This dissertation focuses on the formation, growth and discontinuance of business populations and firms in Sweden during the 20th century. It addresses some key issues in the domain of economic and social sciences, and in particular entrepreneurship and small business research: if and when firms grow, stagnate and decline, as well as how long firms survive and when they are likely to disband. Previous research has primarily analyzed these questions from a short time frame. Further, an individual or firm-oriented focus is commonly assumed. In that, alternative or complementary explanations to the growth and survival of firms may be disregarded. In contrast to much previous research, this dissertation assumes a micro-to-macro, longitudinal and demographic population approach. The period of investigation is over one hundred years. In addressing the growth and survival of firms, it takes into account the impact of firm-specific structural factors (such as firm age and size), generation (cohort) effects, as well as the influence of macroeconomic, exogenous factors. Further, the relationship between managerial/ownership succession and firm performance is also addressed. Both cross-sectional and longitudinal databases are employed in the dissertation. Its main empirical material consists of unique longitudinal data on new business firms, traced at the firm level from their birth to their termination. More specifically, seven birth cohorts – generations – of approximately 2,200 firms founded in 1899, 1909, 1912, 1921, 1930, 1942 and 1950 are included. The main findings show that ownership/management succession in firms had a quite weak correlation with firm performance and survival. At least at an aggregate level, and with some exceptions, it is debatable if the loss and replacement of owner-managers in small and in larger firms have any observable effects on firm performance. Furthermore, macroeconomic phenomena influence the conditions of individual firms as well as populations/aggregates of businesses. Both the growth and termination of firms and firm populations are found to be related to real economic (environmental) conditions; e.g. favorable macroeconomic conditions implied that firms grew in size. At the same time, under certain circumstances, the influence of structural variables (firm age and size) – as suggested in much previous research – is found to be of importance. As concerns firm growth, as well as firm termination, the economic environment and structural factors interact. These findings challenges individual or firm-level research that mainly focus on personal traits and behaviors in explaining firm success and failure. Other previous assumptions are also challenged when taking a longer time perspective into consideration. For decades, organization and business research have acknowledged a liability of newness and of size for business firms. While this might be true under some conditions, this liability of newness is falsified in the study: the termination behavior of some firm generations did not correspond with these assumptions. Thus, the perspectives and methodology applied in the dissertation complement earlier approaches in entrepreneurship and small business research.

本研究針對2007年至2011年的非金融產業之上市櫃公司，分析股權結構、公司特性是否為公司內部監察人設置比率及是否設置外部監察人之影響因素，並進一步探討公司監察人內部化比率與外部監察人之存在對公司之經營績效、盈餘品質及財務報導強制重編次數的影響。 實證結果顯示，若公司型態為電子公司、家族企業或集團企業、公司之企業規模、內部人持股比率越大，則該公司內部監察人席次比率越高，且不傾向設置外部監察人。而就公司監察人內部化對公司之經營績效及財務報導品質的影響，實證結果顯示，監察人內部化比率越高之公司，其公司經營績效越差，且被要求強制重編財務報表的次數也較多。但只要存在一位外部監察人，即有助於改善公司之經營績效並降低公司被要求強制重編財務報表的可能性。惟本研究並未發現監察人內部化比率或外部監察人之存在與公司盈餘品質間存在顯著關係。 整體而言，本研究之實證結果顯示公司監察人內部化將使法制上監察人制度所應有之公司治理機能無法發揮，無法提升公司經營績效及財務報導品質。故為讓公司監察人能發揮其制度上應有之功能，公司之監察人，宜由外部人擔任。 / Based on a sample of listed non-financial companies over the period of 2007 to 2011 in Taiwan, this study first investigates the impact of ownership structure and firm characteristics on the internalization of supervisors. A step further, this study examines the effect of internalization of supervisors on firm performance, earnings quality and the frequency of restatement of financial reports. The empirical evidence shows that firms operate in electronic industries, or belong to business groups or owned by families, or with greater shares held by insiders or with larger firm size, are significantly and positively (negatively) associated with the internalization of supervisors (the presence of outside supervisors). The study also finds that firms with higher degree of internalization of supervisors are associated with poorer performance and higher frequency of restating their financial reports. On contrary, we find that firms with at least one outside supervisor are associated with better performance and lower frequency of restating financial reports. However, this study fails to report any association between the internalization of supervisors (or the presence of outside supervisors) and earnings quality measured by accruals. Based on the findings, this study therefore suggests that firms should appoint outsiders to be supervisors in order to better serve the function of the institution of supervisors.

Changing trends in customer preference, competitors’ offerings, new technologies and development techniques may disrupt a firm from its current leading market position and may favor other firms that prioritize innovation. Once a market opportunity is identified (i.e., find an answer to the ‘what to do’ question), firms need to engage in a series of activities and information processing to determine an appropriate way to monetize that opportunity – that is, firms need to find an answer to the ‘how to do’ question. Alternately, a firm may first identify a technological opportunity (i.e. find an answer to the ‘how to do’) and then find a market opportunity (i.e. find an answer to the ‘what to do’ question) to make use of the technological opportunity. Two scales that measure the capabilities of firms to address the following two questions – ‘what to do’ and ‘how to do’ - were reported; these were labelled as market-scanning capability (MktScan) and technology-scanning capability (TechScan); and these two scales were also tested in a broader research model. In turbulent environments, marketing and R&D become more challenging, since they face an uncertain future. Firms need to learn systemic scanning and decoding of apparently random changes in their business environment and imagine a pattern that makes sense. One cannot plan for uncertainty. A better strategy is to be prepared for it. One way to prepare is to develop the capabilities that would help the firm to become more adaptive. Drucker (1992) also argued that instead of planning for the long term that is uncertain, firms needed to become adaptive to tackle uncertainty. The ability of a firm to adapt to the changes depends on its ability to sense the nature of the changes in its business environment and respond to those. Sense-and-respond framework (Haeckel 1999; Haeckel 2000; Day and Schoemaker 2006) was proposed to emphasize the identification of weak signals (Ansoff 1975) to tackle increased uncertainty in business environment. In current days, effectiveness of firm’s activities often depends on the richness of its sources of information and its capability to process the collected information to identify the patterns of change happening in its business environments. Information processing may happen in two dimensions: in market dimension and in technology dimension. Firms’ capabilities for information collecting and processing in these two dimensions were measured using two firm-level constructs. These are market-scanning capability and technology-scanning capability. Resource-based theory helped to understand how firms use their tangible and intangible resources to compete in the market. Specific problem-solving aspects of the processes, activities, and cultural norms enable firms to make decisions about engaging the available resources and capabilities in ways that maximize customer value, by realizing the identified opportunities into product and service offerings. This research identified the characteristic strength of this problem-solving approach of firms – collecting information both internally and externally about possible market opportunities and technological options, organization-wide processing of that information, and taking actions to respond using insights gained – as two latent constructs called ‘market-scanning capability’ and ‘technology-scanning capability’. The concepts of ‘market-scanning capability’ and ‘technology-scanning capability’ were first defined and then, scales were developed to enable researchers and managers to measure these firm-level constructs. Next, the predictive roles of these capabilities on firm performance were examined. Empirical analysis for scale development and validation of the research model were performed with data collected through a web-based survey of Canadian manufacturing firms. Firm performance was captured in two stages – first, by product innovation performance, and second, by overall firm performance. Product innovation performance was used as an intermediate performance measure to examine the direct influence on it of market-scanning capability and technology-scanning capability, and then, to relate product innovation performance to final business outcome measured using ‘overall firm performance’ scale. The study validated the notion of resource-based theory by supporting the belief that higher levels of market-scanning capability and technology-scanning capability would lead to improved product innovation performance. The role of environmental turbulence was also examined for its possible moderating effect. Two measures of environmental turbulence, namely, technology and market turbulence were used to test the moderation effect. The technology turbulence construct was found to have a moderating effect on the relationship between technology-scanning capability and product innovation performance, indicating that firms needed to focus more attention on the changes in the technology landscape when turbulence in the technological field was perceived to be higher, in order to keep the same level of product innovation performance. Insight gained from the study contributed to a knowledge-base that might be useful to both practitioners and researchers. The combination of TechScan and MktScan scales could be used as a benchmark tool by managers to assess firms’ readiness to take advantage of the opportunities that existed. On the theoretical side, the study contributed to the understanding by showing that both market-scanning capability and technology-scanning capability had direct and indirect influences on firm performance. Also, it was found that the indirect influence of a certain scanning capability became important when firms were pre-disposed to emphasize the other scanning capability.

資訊科技投資的績效要如何評估，是所有資訊經理人關切的議題。將資訊科技有效整合到企業核心程序，是企業對於資訊科技的首要目標，但價值的產生要如何衡量、對績效形成怎樣的影響，卻很難在財務報表或其他有形的評估方式中表現出來。企業無形資產中存在著各種的智慧資本，雖然單獨以資訊科技無法帶來足夠競爭優勢，但若以資訊科技的力量來結合其他無形的資本，確能產生顯著的價值。 本研究回顧有形與無形資產的衡量方法，提出資訊科技資本的概念來整合既有方法，以評估企業資訊科技的效益。資訊科技資本是組織或公司長期累積資訊科技的能力，包含有形與無形的資產。資訊科技資本要如何衡量，是否可以分解出適當的構面，以幫助企業快速評量資訊科技資本的流量與存量呢？本研究初步建構一套衡量的構面與指標，期望透過可標準化衡量的指標，讓企業對於資訊科技的管理與維護，有更合適方便的方法。 高科技產業的環境變動迅速，對資訊科技的應用需求更形重要，如何快速掌握資訊科技的能力，是企業能夠快速運用策略的決勝關鍵。本研究訪談六家高科技產業個案公司，驗證本研究提出的資訊科技資本指標，並請資訊經理人針對指標提供適用分數，做為驗證指標發展的有效性評分。 / Assessing the performance of Information Technology (IT) investments is an issue that concerns every IT manager. It is an enterprise’s primary goal to integrate IT into critical business processes effectively, but the value and influence of a firm’s performance is very difficult to show in financial statements and quantify using regular assessment methods. This research first reviews the existing approaches in measuring tangible and intangible IT assets and then points out the IT capital which is a new concept to integrate the existing approaches in order to tackle the measure and quantification issue. IT capital is the IT ability that an organization and an enterprise accumulate over a period of time to gain the competitive advantages for companies, including tangible and intangible benefits. This study examines the development of a set of dimensions and indicators to assess IT capital. The research approach is case study orientation. There are six live case studies we have conducted to develop and verify the set of performance indicators for IT capital. A questionnaire approach was taken to gather the scores from the IT managers to provide the validity of the indicator development.

從企業績效來看，在需持續創新、風險與產業技術複雜性較高的電子業，家族企業若聘用專業經理人經營，企業績效較差，反之，在產業技術變化性與風險較低的傳統產業，家族企業聘用專業經理人經營，反而企業績效較佳，這顯示，在面臨高度風險的環境時，家族企業中經營權與所有權的分離才會導致代理問題。同樣地，在電子業中，家族企業的控制權與所有權分離程度越高，企業績效越差，反之，在傳統產業中，家族企業控制權與所有權分離程度越高，企業績效反而越佳。這個結果顯示，在需持續創新、風險與產業技術複雜性較高的產業中，家族企業必須同時面臨兩種代理問題。 從企業對創新這類風險性投資的策略來看，本論文的研究結果顯示，經營權與所有權合一，企業所有者有能力及意願監督經營者，這將有助於企業投入較多的創新。反之，在控制權與所有權分離的情況下，因為投資的大部分是其他人的錢，企業的最終控制者能將創新的風險分散給外部股東，而較有意願投入創新。而家族控制者本身，因其規避風險的特質，而對上述兩類對創新有正向影響的治理機制有負向的調節效果（moderate）。但對家族成員而言，創新有助於企業的長期競爭優勢為了家族的永續發展，在經營企業上應該會採取長遠觀點（long-term perspective），而有意願投入創新，為了解開這個難題，本研究進一步將創新分為利用型創新（exploitative innovation）及開創型創新（explorative innovation）兩類，分析結果發現，家族企業雖然投入創新的數目較少，但在比例上有較多是較開創的創新，這個結果顯示，家族企業雖然害怕風險，但相對於非家族企業仍較具有長期經營的觀點並較具開創性。 / This dissertation concerns the effects of different governance structures on firms’ performance and innovativeness in business groups. In the first study, the ambivalent needs of control and growth of family firms in business group are explored. This study finds that in general, the excess control rights and controlling shareholdings will increase firms’ performance. In addition, family firms with such control structures will perform better in non-electronic industry while worse in electronic industry. Lastly, active control, namely family members control management and chairman at the same time, will perform better in electronic industry while worse in non-electronic industry. The second study focuses on comparing family and non-family group affiliated firms’ incentives to do innovations in different governance structures. Adopting behavior agent model, we propose that although family group affiliated firms are less innovativeness than non-family group affiliated firms in general, they have larger share of exploratory innovation than non-family firms. The empirical results support our hypotheses. However, in contrast to traditional agency perspective, the separations between ownership and control rights facilitate firms’ innovativeness. This finding may originate in pyramid ownership structure.

Changing trends in customer preference, competitors’ offerings, new technologies and development techniques may disrupt a firm from its current leading market position and may favor other firms that prioritize innovation. Once a market opportunity is identified (i.e., find an answer to the ‘what to do’ question), firms need to engage in a series of activities and information processing to determine an appropriate way to monetize that opportunity – that is, firms need to find an answer to the ‘how to do’ question. Alternately, a firm may first identify a technological opportunity (i.e. find an answer to the ‘how to do’) and then find a market opportunity (i.e. find an answer to the ‘what to do’ question) to make use of the technological opportunity. Two scales that measure the capabilities of firms to address the following two questions – ‘what to do’ and ‘how to do’ - were reported; these were labelled as market-scanning capability (MktScan) and technology-scanning capability (TechScan); and these two scales were also tested in a broader research model. In turbulent environments, marketing and R&D become more challenging, since they face an uncertain future. Firms need to learn systemic scanning and decoding of apparently random changes in their business environment and imagine a pattern that makes sense. One cannot plan for uncertainty. A better strategy is to be prepared for it. One way to prepare is to develop the capabilities that would help the firm to become more adaptive. Drucker (1992) also argued that instead of planning for the long term that is uncertain, firms needed to become adaptive to tackle uncertainty. The ability of a firm to adapt to the changes depends on its ability to sense the nature of the changes in its business environment and respond to those. Sense-and-respond framework (Haeckel 1999; Haeckel 2000; Day and Schoemaker 2006) was proposed to emphasize the identification of weak signals (Ansoff 1975) to tackle increased uncertainty in business environment. In current days, effectiveness of firm’s activities often depends on the richness of its sources of information and its capability to process the collected information to identify the patterns of change happening in its business environments. Information processing may happen in two dimensions: in market dimension and in technology dimension. Firms’ capabilities for information collecting and processing in these two dimensions were measured using two firm-level constructs. These are market-scanning capability and technology-scanning capability. Resource-based theory helped to understand how firms use their tangible and intangible resources to compete in the market. Specific problem-solving aspects of the processes, activities, and cultural norms enable firms to make decisions about engaging the available resources and capabilities in ways that maximize customer value, by realizing the identified opportunities into product and service offerings. This research identified the characteristic strength of this problem-solving approach of firms – collecting information both internally and externally about possible market opportunities and technological options, organization-wide processing of that information, and taking actions to respond using insights gained – as two latent constructs called ‘market-scanning capability’ and ‘technology-scanning capability’. The concepts of ‘market-scanning capability’ and ‘technology-scanning capability’ were first defined and then, scales were developed to enable researchers and managers to measure these firm-level constructs. Next, the predictive roles of these capabilities on firm performance were examined. Empirical analysis for scale development and validation of the research model were performed with data collected through a web-based survey of Canadian manufacturing firms. Firm performance was captured in two stages – first, by product innovation performance, and second, by overall firm performance. Product innovation performance was used as an intermediate performance measure to examine the direct influence on it of market-scanning capability and technology-scanning capability, and then, to relate product innovation performance to final business outcome measured using ‘overall firm performance’ scale. The study validated the notion of resource-based theory by supporting the belief that higher levels of market-scanning capability and technology-scanning capability would lead to improved product innovation performance. The role of environmental turbulence was also examined for its possible moderating effect. Two measures of environmental turbulence, namely, technology and market turbulence were used to test the moderation effect. The technology turbulence construct was found to have a moderating effect on the relationship between technology-scanning capability and product innovation performance, indicating that firms needed to focus more attention on the changes in the technology landscape when turbulence in the technological field was perceived to be higher, in order to keep the same level of product innovation performance. Insight gained from the study contributed to a knowledge-base that might be useful to both practitioners and researchers. The combination of TechScan and MktScan scales could be used as a benchmark tool by managers to assess firms’ readiness to take advantage of the opportunities that existed. On the theoretical side, the study contributed to the understanding by showing that both market-scanning capability and technology-scanning capability had direct and indirect influences on firm performance. Also, it was found that the indirect influence of a certain scanning capability became important when firms were pre-disposed to emphasize the other scanning capability.

高階主管薪酬計畫與股權結構是解決公司代理問題的重要機制，代理理論提出以績效決定酬勞的制度，可提供高階主管努力誘因，促使股東與高階主管之間的目標一致；同時股權結構也會影響高階主管的努力，進而對公司的。故本研究旨在探討我國上市公司股權集中度、酬勞計畫與公司經營績效之關係，並利用模式推導相關的命題與假說。 本研究利用混合迴歸就四年度主管薪酬資料加以分析，Scheffe檢定檢驗高階主管的持股比例與薪酬計畫的關係，實證結果整理如下： 1.董事長持股比例與薪酬無關，總經理持股比例與薪酬有關。 2.公司價值與董事會持股比例呈非線性的關係。 3.機構投資人偏向效率監督假說。 4.總經理薪酬計畫中的項目比薪酬水準的高低重要。 5.公司經營績效與高階主管薪酬呈正相關。 / In agency theory, executive compensation contracts and ownership structures provide primary mechanisms for solving agency problems. Top executive compensation linked to performance can align the incentives of firms' top executive with firms'stockholder. Ownership structure can influce the effort of the top executive. The main purpose of this study is to examine the relationship among top executive compensation　scheme, ownership structure and firm performance for listed companies in Taiwan, and use modelling to develop related propositions and hypotheses. Pooling regressions using four years' pool data and Scheffe test are performed to test hypothese, Empirical results are summarized as follows: 1.The holdings of chairman has nothing to do with the level of compsation and that of CEO has something to do with. 2.The non-linear relationship between firm value and holdings of board of directors. 3.The role of institution tends to be efficinet monitoring hypothesis. 4.Incentive component of CEO compensation scheme tends to be more important than level of that sheme. 5.Firm performance is positively associated with top executive's cash compensation.

This thesis consists of four self-contained studies in empirical labor economics. Micro data on both employers and workers are used to analyze the questions asked in the essays. By using disaggregated information, issues related to firm and individual heterogeneity can be studied.The first essay, The Impact of Temporary Contracts on Gross Job and Worker Flows (with Mahmood Arai), examines job and worker flow dynamics for temporary and permanent contracts. The micro approach to job flows concerns changes in employment at the plant or firm level. Data used in earlier research on gross labor flows do not allow for a distinction between different types of employment contracts (an exception is Abowd et al. (1999). This distinction is especially important in Europe since several European countries discriminate between permanent and temporary contracts in their employment legislation.The data contain quarterly information on the stock of permanent and temporary contracts, as well as direct information on hires and separations for permanent and temporary workers. The information is from a representative sample of around 10,000 Swedish private establishments.The results indicate that temporary contracts, covering only around 10 percent of all contracts, stand for half of all gross job (and worker) flows. This means that gross job (and worker) flow rates for temporary contracts are around 10 times larger than job (and worker) flows for permanent contracts. Our results imply that job reallocation associated with temporary contracts is acyclical in both manufacturing and non-manufacturing sectors. For permanent contracts, job reallocation only exhibits a countercyclical pattern in manufacturing, characterized by a low fraction of temporary contracts. Services employing a higher fraction of temporary contracts exhibit no cyclical pattern in job reallocation, implying that establishments in services use temporary contracts as an adjustment buffer and can adjust its labor input more smoothly.The share of temporary contracts varies with the industry structure and changes as a result of sectoral shifts. This implies that cross-country comparisons, as well as studies of the dynamics of job and worker flows, based on aggregated time-series data, can be distorted by the impact of the fraction of temporary labor on gross labor flows. This, in turn, makes the distinction between permanent and temporary contracts crucial in analyzing job and worker flows, especially when labor protection laws discriminate between short-and long-term employment contracts. The second essay, Wage Dispersion and Allocation of Jobs, investigates the relationship between job turnover and the distribution of wages. One possible explanation for similar labor reallocation rates across labor markets with very different employment-protection legislations is related to differences in wage setting institutions. Bertola and Rogerson (1997) argue that although job-security laws lead to lower job flows, their impact might be reduced if differences in wage-setting institutions have opposite effects. Bertola and Rogerson’s conclusion is that when labor protection laws and wages are jointly considered, the result might very well be that job flows in countries with high adjustment costs and a compressed wage structure mimic those in countries with low adjustment costs and decentralized wages.Using establishment data on job turnover and wages for a panel of around 10,000 establishments in the Swedish private sector, the relationship between wage compression and job reallocation is studied at the industry level.Estimating industry fixed-effects models for 14 two-digit industries yield results indicating large sector differences regarding the effect of the degree of wage dispersion on job reallocation. In accordance with the Bertola and Rogerson hypothesis, this effect is positive in the manufacturing sector. Running separate regressions for job creation and job destruction shows a negative and significant effect of wage dispersion on job destruction, whereas it is insignificant in the job-creation equation. These results are in accordance with wages being more rigid downwards than upwards. The quantitative effect of the impact of wage dispersion on job turnover is limited, however. A one standard deviation increase in wage dispersion reduces the total job reallocation by around 10 percent. Turning to the non-manufacturing sector, the Bertola and Rogerson hypothesis is not supported.Further results include (i) a strong positive effect of the industry-share of temporary employees on job reallocation and (ii) a negative relationship between the use of overtime and job turnover.In the third essay, Wages, Profits and Individual Unemployment Risk: Evidence from Matched Worker-Firm Data (with Mahmood Arai), the impact of firm performance on individual wages is studied. Several studies have found a positive and significant effect of profits on wages. The most widely suggested interpretation for this phenomenon is that employers and employees engage in rent-sharing, thereby splitting the profits created between themselves.The purpose of this study is to examine the extent of rent-sharing and the impact of individual and aggregated unemployment risk on wages of individual workers. We use a sample of over 170,000 Swedish employees for 1991 and 1995 matched with their employing firm’s profits and the unemployment registers. The matched data contain detailed information on individual characteristics, including their unemployment experience during 1992-1995 as well as annual profits as reported in the firms’ balance-sheet reports.The contribution of this paper is that it provides evidence on the wage determination, based on disaggregated individual and firm data dealing with the problems of firm and worker heterogeneity, and the endogeneity of profits. Our results imply positive effects of profits on wages, both in 1991 and 1995. The reported elasticities imply that the wage inequality in Sweden due to the spread in profits is as high as 13% of the mean wages in 1991, according to Lester’s range of pay. These correlations are robust for controlling for time-invariant unobserved individual- and firm characteristics.Using firm-reported short-term product market elasticity and the number of competitors as instruments for profits suggest Lester’s measure of wage inequality due to profits to be as high as 50% of the mean wages.Finally, we investigate the impact of individual heterogeneity with respect to unemployment risk that might also affect wages. We include the individuals’ unemployment event record in our regressions, and our results confirm that individuals with a higher unemployment risk also have lower wages. Including aggregated measures along with individual unemployment risk in our estimations show results suggesting that there exists a robust negative correlation between unemployment risk and wages at various aggregation levels.The final essay, Pay Inequality and Firm Performance: Evidence from Matched Employer-Employee Data, tests several implications from tournament models on the same matched employer-employee data set as in essay 3.According to a variety of theories, the wage distribution both within and between firms can have important effects on individual productivity and firm performance. One argument for high wage differentials, based on incentive effects, is found in Lazear and Rosen’s (1981) tournament theory. Higher wage differentials lead to higher individual effort, and are therefore productivity enhancing. This, in turn, suggests that there is a positive relationship between wage dispersion and productivity. The opposite relationship is found in theories stressing fairness and cooperation between co-workers.For white-collar workers, the results show a positive effect of intra-firm pay spread on firm performance for 1991 and 1995. This applies to different measures of wage dispersion, capturing both raw differences and differences corrected for the fact that part of the wage spread is due to differences in human capital accumulation. To take firm heterogeneity into account, difference equations are estimated on a panel of firms. Once more, consistent with tournament theory, a positive and significant effect of wage dispersion on profits is found. The results for managers are based on information on about 10,000 managers. For various measures of wage dispersion and specifications, a positive and significant association between managerial pay and profits is found. No support is found for the hypothesis of a positive relationship between the number of managers (contestants) and wage spread. Instead, the results show a negative and significant effect of the number of executives and pay spread among managers.Finally, consistent with tournament theory, higher wage dispersion is found in firms operating in volatile product markets characterized by a high degree of output uncertainty. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögsk., 2002

Corporate governance has received considerable attention over the past few decades especially after several corporate scandals and global financial crises surfaced. It is a tool that ensures the wealth maximization interest of shareholders (Grove & Clouse, 2015; Gupta, 2015). Several studies on corporate governance have been made around the world, mostly in the context of developed nations. These have made significant contributions to the corporate governance literature and practice. However, there is scant research that addresses corporate governance issues in the context of emerging economies. In terms of applicability, it is important to view corporate governance not as a whole but in the context of specific fashion due to the economic, political, social and cultural differences among countries. In spite of the numerous studies in the subject and their contributions, a significant gap exists in our understanding of the relationship between corporate governance structure, process and board performances. Most of the prior studies focused on board structure giving much less emphasis to the board process- the missing link. By way of addressing the gap and providing a broader understanding of the relationship among the corporate governance variables, this study, among others, explored how board structure and board process influence the board performance in an emerging market economy context. Board performance has hardly been explored in this setting and this study tries to contribute to the existing literature by examining the antecedents of the boards‟ performance. The antecedents are positioned in the second order constructs that include the board structure and the board process. The antecedents with the board structure go beyond the usual variables of size, CEO duality and the outside/inside directors‟ ratio. A mixed method approach was used in the collection and analysis of the data. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected from private and public banks‟ governing bodies and various groups of stakeholders. The quantitative data were mainly analyzed statistically using the Partial Least Square method of the Structural Equation Modeling. The qualitative data obtained from the survey and the interviews were thematically analyzed to identify important concerns. The findings from the quantitative data analysis showed that board structure has positive and significant influence on board process, board service and control v task performance. The findings also indicated a positive and significant relationship between board process and both board service and control task performance. Furthermore, the study revealed that board process mediates the relationships between board structure and both board service and control roles; it was also found that ownership type affects board performance but has no influence on company performance. The stakeholders‟ perceptions of various aspects of corporate governance practices, as beginners, were found out to be not bad. However, Ethiopia, like many emerging market economies, does not yet have a fully developed legal and regulatory system. Additionally, the enforcement capacities of the regulatory organ are at a nascent stage, and a private sector that is able to support effective corporate governance has yet to emerge. The nature of the Ethiopian banking corporate governance system can be characterized by a one tier system with a non-executive board of directors and ownership concentration. The boards of directors are also mainly control oriented rather than strategic or service oriented leaders. / Graduate School of Business Leadership (SBL) / D.B.L.

Made available in DSpace on 2009-11-18T19:01:37Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 abenedito.pdf: 555296 bytes, checksum: d24c813a868e1b743e55942cb049c317 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009 / The subject entrepreneurship has been gaining strength within the area of strategy, as the entrepreneurial activity represents one of the gears of economic growth and a political social and economic response of the entrepreneur¿s capital. Nevertheless, there are not many studies that investigated if entrepreneurial orientation influences firm performance in Brazil. The objective of the research is to understand and conclude on the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and firm performance. To achieve this objective, qualitative research through in-depth interviews with 14 managers was followed by quantitative research through data collection involving 104 managers in a heterogeneous sample of 104 companies. The research used the model of Lumpkin; Dess (1996) for entrepreneurial orientation in five dimensions (autonomy, innovativeness, risk taking, proactiveness and competitive aggressiveness), to which two more dimensions were added: strategic alliances and market orientation ¿ that emerged during the qualitative phase of the study. As a result a generic model was obtained ¿ composed of one variable (proactiveness) which positively impacts the firm performance. Proactiveness was also the key factor that positively impacted the firm performance for the service sector and small businesses. For the commercial sector, the model was composed by three dimensions (innovativeness, risk taking and market orientation). While the industry / construction sectors showed no linear relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and firm performance. Competitive aggressiveness is the key factor that impacts positively on firm performance for big companies, whereas for mediumsized companies it is the market orientation which relates positively to firm performance. Finally, there are no significant differences depending on the sector in which the firm operates or its size. / O tema empreendedorismo vem ganhando força dentro da área de estratégia, uma vez que a atividade empreendedora representa uma das engrenagens do crescimento econômico e uma resposta política, social e econômica do capital empreendedor. Apesar disso, não há muitas pesquisas que investigaram se a orientação empreendedora (OE) influencia a performance das empresas (PE) no Brasil. O objetivo da pesquisa visa compreender e concluir sobre a relação entre OE e PE. Para atingir este objetivo, realizou-se uma pesquisa qualitativa, através de entrevistas em profundidade com 14 gestores, seguida de pesquisa quantitativa, através de coleta de dados envolvendo 104 gestores de uma amostra heterogênea de 104 empresas. A pesquisa utilizou o modelo de Lumpkin; Dess (1996) para OE em cinco dimensões (autonomia [A], inovação [I], capacidade de assumir riscos [CAR], pró-atividade [PA] e competitividade agressiva [CA]), ao qual foram acrescentadas mais duas dimensões, formação de parcerias [FP] e orientação para o mercado [OM] que surgiram durante a fase qualitativa do estudo. Obteve-se um modelo genérico composto por uma variável (PA) que impacta positivamente a PE. A PA também foi o fator-chave que impactou positivamente a PE para o setor de serviços e para empresas pequenas/micro. Para o setor de comércio o modelo foi formado por três dimensões (I, CAR, OM). Enquanto o setor de indústria/construção não apresentou relação linear entre OE e PE. A CA é o fator-chave que impacta positivamente a PE para empresas grandes, ao passo que para médias é a OM que se relaciona positivamente à PE. Por fim, não existem diferenças significativas dependendo do setor em que a empresa atua ou do seu tamanho.