Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Change agents'

The capability of changing beliefs upon new information in a rational and efficient way is crucial for an intelligent agent. Belief change therefore is one of the central research fields in Artificial Intelligence (AI) for over two decades. In the AI literature, two different kinds of belief change operations have been intensively investigated: belief update, which deal with situations where the new information describes changes of the world; and belief revision, which assumes the world is static. As another important research area in AI, reasoning about actions mainly studies the problem of representing and reasoning about effects of actions. These two research fields are closely related and apply a common underlying principle, that is, an agent should change its beliefs (knowledge) as little as possible whenever an adjustment is necessary. This lays down the possibility of reusing the ideas and results of one field in the other, and vice verse. This thesis aims to develop a general framework and devise computational models that are applicable in reasoning about actions. Firstly, I shall propose a new framework for iterated belief revision by introducing a new postulate to the existing AGM/DP postulates, which provides general criteria for the design of iterated revision operators. Secondly, based on the new framework, a concrete iterated revision operator is devised. The semantic model of the operator gives nice intuitions and helps to show its satisfiability of desirable postulates. I also show that the computational model of the operator is almost optimal in time and space-complexity. In order to deal with the belief change problem in multi-agent systems, I introduce a concept of mutual belief revision which is concerned with information exchange among agents. A concrete mutual revision operator is devised by generalizing the iterated revision operator. Likewise, a semantic model is used to show the intuition and many nice properties of the mutual revision operator, and the complexity of its computational model is formally analyzed. Finally, I present a belief update operator, which takes into account two important problems of reasoning about action, i.e., disjunctive updates and domain constraints. Again, the updated operator is presented with both a semantic model and a computational model.

With operations involving global interindividual interactions and strategic organizational change, organizations face a human resource problem. Today, human resources departments seek individuals capable of interacting across and beyond sociocultural boundaries and sometimes in volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous settings. The literature has identified that organizations underutilize a specific pool of employees with extensive international life-work experience. This study was designed to explore the phenomenon of the transcultural individual from a humanistic perspective. To be a transcultural individual is to have successfully integrated two or more cultures into their worldview. The study also examined transculturality, designating transcultural traits or characteristics, as a positive attribute to being an agent of change in the workplace. Three underlying premises drove this study: first, human relations are malleable; second, transcultural individuals are naturals in interindividual intercultural interactions; and third, change is continuous.

The study population included five women and four men located in Washington, D.C., and Paris, France. The study used a qualitative interpretive inquiry design and a transdisciplinary theoretical framework to explore the nine life stories. Semistructured interviews provided rich and thick descriptions for analysis. The results were threefold: the participants transcended their inherited culture to attain a degree of cultural freedom; a transcultural life lessens angst in the face of change; and self-perception of being a manager and/or leader of change seems normal to the participants.

The findings uncovered the transcultural life experience as a way of being and a way of knowing the world. Moreover, being transcultrual, from a human development and an existential transformative process, appears to predispose individuals to being proactive agents of change in the workplace. This study highlighted the positive humanistic perspectives, derived from being a transcultural individual, that organizations need from individuals with relevant knowledge to address cross-cultural challenges and complexified work settings due to a continuous state of change. The study also revealed a perception of change to be related to individuals’ prior life experiences with change, including emotional behaviors and coping mechanisms developed under such circumstances. Unforeseeably, conversations exposed personal the presence and role of temporalities in relation to personal perceptions of time in relation to change.change when revisiting and recollecting memories. In conclusion, recommendations for transcultural individuals and organizations are derived, and further research is suggested.

Agent-based computing is becoming a popular tool for modelling, designing and implementing distributed systems. In the engineering of multi-agent systems both the analyst and architect may benefit by thinking about the solution in terms of the roles that agents may enact and the relationships between them. As in human organisations, roles and the relationships between them define expected behaviours of the members of an organisation. The organisational structure thus produced provides an effective way to capture medium- to long-term associations and dependencies between agents. If the organisation structure can be defined in a formalism with a well-defined syntax and precise semantics the engineer gains the benefits associated with describing a system in a formal specification. In this thesis we propose a means to formally specify, verify and analyse agent organisations. We take an organisational approach, defining the structure of the organisation without making any assumptions about the internal characteristics of the agents who populate it. We adopt a normative view of organisations, and capture the notion of social influence through relationships between roles. Ours is a flexible and expressive approach that contemplates agents taking part in multiple organisations with distinct roles and disparate (possibly conflicting) obligations. We make a distinction between the structure of an organisation and the population instantiating the organisation, and our framework allows the consequences of change in both the organisational structure and the population to be investigated. The model and the functionalities described in this thesis are based on sets and a prototypical Prolog implementation is presented.

Thesis (MEd)--Stellenbosch University, 2012.
Includes bibliography
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis focuses on the critical role of the new principal as agent of change. “New principal” in this context is a principal who has been at a specific school for between one and five years. He or she may have been promoted from a post at the same school or have been a principal at another school beforehand. The thesis highlights the tangible changes these principals made during their time at these schools, from raising the morale of educators, to improving academic results of learners, to increasing the level of involvement of parents as well as community members. The literature survey focuses on change in school contexts where urgent and far reaching change is necessary. It shows how complex the process is and the various stages that are involved. The literature underlines that change and resistance are sides of the same coin. It seems that successful change requires that the principal as an agent and initiator of change has a clear set of strategies to handle the inevitable resistance to the process. The literature review also explores the different stages of resistance and the considerations necessary to ensure that the change process leads to a peaceful conclusion that benefits the school as a whole. The main collection instrument used in this qualitative research is a semi-structured interview on the theme of change. The study uses the narratives of four principals, two from secondary schools and two from primary schools from dysfunctional and low-performing schools that emerged, to explore the reasons for their success. Findings show all these ‘new’ principals were at schools affected by socio-economic factors that had a negative effect on the academic results of learners. The attempts these principals made were initially met with resistance, particularly from educators who had been at the school for some time, who did not see any need to make changes at the school. It seems the findings show that the principals in this study always had an appropriate strategy to deal with the situations that arose. This makes them truly transformational leaders, i.e. leaders with the necessary expertise who can enable their followers to perform better than they thought they could and work for the good of the institution rather than their own self-interest. These are the type of leaders that schools need to make our education system as effective as it needs to be. In the interests of making dysfunctional or poorly performing schools a better place of teaching and learning for all learners and educators, further research should build on the work done here. Particular attention should be given to the management style of effective school such as the new principals at these particular schools. This will provide us with better academic “lenses” to observe the necessary passion and commitment with which these changes are made, and the ways in which principals are able to endure and overcome any resistance to change.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis fokus op die kritieke rol van die “nuwe prinsipaal (skoolhoof) as agent van verandering”. “Nuwe prinsipaal” in hierdie konteks bedoel prinsipaal is ''n persoon wat tussen een en vyf jaar by n spesifieke skool was. Hierdie persoon kan in hierdie pos as prinsipaal by hul hiudige skool bevorder geword het, of as prinsipaal by n ander skool in die pos as prinsipaal gewerk het. Hierdie tesis bring na vore die sigbare veranderings wat hierdie prinsipale aangebring het gedurende hul termyn by hierdie skole, van die opheffing van die moreel van onderwysers tot die verbetering van die akademiese uitslae van leerders, tot beter betrokkenheid van ouers en gemeenskaplede by die skool. Die literere navorsing fokus op verandering binne die skool konteks waar dringend en vergaande verandering 'n noodsaaklihheid geword het. Dit bewys die komplekse aard en die verskillende stadiums verbind daarmee. Die literatuur beklemtoon die feit dat verandering en weerstand twee kante van dieselfde muntstuk is (gaan saam). Dit blyk suksevolle veranderings verg van die prinsipaal as agent en inisieerder van verandering, duidelike strategiee om die onafwendbare of onvoorspelbare weerstand te bestuur in die proses. Die literere oorsig ondersoek die verskillende stadiums van weerstand endie nodige vermoens om die proses van verandering te ondersteun, en tot voordeel van die skool as geheul te bevoordeel. Die vernaamste instrument wat in die kwalititiewe navorsing gebruik is, was n semi-struktuere onderhoud gebaseer op die tema van verandering. Hierdie studie gebruik die verhalende aard van die vier prinsipale, twee van sekondere skole, en twee van primere skole, almal van disfunktionele en lae-voerende skole, wat die rede vir hul sukses bepaal het. Bevindings wys dat al die “nuwe prinsipale” by skole was wat beinvloed was deur sosio-ekonomiese faktore wat 'n negatiewe uitwerking gehad het op die akademiese uitslae van leerders. Die pogings van die prinsipale was aanvanglik met weerstand gepaard gegaan, veral van opvoeders wat vir 'n aantal jare by die skool was, en nie die nodigheid vir veranderings gesien het nie. Bevindings in die studie toon dat die prinsipale altyd gereed was met die gepaste strategie om die situasie te hanteer. Die het van hulle ware transformele leiers gemaak, m.a.w. leiers met die nodige vaardighede, wat hulle in staat gestel het om hulle volgelinge bemagtig het om beter te doen as wat hulle gedink het hulle in staat was, en gewerk het tot die voordeel van die skool as instansie en nie tot hulle eie belange as prinsipale nie. In die belange en voordeel om van disfunksionele of swak akademiese skole 'n beter plek van onderrig en opvoeding vir alle leerders en opvoeders te maak, word voorgestel dat verdere navorsing onderneem word. Daar moet veral gefokus word op, die bestuursstyl van geaffekteerde skole soos die nuwe prinsipale van hierdie spesifieke skole. Dit sal ons met beter akademiese lense toerus om die nodige passie en toegewydheid te observeer waarmee hierdie veranderings gemaak was, en die maniere waarmee die prinsipale gevolhard het teen die stryd om weerstand teen te staan in die proses tot verandering.

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Management from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics
Capitalizing on recent publications, this paper studies the influence of change agents on positive organizational change. With qualitative research involving internal consultants as change agents, findings have shown that current positive change models, specifically the theory of psychological capital, require contextual enhancements to be anchored in organizational change. In conjunction with traditional change models, and further research and case studies that facilitate the transition to incorporate the relevant models, internal consultants attain the ability to induce positive change in organizations.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--West Virginia University, 1999.
Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains xv, 191 p. Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 155-167).

This thesis analyses strategic change management in English local government and suggests the most appropriate leadership and management approaches for achieving successful organisational change. Using a model of organic evolution, the research identifies and analyses three distinctive stages in the development of management systems and practices in local government. These stages can be identified as: traditional, corporate and strategic approaches. A sample of eight local authorities representing two from each of the major English authority types was selected. Extensive qualitative research enabled the classification of the authorities using the following typology: namely transactional, community leadership and business culture. Each type is representative of one of the three evolutionary stages. With reference to each of the identified three stages of evolutionary development, the role of the chief executive in each of the authorities in successfully managing change was assessed. The purpose is to establish which management type provided the most effective change management environment. This assessment took place on two levels. Firstly, the qualitative research addressed the perceptions of the chief executives' change management agenda on the part of the strategic actors on both sides of the managerial/political interface within each authority. They were identified as the chief executive, the chief officers and the leading elected members. These perceptions were then used to develop the management typology noted above. Following the development of the management typology, an extensive survey of the attitudes of both middle managers and street-level operatives towards the change management process was conducted in the eight local authorities. This quantitative research revealed the perceptions of those individuals on whom change has the greatest impact. Following the analysis of the data generated by both the qualitative and quantitative research, the most effective leadership and change management strategies for local government in England are suggested. The conclusion is therefore that the most effective model for change management for local government is a hybrid organisation combining strengths from two of the evolutionary management stages.

Urbanisation is driven by the complex interactions of many physical and human factors where human actions and decisions, individually and collectively, ultimately shape the patterns of urban landscapes. Agentbased modelling is an emerging technique in land use science that is designed to study multiple heterogeneous and locally interacting active entities within a system. An example of a local interaction is the request made by residents to planners for building permits. The decisions of planners in response to this request leads to emergent properties at an aggregate level such as city growth, assuming no equilibrium conditions. This thesis develops a framework for investigating in space and in time future residential land use change over a polycentric region using a case study of East Anglia, UK. Conceptually, the framework views the complexity of housing development in a system of cities (macrogeographical level) as the visible and concrete outcome of interactions between household demand for new dwellings (micro-geographical level) and the supply of building permits by local planners (meso-geographical level). Demand and supply are driven by household location preferences, as well as local planning, and evolve over time, leading to future land use change at speci c locations. The IPCC socio-economic scenarios are adapted to describe plausible evolutions in these preferences and strategies in order to evaluate di erent urban land use change pathways and the associated potential consequences for people (e.g. ooding risks) and the environment (e.g. biodiversity loss from land fragmentation). Simulation of new housing scenarios is undertaken within the agent-based modelling paradigm using a new computer programme developed in NetLogo. Issues of sensitivity analysis, validation, calibration and system complexity are addressed throughout the thesis. The thesis contributes to the eld of landscape and urban ecology by exploring urban complexity with a spatio-dynamic model of residential location behaviour driven by human and natural variables. As land use and land cover change is known to strongly a ect ecological landscape functions and processes, understanding the relationships between social and natural systems within changing landscapes helps to highlight hotspots of potential pressure and their e ects on the natural environment as part of an assessment of the possible ecological impacts of new urban development.

Embodied Conversational Agents (i.e., avatars; ECAs) are appearing in increasingly many everyday contexts, such as e-commerce, occupational training, and airport security. Also common to a typical person's daily life is persuasion. Whether being persuaded or persuading, the ability to change another person's attitude or behavior is a thoroughly researched topic. However, little is known about ECAs' ability to persuade and whether basic persuasion principles from human-human interactions will hold in human-ECA interactions. This work investigates this question. First, a broad review of persuasion literature, which serves as an inventory of manipulations to test in ECA contexts, is presented. This literature review serves an inventory to guide future Persuasive ECA work. The ECA literature is then reviewed. Two preliminary studies exploring the effects of physical attractiveness, voice quality, argument quality, common ground, authority, and facial similarity are presented. Finally, the culminating study testing the effectiveness of ECAs to elicit self-disclosure in automated interviewing is presented and discussed. The findings of that automated interviewing study suggest that ECAs may replace humans in automated interviewing contexts. The findings also suggest that ECAs that are manipulated to look like their interviewees are able to induce greater likeability, establish more rapport, and elicited more self-referencing language than ECAs that do not look like the interviewees.

Thesis (Ph.D) -- Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, 2000.
Advisers: Andrew Hess; Sugata Bose; Jeswald W. Salacuse. Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Access restricted to members of the Tufts University community. Also available via the World Wide Web;

This study focuses on change in schools and the role played by principals as agents of change. An extensive literature study was done to determine the role of the principal. The principal cannot function without educators, parents and learners. Management tasks are some duties delegated to staff in order to develop them. The cornerstone of education change is the transformation of the curriculum, which determines the type of education South Africa needs for her people. The task of management is to provide an environment that is conducive for learning and teaching at schools. A well-functioning school is judged by performance. Classroom management is a shared responsibility between all educator and the principal. Policy provides guidelines and allows the executor to make decisions within a certain framework. Change in the context of education means that principals are exposed to new controls and regulations, growth-increasing competition, technological developments and changes in the work force. Characteristics of change can be that the principals lead, rather than instruct. The decision-making hierarchy becomes flatter and the roles played in schools become more flexible. The principals need skills in order to implement change. Principals hold the crucial position in schools. They act as a buffer, balancing the competing needs and contributions of educators with those of other stakeholders outside of the school. Change is a process, not an event. The major feature of change is to impart an increased authority to principals and gear them to democratize schools through renewal plans and collegial relationships. Principals should themselves change in order to make sense change and there rol within change.
This study focuses on change in schools and the role played by principals as agents of change. An extensive literature study was done to determine the role of the principal. The principal cannot function without educators, parents and learners. Management tasks are some duties delegated to staff in order to develop them. The cornerstone of education change is the transformation of the curriculum, which determines the type of education South Africa needs for her people. The task of management is to provide an environment that is conducive for learning and teaching at schools. A well-functioning school is judged by performance. Classroom management is a shared responsibility between all educators and the principal. Policy provides guidelines and allows the executor to make decisions within a certain framework. Change in the context of education means that principals are exposed to new controls and regulations, growth-increasing competition, technological developments and changes in the work force. Characteristics of change can be that the principals lead, rather than instruct. The decision-making hierarchy becomes flatter and the roles played in schools become more flexible. The principals need skills in order to implement change. Principals hold the crucial position in schools. They act as a buffer, balancing the competing needs and contributions of educators with those of other stakeholders outside of the school. Change is a process, not an event. The major feature of change is to impart an increased authority to principals and gear them to democratize schools through renewal plans and collegial relationships. Principals should themselves change in order to make sense change and there role within change.
Thesis (Ph.D. (Education))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2008.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2003.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 205-219).
What kinds of social relationships can people have with computers? Are there activities that computers can engage in that actively draw people into relationships with them? What are the potential benefits to the people who participate in these human-computer relationships? To address these questions this work introduces a theory of Relational Agents, which are computational artifacts designed to build and maintain long-term, social-emotional relationships with their users. These can be purely software humanoid animated agents--as developed in this work--but they can also be non-humanoid or embodied in various physical forms, from robots, to pets, to jewelry, clothing, hand-helds, and other interactive devices. Central to the notion of relationship is that it is a persistent construct, spanning multiple interactions; thus, Relational Agents are explicitly designed to remember past history and manage future expectations in their interactions with users. Finally, relationships are fundamentally social and emotional, and detailed knowledge of human social psychology--with a particular emphasis on the role of affect--must be incorporated into these agents if they are to effectively leverage the mechanisms of human social cognition in order to build relationships in the most natural manner possible. People build relationships primarily through the use of language, and primarily within the context of face-to-face conversation. Embodied Conversational Agents--anthropomorphic computer characters that emulate the experience of face-to-face conversation--thus provide the substrate for this work, and so the relational activities provided by the theory will primarily be specific types of verbal and nonverbal conversational behaviors used by people to negotiate and maintain relationships.
(cont.) This work also provides an analysis of the types of applications in which having a human-computer relationship is advantageous to the human participant. In addition to applications in which the relationship is an end in itself (e.g., in entertainment systems), human-computer relationships are important in tasks in which the human is attempting to undergo some change in behavior or cognitive or emotional state. One such application is explored here: a system for assisting the user through a month-long health behavior change program in the area of exercise adoption. This application involves the research, design and implementation of relational agents as well as empirical evaluation of their ability to build relationships and effect change over a series of interactions with users.
by Timothy Wallace Bickmore.
Ph.D.

Phase-change contrast agents (PCCAs) are an innovative form of imaging agent with practical applications in both the research and clinical settings. PCCAs are derived from gaseous microbubbles, which are able to act as targeted-contrast agents through conjugation of a ligand that is selective for an overexpressed receptor or biomarker in a given disease. Gaseous microbubbles can be condensed to liquid phase nanodroplets, which should be sufficiently small to extravasate into cells and/or tissues given their size and stability. Once liquid nanodroplets have internalized within a given tissue, they can be "activated" back into gaseous microbubbles with ultrasound at clinically used frequencies and energy outputs. This is purposeful as microbubbles provide much greater ultrasound reflectivity than nanodroplets. In this study, PCCAs and/or microbubbles act as a targeting agent in multiple scenarios. The projects in this study include- examination of binding and internalization of targeted PCCAs with different gaseous cores within MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells, vaporization of liquid phase nanodroplets through application of acoustic energy via focused ultrasound (FUS), and targeting vulnerable plaque in the heart with different types of targeted microbubbles under varying shear-stresses.

It is well accepted by now that most change initiatives are unsuccessful even though more organisations are experiencing change as they fight to retain and improve their competitiveness in the market place. It is against this background of change failure that researchers have looked for new strategies to improve change outcomes. Theoretical models conceptualising the dynamic change process advise on better change strategies, but little empirical evidence has demonstrated that these models are effective in improving change implementation outcomes. Theoretical models were also developed to counter change resistance, but little emphasis has been placed on employee change readiness. Some empirical research on employee change readiness explores employees? perception of organisational readiness, but no empirical research has explored employee readiness from a psychological perspective. That is, how to create change readiness in employees. This thesis has contributed to both the theoretical and empirical understanding of the change readiness model. Firstly, the theoretical readiness for change model Armenakis et al.?s (1993, 2002) was extended by the inclusion of the ?understanding of the change? driver. Secondly, this change readiness model was empirically tested on two distinct organisational changes: organisational restructure and IT change. The extended model is also examined for two change stages of the dynamic process to identify which readiness drivers should be prioritised by change agents. Two online questionnaires were administered eight months apart assessing the responses to three change stages (planning, implementation and post-implementation) of employees ? supervisors and subordinates - of a flat structured organisation in the human resource industry. At the two measurement points 189 and 141 employees returned completed surveys. Six employee readiness drivers were operationalised and regressed against behavioural change intention. The quantitative findings using regression models across two change types and longitudinally did not identify a specific change pattern. However, all six readiness drivers including the ?understanding of the change? driver were influential on employees? behavioural change intention. Furthermore, statistical differences between supervisors and subordinates were identified in the organisational restructure change. The quantitative findings using a triangulation approach with qualitative date including data from two unstructured interviews and employee comments further validated the quantitative findings. The thematic analysis of the employee comments enhanced the findings and identified employee specific concerns including information dissemination of the changes and a level of uncertainty. The findings supported Armenakis et al.?s (1993, 2002) theoretical contribution that change readiness drivers are an important part of the organisational change process explaining why employee do and do not change. The empirical application of readiness change driver evaluation during the dynamic change is supported as it permits change agents to directly monitor employees? readiness perception of a specific change target. This valuable information finds practical utilisation for change agents in providing targeted guidance and support for employees thus facilitating a greater likelihood of a positive change outcome. Implications of these findings and future research opportunities are discussed.

Background: Climate change has become the most pressing challenge of our time. Current business approaches to sustainability are instrumental that may portray sustainability as a source of corporate profit rather than acting for change beyond mitigation and adaptation. A regenerative approach to sustainability challenges current practices and aims to create and strengthen environmental and social well-being. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to deepen the understanding of how change agents can be a part of a regenerative sustainability transition. This is done by investigating the attitudes of change agents to such a transition. The aim is to contribute to theoretical and practical implications of organizational change theory, addressing the phenomena of organizational regenerative sustainability. Method: The paradigm of this study is of critical realist nature with an exploratory research design. An abductive model inspired the research approach, and semi-structured interviews were performed to collect primary data. A thematic analysis was then performed to draw conclusions from this study. Results: The analysis uncovered both welcoming and reluctant attitudes toward a regenerative transition. The welcoming attitudes were inherently more optimistic toward a regenerative transition, whereas change agents with reluctant attitudes identified more challenges and barriers for implementing a regenerative transition simultaneously as their perspectives were more business-centered. When weighing the evidence, it appears that the welcoming attitudes are relatively more likely to have a positive impact on implementing regenerative change as well as succeed with the initiation.

This thesis argues that since the current global economic system contributes to the degradation of local economies and communities, alternative economic models based on multiple self-reliant economies led by community-based entrepreneurs could create a basis for a more sustainable global society. The research questions work to clarify how this vision of an alternate economic structure could become reality, and identify a gap in the skills base of current progressive entrepreneurs. Employing the method of backcasting and using an iterative research dynamic between the current reality of progressive entrepreneurs, as understood through case study interviews in four countries, and a vision of entrepreneurs as community-based change leaders, a new concept of entrepreneurship emerges in community sustainability entrepreneurship. The results point to four interactive skills for entrepreneurs, specifically that entrepreneurs a) hold and realize a vision of sustainable enterprise within sustainable community, b) support community needs through an ability to capitalize on community assets, c) develop competency in sustainable development and d) participate effectively in networks. Conclusions detail specific steps that can be taken by entrepreneurs, community development professionals and academics to realize the vision of entrepreneurs as community-based change leaders.

The capability of changing beliefs upon new information in a rational and efficient way is crucial for an intelligent agent. Belief change therefore is one of the central research fields in Artificial Intelligence (AI) for over two decades. In the AI literature, two different kinds of belief change operations have been intensively investigated: belief update, which deal with situations where the new information describes changes of the world; and belief revision, which assumes the world is static. As another important research area in AI, reasoning about actions mainly studies the problem of representing and reasoning about effects of actions. These two research fields are closely related and apply a common underlying principle, that is, an agent should change its beliefs (knowledge) as little as possible whenever an adjustment is necessary. This lays down the possibility of reusing the ideas and results of one field in the other, and vice verse. This thesis aims to develop a general framework and devise computational models that are applicable in reasoning about actions. Firstly, I shall propose a new framework for iterated belief revision by introducing a new postulate to the existing AGM/DP postulates, which provides general criteria for the design of iterated revision operators. Secondly, based on the new framework, a concrete iterated revision operator is devised. The semantic model of the operator gives nice intuitions and helps to show its satisfiability of desirable postulates. I also show that the computational model of the operator is almost optimal in time and space-complexity. In order to deal with the belief change problem in multi-agent systems, I introduce a concept of mutual belief revision which is concerned with information exchange among agents. A concrete mutual revision operator is devised by generalizing the iterated revision operator. Likewise, a semantic model is used to show the intuition and many nice properties of the mutual revision operator, and the complexity of its computational model is formally analyzed. Finally, I present a belief update operator, which takes into account two important problems of reasoning about action, i.e., disjunctive updates and domain constraints. Again, the updated operator is presented with both a semantic model and a computational model.

Thesis (M.A.)--Central Connecticut State University, 2001.
Thesis advisor: Louise Williams. " ... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 93-99). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Dada a importância de agentes inteligentes e sistemas multiagentes na Ciência da Computação e na Inteligência Artificial, a programação orientada a agentes (AOP, do inglês Agent-oriented programming) emergiu como um novo paradigma para a criação de sistemas computacionais complexos. Assim, nas últimas décadas, houve um florescimento da literatura em programação orientada a agentes e, com isso, surgiram diversas linguages de programação seguindo tal paradigma, como AgentSpeak (RAO, 1996; BORDINI; HUBNER; WOOLDRIDGE, 2007), Jadex (POKAHR; BRAUBACH; LAMERSDORF, 2005), 3APL/2APL (DASTANI; VAN RIEMSDIJK; MEYER, 2005; DASTANI, 2008), GOAL (HINDRIKS et al., 2001), entre outras. Programação orientada a agentes é um paradigma de programação proposto por Shoham (1993) no qual os elementos mínimos de um programa são agentes. Shoham (1993) defende que agentes autônomos e sistemas multiagentes configuram-se como uma forma diferente de se organizar uma solução para um problema computacional, de forma que a construção de um sistema multiagente para a solução de um problema pode ser entendida como um paradgima de programação. Para entender tal paradigma, é necessário entender o conceito de agente. Agente, nesse contexto, é uma entidade computacional descrita por certos atributos - chamados de atitudes mentais - que descrevem o seu estado interno e sua relação com o ambiente externo. Atribuir a interpretação de atitudes mentais a tais atributos é válida, defende Shoham (1993), uma vez que esses atributos se comportem de forma semelhante as atitudes mentais usadas para descrever o comportamento humano e desde que sejam pragmaticamente justificáveis, i.e. úteis à solução do problema. Entender, portanto, o significado de termos como ’crença’, ’desejo’, ’intenção’, etc., assim como suas propriedades fundamentais, é de fundamental importância para estabelecer linguagens de programação orientadas a agentes. Nesse trabalho, vamos nos preocupar com um tipo específico de linguagens de programação orientadas a agentes, as chamadas linguagens BDI. Linguagens BDI são baseadas na teoria BDI da Filosofia da Ação em que o estado mental de um agente (e suas ações) é descrito por suas crenças, desejos e intenções. Enquanto a construção de sistemas baseados em agentes e linguagens de programação foram tópicos bastante discutidos na literatura, a conexão entre tais sistemas e linguagens com o trabalho teórico proveniente da Inteligência Artificial e da Filosofia da Ação ainda não está bem estabelecida. Essa distância entre a teoria e a prática da construção de sistemas é bem reconhecida na literatura relevante e comumente chamada de “gap semântico” (gap em inglês significa lacuna ou abertura e representa a distância entre os modelos teóricos e sua implementação em linguagens e sistemas). Muitos trabalhos tentaram atacar o problema do gap semântico para linguagens de programação específicas, como para as linguagens AgentSpeak (BORDINI; MOREIRA, 2004), GOAL (HINDRIKS; VAN DER HOEK, 2008), etc. De fato, Rao (1996, p. 44) afirma que “O cálice sagrado da pesquisa em agentes BDI é mostrar uma correspondência 1-a-1 com uma linguagem razoavelmente útil e expressiva” (tradução nossa)1 Uma limitação crucial, em nossa opinião, das tentativas passadas de estabeler uma conexão entre linguagens de programação orientadas a agentes e lógicas BDI é que elas se baseiam em estabelecer a interpretação de um programa somente no nível estático. De outra forma, dado um estado de um programa, tais trabalhos tentam estabelecer uma interpretação declarativa, i.e. baseada em lógica, do estado do programa respresentando assim o estado mental do agente. Não é claro, entretanto, como a execução do programa pode ser entendida enquanto mudanças no estado mental do agente. A razão para isso, nós acreditamos, está nos formalismos utilizados para especificar agentes BDI. De fato, as lógicas BDI propostas são, em sua maioria, estáticas ou incapazes de representar ações mentais. O ato de revisão uma crença, adotar um objetivo ou mudar de opinião são exemplos de ações mentais, i.e. ações que são executadas internarmente ao agente e afetando somente seu estado mental, sendo portanto não observáveis. Tais ações são, em nossa opinião, intrinsecamente diferentes de ações ônticas que consistem de comportamento observável e que possivelmente afeta o ambiente externo ao agente. Essa diferença é comumente reconhecida no estudo da semântica de linguagens de programação orientadas a agentes (BORDINI; HUBNER; WOOLDRIDGE, 2007; D’INVERNO et al., 1998; MENEGUZZI; LUCK, 2009), entretanto os formalismos disponíveis para se especificar raciocínio BDI, em nosso conhecimento, não provem recursos expressivos para codificar tal diferença. Nós acreditamos que, para atacar o gap semântico, precisamos de um ferramental semântico que permita a especificação de ações mentais, assim como ações ônticas. Lógicas Dinâmicas Epistêmicas (DEL, do inglês Dynamic Epistemic Logic) são uma família de lógicas modais dinâmicas largamente utilizadas para estudar os fenômenos de mudança do estado mental de agentes. Os trabalhos em DEL foram fortemente influenciados pela escola holandesa de lógica, com maior proponente Johna Van Benthem, e seu “desvio dinâmico” em lógica (dynamic turn em inglês) que propõe a utilização de lógicas dinâmicas para compreender ações de mudanças mentais (VAN BENTHEM, 1996). O formalismo das DEL deriva de diversas vertentes do estudo de mudança epistêmica, como o trabalho em teoria da Revisão de Crenças AGM (ALCHOURRÓN; GÄRDENFORS; MAKINSON, 1985), e Epistemologia Bayesiana (HÁJEK; HARTMANN, 2010). Tais lógicas adotam a abordagem, primeiro proposta por Segerberg (1999), de representar mudanças epistêmicas dentro da mesma linguagem utilizada para representar as noções de crença e conhecimento, diferente da abordagem extra-semântica do Revisão de Crenças a la AGM. No contexto das DEL, uma lógica nos parece particulamente interessante para o estudo de programação orientada a agentes: a Lógica Dinâmica de Preferências (DPL, do inglês Dynamic Preference Logic) de Girard (2008). DPL, também conhecida como lógica dinâmica de ordem, é uma lógica dinâmica para o estudo de preferências que possui grande expressibilidade para codificar diversas atiutudes mentais. De fato, tal lógica foi empregada para o estudo de obrigações (VAN BENTHEM; GROSSI; LIU, 2014), crenças (GIRARD; ROTT, 2014), preferências (GIRARD, 2008), etc. Tal lógica possui fortes ligações com raciocínio não-monotônico e com lógicas já propostas para o estudo de atitudes mentais na área de Teoria da Decisão (BOUTILIER, 1994b) Nós acreditamos que DPL constitui um candidato ideal para ser utilizado como ferramental semântico para se estudar atitudes mentais da teoria BDI por permitir grande flexibilidade para representação de tais atitudes, assim como por permitir a fácil representação de ações mentais como revisão de crenças, adoção de desejos, etc. Mais ainda, pelo trabalho de Liu (2011), sabemos que existem representações sintáticas dos modelos de tal lógica que podem ser utilizados para raciocinar sobre atitudes mentais, sendo assim candidatos naturais para serem utilizados como estruturas de dados para uma implementação semanticamente fundamentada de uma linguagem de programação orientada a agentes. Assim, nesse trabalho nós avançamos no problema de reduzir o gap semântico entre linguagens de programação orientadas a agentes e formalismos lógicos para especificar agentes BDI. Nós exploramos não somente como estabelecer as conexões entre as estruturas estáticas, i.e. estado de um programa e um modelo da lógica, mas também como as ações de raciocínio pelas quais se especifica a semântica formal de uma linguagem de programação orientada a agentes podem ser entendidas dentro da lógica como operadores dinâmicos que representam ações mentais do agente. Com essa conexão, nós provemos também um conjunto de operações que podem ser utilizadas para se implementar uma linguagem de programação orientada a agentes e que preservam a conexão entre os programas dessa linguagem e os modelos que representam o estado mental de um agente. Finalmente, com essas conexões, nós desenvolvemos um arcabouço para estudar a dinâmica de atitudes mentais, tais como crenças, desejos e inteções, e como reproduzir essas propriedades na semântica de linguagens de programação.
As the notions of Agency and Multiagent System became important topics for the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence communities, Agent Programming has been proposed as a paradigm for the development of computer systems. As such, in the last decade, we have seen the flourishing of the literature on Agent Programming with the proposal of several programming languages, e.g. AgentSpeak (RAO, 1996; BORDINI; HUBNER;WOOLDRIDGE, 2007), Jadex (POKAHR; BRAUBACH; LAMERSDORF, 2005), JACK (HOWDEN et al., 2001), 3APL/2APL (DASTANI; VAN RIEMSDIJK; MEYER, 2005; DASTANI, 2008), GOAL (HINDRIKS et al., 2001), among others. Agent Programming is a programming paradigm proposed by Shoham (1993) in which the minimal units are agents. An agent is an entity composed of mental attitudes, that describe the its internal state - such as its motivations and decisions - as well as its relation to the external world - its beliefs about the world, its obligations, etc. This programming paradigm stems from the work on Philosophy of Action and Artificial Intelligence concerning the notions of intentional action and formal models of agents’ mental states. As such, the meaning (and properties) of notions such as belief, desire, intention, etc. as studied in these disciplines are of central importance to the area. Particularly, we will concentrate in our work on agent programming languages influenced by the so-called BDI paradigm of agency, in which an agent is described by her beliefs, desires, intentions. While the engineering of such languages has been much discussed, the connections between the theoretical work on Philosophy and Artificial Intelligence and its implementations in programming languages are not so clearly understood yet. This distance between theory and practice has been acknowledged in the literature for agent programming languages and is commonly known as the “semantic gap”. Many authors have attempted to tackle this problem for different programming languages, as for the case of AgentSpeak (BORDINI; MOREIRA, 2004), GOAL (HINDRIKS; VAN DER HOEK, 2008), etc. In fact, Rao (1996, p. 44) states that “[t]he holy grail of BDI agent research is to show such a one-to-one correspondence with a reasonably useful and expressive language.” One crucial limitation in the previous attempts to connect agent programming languages and BDI logics, in our opinion, is that the connection is mainly established at the static level, i.e. they show how a given program state can be interpreted as a BDI mental state. It is not clear in these attempts, however, how the execution of the program may be understood as changes in the mental state of the agent. The reason for this, in our opinion, is that the formalisms employed to construct BDI logics are usually static, i.e. cannot represent actions and change, or can only represent ontic change, not mental change. The act of revising one’s beliefs or adopting a given desire are mental actions (or internal actions) and, as such, different from performing an action over the environment (an ontic or external action). This difference is well recognized in the literature on the semantics of agent programming languages (D’INVERNO et al., 1998; BORDINI; HUBNER; WOOLDRIDGE, 2007; MENEGUZZI; LUCK, 2009), but this difference is lost when translating their semantics into a BDI logic. We believe the main reason for that is a lack of expressibility in the formalisms used to model BDI reasoning. Dynamic Epistemic Logic, or DEL, is a family of dynamic modal logics to study information change and the dynamics of mental attitudes inspired by the Dutch School on the “dynamic turn” in Logic (VAN BENTHEM, 1996). This formalism stems from various approaches in the study of belief change and differs from previous studies, such as AGM Belief Revision, by shifting from extra-logical characterization of changes in the agents attitudes to their integration within the representation language. In the context of Dynamic Epistemic Logic, the Dynamic Preference Logic of Girard (2008) seems like an ideal candidate, having already been used to study diverse mental attitudes, such as Obligations (VAN BENTHEM; GROSSI; LIU, 2014), Beliefs (GIRARD; ROTT, 2014), Preferences (GIRARD, 2008), etc. We believe Dynamic Preference Logic to be the ideal semantic framework to construct a formal theory of BDI reasoning which can be used to specify an agent programming language semantics. The reason for that is that inside this logic we can faithfully represent the static state of a agent program, i.e. the agent’s mental state, as well as the changes in the state of the agent program by means of the agent’s reasoning, i.e. by means of her mental actions. As such, in this work we go further in closing the semantic gap between agent programs and agency theories and explore not only the static connections between program states and possible worlds models, but also how the program execution of a language based on common operations - such as addition/removal of information in the already mentioned bases - may be understood as semantic transformations in the models, as studied in Dynamic Logics. With this, we provide a set of operations for the implementation of agent programming languages which are semantically safe and we connect an agent program execution with the dynamic properties in the formal theory. Lastly, by these connections, we provide a framework to study the dynamics of different mental attitudes, such as beliefs, goals and intentions, and how to reproduce the desirable properties proposed in theories of Agency in a programming language semantics.

Thesis (Dr. of Education)--University of Cincinnati, 2007.
Advisor: Holly Johnson Title from electronic thesis title page (viewed Dec.10, 2007). Includes abstract. Keywords: Teaching for Social Justice; Literature; Adolescent Literacy; Texts; Teacher Beliefs Includes bibliographical references.

Education reform initiatives continue to push schools to improve methods of measuring accountability intended to improve student achievement in the United States. Federal programs like the Teacher Incentive Find (TIF) provide school districts with funds to develop and implement school accountability and leadership programs. Teacher leadership is one of the concepts being formally developed amongst these initiatives. My applied thesis project focused on work I conducted with a team of researchers at American Institutes for Research, where we evaluated a teacher leadership program in its third year of implementation. Teacher leadership is facilitated through distributive leadership. School leaders distribute responsibilities that provide teachers with opportunities to extend their expertise outside of their own classrooms. My thesis explores teacher leadership roles and investigates implementation across the client school district. It also discusses how particular anthropological theories about communities of practice, learning, and identity can provide a foundation for conceptualizing teacher leadership implementation and the social interactions between program actors.

The research investigates the past, present and potential future role of Information Specialists (ISps) in process oriented companies. It tests the proposition that ISps in companies that have undertaken formal process reengineering exercises are likely to become more proactive and more business oriented (as opposed to technically oriented) than they had previously been when their organisations were organised along traditional, functional lines. A review of existing literature in the area of Business Process Reengineering and Information Management reveals a lack of consensus amongst researchers concerning the appropriate role for ISps during and after BPR. Opinion is divided as to whether IS professionals should reactively support BPR or whether IT/IS developments should be driving these initiatives. A questionnaire based ‘Descriptive Survey’ with 60 respondents is used as a first stage of primary data gathering. This is followed by follow-up interviews with 20 of the participating organisations to gather further information on their experiences. The final stage of data collection consists of further in-depth interview with four case study companies to provide an even richer picture of their experiences. The results of the questionnaire are analysed and displayed in the form of simple means, frequencies and bar graphs. The ‘NU-DIST’ computer based discourse analysis package was tried in relation to summarising the interview findings, but this proved cumbersome and a visual collation method is preferred. Overall, the researcher contends that the supposition outlined above is proven, and she concludes the research by suggesting the implications of these findings. In particular she offers a ‘Framework for Understanding and Action’ which is deemed to be relevant to both practitioners and future researchers.

This dissertation is an investigation of doulas as agents of social change through the lens of feminist theory. Doulas are nonmedical health care workers who provide physical, emotional, and informational support during pregnancy, childbirth, and/or the postpartum period. Because of doulas' willingness to work within the structures of the hospital setting, some have questioned the effectiveness of doulas as change-makers. While much feminist scholarship on the politics of birth centralizes the issue of medicalization, I demonstrate that expanding this line of analysis aids in better understanding the cultural impact of doula care as part of a larger picture of reproductive health advocacy. Through discourse analysis, participant observation, face-to-face ethnographic interviews, and online surveys, I track the goals and effects doulas ascribe to their work, both activist and professional, and on both an individual and group level. Rather than asking whether doulas can successfully challenge the medicalization of birth, I seek to understand how the doula movement contributes to social justice through challenging various overlapping axes of inequality, related to race, class, gender, and sexuality. This analysis highlights the work of doulas in marginalized communities that is, as yet, under-researched and under-appreciated, while also illuminating the multifaceted effects of the dominant medical model of birth. I observe that doulas are increasingly working to empower people in multiple facets of their lives, beyond the birthing room. Rather than being incapable of, or uninterested in, creating social change, doulas are increasingly bringing a new political consciousness into birth work, as evidenced by the emerging designations of "radical doula" and "full spectrum doula." I argue that this movement among doulas represents a new paradigm in birthing rights activism, which connects childbirth choices to a larger reproductive justice agenda and forges connections between birthworkers and activists for causes such as LGBT rights, abortion rights, prisoners' rights, and economic and racial justice. By reimagining the reach of their work, many doulas are drawing necessary connections to social justice issues that are often overlooked in the childbirth reform movement, which tends to focus on medicalization as the primary issue.

This thesis is an examination of public libraries in Britain today. It sets forward the hypothesis that a new type of librarianship is emerging to meet the needs of change in the socioeconomic environment, and that this is based on a community development approach. The thesis examines the role of public libraries within their communities through a historical, contemporary and international review of literature and a national questionnaire survey of community development strategies in public library authorities. The survey forms part of a research programme funded by the British Library Research and Innovation Centre on the social impact of libraries. It was designed collaboratively, by myself, Andrew Green of the Community Services Group of the Library Association and Kevin Harris of the Community Development Foundation, although all subsequent work has been my own. In-depth analysis is followed by telephone interviews with four library authorities chosen as case studies, to establish the relationship between policy and practice. The thesis as a whole considers the history and development of libraries. After suffering years of policy drift, a poor research base and a low public profile, public libraries are considering how best to quantify their social impact. Rapid socioeconomic change has had a marked effect on the labour market and social cohesion in the UK, resulting in greater demand for training, education and information. Government has responded with community-oriented policies aimed at improving public access to the information society, making local government more accountable, empowering communities and supporting citizenship in an increasingly active democracy. Rapid advances in Information Technology have increased the potential of public libraries to contribute to this process and act as lifelong learning facilitators and providers. This thesis presents evidence of public libraries' changing role as an educative medium. A majority of public libraries responding to the survey are engaged in interagency work to support the independent learner and empower communities. Many are doing so as part of a community development strategy, or are working on such a strategy. Respondents to the survey of public library authorities expressed the desire to involve their public in a meaningful way. Those library services with a written community development strategy have taken practical steps to achieve this and have set up systems to monitor their progress. A new model for management of community-oriented services is proposed, highlighting issues of policy and practice such as staff training and service accessibility. Conclusions are drawn on an effective role for public libraries in Britain and the need for further research on how this can be achieved.

Heritiere des courtiers libres de la revolution, la coulisse se developpa parallelement a la compagnie des agents de change de paris, en permettant a cette derniere de repondre en bourse a l'afflux des demandes qu'une reglementation etroite lui empechait de traiter. Par le biais de la contrepartie et des operations a termes, la coulisse allait permettre la realisation du reseau ferre francais, l'introduction des valeurs etrangeres sur notre marche et surtout l'education financiere et boursiere des francais. La coulisse disparut en 1860 apres une condamnation pour imixtion dans les fonctions d'agents de change, pour reapparaitre bientot et participer a la reussite des emprunts qui permirent la liberation du territoire en 1871. Le krach des marches financiers en 1882 attira sur la bourse l'attention des tribunaux qui annulerent les operations faites en coulisse et contribuerent ainsi a prolonger la crise financiere. Les coulissiers faillirent disparaitre apres les tentatives de reforme des marches en 1893 et 1898 mais survecurent en devenant les remisiers des agents de change. En 1942 la coulisse fut enfin reconnue officiellement et malgre sa disparition en 1962 son influence se fait encore sentir aujourd'hui a la bourse.

About 50-70 % of all change initiatives fail and one reason for this is soft barriers, which mainly depend on people. These barriers are challenging to manage because individuals react to change in different ways. Due to these difficulties, companies look for help from consultants, who are perceived to have wide knowledge about change. Hence, the authors have studied the change process and the soft barriers from an external change agent perspective by interviewing nine experienced consultants. The results indicate that no phase in the change process is prominently more problematic than another, instead each phase is the outcome of prior phases. If the critical barriers in each phase are considered the change can be successful. Several soft barriers to change have been identified; lack of goals and vision, no demand for measurements and follow-ups, and a too large and homogenous project group without relevant competence or a clear driver of the change. Additionally, the findings suggest that top management is specifically problematic due to that they are often not united, are impatient and struggle with power and politics. Thus, the study indicates that resistance often starts from the top, which affects the rest of the organization and the outcome of the change.

Social and behaviour change programs often require “change agents” to effectively disseminate messages to target populations on issues ranging from sanitation to alcohol. How these programs select and utilise change agents – e.g. peer educators, community health workers, sales agents and counsellors – helps determine how effective they are. The setting for this quasi-experimental PhD study was the High 5 Kelurahan project designed to address five key sanitation behaviours, managed by the Cipta Cara Padu Foundation in Indonesia. This study utilised a mixed method approach to produce evidence for the effects of previous participation and sense of community (SOC) on 69 change agents engaged in the High Five program. A simple one-way between groups ANOVA test revealed that the Sense of Community Index (SCI) scores were statistically different across the three project locations. Following this, stepwise multiple regression analysis showed a small effect of previous participation by change agents on their subsequent participation in High Five community outreach activities, however SOC had no significant effect. A non-statistical comparison of SCI scores with changes in individual behaviour and health impact revealed that project locations where change agents with higher SCI scores were active also had higher rates of behaviour change and health impact. From the nine interviews of change agents, all responded that previous participation in similar programs was a factor in their High Five participation. 30 per cent of responses also identified the perceived ability to change the community as a factor. The quantitative and qualitative results were triangulated to produce a richer understanding of the role of change agents. This research will help governments, non-profits and businesses to better understand how change agents influence social and behaviour change programs in communities and improve interventions aiming to address a range of public policy issues.

The U.S. Department of Education statistics report increasing numbers of students with learning disabilities and other non-apparent disabilities enrolling in higher education. This change in student demographic presents new challenges to institutions and disability service professionals to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse student population. The purpose of this study was to attain a deeper understanding of the decision-making experiences of the disability service professionals charged with making accommodation decisions with the intent of informing professional development opportunities that will help build the confidence and effectiveness of these high-stakes decision-makers. The research questions were addressed using a mixed methods research design utilizing a quantitative survey and qualitative interviews of disability service professionals in the northeast region of the United States. Major findings from this study included a surprising yet optimistic decrease in importance disability service professionals placed on specific documentation components in order to make accommodation decisions, the significance of building collaborative relationships on their campuses, and the considerable time and resources they devote to educating faculty on alternative methods of assessment to more effectively teach an increasingly diverse student population. The results of this study underscore the importance of disability service professionals on increasingly diverse campuses and the role they play in enhancing accessibility and ultimately contributing to the culture of diversity on their campuses. Professional development opportunities for higher education administrators are discussed, which include shifting the training focus from documentation and accommodation decision-making to understanding learning and teaching styles, as well as developing soft skills related to interdepartmental collaborative problem-solving.

Workplace training design has evolved from a task-based systems framework managed by the designer, to a collaborative process of problem-solving that includes stakeholders across the enterprise. Collaborative design models address persistent problems, such as cost efficiency, requirements that change late in development, and aggressive timetables, but perceptions of training effectiveness continue to be pessimistic. Given the substantial role of employees in making training effective, by transferring what they learn to their day-to-day responsibilities, this study proposed an emergent design model in which designers collaborate with employees as partners in solving training design problems. Previous efforts to include employees in training design have faltered, because of time and resource requirements which limit participation or greatly expand timelines. This study investigated the potential of broad employee participation, through the widely-used medium of organizational surveys, in which employees are invited to suggest ways to improve their work environment. The study applied a three-phase, mixed methods approach, to investigate whether survey text responses contain viable input into training design, and to explore the nature of that input in terms of major themes about workplace training, and detailed input reflecting employees' experience of online training. Nearly 90,000 text responses were accepted into the study, from industries that include pharmaceuticals, retail, manufacturing, telecommunications and financial services. Analysis exposed the inherent conflict between the designer's focus on training delivery, and the employees' focus on transferring what they learn to their jobs; and a widespread organizational conflict between leadership compensation tied to short-term financial metrics, and long-term strategies that drive infrastructure programs such as workplace training. Responses across all industry sectors in the study reported limited management support for training, which is nonetheless essential to employees' job performance. Responses described online training that makes only minimal use of the basic functions of computer technology. The study validates earlier research questioning workplace training effectiveness, with evidence suggesting that training programs are constrained by organizational challenges that cannot be solved by designers alone. The study suggests that organizations can involve their employees in addressing the conflicts that limit training effectiveness, through design partnership using survey responses.

Objectives. A community health worker (CHW) is a frontline public health worker who is a trusted member of and/or has an unusually close understanding of the community served. While natural leadership may incline individuals to the CHW profession, they do not always have skills to address broad social issues. We describe evaluation of the Women’s Health Leadership Institute (WHLI), a 3-year training initiative to increase the capacity of CHWs as change agents. Methods. Pre-/postquestionnaires measured the confidence of 254 participants in mastering WHLI leadership competencies. In-depth interviews with CHW participants 6 to 9 months after the training documented application of WHLI competencies in the community. A national CHW survey measured the extent to which WHLI graduates used leadership skills that resulted in concrete changes to benefit community members. Multivariate logistic regressions controlling for covariates compared WHLI graduates’ leadership skills to the national sample. Results. Participants reported statistically significant pre-/post improvements in all competencies. nterviewees credited WHLI with increasing their capacity to listen to others, create partnerships, and initiate efforts to address community needs. Compared to a national CHW sample, WHLI participants were more likely to engage community members in attending public meetings and organizing events. These activities led to community members taking action on an issue and a concrete policy change. Conclusions. Leadership training can increase the ability of experienced CHWs to address underlying issues related to community health across different types of organizational affiliations and job responsibilities.

While we have a sense of why institutionally marginalized individuals or dominant actors become change agents, it is less clear what motivates privileged insiders - those who have reaped advantages from existing institutional arrangements because of their education, their socio-economic background, their citizenship, their gender, or their race. I combine a symbolic interactionist perspective on social conduct with a structural perspective on frames to explore the process of institutional volition and the conditions under which privileged insiders may become engaged in different types of institutional change work to address societal issues. Institutional volition is the reflective process leading people to engage in purposeful efforts to shape or transform dominant institutional arrangements. My study reveals variances in the institutional volition of privileged insiders that explains why some of these actors engage in work to repair institutions, while others engage in work to transform them, either disrupting or creating institutions. My study draws attention to the distinct role of feelings rather than emotions in determining whether and how privileged insiders engage in institutional change work. It also suggests that these actors commit to transformative change when they acknowledge their complicity in the perpetuation of institutional injustices. Finally, I show that privileged insiders need to reframe their role in order to use it as a resource to engage in institutional disruption or creation work.