国立情報学研究所で電子化したコンテンツを使用している。

This study aims to investigate the determinants of capital structure in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia and their effect on firms’ performance. The study addresses the following primary question: What are the factors that influence the capital structure of SMEs in Malaysia? The sample of this research is SMEs in the east coast region of Malaysia. Adopting a positivist paradigm, the research design includes a preliminary study comprising 25 interviews with the owner-managers of SMEs, which is analysed using thematic analysis. The results are used to finalise the conceptual framework for the main study, which takes the form of a self-completion questionnaire survey. Usable responses were received from 384 firms, giving a response rate of 75.3%. The survey data is analysed using a series of binomial logistic regression models. Results reveal that there was no indication for the impact of owner’s education and experience on capital structure decisions. Other owner-related factors, firm characteristics, management performance and environment were found to relate to all types of capital structure. Both complete and partial mediating effects are also discovered in this study. The results provide evidence to support the pecking order hypothesis (Myers, 1984; Myers and Majluf, 1984), agency theory (Jensen and Meckling, 1976) and culture model of Schwartz (1994). It appeared that owner-managers in Malaysia do not strive to adjust their capital structure towards some optimal debt ratio, which is contrary to the static trade-off theory (DeAngelo and Masulis, 1980) of capital structure. This study makes several important contributions to the existing studies of capital structure. This research led to the development of a model of capital structure determinants by integrating factors related to owner-managers, firms, culture, and environment. This study incorporates methodological triangulation that may mitigate the problem of the difficulties in accessing financial data of SMEs in Malaysia. This study also provides meaningful insight into the financing preferences of the owner-managers with relevant implementations to academics, business practitioners, financial providers and policymakers. The research findings should assist owner-managers in making optimal capital structure decisions as well as help the policymaker in making an appropriate policy on the financing.

This PhD thesis investigates power relationships within a corporate Finance Department employing a Foucauldian approach to explaining corporate hierarchies and resistance and the implications.Research was conducted in the form of a case study and observation of a corporate finance department, referred to as the 'Finance Department', at the 'Company', referred to as such for confidentiality purposes. The Company is a large Dutch based mail and logistics entity that operates internationally across over 200 countries and has its corporate head office just outside of Amsterdam. The Company's Finance Department was in the throws of change, particularly around hierarchies as a result of the reengineering process with the purpose of creating efficiencies. The aim of the research was to evaluate the power relationships that existed within the hierarchies between management and workers who worked either for the Finance Department or closely with it, and to analyse the outcomes of these power relationships in terms of resistance.The case study is a Foucauldian insight into the different individuals who worked either within the Finance Department or closely with it, with an evaluation of their roles and how their differing power structures impacted upon the workflow within the Finance Department.The outcome of this research is an evaluation of those individuals and their relationships at a particular point in time, which was impacted by so many different factors. The research could give readers an understanding of power relationships and framework for contextual Foucauldian evaluation.The significance of the contribution arising from this particular piece of research is that it involves the combination of a case study method with a Foucauldian perspective. The combination of these two elements allows the research to be done both from the top down and also from the bottom up. Increasing in use as a research tool (Hamel, 1992), the case study contributes uniquely to our body of knowledge of individual, organisational, social and political phenomena (Yin, 1994). The Foucauldian perspective plays an important part in terms of an understanding of power, despite the fact that it is often difficult to fully comprehend the meanings behind Foucault's work (McHoul & Grace, 1993).

The aim of this study is to explore different graders¡¦ concept of unknown and performance in solving equations in concrete situations. In recent years of early algebra research in the United States (Carraher, Schliemann, & Schwartz, in press), it was found that through systematic teaching, low and middle graders¡¦ algebra performance was better than the same or even higher graders without teaching. Therefore, semi-structured interview was adopted to collect data on three cases: a second-grader, a fifth-grader and a seventh-grader who were using textbooks that follow Grade one-nine Integrated Coordinate Curriculum in SY89. The interview questions included addition and subtraction CHANGE problems, as well as multiplication and division EQUAL GROUPS problems; with natural numbers below 20, and given in four types: one-step, two-steps mixed, relating two unknowns and comparing two unknowns. Data analysis was conducted by referring to three sources of data: protocols from interviews, children¡¦s problem-solving records and interviewer¡¦s observation records. Research findings were: all three cases that received guidance could use equations to express problems; ¡§Undoing¡¨ was the most frequently used problem-solving strategy; both second and fifth graders could simplify expressions by number properties in concrete situations; both fifth and seventh graders could check if answers were reasonable; the meaning of equal sign developed from ¡§finding the results of¡¨ to ¡§equality in measures¡¨; and, individual differences in ¡§trial and error substitution¡¨ among three cases. Such results were consistent to that of Carraher. It is suggested that, introducing early algebra in the elementary school is helpful to children¡¦s learning of formal algebra in the junior high school.

This study explores the reasons for why aboriginal parents decide for their children to cross district to school with a specific focus on three school district of Paiwaness tribes in Pingtung County. The area we research is undeveloped and the researcher is himself Paiwanese. It aims to explore why aboriginal parents choose to leave the school in tribes, discover the problems that parents and children encounter , how they handle the problems and the adaptations for children. The study adopts semi-structured questionnaire to conduct in-depth interviews. Purposive sampling was used to identify interviews and there were ten aboriginal parents were interviewed. The conclusions of the research are as the following:. 1.The main reasons for crossing district schooling include lack of peer-learning competitive in tribes, adaption in mainstream society and parents¡¦ positive discipline. 2.Poor marketing strategy of tribal school administrator, and local indigenous teachers¡¦ background and their negative image within daily lives affected parents¡¦ trust toward tribal school. 3.The decision of cross district schooling for children is influenced by parents¡¦ learning experience and opinions of family numbers. 4.The main consideration of cross district schooling for parents is to get household register of school district easily without comparing the ideas between the two different kinds of schools. 5.The problems they faced include driving the children to school, cultural learning of Paiwanese and learning tribal lives. But the main solution is passive pattern for parents. 6.The results of cross district school choice are satisfied mostly with parents¡¦ expectation but there is still a gap.

Child sexual abuse is a burning issue raising concern because of the statistics which indicate that one in five children are victims of some kind of abuse. The protective program, the “Underwear Rule” was launched by the European Council in order to inform and equip parents, caregivers and children towards this sensitive issue. The program is addressed to all European countries in the exact same form and content, with only differentiation the language. This study tries to examine theoretically and empirically the applicability of the “Underwear Rule” to Greek parents, in the sense that each country has its own cultural background and cast of mind, which differentiate the acceptance and the applicability of the Rule. This relates mainly to prior research of Kirana exploring Greek parents’ perspective towards sexual education, as well to Babatsiko’s research about developing national protective programs corresponding to local and cultural demands. An interview study has been carried out, focusing on parents’ point of view about the Underwear Rule. The analysis is based on the subjective experiences and thoughts of seven parents whose children are in the age-target group covered by the Underwear Rule. The parents’ interviews have been analyzed thematically. Overall this study argues that The Underwear Rule is a good protective program, but parents would like improvements and enrichment in order the burning topic of child sexual abuse to be covered more effectively

国立情報学研究所で電子化したコンテンツを使用している。

This PhD thesis investigates power relationships within a corporate Finance Department employing a Foucauldian approach to explaining corporate hierarchies and resistance and the implications.Research was conducted in the form of a case study and observation of a corporate finance department, referred to as the 'Finance Department', at the 'Company', referred to as such for confidentiality purposes. The Company is a large Dutch based mail and logistics entity that operates internationally across over 200 countries and has its corporate head office just outside of Amsterdam. The Company's Finance Department was in the throws of change, particularly around hierarchies as a result of the reengineering process with the purpose of creating efficiencies. The aim of the research was to evaluate the power relationships that existed within the hierarchies between management and workers who worked either for the Finance Department or closely with it, and to analyse the outcomes of these power relationships in terms of resistance.The case study is a Foucauldian insight into the different individuals who worked either within the Finance Department or closely with it, with an evaluation of their roles and how their differing power structures impacted upon the workflow within the Finance Department.The outcome of this research is an evaluation of those individuals and their relationships at a particular point in time, which was impacted by so many different factors. The research could give readers an understanding of power relationships and framework for contextual Foucauldian evaluation.The significance of the contribution arising from this particular piece of research is that it involves the combination of a case study method with a Foucauldian perspective. The combination of these two elements allows the research to be done both from the top down and also from the bottom up. Increasing in use as a research tool (Hamel, 1992), the case study contributes uniquely to our body of knowledge of individual, organisational, social and political phenomena (Yin, 1994). The Foucauldian perspective plays an important part in terms of an understanding of power, despite the fact that it is often difficult to fully comprehend the meanings behind Foucault's work (McHoul & Grace, 1993).

This thesis presents an empirical research that aims to explore insight generation in discrete-event simulation (DES) studies. It is often claimed that simulation is useful for generating insights. There is, however, almost no empirical evidence to support this claim. The factors of a simulation intervention that affect the occurrence of insight are not clear. A specific claim is that watching the animated display of a simulation model is more helpful in making better decisions than relying on the statistical outcomes generated from simulation runs; but again, there is very limited evidence to support this. To address this dearth of evidence, two studies are implemented: a quantitative and a qualitative study. In the former, a laboratory-based experimental study is used, where undergraduate students were placed in three separate groups and given a task to solve using a model with only animation, a model with only statistical results, or using no model at all. In the qualitative study, semi-structured interviews with simulation consultants were carried out, where participants were requested to account examples of projects in which clients change their problem understanding and generate more effective ideas. The two separated parts of the study found different types of evidence to support that simulation generates insight. The experimental study suggests that insights are generated more rapidly from statistical results than the use of animation. Research outcomes from the interviews include descriptions of: the phase of a simulation study where insight emerges; the role of different methods applied and means used in discovering and overcoming discontinuity in thinking (for instance, the role of consultant s influence in problem understanding); how some factors of a simulation intervention are associated with the processes of uncovering and overcoming discontinuity in thinking (for example, the role of clients team in the selection of methods used to communicate results); and the role of the model and consultant in generating new ideas. This thesis contributes to the limited existing literature by providing a more in depth understanding of insight in the context of simulation and empirical evidence on the insight-enabling benefits of simulation based on an operational definition. The findings of the study provide new insights into the factors of simulation that support fast and creative problem solving.

Introduction: Innovations in modern medicine have led to the development of many effective laboratory tests for diagnosis and monitoring of disease. However, research suggests that 20-50% of tests may be inappropriately ordered. Test-ordering intervention development experts i.e. those staff at individual institutions who are tasked with designing different approaches to improving test-ordering practice, often have large datasets on the test-ordering practices within their jurisdiction as part of clinical care, but often have no clear guidance on how to choose which tests are worthy of intervention. These staff can include both clinicians and knowledge translation experts working in separately or in tandem to improve test-ordering behaviours at their institutions. The overall aim of this research is to build a prioritization framework to assist healthcare organizations in deciding which tests are worth targeting for intervention. Methods: The first stage of this project was a scoping review of the literature, the purpose of which was to determine the factors and processes used by intervention developers to choose which tests to target for intervention. Identification of these articles allowed for the descriptive analysis of the factors and processes reported in making the test-ordering decisions. The second stage involved semi-structured interviews with intervention development experts and contains information on their experiences with measuring and prioritizing among factors, as well as which processes they found to be most effective in making the decision on which tests to target for intervention. Results: By exploring all relevant guideline statements and related empirical studies, we gathered a wide range of factors to consider when deciding which test(s) to target for intervention. Overall, we identified 18 factors in our review and 30 in our interviews, highlighting the potential complexity of these decisions. While our studies were not the first to demonstrate that targeting tests is complex and that many factors must go into the decision of deciding which tests to target, our work has identified the most comprehensive range of factors available. We also explored processes reported by the studies that led to these decisions. Of the nine processes identified in our review, some were identified in a majority of cases (literature review, followed by clinical standard-implicit and consensus process), and other processes far more infrequently. Our interviews with relevant stakeholders demonstrated that the interviewees used 18 unique processes to decide which tests to target for intervention and helped to prioritize among the processes that are most effective in making these decisions. Conclusion: The current work prepares the way to develop a framework designed to help intervention developers choose which tests can most efficiently result in improved test-ordering processes. After additional interviews to ensure saturation of themes, we will be able to proceed with framework development, perhaps involving a consensus process of all relevant stakeholders. We hope to widely distribute our framework to assist intervention development experts working in a wide variety of milieus to help them decide which tests are worth targeting for intervention such that their respective institutions can provide the highest quality of care to patients.