This dissertation consists of three papers that examine how aspects of public policy may impact private sector corporate governance. The first two examine the relationship between personal-tax policy and corporate agency costs. The first paper is a theoretical analysis based on an agency model of managerial behavior. A unique element of this paper is that it assumes a discontinuous compensation function, which reflects the occurrence of performance thresholds associated with the dismissal incentive and many common bonus plans. The analysis results in three main findings. First, the relative magnitude of proportional taxation has an indeterminate effect on managerial performance. Second, an increase in tax progressivity is associated with reduced managerial performance and increased agency costs. Third, the inclusion of performance thresholds and compensation discontinuities can cause tax system changes to have surprisingly large impacts on managerial performance. The second paper is an empirical investigation of the relationship between personal-tax progressivity and corporate operating efficiency. The analysis is based on variations in across-state tax policy and utilizes a sample of US-based firms. Using matched-pair testing and regression analysis, evidence is found that is consistent with the hypothesis that increased personal-tax progressivity negatively impacts managerial performance. Together, the analysis contained in the first two papers suggests a need to further examine the relationship between personal taxation and corporate agency costs, an issue that is largely absent from the research literature. The third paper investigates whether variations in state corporate law affect firm value. Previous research in this area generally treats all states other than Delaware as having homogeneous corporate law. I relax this assumption and analyze a large panel sample of US firms. Evidence is found that Delaware firms are worth more, on average, than non-Delaware firms. However, this effect is not consistent across all non-Delaware jurisdictions. The valuation differences are correlated to differences in statutory law. Specifically, corporate law that provides greater entrenchment of management is associated with reduced firm value. The results indicate that corporate law does affect corporate governance. Furthermore, the findings are inconsistent with the “race to the bottom” theory of corporate law. / May 2006

Agency, a behavioral and psychological concept, is an individual’s sense of what they can do and what they think they can do. It is imperative to understand how a sense of agency in youths can be fostered and transformed into constructive action. This study builds on previous research to better identify predictors of agency, focusing on social and political involvement and opportunity structure. Additionally, it analyzes and proposes the use of a new measure of agency, the Community Leadership (CL) scale. Eighty-five teens (ages 13 to 18) were administered surveys. Involvement was found to be significantly related to agency. It was also related to opportunity structure, but opportunity structure was not significantly related to agency. Opportunity structure seems to partly influence the relationship between involvement and agency. When compared to previously validated measures of agency, the CL scale proved to be a shorter and psychometrically sound alternative measure.

During the last decades we have seen a growing number of new start-ups in the service/knowledge sector. These types of companies often have no fiscal assets to secure loans with. What types of financing alternatives are there in those situations? I will in this thesis show that there are two directions to choose between to get financial support. By gathering of information I have been able to show that there are more than one alternative to consider when needing funding and that using different alternatives will lead to different results. I will not say which one is the right one, but that there are different ways and there will be different outcomes depending on which one you choose. The study also shows that there are a lot of things you need to take into consideration before using a venture capitalist. An empirical study is made between two companies that decided to use different ways to get the financial support they required. The result shown in this study is that the entrepreneurs own financial situation affect what direction the entrepreneur will take.

Family-owned enterprise is a typical governance structure around the world. In addressing the governance issues in family business, the founding family usually utilizes the direct or indirect ownership structure and also the management design to mitigate the typical agency-principal problem among founding family and the professional managers in family businesses. However, scholars indicate that the majority shareholders, such as the founding family in a family business, will induce the principal-principal agency concern, and also have the possibility to exploit the minority shareholder¡¦s interests in publicly traded family businesses. Thus, the corporate governance today will not only focus on mitigating the typical agency-principal problem, but also the principal-principal agency problem in family businesses. This study tries to examine the role of the internal audit¡¦s independence in addressing the performance issues in publicly traded family businesses in Taiwan. From the agency theory viewpoint, this study try to utilize the questionnaires method to estimate the degree of the internal audit¡¦s independence, and future examine its performance impact in family businesses in Taiwan. This study suggests that the internal audit power, and the internal audit independent execution, can be two kinds of independence indexes in estimating the degree of internal audit¡¦s independence. The results indicate that the internal audit¡¦s independence will generate direct and moderated impact on publicly trade family business¡¦s performance in Taiwan. Specifically, the more independent board of directors a family business has, the better performance that this focal firm behaves. Moreover, the internal audit¡¦s independence will generate positively direct impact on firm performance in a family business. Additionally, the degree of internal audit¡¦s independent execution will moderate the positive impact from independent board of directors and family leadership on firm performance in publicly trade family businesses in Taiwan. This study provides referable values in estimating the internal audit¡¦s independence in publicly trade businesses. And it also provides theoretical and practical implications in addressing governance issues in family businesses in Asia.

As globalization is under its way, enterprises should take the turbulent business environment into account as the normal conditions. Furthermore, the advancement of information technology (IT) facilitates the information flow between departments inside and outside organization, and which brings us more convenient & flexible communication. The force of globalization and the IT impact is not only influence the employment systems, but also restructure the relationship among them. Following the dramatic change is that enterprises try their best to look for flexibility to cope with business needs. Unlike the traditional employment system, the dispatched employment is a system which involves the interaction among the three parties (dispatched worker, dispatch agency and working enterprise). The purpose of this research is to investigate the operation of this atypical employment from the perspective of working enterprise in the consumer banking. The method employed in this research is in-depth interview with eight cases. The purpose of interviewing can be classified into three aspects: 1. Understanding the operations of working enterprise associated with dispatched affairs, including reasons for employing dispatched workers, positions, and standards for selecting dispatch agency. 2. From the enterprises point of view, how the dispatch agencies dispatch their workers, including the services offered from dispatch agencies, recruiting, and the management of employment relationship, etc. 3. What are the expectations from the working enterprise, and how should the government and dispatch agency work hand in hand to make the whole process smoothly.

We trace the process of relationship development of the CEO¡]Chief Executive Officer¡^and CIO¡]Chief Information Officer¡^in one company in Taiwan over a 8-year period. In the process of corporation information technology makes policy and information system implementation, the both of change agency CEO and CIO can lead IT/IS project to successful or failure. Exploring the trust relationship building of process between CEO and CIO in the case, we hope provide research benefits that why or how to result in success or failure that a corporation information technology makes policy and information system implementation. In this research we use the process research model methodology that developed by Daniel Robey and Michael Newman in 1992 year and 1996 year, identify the 26 sequences events process in the AACL company¡¦s CEO/CIO for over 8 years, and define them as either encounters or episodes. We enrich and understanding the process of form of CEO/CIO trusts relationship, and other special phenomenon when an organization process information technology or information system changes. We use the change agentry for our exploring perspective, to analyze and theoretical argue the evolution of change agency¡¦s technological frames¡Bthe form of process of CEO/CIO in trust community¡Borganization¡¦s senior and junior staff in opposing phenomenon when organization changing, and how to build a model in champion or title of CEO/CIO. We conclude that the CEO and CIO, them as play a multiple change agency of role for driving organization¡¦s changing, however, the multiple change agency between CEO and CIO must go through an interact process for each other, they are sufficient building a robust trust relationship, let company¡¦s business benefits and technology benefits are really integration. This is my research why emphasize the important view that the multiple change agency CEO/CIO are need has a sufficient building robust trust relationship when organization process the information system changing.

Zugl.: Köln, Univ., Diss.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the issue of preferential rights in relation to the increased practice of hiring temporary staff. The object is illuminated from a diversity perspective by seeing what a circumvention of the preferential rights may have consequences for vulnerable groups on the Swedish labor market.   The question of preferential rights to reinstatement is controlled in  The Employment Protection Act. The preferential right is for the protection of workers made redundant due to redundancy. The use of agency workers has increased significantly in the Swedish labor market since the industry's legalization in 1993. This has created some problems in terms of preferential rights.   To a circumvention of the law, shall exist requires that the measures constitute circumvention is justified, measures should have been sought to circumvent the law and been unfair in view of the particular case. Hiring of staff is not considered as a new employment, which is the requirement to invoke preferential rights, thus causing it to staff hiring is legitimate action under the preferential time.   To reduce the abuse of the right of priority, I believe that the application of law should be changed so that it takes into account the triangular available on today's labor market.

This dissertation consists of three papers that examine how aspects of public policy may impact private sector corporate governance. The first two examine the relationship between personal-tax policy and corporate agency costs. The first paper is a theoretical analysis based on an agency model of managerial behavior. A unique element of this paper is that it assumes a discontinuous compensation function, which reflects the occurrence of performance thresholds associated with the dismissal incentive and many common bonus plans. The analysis results in three main findings. First, the relative magnitude of proportional taxation has an indeterminate effect on managerial performance. Second, an increase in tax progressivity is associated with reduced managerial performance and increased agency costs. Third, the inclusion of performance thresholds and compensation discontinuities can cause tax system changes to have surprisingly large impacts on managerial performance. The second paper is an empirical investigation of the relationship between personal-tax progressivity and corporate operating efficiency. The analysis is based on variations in across-state tax policy and utilizes a sample of US-based firms. Using matched-pair testing and regression analysis, evidence is found that is consistent with the hypothesis that increased personal-tax progressivity negatively impacts managerial performance. Together, the analysis contained in the first two papers suggests a need to further examine the relationship between personal taxation and corporate agency costs, an issue that is largely absent from the research literature. The third paper investigates whether variations in state corporate law affect firm value. Previous research in this area generally treats all states other than Delaware as having homogeneous corporate law. I relax this assumption and analyze a large panel sample of US firms. Evidence is found that Delaware firms are worth more, on average, than non-Delaware firms. However, this effect is not consistent across all non-Delaware jurisdictions. The valuation differences are correlated to differences in statutory law. Specifically, corporate law that provides greater entrenchment of management is associated with reduced firm value. The results indicate that corporate law does affect corporate governance. Furthermore, the findings are inconsistent with the “race to the bottom” theory of corporate law.

Both the civil and the common law legal systems have, as a result of their historical development, elaborated different conceptions of the law of agency. Given the existing divergence in approaches and rules relating to agency, the international unification of law in this field, although highly demanded by commercial practice, seems a problematic, but not impossible, task. The decades long efforts of a large number of states, international organisations and individuals to provide uniform rules of international agency law have resulted in the adoption of two conventions, namely, the Hague Convention on the Law Applicable to Agency (1978) aimed at the unification of the conflict rules of agency, and the UNIDROIT Convention on Agency in the International Sale of Goods (1983) which attempts to provide uniform material rules. / This thesis provides a detailed analysis of the uniform rules set out in both agency Conventions. The main purpose of this analysis is to assess the extent to which uniformity is achieved by these Conventions. However, in order to reveal the divergence of approaches between the civil and common law legal systems and define the "conflict areas" of international agency, the present study also contains a comparative survey of material and conflict rules of agency existing in the two systems.