The technology industry is characterized by a greater than usual reliance on intangible assets. During the tech bubble many firms were valued entirely on intangible assets and growth prospects. In the aftermath of the bubble, intangible assets still play an important role as the innovative performance of a firm’s human capital and the value of its patents creates much of the value of high-tech firms. The problem of transferring human capital and knowledge may be further exacerbated when the firms belong to separate national cultures. Investor perception of acquisition announcements may be more favourable if the target workforce is much smaller relative to the bidder, and thus easier to integrate. Also, perceptions may be favourable when the target has a high ratio of intangible assets to total assets, as this may be a proxy for the relative value of the extractible intangible assets. This study uses a sample of 61 acquisition announcements between 1991 and 2004, where both acquirer and target are high-tech firms and accounting and trading data is available from three years prior to three years after the acquisition announcement. There is weak evidence to support the employee ratio hypothesis for bidder returns, and no evidence to support the intangible assets to total assets hypothesis for either bidder or target returns. Additionally, it is found that average bidder abnormal returns during the announcement period (as measured from one day prior to the announcement acquisitions to one day afterwards) are negative but not significantly different from zero, and that average target abnormal returns are positive and significant. Average wealth gains to bidders are negative and to targets are positive over the window from five days prior to the acquisition announcement to five days afterwards. Furthermore, combined wealth gains are negative, indicating the synergistic gains from high-tech cross-border acquisitions are offset by high premiums paid by the bidders for the targets. Relatedness, a lack of tender offers, and non-US acquirer status are demonstrated to be related to negative returns to bidders, whereas tender offers, US-acquirer status, and termination provisions are shown to be related to increased returns to target shareholders. In the long-run, it is found that acquirers experience superior operating cash flow returns when compared to their industry peers, however, the acquirer experiences diminished performance when compared to the combined performance of the pre-acquisition acquirer and target firms.

Using a large sample of mergers and acquisitions from 27 countries over a 16-year period, I investigate how differences in tax and financial reporting policies affect the premium and structure of cross-border mergers and acquisitions. I find evidence that firms pay a premium to reduce the tax risk associated with strict transfer pricing rules. Further analysis segments acquisitions into those that are strictly financial versus those that are more strategic. Financial acquisitions are those where the acquirer is making the purchase for investment purposes rather than strategic reasons. These financial transactions generally lead to less integration between the two companies and therefore less inter-company transactions involving transfer pricing. Evidence based on this segmentation suggests that only differences in transfer pricing risk for non-financial acquisitions are priced. The results suggest that while on average non-financial acquirers will pay a higher premium to reduce transfer pricing risk regardless of industry, only those in highly scrutinized industries with high levels of intangibles, such as pharmaceuticals, will demand a discount for transactions which increase transfer pricing risk. In tests of acquisition structure, I find that shareholder-level capital gain taxes influence the structure of an acquisition. The influence of shareholder-level taxes is reduced by the presence of information asymmetry concerning the acquirer’s stock value. However, higher quality financial reporting reduces information asymmetry and improves the tax efficiency of acquisition structure providing tangible economic benefit to shareholders.

The technology industry is characterized by a greater than usual reliance on intangible assets. During the tech bubble many firms were valued entirely on intangible assets and growth prospects. In the aftermath of the bubble, intangible assets still play an important role as the innovative performance of a firm’s human capital and the value of its patents creates much of the value of high-tech firms. The problem of transferring human capital and knowledge may be further exacerbated when the firms belong to separate national cultures. Investor perception of acquisition announcements may be more favourable if the target workforce is much smaller relative to the bidder, and thus easier to integrate. Also, perceptions may be favourable when the target has a high ratio of intangible assets to total assets, as this may be a proxy for the relative value of the extractible intangible assets. This study uses a sample of 61 acquisition announcements between 1991 and 2004, where both acquirer and target are high-tech firms and accounting and trading data is available from three years prior to three years after the acquisition announcement. There is weak evidence to support the employee ratio hypothesis for bidder returns, and no evidence to support the intangible assets to total assets hypothesis for either bidder or target returns. Additionally, it is found that average bidder abnormal returns during the announcement period (as measured from one day prior to the announcement acquisitions to one day afterwards) are negative but not significantly different from zero, and that average target abnormal returns are positive and significant. Average wealth gains to bidders are negative and to targets are positive over the window from five days prior to the acquisition announcement to five days afterwards. Furthermore, combined wealth gains are negative, indicating the synergistic gains from high-tech cross-border acquisitions are offset by high premiums paid by the bidders for the targets. Relatedness, a lack of tender offers, and non-US acquirer status are demonstrated to be related to negative returns to bidders, whereas tender offers, US-acquirer status, and termination provisions are shown to be related to increased returns to target shareholders. In the long-run, it is found that acquirers experience superior operating cash flow returns when compared to their industry peers, however, the acquirer experiences diminished performance when compared to the combined performance of the pre-acquisition acquirer and target firms.

The aim for this master thesis is to create an understanding of the intersubjective processes of how individuals are experimenting with their identities in social media and the consequences for the identity and embodiment. The thesis is completed with the help of discourse analysis and a starting point in four complementary theories. Central to the implementation of the analysis is the concept of diffraction. Therefore the thesis is, which is reflected in the choice of theoretical approaches and methods, critical to many aspects of classical philosophy of science and method. The empirical material is based on interviews. During the analysis the theory is applied to empirical data received from the interviews, but the empirical data will also be used as inspiration for examining my chosen theories. The analysis covers several topics. First I discuss how a web-identity is constructed and how this can be considered as a process of negotiation with other users on the same website. Furthermore I discuss how my informants negotiate about boundaries conserning sexuality and corporeality, but that the subjective boundaries shift in the encounter between different discursive claim to legitimate expression of body and sexuality. In the final section, before the final discussion, I discuss the body's impacts on communication on a website. During the final discussion several questions are being raised. Centrally, however, is how the essays selected theories help to demonstrate how the negotiation of boundaries in social media is complex, and that experimentation with the identity of a website partly dependent on society's other discourses on gender, body and desires. But it is also discussed how discourses of gender, body and desire is shifted inside the selected websites, and that these sites creates new opportunities for identification and self-knowledge.

I en pågående globalisering, skapas fler och fler unioner eller liknande handelsavtal, där syftet är att främja den egna regionen och dess markand. Möjligheterna är enorma för företagen inom dessa regioner, då alla barriärer är borta och landsgränserna utsuddade. Detta skapar även hårdare konkurrens och aktörer från andra delar av världen vill komma in på dessa marknader och ta del av vinsterna. Det snabbaste och enklaste sättet att ta sig in på marknaderna är genom förvärv, då befintliga etablerade företag köps upp. Frågan är huruvida dessa regioners marknader reagerar, då ett företag som kommer utifrån regionen köper upp ett företag inom regionen eller om förvärvet sker inom regionen. Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka om det finns någon mätbar skillnad i den abnormala avkastningen vid gränsöverskridande förvärv, som kan härledas till uppköparens ursprung. Fokus ligger på skillnaden mellan företag från den Europeiska Unionen och företag utanför gemenskapen. Vidare skall denna uppsats undersöka lönsamhetsutvecklingen efter genomfört uppköp. Den metoden som har valts för att studera problemet är en eventstudie, som anses vara det mest lämpade vid undersökning av den abnormala avkastningen. En intervju har även genomförts, för att få mer djup i undersökningen och en lönsamhetsundersökning, för att utläsa effekterna hos budföretaget efter förvärvet. I lönsamhetsundersökningen har tre nyckeltal undersökts avkastning på eget kapital, P/E-talet och avkastning på totala tillgångar. Resultatet utav studien visade på att avkastningen hos målföretagen som hade köpare från ett land utanför den Europeiska Unionen var störst. Detta betyder även att de förväntas generera högre lönsamhet enligt den effektiva markandshypotesen. En anledning till att gruppen med icke-EU företag genererade en större överavkastning kan vara att de ”delar med sig” av de förväntade framtida vinsterna i större utsträckning varpå deras budpremie var högre. Vid gränsöverskridande företagsförvärv konkurrerar fler potentiella köpare om företaget vilket driver upp budpremien. Att Sverige inte ingår i eurosamarbetet kan vara en anledning till att färre företag inom unionen konkurrerar om att köpa svenska företag varpå premien och därmed överavkastningen i denna grupp är lägre. Lönsamhetsundersökningen visade på att gruppen med företag från den Europeiska Unionen upplever en minskning av alla de tre nyckeltalen efter det genomförda förvärvet. Gruppen med företag från utanför unionen å andra sidan upplever en ökning av både avkastning på eget kapital och avkastning på totala tillgångar i perioderna efter förvärvet, vilket visar på att förvärvet varit mer lönsamt för dem. Resultatet från lönsamhetsundersökningen stödjer resultatet från evenstudien då gruppen med företag utanför unionen lyckats generera den största lönsamheten varpå den högre premien från dessa företag var berättigad.

This paper aims to explore male abusers of intimate violence in Taiwanese- Vietnamese Marriages, and discuss opinions of their marriage and violated behaviors under the social structure. Hence, the research tries to figure out: 1.in what ways do these male-partners deal with the intimate violence and respond to potential changes of their marriages? 2.what are their strategies to maintain their power and masculinity in their marriage? 3.what would be the obstruction in their intimate relationship? With in-depth interview of six Taiwanese husbands, the results show that the imagination of perfect marriage in these male-partners¡¦ mind is full of the traditional gender vision. That¡¦s why these male-partners tend to reinforce the intimate violence when they find their partners couldn¡¦t fit in with the ideal model. In fact, these male abusers could deny all counts about their violated behaviors later. Besides, male-partners even use ¡¨gender¡¨ and ¡§nationality¡¨ to rationalize their behaviors, such as accusing their female-partners with horrible family concepts, unfaithful, engaging in prostitution, cheating, and over- aggressive.

It is a common method to use mergers and acquisitions to grow for enterprises. Cross-border mergers and acquisitions is one of the ways to expand the oversea marker share, besides mergers and acquisitions in domestic market itself. In the past, the enterprises from developed countries took the role to buy oversee targets. The enterprises from emerging markets gradually become the protagonist for the reason of the rise of emerging markets, especially after the Global Financial Crisis and European Debt Crisis. This study refers to literature presented to look deeply into the motivations of mergers and acquisitions from different acquirers. We classified the motivations we found in the secondary data, with year 2007 to May 2012 as the scope, expecting to figure out the differences between developed-country acquirers and emerging-market acquirers. The result shows that the main motivations for developed-country acquirers are seeking for the resources needed, entering local market and increasing the size of itself. On the other hand, going into international market, reaching economy of scale and seeking for the resources needed are the main motivations for emerging-market acquirers. Furthermore, the motivation of mergers and acquisition differs from one industry to another.

The dissolution of the Soviet Union coupled with the growing sophistication of international terror organizations has brought about a desire to ensure that a sound infrastructure exists to interdict smuggled nuclear material prior to leaving its country of origin. To combat the threat of nuclear trafficking, radiation portal monitors (RPMs) are deployed around the world to intercept illicit material while in transit by passively detecting gamma and neutron radiation. Portal monitors in some locations have reported abnormally high gamma background count rates. The higher background data has been attributed, in part, to the concrete surrounding the portal monitors. Higher background can ultimately lead to more material passing through the RPMs undetected. This work is focused on understanding the influence of the concrete surrounding the monitors on the total gamma ray background for the system. This research employed a combination of destructive and nondestructive analytical techniques with computer simulations to form a model that may be adapted to any RPM configuration. Six samples were taken from three different composition concrete slabs. The natural radiologcal background of these samples was determined using a high-purity germanium (HPGe) detector in conjunction with the Canberra In-Situ Object Counting System (ISOCS™) and Genie™ 2000 software packages. The composition of each sample was determined using thermal and fast neutron activation analysis (NAA) techniques. The results from these experiments were incorporated into a Monte Carlo N-Particle (MNCP) photon transport simulation to determine the expected gamma ray count rate in the RPM due to the concrete. The results indicate that a quantitative estimate may be possible if the experimental conditions are optimized to eliminate sources of uncertainty. Comparisons of actual and simulated count rate data for 137Cs check sources showed that the model was accurate to within 15%. A comparison of estimated and simulated count rates in one concrete slab showed that the model was accurate to within 4%. Subsequent sensitivity analysis showed that if the elemental concentrations are well known, the carbon and hydrogen content could be easily estimated. Another sensitivity analysis revealed that the small fluctuations in density have a minimal impact on the gamma count rate. The research described by this thesis provides a method by which RPM end users may quantitatively estimate the expected gamma background from concrete foundations beneath the systems. This allows customers to adjust alarm thresholds to compensate for the elevated background due to the concrete, thereby increasing the probability of intercepting illicit radiological and nuclear material.

During the past planned economy in China, the local government established too many and too small-scale state-owned enterprises, and disregarded market faculty in order to be self-sufficiency. After carried out the market economy in China, those medium, small-scale state-owned enterprises would have faced harsh competition and test, and the scale economy in the market would be leading the industrial structure transforming of China in the future. The main purpose of this research is probing into the problems of the foreign-invested enterprises merger with the Chinese state-owned enterprises, because this research would like to know how the government of China to regulate those activities of the foreign-invested enterprises merger with the state-owned enterprises of China, and will help the foreign-invested enterprises to choose the most potential state-owned enterprises to merger with under the laws and decrees of China. After reformed and opened of China, and during joining the WTO, the main developed goal is how to attract more foreign investments, innovate state-owned enterprises, and fuse with the international market. Under insisting opening to the outside world, attracting more foreign investments tactics, China must adapt to the world tide, and encourage the state-owned enterprises and the multi-national corporations to work together, lead in advanced technologies, funds, managing and selling modes, and build R & D center to increase the international competitiveness of the state-owned enterprises by cross-border modes. However, the foreign-invested enterprises in order to contend for the Chinese market, will get the market share quickly by M & A mode, and this will cause the activities continuing expanding of the foreign-invested enterprises merger with the state-owned enterprises of China.

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