Chapter 1 novelly examines the nature of the interaction between private donors and not-for-profit organisations (NPOs) when NPOs can invest endowment funds in a two-asset risky portfolio and donors can contribute to both the endowment fund and the annual campaign. I study a three-stage non-cooperative game with two types of economic agents: a cohort of heterogeneous donors and one representative NPO. In equilibrium, donors always contribute to the endowment fund; however, they may not contribute to the annual campaign. The proportion of the NPO's endowment fund invested in the risky asset is a discontinuous function of the endowment; donors contribute less to an aggressive NPO and more to a cautious one. When the NPO can solicit donors to contribute only once, this increases the expected level of the contribution in equilibrium, but this may not generate higher expected utility for donors. Chapter 2 presents a dynamic model of charitable giving. At each period, donors contribute to an NPO's endowment; the NPO provides a charitable good and invests in the  financial market. Investments are made in a risky asset and a risk-free asset. I introduce two types of shocks to account for uncertainty: donors' income shock and  financial market fluctuations. I show that the optimal share of disposable endowment invested in risky asset is constant. Donors' strategy, whether to contribute or free-ride on the NPO's investments, depends on donors' shadow prices. Donors contribute when NPO's endowment is relatively low. Large contribution levels encourage the NPO to participate in the capital market at the expense of providing charitable good. I show that the NPO prefers an environment with a lower rate of return on risk-free assets. NPO's risk exposure to the  financial market affects both NPO's and donors' decisions. However, risk exposures on donors' side do not impact parties' decisions. Regulation analysis suggests that portfolio ceiling and provision floor are achievable. Chapter 3 links two data sources: the National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS) data over the period of 1987-2014 and the U.S. presidential elections data. I develop a dynamic model to examine how the national-level political incumbent shapes the NPOs' risky investment portfolio selection, adjusting for a set of NPOs' intrinsic characteristics and real interest rate. I  find that right-leaning Republicans act as a rein on NPOs' risky investments, i.e., a Republican administration is associated with a reduction in NPOs' holdings of corporation stocks and a 16.28% reduction in equity share relative to a Democratic administration. It is attributed to the impact of the Republican administration by more facilitating NPOs' accessibility to borrowing than having a Democratic president. I argue that NPOs behave as backward-looking investors or are reluctant to change their portfolio due to the significant portfolio adjustment cost, using past performance as an indicator to make their current risky investment decisions. Heckman two-step estimation indicates that NPOs' investment is an endogenous sample selection instead of a random choice. I show that NPOs have a less extensive equity share with more severe agency costs; foundation size plays a different role when NPOs decide whether to invest in risky assets compared with investing NPOs. Moreover, for investing NPOs, the equity share is expected to decrease by 12.0% if there is a 1% increase in the real interest rate; NPOs are more inclined to invest in risky assets when the real interest rate increases, in the sense of riding with the rational bubble.

No description available.

This study sought to understand the perspectives of young Black males toward post-secondary education. A qualitative case study research design was selected because it allowed the researcher to examine in a holistic fashion the complexities of how the issues of school, home, community, and peers function in the life of a young Black male in St. Thomas, USVI; and how these issues in his life yield a perspective on and a decision about participating in higher education. A case study using taped interviews and observations of one high school Black male and his mother was conducted. Data were analyzed using Ethnograph and a coding matrix based on the tenets of grounded theory. The findings showed that the young man was ambivalent about the educational process and about his plans concerning his preparation for the future. In high school he saw three options: enlisting in the military, engaging in full-time employment, or pursuing a college education at the University of the Virgin Islands as long as he could achieve success. He viewed all three paths as equal. His family's influence had a profound impact on his decision to participate in advanced education despite his lack of commitment and his underachieving high school career. The educational issues in the territory signal the need for territorial policy makers to initiate educational improvements in the public schools and to mandate, at the university level, an information and recruitment program for young males to improve the demographics of post-secondary education in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Recommendations for further research are offered. / Ph. D.

Many purchase decisions involve groups of individuals. In marketing literature, a majority of the studies related to group decisions place greater emphasis on predicting the outcome of the decision than the process. In this dissertation, I contend that understanding the process by which a purchase decision is reached is important because it may influence the joint choice and the satisfaction of a group member with the decision. I study two key elements of the decision making process namely, revision and concession. Consistent with previous research, I propose that a member's preferences are unlikely to be stationary during the group decision-making process. Additionally, a member may make a concession to accommodate the preferences of the other member(s). These two elements are not mutually exclusive and members may revise and/or make concessions when reaching a joint decision. I argue that it is important to distinguish between revision and concession because each may have a different impact on a member's satisfaction with the joint decision. I propose that the degree of revision and concession made by a member is related to several member and decision related factors. The change in preference of a member is expected to affect the joint purchase decision by reducing the degree of disagreement between the members. It is proposed that a member's satisfaction with the joint decision made is positively related to her degree of revision and negatively related to her own concession. A field study funded by a packaged goods company was designed and implemented to provide a rigorous test of the proposed hypotheses. There is compelling evidence for the negative impact of concession on satisfaction. There is also partial support for the positive impact of revision on satisfaction. Additionally, satisfaction is influenced by an interaction effect between a member's own concession and the concession made by the other member. An important implication of the proposed model is that the process by which a purchase decision is reached (via revision or concession) has a distinct impact on the satisfaction of the group member with the joint decision. / Ph. D.

An approach was developed to consider the uncertainty which is intrinsic to forestry decisions. The approach was termed a partial stochastic linear program because uncertainty was considered by introducing variation into one element of the linear programming model (the right hand side). To implement this approach, subjective evaluations were made, regarding the amount of uncertainty associated with the values in question. This approach was applied to a wood procurement problem which had been previously solved as deterministic. The previous problem was a case study of an integrated forest products firm with the objective of minimizing the present value of wood procurement over a 20-year study using linear programming. The management of this firm was required to make subjective estimates of the variation associated with each available source of supply. The original case study was then reformulated as a partial stochastic linear program. The solutions of the partial stochastic approach were compared to the deterministic solution. This comparison showed the procurement policies suggested by both approaches were much the same. However, the stochastic approach differed in that management could obtain information about the sensitivity of a policy or a source and establish trade-off relationships between the cost of one policy and the uncertainty of another policy. The questions of the extent of model building and the implications for future study in this area are also considered. / Master of Science

Why might someone avoid information that could be useful for making an important decision? Useful information can indicate that some options are better than others for achieving an important goal or averting disaster. A theory is developed here which proposes that decisions feel more important because the consequences of the decisions are more threatening the self-concept. Useful information threatens to reduce a decision maker's decision options, thus constraining their opportunities to act quickly, reduce uncertainty and make the decision in a way that is self-verifying. This occurs while a decision maker is strongly motivated to reduce the uncertainty and the threat to the self-concept generated by the decision making situation. As a result, people become less likely to access useful information when making more important decisions. This is more likely to occur when the decisions includes a substantial threat to more salient identities and core aspects of the decision maker's self-concept. First a study is conducted to develop a measure of the relative strength of a respondent's leadership identity. Then, hypotheses derived from the theory are tested in two experiments. The hypotheses predict that participants making more important decisions will (1) experience stronger feelings, (2) value self-verifying options more and feel more certain after making a decision, (3) prefer fewer options in a subsequent decision task after making more, as opposed to less important decisions, (4) make more important decision more quickly, (5) access less useful information when making more important decisions , (6) feel more certain after avoiding useful information that could indicate an identity validating solution is inferior and less certain if accessing that information, (7) report that decisions associated with stronger feelings are more important, and (8) prefer fewer choices to pick from in a subsequent decision when having made a prior decision with less useful information. The hypotheses are tested in two incrementally differing experimental in which participants make organizational leadership decisions after completing the instrument developed to test the strength of their leadership identity. Contrasting pairs of conditions vary theoretically important elements to make the decisions feel more or less important. Both pairs vary the importance of the decision situation by changing the definition of the situation to increase or decrease the consequences for the participant's leadership identity. The second study similarly varies the decision's importance and adds the opportunity to access various types of useful information prior to making each decision. Findings indicate that decisions feel more important when the outcome includes a credible threat to the maintenance of a highly salient identity. Participant making more important decisions in experiment A felt more certain they were right after making their decisions. They preferred fewer options in a subsequent decision situation which indicates they felt more powerful. In Experiment B Participants were less likely to access useful information when making more important decisions. Participants who did access useful information prior to making a more important decision preferred more options in a subsequent task. This indicates they felt less powerful after making more important decisions with more information. These findings have implications for research on decision making, identity theory, leadership in organizations, and research on emotions, and the role of perceptual control in the resiliency of social structure.

Els processos de presa de decisions directives i de gestió i mesurament de l'acompliment són centrals en la gestió estratègica. El procés de gestió estratègica és de caràcter dinàmic, continu i sistèmic. No obstant això, els factors que afecten l'estabilitat estratègica poden ser inesperats, volubles i irregulars. Aquesta tesi s'ha centrat en quatre objectes d'anàlisi: els sistemes de mesurament de l'acompliment, les decisions directives, la incertesa de l'entorn i l'acompliment de l'organització. En aquesta tesi, s'ha plantejat un estudi quantitatiu per contrastar una sèrie d'hipòtesis respecte d'aquestes qüestions de recerca. Les hipòtesis han estat sotmeses a un contrast empíric a partir de dades recollides de 179 respostes d'un qüestionari físic, que s'ha administrat a membres del TMT (top management team) d'organitzacions amb activitat a l'Equador i a Colòmbia. Els resultats de la recerca suggereixen que una primera aportació d'aquesta tesi en la literatura anterior és l'enfocament en la congruència entre les decisions directives com un atribut important en la interrelació entre el pla estratègic i el pla operatiu dintre del cicle de gestió estratègica (Kaplan i Norton, 2008, 2010), sobre el qual anteriorment s'havia prestat poca atenció. En segon lloc, la tesi contribueix a entendre que una de les vies per les quals els sistemes estratègics de mesurament de l'acompliment ajuden a acomplir millor la gestió és assegurant una congruència o una sincronia més grans entre les decisions directives, distingint com els diferents tipus de congruència afecten diferents aspectes de l'acompliment de la gestió. Respecte d'aquesta segona aportació, la tesi demostra específicament que, dintre de l'acompliment de la gestió, la més gran alineació estratègica interna està associada a la congruència entre les decisions estratègiques, mentre que la capacitat de qüestionament estratègic està associada a la congruència entre les decisions de caràcter operatiu, i la rapidesa de resposta estratègica està associada a la congruència entre les decisions de caràcter estratègic i operatiu. Finalment, la tesi contribueix a la discussió que s'ha obert recentment en la literatura sobre si els SPMS són adequats en entorns molt dinàmics, i conclou que l'impacte diferencial de l'ús de SPMS en l'acompliment de la gestió és més feble en entorns dinàmics, la qual cosa està en línia amb el corrent d'estudis que assenyala els riscos de rigidesa dels SPMS. / Los procesos de toma de decisiones directivas y de gestión y medición del desempeño son centrales en la gestión estratégica. El proceso de gestión estratégica es de carácter dinámico, continúo y sistémico. Sin embargo, los factores que afectan la estabilidad estratégica pueden ser inesperados, volubles e irregulares. Esta tesis se ha centrado en cuatro objetos de análisis: los sistemas de medición de desempeño, las decisiones directivas, la incertidumbre del entorno, y el desempeño organizacional. En esta tesis se ha planteado un estudio cuantitativo para contrastar una serie de hipótesis respecto a ambas cuestiones de investigación. Estas hipótesis han sido sometidas a un contraste empírico a partir de datos recogidos en base a 179 respuestas a un cuestionario físico, aplicado a miembros del TMT (Top Management Team) de organizaciones con actividades en Ecuador y Colombia. Los resultados de la investigación sugieren que un primer aporte de esta tesis a la literatura anterior es el enfoque en la congruencia entre decisiones directivas como un atributo importante en la interrelación entre Plan Estratégico y Plan Operativo dentro del Ciclo de Gestión Estratégica (Kaplan y Norton, 2008, 2010), y sobre el que anteriormente se había prestado poca atención. En segundo lugar, la tesis contribuye a entender que una de las vías por las que los sistemas estratégicos de medición de desempeño ayudan a un mejor desempeño de gestión es a través de asegurar una mayor congruencia o sincronía entre las decisiones directivas, distinguiendo cómo los distintos tipos de congruencia afectan a distintos aspectos del desempeño de gestión. Respecto a este segundo aporte, esta tesis demuestra específicamente que, dentro del desempeño de gestión, la mayor alineación estratégica interna está asociada a la congruencia entre las decisiones estratégicas, mientras que la capacidad de cuestionamiento estratégico está asociada a la congruencia entre las decisiones de carácter operativo, y la rapidez de respuesta estratégica está asociada a la congruencia entre las decisiones de carácter estratégico y operativo. Finalmente, la tesis contribuye a la discusión recientemente abierta en la literatura sobre si los SPMS son adecuados en entornos muy dinámicos, y concluye que el impacto diferencial del uso de SPMS sobre el desempeño de gestión es más débil en entornos dinámicos, lo cual está en línea con la corriente de estudios que remarcan los riesgos de rigidez en los SPMS. / The decision-making processes, management policies and the performance measurement are central issues in the strategic management literature. The strategic management process is dynamic, continuous and systemic. However, the factors affecting strategic stability can be unexpected, volatile and erratic. This thesis has focused on four objects of analysis: performance measurement systems, management decisions, perceived environmental uncertainty and organizational performance.This thesis is a quantitative study which compares a series of hypotheses; these hypotheses have been subjected to an empirical data collected from 179 responses to a physical questionnaire, applied to members of the TMT (Top Management Team) of organizations with activities in Ecuador and Colombia.The research results suggest that a first contribution of this thesis to the literature is the focus on the congruence between management decisions as an important attribute in the interface between Strategic Plan and Operational Plan within the Strategic Management Cycle (Kaplan and Norton, 2008 , 2010), which previously has received little attention. Secondly, the research contributes to understand that one of the ways in which strategic performance measurement systems helps management to achieve better performance is through ensuring greater consistency or synchrony between management decisions, distinguishing how different types of congruence affect different aspects of performance management. Regarding this second contribution, this thesis shows specifically that, within performance management, a greater internal strategic alignment is associated with the congruence between the strategic decisions, while the capacity of strategic questioning is associated with the congruence between operative decisions, and speed of strategic response is associated with the congruence between strategic and operational decisions. Finally, the thesis contributes to the recently opened discussion in the literature about if the SPMS are appropriate in highly dynamic environments, and concludes that the differential impact of the use of SPMS on performance management is weaker in dynamic environments, which is in line with current studies that highlight the risks of stiffness of the SPMS.

Investments with exit flexibility require decisions regarding both the investment and holding period. Because selling an investment often leads to taxable capital gains, which crucially depend on the duration of an investment, we investigate the impact of capital gains taxation on exit timing under different tax systems. We observed that capital gains taxation delays exit decisions but loses its decision relevance for very long holdings. Often the optimal exit time, which indicates the maximal present value of future cashflows, cannot be determined analytically. However, we identify the breakeven exit time that guarantees present values exceeding those of an immediate sale. While, after-taxes, an immediate sale is often optimal, long holding periods might also be attractive for investors depending on the degree of income and corporate tax integration. A classic corporate tax system often indicates holdings over more than 100 periods. By contrast, a shareholder relief system indicates the earliest breakeven exit time and thus the highest level of exit timing flexibility. Surprisingly, high retention rates are likely to accelerate sales under a classic corporate system. Additionally, the worst exit time, which should be avoided by investors, differs tremendously across tax systems. For an integrated tax system with full imputation, the worst time is reached earlier than under partial or non-integrated systems. These results could help to predict investors' behavior regarding changes in capital gains taxation and thus are of interest for both investors and tax policymakers. Furthermore, the results emphasize the need to control for the underlying tax system in cross-country empirical studies. (authors' abstract) / Series: WU International Taxation Research Paper Series

Teaching mathematics is a difficult and complicated task. For student teachers, who are extremely new to the mathematics classroom, this difficulty is magnified. One of the biggest challenges for student teachers is learning how to effectively use the student thinking that emerges during mathematics lessons. I report the results of a case study of two mathematics education student teachers. I focus on how they make decisions while teaching in order to use their students' mathematical thinking. I also present analysis of the student teachers' discourse patterns, the reasons they gave to justify these patterns, and how their reasons affected how they used their students' thinking. I found that generally the student teachers used student thinking in ineffective ways. However, the reasons the student teachers gave for using student thinking always showed the best of intentions. Though given with the best of intentions, most of the reasons for using student thinking given by the student teachers were correlated with the student teachers ineffectively using their student's thinking. However, some of the reasons given by the STs for using student thinking seemed to help the student teachers more effectively use their students' thinking. I conclude with implications for preparing future student teachers to better use student thinking.

This study originated in the phenomenon that has been observed in the South African Saddle Horse Industry of substantial investments being made over time in the absence of obvious financial or economic reward. A literature study confirmed that, internationally, investment without obvious financial and economic rewards is not unknown and at the same time it was obvious that it is a rarely studied subject. From the literature study it was also evident that this phenomenon occurs where passion and, to a lesser extent, commitment is involved. Economic models on decision making is lacking in perspective on the influence of emotions which were proven to be substantial in an emotionally-laden market, such as the South African Saddle Horse industry. Consumption theory in marketing describes consumption decisions where the consumer is so influenced by emotions that rational influences barely come into play. It is in this context that the study seeks to qualify the investment decisions in the South African Saddle Horse industry by the adaption of consumption theory to investment theory. Research on the indicated strategic phenomenon fits within the critical realism paradigm and is essentially inductive, theory building research. In this case, the adaption of consumer theory as investment theory. Qualifying the influence of emotions in the investment decision – the “why” and “how” questions about a contemporary set of events, over which the researcher has no control – indicates case study as the applicable method of research. In this research, the case study theory is built by generalising case data to prior theory seeking replication or theoretical replication. With prior theory embracing the mentioned consumer theory and case selection dictated by the information, a case study can assist to identify the motivators of the investment decision. Once qualified, the influence of emotions on the investment decision in the mentioned strategic phenomenon can be quantified. Quantifying the influence of emotions on the investment decision leaves two alternatives, the first of which is developing a data set in a statistical survey. However, neuroeconomic findings indicate that opportunity cost comparisons for decisions are supported by our emotional circuitry that is commonly below our conscious awareness. This finding has the direct implication that opportunity cost questions in retrospect do not yield reliable information. The second alternative would be to use dependable historic investment decision data series, such as auction prices. But in the South African Saddle Horse industry, only African Saddle Horse Futurity (ASF) offers any usable investment decision data series, with the AACup being the mother competition in the USA, offering a compatible data series but much more complete and evolved. Therefore, in quantifying the influence of emotions on investment decisions, ASF data and extended AACup auction data is used in an Ordinary Least Squares regression (OLS) analysis and for further calculations. In the literature study it was evident that emotions will be a major influence in investment decisions in the horse industry. This was confirmed by the multiple case study, proving applicability of consumption theory to the investment decision in the South African Saddle Horse industry. The OLS analysis rendered the magnitude of influence of emotions on the investment decision as both prohibitive and irregular on the theoretical determinants of the investment decisions. In all the research done, emotions were unanimously proven to be the determining influence on the investment decision in the South African Saddle Horse industry. But in a free market system where price equates demand and supply, the confirmed influence of emotions in the establishment of price hampers the effective distribution of scarce production resources. In this, the influence of emotions results in a cost to the industry. By manipulating the data set used in the dissertation, an indication of the historic cost of the influence of emotions in the investment decision at the ASF and AACup competitions became apparent. Also, the influence of emotions can be equally crucial in, for example, exploiting economic growth potential. For example, the Saddle Horse industry is a world-wide multimillion dollar industry, with coincidently proven and strong connections with good growth potential to South Africa’s rural areas. These connections contain sustainable development potential to improve the quality of life for many people living in these rural areas. But in order to successfully exploit this potential, more information on emotions as an economic variable is needed in stimulating the industry. In accordance with the incidence of emotions as an influence in decision making, evident in literature and this research, this argument for more information is extendable to numerous other emotionally influenced markets. Therefore, in order to improve reliability of predictions on economic investment and also economic growth, emotions as an influence have to be accounted for. / MSc (Agric), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015