Understanding the determinants of employment growth is important in light of the concentration of population and employment in urban centres. As economic activity concentrates, smaller urban centres, and rural areas and towns find themselves at a growing disadvantage. Yet not all small urban or rural towns share the same experience. Moreover, not all urban centres grow significantly. It is thus of academic interest to discover more precisely what the employment growth determinants are.<p>Another aspect of employment growth is the particular source of employment change. Employment growth is not single-dimensional, but it has four components (growth from firm births and business expansions; and decreases from firm deaths and business declines), each of which may have unique determinants. Thus, in investigating the determinants of employment change, it is important to recognize the businesses life cycle and test whether the key influences vary over that life cycle. <p>This study empirically estimates the determinants of employment growth and assesses their role and relative importance in a communitys job growth. The major determinants include industrial composition, human capital, spatial variables and policy variables. The study is carried out at two levels: sub-provincial and provincial and covers the years 1983-1999. Two econometric methods of estimation are applied, random effects and fixed effects. <p>An important finding is that there are significant differences among the four components of employment change. This implies that when we simply examine overall employment growth we are masking very different effects that the determinants of employment change have among the four components of job growth. At the community level industrial diversification assists the growth of expanding firms and boosts employment due to the establishment of new businesses. On the other side, communities that have high industrial concentration experience lower employment losses from declining and exiting firms. Regions with a higher share of population that has received some post secondary education have, ceteris paribus, higher job growth rates. Another finding is that the farther away a community is situated from a large Census Metropolitan Area, the less employment growth it has. These results offer significant refinements to undifferentiated employment change findings.

Understanding the determinants of employment growth is important in light of the concentration of population and employment in urban centres. As economic activity concentrates, smaller urban centres, and rural areas and towns find themselves at a growing disadvantage. Yet not all small urban or rural towns share the same experience. Moreover, not all urban centres grow significantly. It is thus of academic interest to discover more precisely what the employment growth determinants are.<p>Another aspect of employment growth is the particular source of employment change. Employment growth is not single-dimensional, but it has four components (growth from firm births and business expansions; and decreases from firm deaths and business declines), each of which may have unique determinants. Thus, in investigating the determinants of employment change, it is important to recognize the businesses life cycle and test whether the key influences vary over that life cycle. <p>This study empirically estimates the determinants of employment growth and assesses their role and relative importance in a communitys job growth. The major determinants include industrial composition, human capital, spatial variables and policy variables. The study is carried out at two levels: sub-provincial and provincial and covers the years 1983-1999. Two econometric methods of estimation are applied, random effects and fixed effects. <p>An important finding is that there are significant differences among the four components of employment change. This implies that when we simply examine overall employment growth we are masking very different effects that the determinants of employment change have among the four components of job growth. At the community level industrial diversification assists the growth of expanding firms and boosts employment due to the establishment of new businesses. On the other side, communities that have high industrial concentration experience lower employment losses from declining and exiting firms. Regions with a higher share of population that has received some post secondary education have, ceteris paribus, higher job growth rates. Another finding is that the farther away a community is situated from a large Census Metropolitan Area, the less employment growth it has. These results offer significant refinements to undifferentiated employment change findings.

Firms' participation in exporting or foreign direct investment is an extremely rare behavior: only 4 percent of over 5.5 million U.S. firms were exporters in 2000. Exporters are generally larger (e.g. output and employment) and more productive than firms serving only domestic markets. Such heterogeneity within a narrowly defined industry cannot be fully explained by either comparative advantage arguments or the presence of scale economies and consumers' love of variety. Recent studies of heterogeneous firms show that a reduction in trade costs, i.e. policy, geographic and institutional barriers, has two effects within an industry previously not recognized in trade literature: (i) exit of low productivity firms, and (ii) resource reallocation in favor of high productivity firms. These two effects combine to raise an industry's average productivity and overall welfare, but can adversely affect some regions of an economy with firm closures or job losses. The objective of this dissertation is to examine the effects of trade costs on firm entry, exit, and employment at a regional level in the United States. For this purpose, industry-specific trade costs by U.S. regions are derived and their underlying sources are examined. The chosen trade-costs measure, based on the gravity equation, captures the variation over time in trade fictions among countries. Data from the Census Bureau and the World Bank are employed to quantify trade costs by U.S. industries and regions. Results show that a single measure of trade costs for the United States does not adequately represent the large number of and diverse regions through which trade in agriculture and manufacturing occurs. Moreover, geographic factors appear to be relatively more important than policy barriers in explaining the level of trade costs faced by U.S. regions. Drawing on recent heterogeneous firms models, this dissertation specifies an empirical framework to examine: (i) firm entry or exit arising from changes in trade costs, i.e. extensive margin, and (ii) changes in employment of surviving firms creation arising from changes in trade costs, i.e. intensive margin. These two hypotheses are tested using regional business dynamics data from the Census Bureau and trade cost measures derived earlier. Results show that trade cost changes affect firm exit and employment as hypothesized. That is, lowering trade costs increases the likelihood of firm exit, presumably of the low-productivity ones. Thus, trade costs, by way of the extensive margin, affect an industry's average productivity. Similarly, trade costs appear to affect the employment of surviving firms suggesting that the intensive margin also operates to improve average productivity of an industry, such as through resource reallocation towards high-productivity firms. The intra-industry reallocation of resources to high productivity firms is an important source of gains from trade to the whole economy. Nonetheless, some regions face firm exit and job losses. In assessing the gains from trade, attention must be paid to the distributional consequences of resource reallocation within an industry as well as a country. / Graduation date: 2013

摘要 在資訊科技服務的市場，資訊科技委外（ITO）在市場佔有顯著的地位。過去有許多的報告研究資訊委外廠商的選擇，以及有效的合約管理方法，鮮少針對企業資訊委外合約簽訂之後，企業與委外伙伴之間的互動進行研究。然而依據許多個案報導案例顯示，大多數委外案例的失敗，不是由於雙方關係管理的不適當，就是無法滿足委外企業最初委外目標的期盼。 我們使用在過去的二十六年中臺灣資訊科技委外市場的四十個案例來研究探討如何利用資訊委外關係管理來獲取預期綜效。經過分析與研究，發現四種資訊科技委外的合作關係。這四種合作關係型態分別為：夥伴關係（Partner）、倚賴關係（Dependent）、隨需存取關係（Utility）、以及附屬關係（Subordinate）。不同的委外關係含概了不同的委外服務內容，也含概了不同的關係管理。夥伴的合作關係，企業的期望不止雙方合作達成企業的策略目標，同時也期望委外廠商支援科技創新而提升企業的市場競爭力；倚賴的合作關係，企業對委外廠商支援達成企業策略目標高度倚靠；隨需存取的合作關係，企業期望資源的取得是隨需存取，完全以成本考量；附屬的合作關係，企業則認為該委外廠商僅僅是依附於資訊中心的下包廠商，委外與否完全由企業的資訊中心自行決定。此外，本研究顯示不同的委外關係是由於不同的委外關係無法達成期盼，以及無法交付最終策略利益、經濟利益、或資訊科技利益而終止。 本論文透過文獻探討與深度個案研究，來瞭解影響不同合作關係資訊科技委外的相關因素，和期盼的資訊科技委外的結果。不同型態資訊科技委外關係的管理需要瞭解委外企業對所需服務的期望，以及在合作期間，彼此關係的管理需不斷的注意市場以及資訊科技的變化而提出相對應的策略來因應彼此合作關係，以期從中獲取最大效益。 關鍵字：資訊科技委外，委外關係，市場變化，資訊中心支援能力，委外期望。 / Information Technology Outsourcing (ITO) has gained a big share of the world IT service market. There are many studies about ITO vendor selection and contract management but a lack of understanding of the after-contract practice between the ITO parties. According to reported cases many outsourcing failures were due to either improper relationship management or unable to meet customer expectations. For effective management of this long-term inter-organizational relationship there is a need for understanding the features, affecting factors, expectations and termination of ITO relationship so that the desired outcomes can be achieved and relationship can be sustained throughout the life of the ITO. The above propositions were tested on all existing and changed ITO projects in Taiwan in the past twenty five years. A total of fourty cases were examined and the results show four kinds of IT outsourcing relationship: dependent, utility, partner and subordinate. Different kinds of ITO relationship have different expectations for the ITO services and require different management on the relationships. The dependent type ITO customers rely highly on ITO vendors for supporting strategic moves. The utility ITO customers use ITO as a utility and measure vendors by cost performance. The partner type ITO customers consult vendor for business strategic moves and urge vendor for technology innovation. The subordinate type ITO customers consider ITO vendors as a sub-contractor of IT department and leave decisions to the IT department. Those terminated cases were mainly due to conflicts in the expected and delivered outcome in the three ITO benefit areas. This study provides useful instrument for assessing major ITO factors and understanding expected ITO outcomes. ITO relationship management requires a careful understanding of the expected benefits of the service and continuous monitoring of the business and IT environment. Keywords : Information Technology Outsourcing；Outsourcing Relationship；Business Dynamics；IT Competence；Outsourcing Expectation。

Information technology outsourcing (ITO) has gained a big share of the world IT service market. There are many studies about ITO vendor selection and contract management but a lack of understanding of the after-contract practices between the ITO parties. According to reported cases, many outsourcing failures have been due to either improper relationship management or the inability to meet customer expectations. For effective management of this long-term, inter-organizational relationship, there is a need to understand the features, affecting factors, expectations, and termination of ITO relationships so that the desired outcomes can be achieved and relationships can be sustained throughout the life of the ITO. Based on a dynamic view of outsourcing partnerships, the ITO relationship can be assessed by customer participation, joint action, communication quality, coordination, and information sharing. Prior studies have indicated that these ITO relationship features are mainly affected by business dynamics and the client’s IT competence. Organizations expect from the ITO mainly strategic, economic, and technological benefits. When conflicts exist between expected benefits and delivered outcomes, the relationship is more likely to be terminated. The above propositions were tested on all existing and changed ITO projects in Taiwan in the past twenty-six years. A total of forty cases were examined and the results show four kinds of IT outsourcing relationships: dependent, utility, partner, and subordinate. Different kinds of ITO relationships involve different expectations for the ITO services and require different types of management of the relationships. In the dependent type ITO, customers rely highly on ITO vendors for supporting strategic moves. Utility ITO customers use the ITO as a utility and measure vendors by cost performance. In the partner type ITO, customers consult the vendor for strategic business moves and urge the vendor to engage in technology innovation. The subordinate type ITO is characterized by customers who consider the ITO vendor as a sub-contractor of their IT department and leave decisions to the IT department. Terminations of relationships were mainly due to conflicts in the expected and delivered outcomes in the three ITO benefit areas. This study provides a useful instrument for assessing major ITO factors and understanding expected ITO outcomes. ITO relationship management requires a careful understanding of the expected benefits of the service and continuous monitoring of the business and IT environments.

This dissertation focuses on the formation, growth and discontinuance of business populations and firms in Sweden during the 20th century. It addresses some key issues in the domain of economic and social sciences, and in particular entrepreneurship and small business research: if and when firms grow, stagnate and decline, as well as how long firms survive and when they are likely to disband. Previous research has primarily analyzed these questions from a short time frame. Further, an individual or firm-oriented focus is commonly assumed. In that, alternative or complementary explanations to the growth and survival of firms may be disregarded. In contrast to much previous research, this dissertation assumes a micro-to-macro, longitudinal and demographic population approach. The period of investigation is over one hundred years. In addressing the growth and survival of firms, it takes into account the impact of firm-specific structural factors (such as firm age and size), generation (cohort) effects, as well as the influence of macroeconomic, exogenous factors. Further, the relationship between managerial/ownership succession and firm performance is also addressed. Both cross-sectional and longitudinal databases are employed in the dissertation. Its main empirical material consists of unique longitudinal data on new business firms, traced at the firm level from their birth to their termination. More specifically, seven birth cohorts – generations – of approximately 2,200 firms founded in 1899, 1909, 1912, 1921, 1930, 1942 and 1950 are included. The main findings show that ownership/management succession in firms had a quite weak correlation with firm performance and survival. At least at an aggregate level, and with some exceptions, it is debatable if the loss and replacement of owner-managers in small and in larger firms have any observable effects on firm performance. Furthermore, macroeconomic phenomena influence the conditions of individual firms as well as populations/aggregates of businesses. Both the growth and termination of firms and firm populations are found to be related to real economic (environmental) conditions; e.g. favorable macroeconomic conditions implied that firms grew in size. At the same time, under certain circumstances, the influence of structural variables (firm age and size) – as suggested in much previous research – is found to be of importance. As concerns firm growth, as well as firm termination, the economic environment and structural factors interact. These findings challenges individual or firm-level research that mainly focus on personal traits and behaviors in explaining firm success and failure. Other previous assumptions are also challenged when taking a longer time perspective into consideration. For decades, organization and business research have acknowledged a liability of newness and of size for business firms. While this might be true under some conditions, this liability of newness is falsified in the study: the termination behavior of some firm generations did not correspond with these assumptions. Thus, the perspectives and methodology applied in the dissertation complement earlier approaches in entrepreneurship and small business research.

This study explores the application of multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) to enhance the decision-making, safety, and passenger comfort of Autonomous Vehicles (AVs)at uncontrolled intersections. The research aims to assess the potential of MARL in modeling multiple agents interacting within a shared environment, reflecting real-world situations where AVs interact with multiple actors. The findings suggest that AVs trained using aMARL approach with global experiences can better navigate intersection scenarios than AVs trained on local (individual) experiences. This capability is a critical precursor to achieving Level 5 autonomy, where vehicles are expected to manage all aspects of the driving task under all conditions. The research contributes to the ongoing discourse on enhancing autonomous vehicle technology through multi-agent reinforcement learning and informs the development of sophisticated training methodologies for autonomous driving.