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This study analyzes 197 companies formed through strategic alliance during the period 1995-2004. There are 107 samples of technological strategic alliance and 90 samples of marketing strategic alliance. The empirical methodology used in this research is the event study approach, which assesses the value implications of the announcement of forming strategic alliance. This study then examines relationships between abnormal returns and relative scale of strategic alliances partners, and profitability of companies through regression analysis to find the following results: 1. The announcement will bring significantly positive abnormal return to the company. 2. Abnormal returns of technological alliance are greater than that of marketing alliance announcements. 3. There is no significant relationship between relative sizes of partners and abnormal returns. Accumulative abnormal returns of relatively larger size partner are higher than relatively smaller size partners. Relatively larger partners in technological alliances gain more benefits in a strategic alliance. 4. The profitability of firms entering strategic alliances is negatively correlated with abnormal returns attributable to alliance announcements. Such a negative correlation is greater for marketing alliances than for technological alliances.

Abstract By the advantage of technology innovation, the New Technology-Based Firms can not only win the competitive advantage but also make a great contribution to the national economic growth. (Rickne & Jacobsson,1996¡FAutio & Yli-Renko,1998¡FAcs,1999¡FFontes & Coombs,2001)¡C The technology of touch screens originated in military use, but it has been extensively applied to consumer, commercial, and public products. Among the touch screens, the capacitive touch screens are the best and the most expensive product. There used to be a single producer in the industry. But now, there is another company with the key manufacture technology and this company is also our study case. This study used the descriptive case-study method to analyze the strategic positioning of the New Technology-Based Firm in the industry. This study suggests the ¡§Focus Strategy¡¨ to be the strategic positioning of the new technology-based Firm in the capacitive touch screens industry, including the ¡§Cost Focus Strategy¡¨ for the cost advantage of customizing sizes and the ¡§Focus Differentiation Strategy¡¨ for the customization policy.

Earnings management can be used to respond to a variable economics environment to improve firm performance under efficient contracting perspective but earnings management can also be abused to hurt a firm¡¦s performance under opportunistic behavioral perspective. Investors, therefore, have difficulty to understand and know about the purpose of earnings management, especially for firms in Taiwan that are very likely to engage in earnings management due to poor governance. Although numerous literatures have shed light on managers¡¦ incentives on earnings management and the effects of earnings management on firm performance, little attention has been devoted to disentangle the relation among corporate governance, earnings management and firm performance. The purpose of this dissertation is to unravel manager¡¦s intension on earnings management and to clarify whether proper governance can alleviate the abuse of earnings management and, therefore, enhance firm performance. Without distilling the effect of corporate governance on earnings management, the empirical results indicate that there is an inverse relation between earnings management and firm performance, implying that managers are more likely to exploit the latitude of earnings management to mislead investors and gain opportunistic profit. This dissertation further examines the relation between earnings management and the features of corporate governance including ownership structure and board characteristics. These results show that stronger corporate governance can effectively reduce the abuse of earnings management. Furthermore, this dissertation provides the evidence that the relation between earnings management and firm performance is improved when the use of earnings management is monitored under proper governance.

Accompanied by the enormous losses cause by the worldwide economic recession and Internet bubbles, venture capital industry at the same time is faced with another crucial problems: for a venture capital firm, what characteristics should a venture capitalist possess? How does these characteristics influence the behaviors of the venture capital firms and venture capitalists themselves? As everyone knows, venture capital firms differ significantly in business strategies and fund sources, thereby give rise to the difference of venture capital firms in selecting the characteristics of venture capitalists. Therefore, universal traits and characteristics of venture capitalists are difficult to find out. In the circumstances, venture capital firms must understand how venture capitalists characteristics may influence investment behaviors and strategies. By means of the analysis of the characteristics of venture capitalists and venture capital firms, this study tries to find out the important factors affecting the behaviors of venture capitalists. Through the empirical research towards the Taiwan venture capitalists, several findings are presented in this study. As finding shows, some characteristics of venture capital firms such as firm age have a great influence on the behaviors of venture capitalists. Moreover, from the insignificance of some factors examined in this study, we conclude that there are still some structural factors influencing the behaviors of venture capitalists.

The small and medium enterprises have been recognized as the main factor for the economic miracle in Taiwan. With fading ¡§dot com¡¨ companies and global economic depression, Taiwan academia, industry and government authorities have worked hard to propose numerous suggestions as well as policies, hopefully to build the competitive strength on the international trade market. High-tech industry is expected as the most significant part in the twenty-first century where knowledge and technology play the essential roles. Such industry also pertains high risks because of the fast changing technology. Hence, the innovation spirits of enterprises that continuously dedicate to technological R&D enable them to react the dynamic market efficiently. This study proposed several influent factors for enterprise performance. Three independent variables are enterpreneurship, technology strategy, and external network: the enterpreneurship includes innovativeness, risk taking, and proactiveness; the technology strategy refers to pioneering, internal R&D, external sources, patenting, and forecasting; in addition, the external network means the external linkages of the enterprise, such as consultants, alliances, association, financial institution, research institution, and government. Performance was measured by subjective perception containin sale growth, market share, ROI, and profitability. This study adopts questionnaires to collect data. Eight hundred and forty-four questionnaires were mailed to CEOs of Computer manufacture companies and IC manufacture companies in Taiwan. After one month, eighty-two responses were received. After statistic analysis, the results are: (1) those firms that stood for more than ten years or have more than 200 employees showed better performance; (2) several factors showed significant positive correlation with performance, including product innovativeness & risk taking in the entrepreneurship, pioneering & external sources in technology strategy, and research institution & government, alliances, and association in external network; (3) entrepreneurship, technology strategy, and external network were mutually positive correlated. Finally, based on the research findings, this study proposes conclusions and suggestions for managers or entrepreneurs in the directions of strategy planning and decision-making. Keywords¡GEnterpreneurship, Technology Strategy, External Network, Performance, High-tech Firms

As various forces rendering the business environment more dynamic, organizations nowadays must rapidly correspond to changes in order to survive and prosper. Observing the flexible use of manpower, Atkinson (1987) proposed the flexible firm model and attempted to draw clear demarcation among core, peripheral and external workforces. Such flexible deployment of different workforces are not uncommon in the cooperative subcontracting system in Taiwan¡¦s steel industry (Chang, 2001). In his exploratory research, Chang (2001) discusses the deployment of different workforces in the cooperative subcontracting system, however, the discussion of the relationship between workforce flexibility and organizational performance is neglected. In order to provide a more complete understanding of workforce flexibility, it is important to conduct further research. Hence, this research intends to continue Chang¡¦s research and collect more data to analyze the relationship between workforce flexibility and organizational performance among the China Steel Co.¡¦s subcontractor. Among 183 questionnaires distributed, 118 were collected and 108 were considered effective. The return rate is 59.02%. Analyzing the data, the research discover the following findings: (1) Significant differences on functional flexibility were found among different organizational traits. It is found that subcontractors with more than 3 divisions rated themselves better on the Development of Multi-skill than subcontractors with 3 divisions. (2) Significant differences on numerical flexibility were found among different organizational traits. Subcontractors with capital over 80 million dollars outsource more than subcontractors with capital under 20 million dollars. Engineering subcontractors outsource more than labor subcontractors. (3) Significant differences on wage flexibility were found among different organizational traits. Subcontractors with 60-80% dependence on CSC have more flexible wage design than subcontractors with 20-40%. (4) Significant differences on subjective organizational performance were found among different organizational traits. Subcontractors with capital over 80 million dollars were rated higher on the operational performance than subcontractors with capital under 20 million dollars. Labor subcontractors and cleaning subcontractors were rated higher on production performance more than labor subcontractors. Significant difference on production performance was also found among subcontractor of different numbers of division. Significant difference on customer satisfaction was found among subcontractors of different degree of dependence on CSC and different sizes of capital. Labor and cleaning subcontractors rated higher than engineering subcontractors. (5) Significant differences on objective organizational performance were found concerning organizational traits. Subcontractor of 60-80% dependence on CSC have higher turnover rate than subcontractors of 0-20% dependence. (6) Functional flexibility has significant positive influence on organization performance. Horizontal and vertical transfer has significant positive influence on operation performance and production performance. The development of multi-skill has significant positive influence on production performance. (7) Numerical flexibility has significant influence on organization performance. The higher the proportion of temporary workers, the lower the operation performance. The higher the proportion of temporary workers, the higher the turnover rate. (8) Wage flexibility has significant influence on organizational performance. Flexible wage design has negative significant influence on operational performance and customer satisfaction. Variable wage ratio has positive significant influence on customer satisfaction. Thus far, it is suggested that the cooperative subcontractor can (1) continue enhance measures that promote functional flexibility, (2) consider the skill difference when promoting functional flexibility, (3) hire cooperative skilled engineers or technicians for core workers, (4) implement training programs to help core workers develop multi-skills, (5) analyze business trends and maintain suitable ratio of contingent workers, (6) pay attention to legal issues regarding contingent workers, (7) consider the use of temporary help service (THS) as the substitution of hiring temporary worker by the company itself, (8) carefully evaluate the influence of wage flexibility.

As trend toward liberalization, telecom industry in Taiwan is getting more and more saturated. It means that competition between telecoms firms is getting more and more sharp. As a result, all telecoms firms are striving to gain and keep their customers and trying so hard to understand comsumer behavior on choosing telecoms firms. In the past, researches on consumer behavior are usually base on quantitative methodology. Quantitative researches on consumer behavior focused on specific moment of customers. This research is base on qualitative methodology to extend consumer behavior on choosing telecoms firm from a specific moment to a dynamic model and establishing a thorough consumer behavior on choosing telecoms firm model. This research on consumer behavior on choosing telecoms firm is base on grounded theory. By the analysis and coding process of the interview data that collected from eighteen interviewers in a theorical sampling process, this research generalizes eighty three open coding and fifteen axial coding. In the selective coding process, this research generalize three major concepts of consumer behavior on choosing telecoms firm and establishes a model of consumer behavior on choosing telecoms firm.

Abstract Chief executive officer (CEO) compensation is a potent instrument through which people and investors can improve their understanding of organization substance and symbol. Good compensation package can not only improve the performance of worker but also lift employees¡¦ commitment to work. However, we are not so sure about the positive association between CEO compensation and firm performance because of the existing of ¡§agency theory¡¨. The degrees of alignment of interests with those of the agents in the firm who control the major decisions in the firm are also different. This gives rise to potential conflicts among the stakeholders, and these incentive conflicts have now come to know as ¡§agency (principal-agent) problem¡¨. Being desirous of the problem, this thesis reviews and integrates the literature on CEO compensation, focusing on both determinants and consequences of this complex, often controversial phenomenon. Thus, a model of the determinants of CEO compensation is presented and investigated. Based on a sample of 422 from Taiwan listed companies, I investigated the data both from Taiwan Economic Journal (TEJ) and the annual report of each listed company to combine in order to examine the compensation model. The definition of CEO in this thesis is one of the following three identities: chairmen of the board, general managers, and people who serve as both positions, that is, CEO duality. Hypotheses are tested and the study finds that CEO compensation has complex links to several factors: firm sizes, performance, stock return, and board stock ownership. The main factors for deciding CEO compensation are economic determinants and the only significant board control variable is board stock ownership. Contrary to some foreign literature, the index of duality is not significant at all since that people who serve as both chairmen and general manager obtain below average compensation level than others. In summary, the thesis provides the different results of a matrix of different identities and industries, and hopes to have some contribution to following research.

Abstract Since the Asian financial crisis in 1997, several researches for the East Asian have found that concentration of ownership higher than other areas and weak corporate governance have been important reasons of financing crisis. Therefore, the study adopts the method developed by La Porta, Lopez-de-Silanes and Shleifer (1999), which traces the chain of ownership to find who has the most voting rights, identifies their ultimate control patterns, finds the controlling shareholders of firm, and then calculates each ultimate owner¡¦s control rights and cash flow rights. We also try to find the relationship between those ways of controlling shareholders to the voting rights, cash flow rights, and the degree of control rights deviating from cash flow rights. In Addition, we regress to the Proxy Q on controlling shareholders¡¦ control rights deviating from cash flow rights, then examine the evidence on expropriation of minority shareholders. This paper investigates whether the board construction on corporate governance mechanism effectively discharge its monitoring function and mitigate central agency problem. The research data are collected from the publications of those companies that stocks are openly traded on the Taiwan Stock Market between 2000 and 2003 April. There are 183 validated observations which are obtained. Empirical result suggests¡G 1. The high concentration of ownership is more common in Taiwan publicly listed companies and those firms are typically controlled by families. 2. The controlling shareholders typically have power over firms significantly in excess of their cash flow rights because they through the use of pyramids, cross-holdings, paper company and participation in management. And the condition of family control company is the worst. 3. The more the controlling shareholders¡¦ cash flow rights, the better performance of the firm. 4. For Taiwan publicly listed companies, the corporate governance mechanism could not effectively discharge its monitoring function and mitigate central agency problem.