M.Comm. / South Africa's demand for electricity is expected to outstrip the industry's generation capacity by 2010. If the government wants to avoid this situation, the construction of new plants must commence. At the moment this task has been delayed because the Government is at loggerheads with COSAU and Eskom about restructuring the electricity supply industry. This debate will remain unsolved unless the government can substantiate why exposing the industry to competition will improve its performance. Unfortunately this task is not as simple as it seems. Even though competition is one of the most widely used terms in economics, it still remains an elusive concept. The ambiguity regarding tl1e meaning of competition arises from the failure to divorce the concept of competition from a market structure; as a consequence an operational meaning of what it means to compete \n terms of contemporary business behaviour does not exist. As a result activities associated with industrialisation, such as a changing production function, the development of new products and t~chniqu'::s and business structures are not related to the concept of competition. In order to develop n clear understanding of "what it means to compete", this dissertadon uses a behavioural definition of competition to determine why exposing firms to. competitive pressure improves their performance, reflected in superior static and dynamic efficiency levels. Based on this conceptual framework, Schumpeter' s approach to competition, which emphasises innovation, profits and the entrepreneur as the agent of improvement combined with the idea that it is the uneven development of knowledge that matters in the process of creative destruction", is accepted (Metcalfe & Ramlogan &Uyarra: 2001). Based on the above notion of competition, competitive pressure positively influences firms' performance, improving their static and dynamic efficiency levels. A micro-economic analysis of a C!)IDp.etitive electricity industry is conducted in order to test the abov~ assumption. This case study demonstrates that the competitive process ultimately improves thr: integration of knowledge throughout the supply chain, which is used an input to stimulate innovation within firms and exploit new technologies (Murphy, 2002:21). As a result, firms facing competition will try to retaii1 their market position 2 by exploiting all knowledge and exploring all avenues of technological invention, before selecting the best method (Khan: 1998). In addition, this case study illustrates that stimulating dynamic efficiency goes beyond developing and implementing "hardware" (computers, CCGT plants, fuel cells etc). Although technology plays an important role in shaping industrial organisation, it is not the catalyst that drives innovation and change. Rather organisational innovation changes market participants' schemas, breeding new ideas that become the input to create technology. Therefore organisational innovation has profound efficiency consequences (Williamson, 1994: 183). If technological and organisational inncvation is intertwined, then innovation is a complex evolutionary process, which occurs over time. Furthermore innovation cannot occur in a vacuum, but is interconnected, interwoven and interdependent with an industry's physical and institutional context (Perez, 2000). Based on the stylised facts a competitive market provides the institutional context that stimulates innovation, and therefore it might be worth incurring the transactions costs and short-term losses in order to create these opportunities.

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This study addresses the effects of altruism and intention for succession on family firm's risk-taking behaviors. Results show that higher levels of familial altruism in family firms with succession plans lead to lower levels of R&D investment, but have no significant impacts on their earnings management. Also, altruism in these family firms decreases their cost of debt. / May 2016

M.Ing. (Engineering Management) / The turbo-generator unit is very important equipment for electric power production, which has a high rate of failure. As the capacity increases, condition monitoring and fault diagnostic play a crucial role to guarantee safe operation and cost efficiency. The Eskom generator fleet is fast approaching the end of the original designed life. Also in view of the recent constrained reserve margin, outage downtime, maintenance costs, resource management, and maintenance inherent problems, a systematic approach is required to optimise scheduled time-based maintenance to improve reliability and availability. The subject of turbo machine condition monitoring requires the development of new technologies to diagnose the turbo-generator problems. Condition is an underlying factor in the performance of machines. It is also an important predictor of future performance that the machine is in a good condition and will be reliable and perform better. It provides a reference for maintenance engineers on the current condition of the turbo-generator. Trends in condition monitoring can be used to determine whether turbo-generators are being maintained and that are meeting their expected service lives or whether their performance is deterioration faster than expected. In the industry, traditional maintenance philosophies have taken two approaches; the first approach is to perform fixed time interval maintenance, where the system engineers take advantage of relaxed production cycles to fully inspect all aspects of the turbo-generator. The second route is for engineers to simply react to the generator failure as and when it happens. All too many utilities operate largely in the reactive run-to-failure mode. The old phrase, “if it aren’t broken don’t fix” is perennial run to failure argument. Nonetheless, making use of today’s technology, a new scientific methodology is becoming popular to maintenance management. For the purpose of investigating the management of condition-based monitoring and diagnostic technology to optimise timed-based maintenance of large turbo-generators, Eskom Units installed with condition monitoring techniques were considered. The minidissertation culminated in the compilation of case histories based on Eskom turbo-generator fleet where the technology is being rolled out. The literature survey looked at current industry practices in areas such as total productive maintenance (TPM), technology management and support systems, return on investment (ROI) and maintenance management to compare what Eskom is doing to what in others in the field are doing. There is no research work currently that has been done that links maintenance to maintenance technology deployment enablers. The research incorporates a number of operational experiences where some Eskom turbo-generator units continue to operate with a known fault. Regular maintenance interventions introduce faults into the machine due to human error, the opening of units and the handling of components. Attention is given to the impact of two-shifting or cyclic operation on turbo-generators that were originally designed for base load condition. The time–based maintenance of these units is not taking advantage of condition monitoring information. Also, the installed condition monitoring techniques fall short of addressing twoshifting monitoring requirements. A number of lessons were learnt from the implementation of the condition-based maintenance technology on Eskom generator fleet. The theory of maintenance management underscores establishment of a good relationship between system engineers, maintenance personnel and the technology provider which is key to success of the technology. It further indicates that this relationship must go deeper than the mere technology provider and the end user of the technology service agreement. The maintenance engineers are taking key business decision for the well-being of machines and maintenance technology needs to demonstrate that it is creating value for the business. From the people perspective attention is required to staff motivation and providing balanced job satisfaction, whilst ensuring that employees feel part of an integrated organisation maintenance strategy rather than of being under thread of disempowered by the technology. A myriad of considerations have been identified to affect the effective execution of conditionbase maintenance strategy on Eskom generator fleet. There are multiple dashboards or standards indicators that can be used for maintenance management improvement. It has been established that the success of the implementation of condition-based maintenance rests in the concept of total productive maintenance approach. Within the ambit of TPM, the entire process of maintenance must be managed on the basis of maintenance programmes plan, which will have function of connecting the various maintenance programmes.

M.Phil. (Economics) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

This paper studies the relationship between firm performance, proxied by Tobin's Q, and two distinct ownership types, managerial owned firms and outside owned firms. The sample consists of 2005 young firms from Europe and the US that incorporated since the dot-com-bubble 2001. Very similar to the pre-2001 period, young and highly funded firms are of popular concern. In particular their owners, founders and CEOs are topic of interest and serve as figurehead for their company, raising the question whether their firms perform better if they also own them or not and whether that differs with the institutional framework that the company is situated in. Thus the research question is the following: What is the effect of having management as majority shareholder(s) on the performance of the young firm in different environments? To find an answer, I used quantitative data from Orbis and analyzed it using time-series panel data, recent information using simple OLS as well as multiple analyses of variance. I find evidence of higher valuations of firms owned by managers, especially in countries with common law and stronger shareholder rights. I also find evidence of relatively lower valuations of firms owned by their managers when these are situated in code law countries or countries with stronger creditor rights. A surprising addition to the findings were extreme values of Tobin's Q that may indicate another bubble in the making, coincidentally closing the circle of this study.

Global warming imposes significant physical, regulatory and reputational risks to listed corporations. Consequently, climate-related issues have recently received increased attention from investors, creditors and stock market regulators. In February 2010, The United States (US) Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued an interpretative guidance requiring publicly listed firms to disclose material climate change risks (CCR) in their annual securities filings (10Ks). However, considering the level of enforcement and managerial discretion in the definition of materiality, market participants raised concerns about the lack and quality of CCR disclosure. This research explores the effects of family control as an important determinant of CCR disclosure strategies. Family firms are the world’s most common form of economic organizations, dominating the global economy. The socioemotional wealth (SEW) theoretical perspective argues that family firms behave differently from their nonfamily counterparts and exhibit significant heterogeneity depending on the level of family control and involvement. Using a sample of S&P 500 companies, I examine whether family firms differ from their non-family peers in their climate change disclosure strategies. Additionally, I further explore the effects of two dimensions (i.e. family control and influence, family identity) of socioemotional wealth on CCR disclosures. Overall, I find that family ownership has no impact on CCR disclosure decisions, but is negatively related to CCR disclosure quality. Moreover, I find a positive relationship between family firms prioritizing family identity and CCR disclosure quality. The findings of this research have implications for regulators, investors, and academic researchers.

Chinese firms are experiencing a rapid increase in technological diversification, which is referred to as maintaining their capabilities in multiple technologies. However, the research on the relationship between technological diversification and firm performance is inconclusive. This PhD thesis tries to re-investigate the technological diversification-firm performance relationship from three different perspectives using data on Chinese listed firms from 2003 to 2014. First, the thesis tries to overcome the shortcomings of previous technological diversification research by unpacking technological diversification into explorative and exploitative technological dimensions from the mechanical view and studying their roles in firm performance. The findings suggest that technological diversification that combines explorative and exploitative dimensions is positively related to firm performance. This relationship is conditional on intangible complementary assets and firm type (high or low-tech firms). Second, this thesis tries to investigate the technological diversification-firm performance relationship through an institutional view that has hardly been mentioned in the previous literature. Here it is argued that firms try to use technological diversification as a way to gain legitimacy. In order to do so, firms' technological diversification need to be similar to the industrial norms. The results reveal a positive relationship between firms' conformity in technological diversification and their performance. The results further delineate the boundary conditions that influence this relationship. While environmental dynamism strengthens the conformity-performance relationship, environmental munificence reduces it. Finally, this thesis tries to integrate both a mechanical view and an institutional view of technological diversification and find evidence to support the optimal distinctiveness view that firms should reach a balance between these views. The results reveal a curvilinear (inverted U-shaped) relationship between firms' conformity in technological diversification and their performance. I also test the boundary conditions of this relationship. While firm age strengthens the conformity-performance relationship, state ownership weakens it.

This dissertation is thus aiming to create a (1) view on current and historical theoretical and practical approaches of organization economics, (2) to assess their assumptions and implications and explain their contradictions in relation to individual base of the knowledge and motivation. (4) It suggests a framework that might give an economic and theoretical rationale to various managerial measures related to the true ("effective") effort of an individual in a firm that is (5) finally tested in empirical research. For the reasons mentioned above, the overview of often divergent methodological approaches is of a key importance, therefore much attention is dedicated to their description and analysis in the first part of the thesis. It is followed by the introduction of a new framework used in the analysis of various managerial measures applied in the firm, and finally, the hypotheses which test certain assumptions of the framework on empirical data. The "effective effort, cooperation and rivalry framework" is the main output of this thesis, as it explains the roots and influence of direct and indirect managerial measures through the behavior of workers (rivalry, cooperation, rent-seeking) on company's performance. The framework combines three existing independent approaches analyzing the link between managerial measures and company's performance without denying any of the predecessors, and it also brings a new interpretation of the functions of managerial decisions in the firm and the link on material resources. The framework attempts to answer the following research question: Which factors and in a what way influence the effective effort of an individual in the firm? Can this approach be formalized and tested on empirical data? Answering this question would be beneficial for both managers and academia as it would facilitate them to undertake that managerial measures, that would lead to an improvement of firm's long term performance and avoid those actions, which would work contradictory. The empirical analysis focuses on efficiency of several types of incentives and trainings in the medium-sized company on the lowest level of hierarchy (furthermore there is the lack of similar analyses dedicated to an enterprise in Central and Eastern Europe or in such chronological extent in a single firm anywhere in Europe). The extensive data is provided by a leading Czech (mostly retail) betting company operating in a legislatively stable environment not exposed to the currency fluctuations and economic cycle with oligopolistic characteristics. Other industries (besides retail) would hardly provide such high quality data for such a long period suitable for the chosen analysis of the revenues' influence of various managerial measures (training of sale staff, introduction of an upside component of wage, nonmonetary rewards) applied to workers. The results of the empirical analysis show the possible positive effect of increased wage variability on the employee's performance, although the effect of training and nonmonetary rewards was proven as insignificant. These results (positive/negative effect or significance/insignificance) for a low skilled workforce being able to effectively affect the quality of the output (as is the Fortuna case) are in line with the Effective effort, cooperation and rivalry framework.

The success of NIKE, Inc. is deemed miracle by professionals on both Wall Street and Madison Avenue. Research done in the past tends to credit the growth of NIKE, Inc. to its marketing strategies. By placing the achievement of the company in the postmodern context, this study analyzes the cultural factors which contribute to the company's achievement. A brief yet well-documented history of NIKE, Inc. is provided. The nature and function of NIKE, Inc.'s athlete endorsements and contemporary sport are analyzed in a cultural context. The cultural significance of three representative NIKE advertisements, and the globalization of NIKE, Inc. are also scrutinized. A literature review provides theoretical guidelines to the understanding of the relationship between the business achievement of NIKE, Inc. and the postmodern reality we are living in today. Interviews with 38 key informants and questionnaire surveys show that NIKE, Inc. is a dream factory which uses the American Dream as a selling point to expand its market both within the United States and overseas. Therefore, the success of NIKE, Inc. should be viewed more as a cultural phenomenon than as a business achievement. / Graduation date: 1995 / Best scan available for figures. Original is a black and white photocopy.