I takt med att teknologin i nytillverkade bilar blir allt mer avancerad, ökar också antalet produktåterkallelserinom bilindustrin till följd av defekta komponenter. En produktåterkallelse ger upphov till enkostnadsökning för det berörda företaget och bör således ge en negativ effekt på aktiekursen, närmarknadsaktörer tar del av informationen. Det är inom bilindustrin vanligt att biltillverkande företagkontrakterar ut tillverkningen av fordonens komponenter. Den upptrappade outsourcingen frambringarfrågan om vilken part som ska ansvara för återkallelsens kostnader. Studien undersöker med hjälp aveventstudier och hypotesprövningar hur produktionsledets olika aktörer påverkas av information om enåterkallelse inom bilindustrin? Studien har valt ut 39 händelser när ett biltillverkande företag tvingas attåterkalla bilmodeller. Uppsatsens resultat visade att produktionsledets olika aktörer inte påverkas avinformation om en återkallelse, därmed gick det inte heller påvisa att komponenttillverkare drabbashårdare än biltillverkare av en återkallelse. Studiens resultat visade heller inget positivt samband mellanmarknadsreaktionen beroende på återkallelsens storlek, felorsak eller tidpunkten för tillkännagivandet. / As the technology in newly manufactured cars becomes more advanced, the number of product recallsin the automotive industry is also increasing due to defective components. A product recall gives rise toan increase in costs for the company concerned and should therefore have a negative effect on the shareprice when market participants consult the information. It is common in the automotive industry for carmanufacturing companies to outsource the production of vehicle components. The escalating outsourcingraises the question of which party should be responsible for the costs of the recall. The study examineswith the help of event studies and hypothesis tests how the different actors in the production stage areaffected by information about a recall in the automotive industry? The study has selected 39 events whena car manufacturing company is forced to recall car models. The results of the paper showed that thevarious operators of the production stage are not affected by information about a recall, so it was notpossible to demonstrate that component manufacturers are hit harder than car manufacturers by a recall.Furthermore, the results of the study did not show a positive relationship between the market reaction dueto the size of the recall, the cause of the withdrawal or the time of the announcement.

The risk of poor food safety is a major focus for managers in the food manufacturing industry. Despite industry-led and regulatory efforts to improve the overall food safety of US packaged consumer foods, product recalls and market withdrawals are increasing. This is especially true for the most frequent cause for food recall: the undeclared allergen. With industry trends leaning toward adoption of third-party food safety management certifications, a popular food safety code from the Safe Quality Foods Institute is evaluated using Systems Analysis. Three changes to the food safety code are proposed to address three of the top causes for an allergen-related recall in the United States. In practice, the SQF code should make better use of control theory to reduce delays in production monitoring activities, should make better use of purposeful action in the implementation of a HACCP plan to ensure continuing validity of the plan, and SQFI needs to consider adding an organizational assessment for food safety culture.

This dissertation investigates the effect of endogenous and exogenous events on firm behavior and performance. These are fundamental questions in economics. The contribution of this study is threefold. First, it provides estimates of the impact of mergers on railroad efficiency, which has important antitrust implications. Second, it provides new estimates of the effect of negative events on the market value of Johnson & Johnson, Bridgestone, and Toyota, which is important to the understanding of how markets punish corporate errors. Third, it develops better ways to estimate these effects. Chapter 2 uses the event study approach to determine how product recalls due to exogenous and endogenous shocks affect the value of the firm. Three recalls from Johnson & Johnson, Bridgestone, and Toyota have been studied in this chapter. The traditional event study method assumes that markets are efficient, a questionable assumption in the short run. Thus, the current stock value of a firm may not reflect its true market value. To address this potential problem, frontier based methods are used, including data envelopment analysis, corrected ordinary least squares, and stochastic frontier regression analysis. Stochastic frontier methods are shown to be more appropriate when market behavior is not fully rational. The evidence shows that endogenous events due to firm errors are more detrimental to firm value than exogenous negative events that are beyond the control of the firm. That is, the market is more forgiving of negative shocks that the company cannot control. Chapter 3 studies the effects of merger activity on the efficiency and productivity growth of U.S. Class I railroads from 1983 to 2008. In this chapter, I assess the effects of merger activity on efficiency, and identify the major factors associated with productivity growth. Unlike previous research, I use data envelopment analysis with an attribute-incorporated Malmquist productivity index. This approach allows firm specific measures of efficiency and productivity to be calculated for firms with differences in technology. The approach allows a decomposition of the attribute-incorporated Malmquist productivity index into technical, efficient and attribute components, the impacts of railroads mergers, and the real source and change of productivity. I find that (1) the technology efficiency performance of the seven survivor firms has grown through time; (2) mergers overall do not lead significant technology and scale efficiency gains, but there are differences across mergers; (3) mergers in the 1980s do not have significant different effect on efficiency change compared to those in the 1990s; and (4) the productivity gains are mostly attributed to the network and operation attributes change and industry technology improvement. Overall, the mergers have no direct impact on the efficiency gains or losses during our study period. The application of these techniques to product recalls and railroad merger models demonstrates how they can provide superior estimates over traditional estimation techniques. It is hoped that these applications will motivate the use of these techniques in other settings. / Graduation date: 2012

The issue of food scandals originating from unsafe food has in recent years caught the attention of the public. Consequently, the number of food recalls has increased, and food retailers and food producers are getting questioned regarding their ability to provide consumers with safe food products. Thus, because the primary responsibility to deal with this problem is the food business operators who have real control over the products within the Food Supply Chain (FSC). Even though food safety has received more interest from academic researchers and practitioners in the latter years, we could identify that previous literature still lacks research on food recalls. In addition, prior research interprets food recalls as generalizable within the FSC and does not have its various product flows in mind. In order to fill the research gap, this study seeks to gain a deeper understanding of food recalls in the context of the different product flows within the FSC from a retailer perspective. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate how the occurrence and the consequences of food recall differ across various product flows within the FSC by focusing on four elements. The elements include the challenges within the FSC to ensure food quality, the reasons behind food recall, the types of food recall, and the consequences they infer. The current study had finally answered the following research question: “How do the occurrence and the consequences of food recalls differ across various product flows within the FSC?” In order to answer the research question and address the purpose of the thesis, a qualitative study was conducted by focusing on Swedish food retailers and conducting interviews with responsible Purchasers within each of the product flows, and additionally, Quality Assurance Managers. The sample of the semi-structured interviews was selected based on the position and experience of food recalls within the retailers. This to assure that the interviewees possessed sufficient insights regarding the studied field to fulfill the purpose of the study and answer its research question. From the gathered data, several themes were derived through the thematic analysis, and the analysis and discussion regarding the elements led us to a conclusion. The result confirmed that the various product flows, and in some cases, even specific products within the flows, need to be taken into consideration when the occurrence and the consequences of food recalls are addressed within the FSC. This is because the different product flows include different products with different characteristics making them more or less complex to handle along the chain and when carrying out food recalls. Even though previous theories assume a general approach, the findings still confirmed the theories regarding the challenges within the FSC to ensure food quality, the reasons behind recalls, the types of recalls, and the consequences the recalls can infer. However, the main differences found between our study and prior research regarding the FSC were that supply chain-related reasons are more commonly related to food reclaims and that environmental consequences are considered an additional consequence of food recalls.