Thesis (Ph. D.)--INSEAD, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 259-269).

Marketing managers are often challenged to show, in the language of finance, that marketing expenditures enhance financial performances. Responding to this call, the first essay examines the impact of a firm's advertising and research and development (R&D) on the systematic risk of its stock, a key finance metric for publicly listed firms. Integrating developments in the accounting, finance, and marketing literatures, we propose that both a firm's advertising and R&D will create market-based assets that will insulate the firm from changes in the stock market, thereby lowering its systematic risk. After controlling for factors that accounting and finance researchers have shown to be associated with the systematic risk, we find that a firm's advertising and R&D lower its systematic risk. For theory, the findings extend prior research that has focused on the effect of marketing initiatives on performance metrics without consideration of the impact of those initiatives on the firm's systematic risk. For practice, the ability of advertising and R&D to reduce systematic risk highlights the multi-faceted financial implications of marketing programs. This study's findings may also surprise senior management and finance executives who are skeptical of the financial accountability of marketing programs. In the second essay, we extend the existing literature to identify a fundamental signal from advertising (S[subscript ADV]) which the stock market and financial analysts might recognize as value-relevant information. We find that increases in the proposed advertising signal increase the cumulative abnormal stock returns (CAR) after controlling for the accounting and finance variables known to affect CAR. However, surprisingly, we find that the value-relevant advertising signal (S[subscript ADV]) is not related to financial analysts' expectation of firm value and their earnings forecasts, and that S[subscript ADV] increases the errors in analysts' earnings forecasts. We thus provide empirical evidence that analysts under-react to the fundamental advertising signal, S[subscript ADV], despite the fact that the measure is impounded in firms' stock prices. With the findings, this study joins a growing literature that demonstrates a link between marketing and financial value of a firm, and furthermore encourages finance professionals' better understanding of marketing accountability. / text

Thesis (DBA(DoctorateofBusinessAdministration))--University of South Australia, 2004.

Thesis (Ph.D.)(Engineering Management)--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references. Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

Sustainable development problems are a genre of multi-objective ill-defined problems. The scarcity of resources in developing countries adds to the convolution of these problems, which is rooted within many disciplines. Focusing on the energy sector development and its sustainability, the main contribution of this research is of two folds: (i) The use of conventional energy sources has many negative implications on the economies of developing countries. A review of the global efforts to enhance economic growth through the deployment of renewable energy technologies is presented. Noting the failure of these efforts to accomplish their objective in due time, the appropriate strategic management tools were identified and integrated in the problem solving process to aid steer the decision process towards more effectual solutions. (ii) On the micro level, energy development projects are capital-intensive and hence prohibitive for most of the developing countries. The essence of a successful strategy is then to find the dynamic strategic fit (DSF) between these systems' external factors (opportunities and challenges) and their internal factors (resources and capabilities). We present an algorithm that utilizes the DSF concept to improve on sub-optimal solutions represented by economically feasible developmental projects. We present two real-world applications that illustrate the algorithm's ability to reduce the behavioral makeup of decision-makers and politics effects, which are discerned with MADM models.

The large number of schedules which must be evaluated to develop an optimal solution as opposed to the time required to evaluate a single schedule of the Three Machine Flow-Shop Scheduling Problem when minimizing Makespan, the n/3/F/Cmax problem, causes this problem to be considered unsolvable. The objective of this research is to demonstrate the existence of exploitable structural properties which can be used to construct optimal or near-optimal solutions to the n/3/F/Cmax problem. The interaction of two structural properties identified, the Job Class Decomposition and the Complementary Makespan Paths, has led to theoretical results which reduce the previously smallest solution space known to exist for the n/3/F/Cmax problem; the permutation sequences. These theoretical results indicate that certain subsets of the permutation sequences are always dominated in Makespan Value while other subsets will generally dominate all other permutation sequences in Makespan Value. Each of these subsets are shown to have definable structural properties which exist among the 6 Job Classes defined by the Job Class Decomposition, such as Symmetry 1 and Symmetry 2. Symmetry 1 and Symmetry 2 relate to some strong dependencies which appear to exist among the 6 Job Classes. These strong dependencies suggest that certain sequencing patterns, defined as the Preferred Sequences, generally lead to optimal or near optimal Makespan sequences when implemented in algorithmic form; while other sequencing patterns, defined as the Dominance Categories, lead to sequences that are always dominated in Makespan Value. Eleven Sequencing Rules based upon the properties of the Preferred Sequences and the 6 Job Classes are developed. Four simple constructive algorithms are based upon these sequencing rules. A fifth algorithm is designed to capture all the interrelationships of the properties identified in this thesis. Seven instances of two simple constructive algorithms, one instance each of the two other constructive algorithms, three instances of the fifth algorithm and Palmer's Method are implemented to solve 100 job sets defined in each of six experiments. The results of the six experiments indicate that the fifth algorithm and several instances of the first two simple constructive algorithms, in general, construct a superior Makespan sequence to the one constructed by Palmer's 'Slope index' Method.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Oregon State University, 2007. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 109-112). Also available on the World Wide Web.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Auburn University, 2008. / Abstract. Vita. Written in two volumes. Volume one is public and contains non-proprietary data and results. Volume two contains all proprietary data, and will be available only to the dissertation committee and industrial sponsor. Includes bibliographical references (p. 161-166).