the research explores ways in which the integration of collecting institutions influences understandings of objects through its impact on museum practices. The findings suggest that convergence not only produces a new institutional framework for museum practice, but also that the integration of collecting institutions has the potential to reshape fundamental understandings of identity, place, heritage and culture