Chief Executive Offier (CEO) characteristics, such as the level of risk aversion, are known to affect corporate financial policies, and therefore are likely to impact corporate liquidity decisions. We examine changes in cash holdings around CEO turnover events, a period in which discrete changes in managerial preferences and abilities are likely to have the most dramatic effect on cash holdings. Our results suggest that cash holdings increase significantly following forced departures. The increase is persistent over the successor's tenure and is robust to controls for the standard firm-level determinants of cash holdings and corporate governance characteristics. We find that higher cash holdings arise mainly through the management of net working capital, as opposed to asset sales or reductions in investment. This suggests that the changes are optimal for shareholders rather than an indication of serious agency problems. This conclusion is supported further by our finding that the marginal value of cash does not decrease following the turnover.

Diplomová práce se v teoretické části zabývá marketingem služeb, marketingovým mixem s akcentem na přepravní služby, připraví teoretický základ pro výzkum trhu. Dále obsahuje základní data o autobusové přepravě v ČR. V praktické části je proveden výzkum u spol. Student agency a Touring Bohemia. Výsledky jsou interpretovány a nakonec je přidáno hodnocení a doporučení.

The introductory chapter of the the thesis is focused on defining the basic concepts associated with entrepreneurship in tourism. Following part analyses the German travel agency market. The third chapter is devoted to the competitive environment of the Czech market. The aim is to verify the hypothesis that in the Czech Republic there is potential for the entry of German tour operators on the Czech market. The method of study is a survey at the end of the work that refused the original sentence and proved that on the Czech market is not sufficient in case of development potential.

This dissertation aims at analysis of marketing mix of advertising agency. Besides main 4P (Product, Price, Place, Promotions) contains other 3P (Personnel, Process, Physical evidence), because the product of the agency are services. The dissertations includes also SWOT and BCG analysis, in which provides information about positive and negative aspects of work of the agency. The separate chapter is dedicated to outsourcing, on which the advertising agency FILIP Media concentrates.

This essay is a look into the future of games with new technology at hand, it serves as acloser look at new challenges and ways to overcome those challenges in VR game design.What new untapped way of acting on immersive storytelling can we convey with thisinteractive medium and how can we treat our players sense of agency within a VR world withthe necessary respect it deserves. This paper will dive into the idea of walking a mile insomeone else’s shoes and how to create a believable, narrative driven, non-restrictive gameexperience using aesthetic choices, world interactions and environmental storytelling as ourdesign tools. Aesthetic choices aren’t just a matter of achieving the highest realism thoughgraphical fidelity, instead it requires us to go deeper and look at a more traditional way ofdesigning our games art, to deeper convey immersion through minimalism and environmentaldesign to name a few. The goal is to understand how a world’s environments and the gameart in that environment could affect agency, all to support a more deeply focused, curious andin the end more immersive session of play.A virtual reality game called Norn have been produced alongside this paper to showcasethese features come into play. Norn is a narrative driven experience set in a stylistic old norsesetting where you play as a 18 year old girl named Thora and her sister Eira in a coming ofage story told in a different way.We have concluded that methods like the “Weenie”-method help to produce ways to guideplayers subconsciously but need carefully iterative improvements to work. We have also useddesign methods such as Bartle’s (1996) taxonomy of player types and Schell’s´(2008)“Pleasures” to build an inviting game environment and gameplay around to achieve personalagency. All while streamlining the games art both to overcome technical challenges but alsoto show how stylized environments can help accentuate the intended experiences compared toa realistic one.

The thesis examines the dynamic impact of capital structure on firm performance in Nigeria. The aims of this thesis are; first, to investigate the impact of capital structure of firms on their performance in a dynamic framework. This is unlike previous studies in the capital structure literature that have used static analysis. Second, to examine the dynamic feedback from performance to capital structure using the two-step system generalized method of moment estimator. Third, to explore the determinants or variables that influence capital structure choice of firms in Nigeria and the rate of adjustment to achieve optimal debt position. Fourth, to assess the possibility of non-monotonicity effect of capital structure on firm performance and non-monotonicity effect of performance on capital structure. The second chapter discusses the theoretical framework and review the empirical literatures on capital structure and firm performance. Also, the chapter review empirical literature on firm performance and capital structure as well as on determinants of capital structure. The study find much evidence in support of the theoretical prediction of the agency cost theory of capital structure. The stuudy observed that there are limited empirical studies on the franchise value and efficiency-risk hypotheses of reverse causality from performance to capital structure. The empirical literatures on determinants of capital structure suggests that both firm specific and country factors are important variables that drive capital structure choice of firms. The thrid chapter examines the methodology of the study. The population, sampling and sampling size, estimation methods were discussed in this chapter. The fourth chapter analysis and described the data employed in the study. Specifically, the results of the dynamic relationship between capital structure and firm performance were presented in this chapter. The results indicate that capital structure has non-monotonic effect on firm performance thereby supports the agency cost theory of capital structure. The fifth chapter provides results on the reverse causality between performance and capital structure. The findings indicate that there is reverse causality between performance and capital structure. This is evidence in the statistically significant negative finding between performance and capital structure. This finding support the franchise value hypothesis. The findings of this study also reveal that non-monotonic relationship exist between performance and capital structure. The sixth chapter provides results on the determinants of capital structure of Nigerian firms. The findings indicate that both firm specific variables (return on equity, risk, profitablity, age, size, tangibility, growth opportunities, dividend, ownership) and country variables (inflation, interest rates, credit to private sector as percentage of gross domestic product, institutional quality) jointly influence capital structure choice of firms in Nigeria. The findings equally indicate that firms in Nigeria adjust to their optimal debt target relatively faster with lower cost of adjustment because of better access to private debt that public debt. Conclusions from the empirical chapters indicate that firm specific and country factors are major determinants of capital structure of firms in Nigeria and that capital structure choice of firms influence their performance. Equally, there is evidence that indicate that there is reverse causality from performance to capital structure of firms. The study therefore contend that the agency cost theory of capital structure and franchise value hypothesis are portable in the Nigerian context. Full portability of these theories in emerging market like Nigeria may require modifications to accommodate specific peculiarities of operating and business environment of Nigeria.

Uma das bases do sistema de franquias é a relação entre franqueado e franqueador. O franqueador, proprietário da marca, é responsável pela formatação do negócio e por formar as bases de uma rede padronizada, um dos pilares desse tipo de sistema. O franqueado desempenha o papel de manter a sua unidade segundo os preceitos e modelos impostos pela franqueadora. A rede pode se prejudicar por decisão de franqueados que não se engajam e apresentam comportamento diferente. A pergunta que orientou o trabalho foi: O que leva os franqueados a não se engajarem na rede de franquia? Para responder a pergunta foi elaborado um modelo de fatores que influenciam no engajamento e que serviram de base para o objetivo da tese - buscar os fatores que influenciam os franqueados a não se engajarem. O estudo apresenta a relação entre os agentes envolvidos, aprofundando os conceitos da teoria da agência em franquia, principalmente na escolha de novos parceiros e na manutenção dos atuais. Além disso, verifica-se a importância de fatores comportamentais, tais como pró-atividade e capacidade de adaptação e não apenas dos econômicos, usualmente considerados pelos franqueadores. Para a elaboração da tese utilizou-se a Theory Building from Cases (Teoria Baseada em Casos), estudando franqueados de três redes de franquia estabelecidas com mais de dez anos de atuação que totalizam por volta de 400 franqueados em seus quadros (setenta, noventa e duzentas e trinta unidades respectivamente). Para a elaboração da tese foram realizadas 37 entrevistas (3 franqueados; 8 consultores de campo; 24 franqueados e 2 entrevistas teste) totalizando mais de 60 horas de entrevistas. Qualitativo e exploratório, o estudo comparou franqueados engajados e não engajados por meio de dados primários se utilizando das técnicas de analise de conteúdo por meio do software MAXQDA12. O estudo, que partiu de trinta fatores de influência, apresenta um modelo de não engajamento de franqueados de seis fatores, divididos em duas dimensões, Franqueador: Problemas de Comunicação, Falta de Supervisão e Monitoramento e Influência na Rentabilidade e; Franqueado: Pouca Capacidade de Adaptação, Não Conhecimento do Sistema e Baixa Pró-Atividade. Esses fatores dificultam a construção da confiança no franqueador e problemas de agência. Destaca-se que a falta de comunicação com a equipe pode ser um fator desencadeante desse processo, um gatilho desse não engajamento. Na tese também fica claro que o nível de empreendedorismo pretendido pelas franqueadoras para seus franqueados ainda é algo difícil de mensurar e não muito claro. / One of the franchising foundations is the relationship between franchisee and franchisor. The franchisor, brand owner, is responsible for formatting the business and establishing the bases of a standardized franchised chain, one of the pillars of this type of system. The franchisee plays the role of keeping its unit according to the precepts and models imposed by the franchisor. The franchise chain may be harmed by franchisees who decide not to engage and present different behavior. The question that guided the work was: What leads franchisees not to engage in the franchise chain? In order to answer this question, a model of factors that influence engagement was developed. It served as basis for the purpose of the thesis, which is to look for the factors that influence franchisees not to engage. The study presents the relationship between the agents involved, deepening the concepts of the agency theory in franchising, mainly regarding the choice of new partners and maintenance of the current ones; moreover, the importance of behavioral factors is verified as well, such as, proactivity and adaptability and not only the economic ones which are usually considered by franchisors. In order to elaborate the thesis 37 interviews were conducted (3 franchisees, 8 franchise field consultants, 24 franchisees and 2 test) totaling more than 60 hours of material. Qualitative and exploratory, the study compared engaged and not engaged franchisees through primary data using content analysis techniques by operating MAXQDA12 software. The study, which started off from thirty influence factors, presents a six-factor model of franchisees non-engagement, divided into the following two dimensions: Franchisor (Communication Problems, Lack of Supervision and Monitoring and Influence on Profitability) and Franchisee (Poor Adaptability, No Knowledge of the System and Low Pro-Activity). These factors hinder confidence building in the franchiser resulting in agency issues. It is accentuated that the lack of team communication can be an initiating factor to this process, a trigger of this nonengagement problem. In this thesis it is also clear that the entrepreneurship level intended by franchisors to their franchisees is still something very difficult to measure and it is very unclear.

Inter-agency working has been promoted as a way forward to improve public services, including children's services. However, the terminology is problematic because it often overlaps with other terminologies, such as partnership or collaboration. As a consequence, when describing working arrangements between people and organisations, a 'terminological quagmire' results (Leathard, 1994, p5), with 'definitional chaos' (Ling, 2000, p83). This definitional chaos is replicated in the on-going challenges found by research, on inter-agency working. While much literature has focussed on these challenges and solutions, little attention has been given to the processes that make up inter-agency working. My research explored inter-agency working processes at the frontline of children's services in Scotland. It examined formal mechanisms of working together, such as meetings and referral forms, which organised professionals' work and their relationships with one another. I used institutional ethnography to investigate inter-agency working processes. The research was conducted in one local authority in Scotland over a period of eight months and within the framework of Getting It Right For Every Child (GIRFEC), which is the country's national policy approach for children. One component of GIRFEC is the Named Person. It is a provision that would provide every child in Scotland a professional (for most children the professional is going to be their health visitor or head teacher) to help safeguard their wellbeing by means of offering advice, support and referral to other services. This service will make teachers at promoted posts responsible for coordinating support for their pupils and will change mechanisms of inter-agency working. The tenets of institutional ethnography allowed me to observe and trace the ways in which professionals worked together. The research found that when professionals worked together, they shared information and that sharing of information was complicated by the burgeoning use of technology. The working processes involved revealed the power relations between people and between people and organisations: specifically, between teachers and the Children and Families team members of the council, as the latter was responsible for maintaining the formal inter-agency working mechanisms of GIRFEC. The thesis highlights that inter-agency meetings, as formalised ways of working together, can boost professionals' confidence as they wrestle with uncertainty about their actions as professionals and how best to address children and young people's needs. This thesis also shows how policy changes changed the ways in which professionals work together. The Named Person provision of GIRFEC has ignited public debates in Scotland. This thesis is contributing to the debates by providing evidence on how this new role has changed the relationships between the teachers and other professionals. This is pertinent as the Scottish Government is currently redesigning the Named Person policy.

The emergence of novelists such as Kazuo Ishiguro and Timothy Mo in the final decades of the twentieth century has often been taken as evidence of an increasing multiculturalism both in Britain and the wider world, as well as in British literature itself. With their dual British-Asian heritage and their interrogation of notions of history, identity and agency, these authors are often celebrated as proponents of the cosmopolitan novel, a genre which rejects binary notions of East and West or national interest in favour of a transnational mode of cooperation and cohabitation. Reading against the grain of such celebratory notions of the cosmopolitan, this thesis suggests that if the novels of Ishiguro and Mo are concerned with the exigencies of the cosmopolitan world, then they portray that world as one which remains split and haunted by divisions between East and West, past and present, self and ‘other’. That is, they present a cosmopolitan world in which the process of negotiation and contact is difficult, confrontational and often violent. Drawing upon Fredric Jameson’s notion of the ‘political unconscious’, I suggest that these novels in fact reveal the origins of the rather deeper divisions which have emerged in the first decade of the twenty first century, analysing the ways in which they reveal a degree of cultural incommensurability, frustrated cosmopolitan agency and the enduring power and appeal of the nation state. I also suggest that the contemporary critical obsession with the spatial – whereby cosmopolitanism’s work is carried out in ‘Third Spaces’, interstitial sites, and border zones – fails to recognize the importance of temporal concerns to the experience of cosmopolitan living. My analysis of the novels of Ishiguro and Mo is thus concerned with the way in which the temporal is a key concern of these works at both a narratological and thematic level. In particular, I identify a curious ‘double-time’ of cosmopolitanism, whereby the busyness which we might expect of the period is counterpointed by a simultaneous sense of stasis and inactivity. I argue that it is within this unsettling contemporary ‘double-time’ that the cracks and fissures in the narrative of cosmopolitanism begin to emerge.

This thesis is an empirical investigation into the control mechanisms of headquarters (HQ) exercised over their subsidiaries and is conducted with the help of primary data collected from 147 Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) operating in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Following on from the literature review, this study proposed that the headquarters-subsidiary mechanisms could be linked to agency theory (with the 'classical' principal-agent relationship as its core) and to resource dependency theory (implying relations between the subsidiary and other partners based on interdependence). Our results show that the agency and resource dependency mechanisms are indeed used side by side and complementary to each other to exercise control. The Headquarters-subsidiary model used in this study has four components of control in it: personal centralised control (PCC), bureaucratic formalised control (BFC), output control (OUT) and informal control (INFO). These controls (as an agency mechanism) provide a solid platform on which other mechanisms can be built. The complementarities of these control mechanisms may be linked to earlier studies that show that successful organisations combine tight control with more open, informal and flexible information and communication exchanges. A focus that bends too much towards formal control or too much towards informal control may threaten a company's existence. Our research provides an empirical explanation on this premise. The study found that Anglo-Saxon countries heavily use impersonal types of control mechanisms, specifically bureaucratic formalised control and output control. Compared to the US, the level of control in Oriental subsidiaries is less; or, put differently, the latter enjoy a greater degree of autonomy than US subsidiaries. Once a unit is operational, Oriental parent companies grant many more degrees of freedom than US parent companies. When we deconstructed the results for Europe, comparing German and British MNEs as a group to Oriental MNEs, we found that the latter exercised greater overall control. With regard to output and bureaucratic control, we found that both US MNEs and those from the Middle East exercised greater control than Oriental MNEs. The study drew the aspect of international transfers into the picture and investigated the role of expatriates in controlling subsidiaries. It has been recognised that expatriates can form both direct and indirect means of control. In executing direct types of control, expatriates directly supervised decisions taken at subsidiaries. The study found that this role is particularly strong in MNEs from Asia-Pacific countries and German MNEs, and is much less important in subsidiaries of Anglo-Saxon MNEs. We found that subsidiaries of German MNEs experienced a very high level of control; indeed, the only control mechanism that German MNEs did not implement among subsidiaries was control by socialisation and networks. German and Japanese MNEs are perhaps more rooted in business systems concerned with the management of issues internationally than American or British companies. The second group reflected that Anglo-Saxon countries heavily used impersonal types of control mechanisms, specifically bureaucratic formalised control and output control. When we deconstructed the results for Europe, comparing German and British as a group to Oriental MNEs, reveals the latter as possessing greater overall control. With regard to output and bureaucratic control, we found that both US MNEs and those from the Middle East exercised greater control than Oriental MNEs. Headquarters can strategize to implement control by the informal and social means method by positioning a sizeable number of managers from the home country within the subsidiary. Indeed, our results revealed this as true. It seems that their presence has positive and significant effects on most levels of control: personal, output, bureaucratic and informal. Contrary to this, however, we found that the presence of a sizeable number of expatriates (as opposed to headquarters managers) leaded to greater autonomy in subsidiaries. In terms of strategy and structure, we indicated that the three distinct organisational models identified for MNEs could be recognised in our study. Control INFO was significantly, positively related to global strategy, multi-domestic and transnational strategy compared with PCC, BFC, and OUT control mechanism. Conversely, BFC had a significant, negative and weak relationship with global strategy and transnational strategy, and no relationship with multi-domestic strategy. In general however, we can deduce the existence of a tendency for global, transnational and multi-domestic MNEs to use indirect control mechanisms and informal control suited to their integrated organisational models to a larger extent. Our results confirmed previous studies in the field of organisation theory, in the sense that size is an important explanatory factor for differences in control mechanisms. In contrast to these studies, however, a dominant effect was found only for the indirect control mechanisms. Few detailed studies that have investigated the effect of size on the two indirect control mechanisms; in actuality, most previous studies have focused on the direct control mechanisms (personal centralised control and bureaucratic formalised control) only. As such, our study reconfirmed the importance of the variable size, but concluded that it is mainly associated with higher levels of indirect control. The age of the subsidiary does not seem to have a significant influence on the type of control mechanism that is exercised by headquarters towards a particular subsidiary. Our study investigated the importance of various MNE characteristics in an attempt to explain performance differences between MNEs. The advantage of this study is that many of the characteristics that have been identified in previous literature as being important factors influencing performance were included in our research design, in order for us to be able to answer the other research questions. This therefore allowed us to assess the relative importance levels of different variables in explaining performance differences between companies, such as: country of origin, industry, size, interdependence, local responsiveness, knowledge flows, and the strategy and structure of the MNEs.