Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Erlangen.

Thesis (doctoral)--Juristenfakultät zu Rostock. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [3-4]).

Thesis (doctoral)--Juristenfakultät zu Rostock. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [3-4]).

Inaugural dissertation--Köln. / Lebenslauf. "Literaturverzeichnis": p. [7-12].

Berlin, Humboldt-University, Diss., 2005.

In the field of digital media, the study of interactive narratives holds the aesthetics of agency and dramatic agency as core to digital design. These principles hold that users must reliably be able to navigate the interface and the narrative elements of the artifact in order to have a lasting appeal. However, due to recent academic and critical discussions several digital artifacts are being focused on as possible new ways of engaging users. These artifacts do not adhere to the design aesthetics foundational to digital media, but represent a movement away from the principle of dramatic agency in interactive narratives. In an attempt to understand this separation and offer a solution to this developing issue, another non-digital interactive medium was studied: tabletop role-playing games. The designers of this medium were studied to understand the techniques and methods they employed to create dramatic interactive narratives for their users. These case studies suggested the designers used a third design aesthetic, design agency, to help balance the tension between agency and dramatic agency of the users of their medium. This design aesthetic could provide a balancing force to the current issues arising within interactive narrative.

Agency theory, which discusses the conflict between agent and principle, was developed by Jensen and Meckling in 1976. Owing to the separation of ownership and management, shareholders and management authority have agency relationship. The one reason that shareholder hand in company affairs to management authority is that management authority has better management ability. Another reason is that shareholder cannot handle by himself for some reasons and must hand in to other people. Management authority has the advantage of information and they also seek for their own interest. But these behaviors may damage shareholder¡¦s right and agency problems occur in the situation. Agency problems occur not only between shareholder and management authority but also between management authority and lender in a company with debt. Shareholders often supervise management authority more strictly and make more rules to confine management authority in order to reduce agency problem or protect their own interest. But these actions disturb management authority when management authority is full of ambitions and endeavor. If agency problems between shareholder and management authority cannot be solved properly, it will make company operate abnormally and damage the nation¡¦s economic further. On the contrary earning forecast can reduce information asymmetry. If management authority can disclose earning forecast voluntarily, it is helpful to reduce the agency problem and the information asymmetry between shareholder and management authority. The article assumes management authority disclose earning forecast voluntarily in order to get shareholder and debtor¡¦s trust in this point of view and use firm size¡Bfree cash flow¡Bleverage as the proxy of agency cost. In this research we find that the more debt the company have, the higher voluntarily the company discloses earning forecast. It is the same as we expect. But free cast flow is not significant. When firm size is bigger, the management authority is less voluntary to disclose earning forecast. The result is contrary to the view of agency problem.

Univ., Diss.--München, 2003.

This study explored the effect of restricting participants’ agentic choice on their levels of optimism. This study used the pre-test, post-test design to investigate the impact of non-agentic choice in meaningful scenarios on feelings of optimism. 147 participants completed a measure of optimism, were assigned to conditions of simulated choice, and were instructed to freely write about their decisions. The association between personality traits and optimism was also explored. Study findings showed that assigning participants to restrictive and agentic conditions had no effect on optimism. However, a significant negative correlation trait neuroticism and optimism was found. Content analyses run on the responses found that the most common themes, in order, were seeking change in employment, seeking support from family and friends, and public assistance. Additional research, with a larger sample, should be completed to more fully determine the nature of the relationship among these variables.

No description available.