none

This thesis seeks to contribute to our understanding of why creditors and debtors do not ordinarily use China's reformed Enterprise Bankruptcy Law ('EBL'), whether the low use of the EBL is problematic, and if so, what can be done to ensure a more efficient resolution of corporate insolvencies and corporate financial distress in China. The EBL has been lauded – domestically and internationally – as a major legislative success. However, despite the rapidly growing number of companies, level of corporate indebtedness and non-performing loans – which should, one might expect, lead to an increase in the use of the EBL – the number of court-run insolvency cases has in fact been decreasing since the law was implemented in 2007. The thesis draws on newly collected insights from a series of interviews in China - to supplement the scarce and often incoherent data that is available - to determine what motivates debtors and creditors not to use the EBL. The findings are presented as four complementary constraints on a more effective and efficient operation of the EBL. First two constraints relate to the low payoffs under the EBL that debtors and creditors expect to receive due to (i) flaws in the EBL itself and (ii) problems in surrounding non-bankruptcy rules and practices that reduce or prevent recoveries under the EBL. A third constraint affects those debtors and creditors who wish to use the EBL despite the low expected payoffs – for example to avoid directors' liability for corporate insolvency – but are prevented from doing so due to (iii) potential enforcers' limitations and biases. A fourth and final constraint on the use of the EBL that reinforces debtors' and creditors' unwillingness to use the EBL is (iv) the parties' (often inaccurate) perception that alternative debt enforcement mechanisms may offer comparatively higher payoffs (v. the EBL). Building on this discussion, the thesis then considers the desirability of, and options for, reform. It argues that reform and subsequent greater use of court-enforced insolvency law are desirable in China because the (reformed) EBL has the potential to contribute to economic development through more efficient resolution of complex financial distress; better control of bad debt; easier and cheaper corporate financing; more efficient allocation of resources; and more entrepreneurial activity. However, because the necessary changes to deliver this are likely to be slow in coming, it proposes a dual-track reform encompassing (i) substantive reform of the EBL and select non-bankruptcy laws and practices; accompanied by (ii) the introduction of a new speedy, independent and confidential mechanism for insolvency resolution, 'MedArb'.

The authors used the frameworks of reciprocal determinism and occupational socialization to study the effects of work characteristics (consisting of control and complexity of work) on personal initiative (PI)--mediated by control orientation (a 2nd-order factor consisting of control aspiration, perceived opportunity for control, and self-efficacy) and the reciprocal effects of PI on changes in work characteristics. They applied structural equation modeling to a longitudinal study with 4 measurement waves (N = 268) in a transitional economy: East Germany. Results confirm the model plus 1 additional, nonhypothesized effect. Work characteristics had a synchronous effect on PI via control orientation (full mediation). There were also effects of control orientation and of PI on later changes in work characteristics: As predicted, PI functioned as partial mediator, changing work characteristics in the long term (reciprocal effect); unexpectedly, there was a 2nd reciprocal effect of an additional lagged partial mediation of control orientation on later work characteristics.

The increased amounts of Internet users, emergence of new technologies that allow content digitization, create an entrepreneurial opportunity for news media to go online. However, the process of digitization has been happening at a different pace in different regions of the world. To understand the keys to success and to learn on mistakes, it is important to understand what are the factors that affect entrepreneurship and digitization of news media. The purpose of this study is to investigate the news media sector in Russia in terms of digitization of the newspaper content and entrepreneurial activities associated with this. After conducting a case study on online newspaper Novaya gazeta in Russia, authors conclude that transition economy factors have an impact on digitization of newspapers in Russia. Specifically these factors are state’s involvement in the business sector, political and economical conditions in the market and risk- averse entrepreneurs who run newspapers in transition economies. / Uppsök subject category: Business Administration; Economics

This dissertation investigates the following questions. How does the structure of ownership, board governance, and board monitoring influence the corporate entrepreneurship behaviour of privatised firms in Vietnam? Furthermore, does uncertainty regarding the changing business and institutional environment moderate the relationships among corporate governance, ownership structure, and corporate entrepreneurship?In the dissertation, Stewardship Theory, Institutional Theory, Resource Dependence Theory, are integrated with Agency Theory to provide a framework to investigate the relationships between board composition, ownership structure and corporate entrepreneurship in post-privatisation environments. The theoretical arguments are tested using a mixed-method approach, based on a survey of privatised Vietnamese firms and data collected and collated from in-depth interviews of board and top management team members in six selected privatised firms. The study findings indicate that a reliance on any single theoretical lens is ineffective in explaining the phenomenon in the context of privatised firms in transition economies, and that the employment of multiple theories is crucial for providing a complete understanding of context-dependent phenomena, such as corporate governance. Empirically, the results show that the board composition and characteristics have little impact on corporate entrepreneurship and ownership structure almost plays no role in enhancing the entrepreneurial activities of privatised firms. In particular, the study highlights that there are no unique corporate governance practices that can be employed in every context. The practices are effective only in certain conditions and specific environments. The study provides a set of policy and managerial implications for shaping corporate governance in order to foster corporate entrepreneurship in Vietnamese privatised firms.

Contemporary global agriculture has been undergoing transition towards different pathways. In developed countries, a shift from productivist agriculture to multifunctional agriculture has begun since the 1980s (Wilson, 2007). In the developing world, agricultural modernisation is still the primary strategy for agricultural development, and driven by urbanisation and industrialisation, deagrarianisation of rural society has been widely identified (Bryceson, 1996; Rigg, 2006a). As the largest developing country in the world, China embarked on market reform three decades ago and has ever since experienced dramatic socio-economic transition towards modernisation, industrialisation and urbanisation. Significant levels of academic attention have focused on empirically identifying economic and policy drivers of Chinese agricultural production from a structuralist standpoint, largely neglecting the agency of smallholders and sociocultural factors. To address the resulting literature gap, this thesis adopts an approach that combines political economy and cultural analysis through an in-depth case study of a rural community in southwest China. A multi-methods approach is used to collect data, including questionnaires, in-depth interviews, focus groups, participant observation and the analysis of secondary data. The results suggest that Chinese smallholder agriculture has been dramatically transformed by an array of socio-economic forces. The “intensive, sustainable, diverse” Chinese smallholder agriculture which Netting (1993) portrayed, has been progressively shifted towards extensive, unsustainable and less diverse pathways. It suggests that the “perfunctory agriculture” performed by Chinese smallholders is the outcome of interactions and negotiations between various political, socio-economic and institutional constraints and farmers’ agency. Another key finding is that moving out of agriculture is becoming the norm in Chinese rural society. Most smallholders show willingness to rent out agricultural land and to enter into a capitalist relationship with employees, rather than primarily being cultivators of their land. Land transfer markets have become increasingly buoyant at the local level, and large-scale capitalist agriculture seems to be the desired future of Chinese smallholder agriculture for both the Chinese government and smallholders. Besides, based on the case of Hu Village, this thesis discusses the convergences and divergences between the road of Chinese agricultural development and that of developed countries and other emerging BRIC economies. Lastly, based on the findings of this research, four policy implications are proposed including sponsoring agricultural mutual aid groups, strengthening agricultural extension services, enhancing farmers’ negotiation power through laws, and initiating comprehensive socio-economic reforms to facilitate farmers’ pursuit of non-farm employments.

This thesis examines banking efficiency and the productivity of thirteen transition Central and Eastern European banking systems during 1998-2003 using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). It proposes a non-parametric methodology for non-radial Russell output efficiency measure of banking firms, incorporating risk as an undesirable output. In addition, the proposed efficiency measure handles unrestricted data, i. e. both positive and negative. The Luenberger productivity index is suggested, which is applicable to technology where the desirable and undesirable outputs are jointly produced, and are possibly negative. Furthermore, the thesis addresses the main issue in the literature on banking performance measurement, which concerns the lack of consistency in the conceptual and theoretical considerations in describing the banking production process. Consequently, a metaanalysis tool, to examine the choice of inputs and outputs definitions in the banking efficiency literature, is suggested. In addition, the performance measures are estimated using three alternative definitions of the banking production process focusing on the risk and environmental dimensions of bank efficiency and productivity, with further comparative analysis using bootstrapping and kernel density techniques. Overall, the empirical results suggest that in Central and Eastern Europe Czech, Hungarian and Polish banks were the most technical efficient banks and the banking risk was mainly affected by external environmental factors during the analyzed period. Productivity analysis implies that the main driver of productivity change in the Central and Eastern European banks is the technological improvement. As meta-analysis revealed, the choice of particular approach of describing the banking production process is determined not by the availability of particular input or output variable information but the concepts of researcher's theoretical considerations. Statistical tests and density analysis indicate that efficiency scores, returns parameters and productivity indexes are sensitive to the choice of particular approaches.

This dissertation addresses the question of effective delegation, exploring it through the concept of managerial discretion (i.e., a latitude of managerial actions, which lie in the zone of shareholders’ acceptance). While the corporate governance perspective on managerial discretion focuses mainly on the costs associated with delegation, the strategic management perspective emphasizes its benefits in creating value for the firm. Building on research in corporate governance and strategic management, this dissertation develops and empirically tests a theoretical framework that explains how the two distinct dimensions of managerial discretion jointly influence organizational outcomes. The proposed framework illuminates the importance of balance between the restraining and enabling decisions undertaken by professional managers. This dissertation makes a two-fold contribution to the field of corporate governance. First, it identifies and explains organizational and environmental forces that jointly shape strategic and governance dimensions of managerial discretion, redefining the concept. Second, it conceptually and empirically explores an integrative model of managerial discretion within the broader corporate governance framework, providing evidence of the joint effects of governance and strategic dimensions of discretion on organizational outcomes. The results suggest that the effect of governance dimension of managerial discretion on a firm’s performance is contingent on the strategic dimension of discretion. This draws attention to potential strategic implications of board monitoring over managerial decision making. While the majority of studies emphasize the benefits of increased control over managerial decision making, particularly stressing board monitoring, this dissertation also considers the benefits of delegation for firms’ strategic development. By reversing the polarity of the current emphasis on disciplining managers, this dissertation provides a more balanced view of the notion of corporate governance. The value of this approach derives from the integrated model, which highlights the benefits and the costs of delegation.

Being the largest transition economy Russia has interested economists since the collapse of the USSR. This thesis contributes to the literature on Russian labour market. In the first chapter I investigate cyclicality of real wages in Russia, the second chapter looks into consequences of wage arrears for workers' future and the third chapter develops a model of wage arrears that arise as a result of firms' opportunistic behaviour. The principal source of data used in this thesis is the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (the RLMS). The first chapter investigates cyclicality of real wages in Russia. The analysis is carried out both at the country as well as regional levels and the influence of wage arrears on the cyclicality is examined. The estimated cyclicality coefficient is three to four times larger in magnitude than those observed for Germany, the UK, the USA and other developed countries. An increase in unemployment rate by one percentage point leads to an average reduction in real wages of four percent. The results are robust to changes in sample period and estimation technique. Wage arrears do not prove to be the driving force of this strong procyclicality. The second chapter investigates influence of wage arrears on the future of affected workers. Limited dependent variable models are used to analyse the effects of wage arrears on the probability of future wage arrears and frequent separation from employers. Difference-in-difference approach is used to analyse effects on earnings. The results suggest that affected workers are twice as likely to experience wage arrears again within next three years. Job-movers are able to decrease the probability of repeated wage arrears by nine percentage points. The effect on separations is more modest: affected workers are approximately forty percent more likely to change jobs the following year and eleven percent more likely to experience frequent separations within five years after wage arrears. The effect on future earnings is relatively small and short-lived. Take-home wages decrease by 1 000 RUB compared to unaffected workers and recover within the following year. Analysis of stocks and flows of wage arrears indicates that in the period from 1998 to 2012 on average three quarters of wage debts were repaid. The third chapter picks up the discussion of the nature of wage arrears in Russia. An indirect evidence suggests that sometimes the firms choose to withhold wages despite having the resources to pay and in certain circumstances the employees accept it. The chapter presents a model of wage arrears that is based on worker-firm interactions. Calibration to the Russian data indicates that the parameter values observed in the RLMS dataset are consistent with a stable equilibrium in which an approximately half of the labour force experience late payments. The model predicts average duration of wage arrears of four months. This prediction is consistent with the Russian reality in the late 1990s.

The stock of human capital plays an important role for a sustained economic development, both at the individual and the country level. In order to prosper as a middle income country Vietnam need to increase the nation ́s human capital stock and this thesis shows that human capital theory holds for investments in years of education, knowledge of a foreign language and experience. Human capital investments, such as educational attainment and knowledge of a foreign language, are estimated to have significant impact on earnings in year 2012. Subjective evidence through interviews and observations are used to understand the underlying interpretation of these results in order to see how the labor market actually works in Vietnam.