The present study extends the literature available on the equity markets of developing countries by describing the development, the structure and by investigating the performance of the Gulf Equity markets in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Oman. First, an attempt was made to evaluate these equity markets by briefly examining the financial systems, providing a historical background to their development and introducing their current structure. Second, the thesis examines the performance of these markets by; (a) conducting a survey interviews to find out the obstacles for growth and investments in these markets; (b) investigating whether share returns are independent (c) investigating whether successive share returns are random (d) examining whether there is any pattern, for instance, day-of-the -week effect on the share returns; (e) estimating their transaction costs (the effective bid-ask spread). To analyse the performance, the study employed the classical techniques of Fama (1965), Errunza and Losoq (1985) and Dickinson and Muragu (1994) to determine the independency and randomness of share returns. The method of French (1980), Solnik and Bousquet (1990) and Insup Lee et al (1990) is used to test for the day-of-the week effect. Roll (1984) and Hsia, Fuller and Kao (1994) methods were used to estimate the transaction costs (the effective bid-ask spread). To summarise, the results show that the Gulf Equity Markets have a dependency on their share returns for Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and a lesser dependency for Oman Market. On the other hand, the share returns on each of the four markets were shown to be non random. The day of the week effect was not found in the market of Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman, whereas the Saudi Market showed the day-of-the week effect in the two periods tested. The spread as measured by the modified method of Hsia et al. is consistent with the results given by the Roll method which found the highest average spread in the Saudi Market followed by the Bahrain, Kuwait and Muscat markets.

The objective of this study is to investigate the effects of culture - national, organisational, and regional - on the performance of strategic alliances (mergers, acquisitions, or joint ventures) in Eastern Europe. From a research perspective Eastern Europe is very much `virgin territory', in which the effect of Western European management techniques and processes should be uniquely detectable as few have previously existed. There are schools of thought that suggest that because of the years of Soviet domination there may be homogeneity of organisational cultures in the region, which will make the effect of national cultural differences easy to detect. Further, freedom from communism will result in the newly liberated economies exhibiting similar `emerging market' characteristics as the economies evolve, hence pointing towards some homogeneity of regional influences. Alternatively, many observers suggest that Eastern Europe, having been freed from Soviet domination, is re-establishing latent forms of free market systems that have been dormant during the Soviet era, and consequently the markets' development can be thought of as 'reemergence'. These issues of cultural differences and emerging market characteristics have not been previously researched at the organisational level in this environment. Hitherto international strategic alliances have largely been unsuccessful from the viewpoints of either management or investors. The reasons for this are thought to lie in the implementation phase of the management of the alliance, as it is now recognised that value can only be added after the deal or agreement has been signed. Within the implementation phase, cultural integration is thought to be the major challenge. Cultural integration may have different challenges in Eastern Europe because of the issues outlined above. An exploratory study based on inductive methods has established that there is nohomogeneity of organisational cultures in the region. The findings are in accordance with the small group of researchers who suggest that is the manner in which different cultures are managed, rather than the cultural differences themselves, which creates a basis for successful integration. Additionally, two factors, the effects of experience and reputation, not prominent in the management literature, are identified as important in the integration process. It is postulated that success in managing the integration process is a function of organisational capability as much as the adoption of a formulaic process based on best practice or theoretical considerations, and a model for assessing such capability is proposed. The findings suggest that the markets of Eastern Europe are following patterns of `reemergence' rather than `emergence', and the study questions whether in fact emerging markets display common characteristics which are observable at the level of the firm.

Many domestic take-overs and mergers are not successful, over half fail. Crossborder M&As are even more fraught with problems due to differing national cultures exasperating different organisational cultures. International M&As in rapidly transforming East Germany offer attractive possibilities for research as change in the firm, and resistance to it, takes place against a backdrop of external, revolutionary societal change as well as internal, national and organisational clashes. The research followed a grounded theory, qualitative methods approach embedded in the overarching strategic management theoretical framework of the Resource Based View of the Firm. Through a series of case interviews with East German managers and employees in six foreign acquired M&As split off from old combines, together with employees released after take-over, the type of acculturation and perceived level of integration was examined. A model was developed to measure post acquisition integration problems signalled by acculturative stress. By highlighting using two of the case studies as a contrast, acculturative stress was seen to make a significant contribution to causes of failure. On the other hand, further development of the model showed successful integration as having implications as a stepping stone to two-way learning and onwards to long term success. The research's claims to contribution can be synthesisedd own to three areas. Firstly, the importance of the group in East Germany has been overlooked and its continued existence in the face of pressures for more individualisation has important implications for motivation, incentives, change and learning. Secondly, the choice of top managers and their relationship to the firm (co-ownership or not) is crucial in reducing acculturative stress and achieving integration and two-way learning. Finally, the acquired human resources, due to their knowledge, knowledge potential through unlearning, shared experiencesa nd languagea re a potential route to competitive advantage. The areas of contribution form the basis for speculation and future research.

This study examines corporate governance modes in different international business systems: the Anglo-Saxon, the Communitarian, and the Asian/emerging business systems. The review of the literature covers the link between corporate governance and the agency problem on the basis that the latter is concerned with the conflicting interests between corporate managers and its financiers. In this respect, the literature has come up with mechanisms that can mitigate the negative effects of the agency problem such as incentive contracts. The study also addresses the conventional practices of corporate governance as equivalent to practices of corporate finance. In this respect, debt financing and equity financing are discussed as the two main financial tools that shape the financial phase of corporate governance. The management discretion, upon which financing mechanism(s) is (are) to be relatively relied upon, is inherent the certain institutional infrastructure that permits certain financing mechanism to relatively dominate the other(s). In this concern, the study discusses the political-legal perspectives of corporate governance. Considering that different international business systems result in different institutional structures and orientations, the financing mechanisms available in each system create certain economic institutions such as the stock markets, banks, ... etc. In this regard, the study discuses, from international business perspectives, the basic corporate governance mechanisms: the stock market governance, the banks governance and the role of the board of directors in corporate governance. The study extends the current domain of corporate governance to address non-financial issues drawn from the literature of social-business studies in international business context. These issues are corporate orientation towards its stakeholders interests and corporate identity as determinants to the corporate relative competitive position in the marketplace. In addition, from a transitional markets point of view, the study examines what information can be disclosed to company's stakeholders for monitoring its performance, thus providing an evidence that helps corporate stakeholders to certify the company's business affairs.

Much research has been devoted to the story of Taiwan’s post-war economic development. The neo-classical economists argue that its government created a free market economy which led to rapid economic growth. The revisionists, Robert Wade and Alice Amsden, address the role of the state in formulating and leading the economic miracle. One of the characteristics of the Taiwanese economy was that the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) were found in great numbers (around 90%) in Taiwanese manufacturing industry. These SMEs were export-oriented and contributed greatly to the export growth in the 1970s and the 1980s. The success of the Taiwanese manufacturing SMEs was usually attributed to the market and the development policies which the state established and enforced. However, the existing literature ignores (1) the further development of the SMEs after the late 1980s; (2) the role which Taiwanese society played in the rise and the development of the SMEs. This ignorance over-estimates the role of the state in the development of the SMEs in the post-war era. The present dissertation reexamines the argument of the neo-classical economists and the revisionists by finding a historical pattern and tracing the further development of the SMEs after the late 1980s. To what extent did the market established by the state and the state development policy supported the rise and the development of the Taiwanese manufacturing SMEs from 1950 to 1980? What puts into question the influences of the state on the SMEs after the late 1980s? Why did the state have limited influences on the SMEs after the late 1980s? The dissertation finds that Wade and Amsden over-estimated the role of the state in the rise and development of the SMEs by explaining the limited influences of the state on the SMEs after the late 1980s. The research, by clarifying the relation of the state, market and social institutions from the historical pattern, demonstrates that the social institutions are adapted to the changing environment and continuously provided important financial sources to facilitate the SMEs’ business operations from 1950 to 2000.

Neutrality has long been seen as impartiality in war (Grotius, 1925), and is codified as such in The Hague and Geneva Conventions. This dissertation empirically investigates the activities of three neutral states in the Second World War and determines, on a purely economic basis, these countries actually employed realist principles to ensure their survival. Neutrals maintain their independence by offering economic concessions to the belligerents to make up for their relative military weakness. Depending on their position, neutral countries can also extract concessions from the belligerents if their situation permits it.   Despite their different starting places, governments and threats against them, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland provided similar types of political and economic concessions to the belligerents. This thesis comparatively investigates neutral trade, labour and capital. Using standardized trade statistics, this study shows that while all three neutrals were dependent on the Germans for most basic goods, they were generally able to benefit from relative gains in prices and excess imports of goods in periods of German weakness. In trade with the Allies, at least two of the three countries permitted the illicit export of items necessary for the Allied war effort, and did so at reduced relative prices.   All three neutrals benefitted from substantial services revenue and positive balance of payments in all of their belligerent relationships. In several cases the neutrals were able to force the belligerents to cover their balance of payments deficits in gold because they needed to maintain access to the neutral markets. The final chapters demonstrate that despite political promises, the Spanish and Swiss governments constructed labour transfer systems to limit the number of workers for Germany.

This project explores divergences and parallels between lay theories of economic life as experienced and developed in two virtual worlds – Final Fantasy XI (FFXI) and Second Life (SL) – and academic theories from sociology and anthropology as well as economics. My intent is not a critique of economics, but a suggestion that other economic sociologies are possible, and to provide points of departure and ideas for such alternative configurations. Exploration of lay theories is organised around four key conceptual categories – value, exchange, money and markets – which were suggested by participants' accounts and economic organisation within each field site. Respondents' theories offer polyphonic, heteroglossic approaches to economic life that sometimes diverge substantially from academic conceptualisations. Lay theories examined in this research emphasising plurality and multiplicity – especially with respect to monies – going so far as to suggest a radical reorganisation of economies based on monies rather than markets. When lay theories from each category are pieced together, they reveal a social imaginary of boundless abundance, strong reliance upon practices as ways of knowing about and theorising economic life, and strange parellels with studies of “primitive” cultures. This dissertation is based on comparative ethnographies of two disparate virtual worlds, FFXI and SL, which offer different slant-wise views of contemporary capitalist, consumer societies. Final Fantasy XI is a proprietary massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) created, owned and maintained by Square-Enix, while Second Life (SL) is a free-form, nonproprietary, three-dimensional virtual world created and maintained in a laissezfaire fashion by Linden Lab. Fieldwork consisted of participant observation, one-on-one interviews, group interviews with FFXI respondents and analysis of fan-made media and corporate texts.

Currency crises have long constituted one of the most important sources of politicoeconomic instability across middle-income emerging markets, with exchange rate pegs having been identified as key culprits. Given pegs’ propensity for boom-bust-cycles, it is thus puzzling that governments insist on implementing such constraining regimes and, more importantly, that they tend to postpone exchange rate flexibilisation until a disorderly exit becomes inevitable. This thesis addresses as its core puzzle exchange regime choice in middleincome emerging markets in Latin America, and especially the phenomenon of ‘exchange rate petrification’, by examining the tumultuous exchange rate history of Argentina and Brazil. Adopting a qualitative approach and using comparisons between periods and countries, it traces the process of exchange rate policymaking on the basis of participant interviews and archival and media research over a period ranging from re-democratisation in the early 1980s, through the decade of structural reforms under nominal exchange rate anchors in the 1990s until the crisis exits to inflation-targeting under ‘dirty floats’ in the new millennium. The study shows that existing studies, which narrowly focus on electoral opportunism, credibility-building motivations or structurally-determined interest group pressures derived from OECD contexts, fail to capture the reality of emerging market exchange rate politics, their distinct economic structural context and the inter-relationship between exchange rate policy and executives’ structural reform endeavours. Instead, the analysis suggests that only a model of exchange rate politics that centres on intra-executive dynamics, but incorporates their interplay with societal cleavages and the role of international financial institutions, can account for the countries’ divergent exchange rate policy and especially the differential severity of ‘exchange rate petrification’. Using the cases of Argentina and Brazil as a backdrop, the thesis offers an explanation for the problematic nature of exchange rate pegs that goes beyond the analysis offered by the economics literature, and instead highlights their inherently political nature insofar as national governments conceive of nominal pegs as coalition-building devices in the context of politically controversial structural reforms. Aside from structural factors, such as liability dollarisation, it is governments’ reluctance to surrender this political instrument that perpetuates ‘exchange rate petrification’. As ‘exchange rate petrification’ presupposes the absence of sustained exchange rate politicisation, the thesis also refines the literature’s exchange rate politicisation hypothesis by incorporating several intervening variables, such as the institutional structure of organised society, the nature of the political system and ideational factors, which may mute calls for exchange regime change and thus generate permissive circumstances for exchange rate pegs to petrify.

This thesis uses the analogy between poverty measures and products to explore how poverty measures are designed, produced, distributed and used by different communities. Three historical case studies are analysed with this product approach: Charles Booth’s poverty surveys of London developed in the late nineteenth century, Mollie Orshansky’s poverty thresholds in the USA in the 1960s and two international measures of the Human Development Index (HDI) and the dollar-a-day in the late twentieth century. The product approach to statistical measurements offers a number of advantages. It shows how poverty measures do not provide numbers only, but packages of complementary products. Booth produced a set of innovations from his survey: numbers, maps and causal analyses; Orshansky a system for statistical and administrative use; and the UNDP a platform for human development – all three facilitating action to reduce poverty. Sometimes the products compete strongly in the market, as the UNDP’s HDI and World Bank’s dollar-a-day have done. Sometimes they help to establish new modes of social science, as Booth’s products did. Sometimes the original designs prove resistant to innovation as Orshansky’s thresholds did. More generally, this product approach places the numbers in their historical context. It demonstrates the importance of both the producers and the users in what happens to poverty measurements; it looks in particular at the way in which such measures are influenced by the interests of the different user groups and their political environment. It shows how co-production between the producers and users of poverty measures, or the lack thereof, influences the trust given to numbers.

A centuries-old artery of credit for Indian merchant networks, the indigenous credit system hundi has received no systematic attention in histories of the Indian subcontinent. Poorly understood and ill-defined, hundi was a highly negotiable instrument, and source of liquid capital. Hundi knitted together the properties of goods, capital, credit, information and agency, all of which served as the backbone of the Indian merchant network. Drawing on government proceedings, reports, and legal cases, this study provides an insight into the legal encounter between Indian indigenous institutions and the British colonial government. It simultaneously reveals the customs, contracts and individual functions of hundi determining its usage. In particular, this study addresses the important issue of how legal change in colonies affected the so-called ‘informal’ institutions which made trade possible. Between 1858-1947, hundi caught the eye of the British Indian government initially as an important taxable revenue stream. This resulted in hundi being integrated with statutes and regulations during the colonial period. However, this process of formalization was not without its own share of classificatory and interpretive problems, nor did hundi remain unchanged. Material from the 1930s reveals an appreciable change in how the government perceived hundi. The instrument distinguishes itself as a source of liquidity capable of promoting trade and modern banking developments. Moreover, hundi’s importance to the indigenous banking community underscores hundi’s function within the wider Indian economy. Nevertheless, the system’s integration with modern banking continued to present problems. The penultimate chapter explores why problems persisted, examining how a legal solution was proposed in 1978. Finally, the conclusion ties all the threads together and discusses the implications for hundi’s survival.