The R&D Alliance was developed as the third strategic option to face the environment in a rapid change world. Based on the operating mechanism of the R&D Alliance, the beneficial results such as resource gathering, development risk and capital dropping will be achieved. However, when all members in the R&D Alliance mutually cooperate for the given benefits and targets, another question about keeping the own characteristics risen and need to further reconsider it. Therefore, the connective patterns between members play an important role in determining whether these operations will be successful, especially for the Chinese-major communities which have more obvious interference hiding in relational capital. The present study focuses on pattern of the R&D Alliance from the view of the relational capital. Adopting the individual case to study two R&D Alliances related with the juridical-person institutions is the main framework of this research and the results are analyzed from the three subcomponents in the relational capital that are trust, friendship and respect. Conclusions are drawn as follows: 1.Impacts of the trust relationship in the R&D alliance: members were constrained by the long-run contact, mutual cooperation experience and the formal contract (e.g. cooperation signatures or nondisclosure agreements) to reduce member suspicions and lead the positive Impact to the R&D alliance. 2.Impacts of the friendship in the R&D alliance: through the way of the frequent interaction, the beneficial receptions, and the explicit cooperative objectives, a conflict or a distant feeling between each others will be reduced, instead of increasing communication or rapidly uniting members to smoothly work the alliance. 3.Impacts of the respect in the R&D alliance: through the way of the good-will interactions, suppressing the opportunistic behaviors, globally adopting the opinions, predicting the next move about members, regulations in the contracts as well as self-constraints, the harmonics and the advantages existed in the members will be benefited for the development of the R&D alliance. 4.Impacts of the achievements in the R&D alliance: In the operating process, the partnership in the R&D alliance achieved the goals by means of the well, routine and miscellaneous communications, an explicit objective management, and the good interactions.

<p>Financial Institutions have been regarded to be the core area of economic development. However, Nepal could not achieve satisfactory level of economic development and growth due to Maoists war (1996-2006) and the political instability. The increase in size and number of commercial banks are limited only in the urban areas so that banking services are not accessible to the general public.</p><p>This paper examines interaction between financial development and economic growth in Nepal employing correlation analysis, regression analysis, financial ratios and other related theories.</p><p>As we found that financial institutions have grown rapidly which has implication in overall economy of the nation. The economic indicators such as GDP, GDP per capita, loan assets of commercial banks, investment, deposit, number of commercial banks, and inflation rate from fiscal year 2001 to 2007 are used for the analysis of this study.</p><p>The relevant ratios of commercial banks such as deposit, investment, and profitability are found to be in increasing trend. The growth rate of GDP/capita is however volatile in the study period, the regression result of Deposit/GDP is weakly significant under the study period {(0,06)*}. The investment growth rate is not significant at all possibly due to the time lag of the effect of investment on the economic development.</p><p>Furthermore, correlation between Growth rate of GDP and deposit/GDP (ρ=0.49). The Growth rate of GDP and investment over GDP is positive related with a correlation coefficient of 0.82. This has confirmed our beliefs in the set out of the thesis.</p>

<p>Problem: The online betting industry has erased the importance of national borders and opened up the world, which has lead to a more diversified perspective of the company. In this master thesis we wanted to broaden and develop the topic of corporate valuation with regard to the on-line gambling industry. In order to do that, a case study of the on-line betting firm Unibet and its core betting activities has been carried out.</p><p>Purpose: The study aims to identify factors in the strategic, SWOT and financial analysis that will be used in the cash flow valuation model in order to derive the company value.</p><p>Method: A case study has been chosen to collect empirical data to our study.</p><p>Conclusion: A cash flow valuation in different scenarios was carried out. With the assumptions made in the “probable” scenario a value of approximately GBP 85 million was reached, which was significantly lower than the listed value. This is mainly due to the fact that we believe that the increased competition will make it difficult for Unibet to maintain its strong growth in sales in the future. The assumptions have been based on the information gained from the strategic analysis, the SWOT analysis and the development in financial ratios.</p>

<p>Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is not a new issue however it has recently started to get more attention. Mostly research has been conducted within the larger companies in many different aspects such as benefits with CSR, its financial impact and the implementation process. Since this is a matter that becomes more and more important in the society of today we wanted to focus our study on small and medium sized enterprises to see how they can take part in the CSR implementation too. Firstly we wanted to examine the small and medium sized companies (SMEs) within the Jönköping region however due to the special conditions of the companies in this region we decided to conduct a case study instead. The case study is conducted with the managing director of Ekenäs Mekaniska AB, the primary information were collected through two face to face interviews. The material was then compiled and analysed. We provide some practical solution to the problems existing within Ekenäs Mekaniska AB and suggest a model for Ekenäs Mekaniska AB as well as for other companies. The purpose of conducting this case study is to make it easier for Ekenäs Mekaniska to implement more CSR in the future as well as it is to serve as an example for other small sized firms that it is possible to still conduct CSR even though you are limited in resources. We also aim at providing a step by step guide on how to implement CSR efficiently that can be used for both small, medium sized companies and large companies however each step needs to be undertaken with the size of the company in mind. The final conclusion of this case study is that the most important stakeholder of Ekenäs Mekaniska AB when implementing CSR is the employees. A clear goal, vision and mission from the top managers are crucial for Ekenäs Mekaniska AB to implement CSR efficiently. The communication with the important internal and external stakeholders and the feedback collected from them are also very important to ensure that everyone in the organization is doing the right things. The employees need to be guided through a systematic guide book to ensure that the current or potential CSR activities satisfy their needs. The strategy of Ekenäs Mekaniska AB should well combine with their CSR agenda by us-ing the model introduced in the thesis. Due to limited financial resource, it is hard for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to implement the whole CSR activities within the organization, therefore, the local government should provide appropriate fund or tax reduction programs to help SMEs implement CSR efficiently.</p>

<p>The arrival of the cell phone in rural areas has taken Kenya by storm. It has turned out to be such an amazing transition happening since most people in the start, did not reckon its capacity to gradually become a lifestyle choice. It has certainly changed the way people communicate and becoming a natural necessity for people of Kenya. This can be seen from the numbers of cell phone units sold in the past years. The cell phones in Kenya have gone from 1 million in 2002 to 6.5 million in 2006. Some of this boost has found their way into the rural areas of Kenya and that is what this thesis focuses on. Through a qualitative research approach presented as a case study provide both vigorous descriptions and exiting information. The case study is based mainly on material from telephone interviews that were carried out with a selected sample of the population living in the countryside to obtain their points of view. In addition some opinions received in email form from an organization based in the western part of Kenya is included. A related email questionnaire was administered to one of the companies that sell cell phones in Kenya. Reference has been made to previous research to present some insightful frame of reference on this subject. In conclusion the people in rural parts of Kenya use the short messaging service (SMS) as the most cost effective way of communication. Furthermore, the M-Pesa function on that enables users to make money transactions is also widely used since most people in these areas do not have a bank account. The cell phone has transformed the job market and had a tremendous impact on running a business and made it easier to be available when looking for jobs. It is clear that the cell phone has brought practical, social and economical change and contributing to cultural enhancement. There is however future needs as to solve the battery charging which is a main problem that rural inhabitant have to deal with. This thesis finally shows that the penetration of the cell phone in rural Kenya is of great success. The cell phone is a technique to bridge the gap between cities and rural areas in Kenya.</p>

University, Diss.--Göttingen, 2006. / Zsfassung in dt. Sprache.

One of sociology´s to assess the effects of political decision. According to sociologist Anders Persson the society is changing, and in that change social fear appear. In the reaction of social fear some people are being excluded. In that more narrow frame for normality laws are created that makes some parents and their children “the other”. Nine years ago the sociologist Eva Kärfve published a book that was very critical to the newborn psychiatrics diagnosing of children as a way of segregating groups in society. I am sad to say but she was right. According to the theory of Howard Becker I use a social interaction perspective to understand and interpret people´s actions. This perspective means that people through their actions creates phenomena in society. Becker´s book Tricks of the trade gives tools to investigate situations in society. The purpose of this study is to through a case study increase the understanding of a parent´s experiences in a case where municipality moved a pupil against the parents will. The method is case study, where the bulk is an interview with a pupil´s parents. The study shows the steps of human interaction that lead to the moving of a pupil against the parents will. The result indicates that the decision of what a violation of the norm is decides if the new law is to be executed. I present the school´s action from a view of the society and conclude with the questions: If we are using laws instead of giving schools economic resources, is that really what we want? If just one child is taken away from his school for the wrong reasons, is that not a case too much? The sociology is supposed to plead people without a voice cause. Reflect a structure of society and elucidate problems according to different theoretic perspectives. For me personally, the area of problem preceded the method. This study had not been what it is without the case. It takes a great deal of courage to invite a stranger to one´s home and talk about painful experiences. In the end I like to purpose that life is for everybody. / 0709902656

This dissertation seeks to understand how organizations adopt a disruptive technology, open source software. Five cross-sectional case studies at municipal governments were performed using a theoretical model based off of eight organizational adoption theories. Results of the case studies highlight how each construct from each theory was present at the organizations. However each construct was of variable influence based upon organizational characteristics and the time or stage of adoption.

Although research on parental involvement is increasing, little is known about the beliefs, goals, and practices of minority parents of adolescent children. This study investigates four key aspects of parental academic socialization, targeting Korean immigrant parents of adolescents: 1) meaning of parents’ educational goals and expectations for their children, 2) parents’ practices in facilitating children’s academic achievement, 3) ways of transferring parental beliefs to children, and 4) cultural influences on parenting. Using an ethnographic inquiry for the study, I will interview 5 Korean immigrant couples. The data will consist of interviews, demographic questions, home observations, and field notes. The implications of the outcomes are discussion. This report also includes an evaluation plan which details the components of the dual language program, an example program that the outcomes of the proposed study can be used to design or to modify. / text

Effective academic advising may be perceived or experienced differently depending on a person’s involvement (student, advisor, or administrator). In addition, a person’s understanding and description of effective advising depends on how it is identified (process, outcome, or approach) or the context in which it is encountered. Results from multiple studies of the relevant literature have demonstrated how the quality of advising influences students in regard to retention, academic and social integration, decision-making processes in selecting academic programs and careers, overall student satisfaction, and success (Banta et al., 2002; Cuseo, 2004, Hunter & White, 2004). However, research on effective advising and the assessment of advising has received very little attention in the literature. Although awareness of the importance of institutional assessment has increased, assessment of academic advising today is – if conducted at all – is piecemeal and consists of simple student satisfaction surveys that may be neither adequate of useful. Even when assessment measures are conducted, advising units are often inept at utilizing the results to create positive change within their programs. Understanding effective advising requires a closer look at the participants, the advising programs, and the assessment practices of programs along with exploring student learning outcomes. The overarching area of inquiry in the research study is: What is effective advising (how is it manifested and in what ways is it measured at the University)? Within this context, the goals for this study were to uncover the following: how academic advising is administered and supported across a specific institution; how perceptions about advising differ among system participants; what valued characteristics are found among effective advisors and advising programs; what assessment of academic advising looks like at the institution; what advisors and advising programs do to contribute to quality and improvement. To achieve these objectives, the study utilized a multi-faceted case study of undergraduate academic advising and the participants within a large public research institution which contained several academic advising centers. Understanding effective advising and the advising system required a comprehensive and multi-dimensional approach that involved the collection and analysis of many different forms of data from a variety of sources and over an extended period of time. A mixed methods, action-research design utilized the collection and review of numerous assessment and advising documents, descriptive and quantitative SPSS analysis of several longitudinal data sets yielded from electronic survey systems of seven colleges, numerous original interviews and focus groups with students, staff, and administrators, and a year’s worth of detailed field observations (journals and critical reflection) of the advising process and the advising system. / text