The Culture of Construction Organisations: the Epitome of Institutionalised Corruption

The culture of an organisation is a vital element of business competency that must align with its strategic goals, and enhance peoples’ perceptions, feelings and behaviour in adapting to the world around them. Organisational culture may also bring about negative practices such as dishonesty and unethical behaviours. Recently the culture of some construction organisations has been called into question. For example, major construction projects around the globe have become involved in allegations of fraud and corruption. The cost is currently estimated at US$860 billion globally; with forecasts that it may rise to US$1.5 trillion by 2025. Hitherto the role of the culture of construction organisations in fraud and corruption activities has been largely hidden. The study aim is to establish whether the culture of construction organisations promotes corrupt practices in the UK construction and infrastructure sector. The study employed mixed research methods with interviews supported by a questionnaire and an examination of five case studies in different countries. Findings show that the culture of construction organisations together with the nature of the industry promotes fraud and corruption. The study subsequently highlights key cultural factors that support fraud and corruption in a way that is almost institutionalised

An evaluation of information system success based on students’ perspective: The case of Hadramount University

Evaluation of systems is an important part of systems development to improve systems performance. However, studies showed a lack of research done on information system success evaluation in Yemen universities. It was also observed that many funded information system projects, in Yemen, were completed and implemented without evaluation. The Yemen Higher Education Management Information System (YHEMIS), is a large scale application developed and implemented without evaluation. Hence, this research evaluates the YHEMIS application by investigating into the factors that influence user satisfaction and system use which will further show the benefit of the system. This research endeavors to propose an evaluation DeLone and McLean model with the addition of an external factor management support to identify what factors influence the use of YHEMIS and likewise affect the user satisfaction when using the application. The aim of this study is to also to find out whether the development of YHEMIS is of benefit to the students. This study applies the quantitative approach to distribute questionnaires to users (students) of YHEMIS in Hadramout University. The stratified random sampling method was used, and 261 questionnaires were collected. The research findings showed that information quality, system quality and management support influenced the use and users satisfaction and played a vital role in the success of YHEMIS. The findings showed that students‟ satisfaction have the strongest effect on the perceived net benefits YHEMIS brought for the students. This study provides the first empirical data on the evaluation of information system success conducted on YHEMIS for a Yemen university. Based on the results, stakeholders can get the feedback to improve the systems and provide input to develop other information system projects. The research findings can provide the support to the management of Hadramout University to other online projects. Hence, YHEMIS can be said to be successful and users (students) satisfaction can be considered as the indicator of the success on system usage and net benefit

Science and Ideology in Economic, Political, and Social Thought

This paper has two sources: One is my own research in three broad areas: business cycles, economic measurement and social choice. In all of these fields I attempted to apply the basic precepts of the scientific method as it is understood in the natural sciences. I found that my effort at using natural science methods in economics was met with little understanding and often considerable hostility. I found economics to be driven less by common sense and empirical evidence, then by various ideologies that exhibited either a political or a methodological bias, or both. This brings me to the second source: Several books have appeared recently that describe in historical terms the ideological forces that have shaped either the direct areas in which I worked, or a broader background. These books taught me that the ideological forces in the social sciences are even stronger than I imagined on the basis of my own experiences. The scientific method is the antipode to ideology. I feel that the scientific work that I have done on specific, long standing and fundamental problems in economics and political science have given me additional insights into the destructive role of ideology beyond the history of thought orientation of the works I will be discussing

Science and Ideology in Economic, Political, and Social Thought

This paper has two sources: One is my own research in three broad areas: business cycles, economic measurement and social choice. In all of these fields I attempted to apply the basic precepts of the scientific method as it is understood in the natural sciences. I found that my effort at using natural science methods in economics was met with little understanding and often considerable hostility. I found economics to be driven less by common sense and empirical evidence, then by various ideologies that exhibited either a political or a methodological bias, or both. This brings me to the second source: Several books have appeared recently that describe in historical terms the ideological forces that have shaped either the direct areas in which I worked, or a broader background. These books taught me that the ideological forces in the social sciences are even stronger than I imagined on the basis of my own experiences. The scientific method is the antipode to ideology. I feel that the scientific work that I have done on specific, long standing and fundamental problems in economics and political science have given me additional insights into the destructive role of ideology beyond the history of thought orientation of the works I will be discussing.Business cycles; Ideology; Science; Voting; Welfare measurement

An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Analysis.

Increases in the complexity and uncertainty of corporate activity indicate that the time is now appropriate to review the analysis process. This proposition forms the central theme of the thesis, i.e. to explore the nature of analysis. Initial research concentrated on the field of hard system methods, to provide a theoretical foundation for conducting analysis. However, from observations undertaken as a reflective practitioner it became clear that, even with theoretical advances, hard system methods could only make a marginal contribution to the analysis process. Hard system methods foiled to account for the feet that experts had an uncertain knowledge of the domain on which they were expected to pronounce. Contemporary literature from the fields of strategic management and organisational behaviour pose fundamental challenges to the accepted origin and nature of requirements for change. Complexity theory, however, offers a new theoretical foundation to ease the plight of the domain expert, i.e. pattern recognition. However to ensure that patterns reflect the cognitive strategies-and priorities of the domain expert, it is necessary to explore the field of cognitive psychology to appreciate the significance of the metaphors selected to construct patterns. Finally, knowledge management claims that the value of knowledge is under endless assault and argues for the domain expert to be engaged in a virtuous cycle of perpetual knowledge creation. The thesis seeks to integrate these themes to redefine the analysis process based on methodological pluralism. The key to methodological pluralism proved eventually to be the introduction of generic ‘behaviour accentuated’ patterns of analysis at the core of the selected techniques. The nature of analysis has changed radically over the last decade and significant research is required to develop themes raised in this thesis. Moreover, further work is required to disseminate the themes to the practitioner community

Investigating Avatar Customization as a Motivational Design Strategy for Improving Engagement with Technology-Enabled Services for Health

Technology-enabled services for physical and mental health are a promising approach to improve healthcare globally. Unfortunately, the largest barrier for effective technology-based treatment is participants' gradually fading engagement with effective novel training applications, such as exercise apps or online mental health training programs. Engaging users through design presents an elegant solution to the problem; however, research on technology-enabled services is primarily focused on the efficacy of novel interventions and not on improving adherence through engaging interaction design. As a result, motivational design strategies to improve engagement---both in the moment of use and over time---are underutilized. Drawing from game-design, I investigate avatar customization as a game-based motivational design strategy in four studies. In Study 1, I examine the effect of avatar customization on experience and behaviour in an infinite runner game. In Study 2, I induce different levels of motivation to research the effects of financial rewards on self-reported motivation and performance in a gamified training task over 11 days. In Study 3, I apply avatar customization to investigate the effects of attrition in an intervention context using a breathing exercise over three weeks. In Study 4, I investigate the immediate effects of avatar customization on the efficacy of an anxiety reducing attentional retraining task. My results show that avatar customization increases motivation over time and in the moment of use, suggesting that avatar customization is a viable strategy to address the engagement barrier that thwarts the efficacy of technology-enabled services for health

Surveilling Potential Uses and Abuses of Artificial Intelligence in Correctional Spaces

In section II, this paper will begin with an analysis of the development of AI, noting famous examples and establishing a baseline definition as a lens for the rest of this discussion. This paper will assess aspects of AI and machine learning to the extent it furthers our understanding of AI’s ability to collect data and make decisions. Some popular culture references will be brought into focus here to recognize storytelling’s ability to inspire and influence real-world scientific pursuits. Of preliminary importance, the AI we have both dreamed of and feared are certainly kept in mind as technology advances through sentience milestones. Section III will discuss emerging technologies in the correctional space, including automated inmate communications monitoring services and related privacy and safety implications. Such technologies are designed to be objective and non-biased, though human involvement will necessarily entail subjectivity at each stage of development and implementation. The problem of encroaching AI is thus balanced between its own sophistication and that of its human collaborators. In section IV, this paper will discuss the now-widescale adoption of correctional tablets in jails and prisons across the country. Persons experiencing incarceration have expectations about traditional monitoring areas, such as phone calls, mail, and video surveillance. However, allocating so many correctional services to a single device necessitates a new analysis of how governments, and the private contractors providing and maintaining their tablets, impact data collection and algorithm development practices. Finally, in section V, the pieces come together as this paper argues for responsible data analysis and algorithm development. The drumbeat march of AI into detention spaces shows no sign of halting but there is time yet to steer its development to productive and humane purpose. In the end, this paper aims to increase awareness of the potential benefits and pitfalls of AI integration in the correctional space and provide a framework to understand tradeoffs in this sector

Open source software GitHub ecosystem: a SEM approach

Open source software (OSS) is a collaborative effort. Getting affordable high-quality software with less probability of errors or fails is not far away. Thousands of open-source projects (termed repos) are alternatives to proprietary software development. More than two-thirds of companies are contributing to open source. Open source technologies like OpenStack, Docker and KVM are being used to build the next generation of digital infrastructure. An iconic example of OSS is 'GitHub' - a successful social site. GitHub is a hosting platform that host repositories (repos) based on the Git version control system. GitHub is a knowledge-based workspace. It has several features that facilitate user communication and work integration. Through this thesis I employ data extracted from GitHub, and seek to better understand the OSS ecosystem, and to what extent each of its deployed elements affects the successful development of the OSS ecosystem. In addition, I investigate a repo's growth over different time periods to test the changing behavior of the repo. From our observations developers do not follow one development methodology when developing, and growing their project, and such developers tend to cherry-pick from differing available software methodologies. GitHub API remains the main OSS location engaged to extract the metadata for this thesis's research. This extraction process is time-consuming - due to restrictive access limitations (even with authentication). I apply Structure Equation Modelling (termed SEM) to investigate the relative path relationships between the GitHub- deployed OSS elements, and I determine the path strength contributions of each element to determine the OSS repo's activity level. SEM is a multivariate statistical analysis technique used to analyze structural relationships. This technique is the combination of factor analysis and multiple regression analysis. It is used to analyze the structural relationship between measured variables and/or latent constructs. This thesis bridges the research gap around longitude OSS studies. It engages large sample-size OSS repo metadata sets, data-quality control, and multiple programming language comparisons. Querying GitHub is not direct (nor simple) yet querying for all valid repos remains important - as sometimes illegal, or unrepresentative outlier repos (which may even be quite popular) do arise, and these then need to be removed from each initial OSS's language-specific metadata set. Eight top GitHub programming languages, (selected as the most forked repos) are separately engaged in this thesis's research. This thesis observes these eight metadata sets of GitHub repos. Over time, it measures the different repo contributions of the deployed elements of each metadata set. The number of stars-provided to the repo delivers a weaker contribution to its software development processes. Sometimes forks work against the repo's progress by generating very minor negative total effects into its commit (activity) level, and by sometimes diluting the focus of the repo's software development strategies. Here, a fork may generate new ideas, create a new repo, and then draw some original repo developers off into this new software development direction, thus retarding the original repo's commit (activity) level progression. Multiple intermittent and minor version releases exert lesser GitHub JavaScript repo commit (or activity) changes because they often involve only slight OSS improvements, and because they only require minimal commit/commits contributions. More commit(s) also bring more changes to documentation, and again the GitHub OSS repo's commit (activity) level rises. There are both direct and indirect drivers of the repo's OSS activity. Pulls and commits are the strongest drivers. This suggests creating higher levels of pull requests is likely a preferred prime target consideration for the repo creator's core team of developers. This study offers a big data direction for future work. It allows for the deployment of more sophisticated statistical comparison techniques. It offers further indications around the internal and broad relationships that likely exist between GitHub's OSS big data. Its data extraction ideas suggest a link through to business/consumer consumption, and possibly how these may be connected using improved repo search algorithms that release individual business value components