Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Resourcing'

Large-scale disasters often present significant recovery challenges to the built environment in terms of resources and capacity. This dissertation examines the resourcing for housing recovery projects following a major disaster. The dissertation reviews existing conceptualizations of post-disaster housing reconstruction patterns and processes, and presents an analytical model that situates resourcing in the context of post-disaster housing recovery. The research is designed as a comparative study around five components in the analytical model to understand resource availability for post-disaster housing reconstruction: 1) post-disaster recovery and reconstruction environment, 2) housing reconstruction approach, 3) resourcing stakeholders for housing reconstruction, 4) 'indicator resources' and their availability, and 5) critical factors that affect resource availability for post-disaster housing reconstruction. The analytical model is applied, respectively, to examine the varied resourcing issues and long term housing recovery following major disasters in Aceh, Indonesia, in Sichuan, China, and in Victoria, Australia. Based on questionnaire survey and in-depth field interviews, a set of spatial, statistical, and descriptive analyses identify the dynamics of resource availability in varied recovery environments, and test the relationship between the contextual factors, such as the institutional arrangements, housing approach and resourcing stakeholders, and the resourcing outcomes. This is complemented by an in-depth comparative discussion across three cases. Study findings show that the specific contextual factors, such as cultural elements, socioeconomic environment, and political agenda, in the studied cases influenced the manifestation of the resourcing problems and solutions. The essential difference in terms of resource availability topology depends mainly on legal arrangements for disaster recovery, and the adopted approach to housing reconstruction. The research also demonstrates that despite different resourcing approaches in the three cases, competence of construction professionals, and government response and intervention are common determinants to resource availability for housing recovery projects. This dissertation promotes a multi-stakeholder approach to integrated resource planning and preparedness for post-disaster housing recovery. Central to its success is that the construction industry, a pivotal actor in disaster recovery, adopts engagement practices that would facilitate this integration, and that the governmental authorities empower the industry to realize its full potential. The study expects to contribute to future public and industry planning policy debates on post-disaster housing recovery, in Indonesia, China, Australia and beyond, by providing an understanding of resource availability for housing reconstruction following a large-scale disaster.

To date with scientifically – practical point of view a problem of forming and using of assimilation potential as a major natural resource is not enough studied, that requires the new approaches for the development of the organizationally - economic mechanism system of his use. When you are citing the document, use the following link http://essuir.sumdu.edu.ua/handle/123456789/8262

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This thesis studies the historic activity and present operational return on investment of the U.S. Coast Guards all-volunteer citizen supported Auxiliary organization; it recommends harvesting approximately $2.7M by eliminating the Auxiliary aviation program. The existing funds could be efficiently reprogrammed to both replace that volunteer support niche through an agreement with the U.S. Air Force and to better support other more cost effective volunteer sub-programs. This effort departs from previous similar studies because it identifies long-term trends in volunteer activity and measures the return on investment in terms of organizational outcomes, not volunteer effort or opinion questionnaire. The literature review presents examples of similar affiliated or formal volunteer organizations found in the U.S. and abroad, several of which were originally modeled after the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary. The volunteer demographics and participation for the six major operational Auxiliary activities are then represented to identify trends. The Coast Guards resourcing in the form of full-time employee support and direct funding are also presented. The focus of this study is how to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the volunteer organization to the Nation; the premise is that properly tasked and managed volunteers, with a healthy organizational culture, will multiply.

The construction industry is one of the most challenging industrial environments within which to develop effective people management practices. The industry is characterised by geographically dispersed projects, production-oriented management styles, long working weeks, high levels of staff turnover and employment practices grounded in the traditional `personnel' paradigm. One of the most challenging aspects of adopting strategic human resource management (SHRM) in the industry is employee resourcing, which comprises the staffing, performance, human resource administration and change management functions within contemporary organisations. This thesis investigates resourcing practices within large construction companies and develops a framework to inform SHRM-style decision-making in the future. Within an overall interpretative framework, case study methodology was employed for the research, supported by a range of qualitative and quantitative data sets. Fifty in-depth interviews were conducted within a major contracting organisation in order to establish both employer and employee perspectives on the resourcing process. These were supported by further interviews with several other leading contractors in order to explorew hethers uchp racticesw eret ypical and to identify alternativea pproaches. A range of secondary data informed both the wider understanding of existing approaches and the development of a more effective resourcing methodology. This included an analytic hierarchy method questionnaire to rank employee priorities, management and leadership style assessments of those with responsibility for managing the resourcing function, employee satisfaction questionnaires and an evaluation of commercially available human resource (HR) software. The results show that, although the intention with regard to resourcing was clearly positive, managerial practices did not effectively deliver the strategic intent at a project level. Organisational priorities and project requirements were found to dominate what was a largely reactive and incoherent employee resourcing process. Individual employee needs and preferences were often neglected, which led to a demotivated workforce and hence, high levels of staff turnover. This presented a need to integrate key SHRRM activities such as human resource planning (IHRP), team deployment, employee involvement (EI), performance and career management and human resource development (IHRD). Accordingly, a strategic employee resourcing framework (SERF) was developed which balances these activities in order to inform effective resourcing decision-making. The SERF has shown potential to support the effective integration of strategic business and HR objectives with operational requirements. 'liiere remains a need however, for construction organisations to develop their human resource information systems in order that such a framework is supported by appropriate organisational and employee data. This provides a longerterm challenge for the industry's larger employers, but is essential if the benefits of SHRM-oriented resourcing practices are to be realised.

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The primary objective of this thesis was to critically assess the Productive Unite Resourcing (PUR) system as it is outlined in NAVSUP INSTRUCTION 7000,21A and as it being used at Navy Field Contracting Activities (NFCAs). The research was conducted by a review of current literature and extensive interviews with headquarters and field activity personnel. The research contains a review of PUR's predecessor system, the fixed workyear-cost funding methodology, an explanation of the PUR process and Procurement Cost Center algorithms, and summaries of the positive and negative impacts of PUR. Conclusions and recommendations are made concerning PUR's applicability to Navy Field Contracting Activities. Where specific problems were identified with either the process or algorithms, possible corrective actions are proposed.
http://archive.org/details/assessmentofnavy00fink
Lieutenant Commander, United States Navy

Fifty-three careers advisers in Canterbury secondary schools in New Zealand were asked to complete a questionnaire, assessing their perceptions regarding current levels of resourcing and support for careers advisers in secondary schools. Forty-five returned completed questionnaires, of which ten respondents were male and 35 were female. All were registered teachers. Although there was overall agreement that resourcing had improved over time, the respondents were evenly divided in their opinion that current levels of resourcing were adequate for them to effectively perform their job. Larger schools, in terms of pupil numbers, were better resourced. They had more teaching and ancillary hours for careers. The single most restrictive factor, which was identified as hindering careers advisers from completing their jobs satisfactorily, was time. An analysis of both qualitative and quantitative data has been used to examine present conditions in careers centres in Canterbury secondary schools.

Debates concerning how churches in the developing world are best resourced in terms of their funding base and the implications of this for other aspects of church life have been conducted for over 150 years. The solutions offered have ranged from the Three-Self theory, with its advocacy of local self-support, to wholesale financial support from abroad, and in between a combination of those methods in a variety of configurations. This thesis focuses on the recent experiences of evangelical Christians in a southern Mozambican context, paying particular attention to three case studies: the Igreja Evangelica Arca da Salvação; the Ministério Centro de Louvor; and the Igreja Reformada em Moçambique. It asks why so many churches in Mozambique are seemingly locked into a dynamic of economic dependency on donors from abroad, but also why it is that in that shared and impoverished national context some churches are attempting, with some success, to resource their own activities. Using accounts and reflections obtained first-hand from Mozambican Christians, the thesis suggests that, alongside important factors such as the historical circumstances surrounding the emergence of each church group or denomination, the vision and agency of leaders in each local congregation are also fundamental to the resourcefulness of the members and the developmental trajectory of the church. In the context of self-governance, the role of such leadership is highlighted as crucial to the emergence of both self-funding and self-propagation. As well as contributing to the debate concerning the resourcing of churches in the developing world, this thesis addresses social theory that is concerned with how and why individuals invest their available resources in the religious communities of which they are part. It also contributes to the study of independent churches in southern Africa, concerning their potency for independent economic development. Finally, this thesis argues that, for the purposes of avoiding the cultivation of unhealthy dependency in national churches, international mission societies and para-church organizations in developed nations would do well to analyse the dynamics of which they are part. Where partnerships consist largely of sponsorship, it is argued, the risk of ongoing unhealthy dependency is high.

Existing research shows the importance of teacher professional development and that decisions regarding professional development in schools lie with administrators. However, while studies have been conducted on the need for administrators fostering professional development in schools in the USA, there appears to be limited research on administrator views of professional development in international school environments. The purpose of this study was to consider views of administrators in international schools regarding professional development activities. Using a mixed methods sequential explanatory design, a questionnaire followed by in-depth interviews, data was collected from a convenience and purposive sample of administrators from international schools in Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East so as to explore and provide answers to the main research question: “What are the views of administrators on how professional development is planned, implemented, evaluated and resourced in international schools?” Findings from quantitative data indicated strong agreement that administrators should work collaboratively with teachers to determine the professional development needs of the school and that teachers should be involved in assessing professional development effectiveness. Analysis of qualitative data indicated the following themes: teachers are sent to conferences/workshops for professional development or content experts are brought to the school; decisions about professional development should align with school goals; professional development needs should be determined by teachers and administrators collaboratively; there are no significant professional development evaluation processes in place; 2% of the budget is standard allocation in schools for professional development and school boards approve the budget while administrators decide on allocation. By addressing the study’s purpose, this research seeks to contribute to the larger conversation on how administrator views on professional development in international schools can add knowledge to the limited research on effective avenues to professional development in the international school context.

The purpose of this research was to find out what Social Value is, how it is created and in what way it is related to Social Entrepreneurship. The study has been done at a time when the concept of Social Entrepreneurship has come to the forefront at the outset of the 21st Century; in an advent of rapid change and worldwide turmoil; yet an academic understanding of Social Entrepreneurship has been lacking. A Western-style capitalist economy has a highly functioning 'for-profit' and government regulatory system, with civil society which carries an obligation to have regard for those who 'have not.' The goodness-of-fit between all three sectors determines the harmony, order and satisfaction of a given population. We now know that social Value is created when communities are impacted with outcomes from the inspiration and perspiration of Social Entrepreneurs and Support teams who are committed to alleviating human need. Social Entrepreneurs and their teams have a different outlook on life. They live with a lack of financial security, are time-poor, persevering, and resourceful; and they manage risk even as need is being resourced. Based upon a robust literature of Entrepreneurship and Values theories for meaning, data collection allowed for ten social ventures to be casestudied. These lead to further enquiry into seven peak bodies designed to be resourcing agencies. This research is important because a model has been developed which effectively enables social ventures to service their mission, and to stay viable. As a result of this, a way forward has been identified where the impact from social entrepreneuring becomes a core determinant of created Social Value. The contribution of this research has been to lay a foundation in grassroots social entrepreneurship which is supported by a Literature which others following can add to or further define. There is now something comprehensive drawn from the experiences of many in the field uipon which to base further enquiry and future investigation. Suggestions have also been made which need reinforcing at the Public Policy level; others in the Social Policy sector will want to know the way to reengineer a way out of the 'gap' which exists in the Capitalist System.

The problems of facial disfigurement are becoming more widely understood as information from different research areas becomes better integrated. This chapter reviews this research, describing the problems faced by people who have a disfigurement and the results of intervention studies. The 'package' of care provided to this population by a lay-led organisation is described, and a framework proposed which integrates the development of coping skills with the more traditional role of providing support and information. This framework uniquely recognises the potential therapeutic role of the ex-patient for the population served, and builds this role into the package. It is proposed as a potentially useful model for health professionals providing a service in other health care settings.

Thesis advisor: Michael G. Pratt
In spite of an undeniably vast and multidisciplinary body of research on mergers and acquisitions (M&As) spanning more than 50 years, extant scholarship provides little insight into how two organizations that have struggled to integrate rebound from failure in their relationship. This dissertation examines two organizations—AMC Hospital and Community Hospital—that achieved this outcome nearly 16 years after they legally merged. To understand this phenomenon, I conducted an inductive, longitudinal qualitative study of these two organizations and their members using interviews, archival data, and observations as my data sources and grounded theory techniques to analyze the data and build theory. Extending prior research on M&As, multiple organizational identity management, and identities as resources in organizations, I advance the notion of multiple identity resourcing by examining how the negotiation of multiple organizational identities fostered greater resource sharing and generation during post-merger integration. Additionally, I elaborate prior research on meaning construction during strategic change by examining how managers’ interpretations of the power and intimacy dynamics in the merger relationship influenced their strategizing, which affected organizational-level episodes of success and failure during the integration process. More broadly, I demonstrate how practices at both the level of the merger relationship and the level of strategy implementation enable successful performance during post-merger integration
Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2015
Submitted to: Boston College. Carroll School of Management
Discipline: Management and Organization

Master of Science
Department of Computing and Information Sciences
Gurdip Singh
Developing an optimal working environment and managing the of work load in an efficient manner are the major challenges for most businesses today. So, the importance of the workflow and workflow management in an organization is unquestionable. Many organizations use sophisticated systems to organize the workflows. One such workflow system based on a concise and powerful modeling language called “Yet Another Workflow Language” is YAWL. YAWL handles complex data, transformations, integration with organizational resources and Web Service integration. Workflow comprises of three main perspectives: control-flow, data and the resources. In Yawl, the control-flow and the data-flow are tightly coupled within the workflow enactment engine. But the resource perspective is provided by a discrete custom service called Resource Service. Administrative tools are provided using which the administrator has to manually select the resource (referred as participant) which needs to perform a particular task of the workflow. This project aims at developing a service which can automate the assignment of the tasks to the participants by using the Resource service which provides number of interfaces that expose the full functionality of the service. The application of this project with respect to Healthcare domain is presented. Healthcare domain is the one of the most demanding and yet critical business process. Hospitals face increasing pressure to both improve the quality of the services delivered to patients and to reduce costs .Hence there is significant demand on hospitals in regard to how the organization, execution, and monitoring of work processes is performed. Workflow Management Systems like YAWL offers a potential solution as they support processes by managing the flow of work.

Dog bites are a serious cause of human injury. Data from the United States of America indicate that about 1.8% of people receive bites each year, and the rate is thought to be increasing disproportionately faster than the dog population. The Canadian dog bite issue is not well documented although it is a public safety concern. Increased enforcement, education and breed-specific legislation have been used in attempts to lower dog bite incidence. However, the decentralization of the animal control system in Canada, the lack of standardized terms, and the lack of mandated reporting have resulted in unreliable information from which to evaluate the effectiveness of the strategies. The purposes of this exploratory study were to identify the reported dog bite rate in urban Canadian jurisdictions and to identify animal control strategies that may effectively reduce dog bite incidence. Thirty-six municipalities responded to a questionnaire about animal control resourcing, enforcement, and reported dog bites. The study found a median of 1.8 reported dog bites per 10,000 people, far below the number of “non-household” dog bites (bites caused by dogs not known to the victim) expected on the basis of other studies. Enforcement activities varied widely between municipalities, with some distinct regional differences. Contrary to initial expectations, the reported dog bite rate was positively correlated with most indicators of enforcement. This positive correlation is probably due to a greater proportion of bites being reported in municipalities with more active enforcement. However, municipalities with very high ticketing rates had far fewer reported dog bites than would be expected based on the linear relationships. The results are best explained by a regression of reported dog bites on ticketing rate consisting of a positive linear component and negative quadratic component. Increased ticketing appears to have increased the reporting rate (causing a positive linear regression) and reduced the actual rate of biting (causing a negative quadratic regression), at least when enforcement was high. Within the limitations of this study, the data provided no evidence to suggest that breed-specific legislation is effective in reducing the rate of reported dog bites.

Social networks are one of the “hot” themes in people’s life and contemporary social research. Considering our “embeddedness” in a thick web of social relations is a study perspective that could unveil a number of explanations of how people may manage their personal and social resources. Looking at people’s behaviors of building and managing their social networks, seems to be an effective way to find some possible rationalization about how to help people getting the best from their resources . The main aim of this dissertation is to give a closer look at the role of networking behaviors. Antecedents, motivations, different steps and measures about networking behaviors and outcomes are analyzed and discussed. Results seem to confirm, in a different setting and time perspective, that networking behaviors include different types and goals that change over time. Effects of networking behaviors seem to find empirical confirmation through social network analysis methods. Both personality and situational self-efficacy seem to predict networking behaviors. Different types of motivational drivers seem to be related to diverse networking behaviors.

Ethical, cheap, and scalable, purposeful games leverage player entertainment to incentivise contributors in language resourcing. However, discourse is scarce around the enjoyability of these games, whose playerbases are divided between a tiny minority of reliable contributors and a vast majority of inconsistent contributors. This study aims to deepen the discourse around design possibilities tailored to the unevenly contributing playerbases of such games by building on player-reported data to create three engaging personas and narrative scenarios. Using Pruitt and Grudin’s way of weighing feature suitability in persona-focused design, social incentives and majority voting are indicated as the most and least prominent features, respectively. Indeed, the weight of the primary persona, representing 3.5% of the playerbase, is 72%, more than double the combined weight, 56%, of the remaining 96.5% of the playerbase. Sticking to the original definition of purposeful games is essential for any gaming approach to crowdsourced data collection to remain ethical, cheap, and scalable.

The last few years have witnessed a significant increase in the frequency and magnitude of involving third-party application developers in software platforms. While this involvement offers great opportunities in building and sustaining platform innovation, it also exposes platform owners to significant challenges. Typically, platform owners facilitate the involvement of third-party developers by providing resources, referred to in this thesis as boundary resources, that give access to the platform, shift design capability, and facilitate the use of the platform’s core technologies. At the same time, these resources have the potential to be used to maintain platform control. This involves seemingly conflicting goals that creates a challenge for platform owners in finding the right balance. The main objective of this thesis is to investigate and understand the role of boundary resources in platform owners’ efforts to stimulate third-party development. To this end, this thesis proposes a theoretical model of boundary resources. This model centres on various drivers behind boundary resources design and use, and how these drivers interact in third-party development. The thesis also presents a comprehensive view of governance and strategizing practices used by platform owners through boundary resources. This thesis comprises a cover and a collection of five published research papers. The thesis applies a qualitative research method and employs multiple case studies. Boundary resources, innovation networks and platform governance perspectives have been synthesized to build a theoretical  basis to analyze the empirical findings. This thesis complements and extends the literature on software platforms, and the insights derived from the thesis enhance previous research on third-party development. In addition, it provides a focused theoretical account of the interfaces between platform owners and third-party developers that contributes to the body of knowledge developed around using tools for innovation.

Задля успішного розвитку країни, підвищення рівня життя населення, покращення економічного, політичного, соціального становища держави важливою й необхідною справою уряду й політичних сил є розроблення та впровадження власної моделі економічного розвитку, поставлення мети якої має досягнути країна в своєму соціально-економічному розвитку. Однак перед тим, як розробити план, потрібно врахувати сучасний стан економіки країни, її ресурсозабезпеченість, географічне положення, територію, співпрацю з іншими країнами, торгові шляхи, можливості і основне - виявити проблеми занепаду соціально-економічного розвитку та знайти шляхи їх усунення. Актуальною проблемою сьогодення є спрямування політики державного уряду на виявлення та подолання проблем, які гальмують соціально-економічний розвиток країни.

This grounded theory study conceptualises an abstract social process of ‘resourcing change’, explaining challenges managers face during the initiation of change as their learning in organisations and their responses to them. Both management challenges and their resolutions are theoretically organised on the global-local continuum, reflecting the inter-connected and mutually influencing nature of the social reality. The abstract social process of ‘resourcing change’ has general implications beyond the temporal and spatial boundaries of the study – managers in one UK subsidiary within each of two multinational corporations – Cooper Standard (UK) and Ricoh (UK), respectively, at the time when this study was conducted. The grounded theory of ‘resourcing change’ has made several significant theoretical and methodological contributions. First, the study of learning has been extended to the management population, given their strategic importance in organisations (Easterby-Smith et al., 1998). Second, management learning in organisations is conceptualised as ‘initiation of change’ – a seldom recognised, individual-to-organisation process of change (Quinn, 1996). Learning, as in this study, has been re-connected to accounts of organisational change (Hendry, 1996). A particular emphasis is placed on the initiation stage of change, not on any other stages (e.g. implementation). Third, from a process-relational perspective of organising and managing (Watson, 2002), this grounded theory study of ‘resourcing change’ has identified the contradictions in many processual-oriented research studies, highlighting the absence of the temporal and spatial dimensions in the on-going evolution of social processes. The methodological contributions that this grounded theory study makes are, first and foremost, the conceptualisation of the emerged concepts that are used to explain the process of initiating change in management learning. Research problems and questions are then formulated by abstractly conceptualising the concerns and resolutions of research participants, as opposed to the researcher’s own. This study begins with no focus, however uncomfortable that may make some researchers, recognising the key fact that the focus of the researcher, prior to his or her exposure to the research participants, has no relevance whatsoever to them. The focus is only established at the end of the study, following a set of rigorous and transparent methodological procedures. The adherence to the orthodox grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) confirms that grounded theory is a fully-fledged research methodology in its own right, not a set of methods for data analysis (McCallin, 2003).

O fenômeno da globalização associado ao da liberalização econômica ampliou a discussão sobre internacionalização de empresas no Brasil. Para atuar nesse mercado internacional, as empresas devem voltar seus esforços não apenas para o ambiente externo, mas também para o interno, mais especificamente para seus recursos. Além disso, tendo em vista que esse ambiente é dinâmico, os recursos passarão por um processo de reconfiguração para acompanhar essas mudanças. Porém, poucos são os estudos acerca da internacionalização com ênfase nos recursos, menos ainda os que adotam o conceito de recurso utilizado nesta pesquisa, ou seja, como sendo ativos dinâmicos, dependentes de seu uso e capazes de ativar múltiplos esquemas. Sob essa perspectiva, os recursos são criados e recriados a partir de ações, permitindo atores ativarem esquemas. A esse processo deu-se o nome de resourcing. A partir de uma revisão de literatura sobre a internacionalização de empresas, bem como acerca dos recursos internos, incluindo essa nova conceituação, elaborou-se um framework para analisar a reconfiguração dos recursos ao longo do processo de internacionalização de empresas. Foi desenvolvido um estudo de caso na Weg S.A., uma das maiores fabricantes de motor elétrico industrial. Os dados primários foram coletados por meio de entrevistas semi-estruturadas (em profundidade) com o chefe e o analista de marketing da Weg International Division, e os principais dados secundários foram coletados ao visitar o Museu da Weg e ao ler o livro de comemoração aos 40 anos da empresa. Os resultados apontam que o framework utilizado demonstrou ser um mecanismo válido para observar e estruturar como ocorre a reconfiguração dos recursos ao longo do processo de internacionalização de empresas. Mostram também que os momentos que provocaram mudanças na trajetória da empresa fizeram com que a Weg adotasse um novo modo de entrada no mercado internacional, provocando alterações nos recursos. Além disso, indicam que Weg passou a dar mais ênfase aos recursos intangíveis só após alguns anos, fato que ratifica a dificuldade de avaliação, transferência e imitação desse tipo de recurso, e, por isso a Weg deve continuar utilizando seus recursos, principalmente, os intangíveis já que a maioria das vantagens competitivas desenvolvidas atualmente é proveniente de uma melhor utilização dos recursos intangíveis (IDRIS et al., 2003). Assim, a presente pesquisa poderá servir tanto de base para analisar outras empresas que queiram se internacionalizar, replicando o framework de análise proposto, como contribuir para o desenvolvimento de estudos acerca da internacionalização de empresas e da reconfiguração dos recursos.
The globalization phenomenon associated with the one of economic liberalization has broadened the discussion about the internationalization of companies in Brazil. In order to act in this international market, companies should turn their efforts not only to the external environment, but also to the inner, more specifically to their resources. Moreover, considering that this environment is dynamic, the resources will go through a reconfiguration process in order to track these changes. However, there are few studies about internationalization with emphasis on resources, even less those which adopt the concept of resource used in this research as being dynamic assets, dependent on its use and capable of enacting multiple schemas. From this perspective, resources are created and recreated through actions, enabling actors to enact schemas. This process was named as resourcing. From a literature review on the internationalization of enterprises as well as about the internal resources, including this new conceptualization, it was elaborated a framework to analyze the reconfiguration of resources along the process of companies’ internationalization. It was developed a case study at Weg S.A., one of the largest industrial electric motor manufacturer. Primary data were collected through semi-structured interviews (in depth) with the marketing chief and the marketing analyst of Weg International Division and the main secondary data were collected while visiting the Weg Museum and by reading the book that celebrates the company's 40 year anniversary. The results point that the framework used demonstrated to be a valid mechanism to observe and structure how the resources reconfiguration occurs along the process of companies’ internationalization. They also show that the moments which provoked changes on the companies’ trajectory made Weg to adopt a new entry mode on the international market, causing alterations on the resources. Apart from that, Weg began to emphasize its intangible assets only after some years, fact that confirms the difficulty in evaluating, transferring and imitating this kind of resource and because of this Weg should keep on using its resources, especially, the intangible ones as the great majority of competitive advantages developed nowadays comes from a better usage of intangible resources (IDRIS et al., 2003). Thus, this research could serve both as a basis for analyzing other companies which want to internationalize, replicating the framework of analysis proposed, and to contribute to the development of studies concerning companies’ internationalization and resources reconfiguration.

Kompetensförsörjning är ett brett begrepp som innefattar många moment i en organisations strategiska arbete med att förse organisationen med rätt kompetenser. Denna studie syftar att bidra till kunskapsutvecklingen kring kompetensförsörjning som finns i tidigare forskning inom ämnet. Studien genomförs i små och medelstora företag, i en pendlingskommun nära större stad. Vårt huvudsakliga fokus ligger på att lyfta hur organisationer tänker kring och arbetar med att attrahera, rekrytera, utveckla och behålla medarbetare med rätt kompetenser. Vi gjorde därför en kvalitativ studie med semistrukturerade intervjuer där nio organisationer inom den valda kommunen, Vännäs, medverkade. Resultatet visade att företagen i studien både ser utmaningar och möjligheter med kompetensförsörjning, och omfattningen med arbetet kring att attrahera, rekrytera, utveckla och behålla kompetent arbetskraft varierar. Det strategiska arbetet påverkas av det geografiska läget, företagens storlek, samt vilka resurser företagen har för att arbeta med de olika delarna i kompetensförsörjningen. Studien visar vidare att andra samhällsinstanser såsom staten, Arbetsförmedlingen och kommunerna, i samarbete med näringslivet, bär ansvaret för att förbättra kompetensförsörjningen i samhället framöver.

Background: Due to the increased knowledge gaps that originate from rapid technological change, many organizations are in need of consulting services. As of this, the consulting market has had rapid growth, which has caught the attention of scholars. Previous research has identified an interface between knowledge and identity as two prominent concepts when analyzing the client-consultant relationship. Despite this, there is still a great lack of empirical insights regarding how these two concepts might affect this relationship. Purpose: The purpose of the study was to explore knowledge transfer within the client-consultant relationship by applying the lens of role identity. Furthermore, the research aimed to increase the understanding of the barriers to knowledge transfer, where they originate from,and how to overcome them. Method: This research is of a qualitative sort, where abductive reasoning has been applied in order to fulfill our research purpose. Furthermore, a single case study approach was conducted and data was gathered from interviews with both consultants and clients. The gathered data was analyzed by using grounded analysis, where insights have been identified by creating 1st order concepts, 2nd order themes and aggregated dimensions. Conclusion: The result of this study indicates that different idiosyncratic and conventional role identity meanings create mismatches within the client-consultant relationship. The concept of role identity ambiguity creates barriers for securing knowledge transfer within the client-consultant relationship, and knowledge transfer outcomes affect future role identity meanings. The result of this study contributes to already existing literature regarding role identity, knowledge transfer and the client-consultant relationship. Furthermore, the study presents managerial implications that will increase consultants' understanding of the barriers and suggestions for how to overcome them.

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Esta tese tem como objetivo explicar como o poder se manifesta no uso de plataformas de participação digital para influenciar a política pública. Ferramentas de TIC implementadas para promover eParticipação apresentam novas oportunidades de diálogo entre o governo e os cidadãos, mas aumentar a participação por meio de plataformas ainda é um desafio. Um problema fundamental, nesse contexto, é que não são feitas considerações sobre as possíveis mudanças no equilíbrio entre as atividades internas no governo e questões de formulação de políticas. Esta tese avança nessa questão, partindo do pressuposto de que o poder é um mediador em tal processo. Maior atenção ao poder pode ajudar na concepção e implementação de processos que são mais representativos, inclusivos e imparciais e pode conduzir a uma maior autonomia dentro de um sistema democrático. Esta pesquisa foi desenvolvida por meio de estudos de caso retrospectivos e comparativos, usando-se a análise de processo das plataformas de participação para a elaboração de três políticas públicas em importantes cidades do país (plataforma de participação para elaboração do PlanMob/SP 2015, de São Paulo; do PMUS 2015, do Rio de Janeiro; do Plano Diretor 2014, de Curitiba). Teve como base diversas fontes de dados, como entrevistas semiestruturadas, documentação e observação não participante, analisadas por meio das técnicas de visual mapping e codificação. Os resultados mostram que os diferentes atores imprimem poder na plataforma por meio da posse de recursos críticos e de autoridade formal, mas também por meio da mobilização de recursos na prática (resourcing). Três fases de resourcing emergiram: resourcing in, resourcing within e resourcing out. Com base nos achados, esta pesquisa apresenta um modelo que explica o processo em que, a partir das práticas de participação, recursos são criados e distribuídos. O uso desses recursos gera mudanças nas práticas de participação e no estabelecimento de mecanismos usados para influenciar a política pública. Esse interplay entre uso dos recursos e geração de mecanismos de influência afeta o curso da participação e leva a resultados diferentes, que incluem legitimidade, influência moderada ou influência na política pública e aprendizado sobre o processo de eParticipação. Tem-se, ainda, que a mobilização de resourcing in nas práticas que antecedem a participação na plataforma, como a formação de alianças e a busca pelo apoio político, têm reflexos que impulsionam a influência na política pública. A união entre os saberes técnicos e coletivos (resourcing within) para realizar a eParticipação é uma fonte de poder que interfere no resultado. Com isso, contribui para a literatura de eParticipação, expandindo o conhecimento sobre os antecedentes, as práticas e os resultados no processo de participação eletrônica. Para a literatura de poder, ampliando as discussões sobre os paradigmas de posse e de prática e avançando na explicação de resourcing como fonte de poder. Enriquece a literatura de Resourcing, explorando a discussão sobre o recurso espaço como aspecto importante das relações de poder e apresentando o conceito de fases de recursos no processo de participação digital. Também é relevante para entender estas práticas e contribuir para que gestores públicos possam desenvolver plataformas que auxilie na governança pública e prover direções para que governo e cidadãos criem mecanismos para melhorar seu relacionamento na formulação de políticas públicas, por meio das TIC.
This study aims to explain how power is manifested in the use of digital participation platforms to influence public policy. ICT tools implemented to promote e-Participation present new opportunities for dialogue between government and citizens. However, increasing participation through platforms remains a challenge. A fundamental problem in this context is the lack of considerations regarding possible changes in the balance between internal activities in the government and policy formulation issues. This thesis addresses this question based on the assumption that power is a mediator in this process. Paying greater attention to power could aid the conception and implementation of processes that are more representative, inclusive and impartial, leading to greater autonomy within a democratic system. The study was conducted through retrospective and comparative case studies, using the process analysis of participation platforms for the drafting of three public policies in important cities of the country (participation platform for the drafting of the PlanMob/SP 2015 in São Paulo, PMUS 2015 in Rio de Janeiro and the PlanoDiretor 2014 in Curitiba). The study was based on a number of data sources, such as semi-structured interviews, documentation and non-participation observation, analyzed using visual mapping and encoding techniques. The results show that the different actors display power on the platform through the possession of critical resources and formal authority, but also through resourcing. Three phases of resourcing emerged: resourcing in, resourcing within, and resourcing out. Based on the findings, I present a model that explains the process, in which, through participation, resources are created and distributed. The use of these resources generates changes in participation practices and in the establishment of mechanisms used to influence public policy. This interplay between the use of resources and the generation of mechanisms of influence affects the course of participation, leading to different results, including legitimacy, moderate influence or influence on public policy and learning with regard to the e-Participation process. It is also argued that the mobilization of resourcing in the practices that precede the participation in the platform, such as alliances and political support, have consequences in the drives the influence in the public policy. The union between technical and collective knowledge (resourcing within) is a source of power that interferes with the result. This study contributes to the literature on e-Participation by expanding knowledge on the antecedents, practices and results in the electronic participation process. It also enriches the literature on Resourcing, providing a further explanation of resourcing as a source of power, exploring the discussion on the resource space as an important aspect of power relationships and expanding the typology of resources in the digital participation process.

More than ninety per cent of projects are run by project teams and the stronger the team the more likely the project will succeed. Team building activities are performed to both increase team performance and to enhance the likelihood of project success. For the purpose of this study, information technology (IT) business projects were chosen as IT is a major driving force in business today and there is widespread dissatisfaction with the performance of IT business projects. In analysing the causes of dissatisfaction, increasingly researchers are recognising that technology is a secondary issue behind the human side of project team management. Business projects were chosen because increasingly IT is being used in the business environment to solve problems in the post-industrial era characterised by the service industry, while the manufacturing industry, from which much of the project literature has emerged, reduces. The importance of the project team in developing IT business projects is well recognised and managers are concerned about their ability to transform an ad-hoc collection of people assigned to a particular project into a coherent, integrated project team. In most cases the activities recommended to build a successful IT business project team have been theoretically based, rather than empirically founded. The goal of this research was to investigate the team building activities used on successful projects. To achieve this goal, the research defines the key measures of project success and establishes their relative importance; determines the most important team building activities for project success with experienced project managers; enhances the understanding of implementation of team building activities on successful projects; and provides suggestions on how to increase the likelihood of project success through focusing on team building activities. The research used the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to develop a hierarchical model linking project success measures with team building activities. Confirmation of the AHP results and additional understanding of team building activities implementation was achieved by interviewing experienced project managers. The research found that customer satisfaction, although seldom used, was significantly more important as a project success measure than the three measures most often used - time, budget and scope. As identified by project managers, the most important team building activities for achieving customer satisfaction are team leadership; ensuring senior management support; staffing the team properly; planning the project with the team and empowering team members; building commitment among team members; developing strong communication channels and developing appropriate organisational interfaces. The research found successful projects focused on relationships in addition to the task focus of many project methodologies. The research findings on team building activities will enable project leaders on IT business projects to develop empowered project teams with stronger affiliations and support throughout the organisation. By empowering project teams to create effective internal and external relationships there will be fewer project failures, increased customer satisfaction and improved achievement of project success.

The basis of success of today's organization can be determined by their ability to win contracts and fulfil the requirements of these contracts satisfactorily within the time scale agreed. For non-manufacturing project oriented organization it is important to obtain the optimal number of projects and to have sufficient human resources to carry out the work efficiently. This thesis aims to a possible solution for the bidding policy and optimal use of human resources in project oriented-organizations within the legislative environment of the Czech Republic. It is trying to find and recommend appropriate solutions of fluctuations in the need for human resources by using a system dynamics approach (developed model and its testing).

La qualité de l’enseignement primaire en Côte d’Ivoire s’est fortement dégradée au cours de ces trois dernières décennies. Cette situation est la résultante d’une gestion approximative du système éducatif, qui se caractérise par une insuffisance de support pédagogique, une mauvaise allocation des ressources, un encombrement des salles de classe (42 élèves par enseignants au primaire) et un déficit d’enseignants qualifiés et bien formés. En outre, le conflit militaro-politique de septembre 2002 n’a guère amélioré cet état de choses, bien au contraire, il n’a fait que détériorer davantage la situation. Ainsi, la présente thèse s’est fixée comme objectifs d’analyser, d’une part l’influence des dotations en ressources sur l’efficacité des écoles primaires en Côte d’Ivoire sur la base d’une enquête sur les compétences réalisée par le Ministère de l’Education Nationale et d’autre part, d’examiner l’impact du conflit militaro-politique de septembre 2002 sur la demande d’éducation en s’appuyant sur les données des enquêtes MICS-2000 et 2006 réalisées auprès des ménages. Pour ce faire, une classification des écoles selon leur dotation en ressources s’est faite, ensuite, au moyen de la méthode de l’enveloppe des données (DEA, méthode non paramétrique), une frontière d’efficience est construite pour mettre en exergue les spécificités des écoles et enfin une estimation économétrique (modèle Tobit sur les données censurées) est mise en œuvre pour déceler les facteurs influençant la formation des scores d’efficacité. Il ressort des analyses qu’une augmentation de la quantité des ressources allouées à une école n’est pas gage de sa performance car les facteurs d’efficacités ne résident pas dans les dotations en quantité, mais plutôt dans les dotations en qualité c'est-à-dire les valeurs et caractéristiques intrinsèques aux personnes et matériaux mises à la disposition des écoles, ceci fait dans un souci d’adéquation aux besoins spécifiques des écoles et d’équité. Par ailleurs, à partir d’une méthodologie combinant à la fois l’estimation par les doubles différences, l’estimation par les triples différences et la correction par les contrôles de robustesse, elle aboutit aux résultats selon lesquels, les taux d’accès et d’achèvement aux grades un à six du primaire ont baissé du fait de la crise. En effet, les proportions d’enfants qui achèvent les grades 1 et 2 ont baissé de 25 % et celles des enfants qui achèvent les grades 3, 4 et 5 ont diminué respectivement de 22 %, 16 % et 4 %
The quality of primary education in Côte d'Ivoire has deteriorated sharply over the past three decades. This situation is the result of an approximate management of the education system, which is characterized by a lack of educational support, a misallocation of resources, a congestion of classrooms (42 students for a teacher in primary school) and a lack of skilled and well trained teachers. In addition, the military-political conflict in September 2002 did not allow to improve this situation; on the contrary, it has further deteriorated the situation. Thus, the aim of this thesis is first to analyze the influence of resource endowments on the effectiveness of primary schools in Cote d'Ivoire on the basis of a survey on the competence conducted by the Ministry of Education. Secondly, it examines the impact of military-political conflict in September 2002 on the demand for education based on data from the MICS-2000 and 2006 household surveys. To do this, a classification of schools according to their resource endowment was made, then, using the method of data envelopment analysis (DEA nonparametric method), an efficiency frontier is constructed to highlight the specificities of schools and finally an econometric estimation (Tobit model censored data) is implemented to identify factors influencing the formation of effectiveness scores. The analysis shows that increasing the amount of resources allocated to a school does not guarantee its performance as the efficiency factors are not resident in endowment quantity, but rather in the endowment quality, that is the values and characteristics intrinsic to people and materials available to schools, this fact in order to fit the specific needs of schools and fairness. Furthermore, using a methodology combining both double differences estimation, the triple differences estimation and correction by the robustness checks, we find that the rate of access and completed grades of primary school s one to six of primary school declined because of the crisis. Indeed, the proportions of children completing levels 1 and 2 have fallen by 25% and those of children completing levels 3, 4 and 5 have decreased by 22%, 16% and 4% respectively

Internationale Kooperation zur Vermeidung von gefährlichem anthropogenen Klimawandel erweist sich als sehr komplex. Viele Schwierigkeiten, ein verbindliches internationales Abkommen mit ausreichenden Reduktionszielen zu erreichen, sind augenscheinlich und werden in bestehender ökonomischer Literatur ausführlich diskutiert. Es entstehen allerdings stetig neue Ansätze und Ideen um Klimakooperation zu fördern. Diese Arbeit untersucht neue Wege der internationalen Klimakooperation und erweitert den Horizont der spieltheoretischen Forschung zu internationalen Umweltabkommen um Ansätze aus der Global Governance, politischen Ökonomie und Außenhandelspolitik. Zudem wird die Übertragbarkeit spieltheoretischer Erkenntnisse aus der Forschung zum Klimaschutz für die transnationale Klimaanpassung diskutiert. Die Arbeit fundiert in großen Teilen auf analytisch-spieltheoretischer Modellierung. In der zu Grunde liegenden Spielstruktur entscheiden Länder anfangs, ob sie einer internationalen Koalition beitreten oder nicht. Anschließend wählen die Koalitionsmitglieder ihr Emissionsniveau in einem Spiel zwischen der Koalition und den Nichmitgliedern. In diesem Analyserahmen wird die Option mehrerer gleichzeitig parallel existierender Klimaklubs auf ihr Potenzial zur Verbesserung der Zusammenarbeit und Emissionsminderung untersucht. Darüber hinaus wird der Einfluss von politischen Interessengruppen (Lobbys), die die Interessen von Industrie und Umweltverbänden vertreten, auf die Stabilität internationaler Umweltabkommen analysiert. Dies geschieht durch eine politökonomische Ergänzung des Grundmodells. Die Eignung von Handelssanktionen als Mittel zur Förderung der internationalen Kooperation für den Klimaschutz wird ebenfalls in einem analytischen Model untersucht und die Auswirkungen dieser Maßnahmen anschließend in einem angewandten allgemeinen Gleichgewichtsmodell quantifiziert.
International cooperation to avoid dangerous anthropogenic climate change has proven to be very hard to achieve. The difficulties to reach a binding international agreement with sufficient reduction targets are evident and extensively discussed in the economic literature. Nevertheless, new ideas towards cooperation are evolving. This thesis offers an exploration of new avenues to international climate cooperation, widening the scope of game theoretic research on international environmental agreements towards global governance literature, political economy and trade. It also extends the potential applicability of the findings from the game theoretic literature on international environmental agreements for climate change mitigation as it discusses potential insights for cases of transnational climate adaptation. The analysis is based on analytical theoretical modelling, using a game theoretical model in which countries first choose between joining and not joining an international coalition. Then the coalition members choose their level of emissions cooperatively in a game between the coalition and the outsiders. It includes the possibility of multiple parallel climate clubs, focusing on their potential to enhance cooperation and emissions abatement. Further, the influence of political pressure groups (lobbies) that represent the interests of the industry and environmentalists on the stability of international environmental agreements is examined. This is done by augmenting the basic model of international environmental agreements with a politico-economic model of political contributions. The potential of trade sanctions to induce international cooperation for climate protection is assessed in an analytical model and the effects of these trade measures are then quantified in a static multi-region, multi-sector computable general equilibrium model of globaltrade and energy.

Mit Ökobilanzen werden Umwelteigenschaften von Produkten und Dienstleistungen analysiert und zunehmend bei der Bewertung von Milchproduktionssystemen eingesetzt. Um konsistente Berichterstattung und Vergleichbarkeit von produktbezogenen Treibhausgasemissionen im Milchsektor zu gewährleisten hat die International Dairy Federation (IDF) Berechnungsgrundlagen publiziert. Allerdings werden die Effekte von Variabilität betrieblicher Kennzahlen und Unsicherheit von Emissionsfaktoren unzureichend betrachtet. Diese Arbeit hat es zum Ziel diese Lücke zu schließen. In der ersten Studie wurden verschiedene Definitions- und Berechnungsmöglichkeiten des Referenzflusses und der funktionellen Einheit für die Klimabilanz von Milchproduktion verglichen. Eine hohe Bandbreite an möglichen Ergebnissen – bei gleichen Eingangsdaten – ermöglicht eine große Ergebnisunsicherheit. Die Voraussetzungen für zeitliche Repräsentativität wurden in der zweiten Studie untersucht. Über 6 aufeinanderfolgende Jahre wurde auf einem ökologischen Milchviehbetrieb in Norddeutschland die Klimabilanz mit einem detaillierten Stoffflussmodel analysiert. Dabei zeigte es sich, dass für den untersuchten Betrieb mindestens 4 aufeinanderfolgende Jahre untersucht werden müssen um belastbare Ergebnisse zu erzielen. Die dritte Studie befasst sich mit der Forderung mindestens ein Stufe 2 Verfahren der Methodik des IPCC zu verwenden. Mit Daten von 20 norwegischen Milchviehbetrieben wurde die Unsicherheit der Klimabilanz auf Basis von Tier 1 Berechnungen bei bodenbürtigen Emissionen mit dem FARM Modell ermittelt. Von allen 190 direkten Vergleichen von zwei Betrieben miteinander waren 78 % signifikant unterschiedlich Aus den drei Studien wird geschlossen, dass die existierenden Regeln zur Erstellung von Klimabilanzen von Milchproduktion teilweise zu unpräzise und teilweise zu streng sind, und damit sowohl Erstellung als auch Interpretation von betrieblichen Klimabilanzen in der Milchproduktion erschwert werden.
Life cycle assessment (LCA) analyses the environmental performance of products and services and has become increasingly important also for the environmental assessment of dairy systems. In order to create consistent results for communication, declaration and comparison, the International Dairy Federation (IDF) provides a guideline for the calculation of product-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the dairy sector. However, the effects of farm data variability and emission factor uncertainty on the comparability of GHG assessments on the farming level are seldom considered. This thesis aims to fill this gap. In the first study, different settings in the definition of energy corrected milk (ECM) and the reference flows were compared in a calculation example based on average farming data. A high bandwidth of the carbon footprint result indicated a severe uncertainty when calculation procedures are not well documented. The second case study examined the production data from six consecutive milk years in an organic dairy farm in northern Germany and its effect on the estimation of product-related GHG emissions. It was shown that data from at least four years is needed to provide reliable results for that farm. The third study dealt with the demand of the IDF guidelines to use at least Tier 2 in the methodology of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Using data from 20 Norwegian dairy farms, the uncertainty of the carbon footprint using Tier 1 of the IPCC guidelines within the FARM model was assessed. From all 190 direct comparisons of two farms in the study, 78 % of the comparisons were significantly different with a relative difference of 8.7 % being enough to establish significance of the difference. From the three studies it was concluded that existing rules may partly not be precise enough to allow for comparison of farms or farming systems, or partly too strict and thereby hindering the execution of carbon footprint studies.

Der intersektorale Wasserkonflikt zwischen urbaner und agrarischer Wassernutzung in Hyderabad und die Konkurrenz zwischen den Bedürfnissen der Stadt und den Ansprüchen der Landwirtschaft werden verschärft durch willkürliche Verteilungspraktiken, die den offiziellen Zuteilungsrichtlinien oft widersprechen. Übersetzt in die Sprache von Ostrom, gilt die vorliegende Untersuchung der Kernfrage, warum bestimmte praktizierte Regeln (rules-in-use) fortbestehen, obwohl formale Regeln (rules-in-form) im Bereich der Nutzungsrechte an Wasser vorhanden sind. Die Arbeit versucht dementsprechend zu erklären, wie bestehende Institutionen und Governancestrukturen die Interaktionen beteiligter Akteure und deren Verhalten beeinflussen und wie daraus eine durch Willkür gekennzeichnete Umverteilung erwächst. Knights Verteilungstheorie institutionellen Wandels und sein Ansatz über Machtressourcen vermögen zu erklären, wie menschliche Interaktionen in Zusammenhang mit solchen Konflikten über begrenzte Ressourcen zustande kommen. Die Ergebnisse der Arbeit zeigen ebenfalls, welche Wirkungen die Charakteristika verschiedener Gruppen von Wassernutzern und deren spezifische Abhängigkeit von Wasserressourcen auf ihre Fähigkeit zur politischen Einflussnahme ausüben. Solche Ausprägungen von Ressourcenabhängigkeiten bedingen Machtasymmetrien und erhöhen das Ausmaß willkürlicher Umverteilungen von Wasser. Die Untersuchung identifiziert eine Literaturlücke im Bereich der Politik der Wassergovernance, indem sie den Wählereinfluss als Machtressource im Land-Stadt-Konflikt um Wasserressourcen empirisch belegt. Die Arbeit zielt insgesamt darauf, das Erklärungspotential von Eigentumsrechtstheorien zu nutzen und anhand von Wasserkonflikten in Hyderabad ein Beispiel zur Anwendbarkeit aktueller Theorien institutionellen Wandels zu geben.
Hyderabad’s inter-sectoral water conflict and competition between the city’s urban needs and the agricultural sector have been fueled by persistent arbitrary water reallocations against the prescribed allocation guidelines. To translate the key question into Ostrom’s language; this study seeks to unravel the persistence of rules-in-use, despite the rules-in-form already in place within the realms of property rights. Ostrom’s Institutional Analysis and Development framework identifies exogenous variables and its influences on the role of institutions which shapes human interaction and decision making processes. It attempts to explain how the existing water-allocation mechanism has propagated the way rules and actors currently interact to influence such arbitrary water re-allocation. Knight’s distributional theory of institutional change and his concept of power resources provide good explanations of human interaction in the context of such conflicts over limited resources. The study results also reveal how the characteristics of water-user groups and its dependence on water resource have the ability to exert political influence over water allocation. Such attributes of resource dependence characterizes power asymmetry, thereby increasing the scale of arbitrary water reallocations. Henceforth, this study addresses the gap in ‘politics of water governance’ in existing literature by empirically deriving ‘political electorate’ as a power resource in rural-urban water contestation. Overall, this study seeks to employ the theoretical explanations of property rights and attempts to provide a case on the applicability of contemporary theories of institutional change by taking the case study of Hyderabad’s water contestation.

Diese wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Doktorarbeit bündelt sieben Forschungsarbeiten zur Ökonomie des Natur- und Umweltschutzes. Dabei untersuche ich, wie der ökonomische Wert, den die Gesellschaft der Natur beimisst, von der Verteilung des Einkommens oder der Ausstattung mit Umweltgütern, innerhalb oder über Generationen hinweg, abhängt. Dazu werden drei neue umweltökonomische Modelle zum Einfluss der Verteilung auf die aggregierte Zahlungsbereitschaft für den Erhalt reiner öffentliche Umweltgüter, lokaler Umweltgüter oder Naturkapital entworfen. Es zeigt sich, dass für viele Umweltgüter der ökonomische Wert umso größer ist, je gleichmäßiger das Einkommen oder die Ausstattung mit dem Umweltgut verteilt sind. Auf dieser Grundlage werden modellgestützte Methoden zur Berücksichtigung von Verteilungsaspekten in ökonomischen Analysen von Projekten und Politiken mit Umweltauswirkungen entwickelt. Insbesondere werden Korrekturfaktoren hergeleitet, mit denen ökonomische Naturbewertungen hinsichtlich einer gesellschaftlichen Zielverteilung angepasst und gesellschaftliche Zahlungsbereitschaften geschätzt werden können. Anhand einer Reihe von Anwendungsbeispielen -- zum globalen Biodiversitätsschutz, Walderhaltung in Polen oder einer Wasserqualitätsverbesserung in der Ostsee -- werden die Ungleichheitskorrekturen beziffert und empirisch getestet. Schließlich weist eine Fallstudie für das Weserästuar nach, dass eine Berücksichtigung von Umweltfolgen die Ergebnisse von Kosten-Nutzen-Analysen in der Verkehrswegeplanung erheblich verändern kann. Insgesamt zeigt diese Dissertation, dass die Verteilung von wirtschaftlichen und natürlichen Ressourcen innerhalb und zwischen Generationen den ökonomischen Wert, den die Gesellschaft der Natur beimisst, wesentlich beeinflusst. Sie trägt damit zur Entwicklung volkswirtschaftlicher Methoden bei, die nicht nur auf Effizienz, sondern auch auf Gerechtigkeit und Verteilung zielen, und damit dem Leitbild einer nachhaltigen Entwicklung folgen.
This doctoral thesis presents seven research papers in environmental and resource economics. I study how the economic value that society attaches to nature depends on the distribution of income or the provision of environmental goods, within or across generations. To this end, three novel environmental economic models are developed on how the distribution affects aggregated willingness to pay for pure public environmental goods, local environmental goods or natural capital. The analyses show that for many environmental goods the economic value is the higher the more equal incomes or environmental good endowment are distributed. For practical applications theory-based adjustment factors are derived. These allow to estimate societal willingness to pays from secondary data or to conduct inequality-adjustments in cost-benefit analysis. In a series of applications -- to global biodiversity conservation, forest protection in Poland or water quality improvement in the Baltic Sea -- inequality adjustments are quantified and empirically tested. Turning to international environmental agreements, a simulation study shows that uncertainties about the regional distribution of climate change damages can increase the stability of climate coalitions if transfer schemes are implemented. Finally, a case study on the deepening of the Weser estuary highlights that accounting for environmental costs can substantially change the results of cost-benefit analyses in transportation infrastructure planning. Overall, this dissertation shows that the distribution of economic and natural resources within and across generations substantially affects the economic value that society attaches to nature. I thus contribute to the development of economic methods that aim not only at efficiency, but also at equity and distribution, and thus follow the vision of a sustainable development.

Die Folgen des Klimawandels, sowie damit einhergehende Verluste und Schäden nehmen weltweit zu. Der damit verbundene globale Anstieg von Treibhausgasemissionen, zunehmende Verstädterung sowie ausufernder Konsum machen die Suche nach Anpassungsstrategien zur Vermeidung schädlicher Auswirkungen gegenwärtig wie zukünftig zu einer erheblichen Herausforderung. Diese erfordert ein tiefgehendes Verständnis der Komplexität vom Klimawandelfolgen für landwirtschaftsbasierte Existenzgrundlagen. Ziel dieser Arbeit ist es zu einem solchen Verständnis beizutragen. Die vorliegende Forschungsarbeit fragt daher danach, wie etwaige Umstellungsprozesse die Anpassungsfähigkeit sowie Resilienz der Bewohner_innen von Bagri, einem kleinen Dorf im Norden Ghanas, erweitern. Die Ergebnisse dieser Dissertationsschrift basieren auf empirischen Erhebungen, die zwischen Februar und Juli 2017 in Lawra District in Nordghana unter Heranziehung qualitativer Fallstudieninstrumente durchgeführt wurden. Zum Einsatz kamen semi-strukturierte Interviews, Fokusgruppendiskussionen, Umfragen sowie ethnographische teilnehmende Beobachtungen. Die so gewonnenen Daten wurden kodiert und mit SPSS (Version 20) kreuztabellarisch sowie anhand verschiedener Variablen ausgewertet. Außerdem wurden Häufigkeiten interpretiert und die Ergebnisse schließlich in Tabellen, Graphen und Prozentsätzen verarbeitet. Des Weiteren wurden inhaltlichen Analysen der qualitativen Daten vorgenommen, die es erlaubten, Muster und Themen aus den Interviews und Diskussionen weiter zu verfolgen. Die Resultate zeigen, dass die Bewohner_innen in der untersuchten Gemeinde über die letzten drei Jahrzehnte eine Reihe klimatischer Veränderungen mit negativen Folgen für die Landwirtschaft erfahren haben. Um sich beispielsweise an die klimawandelbedingte kürzere Dauer der Regenzeit sowie niedrige Niederschlagsmengen anzupassen, greifen Kleinbauern auf schrittweise Anpassungsstrategien wie verbessertes Saatgut und weitere unterstützende Maßnahmen zurück. Paradoxerweise, untergraben Klimawandelextreme derlei Strategien auf mehreren Ebenen und reduzieren Erträge um ein Vielfaches ihres Potenzials, was wiederum finanzieller Verschuldung Vorschub leistet. Die Ergebnisse dieser Studie zeigen daher, dass die Überwindung nicht-klimatischer Barrieren landwirtschaftlicher Anpassungsstrategien eine notwendige wenn auch nicht ausreichende Bedingung für eine erfolgreiche Umstellung darstellt. Immer neu aufkommende Schwierigkeiten machen Anpassung zu einem langfristigen Prozess. Eine zweite Erkenntnis dieser Arbeit ist, dass die sich wandelnden klimatischen Verhältnisse zu einer Diversifizierung der Lebensgrundlagen weg von landwirtschaftlicher Produktion hin zu Aktivitäten jenseits der Höfe in Bagri geführt haben. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass der Prozess der Diversifizierung abhängig ist von der Einbindung der Haushalte in Gruppenaktivitäten sowie in formelle und informelle Netzwerke. Zusammenfassend gilt, dass Haushalte, die engmaschig in soziale Netze eingebettet sind eine höhere Resilienz gegenüber wahrgenommenen klimatischen Veränderungen aufweisen. Dies liegt darin begründet, dass sie zumeist über einen besseren Zugang zu kritischen – materiellen wie immateriellen – Ressourcen verfügen, welche Diversifizierung maßgeblich ermöglichen. Zudem deuten die Befunde an, wie Gruppenaktivitäten und soziale Netzwerke Marginalisierung und widersprüchlichen Ressourcenumgang befeuern können, die zugleich die Gefahr bergen, soziale und ökologische Resilienz im Dorf zu verringern. Darüber hinaus zeigt diese Arbeit die Mechanismen kollaborativer Anpassungssteuerung auf, indem sie den Fragen nachgeht, warum und wie diese Steuerungsformen Anpassungsfähigkeit befördern. Die Ergebnisse verweisen auf die Beziehungsdynamiken zwischen den relevanten Akteuren sowie Nutzen und Misserfolge und die Herausforderungen nachhaltiger kollaborativer Anpassungsstrategien in Nordghana. Ergänzend, stellt diese Studie heraus, wie machtvolle Akteure Agenden setzen, Problematisierungen generieren sowie Regeln und Anreize schaffen, die im Widerspruch zu den normativen Grundsätzen der kollaborativen Anpassungstheorie stehen können. Ausgehend von der Fallstudie in Nordghana stellt diese Arbeit auch Überlegungen dazu an, wie kollaborative Anpassungssteuerung erfolgreichen Umgang mit klimawandelbedingten Veränderungen weltweit befördern kann. Zusammenfassend, leistet diese Arbeit einen Beitrag zur Schließung theoretischer wie empirischer Wissenslücken im wachsenden Bereich der Forschung zur Anpassung an den Klimawandel. Sie illustriert darüber hinaus den unschätzbaren Wert qualitativer Fallstudien und zeigt auf, wie diese einen Beitrag leisten können zu oftmals abstrakten und schwer fassbaren Themen in der wissenschaftlichen Diskussion und damit ein Fundament für informierte politische Entscheidungen sowohl auf lokaler als auch globaler Ebene legen.
Climate change impacts, related losses and damages are increasing globally. When these consequences are coupled with increasing global greenhouse gas emission, urban expansion and unsustainable consumption, the pursuit of adaptation to avoid adverse outcomes is a present necessity and a significant future challenge. The overarching aim of this doctoral dissertation is to gain a better understanding of the complexity of climate change impacts on agricultural livelihoods and how adaptation processes enhance adaptive capacity and resilience in Bagri, a small village in northern Ghana. The results presented in this doctoral thesis are based on empirical data obtained between February and July, 2017 in the Lawra District of northern Ghana using qualitative case study research methods: semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, survey and ethnographic participant observation. Data from the survey were coded and inputted into Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS) version 20 and cross tabulation and analysis of different variables and interpretation of frequencies were done and processed into tables, graphs and percentages. Content analyses of qualitative data were done which allowed patterns and themes in interviews and discussions to be derived and interpreted. The findings show that, people in the studied community have experienced a range of climatic changes with negative impacts on agriculture in the last three decades. In order to adapt to the short duration of the rainy season and low rainfall amounts associated with climate change, smallholder farmers use incremental adaptation strategies such as improved crop varieties and other support strategies. Paradoxically, however, climate change extremes (CCEs) undermined these strategies in several instances, causing crop yields to fall short of their actual potential leading to financial indebtedness. The results therefore, showcase that surmounting non-climatic barriers to the uptake of agricultural adaptation strategies is a necessary but not sufficient condition to achieving successful outcomes, as new barriers in the adaptation process beyond uptake are constantly emerging with CCEs being one example. Secondly, the findings show that climatic changes have necessitated livelihood diversification away from crop production and into off-farm and non-farm activities in Bagri. The results highlight how the process of diversification is dependent on household participation in various group activities and formal and informal social networks. Generally, households in dense social networks were found to be more resilient to perceived climate changes because they had access to the critical resources (material and non-material) essential for diversification. Importantly, the findings shed light on how group activities and social networks can create marginalization and conflicting resource use with the potential of undermining social and ecological resilience in the village. Moreover, this dissertation explores the mechanics of collaborative adaptation governance (CAG) addressing questions of why and how this mode of governance facilitates adaptive capacity. The findings illuminate stakeholder relational dynamics, benefits and failures, and the sustainability challenge of collaborative adaptation governance (CAG) in northern Ghana. More importantly, this study unveils how powerful actors set the agenda, frame problems, and implement rules and incentives contrary to the normative tenets of collaborative governance theory. Ultimately, the results highlights the failures, successes and sustainability challenges of CAG in northern Ghana, while also providing insight into the extent to which CAG approaches can facilitate adaptation to climate change globally. In conclusion, this doctoral dissertation responds to both theoretical and emperical knowledge gaps in the burgeoning climate change adaptation research, and illustrates how invaluable, qualitative case studies can contribute to illuminate some of the elusive themes in the literature and provide evidence for policy making at both local and global levels.

Der Zustrom von Grundwasser zu Seen (lacustrine groundwater discharge, LGD) kann signifikante Auswirkungen auf Qualität und Quantität des Seewassers haben. Viele Ansätze zur Identifikation und Quantifizierung von LGD basieren auf Temperaturunterschieden zwischen Grund- und Seewasser und der Messung des damit einhergehenden Wärmetransports. Ziel der Doktorarbeit ist es, Signalfortpflanzung und -ausbreitung des Grundwasserzustroms von der Punktskala an der Sediment-Wasser-Grenzfläche über den Wasserkörper bis zur Grenzfläche Wasseroberfläche-Atmosphäre zu untersuchen. Getestet wird die Hypothese, dass das im Verhältnis zum Umgebungswasser wärmere und daher leichtere Grundwasser in der kalten Wassersäule aufsteigt und die Detektion von LGD an der Wasseroberfläche mit thermalen Infrarot Aufnahmen (TIR) erlaubt. Zunächst wird mit der hierarchical patch dynamics ein Konzept entwickelt, das eine angemessene Kombination multipler Techniken zur Erfassung von Wärme- und Wasserflüssen anbietet (Kap. 2). Dabei werden verschiedene räumliche Skalen und ökohydrologische Grenzflächen abgedeckt. Darauf basierend werden in einem Mesokosmos-Experiment unterschiedliche LGD-Raten durch den Zustrom von warmem Wasser am Grund eines Outdoor-Pools simuliert (Kap. 3 und 4). Ein Glasfaserkabel (fibre-optic distributed temperature sensing, FO-DTS) wird in verschiedenen Tiefen installiert, um das Wärmesignal des Grundwasserzustroms unter verschiedenen Bedingungen zu verfolgen. Mit einer TIR-Kamera wird die Temperatur des Oberflächenwassers aufgezeichnet. Die Aufnahmen werden mit FO-DTS-Temperaturen von 2 cm unter der Wasseroberfläche validiert. Die Anwendung von TIR und FO-DTS ermöglicht die Detektion von LGD in der Wassersäule und an der Grenzfläche Wasseroberfläche-Atmosphäre. Wolkenbedeckung und der Tagesgang der Netto-Strahlung kontrollieren den Auftrieb von LGD und die Zuverlässigkeit der TIR-Ergebnisse. Die besten Ergebnisse werden bei Bewölkung und nachts erzielt.
Lacustrine groundwater discharge (LGD) can have significant impacts on lake water quantity and quality. There is a need to understand LGD mechanisms and to improve measurement methods for LGD. Approaches to identify and quantify LGD are based on significant temperature differences between GW and lake water. The main goal of this PhD thesis is to trace heat signal propagation of LGD from the point scale at the sediment-water interface across the overlying water body to the water surface-atmosphere interface. The PhD thesis tests the hypothesis that the positive buoyancy of warm GW causes upwelling across the cold water column and allows detection of LGD at the water surface by thermal infrared imaging (TIR). First, a general conceptual framework is developed based on hierarchical patch dynamics (HPD). It guides researchers on adequately combining multiple heat tracing techniques to identify and quantify heat and water exchange over several spatial scales and ecohydrological interfaces (Chapter 2). Second, the conceptual framework is used for the design of a mesocosm experiment (Chapters 3 and 4). Different LGD rates were simulated by injecting relatively warm water at the bottom of an outdoor mesocosm. A fiber optic distributed temperature sensing (FO-DTS) cable was installed in a 3D setup in the water column to trace the heat signal of the simulated LGD under different weather conditions and over entire diurnal cycles. Finally, a TIR camera was mounted 4 meters above the mesocosm to monitor water surface temperatures. TIR images were validated using FO-DTS temperature data 2 cm below the water surface (Chapter 4). The positive buoyancy of relatively warm LGD allows the detection of GW across the water column and at the water surface-atmosphere interface by FO-DTS and TIR. Cloud cover and diurnal cycle of net radiation strongly control the upwelling of simulated LGD and the reliability of TIR for detection of LGD at the water surface-atmosphere interface. Optimal results are obtained under overcast conditions and during night.

Diese Arbeit liefert, in den ersten beiden Kapiteln einen allgemeinen Überblick über die klassischen Ansätze zur Optimierung unter Unsicherheit mit einem Schwerpunkt auf probabilistischen Randbedingung. Anschließend wird im dritten Kapitel eine neue Klasse von sogenannten Probust Randbedingungen beim Auftreten von Modellen mit unsicheren Parametern mit teilweise stochastischem und teilweise nicht-stochastischem Charakter eingeführt. Wir zeigen dabei die Relevanz dieser Aufgabentypen für zwei Problemstellungen in einem stationären Gasnetz auf. Erstens liegen beim Gastransport probabilistische Randbedingungen bezüglich der Gasnachfrage vor sowie auch robuste Randbedin- gungen bezüglich der Rauheitskoeffizienten in den Rohren, welche in der Regel unbekannt sind, da es keine zuverlässigen Messmöglichkeiten gibt. Zweitens lösen wir ein Problem für einen Netzbetreiber, der zum Ziel hat, die angebotene Kapazität für alte und neue Kunden zu maximieren. In diesem Fall ist man mit einer ungewis- sen Gesamtnachfrage konfrontiert, die sich aus der probabilistischen Nachfrage für Altkunden und der robusten Nachfrage für Neukunden zusammensetzt. Für beide Fälle zeigen wir, wie mit probusten Randbedingungen im Rahmen der sogenannten sphärisch-radialen Zerlegung multivariater Gauß-Verteilungen umgegangen werden kann. Starke und schwache Halbstetigkeitsergebnisse werden für den allgemeinen Fall, in Abhängigkeit davon ob Strategien in Lebesgue oder Sobolev Räumen angenommen werden, erstellt. Für ein ein- faches zweistufiges Modell werden überprüfbare Bedingungen für die Lipschitz- Stetigkeit und die Differenzierbarkeit dieser Wahrscheinlichkeitsfunktion abgeleitet und mit expliziten Ableitungsformeln unterstützt. Diese Werkzeuge werden dann verwendet, um das Problem des Bäckers und zwei Probleme des Wasserkraftmanagements zu lösen.
This thesis offers, in the first and second chapter, a general overview of the classical approaches to solving optimization under uncertainty, with a focus on probabilistic constraints. Then, in the third chapter, a new class of so-called Probust constraints is introduced in the presence of models with uncertain parameters having partially stochastic and partially non-stochastic character. We show the relevance of this class of approach and solve two problems in a stationary gas network. First, in the context of gas transportation, one ends up with a constraint, which is probabilistic with respect to the load of gas and robust with respect to the roughness coefficients of the pipes (which are uncertain due to a lack of attainable measurements). Secondly, we solve a problem for a network operator, who would like to maximize the offered capacity for old and new customers. In this case, one is faced with an uncertain total demand which is probabilistic for old clients and robust for new clients. In both problems, we demonstrate how probust constraints can be dealt within the framework of the so-called spheric-radial decomposition of multivariate Gaussian distributions. Furthermore, in chapter four, we present novel structural and numerical results for optimization problems under a dynamic joint probabilistic constraint. Strong and weak semicontinuity results are obtained for the general case depending on whether policies are supposed to be in Lebesgue or Sobolev spaces. For a simple two-stage model, verifiable conditions for Lipschitz continuity and differentiability of this probability function are derived and endowed with explicit derivative formulae. These tools are then used to solve the Baker's problem and two hydro-power management problems.

Die Dynamik des Erdsystems im Anthropozän wird durch eine zunehmende Verschränkung von Prozessen auf physikalischer und ökologischer sowie auf sozioökonomischer Ebene bestimmt. Wenn Modelle als Entscheidungshilfen in diesem Umfeld nützlich sein sollen, müssen sie diese komplexen Rückkopplungen ebenso berücksichtigen wie die inhärent emergenten und heterogenen Qualitäten gesellschaftlicher Dynamik. Diese Arbeit schlägt vor, den Menschen als begrenzten rationalen Entscheidungsträger zu modellieren, die (soziales) Lernen nutzen, um Entscheidungsheuristiken zu erwerben, die in einer gegebenen Umgebung gut funktionieren. Dies wird in einem Wirtschaftsmodell mit zwei Sektoren veranschaulicht, in dem ein Sektor eine fossile Ressource für die wirtschaftliche Produktion verwendet und die Haushalte ihre Investitionsentscheidungen in der zuvor beschriebenen Weise treffen. In der Modellökonomie können individuelle Entscheidungsfindung und soziale Dynamik die CO 2 Emissionen nicht auf ein Niveau begrenzen, das eine globale Erwärmung über 1,5◦C verhindert. Eine Kombination aus kollektivem Handeln und koordinierter öffentlicher Politik allerdings kann. Eine Folgestudie analysiert das soziale Lernen der individuellen Sparquoten in einer Ein-Sektor-Wirtschaft. Hier nähert sich die aggregierte Sparquote der eines intertemporär optimierenden allwissenden Sozialen Planers an, wenn die soziale Interaktionsrate ausreichend niedrig ist. Gleichzeitig führt eine abnehmende Interaktionsrate einem plötzlichen Übergangs von einer unimodalen zu einer stark bimodalen Verteilung des Vermögens unter den Haushalten. Schließlich schlägt diese Arbeit eine Kombination verschiedener Methoden vor, die zur Ableitung analytischer Näherungen für solche vernetzten heterogenen Agentenmodelle verwendet werden können, bei denen Interaktionen zwischen Agenten sowohl auf individueller als auch auf aggregierter Ebene auftreten.
The trajectory of the Earth system in the Anthropocene is governed by an increasing entanglement of processes on a physical and ecological as well as on a socio-economic level. If models are to be useful as decision support tools in this environment, they ought acknowledge these complex feedback loops as well as the inherently emergent and heterogeneous qualities of societal dynamics. This thesis improves the capability of social-ecological and socio-economic models to picture emergent social phenomena and uses and extends techniques from dynamical systems theory and statistical physics for their analysis. It proposes to model humans as bounded rational decision makers that use (social) learning to acquire decision heuristics that function well in a given environment. This is illustrated in a two sector economic model in which one sector uses a fossil resource for economic production and households make their investment decisions in the previously described way. In the model economy individual decision making and social dynamics can not limit CO 2 emissions to a level that prevents global warming above 1.5 ◦ C. However, a combination of collective action and coordinated public policy actually can. A follow up study analyzes social learning of individual savings rates in a one sector investment economy. Here, the aggregate savings rate in the economy approaches that of an intertemporarily optimizing omniscient social planner if the social interaction rate is sufficiently low. Sumultaneously, a decreasing interaction rate leads to emergent inequality in the model in the form of a sudden transition from a unimodal to a strongly bimodal distribution of wealth among households. Finally, this thesis proposes a combination of different moment closure techniques that can be used to derive analytic approximations for such networked heterogeneous agent models where interactions between agents occur on an individual as well as on an aggregated level.

In der ökonomischen Forschung wird eine Vielzahl von Strategien verwendet, um zu versuchen kausale Schlussfolgerungen aus Beobachtungsdaten zu ziehen. Neue Strömungen in der Literatur zu kausaler Inferenz konzentrieren sich auf die Kombination von Methoden zur Vorhersage und kausalen Fragestellungen. Diese neuen Methoden ermöglichen es neue Forschungsfragen zu beantworten und bieten die Möglichkeit bestehende Forschungsfragen in der Literatur neu zu adressieren. Diese Dissertation umfasst empirische Arbeiten in den Bereichen (i) Umweltökonomie: Ich evaluiere die Preispolitik für Abfälle mithilfe der “synthetic control” Methode und Methoden des maschinellen Lernens; (ii) Arbeits- und Migrationsökonomie: Ich identifiziere und quantifiziere nicht gemeldete landwirtschaftliche Arbeitsleistung, die durch einen plötzlichen Migrationszustrom verursacht wird; (iii) Konfliktökonomie: Ich analysiere die wirtschaftlichen Kosten eines hybriden Krieges, des Donbass-Krieges in der Ukraine. Der Beitrag dieser Dissertation zur bestehenden Literatur ist dreifach. Erstens kombiniere ich neuartige Datenquellen und stelle neue Datensätze bereit. Zweitens verwende ich moderne Evaluierungsmethoden und passe sie an, um politisch relevante kausale Parameter in verschiedenen Bereichen der ökonomischen Forschung abzuschätzen. Drittens vergleiche ich neuere mit traditionellen ökonometrischen Ansätzen, die zuvor in der Literatur verwendet wurden. Meine Dissertation zeigt, dass moderne ökonometrische Techniken vielversprechend sind, um die Genauigkeit und Glaubwürdigkeit von kausalen Schlussfolgerungen und die Evaluierung von Politikmassnahmen zu verbessern.
In economics, researchers use a wide variety of strategies for attempting to draw causal inference from observational data. New developments in the causal inference literature focus on the combination of predictive methods and causal questions. These methods allow researchers to answer new research questions as well as provide new opportunities to address older research question in the literature. This dissertation entails empirical work in the fields of (i) environmental economics: I evaluate waste pricing policies using synthetic controls and machine learning methods; (ii) labor and migration economics: I identify and quantify unreported farm labor induced by a sudden migrant inflow; (iii) conflict economics: I evaluate the economic costs of an hybrid war, namely, the Donbass war in Ukraine. The contribution of this dissertation is threefold. First, I combine novel data sources and provide unique datasets. Second, I apply and tailor modern evaluation methods to the estimation of policy-relevant causal parameters in various fields of economics. Third, I compare recent versus traditional econometric approaches previously employed by the literature. My dissertation shows that modern econometric techniques hold great promise for improving the accuracy and credibility of causal inference and policy evaluation.

Zahlungen für Ökosystemdienstleistungen (Payments for EcosystemServices, PES) sind in den letzten Jahren zum Aushängeschild von Umweltorganisation geworden. Der Gedanke, die Bereitstellung von Ökosystemdienstleistungen durch PES abzusichern, ist in praktischen Diskursen von Vermittlern zu finden, die an potentiell Zahlende gerichtet sind. Praktikern ist bisher jedoch schwer gefallen, zu zeigen, dass PES tatsächlich zu den vorgesehenen Zielen führen können. Forscher haben darauf hingewiesen, dass zahlreiche PES-Schemata, insbesondere diejenigen mit Bezug auf Wasser, auf unsicheren Annahmen beruhen und außerdem gewichtige Kausalzusammenhänge zwischen Eingriffen in die Landnutzung und Ökosystemdienstleistungen vermissen lassen. Diese Unsicherheit in PES-Schemata geht nicht nur aus praktischen Schwierigkeiten hervor, sondern aus der Komplexität von Mensch-Umwelt-Systemen (human-environment systems) und aus der Begrenztheit des Wissens über diese Systeme. Forscher sind zwar in derLage, diese wesentlichen Herausforderungen zu beschreiben und zu diskutieren. In der Fachliteratur mangelt es jedoch an empirischen Studien,die die zusätzliche Wirksamkeitvon PES-Schemata untersuchen, d.h. ob diese Schemata zusätzliche Wirkungen zeigen, die anderen Faktoren nicht zurechenbar sind, bzw. Studien, die die Bedeutung von Nachweisen für ihre Wirksamkeit für die Interessengruppen (stakeholders) untersuchen. Die Dissertation trägt dazu bei, diese empirische Lücke zu schließen: Dazu untersucht sie vier wasserbezogene Zahlungsschemata, hier auch Zahlungen für Wassereinzugsgebietsleistungen genannt, in Kolumbien. Sie vergleicht die vier Fälle hinsichtlich der Bestrebungen, durch Beobachtung (monitoring) und Evaluation Nachweise für die Wirksamkeit zu erbringen, sowie hinsichtlich der damit verbundenen Herausforderungen. Eines der Kapitel enthält auch drei Fallstudien aus Brasilien, die als Vergleich zu den Fällen aus Kolumbien und der Darstellung von Unterschieden und Gemeinsamkeiten dienen.
Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) have become the flagship of conservation organizations in recent years. The idea of securing ecosystem service (ES) provision through PES has been present in practical discourses of intermediaries directed at potential payers. However, demonstrating that PES can actually achieve the intended goals has been difficult for practitioners. Researchers have pointed out that many PES schemes, particularly water-related ones, are based on unreliable assumptions and lack strong causal links between land use interventions and ecosystem services. This uncertainty in PES schemes arises not only from practical difficulties, but from the complexity of human-environment systems (HES), and the limits of knowledge about them. Researchers have been able to describe and discuss these major challenges. However, the literature is still poor on empirical studies exploring the additionality of PES schemes, that is, if those schemes produce additional effects not attributable to other factors, as well as studies exploring the importance of impact evidence for stakeholders involved. This dissertation contributes to filling this empirical gap by exploring four water-related payments schemes (here also called payments for watershed services, PWS) in Colombia, comparing the cases in terms of their efforts to produce impact evidence through monitoring and evaluation, and their associated challenges. Three cases from Brazil are also included in one of the chapters and compared with the Colombian cases by illustrating differences and similarities.

Meine Dissertation beschäftigt sich mit den institutionellen Aspekten staatlicher Zahlungen für Ökosystemleistungen (Payments for Ecosystem Services „PES“) in China. Marktbasierte Ansätze zur Steuerung von Ökosystemleistungen, insbesondere von PES, wurden in den letzten Jahrzehnten als neue und innovative Politikinstrumente angesehen. Entsprechend diesem internationalen Trend sind PES auch in China populär, werden jedoch meist mit dem inländischen Begriff der Ökokompensation beschrieben. Einen wirtschaftlichen Anreiz für Verhaltensänderungen zu schaffen, wenn das Ökokompensations-Programm nur ein Ausgleich für gesetzliche Einschränkungen ist, kann eine Herausforderung darstellen. Die Merkmale der Ökokompensation unterscheiden sich von anderen nationalen PES-Programmen, da sich das Governance-Modell, die Eigentumsrechte und die gesellschaftlichen Strukturen in China stark von anderen Staaten unterscheiden. Die Ökokompensation steht vor vielen institutionellen Herausforderungen, wenn es darum geht, ökonomische Anreize für Verhaltensänderungen zu schaffen. Zahlungen für Ökosystemleistungen, die Elemente sowohl eines freiwilligen, marktbasierten als auch eines hierarchischen Systems kombinieren, um mit den besonderen institutionellen Rahmenbedingungen umzugehen, wurden bisher noch nicht ausreichend untersucht. Eine Wissenslücke besteht insbesondere hinsichtlich der Anpassung des Designs von PES an die institutionellen Rahmenbedingungen in China. Die Mechanismen von Zahlungen für Ökosystemleistungen in China unterscheiden sich in wichtigen Punkten von den aus der westlichen Erfahrung bekannten Mechanismen. Die vorliegende Dissertation zielt darauf ab, die Diskrepanz zwischen der allgemein gültigen Rahmung von Zahlungen von Ökosystemleistungen und der Realität ihrer Praxis zu verringern, indem sie eine institutionelle Analyse des chinesischen staatlichen PES-Programms vornimmt. Das Sloping Land Conversion Program (SLCP) gilt als eines der weltweit größten PES-Programme und ist ein wichtiger Bestandteil der Ökokompensation. Das erste Ziel dieser Dissertation ist es, anhand des SLCP als empirische Fallstudie zu verstehen, wie das institutionelle Design des staatlichen PES in China verbessert werden kann. Das zweite Ziel ist in einem breiteren internationalen Kontext zu sehen und zielt darauf ab, einen methodischen Beitrag zur Analyse der Governance von Ökosystemleistungen zu leisten. Die Dissertation folgt einer kumulativen Struktur, die aus einem Rahmentext besteht, in den fünf, von Experten begutachtete, Artikel aus internationalen Fachzeitschriften integriert sind. Kapitel 1 ist eine Einführung, in der die Forschungslücken und die Forschungsziele im Hinblick auf staatliche PES beschrieben werden. Kapitel 2 liefert die theoretische Grundlage der institutionellen Ökonomie und zeigt die Bedeutung der Governance von Naturressourcen in China auf. Darauf aufbauend konkretisiert Kapitel 3 das Forschungsdesign, indem es die Forschungsziele in verschiedene Forschungsfragen untergliedert. Kapitel 4 beinhaltet den Ergebnisteil, der fünf Zeitschriftenartikel umfasst. Der erste Artikel liefert die konzeptionelle Grundlage für alle nachfolgenden Untersuchungen, die in dieser Dissertation vorgestellt werden, und gibt einen Überblick über die Wirksamkeit und die institutionellen Herausforderungen des chinesischen SLCP. Sowohl der zweite als auch der dritte Artikel sind empirische Untersuchungen. Der zweite Artikel untersucht, wie die sozioökonomischen und institutionellen Bedingungen Anreize für Haushalte in ländlichen Gebieten schaffen, um die primären Umweltziele des SLCP zu erreichen. Der dritte Artikel zeigt, wie lokale Dynamiken die Umsetzung des SLCP beeinflusst und geprägt haben. Der vierte Artikel veranschaulicht und diskutiert die im zweiten Artikel angewandte Methode im Vergleich zu einer weiteren Fallstudie in Deutschland. Der fünfte Artikel schließlich stellt die Stärken und Schwächen der im dritten Artikel angewandten Methode den Erfahrungen ähnlicher Studien in vier weiteren Ländern gegenüber. Zusammen liefern diese Artikel wichtige Beiträge für die beiden Ziele der Dissertation. Kapitel 5 beinhaltet die Synthese und Diskussion der Ergebnisse und Kapitel 6 schließt die Dissertation ab. Das wichtigste Ergebnis dieser Dissertation ist, dass die Wirksamkeit des staatlichen PES in China das Ergebnis der Interaktion der treibenden sozialen Kräfte ist, während institutionelle Rahmenbedingungen und lokale Dynamiken eine Schlüsselrolle bei der Ausgestaltung der Programmumsetzung spielen. Das SLCP hätte unter bestimmten institutionellen Bedingungen ein großes Potenzial für die Schaffung signifikanter Skaleneffekte und für die Verbesserung der Umwelteffektivität. Allerdings weicht die derzeitige Umsetzung des SLCP wegen der besonderen institutionellen Rahmenbedingungen erheblich von dem von der Politik geförderten Marktansatz ab. Zwar haben die institutionellen Rahmenbedingungen die breite Akzeptanz und schnelle Entwicklung des SLCP in der Anfangsphase nicht behindert, doch gibt es keine Möglichkeit, einen langfristigen Erfolg im Hinblick auf die Umwelteffektivität zu erreichen, wenn die wichtigsten PES-Elemente fehlen. Der überwiegend von oben nach unten gerichtete Ansatz des Programms und das Fehlen von echter Freiwilligkeit, Konditionalität und Eigentumsrechten werden zusammen als kritische Faktoren verstanden, die mögliche Misserfolge langfristig erklären. Ein weiterer Beitrag der Dissertation sind die methodischen Ansätze, die zum besseren Verständnis der Governance von Ökosystemleistungen beitragen. Diese Dissertation zeigt, dass Ansätze, die qualitative und quantitative Methoden kombinieren, wie z.B. Qualitative Vergleichende Analyse (Qualitative Comparative Analysis „QCA“) und Soziale Netzwerkanalyse (SNA), ein großes Potenzial für die institutionelle Analyse und partizipative Forschung von PES haben. Bei beiden Methoden wurde besonderes Augenmerk auf die detaillierte Beschreibung ihrer Anwendung sowie die damit verbundenen Vor- und Nachteile gelegt.
My dissertation focuses on institutional aspects of governmental payments for ecosystem services (PES) in China. Market-based approaches for ecosystem service governance, particular the PES, have been considered new and innovative policy instruments over the past decades. Corresponding to this international trend, PES schemes in China are mostly described by the domestic term eco-compensation. However, the characteristics of eco-compensation are distinct from other national PES programs, as governance model, property rights and societal structures in China are different to the PES theory. Eco-compensation faces many institutional challenges in creating economic incentives for behavioral change. However, PES that combines elements of both a voluntary market and hierarchy-based system in dealing with incomplete institutional settings has not yet been sufficiently addressed. In particular, there is a knowledge gap regarding fitting the design of PES and institutional settings in China together. The mechanisms of PES in China differ in important ways from mechanisms familiar from the western experience. This dissertation aims to reduce the divergence between the common framing of PES and the reality of its practice by presenting the institutional analysis of China’s governmental PES program. As a major component of eco-compensation, the Sloping Land Conversion Program (SLCP) is considered one of the world’s largest PES programmes. By taking SLCP as an empirical case, the first objective of this dissertation is to understand how to improve the institutional design of governmental PES. The second lies in a broad international context, aiming at methodologically contributing to the analysis of ecosystem services governance. This dissertation follows a cumulative structure, integrating the framework text and five papers. Chapter 1 is an introduction, outlining the research gaps and objectives of governmental PES. Chapter 2 provides a theoretical foundation to the institutional economic schools, their respective theories and the relevance of nature resource governance in China. Based on this, Chapter 3 confirms the research design by deconstructing the research objectives into different research questions. Chapter 4 is the results section, which comprises five papers. The first paper provides the conceptual basis for all subsequent studies presented in this dissertation, as it is an overview of the effectiveness and institutional challenges of China’s Sloping Land Conversion Program (SLCP). Both the second and third papers are empirical works. The second paper explores how socioeconomic and institutional conditions encourage rural households to reach the primary environmental goals of SLCP. The third paper shows how local dynamics derived and shaped the SLCP’s implementation. The fourth paper illustrates and discusses the method used in paper 2, comparing it with another case study in Germany. Finally, the fifth paper present the strengths and weaknesses of the method used in paper 3 based on the experiences of four different countries. Together, these papers deliver important contributions to both objectives. Chapter 5 is the synthesis and discussion, and Chapter 6 concludes the dissertation. The key finding of this dissertation is that the effectiveness of governmental PES is a result of interacting driving forces, whereas institutional settings and local dynamics play key roles in shaping program implementation. The SLCP could achieve its potential in creating significant economies of scale and environmental effectiveness under certain institutional conditions. However, against incomplete institutional settings, the current implementation of SLCP has deviated substantially from the market approach promoted by policy makers. While the incomplete institutional settings did not prevent SLCP’s wide acceptance and fast development in its first phases, there is no by-pass to reach the long term success in terms of environmental effectiveness in the absence of key PES elements. The program’s predominantly top-down approach and lack of genuinely voluntary characteristics, conditionality and property rights are jointly understood to be critical factors that explain possible failures in the long-term. Another contribution which this dissertation makes is in methodological approaches of ecosystem service governance. This dissertation has shown that mixed approaches combining qualitative and quantitative methods, such as Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) and social network analysis (SNA), could have great potential for institutional analysis and participatory research for PES. The two methods were given particular emphasis in the detailed description of application, as well as in the inherent merits and limitations.

Die Nachfrage nach Agrarerzeugnissen gilt als zentrale Ursache für den Verlust weltweit wichtiger Ökosysteme. In Brasilien hat speziell die Ausweitung der Sojaproduktion zur Abholzung tropischer Wälder und Savannen geführt. Zumeist werden neu gerodete Flächen als Rinderweiden genutzt und vormalige Weiden für den Sojaanbau umgewandelt. Diese Entwicklung führt zu der Annahme, dass die Ausweitung der Sojaproduktion indirekt für die Rodung verantwortlich ist. Staatliche Umweltpolitiken und die Selbstverpflichtung der Sojaindustrie haben seit 2004 zu einer Verringerung der Abholzung beigetragen. Vor diesem Hintergrund zielt die vorliegende Dissertation darauf ab, ein vertieftes Verständnis der Wechselwirkungen zwischen Soja- und Rinderwirtschaft zu erlangen. Im Fokus stehen räumliche und zeitliche Dynamiken von Landnutzung und Landnutzungsverdrängung in Mato Grosso und Pará, einer der dynamischsten Regionen Brasiliens. Für diese Bundesstaaten werden Landnutzung und Landnutzungsverdrängung im regionalen Kontext, auf Grundstücksebene und mithilfe von Szenarien untersucht. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die Strategien zur Verringerung der Abholzung Einfluss auf die Dynamiken der Landnutzung und Landnutzungsverdrängung hatten. Die durch die Ausweitung des Sojaanbaus hervorgerufene Verdrängungsprozesse haben sich nach der Implementierung der Umweltschutzstrategien verringert. Auch die Abholzung auf einzelnen Grundstücken in Mato Grosso ging zurück. Zugleich zeigt die Analyse, dass die Selbstverpflichtung der Sojaindustrie durch indirekte Abholzung teilweise untergraben wird. Die Ergebnisse der Szenarien unterstreichen die regionale Dynamik und speziell die Risiken einer weiteren Ausweitung von Rinderweiden. Insgesamt legen die Ergebnisse nahe, dass auf Reduktion der Abholzung abzielende Strategien die Wechselwirkungen von Soja- und Rinderwirtschaft beachten müssen. Dies erfordert eine verstärkte Zusammenarbeit von Rinderwirtschaft, Sojaindustrie und staatlichen Organisationen.
Demands for agricultural commodities are a major threat for some of the most valuable ecosystems in the world. The expansion of the agricultural sector in Brazil, fueled by global demands for soybeans, contributed to the loss of tropical and savanna ecosystems. However, most deforestation was caused by pastures, raising concerns about land use displacement processes between soybean expansion and cattle ranching. Promising, reductions of deforestation were observed following the implementation of governmental strategies and zero-deforestation supply chain commitments. This thesis aims to contribute to the understanding of spatial and temporal dynamics of soybean expansion and cattle ranching, driving deforestation in one of the most dynamic agricultural expansion and deforestation frontier of Brazil, in Mato Grosso and Pará. In this region, land use displacement describes the conversion of pasture to soybean followed by deforestation for cattle ranching at another location. This process was assessed at regional and property-level. Moreover, scenario analysis was applied to identify regional and subregional dynamics of land use changes. The results indicated that environmental governance affected regional and local land use dynamics and displacement processes. Distal displacement processes between soybean expansion and deforestation were significant, contributing to deforestation, but declined subsequently to the implementation of environmental policies. Likewise, deforestation at property-level declined following the policy implementations. However, the effectiveness of the zero-deforestation supply chain commitment was found to be at risk due to property-level displacement deforestation. Additionally, the scenario analysis emphasized the importance of subregional dynamics and identified risks of future deforestation. Integrating efforts between supply chain (soy and cattle) and governmental actors may be crucial to reduce deforestation in the Amazon.

Die weltweit steigende Nachfrage nach land-basierten Rohstoffen erhöht stetig den Druck auf Land und Landnutzung, vor allem in ressourcenreichen Frontierregionen. Eine gegenwärtige Erscheinungsform dessen stellen Transnationale Landnahmen dar, die den Landnutzungswandel vorantreiben und die landbasierte Lebensgrundlage insbesondere der ländlichen Bevölkerung in vielen Teilen der Welt massiv bedroht. Ziel dieser Doktorarbeit ist es, ein besseres Verständnis der komplexen Prozesse zu schaffen, die Landnahmen befördern. Erstens untersucht sie die rezente Konjunktur des Bananenanbaus in der Provinz Luang Namtha, Laos, die von Chinesischen Investoren getrieben wird. Zweitens zieht die Arbeit das telecoupling Konzept heran und unterzieht es einer kritischen Diskussion in Bezug auf seinen Mehrwert für die Analyse räumlich entkoppelter sozioökonomischer und ökologischer Wechselwirkungen. Eine mehrmonatige ethnographische Feldforschung und deren qualitative Analyse stellen die Grundlage dieser Arbeit dar. Ausgehend von zwei Bananenplantagen in einer kleinen ländlichen Gemeinde fokussiert die Arbeit die Mechanismen und Prozesse, die die Bananenexpansion befördern. Das telecoupling Konzept dient als Instrument, um zu analysieren, welchen Einfluss die multiplen und ko-konstitutiven Interaktionen auf den Vorstoß des Bananenanbaus haben. Darüber hinaus verdeutlichen die tiefgehenden lokalitätsbezogenen Analysen die verschiedenen Kontexte auf, die dieses Wechselspiel spezifisch lokal verorten und gestalten. Die Fallstudie zeigt auf, wie die räumlich entkoppelten Beziehungen durch ein grenzüberspannendes Netzwerk chinesischer Investoren mit sozialen Verbindungen in die Provinz hinein, sowie auf den (chinesischen) Obstmarkt vermittelt werden. Außerdem stellt die Studie heraus, dass die Strategien der Investoren zur Landgewinnung und der daraus resultierende verheerende Landnutzungswandel einer Entfremdung der Dorfbewohner_innen ‘vom Boden’ gleichkommen. Durch die empirische, methodologische sowie konzeptuelle Auseinandersetzung mit dem telecoupling Konzept verweist die Arbeit letztlich auf den Wert qualitativer Analysen für die schwer greifbaren, ‚immateriellen’ Interaktionen sowie mögliche Feedbackmechanismen, welche Landnutzungswandel in einer globalisierten Welt bestimmen.
The global demand for land resources has increased the pressures on land, especially in resource-rich frontier regions. Transnational land acquisitions constitute one of these pressures that currently shape land use change and threaten land access and land-based livelihoods in rural areas. This thesis contributes to create a better understanding of the complex processes involved in such land acquisitions in two ways. First, it examines a recent boom in banana cultivation in Luang Namtha Province, Lao PDR driven by Chinese investors leasing land from Lao farmers and exporting the bananas to China. Second, it critically engages with the emerging telecoupling framework proposed in Land System Science as an analytical framework for dealing with distal causal interactions. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and using qualitative analyses, the thesis examines two plantations in a small village and traces the actors, mechanisms and processes driving the banana expansion. Using the telecoupling framework as a heuristic device, the study illuminates how multiple and co-constitutive economic, environmental, political and discursive interactions influence the banana expansion. Furthermore, the in-depth place-based analyses reveal how different contextual factors ground and shape these interactions in this particular location. In this case, the distal interactions are mediated through a cross-border network of Chinese investors with social ties in the local area, as well as in the fruit market in China. The study shows that the investors’ strategies to obtain access to the land combined with the resulting destructive land use conversion amount to an alienation of land from the villagers. By engaging empirically, methodologically and conceptually with the telecoupling framework, the thesis advances the discussion on telecoupling by demonstrating the value of qualitative analysis for capturing some of the more elusive and immaterial interactions, as well as potential feedbacks influencing land use change in a globalised world.

Engaging Queensland primary teachers in professional associations can be a challenge, particularly for subject-specific associations. Professional associations are recognised providers of professional learning. By not being involved in professional associations primary teachers are missing potential quality professional learning opportunities that can impact the results of their students. The purpose of the research is twofold: Firstly, to provide a thorough understanding of the current context in order to assist professional associations who wish to change from their current level of primary teacher engagement; and secondly, to contribute to the literature in the area of professional learning for primary teachers within professional associations. Using a three part research design, interviews of primary teachers and focus groups of professional association participants and executives were conducted and themed to examine the current context of engagement. Force field analysis was used to provide the framework to identify the driving and restraining forces for primary teacher engagement in professional learning through professional associations. Communities of practice and professional learning communities were specifically examined as potential models for professional associations to consider. The outcome is a diagrammatic framework outlining the current context of primary teacher engagement, specifically the driving and restraining forces of primary teacher engagement with professional associations. This research also identifies considerations for professional associations wishing to change their level of primary teacher engagement. The results of this research show that there are key themes that provide maximum impact if wishing to increase engagement of primary teachers in professional associations. However the implications of this lies with professional associations and their alignment between intent and practice dedicated to this change.

Die Nutzung von Biomasse als Nahrungs- und Futtermittel sowie als Rohstoff geht mit einem erheblichen Eingriff in biochemische Kreisläufe einher. Die Nutztierhaltung beansprucht dabei den Großteil der ökonomisch genutzten Phytomasse und dominiert Stoffströme in der Landwirtschaft. Während bereits der gegenwärtige ökologische Fußabdruck von tierischen Erzeugnissen Anlass zur Sorge bietet, wird die globale Nachfrage nach Fleisch, Milch und Eiern im Zuge von Bevölkerungswachstum und steigenden Einkommen voraussichtlich weiter zunehmen. Die vorliegende Arbeit untersucht die wechselseitigen Zusammenhänge zwischen Tierhaltung und Umwelt im Kontext globaler Wandlungsprozesse und adressiert Unsicherheiten auch in Bezug auf gegenwärtige Umweltauswirkungen. Im Rahmen der Dissertation wurde das räumlich explizite ökonomische Landnutzungsmodell MAgPIE (Model of Agricultural Production and its Impact on the Environment) um eine detaillierte Darstellung des Nutztiersektors erweitert. Die Modellsimulationen unterstreichen das Potenzial, sowohl durch eine Änderung der Ernährungsgewohnheiten als auch der Produktionsweise von tierischen Erzeugnissen landwirtschaftliche Stoffströme und Landnutzung deutlich zu beeinflussen sowie Stickstoffverluste und Emissionen von klimaschädlichen Gasen zu verändern. Moderate Produktivitätssteigerungen können Waldökosysteme bewahren und Kohlenstoffemissionen vermeiden, führen allerdings auch zu Zielkonflikten zwischen dem Schutz aquatischer und terrestrischer Ökosysteme sowie zwischen Stickstoff- und Kohlenstoffverlusten. Zudem ziehen ehrgeizige Produktivitätssteigerungen großflächige Umwandlungen von Weide- zu Ackerland und damit eine Verringerung von Bodenkohlenstoffbeständen auf landwirtschaftlichen Flächen nach sich. Ein reduzierter Konsum tierischer Produkte in wohlhabenden Regionen trägt maßgeblich zum Erhalt der Wälder, der Vermeidung von Treibhausgasemissionen und der Verringerung des landwirtschaftlichen Wasserverbrauchs bei.
Human appropriation of biomass as food, feed and raw material interferes with key biochemical cycles. Livestock is at the epicentre of agricultural material flows and resource use, utilising the majority of the economically used plant biomass, substantially amplifying the agricultural nitrogen cycle, contributing to greenhouse gas emissions and water use, and dominating human use of land. While already today’s environmental footprint of livestock gives cause for concern, demand for meat, milk and eggs is expected to continue growing, driven by population growth, increasing incomes, and urbanization. Between the poles of current environmental externalities and the magnitude of the expected growth of the livestock sector, this thesis explores interactions between animal agriculture and the environment in the context of broad-scale developments such as globalization, technological innovation, rising food demand, and climate change and addresses gaps in our knowledge about current environmental impacts of livestock. For this aim, the spatially explicit economic land use model MAgPIE (Model of Agricultural Production and its Impact on the Environment) was extended by a detailed representation of animal agriculture. Model simulations demonstrate the large demand- and supply-side potential inherent in livestock production to transform biomass flows in agriculture and alter environmental externalities of food production. While moderate productivity gains in the livestock sector can reduce deforestation and emissions from land use change, trade-offs emerge between aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, and between nitrogen and carbon losses. Moreover, ambitious productivity increases trigger large-scale pasture-to-cropland conversion that involves depletion of soil carbon stocks on agricultural land. A reduced consumption of livestock products in affluent regions considerably mitigates deforestation, carbon emissions and agricultural water consumption.

Bei der Behandlung organische Abfälle werden zunehmend Feststoff-Vergärungsverfahren mit Perkolation eingesetzt. Sie werden bevorzugt, wenn eine Vorab-Zerstörung der Feststoffstruktur nachteilig für die Gärrest-Verwendung oder sich daraus keine ökonomischen Vorteile ergeben. Das trifft auch bei strohartiger Biomasse zu. Zur satzweisen Vergärung wurden zahlreiche Erkenntnisse publiziert. Zeitgleich wurde das Sauter-Verfahren für den kontinuierlichen Betrieb zur Anwendungsreife entwickelt sowie am Leibniz-Institut für Agrartechnik und Bioökonomie e.V. (ATB) Forschungen einer zweistufigen Variante publiziert. Erstmalig erfolgt unter Verwendung von Silagen ein Vergleich der Varianten. Einflüsse der Perkolationsintensität auf Zusammensetzung und Eigenschaften der Feststoffe und der Prozessflüssigkeit sowie auf die Kinetik der Gasbildung werden untersucht. Die Perkolatzusammensetzung variiert variantenabhängig. OTS-Belastungs-Grenzen lassen sich in erster Näherung bestimmen. Geeignete Vergleichsparameter werden dargestellt. Betreiberbefragungen und messtechnische Begleitung einer Sauter-Anlage ergänzen die Arbeit. Eine differenzierte Beurteilung der Perkolationsverfahren ist nun möglich. Betrachtet werden die Feststoffdichte im Fermenter, die TS-Gehalte im Gärstock sowie der Schwimmschicht. Die Verweilzeit der partikulären Biomasse im Fermenter ist erheblich kürzer als bisher angenommen. Das beeinflusst direkt die Hydrolyserate und mittelbar die Mikroflora im Fermenter. Nähere Untersuchungen sind erforderlich. Auch bei Perkolationsverfahren beeinflusse Substratzusammensetzung und Mahlgrad die Kinetik der Gasbildung. Die Methanausbeuten unterscheiden sich nur unwesentlich von Rührkessel-Systemen. Die Erweiterung der perkolierten Vergärung durch eine Perkolat-Methanisierungsstufe sind höhere Raum-Zeit-Ausbeuten möglich. Das erlaubt eine zeitlich gesteuerte Methanerzeugung, wobei Ausmaß und Leistungsgradient weiterer Forschung bedürfen.
Numerous research findings and experience on the batchwise fermentation of stacked biomass are available. At the same time, the percolated and continuously operated Sauter-process was developed to market maturity. Research on a two-stage variant has been carried out and published by the Leibnitz Institute for Agricultural Engineering and Bioeconomics e.V. (ATB). This paper provides for the first time a direct comparison of the above-mentioned percolated process variants using maize and sedge silages. The effects of percolation intensity on composition and properties of the solids and the process fluid as well as on the gas formation kinetics are investigated in particular. Furthermore, suitable benchmarks of the variants are identified and evaluated. The link to practice is a operators questioning and a one year lasting monitoring of a Sauter plant. The findings allow a differentiated assessment of percolation processes. Findings on solid matter density as well as on dry matter content in the fermenting stock or floating layer are presented in detail. During continuous operation, particulate biomass retention time is considerably shorter than would result from usual calculation of hydraulic retention time. It is indicated that the microflora in the fermenter is also indirectly affected. This requires further research work. It is shown that in percolation processes substrate composition and extent of grinding also dominate the gas formation kinetics, albeit to different extents. Methane yields differ under comparable load and operating parameters only marginally from yields of stirred tank systems. Composition of percolate also varies variant-specific. Findings can be used to define in a first approximation limits of volatile solid load. It has been proven that percolated solid-state fermentation with an additional percolate methanization stage allows higher space-time yields. This extra stage suits also for controlled flexible methane production.

Durch vegetationsökologische Feldstudien wurde das Biotop- und Arteninventar verschiedener Festungsanlagen des 19. Jahrhunderts in Deutschland, Polen und Litauen untersucht. Ein Ziel der Untersuchung war die Bewertung der Standorte für eine Einbindung in den FFH Biotop-Verbund, ergänzt durch Auswertungen historischer Luftbilder sowie Sentinel2-Fernerkundungsdaten. Die Festungsanlagen neigten in den letzten Jahrzehnten zu einer Wiederbewaldung durch ausbleibende Nutzung und Pflege der Offenlandbereiche. Innerhalb weniger Jahrzehnte sind vor Ort vor allem stadtwaldähnliche Standorte entstanden. Eine Entwicklung hin zu standorttypischen Ausprägung einer HPNV oder anderer Gesellschaften, die als Biotoptypen nach Anhang I FFH-RL ausweisbar wären, ist an den untersuchten Standorten nicht beobachtet worden. Hohe Biotopqualitäten in Offenland-Standorten sowie anderen Biotoptypen sind nicht beobachtet worden. Festungen und deren Biotope sind als Novel Ecosystems ausweisbar und wären nur als solche in das Biotopverbundsystem integrierbar. Satellitenbasierte Auswertungen bilden die Kleinräumigkeit der örtlichen Biotopstrukturen –und deren Vielfalt nur bedingt ab. Fehlende Pflege und Nutzung von Festungen sowie aufkommende Waldbestände verursachen eine sukzessive Degradation und Schädigung der Bausubstanz. Eine naturschutzfachliche Begründung für das grundsätzliche Ausbleiben von Sanierung und Bausubstanzerhalt existiert nicht, auch wenn diese Standorte oftmals Habitate für Arten des Anhang IV der FFH-RL aufweisen. Im Gegensatz, die Pflege und der Erhalt des Kulturerbes „Festungsanlagen“ wird von der europäischen Naturschutz- und vor allem Kulturagenda sogar gefordert, da diese neben noch unspezifiziertem Natur- und Erholungswert auch einen intrinsischen gesamteuropäischen Kulturwert haben. Das muss bei der lokalen Raum- und Naturschutzfachplanung sowie in der regionalen Landespflege berücksichtigt werden.
The biotope and species inventory of various fortifications of the 19th century in Germany, Poland and Lithuania was examined through vegetation-ecological field studies. One aim of the study was to evaluate the locations for integration into the FFH biotope network, supplemented by evaluations of historical aerial photos and Sentinel2 remote sensing data. Investigated fortifications tended to reforest in recent decades due to the lack of use and maintenance of the open land areas. Within a few decades, urban forest-like sites have developed here at the investigated sites. A development towards site-typical expressions of PNV or other communities, which could be designated as FFH biotopes according to Annex I of the Habitats Directive, has not been observed. High biotope qualities in open land biotopes and other types were not observed Fortresses and their biotopes can be designated as Novel Ecosystems and should only be integrated as such into the biotope network. Satellite based evaluations only provide a limited picture of the small-scale nature and diversity of local biotope structures. The lack of maintenance and use of fortresses as well as emerging forest stands cause successive degradation and damage to the building fabric. There is no nature conservation justification for the fundamental lack of remediation and preservation of building fabric, even though these sites often have habitats for species listed in Annex IV of the Habitats Directive. In contrast, the care and preservation of the cultural heritage "fortifications" is even demanded by the European nature conservation and cultural agenda, as they have an intrinsic pan-European cultural value in addition to still unspecified nature and recreational value. This is even reflected by the aim of the Habitats Directive. This must be taken into account in local spatial and nature conservation planning and in regional land management.

In dieser Dissertation wird der Einfluss von Transaktionen zur Wiederverwendung von Nährstoffen und gereinigtem kommunalen Abwasser auf die Wertschöpfungsketten der Abwasserbehandlung und Pflanzenproduktion untersucht. Ziel ist es, Kosten und Nutzen sowie die Wertschöpfung von Transaktionen in verknüpften Wertschöpfungsketten der Abwasserbehandlung und Pflanzenproduktion zu analysieren. Darüber hinaus wird untersucht, wie Transaktionen und Interdependenzen zwischen Akteuren in verknüpften Wertschöpfungsketten die lokalen Governance-Strukturen für die Wiederverwendung von Abwasser beeinflussen. Die Analyse wird hauptsächlich durch das Wertschöpfungskettenkonzept, das Konzept der Kreislaufwirtschaft und die Theorie der Transaktionskostenökonomie geleitet. Mit verschiedenen Methoden, wie der Kosten-Nutzen-Analyse, der Wertschöpfungskettenanalyse und der Transaktionskostenanalyse, werden zwei Fallstudien in Deutschland untersucht: (1) die Fällung von Struvit (Magnesium-Ammonium-Phosphat) und dessen Verwendung als Dünger in Berlin-Brandenburg und (2) das Modell der landwirtschaftlichen Abwasserwiederverwendung in Braunschweig. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die Wiederverwendung von Nährstoffen und Abwasser zu geringeren Kosten für die Abwasserbehandlung, höherer Rentabilität und Wertschöpfung in der Pflanzenproduktion und zu einem hohen Anteil an regionaler Wertschöpfung führen. Die Ergebnisse verdeutlichen aber auch, dass die Wiederverwendung von Abwasser zu Einschränkungen, Verdrängungseffekten und Veränderungen in der Verteilung der Wertschöpfung führen kann. Des Weiteren zeigen die Ergebnisse, dass differenzierte Governance-Strukturen erforderlich sind, um den unterschiedlichen Eigenschaften der Transaktionen zwischen Abwasserbehandlung und der Pflanzenproduktion gerecht zu werden. Interdependenzen zwischen Abwasseranbietern und Landwirten erhöhen den Bedarf an hybriden und hierarchischen Elementen in den Governance-Strukuren für die Wiederverwendung von Abwasser.
This dissertation explores the impact of transactions for reusing nutrients and treated municipal wastewater on the value chains of wastewater treatment and crop production. It aims to analyze what costs and benefits and what added-value can result from transactions in linked value chains of wastewater treatment and crop production. Furthermore, it aims to analyze how transactions and interdependences between actors in linked value chains shape the governance structures for reusing wastewater at the local level. The analysis is mainly guided by the value chain concept, the concept of the circular economy and the theory of transaction costs economics. Different methods including cost-benefit analysis, value chain analysis and transaction cost analysis are used to investigate two case studies located in Germany: (1) the precipitation of struvite (magnesium ammonium phosphate) in the wastewater treatment plant in Waßmannsdorf and its application as fertilizer in Berlin-Brandenburg, and (2) the agricultural wastewater reuse scheme of the Wastewater Association Braunschweig. The results show that transactions for reusing nutrients and wastewater result in the development of linked regional value chains with lower costs of wastewater treatment, higher profitability and added-value in crop production, and a high share of regional added-value. However, the results also highlight that the reuse of wastewater can lead to restrictions (e.g., cultivation bans on certain crops), crowding out effects and changes in the distribution of the added-value. Furthermore, the findings suggest that different governance structures are needed to match the different properties of the transactions between wastewater treatment and crop production. Interdependences resulting from transactions between wastewater providers and farmers increase the need for hybrid and hierarchical elements in the governance structures for reusing wastewater.

碩士
國立高雄海洋科技大學
海洋環境工程研究所
101
Rice is both the main crop and staple in our country. According to the statistics made by the Agriculture and Food Agency, it can be inferred that, due to the planting of rice, the annual average amount of straw is 1.86 million tons in the past decade. Thus, the amount of discarded straw is quite large. Overall speaking, every method of dealing with the discarded straw bears its own advantages and disadvantages; so far, there hasn’t been any ideal way about it. However, it’s more environmentally-friendly to conduct it through composting, namely, a process of proper composting fermentation, which will not only deal with the crop waste, but also lessen its impact on the environment. If the problem about the fiber in the straw can be solved, which makes the straw uneasy to ferment and decomposed, and, thus, the composting take a long time to be done, we can solve the problem of the consumption of time in the composting of straw. This technique can also make the straw resources, offering a both environmentally-friendly and recycling method. To solve the problem of the straw fiber’s being hard to be decomposed, this research plans to make an experiment in two stages by using straws as the main material. 1. Do the preliminary treatment of straws by soaking. The liquid for soaking are respectively as following: (1) neutral soaking liquid: tap-water, waste water for rice washing and liquid fertilizer; (2) acid soaking liquid: oozing water from the food waster and iced acetic acid; (3) weak alkaline soaking liquid: cattle’s excrement, pigs’ excrement, chickens’ excrement, urine and limewater; (4) strong alkaline soaking liquid: sodium hydroxide and black liquor. There are twelve kinds of soaking liquid in total and the preliminary treatment is conducted in 264 hours. 2. Do the composting by applying the result of the above treatment to the composting, exploring the differences between directly using the soaked straws in the composting and using the soaked straws with additives in the composting. The research result shows that: 1. preliminary treatment (from monitoring the parameters): (1) the change of moisture content: the moisture content of the straws rapidly increases after they’ve been soaked for 24 hours; the moisture content of the straws soaked in the neutral, acid and weak alkaline liquid reaches 75%; the one of the straws soaked in the strong alkaline liquid reaches about 60% to 70%. When the soaking continues, the moisture content maintain stable; (2) the change of ph value: there is a positive correlation between the straws and the ph value of the soaking liquid; (3) the change of the lignin content: the more alkaline the soaking liquid is, the more efficient the removing of lignin is; (4) the change of the straw’s loading: the change is fast at first, which is probably related to the straw’s absorbing of water, and then the change goes similarly with the one of lignin content; (5) with making a whole contrast among all the preliminary treatment statistics, we can get the ranking of the soaking liquid from high to low based on its destructive level to the straw’s structure: strong alkaline soaking liquid > weak alkaline soaking liquid > acid and neutral soaking liquid; however, considering the high cost of strong alkaline soaking liquid and safety concern, it’s not involved in the compost experiment. Thus, the liquid used in the preliminary treatment will be the less effective one ─ chicken’s excrement and limewater. Also, regarding the rich microflora of the liquid fertilizer, it’s included. With the tap water as the control group, there are totally four soaking liquid in the preliminary treatment, which is respectively used in the composting experiment without any additive. With tap water as the soaking liquid first, three other composting experiments respectively added with compost, food waster and food waster and chicken’s excrement are also conducted. 2. The change of parameters during the composting: (1) the high temperature period of compost with additives is longer than the one without additives. The temperature difference can reach more than 20℃; (2) the moisture content decrease with the increase of composting temperature, but it can largely controlled between 70℃ to 85℃; (3) the ph value will rise from the relative acid (pH=6-7) to 8.5 to 9.5, and then slowly falls down, maintaining 8.0 to 8.3 in the end; (4) EC goes similarly with pH, rising from the relative low point, next falling down, maintaining stable in the end; (5) the change of the lignin content in the compost with additives is better than the one without additives. The removing efficiency of the former is 5% better than the latter; (6) after 60 days of composting, except that the C/N of the compost with liquid fertilizer is 37, others all falls down to11-20, the standard of compost maturity. In all, the results show that this research of dealing with straws as resources is capable and bears the advantages of simple manufacturing, low failure, low contamination and high quality composting. However, the mail goal of this research has reached; as for the space for improvement of the composting products, it can serve as a way for the next research.