Background: One of the main distinguishing factors that we have identified between thedifferent market structures is the level of barriers to entry. Market entry barriers are relevantwhen considering new market entry. The main barriers to entry include Cost advantages ofincumbents, Product differentiation of incumbents, Capital requirements, Customer switchingcosts, Access to distribution channels and Government policy. Purpose: The purpsoe of this paper is to identify factors that may influence entry modedecisions in an oligopolistic market situation. Method: Our thesis is based on a single case study of a Danish company in Sweden. We havechosen to do a qualitative research method. We have gathered our empirical data by doing emails and face-face interviews. Conclusions: We answered our research questions such as, “What factors affect entry modedecisions?” These factors could be both internal and external but we concentrated on factorsrelated to external environment within the new market because they are decisive in the choice ofentry modes strategy within a new market since the firm usually has little or no control overthem. For this study, external factors that affected Strandmöllen AB’s choice of entry modes intothe Swedish market are: business environment, cultural distance, market barriers and competitionintensity. Our second research question is, ‘Which entry modes can a firm use to enter anoligopolistic market situation?’ Strandmöllen AB is a wholly owned subsidiary of StrandmöllenAS. The entry mode strategy was by acquisition of ScanGas, a small Swedish gas supplier. Suggestions for further research: This subject area (oligopolistic) is quite rare. We could notfind much material on entry modes in an oligopolistic situation. Authors think that with moreresources and more time, this could be an interesting area to expand academic research on.

The purpose of this study is to create understanding for how social media affects the relationship between employees and leaders in organizations, and how social media could be used to improve internal communication. We also want to explore how this type of internal communication could be implemented in large organizations. From a theoretical perspective our ambition is to see how our findings relate to the theoretical field of internal communication and human resource management. The empirical findings in this study were gathered by conducting an interview with the CEO to reveal his intentions, methods and practices when working with social media. A questionnaire was then developed by using the knowledge gained from the interview with the CEO, as well as by using theories regarding communication, social media and corporate culture, this questionnaire was filled out by company employees. The empirical data that was gathered was analyzed in the light of relevant theory. We also checked the various data variables for correlation. This was done so we could study what factors determine why an employee follows the blog, and also so we could study which factors are impacted by the employee reading the blog. The results of this study show that social media as a communication tool has enormous potential to transcend geographical barriers and to flatten the organizational hierarchy in a way that is not possible through the usage of conventional communication methods. Social media can affect the relationship between a leader of an organization and its employees and has the power to spread values, practices, routines and build corporate culture. Social media however, has a sensitive nature and factors such as accessibility, target group characteristics and planning are directly relevant to the outcome when a CEO uses social media to communicate with the employees. Accessibility problems can result in some employees having a hard time being reached by social media communication and the lack of a proper integration plan can cause disturbance in the communication, employees may not be aware of the purpose of the CEOs efforts or maybe not even be aware that the CEO has started using social media tools. However the individuals who do follow the CEOs practises are likely to gain a better relationship with their leader. The informal nature of social media is a great way for CEOs to show more of their personalities and in that way form a closer bond with the employees. We believe that if planned and used in the right way, CEO social media communication has even more potential than this study reveals.

Choice-Based Conjoint (CBC) models are often used for pricing decisions, especially when scanner data models cannot be applied. Up to date, it is unclear how Choice-Based Conjoint (CBC) models perform in terms of forecasting real-world shop data. In this contribution, we measure the performance of a Latent Class CBC model not by means of an experimental hold-out sample but via aggregate scanner data. We find that the CBC model does not accurately predict real-world market shares, thus leading to wrong pricing decisions. In order to improve its forecasting performance, we propose a correction scheme based on scanner data. Our empirical analysis shows that the hybrid method improves the performance measures considerably. (author's abstract) / Series: Report Series SFB "Adaptive Information Systems and Modelling in Economics and Management Science"

This thesis evaluates how municipal transit ridership in mid-sized cities is influenced by external factors. External factors are forces outside a municipality’s direct control but potentially affect the municipality in some way, in particular its transit ridership. The thesis also determines the appropriateness of municipal levels of response to each factor. Two mid-sized municipalities in Ontario, Canada – the City of Kingston and Region of Waterloo – were studied. The evaluation, first, identifies the trends or “current conditions” between the municipalities and five sets of external factors to determine influence on ridership. The factors are 1. Population Growth and Density; 2. Demographics (Seniors, Students and Immigrants); 3. Regional Location; 4. Federal/Provincial Impacts; and 5. Fuel Prices. Second, the municipality’s level of response was measured in three ways. Staff awareness of the factor and its influence was gauged using key informant interviews and municipal councillor surveys conducted by the researcher. Internal policy and guidance documents measured whether policies relating to each factor are appropriate. Finally, observations of implemented initiatives determined whether they appropriately deal with each factor. The study finds that more external factors act on Waterloo than Kingston. Therefore, Waterloo has strong incentives to prioritize – among many municipal responsibilities – its transit system and to focus on increasing ridership. The strongest incentives for Waterloo are population growth, the student demographic and federal/provincial impacts. Kingston has only one strong incentive: the senior demographic. The study also finds that Waterloo has appropriate levels of response to more of the external factors than does Kingston. Recommendations for Kingston and Waterloo are provided for improving their levels of response to each set of factors. The paper concludes that municipal size is an important driver, but internal levels of response are critical success factors. The data analysis matrix developed for this study can be used by other municipalities to help identify appropriateness of internal responses as they relate to the influence of external factors within their municipality.

Tables have been used for working and studying for years, and people continue using tables to work with digital artifacts. Collaborative tabletop activities such as planning, designing, and scheduling are common on traditional tables, but digital tables still face a variety of design issues to facilitate doing the same tasks. For example, due to the high cost of digital tables, it is unclear how large a digital table must be to support collaborative problem solving. This thesis examines the impact of physical features, in particular the table size, on collaborative tasks. This research leverages findings of previous studies of traditional and digital tables, and focuses on exploring the interaction of table size and users’ seating arrangement in collaborative problem solving. An experimental study is used to observe the behaviors of two-member groups while doing problem-solving tasks. Two tasks, storytelling and travel planning, were selected for this study, and the experiments were performed on two traditional tables, one small and one large. Although working on digital and traditional tables differs, investigating the impact of physical features in traditional tables can help us better understand how these features interact with workspace awareness and external cognition factors during taskwork. In the empirical study, external cognitive behaviors of participants were deeply analyzed to understand how physical settings of the table and seating arrangement affect the way people manipulate artifacts in the table workspace. Collaborators passed through different stages of problem solving using varied strategies, and the data analysis revealed that they manipulated material on the tabletop for understanding, organizing and solution making through visual separation, cognitive tracing and piling. Table size, task type and user seating arrangement showed strong effects on the external cognition of collaborators. In particular, the accessibility of sufficient space on the table influenced how much users could distribute their materials to improve workspace awareness and cognitive tracing. On the other hand, lack of space or inaccessible space forced people to use the space above the table—by holding materials in their hands—or to pile materials to compensate for space limitations. The insights gained from this research inform design decisions regarding size and seating arrangement for tabletop workspaces. For cases in which there is insufficient space, design alternatives are recommended to improve accessibility to artifacts to compensate for space limitations. These solutions aim to enhance the external cognition of users when space is insufficient to work with artifacts in problem-solving tasks.

The main objective of this research is to estimate internal and external wage effects associated with a changing share of college graduates in Canada. This paper uses data drawn from the Canadian 1991, 1996, and 2001 Public Use Microdata File for 25 to 65 years old individuals working full-time and full-year in metropolitan areas. These workers are then separated into four different levels of education groups in order to estimate the effect of change in the share of college-educated workers on their earnings. <p>The Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) estimates, controlling for potential work experience, total years of schooling, individual occupation, employment industry, immigration status, visible minority status, show a significant positive relationship between the percentage change of the share of college-educated workers and the percentage change of individuals real weekly wage rates. We found that one percentage point increase in a census metropolitan areas share of college-graduated workers was associated with a 0.35 percentage change in all workers wage rates in that city. For separated education groups, our results showed that a one percentage expansion in the supply of college-graduated workers raised less than high schools wage rate by 0.245 percent, raised high-school graduates wage rate by 0.363 percent, raised more than college-educated workers wage rate by 0.385 percent, and raised college-educated wage rate by 0.326 percentage. These results are consistent with the conclusion arrived at by E. Moretti, (2004) that all types of workers earnings increased when a citys share of college graduates rose.

Using external information to gain insights is becoming increasingly important in today’s knowledge based economies. However, from both research and practice it is somewhat unclear how organizations manage these activities. Therefore the purpose of this paper is to explore how four different organizations manage their insight creation process from external information. To do this, a literature review about insight creation is done to create an analytical framework. Based on this framework, the insight creation process is analyzed within the organizations to find characteristics of each process. Next, a cross case analysis is conducted that reveal the main differences between the organizations. The results indicate two main styles of managing the insight creation process that can be differentiated with regards to formality. As such, this paper complements previous research within the area of competitive intelligence and knowledge management in the sense that it increases the understanding of the insight creation process.

No description available.

The study investigates the relationship between intellectual capital and share prices on the Nasdaq OMXS30 companies between 2001 and 2010. This, by using content analysis to score the companies' disclosure of intellectual capital and linear regression to test for a relationship with the corresponding share prices. We find a significant positive relationship between Price and Intellectual capital only for one of its subcategories: Internal Capital. The other two, Human Capital and External Capital, were both negatively correlated, explaining why we could not see a relationship between our total Intellectual capital score and price. Apart from this, we see that the average IC disclosure increased significantly during our researched time period and that IC disclosure in knowledge-intensive companies is statistically higher than for capital-intensive companies when it comes to External Capital and Human Capital. For Internal Capital, as well as for Total intellectual capital disclosure, we could not see any difference.

Globalization, rising affluence in developing and transitional economies, improved infrastructure, and advancements in communication and information technologies have increased the opportunities for marketing services beyond borders. For the last decade African economies has been growing which has created enormous opportunity for international companies. However, foreign companies have been slow to enter into African markets. The purpose of this research is to identify important perception of barriers and factors that affect market entry decision in Africa specifically in Ethiopia and Egypt.This research is based on a qualitative case study and data is collected from primary and secondary data. The primary data are collected from four Swedish micro and small companies. The secondary data collection is based on website, and published material from accredited government, such as UN, Ethiopian investment agency and Swedish government.The major market entry barriers and factors are determined through analysis of these data. The major barriers are cost advantages incumbents, product differentiation, capital requirement, switching cost, access of distribution channel, government policy. The factors are market attractiveness, cultural distance, uncertainty, legal environment, and competition. Market entry decision is dependent on high influential perception of market entry barriers. From this research the important influential perception of barriers and factors that affect market entry decision in Ethiopia and Egypt are government policy, cultural difference, uncertainty, and legal environment. Cost advantage and switching cost are the low influential perception of barriers.