abstract: Based on multiple case studies of the transactions in China by private equity funds, this paper attempts to explore the value-creation capabilities of private equity funds at the transaction/deal level. Previous studies on financial performance of PE funds utilized data collected from publically traded companies in European/US markets. By measuring financial performance of both “pre- and post-transactions,” these studies researched two questions: 1) Do buyout funds create value? 2) If they do, what are the sources of value creation? In general, studies conclude that private equity/buyout funds do create value at both the deal level and investor level. They also identified four possible sources of such value creation: 1) undervaluation, 2) leverage effect, 3) better governance, and 4) operational improvement. However, relatively little is known about the process of value creation. In this study, I attempt to fill that gap, revealing the “secret recipe” of value creation. By carefully looking into the process of value creation, this study suggests five propositions covering capabilities at 1) deal selection/screening, 2) deal structuring, 3) operational improvement, 4) investment exit, and 5) Top Management Team (TMT). These capabilities at private equity/buyout funds are critical factors for value creation. In a thorough review of the value-creation process, this paper hopes to: 1) Share real-life experiences and lessons learned on private equity transactions in China as a developing economy. 2) Reveal the process of deal/transaction to observe measures taken place within deal/transaction for value creation. 3) Show how well-executed strategies and capabilities in deal selection/screening, deal structuring, operational improvement, and investment exit can still create value for private equity firms without financial leverage. 4) Share the experience of State-Owned Enterprises (SOE) reform participated in by private equity firms in China. This could provide valuable information for policy makers in China. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Business Administration 2016

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The necessity of seeking for the balance of public accounts has fostered administrative, social welfare and tributary reorganization, aiming at improving efficiency in public administration. In order to achieve an efficient administrative pattern, it is necessary to follow and measure costs thus generating information which subsidizes the reliable planning of a budget, in both direct and indirect public administration and also in organizations which have government participation in the control of shares, i.e., State owned enterprises. The Service, Technology and Research Company EPTS of the Universidade de Taubaté, a state owned enterprise based on the legislation of private enterprises, and with a revenue receipt resulting mainly from services performed to the Universidade de Taubaté (UNITAU), municipal autarchy, needs to meet efficiency and efficacy expectations in order to justify its foundation. Every year the budget of EPTS increases due to the rise in products requested by UNITAU, such as new researches and investments, resulting from new and diversified academic courses and also by the maintenance of the whole organizational structure. This work aims at analyzing and demonstrating the need for elaborating and implementing a Financial Planning System in the EPTS, similar to those used within private enterprises. The model proposed has as its basis the use of economic-financial indexes, which will allow the company to define future activities and provide administrators with all essential information they need in order to make financially effective decisions. / A necessidade de buscar o equilíbrio das contas públicas provocou reformas administrativas, previdenciárias e tributárias, com a intenção de aumentar a eficiência na gestão pública. Para se obter um modelo de gestão eficiente, é necessário acompanhar e mensurar os custos de forma a possibilitar informações que subsidiem o planejamento seguro de um orçamento, seja na administração pública direta, seja na indireta e entidades parestatais, no caso, empresas públicas. A Empresa de Pesquisa, Tecnologia e Serviços da Universidade de Taubaté, empresa pública de direito privado conforme legislação pertinente, e com receita advinda em sua maioria de produtos gerenciados para a Universidade de Taubaté, autarquia municipal, necessita atender às expectativas de eficiência e eficácia para justificar a sua criação. A cada ano, o orçamento da Empresa de Pesquisa, Tecnologia e Serviços da Universidade de Taubaté (EPTS) é incrementado pelo aumento de produtos requisitados pela Universidade de Taubaté (UNITAU), por novas pesquisas, novos investimentos, decorrentes de novos e diversificados espaços acadêmicos, e pela manutenção de toda a estrutura organizacional. Este trabalho objetiva analisar e demonstrar a necessidade de elaboração e implantação, na EPTS, de um sistema de Planejamento Financeiro similar aos utilizados em empresas privadas. O modelo sugerido tem como base a utilização de índices econômico-financeiros que permitirão à empresa definir as atividades futuras e fornecer aos gestores as informações imprescindíveis para tomada de decisões eficientes financeiramente.

Capital budgeting is one of the most crucial organisational tools for executing operational, business and corporate strategy. Manufacturing companies derive their profits from fixed assets that also deteriorate over time. This requires them to invest large amounts of capital to both maintain and expand their asset base. A number of studies both historic and recent produce conflicting results on the relationship between capital budgeting practices and financial performance.This study sets out to identify the current capital budgeting practices in the manufacturing/capital intensive companies operating in the South African environment, and determine the relationship between the financial performance and capital budgeting practices. The implications of the type of capital expenditure (i.e. maintenance and expansionary) are also discussed.The study was completed using primary and secondary data. Primary data consisted of capital budgeting practices data in some of the private and state-owned enterprises that was source using a survey questionnaire. The secondary data was sourced from financial statements on the McGregor BFA® database.The major finding of this research study was that, given the sufficient sub-sector analysis, there is a positive relationship between capital budgeting practices and financial performance. There were no specific individual practices that yielded significantly returns. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

This study explores the potential of transdisciplinary climate fiction prototyping to create a transformative space within state-owned enterprise governance. The approach includes a thematic analysis of governance documents within the portfolio, scenario development, narrative design, participatory sessions with the department of state-owned enterprise, related ministries, and company representatives. The narrative design climate fiction, henceforth Cli-Fi, is used to highlight complexity and create an affectual relationship with the future. The main finding is uncovering a systemic closure constituted by risk aversion that locks in transformative potential of state-owned enterprise governance. The four Cli-Fi prototypes are thus built on narratives driven by different risk behavior that hinder or enable change for sustainability, and are called The Dutiful Widower, The Future Proofers, Winning Vincent, and The Untrusted Trustee. The study concludes that transdisciplinary Cli-Fi prototyping can, and perhaps should, be leveraged to create transformative spaces within organizations and to identify closures and openings for sustainable development.

This study sought to examine strategic entrepreneurship and issues surrounding this type of activity in a public sector context. The concept of strategic entrepreneurship has received increasing attention in recent years; however, limited studies have focused on strategic entrepreneurship as a distinct construct in public sector context. Consequently, the objective of this study was to address the question of “What is the nature and scope of strategic entrepreneurship in the context of South Africa’s SOEs” through examination of theory and practice. The research question is addressed by first developing a revised framework of strategic entrepreneurship from literature on entrepreneurship, strategy, and public sector context. This revised framework is then examined on activity which is entrepreneurial and strategic within four SOEs operating South Africa as at 2011. Transcripts from a series of interviews, and publicly available documents are analysed thematically. The study identified additional supporting and external factors of strategic entrepreneurship which form a revised conceptual framework of strategic entrepreneurship. The study showed core, supporting, and the external environment elements of strategic entrepreneurship contribute to the increased level of entrepreneurial activity in the public sector context, in particular state-owned enterprises. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

This thesis uses data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) from 1991 to 2004 to estimate the short-term effects of parental unemployment on children's health through exogenous shocks from state-owned enterprise reforms at the end of the last century by employing fixed effects and instrumental variables methods. Findings show that parental unemployment decreases children's weight z-scores and reduces the frequency with which children have been ill or hurt in the past month. It also significantly affects children's nutrient intake over the past three days, particularly evident in low-income families and adolescent groups.

This thesis examines China's state-owned enterprise reform and financial reform in the last two decades. I characterize the progress of China's state-owned enterprises reform in two areas: privatization of small SOEs and mass layoffs. I argue that privatization rests on the political economy of China. I also discuss the evolution of the financial system and come up with some strategies of financial liberalization in China. Result from this study suggests that if the necessary reforms of the financial sector and state enterprises are effectively carried out, inevitably this will lead to a significantly slower rate of growth for a period of time. However, these reforms will provide the basis for a period of sustained growth in the long run.

Corporate governance has gained considerable prominence in the last decade as it has become a much more widely discussed and debated issue. The debate as to which model of corporate governance China should adopt continues as China forges a new era of interaction with the global market, especially since its accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001. The state-owned enterprise (SOE) sector in China is a significant contributing factor in China's endeavour to continue to develop its economy, provide employment and reduce poverty. Therefore, the success of SOE reform is important to China's future economic prosperity and ability to contend with social justice issues. The commencement of the reform process began in the late 1970s and many SOEs have attained significant progress in some important areas. However, all too many SOEs experience poor overall performance. Thus, the consequence of the corporate governance model and corporate structure selected will be considerable, especially as the country's market economy gains momentum. This thesis contributes to the ongoing body of work relating to corporate governance in China, and some clear results have been found. It also reviews the institutional setting in China and elements of the corporate governance literature in detail. As the ownership of firms is considered to be one of the key elements to enhance corporate governance, the empirical study considers issues relating to changes in ownership, concentration and ownership structures. It conducts an empirical study of the ownership and performance of listed corporations in China and based on these analyses, the thesis provides policy recommendations as to which model of corporate governance may best be suited to China during this transitional phase. The findings suggest that the ownership structure is a key element to enhancing corporate governance in China. The wealth affects of changes in listed firm ownership, which for the most part had the effect of reducing state ownership, were found to be positive. Concentration ownership structures per se were not found to enhance listed firm performance. The most significant findings were the following. Firstly, that institutional ownership, through the Legal Person holding companies, have a positive bearing on listed firm performance and thus by implication, upon improving corporate governance. Secondly, medium levels of Legal Person ownership were found to be the most effective. Thirdly, foreign institutions and individual investors were found to be positively correlated to performance. Similar results were found for offshore ownership, but to a lessor extent. Conversely, state ownership was found to be negatively correlated to performance. Other issues that were identified in the empirical analysis are that size does matter, in that large firms were found not to perform as well as smaller firms. Leverage appears to matter also, as highly leveraged firms were found not to perform well. The industry in which a firm operates was also found to have an affect on performance. The policy recommendations are based on the findings and observations of this thesis. The assumption is made that the present gradualist approach and regime will continue. As state ownership is shown to have a negative bearing on listed firm performance, the recommendation is that the state, at its various levels, should divest its holdings. This could be achieved through a privatization program in which the state denationalises a large proportion of its holdings. One of the keys would then be managing the change of ownership. Based on the observations and findings of this study, it is recommended that a privatization program should be instigated that supports blockholders and institutions, and does not focus purely on dispersing large proportions of holdings to diverse small shareholders. In addition, mergers and acquisitions that embrace economic efficiency should be encouraged and supported. The empirical study demonstrates that the ultimate ownership and control of tradeable shares ought to be channelled to pension funds, private institutional investors that should be encouraged to take strong stakes in the firms, to strategic investors, especially minority blockholders, and a proportion to international investors. This strategy would be in China's best interests in its present stage of development.

Background: Understanding the process of strategy change offers a unique insight into the functioning of an enterprise. While well-researched in the context of Western private firms, this process has attracted relatively little attention in state-owned Chinese enterprises. A research on this topic is particularly pertinent today, when many Chinese state-owned enterprises have attracted attention of international investors and the Covid-19 pandemic situation has created unprecedented challenges for daily operations of enterprises.  Purpose: In order to understand the process strategy change, this research has focused on the elements of the strategy change process and the role of institutional pressures in it on an example of China Eastern airline: a state-owned listed enterprise in China.  Method: This is a qualitative case study based on 7 semi-structured interviews with the employees of China Eastern Airlines. A thematic analysis is used for analyzation of the primary data. Findings/Conclusion: This research has confirmed the presence of concurrent processes of planned and emergent strategy change processes and the impactful role of normative and coercive pressures in the processes of change. Several deviations from the previous theories of strategy change were detected and attributed to the differences in national and organizational culture. The findings of this research confirm the general similarity of the process of strategy change during and outside crisis and highlight the potential cultural differences in strategy change in Western and Chinese firm.