Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000183 EndHTML:0000003190 StartFragment:0000002393 EndFragment:0000003154 SourceURL:file://localhost/Users/benjaminhudgens/Desktop/Final%20Thesis.docx This thesis will use data from 2009 to examine two questions about the Microfinance industry. First, why do firms charge interest rates well beyond their cost of funds and second, are there important differences at the national level that can help us to understand the high interest rates in Microfinance? I find that interest rates are primarily a result of operating expenses, but profit-status has large effects in developed Microfinance markets. I also find that the Economist Intelligence Unit’s measures of regulatory environment and industrial development explain a large portion of the variation in interest rates across countries.

What objective should an entrepreneur focus on when starting a new business enterprise? Both a survival orientation and a profit one are important for the continuity of the new venture, but a survival focus is key in the hazardous early months or even years. In this thesis, I identify the conditions under which an entrepreneur should switch from a survival orientation, where the venture’s likelihood of survival is more critical, to a profit orientation where the venture’s profit instead is more critical. I accomplish this task by determining the optimal time to switch from a survival to a profit orientation based on maximizing the entrepreneur’s accumulated utility over a given time horizon. At each time period, the utility is positively associated with the amount of added value to the business venture that entrepreneur owns and manages, and the time horizon is determined by the time at which the entrepreneur’s venture exit – for instance, it is being sold. That added value contains a planned portion (e.g., due to what the entrepreneur can control) and an unplanned portion. The portion of a firm’s added value that is unplanned depends on the entrepreneur’s orientation, whereby, at any time period, the expected added value and its variation are considered to be low under a survival orientation, but they are considered to be high under a profit orientation. I use an approach from the economics literature, known as the LEN model, where the use of an exponential utility function (E), a linear relationship between the utility and random effects (L), and normality of those random effects (N) allow me to transfer the probabilistic objective function into a certainty equivalent that makes the problem tractable. The decision framework and its resulting findings suggest two environmental and two entrepreneurial characteristics that influence the existence of a time at which to switch orientation from survival to profit. Based on these characteristics, I derive sixteen scenarios and discussed some of the necessary conditions for the existence of a switching time. I find that it is not straightforward to determine whether the orientation switch should be delayed or expedited as business environments (or entrepreneurial types) are compared. I thus further develop my analysis by adding more structure to the functional forms that underline the behavior of how the mean of and variation in the firm’s added value are regulated over time, as well as for the risk propensity of the firm’s owner. This exercise allow me to study the conditions under which the switching time should be delayed or expedited, and to numerically investigate the behavior of a firm’s total valuation as changes occur in key model parameters. I use franchising as an application of the sensitivity analysis I perform to identify whether a change in a model parameter (everything else being equal) should delay or expedite the orientation switch. Based on this application, I would advise entrepreneurs to switch their orientation later if they go into entrepreneurship as a franchisee rather than as a franchisor. A simulation analysis allows me to further propose a positive relationship between a firm’s total valuation and the planned added value by the entrepreneur to that firm. That analysis also suggests a positive relationship between a firm’s total valuation and the expected unplanned-added-value growth under a profit orientation, but a negative relationship under a survival orientation. Further, I find a positive relationship between total valuation and the variation in unplanned-added-value growth under a survival orientation, but a negative relationship under a profit orientation. One of the key challenges that have been raised for future entrepreneurship research is how to define an entrepreneur’s objective function. My thesis contributes to this debate by suggesting that, in the early years, there should be an orientation switch, that is, sequentially as opposed to simultaneously consider both survival and profit maximization. My thesis also contributes to the literature on firm growth because using risk-return tradeoffs to characterize the two orientations is unique in the entrepreneurial context, and so is the consideration of a sequential use of these orientations to study firm added value over time and the resulting accumulated total valuation. Characterizing each of the two orientations – survival and profit – based on risk-return tradeoffs and linking these orientations to firm growth open up new avenues for research in entrepreneurial decision making.

Purpose: The purpose of this article was to see how NPO’s can use relationship marketing in their activities to secure donors and funding for their causes and projects. Methodology: Unstructured interviews were held with representatives from different hospices as well as with representatives from the umbrella organisation, the HPCA. Findings: The findings showed that the concerned hospices all had similar issues and suffered with the same problems, both economical and communicative. Successful relations were built on personal contacts and projects where donors took an active part The higher the grade of involvement the higher commitment and loyalty towards the hospice/organisation. The factors that were salient in the successful cases are also factors that are salient in the theory of successful relationship marketing (e.g. loyalty, commitment, interaction). Value: The article highlights the complexity of the market of NPO’s in South Africa and some of the issues they are faced with.

What objective should an entrepreneur focus on when starting a new business enterprise? Both a survival orientation and a profit one are important for the continuity of the new venture, but a survival focus is key in the hazardous early months or even years. In this thesis, I identify the conditions under which an entrepreneur should switch from a survival orientation, where the venture’s likelihood of survival is more critical, to a profit orientation where the venture’s profit instead is more critical. I accomplish this task by determining the optimal time to switch from a survival to a profit orientation based on maximizing the entrepreneur’s accumulated utility over a given time horizon. At each time period, the utility is positively associated with the amount of added value to the business venture that entrepreneur owns and manages, and the time horizon is determined by the time at which the entrepreneur’s venture exit – for instance, it is being sold. That added value contains a planned portion (e.g., due to what the entrepreneur can control) and an unplanned portion. The portion of a firm’s added value that is unplanned depends on the entrepreneur’s orientation, whereby, at any time period, the expected added value and its variation are considered to be low under a survival orientation, but they are considered to be high under a profit orientation. I use an approach from the economics literature, known as the LEN model, where the use of an exponential utility function (E), a linear relationship between the utility and random effects (L), and normality of those random effects (N) allow me to transfer the probabilistic objective function into a certainty equivalent that makes the problem tractable. The decision framework and its resulting findings suggest two environmental and two entrepreneurial characteristics that influence the existence of a time at which to switch orientation from survival to profit. Based on these characteristics, I derive sixteen scenarios and discussed some of the necessary conditions for the existence of a switching time. I find that it is not straightforward to determine whether the orientation switch should be delayed or expedited as business environments (or entrepreneurial types) are compared. I thus further develop my analysis by adding more structure to the functional forms that underline the behavior of how the mean of and variation in the firm’s added value are regulated over time, as well as for the risk propensity of the firm’s owner. This exercise allow me to study the conditions under which the switching time should be delayed or expedited, and to numerically investigate the behavior of a firm’s total valuation as changes occur in key model parameters. I use franchising as an application of the sensitivity analysis I perform to identify whether a change in a model parameter (everything else being equal) should delay or expedite the orientation switch. Based on this application, I would advise entrepreneurs to switch their orientation later if they go into entrepreneurship as a franchisee rather than as a franchisor. A simulation analysis allows me to further propose a positive relationship between a firm’s total valuation and the planned added value by the entrepreneur to that firm. That analysis also suggests a positive relationship between a firm’s total valuation and the expected unplanned-added-value growth under a profit orientation, but a negative relationship under a survival orientation. Further, I find a positive relationship between total valuation and the variation in unplanned-added-value growth under a survival orientation, but a negative relationship under a profit orientation. One of the key challenges that have been raised for future entrepreneurship research is how to define an entrepreneur’s objective function. My thesis contributes to this debate by suggesting that, in the early years, there should be an orientation switch, that is, sequentially as opposed to simultaneously consider both survival and profit maximization. My thesis also contributes to the literature on firm growth because using risk-return tradeoffs to characterize the two orientations is unique in the entrepreneurial context, and so is the consideration of a sequential use of these orientations to study firm added value over time and the resulting accumulated total valuation. Characterizing each of the two orientations – survival and profit – based on risk-return tradeoffs and linking these orientations to firm growth open up new avenues for research in entrepreneurial decision making.

In the aftermath of the verdict of acquittal in “Sweden’s largest insider trading case” once again a debate concerning illegal insider trading has arisen and a lot of criticism is directed towards the laws. The purpose of this master´s thesis is to investigate the occurrence of insider trading and whether or not Swedish legislation has decreased the presence of insider trading on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. For this purpose the legal aspects and relevant arguments are presented and discussed. An event study is performed in order to see if profit warnings show evidence of insider trading on the Swedish stock exchange. The event study show statistically significant evidence of illegal insider trading in 21 out of 44 cases on the Stockholm stock exchange. There is no significant difference in insider trading between profit warnings and reversed profit warnings. The regression show evidence of that the law has had a small negative impact on insider trading in the sample which is surprising and that insider trading is industry correlated. The high frequency of insider trading shows evidence of that the laws are inefficient in stopping insider trading. Since it is clear that the law is seriously flawed in stopping insider trading and that insider trading actually may positively affect the market and its participants, it is argued that it is very questionable if the legislation is necessary and if insider trading should be prohibited at all.

In recent years, domestic high education institutions encounter the difficulty of decrease in numbers of enrolling students and increase in number of schools, which is resulted from the trend of less newborn children and more loosing governmental policy by Ministry of Education. In such environments, the private schools encounter high pressure of seeking sufficient enrolling students and more competition among schools. Therefore, management of private schools should focus on increasing efficiency of operating organization so private schools can be developed with more competition in the future. How to operate and allocate available resources and to achieve educational goals become the most important topics for school management. Schools are Non-Profit Organization and this thesis is intended to evaluate the relative efficiency of faculties of colleges or universities with Data Envelopment Analysis¡]DEA¡^, which is popular methods for researches regarding Non-Profit Organization. It includes the CCR model and BCC model and selects 4 input items and 3 output items as evaluation indicators. The thesis employed the DEA model in the case study to evaluate the Overall Efficiency, Pure Technical Efficiency and Scale Efficiency of school faculties and performed slack variable analysis to inefficient faculties to obtain inefficiency reasons and provide further improvements. The case study in this thesis was performed with efficiency evaluation on 19 faculties of certain medical university based on the information of fiscal year of 2008. The results were as below: 1.Overall Efficiency: In the case study, 7 faculties are relatively inefficient, representing 37% of population. This means that over 1/3 of total population is inefficient. 2.Pure Technical Efficiency: In the case study, 3 faculties have no pure technical efficiency, representing 16% of population. The negative result is less than overall efficiency, which implies that the inefficiency may be caused by scale inefficiency. 3.Scale Efficiency: In the case study, 7 faculties have no scale efficiency, representing 37% of population. Such faculties need to adjust their scales to reach the overall efficiency. This thesis also provided the improvement suggestions for inefficient faculties and operation strategies for management.

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The ability to map the profit made across a cotton field would enable producers to see in detail where money is being made or lost on their farms. This ability, which requires sitespecific knowledge of yield, fiber quality, and input costs would further enable them to implement precise field management practices to ensure that they receive the highest return possible on each portion of a field and do not waste materials and other inputs throughout the field. Investigators at Texas A&M previously developed a wireless-GPS system that tracks where a module of cotton comes from within a field. This system is a necessary component in mapping fiber quality, which is a major determiner of price and thus profit. Three drawbacks to the previous wireless-GPS system are that (1) a person must manually trigger the system to send wireless communications when a field machine dumps its load of cotton, (2) multiple field machines of the same type (e.g., two cotton pickers) cannot be used simultaneously on the same system within the same field, and (3) no software is available to automatically produce fiber-quality maps after the data are downloaded from the gin. The first two drawbacks, the need for an automatic communication-triggering system and the needed capability for multiple field machines of the same type are the problems addressed in this work. To solve the first problem, a sensing and control system was added to a harvester to automatically indicate when the machine is dumping a basket load of cotton so that wireless messages can be automatically sent from the harvester to subsequent field machines without human intervention. This automated communication-triggering system was incorporated into the existing wireless- GPS system, rigorously field tested, and ultimately proven to operate as designed. Linking data collected with this system together with classing information will enable producers to create fiber-quality maps, and linking fiber-quality maps with yield and input-cost maps will enable them to create profit maps. Additionally, a radio-frequency identification (RFID) system was integrated with the wireless-GPS system to allow for multiple field machines of the same type. The RFID system was also rigorously field tested and proven to operate as designed. Finally, the entire system was field tested as a whole and operated according to design. Thus, the wireless-GPS module tracking system now operates without human intervention and works with multiple field machines of each type, two additional capabilities required for practical use in large farming operations.

Complex system is a dynamic open system. Through its interactive variables, we can set up a multiple objectives integrative model, using goal programming technique, to help decision makers making decisions more scientifically. With the outcomes forecasted by complex system, decision makers can make strategy more reasonably and precisely. Adoption of Complex system will make strategy management become more scientific and systematic. Non-profit organizations are star industry of 21-th century. How to manage a non-profit organization well and keep it sustainable forever, management science doesn¡¦t develop a system yet. In this research, we take Kaohsiung as a case study to use complex system in managing non-profit organizations. According to complex system-- multiple objectives integrative model in population, economic, social development resource, environment and sanitation, we can make a systematic plan and forecast to help public policy and budget making. The application shows that the model could find a new way for non-profit organization management and provide a connection in theory and practice.

The unbalance of Taiwan employment environment and the economic recession have caused the unemployment rate to rise steadily. In order to resolve this situation, Council of Labor Affairs proposes several schemes and plans. One of the plans is the ¡§Plan of Expanding Employment¡¨. This plan encourages the third system to create more regional working opportunities with creative experimental methods, will of cooperation and combine government and public resources to re-involve the unemployed back to the labor structure. Due to the high unemployment rate in the southern region of Taiwan, the research in this book will study the participation of non-profit organizations in this ¡§Plan of Expanding Employment¡¨. The interviews and surveys will be undertaken in this study to analyze the role and operation in this plan through the view of ¡§social capital¡¨. The followings are the brief findings of this study. First of all, the non-profit organizations should upgrade professional management and service regularly. Meanwhile, they need to cooperate with similar organizations in terms of strategy alliance and information sharing. Secondly, in theory, it is necessary to keep the ¡§Social Plan¡¨ because to protect and secure the minority in the society. However, it needs to be improved technically which means that the non-profit organizations should conduct the plan to provide voluntary working opportunities in the society to extend ¡§Plan of Expanding Employment¡¨. Thirdly, the planning of the policy should have tangible progress and amendment to reflect the demand and supply in the employment environment. Finally, this research is studied in the view of ¡§social capital¡¨ to analyze the interaction between the plan and the employment environment and the direction of the plan. As the result, this research will provide another direction and thought to the observation of employment policy and become a reference to other associated researches.