The Thesis "The Change of Development Aid's Paradigm on the Microfinance Example" deals with the issue of microfinance from the point of view of development theories. Microfinance as a form of development aid is a relatively new phenomenon. It is a form of a direct financial support of small entrepreneurs in developing countries. Since the 90s commercial institutions have become increasingly involved in the process of microfinancing and projects and financing have gone beyond borders of individual states. After 2000 microfinance has become a part of the agenda of international organizations. In the last century, there was a dynamic development in the area of development theories. The change of development aid's paradigm, which took place during the 90s, marked a culmination of this process. Since the 90s the term Comprehensive Development Framework is being used. This thesis verifies validity of the subsequent hypothesis, interest in microfinancing is in accordance with the change of development theories paradigm. The incorporation of microfinance into the development aid's agenda is assessed by concepts the new paradigm works with; the human potential (individual as an active player of development), role of the institutional environment, multidisciplinarity and sustainable development.

Supply chain practitioners in developing economies, like Nigeria, experience challenges in implementing sustainable supply chain management practices. Poor sustainability implementation engenders the negative effects of supply chain operations on people, the environment, and business continuity. The purpose of this qualitative transcendental phenomenological study was to explore and describe the experiences of supply chain practitioners in the consumer goods manufacturing industry in Nigeria about sustainable supply chain management based on the theoretical foundations of stakeholder and general systems theories. The focus of the research question was to examine the experiences of supply chain practitioners to understand the challenges in implementing sustainable supply chain management practices. Data were collected through semistructured face-to-face interview of 21 practitioners with a minimum 3 years of professional experience using the purposive sampling strategies of key knowledgeables and snowball to achieve saturation. Interviews were transcribed and analyzed guided by the Husserlian transcendental phenomenological approach for essences. The major finding was that the cost of implementing sustainability initiatives and poor government policies and regulations were the most significant barriers. Sustainability in the supply chain is still at its infancy in Nigeria, with room for improvement. The findings could contribute to positive social change as supply chain practitioners may better engage stakeholders and implement sustainability practices that minimize the negative effects of their supply chain operations on society and the environment.

Yes / Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of dynamic marketing capabilities (DMC), foreign ownership modes and sub-national locations on the performance of foreign owned affiliates (FOAs) in developing economies. Design/methodology/approach – Based on a sample of 254 FOAs in Indian manufacturing sector (covering the period of 2000-2008 leading to 623 firm-year observations), the empirical paper adopts the panel data regression approach. Findings – The study confirms the significant importance of DMC to assist FOAs to gain better sales performance in an emerging market such as India. The findings indicate that Wholly Owned Foreign Affiliates (WOFAs) have better sales performance than International Joint Venture (IJV), and Majority-owned IJV (MAIJV) perform better than Minority-owned IJV (MIIJV) in the Indian manufacturing sector. The results confirm that effective deployment of DMC leads to better sales performance in WOFAs and to some extent in MAIJVs. Perhaps the most interesting finding is that developing DMC in non-Metropolitan areas is associated with higher sales growth than in Metropolitan locations. Originality/value – The study contributes to the literature by examining the impact of DMC on performance of FOA by considering the organised manufacturing sector in a large and fast growing developing economy. In addition, the results for the moderating effects provide novel evidence of the conditions under which DMC of FOA interacts with different ownership modes and influence firm performance.

The general goal of the three essays is to analyze on theoretical and empirical grounds the international financial crises for advanced, emerging and developing countries. One can say that each Essay has its own specificities. The First Essay develops an analysis of the impacts of the 2008 financial crisis on economic growth for a number of advanced, emerging and developing countries using OLS cross-section models. The second Essay concerns in estimating the probability of occurrence of different types of international financial crises in the period 1970-2009 for selected Latin America (Argentina, Brazil and Mexico) and Asia emerging countries (Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand). The empirical investigation is based on probabilistic models (MPL, PROBIT and LOGIT) where the dependent variable is associated with a different concept of financial crises (external and internal default, banking crises, inflation and currency crises and general international financial crises). Finally, the last essay develops an empirical investigation using panel data from 1970 to 2009 and analyzes the main determinants of the different types of international financial crises for a sample of 118 advanced, emerging and developing countries using six concepts of international financial crises. / Os três ensaios que compõem esse trabalho têm como objetivo geral analisar teórica e empiricamente as crises financeiras internacionais para economias avançadas, emergentes e em desenvolvimento. Fundamentalmente, cada ensaio tem a sua particularidade. Nestes termos, o Ensaio 1 realiza uma análise dos impactos da crise financeira de 2008 sobre o crescimento econômico para um conjunto de países avançados, economias emergentes e em desenvolvimento a partir da estimação de modelos do tipo cross section com o Método dos Mínimos Quadrados Ordinários (MQO). No segundo ensaio, a preocupação está nos determinantes da probabilidade de ocorrência dos tipos de crises financeiras internacionais no período 1970-2009 para países emergentes selecionados da América Latina (Argentina, Brasil e México) e da região asiática (Filipinas, Indonésia, Malásia e Tailândia) a partir da abordagem metodológica dos modelos com variáveis dependentes binárias do tipo MPL, PROBIT e LOGIT, onde a variável dependente está associada aos tipos de crises financeiras (default externo, endividamento interno, crises bancárias, crises inflacionárias, crises cambiais e crises financeiras internacionais gerais). Por fim, o último ensaio apresenta uma investigação empírica com dados em painel de 1970 a 2009 com modelos do tipo PROBIT e LOGIT no intuito de analisar os principais determinantes da probabilidade de ocorrência das crises financeiras para uma amostra de 118 países avançados, emergentes e em desenvolvimento, a partir das seis definições quanto aos tipos de crises financeiras internacionais. / Doutor em Economia