Thesis (M.B.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 125-126).

Thesis (M.B.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references.

L'environnement dans lequel oeuvre l'entreprise a évolué au cours des dernières décennies. Partant des années 1930 vers le début des années 1980, l'entreprise évoluait selon l'idéologie du modèle de loyauté réciproque, ou plus communément désigné comme concept de stakeholder. Selon ce modèle, les dirigeants ont la responsabilité de conserver dans leur gestion un sain équilibre entre les intérêts de leurs employés, des actionnaires, des clients et de la société en général ou toute autre partie prenante pertinente. La sécurité d'emploi est garantie au personnel qui en retour, assure loyauté et fidélité à l'entreprise qui l'embauche. Plusieurs évènements se sont combinés et sont ainsi venus perturber la dynamique du modèle de loyauté réciproque vers le début des années 1980. Ces évènements peuvent être catégorisés sous trois principaux marchés. Le premier de ces marchés concerne les produits et services qui a subi les contre coups des vagues de déréglementation et de l'ouverture des marchés à l'international. Viennent ensuite les pressions en provenance des marchés financiers qui ont considérablement modifié l'ordre d'importance des parties prenantes, au cours des années 1980, reléguant ainsi l'employé et la communauté aux derniers rangs pour faire place à l'actionnaire comme principal acteur disciple de la maximisation de la valeur. La récession de 1981-1982 est un point tournant de la répudiation de l'entreprise du principe d'emploi à vie. La croissance de la mobilité poussa alors l'employé à rechercher la maximisation de sa valeur marchande, causant ainsi l'émergence d'un marché secondaire du talent. Ce mémoire porte sur l'analyse de ces facteurs de changements. L'objectif est de déterminer que certaines entreprises conservent des éléments caractéristiques du modèle de loyauté réciproque dans un monde où le modèle de marché est prédominant. Le cas de l'entreprise Johnson & Johnson de l'industrie pharmaceutique américaine est utilisé afin de démontrer cet état de fait.

The thesis describes the financial background that prevails in the company Johnson & Johnson. It contains the most essential processes which are applied in the financial department. Each event is specified in theoretical way and also described in practical examples. Special attention is given to pricing policy, accountancy system and periodic financial closing.

Johnson & Johnson (J&J) has been viewed as a role model by many organizations for its successful handling of a 1982 crisis involving cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules that resulted in seven deaths. The public relations community applauded J&J for a swift response and for promptly implementing actions to prevent a similar crisis from occurring in the future. However more recently, J&J has become a poster child for poor crisis communications amidst a flood of recalls that started in November 2009. The present study used concepts from Coombs’ (2004) Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) and media framing research to develop a coding scheme for a content analysis of newspaper coverage surrounding the 1982 Tylenol recall as well as current recalls issued by J&J from November 2009 through April 2012. The samples included newspaper articles from New York Times and Chicago Tribune. Results showed that most of the stories in both samples did not evaluate J&J’s operational response or reputation overall. However, when the news coverage did evaluate J&J, coverage from the 1982 sample was positive and evenly balanced between favorable and unfavorable, compared to negative and unfavorable in the current sample. Additionally, when crisis type was mentioned in the coverage, the 1982 crisis was more likely described as a victim crisis while the current crises were more likely described as an accident or preventable crisis. When the 1982 sample was examined for mentions of previous recalls there were none compared to 80.5% of the current sample mentioning a previous recall. The results support the tenets of SCCT, information giving strategies and reputation management strategies. Additionally, the results provide valuable iii information for crisis managers regarding the media’s inclusion or, lack thereof, organizations’ controlled media such as news releases.

Introduktion: Coronavirus är RNA-virus med ett lipidhölje som är täckt utav karaktäristiska spikprotein. De mest kända coronavirusvarianterna är SARS-CoV-1 som var aktiv mellan 2002-2004, MERS-CoV som har varit aktiv sedan 2012 och SARS-CoV-2 som har varit aktiv sedan 2019–tillsvidare. SARS-CoV-2 infektionen betecknades januari 30 2020 som en pandemi. Flera läkemedelsföretag har forcerat ??? till att framställa vaccin riktad mot SARS-CoV-2, “The United States Food and Drug Administration” (FDA) och “European Medicines Agency” (EMA) har nödgats att ge ut “Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) i hopp om att få kontroll på dess spridining. Syfte och mål: Syftet med arbetet är att undersöka säkerheten och effektiviteten hos de EMA-godkända vaccinerna riktade mot SARS-CoV-2. Metod: Studierna för vardera vaccin hittades och valdes ut genom World Health Organizations (WHO) “Draft landscape and tracker of COVID-19 candidate vaccines”. Totalt inkluderades åtta studier baserade på tio kliniska prövningar som undersökte säkerheten och effektiviteten hos de fyra ledande vaccinerna från Pfizer BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca och Johnson & Johnson. Resultat: De fyra undersökta vaccinerna visade en god säkerhet utan grövre biverkningar. De vanligaste biverkningarna hos samtliga vaccin var lokal smärta, trötthet och huvudverk. Dessa biverkningar varade mellan en till två dagar efter vaccination och var till större del milda. Större skillnader kunde ses hos de olika vaccinernas effektivitet, Pfizer BioNTech och Modernas mRNA-vacciner visade på effektiviteter runt 95% medan AstraZeneca och Johnson & Johnsons adenovirus-vektor-vacciner visade på effektiviteter runt 66-70%. Diskussion: Inga större skillnader i säkerhet kunde ses mellan de undersökta vaccinerna. AstraZeneca använde ett influensa vaccin istället för isoton vattenlösning till deras kontrollgrupper. Detta kan ha haft en påverkan på placebo och resultaten från deras prövningar. En tydlig skillnad i effektivitet kunde ses mellan de olika vaccintyperna, vilket har ett stort inflytande på hur lätt man kan inducera flockimmunitet hos en befolkning. Eftersom flockimmunitet har en stor roll i både att bromsa spridningen men även i att förebygga förekomsten av nya virus varianter så bör endast mRNA vacciner rekomenderas om möjligt. / Introduction: Coronaviruses are RNA viruses with a lipid envelope that is covered by characteristic spike protein. The most well-known coronaviruses are SARS-CoV-1 which were active between 2002-2004, MERS-CoV which is active since 2012 and SARS-CoV-2 which is active since 2019. SARS-CoV-2 was designated a pandemic January 30, 2020. Several pharmaceutical companies have been rushing to produce vaccines targeting SARS-CoV-2, The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) have had to issue Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) in the hope of gaining control of its spread. Objective: The purpose of this study is to investigate the safety and efficacy of the EMA-approved vaccines targeting SARS-CoV-2. Method: The studies for each vaccine were found and selected through the World Health Organizations' (WHO) "Draft landscape and tracker of COVID-19 candidate vaccines". A total of eight studies were included based on ten clinical trials examining the safety and efficacy of the four leading vaccines from Pfizer BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson. Results: The four vaccines examined showed good safety without any serious side effects, the most common side effects with all vaccines were local pain, fatigue, and headache. These side effects lasted between one to two days after vaccination and were mostly mild. Larger differences could be seen in the efficacy of the different vaccines, with Pfizer BioNTech and Moderna's mRNA vaccines showing efficacies of around 95%. While AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson's adenovirus vector vaccines showed efficacies of around 66-70%. Discussion: No major differences in safety could be seen between the vaccines examined. AstraZeneca used an influenza vaccine instead of isotonic aqueous solution for their control groups, this may have had an impact on placebo and thus the results of their trials. A clear difference in efficacy could be seen between the different types of vaccines. This has a great influence on how easily one could induce herd immunity to a population. Herd immunity plays a major role in both slowing the spread but also in preventing the occurrence of new virus variants, therefore mRNA vaccines should be recommended if possible.

This dissertation investigates the effect of endogenous and exogenous events on firm behavior and performance. These are fundamental questions in economics. The contribution of this study is threefold. First, it provides estimates of the impact of mergers on railroad efficiency, which has important antitrust implications. Second, it provides new estimates of the effect of negative events on the market value of Johnson & Johnson, Bridgestone, and Toyota, which is important to the understanding of how markets punish corporate errors. Third, it develops better ways to estimate these effects. Chapter 2 uses the event study approach to determine how product recalls due to exogenous and endogenous shocks affect the value of the firm. Three recalls from Johnson & Johnson, Bridgestone, and Toyota have been studied in this chapter. The traditional event study method assumes that markets are efficient, a questionable assumption in the short run. Thus, the current stock value of a firm may not reflect its true market value. To address this potential problem, frontier based methods are used, including data envelopment analysis, corrected ordinary least squares, and stochastic frontier regression analysis. Stochastic frontier methods are shown to be more appropriate when market behavior is not fully rational. The evidence shows that endogenous events due to firm errors are more detrimental to firm value than exogenous negative events that are beyond the control of the firm. That is, the market is more forgiving of negative shocks that the company cannot control. Chapter 3 studies the effects of merger activity on the efficiency and productivity growth of U.S. Class I railroads from 1983 to 2008. In this chapter, I assess the effects of merger activity on efficiency, and identify the major factors associated with productivity growth. Unlike previous research, I use data envelopment analysis with an attribute-incorporated Malmquist productivity index. This approach allows firm specific measures of efficiency and productivity to be calculated for firms with differences in technology. The approach allows a decomposition of the attribute-incorporated Malmquist productivity index into technical, efficient and attribute components, the impacts of railroads mergers, and the real source and change of productivity. I find that (1) the technology efficiency performance of the seven survivor firms has grown through time; (2) mergers overall do not lead significant technology and scale efficiency gains, but there are differences across mergers; (3) mergers in the 1980s do not have significant different effect on efficiency change compared to those in the 1990s; and (4) the productivity gains are mostly attributed to the network and operation attributes change and industry technology improvement. Overall, the mergers have no direct impact on the efficiency gains or losses during our study period. The application of these techniques to product recalls and railroad merger models demonstrates how they can provide superior estimates over traditional estimation techniques. It is hoped that these applications will motivate the use of these techniques in other settings. / Graduation date: 2012

Made available in DSpace on 2010-04-20T20:21:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 1998-09-29T00:00:00Z / Trata da reorganização do espaço público/civil através de novos posicionamentos dos diferentes agentes da realidade socioeconômicas. Debate a necessidade da conscientização das possibilidades de sinergia na atuação conjunta entre os setores público, privado e terceiro setor. Enfoca, através de ilustrações e estudo de caso, o importante e estratégico papel que a empresa assume como protagonista social. Analisa impactos e conseqüências dessa atuação.