This dissertation examines the effect of career concerns on the pattern of investments selected by venture capital fund managers. I propose a simple model in which managers strategically adjust the variance of their portfolio to maximize the probability of raising a follow-on fund. The model demonstrates that career concerns can encourage venture capital fund managers to inefficiently select investments that are too conservative. The influence of these career incentives declines following good initial fund performance, leading to a positive correlation between early fund performance and late fund risk-taking. Using a unique data set of company-level cash flows from 181 venture capital funds, I demonstrate that the intra-fund patterns of investment in venture capital broadly match the predictions of the model. First, I show that the characteristics of career concerns in the venture capital industry are consistent with the assumptions which drive the model. Funds who perform well in their initial investments raise a new fund more quickly, and the size of their next fund is concave with respect to the existing fund's performance. Second, using a maximum likelihood methodology I show that venture capital fund managers select more risky portfolio companies following good performance and tend to be less diversified. / text

Women and members of underrepresented populations remain a relatively small proportion of the engineering faculty and students on university campuses. The lack of diversity potentially reduces the number of innovative and diverse perspectives contributing to these fields. One critical area missing in the research literature concerns faculty mentoring of engineering undergraduate women students. This qualitative study explores the narratives of six engineering faculty member mentors, two student affairs practitioners, and three undergraduate women student mentees and their mentoring experiences in a large public research university. Drawing on relevant frameworks from best practices in mentoring and pedagogy, this study will reframe the conversations surrounding faculty mentoring of undergraduate students by utilizing a feminist lens, which seeks to explicitly address the need to create and sustain an inclusive and engaging classroom environment and mentoring relationships. The following research questions guided the study: 1) how do mentors and mentees make meaning and conceptualize the act of mentoring, 2) how are these mentoring relationships situated within the context of the institution in which they are embedded, and 3) what implications emerge for retention and representation of underrepresented students for faculty mentors and student mentees? With this in mind, a feminist lens was useful for expanding the ways in which mentoring is conceptualized and explored because traditional approaches did not effectively explore or capture the benefits received by the participants. The engineering faculty mentor and undergraduate student mentee participants largely formed mentoring relationships informally, often through a connection established in a classroom. Faculty members were purposeful and thoughtful in their pedagogical choices, fostering an engaging and supportive classroom environment. Unlike the research literature, these faculty mentors perceived real benefits from mentoring undergraduate students. In addition, the faculty mentors participating in this study were particularly aware of the challenges and opportunities facing women and underrepresented undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty in engineering. / text

Principals and instructional coaches from four high-performing and equitable-performing elementary schools stratified by socioeconomic level were interviewed. The main concern of participants was meeting student performance challenges set by accountability systems and measured by mandated tests. This concern was manifested in a focus on the needs and educational progress of individual children. Other participant concerns included investing in teachers, analyzing test data collaboratively, intervening on behalf of struggling students, dealing with the current accountability environment, building productive learning environments, achieving educational equity, and maintaining identity as a leader. Participants demonstrated a rather low knowledge of accountability system mechanics and ambivalence about accountability system features; however, they fully embraced the spirit of "leaving no child left behind." They also emphasized many elementes of leadership that predate the current accountability environment, including instructional leadership, professional learning communities, and high expectations for students. Although categories were consistent among the schools, other factors co-vary with school size (performance unit of analysis) or school socioeconomic status (future vs. present orientation). A statistical measure for evaluating the educational equity of schools is introduced.

Bakgrund: Private Equity bolag är kända för sin förvaltande och finansiellt inriktade syn på förvärv av företag. Ofta hålls ett kortsiktigt förvaltningsperspektiv av PE investerare då dessa avser att avyttra målbolaget inom ett par år för att erhålla en god vinst. Det är av intresse att utföra en statistisk analys om vad som ligger som grund för när ett PE bolag väljer att genomföra ett uppköp och om man kan förutse när ett bolag är attraktivt för investering. Tidigare undersökningar har gjorts inom ämnet på den amerikanska tillverkningsindustrin, samt på enskilda länder i Europa men inga studier har utförts på den europeiska tillverkningsmarknaden i sin helhet.Syfte: Studien har avsett att undersöka huruvida det med hjälp av en modell byggd på finansiella nyckeltal går att förutsäga om ett europeiskt noterat tillverkningsbolag är attraktivt för uppköp av Private Equity investerare.Metod: Utredningen omfattar ett begränsat urval av 138 tillverkningsföretag, noterade på börser inom Europeiska Unionen, som genom en logistisk regressionsmodell byggd på finansiella nyckeltal förutser uppköp under perioden 2000-01-01 till 2010-11-15.Resultat: Attraktiva uppköpsbolag inom den europeiska tillverkningsindustrin visade sig ha ett lågt marknadsvärde över bokfört värde samt starka fria kassaflöden. Målbolagets storlek samt tillgångstyper hade marginellt inflytande på PE investerare. Små skillnader kapitalstrukturen påverkar inte beslutet att investera men har visat sig vara av vikt för modellen. För nyckeltalet obalans mellan tillväxt och resurser fanns varierade resultat gällande inflytandet på investerares beslut beroende på konjunktursläge, dock med låg signifikans.Slutsats: Vi fann samband och skillnader mellan företags finansiella information och rådande konjunkturläge. Under olika tidperioder motiverar varierande nyckeltal PE firmor att genomföra uppköp inom den europiska tillverkningsindustrin. Dock påverkas resultaten och förklaringsvärdena av en varierande styrka och signifikans i studien.

Då TV-reklam idag är ett frekvent inslag i de kommersiella TV-kanalerna ville vi ta reda på vilken typ av reklamfilm som uppfattades som mest lämpad vid varumärkesbyggande. För att ta reda på detta valde vi att genomföra kvalitativa djupintervjuer med sex personer, tre kvinnor och tre män, i åldrarna 18 - 65 år. Vi valde att avgränsa oss till de tre genrerna humorreklam, känsloreklam och kändisreklam, och valde ut två reklamfilmer inom varje genre som vi ansåg representativa för respektive genre. Vi valde att använda oss av semiotik och brand equity som teoretisk ansats då vi ansåg att de passade väl in i vår studie. Under intervjuerna visade vi reklamfilmerna för intervjupersonerna och ställde därefter frågor utifrån två förutbestämda frågeområden; varumärke och reklamfilmsgenre. Majoriteten av intervjupersonerna ansåg att humor var den genre som var mest lämpad vid varumärkesbyggande, men när det gällde personligt tyckande visade det sig att humor och känsloreklam var lika mycket uppskattade. Flertalet av intervjupersonerna var överens om att val av reklamfilmsgenre var sammanlänkat med den typ av produkt som marknadsfördes. Vi kunde även urskilja att ett antal intervjupersoner ansåg att reklamfilmer till en viss grad bidrar till att intervjupersonerna skulle välja den marknadsförda produkten framför en likartad. En tendens vi fann inom kändisreklam var att om intervjupersonerna själva har en negativ uppfattning om kändisen i reklamfilmen från början så är inte det en faktor som påverkar varumärket och företaget på ett negativt sätt. En övergripande tendens vi kunde urskilja var att varumärket måste utstråla positiva associationer för att skapa värde hos TV-tittaren.

Background Keller (2009) states that brand equity and the crucial intangiblevalue a brand brings to organizations is perhaps one of the most important marketing topics discussed in recent years. As the competitive market and branding environment for companies are fierce, the sport industry has gradually become more competitive and professional in many aspects of their operations as well. Researchers have gone to the extent of claiming that a brand is the most important asset of a sports team and that the brand provides direction and meaning for sports associations as well as for their followers. Still, market studies have indicated that sport associations often lack appropriate branding strategies and particularly for teams below the professional level, research have been limited in these areas. Purpose The purpose of this thesis is to examine what strategies and actions lower level Swedish ice hockey teams use in order to create and strengthen their brand. Method A hermeneutic view and inductive approach have been applied for this thesis. The purpose and research questions of this thesis have been answered with the help of seven qualitative, semistructured in-depth interviews with lower level sport club managers. Frame of reference Theory is based on two approaches to how teams can build and leverage their brand. While a model by Richelieu (2003) illustrates a strategic construction of the sports brand, the Spectatorbased brand equity model by Ross (2006) is more concerned with how controllable and uncontrollable factors contributes to the two main components of spectator based brand equity, namely brand awareness and brand associations. Conclusions The conclusion withholds the answer to the four research questions and purpose designed for this thesis. The findings indicate that teams are starting to realize the importance of a strong brand, particular to meet increased customer expectations for the game experience are considered important to create positive brand associations. An important finding have been the lack of communication and interaction teams seem to have with their customers in order to establish a clear brand identity and position in the market. The findings also indicate some characteristics particular to the lower level setting e.g. the dependence on volunteer workers and how the lack of long-term financial responsibility have impacted the management and development of a strong brand.

Based on research involving an overview of 44 policies at Canadian universities and 21 interviews with anti-harassment practitioners across the country, this thesis explores the challenges faced by anti-harassment practitioners working with legally defined institutional harassment discrimination policies. Anti-harassment work at Canadian universities is complex because practitioners must negotiate institutional demands set out in policy as well as politicized demands from members of marginalized groups both inside and outside the institution. Interviews with practitioners reveal that their daily work in reactive investigation and mediation of complaints as well as their proactive work in educating campus communities may support the less powerful parties to complaints, rather than focusing only on limiting the institution’s legal liability. Therefore, although anti-harassment practitioners occupy a boundary role as defined by Fraser (1989), their work is not entirely “depoliticizing”. Practitioners’ identities, sense of marginalization, and commitment to activist politics contribute to their position as tempered radicals as defined by Meyerson and Scully (1995), helping to explain their commitment to both institutional prerogatives and to empowering marginalized members of the institution. The advent of neoliberalism has set the stage for the shift of discourses and practices away from those which value equity to those that underscore traditional divisions of power and challenge the demands of so-called “special interest groups’. This shift is underscored by concerns about “political correctness” that arise within institutional communities and the broader social context. Perhaps the most obvious of the changes relates to the shift from a focus on equity and human rights to what is termed the “respectful workplace model”. The inclusion of personal harassment issues in human rights policies shifts the focus of the policies to issues that are not tied to historical oppressions and can potentially deflect attention from the human rights component of these policies. The challenge is to move beyond a legalistic perspective regarding policy development and to consider changes in the broader social context that influence policy change and the work of anti-harassment practitioners.

This dissertation examines the role of different types of salesperson behaviors on building and managing customer equity drivers. It is proposed that customers develop positive attitudes towards different value drivers through developed trust by different salesperson behaviors. Specifically, it is hypothesized that customer trust effects customers’ perceptions of brand value, product value and relationship value; the customer trust in turn is affected by different salesperson behaviors, namely, adaptive selling, customer oriented, selling oriented and un/ethical behaviors. Thus, this dissertation integrates selling behaviors literature with customer equity literature. This dissertation builds on past literature and proposes a conceptual model using nine different constructs representing three broader constructs, Selling behaviors, Customer trust and Customer equity drivers: Adaptive selling behavior, Selling orientation – Customer orientation (SOCO) behaviors and Un/ethical selling behavior, Customer trust with salesperson and selling firm, Value equity, Relationship equity and Brand equity. Descriptive research design is used for investigating the role of customer trust as a mediator in the relationships between selling behaviors and customer equity drivers. The research design uses a dyadic sampling design where data for independent variables, selling behaviors and customer trust, is collected from insurance customers in St.Louis metropolitan area and the data for dependent variables, customer equity drivers, is collected from insurance salespeople. Structural equation modeling is used to analyze the data. The results support the mediational role of trust in the relationship between selling behaviors and customer equity drivers. They also support the hypothesis that different selling behaviors have different effects on customer equity drivers. This research provides significant theoretical and managerial implications. It provides the existing body of literature with a different perspective on customer equity management. Managerially, it provides newer insights to sales managers of the effects of relational selling behaviors. This research also introduces a newer way to investigate selling behaviors by using a second order construct, relational selling behavior.

This qualitative research examines how school principals perceive social justice and accountability, the actions they take, and the reasoning process they use in their attempt to satisfy accountability mandates while simultaneously tackling the various causes of social injustices in their schools. This constructive study aims to gain an in-depth understanding of the world from the subjects’ points of view, to unfold the meaning of their experiences, and to uncover their lived world. It employs semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions guided by the conceptual framework developed from review of literature on social justice, educational leadership, and accountability policy. Twenty-two school principals and vice-principals from the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) were interviewed. The findings show that some participants define social justice as equity, which goes from the economic and political dimensions of resource distribution and equality of opportunity and access, to the cultural aspect of social representation and inclusion. Some view public education as a social justice endeavour with a particular reference to the purpose of public education. Others construe social justice by focusing on its end goal – the academic and social outcomes of students and the impact on their lives. Study participants implement their social justice beliefs and values in praxis by engaging all stakeholders and catalyzing them to be the new force for the social justice movement. Evident in this study is that participants enacted their social justice practices by putting students at the centre, positioning themselves as social justice leaders, developing people for social justice, building school climate through justice, and fostering positive relationship with families and communities. Under current accountability context, principals in this study responded to the current reform by going beyond its narrow focus through instilling a sense of moral responsibility in their perceptions of accountability itself. As social justice activists, they are proactively engaged in expanding its parameters by encompassing the moral, social, and professional aspects of their accountability. Leading for social justice thus becomes a process of constantly confronting and tearing down such obstacles and barriers by leveraging the politics of accountability and social justice to move towards what is best for students.

In this qualitative research study, I examine eight elementary educators perspectives on teaching science to diverse students in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). A critical pedagogy and antiracism conceptual framework is used to examine elementary educators perspectives on the interrelationship between student sociocultural background and science education. Ontario Ministry of Education policies and curriculum documents and science educational research are used to interpret themes/codes from the official literature on student diversity and science education. Key findings of my research study show that: (1) elementary educators’ are ‘socio-culturally conscious’ of diverse students in the science classroom; (2) elementary educators require a more complex and broader understanding of official discourses on the sociocultural contexts of science education and implications for scientific literacy development; and (3) professional development (i.e., workshops and training) and teacher collaboration opportunities are identified as effective strategies for supporting elementary educator in diverse science classroom spaces.