This paper reviews the literature on innovation in order to build an agenda for an investigation into the extent to which Metropolitan Retail, within Metropolitan Life Pty in South Africa, focuses on technology innovation capabilities and perspectives. The research was conducted in the areas of, technology innovation capabilities, perspectives guiding the business strategy to integrate and accelerate innovation and contextual aspects influencing innovation perspectives. The extent of focus by the firm on capabilities and perspectives was measured. Data gathered was disseminated and processed by means of Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. The results on current focus indicate that the firm’s focus is mostly on improving core business, although the extent is less than adequate. In other words, generate incremental innovations that can be developed and implemented rapidly and inexpensively. This approach of implementing innovation is in line with the business strategy, more specifically, with the objective of reducing costs and making profits. The findings of the research further suggest that the firm should consider focusing mostly on exploiting strategic advantages. In many firms the fundamental emphasis on technology innovation in developing products, processes and services is thought to determine their ability to cope with never ending customer demands and competitive practices. Coupled with this thought is a reality of high failure rate of technology innovation projects. Against this backdrop, general managers are faced with strategic innovation options, which can make or break firms. Changes in the economic and government environments influence the innovation approach of the firm most. These changes have undoubtedly presented firms with opportunities as well as risks. Possibly the greatest challenge confronting general managers in this context is the building of critical capabilities to enhance the firm’s agility. This challenge presents opportunity for further research.

The public is regularly shocked by revelations of new business scandals. Nearly every sector of society is tainted by incidents of unethical behaviour. In this regard, the South African financial services industry has attracted a lot of attention, as some of the biggest scandals in recent years have occurred in this industry. With the world economy still experiencing the effects of the global recession, the last thing that institutions in the financial arena must do is engage in unethical behaviour. Immoral behaviour could damage a company's repution and lead to further financial losses. The purpose of this study was thus two-fold: firstly, to investigae the factors that influence unethical decision-making and behaviour in the local life insurance sector, and secondly to evaluate how business ethics are institutionalised at a sample of life insurance companies.

Determinar cómo se relaciona la fidelización y la gestión de captaciones y colocaciones en Financiera Proempresa. Conocer la situación actual del servicio de pre y post venta y su relación con la rentabilidad de Financiera Proempresa. Analizar de qué forma la fidelización de los clientes permitirá optimizar los resultados de gestión de captaciones y colocaciones de Financiera Proempresa. / Trabajo de investigación

The goal of this thesis is to analyze what the impact of current financial crisis and economic slowdown will be on Czech exporting companies. Firstly the causes of financial crisis are described. it is followed by the analysis of the primary impact of financial crisis in the Czech Republic - the impact on banking sector and liquidity. The economic slowdown on foreign markets is considered as the secondary impact. Finally some possible solutions on how to improve the competitiveness are offered.

(The importance of universities for the development of regions, possible benefits and risks) In the framework of this thesis, the present state of Czech university education system will be described in the opening chapter. After defining the methodology of research, the relation between universities and the particular regions will be analysed and possible forms of cooperation described. Within the investigation the level of cooperation between universities and companies in the region Hradec Králové will be evaluated, based on outcome of the research problematic areas of cooperation defined and steps toward future effective cooperation proposed.

This thesis deals with theme of corporate social responsibility. The main aim is Raiting of Corporate Social Responsibility of choosen telecommunication companies by the KORP Metod. Three telecommunication companies are choosen. It is T-Mobile Czech Republic, Vodafone Czech Republic a Telefónica 02 Czech Republic. There were all three parts of CSR analyzed in this thesis, economical part, social part and environmental part, and I proposed some improvment for the companies.

The purpose with this paper is to investigate and get deeper understanding of case studies about Swedish companies. I will focus on the way the case studies have been constructed, the purposes of the studies and how well the findings may be implemented to other contexts. I find this interesting because case studies are something that can benefit every company in other to in some way improve and streamline the business. The data used in this paper will be obtained from various case studies within the subject “Swedish companies” and therefore analyzed to draw conclusions. The findings from this study is that every case study is unique, and there is not one single, optimal way to construct a case study. One must take the purpose of the study into consideration and establish the study from this. However, there are common traits between case studies, such as the ways of obtaining data for the studies and the uniqueness of research question. How well the findings of a case study can be generalized to other contexts also depends on the uniqueness of the purpose of the study.

No abstract available. Copyright / Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Mercantile Law / unrestricted

Cette thèse propose d'analyser via l'utilisation de données microéconomiques les canaux spécifiques à travers lesquels la transparence serait susceptible de promouvoir la croissance des firmes appréhendée par l'effort d'Investissement et d'alléger leurs contraintes de financement. Ce travail se donne un double objectif. Il s'agit d'abord, de construire deux scores de transparence microéconomique et macroéconomique à travers une analyse discriminante multiple portant sur un échantillon de 64 pays entre 1997 et 2009, mettant également en évidence les facteurs les plus influents sur les deux types de transparence. Ensuite, l'intégration des scores de transparence dans un modèle d'investissement basé sur l'équation d'Euler permet d'évaluer les effets respectifs des deux types de transparence sur les contraintes de financement et sur le niveau de l'investissement réel. Cette étude, portant sur un échantillon de 5652 firmes entre 2005 et 2009, fait ressortir une hiérarchisation des effets des deux types de transparence. Ces effets sont aussi plus importants pour les firmes des pays émergents. Notre étude suggère également que la transparence microéconomique et la transparence macroéconomique allègent plus les contraintes financières des firmes les moins endettées et stimulent plus l'investissement des firmes les plus endettées. Il ressort de cette recherche que les petites firmes sont plus à même de tirer profit des avantages des deux types de transparence. L'étude met en relief une non-linéarité de l'effet de la transparence microéconomique sur l'investissement et des effets de la transparence macroéconomique sur les contraintes de financement et l'investissement des firmes. / This thesis analyses the specific channels through which transparency promotes the growth of companies apprehended by investment efforts and reduces financing constrains. This work has two objectives. The first objective is to build two transparency measures, microeconomic and macroeconomic, through a multiple discriminant analysis performed on a sample of 64 countries between 1997 and 2009. This analysis put the emphasis on the factors that influences the most either the microeconomic or the macroeconomic transparency levels. Second, the Integration of the transparency measures in an Euler equation allowed to assess the effects of microeconomic and macroeconomic transparency on the financing constrains and the real investment level. This second study was based on data collected on 5652 companies between 2005 and 2009. The output is a prioritization of both kinds of transparency effects. We found that these effects are more important for emerging countries. This study also concludes that microeconomic and macroeconomic transparencies reduce financing constrains further for the firms with lower indebtedness. Transparencies stimulate investment further for the firms with higher indebtedness. This study finally highlights the non-linearity of microeconomic transparency effects on investment and also the non-linearity of macroeconomic transparency effect on financing constrains and on investment.

A década de 70 foi caracterizada por grande atividade de construtoras brasileiras no exterior, particularmente na África e no Oriente Médio. Nos anos 80, as organizações brasileiras destacaram-se pelo grande fluxo de investimentos realizados no exterior, e na década de 90, em conseqüência da abertura comercial que houve em nosso país, as empresas brasileiras foram buscar atualização tecnológica no exterior, para enfrentar competidores estrangeiros. Esse movimento de internacionalização caracterizou-se principalmente pelo deslocamento de empresas do setor industrial; a internacionalização das empresas de varejo é um fenômeno mais recente. Pesquisas sobre o processo de internacionalização da empresa varejista brasileira ainda não são muito numerosas no país, o que talvez se deva ao fato de que esse fenômeno ainda é relativamente recente no cenário brasileiro. Nesse contexto o estudo objetivou investigar a relação entre as teorias sobre internacionalização de empresas e o processo de expansão de empresas de varejo brasileiras para países estrangeiros e identificar o que leva uma empresa a se deslocar para outros países, para onde se desloca (por que escolhe determinados locais em detrimento de outros), quais são os modos de entrada selecionados e como as empresas se adaptam aos novos locais, sob os conceitos de internacionalização de empresas. O estudo utilizou dados secundários provenientes de teses, dissertações, artigos e Internet, além de dados primários coletados em entrevistas em profundidade com os principais gestores de dez empresas de varejo brasileiras. A metodologia de pesquisa empregada englobou a Análise de Conteúdo e a Análise de Correspondência. Um dos resultados do trabalho foi a proposta de uma Taxonomia de Encadeamento Teórico sobre a internacionalização de empresas. A análise dos dados mostrou que todas as estruturas teóricas registradas nesta tese foram identificadas no processo de internacionalização das empresas de varejo brasileiras pesquisadas. / The decade of 1970 was characterized by the intense activity of Brazilian construction companies abroad, particularly in Africa and the Middle East. In the eighties, Brazilian organizations stood out because of the large flow of investments they made abroad and in the nineties, as a result of the trade opening made in our country, Brazilian companies sought updated technology abroad to face foreign competitors. However, the movement of internationalization is primarily characterized by the displacement of industrial companies. The internationalization of retail businesses is a more recent phenomenon. Studies on the process of internationalization of Brazilian retail companies are not numerous yet in the country. This may be due to the fact that this is a still relatively recent phenomenon in the Brazilian scene. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the relationship between the internationalization theories and the expansion process of Brazilian retail companies towards other countries. Additionally, by using the concepts of international business, this work sought to identify why companies go global, where they head, which entry modes they employ and how they adapt themselves to new locations. This work has utilized secondary data retrieved from theses, dissertations, articles and internet, besides primary data collected through in-depth interviews with executives from 10 Brazilian retail companies. Content Analysis and Correspondence Analysis techniques were employed. Findings a taxonomy for theoretical comprehension of the phenomenon under investigation. Data analysis showed that all theoretical frameworks employed in this work were present in the internationalization process of Brazilian retail companies.