Changes and challenges that have occurred during the last couple of years, have forced life insurance companies to make certain strategic decisions in order to remain competitive. Life insurance companies have to monitor their surrounding environment in order to create opportunities to allow them to survive in their competitive environment. This study intends to contribute to the competitive advantage as well as to the profitability of life insurance companies. Franchising in the financial service industry in South Africa, as an alternative distribution channel, formed the focus of this study. The life insurance industry is struggling to come to terms with the wave of regulations being implemented in the industry. Because franchising provides an opportunity for people without business experience and due to the changing environment, a framework for managing such a business plays a major role in the success of the business. Through the use of a survey an empirical study was done to test the relationship of concepts that will contribute to the development of a framework for a sustainable franchise in the life insurance industry. The various concepts were discussed and brought into context with the objectives of the study. The research study shows that franchising can be a viable option as an alternative marketing channel in the life insurance industry. The main findings of the study contribute to the development of the framework for managing a sustainable franchise in the life insurance industry in South Africa. / MBA, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

Changes and challenges that have occurred during the last couple of years, have forced life insurance companies to make certain strategic decisions in order to remain competitive. Life insurance companies have to monitor their surrounding environment in order to create opportunities to allow them to survive in their competitive environment. This study intends to contribute to the competitive advantage as well as to the profitability of life insurance companies. Franchising in the financial service industry in South Africa, as an alternative distribution channel, formed the focus of this study. The life insurance industry is struggling to come to terms with the wave of regulations being implemented in the industry. Because franchising provides an opportunity for people without business experience and due to the changing environment, a framework for managing such a business plays a major role in the success of the business. Through the use of a survey an empirical study was done to test the relationship of concepts that will contribute to the development of a framework for a sustainable franchise in the life insurance industry. The various concepts were discussed and brought into context with the objectives of the study. The research study shows that franchising can be a viable option as an alternative marketing channel in the life insurance industry. The main findings of the study contribute to the development of the framework for managing a sustainable franchise in the life insurance industry in South Africa. / MBA, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

[pt] Este trabalho faz um estudo de várias metodologias de partição de custos em ambientes competitivos, com o objetivo de se propor algoritmos para a repartição do custo de suporte de reativo entre os diversos acessantes. Entre as várias metodologias estudadas, como por exemplo Nucleolus, Principio da Decomposição e Valor de Shapley, será verificado que o método de Aumann-Shapley é o mais adequado à repartição do custo de suporte de reativo, já que é baseada em custos marginais, bastante compatíveis com um ambiente econômico competitivo. Técnicas de otimização são de extrema importância para aplicação da metodologia de Aumann-Shapley, porque fornecem os multiplicadores de lagrange necessários ao cálculo dos custos marginais de potencia reativa, que são utilizados na repartição de custos de Aumann-Shapley. Neste sentido, é apresentado um algoritmo de pontos interiores, através do qual também se obtém o custo total de suporte reativo. Dois algoritmos para a repartição do custo de suporte de reativo serão então apresentados, um para aplicação ao caso determinístico e outro para o caso estocástico, de modo a se considerar s ocorrência de contingências na rede elétrica. A metodologia proposta é ilustrada em estudos utilizando- se dois sistemas teste: um de 24 barras e outro de 1653 barras. / [en] This work presents the study of some cost allocation methodologies in a competitive framework and proposes algorithms to reactive cost allocation among transmission consumers. Among the studied methodologies, e.g. Nucleolus, Decomposition Principle and Shapley Value, the Aumann-Shapley methodology will be shown to be the most adequate in sharing the cost of reactive support, due to its basis in marginal cost compatible with and economic competitive framework. Optimization techniques are very important to Aumann- Shapley methodology application, because the supplied Lagrange multipliers are extremely important to the evaluation of reactive power marginal cost, carried out in Aumann-Shapley cost allocation. Besides that, an interior point algorithm will be presented, which is used to obtain Lagrange multipliers and to determine the reactive support total cost. Afterwards, two algorithms will be presented to reactive power support cost allocation, one to be applied in a deterministic case and the other to a stochastic case, where contingencies in a electric network are taken into account. The proposed method is illustrated in studies with two electric test systems: one composed by 24 buses and other by 1653 buses.

Competitiveness and gaining a sustainable competitive advantage are very important factors when analysing the success of companies involved in the aviation industry in South Africa. The success of these companies will depend on their ability to maintain technological capabilities in the areas of human resources and product development. Global aviation currently is concentrated in a few countries, with the USA being the largest contributor to an industry which is regarded as one of the fastest globalizing industries in terms of market structure and production systems. In South Africa, companies have managed to develop skills in aviation manufacturing. The opportunities that will be created, owing to changes in global production chains, will enable South African companies to establish themselves further as global suppliers. The aviation industry contains high risks, especially because it is considered to be the industry which acts as a driver for innovation. Complexity of production, the capital-intensive nature and high risks involved in developing new products and services have linked the industry to inevitable political influence and support. The industry can broadly be divided into two main sectors: military and commercial. Analysts predict that opportunities in the global aviation markets in future will increase considerably. This is attributed to more Asian, African and Latin-American regions capitalizing on opportunities that exist mainly within the commercial sector. They will form strategic alliances which will enable them to perform on low-cost platforms and offer exceptional services to major players in the aviation sector. To capitalize on these opportunities, companies need to analyse their external and internal environment. The main objective of this study is to analyse and to evaluate the competitive environment of a selected aviation company, to ensure that the best strategy is chosen and adopted and to confirm that the company can create and sustain a competitive advantage over competitors. The planning tools utilized in this study are the PEST and SWOT analyses. Both have been used in the strategic planning process of many other firms. These analyses have proved to be the key element needed to formulate an action plan to be and to stay competitive in the aviation industry. This study evaluates both of these planning tools and applies them to the company chosen for this case study. / MCom (Management Accountancy), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Competitiveness and gaining a sustainable competitive advantage are very important factors when analysing the success of companies involved in the aviation industry in South Africa. The success of these companies will depend on their ability to maintain technological capabilities in the areas of human resources and product development. Global aviation currently is concentrated in a few countries, with the USA being the largest contributor to an industry which is regarded as one of the fastest globalizing industries in terms of market structure and production systems. In South Africa, companies have managed to develop skills in aviation manufacturing. The opportunities that will be created, owing to changes in global production chains, will enable South African companies to establish themselves further as global suppliers. The aviation industry contains high risks, especially because it is considered to be the industry which acts as a driver for innovation. Complexity of production, the capital-intensive nature and high risks involved in developing new products and services have linked the industry to inevitable political influence and support. The industry can broadly be divided into two main sectors: military and commercial. Analysts predict that opportunities in the global aviation markets in future will increase considerably. This is attributed to more Asian, African and Latin-American regions capitalizing on opportunities that exist mainly within the commercial sector. They will form strategic alliances which will enable them to perform on low-cost platforms and offer exceptional services to major players in the aviation sector. To capitalize on these opportunities, companies need to analyse their external and internal environment. The main objective of this study is to analyse and to evaluate the competitive environment of a selected aviation company, to ensure that the best strategy is chosen and adopted and to confirm that the company can create and sustain a competitive advantage over competitors. The planning tools utilized in this study are the PEST and SWOT analyses. Both have been used in the strategic planning process of many other firms. These analyses have proved to be the key element needed to formulate an action plan to be and to stay competitive in the aviation industry. This study evaluates both of these planning tools and applies them to the company chosen for this case study. / MCom (Management Accountancy), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Self-directed work groups are a growing phenomenon in the field of organisational psychology (Kauffeld, 2006; Neck & Manz, 1994). While much is known about what factors affect information sharing in these kinds of groups, little is known about why these factors have an impact and how they relate to each other. Through the concept of hidden profiles (tasks that by nature have shared and unshared information), this study explored the information sharing and group decision making processes and aimed to illuminate the group processes involved. The study employed a qualitative, ideographic approach where case studies were used. The sample consisted of twenty four undergraduate and postgraduate students studying at the University of the Witwatersrand divided into groups of four members each. A group task to rank the best candidate for a job was self-designed based on the theory and design utilized by Stasser and Titus (1985; 1987). This was first completed individually and then as a group – the group discussion was filmed and coded using a self-developed observation rubric. Participants also completed a self-developed post-task questionnaire regarding their perspectives of various aspects of the decision making process. The analysis was carried out using frequency counts and thematic content analysis. It was found that all the groups discussed more shared information and more unshared negative information was discussed than unshared positive information. Information sharing increased when there was debate about which pieces of information were relevant. In most cases, group members were motivated to share information because they wanted to have their opinion heard. Although the majority of the sample stated that they did not withhold any information, there was evidence of strategic information sharing. Group 5 made a decision that was closest to the ideal decision. Characteristics of this group that could have contributed to this included: long duration of discussion; high number of talking turns; respecting each other’s talking turns; moderate levels of disagreement; no obvious role of leader; moderately high levels of group familiarity; diversity in race not gender; similar educational backgrounds and a norm of critical evaluation. The study found that the interactions between factors that were perceived to affect the information sharing and decision-making (such as duration of discussion, number of talking turns, group familiarity, competitive aspects, group composition and group roles) were more interwoven than previously thought.

[pt] A indústria de telecomunicações no Brasil vem passando por profundas transformações desde meados da década de 1990, quando da alteração da regulamentação e da privatização do monopólio estatal prestador de serviço telefônico fixo comutado (STFC). No arcabouço regulatório da indústria, estas alterações implicaram em grandes transformações no ambiente competitivo e nas estratégias competitivas adotadas pelas empresas concessionárias originárias a partir deste momento. A partir do estudo de caso de uma empresa concessionária privatizada em 1998, procurou-se identificar alterações em suas estratégias competitivas, em seu ambiente competitivo e no desempenho desta empresa, antes e após a privatização. A identificação das estratégias competitivas foi baseada na classificação da empresa, a partir de 20 variáveis estratégicas, segundo a tipologia de Porter (1986), em entrevistas com funcionários e ex-funcionários da empresa selecionada, concorrentes e consultorias especializadas no setor. No período anterior à privatização (1996-1998), dado o regime de monopólio estatal no qual a empresa selecionada operava, não foi possível identificar um posicionamento estratégico bem definido, apesar da proximidade com a estratégia de diferenciação. Já no período posterior à privatização (1999- 2003), a empresa busca um posicionamento estratégico de diferenciação, apesar de algumas ações táticas inconsistentes com esta estratégia. A comparação dos indicadores de desempenho apurados antes e após a privatização indica que, apesar da empresa adotar com sucesso um posicionamento de diferenciação, a significativa transformação do ambiente competitivo foi desfavorável, tornando o ambiente competitivo mais hostil e prejudicando os resultados da empresa. / [en] The telecommunications industry in Brazil had been through significant changes during the mid-1990's and the beginning of the 21st century, due to a new regulation and the privatization of the state-owned telephony monopolistic operators. These regulatory changes caused a major transformation in this industry's competitive environment and in the recently privatized operators competitive strategies. This dissertation seeks to identify changes in the competitive environment by means of a more detailed analysis of a privatized operator, this company's competitive strategies and performance indicators through a comparison of two distinct periods - before (1996-1998) and after (1999-2003) the privatization. In order to identify the competitive strategies, the selected company was classified under 20 strategic variables, according to Porter's (1980) typology. The research is based on interviews with current and former employees from the selected company, its competitors and the industry's consulting firms. During the period that preceded the privatization process (1996-1998), the company's strategy can not be classified under Porter's (1980) typology due to the monopolistic regime in which the company provided its services, although it was possible to infer that the company's strategy seems closer to a differentiation strategy than other generic strategies. On the other hand, during the period following the privatization (1999-2003), the company positioned itself on a differentiation strategy, although some adopted tactics might diverge from this positioning. In spite of successfully adopting a differentiation strategy, the company's results have decreased, as shown by a comparison of performance indicators from both periods. These poorer results after the new regulation are mainly due to a much more hostile competitive environment than before.

The aim of the theses is to find out whether the same marketing strategy can be applied on both Czech and Slovak market or whether it should be created for the both markets separately. In the analytic part I compare the situation on the Czech and Slovak market as for economic, social and cultural environment and I analyze market potential and competitive environment. At the end I analyze the position and activities of two big players on both markets.

<p>Strategy and IT research has been extensively discussed during the past 40 years. Two scientific disciplines Management Science (MS) and Management Information Science (MIS) investigate the importance of IT as a competitive factor. However, although much research is available in both disciplines, it is still difficult to explain how to manage IT to enable competitive advantages. One reason is that MS research focuses on strategies and competitive environments but avoids the analysis of IT. Another reason is that MIS research focuses on IT as a competitive factor but avoids the analysis of the competitive environment. Consequently, there is a gap of knowledge in the understanding of the strategic management of information technology (SMIT).</p><p>The strategic analysis of IT as a competitive factor is important for achieving the competitive advantages of IT. This thesis explores factors related to strategy and IT that should be considered for the strategic analysis of IT as a competitive factor, and proposes a framework for SMIT. The research is conducted by means of a qualitative analysis of theoretical data from the disciplines of MS and MIS. Data is explored to find factors related to SMIT.</p><p>The results of the analysis show that the strategic management of information technology is a continuous process of evaluation, change, and alignment between factors such as competitive environment, competitive strategies (business and IT strategies), competitive outcome, and competitive factors (IT). Therefore, the understanding of the relationships between these factors is essential in order to achieve the competitive advantages of using IT.</p><p>This thesis contributes to strategic management research by clarifying the relationships between strategic management, competitive environment, and IT as competitive factor into a holistic framework for strategic analysis. The framework proposed is valuable not only for business managers and for IT managers, but also for academics. The framework is designed to understand the relationship between competitive elements during the process of strategic analysis prior to the formulation of competitive strategies. Moreover, it can also be used as a communication tool between managers, in order to achieve alignment among company strategies. To academics, this thesis presents the state-of-the-art related to strategic management research; it can also be a valuable reference for strategic managers, as well as researchers interested in the strategic management of IT.</p> / Report code: LiU-Tek-Lic.2006:53.

Risk is inherent in many social and economic decisions, such as the choice of pathway in secondary school, the choice of major at university, job decisions, health-related behaviour, marriage, parenthood, migration and the allocation of financial assets. Investigating the determinants of attitudes towards risk is therefore essential to fully understand how people make such decisions. Recent research has shown that individual risk attitudes are not immutable personality traits, but are influenced by external factors with the potential to change them in more or less enduring ways, such as the characteristics of the environment, emotional states, life experiences such as poverty, job loss or violence, and social relationships. This thesis studies external factors that play a role in shaping risk attitudes. Specifically, it focuses on two important environmental factors: social relationships and the incentive structure that individuals face (e.g., competition or teamwork). It is composed of three chapters. Each chapter of the thesis presents the results of a different laboratory experiment, in which individual risk behaviour is always measured using the Bomb Risk Elicitation Task - BRET (Crosetto and Filippin, 2013). This task asks participants to choose how many boxes to collect out of 100, knowing that 99 boxes contain £0.10 while one contains a bomb, but without knowing in which box the bomb is located. They can therefore choose their preferred lottery among 100 lotteries whose outcomes and probabilities are fully described only by one parameter, i.e., the number of collected boxes. Earnings increase linearly with the number of boxes collected, but they are all lost if the bomb lies in one of the collected boxes. In the first two chapters, risk behaviour is measured both before and after the treatment manipulation, and feedback on the peers’ ex-ante risk behaviour is used as a channel to study peer influence on the subjects’ ex-post risk behaviour. The first two chapters provide new evidence that individual risk behaviour is influenced by the risk behaviour of the peer group and offer one explanation for why peer effects are not always present and vary in intensity. This is due to the fact that individuals are more influenced by those peers with whom they feel more bonded. Specifically, in the first chapter I study how group identity (that is, the portion of an individual’s self-concept derived from the sense of belonging to the social group) affects peer effects on risk behaviour. I induce different levels of group identity through different matching protocols (random or based on individual painting preferences) and the possibility of interacting with group members via an online chat in a group task. I find that subjects are affected by their peers when taking decisions and that a stronger group identity amplifies the influence of peers: painting preferences matching significantly reduces the heterogeneity of risk behaviour compared with random matching. On the other hand, introducing a group task has no significant effect on behaviour, possibly because this interaction does not always contribute to enhancing group identity. The second chapter digs deeper into this evidence by investigating the role of the incentive structure that characterizes the individuals’ environment. Since the first chapter shows that peer effects vary in intensity, I hypothesize that different types of incentive schemes may have different effects on peer relationships and, therefore, affect peer effects on risk behaviour. Using a real effort task, which consists of recognizing the value and the country of origin of a random sequence of Euro coins, I compare piece-rate compensation first with a cooperation-based and then with a competition-based incentive scheme. I find that competition significantly reduces attachment to peers and more than halves peer influence on risk behaviour compared with piece-rate compensation, despite the fact that the latter effect is not statistically significant. Such findings suggest that, when designing and evaluating an optimal compensation scheme, it may be important to also consider how peer effects on subsequent risk behaviour will in turn affect future decisions involving risk. For example, in research and development, competition may improve the results of current projects, but risk attitudes will shape the types of future projects that are attempted. The third chapter restricts the attention to competition and enquires whether this type of incentive scheme has a direct effect on risk-taking behaviour, beyond any social comparison, and whether its impact on subsequent risk behaviour is heterogeneous according to gender. Risk behaviour is measured after the performance of a real effort task, consisting of recognizing the value and country of origin of Euro coins, incentivized either as a tournament with fixed rewards or as a random draw with the same monetary payoffs. The data show that competition does not significantly affect subsequent risk-taking behaviour when considering the full sample. However, there is a positive relationship between competition and risk aversion for males, who become significantly more risk-averse after losing a competition than after randomly earning the same low payoff. In contrast, males do not become more risk-seeking after winning the tournament, while the average risk-taking behaviour of females is unaffected by tournament participation and outcomes. The reaction of males to negative outcomes might be driven by intrinsic motives, such as emotions or a shift in the locus of control from internal to external. Overall, the evidence presented here shows that risk attitudes are not immutable but may be shaped by external factors. Of particular importance is the role played by the risk behaviour of peers, which begins to emerge even when bonds are weak and becomes stronger as the social link intensifies. Any policy that aims to change risk attitudes (or that does so indirectly) will thus see its effects spread to the target subjects’ peers, and may amplify its success if the peer group is chosen wisely. Changing the characteristics of the subjects’ environment by introducing competition weakens their attachment to the competing peers and may attenuate peer effects on risk behaviour. In addition, competition per se has no impact on subsequent risk behaviour, except for males who become more risk-averse after losing.