<p>Begreppet ansvarsredovisning har många olika meningar, och har fått en allt större betydelse för företagens kommunikation. Samhället ställer krav på organisationernas och företagens etik, sociala ansvar och miljöansvar enligt litteraturen. Trots dessa krav är företagens och organisationernas ansvarsredovisning till stor del frivillig. Den lågkonjunktur som råder i Sverige och i övriga världen kan också antas ha påverkat kraven på företagen, att ta ett större samhälligt ansvar. Allmänheten ställer också större krav på att informationen redovisas på ett korrekt sätt, och att informationen är tillförlitlig.</p><p>Syftet med denna uppsats är att utifrån studiens frågor beskriva innebörden av begreppet ansvarsredovisning. Resultatet visar att ansvar har en teknisk innebörd som kräver tekniska färdigheter och kommunikation, men har även en social dimension som blir allt viktigare. Hur kan ansvarsredovisning beskrivas i ett organisatoriskt sammanhang, samt den tekniska dimensionen av ansvarsredovisningen? Vi har studerat organisationen ur ett organisatoriskt perspektiv. Studiens resultat karakteriseras genom två olika former, den sociala och den tekniska.</p><p>Studien är baserad på det induktiva perspektivet. Undersökningsstrategin är deskriptiv och explorativ. Vi använder en multipel teoretisk referensram för att berika analysen av insamlade materialet.</p><p>Tillämpning av multipla teorier resulterade i en i en klar koppling mellan teori och praktik. Företag och organisationer vill framstå i ”god dager” i media som en ansvarsfull enhet.Ansvarsredovisning balanserar förhållandet mellan intressenters krav och företagens och organisationernas ansvar.Ansvarsredovisningens betydelse ökar stadigt, trots att lagkravet för ansvarsredovisning är minimalt. Vi tror att ansvarsredovisningen har kommit för att stanna.</p>

In a roadway network, infrastructure conditions determine efficient network operation and traveler safety, and thus roadway engineers need a sophisticated plan to monitor and maintain network performance. Developing a comprehensive maintenance and rehabilitation (M&R) strategy for an infrastructure system, specifically a roadway network, is a complicated process because of the system uncertainties and multiple parties involved. Traditional approaches are mostly top-down, and restrict the decision-making process. In contrast, agent-based models, a bottom-up approach, could well simulate and analyze the autonomy of each party and their interactions in the infrastructure network. In this thesis, an agent-based model prototype was developed to simulate the operations of a small roadway network with a high degree of simplification. The objective of this study is to assess the applicability of agent-based modeling for infrastructure management problems through the following four aspects: (1) to simulate the user route selection process in the network; (2) to analyze the impact of users’ choices on the congestion levels and structural conditions of roadway sections; (3) to help the engineer to determine M&R strategies under a certain budget; and (4) to investigate the impact due to different fare rates of the toll road section on the infrastructure conditions in the network. This prototype detected traffic flow, and gave appropriate M&R advice to each roadway segment. To improve this model, more investigation should be conducted to increase the level of sophistication for the interaction rules between agents, the route selection, and the budget allocation algorithm. Upon completion, this model can be applied to existing road networks to assist roadway engineers in managing the network with an efficient M&R plan and toll rate. / text

This thesis is a critical examination of three influential and interrelated aspects of Donald Davidson’s philosophy of action.. The first issue that is considered is Davidson’s account of the logical form of action—sentences. After assessing the argument in support of Davidson’s account, and suggesting certain amendments to it, I show how this modified version of Davidson’s account can be extended to provide for more complicated types of action—sentences. The second issue that is considered is Davidson’s views concerning the individuation of actions; in particular, I examine Davidson’s theory concerning the ontological implications of those sentences that assert that an agent did something by means of doing something else. The conclusion that I seek to establish in this case is essentially negative—that Davidson’s theory is false. The third issue that is considered is Davidson’s theory concerning the logical implications of those sentences that assert that an agent did something as a means of doing something else, which is also commonly known as the causal theory of action. Here I argue against Davidson’s view by providing an alternative, and more satisfying response to the theoretical challenge that generates the causal theory. Subsequent to this I attempt to explain what motivates Davidson’s commitment to the causal theory.

Only with a comprehensive detailed theory of the practical processes which agents engage in prior to successful action can one get a picture of all those junctures at which the mechanism of rationality may be applied, and at which irrationality may therefore occur. Rationality, I argue, is the exercise of normatives, such as believable and desirable, whose function is to control the formation of the stages in practical processes by determining what content and which functions of practical states are allowed into the process. Believable is a functional concept, and for an agent to wield it requires that he possess beliefs or a theory he can justify about which states are goal-functional. Desirable is likewise a functional concept, and its exercise requires that agents possess justifiable beliefs or a theory about which goals are to be functional. When the desirability belief functions, it does so according to ideals of the theory. For example, it functions saliently where desires become intentions. So long as the normatives function in these ways the agent is rational. To so function is to satisfy the ideal for agency itself. Chapter 2 presents a fine-grained model of the fundamental terms and relations necessary for practical reasoning and agency. In this model, the functions of belief, desire and intention are described in naturalized terms. On the basis of this account of the terms of agency, a taxonomy of the possible failures of rationally controlled practicality is presented in chapter 3. Chapter 4 presents a comprehensive and detailed account of intention formation comprised of the functions of belief, desire and intention. Wherever one of those functions occurs in the process is a juncture at which rationality may be exercised, and therefore a point at which irrationality may occur. In chapter 5 I describe some of the main ways that dysfunctional states may disrupt agency, creating irrationality. The measures agents may take to ameliorate or otherwise control such failures are discussed and distinguished according to the ideal of agency. Finally, and in these terms, I address the problem of akrasia, in particular the views of Davidson and Mele, and show that the room they make for strict akratic action involves a significant compromise of the ideals of agency, and therefore is not as "strict" as they and others have claimed.

In this dissertation, we investigate three different questions that are related to information asymmetry and principal-agent problems. The first question is whether principal-agent conflicts lead executives to influence the design of their own employment contracts to exploit the shareholders; the second is the question whether conflicts of interest hamper the effectiveness of affiliated analysts in detecting and curbing earnings management; and the third is whether small investors are at an informational disadvantage. The three studies provide evidence on the existence of information asymmetry and principal-agent problems in various contexts. In particular, we find that the benchmarking process of executive compensation observed is a remedy of the agency costs incurred; that analysts from independent research firms monitor firms they cover more effectively than analysts affiliated with investment banks; and, strikingly, that small investors actually may have better information regarding firms’ financials even when compared to professional equity analysts. Together, these studies provide new insights into the cornerstone problems of the finance literature. / Thesis (Ph.D, Management) -- Queen's University, 2010-04-29 14:19:56.636

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I developed a framework to support the maintenance of teams of heterogeneous robots operating in complex and dynamic environments such as disaster zones. Given an established team, my work also facilitates the discovery of work to be done during the team's mission and its subsequent assignment to members of the team in a distributed fashion. I evaluated my framework through the development of an example implementation where robots perform exploration in order to locate victims in a simulated disaster environment.

Titel: Ishockeyagent som yrke! - Har Du vad som krävs, enligt spelarna? Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka agenternas roll inom svensk ishockey idag. Problemformulering: Vad gör att spelarna skaffar agent eller väljer att inte göra det? Vilka kompetenser vill en svensk ishockeyspelare att en svensk ishockeyagent ska ha? Metod: Vårt tillvägagångssätt för denna studie lutar sig emot en kvalitativ forskningsmetod där de primära källor utgjorts av intervjuer med 13 respondenter, som spelar ishockey på en nivå där agenter förekommer (divison 1 och uppåt i seriesystemen). Undersökningen har haft en deduktiv ansats där vi först utgått från forskning och teori för att sedan samla in studiens empiri. Slutsatser: Agenten behöver flera olika kompetenser. Däribland förhandlingskunskap, rådgivning, lyhördhet och förmågan att fungera i sociala sammanhang. Studien påvisar bland annat att spelarna idag inte ser förhandling som den primära kompetensen hos en agent. Snarare tyder verkligheten på att relationen mellan spelare och agent kommer i första rummet. Studien påvisar också att spelarna känner en avsaknad av utbildning hos agenterna och att man som spelare menar att agenterna därmed får svårt att stå till svars för sitt yrke.

I developed a framework to support the maintenance of teams of heterogeneous robots operating in complex and dynamic environments such as disaster zones. Given an established team, my work also facilitates the discovery of work to be done during the team's mission and its subsequent assignment to members of the team in a distributed fashion. I evaluated my framework through the development of an example implementation where robots perform exploration in order to locate victims in a simulated disaster environment.

This thesis studies existence and characterization of optimal solutions to the principal-agent problem with adverse selection for both discrete and continuous problems. The existence results are derived by the abstract concepts of differentiability and convexity. Under the Spence Mirrlees condition, we show that the discrete problem reduces to a problem that always satisfies the linear independence constraint qualification, while the continuum of type problem becomes an optimal control problem. We then use the Ellipsoid algorithm to solve the problem in the discrete and convex case. For the problem without the Spence Mirrlees condition, we consider different classes of constraint qualifications. Then we introduce some easy-to-check conditions to verify these constraint qualifications. Finally we give economic interpretations for several numerical examples. / Graduate