Privatization is defined as the sale of state-owned assets by governmental agencies to private investors (e.g., Megginson, Nash, Netter, and Poulsen, 2004; Villalonga, 2000). Research on privatization has focused on privatization techniques (e.g., share issue privatization or voucher privatization), social welfare, governmental commitments to economic development, and varieties of outcomes of privatizations. Most prior studies from the financial economics perspective take privatization as a natural research context to examine the function of capital markets, the impact of national institutional settings, and the differences between partial privatization and initial public offerings. Very little research, however, has examined the determinants of privatization from an organizational perspective. This dissertation proposes that privatization decisions of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are influenced by different interests in governmental agencies. Using the resource dependence theory, I studied the power relationships of SOEs and their governmental owners. Four panel databases of 206 pharmaceutical firms across eight years in China were combined to answer the research question of this dissertation: What is the role of power imbalance between different governmental owners in the privatization of an SOE? The results suggest that organizational effectiveness and efficiency of an SOE increase the likelihood of its privatization. Results also show that provincial governmental owners are more likely to privatize SOEs if they can successfully attract foreign direct investment projects. Furthermore, the likelihood of privatization increases with the power asymmetry between the provincial government and the central government but decreases with the degree of the defense mechanism used by SOEs.

This dissertation examines an increasingly common phenomenon in the post-Cold War context, the military coalition. At the heart of the dissertation is thus the question: what explains political leaders’ participation and burden-sharing decisions on military coalitions? In tackling the question, two distinct lines of research were brought together; the one based on alliances, the other based on foreign policy decision making. Based on the two lines of research, an explanatory framework was developed that combined the insights of alliance dependence thesis and poliheuristic theory. A set of hypotheses was derived and tested, utilizing a multimethod approach: statistical, case study, and experimental analyses. Overall, the results of applying the multimethod approach is suggestive of the strength of the poliheuristic theory, with a supporting role of alliance dependence thesis, in understanding participation and burden-sharing decisions on military coalitions. Moreover, though in large part the second Iraq War (2003 -) was used as the reference in much of the dissertation, an implicit underlying claim of the current research is that the findings may be extended to any broad context wherein the development of a military coalition may be a possibility.

Research Objective The purpose of this study is to profile market factors and organizational characteristics associated with community hospitals¡¦ vertical integration into a nursing facility through the lens of resource dependence. Data Sources Data for this study were drawn from three sources: the 2002 secondary data collected by Taiwan Community Hospital Association (TCHA) on a regular yearly basis; the 2001 secondary data compiled by Taiwan Association of Long-Term Care Professionals (TALTCP); and the 2002 area-based population data gathered by Department of Budget, Accounting, and Statistics (DOBAS) in local governments respectively. Study Design This study is a one-year cross-sectional design with community hospitals as the unit of analysis. A sample of 248 community hospitals was the focus of this study. Since the dependent variable is dichotomous, the logistic procedure was used to fit the regression. The analysis was performed using the statistics software, SPSS 10.0. Findings A higher ratio of the elderly, a high degree of competition, and the provision of dialysis and home care services spur community hospitals on to vertical integration into a nursing facility. Occupancy rate, the rehabilitative service, respiratory care service, high technology, the ratio of MDs to staffed beds, as well as the ratio of RNs and LPNs to staffed beds bear no reference to community hospitals¡¦ vertically integrating a nursing facility. Conclusion Not all community hospitals are equally good candidates for stepping into the avenue to nursing facility. Given the environmental factors, community hospitals situated in highly competitive district areas with a higher ratio of the elderly are more likely to vertically integrate a nursing facility. In terms of organizational factors, the provisions of dialysis service and home care service have a significant relationship with the likelihood of vertical integration.

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To detect dependence among variables is an essential task in many scientific investigations. In this study we propose a new measure of association, the coefficient of intrinsic dependence (CID), which takes value in [0,1] and faithfully reflects the full range of dependence for two random variables. The CID is free of distributional and functional assumptions. It can be easily implemented and extended to multivariate situations. Traditionally, the correlation coefficient is the preferred measure of association. However, it's effectiveness is considerably compromised when the random variables are not normally distributed. Besides, the interpretation of the correlation coefficient is difficult when the data are categorical. By contrast, the CID is free of these problems. In our simulation studies, we find that the ability of the CID in differentiating different levels of dependence remains robust across different data types (categorical or continuous) and model features (linear or curvilinear). Also, the CID is particularly effective when the dependence is strong, making it a powerful tool for variable selection. As an illustration, the CID is applied to variable selection in two aspects: classification and prediction. The analysis of actual data from a study of breast cancer gene expression is included. For the classification problem, we identify a pair of genes that best classify a patient's prognosis signature, and for the prediction problem, we identify a pair of genes that best relates to the expression of a specific gene.

The research has applied both Resource Dependence Theory and Institutional Theory to analyze the organization and the market factors that will influence the hemodialysis centers in adopting a strategic alliance, contracting with and choosing the number of strategic partners. The followings have been examined and analyzed: 1) the current trend of hemodialysis centers¡¦ strategic alliance, including variety of alliance partners, number of strategic alliance, and the degree of an alliance. 2) the factors that will cause hemodialysis centers to adopt a strategic alliance. 3) the factors that will affect the hemodialysis centers to contract with their strategic alliance partners. 4) the factors that influence centers¡¦ choosing alliance partner(s). Questionnaires and collection of secondary dada were conducted. The empirical analysis of the 219 valid questionnaires shows that hemodialysis centers¡¦ strategic alliance decision is influenced by coerce, normativeness and mimicry caused more by institutional environment than by resource environment. However, after an alliance has been adopted, the resource environment has more influence than institutional environment in deciding whether to contract with strategic partners. The research found the number of strategic alliance partners is not influenced by the resource or institutional environment factors. This research found both theories play different roles at the different stages of adopting strategic alliance and contracting with partners. The finding not only can help examine the theory framework but also be quite useful to insurance policy decision making and to centers¡¦ daily operation.

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Thesis--M. Phil., University of Hong Kong, 1980.

By far the most popular method to account for dependencies in the transportation network analysis literature is the use of the multivariate normal (MVN) distribution. While in certain cases there is some theoretical underpinning for the MVN assumption, in others there is none. This can lead to misleading results: results do not only depend on whether dependence is modeled, but also how dependence is modeled. When assuming the MVN distribution, one is limiting oneself to a specific set of dependency structures, which can substantially limit validity of results. In this report an existing, more flexible, correlation-based approach (where just marginal distributions and their correlations are specified) is proposed, and it is demonstrated that, in simulation studies, such an approach is a generalization of the MVN assumption. The need for such generalization is particularly critical in the transportation network modeling literature, where oftentimes there exists no or insufficient data to estimate probability distributions, so that sensitivity analyses assuming different dependence structures could be extremely valuable. However, the proposed method has its own drawbacks. For example, it is again not able to exhaust all possible dependence forms and it relies on some not-so-known properties of the correlation coefficient. / text