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The thesis examines the significance for economic development in Devon and Cornwall of the material and business service linkages of manufacturing establishments. Industrial linkages can play a key role in promoting regional growth, whilst the nature of the relationship between linkages and economic growth is further understood by focusing attention at establishment level. Thus, using data drawn from a survey of 366 manufacturing plants in Devon and Cornwall, the thesis considers the extent to which differing types of establishment possess local suppliers and markets. The primary focus is the importance of key variables as an indicator for variations in linkage patterns- It is found that loca1 linkage is primarily a reflection of variations in ownership status, firm size, the degree of managerial autonomy in decision making, the nature of the product and the perception of the external environment by chief decision makers. Those plants where local linkage is most marked are the independent firms, relatively small plants and ones with decision making freedom at the local level. A move to self sustaining economic growth requires, therefore, a policy designed to mobilise the indigenous potential of the local area via encouraging growth in small and independent firms, where linkage potential is highest. This will result in more major corporate decisions being taken locally and will yield the benefit of technical advance, new firm formation and employment growth in the long period.

This study explore the linkages or partnerships that companies across the EU and a defend set of emerging market economies have in either a formal or informal manner. The research aims to understand the correlation of these linkages and a firm’s ability in innovate. Empirically this research is set out to determine if there are differences in a firm’s ability to innovate based on the structure of the linkage, i.e. formal or informal. The study extends to understand the impact that the economic downturn had had on these linkages and what impact, if any has filtered through to the firm’s ability to innovate.The central argument is that firms with linkages benefit but being more nimble innovators and therefore both formal and informal linkages are very good for business and an organizations ability to innovate.Chi squared and t-tests were run on the responses of the firms belonging to the export or domestic categories. The results overwhelmingly suggest that in respect of innovativeness, the domestic suppliers do not differ from those that opt to export into the developed world. However the firms belonging to the domestic group differ considerably with regards to who they collaborate with for their innovations when compared to the export group. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Static balance is the reduction or elimination of the actuating effort in quasi-static motion of a mechanical system by adding non-dissipative force interactions to the system. In recent years, there is increasing recognition that static balancing of elastic forces in compliant mechanisms leads to increased efficiency as well as good force feedback characteristics. The development of insightful and pragmatic design methods for statically balanced compliant mechanisms is the motivation for this work. In our approach, we focus on a class of compliant mechanisms that can be approximated as spring-loaded rigid-link mechanisms. Instead of developing static balancing techniques directly for the compliant mechanisms, we seek analytical balancing techniques for the simplified spring–loaded rigid–link approximations. Towards that, we first provide new static balancing techniques for a spring-loaded four-bar linkage. We also find relations between static balancing parameters of the cognates of a four-bar linkage. Later, we develop a new perfect static balancing method for a general n-degree-of-freedom revolute and spherical jointed rigid-body linkages. This general method distinguishes itself from the known techniques in the following respects: 1 It adds only springs and not any auxiliary bodies. 2 It is applicable to linkage shaving any number of links connected in any manner. 3 It is applicable to both constant(i.e., gravity type) and linear spring loads. 4 It works both in planar and spatial cases. This analytical method is applied on the approximated compliant mechanisms as well. Expectedly, the compliant mechanisms would only be approximately balanced. We study the effectiveness of this approximate balance through simulations and a prototype. The analytical static balancing technique for rigid-body linkages and the study of its application to approximated compliant mechanisms are among the main contributions of this thesis.

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Several theorists have argued that organisations can increase performance through formalised cooperation with other important organisations (Baum & Oliver 1991). This notion of “institutional linkages” is appealing as it uses linkages as a proxy for legitimacy awarded to organisations for adherence to exogenous expectations. However, this operationalization also has its limitations. For what is the role of institutional linkages in groups of organisations where a majority of them – or all – are linked? Baum & Oliver (1991) provide meagre advice for what is to expect beyond the point of organisations being legitimate (linked) or not. But if organisations that hold (at least) one institutional linkage perform better than unlinked organisations, should not organisations that have multiple linkages also perform better than those who have but a single one? Intuitively, this seems reasonable. But considering that institutional linkages are associated with costs in terms of additional administration, audit and fees, it is not obvious that organisations desire ‘as many linkages as possible’. Using data for 339 aid organisations in Sweden, this study suggests developing the theoretical concept of institutional linkages, arguing that the number of institutional linkages serves as a prediction of organisational performance. Although further inquiry is needed to determine whether this effect persists as the number of linkages continues to increase, the findings suggest that organisations will strive towards having more institutional linkages than competing organisations.

Thesis (M.Com. (Development Theory and Policy))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, School of Economic and Business Sciences, 2014. / Mozambique is currently moving from an aid dependent country to mineral dependent given the mining boom happening there thanks to the discoveries of huge reserves of coal, mineral sands and natural gas. The country is set to become one of the world's twenty top producers of natural gas and top ten largest producers of coal. This research is a case study focusing on coal-based linkages that can foster broad economic growth and development in Mozambique. Using a political economy perspective, the research investigates the question about how the country can optimise the mining boom through coalbased economic linkages to foster broader socio-economic development. The research finds that under the combination of its current fiscal and mineral regime with infrastructure problems plus the inexistence of a coal-based linkage policy, Mozambique will get negligible benefit from the exploitation of its finite coal resources. A major overhaul of these regimes is needed for it to make use of its coal to catalyse wider growth and development, before it is left with little other than large holes in the ground.

This study is to discuss the correlation between financial firms and non-financial firms through board linkages and the relationship between these connections and lending and borrowing behavior. Although a board linkage may provide the benefit of better information flows between the lender and borrower, a person on the board of both a bank and a borrowing firm board linkage may face a conflict of interest: the person has a fiduciary duty to both the bank and the firm and these interests may diverge. Many studies suggest that the information benefits of connections outweigh the costs of conflicts. In this way, the study is to find out what kind of firms will attract banker on the board, and the relationship between these connections and lending and borrowing behavior. The conclusions of this study are presented as the following. On firm characteristics, financial firms will choose companies with better credit risk to be the directors. In addition, on the lending and borrowing behavior, the bankers will be the directors of the companies that have longer borrowing terms. The purpose is to monitor these companies. It also can be implied that non-financial firms with banker on the board will have longer borrowing terms than the financial firms.

This thesis presents three essays on global yield curve factors and international linkages across yield curves. The essays represent a contribution to our understanding of the effect of globalization on yields, addressing three topics: modeling global and local yield curve factors, modeling global and local yield curve factors in excess bond returns and a joint model of global macroeconomic and yield curve factors. The first essay proposes and develops an empirical model of global and local yield curve factors based on three factors proposed by Nelson and Siegel (1987) dynamized and reinterpreted by Diebold and Li (2006) as level, slope and curvature. The results support the existence of a global yield curve composed of global factors which together with local factors describe the yield curve of the USA, Germany and the UK. Specifically, the global factors explain on average 55% of the variance of yields, and impulse response functions indicate that shocks to global factors are larger and last longer than shocks to local factors. In the second essay, we examine the predictability content of the global and local yield curve factor model to predict excess bond returns one year ahead. We use a rolling window of fifteen years to compare in-sample predictability of our model and two benchmark models: the model proposed by Cochrane and Piazzesi (2005) and the global and local factor model proposed by Dahlquist and Hasseltoft (2011). The results indicate that the global and local yield curve factors from our model predict excess bond returns with an adjusted R² up to 59%. We also find that global factors explain up to 58% of the forecast error variance when predicting excess bond returns. Moreover, our model outperforms both competing models considering the USA, Germany and the UK.The third essay proposes and estimates a joint model of global macroeconomic and yield curve factors, which shows the interaction between global yield curve factors and global macroeconomic factors. Our findings show that the influence of macroeconomic factors on yield curve factors is stronger than the influence of yield curve factors on macroeconomic factors.

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