Zugl.: Oestrich-Winkel, Europ. Business School, Diss.

This dissertation is composed of three essays related to Financial Architecture. The first essay, analysed in the first chapter of the thesis, contributes to the literature on Efficient Market Hypothesis and in particular in understanding several issues associated with how prices are determined for individual stocks. The chapter, in particular, provides further evidence of price and volume effects associated with index compositional changes by analysing the inclusions (exclusions) from the French CAC40 and SBF120 indices, as well as the FTSE100. I find evidence supporting the price pressure hypothesis associated with index fund rebalancing, but weak or no evidence for the imperfect substitution, liquidity and information hypotheses. The results improve on recent evidence from the S&P500 index. The evidence for the FTSE100 additions shows, in particular, that markets learn about an imminent inclusion and incorporate this information into prices, even before the announcement date. The other two essays of this thesis relate to Corporate Governance issues. Chapters 2 and 3, in particular, analyze some aspects of two corporate governance mechanisms: ownership concentration and managerial labour market. Chapter 2 provides an overview of the evolution of control in listed Slovenian corporations and evaluates the impact of the current changes in ownership on firm performance. Ownership and control has been concentrating in most transition countries. This consolidation of control introduces changes in the power distribution within privatised firms and, most importantly, redirects the corporate governance problem to a conflict between large and small shareholders. The chapter evaluate the ownership changes in Slovenian privatised firms through an analysis of stock price reactions to the entrance of a new blockholder (the shared benefits of control) and through an estimation of the premiums paid for large blocks (the private benefits of control). It provides evidence and discuss the reasons for the failures of the privatization investment funds in implementing control over firm managers and in promoting the restructuring of firms in the first post-privatization years. Chapter 3 concentrates on one specific aspect of the managerial labour market: monetary remuneration schemes. The purpose of this chapter is to examine the interconnection between pay and corporate governance approaches with respect to the different rules found across European legal systems. The research data on reported pay practices for 2001 among FTSE Eurotop300 companies reveal a reliance on performance-based pay generally and a somewhat variable adoption of share options programs and other equity-based incentive contracts, which generate difficulties in dispersed ownership systems. Furthermore, on the basis of the regulation on executive remuneration disclosure discussed in this chapter and on the basis of the disclosure practices resulting from the data collected for the FTSE Eurotop300 constituents, I construct some disclosure indicators and analyse empirically how country and firm characteristics affect remuneration disclosure.

In recent years, the development of software in open source communities has attracted immense attention from research and practice. The idea of commercial quality, free software, and open source code accelerated the development of well-designed open source software such as Linux, Apache tools, or Perl. Intrinsic motivation, group identification processes, learning, and career concerns are the key drivers for a successful cooperation among the participants. These factors and most mechanisms of control, coordination, and monitoring forms of open source communities can hardly be explained by traditional organizational theories. In particular, the micro and macro structures of open source communities and their mode of operation are hardly compatible with the central assumption of the New Institutional Theory, like opportunistic behavior. The aim of this contribution is to identify factors that sustain the motivation of the community members over the entire life cycle of an open source project. Adequate coordination and controlling mechanisms for the governance in open source communities may be extracted.

The concept of the virtual corporation (VC), which describes a modern form of collaboration among organizations, was introduced in the scientific discussion in the mid 1990th. The practice shows that VCs need new forms of governance because the traditional mechanisms of control, management, and steering are hardly applicable. Until now there is only a few research related to the question how to govern VC. The main problems to govern a VC are to coordinate the communication among dispersed partners and to motivate employees to actively involve themselves into the network. Open source projects are confronted with similar problems. As several governance mechanisms are already analyzed in this context, the authors analyze and adopt governance concepts from open source projects to extract a governance framework for virtual corporations. This new approach leads to innovative insights in governing virtual corporations by using community techniques as an appropriate way for communication and collaboration purposes.

In 2005, firearm homicides in Toronto spiked to unprecedented levels, prompting mainstream media to label 2005 as the ‘Year of the Gun’. While the majority of those killed were young black men in Toronto’s impoverished post-war suburbs, the shooting death of a young white woman downtown reframed the problem of gun violence in popular and policy discourse from the perspective of those it least affected: the predominantly white middle-classes in the gentrified urban core. This dissertation attempts to situate dominant narratives of the problem of gun violence and policy responses to it as an event in a history of Toronto, especially with reference to transformations in urban space and governance. It argues that the Year of the Gun can be understood as a destabilizing moment in the city’s collective history that helped normalize ways of narrating and governing a growing socio-spatial divide between the city and the post-war suburbs. Through analyses of government proceedings, media discourse, social scientific research, participant observation, and key informant interviews it identifies how intersecting discourses, practices and representations framed racialized poverty and crime in ways that further solidified causal links between the two. It offers a history for these causal links, illustrating how race and space have long played a vital role in real and imagined divisions between the city and its suburbs. It explores the formation and administration of three policy approaches responding to the crisis: a municipal policy framework for social investment, a targeted policing strategy, and non-profit faith-based programs for young black men. It analyses how each defined social problems for government in ways that eclipsed broader processes generating social inequality in the city. The findings of this research suggest that dominant narratives and practices governing poverty and crime have prevented public discussions about the racialized architecture of neoliberal urbanism while enforcing one of suburban decline. They have prevented dialogue about the correlation between whiteness and wealth in the core, while enforcing causal relations between blackness, poverty and crime in the suburbs. And they have prevented critiques about the surveillance of the city’s young black men, while enforcing projections of these same men through the prism of masculinist culture.

This thesis examines the shift in governance structures, bargains, and processes in the Saskatchewan uranium industry between the 1970s and 2000s. Using a framework based on international political economy, the thesis analyzes the security, production, financial and knowledge structures that shaped the environment of the provinces uranium industry. In addition, an analysis of bargains created between and among structures helps provide further insight into the industry. Through this type of analysis, the thesis draws comparisons between the Allan Blakeney New Democratic Party and the Brad Wall Saskatchewan Party governments attempts to expand the uranium cycle in Saskatchewan. Due to conditions both internal and external to their administrations, the Blakeney and Wall governments engaged in two different processes, one closed and one open.<p> Looking at these two events through content analysis, studying official statements, public documents, government positions and media reports, this thesis explores the circumstances that engendered two different processes and the outcomes each process produced. The 1970s and 80s refinery debate relied on a state-centric process that limited relationships with the industrial sector and the societal sector. These factors contributed to the failure of the provincial government to win the refinery contract. Given different governance structures during this era, the outcome reached for the refinery may have been different. Two decades later, the nuclear energy debate in the 2000s benefitted from evolved governance structures. The state engaged in a stronger working relationship with industry and a more open discourse with the public. However, the increased governing versatility remained unable to counteract economic forces at the global level. Both cases exemplify the difficulty expanding an industry as complex and contentious as uranium despite substantial change in governance models.

The purpose of the study was to examine institutional autonomy as it was operationalized in the University of Malawi. Specifically, the study focussed on University of Malawis (UNIMA) autonomy in the post multi-party political climate of the country. Research questions were designed based upon James (1965) elements of university autonomy, Ashbys (1966) ingredients of institutional autonomy, areas to be protected for institutional autonomy (Ajayi et al., 1996) and McDaniels (1996) components of governance. Six groups of research questions, which included governance, administrative matters, financial matters, personnel matters, academic matters and student matters were used as interview guides in the data collection exercise. The findings of the study were examined and interpreted through a framework adapted from Govindaraj et al. (1996): Hospital Autonomy in Ghana and McDaniels (1996): The paradigms of governance in higher education systems. <p>UNIMA, the only university in Malawi (1965 1998), has five constituent colleges with a central administrative office. The researcher made field visits to all the five colleges and the central office and collected data by means of interviews and document review This formed the internal players. As external players also have an impact upon university autonomy, the four groups that the researcher interviewed were the government, regulatory bodies, politicians, and a public university. Out of a total of 44 interviews, 32 respondents were from internal groups and 12 respondents were from external groups. In addition, some data for the study were also drawn from university documents and publications, local newspapers, and periodicals. It was shown in this study, that since the founding of UNIMA in 1965, Government took much interest and intervened in the activities of the then only institution of higher learning in the country, imposing its control on the running of the institution. Since the emergence of multiparty politics in 1994, the role of government has been moving from state authority towards market control as a result of the liberalization of the education sector. The amount of autonomy UNIMA had gained compared to the pre-1994 situation was notable and was increasing as government was progressively decentralizing decisions to UNIMA.<p>Malawi is facing a rapid expansion of the higher education sector as a result of the liberalization of the education sector, evidenced by the introduction of four new private universities since 1994. The findings point to a need for the establishment of the Commission for Higher Education (CHE), to act as a buffer body between government and higher education institutions. It is also necessary to revisit the university constitution to change the provision of appointing Head of State to also be the chancellor of the university. The current heavy dependence on governmental funding is not sustainable and UNIMA should be encouraged to diversify the generation of revenue through alternative sources. <p>Since the autonomy of UNIMA was in transition, the researcher suggests that longitudinal studies be made to ascertain the variables that might have changed over a given period. Further studies were also suggested to investigate the issue of autonomy in selected African universities and to compare these with UNIMAs experience. Such studies could be extended to Western universities.

In 2005, firearm homicides in Toronto spiked to unprecedented levels, prompting mainstream media to label 2005 as the ‘Year of the Gun’. While the majority of those killed were young black men in Toronto’s impoverished post-war suburbs, the shooting death of a young white woman downtown reframed the problem of gun violence in popular and policy discourse from the perspective of those it least affected: the predominantly white middle-classes in the gentrified urban core. This dissertation attempts to situate dominant narratives of the problem of gun violence and policy responses to it as an event in a history of Toronto, especially with reference to transformations in urban space and governance. It argues that the Year of the Gun can be understood as a destabilizing moment in the city’s collective history that helped normalize ways of narrating and governing a growing socio-spatial divide between the city and the post-war suburbs. Through analyses of government proceedings, media discourse, social scientific research, participant observation, and key informant interviews it identifies how intersecting discourses, practices and representations framed racialized poverty and crime in ways that further solidified causal links between the two. It offers a history for these causal links, illustrating how race and space have long played a vital role in real and imagined divisions between the city and its suburbs. It explores the formation and administration of three policy approaches responding to the crisis: a municipal policy framework for social investment, a targeted policing strategy, and non-profit faith-based programs for young black men. It analyses how each defined social problems for government in ways that eclipsed broader processes generating social inequality in the city. The findings of this research suggest that dominant narratives and practices governing poverty and crime have prevented public discussions about the racialized architecture of neoliberal urbanism while enforcing one of suburban decline. They have prevented dialogue about the correlation between whiteness and wealth in the core, while enforcing causal relations between blackness, poverty and crime in the suburbs. And they have prevented critiques about the surveillance of the city’s young black men, while enforcing projections of these same men through the prism of masculinist culture.

In today’s globalized business world Corporate Social Responsibility hasbecome the pioneer business issue with ethical business governance. Nonetheless,the idea is in the early developing stage in most of the underdevelopedcountries like Ethiopia. Unlike the developed world in which the corporategovernance system plays a kin role in ensuring the ethical business practice,countries without stock market like Ethiopia are faced with lack of wellestablished ethical business practice.   Ethiopian flower industry is at its infancy stage and generates aconsiderable amount of foreign currency and provides job opportunity for manycitizens. However it is still accused of unsustainable flower production.   This paper explores the practice of corporate social responsibility and therelated governance on Ethiopian flower industry. It highlights particularly oncorporate social responsibility practices and its implementation through theassistance of government bodies and other stakeholders. It attempts to revealthe growth of the industry, corporate social responsibility and governmentalregulations with its CSR drivers. The study also assesses convergence of theeconomical, ecological and human practices of flower farms with its related CSRdrivers in promoting their governance on corporate social responsibility. Finallythis research provides opportunity for students, researchers and stakeholdersto analyze and discuss on the current CSR issue of the industry.

The purpose of the study was to examine institutional autonomy as it was operationalized in the University of Malawi. Specifically, the study focussed on University of Malawis (UNIMA) autonomy in the post multi-party political climate of the country. Research questions were designed based upon James (1965) elements of university autonomy, Ashbys (1966) ingredients of institutional autonomy, areas to be protected for institutional autonomy (Ajayi et al., 1996) and McDaniels (1996) components of governance. Six groups of research questions, which included governance, administrative matters, financial matters, personnel matters, academic matters and student matters were used as interview guides in the data collection exercise. The findings of the study were examined and interpreted through a framework adapted from Govindaraj et al. (1996): Hospital Autonomy in Ghana and McDaniels (1996): The paradigms of governance in higher education systems. <p>UNIMA, the only university in Malawi (1965 1998), has five constituent colleges with a central administrative office. The researcher made field visits to all the five colleges and the central office and collected data by means of interviews and document review This formed the internal players. As external players also have an impact upon university autonomy, the four groups that the researcher interviewed were the government, regulatory bodies, politicians, and a public university. Out of a total of 44 interviews, 32 respondents were from internal groups and 12 respondents were from external groups. In addition, some data for the study were also drawn from university documents and publications, local newspapers, and periodicals. It was shown in this study, that since the founding of UNIMA in 1965, Government took much interest and intervened in the activities of the then only institution of higher learning in the country, imposing its control on the running of the institution. Since the emergence of multiparty politics in 1994, the role of government has been moving from state authority towards market control as a result of the liberalization of the education sector. The amount of autonomy UNIMA had gained compared to the pre-1994 situation was notable and was increasing as government was progressively decentralizing decisions to UNIMA.<p>Malawi is facing a rapid expansion of the higher education sector as a result of the liberalization of the education sector, evidenced by the introduction of four new private universities since 1994. The findings point to a need for the establishment of the Commission for Higher Education (CHE), to act as a buffer body between government and higher education institutions. It is also necessary to revisit the university constitution to change the provision of appointing Head of State to also be the chancellor of the university. The current heavy dependence on governmental funding is not sustainable and UNIMA should be encouraged to diversify the generation of revenue through alternative sources. <p>Since the autonomy of UNIMA was in transition, the researcher suggests that longitudinal studies be made to ascertain the variables that might have changed over a given period. Further studies were also suggested to investigate the issue of autonomy in selected African universities and to compare these with UNIMAs experience. Such studies could be extended to Western universities.