This dissertation studies firms' strategic interactions in anticipation of random service disruption following technology failure. In particular it is aimed at understanding how contracting decisions between a vendor and one or multiple clients affect the firms' subsequent decisions to ensure disruption response and recovery are managed as efficiently as possible. This dissertation consists of three studies that were written as standalone papers seeking to contribute to the literature on contract design and technology management in operations management. Together, the three studies justify the importance of structuring the right incentives to mitigate disruption risks. In the first study we contribute to this literature by means of an analytical model which we use to examine how a client and vendor should balance investments in response capacity when both parties' efforts are critical in resolving disruption and each may have different risk preferences. We study the difference in the client's optimal expected utility between a case in which investment in response capacity is observable and a case in which it is not and refer to the difference in outcomes between the two cases as the cost of complexity. Firstly, we show that the cost of complexity to the client is decreasing in the risk aversion of vendor but increasing in her own risk aversion. Secondly, we find that a larger difference in risk aversion between a client and vendor leads to underinvestment in system uptime in case the client's investment is observable, yet the opposite happens when the client’s investment is not observable. In the second study we further examine the context of the first study through a controlled experiment. We examine how differences in risk aversion and access to information on a contracting partner’s risk preferences interact in affecting contracting and investment decisions between the client and vendor. Comparing subject decisions with the conditionally optimal benchmarks we arrive at two observations that highlight possible heuristic decision biases. Firstly, subjects tend to set and hold on to an inefficiently high investment level even though it is theoretically optimal to adjust decisions under changing differences in risk preferences. Secondly, subjects tend to set and hold on to a penalty that is too high when interacting with more risk averse vendors and too low in case the vendor is equally risk averse. Furthermore, cognitive feedback on the vendor’s risk aversion appears to have counterproductive effects on subject’s performance in the experiment, suggesting cognitive overload can have a reinforcing effect on the heuristic decision biases observed. In the third study we construct a new analytical model to examine the effect of contract design on a provider's response capacity allocation in a setting where multiple clients may be disrupted and available response capacity is limited. The results show that while clients may be incentivized to identify and report network disruptions, competition for scarce emergency resources and the required investment in understanding their own exposure may incentivize clients to deliberately miscommunicate with the vendor.

This thesis studies the labour supply with aspiration-based reference-dependent preferences. The first contribution of the thesis is the theoretical modelling of behavioural contract theory. In Chapter 1, I modify the classical principal-agent model with uncertainty and moral hazard by replacing the Expected Utility preferences of the agent with chance theory preferences (Schmidt and Zank, 2013). Chance theory agents are primarily concerned with the sure wage they can obtain, i.e., the certain component in their contract, as they treat increments in bonuses markedly different to similar changes in sure wages. Similar to the classical predictions, our agents' optimal contracts are contingent payment schemes, however, they differ with respect to the level of the sure wage. I also contrast my predictions to those of the model of Herweg et al. (2010), who assume agents with expectation-based loss-averse preferences. The other contribution of this thesis is the empirical support for the theory of aspiration-based reference-dependent preferences with field data in education economics. In Chapter 2, I study aspiration-based reference-dependent preferences in undergraduate students' performance and effort provision. Students' reference points are set as their targeted grades. I extend a two-period economics-of-education model (Krohn and O'Connor, 2005) by proposing an additional utility function that is based on the difference between the realised grade and targeted grade. I design surveys and collect data by following a group of undergraduate students at the University of Manchester for two semesters of a full academic year with a two-period panel. My results provide evidence for students' reference-dependent preferences in two ways: first, a significant jump in students' proxied utility of grade is found at the reference point, which also implies students are loss averse. Second, the reference point positively affects students' effort provision. I further study the formation of the reference point and its variation over time. My results suggest that students partially update their past realised results into the formation of reference points. Further, the relative change of their reference points depends on the achievement of the past period reference point.

The general framework of this thesis is that of ethical Technology Assessment (eTA). Whereas the first essay proposes an inclusive approach to technology assessment by delineating an ethical checklist, the following essays focus on two of the checklist points, i.e. “privacy” and “control, influence and power”, in relation to workspace surveillance. The core idea of Essay I (written in collaboration with Sven Ove Hansson) is that, due to its strong social impact, new technology and novel use of existing technology should be considered from the perspective of ethics. We suggest that assessments should be conducted on the basis of nine crucial ethical aspects of technology. In Essay II an in-depth analysis of the meaning and value of privacy in the realm of work is undertaken. The meaning and value of privacy is explained as well as why it should be protected. It is argued that two dimensions of privacy should be safeguarded; “informational privacy” and “local privacy” for the reason that workers’ personal autonomy is protected thereby. Essay III is concerned with how workspace surveillance requires that job-applicants claim their privacy interests in employment negotiations to a much larger extent than what was previously the case. In most cases however, a dependency asymmetry between employer and job-candidate makes the latter ill-equipped for doing so. This asymmetry serves as the point of departure for an analysis of the conditions under which consent should be considered a criterion on moral acceptability with regard to employment contracting. The analysis suggests ways of rectifying this imbalance, raising demands on the quality of contractual consent. Essay IV discusses the extent to which it should be morally permissible for current or prospective employees to trade off their privacy in employment negotiations. The analysis starts out from, and questions, a libertarian case for voluntary self-enslavement. It is concluded that not even an orthodox libertarian can justify trade offs of a social good like liberty. Neither should employees be allowed to abstain informational privacy for the reason that such a trade-off could harm their future selves. In Essay V a dimensional analysis is proposed as a means to identify actually or potentially privacy invasive surveillance practices. It discusses ways in which different types of surveillance intrude upon employees’ privacy in order to guide the evaluation of such practice. Even though negative implications cannot be avoided altogether, by means of the proposed analysis, minimally intrusive means of monitoring can be identified. / QC 20100902

With the extant work on civil war duration as a starting point, this project uses the Ugandan case to identify and address theoretical aporias in our existing understanding of the determinants of duration. The vast majority of existing work begins with the assumption that the rebel force is the determining factor in the duration of conflict. Challenging this assumption, I argue that civil war duration should be understood as a function of the calculations made by both the rebel units and the established state, a dynamic that has implications for the way in which we think of the preferences of the state. Finally, that incentive structures exist, given the nature of post-colonial states that lower the utility of peace for elected leadership and reduce their willingness to provide peace as a collective good to the broader population as civil war can be used as one of Jeffrey Herbst’s buffer mechanisms.

In an attempt to promote in-depth dialogue amongst bioethicists coming from distinct disciplinary and religious backgrounds this thesis offers an overview of the current state of bioethics and a critical analysis of a number of the leading methods of addressing pluralism in bioethics. Exploring the critiques and methodological proposals coming from the social sciences, the contract theorists, and the pragmatists, this study describes the problems which arise when confronting moral and religious diversity in a bioethical context and examines the ability of these various methodologies to adequately resolve these matters. Finally, after a discussion of the benefits and the potential problems of each of the aforementioned schools, a methodological model labelled “Pragmatic Perspectivism” is set forth as a potential conceptual framework through which a bioethical theory for a secular yet religiously pluralistic society may be forged.

This dissertation consists of three essays in labor economics and contract theory. The first essay examines whether one’s wage is based on information about the performance of one’s personal contacts. I study wage determination under two assumptions about belief formation: individual learning, under which employers observe only one’s own characteristics, and social learning, under which employers also observe those of one’s personal contacts. Using data on siblings in the NLSY79, I test whether a sibling’s characteristics are priced into one’s wage. If learning is social, then an older sibling’s test score should typically have a larger adjusted impact on a younger sibling’s log wage than vice versa. The empirical findings support this prediction. Furthermore, I perform several exercises to rule out other potential factors, such as asymmetric skill formation, human capital transfers, and role model effects. The second essay analyzes the influence of macroeconomic conditions during childhood on the labor market performance of adults. Based on Census data, I document the relationship of unemployment rates in childhood to schooling, employment, and income as an adult. In addition, a sample from the PSID is used to study how the background attributes of parents raising children vary over the business cycle. Finally, information from the NLSY79-CH is examined in order to characterize the impact of economic fluctuations on parental caregiving. Overall, the evidence is consistent with a negative effect of the average unemployment rate in childhood on parental investments in children and the stock of human capital in adulthood. The third essay studies the bilateral trade of divisible goods in the presence of stochastic transaction costs. The first-best solution requires each agent to transfer all of her good to the other agent when the transaction cost reaches a certain threshold value. However, in the absence of court-enforceable contracts, such a policy is not incentive compatible. We solve for the unique maximal symmetric subgame-perfect equilibrium, in which agents can realize some gains from trade by transferring their goods sequentially. Several comparative statics are derived. In some cases, the first-best outcome can be approximated as the agents become infinitely patient. / Economics

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This thesis will try to combine shareholder ownership of a company with the notion of viewing thecompany as a social contract.Even if viewing the company as a social contract is usually considered to be part of the stakeholdertheory this view is not incompatible with the shareholder centred approaches.Through motivating the social contract view of businesses and discussion the advantages ofadopting a shareholder centred approach to company ownership this thesis will form the basis of asocial contract that would be agreed by the shareholders of the company. A part of this paper will also be dedicated to discussing how the shareholders could change the current companies to reflectmore closely on the contract they would initially have agreed on.

abstract: With regard to business modules in Chinese delivery services companies, there has long been a heated debate on whether franchising or direct management is the better module for Chinese market. But most prior discussion was lightweight, unconvincing and without any theoretical framework. This research examines three major management problems in Chinese delivery services: 1. The reason for choosing franchising module, 2. The relationship between franchising module and implementation of the product, 3. The functions of IT in delivery services. By reviewing theories on enterprise boundary and summarizing the six features of franchising contracts in Chinese delivery business as well as the five properties of delivery products, two contract models are finally set up with five beneficial conclusions which are proved by a very solid empirical data analysis. The purpose of this research is to either support or weaken the current theories on enterprise boundary as well as to offer meaningful inspirations for the management of express delivery companies in China. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Business Administration 2018

Submitted by Thiago Ribeiro (thiago.alves@terra.com.br) on 2012-12-31T21:15:27Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Thiago Alves Ribeiro.pdf: 2000492 bytes, checksum: 43183d5942a1488e57808decff67c8e4 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Suzinei Teles Garcia Garcia (suzinei.garcia@fgv.br) on 2013-01-02T12:19:38Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Thiago Alves Ribeiro.pdf: 2000492 bytes, checksum: 43183d5942a1488e57808decff67c8e4 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-01-02T12:39:55Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Thiago Alves Ribeiro.pdf: 2000492 bytes, checksum: 43183d5942a1488e57808decff67c8e4 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-12-04 / This work is an empirical study of the contractual practices adopted by Embraer after its privatization in 1994. We also analyze the contractual arrangement used to enable the aircrafts’ projects that were responsible for the company's resurgence in the late 1990s. A fundamental aspect of the contractual engineering efforts was the creation of Risk-Partnerships between Embraer and a selected group of key suppliers to co-develop an aircraft. The analysis of the collected data, points to the epistemological relevancy of using new analytical tools to understand the contractual practices that have been employed and its role in development. Therefore, we adopt the relational contract theory as a theoretical lens to analyze the risk-partnership model and investigate the role played by relational elements in the success of the ERJ 145 and EMBRAER 170/190 programs. The central hypothesis that guides this work states that, in the innovative contractual arrangement involving Embraer, foreign suppliers and BNDES, the contractual relationship was built through promissory and non-promissory mechanisms that have projected the exchange, and the patterns of normativity that were created transcended the written contract. The contribution of relational contract theory to the analysis of such practices is twofold. The first contribution is mainly descriptive, as it provides more comprehensive and powerful theoretical tools to understand the real dynamics of the contractual practices that have been studied. The second contribution, of a normative kind, consists in clarifying the relational aspects that compose, alongside promissory elements, a certain internal normativity to the contract, which regulates the agents’ conduct throughout the relationship. On the ERJ 145 and EMBRAER 170/90 programs, we try to demonstrate that (more) relational contractual arrangements, instead of conventional discrete contractual supplying relationships, were critical to the success of the projects and even for their own feasibility. In this sense, relational contracts theory provides analytical categories that not only offer more adequate theoretical tools to describe relationships such as the one under study, but also provides, through a more rich and comprehensive description, lessons on how to design contracts. This is important to demonstrate how the problem of the implicit dimensions of contracts transcends the field of contract theory and contractual justice and becomes highly relevant to the research agenda in the Law and Development field. / O presente trabalho é um estudo empírico das práticas contratuais adotadas pela EMBRAER posteriormente ao seu processo de privatização em 1994, e do arranjo contratual empregado para viabilizar a realização dos projetos de aeronaves responsáveis pelo ressurgimento da empresa ao final da década 1990. Aspecto fundamental da engenharia contratual empreendida foi a formação das chamadas Parcerias de Risco entre a Embraer e um grupo selecionado de fornecedores-chave visando o co-desenvolvimento das aeronaves. A análise das informações obtidas na pesquisa aponta a importância epistemológica de se utilizar novos instrumentos de análise que permitam compreender melhor as práticas contratuais empregadas e seu papel no desenvolvimento. Assim, utilizamos a teoria relacional dos contratos como lente teórica para analisar o modelo de parcerias de risco e, por meio dela, investigar qual o papel exercido pelos elementos relacionais no sucesso dos programas ERJ 145 e EMBRAER 170/190. A hipótese central que norteia o trabalho é a de que, no inovador arranjo contratual que envolveu a Embraer, fornecedores estrangeiros e o BNDES, a relação contratual foi construída por meio de mecanismos promissórios e não-promissórios de projeção de trocas, e os padrões de normatividade estabelecidos entre as partes transcenderam o contrato escrito. A contribuição da teoria relacional dos contratos para a análise de tais práticas possui duplo caráter. A primeiro contribuição é eminentemente descritiva, ao fornecer um instrumental teórico mais abrangente e poderoso para compreender a real dinâmica das práticas contratuais em análise. A segunda contribuição, de natureza normativa, consiste em explicitar aspectos relacionais que compõem, juntamente com os elementos promissórios, uma certa normatividade interna ao contrato que informa a conduta dos agentes ao longo da relação. Nos programas ERJ 145 e EMBRAER 170/90, procuramos demonstrar como a formulação de um arranjo contratual mais relacional em substituição ao tradicional conjunto de relações contratuais de fornecimento descontínuas, foi fundamental para o sucesso dos projetos e até mesmo para a sua própria viabilização. Nesse sentido, a teoria relacional dos contratos fornece categorias de análise que não apenas oferecem um ferramental teórico mais adequado para descrever relações como a do caso em estudo, mas também fornece, por meio de uma descrição mais rica e abrangente, lições sobre como desenhar contratos. Isto é importante para demonstrar como a problemática das dimensões implícitas do contratos transcende o campo da teoria contratual e da justiça contratual e apresenta-se de grande relevância para a agenda de pesquisa em Direito e Desenvolvimento.