O estudo buscou identificar a relação entre o perfil de governança de alianças brasileiras da pecuária de corte bovina e a coordenação dos agentes. A análise utilizou o arcabouço da teoria dos custos de transação para identificar as dimensões das transações, especificidade de ativos, freqüência e incerteza, e os conceitos de escopo relativo e embeddedness para a avaliação da densidade das relações dos agentes. Realizou-se uma descrição da pecuária de corte bovina nacional que caracterizou o processo de modernização da atividade a partir da análise das práticas de produção rural, a evolução das liberações de recursos de crédito rural e a expansão da presença internacional da carne bovina brasileira. A pesquisa também levantou a literatura sobre a coordenação dos agentes do sistema agroindustrial, produtores rurais, indústria frigorífica e varejo, tanto em termos internacionais como a partir da experiência nacional. Desenvolveu-se, por fim, uma pesquisa empírica junto a quatro alianças nacionais, cada qual liderada por um agente pertencente a um elo do processo produtivo, em que se obtiveram indícios que a coordenação entre os agentes é favorecida, tanto mediante a constituição de rede de relacionamentos horizontais, sob a liderada dos produtores rurais, como através da constituição de uma rede hierárquica, sob o controle do varejo. / The research aimed at finding the link between the governance structures and the coordination in Brazilian beef alliances. The analysis is based upon the transaction cost economics to identify the transaction dimensions, investment specificity, frequency and uncertainty, and on the concepts of relative scope and embbededness in order to finding the relationships density among agents. A description of the Brazilian beef agroindustrial system was developed in order to understand its modernization process based upon the analysis of its rural production practices, the increasing pattern of rural financing operations, and the Brazilian beef exports growth at the international markets. The research also has summed up the beef agribusiness system literature about players coordination: farmers, pack industry and retailers, at international and national levels. It was performed an empirical research on four Brazilian beef alliances each one with the leadership performed by a specific agent in the production chain: farmers, pack industry and retailing. It was found evidence that agents coordination is strengthened by horizontal network of dense relationships implemented by farmers leadership, and also through retailer vertical control.

[pt] A indústria do turismo iniciou seu processo de profissionalização no Brasil no início da década de 1990. Desde então, o setor vem buscando o aprimoramento das ações de planejamento estratégico e de marketing, assim como a melhoria da infraestrutura de localidades específicas no país, com o intuito de torná-las destinos turísticos indutores para o país. A cidade do Rio de Janeiro é vista como destino referência, tanto para o turismo de lazer quanto para o turismo de negócios, sobretudo devido ao fato de vir a sediar, nos próximos anos, grandes eventos esportivos, como a Copa do Mundo, em 2014 e as Olimpíadas, em 2016. Entretanto, a literatura acadêmica oferece um material escasso acerca da indústria do turismo sob uma abordagem estratégica. Nesse sentido, esta dissertação visou identificar oportunidades de desenvolvimento sócio-econômico para a cidade do Rio de Janeiro, geradas por meio da indústria do turismo, e, em particular, aquelas alavancadas pelas alianças estratégicas realizadas por empresas organizadoras de eventos corporativos, no segmento de turismo de negócios. Para tanto, buscou-se compreender o papel dessas empresas enquanto atores centrais na rede de turismo do destino estudado. Além disso, a pesquisa adotou o arcabouço de análise estratégica Global SNA (MACEDO-SOARES, 2011) para o exame do grupo estratégico de empresas definido e do setor de eventos como um dos stakeholders da indústria turística, ferramenta esta que se mostrou fundamental para o entendimento de aspectos relevantes do setor. Os resultados da pesquisa evidenciaram o potencial destas empresas na geração de oportunidades de novos empregos para a população local e na promoção do destino, por meio das alianças, principalmente com organizações de classe, fornecedores e entidades governamentais. / [en] The tourism industry has started its professionalization process in Brazil in the early 90ths. Thereafter, the sector has been seeking an improvement on strategic planning, marketing and better structuring of specific locations in the country, in order to transform them into major tourist destinations. Rio de Janeiro city is seen as a reference destination, both for leisure and business tourism, and particularly due to the fact that it shall soon host great sports events, such as the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympic Games in 2016. However, there are only a few academic materials that focus tourism industry under strategic aspects. Accordingly, this work seeks to identify opportunities of social-economic development for Rio de Janeiro city arising from tourism industry, and particularly those enhanced through strategic alliances done by business event organizing companies, in the segment of tourism business. For such a purpose, it was sought to understand the role of these companies as main stakeholders in the tourism network of the destination. Moreover, the research used Global SNA Framework model (MACEDO-SOARES, 2011) to analyze the strategic group of companies and the events sector among the stakeholders of tourism industry, which has shown to be relevant for a better understanding of the area. The results there from disclosed the potential of these companies in the generation of opportunities to create new jobs to local population, mostly through alliances with professional entities, suppliers and governmental entities.

ABSTRACT In the first essay titled "The Value of Strategic Alliances in Acquisitions and IPOs," I investigate how firms' strategic alliance experience affects their valuations as acquisition targets or in IPOs. I propose that strategic alliance experience serves as a valuable signaling device for target and IPO firms, particularly those with more intangible assets and greater opacity. The results show that takeover targets with alliance experience receive higher premiums than those without such experience. More recent alliance experience as well as alliance experience in the same industry also contributes to a larger target gain. Similarly, IPO firms that have alliance experience are shown to obtain higher valuations than those without the experience. Finally, alliance experience increases the likelihood that private firms exit by going public rather than being acquired. In the second essay titled "For Better or For Worse: The Spillover Effect of Innovation Events on Alliance Partners," I examine the spillover effects of breakthrough innovations on the strategic alliance partners of the innovative firm. I find direct stock market evidence that the shareholders of strategic alliance partners significantly benefit from the spillover effects of these innovations. Multivariate analyses indicate that young and newly listed innovator firms with better growth opportunities generate bigger abnormal returns when announcing innovation events and bring larger spillover effects for their alliance partners with similar characteristics. In addition, I explore the risks associated with alliance partnerships, showing that FDA warning letters cause significant wealth losses for both the innovative firm and their alliance partners.

Individual businesses from a variety of sectors network and work together to create a successful tourist experience. The interdependencies of organisations producing this experience make cooperation a necessity in destination marketing. Despite the centrality of cooperation and networking in tourism marketing relatively little empirical research has been conducted in this area. This thesis uses the case of the development of the official NZ website www.purenz.com (purenz) to examine the role, form and process of inter-organisational cooperation in destination marketing. Drawing on in-depth interviews with thirty- five industry members involved in establishing and managing www.purenz.com between 1999 and 2006 this thesis makes a number of contributions to both the marketing and tourism literature. The thesis confirms that there are considerable difficulties in broadening the marketing role of the national tourism organisation (NTO) beyond destination promotion. The study also finds that destination marketing and destination management are still perceived as separate processes in the NZ tourism industry. In addition, the results of this study provide support for the view that the social networks in which firms are embedded have a considerable influence on inter-organisational alliance formation. This thesis contributes to the development of theoretical approaches to the study of cooperation in destination marketing by identifying five levels of cooperation in destination marketing: passive acceptance, support, alignment, contribution and pooling. The levels are based on the different types of input that may be required from stakeholders by the NTO. The level of cooperation desired in a particular context is a strategic choice to be made by the destination marketing management. This choice is affected by the existing characteristics of the tourism network; the NTO leaders’ perception of the need for and value of cooperation in destination marketing and also by the extent of shared understanding of the scope of destination marketing management among tourism stakeholders. The research points to the need to develop further the network characteristics affecting cooperation in destination marketing. Further work is also needed to develop a more complete profile of the five levels of cooperation identified by this study and the investment required to achieve each level of cooperation.

Over the last two decades there has been a tremendous increase in collaboration among competing firms. A significant number of these collaborations are international. This thesis explores the incentives and welfare consequences of collaboration in the context of international trade. We consider two types of cross-border collaborations. The first is collaboration by sharing a part of firms' value creating activities, such as technology development, product design and distribution. This saves on production costs but reduces product distinctiveness. Firms collaborate if and only if the reduction in product distinctiveness is lower than a threshold level. We find that the threshold increases with an increase in trade costs. That is, an increase in trade costs makes collaboration more likely. Higher trade cost lowers competition, which in turn enables the firms to save on fixed costs while forgoing some product distinctiveness. Furthermore, we demonstrate that contrary to standard intuition, higher trade cost could enhance consumers' welfare by inducing competitors to collaborate. We extend our model to endogenise location choice by the firms where collaboration requires co-location (due to the benefit of local spillovers or joint investment in key infrastructures). Unlike the original model, we find that an increase in trade costs can discourage collaboration. In both circumstances, we find that an increase in trade cost can improve consumer surplus. The second type of collaboration considered in this thesis is licensing. We extend the standard licensing literature to an environment where firms compete in the domestic as well as foreign market. We examine how trade cost affects the licensing decision as well as the optimal payment mechanism. We find that an increase in trade costs reduces the possibility of licensing. Concerning the payment mechanism, we find that (i) either royalty or (ii) a two-part tariff (involving a fixed fee as well as royalty payments) is optimal. An increase in trade costs reduces the likelihood of royalty only being the optimal payment mechanism.

<p>Background: A majority of strategic alliances do not create value for the participants. One of the main reasons for the high failure rate is an inadequate process for partner selection. If the correct partner is not selected, it can have serious effects on the management of the partnership. This is a serious problem since failed alliances usually are very expensive for the involved companies. </p><p>Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to investigate which theoretical factors are important when selecting a partner for a strategic alliance. Further we aim to investigate how these factors can effect partner selection for small and middle size technology intensive companies. </p><p>Realisation: The empirical part is based on interviews with persons holding key positions at four case companies. All the case companies are situated in Mjärdevi Science Park. </p><p>Result: Our research has shown that the strategic fit is the crucial factor. Other important factors are brand, network position, compatibility and attention when selecting a partner for a strategic alliance.</p>

<p>Syfte: Noggrann undersökning vad som ligger bakom detta samarbete, motiven, vilket inte framgås av de öppna källorna. Hur man har tänkt långsiktigt, kommer denna trend att hålla i sig och i så fall hur kommer det utvecklas med bl.a. utlands expansion. Jag har en egen hypotes att det eventuellt är en konspiration bakom det hela. Och även undersöka varför en del banker avstår från sådana verksamheter/allianser.</p><p>Metod: Data har samlats in genom de öppna källor, bankerna och försäkringsbolagens hemsidor, pressmedelanden från en rad olika tidningar för att få försöka få en bild hur den aktuella bilden ser ut. Den empiriska delen är gjord av intervjuer av korrespondenter på ledande personer från Handelsbanken, Swedbank, Folksam och Danske Bank. Därefter har jag kopplat vad som har sagts i empirin med relevanta teorier.</p><p>Resultat & slutsats: Motiven för samarbete och verksamhet är ganska enkla. Det är rena strategiska beslut om konkurrens och marknadsandelar. Det är två olika modeller som man går efter för att följa trenden, ena är egen verksamhet som Handelsbanken och den andra är samarbete som Swedbank och Folksam. Banker som inte har gått in i trenden som Danske Bank inte tycker att försäkringsverksamhet är någon naturlig del av den ordinarie bankverksamheten.</p><p>Förslag till fortsattforskning: Banker med inte någon verksamhet, varför exakt man inte har det, några särkskilda motiv. Och jämföra med hur det ser ut i andra länder och framför allt varför det ser ut så. Vad kommer att hända om en utomlands expansion sker? Hur kommer det att utvecklas?</p><p>Uppsatsens bidrag: En utomlands expansion är viktig i samband med försäkringsverksamheten. Framförallt hur man kan lyckas med bägge verksamheter. Generellt så tror jag att både banker och försäkringsbolag kommer att ha nytta av studien.</p> / <p>Aim: An accurate investigation about what is behind this cooperation, the motives which is not clear from the open sources. How have one thought in the long term, will this trend hold on and in that case how will it develop with, for example an expansion to oversees. I have a hypothesis that there is a possible conspiracy behind this. And also investigate why some banks choose to not be apart of these activity/alliances.</p><p>Method: The data has be collected from the open sources, the banks and insurance com-panies homepages, press, and a number of various news papers to get an current picture. The empirical part has been made by interviews from the correspondents from leading people in Handelsbanken, Swedbank, Folksam and Danske Bank. And thereafter have I connected this data to relevant theories.</p><p>Result & Conclusions: The motives behind this activity and cooperation are pretty sim-ple. It is pure strategic decisions whom have been made about competition and market shares. There are two different models that the banks follow to because of the trend. One is an own activity like Handelsbanken, and the other is a cooperation like Swedbank and Folksam. Danske Bank who has not been apart of the activity as yet, don’t think that the insurance activity is an obvious part of the ordinary bank activity.</p><p>Suggestions for future research: Banks who does not have any insurance activity, why exactly don’t they have it, is there any specific reason and then compare to how it is in other countries, why it is in a certain way, and if has shown a positive or negative effect. What will happen if an expansion takes place abroad and how will it develop?</p><p>Contribution of the thesis: An expansion abroad is important in relation to the insurance activity, and how to succeed with the both activity. I think both a bank and insurance company will have a benefit of this study. Here the author will discuss how the thesis has contributed to new knowledge for different interested parties. By contribution it is meant the expected usability of the conducted thesis.</p>

<p>This thesis provides a coherent theoretical account of the role of trust in strategic alliances from varied disciplinary perspectives and by establishing some common ground among these perspectives. Approaching the integration of the literature about trust and strategic alliances from the resource based view, the transaction cost view, the dialectical perspective, and the social network perspective is aimed at creating a new systematic explanatory scheme. The unique combination of these four perspectives provides overlapping explanations for strategic alliance behaviour and serves as a methodical device for analysing the dynamics of trust relationships. This theoretical-methodical foundation will serve as tool for sorting out and highlighting different research streams regarding the two key topics. An integrative framework of the notion of trust in strategic alliances is built around the key issue “culture of trust”. The culture of trust is addressed, because one of the main findings will be that collaborative relationships require some minimum social base with trust as its constitutive element. Arguments will be provided that inter-organizational ventures characterized by high interdependence, require the trust mechanism to make leadership effective. The tension between trust and control in strategic alliances is discussed and attention is drawn to the possibilities and key abilities of leaders in establishing trust as a constitutive element in strategic alliances.</p>

This thesis examines perceptions of cooperation among small to medium sized enterprises (SME) in western Oregon's forest products industry. Recent changes in the industry, such as corporate consolidation, global marketing, and government regulations have created an environment in which many SMEs find it difficult to stay competitive. Cooperation among SMEs is one method for alleviating the situation; however, few SME owners are engaging in cooperative projects or behaviors. Common assumptions and stereotypes about the individualistic nature of the forest products industry lead some to believe that cooperation is an unlikely avenue for SME owners. Through 16 in-depth interviews with SME owners, this view is found to be overly simplistic. It does not account for the variety of factors at play and the depth of the issues involved in SME owners' attitudes toward cooperation. In studying attitudes toward cooperation, this study first attempts to understand the cultural values of the decision makers. It is apparent that values play an integral role in the decision making and strategy of SME owners. This research highlights the complexity of the issues facing small businesses and their owners and reveals that four main factors contribute to SME owners' perceptions about cooperation and influence strategic business decisions: common values, stereotypes, risk perception, and a lack of knowledge about cooperation. Values are found to be especially relevant in understanding and influencing attitudes toward cooperation as values affect risk perception and risk perception in turn directly impacts business strategy. Understanding the values of SME owners helps to describe their attitudes toward cooperation and dispels the notion that they are too independent to ever work together. Eight recommendations stem from the findings of this study which may lead to cooperative action and more successful SMEs: 1) Find a trustworthy agent to act as a sponsor; 2) Build credible systems; 3) Match members with similar values; 4) Expound the potential benefits of cooperation to reduce risk perception; 5) Find a spark plug, not a spokesperson; 6) Provide education; 7) Define and implement both learning networks and action groups; 8) Target new and future categories of SME owners such as women and the children or grandchildren of current owners. / Graduation date: 2004

Problem: An analysis of the compatibility of global airline alliances with EC- competition policy including merger policy and EC-competition law. Is the Commission’s current approach to prohibit certain restrictive global alliances the optimal solution to the problem of certain alliances’ anti-competitive effects? Can other conclusions be drawn by taking an approach based on efficiency arguments that recommend a trade-off between the efficiency gains and the inevitable anti-competitive effects of the alliances? Will the results of the latter approach be in the public interest and does it conform to EC- competitionpolicy including merger policy and EC-competition law? Purpose: There are three aims of this paper; two intermediate aims, which are to introduce the complex nature of global airline alliances to legal practitioners, in particular the alliances’ impact on competition in the EU aviation market, and to illustrate the Commission’s assessment of the relevant market and its proposed measures to deal with the restriction of competition. Then my intention is to develop an alternative approach – “the efficiency policy” – and investigate its conformity to EC-competition policy including merger policy and legislation. Limitation: The question on what effects global airline alliances have on competition is naturally a global question, which is dealt with by competition authorities in many countries. In this paper no attempt is made to compare the opinions of and the measures taken by authorities throughout the world; instead the intention is to analyse the current EC-competition policy and merger policy on the subject. Method: In the descriptive part I will take a strictly positive approach and conduct an ordinary empirical research, i.e., to collect and present relevant legal and economic material that explain the legal as well as the economic aspects of global airline alliances. In the analytical part my intention is to analyze the Commission’s current approach towards Global airline alliances and to show how this has effected its decisions. I will then discuss the pros and cons of this approach with respect to the different interests that are to be protected by EC-competition law. Finally, I will develop an alternative approach"the efficiency policy"and discuss whether it conforms to EC- competition policy including merger policy and EC-competition law. Results: Global airline alliances bring efficiency gains, which can be distributed to consumers, communities and other parts of society. Nevertheless, the formation of global airline alliances will distort competition in some of the relevantmarkets. The Commission, which appears to have assessed the relevant market correctly, will not allow competition to be distorted. However, the remedies of the Commission seem to be inadequate. The reason appears to be a conflict between the goal of upholding"workable competition"and facilitating the efficiency gains that global airline alliances bring to society. This problem may be solved by applying another competition policy based on efficiency, which would allow airlines to defend decreased competition in terms of efficiency. However, due to the structure of Article 81 of the EC- Treaty, an"efficiency defence"cannot be allowed under that Article. Nevertheless, there is a possibility that it can be allowed under the Merger Regulation.