Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Commitment device'

While the introduction of the Internet facilitated the communication channels at the workplace to improve employees’ productivity, it also raised new challenges, such as Internet use for personal activities. Organizations face productivity losses due to employees’ involvement in counterproductive behaviors, such as cyberslacking. The frequency of mobile device cyberslacking is anticipated to increase due to continuous developments in online connectivity, applications, and the significant growth of mobile device usage worldwide. In addition, research has shown that employees’ commitment to their organization can encourage behaviors that positively influence productivity. Employee’s commitment is a crucial factor because it can benefit an organization in different ways, such as enhancing performance, decreasing absenteeism, and reducing turnover, thus, resulting in sustained productivity. Hence, limited studies have been conducted on the impact of employee cyberslacking using mobile devices and employee’s commitment to the organization on productivity. The research problem that this research study addressed is mobile device cyberslacking at the workplace as it relates to productivity. The main goal of this research study was to develop and validate, using Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), a Mobile Cyberslacking- Commitment Taxonomy using the measures of mobile device cyberslacking based on the self-reported frequency of cyberslacking (FCyS) and employee’s commitment to the organization (EC2O) to provide indirect indication for employee productivity. This research study implemented three phases. Phase One of this study, using the Delphi method, collected data via anonymous online surveys from 19 SMEs to evaluate and validate a set of items relevant to the measures of mobile device FCyS and EC2O, the survey scale, instructions to participants, and the Mobile Cyberslacking-Commitment Taxonomy. In Phase two, using a pilot study, a group of 35 participants were recruited to verify the validity of the survey instrument that was revised by SMEs. In Phase three, the validated survey was sent via email to assess six research questions. The final survey was sent to 1,063 employees who work at organizations in Saudi Arabia and use mobile device on a daily basis. The response rate was 24.93% with 265 usable records. The results of the study showed that employees were dispersed across the Mobile Cyberslacking-Commitment Taxonomy with 4.5% of the employees were positioned in the more problematic quadrant indicating that this portion of employees will not use their mobile devices at the workplace to improve their productivity. The overall results showed that the population had a low frequency of mobile cyberslacking and a high commitment to the organization, thus, have a better potential for productivity. Significant differences in the two constructs were also found across several demographics including age, gender, education level, industry type. Recommendations for practice and research are provided. Moreover, several areas for future research are also presented. The results of this research study contributed to information systems’ body of knowledge by providing researchers and practitioners a novel benchmarking tool of Mobile Cyberslacking-Commitment Taxonomy to enable the measure of employees’ FCyS and EC2O to classify employees’ potential for productivity in the context of the workplace.

L'avènement de l'informatique quantique permet de réétudier les primitives cryptographiques avec une sécurité inconditionnelle, c'est à dire sécurisé même contre des adversaires tout puissants. En 1984, Bennett et Brassard ont construit un protocole quantique de distribution de clé. Dans ce protocole, deux joueurs Alice et Bob coopèrent pour partager une clé secrète inconnue d'une tierce personne Eve. Ce protocole a une sécurité inconditionnelle et n'a pasd'équivalent classique.Dans ma thèse, j'ai étudié les primitives cryptographiques à deux joueurs où ces joueurs ne se font pas confiance. J'étudie principalement le pile ou face quantique et la mise-en-gage quantique de bit. En informatique classique, ces primitivessont réalisables uniquement avec des hypothèses calculatoires, c'est-à-dire en supposant la difficulté d'un problème donné. Des protocoles quantiques ont été construits pour ces primitives où un adversaire peut tricher avec une probabilité constante strictement inférieure à 1, ce qui reste impossible classiquement. Néanmoins, Lo et Chau ont montré l'impossibilité de créer ces primitives parfaitement même en utilisant l'informatique quantique. Il reste donc à déterminer quelles sont les limites physiques de ces primitives.Dans une première partie, je construis un protocole quantique de pile ou face où chaque joueur peut tricher avec probabilité au plus 1/racine(2) + eps pour tout eps > 0. Ce résultat complète un résultat de Kitaev qui dit que dans un jeu de pile ou face quantique, un joueur peut toujours tricher avec probabilité au moins 1/racine(2). J'ai également construit un protocole de mise-en-gage de bit quantique optimal où un joueur peut tricher avec probabilité au plus 0,739 + eps pour tout eps > 0 puis ai montré que ce protocole est en fait optimal. Finalement, j'ai dérivé des bornes inférieures et supérieures pour une autre primitive: la transmission inconsciente, qui est une primitive universelle.Dans une deuxième partie, j'intègre certains aspects pratiques dans ces protocoles. Parfois les appareils de mesure ne donnent aucun résultat, ce sont les pertes dans la mesure. Je construis un protocole de lancer de pièce quantique tolérant aux pertes avec une probabilité de tricher de 0,859. Ensuite, j'étudie le modèle dispositif-indépendant où on ne suppose plus rien sur les appareils de mesure et de création d'état quantique.Finalement, dans une troisième partie, j'étudie ces primitives cryptographiques avec un sécurité computationnelle. En particulier, je fais le lien entre la mise en gage de bit quantique et les protocoles zero-knowledge quantiques
Quantum computing allows us to revisit the study of quantum cryptographic primitives with information theoretic security. In 1984, Bennett and Brassard presented a protocol of quantum key distribution. In this protocol, Alice and Bob cooperate in order to share a common secret key k, which has to be unknown for a third party that has access to the communication channel. They showed how to perform this task quantumly with an information theoretic security; which is impossible classically.In my thesis, I study cryptographic primitives with two players that do not trust each other. I study mainly coin flipping and bit commitment. Classically, both these primitives are impossible classically with information theoretic security. Quantum protocols for these primitives where constructed where cheating players could cheat with probability stricly smaller than 1. However, Lo, Chau and Mayers showed that these primitives are impossible to achieve perfectly even quantumly if one requires information theoretic security. I study to what extent imperfect protocols can be done in this setting.In the first part, I construct a quantum coin flipping protocol with cheating probabitlity of 1/root(2) + eps for any eps > 0. This completes a result by Kitaev who showed that in any quantum coin flipping protocol, one of the players can cheat with probability at least 1/root(2). I also constructed a quantum bit commitment protocol with cheating probability 0.739 + eps for any eps > 0 and showed that this protocol is essentially optimal. I also derived some upper and lower bounds for quantum oblivious transfer, which is a universal cryptographic primitive.In the second part, I study some practical aspects related to these primitives. I take into account losses than can occur when measuring a quantum state. I construct a Quantum Coin Flipping and Quantum Bit Commitment protocols which are loss-tolerant and have cheating probabilities of 0.859. I also construct these primitives in the device independent model, where the players do not trust their quantum device. Finally, in the third part, I study these cryptographic primitives with information theoretic security. More precisely, I study the relationship between computational quantum bit commitment and quantum zero-knowledge protocols

Gaps in financial access remain stark in the largest part of developing countries and have relevant consequences on poor households’ economic decisions, such as credit, saving and risk management. Lack of availability of formal financial services provided by either the market or public authorities (e.g in case of health insurance) have been compensated by the activity of informal groups, associations and arrangements. Old and new forms of community-based groups have been largely documented in most of developing countries and are shown to be active in several crucial economic domains. They have different levels of institutionalization as they can simply rely on social norms or can have rules and a certain degree of formalization concerning e.g. selection criteria, enforcement, sanctions. They all have in common the voluntary participation of people from the same community (village, neighbourhood, people of the same profession), the delivery of services to members, the non-profit character, the underpinning values of solidarity and mutual help. Some examples of community-based groups in Sub-Saharan Africa are analysed in this thesis: Rotating Saving and Credit Associations (roscas), funeral groups and mutual health organizations (MHOs). The importance of studying community-based arrangements lies in the premise that interventions at the level of a local community can deliver more effective and equitable development. Moreover, examining the mechanics of the informal market is very important for two reasons. First, the strength of the informal market is important for measuring and predicting how effective specific formal sector interventions could be, in the perspective of scaling-up. Second, lessons learned in the informal markets can help shape policy in the formal (Karlan and Morduch 2009). In chapter 1, drawing on data from a household survey in urban Benin1, we examine membership in two types of informal groups that display the characteristics of a commitment device: rotating savings and credit associations (roscas) and funeral groups. We investigate whether agents displaying time-inconsistent preferences are sophisticated enough to commit themselves through taking part in such groups. We provide evidence indicating that women who are hyperbolic are more likely to join these groups and to save more through them, but men displaying similar preferences appear naïve with regards membership. Moreover, we find that hyperbolic agents, irrespective of their gender, tend to restrain consumption of frivolous goods to a larger extent. Furthermore, weak evidence is provided that microcredit can be used as a device to foster self-discipline. We also ensure that our results cannot be explained by intrahousehold conflict issues. The second chapter largely draws on Bonan J, Dagnelie O., LeMay-Boucher P. and Tenikue M. (2012) “Is it all about Money? A Randomized Evaluation of the Impact of Insurance Literacy and Marketing Treatments on the Demand for Health Microinsurance in Senegal”, Working Papers 216, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics. It is based on a field work we carried out in Spring-Summer 2010 in Thies, Senegal, which I coordinated and supervised. The chapter presents experimental evidence on mutual health organizations (MHOs) in the area of Thiès, Senegal. Despite their benefits, in some areas there remain low take-up rates. We offer an insurance literacy module, communicating the benefits from health microinsurance and the functioning of MHOs, to a randomly selected sample of households. The effects of this training, and three cross-cutting marketing treatments, are evaluated using a randomized control trial. We find that our various marketing treatments have a positive and significant effect on health insurance adoption, increasing take-up by around 35%. Comparatively the insurance literacy module has a negligible impact on the take up decisions. We attempt at providing different contextual reasons for this result. The third chapter is an extension of the second and draws on the same dataset. We measure the willingness to pay (WTP) for MHOs premiums in a Senegalese urban context. WTP valuations can help both policy makers and existent MHOs in better understanding the characteristics of the demand of microinsurance products. This chapter considers the role of individual and household socio-economic determinants of willingness to pay for a health microinsurance product and add to the previous literature evidence of the role of income, wealth and risk preferences on individual WTP. We find that richer, more wealthy and more risk-averse head of households are more likely to reveal a higher WTP for health microinsurance. Conscious of the potential limits of our elicitation strategy (bidding game), we incorporate the existent literature on the effects of ‘preferences anomalies’ (Watson and Ryan 2007) and estimate WTP accounting for structural shift in preferences (Alberini et al. 1997), anchoring effect (Herriges and Shogren 1996) and the two effects together (Whitehead 2002). We find evidence of slight underestimation of the median WTP if preferences anomalies are not taken into consideration. However, the extent of such difference is far from being relevant. Previous results on the determinants of WTP are robust to the effect of such preference anomalies. We also provide an analysis of the predictive power of WTP on the actual take-up of insurance following our offering of membership to a sample of 360 households. WTP appears to have a positive and significant impact on actual take-up.

Behavioural public policy, as popularised by the “nudge” agenda, aims to help people make better choices in the face of their inherent biases (Thaler and Sunstein, 2008), including over diet and weight management (Liu et al, 2014). Present bias can lead to time inconsistency: individuals identify an optimal course of action but when the moment comes to take that action they delay or quit, prioritizing present gains at the expense of longer term benefits (O’ Donoghue and Rabin, 1999). Time inconsistency is explained in Thaler and Shefrin’s dual-self model (1981) as the result of an internal tussle between a myopic ‘doer’ and a far-sighted ‘planner’. Commitment devices – voluntary strategies to change future behaviours – can help people stay on track with their goals. Emerging empirical evidence from psychology, medicine, and behavioural economics bears out this prediction for health behaviours (Prestwich et al, 2012; Volpp et al, 2008; Giné et al, 2010), but commitment devices remain relatively under-researched (Perry et al, 2015). The dissertation sets out a fresh analytical framework applying, for the first time, planner-doer theory to health behaviours for weight loss. It also explores how commitment devices might work differently across sub-groups. The empirical strategy, combining quantitative and qualitative methods, centres on two field experiments testing for average and heterogeneous treatment effects of commitment devices on self-monitoring behaviour, participation in a weight loss programme, and weight loss outcomes. Results indicate commitment devices improve health behaviours, but have mixed effects on weight loss: highlighting the potential for commitment overload, and the importance of choosing the right dose of commitment. Qualitative evidence provides fresh insights for planner-doer theory. Differential impacts on sub-groups imply a need for careful targeting and design of commitment devices. The dissertation concludes there is scope for commitment devices to play an effective role in behaviour change programmes.

The concept of the Internet of Things is driven by advancements of the Internet with the interconnection of heterogeneous smart objects using different networking and communication technologies. With the rapidly increasing number of interconnected devices present in the life of a person, providing authentication and secure communication between them is considered a key challenge. The integration of Wireless Sensor Networks in the Internet of Things creates new obstacles due to the necessity of finding a balance between the resources utilization and the applied security solutions. In multicast group communications, the energy consumption, bandwidth and processing overhead at the nodes are minimized in comparison to a point-to-point communication system. To securely transmit a message in order to maintain confidentiality of the data and the user’s privacy, usually involves human interaction or the pre-agreement upon some key, the latter unknown to an external attacker. In this thesis, the author proposed an authentication protocol based on the similar context between the correct devices and lightweight computationally secure group-key establishment, avoiding any kind of human involvement. The goal is achieved by having the devices calculate a fingerprint from their ambient context and through a fuzzy commitment scheme generating a commitment respectively opening value which is used to generate a common secret key between them. The tests are effected on real world data accumulated from different environments. The proposed scheme is based on elliptic curve cryptography and cryptographic one-way accumulators. Its feasibility is analyzed by implementing the group key establishment phase in the Contiki operating system and by simulating it with the Cooja simulator. Furthermore, the applicability of the protocol is analyzed and justified by an analysis of the storage overhead, communication overhead, and energy consumption. The simulator shows an energy consumption of only 112 mJ per node for group key establishment. The results obtained in this thesis demonstrate the feasibility of the scheme, it’s computational, and communication costs are further comparable to other similar approaches.

Le but de cette recherche était d'examiner la relation entre la déviance constructive (Galperin, 2012 ; Warren, 2003 ; Vadera, Pratt, & Mishra, 2013), la proactivité (Grant & Ashford, 2008 ; Parker & Collins, 2010) et leur rôle dans le processus de changement et d'innovation (CI) en contexte organisationnel (Potočnik & Anderson, 2016). Nous avons tout d'abord examiné la littérature portant sur la déviance et la proactivité. Nous avons ensuite concentré notre attention sur la création d'une échelle d'attitudes normatives et déviantes (NDAS) pour traiter l'aspect dynamique de la déviance. Ensuite, nous avons exploré la nature du construit de déviance et ainsi traité la relation aux CI. Nous avons proposé l'existence de deux facteurs d'ordre supérieur: le constructive dark side et constructive bright side. Ensuite, nous avons testé la relation entre ces facteurs et des conséquences communes (engagement affectif, bien-être, détresse et intention de départ). Nous avons recruté des travailleurs français par le biais de questionnaires pour tester nos hypothèses. Nous avons donc utilisé, créé ou traduit des échelles de mesures des comportements de déviance constructive (Galperin, 2012), d'innovation (Janseen, 2000), de prise en main (Morisson & Phelps, 1998) ou la NDAS... Nous avons également procédé, dans certains cas, à plusieurs recueils de données espacées dans le temps. Dans la plupart des cas, des analyses de modélisation d'équations structurelles ont été utilisées. Les résultats et les limites sont discutés dans chaque chapitre des articles. Ces résultats aident à clarifier le construit de déviance constructive et sa relation avec la proactivité dans la littérature de CI
The aim of this research was to examine the relation between constructive deviance (Galperin, 2012; Warren, 2003; Vadera, Pratt, & Mishra, 2013), proactivity (Grant & Ashford, 2008; Parker & Collins, 2010) and their role in change and innovation (CI) processes in organizational context (Potočnik & Anderson, 2016). After we examined the deviance and proactive literature related to work and organizational psychology, we focused our attention on the creation of a normative and deviant attitudinal scale (NDAS) to deal with the dynamic aspect of deviance. Then, we explored the nomological network of deviance and treated its relationship with CI related-constructs. We, therefore, proposed the existence of two higher-order factors named constructive dark-side and constructive bright-side. Latterly, we tested for a second time the relation between these second-order factors and common outcomes (affective commitment, well-being, distress, and turnover intent). We used research by questionnaire to test our entire hypothesis on French workers. For this, we used, created and/or translated scales of constructive deviant behaviours (Galperin, 2012), NDAS, innovative work behaviour (Janseen, 2000) or taking charge (Morisson & Phelps, 1998)... We also proceeded, in some cases, with measurements at different times to provide better analysis. In most cases, structural equation modelling analyses were performed. Results and limitations are discussed in each article chapters (chapters 2, 3, & 4). These results help to clarify the nomological network of constructive deviance and its relationship with proactivity in the CI literature. To our knowledge, this study is one of the first to follow this path and test it

Abstract Modern life has increasingly become intertwined with technology, and recent years have witnessed a growth in technologies that support people in, for instance, leading healthier and more sustainable lifestyles. At the centre of this growth has been persuasive systems design, which has been shown to have a positive effect on individuals’ behaviour and their use of systems. This dissertation consists of five studies, encompassing a literature review, two quantitative studies with a total of 227 respondents, and two constructive studies that address the central research question of the dissertation: How can integrating judgment and decision-making processes and persuasive software design patterns enhance the development of behaviour change support systems? The primary theoretical framework for the research is the Persuasive Systems Design model. This is a model that outlines the key requirements for developing persuasive systems, consisting of the theoretical underpinnings, persuasion context analysis, and four feature categories. In recent years, improving the design of persuasive systems to better achieve their intended objectives has been an important topic. This dissertation, in addition to examining the role of persuasive software features in influencing behaviour, also integrates behavioural economics and software design patterns into the design of persuasive systems. Additionally, the interplay between the categories and other constructs such as perceived competence is investigated through statistical analyses. Overall, results reveal that persuasive system features have an impact on the efficacy of behaviour change support systems. Additionally, integrating behavioural economics concepts that explain the reasons why individuals deviate from expected behaviour and software design patterns can help improve the development of persuasive systems and further enhance their efficacy
Tiivistelmä Teknologia on yhä tiukemmin osa nykyelämää. Viime vuosina on tapahtunut kasvua ja kehitystä teknologioissa, jotka tukevat ihmisiä esimerkiksi elämään terveellisemmin ja ympäristöä säästäen. Tämän kasvun keskiössä on ollut vakuuttavien järjestelmien suunnittelu, jonka on osoitettu vaikuttavan positiivisesti sekä ihmisten käyttäytymiseen että järjestelmien käyttöön. Tämä väitöskirja käsittää viisi tutkimusta, sisältäen kirjallisuuskatsauksen, kaksi kvantitatiivista tutkimusta yhteensä 227 vastaajalla, ja kaksi konstruktiivista tutkimusta, jotka yhdessä vastaavat väitöskirjan päätutkimuskysymykseen: Kuinka arviointi- ja päätöksentekoprosessit sekä vakuuttavien järjestelmien suunnittelumallit yhdistämällä voidaan edistää käyttäytymisen muutosta tukevien järjestelmien kehitystä? Ensisijainen teoreettinen viitekehys tutkimukselle on vakuuttavien järjestelmien suunnittelumalli (Persuasive Systems Design model). Kyseinen malli määrittää keskeiset vaatimukset vakuuttavien järjestelmien kehittämiselle. Tärkeänä aiheena on ollut vakuuttavien järjestelmien suunnittelemisen edistäminen, jotta niillä voitaisiin paremmin saavuttaa aiotut päämäärät. Vakuuttavien järjestelmien ohjelmisto-ominaisuuksien vaikutuksesta käyttäytymiseen tutkimisen lisäksi väitöskirja yhdistää myös behavioristisen taloustieteen ja ohjelmistosuunnittelumallit vakuuttavien järjestelmien suunnitteluun. Lisäksi kategorioiden ja muiden käsitteiden, kuten koetun pätevyyden, vuorovaikutusta on tutkittu tilastollisen analyysin keinoin. Kaiken kaikkiaan tulokset paljastavat vakuuttavien järjestelmien ominaisuuksilla olevan vaikutusta käyttäytymisen muutosta tukevien järjestelmien vaikuttavuuteen. Lisäksi integroimalla behavioristisen taloustieteen konsepteja, jotka selittävät syitä, joiden vuoksi yksilöt käyttäytyvät odotetusta poikkeavasti, ohjelmistosuunnittelumalleihin, voidaan auttaa edistämään vakuuttavien järjestelmien kehittämistä ja parantaa niiden vaikuttavuutta

Nowadays, power systems are dealing with some new challenges raisedby the major changes that have been taken place since 80’s, e.g., deregu-lation in electricity markets, significant increase of electricity demands andmore recently large-scale integration of renewable energy resources such aswind power. Therefore, system operators must make some adjustments toaccommodate these changes into the future of power systems.One of the main challenges is maintaining the system stability since theextra stress caused by the above changes reduces the stability margin, andmay lead to rise of many undesirable phenomena. The other important chal-lenge is to cope with uncertainty and variability of renewable energy sourceswhich make power systems to become more stochastic in nature, and lesscontrollable.Flexible AC Transmission Systems (FACTS) have emerged as a solutionto help power systems with these new challenges. This thesis aims to ap-propriately utilize such devices in order to increase the transmission capacityand flexibility, improve the dynamic behavior of power systems and integratemore renewable energy into the system. To this end, the most appropriatelocations and settings of these controllable devices need to be determined.This thesis mainly looks at (i) rotor angle stability, i.e., small signal andtransient stability (ii) system operation under wind uncertainty. In the firstpart of this thesis, trajectory sensitivity analysis is used to determine themost suitable placement of FACTS devices for improving rotor angle sta-bility, while in the second part, optimal settings of such devices are foundto maximize the level of wind power integration. As a general conclusion,it was demonstrated that FACTS devices, installed in proper locations andtuned appropriately, are effective means to enhance the system stability andto handle wind uncertainty.The last objective of this thesis work is to propose an efficient solutionapproach based on Benders’ decomposition to solve a network-constrained acunit commitment problem in a wind-integrated power system. The numericalresults show validity, accuracy and efficiency of the proposed approach.

The Doctoral Degrees issued upon completion of the programme are issued by Comillas Pontifical University, Delft University of Technology and KTH Royal Institute of Technology. The invested degrees are official in Spain, the Netherlands and Sweden, respectively.QC 20141028

Les carrières crudivores révèlent un positionnement et une tentative des individus de remettre de l’ordre dans leur existence. Les bifurcations biographiques provoquées par le tournant alimentaire donnent à voir des recompositions entre un avant, un pendant et un après au cœur de cette expérience, ainsi que leur inscription sociale. L’adhésion aux valeurs promues par le crudivorisme et le développement de comportements subséquents entraînent un travail de définition de soi et l’adoption de postures disruptives. Au travers des tensions multiples des individus, l’identité apparaît loin de constituer un ethos stabilisé et renvoie à un état chronique de la condition humaine illustré par la fragilité des appartenances. Les relations entre les mondes forgés autour du crudivorisme imposent un travail et des efforts constants. La recherche de cohérence et la tentative de restaurer un pouvoir d’agir se traduisent par la succession de phases pendant lesquelles se renégocient les dispositions et représentations individuelles
Raw food carriers reveal a positioning and an attempt by individuals to put their lives back in order. The biographical bifurcations provoked by the food change reveal recompositions between a before, a present and an after at the heart of this experience, as well as their social inscription. Adherence to the values promoted by the raw food diet and the development of subsequent behaviours lead to a work of self-definition by the individuals and the adoption of disruptive positions. Through the multiple tensions of individuals, identity appears far from constituting a stabilized ethos and refers to a chronic state of the human condition illustrated by the fragility of belonging. The relations between the worlds forged around the raw food diet require constant work and effort. The search for coherence and the attempt to restore a power to act result in a succession of phases during which individual dispositions and representations are renegotiated

碩士
國立中山大學
人力資源管理研究所
91
Abstract According to the statistics of Department of Health, demand and quality of health care have been increased for the past decade in Taiwan. Not only the number of medical organizations of various categories is increasing rapidly, but also human resources and capital invested in the medical industry have been growing fast. The importance of salesman in this trade cannot be underestimated any longer. A study on the correlations among money ethic, professional commitment and organizational commitment of the salesman in the medical devices dealers was made to locate useful motivation elements and management suggestions to the salesman in this field as well as to serve as a reference for people who have been in practice or intend to join this industry. The subject of study was aimed at salesman of medical devices dealers. The structure of this study was established based on an understanding of properties of this industry and a review of documents. A sample survey was conducted and the impact of money ethic upon professional commitment and organizational commitment was examined in a statistical way of block regression. Results of this study are listed as follows: 1.The money ethic of salesman imposed significant impact upon the sub-dimensions of professional commitment. （1）As the tendency of considering making money was important was getting stronger, professional identification became higher. （2）As the tendency of considering making money was important was getting stronger, professional involvement became greater. （3）As the tendency of budget emphasis was getting stronger, professional involvement became higher. （4）As the tendency of considering money was no intrinsic motivation element was getting stronger, the willingness of staying in the same profession was getting lower. （5）As the tendency of considering money was a motivation element was getting stronger, professional identification became higher. （6）As the tendency of identifying money stood for power was getting stronger, the willingness of staying in the same profession ] was getting lower. 2.The money ethic of salesman imposed significant impact upon the sub-dimensions of organizational commitment. （1）As the tendency of considering making money was important was getting stronger, professional identification became higher. （2）As the tendency of considering money was no intrinsic motivation element was getting stronger, the willingness of staying in the same profession was getting lower. （3）As the tendency of considering money was a motivation element was getting stronger, organizational identification became higher. （4）As the tendency of identifying money stood for power was getting stronger, the willingness of staying in the same profession was getting lower.

In this dissertation, I investigate the value of information to consumers, the pricing of chicken, and the value of shopping lists to consumers. My first essay finds that across 14 different product categories and seven types of information, information about price and origin are the most important and information about social and environmental impacts are the least important. Our estimates also suggest consumers are willing to wait a large amount of time to obtain the most vs. least desirable types of information prior to making a non-hypothetical product choice. My second essay relates to price indices used to value chicken in the United States. There were two main price indices commonly used by the industry in recent history: the USDA 12-City Price Index and the Georgia Dock Price. We find that there was a long standing equilibrium relationship between these two price indices that shifted across time. Additionally, our analysis shows that there was a structural break between these two price indices around 2000. After this structural break, the analysis suggests Georgia Dock prices were about $0.047/lb higher than they would have been without the break. Last, my third essay aims to determine the impact of shopping lists on consumer spending and healthy shopping behaviors. We find that after controlling for conscientiousness, consumers willingness-to-accept to give up their shopping list is $5.05, while the equivalent gain to write a shopping list is $3.87. We did not find a significant difference in the healthiness of the purchases made by consumers using a shopping list versus those who shopped without a list.

碩士
國立臺灣科技大學
電機工程系
106
This thesis aims to discuss the various operating conditions of microgrid based on master slave control and the scheduling strategy of energy storage devices through ant colony optimization algorithm and try to find the optimal solution for the path planning of the energy storage devices through the ant colony optimization algorithm. This thesis uses the microgrid in the nuclear research institute as the simulation system and uses Matlab/Simulink simulation software to build models in microgrid systems. The model can simulate a variety of microgrid operating modes, such as grid-connected, islanded, and grid-connected to islanded operations. Through the voltage regulation, the disturbance caused by the interconnection of the distributed energy sources can be effectively reduced. Secondly, this thesis applies the ant colony optimization algorithm to the operation scheduling strategy of microgrid energy storage devices and solves the problem of charge and discharge scheduling of energy storage devices in microgrid. The experimental results show that the ant colony optimization algorithm can meet the multiple characteristics of the microgrid. The microgrid can achieve the function of peak cutting and peak shaving, and can reduce the peak load power during critical periods and maintain the reliability of the system. Finally, the ant colony optimization algorithm is applied to the optimal path planning for energy storage device construction. The pheromone update mechanism is used and the algorithm is used to eliminate redundant paths. The simulation results confirm that the proposed method is used for the path. The plan is fairly robust and searches for the global optimal solution for faster convergence.

碩士
國立臺灣科技大學
電機工程系
104
This thesis aims to explore various operating situations in the microgrid based on the master-slave control and self-healing of microgrid after fault detections. Using artificial bee colony algorithm developed scheduling strategies of the energy storage devices to meet the needs of the local power grid. The microgrid models in this thesis were referred to 380V low voltage microgrids in Institute of Nuclear Energy Research, AEC, EY. Matlab/Simulink simulation software was selected to establish the microgrid models which include the following features. It can simulate the characteristics of output variation power in the DER and a variety of operation modes in microgrids which include grid connected mode, islanding mode and switching from grid connected mode to islanding mode. A lot of operating mode will face many times of grid connected and disconnected operations. The disturbance generated by DER will effectively be reduced by using adjustments of voltage, frequency and phase angle. Furthermore, when the main grid disconnected with a microgrid, the point of common coupling will be detected by using adjusted internal power supply in microgrid to decrease power flow to zero. It will reduce the disturbance caused by disconnection. In addition, when a fault point was detected and automatic recovery and fault isolating was operated, the area affected by the fault can be reduced so non-fault regions can quickly be restored. Thus, self-healing functions can be achieved. The artificial bee colony algorithm was applied to operation scheduling strategies of the energy storage devices. In order to meet several needs of the energy storage devices, establishing many assessment indicators assessed the pros and cons of scheduled algorithms. Finally, experimental results show that storage equipment controlled by the artificial bee colony algorithm can satisfy needs of variety characteristics in microgrids. It can reduce peak loads in critical periods and keep the system reliability.

碩士
長榮大學
高階管理碩士在職專班
100
Abstract Compare with positive extra-role behavior, negative extra-role behavior is a topic which attracted the attention of scholars for just over 10 years in the tradition of foreign organizational behavior research. Actually, because of both positive and negative extra-role behavior would affect the employee’s work performance together, it is very important for the practice of human resource management. This article focused on one kind of typically negative extra-role behavior, employee deviant behavior, through a lot of literatures analyses we found out: firstly, there are very lack of exploration to the employee deviant behavior’s dimensions in the context of Chinese culture; secondly, we need to expand the research of the antecedents to employee deviant behavior in the level of organizational context; thirdly, we need to further analysis the process and mechanism of special antecedent affects the employee deviant behavior. Taking into account the situations, we designed our research plan around these issues, and achieved some research conclusions by induction, deduction and empirical research: First of all, we found that employee deviant behavior consist of five dimensions in Chinese context, such as Work Inaction, Corporate Political Behavior, Malfeasance and Power-Abuse, Theft and Purpresture, Hostile and Destructive Behavior. There are both similarities and differences with the employee deviant behavior in foreign context. Next, different dimensions of organizational justice had significant influence to employee deviant behavior, especially the perception of procedural justice and interpersonal justice. At the same time, for explore the process and mechanism of organizational justice influence the employee deviant behavior, based on the analysis orientation of organizational context influence cognitive processing, and cognitive processing influence individual behavior, we introduced organizational commitment and job satisfaction into our conceptual model and demonstrated that both of them are two mediator variable in some relationships between organizational justice and employee deviant behavior. Finally, when study the moderate effect of emotional affectivity in the relationship between organizational justice and employee deviant behavior, we found that negative and positive affectivity are two important moderate variables. The practical implication, study limitation and future directions are offered as a summary finally.

This study aimed to understand employees’ reactions to organizational politics in Contact Centers. Drawing from a sample of 187 supervisor-employee dyads, we studied the relationship between employees’ perceptions of organizational politics and supervisor-rated task performance and deviance, and mediation effects by authenticity at work and affective commitment. Results indicate that workers tend to react to workplace politics with deviant behavior and worse task performance. We found that the relationship between perceived politics and task performance was mediated by authenticity. The relationship between perceived politics and supervisor-rated deviance was mediated by affective commitment to the organization. Implications for management are discussed.

This dissertation has three essays that are focused on understanding smallholder farmers’ choices in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly, Malawi. The first essay uses a clustered randomized control trial (RCT) to evaluate the impact of storage and commitment constraints on farmers’ legume storage bevavior. The second essay is motivated by the incomplete quality information problem within informal markets that undermines consumers’ demand for quality and lead to lemons market. In this essay, we use a clustered RCT along with the Becker DeGroote Marshack auctions amongst 1,098 farm households to evaluate whether providing food safety (aflatoxins) information increases consumers’ demand for grain quality and whether that demand for quality varies depending on food availability. The third essay uses stochastic dynamic programming to explore the role of market risk and expenditure shocks on smallholder farmers’ storage and marketing behavior.