Digital Repository of Theses

Trusted Voices in Treatment: Exploring Professional Guidance and Educational Needs in Equine Laminitis Cases

2026-09-23T12:53:47+00:00

Equine laminitis is one of the most serious, painful, and consequential health conditions affecting horses worldwide, accounting for approximately one-quarter of equine euthanasia decisions. Despite advances in laminitis pathology and treatment, outcomes depend on owner compliance with sustained daily management. This compliance is fundamentally shaped by the guidance provided by veterinarians, farriers, and professional trainers.
This study investigated how equine professionals perceived and enacted their role in guiding horse owners' decisions about laminitis treatment and prevention, and factors influencing their communication, education, and collaborative practices across roles.
Drawing on Source Credibility Theory and Diffusion of Innovations Theory, a mixed-methods, cross-sectional survey was administered to equine professionals in the U.S. between November 2025 and March 2026. 266 valid responses were collected from veterinarians (n = 90), farriers (n = 68), and professional trainers (n = 108), yielding a 6.01 percent margin of error at 95 percent confidence The survey consisted of 24 Likert-scale items across five constructs: Trust and Communication, Owner Knowledge and Education, Decision-Making Support, Innovation Adoption, and Professional Collaboration. An open-ended question generated 134 substantive responses, analyzed thematically with saturation at response 16.
ANOVA with post-hoc comparisons, chi-square, Kendall's tau and Spearman correlation, and multiple regression revealed significant role-based differences. Veterinarians scored higher than farriers on Trust and Communication and Decision-Making Support. The overall regression model explained 57.7 percent of variance in Decision-Making Support (R² = .577). Role-specific models differed: Innovation Adoption dominated for farriers (β = 0.790, p < .001), Trust and Communication for veterinarians (β = 0.707, p < .001), and all four predictors were significant for trainers.
Six themes emerged: Owner Education and Knowledge Gaps; Communication Clarity and Honesty; Interprofessional Collaboration; End-of-Life Decision Support; Treatment Innovation and Adaptation; and Owner Adherence and Consistency Challenges. These themes reinforced the quantitative patterns.
All five hypotheses were supported. Findings revealed both consistent cross-role patterns and meaningful role-specific differences. The results supported targeted communication training, interdisciplinary care coordination, and improved owner-education resources. Applying Source Credibility Theory and Diffusion of Innovations Theory in an equine-specific context, this study advances understanding of how communication shapes professional decision-making support in laminitis care.
Keywords: equine laminitis · veterinary communication · source credibility theory · diffusion of innovations · horse owner decision-making · professional collaboration · mixed methods · survey research · thematic analysis · farrier communication.

From Reflection to Action: How Business Leaders in Switzerland Translate Values into Decisions Under Systemic Disruption – Development of the Root-to-Fruit Model

2026-09-23T12:51:40+00:00

This thesis investigates how business leaders, especially of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) navigate responsible and resilient decision-making in conditions of polycrisis, the contemporary state in which interconnected ecological, economic, geopolitical, technological, and social shocks compound across systems and time.
The investigation consists of carefully reviewing over eighty different credible sources of literature publications which form eight interconnected theoretical domains, coupled by listening directly and actively to nineteen leaders who run, build, and steward businesses in conditions of compounding uncertainty.
This study presents a multimodal qualitative design involving the primary contribution of 19 business leaders. 10 of which, took part in the semi-structured interviews of 35 to 60 minutes (average 45 minutes). While 9 of which, following initial discussions, preferred to provide their responses through written Google Forms designed to closely mirror the interview structure and questions. Additionally, a public portfolio of supporting documents and field observations across leaders working in Switzerland (15), Mongolia (2), Belgium (1), and France (1). The sample comprises 5 leaders of large enterprises, 5 of medium-sized companies, and 9 of small firms. For confidentiality reasons, participants and their organisations are anonymised in the published work as P1 through P19 and Company A through Company S.
Methodology and transparency: the explorative study began with no prior hypothesis. Leaders were invited to speak in their own language freely about responsibility, resilience, the disruptions they had recently navigated, the development pathways they had used, and the cultural sources from which they drew. Form responses, websites, governance documents, and publicly available material from each respondent’s organisation were used as triangulating evidence. The use of artificial intelligence is treated as a methodological choice to be declared rather than a convenience to be concealed, consistent with the transparency norms increasingly expected in qualitative research conducted in the mid-2020s.
Audio recordings were transcribed using Otter.ai. All sources identified or verified to better understand existing research gaps through Perplexity.ai were subsequently confirmed against the original source prior to inclusion. No citation was retained solely on the basis of AI-generated output. All writing and final theme refinement was performed by hand on a word document against the verbatim record. Six primary themes emerged: responsibility as concentric obligation, resilience as iterative standing-up, disruption as leadership accelerator, informal networks as development pathways, culturally encoded leadership logics, and relational trust as decision infrastructure. Five emergent themes operate across cases: inner practice and embodiment, psychological safety, AI and technological adaptation, generational tension, and stakeholder co-creation. The most frequent informant pattern is that formal leadership programmes function as catalysts and shared vocabulary, while sustained development happens in informal relational and cultural settings. Inner practice, although rarely institutionalised, appears as an emerging baseline expectation among leaders who report higher resilience. A further cross-cutting finding is that disruption does not universally function as a catalyst for transformation: for more developmentally mature organisations, disruption often operates instead as confirmation of already-embedded resilient capacities and values. This study proposes “responsible-resilient leadership” as an extended construct of existing responsible leadership and resilient leadership frameworks by integrating ethical stewardship with adaptive capacity under sustained systemic disruption. The integrated construct, responsible-resilient leadership, is therefore defined in this study as the capacity to make values-guided decisions that maintain stakeholder trust and enable organisational adaptation during conditions of polycrisis, drawing on relational resources, cultural formation, developmental experiences, and sustained inner practice.
The discussion proposes a new conceptual contribution, the ROOT-to-FRUIT Model. ROOT-to-FRUIT is a slow-cycle, horticultural model in which leaders Reflect, Orient, Observe, Translate, Refine, Unite, Integrate, and Track, treating meaningful change as seasonal rather than daily or weekly and acknowledge that responsible-resilient leadership matures over seasons rather than days. The term “ROOT-to-FRUIT” functions as a metaphor for the full developmental arc rather than as a strict letter-by-letter acronym, with the eight verbs together cultivating the “fruit” of visible leadership practice. A companion self-assessment tool and an example is presented in Appendix.
Implications are theoretical, practical, and professional. Theoretically, the study contributes to a polycrisis-aware integration of responsible leadership and resilience scholarship, anchored in the Inner Development Goals tradition, in particular the De Gruyter volumes edited by Egel and Campos Suarez (2025). Practically, the ROOT-to-FRUIT Model and assessment tool are offered as instruments for leaders, programme designers, and policy actors. Professionally, the study positions the leader’s inner work as a public good rather than a private hobby in a polycrisis era.
Keywords leadership, resilient leadership, polycrisis, values-based decision-making, SME leadership, ROOT-to-FRUIT Model, inner practice, leadership development.

Explainable Artificial Intelligence and Algorithmic Diplomacy: Enhancing Transparency and Trust in Decision-Making for International Development Institutions

2026-09-23T12:49:33+00:00

This dissertation examines how Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) can be integrated into multilateral decision-making processes through the proposed Explainability Layer for Multilateral Decision Systems (EL-MDS) framework. The study addresses a pressing challenge: while AI promises speed and analytical power for international development institutions, its opaque “black‑box” nature risks undermining trust, legitimacy, and accountability in global governance.
A mixed‑methods proof‑of‑concept design was adopted. The quantitative phase employed simulated data reflecting diverse international contexts (e.g., refugee quota allocations, trade protocols, and debt forecasting) using parameters derived from public datasets. This allowed for rigorous testing of EL-MDS without compromising the confidentiality of high-stake decision-makers. Complementary qualitative interviews with governance experts, NGO officers, and legal advisors were conducted to evaluate the framework’s policy relevance and contextual applicability.
Results demonstrated that EL‑MDS significantly improved stakeholder trust and perceived AI acceptance relative to baseline XAI methods. Simulated participants exposed to EL‑MDS achieved higher mean trust scores (3.2 versus 2.9 on a 5‑point scale) and rated recommendations as more contextually relevant and implementable. Qualitative findings underscored the importance of modular design: the Diplomatic Transparency Engine and Cross‑Cultural Interpretability Layer were particularly valued for aligning outputs with institutional norms.
The research concludes that simulation‑first approaches can effectively de‑risk emerging technologies for use in complex multilateral environments. While findings are indicative rather than definitive, they highlight key priorities for subsequent live pilot studies with partner institutions. Recommendations include co‑design workshops with multilateral organizations, small‑scale pilot deployments, and iterative refinement of modules based on real‑world feedback.
This dissertation contributes a novel framework at the intersection of AI governance and diplomatic practice. It demonstrates how structured explainability mechanisms can strengthen accountability and trust, enabling international development institutions to leverage AI ethically and effectively.
Keywords: Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI); Algorithmic Diplomacy; EL‑MDS Framework; Multilateral Decision‑Making; AI Governance; Transparency; International Development Institutions.

Analyzing the Role of Tokenization in Enhancing Sustainable Investing in Brazil: A Mixed-Method Study of International Investor Perspectives

2026-09-23T12:47:25+00:00

Sustainable investment has gained increasing global relevance, with Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) criteria playing a central role in shaping investment decisions. Brazil, given its abundant natural resources and expanding carbon credit market, presents significant potential for attracting international capital toward sustainable projects. However, persistent challenges—such as regulatory uncertainty, greenwashing risks, and limited investor confidence—continue to constrain this potential. In this context, Tokenization, enabled by blockchain technology, has emerged as a promising mechanism to enhance transparency, liquidity, and accessibility in ESG investments.
This research investigates the role of Tokenization in fostering foreign investment in Brazil’s sustainable finance sector, with a particular focus on investor perceptions, regulatory dynamics, and the attractiveness of tokenized ESG assets. The study adopts a mixed-methods approach, integrating quantitative and qualitative data to provide a comprehensive and multidimensional understanding of the phenomenon. The quantitative component, based on a survey of international investors, employs Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and ordinal regression analysis to test nine hypotheses and examine the relationships between key constructs influencing investment decisions. The qualitative component, based on semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders, uses thematic analysis to explore the research questions in depth, enabling the identification of underlying patterns, contextual factors, and the emergence of new insights beyond the predefined hypotheses.
A convergent design is employed, whereby both data strands are analyzed independently and integrated during interpretation through triangulation and convergent analysis, allowing the identification of areas of convergence, divergence, and complementarity. This approach not only strengthens the robustness and credibility of the findings but also enables a more nuanced understanding of the mechanisms shaping investor behavior.
The findings show that the attractiveness of tokenized sustainable investments in emerging markets is not primarily driven by technological advantages, but by the interaction between investor trust, regulatory perception, and institutional legitimacy. While the results offer indicative and analytically generalizable insights based on the studied sample, they are interpreted with appropriate caution given the study’s scope and sampling approach. The research provides theoretical contributions by integrating behavioral and institutional perspectives, and practical implications by offering insights for policymakers and market participants seeking to enhance regulatory clarity and the global competitiveness of Brazil’s sustainable finance ecosystem.
Overall, this study advances the academic and policy debate on Tokenization as a financial innovation with the potential to unlock international capital flows into sustainable investments in emerging economies.
KEYWORDS
Tokenization; Sustainable Finance; ESG Investments; Emerging Markets; Behavioral Finance; Institutional Theory; Regulatory Framework; Investor Trust; Mixed-Methods; Structural Equation Modeling (SEM); Ordinal Regression; Digital Assets; Brazil

The Architecture of Cross-Border Payments: Blockchain, Governance Frictions, and Hybrid Payment Intermediation

2026-09-23T12:44:05+00:00

Cross-border payments remain essential to global trade, remittances, and international business activity, yet they continue to exhibit persistent frictions in cost, speed, transparency, and operational predictability. While recent innovation has expanded the range of possible cross-border payment architectures, the central issue is no longer whether blockchain or other digital technologies can be applied to payments, but whether alternative architectures materially improve outcomes under real-world institutional, regulatory, and operational constraints.
This dissertation examines three architecture families: correspondent banking and incumbent upgrades, interlinked instant payment systems, and tokenised settlement arrangements. It adopts a pragmatic convergent mixed-methods design. The quantitative strand provides a descriptive public benchmark of architecture-relevant indicators using mixed-level public evidence—including corridor-level, scheme-level, network-level, and jurisdiction-level sources—across the core dimensions of cost, speed, transparency, and access. The qualitative strand combines four purposively selected semi-structured expert interviews, documentary and thematic analysis of a curated corpus of 45 public policy and practitioner transcripts, and a single-round Delphi-informed structured expert elicitation exercise that produced 11 returned records overall, used to elicit and compare expert judgement rather than to generate consensus through multiple rounds.
The findings show that no single architecture provides a universal solution across all corridors and use cases. Architecture performance varies according to corridor conditions, infrastructure maturity, liquidity design, governance coordination, legal certainty, and institutional incentives. Interlinked instant payment models appear particularly strong in improving retail time-to-credit and local distribution in suitable contexts, while tokenised settlement arrangements show greater potential in use cases where reconciliation, programmability, and liquidity timing are more important. At the same time, the evidence does not support a simple disintermediation thesis. Rather, it suggests a re-specialisation of intermediary roles across liquidity provision, FX execution, compliance, orchestration, settlement access, and trust infrastructure.
The dissertation concludes that the most plausible future of cross-border payments is hybrid, layered, and functionally specialised rather than defined by the wholesale replacement of incumbent systems. It also develops the Hybrid-Complementary Multi-Layer Stack, an author-developed conceptual synthesis model showing how user-interface, distribution, tokenised-settlement, and governance layers are likely to coexist across corridors and use cases. Its main contribution is therefore to provide both a defensible, time-stamped comparative framework for evaluating cross-border payment architectures across performance, governance, and risk dimensions and a practitioner-oriented synthesis model of their likely coexistence.

Bridging Communication Gaps Between Physicians and Patients to Improve Medication Adherence

2026-09-23T12:42:10+00:00

Medication adherence is widely recognized as essential to good clinical outcomes, yet gaps persist even when patients and physicians both consider it important. This study examines why that gap endures in Japan, focusing on three forces that shape
communication around adherence: the power dynamics of the patient–physician relationship, patient health literacy, and the role of digital tools. Using a cross-sectional quantitative survey of 200 patients and 60 physicians — stratified across oncology and lifestyle-disease care — and interpreting the results through Shared Decision Making, health literacy theory, the WHO Multidimensional Adherence Model, and the Technology Acceptance Model, the study finds that the gap is driven not by a lack of motivation but by misaligned perceptions. Physicians rate adherence as highly important yet doubt that patients understand instructions, while patients rate their own adherence very highly. Short consultations, a reliance on verbal confirmation, and cultural norms of deference and harmony combine to keep nonadherence hidden — a state of "false alignment."
The thesis reframes adherence as a communication and interaction-design challenge rather than a problem of patient compliance, and proposes a Communication Design Framework spanning the interaction, organizational, technological, and policy
levels to make adherence openly discussable and collaboratively managed.

Escalation Friction, Feedback Suppression, and Voice Legitimacy: A Heuristic Indicator Framework for Risk Entropy in Risk Culture

2026-09-23T12:40:06+00:00

This study develops and applies a heuristic indicator framework centred on escalation friction, feedback suppression, and voice legitimacy to diagnose “risk entropy” within the risk culture of a regulated financial institution. Adopting an interpretivist,
embedded single-case design, the research examines one financial institution that is formally compliant and locally perceived as open. The purpose is to understand how these behavioural indicators manifest across local relationships and formal governance channels, how they combine into unit-level configurations, and how they contribute to system-level decoupling between espoused mechanisms and enacted practice.
Data were generated through 25 semi‑structured interviews across three lines model, functions, job bands, and locations, complemented by organisational artefacts such as committee minutes, risk governance documents, and engagement survey outputs, and supported by reflexive journaling. Indicators were operationalised through reflexive thematic analysis, unit‑level profiling, and explanation‑building that linked observed patterns of communication and challenge to underlying structural and relational mechanisms. This enabled the construction of unit‑level “entropy signatures” and a two‑level pattern contrasting locally trusted voice with systemic escalation failure. Findings show that within trusted dyads and small teams, formal mechanisms for
openness, raising concerns, and reinforcement can translate into legitimate and psychologically safe risk voice. However, as concerns move into formal channels, procedural complexity, relational gatekeeping, and cognitive normalisation generate
escalation friction and feedback suppression, widening the discourse–practice gap, in which governance mechanisms are discussed far more than their behavioural effects are evidenced. Four distinct unit configurations, symbolic governance, control without voice, silenced executors, and boundary negotiators, combine to form a systemic pattern of governance blindness, control-function silencing, and operational normalisation that characterises risk entropy in the case institution.
The institution's primary vulnerability lies not in its inventory of mechanisms but in a behavioural decoupling between espoused governance and enacted practice. On this basis the thesis advances four contributions: the Two-Level Pattern as a diagnostic
reframing of risk culture; the Sequential Friction-to-Entropy Mechanism as a process account linking procedural barriers to inferred risk entropy; Unit-Level Entropy Signatures as a configurational typology of subcultural variation; and the Discourse–Practice Ratio (3.7:1) as a documentary heuristic marker. These are offered as candidate diagnostic tools for boards, supervisors, and future comparative research.

Environmental Efficiency, Financing Costs, and Market Dynamics: A Panel and Time Series Approach

2026-09-23T12:37:37+00:00

This thesis examines whether adopting circular economy practices lowers the weighted average cost of capital (WACC) for European firms, and through which mechanisms this effect operates. It addresses a gap in the sustainable finance literature by focusing on operational circular economy metrics rather than broad ESG scores.
The analysis is conducted at two levels. At the firm level, a between-effects panel regression is applied to 475 listed firms in France, Germany, and the UK over 2015–2024 (22,206 observations). At the market level, a Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) is used to study long- and short-run relationships among four green financial variables: 10-year Treasury yields, the S&P Green Bond Index, the Wilderhill Clean Energy Index, and EU ETS CO₂ prices using 2,575 daily observations (2014–2025).
Results show that the Refinitiv Resource Use Score significantly reduces WACC: firms in the top quartile have an average WACC of 6.48% versus 8.23% in the bottom quartile. In contrast, the Waste Recycling Ratio is not significant, suggesting markets value broad efficiency measures rather than narrower indicators. Market Beta is the dominant driver: a one-standard-deviation increase raises WACC by 1.90 percentage points, far exceeding the 0.24 reduction linked to resource efficiency. A sign reversal between fixed- and between-effects estimates indicates that markets price persistent structural efficiency rather than short-term improvements.
The VECM identifies two cointegrating relationships, with Treasury yields acting as the primary exogenous driver. Green bond prices do not significantly adjust following interest rate shocks, implying persistent losses.
These findings underpin the Circular-Financial Integration Framework (CFIF), a three-phase tool guiding firms from resource auditing to scaling circular practices. A Renault case study shows that sector Beta, not environmental performance, is the main constraint on lowering financing costs.
Overall, the thesis provides new evidence on the circular economy–WACC link and bridges empirical results with practical capital strategy.

Effects of Digital Marketing on the Performance of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in the Municipality of Buea, Cameroon

2026-09-23T12:35:51+00:00

This study examines the effect of digital marketing on the performance of SMEs in Buea, Cameroon, where SMEs play a pivotal role in Buea’s development. Despite broad use and studies on digital marketing, SMEs lack a framework for implementing marketing strategies. This research addresses the gap by investigating the “impact of social media, SEO, and content marketing on the performance of SMEs”. The sample included 50 SMEs executives selected via purposive sampling and 399 digital marketing users determined from Amin’s (2005) formula. Quantitative data were analyzed with the aid of Spearman’s Rho, while qualitative data were investigated using thematic analysis. Finding revealed that SMEs in Buea engaged in digital marketing without a formal plan. Nevertheless, it has a direct positive impact on performance. SMEs are recommended to adopt carefully planned holistic digital marketing strategies. Furthermore, future research should use advanced tools such as marketing analytics and Artificial Intelligence.
Keywords: Digital marketing, Social Media, SEO, SME, Performance

Towards Net-Zero Steel: Decarbonization, Green Steel Value Chain and Sustainability in the MENA Region

2026-09-23T12:34:04+00:00

This study investigates the transition toward net-zero steel in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) by examining decarbonization as a value-chain transformation problem rather than a single-technology substitution. The purpose of the research is to develop and operationalize a consortium-based value-chain model, supported by a KPI-driven stage-readiness framework, to guide green steel deployment under real-world constraints of infrastructure readiness, investment feasibility, and multi-actor coordination. A sequential mixed-methods design was adopted. In Phase 1, qualitative data were collected through 21 semi-structured interviews with MENA steel stakeholders and international technology suppliers. The data were analyzed thematically to identify system-level constraints, feasibility conditions, and coordination logics shaping green steel implementation across upstream, midstream, and downstream stages. In Phase 2, these insights were translated into a three-stage consortium model and a structured KPI-based readiness framework with transparent scoring logic to support evidence-based assessment and decision-making. The findings show that green steel deployment in MENA depends on coordinated alignment across the value chain rather than isolated technology adoption. Decarbonization was found to be most feasible when feedstock security, renewable electricity, hydrogen and logistics infrastructure, credible measurement and verification systems, financing conditions, and supportive policy frameworks are aligned. The results further indicate that role specialization across countries, modular and upgradeable configurations, and auditable low-carbon product claims are critical to scaling green steel while preserving economic competitiveness. The study concludes that a staged consortium approach offers a more realistic and scalable pathway for green steel adoption in MENA by matching country-specific capabilities and constraints to appropriate roles within the regional value chain. The research contributes a practical decision-support architecture for policymakers, investors, and steel producers. While not presented as a final country-ranking model, the framework provides an operational basis for future readiness assessment, investment prioritization, and implementation planning.
Keywords: Net-Zero Steel, Decarbonization, Green Steel Value Chain, Sustainability, MENA Region