In recent years, the beef industry has been forced to examine improving supply chain coordination in order to respond to the declining consumer demand for beef. Exploring the different supply chain structures being used by beef industry participants to improve coordination and provide consumers with differentiated beef products is important. The problem is that it is not clear how the different attributes often included in branded beef programs affect transaction costs and result in the formation of particular supply chain structures. This thesis examines what makes a successful supply chain alliance in the beef industry. Essentially, this study examines the sustainability and effectiveness of different alliance types and their ability to coordinate various branded beef programs and the product attributes included under these programs. A predictive transaction cost model is developed, which examines how different product attributes result in the emergence of particular transaction characteristics. The model shows how the structure of the supply chain adapts in order to minimize the associated transaction costs. In order to better understand the relative importance of different transaction characteristics to supply chain participants, a two-part empirical study was conducted. In the first portion of the study the relative importance of key transaction characteristics to cow-calf operators was examined through the use of conjoint analysis. The results from the conjoint analysis indicate that certain transaction characteristics, namely asset specific investments, limit the willingness of cow-calf operators to participate in alliances due to the associated transaction costs. Cow-calf operators placed an emphasis on premiums, which shows that while they are willing to make trade-offs and accept increased costs, associated with asset specific investments and price uncertainty, they are only willing to do this when benefits are greater than costs. To further understand the importance of different transaction characteristics to supply chain participants, key managers and directors of different beef alliances throughout Canada and the United States were interviewed. Based on the interviews it appears that alliances have typically limited the level of asset specific investments required. Consequently, the degree of coordination is not affected to, any great extent, by the level of investments required. Instead, the degree of coordination appears to more a result of how an alliance is aligned with a particular brand name label. It appears that greater coordination occurs when an alliance owns a brand name label or is an exclusive supplier to a brand name label, as there is a higher risk of opportunistic behaviour and, as a result, higher transaction costs. The use of grid-based pricing systems and the number of buyers/sellers in the market did not appear to have a significant affect on the method of coordination chosen. Based on the results obtained from both the cow-calf operator conjoint-based analysis and interviews with alliance members this thesis identifies several critical success factors and challenges to improving coordination in the beef industry. Most significantly, when developing alliances it is necessary to understand the importance of different transaction characteristics to supply chain participants. This research demonstrates that supply chain participants in the beef industry are willing to make trade-offs between the benefits received from improved coordination and the transaction costs that arise, as long as the benefits exceeds the increase in costs.

Scania is an international trucks, buses and engines manufacturer with sales and service organization in more than 100 countries all over the globe (Scania, 2011). In 2011 alone, Scania delivered over 80 000 vehicles, which is an increase by a margin of 26% from the previous year. The company continues to deliver more trucks each year while expanding to other areas of the world, which means that the data traffic is going to increase remarkably in the transaction- intensive fleet management system (FMS). This increases the need for a scalable system; adding more sources to handle these requests in parallel. Distributed caching is one technique that can solve this issue. The technique makes applications and systems more scalable, and it can be used to reduce load on the underlying data sources. The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate whether or not distributed caching is a suitable technical solution for Scania FMS. The aim of the study is to identify scenarios in FMS where a distributed cache solution could be of use, and to test the performance of two distributed cache products while simulating these scenarios.  The results from the tests are then used to evaluate the distributed cache products and to compare distributed caching performance to a single database. The products evaluated in this thesis are Alachisoft NCache and Microsoft Appfabric. The results from the performance tests show that that NCache outperforms AppFabric in all aspects. In conclusion, distributed caching has been demonstrated  to be a viable option when scaling out the system.

In recent years, the beef industry has been forced to examine improving supply chain coordination in order to respond to the declining consumer demand for beef. Exploring the different supply chain structures being used by beef industry participants to improve coordination and provide consumers with differentiated beef products is important. The problem is that it is not clear how the different attributes often included in branded beef programs affect transaction costs and result in the formation of particular supply chain structures. This thesis examines what makes a successful supply chain alliance in the beef industry. Essentially, this study examines the sustainability and effectiveness of different alliance types and their ability to coordinate various branded beef programs and the product attributes included under these programs. A predictive transaction cost model is developed, which examines how different product attributes result in the emergence of particular transaction characteristics. The model shows how the structure of the supply chain adapts in order to minimize the associated transaction costs. In order to better understand the relative importance of different transaction characteristics to supply chain participants, a two-part empirical study was conducted. In the first portion of the study the relative importance of key transaction characteristics to cow-calf operators was examined through the use of conjoint analysis. The results from the conjoint analysis indicate that certain transaction characteristics, namely asset specific investments, limit the willingness of cow-calf operators to participate in alliances due to the associated transaction costs. Cow-calf operators placed an emphasis on premiums, which shows that while they are willing to make trade-offs and accept increased costs, associated with asset specific investments and price uncertainty, they are only willing to do this when benefits are greater than costs. To further understand the importance of different transaction characteristics to supply chain participants, key managers and directors of different beef alliances throughout Canada and the United States were interviewed. Based on the interviews it appears that alliances have typically limited the level of asset specific investments required. Consequently, the degree of coordination is not affected to, any great extent, by the level of investments required. Instead, the degree of coordination appears to more a result of how an alliance is aligned with a particular brand name label. It appears that greater coordination occurs when an alliance owns a brand name label or is an exclusive supplier to a brand name label, as there is a higher risk of opportunistic behaviour and, as a result, higher transaction costs. The use of grid-based pricing systems and the number of buyers/sellers in the market did not appear to have a significant affect on the method of coordination chosen. Based on the results obtained from both the cow-calf operator conjoint-based analysis and interviews with alliance members this thesis identifies several critical success factors and challenges to improving coordination in the beef industry. Most significantly, when developing alliances it is necessary to understand the importance of different transaction characteristics to supply chain participants. This research demonstrates that supply chain participants in the beef industry are willing to make trade-offs between the benefits received from improved coordination and the transaction costs that arise, as long as the benefits exceeds the increase in costs.

Abstract: This paper study the possibility of implementing a financial transaction tax within the European Union, as a possibility to discourage future financial bubbles and force more fundamental values within the financial market. It is found, after reviewing current research; covering volatility, market volume and speculation, and empirical evidence, that a financial transaction tax fulfill the purpose of creating a more efficient financial system in the case of European Union.

The paper and pulp industry saw an increase in the number of mergers in 1980s and 1990s. There had been consolidation of a number of smaller companies into larger corporations, which have greater management, financial, and marketing power. This merging trend has resulted in a fewer number of firms and an increasing concentration in the industry. Although the number of firms has decreased, the total industry capacity has been increasing. The combination of these interesting factors has motivated the topic of this masters thesis. The primary purpose of this research is to explore the factors that positively influence a firms decision to vertically integrate into producing its own pulp.

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The transaction of agricultural products, which take place in the local farmers¡¦ market, has a variety of modes. According to Oliver. E Williamson (1991), the characteristics of transactions differ from incentives intensity, administrative control, and performance attributes. Based upon the foregoing, agricultural transaction modes in the local farmers¡¦ market distinctions into three kinds: (1) market mode (2) hybrid mode, and (3) hierarchy mode. The purpose of this study is attempting to abstract the crucial dimension of agricultural transactions for organizing some transactions this way and other transactions another. The overall objectives of this study can be said to be threefold: (1) To investigate and collect literatures about the agricultural transaction modes which are presently most popular in Taiwan. (2) To identify and distinguish these transactions into market mode, hybrid mode, and hierarchy mode as suggested by Williamson. (3) As an exploratory study, to suggest uncertainty as the crucial dimension of agricultural transactions alternatives, to demonstrate why and how uncertainty rule on the selection decision. The results from this study suggest that: (1) When the uncertainty of agricultural transactions is high, hierarchy mode appears to be feasible relatively. (2) When the uncertainty is low, market mode appears to be feasible relatively. (3) When the uncertainty is in an intermediate situation, hybrid mode appears to be feasible relatively. A case study of the broiler contracts of the Charoen Pokphand Enterprise (Taiwan) Co. shows that the relationship between feasible contract mode and uncertainty of transaction is consistent with theoretical expectation.

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