In recent year, there has been virtually no research into the strategic management practices of the Thai financial services sector. The aims of this research is to explore the strategic management practices of the Thai financial services sector (both banking companies and non-banking companies), and also seeks to identify whether there are differences in the strategic management practices on the basis of size, business type, and ownership respectively. The findings from this research will provide a benchmark against which further research into strategic management in Thailand can be undertaken. The Thai economic crisis (approximately 1997 to 1999) has impacted very strongly on the Thai financial services sector, as evidenced by the reduction in the number of companies and the dramatic increase in non-performing loans. It is against this background, that this research investigates the strategic management practices (including the general environments, the immediate environments, the internal environments, the corporate strategies, and the planning and planning system) of the Thai financial services companies to gain an understanding of their strategic management practices (year 2000) and the changes to their strategic management practices. This research also examined the impact of both internal environmental factors and external environmental factors on the strategic management practices of the Thai financial services companies. The process for this research was based on a through literature review, an analysis of the industry, the development of a conceptual framework (building on prion research overseas), and the development of a survey approach based on personal interviews with carefully selected respondents. This research has selected all the companies in the Thai financial services sector (13 domestic banks, 5 major government banks, 33 foreign bank�s branches, 33 finance and securities companies, and 10 credit foncier companies) who survived the economic crisis in Thailand. In total of the 99 approached to participate companies, 71 (72%) Thai financial services companies participated in the survey, consisting of 26 finance and securities companies, 18 foreign bank�s branches, 13 domestic banks, 9 credit foncier companies, and 5 major government banks. In respect to the data analysis, both qualitative and quantitative methods were utilised in this study, using both univariate and multivariate techniques. Of the 71 companies who participated in this research, 80% (N=57) had a formalised strategic planning (FSP) system, which presented 94% of large companies, 100% of medium sized companies, which was 97% of banking companies and 63% of non-banking companies. Whereas, 72% of the small companies has no formalised strategic planning (NFSP) system which was 100% of credit foncier companies and 15% of finance and securities companies. This research also shows that only 6% of foreign majority ownership companies and 32% of Thai majority ownership companies in the Thai financial services sector did not have FSP system. Of the NFSP companies, 50% would implement a FSP system over the next five years. These findings show that the Thai financial services companies have adopted a fairly traditional approach to strategic management and rely heavily on formalised strategic planning system. For these reasons, the major focus of the analysis of this research is on the FSP companies. Of the FSP companies, define their strategic management as the process of sharing the organisational structure, the company�s resources, the company�s culture and managerial style, the company�s long-term goals, the company�s mission statement, the company�s strategies, the company�s planning, and the external environmental factors to build a market position strong enough and an organisational capable enough to achieve successful performance despite unforeseeable events, potent competition, and internal problems. This research shows that there are significant differences in the organisational structure, process, and system either for size, business type, and ownership aspects. Overall, the large companies that comprised most of the domestic banking companies with Thai majority ownership and the foreign bank�s branches believe they were more likely to be strategically managed through their structures, processes and systems than the other groups of FSP companies. The findings in this thesis shows that these banking companies identified a much clearer managing of planning and planning system which including corporate plans, second level long-term plans, planning�s objectives, planning�s roles, planning�s processes, planning�s coordination issues, planning�s structures than the other group of FSP companies. In contrast, of the NFSP companies, the strategic issues and strategies emerged from the vision of the CEO, whereas did not appear to have roles, objectives, etc. for their strategic issues identification and strategy development process, anywhere as clearly as the FSP companies identified for their planning. The evidence from this research shows that the FSP companies were more likely to consider they were strategically managed than the NFSP companies. This research has identified a schematic representation of the strategic management practices of the companies with a FSP system and a NFSP system. The results of this research enables a better understanding of the strategic management practices of the Thai financial services sector. Also, prospective researchers can use data and the conceptual model generated from this research to further develop the theories of strategic management and to explore whether meaningful differences occur between strategic management practices of other Thai industries and the Thai financial services sector. This research as the first significant study of strategic management practices for the Thai financial services sector, provides an important benchmark for future research e.g. strategic management practices of the Thai financial services companies in the next five years, how the Thai financial services companies seek to recover from the major economic crisis etc. Both further research and replication of this research would enhance a meaningful understanding of strategic management practices.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--York University, 2007. Graduate Programme in Business Administration. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 246-265). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:NR29492

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 184-196). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

International financial centre (IFC) development is a hot topic in today’s global arena at the political state level and within academic circles as they can have a significant impact on national, regional and local economies. A critical review of the literature on this topic reveals that not much scholarly attention has been directed towards how IFCs develop from within, more specifically how local entrepreneurial activity contributes to the advancement and evolution of an IFC. In addition, a number of different theories such as path dependence and the concept of social networks have been used as alternative frameworks to explain the phenomena of spatial agglomeration in international financial centres (IFCs); however, these theories haven’t either been properly constructed in a geographical context, empirically applied in a convincing manner or been further investigated using different methodological frameworks. Through the lens of the entrepreneurial hedge fund (EHF) firm and by incorporating a multiple methodological approach (quantitative, descriptive and spatial analysis); this research investigates four separate empirical lines of inquiry in regard to either the firm, its proprietor or the IFC that focuses on micro characteristics, spatial characteristics, the general business arena and development mechanisms. The major empirical findings are that the EHF firm can be classified as small and large based on a number of different factors; while the proprietor is a well educated individual who was previously employed as a high level manager of a large multinational corporation and has previous career ties to the investment banking and traditional fund management sectors. EHF firms agglomerate in IFCs with the most intense clustering occurring within close proximity to the nucleus of the main financial district and other agglomeration patterns are evident. Categorically, government and regulatory factors and people factors are considered as the most important competiveness factors of an IFC. When compared as a whole with previously conducted studies, the findings were found to be statistically indifferent; however, at the individual factor level there are distinct differences. The factors that trigger entrepreneurial behavior are endogenous in nature and the top barriers encountered were customer related followed by employee recruitment and regulatory issues. Finally, human agency and social networks are an integral part of the entrepreneurial process and can be categorized into five separate groups with professional and associate considered to be the most important. This study makes three theoretical contributions on developmental aspects of IFCs. First, a spatial agglomeration model is proposed based on areal differentiation that is derived from the established and changing patterns in the human landscape and its institutions. Second, the theory of path creation is introduced along with social network interaction to account for the genesis of new financial firms at a micro level and a ‘path as processes’ model that incorporates ‘place dependence—path creation—path dependence’ as an economic process is proposed to illustrate the development of the alternative asset management sector which ultimately contributes to the advancement and evolution of an IFC in the defined study area. / published_or_final_version / Geography / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

The present study represents an in-depth empirical investigation into the service elimination process in the British financial services sector. It aims to make a contribution towards the concise development of the literature on service elimination and to provide empirically based recommendations, which can improve the way financial service elimination is practised. The theoretical part of the study focused first on a review of the characteristics of services in general and of financial services in particular and of the service range management activities of financial institutions. Second, the literature on product and service elimination was reviewed. The bulk of this material refers to conceptual propositions and empirical evidence on elimination from manufacturing settings, while conceptual and empirical material from service and financial service settings is alarmingly sparse. The presents tudy conceptualisedth e service elimination process as consisting of three broad stages, a) the pre-elimination stage, b) the actual service elimination decision-making process and c) the post-elimination stage. The study adopted a research approach based on the broad hypothesis that service elimination decisions are not made in a vacuum (as the limited literature on service and financial service elimination assumes explicitly or implicitly) but that they are influenced by contextual organisational and environmental characteristics of companies. Based on the above conceptualisations, the research objectives were to a) identify the content of the service elimination process (i. e., the decision variables involved in the various steps of the process) b) measure the relative importance/frequency of use of the above content and c) measure the influence of a set of contextual independent variables on the relative importance/frequency of use of the content of the service elimination process. To meet the above research objectives, a pluralistic research method was adopted. For the identification component of the research objectives qualitative research (in-depth interviews) was conducted, while for the measurement component quantitative research was conducted(mail survey). The findings indicated that service elimination decisions were the outcome of a multi-step process, which with very few exceptions (i. e., the way in which British financial institutions identified financial services as candidates for elimination) was found to be largely informal and unsophisticated. Moreover service elimination was rated as the least important service range management activity and was allocated the least amount of resources (temporal, monetary and human). The findings also suggested that the content of the service elimination process was both similar and different to elimination practice in manufacturing settings. Among the most obvious similarities was the paramount importance of sales and profitability considerations in making products and financial services candidates for elimination. Among the most striking differences was that while a product is fully eliminated, partial elimination was the predominant outcome of the service elimination process in the studied setting. With regards to the contextual influence, it was found that the relative importance/frequency of the decision variables involved in the service elimination process varied in relation to the type and the size of individual financial institutions, the pursued overall business strategy, and degree of market orientation, the degree of formalisation of the service elimination process, the number of services in the range (service diversity), the type of financial service which is considered for elimination, the method of its delivery process, the intensity of competition and of the legislative environment and the volatility of the technological environment. As such, the findings confirmed the hypothesised dynamism of the service elimination decisions and suggested that any attempt to describe the service elimination process in a golden rule way that fits all companies, all financial services and all environmental circumstances would be misleading.

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This research portfolio consists of three papers that together investigate the intangible returns generated from customer relationship management (CRM) programmes. / Thesis (DBA(DBusinessAdministration))--University of South Australia,

This research portfolio consists of three papers that together investigate the intangible returns generated from customer relationship management (CRM) programmes. / Thesis (DBA(DBusinessAdministration))--University of South Australia,

The thesis extends previous loyalty research by comparing the performance of brands in subscription markets, specifically financial services and insurance, on a cross-category basis. Large investments are made in these industries on cross-selling initiatives with the hope of bringing about brand growth through increased loyalty. This research found very little variation between the loyalty scores for major brands in each market, suggesting that cross selling attempts are likely to play only a minor role in brand performance. / thesis (MBusiness-Research)--University of South Australia, 2005.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of British Columbia (Canada), 2007. / Includes bibliographical references.