Economic activity in the United States and Canada is predominantly performed by corporations. They are by far the largest private employers of workers, the biggest investors and the predominant instrument of production. They are rapidly growing in size, are generating sufficient funds internally to carry out most of their expansion programs, and are diversifying into unrelated activities. Their affairs are increasingly managed by professional executives who have little, if any, stake in the risk capital. The shareholders, who are legally presumed to exercise control over the powers and actions of corporate executives, are normally too numerous and scattered so as not to be in a position to have a significant influence on the policies of the corporations. The changing role of the corporations has led to considerable discussion about the legitimacy of corporate power and the accountability of corporations for their actions which affect others such as consumers, workers, suppliers and the public. As part of this general accountability, the question is raised about the type and extent of information that corporations should be required to disclose to persons and groups who save no contractual relationship with these corporations. Many businessmen, accountants, political theorists, economists, and lawyers have put forward their views about corporate disclosure which differ widely from one another. A principle reason for the divergent views about corporate disclosure is that they use different frames of references to base their arguments for or against disclosure of more information than is at present provided by corporations. This study is an attempt to use the normative model of 'Effective Competition' as a guide for the type and extent of disclosure to be made by corporations. An examination of current literature on competition suggested that the lines of demarcation for the normative model of 'Effective Competition' can be defined by reviewing the national objectives of the United States and Canada which form the framework for the model and by examining the main characteristics in the economy which reflect the structure of the model. The informational requirements of the main actors in the economy namely consumers, employers, workers, creditors, investors, government-run corporations, foreign firms dealing with the countries and various government agencies whose actions have a direct effect on other actors form the basis of specific recommendations made about the type and extent of disclosure that should be required from corporations operating in Canada. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

Commodity futures markets are often thought of as good examples of perfectly competitive markets. However, there are many commodities that are produced in concentrated industries and traded on large commodity exchanges. Nickel, aluminum, lead, zinc, tin, oil, and coffee are some examples. This thesis examines the effects of concentrated production on output and prices in these markets. The analysis includes the possibility that firms can trade futures contracts for their output and also store their output. A dynamic model is developed that examines how a duopoly could use futures trading and storage strategically to affect outcomes in subsequent periods. I examine futures trading for a perishable good and storage with no futures trading separately in order to highlight the potential stategic use of these activities on their own. I also analyse a model in which both futures trading and storage are allowed. I show that both futures positions and storage would be used strategically by the duopolists, in contrast to the results of previous work that used two-period models only. By allowing for uncertainty in the form of demand and cost shocks, the solution to the model can be used to provide some implications for correlations among industry level variables. These correlations are examined for the world lead, zinc, and copper industries. Weak support for the model is found, however, estimation of the vector auotregression implied by the model suggests the model in its present form is unable to fit the data very well. / Arts, Faculty of / Vancouver School of Economics / Graduate

Several models exist for investigating the effects of plant competition within and among species, i.e. intra- and inter-specific competition. The models for interspecific competition are based upon additive and replacement (de Wit) series experiments. Each approach has previously been used almost exclusively to study the effects of binary mixtures, and each has been used to derive various indices of competitiveness among species. Studies were undertaken in 1980 and 1981 to compare and evaluate the different models, and to investigate the relative performance of species in ternary combinations. Monoculture (density), additive and replacement series experiments involving binary mixtures of barnyard grass (Echinochloa crusgalli), redroot pigweed (Amaranthus retroflexus ) and green foxtail (Setaria viridis) were undertaken in both years; monoculture (density) and replacement series involving binary and ternary mixtures of rapeseed (Brassica napus) with pigweed and foxtail were also investigated in both years; in 1981, the rapeseed-pigweed-foxtail experiments also included additive series mixtures, the experimental design for which permitted the investigation of binary replacement series at different total densities. Monoculture experiments showed that yield of all four species was related to the density according to de Wit's spacing formula. Additive series experiments involving barnyard grass or rapeseed with the other two species showed that the yield of the indicator species followed the Dew's relationship between yield and the square root of the density of the associated species. The present studies have shown that the yield of the latter (in the presence of the indicator species) can also be described by the spacing formula. In binary replacement series experiments, de Wit's relative crowding coefficients (k) were calculated. Estimates of yield obtained from the k-values were usually found to agree well with observed yields. Dew's Index of Competition (CI) was calculated from additive series data for each combination of species tested. Relative crowding coefficients (k), Willey and Rao's Competition Ratio (CR) and McGilchrist's Aggressivity (A) were calculated from binary replacement series data. Both k- and CR- values contain components which relate to intra- and inter-specific competition. The actual relative contributions of intraspecific and interspecific competition were calculated by comparing the effect on a given species of adding equal densities of its own kind or of a second species, to the same total density; the ratio of the former to the latter is a new parameter, termed the Interference Ratio (IR), and is related to the relative crowding coefficient. Intercomparisons of the various measures of competitiveness showed that in both years k-values were highly correlated with A and CR, and in 1980 were also correlated with CI. However, there was only a weak correlation between k and IR. In general, CR-, k- and A-values suggested that barnyard grass and rapeseed were the most competitive species. However, IR-values indicated that the greatest competitiveness was exhibited by pigweed against foxtail. Pigweed was much more sensitive to its own kind than to foxtail. Estimates of k-values for untested combinations based upon either the use of de Wit's spacing formula or upon k-values determined for binary mixtures involving each of the untested pair with a common third species were found to be unreliable. In several mixtures, k was found to be density dependent. In ternary mixtures, the effects on the yield of a given species could not be predicted from its behaviour in the presence of either of its competitors in binary combinations. For example, pigweed and foxtail behaved synergistically against high density rapeseed, but tended to act antagonistically at low rapeseed densities. Although foxtail was consistently the weakest competitor in any binary mixture, it had the greatest effect of any species in determining the competitive interaction between the other species. In order to estimate yield losses, e.g. in crop-weed systems, only additive series data are shown to be of general applicability. / Land and Food Systems, Faculty of / Graduate

This diploma thesis addresses the Galton properties, Inc. company strategy. This company started in 2012 run apartments on Wenceslas Square. Goal of this thesis is to evaluate first year of running apartments, compare the expected development and strategy with actual results and estimate their future potential and strategy.

This study examined the business results of companies that won the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (NQA). It used performance data before and after the award to determine if there were significant differences in three key performance indices after adoption of those business techniques that enabled these companies to win their NQA. The three key indicators were return on assets (ROA), earnings per share (EPS) and the current ratio. The study examined the data in two ways; first tests were made by comparing company performance before and after winning an NQA. The second way of testing was by comparing the NQA-winning company's performance with its key competitors within their market segment. Using both parametric and nonparametric hypothesis testing techniques, the preponderance of evidence suggests there was no significant difference in performance after winning the NQA than before, using the three performance indicators used in this study. Likewise, there was no evidence to suggest that the NQA-winning firms outperformed their key competitors within their market segment, for the three performance indicators used.

The study is related to the business of sport. The purpose of this study was to explore the business strategy of co-opetition within the cricket franchises in South Africa. Brandenburger and Nalebuff (1996) defined co-opetition as the combination of forms of cooperation and competition between companies. Stein and Ginevicius (2010) recently conducted research related to co-opetition and believed that the most successful contribution so far has been the book “Coopetition” by Brandenburger and Nalebuff (1996). However, they also argued that the book has fundamental structural and methodological flaws. There is limited research on co-opetition within a sports context. Future research could develop and conduct empirical studies related to the drivers, dynamics, and outcomes of co-opetition (Park, 2010). The research examined the conditions in which cricket franchises engage in co-opetition and how they achieve positive outcomes through co-opetition. The drivers and the players of co-opetition within the franchises were also investigated. Qualitative research in the form of in-depth interviews with the CEOs of the cricket franchises were carried out. A “Co-opetition Ecosystem” model was derived from the interviews and literature. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

This research report considers how dominant firms can establish when their competitive strategies are not anti-competitive. It argues that a dominant firm‟s actions can either be pro-competitive, thus conduct which competition law is designed to protect; or, anti-competitive and therefore prohibited. It questions whether there are any key principles that are emerging from South African competition law practice and decided cases that can provide some guidelines to dominant firms on whether planned action is prohibited conduct? It also questions whether the enforcement of the South African Competition Act‟s abuse of dominance provisions may have led to the chilling of competition. The research utilised the following methodologies: expert interviews; case studies; and, review of the competition authorities‟ enforcement actions. The report concludes that abuse of dominance cases are highly fact-intensive, industry specific and outcomes are effects-based. As such, it is difficult to prescribe a general rules-based compliance program to guide dominant firms in their development of competitive strategies. Copyright / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

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