Past research on Top Management Team (TMT) consensus has investigated relationships between consensus on strategic goals and means and organizational performance. The process of setting goals and selecting the means to compete is known as deliberate strategy. However, strategy making includes not only deliberate planning but also the interactive learning of top managers and others as they handle emergent events. Therefore, TMT consensus is important not only on deliberate strategies, but also on the underlying logic that guides emergent strategies. Recent theory suggests these are the two primary forms of consensus: consensus on goals and means and consensus on organizational capabilities. Consensus on goals and means is significant because of its influence on deliberate strategy, while consensus on organizational capabilities is important for managing emergent adaptation. Both forms of consensus play a key role in realizing a desired level of organizational performance, and the importance of one type of consensus or the other will vary depending upon certain contingencies. The purpose of this dissertation was to empirically test relationships between both forms of consensus and organizational performance while considering the influence of three contingencies: the environment, strategic discretion and strategic approach. Previous research provided the theoretical basis for the study and the anticipated relationships. The contingencies were used as a framework to develop propositions. Ten hypotheses were developed from these propositions. The research context was the hotel industry. Three dimensions of the environment in five hotel market segments were identified. Primary data were collected from TMT members at 44 hotels. When tested, three of four hypotheses concerning the environment were rejected, indicating the environment has less to do with consensus and organizational performance than suggested. Support for the hypotheses regarding strategic discretion was found, signifying the choice to franchise or not has a strong effect upon consensus. Clear support was found for three of the hypotheses regarding strategic approach. Unconfirmed, weak support was found for the fourth. The strategic approach results suggest that consensus surrounding primary strategies is closely linked with organizational performance.

An increase in competition and broader product lines has resulted in cannibalization of product categories. This waste of marketing resources concerns both manufacturers and retailers and has drawn the attention of marketers to the need for effective category management. One strategy to consolidate categories is product elimination. The questions that concern managers are where will the customers of the eliminated brand go and will the customers be captured by the same manufacturer? This dissertation seeks to provide an answer to this question by developing a metric and modeling approach to measure the level of reverse cannibalization and evaluate changes in competitive position as a result of brand exit. This dissertation develops a hybrid reverse cannibalization model that utilizes both customer background information and transactional data to measure changes in competitive position upon the exit of a brand. A brand draw metric was developed as the ratio of the number of customers drawn by a brand from another brand's core group to the size of the competitor's core group. Bootstrapping experiments with 6, 8, and 10 brands were conducted to test the robustness of the brand draw metric. A Multinomial Logit model was specified to examine the plausibility of the proportional draw market share model assumption. The violation of the Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives assumption provided support for the finding of asymmetries in brand draws. The MNL and hybrid models suggest that some brands compete more strongly with sister brands than with competing manufacturer brands. Strategic implications of the model findings are discussed for each simulated brand exit. The dissertation provides substantive contributions through an enriched understanding of category structures and brand draw effects. The reverse cannibalization model to predict brand choice in the event of a brand exit and the robust brand draw metric that captures asymmetric competitive effects are methodological contributions. The model makes a valuable contribution to marketing practice because it allows marketers to evaluate the potential for strategic changes to product lines through simulated exits.

The use of derivatives in corporate risk management has grown rapidly in recent years, motivated in part by the success of the financial industry in creating a variety of over-the-counter and exchange-traded products. To evaluate the effectiveness of a risk management program or to test financial theories of risk management, a firm's underlying risk exposure must be known. While survey evidence and some empirical evidence exist on how and why a firm engages in various risk management activities through derivatives markets (e.g., Bodnar and Gebhardt 1996, and Tufano 1996, 1998), there is little empirical research examining the effect of derivative usage on a firm's risk and return characteristics. This dissertation examines a sample of gold producing firms whose derivative strategies are known and investigates how their equity and accounting based performances are related with the degree of derivative usage and the price uncertainty of their underlying products. In addition, using insights from both the various Value-at-Risk and multifactor literature, the ‘marginal’ Value-at-Risk framework is applied to measure the market risk exposures of the commodity based corporations. The dissertation consists of three chapters. The first chapter, Effects of Derivatives Usage on Commodity Based Corporations, provides descriptive evidence on the risk management activities of a sample of gold mining firms and empirically investigates whether a firm's use of derivatives materially reduces the overall expected equity-return risk as well as the earnings risk measured by analysts' forecasts. The second chapter, Risk Measurements for Derivatives Users and Non-Users, examines two firms who have well articulated derivative use strategies that are diametrically opposite. This chapter focused on measuring a firm's risk exposure and how a hedging policy alters the exposure. The last chapter, An Investigation of Gold Prices in Spot and Futures Market, provides empirical evidence of the gold price movement during the last decade and explores the nature of the both cross sectional and time series relationship between prices in the gold futures market and spot market. The results show, in general, both the spot and futures gold prices react at the same time (within the same-day) and in the same way to new information coming to the market. The potential contributions of this dissertation to the corporate risk management literature include that; this study (1) empirically investigates the consequences of the derivatives usage on a firm's expected equity return volatility as well as forecasted earnings volatility, and (2) examines how financial markets price the risk of a firm's underlying assets.

Over the past decade, the declining competitiveness of U.S. manufacturers has received considerable attention. Studies have documented the weakening competitive position in global markets, the decline of the manufacturing base, and the continued closing of manufacturing plants in the United States. Attention has focused on manufacturing strategy and technological innovation in manufacturing as possible solutions to these growing problems. Adoption and implementation of new manufacturing technologies, known collectively as advanced manufacturing technology (AMT), offer the promise of successfully competing in global markets. Specifically, these technologies offer advantages in areas that U.S. manufacturers need to address: flexibility, quality, shorter product life cycles, and decreased product development cycles. However, there are two major concerns: (1) American manufacturers have been slow to adopt advanced process technology, and (2) those firms which have decided to adopt these new technologies, have had limited success in implementing them. Management has limited experience with AMT and few guidelines to assist them in the transition from the factory of today to the factory of the future. This research provides an in-depth, integrative approach to address these issues by focusing on the experiences of organizations pursuing a strategy of automation. Using a multiple case research strategy, this exploratory study investigates the reasons why firms chose to adopt advanced manufacturing technologies and the decision making process involved in justifying them. In addition, this study identifies obstacles to justification and provides insight into how firms have either ignored or overcome these obstacles. The decision to adopt AMT is only the first step in becoming or remaining competitive. These technologies need to be successfully implemented to achieve proposed benefits. This research provides insight into how firms managed their AMT implementations and what obstacles were encountered. In addition, factors that contribute to or impede the successful implementation of advanced manufacturing technologies are identified. Finally, the difficulties of performing post-implementation evaluations by these firms are examined. Results from this study corroborate earlier findings that comprehension retrospective evaluations of AMT projects are rarely performed. Guidelines are presented to assist management grappling with these complex issues. Finally, this study suggests propositions for future research.