Thesis (LL.M) (Labour Law) --University of Limpopo, 2009.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 40-06, Section: A, page: 3065. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1978.

This research project utilized a true experimental design to examine the efficacy of using guided imagery to enhance the strategic planning process. A secondary purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of people's roles, judgments, and decision styles on the strategic planning process. / The dissertation defined and measured seven types of variables: (1) scenario building productivity; (2) goal-setting productivity; (3) cognitive information processing styles; (4) latent identities and roles; (5) locus of control; (6) vividness of imagery; and, (7) guided imagery treatment. / Data was collected from 96 senior management students enrolled in a business policy course at The Florida State University during the Fall 1984 semester. This course is designed to be a capstone course integrating the business functional fields. / At the beginning of the semester a pretest generation of scenarios and goals was conducted. During the semester half of the students received general business orientated guided imagery treatments with the remaining students engaging in placebo activities. At the end of the semester a posttest generation of scenarios and goals was conducted. In addition, the following instruments were administered during the term: (1) Myers-Briggs type indicator; (2) Rotter's locus of control scale; (3) Ziller's personality instrument; and, (4) Bett's vividness of imagery scale. / Utilizing parametric statistical techniques the results of the hypothesis testing yielded mixed results with some results contrary to the hypothesized results. Major conclusions were: (1) guided imagery is effective in improving the scenario building facet of the strategic planning process in general and the goal-setting facet in cases where the individuals have a vivid capacity for imagery; (2) an internal locus of control and a local latent identity and role appear to positively affect the goal-setting process; (3) cognitive processing styles appear to have no effect on either the scenario building or goal-setting facets of the strategic planning process; and, (4) vividness of imagery appears to be of suspect value in general, but does have a very positive effect on the goal-setting aspect when combined with the administration of guided imagery. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 46-06, Section: A, page: 1490. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1985.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2006. / Full text release at OhioLINK's ETD Center delayed at author's request

In emerging markets, joint venture is a dominant form of competition for multinational corporations. Drawing from the resource-based view of the firm and evolutionary perspective, I developed a theoretical framework that synthesizes our knowledge regarding timing of joint venture formation, initial resource commitment and resource development beyond formation to fully understand the path of joint venture implementation and its economic impact on sustainable competitive advantage. Life course data for 439 joint ventures in the Chinese auto industry (1983-2002) form a cohort-sequential longitudinal dataset. Employing Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) allows me to isolate the economic consequences and developmental trend of the main and interaction effects of entry timing, initial resource commitment and resource development on joint venture performance over time. The results of the study indicate that: 1). The sustainability of early mover advantage depends not only on the initial resource commitment, but also the effort in resource development over time. 2). Timing alone is significant in determining initial performance, but is not significant for the long-term success. 3). Early movers with high initial resource commitment are more likely to succeed in the long run but may take some time to achieve profitability. This study empirically explored the dynamics of resource accumulation and its impact on intra-firm performance variation through its life course and inter-firm performance variation overtime by integrating the resource-based view and entry order effect research. The results can help to reconcile the long time equivocal findings in entry order effect research. It can also provide a valuable contribution to the development of a dynamic resource base theory of the firm through the longitudinal analysis of IJVs life course development paths. Methodologically, it is one of the first attempts to introduce HLM to international joint venture research where the important issue of parameter variation across firm or over time has not been effectively addressed. Furthermore, the results identified different pathways to success through the use of different entry strategies and advanced our knowledge of international joint venture operations at and beyond the formation stage.

This research project takes the position that there is a biological basis to social contract formation in business and to social contract dissolution. Its stance is that individuals cannot escape the natural forces that govern these relationships, by rite that these forces have on the structuring of the neural architecture of the human brain. While it is argued in this project that the neural algorithms in the brain are formed through evolutionary time to perform specific tasks that aided in the economizing activities of our ancestors, this structural design is not absolute. Rather, the neural circuits which formed in response to adaptive challenges facing our ancestors are susceptible to cultural influences, hierarchical arrangements, and organizational elaboration. So, although it is inescapable that biological forces shaped a fixed neural structure that guides and limits humans abilities in the present day, naturally formed cultural variables in corporations moderate the activation of these neural circuits in ordinary business social contract situations. This dissertation attempts to inform the business ethics field with insights from evolutionary psychology by examining business respondents behavior when confronted with a social contract situation that involves cheating. En route to this goal, the research project empirically tests for the presence of cheater-detection/social-contract neural algorithms in a sample of business practitioners and undergraduate business students, as an extension of the research conducted by evolutionary psychologists, Leda Cosmides and John Tooby. Based on the theoretical groundwork laid by evolutionary psychology and other natural science disciplines, the study examined whether human brain circuits are structured to recognize one specific type of social relationship in firms agency arrangements. Ultimately, this studys central thesis is: Although corporate agents minds are biologically evolved to identify cheaters in social contract situations, the neural circuits responsible for detecting these breaches are influenced by organizational and cultural components that affect the individuals perceptions of the terms of the exchange. Results from the main study empirically confirm that cheater-detection algorithms are present within a business population but that these hardwired circuits are moderated by cultural influences in business organizations. Implications for organizations and ethical decision making are offered and discussed.

In this dissertation, I conduct experimental labor markets to investigate the effectiveness of an optimal agency contract in inducing employee effort and maximizing firm profit. I compare firm profit under the optimal agency contract to that under a theoretically sub-optimal contract that relies on the norm of reciprocity to motivate employee effort, and explore how factors outside standard agency models affect the relative profitability of the two contracts. Experimental results show that firm profit is higher under the optimal agency contract in markets where only one of the two contracts is available, but is statistically indistinguishable between the two contracts in markets where both contracts are available. These results are inconsistent with the assumptions of agency theory, but are consistent with my proposition that employees'perceptions about the intentions underlying firms' contract offers, which play no role in standard agency theory, influence employees' reactions to the offers, and that this, in turn, affects the relative profitability of the two contracts. The implications of these results for research on incentives, contracting, and social norms, and for the design of management control systems in practice, are discussed.

This dissertation has three essays. In the first essay, I investigate whether the decision to repurchase stock is driven by investor demand for repurchases. Specifically, I hypothesize that firms cater to investor demand for repurchases by initiating repurchases when investors place premiums on the stock prices of repurchasing firms. I propose proxies (analogous to Baker and Wurgler (2004)) that measure the repurchase premium. I find that the lagged repurchase premium is positively and significantly related to repurchase initiation and continuation decisions, even after controlling for tax effects, year trends and alternate investment opportunities. I find that a greater fraction of dividend paying firms also repurchase stock when the repurchase premium has been high. The fraction of dividend payers that repurchase stock is found to be negatively related to the lagged dividend premium, establishing the competing attractiveness of dividends and repurchases based on the respective dividend and repurchase premium. Firms are more likely to repurchase stock when the repurchase premium is high and the difference between the repurchase and dividend premium is positive. The second essay looks at a relatively new way of buying back shares, called Accelerated Share Repurchases (ASRs). ASRs are credible commitments by firms to repurchase shares immediately. Including an ASR in a repurchase program reduces the flexibility that firms have to alter an announced program in response to subsequent changes in the price and liquidity of its stock, unexpected shocks to cash flow and/or investment, etc. We investigate whether firms decisions to include ASRs in their repurchase programs are associated with factors expected to influence the costs of lost flexibility and the benefits of enhanced credibility and immediacy. The third essay looks at stock market trading characteristics around ASR announcements. I find that the trading costs decrease following an ASR announcement. On average, market quality improves; trading volume increases; and trade size increases following an ASR announcement. The information asymmetry component of spread also increases post ASR.

We extend the existing literature on the factors explaining the value of acquired firms by examining the effect of corporate governance and other characteristics of Japanese and U.S. acquirers on the long-term post-acquisition stock and accounting performance of their U.S. targets over 1980 2000, a period during which both U.S. and Japanese economies experienced both superior and poor performances. In addition to analyzing the bidder target relationship in general, focus on Japanese bidders permits us to investigate the role of unique Japanese characteristics: keiretsu membership, cross-holding and ties to a main bank. The unresolved debate on the efficiency of the U.S. versus Japanese corporate governance system developed in the early 1990s, following the slowdown in the U.S. and boom in the Japanese economy. Critics claim that the main banks do nothing special and that the whole discussion is theory driven. In addition, the hypothesized advantages of the Japanese governance system, namely cross-holding, negligible shareholding, latitude and long-term focus of managers, may lead to greater agency problems. For data availability reason we analyzed U.S. targets whose stock continued to independently trade for at least a year following the acquisition. To separate general and uniquely Japanese effects of bidders, a sample of U.S. targets, that independently existed following acquisition by U.S. bidders, were selected from the same industry and year in which Japanese acquired U.S. targets. Overall results suggest that better managed bidders with more resources positively affect the performance of smaller targets in related industries. In the presence of alternative methods for managing the agency problem the targets leverage becomes more important as a source of funds than a tool to manage agency problem. The mixed results for the Japanese governance variables, expected positive for the main bank and unpredicted negative for the keiretsu and cross-holding, do not allow a clear-cut answer as to which governance system is dominant since the characteristics of the Japanese governance system have mixed effects on the corporate performance.