The topic of my thesis is the communication strategy of non-profit organizations. The theoretical part deals with the explanation of important concepts, such as: non-profit organization, communication and communication process, marketing and marketing mix and finally, communication is explained as a complete integrated system. The practical part deals with specific non-profit organizations, such as Ozvěna and Hnutí Brontosaurus. The following methods are used in my thesis: a questionnaire, analysis of documents, interviews with the public and employees of organizations. The current communication strategy of organizations are analyzed and strenghts and weeknesses are identified. Based on this analysis using the above methods, there are mentioned specific recommendations for improvements.

This thesis deals with problems of the non-profit organizations in the field of sports, especially with the civil associations. Main aim of the thesis is to present possibilities of the financial sources which would provide for exercising the sport activities. Another objective is to prove that the sport organizations cannot get along without the public support. The theoretical part focuses on the brief characteristics of particular forms of the non profit organizations and closer considers possibilities of financing the civil associations in the sport area. The applied part targets the concrete civil associations which act in the field of sports. Right after the short characteristics is the main focus given to the financial sources which function is to secure the organization's activity. At the conclusion there is undertaken the analysis of its economy during four years.

An increasing number of students are selecting for-profit universities to pursue their education (Snyder, Tan & Hoffman, 2006). Despite this trend, little empirical research attention has focused on these institutions, and the literature that exists has been classified as rudimentary in nature (Tierney & Hentschke, 2007). The purpose of this study was to investigate the factors that differentiated students who persisted beyond the first session at a for-profit university. A mixed methods research design consisting of three strands was utilized. Utilizing the College Student Inventory, student’s self-reported perceptions of what their college experience would be like was collected during strand 1. The second strand of the study utilized a survey design focusing on the beliefs that guided participants’ decisions to attend college. Discriminant analysis was utilized to determine what factors differentiated students who persisted from those who did not. A purposeful sample and semi-structured interview guide was used during the third strand. Data from this strand were analyzed thematically. Students’ self-reported dropout proneness, predicted academic difficulty, attitudes toward educators, sense of financial security, verbal confidence, gender and number of hours worked while enrolled in school differentiated students who persisted in their studies from those who dropped out. Several themes emerged from the interview data collected. Participants noted that financial concerns, how they would balance the demands of college with the demands of their lives, and a lack of knowledge about how colleges operate were barriers to persistence faced by students. College staff and faculty support were reported to be the most significant supports reported by those interviewed. Implications for future research studies and practice are included in this study.

Master’s thesis is focused on evaluation of financial health in selected company. The thesis consists of theoretical definition of the problem, description the company and its business. The following are the individual analysis of financial health and in conclusion there are suggestions for improvement the current situation in the company.

The impact of the global financial crisis, which has its origins in the United States, reverberated through the private sector and brought some country economies to their knees. This highlighted the interconnectedness of world economies. Big companies filed for bankruptcy whiles others were acquired in a bid to avoid total annihilation. Unemployment levels reached terrifying heights. While the world economy was unravelling and the legitimacy of governments was determined by their ability to alleviate the financial pressures their citizens were under; another group was feeling the pressure. However, the impact the financial crisis has had on group has not received nearly as much attention. Although the non-profit sector may not feature highly on the economic scales and matrices; it is part a part of the global economic fabric. It receives funds from governments, corporates, foundations, philanthropists and individual citizens. The size of the donations they receive correlates to the size of the disposable income of their donors. It therefore follows that when the world economy unravelled; non-profit organisations saw a marked decline in the funds received. This paper sets to establish not only how the South African non-profit sector responded to what became a funding crisis for them; but also to test their responsive strategies within the framework of the strategy process. An exploratory research method was used to investigate this problem, and the results showed on the one hand, a spirited sector that has taken the challenge on by adopting more commercial thinking to ensure their financial sustainability. On the other it was found that challenges with a key strategic partner prevailed as well as the challenge of accepting the incongruence of embracing commercial practices vis-à-vis holding deep social mission values. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / zkgibs2014 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MBA / Unrestricted

Let G = (V, E) be an arbitrary graph, and consider the following game. You are allowed to buy as many tokens as you like, say k tokens, at a cost of $1 each. You then place the tokens on some subset of k vertices of V. For each vertex of G which has no token on it, but is adjacent to a vertex with a token on it, you receive $1. Your objective is to maximize your profit, that is, the total value received minus the cost of the tokens bought. Let B(X) be the set of vertices in V - X that have a neighbor in a set X. Based on this game, we define the differential of a set X to be ∂ (X) = |B(X)| - |X|, and the differential of a graph to equal the max{∂(X)} for any subset X of V. In this paper, we introduce several different variations of the differential of a graph and study bounds on, and properties of, these novel parameters.

This dissertation examines debt ratios, profitability, and commercial activity of the following hospitals: (i) for-profit hospitals [FP hospitals], (ii) nonprofit hospitals engaging in joint ventures [JV NP hospitals], and (iii) nonprofit hospitals that do not engage in joint ventures [Non-JV NP hospitals]. Financial variables are measured using Form 990 tax return data of nonprofit hospitals and audited financial statements of for-profit hospitals. The purpose of the study is to compare: (1) JV NP hospitals versus FP hospitals and (2) JV NP hospitals versus Non-JV NP hospitals. Potential similarities between FP and JV NP hospitals may indicate nonprofit partners are becoming indistinguishable from for-profit entities, which may further call into question the applicability of tax-exempt status for these nonprofit hospitals. Results indicate significant differences exist in debt ratios between FP and JV NP hospitals. A lack of significant differences in profitability lends support to the argument that JV NP hospitals may exhibit similarities in financial characteristics to for-profit hospitals. Regarding comparisons within the nonprofit sector, significant differences were found in profitability and unrelated business income percentages. Differences in debt ratios were not found between the two groups - which fail to support Internal Revenue Service (IRS) arguments that there is something 'special' about JV NP hospitals. JV NP hospitals reported lower profitability on all measures than Non-JV NP hospitals. Findings of lower profitability are consistent with arguments that JV NP hospitals are attempting to improve their financial condition by partnering with for-profit hospitals. Significant differences were not found in contributions received as a percentage of total revenue between the nonprofit hospital groups. This dissertation contributes to existing literature that compares nonprofit and for-profit hospitals through reliance on tax return data of nonprofit hospitals. Tax returns serve as a primary source for the public and IRS to scrutinize a nonprofit organization's financial operations. The IRS uses tax return data to evaluate a hospital's activities, measure its charitable activities and scrutinize the organizations' tax-exempt status. Investigating these differences using actual tax return data provides support to the argument that nonprofit hospitals engaging in joint ventures exhibit similarities to for-profit hospitals. / Ph. D.

Volunteer leaders are an underutilized resource in nonprofit organizations. However, as volunteer directors are stretched to their capacity, others in the organization must provide leadership to volunteers. One way for nonprofit organizations to increase their capacity is to develop the leadership skills of identified volunteer leaders. Because time and resources are limited in nonprofit organizations, the purpose of this study was to determine if identifying and training volunteer leaders is beneficial to the outreach of organizations they serve. This study was conducted in three parts. A Delphi study, was conducted with volunteer directors in the community to identify leadership competencies for volunteer leaders. At the conclusion of three rounds of iteration, 42 competencies were identified. A volunteer leader training and assessment instrument was developed based on those 42 competencies. Next, social network analysis was used to identify volunteer leaders in three groups at a nonprofit organization. ForceAtlas2 analysis was used to generate networks of nodes (volunteers) and edges (connections) to determine leaders within each group. The identified leaders were compared to leaders identified by the volunteer director of the organization. Overall, the volunteer leaders selected by the director matched those identified by the social network analysis with the exception of one outlier in one of the volunteer groups. Lastly, the identified volunteer leaders were invited to the volunteer leader training developed from the competencies identified by the Delphi. Participants were assessed prior-to, and following, the training by their peer volunteers based on their ability to demonstrate the identified competencies. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics to determine if a there was a difference between the participants’ demonstration of the competencies after the training compared to before. The results of the analysis indicated there was no statistically significant increase in participant’s ability to demonstrate the leadership competencies and skills as a result of the workshop. However, there was an overall increase for participants’ ability to demonstrate 31 of the competencies covered in the training. The researcher suggests revising the workshop into a comprehensive series of shorter trainings and replicating the study to determine if additional competencies can be improved upon.

To improve meat quality and consistency, cattle feeders have moved towards implementing end-point marketing strategies (EPM) based on visual estimates of physiological characteristics. A commonly used 0.5 inch backfat target was used in this analysis. Recognizing that physiological targets will not necessarily result in profit maximization; this research developed a profit maximization rule (PMR) that accounts for the dynamics of animal growth, output prices and costs. A natural field experiment was conducted in Iowa to evaluate the potential for the PMR. One hundred twenty three fed cattle were randomly assigned into two treatments (PMR and EPM). Realized profit results indicate that EPM outperformed the PMR methodology by $24.35 per head. However, simulations that relax some experimental constraints resulted in the PMR outperforming EPM by $102.06 per head. Interestingly, the PMR did not negatively affect carcass quality. Therefore, relaxing PMR constraints in future experimental studies is expected to improve realized profitability.

<p> In this thesis we study three problems of joint pricing and inventory in a retail setting.</p> <p> The first problem deals with pricing and ordering for a retailer facing uncertain supply as well as price-sensitive uncertain demand. We first formulate the problem as two cases of pricing: a simultaneous pricing strategy where the price and the order quantity are simultaneously determined and a postponed pricing strategy where the price and the order quantity are sequentially determined. We provide a solution procedure to find the optimal price and order quantity that maximizes the retailer's profit. By conducting sensitivity analysis, we find that if the supplier is very unreliable, then the retailer is better off postponing the pricing decision in order to maximize profit. Reducing supply variability does not have the same impact on retailer's profit as much as increasing the expected supply amount. Most importantly we find that the difference between the expected profits in the two cases is not due to higher expected revenue, but due to lower expected salvage and shortage losses when the pricing decision is postponed.</p> <p> Next, we study a price setting retailer selling two substitutable goods to consumers. The retailer must decide on the optimal price and inventory that maximize the expected profit. Aside from making these decisions under demand uncertainty, the retailer must also account for the substitution that occurs upon stock out of one of the two products. Furthermore, we also take into account the related cannibalization of the available stock due to customers substituting. We formulate the problem and find the optimal prices analytically as well as conduct sensitivity analysis. We compare our findings to a model that does not consider substitution and the resultant cannibalization of inventory and find that the model that does not consider substitution tends to overestimate the expected profit for low degrees of substitution and tends to underestimate the expected profit for high degrees of substitution. Furthermore, the prices charged and the inventory held at the retailer for each product, tend to be suboptimal. The total quantity stocked in general, for both products, is lower when we account for substitution and cannibalization.</p> <p> Lastly, we study the problem of finding optimal order quantities and prices for the bundle (a collection of two or more goods sold jointly at one price) and individual items as well as how a supplier can use bundles to achieve coordination with its retailer. In a decentralized supply chain, we show that bundling is not always a feasible or a very profitable strategy. This is especially true if the products or the bundle are discounted beyond a certain point, because it may make the supplier worse off while making the retailer better off. This reduces the effectiveness of the bundling strategy in a supply chain setting. We find that the supplier, retailer and the supply chain can simultaneously improve their profits by offering bundled goods to the consumers and achieve performance of a coordinated supply chain when the supplier charges the retailer a bundling fee upfront and in exchange offering a bundling discount to the retailer.</p> <p> In the last chapter, we summarize our findings as well as provide direction for future research.</p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)