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This thesis explores the issues surrounding the relation between executive compensation and corporate acquisitions. Based on a sample of 2527 acquisitions in the US from 1993 to 2004, I find that equity-based compensation provides strong incentives for managers to undertake risky acquisitions. Increase in risk change is associated with increase in the sensitivity of CEO wealth to stock return volatility (Vega). Further, higher level of risk change intensifies the positive impact of Vega and the negative impact of the sensitivity of CEO wealth to stock price (Delta) upon acquisition performance. Different from conventional wisdom, the empirical evidence suggests that managerial overconfidence provides an alternative solution to the underinvestment problem induced by managerial risk aversion. Considering the gender, I find that the market has more favourable response to the acquisitions led by female CEOs than those conducted by their male counterparts. However, in the long run, this difference vanishes. Furthermore, risky corporate acquisitions led by female CEOs destroy shareholder's value in the long run. Finally, female CEOs are more responsive to the risk incentive than the male CEOs are. Considering the impact of corporate acquisitions on executive compensation, I find that, after a completed acquisition, CEOs in the firms with stronger managerial power experience increase in cash compensation and decrease in stock grant. Corporate governance does matter. In the firm with stronger corporate governance provisions, i.e., weaker managerial power, CEOs are penalized for poor acquisition performance with decline in cash based compensation. Regarding the direct modelling of endogeneity, Simultaneous equations modelling yields empirical results that are consistent with those generated by Ordinary least squares regression. The analyses of the serial acquisitions sample confirm the general wisdom that executive compensation increases after each deal in an acquisition series. In tum,. executive compensation and its recent increment have certain predictive power over the occurrence of future acquisition activities. Considering performance, after controlling for deal characteristics, I find no significant difference between serial acquirers and occasional acquirers in performance during deal announcement period. In the long run, however, serial acquirers outperform occasional acquirers. Finally, I find no significant relation between levels of executive compensation and serial acquirer's acquisition performance. My empirical analyses suggest that CEO's psychological and biological characteristics need to be taken into account while designing executive compensation. Moreover, my research sheds light on the debate about pay-for-performance relation by empirically showing that executive compensation is at best a two-edged sword. In the case of corporate acquisitions, ex-ante executive compensation can be designed as a corporate governance device to realign the diverged interests between management and shareholders. Nonetheless, executive compensation can potentially become an agency problem as CEOs may engage in corporate acquisition for their own interests but not for those of the shareholders. This agency problem could be more severe in serial acquisitions.

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This is a first person action research account in which I immerse myself in my embodied experience of love. My aim is to learn through love how my practice, as a Director in social housing, and as a teacher of yoga, might be improved by giving primacy to a value laden theorising of my lived experience. I combine journalling and spiritual practice to bring an intimate and non-verbal experience of love into professional practice. I bring this inner felt experience into language taking a phenomenological and hermeneutical approach. I immerse myself in the relation between physical, emotional and spiritual knowledge. I analyse the movement of knowledge between the personal and the social in the language of inclusionality (Rayner 2004), and show how social relations mediate my inner non-verbal experience. I situate my method within the action research paradigm and my philosophy within a holistic and subjectivist frame. As I write I realise my knowledge in the relation between thinking and the act of writing. My knowledge and its production are deliberately valueladen. I cultivate reasoned emotion in order to influence my thought process. My claim to originality of mind emerges from this subjective experience as I show how I bring my ontological values of love into practice through a 'pedagogy of presence' that is integral to my action. I judge the worth of my action and its loving dimension in silent reflective spiritual practice. I also judge the worth of my action and its loving dimension in the feedback I get from others. I set criteria that focus on seeking harmony and wholeness, and which do not ignore challenge and difference. I argue that the creative dynamism arising from difference is an important component of love at work. I provide evidence for my claim in an account of current practice, through pictures, drawings and a video clip, and it is further evidenced by the coherence of my writing and the rigorous application of my own criteria against which I judge the worth of my actions. My claim to truth can also be substantiated by my application of method, and by situating my inquiry firmly within a post-modem narrative.

The aim of this research was to explore the role of personal values and their relationship to the management behaviour and performance outcomes of multiple small, UK licensed on-trade, businesses. Few studies of this nature exist that explore personal values and relate them to management behaviour in this way, in this specific context. Project I develops its contribution through the identification of seven core personal values, the inconsistency of language and meaning around these values and highlights five owner/manager types based upon the ways in which values are interpreted and operationalised. A series of typologies and role ordered matrix is developed to assist practical application. Project II identifies two ‘most valuable’ categories and deepens the understanding of their intrinsic motivators and the values they deploy. Personal values combined with risk, momentum and tangible outputs are found to underpin entrepreneurial and enterprising behaviours to varying degrees. Both projects used semi-structured interviews (n = 33) and textual analysis to arrive at their findings. Having identified five owner/manager groups project III establishes new approaches to working with entrepreneurial and enterprising people and builds a new relationship model and potential to strengthen the psychological contract. Support and momentum for change are developed using an Action Research method, specifically, Appreciative Inquiry (AI). The research has engaged participants in ways not previously undertaken through making extensive use of their preferred communication method. The work supports the notion of instrumental and end-state values in human behaviour and relates these to management behaviours in the small/medium sized business setting. The work challenges the idea of value congruence between organisations’ and the individual at anything more than a superficial level and proposes individual meaning and interpretation as critical dimensions in values communication. The work also contests popular and academic definitions of the entrepreneur as a fiercely independent individual who is unlikely to work well and cooperate with others. The study adopts a critical realist perspective using appropriate and differing methods of research within its overall scope. The marriage of semi-structured interviews with individuals followed by the bringing together of owner/manager groups in an appreciative inquiry environment proved to be a valuable in terms of sharing findings, creating a positive framework for discussion and achieving commitment to change. The research has developed an intervention for bigger businesses that have arms length relationships with multiple small/medium businesses and provides indications as to how the psychological contract within such relationships might be further strengthened.

Text in Afrikaans / Hierdie navorsing handel oor selfaktualisering as voorspeller van bestuursukses. In die literatuuroorsig is bestuursukses as afhanklike veranderlike en selfaktualisering as onafhanklike veranderlike binne die humanistiese paradigma gekonseptualiseer en geoperasionaliseer. Die persoonlikheidskenmerke verwant aan die veranderlikes is bepaal en geintegreer. Die empiriese ondersoek is binne die funksionalistiese paradigma aangebied. Die gekose meetinstrumente, naamlik die Bestuursvaardigheidsinventaris vir die meet van bestuursukses en die Persoonlike Orientasie-inventaris vir die meet van selfaktualisering is op 'n ewekansige steekproef van 51 middelvlakbestuurders afgeneem. Die betroubaarheid van die Bestuursvaardigheids- inventaris is met behulp van die "Cronbach Alpha Coeffisient"- metode bepaal. Om te bepaal of selfaktualisering 'n voorspeller van bestuursukses is, is stapsgewyse regressieontledings gedoen. Die resultate dui daarop dat die ondersteuningsratio (innerlike orientasie) bestuursukses beduidend voorspel, sowel as 12 van die 18 kenmerke eie aan bestuursukses onderskeidelik. / This research deals with self-actualization as predictor of management success. In the literature review, management success as the dependent variable and self-actualization as independent variable, is conceptualized and operationalized within the humanistic paradigm. The personality chracteristics inhirent in the variables were determined and integrated. The empirical investigation is presented within the functionalistic paradigm. The chosen measuring instruments, namely the Management Skills Inventory for the measurement of management success and the Personal Orientation Inventory for the measurement of self-actualization were administrated by means of random sampling to 51 middle level managers. The reliability qf the Management Skills Inventory was determined by means of the "Cronbach Alpha CoEHfisient"- method. To determine if selfactualization is a predictor of Management Success, stepwise regression analysis was done. The results indicate that the support ratio (inner directedness) predicts management success significantly, as well as 12 of the 18 personality characteristics inherent in management success, respectively. / Psychology / M.A. (Industrial Psychology)

Text in Afrikaans / Hierdie navorsing handel oor selfaktualisering as voorspeller van bestuursukses. In die literatuuroorsig is bestuursukses as afhanklike veranderlike en selfaktualisering as onafhanklike veranderlike binne die humanistiese paradigma gekonseptualiseer en geoperasionaliseer. Die persoonlikheidskenmerke verwant aan die veranderlikes is bepaal en geintegreer. Die empiriese ondersoek is binne die funksionalistiese paradigma aangebied. Die gekose meetinstrumente, naamlik die Bestuursvaardigheidsinventaris vir die meet van bestuursukses en die Persoonlike Orientasie-inventaris vir die meet van selfaktualisering is op 'n ewekansige steekproef van 51 middelvlakbestuurders afgeneem. Die betroubaarheid van die Bestuursvaardigheids- inventaris is met behulp van die "Cronbach Alpha Coeffisient"- metode bepaal. Om te bepaal of selfaktualisering 'n voorspeller van bestuursukses is, is stapsgewyse regressieontledings gedoen. Die resultate dui daarop dat die ondersteuningsratio (innerlike orientasie) bestuursukses beduidend voorspel, sowel as 12 van die 18 kenmerke eie aan bestuursukses onderskeidelik. / This research deals with self-actualization as predictor of management success. In the literature review, management success as the dependent variable and self-actualization as independent variable, is conceptualized and operationalized within the humanistic paradigm. The personality chracteristics inhirent in the variables were determined and integrated. The empirical investigation is presented within the functionalistic paradigm. The chosen measuring instruments, namely the Management Skills Inventory for the measurement of management success and the Personal Orientation Inventory for the measurement of self-actualization were administrated by means of random sampling to 51 middle level managers. The reliability qf the Management Skills Inventory was determined by means of the "Cronbach Alpha CoEHfisient"- method. To determine if selfactualization is a predictor of Management Success, stepwise regression analysis was done. The results indicate that the support ratio (inner directedness) predicts management success significantly, as well as 12 of the 18 personality characteristics inherent in management success, respectively. / Psychology / M.A. (Industrial Psychology)