During the 1990's, most Hong Kong companies experienced extremely high Voluntary Turnover among middle managers. This thesis attempts to find the causes of such turnover through quantitative analysis and at the same time assess the state of Succession Planning implementation in 10 subsidiaries of US multinational companies as a potential remedy to such turnover. Lack of career advancement and promotion opportunities was found by employees to be the leading cause of voluntary turnover whereas employers believe basic salary and other remuneration components are the main causes. In 9 companies out of 10, Succession Planning is found to be short on basic success criteria such as formalization, buget, support from top management, I.T. support, integra- tion with strategic HR planning, accountability and continuous review process / thesis (PhDBusinessandManagement)--University of South Australia, 2003.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) in China is popular these days and this also applies to the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry. China seems to be a promising market for pharmaceuticals with over 1.2 billion potential consumers. This huge number of people together with the outstanding economic performance attracted multinational pharmaceutical firms that were looking for a new market for their products. By the end of 1998, China had established over 1,500 pharmaceutical enterprises with foreign investment and 117 of which were invested by foreign pharmaceutical firms. Foreign pharmaceutical firms invested their capital and technology in what is likely to be developed as the world�s largest pharmaceutical market in the future with the expectation they will earn an excellent return in the longer term. When a firm decides to establish an overseas operation, it has to decide whether to pursue the venture alone or with a joint venture partner (Bell, 1996). For most manufacturers that want to invest abroad, the first-best entry strategy remains the sole venture (SV), and joint venture (JV) would be a second-best invest entry strategy (Root, 1994), because JV is inferior to SV which allows investing firms to maximise the returns on ownership-specific advantages (Caves, 1982) and to have full control over the business operations. Foreign pharmaceutical firms who invested in China during the period from 1980 to 1998 basically chose either a SV or JV entry mode, and over 84 percent of the foreign pharmaceutical firms chose a JV entry mode rather than a SV, even though foreign investors have been allowed to set up 100 percent solely foreign owned sole venture operations in China since the passage of �Law of the People�s Republic of China on Foreign Capital Enterprises� at the Fourth Session of the Sixth National People�s Congress on 12 April 1986. This research was designed to investigate why the large majority of pharmaceutical firms preferred the second-best entry mode for entering into the Chinese market. This research has incorporated in Root (1994), Mockler and Dologite�s (1997) conventional foreign market entry mode framework, and the relevance of Kumar and Subramaniam�s (1997) contingency entry mode framework is acknowledged. Fieldwork was mainly conducted in China by personal interviews as well as mail questionnaire surveys over a period of three months in 1999 and 44 companies participated in total. Using multiple indicators by means of logistic regression analysis to examine the effects of groups of factors on entry mode decision choice between SV and JV options. Seven groups of factors (independent variables) were examined: China environmental factors, China market factors, China production factors, parent firm�s home country/region factors, parent firm�s product factors, parent firm�s resource commitment factors, and parent firm�s decision task related factors. This research has found that the probability for establishing joint ventures with Chinese partner (s) is significantly and positively related to the importance of China environmental factors and market factors. Parent firm�s decision task related factors had a positive impact on firms� decision to choose a SV entry mode. Bivariate analyses have also discovered a number of individual variables that had significant impacts on firms� entry mode choice decisions. The research did not show sufficient evidence to support that China production factors,parent firm�s home country/region factors, parent firm�s product factors, and parent firm�s resource commitment factors had significant influences on foreign pharmaceutical firms� entry mode decisions, although the results showed expected directions of the relationships between the entry mode choice and independent variables. This research has contributed to the entry mode theory literature in the way of developing, as the result of the research in this thesis, an eclectic framework for better understanding of theories in choosing an entry mode between a sole venture and a joint venture in the context of foreign direct investment into the Chinese market, particularly it has discovered significant variables that affected the foreign pharmaceutical firms� FDI entry mode decisions into the Chinese pharmaceutical manufacturing industry during the period of 1980~1998. The framework can be used as a base by researchers to develop further the theories of foreign market entry strategies and to test its relevance in other industries or countries. This research has also extended its examinations to some other important issues in relations to foreign direct investment in China. They are the difference between early and late entrants, and between eastern and western firms on FDI entry mode decisions, foreign pharmaceutical firms� FDI decision formulation, FDI implementation, FDI performance evaluation, joint venture partner and operation location selections in China were also analysed and discussed in this thesis. Further research with larger sample size into the interrelationships among strategic FDI decision formulation, entry mode choice,strategy implementation and evaluation would be worthwhile to help understand the entire process of strategic FDI planning and implementation.

University of Technology, Sydney. Faculty of Business. / The need for more dynamic views on international joint ventures' control research has recently become a growing concern. Changes in the complexity of relationships between organisations and their environments have led to an increase in control problems and to a need to investigate a suitable framework of management control. The concept of self-organising systems that has emerged with the science of complexity produces some useful and interesting new ways to examine the behaviour of complex systems. Therefore, extending the recent development in self-organising systems into international joint ventures' control research is an opportunity to explore new insights into the development of joint ventures. This study takes an integrative approach by focusing on the integration of management control and self-organising properties of international joint ventures. The purpose of this study is to investigate the roles of management control systems in affecting international joint ventures' performance, from the perspective of alliance complexity constraints. A model of management control in international joint ventures as self-organising systems, representing a complexity-control-outcomes framework, is developed and tested empirically using the partial least square (FLS) approach, a distinctive structural equation modeling (SEM) based technique. The primary results of this study show that formal control mechanisms and control extent have significant direct effects on management automony and the international joint ventures' performance. Management autonomy as an intervening endogenous construct has a significant direct effect on the international joint ventures performance. Significant direct effects of organisational complexity on the formal control mechanisms and control extent are found, and a significant indirect effect of organisational complexity on the management autonomy is found. The overall results suggest a sound link between the complexity-control framework with the control-outcome framework, and the achievement of fit between these two frameworks is important for superior international joint ventures' performance.

University of Technology, Sydney. Faculty of Business. / The need for more dynamic views on international joint ventures' control research has recently become a growing concern. Changes in the complexity of relationships between organisations and their environments have led to an increase in control problems and to a need to investigate a suitable framework of management control. The concept of self-organising systems that has emerged with the science of complexity produces some useful and interesting new ways to examine the behaviour of complex systems. Therefore, extending the recent development in self-organising systems into international joint ventures' control research is an opportunity to explore new insights into the development of joint ventures. This study takes an integrative approach by focusing on the integration of management control and self-organising properties of international joint ventures. The purpose of this study is to investigate the roles of management control systems in affecting international joint ventures' performance, from the perspective of alliance complexity constraints. A model of management control in international joint ventures as self-organising systems, representing a complexity-control-outcomes framework, is developed and tested empirically using the partial least square (FLS) approach, a distinctive structural equation modeling (SEM) based technique. The primary results of this study show that formal control mechanisms and control extent have significant direct effects on management automony and the international joint ventures' performance. Management autonomy as an intervening endogenous construct has a significant direct effect on the international joint ventures performance. Significant direct effects of organisational complexity on the formal control mechanisms and control extent are found, and a significant indirect effect of organisational complexity on the management autonomy is found. The overall results suggest a sound link between the complexity-control framework with the control-outcome framework, and the achievement of fit between these two frameworks is important for superior international joint ventures' performance.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 103-115).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Georgia State University, 2006. / 1 electronic text (111 p. : ill. (some col.)) : digital, PDF file. Title from title screen. Dr. Ben Oviatt, committee chair; Brett Anitra Gilbert, Detmar W. Straub, William C. Bogner, committee members. Description based on contents viewed Mar. 28, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 101-111).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2000. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [127]-139). Also available on the Internet.

Dissertation, Technische Universität München, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references and index.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2001. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 160-166). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2001. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 160-166). Also available on the Internet.