Against the background of The Buddha of Suburbia and The Black Album, this study explores the ways Hanif Kureishi problematizes the notion of identity. The present study aims to lay bare how Kureishi moves the previously fixed categories into a slippery ground in his fiction and, in the process, how he challenges the fundamental givens of identity politics against the background of Homi Bhabha&rsquo / s key concepts: hybridity, mimicry, ambivalence, agency, liminality and the third space. It will also make references to the category of nation as narration in relation to Thatcherite politics and identity as a performative act/process. Bhabha&rsquo / s theories will also help highlight how Kureishi&rsquo / s characters create their liminal spaces and how they perform their identity within these spaces. Looking at both novels, it is concluded that the nature of identity is fluid since it is configured according to many variables such as religious practice, political activism, arts and sexual discourse which are not stable, either. Kureishi&rsquo / s novels fictionalize that identity can never be reified by the essentialist pre-givens of the traditional ideologies. In a multicultural world, rather than assimilation, it is important to grasp the unstable nature of identity in order to respect cultural differences. Thus, in a world where the dominant voices do not/cannot suppress the marginal ones, identity, national or individual, will keep on transforming itself.

Abstract This study attempts to investigate and analyze the ¡§Executive Search¡¨ (ES) industry in Taiwan today, a field in which there is a serious shortage of academic research. The main purposes of this study are to reveal the business processes involved in ES, and to identify the characteristics of both clients and candidates. In order to reveal a complete picture of the industry¡¦s development in Taiwan, expert interviews were used as the main method of investigation. Initially, we studied foreign research papers on ES, after which five ES consultants and four corporate Human Resources managers were interviewed. A number if interesting facts were uncovered by this research: 1. ES consultants in Taiwan tend to follow the approach of consultants in American and Europe. 2. The size of ES industry in Taiwan is not yet sufficient for the needs of the economy and, in addition, a greater degree of specialization is required. 3. Young, well-educated managers with characteristics such as good interpersonal skills, strong loyalty, intelligence and aggression, are those most sought after by ES clients. 4. Clients of the ES industry are companies with an urgent need for talented people, and include high tech companies, professional management firms, subsidiaries of international corporations in Taiwan, and companies run by second-generation entrepreneurs. At the end of this study, we suggest three issues for further research: 1. A comparison between the performance of managers found through ES and those found through other recruiting methods. 2. The relationship between Human Resource Managers and ES Consultants. 3.The potential for integration between the ES industry and network technology.

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Abstract Since the Asian financial crisis in 1997, several researches for the East Asian have found that concentration of ownership higher than other areas and weak corporate governance have been important reasons of financing crisis. Therefore, the study adopts the method developed by La Porta, Lopez-de-Silanes and Shleifer (1999), which traces the chain of ownership to find who has the most voting rights, identifies their ultimate control patterns, finds the controlling shareholders of firm, and then calculates each ultimate owner¡¦s control rights and cash flow rights. We also try to find the relationship between those ways of controlling shareholders to the voting rights, cash flow rights, and the degree of control rights deviating from cash flow rights. In Addition, we regress to the Proxy Q on controlling shareholders¡¦ control rights deviating from cash flow rights, then examine the evidence on expropriation of minority shareholders. This paper investigates whether the board construction on corporate governance mechanism effectively discharge its monitoring function and mitigate central agency problem. The research data are collected from the publications of those companies that stocks are openly traded on the Taiwan Stock Market between 2000 and 2003 April. There are 183 validated observations which are obtained. Empirical result suggests¡G 1. The high concentration of ownership is more common in Taiwan publicly listed companies and those firms are typically controlled by families. 2. The controlling shareholders typically have power over firms significantly in excess of their cash flow rights because they through the use of pyramids, cross-holdings, paper company and participation in management. And the condition of family control company is the worst. 3. The more the controlling shareholders¡¦ cash flow rights, the better performance of the firm. 4. For Taiwan publicly listed companies, the corporate governance mechanism could not effectively discharge its monitoring function and mitigate central agency problem.

Agency theories suggest that governance matters more when agency conflicts are potentially more severe. However, empirical studies often do not control for the potential severity of agency conflicts. I show that the marginal benefit of governance varies with the free cash flow level, a proxy for the potential severity of agency conflicts. As the free cash flow level increases, higher governance quality becomes incrementally more value-enhancing, and lower governance quality becomes incrementally more value-destroying. This is consistent with the hypothesis that better governance helps resolve the agency conflicts in investment decisions when a firm has more free cash flows (Jensen, 1986). This study highlights the importance of controlling for the potential severity of agency conflicts in governance studies and provides an improved method to estimate the marginal benefit of a governance mechanism.

This paper adopts a Balanced Scorecard conceptual model, further uses the Factor Analysis, and ANOVA method approach, to empirically measure the strategic position and tour manager performance of travel agencies. The theoretical model identifies an underlying variable construct, financial, customer, internal process, and innovation & learning perspectives which combine traditional subjective or objective measures with operating measures of tour manager performances and the relationships between strategic positions of travel agencies. Those findings of the study provide innovative quantitative methods for measuring the tour manager performance. The results provide an in-depth understanding into the low-cost and differentiation strategy of tour manager performance measure model. According to this research, Taiwanese travel agencies consider 4 financial, 4 customer, 5 internal process, and 5 innovation & learning perspective indicators of tour manager performance measurement which also have relationships with strategic position. Finally, the paper proposes an optimal model that matches the essential needs of low-cost and differentiation strategic development and overcomes the traditional tour manger performance measuring shortcomings.

Family or group-owned corporations and informed trading are two features of Taiwan¡¦s capital market. Is there any relationship between the two features? Can we solve this kind of problem by some mechanism of corporate governance? These issues are common concerns for participants of capital markets and government policy makers, therefore, there are many scholars devoting themselves in the related research. This study adopts the work of McInish and Wood (1992), who measure informed trading by calculating standardized bid-ask spread. Moreover, some variables, such as trading volume, risk, stock price, company size, and listing market are taken into account because the literature indicates they may affect bid-ask spread. According to the concept of voting rights and cash flow rights introduced by La Porta, Lopez-De-Silanes, Shleifer, and Vishny (2002) and the concept of fraction of cash flow rights on the voting rights introduced by Claessens, Djankov, and Lang (2000), we use the difference ratio, which is one minus the fraction of voting rights over the cash flow rights, to measure the degree of central agency problems. The corporate governance variables, such as board size, the proportion of outside directors, and institutional shareholdings are employed as moderating variables. Multiple regression models are used to test the hypotheses. According to the test results, we find that the more cash flow rights deviate from voting rights the more informed trading will be and it can be alleviated by increasing board size and hiring big CPA firms for audit purpose; while it can be worsen by adopting more outside directors and institutional shareholdings.

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<p>Purpose: The purpose of this research is to explore the reasons behind the abolish-ment of statutory audit in small limited firms in Sweden and to discuss whether it would be beneficial for these firms to still maintain an audit of their business after the abolishment.</p><p>Method: As a major part of this research study, qualitative interviews with auditors have been conducted to obtain professional opinion in the subject of inter-est. Previous research are presented to provide a broader perspective of the debate.</p><p>Frame of Reference: The authors present an extensive background to auditing and accounting. Stakeholder model and agency theory have been applied to aid an under-standing of the relationship between a firm and its stakeholders. Experi-ences from other European Union countries are presented to provide a ba-sis of comparison and discussion. Moreover, advantages and disadvantages of auditing are presented to facilitate a discussion of whether it is beneficial to maintain an audit of small limited firms.</p><p>Conclusion: After extensive research the authors have identified and determined the most probable reasons behind the abolishment of statutory audit. The au-thors can after a broad research conclude that the central reasons behind the abolishment are the costs of auditing. Populism and politics, as well as harmonisation motives of the European Union, are also prominent reasons for the abolishment of statutory audit in small limited firms in Sweden.</p><p>Highlighting the benefits of auditing illustrates that accomplishing an assur-ance of quality is one of the most essential motives of an audit review. Au-diting may facilitate granting of loans, longer credit periods and loyalty, a credible image of the firm, as a result of business owners providing trust-worthy information to their stakeholders. It can be concluded that it is beneficial for small limited firms to maintain an audit of their business, de-spite the abolishment of statutory audit.</p> / <p>Syfte: Syftet med denna uppsats är att utforska de bakomliggande orsakerna till revisionspliktens avskaffande i små aktiebolag i Sverige och att diskutera hu-ruvida det är fördelaktigt att behålla revision i bolagen efter slopandet.</p><p>Metod: För att erhålla en professionell åsikt kring ämnet i fråga, har denna studie till största del bestått av kvalitativa intervjuer med respondenter från revisions-byråer. Tidigare studier är även presenterade för att tillföra debatten ett bre-dare perspektiv.</p><p>Referensram: Författarna ger en omfattande beskrivning av redovisning och revision. Intressentmodellen och agentteorin har tillämpats i syfte att underlätta för-ståelsen av relationen mellan företag och dess intressenter. Erfarenheter från andra EU-länder är presenterade för att möjliggöra jämförelse och dis-kussion, dessutom beskrivs för- och nackdelar av revision för att underlätta diskussionen om huruvida det är fördelaktigt att behålla revision i små ak-tiebolag.</p><p>Slutsats: Författarna har efter omfattande forskning fastställt de troligaste orsakerna till slopandet av revisionsplikten i små aktiebolag. Sammanfattningsvis kan författarna hävda att huvudorsakerna till avskaffandet är kostnaden av att upprätthålla revision. Populism, politik och EU:s harmoniserande strävan är ytterligare framträdande anledningar till slopandet av revisionsplikt i små ak-tiebolag i Sverige.</p><p>Att erhålla en kvalitetsstämpel är den främsta fördelen med revision. Dessutom kan revisionen underlätta beviljande av lån, längre kredittider, bi-dra till ökad pålitlighet och trovärdighet av bolaget. Dessa fördelar resulterar från ägarnas pålitliga information som de förser sina intressenter med. Av-slutningsvis kan man påstå att det är gynnsamt för små aktiebolag att behål-la revision även efter slopandet.</p>