Some oil refining companies have recently entered the field of exploration and production (E&P). Both the relatively high financial performances of E&P companies and the shrinking refining margin may motivate refiner’s decision to enter E&P. However, in making this decision, there are other factors to be considered. This study utilizes vertical integration and diversification theories to develop an integrated framework. This framework determines the factors which should be involved in a firm’s decision to enter another business area. In this theoretical approach and its application to Korean refining companies’ decision to enter into E&P, we discuss both the cost benefits and the advantages to acquiring strategic assets of the new business. As sources of short-term cost benefits, the paper discusses site specificity and regional performance. As long-term requirements, the paper explores the need to acquire E&P strategic assets. In early-stage decision making, the best mode may be a small equity investment in regional consortia. As a company acquires more and more strategic assets, it can decide to pursue global opportunities and/or to acquire an E&P company. / text

This study examines the producer and consumer welfare associated with structural change of supply attributed to the effect of a government policy restricting the size of the production unit. The performance of the poultry industry in Indonesia is analyzed in terms of producer and consumer welfare using supply and demand elasticities. The elasticity of supply and demand were estimated using the Seemingly Unrelated Regressions (SUR) method. The hypothesized policy-induced structural change is estimated through a dummy variable accounting for shift in supply associated with implementation of the policy. / It is found that structural change induced by the restructuring policy shows a negative impact on the output supplied and welfare of society. Welfare losses are estimated for different levels in the marketing system namely producer, wholesaler and retail levels. Eighty percent of the losses are shared approximately equally by producers and consumers with the remaining twenty percent borne by the marketing sector.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Harvard University, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 120-124).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Pennsylvania, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 134-140).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Georgia State University, 2005. / Title from title screen. Arun Rai, Johnathan Wareham, committee co-chairs; Subhashish Samaddar, Joseph Katz, committee members. Electronic text (249 p. : ill. (some col.), col. maps) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed July 13, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 239-247).

Research on the organization of systems industries generally takes the boundaries of platforms to be exogenously-determined artifacts, given by the nature of technology. This paper studies whether platform boundaries are responsive to economic incentives by studying variation in platform boundaries in competing systems in mobile computing. Using detailed descriptive evidence and systematically collected databases of integration patterns, I find that platform boundaries in this industry could be understood as established in response to three primary goals: 1) to consolidate control around assets that conferred the power to regulate production in the system as a whole; 2) to integrate economic activities that risked coordination problems; 3) to open platform boundaries in response to interactions with market competition.

Este estudo procurou entender porque as usinas e destilarias fazem uso de estratégias distintas na coordenação vertical da colheita da cana-de-açúcar, pois verifica-se no setor a presença conjunta de empresas que utilizam a terceirização total da frota, outras que utilizam a terceirização de forma parcial (integração vertical parcial) e ainda, firmas que empregam estruturas totalmente verticalizadas na condução dessa atividade. Assim, foram analisados os mecanismos e critérios de escolha utilizados pelas empresas ao estabelecerem os arranjos institucionais que coordenam as atividades de corte, carregamento e transporte da cana-de-açúcar, buscando um alinhamento entre os arranjos adotados e os aspectos teóricos que justificassem essa opção. Durante a análise, também foram descritas as principais dificuldades enfrentadas pelos agentes envolvidos no processo de terceirização da colheita (usinas/destilarias e prestadores de serviço), pretendendo contribuir para a discussão sobre o tema entre os profissionais da área. O ferramental teórico utilizado para o embasamento do estudo foi composto a partir da conjugação de elementos da Teoria Neoclássica, da Economia dos Custos de Transação e da Teoria das Competências Dinâmicas. O estudo se apoiou em dados secundários, obtidos de diversas fontes, e em dados primários, coletados a partir de entrevistas em profundidade com os agentes envolvidos no processo analisado. Participaram da amostra 33 usinas/destilarias (30 localizadas no Estado de São Paulo e 3 no Estado do Paraná) e 6 empresas prestadoras de serviço. A presença de diferentes arranjos entre as usinas/destilarias foi explicada pela percepção distinta dos custos de transação e de produção envolvidos nessa escolha, e pela própria heterogeneidade de recursos e competências entre as empresas. Apenas no caso do corte manual observou-se uma tendência de convergência dos arranjos em direção a estruturas verticalizadas, que pode ser explicada, principalmente, pela maior pressão dos órgãos e agentes privados e públicos nos últimos anos para o cumprimento das normas trabalhistas e de segurança e saúde do trabalhador rural, visando, entre outras coisas, a eliminação da terceirização do corte manual. Com relação às dificuldades enfrentadas pelas usinas/destilarias que fazem uso da terceirização e pelos prestadores de serviços, verificou-se que os principais pontos de divergência entre os agentes referem-se ao tempo de duração dos contratos, aos mecanismos de monitoramento e controle utilizados e a forma de pagamento dos serviços prestados. / This study has aimed at understanding why sugar/alcohol mills and distilleries make use of distinct strategies in the vertical coordination of the sugarcane harvesting system. The sector presents three different types of institutional arrangements to perform harvesting activities: (i) companies using completely outsourced services; (ii) mills that use partly outsourced services (partial vertical integration); and (iii) firms that employ totally verticalized structures. Therefore, we have analyzed the mechanisms and criteria of choice used by the mills for establishing institutional arrangements to coordinate the harvesting, truck loading, and transportation of sugarcane. In this enquiry, we have searched for alignments between the arrangements adopted and the theoretical aspects that could justify such choices. During the analysis, we have also described the main difficulties faced by the agents involved in the outsourcing process (mills/distilleries and service providers), intending to contribute to professionals in the area. The theoretical fundamentals of the study concerned elements of Neoclassical Theory, of Transaction Cost Economics, and of Dynamic Capabilities Theory. The research is based on secondary data obtained from several sources and on primary data collected in thorough interviews with the agents involved. The sample consists of 33 mills/distilleries (30 located in São Paulo State and three in Paraná State) and of six service-providing firms. The different institutional arrangements among mills/distilleries result from distinct perceptions of the transaction and production costs involved in such choice as well as from the heterogeneity of resources and competences among companies. Strictly in the case of manual harvesting, we have observed a trend towards verticalized structures. This is mainly due to the fact that both governmental and private agents have pressured such firms to respect labor norms as well as the workers? security and health regulations in the latest years, viewing at the extinction of outsourced manual harvesting, among other reasons. As to the problems faced by mills/distilleries that use outsourced service and service providers, we have found out that the main disagreements among agents regard the duration of contracts, the monitoring mechanisms and the form of payment for services rendered.

Orientador: Eugenio Jose Zoqui / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Mecanica / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-05T03:58:36Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Pavan_FernandoRamos_D.pdf: 19869541 bytes, checksum: 498edd8258ae17590272ade5a668f457 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2005 / Resumo: O presente trabalho apresenta um método (modelo) para a integração entre o Gerenciamento de Processos e do Gerenciamento por Projetos uma vez que, apesar de interdependentes, são tratados de maneira isolada pelas organizações. A ferramenta gerencial utilizada para esta integração é o Balanced Scorecard (BSC). Para tanto, o trabalho faz uma apresentação dos conceitos e métodos de Gerenciamento de Processos existentes, detalhando-os e mostrando sua aplicabilidade prática, assim como conceitua e apresenta o Gerenciamento por Projetos e suas ferramentas. Traz também uma revisão crítica a respeito do Balanced Scorecard como ferramenta gerencial. Após a revisão é apresentado um modelo para esta integração, que é constituído de um fluxograma geral de trabalho aonde é necessário mapear os processos existentes, levantar quais os objetivos da organização e por final alinhá-Ios através do BSC. São levantadas desta maneira diversas oportunidades de melhoria que se constituem em possíveis projetos. Através de um sistema de pontuação são levantados os melhores projetos e passa-se a fase de execução e acompanhamento através das ferramentas de Gerenciamento por Projetos. Toda esta sistemática de trabalho é facilitada pela utilização de planilhas eletrônicas, colocadas à disposição das organizações, para que todo o trabalho seja padronizado. Por fmal o método de integração é aplicado em uma empresa do ramo metalúrgico e os resultados da implantação do sistema são discutidos / Abstract: This work presents a method (model) to integrate Process Management and Management by Project since, although interdependent techniques, organizations usually conduct them as isolated efforts. The management tool chosen for such an integration is the Balanced Scorecard (BSC). To achieve its proposed results, this work presents the existing Process Management concepts and methods, exploring their details and showing their practical applicability, as well as it presents and discusses the concept of Project Management and its related tools. A review is also shown for the Balanced Scorecard as a management too1.A model for the aforementioned integration is presented afier the bibliography research, which comprises of a general work flowchart that indicates the need to map existing processes, define the organization objectives and, finally, align them using the BSC. Several improvement opportunities arise which may drive to possible projects. The best projects are select through a scoring system and the following step is to execute and monitor them with Management by Project tools. The whole work system is facilitated by electronic worksheets, made available to organizations, to standardize the tasks. As a fmal item in the present work, the integration method is applied to a metallurgical organization and the implementation results are discussed. / Doutorado / Materiais e Processos de Fabricação / Doutor em Engenharia Mecânica

The present research identified transaction costs in the mining sector in South Africa and provided means for mitigation. A review, discussion and evaluation of theories related to transaction costs such as vertical integration, outsourcing, price, long and short terms contracts was undertaken under literature review. A qualitative study, with two research questions, on eight companies of which four precious metals and minerals, two metallic minerals and two non-metallic minerals, was performed and provided among other results: • Cost of doing business in South Africa is high. • Site specificity and physical-asset specificity are the most influential specialised investments in the mining sector. • Long term contracts are the most appropriate to mitigate transaction costs. • Costly bargaining is the most important implication for all specialised investments. • Exchange rates, Mining Charter, BEE, legislation, taxes, royalties, fuel and electricity increases are cited as reasons for high transaction costs. • The small sample is a big concern as it does not allow generalising the results to over all mining companies. The South Africa’s government, as a regulator and a major stakeholder should revisit the mining charter and therefore the B-BBEE act as this clearly appeared to be a barrier to the development of mining companies. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

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