M.Com. (Business Management) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

Participation in the agricultural land district enrollment and development rights acquisition program of the Maryland Agricultural Land Preservation Foundation (MALPF) is examined as the adoption and diffusion of an innovative agricultural land preservation policy by Maryland farmland owners. In personal interviews, each of 104 study participants answered a series of 128 questions relating to nine hypotheses on MALPF program participation. Point biserial correlations were calculated to differentiate non-participants (N = 26) from participants (N = 78), district members who have not offered easements (N = 26) from those who have (N = 52), and participants who have sold easements from those who have not (N = 26, respectively). Factor analysis and logit regression were used to develop predictive models of: (a) joining a district; (b) offering and easement; and (c) successfully selling and easement. Contact with other landowners already engaged in successively higher levels of participatory behavior and contact with formal agricultural land policy communication channels are important to both differentiating among the four levels of MALPF program participation and predicting landowner participatory behavior. Higher levels of participation are evident among landowners located in more remote portions of rapidly growing counties. Landowner attitudes toward government institutions, environmentalism, and farming as a way of life influence MALPF program participation as do landowner practices in financial management of the farm enterprise. These findings suggest MALPF program modifications may be needed in the form of: offering a period of trial district enrollment and trial easement sales; intensifying efforts in marketing and information dissemination; and targeting recruitment efforts at specific segments of Maryland farmland owners.

Background: Endometriosis is a common condition in women of reproductive age, causing pelvic pain and subfertility, but little is known about its impact on health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and work productivity worldwide. Methods: In 10 countries across five continents, this study recruited 1,418 women, aged 18-45, without a previous surgical diagnosis of endometriosis, scheduled to undergo a laparoscopy to investigate symptoms suggestive of endometriosis or to be sterilised. Pre-operatively, women completed a standardised questionnaire assessing symptoms, diagnostic delay, HRQoL and work productivity using validated instruments. Surgeons completed a standardised questionnaire incorporating findings at laparoscopy including endometriosis stage according to revised American Fertility Society criteria. Results: There was a mean delay of 9.2 years (SD 8.8), principally in primary care, between the onset of symptoms and diagnostic laparoscopy. This diagnostic delay was longer in centres where healthcare was predominantly state-funded (12.8 vs. 7.6 years; p<0.001). In multivariate analyses, the delay was positively associated with the number of pelvic symptoms (chronic pelvic pain, dysmenorrhoea, dyspareunia and heavy periods; p<0.001) and a higher body mass index (p<0.001). Physical HRQoL was significantly reduced in affected women compared to those with similar symptoms and no endometriosis (p=0.012). Not being in paid employment, severe pelvic pain and moderate-severe disease were associated with reduced physical HRQoL (all p<0.001). Each affected woman lost on average 10.0 hours (SD 10.6) of work weekly, due mainly to reduced effectiveness while working. The annual indirect cost of endometriosis associated with work productivity loss ranged from US$399 per woman in Ibadan (Nigeria) to US$18,586 per woman in Boston (USA). Conclusions: Endometriosis significantly impairs HRQoL and work productivity across countries and ethnicities, yet women continue to experience diagnostic delays in primary care. A higher index of suspicion is needed to expedite specialist assessment of symptomatic women. Future research should seek to clarify pain mechanisms in relation to endometriosis severity.

This thesis consists of three independent but thematically related papers exploring the income determination process in African labour markets from spatial and sectoral perspectives. Using long-run household panel data from rural Tanzania, chapter 2 investigates the extent to which education can explain migrants' income and consumption gains. We expect that the higher return to schooling at the destination primarily drives migrants' gains, suggesting that those who cannot afford the cost of schooling cannot reap the benefits of migration. We find that education indeed plays the role, but that it does not appear to be a major factor in limiting the internal migration as a source of raising income and consumption. Exploiting data drawn from urban household panel surveys in Ghana and Tanzania, chapter 3 investigates how rural-to-urban migrants' earnings compare with those of natives in urban labour markets. The chapter attempts to identify the growth of migrants' earnings at the destination (assimilation), making a distinction between wage and self-employed migrants. We find that wage-dependent migrants would achieve higher lifetime earnings if they entered a self-employed sector from their arrival, conditional on individuals' attributes and the varying returns to those attributes across urban residents. The evidence points towards the importance of capital constraints in a decision to start a business. Using firm-level data of manufacturing and retailing from the Enterprise Surveys conducted in seven Sub-Saharan African countries, chapter 4 attempts to improve our understanding of enterprise performance in urban Africa by investigating three aspects of firms' productive structure: technology, total factor productivity (TFP), and firm size. We find that the technology is similar between sectors, that retailing firms are smaller and less capital intensive but not, on average, ones with lower TFP, and that TFP differences are primarily within sectors. All these findings might point towards the importance of factor prices in characterising the industrial structure in urban Africa.

This study was conducted to: i) determine the effect of residual feed intake (RFI) on first parity fertility and subsequent lifetime productivity of 820 females ranked as low, medium, and high RFI in western Canada and ii) investigate the relationship between RFI measured as a heifer and re-measured as a mature cow. No significant correlations were found between RFI and fertility/productivity traits. A negative trend (P < 0.10) was observed between RFI, RFIfat and MPPAbw, however, this trend was no longer apparent when RFI was adjusted for back fat and feeding event frequency (RFIfat&activity). No significant (P < 0.05) relationship was found between heifer RFI and cow RFI. These results suggest that selection for feed efficient, low RFI heifers i) has no impact on their fertility and productivity as cows, and ii) may not lead to superior feed efficiency as a mature cow as measured by RFI and Cow DMI. / February 2017

Cette thèse a pour objectif de caractériser le comportement du taux de change réel d'équilibre, face à des chocs d'offre et de demande sur les fondamentaux. Les chapitres I et II mettent en évidence la relation qui lie la productivité au taux de change réel. Les résultats principaux sont les suivants : la croissance de la productivité ne provoque pas systématiquement d'appréciation réelle, contrairement à ce que prévoit l'analyse de BS. Les comportements d'épargne des ménages, la différence du taux de croissance de population, et le ratio entre les travailleurs qualifiés et les travailleurs non-qualifiés dans l'économie affectent la relation entre taux de change réel-productivité. Ces deux premiers chapitres proposent une explication aux déviations observées vis-à-vis de l'analyse Balassa-Samuelson dans la littérature. Le chapitre III décrit abondamment - théoriquement et empiriquement - la relation qui lie le taux de change réel et la démographie. Le cadre théorique nous permet de détecter l'impact du facteur démographique sur le taux de change réel. En même temps, les tests économétriques confirment l'existence d'une relation à long terme entre le facteur démographique et le taux de change réel. Finalement, les trois chapitres I, II, et III mettent en évidence deux déterminants significatifs du taux de change réel : le facteur démographique et la productivité. Le chapitre IV étudie la causalité entre trois variables: le taux de change réel, la productivité, et les facteurs démographiques. Les résultats montrent qu'il existe une forte causalité entre eux, avec un retour à long terme vers le taux de change réel et la productivité. / The aim of this thesis is to characterise the behaviour of the real exchange rate, when it is confronted by shocks to the supply and demand of fundamentals. It disregards monetary phenomena, in order to focus on totally real factors.Chapters I and II of this thesis highlight the relationship between productivity and real exchange rate. The main results are as follows: productivity growth does not systematically produce real appreciation, contrary to the BS prediction. Household savings behaviour, population growth rate difference, and the ratio of qualified to unqualified workers in the economy affect the real exchange rate / productivity relationship. These first two chapters provide a response to the current literature concerning, in certain cases, the invalidity of the Balassa-Samuelson theory.Chapter III describes in considerable detail, both theoretically and empirically, the relationship between the real exchange rate and demographics. The theoretical framework makes it possible to detect the impact of demographics on the real exchange rate. The econometric tests confirm that a long-term relationship exists between demographics and the real exchange rate.Finally, the three chapters I, II and III reveal two significant determinants of the real exchange rate: demographics and productivity.Chapter IV studies the causality existing between three variables: the real exchange rate, productivity, and demographics. The results show that there is indeed a strong degree of causality between these variables, with a long-term return towards real exchange rate and productivity.

This thesis is focused on benchmarking problematic, exactly on the benchmarking role and restrictions on the decision tool for the company management. Benchmarking enables upstanding increase for companies and last but not least increase of product and services quality. Thesis includes hypotheses and methodology of research which was focused on the analysis of company management tools for maintenance of decision making and for selected aspects of benchmarking. There was made a primary research in the area of benchmarking models between small and middle-sized companies in the Czech Republic. Thesis includes an implementation benchmarking methodology in the small and middle-sized companies.

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1959 T68

D.Comm. (Business Economics) / Please refer to full text to view abstract.

M. Comm. / The aim of this study is to present a practical solution to companies for creating a mechanism whereby the conversion of organisational goals to concrete action items becomes reality. "Over the years we have seen many senior executives that believe that they have a well-developed well-understood and articulated vision that most employees buy into, but without understanding or providing an adequate mechanism with which to actually accomplish the goals" (Best, 1998: 5-9). The references made to the concepts of quality and productivity will refer to the following two definitions respectively: Quality of Organisation "As is the case so often in South Africa, it is quite possible to produce a quality product with a very ineffective and inefficient business process: the penalty that customers pay is getting a quality product which is totally overpriced in order to subsidise the inefficiencies of the business process" (Scholtz, 1998: 33-39). Productivity "The orientation of any new measures will be less concerned with the volume of output (such as the number of orders processed) and more concerned with the value-adding content of work (whether orders are processed correctly the first time and without delay)" (Hope and Hope, 1997: 191-192). Tom Peters supports the view taken on these two definitions in his book Thriving on Chaos (1987:23). Tom Peters is of the opinion that adding value will result from superior quality of products and in exceptional service and responsiveness to customers. Through experience gained in the banking, education, retail and chemical sectors, the problem of dealing with inefficient processes and not having a single accurate, timely and comprehensive source of reference information for decision-making, has been encountered on numerous occasions.