Esta tese se insere numa linha de estudos voltada a compreender o valor da informação contábil para os doadores em suas decisões de investimento nas organizações do terceiro setor. Considerando que este é um tema pouco explorado no cenário brasileiro, o objetivo desta pesquisa é investigar a relevância da informação contábil para explicar os investimentos privados em entidades do terceiro setor no Brasil, qualificadas como Organizações da Sociedade Civil de Interesse Público (OSCIP), através da análise da relação entre a informação proveniente da contabilidade e as doações e contribuições privadas. A teoria da agência e a teoria da demanda constituem o fundamento teórico para: (i) o exame do relacionamento entre a informação contábil que comunica a eficiência operacional da entidade e os investimentos privados, oriundos de doadores individuais e institucionais; e, complementarmente, (ii) o exame da associação entre a informação contábil que sinaliza a reputação organizacional e os investimentos privados, provenientes de doadores individuais e institucionais. Adotando uma abordagem metodológica empírico-positivista, o desenvolvimento da pesquisa se deu por meio da análise predominantemente quantitativa, com a utilização da análise fatorial e de regressões, de informações contábeis e evidências de 124 entidades qualificadas como OSCIP, cujos dados, relativos aos anos de 2006 e 2007, provém do Cadastro Nacional de Entidades de Utilidade Pública do Ministério da Justiça (CNEs/MJ) e do Cadastro Nacional de Pessoas Jurídicas (CNPJ) da Secretaria da Receita Federal. Os resultados encontrados sugerem que a informação contábil que comunica a eficiência operacional da OSCIP é relevante para explicar os investimentos privados nessas organizações, no entanto, essa relevância refere-se a investimentos privados institucionais e não a individuais, o que contraria os achados de pesquisas realizadas em países mais desenvolvidos, como os Estados Unidos. Constatou-se ainda baixo poder explicativo da referida informação emanada da contabilidade. Identificou-se também relação significativa entre a informação contábil que sinaliza a reputação da OSCIP e as doações e contribuições privadas. Esses achados apresentam implicações práticas. Primeiramente, os resultados dão indícios de que investidores sociais mais informados são mais sensíveis às variáveis contábeis, isso indica que esforços de órgãos reguladores, e do próprio governo, no sentido de reduzir os custos dessas informações devem ser proveitosos. Adicionalmente, as evidências sugerem que as entidades do terceiro setor brasileiro, qualificadas como OSCIP, podem usar a contabilidade para comunicar potenciais investidores sociais institucionais sobre a utilização dos recursos arrecadados. Por fim, o baixo poder explicativo da informação contábil pode indicar a necessidade de: (i) evidenciação de outros elementos que comuniquem o desempenho da instituição; e (ii) aprimoramento das informações geradas pela contabilidade voltadas às organizações do terceiro setor como, por exemplo, a separação das despesas por atividades e por categoria funcional. / This dissertation is part of a research line aimed at understanding the value of accounting information for donors when making investment decisions in non-profit organizations. As this theme has received little attention in the Brazilian context, this research aims to examine the relevance of accounting information to explain private investments in Brazilian non-profit entities qualified as Public Interest Non-Governmental Organizations (OSCIP), by analyzing the relation between accounting information and private donations and contributions. Agency theory and demand theory represent the theoretical foundations to: (i) examine the relation between accounting information that communicates the entitys operating efficiency and private investments by individual and institutional donors; and, in addition, (ii) examine the association between accounting information that signals the organizations reputation and private investments by individual and institutional donors. Based on an empirical-positivist methodological approach, the research was developed predominantly through quantitative analysis, using factor and regression analysis of accounting information and evidence from 124 entities qualified as OSCIP, whose data for 2006 and 2007 were obtained from the Ministry of Justices National Registry of Public Service Entities (CNEs/MJ) and the Internal Revenue Services National Registry of Legal Entities (CNPJ). The results found suggest that accounting information about the OSCIPs operating efficiency is relevant to explain private investments in these organizations, although this relevance refers to institutional and not individual private investments, as opposed to research findings from more developed countries like the United States. It was also found that this accounting informations explanatory power is low. A significant relation was identified between accounting information that signals the OSCIPs reputation and private donations and contributions. These findings entail practical implications. In the first place, the results appoint that more informed social investors are more sensitive to accounting variables, which indicates that efforts by regulatory entities to reduce the cost of this information would be useful. In addition, evidence suggests that Brazilian non-profit entities qualified as OSCIP can use accounting to inform potential institutional social investors about the use of the collected resources. Finally, the low explanatory power of accounting information can indicate the need to: (i) disclose other elements about institutional performance; and to (ii) improve accounting information about non-profit organizations, such as the separation of expenses per activity and functional category.

Studien syftar till att försöka förstå vilka förutsättningar yrkesverksamma inom ideella organisationer upplever sig ha i arbetet med målgruppen - våldsutsatta kvinnor i missbruk. Vilka kontexter de yrkesverksamma upplever att deras ideella organisationer verkar inom samt hur de agerar i förhållande till samma kontexter i arbetet med målgruppen. Studiens resultat och analys bygger på upplevelser från nio respondenter som är yrkesverksamma inom ideella organisationer och som arbetar med nämnd målgrupp. Analysmetoden som använts är av kategorin, innehållsanalys. Studiens teoretiska referensram innefattar ett politiskt processperspektiv men också ett intersektionellt perspektiv, vilket används för att skapa djupare förståelse av insamlat material. Det visar sig att de ideella organisationerna själva har en intersektionell förståelse av sin målgrupp, en förståelse som utgör grunden för dess funktion som komplement till det offentliga. De ideella verkar inom kontexter där viktiga faktorer utgör det offentligas olika krav och syn på målgruppen och dess behov, vilket styr finansiellt. Andra faktorer är avsaknaden av allierade och hur det påverkar samarbete, genom kunskapsutbyte och målgruppens synlighet. Det här har gjort att de har utvecklat organisationen som flexibelt kan anpassa sig till behoven samtidigt som de bedriver opinionsbildning i syfte att långsiktigt förändra bilden av målgruppen och därmed även förutsättningarna för sin verksamhet.

There is a large body of literature indicating that profits are shifted into countries with better conditions, i.e. lower tax rates. It was showed that the problem is nonlinear. However, precise estimates are missing in the available literature. In this thesis we improved the precision by allowing for nonlinearity, time-variant tax semi-elasticity of profits and financial secrecy is a driver of the profit shifting. We showed that all three elements of the estimation are very important. Our analysis suggests that the profit shifting problem started at the turn of millennium and increases since, with some temporal drops. The highest amount of profit shifted out of the United States was almost 300 billion of U.S. dollars with the consequent revenue loss of 62.3 billion of U.S. dolars.

Traça a interseção de dois temas que, embora estejam sempre em voga, nos últimos 20 anos têm sido alvo de acalorados debates: Estado e sociedade civil. O relacionamento entre o Estado e a sociedade civil é assunto em constante modificação, buscando-se sempre o seu equilíbrio em dado momento da vida social. Relação marcada pelo autoritarismo em sua origem, atualmente debate-se a legitimação da participação da sociedade civil na ação administrativa como instrumento de efetivação da cidadania e, assim, da Democracia. É o movimento da Nova Administração Pública, inserindo o discurso do consenso em seu relacionamento com a sociedade civil e propondo uma Administração Pública Consensual ou Paritária, em que o cidadão é considerado partícipe de decisões de interesse público desde a sua concepção até a sua execução e controle. A Administração Pública não mais se impõe sobre o cidadão somente , mas com ele se relaciona de modo a atingir o bem maior que é o interesse público. Neste contexto, paralelamente ganha forças um novo conceito de organização da sociedade civil, chamado Terceiro Setor. À medida que ganham volume as atividades desenvolvidas voluntariamente pela iniciativa privada, sem fins lucrativos, para fazer frente a direitos fundamentais ou em defesa do conteúdo constitucional, a relevância de sua atuação é cada dia mais considerada. Sobretudo diante da legitimação constitucional de atuação da iniciativa privada em ações de conteúdo social, deixando claro que neste tema não há monopólio estatal, fortalece-se o apelo pelo desenvolvimento de ferramentas consensuais de atuação compartida entre a Administração Pública e o Terceiro Setor. Insere-se o debate das parcerias entre a Administração Pública e o Terceiro Setor no contexto da Administração Pública Consensual ou Paritária, de modo a buscar a sua legitimação legislativa através da análise sistemática das ferramentas atualmente existentes para a formalização deste relacionamento e, sobretudo, da proposta de uma reformulação do atual regime jurídico com vistas à regulação das parcerias entre a Administração Pública e o Terceiro Setor. / It traces the intersection of two topics that have been the subject of heated debate in the last 20 years, although they are always in vogue: State and civil society. The relationship between State and civil society is in constant change, seeking always the equilibrium at a given moment of social life. Relationship marked by authoritarianism in its origin, nowadays the legitimacy of civil societys participation in the administrative action as a tool for effective citizenship and democracy is debated. It is the movement of New Public Management, introducing the consensus discourse in its relationship with civil society and proposing a Consensual or Joint Public Management, in which the citizen is considered a participant in the decisions of public interest since its conception to its implementation and control. The public administration no longer imposes your power on the citizen only but it relates with him in order to achieve the greater goal which is the public interest. In this context a new concept of civil society organization called Third Sector gain forces. While the private voluntary no profit actions grown up in order to respond to fundamental rights or in defense of the constitutional content, the relevance of its work is increasingly considered. Mainly because of the constitutional legitimacy of social private action, making it clear that this issue is not a State monopoly, the call for the development of tools for consensual activities shared between the public administration and the Third Sector is increased. Introduce the discussion of partnerships between public administration and Third Sector in the context of Consensual or Joint Public Management in order to seek its legislative legitimization through the systematic analysis of the currently existing tools to formalize this relationship and, especially, the actual legal regime reformulation proposal to regulate the partnerships between the public administration and the Third Sector.

The management of operations for a customer contact center (CCC) presents significant challenges. Management's direction is to reduce costs through operational efficiency metrics while providing maximum customer satisfaction levels to retain customers and increase profit margins. The purpose of this correlational study was to quantify the significance of various customer service representative (CSR) characteristics including internal service quality, employee satisfaction, and employee productivity, and then to determine their predictive ability on customer satisfaction, as outlined in the service-profit chain model. The research question addressed whether a linear relationship existed between CSR characteristics and the customers' satisfaction with the CSR by applying ordinary least squares regression using archival dyadic data. The data consisted of a random sample of 269 CSRs serving a large Canadian bank. Various subsets of data were analyzed via regression to help generate actionable insights. One particular model involving poor performing CSRs whose customer satisfaction was less than 75% top box proved to be statistically significant (p = .036, R-squared = .321) suggesting that poor performing CSRs contribute to a significant portion of poor customer service while high performing CSRs do not necessarily guarantee good customer service. A key variable used in this research was a CSR's level of education, which was not significant. Such a finding implies that for CCC support, a less-educated labor pool may be maintained, balancing societal benefits of employment for less-educated people at a reasonable service cost to a company. These findings relate to positive social change as hiring less-educated applicants could increase their social and economic status.

In this paper, I talk about Section 965, also known as the transition tax, enacted in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). First, I examine loopholes under the old tax regime that allowed for the accumulation of offshore earnings and how the TCJA closes those loopholes. After detailing the legislation of the transition tax and a comparison with Section 965 included in the American Jobs Creation Act in 2004, I compare firms’ recorded provisions of the transition tax with an estimation based on the past disclosures of firms’ permanently reinvested earnings and finds that the transition tax will generate an estimated $308 billion in tax revenue. Lastly, I propose three alternate scenarios to the transition tax: taxing all offshore earnings under the GILTI regime, treating offshore cash as eligible for the 21% corporate rate, and a ratable payment plan compared to the current phase-in payment plan.

Although Latina/os are the largest minority group in California and enrolling in higher education in record-breaking numbers (Zarate & Burciaga, 2010), the graduation rate of this group is very low (Kewal-Ramani, Gilbertson, Fox, & Provasnik, 2007). A phenomenological approach was used in this study to explore the lived experiences of Latina/o students at a for-profit college in the Inland Empire. Students from different major fields of study described how they explored and sought college information, how they experienced both community and for-profit colleges, and described their levels of sense of belonging in both community and for-profit colleges. Students shared their experiences reflective of the serpentine pathway of college-conocimiento (Acevedo-Gil, 2017) and the influence of a sense of belonging (Hurtado & Carter, 1997; Hurtado & Ponjuan, 2005; Maestas, Vaquera, & Zehr, 2007) on their persistence in higher education. Findings indicate that Latina/o students have limited college choices, weigh criteria to choose a for-profit college after departing from community colleges to “transfer across,” and feel that they belong in the for-profit institution for reasons that included either feeling cultural congruity with other students, or simply experienced college community support from faculty/ staff. Recommendations include: instructors be assigned as mentors who are personable and exhibit genuine caring; for-profit colleges should be as financially accessible as community colleges for all students; and the personalization available in for-profit colleges should be implemented into the community colleges.

A disassembling of the Virginia Theatre Machine (VTM), LLC and its annual restaging of an adaption of Charles Dickens’ novella, A Christmas Carol. The VTM is a custom-built trailer theater that combines the performance energy of street theater with the magic and wonder of a fully designed theatrical production. I provide a historical context for this 21st century revising of mobile theater that switches the paradigm of the traditional theater experience by bringing the stage to audiences, for free. I draw from critical social and cultural theory to make sense of the audience impact in public and private outdoor spaces. I examine how each new performance environment brings its own resonance to bear on the wonder of the presentation at hand. I present the VTM as an alternative business model and form of theater outreach to inspire a new generation of theater-makers to rethink the traditional constraints of producing theatre.

Research on high-performing nonprofit boards has indicated a positive relationship between a board's strength and an organization's effectiveness; however, how boards achieve success remains relatively unknown. The Kirton adaption-innovation (KAI) theory was used to examine board members' cognitive styles in relationship to facilitating problem solving and decision making. This nonexperimental, quantitative study included archived nonprofit board data from 2 American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) studies that had addressed the high performance of boards and factors associated with organizational success. A total of 102 randomly selected, high-performing nonprofit board members completed the KAI Inventory, which was used to measure cognitive style on a continuum; participants also answered questions from the second ASAE study to indicate board performance. Correlational and regression analyses were used to determine whether cognitive style on problem solving and decision making predicted high performance of boards. Results showed that cognitive style was not a significant predictor of problem solving; however, participants with an innovation cognitive style provided answers to the decision-making performance questions that were noticeably lower than participants who were classified as adaption. Findings might be used by nonprofit board members to enhance individual growth, increase organizational agility, and improve problem solving for effective decision making to ensure nonprofit board excellence.

Despite a large body of literature addressing the issue, questions remain about whether nonprofit hospitals provide more community benefit than do for-profit hospitals. This lack of information impacts governments, hospitals, and the healthcare industry, as stakeholders attempt to generate requirements to which hospitals should adhere to maintain nonprofit status, and thus tax exemption. This study addressed this lack of information by examining U.S. hospitals through the lens of stewardship theory to determine whether nonprofits are better stewards of the public good than for-profits, and thus likely to provide higher quality and access. The study applied logistic regression to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) data indicating levels of perceived quality, or patient satisfaction, and American Hospital Association data identifying service mix profitability, an indicator of access. The sample included all 2,701 U.S. hospitals receiving CMS funding. Findings indicated that high quality hospitals were more likely to be nonprofit than for-profit (b = 0.07; Exp(B) = 1.07; p = .000). Neutral access hospitals, those with mid-range service mix profitability, were more likely to be nonprofit than for-profit (b = 1.73; Exp(B) = 5.63; p = .000) as were high access hospitals, those with low service mix profitability (b = .276; Exp(B) = 1.32; p = .04). The R_L^2 for the models was .06 and .03, respectively. Given this limited predictive power, it seems unlikely the added value (access and quality) nonprofits are likely to provide justifies tax exemption. If further research supports this argument for other potentially relevant variables such as technical quality of care, governments could remove nonprofit hospitals' tax exemptions and apply the resulting tax revenue to other policy areas to realize positive social change.