Bakgrund: Kina betraktas idag som en attraktiv marknad för utländska investerare. I takt med globaliseringen medförs ett större internationellt företagsansvar under allt hårdare press från externa intressenter, vilket har gett begreppet Social Corporate Responsibility (CSR) en betydande roll. För att bemöta samhällets förväntningar på samhällsansvar blir CSR ett viktigt verktyg i verksamhetsstyrningen. Lokala sociala, kulturella och religiösa traditioner påverkar organisationer och därmed också hur verksamheter styrs och de är därmed väsentliga aspekter som bör uppmärksammas. Syfte: Avsikten med uppsatsen är att fördjupa oss i hur tre svenska storföretag arbetar med CSR i Kina. Vårt ändamål med studien är att komma fram till en lösning på hur västerländska företag på bästa sätt kan hantera CRS-arbetet i Kina utifrån CSR:s grundläggande ansvarsområden; ekonomiskt, juridiskt, etiskt och filantropiskt ansvar. Metod: Vi har utifrån en kvalitativ studie analyserat hur de tre studerade företagen hanterar CSR-arbetet i Kina. För studien har vi intervjuat representanter för tre ledande aktörer i sina respektive branscher som har en etablerad verksamhet i Kina, samt två experter inom CSR och företagande i Kina som utger ett annat perspektiv på vårt forskningsämne. Slutsatser: Vi har framställt en egen modell som lämpar sig vid CSR-arbete i Kina som bygger på tre ansvarsområden. Vi anser där att samtliga ansvarsområden bör överlappas och samspelas för att skapa ett övergripande värde inom CSR. Dock tror vi inte att det är möjligt att uppnå ett optimalt ansvar, men menar ändå att det är varje företags ansvar att sträva efter ett värdeskapande arbete som både främjar företaget och samhället mot en bättre utveckling.

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The purpose of this research is to investigate the concept of discretionary thrift amongst low income consumers. Flatters and Willmott (2009) identified discretionary thrift as an advancing trend amongst affluent developed nation consumers. These consumers temper their spending habits depending on product or occasion; there are certain products for which consumers are willing to pay a premium (behaviour associated with materialism) and there are others that consumers are looking to save money on (behaviour associated with frugality). Thrift for low income consumers, especially in emerging market settings, is not considered discretionary; rather, it is portrayed as ‘necessary’ to ensure survival. This study followed a descriptive, quantitative design and surveyed 154 individuals considered to be at the bottom of South Africa’s income pyramid. There is sufficient evidence from this research to support the proposition of discretionary thrift amongst low income consumers. Low income consumers were found to save money by paying as little as possible (behaviour associated with frugality) for fast moving consumer goods with low functional and status risk and were found to willingly pay the required premium (behaviour associated with materialism) for socially visible aspirational brands of clothing and fast moving consumer goods. The level of frugality and materialism expressed with respect to these products was not influenced by age or level of education. However, the level of frugality expressed with respect to these products was affected by an individual’s gross and disposable income. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Teoreties is ‘n onwettige piramideskema uitvoerbaar, maar wiskundigeberekeninge bewys dat dit onmoontlik is om vol te hou. Die ineenstorting van ‘n onwettige piramideskema loop gewoonlik uit op ‘n woordewisseling en hofsake. Die doel van hierdie studie is om lig te werp, eerstens oor die vraag of bedrae wat deur onwettige piramideskema verkry is ingesluit moet word by die bruto inkomste van die belastingpligtige, met spesifieke verwysing na of dit deur die belastingpligtige ontvang is. Tweedens moet gelet word dat besprekings oor onwettige piramideskemas ook die debat ontlok of belastingpligtige geregtig is op die toelaatbare aftrekkings vir uitgawes wat aangegaan is om onwettige inkomstes deur onwettige piramideskema voort te bring. Laastens sal ‘n studie gedoen word ten opsigte van die moontlikhede wat vir die belegger beskikbaar is, naamlik kan hy / sy enige aftrekkings kry vir belegging wat verlore gaan weens insolvensie van onwettige piramideskema en word hy / sy belas op inkomste verdien uit ‘n onwettige piramideskema. Die Suid-Afrikaanse regsbank worstel al vir ‘n geruime tydperk met die vraag of inkomste verdien uit onwettige aktiwiteitebelasbaar is. Een van die sterkste sosiale argumente teen die besluit om belasting te hef op inkomste verkry uit onwettige aktiwiteite, is dat die regering voordeel uit misdaad trek, deurdat hul ‘n gedeelte van bedrae wat op onwettige wyse verkry is neem. Die probleem is fundamenteel een van beleid. ‘n Breedvoerige databasis sal geskep word van regspraak en ander bronne, plaaslik sowel as internasionaal, ten einde riglyne uiteen te sit om die belasbaarheid van onwettige transaksies te bepaal, meer spesifiek die van ‘n onwettige piramideskema. / ENGLISH : An illegal pyramid scheme is theoretically feasible, but mathematical calculations have proven that it is impossible to maintain. The collapse of an illegal pyramid scheme usually ends in a heated exchange of words and lawsuits. The purpose of this study is to shed light, firstly on whether amounts obtained by an illegal pyramid scheme should be included in the gross income of the taxpayer, with specific reference to whether the taxpayer has received it. Secondly, it must be noted that the discussion of illegal pyramid schemes also produces a debate of whether the taxpayer is entitled to allowable deductions for expenses incurred to bring forward illegal revenues through an illegal pyramid scheme. Finally a study will be done regarding the available opportunities for the investor, i.e. may he / she claim for any deduction if their investment is lost due to insolvency of the illegal pyramid scheme and if he / she will be taxed on income earned out of the illegal pyramid scheme. The South African judiciary has struggled for a considerable time with the question of whether income earned from illegal activities must be taxable. One of the strongest social arguments against the decision to levy tax on income derived from illegal activities, is that the government benefits from crime, because they take a portion of the amounts that were illegally obtained. The problem is fundamentally one of policy. A comprehensive database will be created by case law and other sources, both locally and internationally, in order to set out guidelines for the taxability of illegal transactions, more specifically that of an illegal pyramid scheme. / Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Mercantile Law / unrestricted

Governments at the bottom of the pyramid are putting an increasing amount of trust inthe private sector to help build infrastructure and alleviate poverty. Therefore, finding better ways to support local entrepreneurial initiatives is crucial. Corporations and organisations alike are starting BoP initiatives to help with these challenges, yet knowledge of how these challenges can best be solved remains underdeveloped. It is suggested that creating shared value through partnerships between corporations and the BoP can help alleviate poverty as well as benefit the corporation. In sharing knowledge and resources with the BoP, corporations can also help develop the entrepreneurial ecosystem in BoP regions. Research regarding entrepreneurial ecosystems in the BoP or the workings of partnerships within BoP markets such as the Sub-Saharan African BoP is scarce. Through a thematic study of perspectives on entrepreneurship and partnerships from three different stakeholder groups active in the Sub-Saharan African BoP market, this study seeks to add to the existing body of literature on entrepreneurial ecosystems and partnerships in BoP markets. Our findings suggest that partnerships between entrepreneurs and corporations could help mitigate some ofthe challenges entrepreneurs face, provided the stakeholders have shared goals and commitment to achieve impactful and mutually beneficial results. Currently, these goals appear to be slightly misaligned.

Crafting Alliances Between A Mexican Agribusiness And The Base Of The Pyramid: An Action Research Into Strategizing By Sergio Quinones-Romandia May 2016 Committee Chair: Lars Mathiassen Major Academic Unit: J. Mack Robinson College of Business More than 4 billion people in the world face hunger every day. In addition to this imperative shortcoming, the world’s poor confront other side effects of poverty as well, including violence, forced mobility, lack of access to education and early death. In a globalized world where capitalism has become the prevailing economic ideology, alleviating poverty can no longer be the exclusive responsibility of governments, richer nations, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Today, the private sector must also “take the torch” and contribute to easing the suffering of more than half the world’s population. The Base of the Pyramid (BOP) strategy is an important opportunity for the world’s private sector to create new business opportunities while at the same time helping address and alleviate poverty. However, while the literature describes several study cases, we still have limited knowledge about the process through which managers engage in BOP strategizing. Against this backdrop, this dissertation provides a detailed account of how a Mexican agribusiness: Agroservicios Nacionales, SAPI de CV (ANSA) developed and implemented a BOP strategy to co-create value with its distributors and poor corn farmers. Our Georgia State University (GSU) research team combined Dynamic Capability Theory (DCT) and Option-Driven Strategizing (ODS) and adopted action research to establish close collaboration among the firm’s top directors, a select group of its managers, designated local distributors, and our researcher team members. This dissertation presents a detailed account of the strategizing process, how AgroEstacion was conceived, how it was implemented, and the outcomes and experiences of the overall process. I also discuss the challenges our team faced, how they were resolved, and the opportunities that emerged from the strategizing process. Finally, I describe an Integrated Model that firms can use to strategize BOP opportunities in a way that benefits both their business and the surrounding society. This dissertation also represents the challenges of utilizing DCT in a practical case, following the suggestions of several authors as Teece, Pisano, Shuen, Zollo, Winters and others, from major works of writing that encourage researchers to take this theory into a more aggregate system and apply it in a practical case.

In spite of the presence of much research in the field of foldable structures whose applications have covered most of the requirements of academic and practical aspects of life, there is still a wide domain in which to undertake further studies. One of the required studies is to invest in foldable structures for the process of temporary accommodation. This study endeavours to find solutions for folding pyramidal shapes constructed from stiff panels that can be used as an upper part of temporary accommodation units, e.g., roofs. Several attempts have been made to find a mechanism that realises the folding of a three-dimensional pyramid. These attempts led to suggest a design that represents an initial solution for folding the pyramid. It was taken into consideration in this design that the structure should deploy strain free when the thickness of its panels is not considered. Trigonometry was used to find mathematical equations that can be used to identify the lengths and angles of the proposed design plates. These equations theoretically proved the validity of the proposed mechanism. The proposed design was applied to construct an actual model formed with thick panels. Considering the panel thickness of the model plates led to amendments and improvements to the proposed design. Two actual models were experimentally tested to make sure that they achieve the design concepts in the processes of full folding and deployment. The models were also tested in the laboratory to make sure of the integrity of the panel hinges and resistance of the elements to external loading. The model was constructed in a simulation program in order to verify the foldability of the design, folding efficiency and absence of strain or collisions during the process of folding and deployment at all stages.

A pyramid wavefront sensor (PWFS) bench has been setup at the National Research Council-Herzberg (Victoria, Canada) to investigate: the feasibility of a lenslet based PWFS and a double roof prism based PWFS as alternatives to a classical PWFS, as well as to test the proposed methodology for pyramid wavefront sensing to be used in NFIRAOS for the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). Traditional PWFS require shallow angles and strict apex tolerances, making them difficult to manufacture. Lenslet arrays, on the other hand, are common optical components that can be made to the desired specifications, thus making them readily available. A double roof prism pyramid, also readily available, has been shown to optically equivalent by optical designers. Characterizing these alternative pyramids, and understanding how they differ from a traditional pyramid will allow for the PWFS to become more widely used, especially in the laboratory setting. In this work, the response of the SUSS microOptics 300-4.7 array and two ios Optics roof prisms are compared to a double PWFS as well as an idealized PWFS. The evolution of the modulation and dithering hardware, the system control configuration, and the relationship between this system and NFIRAOS are also explored. / Graduate

We present here SOUL: the Single conjugated adaptive Optics Upgrade for LBT. Soul will upgrade the wavefront sensors replacing the existing CCD detector with an EMCCD camera and the rest of the system in order to enable the closed loop operations at a faster cycle rate and with higher number of slopes. Thanks to reduced noise, higher number of pixel and framerate, we expect a gain (for a given SR) around 1.5-2 magnitudes at all wavelengths in the range 7.5 <mR <18. The correction at short wavelength will be greatly improved (SR>70% in I-band and 0.6asec seeing) and the sky coverage will be multiplied by a factor 5 at all galactic latitudes. Upgrading the SCAO systems at all the 4 focal stations, SOUL will provide these benefits in 2017 to the LBTI interferometer and in 2018 to the 2 LUCI NIR spectro-imagers. In the same year the SOUL correction will be exploited also by the new generation of LBT instruments: V-SHARK, SHARK-NIR and iLocater.

O mercado de baixa renda tem se tornado cada vez mais relevantes para todos os setores empresariais. Estima-se que em 2010 as classes C e D serão responsáveis por mais da metade do consumo do mercado interno brasileiro. Empresas de transporte aéreo brasileiras de passageiros, que historicamente se caracterizaram por prestar serviço voltado para as classes de maior renda, passaram a desenvolver estratégias para atrair o público de baixa renda para viajar de avião, partindo de estratégias concebidas em outras indústrias e adaptando às particularidades do setor aéreo. O presente trabalho identificou as estratégias de empresas aéreas brasileiras para atender o mercado de baixa renda. Devido ao fato do mercado de baixa renda para o transporte aéreo ser ainda embrionário, as estratégias se concentra ainda no composto mercadológico, como produto, preço, canal de distribuição, comunicação e serviço. Práticas adotadas pelo varejo para atrair e reter o consumidor de baixa renda, como a loja de vizinhança, porta a porta, meios de financiamento alternativos ao cartão de crédito tem sido testadas e adotadas pelas empresas aéreas analisadas, complementando as práticas usuais do mercado. Essa pesquisa avaliou ainda os principais fatores indutores e restritivos à inserção da baixa renda no setor de transporte aéreo. A maior preocupação das empresas aéreas analisadas nesse estudo é com a infra-estrutura aeroportuária, que pode se tornar limitador da expansão do setor aéreo no Brasil. Já as operadoras de turismo são percebidas pelas empresas aéreas como agente indutor à inserção da população de baixa renda, em especial pela venda de pacotes de turismo. Finalmente, essa pesquisa avaliou, ainda que de maneira sucinta as estratégias de negócio adotadas pelas empresas aéreas, e identificou um modelo de baixo custo brasileira. Trata-se de um modelo híbrido entre as estratégias de diferenciação e baixo custo. As empresas analisadas procuram simultaneamente oferecer serviços para clientes corporativos e estimular novos mercados, sobretudo o mercado de baixa renda. De acordo com Porter (1985), esse tipo de estratégia poderia ser classificado como meio-termo, visto que a empresa não adota nenhuma das estratégias genéricas. Porém, o histórico dessas empresas permite avaliar que essas empresas iniciaram sua operação com modelo mais próximo à estratégia de baixo custo, e tiveram que evoluir ou reformular completamente esse modelo de acordo com as características do mercado brasileiro. / The Bottom of Pyramid has become increasingly relevant market to all business sectors. It is estimated that in 2010 social classes C and D will account for over half the consumption of the Brazilian domestic market. Brazilian airlines, who have historically been characterized by providing service for the high income classes, began to develop strategies to attract lowincome public to travel by plane, using strategies developed in other industries and adapting to the particularities of the airline industry. This research has identified strategies for Brazilian airlines to reach the Bottom of Pyramid market. As this segment is still limit, strategies still focus on the marketing mix, such as product, price, distribution channel, communication and service. Practices adopted by retailers to attract and retain low-income consumers, as the neighborhood store, door to door, alternative financing to credit card have been tested and adopted by the airlines studied, complementing the usual practices of the market. This research also evaluated the main factors that affect the introduction of Bottom of Pyramid in the airline industry. The major concern of airlines examined in this study is with the airport infrastructure, which can limit the expansion of the airline industry in Brazil. Tour operators are already perceived by the airlines as a promoter for this process. Finally, this research evaluated the business strategies adopted by airlines, and identified a Brazilian low-cost model. The model is a hybrid between the strategies of differentiation and low cost. The analyzed airlines are seeking to offer services to both corporate customers and stimulate new markets, particularly the Bottom of Pyramid. According to Porter (1985), this strategy could be classified as stuck in the middle, because the company does not adopt any of the generic strategies. However, the history of these companies can assess that these companies started their operation with model closer to the strategy of low cost, and they had to evolve or completely redesign this model according to the characteristics of the Brazilian market