The effects of the Subprime Crisis in 2007, which evolved into the still continuing economic crisis, have caused worldwide financial damages in excess of USD 1,6 trillion until 2009 alone according to banks' estimates and renewed awareness for the way financial institutions are run and regulated. It has captured the interest of regulatory standard-setters in their efforts to adjust their supervisory frameworks in order to improve financial stability forcing bank executives to re-think and adjust their business models in order to adapt to the new regulatory environment. Several studies and other publications have been produced on this topic. However, these are limited by their focus on banks in general, especially large-scale and shareholder-oriented banks with sufficient information publicly available. This project contributes to current debates by analysing the impact of the new regulatory measures, Basel III, as well of other competitive forces on the German cooperative banking sector being the smallest of the so-called Three Pillar System, consisting of ap. 1.100 individual banks (primary banks) with 30 million customers and 17 million shareholders (members) plus two central institutions organized within the Cooperative Financial Services Network. Particularly, the aim is to explore and identify how primary banks react and adjust or have to adjust their modus operandi in order to stay competitive given the special characteristics and limitations within their network. Considering tangible as well as intangible assets, this is done via a multi-level research design using a number of methodologies and referencing a range of information and informants while taking advantage of the privileged status of having hands-on access to real-life subjects, i.e. cooperative banks, to gather relevant practical data. This research has concluded that the effect of Basel III on cooperative banks is not as severe as commonly assumed when the entire banking sectory is regarded. Especially with regard to equity, being the focus of the majority of literature, evidence suggests a low impact, with liquidity issues, having been of secondary attention, representing higher pressure. However, no need to conduct material reorganisations has been identified upon analysing current data and historical performance. Giving the dependence on interest income, the on-going low interest level in connection with limitations on conducting maturity transformation poses the biggest threat to performance requiring primary banks to carry out new thinking. A number of key topics have been researched and also implemented as part of this project. One of the main findings in this context was that there is in fact a well-developed awareness of issues and challenges, however, a lack of willingness to change. This is regarded a problem associated with core principles of adherence to cooperative values and the regional principle, a principle of the cooperative banking sector that requires primary banks to operate within a practically limited area. However, evidence and research suggests that there is high potential for performance improvements by introducing structured concepts and the enhanced use of the cooperative network. Quantitative and as well as qualitative instruments tested, such as a financial model for regulatory compliance or the BSC to improve operational improvements, have been successfully tested. With regard to the ideas and strategies proposed to improve competitiveness some will argue that it is not feasible. However, this research confirms that the economic and regulatory environment leaves no choice by to change the old-established way of operation. It forces banks, especially smaller ones, to react and fight with no time to lose.

Food in the airplane context can be defined as the complementary meal which is served to passengers on board a commercial airliner after being prepared by airline catering services. As people enter a new environment, an airplane in this case, they bring along with them several beliefs which have an effect on their perception, attitude and behaviour. Stereotypical beliefs stemming from the airline's reputation, its image and beliefs about airline food or beliefs about the airline itself can affect the perception that passengers have of the food served on the plane. The effect of the cabin environment, such as reduced oxygen level and restricted movement, can also, produce physiological responses in people such as loss of appetite, slower digestion and bloated stomach, especially in long haul economy class (Jones and Lumbers, 2004). These complications create a challenge for the airline and catering companies to understand exactly what passengers want and what they view as an acceptable in-flight meal. Although much has been done to study the extent to which airline service can influence passengers' satisfaction, very few studies have been done to understand passengers' food-re lated behaviour on board. Accordingly, this study investigates passengers' perception of eating on the plane and perception of the meal on board, and to examine their association with the in-flight meal acceptance.

To effectively manage risk in supply chains, it is important to understand the interrelationships between risk events that might affect the flow of material, products and information within the chain. Typical supply chain risk management tends to treat events as if they are independent and so fail to capture the systemic nature of supply chain risks. This thesis addresses this shortcoming by developing a quantitative modelling process to support systemic supply chain risk analysis. Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) models are able to capture both the aleatory and epistemic uncertainties associated with supply chains and to represent probabilistic dependency relationships. A visual modelling process, grounded in the theory of BBN and the decision context of supply chain risk management, is developed to capture the knowledge and probability judgements of relevant stakeholders. An experiment has been conducted to evaluate alternative approaches to structuring a BBN model for supply risk. It is found that building causal maps provides a good basis for translating stakeholder cause-effect knowledge about the supply chain risks into a formal graphical probability model, which underpins the BBN. The modelling process has been evaluated through a longitudinal case for the hospital medicine supply of NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde. A BBN model has been developed in collaboration with relevant stakeholders who have expertise in all or part of the medicine supply chain. The perceptions of these stakeholders about the modelling process and results generated have been formally gathered and analysed. The BBN model of the medicine supply chain has provided insight into risks not captured by conventional risk management methods and supported deeper understanding of risk through exploration of modelling scenarios. Analysis of stakeholder evaluation of the modelling process provided valuable insights into the operationalization of BBN modelling for supply risk and has informed the final modelling process developed through this research.

The overall aim of this thesis is to improve the understanding of the role of System Dynamics (SD) in the analysis of Human and Organisational Factors (HOFs) for Accident Analysis (AA) and Probabilistic Risk Analysis (PRA). PRA and AA are important elements of the risk management of complex technological systems. They help duty holders ensure compliance with the health and safety law. Logical and mathematical modelling plays an important role in PRA and is gaining increasing recognition within the AA community. Models help to identify hazards and adverse effects and help to explain how and why accidents occur. They also enable the risk to be expressed quantitatively. SD is a modelling approach that has been proposed to be used within PRA and AA to support analysis of HOFs. Risks do change over time as a result of changes in HOFs, and SD has significant capabilities for capturing mechanisms that drive human and organisational behaviour over time and influence risks and contribute to accidents. However, the published literature lacks explicit discussion of the role that SD could play in the analysis of HOFs for PRA and AA. The aim of this thesis is to address this gap. To achieve the thesis aim, the research work was divided into two areas for investigation: 1. Exploration of when SD could be used in the analysis of HOFs for PRA and AA. 2. Application of SD to the analysis of HOFs for PRA and AA to gain an understanding of the issues involved in using SD in these areas. These investigations led to lessons that contribute to knowledge of the use of SD within PRA and AA. Any modeller considering the use of SD within PRA or AA will benefit from the conclusions of this thesis.

This thesis develops the founding elements of the concept of Communities of Practice (CoPs) by elaborating on the learning processes happening at the heart of such communities. In particular, it provides a consistent perspective on the notions of knowledge and of knowledge sharing that is compatible with the 'DNA' of this concept, i.e. learning entailing an investment of identity and a social formation of a person. It does so by drawing richly from the work of Michael Polanyi and his conception of Personal Knowledge, and thereby it clarifies the scope of CoP, it 'brings knowledge back' into CoPs as a technical term, and it offers a number of new insights into how to make such social structures 'work' in professional settings. The first part of the research design is a review of literature in the broadly understood area of organisational knowledge and learning, followed by a synthesis, which yields conceptual results. The empirical part is a qualitative study in NHS Scotland that is structured around three cases: in the areas of dementia, formal networks, and sepsis. The empirical material is directly analysed and presented using cognitive mapping, following a SODA protocol, which is so far utilised primarily in management consultancy with executive teams, and thereby this methodological approach contributes to the pool of available academic research methods. There are two main contributions of this thesis; each of these has implications both for scholarly knowledge as well as practice. The first one stems from an idea of the process of thinking together which is conceptualised as people mutually guiding each other through their understandings of the same problems in their mutual area of interest, and this way indirectly sharing tacit knowledge. It is argued that it is this process that essentially brings CoPs to life, rather than for example trying to 'set up' a community first. Thinking together can therefore be used as a simple yet conceptually in-depth point of focus which shows that the central aspect of fostering CoPs is to build fertile avenues for people to engage regularly in that trans-personal and often trans-organisational process, and therefore it emphasises the dynamic and process-driven nature of such communities. The second main contribution is a further elaboration of the thinking together process, which leads to a sharper view of trans-organisational knowledge where organisations learn as people engage in organic learning partnerships and thereby they share and preserve tacit knowledge that can never be fully converted into an explicit form. As such trans-organisational thinking together can be more intensive and more demanding in time or knowledge than for example a casual exchange of facts or a transfer of written documentation, cultivating CoP can be an expensive endeavour which may require careful planning and triple-legitimisation at multiple levels that needs to be looked at holistically and beyond official organisation al structures.

Healthcare is a unique and complex economic sector much different from any other. It is a sector highly institutionalized, under great government influence, and facing crucial resource allocation issues that threaten the stability of healthcare systems and the survivability of healthcare units worldwide. Evaluation of the processes, interventions and Information Technology (IT) use in healthcare systems is a pressing since the emerging e-Health applications carry a strong potential for solving efficiency and resource allocation problems. Especially nowadays, the increasingly popular medical websites, with the plethora of web medical applications that they offer, are forming a promising emerging market which enables better efficiency and the further evolution of the healthcare systems. Through understanding the factors that lead people to use medical websites and by evaluating the new technological initiatives in healthcare, the road towards better efficiency and cost effectiveness may become shorter. The main thrust of this research is to examine ways of evaluating an investment in the medical websites and apply methods that are well-established and successfully used in other economic sectors To achieve the aims of this research a comprehensive investigation of the extant literature performed and showed that until now evaluation methods like Cost-Benefit Analysis and Return on Investment were used in healthcare with main purpose to evaluate medical treatments, treatment processes and enhance medical education rather than focusing on evaluating processes and technological changes and interventions in healthcare and apply in healthcare sector what was successfully used in other economic sectors such as business and manufacturing. Moreover this research investigated the factors that contribute to the success and the survivability of the medical websites and provided some forecasting and key performance indicators for medical websites. In order to fulfil the aims of this research, a sample of medical web sites was used to form a rich dataset that was analysed using regression modelling. The medical websites were evaluated from the perspective of a medical virtual enterprise that provides medical advices/content and medical applications using a unique feature selection based methodology employing the use of novel tools. Furthermore a novel crowd-sourcing methodology was implemented, tested first in a Willingness to Pay online survey setting, utilising innovative tools and the power of the social networks for the identification of the perceived value of the medical web-based services The results of this research show that the factors that can have great impact on the business excellence and survivability of the medical websites seem to be the current status of the medical website, the category in which it is classified according to its content, the nature of the organization that supports the website, the source of its funding, as well as its presence in search engines and social networks. Finally These results showed that an investment on a successful medical website can be proved to be quite beneficial and profitable, not just for the public/private organization or the individual investor(s) who develops or owns it, but also sufficiently satisfactory for a great number of the Internet users/ patients.

Agency theory has for some time been the dominant on executive compensation research. Behavioural approaches such as prospect theory, behavioural agency theory and reference point theory (including strategic reference point theory) provide new perspectives for research into executive compensation. For the largest transitional economy of China, the shift from a planned and administration-oriented economy to a market-oriented economy remains an on-going process. As behavioural approaches are derived from the understanding of human decision-making patterns, they are therefore less subject to institutional settings and thus more applicable to understanding executive compensation contracting in China. From a reference point theory perspective, we test a ‘three reference point’ framework for executive compensation contracting: in external reference to peer firms, internally to other executives on board, and in the time dimension referring to top executives’ previous pay. We find that as a superior alternative to agency theory, reference point theory can provide a better explanation for top executive compensation contracting. In our three empirical chapters, we mainly find that: (1) Chinese executive pay levels are externally heavily influenced in their setting by the pay level of executive peer groups; internally by other executives within firms and by the pay level of an individual executive in the previous period. It should also be noted that the loss aversion effect exists in top executive compensation contracting. (2) We test the three reference point effect and use Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to determine the systematic effects of these reference points to empirically test the behavioural determinants of executive pay in China; the three reference points and the systematic effect on top executive compensation are determined to be robust. (3) We document a negative association between top executive pay and a politically-connected board. However, after controlling for the three reference points, this association becomes positive and further strengthens the pay-performance link. We also find that in state-owned and politically connected firms the pay–performance link is the strongest, especially after adjusting for the effect of the three reference points. In private firms that are not politically connected, meanwhile, the pay-for-performance link is weak. Our findings have important policy implications. They highlight the defects of current corporate governance mechanisms, particularly in executive compensation design and monitoring. The current Chinese Corporate Governance Code largely mimics corporate governance practice in the Anglo-American business environment and relies heavily on agency theory; therefore, to a large extent, it does not work in its own context. Our findings identify that in practice, the ‘three reference point’ framework and political connections play very important roles in influencing Chinese executive pay setting, in addition to the link to pay-for-performance and corporate governance mechanisms. It is therefore indicated that the Chinese Government should consider developing policies and regulations in addition to its Corporate Governance Code in order to effectively control the problems of the departure of executive compensation from firm performance.

Corporate Governance failures of large corporations such as Lehman Brothers have evoked a plethora of calls for changes in Corporate Governance Principles. Despite the fact that after the financial crisis, a number of transnational institutions have called for wide-scale changes related to Corporate Governance Principles by further protecting shareholders’ rights, it has been proven that theoretical extension and reform of Corporate Governance Principles is not enough, because it does not ensure successful implementation. According to a report from Isaksson (2009), corporate disclosures were not in line with OECD principles on good Corporate Governance. Moreover, according to Isaksson (2009), the financial crisis can also be traced back to incomplete Corporate Governance disclosures. One major implementation topic involves Corporate Governance Reporting, which is very complex for multinational companies, as it involves statutory compliance with multiple rules and laws, coping with heterogeneous “Systems of Corporate Governance” (Weimer and Pape, 1999; Leuz et al., 2003; Tylecote and Visintin, 2007) and additionally the compilation of codes (Cadbury, 1993) and industry-specific standards (Mach et al., 2006; Bebchuk and Spamann, 2010). Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) is assumed as a benchmark related to interactive business disclosures (Chen and Sun, 2009; Debreceny et al., 2010; Alles and Piechocki, 2012). Does XBRL have the potential to help to reduce the complexity of companies’ Corporate Governance Reporting (Alles and Piechocki, 2012)? In the academic literature, there are many articles which conclude that it is possible for XBRL to enhance transparency and improve Corporate Governance for financial reporting (Abdullah et al., 2009; Roohani et al., 2010; Alles and Piechocki, 2012; Müller-Wickop et al., 2013): therefore, an additional question is whether the application of XBRL to the non-financial reporting of Corporate Governance can also contribute to enhanced transparency. XBRL will become mandatory based on the legal requirement of the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) for Foreign Private Issuers (FPI) that are listed on the NYSE (Debreceny et al., 2010). Investors demand the extension of XBRL-enabled reporting to other financial reports, including CGR (Arnold et al., 2012), because within the peer group of listed Foreign Private Issuers on the New York Stock Exchange, comprising Financial Institutions, there is no adequate Corporate Governance framework to reflect Corporate Governance Reporting. Therefore, in this doctoral thesis, a taxonomy on Corporate Governance will be developed which can be put into practice for Corporate Governance Reporting.

Despite the growing population of Internet customers, purchasing online can still be a confusing and overwhelming activity. Perceived risk plays a crucial role in online buying decisions. The mechanism of online customer feedback has been identified to improve trust and to reduce risk in online marketplaces. Feedback from previous customers greatly builds online vendor reputation and establishes trust, which positively influence the intent to purchase. This study aims to find out how a feedback system enhances vendor reputation and can thereby be used to mitigate product complexity and facilitate online purchasing decisions in the B2C environment. The cooperation with a feedback company creates an experimental setting that allows a relationship between positive feedback, conversion rate, arbitrations and feedback submissions to be inferred. The access to real feedback and transaction data allows the investigation of actual risk perception and the need for risk evaluation. This study considers both the user’s and the vendor’s interaction with the feedback system. Nelson’s (1970) product classification is used to divide product categories into different levels of product complexity. The study follows a positivist quantitative approach and applies deductive strategies and procedures to address the research objective. The author presents a number of hypotheses and has analysed data from 400 online stores that have implemented a feedback system. Transaction and feedback data were drawn from a feedback company database and have been analysed using linear regression and partial correlation. The results of this research indicate that product complexity has an inevitable influence upon an online buying process. The greater the transaction value (average price) and the functional/technical complexity of the product (product complexity), the more the presence of feedback grows in importance. However, the aspect of trust, that emerged due to of the percentage of positive feedback by past customers, only influences sales of highly complex products, which means that product category matters with regard to the trust transference theory. The findings identified different risk types which corraborate the theory that risk is multi-faceted. Finally this study provides valuable insights about the vendor's strategic work with a feedback system. The conclusions provide suggestions for online vendors as to how they can use online feedback systems as tools for dealing with the shortcomings associated with electronic commerce. It is important for vendors of complex products to invest in their reputation and to establish trust on the basis of feedback that is as positive as possible. By better understanding the relationships among positive reputation profiles and certain risk types (financial risk, product risk, physical risk, time risk), vendors may be able to take more appropriate actions in their efforts to make shopping online a less risky experience and motivate certain behaviour, such as purchasing. It is recommended that the vendor carries out proper complaint management in the form of arbitration procedures on negative feedback. A feedback system gives online vendors the advantage of protecting themselves against the negative opinions spread on the World Wide Web. The process of arbitrations enables vendors to show competence and has the ability to turn dissatified customers into satisfied customers. In order to enhance the online reputation, organisations should offer workshops on the efficacy of working with a feedback system and how to conduct arbitrations properly.

This Research investigates the origins of innovation from a social perspective. It identifies status and social capital as two constructs that could elucidate the social construction of innovation. Drawing on the expectation states theory, signalling mechanism of status, three dimensional conceptualisation of social capital, and the network model of innovation, this thesis develops theoretical frameworks,in which the effect of status on innovation is theorised through the mediating role of social capital dimensions. Following a social network analysis research design, the proposed models are tested in an empirical study. Relational data is collected from 121 individuals, and analysed through mediation analysis in PROCESS macro. The results show strong evidence that three dimensions of social capital both independently and collectively mediate the effect of status on innovation. The findings illustrate how and to what extent different perceptions regarding the social rankings of the actors could end up influencing their innovative contribution, through affecting their social network, and thereby regulating the access to the socially available resources. The outcomes contribute to the literature by advancing the understanding regarding its social origins of innovation. The empirical evidence indicate that the social antecedents of innovation are not limited to the social interactions, but they have much deeper roots into individuals’ social attributes, namely perceived status. Moreover, the mediating role of social capital dimensions offers an explanation on how perceived status of individuals could influence their contribution to product innovation.