Realizing benefits from enterprise architecture : a measurement model

Enterprise architecture (EA) management has become an intensively discussed approach to manage enterprise transformations. Despite the popularity and potential of EA, both researchers and practitioners lament a lack of knowledge about the realization of benefits from EA. To determine the benefits from EA, we explore the various dimensions of EA benefit realization and report on the development of a validated and robust measurement instrument. In this paper, we test the reliability and construct validity of the EA benefit realization model (EABRM), which we have designed based on the DeLone & McLean IS success model and findings from exploratory interviews. A confirmatory factor analysis confirms the existence of an impact of five distinct and individually important dimensions on the benefits derived from EA: EA artefact quality, EA infrastructure quality, EA service quality, EA culture, and EA use. The analysis presented in this paper shows that the EA benefit realization model is an instrument that demonstrates strong reliability and validity.

Creating and evaluating IT-related business value in developing markets : part 1

There is no doubt that information technology (IT) resources are important for organisations in any jurisdiction to manage their processes. Organisations consume considerable financial resources to acquire and manage their IT resources with various IT governance structures. Investment in IT, thus, is a strategic necessity. IT resources, however, do not contribute fully to business value on their own. Business value considers performance impacts of resources at various organisational levels (e.g., processes and firm levels). ITs are biased resources in that they require some form of manipulation to attain their maximum value. While we know that IT resources are important, a deeper understanding on two aspects of use of IT resources in organisations is important. First, is how to leverage the IT resources to attain its maximum value, and second, is where to evaluate IT-related business value in the organisation’s value chain. This understanding is important for organisation to sustain their operations in an ever-changing business environment. We address these issues in two parts. This paper discusses the first aspect of ways in which organisations can create and sustain their IT-related business value.

Profit and organisational legitimacy in an emerging market

While there is common acknowledgement that the main aim of organisations is to maximise shareholder wealth, firms also have the obligation to manage the needs of a broader group of stakeholders as these firms are a product of social creation. In this study, we test the notion that the concept, profit, is fundamental to society’s perception of the firm in an emerging market, and the need for a firm to legitimise a level of profit. We evaluate the relationship between the readability of various components of corporate annual reports and the level of profit, and we also take into account the nature of disclosure (mandatory and non-mandatory), the size of the firm and the nature of setup (public enterprises and publicly listed companies). Our findings suggest that, as with developed markets, in emerging markets profit is indeed an important determinant of the nature of operations of a firm, and that firms consider readability of their disclosures in attempting to legitimise a level of profit.

Teachers’ work in curricular markets : conditions of design and relations between the International Baccalaureate Diploma and the local curriculum

School level strategy enabled by neoliberal choice policies can produce internal curricular markets whereby branded curricula such as the International Baccalaureate are offered alongside the local government curriculum in the same school. This project investigated how such curricular markets operating in Australian schools impacted on teachers’ work. This paper reports on teachers work in three case study schools that offered both the International Baccalaureate Diploma program and the local senior schooling curriculum, then draws on an online survey of 225 teachers in 26 such schools across Australia. The analysis reveals the impact of curricular markets along two dimensions: the curriculum’s internal design; and the relational aspects of how schools manage to deliver tandem offerings within institutional constraints. Teachers working in the IBD Diploma program were shown to relish its design, despite additional demands, while teachers working in just the local curriculum reported more relational issues. The paper argues that these trends suggest that there are winners and losers emerging in the work conditions produced by curricular markets.  

The role of organisational culture, trust and mechanisms in inter-project knowledge sharing

Knowledge has been recognised as a powerful yet intangible asset, which is difficult to manage. This is especially true in a project environment where there is the potential to repeat mistakes, rather than learn from previous experiences. The literature in the project management field has recognised the importance of knowledge sharing (KS) within and between projects. However, studies in that field focus primarily on KS mechanisms including lessons learned (LL) and post project reviews as the source of knowledge for future projects, and only some preliminary research has been carried out on the aspects of project management offices (PMOs) and organisational culture (OC) in KS. This study undertook to investigate KS behaviours in an inter-project context, with a particular emphasis on the role of trust, OC and a range of knowledge sharing mechanisms (KSM) in achieving successful inter-project knowledge sharing (I-PKS). An extensive literature search resulted in the development of an I-PKS Framework, which defined the scope of the research and shaped its initial design. The literature review indicated that existing research relating to the three factors of OC, trust and KSM remains inadequate in its ability to fully explain the role of these contextual factors. In particular, the literature review identified these areas of interest: (1) the conflicting answers to some of the major questions related to KSM, (2) the limited empirical research on the role of different trust dimensions, (3) limited empirical evidence of the role of OC in KS, and (4) the insufficient research on KS in an inter-project context. The resulting Framework comprised the three main factors including: OC, trust and KSM, demonstrating a more integrated view of KS in the inter-project context. Accordingly, the aim of this research was to examine the relationships between these three factors and KS by investigating behaviours related to KS from the project managers‘ (PMs‘) perspective. In order to achieve the aim, this research sought to answer the following research questions: 1. How does organisational culture influence inter-project knowledge sharing? 2. How does the existence of three forms of trust — (i) ability, (ii) benevolence and (iii) integrity — influence inter-project knowledge sharing? 3. How can different knowledge sharing mechanisms (relational, project management tools and process, and technology) improve inter-project knowledge sharing behaviours? 4. How do the relationships between these three factors of organisational culture, trust and knowledge sharing mechanisms improve inter-project knowledge sharing? a. What are the relationships between the factors? b. What is the best fit for given cases to ensure more effective inter-project knowledge sharing? Using multiple case studies, this research was designed to build propositions emerging from cross-case data analysis. The four cases were chosen on the basis of theoretical sampling. All cases were large project-based organisations (PBOs), with a strong matrix-type structure, as per the typology proposed by the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK) (2008). Data were collected from project management departments of the respective organisations. A range of analytical techniques were used to deal with the data including pattern matching logic and explanation building analysis, complemented by the use of NVivo for data coding and management. Propositions generated at the end of the analyses were further compared with the extant literature, and practical implications based on the data and literature were suggested in order to improve I-PKS. Findings from this research conclude that OC, trust, and KSM contribute to inter-project knowledge sharing, and suggest the existence of relationships between these factors. In view of that, this research identified the relationships between different trust dimensions, suggesting that integrity trust reinforces the relationship between ability trust and knowledge sharing. Furthermore, this research demonstrated that characteristics of culture and trust interact to reinforce preferences for mechanisms of knowledge sharing. This means that cultures that facilitate characteristics of Clan type are more likely to result in trusting relationships, hence are more likely to use organic sources of knowledge for both tacit and explicit knowledge exchange. In contrast, cultures that are empirically driven, based on control, efficiency, and measures (characteristics of Hierarchy and Market types) display tendency to develop trust primarily in ability of non-organic sources, and therefore use these sources to share mainly explicit knowledge. This thesis contributes to the project management literature by providing a more integrative view of I-PKS, bringing the factors of OC, trust and KSM into the picture. A further contribution is related to the use of collaborative tools as a substitute for static LL databases and as a facilitator for tacit KS between geographically dispersed projects. This research adds to the literature on OC by providing rich empirical evidence of the relationships between OC and the willingness to share knowledge, and by providing empirical evidence that OC has an effect on trust; in doing so this research extends the theoretical propositions outlined by previous research. This study also extends the research on trust by identifying the relationships between different trust dimensions, suggesting that integrity trust reinforces the relationship between ability trust and KS. Finally, this research provides some directions for future studies.

Factors influencing the adoption of information technology in a construction business

Construction firms are increasingly utilizing information technologies to better manage geographically dispersed projects. Often these technologies involve changes to existing working practices and processes and are viewed as disruptive by members of the organization. Understanding the factors that can influence individuals’ intention to utilize technology can assist managers to implement strategies to increase and improve the uptake of technologies and improve the innovation adoption process. Using a case study organization, factors identified in the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) are examined and the UTAUT is extended and by including resistance to change and top management support. The findings indicate effort expectancy, internal facilitating conditions and top management support all influence individuals’ intention to use information technology. The results also show that resistance to change or fear of change does not always play a role in innovation adoption. The findings reinforce the need to support new technologies from both a managerial and technical perspective.

A hierarchical evolutionary algorithmic design (HEAD) system for generating and evolving building design models

This thesis develops a detailed conceptual design method and a system software architecture defined with a parametric and generative evolutionary design system to support an integrated interdisciplinary building design approach. The research recognises the need to shift design efforts toward the earliest phases of the design process to support crucial design decisions that have a substantial cost implication on the overall project budget. The overall motivation of the research is to improve the quality of designs produced at the author's employer, the General Directorate of Major Works (GDMW) of the Saudi Arabian Armed Forces. GDMW produces many buildings that have standard requirements, across a wide range of environmental and social circumstances. A rapid means of customising designs for local circumstances would have significant benefits. The research considers the use of evolutionary genetic algorithms in the design process and the ability to generate and assess a wider range of potential design solutions than a human could manage. This wider ranging assessment, during the early stages of the design process, means that the generated solutions will be more appropriate for the defined design problem. The research work proposes a design method and system that promotes a collaborative relationship between human creativity and the computer capability. The tectonic design approach is adopted as a process oriented design that values the process of design as much as the product. The aim is to connect the evolutionary systems to performance assessment applications, which are used as prioritised fitness functions. This will produce design solutions that respond to their environmental and function requirements. This integrated, interdisciplinary approach to design will produce solutions through a design process that considers and balances the requirements of all aspects of the design. Since this thesis covers a wide area of research material, 'methodological pluralism' approach was used, incorporating both prescriptive and descriptive research methods. Multiple models of research were combined and the overall research was undertaken following three main stages, conceptualisation, developmental and evaluation. The first two stages lay the foundations for the specification of the proposed system where key aspects of the system that have not previously been proven in the literature, were implemented to test the feasibility of the system. As a result of combining the existing knowledge in the area with the newlyverified key aspects of the proposed system, this research can form the base for a future software development project. The evaluation stage, which includes building the prototype system to test and evaluate the system performance based on the criteria defined in the earlier stage, is not within the scope this thesis. The research results in a conceptual design method and a proposed system software architecture. The proposed system is called the 'Hierarchical Evolutionary Algorithmic Design (HEAD) System'. The HEAD system has shown to be feasible through the initial illustrative paper-based simulation. The HEAD system consists of the two main components - 'Design Schema' and the 'Synthesis Algorithms'. The HEAD system reflects the major research contribution in the way it is conceptualised, while secondary contributions are achieved within the system components. The design schema provides constraints on the generation of designs, thus enabling the designer to create a wide range of potential designs that can then be analysed for desirable characteristics. The design schema supports the digital representation of the human creativity of designers into a dynamic design framework that can be encoded and then executed through the use of evolutionary genetic algorithms. The design schema incorporates 2D and 3D geometry and graph theory for space layout planning and building formation using the Lowest Common Design Denominator (LCDD) of a parameterised 2D module and a 3D structural module. This provides a bridge between the standard adjacency requirements and the evolutionary system. The use of graphs as an input to the evolutionary algorithm supports the introduction of constraints in a way that is not supported by standard evolutionary techniques. The process of design synthesis is guided as a higher level description of the building that supports geometrical constraints. The Synthesis Algorithms component analyses designs at four levels, 'Room', 'Layout', 'Building' and 'Optimisation'. At each level multiple fitness functions are embedded into the genetic algorithm to target the specific requirements of the relevant decomposed part of the design problem. Decomposing the design problem to allow for the design requirements of each level to be dealt with separately and then reassembling them in a bottom up approach reduces the generation of non-viable solutions through constraining the options available at the next higher level. The iterative approach, in exploring the range of design solutions through modification of the design schema as the understanding of the design problem improves, assists in identifying conflicts in the design requirements. Additionally, the hierarchical set-up allows the embedding of multiple fitness functions into the genetic algorithm, each relevant to a specific level. This supports an integrated multi-level, multi-disciplinary approach. The HEAD system promotes a collaborative relationship between human creativity and the computer capability. The design schema component, as the input to the procedural algorithms, enables the encoding of certain aspects of the designer's subjective creativity. By focusing on finding solutions for the relevant sub-problems at the appropriate levels of detail, the hierarchical nature of the system assist in the design decision-making process.

Were regulatory changes in reporting "abnormal items" justified? : evidence of intra-period classificatory earnings management practices in Australia

Purpose Managers generally have discretion in determining how components of earnings are presented in financial statements in distinguishing between ‘normal’ earnings and items classified as unusual, special, significant, exceptional or abnormal. Prior research has found that such intra-period classificatory choice is used as a form of earnings management. Prior to 2001, Australian accounting standards mandated that unusually large items of revenue and expense be classified as ‘abnormal items’ for financial reporting, but this classification was removed from accounting standards from 2001. This move by the regulators was partly in response to concerns that the abnormal classification was being used opportunistically to manage reported pre-abnormal earnings. This study extends the earnings management literature by examining the reporting of abnormal items for evidence of intra-period classificatory earnings management in the unique Australian setting. Design/methodology/approach This study investigates associations between reporting of abnormal items and incentives in the form of analyst following and the earnings benchmarks of analysts’ forecasts, earnings levels, and earnings changes, for a sample of Australian top-500 firms for the seven-year period from 1994 to 2000. Findings The findings suggest there are systematic differences between firms reporting abnormal items and those with no abnormal items. Results show evidence that, on average, firms shifted expense items from pre-abnormal earnings to bottom line net income through reclassification as abnormal losses. Originality/value These findings suggest that the standard setters were justified in removing the ‘abnormal’ classification from the accounting standard. However, it cannot be assumed that all firms acted opportunistically in the classification of items as abnormal. With the removal of the standardised classification of items outside normal operations as ‘abnormal’, firms lost the opportunity to use such disclosures as a signalling device, with the consequential effect of limiting the scope of effectively communicating information about the nature of items presented in financial reports.

A case study examination of the influence of cultural diversity in the multicultural nursing workforce on the quality of care and patient safety in a Saudi Arabian hospital

The purpose of the study: The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of cultural diversity, in a multicultural nursing workforce, on the quality and safety of patient care and the work environment at King Abdul-Aziz Medical City, Riyadh region. Study background: Due to global migration and workforce mobility, to varying degrees, cultural diversity exists in most health services around the world, particularly occurring where the health care workforce is multicultural or where the domestic population comprises minority groups from different cultures speaking different languages. Further complexities occur when countries have a multicultural workforce which is different from the population for whom they care, in addition to the workers being from culturally diverse countries and with different languages. In Saudi Arabia the health system is mainly staffed by expatriate nurses who comprise 67.7% of the total number of nurses. Study design: This research utilised a case study design which incorporated multiple methods including survey, qualitative interviews and document review. Methods: The participant nurses were selected for the survey via a population sampling strategy; 319 nurses returned their completed Safety Climate Survey questionnaires. Descriptive and inferential statistics (Kruskal–Wallis test) were used to analyse survey data. For the qualitative component of the study, a purposive sampling strategy was used; 24 nurses were interviewed using a semi-structured interview technique. The documentary review included KAMC-R policy documents that met the inclusion criteria using a predetermined data abstraction instrument. Content analysis was used to analyse the policy documents data. Results: The data revealed the nurses‘ perceptions of the clinical climate in this multicultural environment is that it was unsafe, with a mean score of 3.9 out of 5. No significant difference was detected between the age groups or years of experience of the nurses and the perception of safety climate in this context; the study did reveal a statistically significant difference between the cultural background categories and the perception of safety climate. The qualitative phase indicated that the nurses within this environment were struggling to achieve cultural competence; consequently, they were having difficulties in meeting the patients‘ cultural and spiritual needs as well as maintaining a high standard of care. The results also indicated that nurses were disempowered in this context. Importantly, there was inadequate support by the organisation to manage the cultural diversity issue and to protect patients from any associated risks, as demonstrated by the policy documents and supported by the nurses‘ experiences. The study also illustrated the limitations of the conceptual framework of cultural competence when tested in this multicultural workforce context. Therefore, this study generated amendments to the model that is suitable to be used in the context of a multicultural nursing workforce. Conclusion: The multicultural nature of this nursing work environment is inherently risky due to the conflicts that arise from the different cultural norms, beliefs, behaviours and languages. Further, there was uncertainty within the multicultural nursing workforce about the clinical and cultural safety of the patient care environment and about the cultural safety of the nursing workforce. The findings of the study contribute important new knowledge to the area of patient and nurse safety in a multicultural environment and contribute theoretical development to the field of cultural competence. Specifically, the findings will inform policy and practice related to patient care in the context of cultural diversity.

Rethinking Youth Prostitution: National Provision at the Margins of Child Protection and Youth Justice

In March 2000, the Department of Health and the Home Office issued guidance fundamentally altering policy and practice with regard to young people in prostitution. 1 Instead of being arrested and punished for prostitution-related offences, those under 18 years old were to be thought of as children ‘in need’ and offered welfare-based interventions. The practice that has developed in the last three years has offered interventions that are located within both child protection and youth justice work. This article examines these changes in order to generate insights about the changing nature of youth justice. In particular, it is argued that the drive to manage the risks posed by young people in prostitution to specific organisations, takes precedence over either the desire to care for, or the demand to punish them. Through an analysis of how practitioners and policy makers responsible for implementing this new approach to youth prostitution talk about ‘risk’ and ‘responsibility’, ‘liability’, ‘protection’ and ‘punishment’, the article argues that the contradiction between care and control has been re-interpreted, such that there is noticeable blurring of the boundaries between welfare and punishment at the margins of youth justice work.

Towards local cultures of sustainability : facilitating community created environment education centres through design

Ecological sustainability has been proposed to address the problem of human impacts increasingly degrading planetary resources and ecosystems, threatening biodiversity, eco-services and human survival. Ecological sustainability is an imperative, with Australia having one of the highest eco-footprints per person worldwide. While significant progress has been made via implementation of ecologically sustainable design in urban communities, relatively little has been undertaken in small, disparate regional communities in Australia. Regional communities are disadvantaged by rural economic decline associated with structural change and inequities of resource transfer. The ecologically sustainable solution is holistic, so all settlements need to be globally wise, richly biodiverse yet locally specific. As a regional solution to this global problem, this research offers the practical means by which a small regional community can contribute. It focuses on the design and implementation of a community centre and the fostering of transformative community learning through an integrated ‘learning community’ awareness of ecologically sustainable best practice. Lessons learned are documented by the participant researcher who as a designer, facilitator, local resident and social narrator has been deeply connected with the Tweed-Caldera region over a period since 1980. The collective action of the local community of Chillingham has been diligently recorded over a decade of design and development. Over this period, several positive elements emerged in terms of improvements to the natural and built environment, greater social cohesion and co-operative learning along with a shift towards a greener local economy. Behavioural changes in the community were noted as residents strived to embrace ecological ideals and reduce fossil fuel dependency. They found attractive local solutions to sourcing of food and using local employment opportunities to up skill their residents via transformative learning as a community in transition. Finally, the catalytic impact of external partnering has also been documented. How well the region as a whole has achieved its ecologically sustainable objectives is measured in terms of the delivered success of private and public partnering with the community, the creation of a community centre cum environment education centre, the restoration of local heritage buildings, the repair of riparian forests and improved water conditions in local river systems, better roads and road safety, local skills and knowledge transfer, support of local food and local/regional growers markets to attract tourists via the integrated trails network. In aggregate, each and every element contributes to a measure of eco-positive development for the built environment, its social organisation and its economy that has guided the local community to find its own pathway to sustainability. Within the Tweed-Caldera bioregion in northern New South Wales, there has been a lack of strategic planning, ecologically sustainable knowledge and facilities in isolated communities that could support the development of a local sustained green economy, provide a hub for socio-cultural activities and ecology based education. The first challenge in this research was to model a whole systems approach to eco-positive development in Chillingham, NSW, a small community where Nature and humanity know no specific boundary. The net result was the creation of a community environment education centre featuring best-affordable ecological practice and regionally distinctive, educational building form from a disused heritage building (cow bale). This development, implemented over a decade, resonated with the later regional wide programs that were linked in the Caldera region by the common purpose of extending the reach of local and state government assistance to regional NSW in economic transition coupled with sustainability. The lessons learned from these linked projects reveal that subsequent programs have been significantly easier to initiate, manage, develop and deliver results. In particular, pursuing collaborative networks with all levels of government and external private partners has been economically effective. Each community’s uniqueness has been celebrated and through drawing out these distinctions, has highlighted local vision, strategic planning, sense of belonging and connection of people with place. This step has significantly reduced the level of friction between communities that comes from natural competition for the finite pool of funds. Following the pilot Tweed-Caldera study, several other NSW regional communities are now undertaking a Community Economic Transition Program based on the processes, trials and positive experiences witnessed in the Tweed-Caldera region where it has been demonstrated that regional community transition programs can provide an opportunity to plan and implement effective long term strategies for sustainability, empowering communities to participate in eco-governance. This thesis includes the design and development of a framework for community created environment education centres to provide an equal access place for community to participate to meet their essential needs locally. An environment centre that facilitates community transition based on easily accessible environmental education, skills and infrastructure is necessary to develop local cultures of sustainability. This research draws upon the literatures of ecologically sustainable development, environmental education and community development in the context of regional community transition towards ‘strong sustainability’. The research approach adapted is best described as a four stage collaborative action research cycle where the participant researcher (me) has a significant involvement in the process to foster local cultures of sustainability by empowering its citizens to act locally and in doing so, become more self reliant and socially resilient. This research also draws upon the many fine working exemplars, such as the resilience of the Cuban people, the transition town initiative in Totnes, U.K. and the models of Australian Community Gardens, such as CERES (Melbourne) and Northey Street (Brisbane). The objectives of this study are to research and evaluate exemplars of ecologically sustainable environment education centres, to facilitate the design and development of an environment education centre created by a small regional community as an ecologically sustainable learning environment; to facilitate a framework for community transition based on environmental education, skills and infrastructure necessary to develop local cultures of sustainability. The research was undertaken as action research in the Tweed Caldera in Northern NSW. This involved the author as participant researcher, designer and volunteer in two interconnected initiatives: the Chillingham Community Centre development and the Caldera Economic Transition Program (CETP). Both initiatives involved a series of design-led participatory community workshops that were externally facilitated with the support of government agency partnerships, steering committees and local volunteers. Together the Caldera research programs involved communities participating in developing their own strategic planning process and outcomes. The Chillingham Community Centre was developed as a sustainable community centre/hub using a participatory design process. The Caldera Economic Transition Program (CETP) prioritised Caldera region projects: the Caldera farmer’s market; community gardens and community kitchens; community renewable energy systems and an integrated trails network. The significant findings were: the CETP projects were capable of moving towards an eco-positive design benchmark through transformative learning. Community transition to sustainability programs need to be underpinned by sustainability and environmental education based frameworks and practical on ground experience in local needs based projects through transformative learning. The actioned projects were successfully undertaken through community participation and teamwork. Ecological footprint surveys were undertaken to guide and assess the ongoing community transition process, however the paucity of responses needs to be revisited. The concept of ecologically sustainable development has been adopted internationally, however existing design and planning strategies do not assure future generations continued access to healthy natural life support systems. Sustainable design research has usually been urban focussed, with little attention paid to regional communities. This study seeks to redress this paucity through the design of ecologically sustainable (deep green) learning environments for small regional communities. Through a design-led process of environmental education, this study investigates how regional communities can be facilitated to model the principles of eco-positive development to support transition to local cultures of sustainability. This research shows how community transition processes and projects can incorporate sustainable community development as transformative learning through design. Regional community transition programs can provide an opportunity to plan long term strategies for sustainability, empowering people to participate in eco-governance. A framework is developed for a community created environment education centre to provide an equal access place for the local community to participate in implementing ways to meet their essential needs locally. A community environment education centre that facilitates community transition based on holistic environmental education, skills and infrastructure is necessary to develop local cultures of sustainability.

The development of ground impact models for the analysis of the risks associated with Unmanned Aircraft Operations over inhabited areas

With the emergence of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) there is a growing need for safety standards and regulatory frameworks to manage the risks associated with their operations. The primary driver for airworthiness regulations (i.e., those governing the design, manufacture, maintenance and operation of UAS) are the risks presented to people in the regions overflown by the aircraft. Models characterising the nature of these risks are needed to inform the development of airworthiness regulations. The output from these models should include measures of the collective, individual and societal risk. A brief review of these measures is provided. Based on the review, it was determined that the model of the operation of an UAS over inhabited areas must be capable of describing the distribution of possible impact locations, given a failure at a particular point in the flight plan. Existing models either do not take the impact distribution into consideration, or propose complex and computationally expensive methods for its calculation. A computationally efficient approach for estimating the boundary (and in turn area) of the impact distribution for fixed wing unmanned aircraft is proposed. A series of geometric templates that approximate the impact distributions are derived using an empirical analysis of the results obtained from a 6-Degree of Freedom (6DoF) simulation. The impact distributions can be aggregated to provide impact footprint distributions for a range of generic phases of flight and missions. The maximum impact footprint areas obtained from the geometric template are shown to have a relative error of typically less than 1% compared to the areas calculated using the computationally more expensive 6DoF simulation. Computation times for the geometric models are on the order of one second or less, using a standard desktop computer. Future work includes characterising the distribution of impact locations within the footprint boundaries.

Embedding human expert cognition and real-time trajectory planning in autonomous UAS

This thesis presents a new approach to compute and optimize feasible three dimensional (3D) flight trajectories using aspects of Human Decision Making (HDM) strategies, for fixed wing Unmanned Aircraft (UA) operating in low altitude environments in the presence of real time planning deadlines. The underlying trajectory generation strategy involves the application of Manoeuvre Automaton (MA) theory to create sets of candidate flight manoeuvres which implicitly incorporate platform dynamic constraints. Feasible trajectories are formed through the concatenation of predefined flight manoeuvres in an optimized manner. During typical UAS operations, multiple objectives may exist, therefore the use of multi-objective optimization can potentially allow for convergence to a solution which better reflects overall mission requirements and HDM preferences. A GUI interface was developed to allow for knowledge capture from a human expert during simulated mission scenarios. The expert decision data captured is converted into value functions and corresponding criteria weightings using UTilite Additive (UTA) theory. The inclusion of preferences elicited from HDM decision data within an Automated Decision System (ADS) allows for the generation of trajectories which more closely represent the candidate HDM’s decision strategies. A novel Computationally Adaptive Trajectory Decision optimization System (CATDS) has been developed and implemented in simulation to dynamically manage, calculate and schedule system execution parameters to ensure that the trajectory solution search can generate a feasible solution, if one exists, within a given length of time. The inclusion of the CATDS potentially increases overall mission efficiency and may allow for the implementation of the system on different UAS platforms with varying onboard computational capabilities. These approaches have been demonstrated in simulation using a fixed wing UAS operating in low altitude environments with obstacles present.

Supply chain management systems benefits : the expectation-confirmation theory perspective

Organizations adopt a Supply Chain Management System (SCMS) expecting benefits to the organization and its functions. However, organizations are facing mounting challenges to realizing benefits through SCMS. Studies suggest a growing dissatisfaction among client organizations due to an increasing gap between expectations and realization of SCMS benefits. Further, reflecting the Enterprise System studies such as Seddon et al. (2010), SCMS benefits are also expected to flow to the organization throughout its lifecycle rather than being realized all at once. This research therefore proposes to derive a lifecycle-wide understanding of SCMS benefits and realization to derive a benefit expectation management framework to attain the full potential of an SCMS. The primary research question of this study is: How can client organizations better manage their benefit expectations of SCM systems? The specific research goals of the current study include: (1) to better understand the misalignment of received and expected benefits of SCM systems; (2) to identify the key factors influencing SCM system expectations and to develop a framework to manage SCMS benefits; (3) to explore how organizational satisfaction is influenced by the lack of SCMS benefit confirmation; and (4) to explore how to improve the realization of SCM system benefits. Expectation-Confirmation Theory (ECT) provides the theoretical underpinning for this study. ECT has been widely used in the consumer behavior literature to study customer satisfaction, post-purchase behavior and service marketing in general. Recently, ECT has been extended into Information Systems (IS) research focusing on individual user satisfaction and IS continuance. However, only a handful of studies have employed ECT to study organizational satisfaction on large-scale IS. The current study will enrich the research stream by extending ECT into organizational-level analysis and verifying the preliminary findings of relevant works by Staples et al. (2002), Nevo and Chan (2007) and Nevo and Wade (2007). Moreover, this study will go further trying to operationalize the constructs of ECT into the context of SCMS. The empirical findings of the study commence with a content analysis, through which 41 vendor reports and academic reports are analyzed yielding sixty expected benefits of SCMS. Then, the expected benefits are compared with the benefits realized at a case organization in the Fast Moving Consumer Goods industry sector that had implemented a SAP Supply Chain Management System seven years earlier. The study develops an SCMS Benefit Expectation Management (SCMS-BEM) Framework. The comparison of benefit expectations and confirmations highlights that, while certain benefits are realized earlier in the lifecycle, other benefits could take almost a decade to realize. Further analysis and discussion on how the developed SCMS-BEM Framework influences ECT when applied in SCMS was also conducted. It is recommended that when establishing their expectations of the SCMS, clients should remember that confirmation of these expectations will have a long lifecycle, as shown in the different time periods in the SCMS-BEM Framework. Moreover, the SCMS-BEM Framework will allow organizations to maintain high levels of satisfaction through careful mitigation and confirming expectations based on the lifecycle phase. In addition, the study reveals that different stakeholder groups have different expectations of the same SCMS. The perspective of multiple stakeholders has significant implications for the application of ECT in the SCMS context. When forming expectations of the SCMS, the collection of organizational benefits of SCMS should represent the perceptions of all stakeholder groups. The same mechanism should be employed in the measurements of received SCMS benefits. Moreover, for SCMS, there exists interdependence of the satisfaction among the various stakeholders. The satisfaction of decision-makers or the authorized staff is not only driven by their own expectation confirmation level, it is also influenced by the confirmation level of other stakeholders‘ expectations in the organization. Satisfaction from any one particular stakeholder group can not reflect the true satisfaction of the client organization. Furthermore, it is inferred from the SCMS-BEM Framework that organizations should place emphasis on the viewpoints of the operational and management staff when evaluating the benefits of SCMS in the short and middle term. At the same time, organizations should be placing more attention on the perspectives of strategic staff when evaluating the performance of the SCMS in the long term.

Nonprofit Directors' and Officers' Insurance

In the present economic climate it is easy to get carried away by the negative aspects of the rationalisation and review process which has taken place. As a person considering an offer to take up office with a non-profit organisation or as a person already holding such a position, one way of dealing with the increased exposure to liability may be to refuse the offer or resign from your position. Although this is a legitimate risk management tool (and appropriate in some circumstances), it is essential to the recovery of the economy that the "close up shop mentality" does not prevail. Although regulation of the business community and the community in general and enforcement of those regulations is increasing, the legal framework in which directors, officers and committee members of non-profit organisations operate has not substantially changed in recent times. It is necessary to face up to liability exposures (many of which have existed for centuries) and take steps to manage those exposures in order to carry out the objects of the organisation you serve and which in turn serves the community.