Diss.--Wirtschaft--Marburg--Univ., 1994. / Bibliogr. p. 213-233.

Texte remanié de: Th. Doct.--Droit--Montpellier. / Bibliogr. p. 424-462. Index.

Diss.--Philosophisches Dekanat--Bonn--Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, 1996. / Bibliogr. p. 351-371. Index.

Texte remanié de: Diss.--Fachbereich Geschichte--Münster--Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität, 1986. / Bibliogr. p. 456-502.

Proefschrift--Economische wetenschappen--Rotterdam--Erasmus universiteit, 1980. / Résumé en néerlandais, 2 p. Bibliogr., 5 p.

Increasingly, customer co-creation is advocated as a means to generate valuable knowledge in the innovation process and enhance new product development (NPD) success. In particular, customer co-creation activities are considered to minimize the “fuzziness” of the front end of NPD. However, there is a dearth of research regarding how firms effectively utilize customer co-creation activities in the fuzzy front end (FFE) of NPD. The thesis applies a novel framing using effectuation theory, referring to a logic of entrepreneurial expertise – a dynamic and interactive process of creating new artefacts in the world – to investigate co-creation in the FFE of NPD. This thesis, firstly, seeks to assess how co-creation activities, in comparison to traditional market research activities, relate to the creativity of the product concept. Secondly, it examines the way effectuation logic strengthens the co-creation-early performance (i.e. FFE) relationship. The inquiry develops a conceptual framework together with hypothesized relationships, around focal constructs. These are as follows; customer co-creation activities, traditional customer facing activities, effectuation, creativity of the product concept, and early performance. The hypotheses are tested vis-à-vis the direct relationship between customer co-creation activities and the creativity of the product concept, and between creativity of the product concept and early performance. The study also compares the effect of customer co-creation activities with traditional customer facing activities. Furthermore, a mediation role of creativity of the product concept is tested, followed by the testing of a moderation and a moderated mediation role of effectuation. A large scale cross-sectional survey was conducted using UK and US medium and large sized firms with experience of customer co-creation in the FFE of NPD. 205 usable responses were finally prepared for data analysis. The measurement model was carefully assessed by using the PLS-SEM approach, since the conceptual model included both formative and reflective measures. In testing the hypotheses, PLS-SEM and PROCESS Macro approaches were rigorously applied. The results, firstly, highlight that the use of customer co-creation activities is positively related to the development of highly creative concepts at the FFE of NPD. Secondly, they demonstrate that effectuation plays an important role when firms use customer co-creation activities by enhancing the creativity of product concept. Its impact also increases early performance when firms develop highly creative product concepts. Additionally, results show that an effectuation approach is particularly beneficial for medium sized firms working on incremental innovation projects. Based on these empirical results, the thesis theoretically strengthens the customer co-creation paradigm by conceptualizing customer co-creation activities, as well as examining their impact on the creativity of the product concept. Moreover, the thesis contributes to the advancement of knowledge of effectuation by applying it to the FFE of NPD context. Not only enhancing generalizability of effectuation, but the results also highlight the linkage between effectuation and customer co-creation activities. In practice, this research provides NPD professionals with valuable insights. Specifically, these include: (1) on when to use specific type of customer co-creation activities in the FFE of NPD, (2) the importance on focusing on measuring creativity of the product concept at the FFE of NPD, and (3) the advantages of adopting effectuation logic for firms in developing highly creative concepts during the FFE of NPD. Finally, the thesis discusses opportunities for future research and the limitations of this study.

Understanding of what constitutes a tourism experience has been the focus of increasing attention in academic literature in recent years, For tourism businesses operating in an ever more competitive marketplace, identifying and responding to the needs and wants of their customers, and understanding how the product or consumer experience is created is arguably essential.

This dissertation contains three essays that examine the relationship between Chinese acquiring firms’ financial reporting quality, payment methods, auditor’s industry specialisation and their domestic merger and acquisitions (M&As) short-term performance (measured by CARs) and long-term performance (measured by ROA/ROE). As the result of its remarkable economic growth rate and admission to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), China has witnessed a dramatic increase of M&A activities over the past two decades. However, despite the vast amount of research on M&As, little has been produced about the area of China. Considering the impact of China’s economy as the second biggest in the world as well as the unique nature of Chinese institutions, more research should be done and it is the aim of this paper to enrich the literature in this area. It is hoped that the conclusions drawn from this research will be of interest to both market regulators and participants. The first essay examines the relationship of the acquiring firm’s financial reporting quality, payment method and their M&A performance in a sample of domestic M&As between unrelated parties. The results show that there is a significantly positive market reaction to acquisitions with high financial reporting quality, and acquirers with high financial reporting quality tend to choose stock involved payment. The research also shows that lower financial reporting quality acquiring firms tend to pay a higher premium to the target, which might be for compensating them for accepting stock payment. The second essay examines the relationship of the acquiring firm’s financial reporting quality, payment method and their M&A performance in a sample of domestic M&As between related parties. Since China still adopts two accounting approaches (purchase and pooling of interests) for business combination, there would be concern that acquiring firms would like to try to manipulate to adopt a certain approach. The research does not show that significant discretionary accruals difference between the firms for two approaches. However, it shows that when transactions are among related parties, because of less information asymmetry, there would be less likely of accrual manipulation. Furthermore, the distinction of the common control and uncommon control (as the criteria for applying accounting methods) imply the possibility that under common control there would be concern of tunnelling and M&As in cash payment would have more concern on this. The market response to the cash payments confirms this. The third essay examines the relationship acquiring firms’ financial reporting quality, auditor industry specialisation and their unrelated-party M&A performance. Since financial reporting quality is very important for investment decisions, financial reporting auditors also plays an important role. Also, when the involved parties are unrelated, the auditors are getting more important. Hence, the choice of due diligence auditor is very important to the acquiring firms. China allows listed companies to use same auditor to provide due diligence services. The research shows that when financial reporting auditors are industrial experienced, the acquiring firms are less likely to appoint a new auditor for due diligence. Also, when acquiring firms appoint a new auditor for due diligence, the market would not have significant response; however, when they appoint a new auditor with good industry experience, the market response positively. In summary, the three essays try to show in a developing market with transparency problem, there are some information asymmetry mediators, like financial reporting quality, payment methods choices and auditor/due diligence services; and also try to show how they work together and how they work to the M&As short-term and long-term performance. The following chapter explains the background and motivation of the research and introduces the contribution of the work to the existing body of knowledge.

The thesis is driven by the increasing number of the Directorate General of Taxes (DGT) employees who voluntarily left the organisation following the first phase of its organisational reforms that ended in 2008. Some changes were made to the reforms, including improving the employee compensation scheme, developing a more conducive working environment, setting up standard operating procedures to clarify job ambiguity, and implementing a job rotation system. The expectation following these changes was that employees would perform better and continue their employment in the DGT. During the second phase of reform between 2009 and 2014, 280 DGT employees decided to quit their jobs. The DGT claimed it had lost many tax specialists, tax auditors and managers, who play a crucial role in enabling the DGT to perform its function of collecting tax revenues This thesis seeks to understand the underlying causes of employee turnover in Indonesia’s DGT. It employs Price and Mueller’s model of employee turnover as the analytical framework to systematically examine the research problem. The research is based on two case studies in Jakarta’s regional tax offices, and it includes former and current DGT employees, as well as officials who are responsible in implementing the human resource regulations. Data for the research were collected through questionnaires and interviews. Price and Mueller’s comprehensive approach to the turnover problem was expected to be a useful tool to raise awareness for further examination of employee turnover problems. The thesis reveals that the model is substantially useful to explain job satisfaction among DGT employees (stayers), however, it is not fully effective in capturing employee turnover problems in Indonesia’s DGT. The model assumed organisational stability, while organisational change is more prevalent not only in the private sector, but also in the public sector. This research concludes that employees’ intentions/decisions in staying or leaving the DGT were rooted in organisational change and changes in its HR practices. The uncertainty tied into the reforms was found to be an important factor in influencing employees’ attitudes and behaviour toward their jobs.

Master of Agribusiness / Department of Agricultural Economics / Arlo Biere / E-commerce is changing the purchase habits of businesses, globally. The potential for agricultural input manufacturers to develop an online business-to-business (B2B) model may provide a new source of revenue by reaching an underserved market. Underserved markets are those which a company’s primary brand is not reaching a certain customer base. The following thesis was conducted for a client (Company A) to determine the feasibility of increasing one point of market share in corn seed through an online and phone based sales model. In recent years, consolidation among agricultural seed companies, along with product performance, has driven swings in market share. Gaining one point of market share in corn seed is equivalent to 376,000 units. Company A believes there is opportunity to gain one percentage point of share in the corn seed industry through online and phone-based sales. FC, an online and phone based seed company, held approximately one percentage point of share before being purchased by Company B in 2007. Company B then retired the FC brand in 2012. FC was once successful in their e-commerce based strategy; however three dominant factors impacted the development of agriculture companies conducting business online. Those factors are: 1) industry structure, 2) product complexity, and 3) the hightouch nature of transactions in agriculture. Research regarding e-commerce in agriculture has been limited over the past few years. With the increase in Internet access through wireless modems and mobile broadband data plans, opportunity exists for agricultural businesses to develop e-commerce B2B marketing. Research reported here focused on exploring the feasibility of selling a corn seed brand online and by phone, only. The steps to address the feasibility were to identify the target market and market opportunities and, then, address opportunities and challenges a company could face developing such a business.