The purpose of this thesis is to analyze Swedish entrepreneurs and how they recognize opportunities in transition economies. In order to reach the intention of thesis, a case study of three Swedish firms have been conducted with interviews. Theoretical framework consists of the entrepreneurship theory, opportunity recognition process and innovations which all are relevant to the study and research questions. The empirical findings include the case firms view on entrepreneurial characteristics, opportunities and innovations. The conclusions of the thesis are that opportunities are recognized by individuals with specific characteristics. Suppliers, customers and agents can influence opportunity recognition process and direction.

<p>Every consumer decision incurs a cost. An hour spent researching products is an hour not spent working. Vacation days used in the winter are vacation days not used in the summer. A dollar spent on a car payment is a dollar not spent dining out. What determines the extent to which consumers consider such opportunity costs when making decisions?</p><p>Although every purchase requires an outlay cost (i.e., spending dollars in order to obtain a good), outlay costs only have economic significance because some other good or service must be given up as a result. Consumers have unlimited wants but limited resources, so satisfying one want means not satisfying another (the opportunity cost). An opportunity cost is "the evaluation placed on the most highly valued of the rejected alternatives or opportunities" (Buchanan 2008) or "the loss of other alternatives when one alternative is chosen" (Oxford English Dictionary 2010). Opportunity costs are foundational to the science of economics and, normatively, consumers should account for opportunity costs in every decision they make. I define opportunity cost consideration as "considering alternative uses for one's resources when deciding whether to spend resources on a focal option."</p><p>Because consumers face opportunity costs, every purchase decision is effectively a choice among alternative resource uses, not just a decision of whether or not to make a particular purchase. When consumers consider their opportunity costs, alternative resource uses specify the broadest form of competition that products face: each resource use competes for share-of-wallet with all other potential resource uses. Understanding when consumers consider a purchase decision as an allocation across multiple options, and what those considered options are, allows researchers and practitioners to better understand why consumers make the purchases that they do, why they restrain from making the purchases that they do not, and how to influence purchases of focal options by increasing or decreasing consideration of alternative resource uses.</p><p>What determines when consumers consider opportunity costs? In Essay 1, I propose that consumers consider opportunity costs when they perceive immediate resource constraints. In Essay 2, I propose that consumers consider opportunity costs when the resource in use increases the accessibility of alternative resource uses in memory.</p><p>Beyond addressing when consumers consider opportunity costs, I address three additional questions. First, who is more likely to consider opportunity costs? Individuals with a high propensity to plan are likely to consider opportunity costs even when they are not immediately constrained. Second, which opportunity costs are consumers more likely to consider? Consumers are more likely to consider opportunity costs that are more typical of the category of possible resource uses than opportunity costs that are less typical of the category of possible resource uses. Third, what are the consequences of opportunity cost consideration? Individuals who consider their opportunity costs are more sensitive to their value than those who do not consider them. In addition to aiding our understanding of the consumer decision process, understanding opportunity cost consideration has important implications for consumers' sensitivities to the structure of the decision environment, understanding the nature of competition and cross-price elasticities, memory for foregone options, and construction of preferences.</p> / Dissertation

Whether entrepreneurial opportunity is objectively existed or it could be deliberately created is still a disputable issue in academic filed. However, increasing number of scholars tend to conclude that entrepreneurial opportunity comes from a process of recognition, discovery and creation by alerted entrepreneurs. Based on this point, it seems to be obvious that entrepreneurs must have some kind of knowledge and abilities, poses special source of information and involved in certain social networks. So that they can easily find those opportunities that other can¡¦t. In this study, I apply Ardichivili¡¦s(2003) opportunity identification and development theory to discuss this issue through a viewpoint of human capital and social capital. Seven entrepreneurs were interviewed to conduct the survey, and the content is analyzed through six coding unit to show the following results: 1. The general human capital is intermediately positive to opportunity recognition and highly positive to opportunity development. 2. The specific human capital is highly positive to both opportunity recognition and opportunity development. 3. The weak-tie network is highly positive to opportunity recognition but low positive to opportunity development. 4. The strong-tie network is highly positive to both opportunity recognition and opportunity development. 5. Entrepreneurial human capital is mediated by social capital to have positive effects on opportunity recognition and opportunity development.

As a series of financial crisis and accounting scandals occur around the world, the government, many institutions and the public have put great emphasis on corporate governance. Most of the prior research focus on how the corporate governance monitoring system can enhance the firm value and reduce the financial crisis. This empirical analysis includes investment opportunity set (IOS) as an environmental factor and tests the interaction between IOS, firm performance and external corporate governance mechanisms (audit quality and institutional investor ownership) as well as internal corporate governance mechanisms (CEO duality and pledged shares ratio of directors and supervisors) in Taiwan. The sample consists of 999 Taiwan publicly listed companies both in electronics industry and non-electronics industries in 2003. This empirical study uses common factor analysis, Pearson¡¦s correlation analysis and regression analysis to test four hypotheses. The hypotheses are as follows: (1) the relationship between IOS and firm performance will be affected if the auditor is from the Big 4 auditing firm. (2) The relationship between IOS and firm performance will be changed due to the institutional investor ownership. (3) The CEO duality will influence the relationship between IOS and firm performance. (4) The pledged shares ratio of directors and supervisors has an influence on the relationship between IOS and firm performance. The results show that audit quality has no influence on the association of IOS and firm performance, but the institutional investor ownership has a negative and significant influence on that relationship. In non-electronics industries, CEO duality won¡¦t change the firm performance but a negative influence is reported in this study. Eventually, while many companies with financial distress have a higher pledged shares ratio than other normal companies, a positive influence is shown in this study when the investment opportunity set is considered.

Abstract¡G From previous studies we found that growth opportunity is an important factor help explaining the cross-sectional differences of firms¡¦ dividend and financing policies. However, growth opportunities are unobservable and not measurable, scholars used different proxies to catch the idea. Prior empirical studies used market-to book, earning-price ratio, Tobin¡¦s Q, R&D intensity, capital expenditure (deflated by book value of assets), PPE, previous sales growth as proxies for growth opportunities, but had inconsistent results. The purposes of this thesis are: first, to find out the relationship between growth opportunities and realized growth, and to determine which proxy is most suitable; second, to find the empirical evidences of the relation between growth opportunities and financing policies, growth opportunities and dividend policies support contract theories, tax-based theories or signaling theories; and finally, to find out if firm¡¦s growth opportunities are affected by its financing and dividend policies. We examine all nonfinancial firms listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange from 1991 to2000. We use the correlation and regression to determine the relation between growth opportunities and realized growth, then distinguish total debt ratio, short-term debt ratio, long-term debt ratio from financing policies, and dividend payout ratio, cash-dividend yield, stock dividend yield, and dividend yield from dividend policies. We use different growth opportunity proxy to separate whole sample into two subsamples, and growth as a dummy variable. We use regression to find the relation between growth and financing policies, dividend policies. Finally, we use simultaneous equation to determine the relationship among growth opportunities, financing policies and dividend policies to see if they are interdependent. Our empirical result shows that growth opportunities and realized growth have positive relations. But growth opportunities are not positively correlated with realized investment growth. Price-based proxies are often overestimate future equity market value growth. Growth firms have higher debt ratios and long-term debt ratios. The result supports contracting theory and progressive tax rate theory. Growth firms have higher short-term debt ratios, too. We can¡¦t find the significant relation between growth opportunities and dividend pay¡Vout ratios. Growth firms have lower cash dividend yield, and the result supports cash-flow constraint and contracting theories. There is no clear relation between stock dividend yield and growth opportunities. Through simultaneous equation, over financing and too much cash-dividend restrict firms¡¦ growth opportunities.

¡§Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM)¡¨ is a research program initiated in 1999 by Babson College and London Business School. In its research papers, two types of entrepreneurship were mentioned: opportunity and necessity entrepreneurship. The term ¡§opportunity entrepreneurship¡¨ refers to the ones who pursue a business opportunity for personal interest. In contrast, people who reported they were involved in creating a business because they had no better choices for work were referred as ¡§necessity entrepreneurship.¡¨ In 2006, forty-two countries participated in the GEM program. According to the findings from the GEM program, opportunity entrepreneurship and necessity entrepreneurship are different in many aspects. Unfortunately, Taiwan is not one of the countries that are involved. Therefore, the major task of this thesis is to identify the differences between opportunity entrepreneurship and necessity entrepreneurship in Taiwan, focusing mainly on the city of Kaohsiung. In this research, we will concentrate on finding the differences between the opportunity entrepreneurship and the necessity entrepreneurship. The study will focus on backgrounds, characteristics, and experiences of these two kinds of entrepreneurships. Since this is a quantitative research, a questionnaire will be issue to each of the participants.

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Like many other cities Memphis has been hit hard by the economic downturn, but unlike other cities there are several other factors which cause the existing conditions in Memphis to be even more devastating. Memphis is one of the largest majority minority cities in the country with high rates of unemployment and, extremely high rates of crime. Foreclosures have ravaged the housing stock, graduation rates are far below the state goal, there are huge disparities in income and HIV/AIDS is on the rise at alarming rates. In Memphis, these factors combine to exacerbate the existing desert of opportunity that reproduces patterns of desolation, segregation, and social and economic disparities. This report aims to investigate the socio-economic dynamics of those areas most affected by inequality in an effort to understand the correlation between various factors, identify trends within those areas and assess how the interaction of various components could have potentially detrimental effects on the overall community. / text

Human Genetic Enhancement (HGE) has the potential to provide great benefits to a large number of people in terms of alleviating inherited disease and disability and maximizing individual liberty. There are many arguments against research and application of this new technology based on a variety of grounds, including both deontological and consequentialist objections. In this thesis I examine arguments from both of these positions and argue that neither offers a satisfactory justification for prohibiting research into HGE nor do they demonstrate that the application of the knowledge gained from such research is necessarily wrong. I also suggest that there is a strong argument in favor of HGE in that it may offer a way to reduce the amount of disadvantage currently present in our society as a result of genetic disease and disability by addressing the genetic causes of these conditions. Further, I argue that the pursuit of HGE is necessary in order to promote individual liberty and promote equality of opportunity. Finally, I argue that by examining principles that require us to promote individual liberty we can establish the categories of enhancements which we should publicly fund and those that should merely be permissible. / Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2008-09-18 17:05:35.143

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