In the past decade, the financial industry has been criticized to lack a faster digital transformation to provide more efficient services, where FinTech (a neologism generated from the contraction of “(Fin)ancial” and “(Tech)nology”) start-ups or fintechs represent a paradigm shift to reinvent the industry. FinTech is gaining attention in multiple academic disciplines, however, it was found that it has been neglected from the international business discipline to understand the internationalization process of fintechs. Furthermore, as the financial industry is an important cornerstone to foster economic growth and social welfare, particularly in the context of Latin American emerging countries, lack of studies in this context also motivated the development of this thesis. The purpose of this study is to accommodate FinTech in the international business discipline drawing from network theory and born-digital firms’ characteristics, emphasizing on core activities within the digital value chain to analyze the internationalization process and identify the main challenges. A conceptual framework was developed to analyze the internationalization process of Ecuadorian fintechs and the challenges faced. The research has a qualitative approach, employing multiple case studies strategy, where semi-structured interviews with founders and senior managers of four Ecuadorian fintechs were conducted. Empirical findings showed that despite having a high digital value chain and take advantage of internet technologies to internationalize faster, Ecuadorian fintechs followed a gradual regional expansion within Latin American countries and their internationalization process was mostly network-driven. Furthermore, besides the most prominent internationalization challenges such as liabilities of outsidership (LoO) and institutional regulations, additional resource-related internationalization challenges were found such as funding, skilled IT talents and innovation, which raise the importance to emphasize in such challenges for further research.

The Scandinavian country of Sweden is a huge facilitator of startups through its’ large network of incubators where Born Global residents are becoming a more frequent sight. The Born Global firm is a novel type of company that contradicts the traditional means of internationalization. In order to realize startup potential, the obtainment of resources of varying amounts and scope is essential. But for a Born Global startup, achievement of its internationalization prospects requires making use of a unique set of resources that facilitate and enables the fulfillment of such global capabilities. The purpose of this paper is to identify the resources that are crucial for a Born Global in an internationalization context and whether or not Swedish incubators can provide these crucial resources to Born Globals. The analysis is based on the findings from semi-structured interviews with members from 3 Incubators and 4 Born Global companies in the incubation process within their respective incubators. Using a comparative study, alignments and gaps have been identified between what incubators have provided and what Born Globals consider crucial for internationalization. The conclusion of this study leads to an addition to the theory of the Incubator Best Practice Model, elaborated by Bergek and Norrman where the facilitation of the unique resources required by Born Global companies is emphasized. Additionally, the authors provide suggestions on managerial implementations for Born Global managers. These suggestions concern thorough assessments of their individual resource needs, and policy recommendations to incubators about the facilitation of the specific resources required for a Born Global and its effort to internationalize.

Previous literature on the social dynamics of network creation in enterprises has drawn a sharp division between the utility of personal and professional networks. This has been particularly marked in social network analysis of born-global SMEs operating in emerging markets and seeking to internationalise. Using the case study of International Housing Solutions (Pty) Ltd (IHS) – a born global SME with both a global and a regional network – this research creates a deeper and more nuanced understanding of what such networks look like, what human factors are key to their operation, and what the relative importance is of the personal and professional drivers of networking.The study employs a mixed-method research design including network mapping and both qualitative and quantitative analysis of questionnaire responses from 35 participants in the IHS network, providing both hard data and rich qualitative insights into the ingredients and processes required for effective networking in such an enterprise.The results provide robust evidence for crossover between professional and personal networking activities; both are equally relevant in enabling the born-global SME to grow networks, increase innovation and enter otherwise impenetrable markets. Though the weighting of networking attributes is marginally different – for personal networks, the key attributes are advice, trust, friendship and communication; for professional networks, knowledge and referrals – in practice, both the personal and the professional are assimilated into a single complex of network activity and cannot be viewed in isolation.The research thus contributes innovative findings to a hitherto under-researched aspect of networking in the born-global SME. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Abstract Purpose: To investigate the role of dynamic capabilities in the Internationalization of born global firms from developing countries in Africa.  Design approach/Methods: The study employed a qualitative research method with a multiple case research design. Four born global firms from two developing countries in Africa were analyzed. Verification strategies were utilized to enhance the validity and reliability of the research findings.  Originality: Most of the previous research on the role of dynamic capabilities in the Internationalization of firms has attempted to operationalize empirical findings either with a single case study or multiple case studies of firms from developed countries, or multiple case studies of firms from the same sector or country. Therefore, as a reason for these paucities, this paper exists to investigate the role of dynamic capability in the Internationalization of born global from developing countries in Africa. Findings: The dynamic capability is the critical reason why and how firms stay competitive.The study found out that born globals from developing countries hire external consultants, conduct competitor analysis, utilized their local and international networks and conducts comprehensive market analysis to effectively sense market opportunities. Additionally, the firms invested substantial amounts in staff skills development, new product development, and new market development to seize opportunities. Besides, some of the firms capitalized on remote working systems, digital marketing and hiring of employees with prior international experience to effectively seize market opportunities. With regards to reconfiguring resources, all the firms utilized partnerships with leading multinational companies as a means of reconfiguring its resources to address the weaknesses within the company. To transform as an organization as well as to manage risks, most of the firms engaged in proactive decision making, diversification, utilized digital marketing and implemented digitization systems.  Keywords: Born Global, SMEs, Dynamic Capability, Internationalization, Developing Countries

There is a significant gap in employment rates between people born in and outside of Sweden. Previous literature and theory present evidence of discrimination being a part of the gap. This paper studies the differences in employment between foreign-born and natives in Sweden. The terror attack in Stockholm in 2017 is used as an exogenous variation in attitudes towards foreign-born individuals to measure the discrimination. By collecting individual and aggregated data from Swedish statistics, the study examines how the negative attitudes following the terror attack affect ethnical differences in employment. Data is also collected from retriever to analyze the media coverage around the time of the incident to pinpoint a source of the attack and compare with the development of the employment after the attack. Using the difference-in-differences approch, result was found suggesting that the expected negative attitudes did not affect foreign-born individuals' employment probabilities. However, there were some negative effects shortly after the attack, but they were very small. Results are in line with the large spike in media coverage around the time of the incident which quickly decreases in the months after. A possible explanation of the results is that most of the employers don't let prejudice decide when making hiring decisions. Because the negative effects are very small nd only in the short run, this paper concludes that the expected attitude shift following the terror attack did not affect immigrants' employment probabilities.

Pregnant immigrant women are a vulnerable population with respect to access and navigation of maternity care service. They have to deal with the challenges of  navigating a health system in a new country which in most cases is unknown to them while tackling issues such as communication, language, and an unfamiliar healthcare system. Conversely the healthcare professionals are confronted with managing these issues and  providing care within a health institution which was not designed to take on the challenges of providing healthcare to a diverse population.  Both parties continue to search and implement measures within and outside the general healthcare institution with the aspiration of bridging the existing gap.   As a result, the primary aim of this study is to examine immigrant women’s interpretation of maternity care in Sweden and the secondary aim is to explore the views of maternity healthcare professionals on given care to immigrant women. The purpose is to generate and explore new knowledge about an area with limited understanding thus, the research questions are Thus, the research questions are:  How do immigrant women describe their maternity care experience?. How do healthcare professionals describe their experience caring for immigrant women?. An inductive qualitative research was conducted to explore the research problem. Thus, the theory was grounded in data.  Data was collected using semi-structured interviews held with immigrant women who had accessed maternity care in Sweden, had a live birth in the last five years and from healthcare professionals (midwives and doulas).   The result of this study shows that the maternal health needs of immigrant women are compromised due to various factors which centres mainly around communication, language and the health system.  The healthcare professionals also highlighted these same factors and the lack of education and training for them as the most significant underlying systematic problem within health services.

Foreign-born African immigrants (FBAI) have a high rate of severe hypertension (HTN) and psychosocial-cultural factors have underlying roles in this, as in other chronic diseases. Literature lacks studies on FBAI women living with HTN. This study explored the HTN experience of FBAI women in the Washington Metropolitan area. This qualitative phenomenological study, was guided by a theoretical framework that included the Health Belief Model, Patient Centered Access to Health Care and the Transactional Model of Stress and Coping. Highly educated health care professional of 15 women participated in in-depth interviews. Thematic analysis was used for data analysis. Key findings included (a) most had a family history of HTN and believed HTN is deadly but reported going into denial after their initial diagnosis; (b) many did not practice lifestyle modifications and did not consider it a priority to take their medications as prescribed by their clinicians; (c) many preferred their ethnic foods to American food; (d) many used herbs from West Africa, though some were concerned about long-term side effects; (e) many had medical insurance and easy access to HTN services, but reported that clinicians did not listen to their concerns or provide culturally appropriate guidance; and (f) some recommended that HTN treatment services for FBAI should be designed better to address cultural patterns of communication, diet and exercise. The results of this study may contribute to social change by offering more culturally sensitive HTN services that would likely increase treatment compliance among FBAI women

Tuberculosis (TB) is a leading public health problem across the world. For various reasons, TB and multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) have increased. Clarification on TB/HIV co-infection and homelessness as risk factors for TB and MDR-TB is required to inform policy interventions to reduce TB-related morbidity, mortality, and healthcare costs. In this quantitative study, data from the Houston Health Department (N = 341) were analyzed to explore the relationship between TB and MDR-TB outcomes and TB/HIV co-infection and type of housing/homelessness. Foreign-born persons are disproportionately affected in the United States. The socio-ecological model provided a theoretical framework for the investigation. Multiple and logistic regression analyses were conducted to investigate the relationships between variables, controlling for age and gender. Results indicate that HIV infected persons were more likely than non-infected persons to contract TB, and homeless persons were more likely than non-homeless persons to contract TB/MDR-TB, suggesting that high TB/HIV co-infection rates increase prevalence of TB and MDR-TB while improvements in housing reduce prevalence of TB and MDR-TB. However, no significant associations between variables were found. The odds ratio, Exp(B) = 0.000, p -?¥ 0.90, 95% Cl [0.000, with no upper bound values] was observed for both independent variables. Regular screening for TB/HIV co-infection among persons with high TB and MDR-TB risk profiles is recommended. Further investigation is required. Inclusion of more covariates could further elucidate more evidence of an association between variables. Study findings may support interventions to reduce TB-related morbidity, leading to positive social change.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(理学) / 甲第20880号 / 理博第4332号 / 新制||理||1622(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院理学研究科数学・数理解析専攻 / (主査)教授 堤 誉志雄, 教授 上 正明, 教授 宍倉 光広 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Science / Kyoto University / DFAM

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