This thesis groups three papers in applied microeconomic theory that focus on political economy and the economics of organisations. The first chapter studies the equilibrium outcomes of a dynamic game of electoral competition between two policy-motivated parties. I model incumbent policy persistence: parties commit to implement a policy for their full tenure in office, and hence in any election only the opposition party is free to choose a new platform. The model gives rise to novel equilibrium policy dynamics: governments alternate in power; parties compromise, that is, starting from differentiated ideological positions, they gradually move towards proposing platforms which resemble one another; however, they never capitulate, that is, party labels matter and parties maintain distinct policy goals. The second chapter studies a directed search model of competition between sellers that control the quality of buyers' private information about goods. As better informed buyers extract more informational rents from trade, sellers may try to attract buyers by offering better information. First, I establish how the characteristics of exogenously fixed sale mechanisms determine equilibrium information provision. Information provision is higher under competition than under monopoly, yet partial information is provided for many sale mechanisms. Second, when sellers commit to both information provision and mechanisms, I identify simple conditions under which every equilibrium has full information. In these equilibria, sellers capture the efficiency gains of information provision and compete only over non-distortionary rents offered to buyers. Retaining the option to develop a currently inactive project often requires maintaining specialised stocks of knowledge. However, standard models of experimentation treat the choice of one project over another as entailing only an implicit opportunity cost. In the third chapter, I characterise the optimal experimentation policy in a model in which undeveloped projects have explicit maintenance costs and can be irreversibly discarded. Projects which in the absence of maintenance costs would be developed only after more promising projects fail are sometimes developed first and then discarded early. Maintenance costs alter optimal project development by providing incentives to bring the option value of less promising projects forward.

This study examines how the uneven application of regulatory standards in oil exploration and extraction in Nigeria has exacerbated ethnic and class tensions and how the oil exploration activities have affected the individual and collective lives of the people in the Niger Delta region. Overall, the study links the individual and collective lives of Nigerians, particularly people in Obelle and Obagi communities to the political economy of global capital. Furthermore, the study explores how the expansion and activities of global capital necessarily create ethnic tension, class struggle, and gender inequality. In order to maintain the status quo, global capital creates structural inequalities that divide societies into hierarchies of the rich and the poor. The study also examines the strategies adopted by the people to ameliorate negative consequences of oil exploration in the communities.<p>In this study, the researcher posits that there is a relationship between the uneven application of international and national regulations in oil production by MNCs and environmental degradation as well as the negative effect on peoples live and means of livelihood, resulting in competition for scarce resources, which in turn have exacerbated ethnic conflict between and among communities. Consequently, the main questions addressed in the study focus on if, how, and why globalization, carried out through the activities of MNCs, affects ethnic tension, class struggle, and gender inequality. In order to address the questions, a critical ethnographic paradigm was used to explore and explain the processes of globalization that affect the peoples lives and means of livelihood. Since this studys focus is on a neglected population (Obelle and Obagi communities), a critical ethnographic paradigm was used to speak on behalf of the subjects as a means of empowering them by giving more authority to their voices. Consequently, this study has the possibility of not only speaking about the marginalization of the people of Obelle and Obagi communities and their livelihood but, also, speaking on their behalf in order to increase awareness of their present economic situation, aiming at the general improvement of their economic situation and quality of life. This study, therefore, provided the subjects an opportunity to articulate their economic problems and share their lived experiences in a region that has been devastated by the activities of oil MNCs. Data were collected and analyzed using both qualitative and quantitative methods. The specific methods used in data collection included in-depth interviews, questionnaires, and observation. Analysis of the data was done by employing a variety of methods that includes a combination of descriptive statistics based on cross-tabulation, analysis of themes that emerged from in-depth interviews, and Atlas.ti 5.0 qualitative analysis computer programme to show the relationship between variables that emerged from the study. The results obtained from the study support the hypothesis that the oil MNCs in Nigeria, in partnership with the Nigerian government, have engaged in a process of resource exploitation that has resulted in economic expropriation, political disenfranchisement, social dislocation, anomie and environmental devastation, of the people of the Niger Delta and Obagi/Obelle in particular.

On May tenth, 2004 Monsanto announced that it would discontinue breeding and field level research of transgenic Roundup Ready (RR) wheat. This decision was heavily influenced by the widespread rejection of RR wheat by Canadian prairie producers who voiced their opposition through a diverse coalition of rural and urban organizations. With six of the nine member organizations representing rural and farm groups, this research departs from the most common representation of anti-GM movements as being urban and European-centred. This dissertation contrasts the general acceptance of Monsanto’s Roundup Ready canola just five years earlier (in the mid 90s) with the widespread opposition amongst prairie producers to RR wheat. It uses an updated version of the agrarian question and the production of nature thesis to show how capitalist relations are differentiated across place and commodities. The research finds that producer resistance to RR wheat hinged on the specificities of local histories and institutions, cultural conceptions of worth and economic fair treatment, and the character of wheat as a commodity with particular biophysical properties. The research is also concerned with the ways in which producers articulated their resistance with and through discourses of consumption, while at the same time rejecting the attempts made by proponents of RR wheat to relegate them to consuming subjects, who would best register their dissent by voting with their dollars on the market. For many prairie farm organizations, the fate of the family farm is tied up with the future of wheat farming and the capacity of farmers to collectively market their wheat in international markets. Monsanto’s vision for the future of prairie wheat crossed moral and cultural boundaries for producers and organizations that understood themselves as active subjects.

This thesis groups three papers in applied microeconomic theory that focus on political economy and the economics of organisations. The first chapter studies the equilibrium outcomes of a dynamic game of electoral competition between two policy-motivated parties. I model incumbent policy persistence: parties commit to implement a policy for their full tenure in office, and hence in any election only the opposition party is free to choose a new platform. The model gives rise to novel equilibrium policy dynamics: governments alternate in power; parties compromise, that is, starting from differentiated ideological positions, they gradually move towards proposing platforms which resemble one another; however, they never capitulate, that is, party labels matter and parties maintain distinct policy goals. The second chapter studies a directed search model of competition between sellers that control the quality of buyers' private information about goods. As better informed buyers extract more informational rents from trade, sellers may try to attract buyers by offering better information. First, I establish how the characteristics of exogenously fixed sale mechanisms determine equilibrium information provision. Information provision is higher under competition than under monopoly, yet partial information is provided for many sale mechanisms. Second, when sellers commit to both information provision and mechanisms, I identify simple conditions under which every equilibrium has full information. In these equilibria, sellers capture the efficiency gains of information provision and compete only over non-distortionary rents offered to buyers. Retaining the option to develop a currently inactive project often requires maintaining specialised stocks of knowledge. However, standard models of experimentation treat the choice of one project over another as entailing only an implicit opportunity cost. In the third chapter, I characterise the optimal experimentation policy in a model in which undeveloped projects have explicit maintenance costs and can be irreversibly discarded. Projects which in the absence of maintenance costs would be developed only after more promising projects fail are sometimes developed first and then discarded early. Maintenance costs alter optimal project development by providing incentives to bring the option value of less promising projects forward.

This study examines how the uneven application of regulatory standards in oil exploration and extraction in Nigeria has exacerbated ethnic and class tensions and how the oil exploration activities have affected the individual and collective lives of the people in the Niger Delta region. Overall, the study links the individual and collective lives of Nigerians, particularly people in Obelle and Obagi communities to the political economy of global capital. Furthermore, the study explores how the expansion and activities of global capital necessarily create ethnic tension, class struggle, and gender inequality. In order to maintain the status quo, global capital creates structural inequalities that divide societies into hierarchies of the rich and the poor. The study also examines the strategies adopted by the people to ameliorate negative consequences of oil exploration in the communities.<p>In this study, the researcher posits that there is a relationship between the uneven application of international and national regulations in oil production by MNCs and environmental degradation as well as the negative effect on peoples live and means of livelihood, resulting in competition for scarce resources, which in turn have exacerbated ethnic conflict between and among communities. Consequently, the main questions addressed in the study focus on if, how, and why globalization, carried out through the activities of MNCs, affects ethnic tension, class struggle, and gender inequality. In order to address the questions, a critical ethnographic paradigm was used to explore and explain the processes of globalization that affect the peoples lives and means of livelihood. Since this studys focus is on a neglected population (Obelle and Obagi communities), a critical ethnographic paradigm was used to speak on behalf of the subjects as a means of empowering them by giving more authority to their voices. Consequently, this study has the possibility of not only speaking about the marginalization of the people of Obelle and Obagi communities and their livelihood but, also, speaking on their behalf in order to increase awareness of their present economic situation, aiming at the general improvement of their economic situation and quality of life. This study, therefore, provided the subjects an opportunity to articulate their economic problems and share their lived experiences in a region that has been devastated by the activities of oil MNCs. Data were collected and analyzed using both qualitative and quantitative methods. The specific methods used in data collection included in-depth interviews, questionnaires, and observation. Analysis of the data was done by employing a variety of methods that includes a combination of descriptive statistics based on cross-tabulation, analysis of themes that emerged from in-depth interviews, and Atlas.ti 5.0 qualitative analysis computer programme to show the relationship between variables that emerged from the study. The results obtained from the study support the hypothesis that the oil MNCs in Nigeria, in partnership with the Nigerian government, have engaged in a process of resource exploitation that has resulted in economic expropriation, political disenfranchisement, social dislocation, anomie and environmental devastation, of the people of the Niger Delta and Obagi/Obelle in particular.

Upplevelsens era är här och ställer samtliga aktörer i samhället inför utmaningar. Upplevelsen ska inte längre bara fylla ett funktionellt behov, den ska beröra konsumenten på ett helt annat sätt. Allt i syfte att kunna erbjuda konsumenten en upplevelse utöver det vanliga för att som företag lyckas med att särskilja sig från sina konkurrenter. En strategi för att lyckas med differentiering är att engagera konsumentens sinnen i upplevelsen. Uppsatsen tar utgångspunkt i två teoretiska begrepp: Pine &amp; Gilmore´s (1999) strategimodell, The Experience Realms, och Hulténs m.fl. (2007) teori om sinnesmarknadsföring. Vårt arbete syftar till att utreda vad som händer i mötet mellan dessa två teorier på ett konkret fält – Orbaden Konferens och Spa. Studien har varit av deduktiv karaktär. Vi har tillämpat kvalitativ metod då vi med utgångspunkt från valda teorier önskat undersöka hur ett spa-besök upplevs av gäster, samt utreda hur en specifik anläggning arbetar med att skapa upplevelser. Vi genomförde fyra kvalitativa intervjuer, två med representanter från Orbaden Konferens och Spa, två med personer som har gedigen erfarenhet av att vara besökare på spa. Då teorin kopplades till empirin kunde flera mötespunkter av vikt urskiljas. Mötespunkterna som framträtt kan vara av avgörande vikt vid skapandet av upplevelser.

In the era of knowledge-based economy, the knowledge is the most important thing for all corporations. How to manage and use the knowledge to strengthen their competitiveness is significant. The study company is the first probiotic factory of passing GMP verification in Taiwan. The experience of GMP verification is very good for the other companies and the whole probiotic industry; therefore it is worthwhile to study more deeply. In this study, there are many important factors to make the GMP system be established successfully. And the experience is valuable, it makes the case company take the lead in probiotic industry, and helps the case company extend its international marketing rapidly. This study showed us that GMP could help health food industry raise the competitiveness effectively.

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Includes bibliographical references (p. 39-48).

Research question: How do the utilization of the human senses affect the customers' shopping experience within e-commerce? Purpose: The purpose is to describe how brands within e-commerce can create an enhanced shopping experience for its customers. Method: Cross-sectional design, semi-structured in-depth interviews Conclusion: The study revealed that in order to create an enhanced shopping experience for its customers, brands within e-commerce should treat the shopping experience as extended, which enables stimulation of multiple senses.