Os objetivos centrais do presente estudo são caracterizar a dinâmica de adoção do padrão normativo ISO 9000 e analisar seus impactos em aspectos internos e externos da empresa. Utilizando informações e dados fornecidos por empresas selecionadas da cadeia de valor de embalagens PET para bebidas instaladas no Brasil, investigaram-se, de um lado, os principais indutores da adoção de tal padrão (motivações e necessidades), dificuldades enfrentadas durante sua implementação, lacunas identificadas e iniciativas similares ou complementares adotadas após a certificação; e, de outro, as mudanças decorrentes de natureza estratégica, gerencial e operacional mais importantes, e, sobretudo, nos relacionamentos com fornecedores e clientes diretos no que tange às funções Tecnológica e de Produção. A investigação dessas questões envolveu o estudo de dois casos - os maiores produtores nacionais de resina e pré-formas/garrafas PET -, bem como análises comparativas de ambos os casos, destes com empresas de outros setores industriais localizadas no país (autopeças e móveis) e em outros países (instrumentos cirúrgicos e outros). A análise individual dos casos revelou, em geral, diferentes perfis de adoção do padrão ISO 9000 e impactos decorrentes, excetuando-se o fato de que se concentraram na esfera produtiva. Uma explicação encontrada para tal resultado está ligada à existência de um programa de qualidade que ultrapassa o escopo e os limites da ISO 9000 e de um ambiente e uma cultura para a qualidade mais disseminada por toda a empresa no caso do fabricante de resina, mas não no do fabricante de pré-formas/garrafas PET. Outra, refere-se à intensidade e diversidade da atividade cooperativa dessas empresas, significativamente superior no primeiro caso relativamente ao segundo. E uma terceira, diz respeito à atuação de vários fatores intervenientes ambientais e setoriais, tais como a nacionalidade da matriz, que representa a influência dos modos de gestão e operação da qualidade nesta unidade sobre a que foi investigada, e o elo a que pertencem as empresas, que, tendo em vista a estrutura de governança da cadeia, afeta a dinâmica de adoção e, conseqüentemente, os impactos decorrentes. As comparações nacionais e internacionais com empresas de outros setores industriais permitiram verificar, em caráter exploratório, semelhanças (com o setor de autopeças) e diferenças (relativamente ao setor moveleiro) quanto às questões investigadas, confirmando que fatores setoriais interferem na relação entre adoção das normas ISO 9000 e suas implicações para a empresa. As comparações internacionais mostraram que, a despeito de existirem variações associadas aos distintos contextos socioeconômicos e infra-estrutura institucional de apoio entre os diversos países, não existem variadas “versões" de sistemas de gestão construídos com base na ISO 9000, mas, em virtude de distintas dinâmicas de adoção, interferentes setoriais, micro e macro-ambientais, os impactos organizacionais percebidos podem divergir. / The main purposes of this study are to characterize the dynamics of the adoption of ISO 9000 normative standards and analyze their impact in internal and external aspects of companies. By assessing data and information provided by selected packaging companies working with PET bottles in Brazil, it was studied, on the one hand, the main causes (motivations and needs) for the adoption of such standards, the difficulties faced throughout the implementation process, identified gaps and similar or complementary initiatives adopted after certification; and, on the other hand, the main strategic, managerial and operational deriving changes, mainly those concerning the relationship with direct suppliers and clients as to Technological and Productive functions. The investigation of these questions involved the analyses of two cases — the largest national producers of PET resin and PET bottles — as well as comparative analyses of both cases and of the two selected cases with companies from different industrial segments located in the country (autocomponents and furniture) and abroad (surgical instruments and others). The individual analyses of each case revealed, in general, different profiles in the adoption of ISO 9000 standards and in deriving impacts, except for the fact that they concentrate on the productive realm. One possible explanation for such finding is the one related to the existence of a quality program which surpasses the scope and limits of ISO 9000 and of an environment and culture of quality that is spread throughout the company in the case of the resin producer, but not in the case of PET bottle manufacturer. Another explanation refers to the intensity and diversity of cooperative activities in those companies which are significantly higher in the first case if compared to the second case. A third explanation concerns the effect of various environmental and sector-related interfering factors such as the nationality of the holding company which represents the influence it has on management approach and quality culture in the local branch studied; and such as the chain link the companies are part since their dynamics of adoption, and consequently the deriving impacts, are influenced by the governing structure of such a chain. National and international comparisons with companies from different industrial sectors enabled us to observe and verify similarities (in the case of the autocomponents sector) and differences (in the case of the furniture sector) about the issues analyzed, confirming that sector-related factors interfere in the adoption of ISO 9000 standards and may cause implications to companies. The international comparisons showed us that even though there are variations associated with distinctive socioeconomic contexts and institutional support infrastructure in different countries, the management systems based on ISO 9000 do not have varied “versions", but since the dynamics of adoption are different, and there are sector-related, micro and macro-environmental interferences, there may be diverging organizational impacts.

State legislators in the Midwestern United States implemented a Third Grade Reading Guarantee law to prevent the promotion of Grade 3 students with poor reading skills to Grade 4. As a result, schools implemented innovative reading interventions, thereby driving a need to determine teachers' concerns and levels of use (LoU) of these innovative interventions. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to understand Grade 3 reading teachers' stages of concerns (SoC) and LoU in implementing reading interventions, and teachers' comprehension of the innovation configurations, in view of the new Third Grade Reading Guarantee law. The conceptual framework used to undergird this study was the concerns-based adoption model. The SoC described 7 categories of possible concerns for an innovation, and the LoU described 8 behavioral profiles that educators used in practice. Data collection occurred through in-depth interview sessions using a purposeful sample of 10 Ohio Grade 3 reading teachers. Emergent themes were identified through a coding and thematic data-analysis process. Findings revealed that Ohio Grade 3 teachers' dominant SoC was a need for collaboration with other teachers. The second dominant SoC was a need to refocus on how the reading interventions would be used for the following school year. Findings showed that teachers' level of usage in Year 1 were at the mechanical level, focusing on the daily usage of the manual. In Year 2, teachers refined their practice and were better able to vary implementation format. Teachers' use of innovations improve at-risk students' reading skills, making them better scholars, who are then able to compete on many levels, and as future adults they will be able to make a positive social change by giving back to their communities.

Le cautionnement, modèle des sûretés personnelles par excellence est depuis toujours au cœur d’enjeux antagonistes. Si le propre d’une sûreté est d’être au service du créancier, la caution tient cependant une place de plus en plus centrale dans la relation contractuelle, comme l’illustre l’importance du dispositif protecteur instauré tant par la loi que par la jurisprudence. A ce titre, la responsabilité civile apparaît comme une technique particulièrement utilisée par les tribunaux et constitue un axe d’évolution majeur en la matière, comme le montrent par exemple le développement du devoir de mise en garde ou encore l’exigence de proportionnalité. Face à ce constat, le rôle de la responsabilité, son influence et son utilité sont autant de questions d’un intérêt tant théorique que pratique. A la fois facteur d’évolution du contrat de cautionnement et du droit du cautionnement, les relations entre cautionnement et responsabilité civile sont riches d’enseignement. / The suretyship, archetypal model of personal guarantees, has always been the centre of antagonistic stakes. If the main characteristic of a guarantee is to be at the service of the creditor, the guarantor holds however an increasing significance in the contractual relation, as the importance of the protective framework established both by the law and caselaw illustrates it. As such, civil liability appears as a technique particularly used by the courts and constitutes a major development axis on the subject, as, for example, the development of the duty to warn or the requirement of proportionality illustrate it. In view of this, the role of the responsibility, its influence and its utility are all core issues as to regard their theoretical and practical interests. Both factor of evolution of the contract of suretyship and suretyship law, the relations between suretyship and civil liability have much to teach.

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Taiwan play an important role in the economic system, but compared to other listed or larger companies, SMEs are more difficult in obtaining fund, and this is the reason why Small and Medium Enterprises Credit Guarantee Fund (SME Credit Guarantee Fund) sets up. The purpose of this study is to discuss the guaranteed risk of the SME Credit Guarantee Fund, including the estimate of the ex-ante probability of default and the hypothesis test of the ex-post recovery rate. The sample data, which are divided into twenty three industries, are established for the estimation of the market value for all kinds of industries, using the Moody's KMV Private Firm Model as the basic theory to estimate the company¡¦s probability of default and revising the default point to fit the features among different economic periods in Taiwan. This research uses the Chi-square homogeneity test to test how characteristic variables of companies affect the recovery rate. The study finds that the default point of the original definition of KMV may underestimate SME¡¦s probability of default in Taiwan, and there is lower estimated probability of default at good times rather than that at bad times. The recovery rate shows a right-skewed distribution, and the results also indicate that the how many banks the companies transact with, whether the directors and supervisors of the companies are joint and several guarantee, how old the companies are and how long the responsible officers are in business, have significantly affected the recovery rate.

Mongolian SME sector is an important part of its private sector that effectively contributes to the outcome of Mongolian economy. Like SMEs in other countries, SMEs in Mongolia face challenge of accessing to finance and this is the most constraint for their continuous growth. While credit guarantee schemes, by filling this gap, became one of the most effective SME promoting tools for the governments of many developed and developing countries, Mongolian government has not been institutionalizing such schemes yet. This study investigates the feasibility of Mongolian government to establish a state-funded CGS in order to facilitate SMEs access to finance. This research based on questionnaire survey conducted from 316 SMEs in urban and rural areas of Mongolia in late 2011. SMEs need for financing, demand for guarantee services and their attitude toward establishing the CGS in Mongolia were investigated. Also, two officials from ¡§SME Fund¡¨ and ¡§SME Support Agency¡¨ were interviewed to analyze their attitude on feasibility of institutionalizing the CGS with the support of Mongolian government. The study showed that there is a high demand for additional financing and credit guarantees in SME sector. The findings suggested that the government urgently needs to institutionalize CGS to solve financial challenges of SMEs. As the most appropriate type of CGSs for Mongolian environment found was a ¡§Public CGS¡¨.

After its accession to the WTO, under the open market for agricultural products and reducing domestic support, Taiwan needs to import brown rice of at least 144,000 metric tons, following the rule of minimum access in order to meet the requirements¡¦ of the WTO. To protect farmer¡¦s interest and agriculturalecology, the Taiwan government continues to implement paddy land utilization adjustment policy and price guarantee policy, which sustains government supplement to rice but it fails to reach the good of price stability in the market. This means all related policies still have room for improvement. In recent years, new rounds of negotiation for agriculture under the WTO framework have begun and, due to the pressure of negotiation, it is unavoidable to implement import tariff for rice. Thus, Taiwan¡¦s agricultural sectors are under the threat of a collapse, and to maintain the development of rice farming industry under the WTO regulations will be a very important issue. Also, the government should take more aggressive and prospective measures to overcome the current difficulties of the rice industry. This paper will explore rice policies in Taiwan and propose on improvement with consideration for a long term agricultural policy. Taiwan implements paddy land utilization adjustment policy for the preparation of tariff systems. Although this will meet the WTO regulation in the short term, it would experience risks and challenge, in the future. Currently, alternative plans are not available and what is suggested in this paper basically follows the American FSRIA and Japanese rice stability policies to reach a balance between government and farmers under the WTO regulation, trying to eliminate market intervention and reduce government¡¦s financial burden. With the decline of rice price and rent, the rice industry will develop towards a large scale of management and rice competitiveness will be upgraded, which will then increase farmer¡¦s revenue even when subsidies are reduced.

SME Credit Guarantee Fund established for the express purpose is to supply SME credit guarantee with the potential for development but lack the Collateral. It was financial institutions and credit financing. This study was based on a combination of market-based risk neutral evaluation model and insurance actuarial Principle assess the SME Credit Guarantee Fund to ensure that the current main business of insurance rates, According to the estimate and to the SME Credit Guarantee Fund and commercial banks to be charged with considerable risk of price compensation. In the management of business credit guarantees default risk. Bank of samples by the empirical results show that under this model receivable procedures for estimating costs, and the total amount of compensation rather, past a single 0.75% guaranteed rates significantly undervalued, with a single rate is the inverse effect of choice, nearly half over the industry higher than the current guarantee fee from the top 1.5%. If a word, which is the standard fees, fear is still not allow the fund to two-profit and loss. The model is a simple response to both the characteristics of market information, for the SME Credit Guarantee Fund in the risk management and pricing rates to be on the reference. Keywords:SME Credit Guarantee Fund. Credit risk. Risk management. Insurance Actuarial Model

Abstract Small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) are the engine of economic deve- lopment, but market imperfections such as those caused by underdeveloped fi- nancial and legal systems impede their growth. Although SMEs form a large part of private sector in many countries, they face larger growth constraints and are less likely to have access to formal sources of external finance than large firms. SMEs have the characteristics of informational opacity, weak finance, imperfect management and small size. These characteristics bring about moral hazard and adverse election, implying high credit risk of SMEs. Lending technologies can help facilitate SMEs¡¦ access to finance. The credit supplementation institutions have significant effects on SMEs credit availa- bility, so it becomes an important issue to policy makers around the globe setting up relevant legal systems and supporting financial assistance to SMEs. Since The New Basel Capital Accord had released the criteria and credit risk models of regulatory capital requirements for banks to follow, how to choose an appropriate model to measure the credit risk of SMEs and reasonably price the loan assets on a risk-return basis have become a common task of banks and the credit supplementation institutions. This paper uses the model developed by Kuo (2003) - ¡§How to Gauge the Default Probability: An Empirical Investigation of the Market-Based Approach to Bank¡¦s Loan Asset ¡¨ to gauge the probability of default to bank¡¦s loan asset for SMEs which guaranteed by Taiwan SMEG. Using market-based risk neutral approach, the probability of default for each SMEs¡¦ loan will be endogenously determined. This paper also uses the actuarial valuation principles to simulate the reasonable guarantee fee which should be received by SMEG through the breakeven analysis. The empirical results show that: 1.The tradeoff between recovery rate and the probability of default has joint effects. The probability of default increases rapidly while the recovery rate is over 70% and decreases smoothly while the recovery rate is below 60%. 2.The guaranteed loans over 70% coverage under the Authorized Approach have higher probability of default, as banks usually depend on the credit supp- lementation institutions for the larger portion of subrogation payment. 3.The guaranteed loans below 60% coverage under the Normal Approach have lower probability of default, as banks won¡¦t endure high probability of default and will turn to be conservative while lending to SMEs. Banks must also forward the relevant documents to the Taiwan SMEG for scrutiny and consideration, and it has reduced the default risk. 4.The guaranteed loans of 100% coverage under the Package Credit Guarantee have the highest probability of default if banks fully depend on the whole guaranteed coverage. However the bank loans lose given default will rely on bank¡¦s lending strategy, as the subrogation rate is set to be fixed on a maximum limit of guaranteed loans. 5.Using the actuarial valuation principles, with the estimations of pro- bability of default the reasonable rate of guarantee fee can be simulated through the breakeven analysis. The contribution of this paper is to submit the practical value for bank¡¦s loan pricing strategy, lending policy decision and credit risk management, also submit a subsidiary referential implication for SMEG to set the rate of guarantee fee, using the reduced form model to estimate default probability of bank¡¦s loan assets for SMEs which guaranteed by Taiwan SMEG, and using the actuarial va- luation principles to simulate the guarantee fee through the breakeven analysis.

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A European option is a contract in which the seller of the option grants the buyer the right, but not the obligation, to purchase from or sell to the seller the underlying asset at pre-specified price at maturity date. Herewith the buyer should pay out a premium for the value of flexibility that he was granted. Such premium as the compensation to the seller was provides in close form by Black and Scholes (1973) and Merton (1973). Even since then the option pricing methodology, or otherwise known as ¡§contingent claim analysis¡¨ has found its application in many prospects. Otherwise known as the real option analysis first induced by Myers (1977) and the structure form model of the credit risk analysis first induced by Merton (1974). In the thesis, we consider the application of the optional pricing methodology to the rationality and valuation of penalty in a contract and extent the penalty to the money back guarantee. In the former, we provide the general form solution to illustrate the both parties all hold the right to default the contract, and prove the existence of the optimal penalty is a policy to protect the disadvantaged minority such as to make the trade contract to be fair. In the latter, we prove the suitable way to evaluate that the consumer buy a good and long a MBG is the call option but the put by reviewing the final cash flow of the replicated strategy and the put-call parity at firstly, and then we find out the better way to grant the consumer to return the good to the vendor is penalty if the good is normal and the utility function of the consumer is concave. In sum, we integrate the penalty and in the MBG with the contingent claim analysis in this thesis, we find out we can use the uncomplicated model to explain the real world. Herewith we consider the option pricing model as another methodology to illustrate the social environment.