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This report highlights the complexity of engaging in a post-acquisition integration process of a relatively large knowledge-intensive firm. Findings from a case study is analyzed in relation to previous theory, resulting in four propositions aiming at creating a foundation for further theory development, as well as increased understanding among practitioners in relation to the emphasized problem. It is argued by the authors that increased relative acquisition size of knowledge-intensive firms will: 1) increase demand for a centralized organizational structure, 2) decrease benefits of introducing a new top management, 3) decrease communicative attention towards lower levels, and 4) decrease attention towards subcultures. These factors will ultimately increase the risk for integration failure.

Since the Canadian nuclear reactor ¡§NRU¡¨ was shut down on 14th May, 2009, the global Moly shortage has occurred for a year. The crisis was not only an impact for the patients of the hospitals in Taiwan, but also decreased the sales and margin profit of the nuclear medicine distributors. The S company, a leading and monopolistical distributor in Taiwan, was no longer reliable for its customers because of the nuclear medicine shortage. Actually it looks like the advantage of the S company is lost and the reputation is damaged. This research is trying to figure out how a nuclear medicine distributor like the S company can pursue some effective supply chain strategies to turn around and keep the growth of profit. AHP is the study method for this research. But at first we¡¦ll plan some strategies and tactics for the nuclear medicine distributors (especial the S company), according to Potters¡¦ competition theory and the resource based view of the firm. And then develop the two levels structure for the AHP study in this research. The factors of upper level are 4 strategies, like ¡§Research & Development Strategy¡¨ etc. The factors of lower level are 18 tactics or plans just like ¡§Try to acquire new technology from the advanced radiopharmaceutical institutes¡¨ etc. The AHP will be performed by surveys of experts¡¦ opinions, including both qualitative and quantitative surveys. Five different groups of experts were sampling and chosen for the surveys. By the AHP, the two most weights of the tactics are determined. They are ¡§Integrate individual (country) procurement into multinational procurement for reducing cost¡¨ and ¡§Actively globalized procurement, and monopolistically securing the sources¡¨. Besides, we can discover more valuable opinions from the qualitative analysis of the expert¡¦s surveys. So the results of this research, the effective and advanced strategies and tactics, are the first securing more reliable sources of the nuclear medicine and the second improving globalized procurement. And then try to enhance marketing and strengthen customer relationship. These will be expected to be helpful on both distributors¡¦ profit and customers¡¦ satisfaction.

The purpose of this paper is to understand what factors make media firms downsize and which channel managers will choose to inform the layoff message to employees. This paper uses interview research method to collect the data from 12 workers in different media firms. Findings indicate that there are three levels of factors cause downsize in media firms: external factors of the organization, internal factors of the organization and personal factors of employees. And managers depend on some standards to decide the list of layoff such as work performance and experience and managers¡¦ recognize about the employees. If one manager wants to inform layoff message to employees, he/she will choose face-to-face communication channel because it can ease employees feeling and makes some immediately feedbacks. The order of communication channels from interviewers¡¦ response is: face-to face, telephone and e-mail, document, MSN, bulletin board, firm¡¦s website and social network website.

Corporate governance is usually related to corporate performance. Corporate governance means company should be controlled and monitored to protect the stakeholder¡¦s rights, and keeps creating profit by making company run well. Usually there are some companies run well during the financial crisis. This essay separates the companies into good corporate governance companies and bad corporate governance companies. First it shows the relationship between performance and corporate governance. Second, it proves companies which have good corporate governance actually perform better during the financial crisis. It classes three industries to discuss, which are financial industry, traditional industry, and electronic industry. It uses 8 corporate governance indexes to identify the relationship between performances. The samples are from 2000 to 2009, and it defines 2008 and 2009 as the span of financial tsunami in the research. In this research it use ROA, ROE , and Tobin¡¦Q to represent the company¡¦s performance.

According to the existing literatures, there are few directly discussions about the relations of cash flow volatility on firm value and the issues of cash flow volatility are relatively disadvantage to those of earning volatility, arousing the interest of this study.Therefore, this study verifies the effect of cash flow volatility on firm value by using data of listed companies in Taiwan and the method of Pooled Regression. Also, the number of companies are divided up based on the median of cash flow¡Bdebt ratio and total asset, and examine which circumstances are more significant statistically. Finally, this study verifies the effect of earning volatility and earning management on firm value to explain that cash flow volatility is more effective on firm value. The empirical results show that cash flow volatility is negatively on firm value, and the effects are more significant statistically in small asset firms¡Blow debt ratio firms and high cash flow firms. But earning volatility is not significant statistically on firm value, and earning management is ineffective on firm value. The results indirectly explain that cash flow volatility is a more effective indicator on firm value and explain that managers managing earning to increase firm value are useless. According to the empirical results, there is no benefit when managers continue stabilizing earnings based on earning management. If investors continue selecting companies to invest based on earning volatility, the effects could be less than the ones of cash flow volatility. Therefore, the empirical results provide one indicator of the evaluations of firm value with managers and investors.

This study discusses competitive interaction between smartphone manufacturers by the view of dynamic competitive. Focusing on 20 brands which have entered Taiwan smartphone market, this study collected the time of innovation behavior (technical innovation, appearance innovation and marking innovation) from Internet and smartphone magazine. There are five variables in this thesis which include firm country, firm diversity, firm outsourcing, firm age and firm size, and to the three innovation behaviors, (technical innovation, appearance innovation and marking innovation), this study proposes fifteen hypothesizes. In order to explore the relationship between firm characteristics and competitive responding speed. Using the Cox proportional hazard model in survival analysis, this study shows the result that the manufacturers respond faster while they have lower diversity and large scale.

Strategic human resource practices are suggested for its importance to help firms obtain substantive competitive advantage these years. However, workforce differentiation perspectives brought a new paradigm shift of strategic human resource management to have a narrow focus on strategic talent management. While a number of previous studies have suggested the importance of strategic talent management, few have given the clear definition, critical strategic talent management practices and provide empirical evidences. This study developed the strategic talent management practices and examined the influence of strategic talent management system on talents¡¦ capabilities and firm performance. In addition, the mediation effects of talents¡¦ capabilities are also be examined in this study. The data were collected from the 62 medium to large companies across industries in Taiwan. The study results summarize as follows. 1. Firstly, this study identified and developed the five subsystems of strategic job identification, competence training, performance evaluation, development, compensation and benefits with their related practices in strategic talent management system. The preliminary study results provide the reliability and validity evidences to support strategic talent management practices measurement scales as a stable and valid measurement tool. 2. Secondly, this study supported the positive relationship between strategic talent management system and firm performance. The results imply that the intensive use of strategic talent management system leads to positive firm performance. 3. Thirdly, this study supported the positive relationship between strategic talent management system and talents¡¦ capabilities, including behavioral, knowledge, skills and work style capabilities. The results imply that organization can take advantage of investing strategic talent management system to develop the critical talents¡¦ behavioral, knowledge, skills, and work style capabilities. 4. Fourthly, this study partially supported the positive relationship between talents¡¦ capabilities and firm performance. The results imply that talents¡¦ behavioral, knowledge, and work style capabilities have positive influence on firm performance. Organizations should develop talents¡¦ behavioral, knowledge, and work style capabilities to achieve the organizational strategic goals and obtain the competitive advantage. However, the hypothesized relationship between talents¡¦ skill capability and firm performance was not supported in this study. 5. Finally, this study partially supported the mediation effects of talents¡¦ capabilities between the relationship of strategic talent management system and firm performance. The results imply that the mediation effects of talents¡¦ behavioral and knowledge capabilities have significant influence on the relationship of strategic talent management system and firm performance while the mediation effects of talent¡¦s skills and work style capabilities did not meet the significant level in this study. The results still partially supported the mechanism of talents¡¦ capabilities working between strategic talent management system and firm performance. All results implications and suggestions are discussed in detail in the context.

A widely held belief is that resource constraints and industry conditions pose severe threats to the performance of entrepreneurial firms. While previous research links resources controlled by these firms to different performance outcomes, extant research on organizational performance often assumes away contextual differences in the allocation of scarce resources by firms to develop and leverage different organizational capabilities. Further, no research has explored the performance implications of resource use, especially for new ventures. The purpose of this study is to bring capabilities to the foreground in the examination of organizational performance for new ventures following an initial public offering (IPO). Building from resource-based theory and contingency theory, I examine the indirect (through capability formation and use) effects that occur within the ‘black box’ between resources and performance for a sample of entrepreneurial firms undertaking an IPO. New theory is offered to explain the formation and performance outcomes of two configurations of organizational capabilities: market-managing capabilities and market-creating capabilities. Human capital is considered, bringing agency into theory explaining capability formation and use. Further, I consider how underlying routines allow resources to be managed for greater value across different industries—conditions that make resources valuable in some contexts and not in others. I find that resource endowments at IPO affect the formation and use of organizational capabilities and that this relationship varies across different industry contexts. Further, I find support for the indirect effect of resources on performance outcomes through capability formation and use. More specifically, I find that adjustments to the configuration of organizational capabilities affect performance prospects over time. Results confirm that capability configurations compete for scarce resources, necessitating tradeoffs in allocation decisions between them. I also find that industry conditions moderate this relationship. By employing an integrative, multidisciplinary approach, this dissertation extends research on the performance effects of resource endowments and capability formation and use for entrepreneurial firms. Further, it contributes to growing research on IPO firms in strategic management and entrepreneurship, especially theoretical and empirical research examining the different firm and industry conditions that affect organizational performance during the period following a firm’s transition into the public arena.

This dissertation consists of three essays in corporate governance. The first essay, titled ¡§Control or Invest: Complex Interests of Managerial Stockholdings¡¨ examines the structural relation between managerial ownership and firm performance. By using simultaneous equation models and considering the complex interests of management, our results show that complicated mutual effects exist between managerial ownership and firm performance. In diffused ownership structure (0-13%), better firm performance may induce management to hold more stockholding, indicating possible investment purpose that is not addressed in previous studies. Management with mid-range of stockholdings (13%-50%), have positive effect on firm performance but not vice versa, which agrees with the ¡§convergence-of-interest hypothesis¡¨. For highly concentrated ownership structure (>50%), negative mutual effect exists, which agrees with the ¡§entrenchment hypothesis¡¨, giving notice to protect minority shareholders. The second essay, titled ¡§The Discrepancy of R&D Expenditure, Ownership Structure and Performance between Electronic and Non-electronic Industries¡¨ addresses on the mutual effects among R&D expenditure, ownership structure and firm performance in electronic industry. The characteristics of high research expenditure, high performance, and stock-based compensation plan of electronic industry may exaggerate the mutual effects between these three factors than companies in non-electronic industry. The empirical evidence first shows that better firm performance will result in higher managerial equity in both electronic and non-electronic industries. Another finding is that electronic industry has higher and more stable research expenditure, no matter firm¡¦s performance; while non-electronic industry spends more in research only when the firm is doing well. The third essay, ¡§The Adjustment and Determination of Ownership Change¡¨, is used to examine the equilibrium hypothesis regarding managerial ownership variation. The equilibrium hypothesis assumes that managers will continuously re-optimize their ownership to maximize firm¡¦s value. In this essay, instead of studying the cross-sectional relationship between managerial ownership and firm performance, we use a dynamic setting to examine how managers adjust their ownership over time and what factors will determine the within firm variation. It is shown that there is small within firm variation in managerial ownership with strong mean-reversion adjustment the entire sample. The results also show that firm characteristics like debt ratio, R&D expenditure and operating income do not relate significantly to within firm variation, but firm performance and institutional parameters like the reselection of board members, stock turnover and ownership level do. This thesis contributes to provide investment purpose as an alternative explanation for insiders¡¦ stockholding, in addition to the expropriation activities that is major concern in prior studies. The change analysis further provides more understanding of within firm variation vertically that is still vague in the literature (HHP, 1999). These new findings add knowledge to managerial ownership in emerging market like Taiwan. The managerial implication is that investors may not fully depend on manager¡¦s self-discipline to solve agency problem. Outside supervision, including independent board member and supervisor, institutional investors and corporate governance evaluation, could be emphasized to reinforce corporate governance.