The thesis focuses on the benefits, that can be characterized as dependent on previous earnings. It is pension benefits, sickness benefits and benefits of passive employment policy in Czech Republic. These benefits will be described in terms of construction and elements with influence on equivalence. With this issue is also related to social policy. The aim of thesis is to compare the contributions to social security and state employment policies to benefits received from this system for employees and the self-employed, and compare them in relation to equivalence.

Background: Investing internationally is easier than ever before, with the rise of the internet, unification of accounting standards, and faster flow of information. Yet, many argue that due to increasing global equity market correlations, it is getting increasingly hard to attain benefits from international diversification. Therefore, it is important to know if there are any benefits attainable from international diversification for Swedish investors. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to investigate if there are any benefits achievable from international diversification for Swedish investors, if those benefits have changed from before and after the financial crisis in 2007/2008, as well as where Swedish investors might attain the greatest benefits from diversification; namely in developed- or emerging markets. Method: Correlations are measured over the time periods before and after the financial crisis, using both a 61-month correlation window (the entire periods) as well as a 12-month rolling correlation window.  To test diversification benefits, different portfolios are created using the Markowitz Portfolio Optimizer, such as a Maximum Sharpe portfolio and an Equal Weighted portfolio. Conclusion: Correlations have increased from before and after the financial crisis, both for developed- and emerging markets. Diversification benefits exist for Swedish investors, but they have decreased from before and after the financial crisis, and they appear slightly greater in emerging markets than in developed markets.

M.A., Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, 2011 / Most previous academic studies undertaken on music festivals in South Africa have been largely done through economic lenses. They have dealt with growing the festival; financial benefits for the festival organisers; management styles and models of festivals. This research interrogates the impact of music festivals on the participating artists’ social, creative, intellectual and sustainable growth. The research studied these aspects through the analysis of the Standard Bank Joy of Jazz festival, which in 2010 was celebrating its diamond jubilee, and following six musicians who have participated in the festivals at different levels. Being a jazz artist myself, I became interested in what constitutes the development of a musician who participates in a jazz festival. This research seeks to depart from the socio-economic based studies by analysing the role of the Standard Bank Joy of Jazz festival in the lives of six South African jazz musicians and the perceived benefits. It also draws on a wide range of literature that covers issues ranging from socio-political scenarios to arts and culture policies from around the 1920s to the present day. What the research found is that music festivals had varying impact on developmental bands in comparison to established bands and musicians. It also looked at the effectiveness of arts and culture policies, legislations and their implementation in the South African music industry. Due to the width and breath of this research topic it must be stated that there are other areas that the research did not delve into due to the researcher’s limited tools - such as the psychological analysis capacity.

This qualitative research study investigates the benefits gained and developed by arts teachers after attending an Arts education programme at the Wits School of Education in South Africa. The literature review argues that both private and public benefits are elicited but highlights the vast increase in private benefits with public spillover gained from engagement in the Arts (McCarthy et al, 2004). The research also highlights the fact that good quality Arts education is vital in creating educational opportunities for the acquisition of these benefits and that teachers have certain roles and responsibilities to play in order to facilitate the transfer of these benefits. The information developed from interviews (six teachers) and journals formed the basis of the findings. These findings show how teachers benefited both personally and professionally. Privately, in positively changing their outlook on life, an acceptance of self and in the ability to reflect and professionally, in the improved level of their pedagogy in relation to relationships, assessment and teaching methodologies. The contribution of this research is to present an understanding of how benefits can affect individuals on a private level and can then have public spill-over and spiral into the public sphere.

Computerised integrated models from science contribute to better informed and holistic exante integrated assessments of multifaceted policies and technologies. This view has lead to considerable effort being devoted to developing integrated models to support decisionmaking under Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM). Nevertheless, an appraisal of previous and ongoing efforts to develop such decision support systems shows that attempts to address the hydro-socio-economic effects on livelihoods have been deficient and fragmented. To date, no universal standard integration method or framework is in use. Existing integrated models application failures have pointed to the lack of stakeholder participation. In an endeavour to close this gap, this thesis focuses on an integrated model development with prediction capability, ICHSEA, developed in Avenues script language in ArcView 3.3, to take advantage of the mapping capability of ArcView. This model couples existing hydrology (SWAT), agronomy (PARCHED-THIRST) and socio-economic (OLYMPE) models to link livelihoods of resource-constrained smallholder farmers to water resources availability at catchment level in the semi-arid Olifants subbasin, South Africa. These three models were calibrated and validated using observed data and local stakeholder participation, prior to coupling in the integrated model. All the models performed well in representing the study conditions, as indicated by the statistical performance. The integrated model is generally applicable to any catchment. The study methodology was inspired by the need to enhance rural livelihoods and to close the gap of stakeholder involvement in building and applying integrated models to ensure acceptability and application in decision-making. Over 20 years, the predicted impacts of untied ridges and planting basins versus conventional rainfed tillage on surface runoff reduction were 14.3 % and 19.8 %, respectively, and about 41─46 % sediment yield reduction in the catchment. At 90 % confidence interval, family savings improved from US$ 4─US$ 270 under conventional rainfed to US$ 233─US$ 1 140 under supplemental irrigation. These results underscore the economic and environmental benefits that could be achieved by adopting the new crop management practices. A relationship between maize crop evapotranspiration and family savings under different crop management strategies was also derived for five farm typologies in the catchment.

The objective of this study is to analyze how liquidity shocks affect households\' decisions related to entrepreneurial activities in order to identify whether households are liquidity constrained. This study focused on households\' responses to anticipated income shocks, via the receipt of pension benefits, since under complete markets, decisions should not be affected by a liquidity shock when the timing and amount of that shock are known. We exploited the fact that eligibility rules for old age pension were partially determined by age and used a Fuzzy Regression Discontinuity Design to estimate the causal effects. The results suggest that Brazilian small business owners in the informal sector of the economy are liquidity constrained. / O objetivo do presente trabalho é analisar como choques de liquidez afetam as decisões de empreendedorismo dos domicílios a fim de identificar se os domicílios têm restrições de liquidez. Esse trabalho teve como foco a análise das respostas dos domicílios a choques antecipados de renda, advindas da aposentadoria, desde que com mercados completos, decisões não devem ser afetadas por um choque de liquidez quando o momento e a quantidade do choque são conhecidos. Utilizamos regressão descontínua para estimar este efeito causal, dado que a elegibilidade para aposentadoria por idade é parcialmente determinada pela idade do indivíduo. Os resultados sugerem que proprietários de pequenas empresas brasileiras do setor informal da economia sofrem problemas de liquidez.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Boston University / A case study of a rural area wage and benefit survey in the Monadnock region of Southwestern New Hampshire, illustrating the conception, development, and scope of the survey and its effect on management practices and procedures in that area.

A key part of the transformation process of the Czechoslovak economy in the post-revolution period was privatization. It was an extraordinary and unique process of transfer of state property to private purchasers, which in terms of its scope and level of difficulty, not only historically unprecedented in the CR. Evaluation of the privatization process is still today the subject of the current discourse of ideas. The aim of this study is to evaluate the success of the privatization process of the Czechoslovak economy in the transition period and comparing this process with similar processes in other transition economies. Evaluated are individual partial privatization methods, as well as the privatization process as a whole. Attention is given to voucher privatization, its importance and status. Evaluated is the financial sector privatization, especially privatization of major banks. At the end is made final conclusion which is accompanied by a self-evaluation.

The capabilities of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system to integrate all necessary business functions into a single system with a shared database efficiently and effectively has persuaded organisations to adopt them. Research shows that ERP implementation in both large and small to medium enterprises has been a difficult challenge for organisations throughout the years. Despite the many advantages of ERP systems, there isn't a clear and easy way of implementing them in Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The motivation for the research is to investigate the barriers to ERP software system implementation in an SME using a case study approach, and to identify the steps to overcome these barriers and investigate the claim of ERP vendors that their ERP solutions improve the performance of their customers, the profitability and efficiency of work processes. This research identifies the barriers to ERP implementation in an SME, provides an overview of the traditional and current approaches of ERP implementation and discusses the effects of adopting an ERP system on the company's overall performance. The research uses a mix of methods including case study research and action research. Un-structured interviews and semi structured interviews approaches with negotiation and change management techniques were also used in order to generate knowledge concerning the problems at the case study. The case study has determined reasons for failed implementations, unlike previous research which suggests education level impact upon the implementation of the ERP system, the study demonstrates that an insufficient education level is not a necessary condition for resistance to change. It has also been shown in this research that high level management can have a direct influence on the ERP implementation in SMEs. This research suggests that SMEs need to standardize processes into business routines which will influence the introduction of a different knowledge store that helps the development of the new system; however employee s resistance to change, lack of trust of the new system and lack of knowledge has limited the implementation process by increasing mistakes and duplication of data. The ERP system has been evaluated by the end users at the case study organisation, and the results suggests that the implementation of an ERP system has improved the overall business and has increased the performance, the profitability and the efficiency of work processes. This research adds to the overall knowledge of ERP implementation in SMEs by deriving a better understanding of the problem in the body of knowledge and identifying the barriers to ERP implementation in SMEs. It provides recommendations that have been tested in the case study organisation for overcoming ERP implementation barriers in SMEs, and a financial model of the implementation costs and benefits. Finally, the recommendations presented in this thesis and suggested areas for further research set out the potential way forward to advance knowledge in this area.

The diploma thesis examines employee satisfaction and employee benefits in a chosen company. It was used a research: asking via a questionaire. The analysis of chosen quality characters has been made in this thesis and the financial impact of the employee benefits has been monitored. On the basis of the results the reseatched situation has been appreciated and there have been proposed possible changes and improvement in the providing of emplayee benefits.