Broadly stated, the major objective of this study was to investigate the extent to which South African export companies exhibited characteristics of strategic flexibility, which is seen to be the most viable strategic option for a firm operating within a turbulent environment. This entailed:- (1) Determining the degree of environmental turbulence as perceived by South African export companies and identifying the most important elements of the external environment as perceived by these companies. (2) Identifying the nature and strength of the various components of strategic flexibility possessed by South African export companies facing environments of either low, medium or high turbulence. (3) Identifying the nature and strength of the various components of strategic flexibility possessed by South African export companies of different size. In order to elicit this information, 1361 questionnaires were posted to the managing directors of export firms who were members of the South African Foreign Trade Organization. The major findings of this study indicate that:- (1) Political elements of the remote environment contribute most to environmental turbulence. (2) Respondents identified economic elements as being the most important in terms of their potential impact on the long term profitability of the firm. (3) Although at present the majority of the firms surveyed were classified as operatIng in medium levels of turbulence, in the future they perceive the external environment as becoming very turbulent. (4) Generally speaking, the firms surveyed are ill-equipped to operate in a turbulent environment as they displayed signs of inflexibility in certain key aspects of their business. In this regard, particular mention must be made of their decision-making processes, the extent to which they had specialist planners, the techniques used to identify future trends in the environment, the extent to which computer technology was utilised in the firm and their structure. (5) Finally, the results do not generally support the view that a relationship exists between the perceived degree of turbulence in the environment and the extent to which strategic flexibility exists in the firm. Often, however, the size of tne firm was more of a determining factor on the components of strategic flexibility than the degree of turbulence in the environment. In this regard, particular mention must be made of the impact of size on the planning processes of the firm, the techniques used to monitor trends in the environment and the emphasis placed on management development and training.

This tesis deals with modern approchaes in the intraday futures trading. My focus is on the euro-dollar market. I test and analyse three strategies with using current methods of technical analyses. Thanks to results I explain how to use these strategies in practice to the profitable swing trading and respond on the emerging market on a daily basis.

Due to recent events in corporate America, including the recent Enron scandal and numerous cases of insider trading, the public's faith in the fairness of the stock markets has been shaken. The current study suggests that public relations efforts that are designed to increase the public's perception of the integrity of United States stock markets and lower public cynicism toward insider trading may be fruitful. The contributions of this study are to identify what leads to insider trading and thereby identify methods to reduce it. Graduate student subjects are used to test the relationship between the intent to trade based on insider information and the deterrents and motivations for insider trading. The results of the study indicate that gain, certainty, cynicism, guilt, social stigma, and agreement with the law have a significant effect on an individual's intent to take part in insider trading. The results do not provide conclusive support that increasing severity of punishment decreases the likelihood of trading based on insider information. The results also show that there are differences in the perceptions of male and female respondents with regard to the deterrence variables. Identifying what situations are more likely to lead to insider trading allows policymakers to design more efficient detection efforts. This study finds that subjects' are more inclined to trade based on insider information to avoid a loss on stock they currently own than to achieve an abnormal gain by purchasing a stock that they do not currently own. This study finds that the intent to take part in insider trading increases as the perception of likelihood of getting caught decreases. The results indicate that subjects are more willing to use insider information when it is from a friend because their likelihood of getting caught is lower. This is important for two reasons. If the incidence of insider trading is higher in situations that involve second hand knowledge, then detection efforts become more complicated. Also, the presence of insider trading may be significantly higher than current detection efforts indicate because these cases are hard to detect. / Ph. D.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2999-01-01

Coalition problems in e-markets attract attention from the research communities and industry. This research focuses on e-trading models relating to online coalitions. A new Core Broking Model (CBM), for online group-trading is presented. This aims not only to bring lower prices for buyers but also to create higher profits for providers. The survey of current online shopping sites in this thesis shows that it is almost impossible to find a site designed specifically for group-trading, although there are plenty of joint-selling activities and also many online group-buying sites. The former increases competitive advantages and benefits providers. However it allows cartels to take control of price and to disadvantage customers. Recently, the latter have become very popular. The major problem of these models is that they lack the ability to deal with the stability issue in coalitions, which therefore fall apart easily. The core, a concept from economics, provides solutions to ensure a stable coalition (Gillies 1953), but its certain problems have hindered researchers from applying it to a real-world market. Building an online group-trading model is essential. Developing such a new model for e-markets can be a real challenge. Three factors, namely (a) incentive compatibility, (b) distributed computing, and (c) less computational complexity, all have to be considered at the same time. The new model is based on the core and adopts some other solution concepts to resolve group-trading problems in e-markets. It involves bundle selling of multiple goods from several providers, offering volume discounts to many different buyers in group-buying on e-marketplaces. The CBM successfully creates a win-win-win situation for customers, providers and brokers in e-markets. The comparison between the results of the new model and the core shows the CBM is superior to the core in terms of the three factors mentioned above. The results of the simulation presented in this thesis demonstrate that the CBM can attract customers and deal with online group-trading problems in a large coalition. An extensive evaluation of the techniques in the CBM has been made and shows that all of them produced the desired results in the CBM effectively and efficiently.

Currently, many systems improve transparency and efficiency in the transmission and utilization of financial information. For example, Electronic Data Gathering And Retrieval (EDGAR), which is used by the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) in USA is an electronic filing system for listed companies to submit financial documents. After validation, those documents are disseminated electronically to investors. Securities Markets Automated Research Training and Surveillance (SMARTS), developed in Australia, is a market monitoring system, which detects market behavior, trading patterns, and aberrant trading activities. Also, many financial information retrieval and analysis systems support searching, retrieval, and analysis of financial information, one such example is BOOM. Boom collects, organizes, analyzes and delivers financial information to their subscribers. However, these systems are designed to support vertical perspective of market information transmission, which may be duplicated and error prone, and can be collaborated to provide a more complete view of information for market monitoring and investment decision. / This dissertation is aimed to integrate the financial information in a horizontal perspective---an Integrated Trading Environment is proposed which has five systems to provide the needed functionality. In which, two surveys were conducted on the adoption of on-line trading by both investors and brokers in order to develop strategies for launching the online trading system. To cooperate with the strategies, a knowledge-based financial information infrastructure was proposed in the new trading environment. With the support of proposed Financial Information to Knowledge Transforming Model (FIKTM), a XML-based data integration architecture was constructed to improve the market transparency and efficiency. / Lau Sau Mui. / "August 2002." / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 63-10, Section: B, page: 4873. / Supervisor: Jerome Yen. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 210-219). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest dissertations and theses, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / School code: 1307.

This dissertation consists of 3 essays that examine the impact of electronic screen trading in futures markets. The research provides empirical evidence on increasingly significant issues given the rapid global advances in technology used in securities markets. Each essay addresses the scarcity of conclusive research in order to aid researchers, regulators, exchange policy makers and systems builders as they confront issues related to electronic trading systems.

Note: / This thesis is a critical analysis of the law relating to insider trading in three common law countries. Chapter One, addresses the merits and demerits of the regulation of insider trading and presents a review of the academic literature relating to this field. In Chapters Two, Three and Four, the law ofinsider trading in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom is analysed and discussed on a comparative basis. Each of these chapters is in two sections. The tirst section describes the regulatory system and institutions, and the second section discusses the regulation of insider trading, highlighting the critical elements ofthis type ofregulation, such as the definition of an 'insider' and the scope of 'inside infonnation'. It concludes with a broad discussion of the differing approaches ofthese countries to insider trading. Cette thèse est un analyse critique du délit d'initiés dans trois pays 'common law'. / Dans le premier chapitre, on discute les avantages et les inconvénients de la réglementation du délit d'initiés et la littérature academique rélatif à ce sujet. Dans les Deuxième, Troisième et Quatrième Chapitres on analyse et compare le droit concernant le délit d'initiés dans les Etats-Unis, le Canada et le Royaume-Uni. Chacun de ces chapitres comprend deux parties. La première partie décrit le système réglementaire et les institutions. La deuxième partie discute le droit du délit d'initiés et les éléments critiques de ce droit (par exemple, le définition d'initié et d'information privilegiée). La Conclusion discute les approches différents de ces trois pays quant au délit d'initiés.

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This thesis is a critical analysis of the law relating to insider trading in three common law countries. Chapter One, addresses the merits and demerits of the regulation of insider trading and presents a review of the academic literature relating to this field. In Chapters Two, Three and Four, the law of insider trading in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom is analysed and discussed on a comparative basis. Each of these chapters is in two sections. The first section describes the regulatory system and institutions, and the second section discusses the regulation of insider trading, highlighting the critical elements of this type of regulation, such as the definition of an 'insider' and the scope of 'inside information'. It concludes with a broad discussion of the differing approaches of these countries to insider trading.