by Lye, Eugene, Ma Chun Fu, Siu Pui Pui. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 133-134). / Questionnaires in Chinese. / ABSTRACT --- p.ii / TABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.iii / LIST OF TABLES & FIGURES --- p.vi / ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS --- p.viii / CHAPTER / Chapter I. --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Emerging market --- p.1 / Issues --- p.2 / Chapter II. --- THE COMPANY --- p.4 / History --- p.4 / Management Structure --- p.5 / Board of Directors --- p.5 / Innovation & Growth --- p.8 / Diversification --- p.11 / Global Expansion --- p.12 / Organizational Structure --- p.14 / Products --- p.15 / Quality Control --- p.15 / Financial Information --- p.16 / Chapter III. --- SWOT ANALYSIS --- p.18 / Strengths --- p.18 / Weaknesses --- p.18 / Opportunities --- p.19 / Threats --- p.19 / Chapter IV. --- MARKETING STRATEGY IN THE PRC --- p.21 / Product Offering --- p.21 / Product Positioning --- p.22 / Packaging Strategy --- p.23 / Distribution Strategy --- p.23 / Pricing Strategy --- p.24 / Promotion Strategy --- p.24 / Chapter V. --- LITERATURE REVIEW --- p.26 / The Branding Revolution in China --- p.26 / Beverage Brand Study --- p.29 / Categories of Beverage Consumers --- p.31 / Intention of Brand Equity --- p.32 / Extension of Brand Equity --- p.33 / Summary of Findings --- p.34 / A Case Study of New Brand Launch --- p.35 / Chapter VI. --- MARKET OVERVIEW OF CHINA BEVERAGE MARKET --- p.39 / Market Size --- p.40 / Consumer Behaviors --- p.41 / The Dairy Product Market --- p.42 / Overview --- p.42 / The Customers --- p.43 / The Industry --- p.43 / The Juice Market --- p.44 / Overview --- p.44 / The Customers --- p.44 / The Industry --- p.45 / The Soybean Milk Market --- p.45 / Overview --- p.45 / The Customers --- p.46 / The Industry --- p.46 / Chapter VII. --- THE BEVERAGE MARKET IN GUANGZHOU --- p.48 / Yogurt Drink Market in Guangzhou --- p.48 / Product Usage and Packaging --- p.48 / Consumer Psychology --- p.48 / Competitive Information --- p.49 / Packaged Milk Market in Guangzhou --- p.50 / Product Usage --- p.50 / Consumer Psychology --- p.50 / Competitive Information: --- p.51 / Juice Market in Guangzhou --- p.51 / Product Usage and Packaging --- p.51 / Consumer Psychology --- p.52 / Competitive Information --- p.52 / Soybean Milk Market in Guangzhou --- p.53 / Product Usage and Package --- p.53 / Consumer Psychology --- p.53 / Competitive Information --- p.53 / Chapter VIII. --- METHODOLOGY --- p.54 / Research Objective --- p.54 / Research Methodology for Focus Group --- p.54 / Research Methodology for Survey --- p.55 / Limitations & Constraints --- p.57 / Chapter IX. --- FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS --- p.59 / Focus Group Research Findings & Analysis --- p.59 / Survey Findings & Analysis --- p.65 / Analysis of Brand Recognition --- p.67 / Analysis of Brand Extension & Association --- p.68 / Analysis of Attributes for Children Beverages --- p.70 / Analysis of Packaging Issues --- p.71 / Analysis of Toys Placement --- p.78 / Analysis of Taste Preference --- p.79 / Analysis of Brand Preference --- p.80 / Analysis of 19-25 year old Female Segment --- p.83 / Chapter X. --- RECOMMENDATIONS --- p.85 / Strengths --- p.85 / Weaknesses --- p.87 / Opportunities --- p.90 / Threats --- p.93 / APPENDIX --- p.98 / BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.133

by Tung Yee Shing. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 53). / ABSTRACT --- p.ii / TABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.iii / LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS --- p.v / LISTOF TABLES --- p.vi / Chapter CHAPTER I --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Chapter CHAPTER II --- OBJECTIVES AND SCOPE --- p.2 / Chapter CHAPTER III --- SMARTONE TELECOMMUNICATIONS HOLDINGS LIMITED --- p.4 / History --- p.4 / Benefits from the Initial Public Offering --- p.5 / The Three Brands --- p.5 / The Three Focuses --- p.6 / Diversification --- p.9 / Recent Performance --- p.10 / Chapter CHAPTER IV --- THE ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES --- p.12 / Government Regulations --- p.12 / Technology --- p.14 / Economic Factors --- p.15 / Social Factors --- p.18 / Chapter CHAPTER V --- THE INDIVIDUAL DEPTH INTERVIEWS --- p.19 / Interviewees' Profile --- p.19 / Perception on Network Quality --- p.20 / Usefulness of Mobile Phone --- p.21 / Usefulness of Value-added Services --- p.22 / Handset Selection --- p.23 / Introduction of the Personal Communications System (PCS) --- p.24 / Effect of Mobile Number Portability --- p.25 / The Student Segment --- p.26 / Chapter CHAPTER VI --- THE SURVEY --- p.28 / Sampling Frame --- p.28 / The Final Sample --- p.28 / Research Findings --- p.29 / Current Usage --- p.29 / Attitude --- p.31 / Information Sources --- p.33 / Chapter CHAPTER VII --- THE DISCRIMINANT ANALYSIS --- p.34 / Chapter CHAPTER VIII --- CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS --- p.37 / The Environment --- p.37 / The customers --- p.37 / Need Recognition --- p.38 / Information Search --- p.39 / Evaluation of Alternatives --- p.39 / Purchase Decision --- p.40 / Postpur chase Behavior --- p.40 / SmarTone's Strategies --- p.41 / Corporate Level Strategy --- p.41 / Recommendations --- p.44 / APPENDIX --- p.48 / BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.53

This thesis consists of three chapters and investigates the issues related to liquidity risk, credit market contagion, and corporate cash holdings. The first chapter is coauthored work with Professor Jay Sa-Aadu and Associate Professor Ashish Tiwari and is titled ‘Market Liquidity, Funding Liquidity, and Hedge Fund Performance.’ The second chapter is sole-authored and is titled ‘Credit Market Contagion and Liquidity Shocks.’ The third chapter is coauthored with Steven Savoy and titled ‘Ambiguity Aversion and Corporate Cash Holdings.’ The first chapter examines the interaction between hedge funds’ performance and their market liquidity risk and funding liquidity risk. Using a 2-state Markov regime switching model we identify regimes with low and high market-wide liquidity. While funds with high market liquidity risk exposures earn a premium in the high liquidity regime, this premium vanishes in the low liquidity states. Moreover, funding liquidity risk, measured by the sensitivity of a hedge fund’s return to the Treasury-Eurodollar (TED) spread, is an important determinant of fund performance. Hedge funds with high loadings on the TED spread underperform low-loading funds by about 0.49% (10.98%) annually in the high (low) liquidity regime, during 1994-2012. The second chapter provides evidence on credit market contagion using CDS index data and identifies the channels through which contagion propagates in credit markets. The results show that funding liquidity and market liquidity are significant channels of contagion during periods with widening credit spreads and adverse liquidity shocks. These results provide support for the theoretical model proposed by Brunnermeier and Pedersen (2009) according to which negative liquidity spirals can lead to contagion across various asset classes. Furthermore, during periods with tightening credit spreads and positive liquidity shocks, the results indicate that a prime broker index and a bank index are important channels contributing to co-movement in credit spreads. This suggests that financial intermediaries play an important role in spreading market rallies across credit markets. The third chapter investigates the link between investors’ ambiguity aversion and precautionary corporate cash holdings. Investors’ ambiguity aversion is measured by the proportion of individual investors in a firm’s investor base who are hypothesized to be more ambiguity averse compared to institutional investors. We show that the value of cash holdings is negatively associated with the extent of ambiguity aversion in a firm’s shareholder base for firms that are financially constrained. Our results also show that financially constrained firms with a higher proportion of ambiguity averse investors hold less cash. These results provide support for models in which ambiguity averse investors dislike the cash holdings of firms, that are held for precautionary reasons to fund long term projects, given that the returns on long term projects are ambiguous.

Mūsų šalis pasižymi didele gamtinės aplinkos įvairove ir nevienodomis žemės ūkiui sąlygomis. Žemės ūkio paskirties žemė turėtų būti planuojama taip, kad būtų sudarytos palankios sąlygos rentabiliai organizuoti žemės ūkio gamybą. Darbo tikslas – išanalizuoti Kaišiadorių rajono žemės ūkio paskirties žemės naudojimą. Tyrimo objektas – Kaišiadorių rajono žemės fondas bei šio rajono seniūnijų žemės ūkio paskirties žemėje suformuoti žemės sklypai. Kaišiadorių rajone kaip ir Lietuvoje didžiausią dalį sudaro tie ūkiai, kurių plotas 1 – 3 ha, 3 – 10 ha, didesni nei 300 ha yra tik 3 ūkiai. Galima teigti, kad vyrauja smulkūs ūkininkų ūkiai. Panaši tendencija būdinga tiek Kauno apskrityje, tiek ir Lietuvoje. Siekiant nustatyti Kaišiadorių rajono žemės ūkio paskirties žemės naudojimą, bei žemės sklypų konsolidacijos reikalingumą, buvo atliktas ekspertinis tyrimas 11 šio rajono seniūnijų. Jų pateikti duomenys išanalizuoti ir apibendrinti. / Our country has a high diversity of the natural environment and agriculture in varying conditions. Agricultural land should be planned so as to facilitate cost-effective to organize agricultural production. The aim - to analyze the Kaišiadorys district agricultural land use, development of farmers, crops in the declaration of the data, conclusions about the restoration of property rights and land use. The object of investigation – Kaišiadorys district land foundation and the neighborhoods of the area of agricultural land to develop the land. Kaišiadorys district as Lithuania and the largest proportion of these farms, covering an area of 1 - 3 ha 3 - 10 ha, larger than 300 ha is only 3 farms. It can be argued that the predominantly small family farms. A similar trend is typical of the Kaunas county and Lithuania. To determine the Kaišiadorys district agricultural land use, and whether the necessary parcels of land consolidation was carried out in the real situation of the area 11 study neighborhoods. They provide data to analyze and summarize.

Teisės aktais yra reguliuojamas visas, tiek privačios, tiek valstybinės žemės naudojimas. Žemės naudotojai privalo žemę naudoti taip, kaip numatyta teisės aktuose nepažeidžiant jų nuostatų. Žemės savininkai ir naudotojai privalo žinoti teisės aktų nustatytus reikalavimus – leidžiamą veiklą, jos apribojimus, savo teises, pareigas bei prievoles, taip pat – taikomas sankcijas už įstatymų pažeidimus. Priversti žemės savininkus ir naudotojus žemę naudoti pagal tikslinę žemės naudojimo paskirtį, būdą, pobūdį ir ją tausoti galima tik aktyviai vykdant valstybinę žemės naudojimo kontrolę, nevengiant surašyti administracinių teisės pažeidimų protokolų. Nors Telšių apskrityje nuosavybės teisių atkūrimo procesas baigiasi, tačiau vis dažniau iškyla nusiskundimų dėl riboženklių nebuvimo, projektuose numatytų ar nenumatytų privažiavimų prie sklypų, dėl ribų tarp gretimai besiribojančių sklypų savininkų. Klausimus, ar visuomet piliečiai skundžiasi pagrįstai, ar jie vykdo savo pareigas ir prievoles, nagrinėja apskrities viršininko administracija. Pagal Lietuvos Respublikos Apskrities valdymo įstatymo nuostatas apskrities viršininkas, neviršydamas savo įgaliojimų, nagrinėja fizinių bei juridinių asmenų pareiškimus bei prašymus ir priima dėl jų sprendimus. Atlikta anketinė apklausa parodė, kad su skundų tyrimu susijusios išlaidos valstybei turi būti kompensuojamos savininko lėšomis. / The law deeds control the use of both a private and public territories. The owners of the land must use a holding agreeably to the law and not violating its regulation. The owners and the users of a land must know the requirements of law articles: permissible activity and its restrictions, the rights, responsibilities and duties of the owner, also the penalties for violating the law. In order to lead the land owners to use their holdings agreeably to the objective purpose of the use and to save it, the national land use control has to be positively implemented, not avoiding to draw up the reports on violating the administrative rights. Although the restitution of proprietary rights in the district of Telšiai is almost finished, but there are still a lot of complaints about landmarks, approaches to the holdings, which are represented or not represented in the projects and for the boundaries between neighboring land owners. The Administration of the county chief analyses the validity of complaints of citizens and if the citizens are keeping their responsibilities and duties. According to the provisions of the law of the County Administration of Lithuanian Republic, the governor of the county staying within his authority deals with applications of legal persons and decreases it. The performed survey showed that the state expenses for the analysis of complaints have to be compensated by the owner.

Earnings in the South African and Zimbabwean mining industries have been severely impacted by these countries' socio-economic and political changes in the last decade. News reports and international research publications consistently rates Zimbabwe as a country with the highest political risks in the world. In South Africa (SA), the initial mining charter requiring 51% Black Economic Empowerment, was leaked to the press in 2002 before promulgation making international investors weary. The currency, the Rand (R) has strengthened from the US$ from R13.85 in 2002 to R 7.17 in 2007, significantly impacting on returns as investors to shift their portfolio to other sectors. The purpose of this research was to explore the implications of country risk and investor sentiment for Impala Platinum's valuation and provide strategy recommendations to improve its market rating whilst sustaining its competitive advantage as a platform for achieving its 2010 vision. In this study, a brief environmental scan of the mining industry was undertaken focusing on the platinum sector as well as a background review of the industry and a five year performance comparison between Impala and Anglo Platinum. It also reviewed corporate strategy literature as it relates to the research problem as well as theoretical models of investor sentiment and decision making processes. The specific research design was primarily exploratory in nature. The Implats valuation conundrum appears to be a phenomenon and the best way to achieve the main research objective was to identify any new ideas, preliminary explore some possible hypothesis and provide strategy recommendations to the board. The research adopted both quantitative and qualitative designs to focus on understanding the values, attitudes and perceptions of investors, which is interpretive and inductive in nature. A holistic case study was the specific vehicle used to conduct the research. The research population was made up of all investors in different regions of the world. Given that the study specifically related to the Implats valuation relative to Amplats, the sampling was tailored to their common investors. Data was collected using a questionnaire; the likert five scale was used to design the questionnaire. The following recommendations were made as a result of the research. Implats should implement measures to build its value chain and attempt to move to a cost quartile not easy to replicate without significant investment and time. In the short term Implats needs to continue improving on its fundamental values whilst crafting a take over defence strategy. It also needs to improve on its investor relations program to robustly communicate its political risk management strategy. / Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2006.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1992.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 77-79).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1995. / Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 534-557).

This thesis is an effort to advance our knowledge and understanding of the role that labor plays in shaping corporate financial policies and how it is in turn affected by considerations related to firms' financing. I present three essays on the interaction between finance and labor. First, I provide two examples of how labor affects financial decisions, in which I investigate the impacts that commitment to employee welfare and reliance on skilled labor have on cash management policies. Next, I examine the effect of ownership structure on labor investment decisions as an example of how finance affects human capital. In the first essay, I examine the relation between employee welfare practices and corporate cash holdings. Consistent with the predictions of the stakeholder theory, I find firms that are strongly committed to employee welfare, measured by ratings on employee relations, to hold more cash. The effect of employee welfare standards on cash holdings is stronger for firms in human-capital-intensive, competitive, and low turnover industries in which employees are more important to their businesses. The findings highlight the importance of human capital and employee-friendly practices as an overlooked determinant of cash holdings and suggest that managers can use cash to signal their financial health to current and potential employees, thereby increasing their competitiveness in labor markets. The second essay examines whether a firm's dependence on skilled labor affects its cash holdings. Consistent with a precautionary motive to accumulate cash when higher labor adjustment costs slow a firm's labor demand reaction to cash flow shocks, I find robust evidence that companies with higher shares of skilled labor hold more cash. The effect of skilled labor on cash holdings is more pronounced for firms that are financially constrained, attach higher values to their human capital, operate in competitive product markets, and belong to industries characterized by high labor mobility. The findings suggest that labor heterogeneity, and in particular the skill level of workers is an important determinant of corporate cash policies. The results provide managers of firms, particularly those that are financially constrained, with insights on how to minimize their labor adjustment costs and reduce the risk of losing their valuable human capital. In my third essay, I examine whether the presence of long-term institutional investors, who typically have strong monitoring incentives, can help mitigate agency conflicts associated with firms' employment choices. I find that abnormal net hiring, measured as the absolute deviation from net hiring predicted by economic fundamentals, decreases in the presence of institutional investors with longer investment horizons. Firms dominated by long-term shareholders reduce both over-investment (over-hiring and under-firing) and under-investment in labor (under-hiring).The monitoring role of long-term investors is more pronounced for firms facing higher labor adjustment costs. These findings suggest that institutional investors play an important role in firm-level employment decisions.