Introduction: Over half of the Swedish IT-projects get delayed and more expensive than budgeted. Large corporations and governmental institutions stand before the process of investigating in new IT-systems in intervals of three to five years. In order to decrease the cost, an external consultant with large experience in IT-purchases could be used by the customers. These consultants does today work solely for the customers, helping them to find the best solution. We want to see if an external consultant instead could act as an inde-pendent moderator between the supplier and customer in the IT-systems lifecycle. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to describe and analyze problems and possible solutions related to the involvement of third party consultants in larger IT-projects. In particular, we will investigate when and where in the project cycle it could be beneficial to use an independent moderator. Method: We have conducted semi-structured interviews with six organizations to get an understanding about consultants in IT-projects. Four of the interviewed were IT-managers at organizations were large IT-systems are bought and implemented. Then, two of the in-terviewed represented the supplier companies that sell large IT-systems. Frame of reference: Transaction cost theory and agency theory has been used. Transac-tion cost theory is a theory on whether you should conduct the service internally or purchase it from external firms. Agency theory describes problems in the relationship between a principal and an agent. The agent has a diversified interest towards the principal. In our case, the agent is a consultant. Conclusion: The implementation phase benefits from using an external moderator who monitors what the customer needs, and then in a continuous interval measures if the project is aligning towards the stated goal. This can lower the failure of information and identify problem areas early and thereby prevent costly adjustments later in the project. An in-dependent moderator with a high degree of routine and specific knowledge could enhance communication, create a better fit of the implemented system and foresee opportunistic advices from suppliers. In the pre-study phase there are benefits for the customer with evaluating the need, stating specific demands and define a clear goal.

The issue of depositary receipt gets more attention in investors in recent year because of the explosion of Taiwan Depositary Receipt (hereafter, TDR) in Taiwan. The depositary receipts should equal to the value of primary listing stocks because they are represent the same value to a company. Therefore, we would discuss the price relationship between TDR and the primary listing stock it represents at first. In addition, because all the TDRs in Taiwan have the price spread (i.e. the price difference between TDRs and the primary listing stocks) with its original stocks, we discuss what the reasons to cause the price spread from a point of market segment. And we find it is because of liquidity, demand, information asymmetry, and stock price manipulation to lead to the price spread. After we takes market emotion into account, the market index has significant influence on price spread and individual investors also have a large influence on price spread. Finally, we try to find that whether the market has the arbitrage opportunity from the price spread after we consider the transaction cost. And the result shows that when TDR is in discount, it really has the arbitrage opportunity in market after we use the close price as the transaction price. Furthermore, if we use the open price in the next day as the transaction price, it still has excess return in market, but the profit will be lower than the strategy using the close price as the transaction price.

Climate change and its mitigation is rapidly becoming an item of social concern. Climate change mitigation involves reduction of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations through emissions reduction and or sequestration enhancement (collectively called offsets). Many have asked how agriculture and forestry can participate in mitigation efforts. Given that over 80 percent of greenhouse gas emissions arise from the energy sector, the role of agriculture and forestry depends critically on the costs of the offsets they can achieve in comparison with offset costs elsewhere in the economy. A number of researchers have examined the relative offset costs but have generally looked only at producer level costs. However there are also costs incurred when implementing, selling and conveying offset credits to a buyer. Also when commodities are involved like bioenergy feedstocks, the costs of readying these for use in implementing an offset strategy need to be reflected. This generally involves the broadly defined category of transaction costs. This dissertation examines the possible effects of transactions costs and storage costs for bioenergy commodities and how they affect the agriculture and forestry portfolio of mitigation strategies across a range of carbon dioxide equivalent prices. The model is used to simulate the effects with and without transactions and storage costs. Using an agriculture and forestry sector model called FASOMGHG, the dissertation finds that consideration of transactions and storage costs reduces the agricultural contribution total mitigation and changes the desirable portfolio of alternatives. In terms of the portfolio, transactions costs inclusion diminishes the desirability of soil sequestration and forest management while increasing the bioenergy and afforestation role. Storage costs diminish the bioenergy role and favor forest and sequestration items. The results of this study illustrate that transactions and storage costs are important considerations in policy and market design when addressing the reduction of greenhouse gas concentrations in climate change related decision making.

This thesis is based on the theory of Transaction cost to analyze the problems of transaction cost in the internal market of computer product channels.Computer product distributors are as the selected our main research target to analyze the effect of their transaction cost and their strategies when facing the cooperation relationship between the up- stream suppliers and down- stream retailer. This thesis uses multiple case study as research methodology, selecting five representative distributors, such as Acer Inc, Synnex technology international corp. , Gemuine C&C Inc., Xander international corp. and Taiwan aries corp. LTD., etc. To proceeding analysis and interview. The research results obtained show that computer product distributors have to assist up- stream manufacturers to solve the problems of transaction cost not only between retailers and customers but also between themselves and down- stream retailer and even between customers at end-point. In the other hand, as their competition strategies, it¡¦s necessary and important to pay attention on problems of transaction cost between up- stream manufacturers, management of possible conflicting channels and the fierce competition at this area. Therefore, computer product distributors must use relative channels carefully to solve the problems of transaction cost between manufacturers, retailers and customers.

Due to the development of mobile technology and the rapid growth of mobile commerce market, the demand of mobile technology adoption in business increases day by day. Hence the purpose of this thesis is to study the success of the mobile technology adoption in business and its determinants. When discussing about technology adoption, most researchers think Task-Technology fit is the most important and the only concept that has to be considered. Actually¡Awhether one company is suitable for implementing mobile technology determined by many reasons. Not only the fitness between task and technology but also many organizational factors have to be considered such as the economical readiness¡BIT Infrastructure and organization readiness. The three aspects are classified as ¡uViability¡v construct. The result shows that both the ¡uTask-Technology fit¡v and ¡uviability¡vwill effect the success of the mobile technology adoption.

The corporate governance is the extensive framework which applies to reach enterprise business goal in the recent years. Due to the south-eastern Asia financial crisis in 1997, it indicated the distinct defects of the enterprise system. The government and some institutions had to address the principles of the corporate governance and enhance the efficiency of the corporate governance. The essays we discuss are from the strategic corporate governance viewpoint respectively by chapters. The second chapter briefs the basic content of the corporate governance theories. The third chapter based on the theories of the stakeholder theories, we raise the selection models of the corporate governance structure from the viewpoint of the state-contingent ownership, risk taking and ethics, respectively. Due to the differences in politics, economic and cultures from countries, there would be different corporate governance structure. In the fourth chapter, based on the principal-agent theory, we analyze the principal-agent behavior between the owner and the operator under the centralized and dispersal ownership structure conditions, respectively. It gets the Nash equilibrium, which relates with the manager¡¦s rewards, the manager¡¦s punishment and the monitoring cost. The manager¡¦s motivation and rewards should combine with the granting rewards and punitive sanction. The fifth chapter is the example of outsourcing. Based on the transaction cost from the viewpoint of the enterprise core competence, it establishes the outsourcing governance model from the cost of outsourcing and the benefit of the enterprise core competence, and derives the six different outsourcing governance models from the four different conditions. Under the different conditions, it displays the dynamic viewpoint between the internal resources and core competence of the enterprise. In the sixth chapter, it takes the domestic semi-conductor industry as the example to compare the domestic development of the semiconductor industry with Korea¡¦s. There are a lot of differences in politics, economic, culture and the industrial structure between these two countries. My country takes the vertical specialization, but Korean takes the vertical integration. Moreover, TSMC and UMC cases help to elaborate the transaction cost, the development of the corporate governance, and the ownership structure. Management considers the input and the output and stresses on the efficiency of business operation. The governance starts from the ethics and accountability, emphasizes the information transparency and social responsibility, the protection of the stakeholders¡¦ interest. Therefore, the corporate has to adopt the good corporate governance structure under the framework of ethics-thinking, ensure the interest of stakeholder, and create the more business value.

Traditionally human resource functions are performed in house, but recently the subject on outsourcing human resources is becoming more and more popular. According to an article published in 2004 by the INC. 500 magazine, 18 human resource service providers were chosen to be the most fast growing corporation in the US, in the mean time the Fortune 500 and Forbes 500 corporations listings both had human resource business process outsourcing firms listed inside. This research focuses on successful human resource service providers in Taiwan, the main objective will be finding out what current environment are they facing and what kinds of corporate resources do they possess to cope with their business operational needs. Using these findings as the basis, we employ the Transaction Cost Theory to do further analyze in their competitive and strategy model. Further more, by applying these strategies what economical profit can the service provider bring to there customers. In this research, we use a case study approach and employ the in-depth interview technique which includes five global human resource service provider¡¦s Taiwan branch as are research sample. Moreover, by using domestic and international references as auxiliaries, we can draw out the business model of the human resource service providers. The inference of this thesis is that corporate resources and brand can decrease the transaction cost triggered by outsourcing activities, and by decreasing transaction cost the service providers can establish trusting and cooperative relationships more successfully. When trusting relationships are in place, service providers can deliver more added value and economic profits based on their originally service content. Last but not least, by absorbing the feedback from satisfied customers, human resource service providers can accumulate solid professional knowledge and increase brand value.

Purchase is an important link in business management. Practically, it covers the applications of various theories such as psychology, financial management, international trade, the science of law and other social sciences. However, owing to the relative conservative nature of purchase and the environment under which the ordinary enterprises lay particular stress on sales performance, the real effect of purchase is usually overlooked by enterprises when they receive good profits. In terms of the purposes of business growth and acquirement of market competitive advantages, no matter whether the core competitive power of a company is service, sale or production, or whether a company is of profit-making or non profit-making nature, a purchasing system with economic effect is an indispensable and basic appeal for the operation and management of the company. The primary purpose of this study is to carry out academic study on the differences between theories and practices in the purchasing system and its implementation. The study tries to prove that the excellent ¡§system¡¨ highly praised by the society is not only constructed on a single basis of ¡§formal rules¡¨ with the theory of new institutional economics. It is believed that there are still other factors affecting the result of implementing the system. Through researches, analysis, and comparison between the system and its practical implementation, this thesis finds that the study results are consistent with the three aspects of the new institutional economics: ¡§informal limits¡¨, ¡§formal rules¡¨ and ¡§institutional changes¡¨. That means all drawbacks come from the failure of ¡§informal limits¡¨ such as people¡¦s code of conduct, norms of conduct, customs, culture, habits, etc. and loopholes found in the ¡§formal rules¡¨ under limited norms. Meanwhile, if the root causes of such system failure can¡¦t be found from the informal limits, even though we impose more restrictive conditions on the purchasing system and force it to produce an institutional change, the formal rules after such change are still insufficient to become the main tool for eliminating all drawbacks or an effective method for solving the corrupt practices.

It has been an important issue on how to get universities to better contribute to the innovation process, especially in the knowledge-based economy. This paper aims to explore the control mechanism in the university-industry partnership through the framework of transaction cost theory. I conduct an empirical study of the collaborative process by providing the research-based evidence that focuses on the perspectives of two sets of faculties in a research university and a biotech company. The optimal control mechanisms will be suggested in the context of the uncertainties and ineffective communications in the R&D joint research projects.

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