Master Thesis in Business Administration Title:           Due Diligence in Cross-border M&As - Top management team´s human capital affecting speed of due diligence process Authors:       Jürgen Sabernik and Matti Salakka Tutor:          Tommaso Minola, Ph.D. Date:           2018-05-21 Key Terms:   Mergers & Acquisitions, Due Diligence, Speed, Cross-border, Human Capital, Top Management Team   Abstract Problem:       Globalization and market saturation are a constant influence for all the participating businesses in the markets. Therefore, companies of all various sizes are considering mergers & acquisitions to either consolidate the market, use it as a market growth opportunity or entry strategy into a new market or even country. Due to these multidimensional processes, many of the attempted M&As fail. Practitioners tend to focus only on financial or legal characteristics when considering to acquire and afterwards merge the target company, which results into failed M&A process. Accordingly, multifaceted phenomena such as M&As should not be only assessed on two dimensions, they should rather be evaluated as a whole with a dynamic due diligence process along the M&A. Purpose:     The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the speed of dynamic due diligence process in cross-border mergers and acquisitions and what effect the human capital of an organization’s top management has on it. Method:     For this thesis, we utilize a qualitative research based on a multiple case study approach. Therefore, we investigated four case companies within different industries in the Finnish context. The primary empirical data was collected through semi-structured interviews with guidance from a topic guide, in addition we also used company information such as annual reports or the company websites as secondary data. The derived statements are based on the findings, which were categorized and afterwards adopted as a basis for the analysis. Findings:       The findings of this thesis are that the human capital factors affect the speed of the due diligence process in cross-border mergers and acquisitions via four themes; (1) business environment, (2) market knowledge, (3) inter-organizational leadership and (4) individual skills. The themes can affect the speed directly, but more importantly through the interplay of different themes.  Conclusion:    In conjunction with various authors mentioned in this thesis, we also come to the conclusion that a dynamic due diligence process is contributional in order to grasp the multidimensionality of mergers & acquisitions. Additionally, the context where the individual M&A is happening is playing a major role within the evaluation process. Hence, top management team’s human capital has an impact on the speed of dynamic DD process in cross-border M&As via the four above mentioned themes.

Background: New ventures face manifold challenges. Literature has already examined many of the challenges that founders of new firms might encounter during the start-up phase. Studies have been investigating traits of the founders as well as traits of the organizations, and linked them to success or failure of the firm. The areas of founder’s human capital and vision and the firm’s employee selection criteria and leadership style have often been taken into consideration. Nevertheless, there is no framework connecting all these areas with a focus on how they influence each other, leaving criteria as success or failure beside.Purpose: This study aims for creating a framework connecting the areas of start-up-founder’s human capital and vision and the venture’s employee selection criteria and leadership style. It seeks to provide answers to the following research questions: (1) “How does start-up founder’s human capital influence the creation of a vision, the choice of leadership style and the selection of employees?” and (2) “How does start-up founder’s vision influence the choice of leadership style and the selection of employees?”Method: To answer the research questions, a multiple-case study was conducted. We created a topic guide and gathered qualitative data through conducting in-depth interviews. The respondents were mainly operating their new venture in the area of Jönköping. After coding and contextualizing our data, we analyzed it.Conclusion: Human capital was influencing all other areas through either active avoidance or repetition of behaviors already employed in the past. We found major differences of the visions of new ventures. Therefore, we started differentiating between a “business-vision” and a “mission-vision”. “Mission-vision” start-ups choose their employees according to personality and give them a voice in the firm, therefore fostering a transformational leadership style. “Business-vision” start-ups on the other side hire applicants based on skills, to fulfil very defined tasks based on deadlines and therefore performing a transactional approach.

Business Intelligence (BI) is a topic that has attracted attention from both researchers and practitioners. Despite BI's promising possibilities, few organizations are able to transform BI-insights into actions. Thus, the purpose of this study was to understand: How organizations can transform BI insights into actions, and which capabilities impact this transformation. In order to obtain this understanding, a case-study was conducted. We interviewed six consultants from leading consultancy firms, and a practitioner who uses BI on a daily basis. Prior to this, the authors reviewed previous BI literature which suggests that BI needs to be combined with capabilities for employees to utilize BI. Microfoundations was used as a theoretical framework to identify important capabilities and how they relate to BI. The findings distinguished specific capabilities that impacts the ability to utilize BI. Capabilities such as communication, sponsorship, culture, and clear strategies & goals, are important in order to better take advantage of BI. The conclusions are that hard skills (e.g. technical competencies), education and experience among the employees may not be as crucial as previously thought. This is because BI-systems are becoming more intuitive and easier to use.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:27:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2011-09-28Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T18:55:56Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 oliveira_mjg_me_arafcl.pdf: 295933 bytes, checksum: 2c3c89bc1ef42e80153321a65c5d111b (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / A Educação Superior pode ser considerada uma ferramenta que possibilita ao indivíduo, através do investimento em seu Capital humano, ampliação de sua capacidade produtiva, maiores salários, proporcionando menor iniqüidade na distribuição de renda entre os indivíduos. O objetivo deste trabalho é traçar um perfil sócio-econômico do recém formado no ensino superior brasileiro com base em dados do Exame Nacional do Desempenho dos Estudantes (ENADE). Como se sabe, a escolha do curso superior no Brasil tem forte influência de fatores sociais e econômicos. Para estimar probabilidades com que um graduado seja de determinado curso, dado seu perfil, um modelo logit multinomial foi estimado. Conclui-se que quando a expectativa em relação ao curso é de ganhos futuros, homens brancos, negros e mulatos tendem a escolher cursos de exatas e engenharias. Em contrapartida, os cursos de humanas, em sua maioria, são demandados por mulheres brancas, negras e mulatas. Mesmo assim, há mulheres brancas, em certas regiões como Sudeste e Sul, que tem preferência por curso de engenharias e exatas / Higher education can be considered a tool that enables an individual, through investment in human capital, expanding his or her production abilities, higher wages, providing less unequal distribution of income among individuals.This work aims to build a profile of the Brazilian college graduated based on data from ENADE (Student Performance National Exam). As fairly known, college career choice in Brazil is strongly affected by social and economic factors. In order to estimate the probability of choosing a career, given the student profile, a multinomial logit model will be estimated. It is possible to conclude that when the expectation is over the course of future earnings, white males, blacks and mulattoes tend choose the exact and engineering courses. In contrast, the humanities courses, mostly, are demanded by white, black and mulatto. Still, there are white women in certain regions such as Southeast and South, which has a preference for engineering courses and exact

Submitted by Morgana Silva (morgana_linhares@yahoo.com.br) on 2016-06-29T19:10:57Z No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 2082907 bytes, checksum: a81c1f83d3e3d8e8f088037786dfa4c2 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-29T19:10:57Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 2082907 bytes, checksum: a81c1f83d3e3d8e8f088037786dfa4c2 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-02-26 / Conselho Nacional de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico - CNPq / Since the 60s, when the migration of highly qualified individuals towards developed countries has intensified, the term brain drain has gained widespread use. Although there is a consensus in the literature on the beneficial effect of brain drain to the economy of recipient regions of manpower, skilled labor, the effects for broadcasters regions are a controversial subject. Especially in Brazil, this topic is still little explored. Thus, the main objective of this dissertation was to analyze the effects of migration of workers with higher education on productivity and the accumulation of human capital in the migrant origin cities. The dissertation was written in two trials. Chapter 1 investigated the existence of brain drain Brazilian intermunicipal and its impact on labor productivity in issuing municipalities of labor-skilled workers. To achieve the research objectives, the methodology developed by Becker Andrea Ichino (2004) was adapted, assuming non-linear returns of education on income, correction of sample selection bias and disaggregated analysis by municipality. The data used were obtained from the Demographic Census of 2010. The productivity indicators showed that, overall, there seems to be more losers than winners municipalities when assessing the productivity gap if the emigrants had remained in the departure city. By combining lost productivity indicators with the rate of graduates residents were identified municipalities where there may be brain drain with negative effects, which are predominantly located in the states of the Northeast. Already chapter 2 aimed to identify the effects of migration of brains on the accumulation of human capital in issuing municipalities of highly skilled workers. Therefore, the empirical strategy used was the same developed by Beine, Docquier e Rapoport (2008), which was based on the estimation of a conditional convergence model. Additionally, a counterfactual exercise was conducted in order to identify losses and net earnings by municipality groups, based on Demographic Census 2000 and 2010. The work has found that skilled emigration rate is related inversely to the variation in the stock of capital human, which may be related to the presence of barriers to access to education in Brazil. It was found that the small cities had higher losses in terms of human capital, especially Aliança do Tocantins, Viçosa and Damolândia. In relation to the cities listed with the largest gains were identified four capitals: Vitoria, Aracaju, Palmas and Santos. The other winners were mostly cities of São Paulo, although all small, with the exception of Santos. The results of this trial suggest that in Brazil the presence of barriers to higher education seem to block a possible investment in education stimulus from the migration of brains, especially in smaller towns. / Desde os anos 60, quando a migração de indivíduos altamente qualificados em direção aos países desenvolvidos foi intensificada, o termo “fuga de cérebros” ganhou amplo uso. Embora haja um consenso na literatura sobre o efeito benéfico do brain drain para a economia de regiões receptoras de mão-de-obra qualificada, os efeitos para as regiões emissoras são um assunto controverso. Especialmente no Brasil, esse tema ainda é pouco explorado. Assim, o objetivo principal dessa dissertação foi analisar os efeitos da migração de trabalhadores com elevada instrução sobre a produtividade e o acúmulo de capital humano nos municípios de origem do migrante. A dissertação foi escrita em 2 ensaios. O capítulo 1 investigou a existência da “fuga de cérebros” intermunicipal brasileira e seu impacto sobre a produtividade do trabalho nos municípios emissores de mão-de-obra qualificada. Para alcançar os objetivos da pesquisa, a metodologia desenvolvida por Becker Andrea Ichino (2004) foi adaptada, admitindo-se retornos nãolineares da escolaridade sobre os rendimentos, correção do viés de seleção amostral e análise desagregada por município. Os dados utilizados foram obtidos junto ao Censo Demográfico de 2010. Os indicadores de produtividade apontaram que, no geral, parece haver mais municípios perdedores do que ganhadores quando se avalia o diferencial de produtividade caso os emigrantes tivessem permanecido no município de partida. Ao se combinar indicadores de perda de produtividade com a taxa de residentes graduados foi possível identificar municípios onde pode haver “fuga de cérebros” com efeitos perversos, sendo estes predominantemente localizados nos estados da região Nordeste. Já o capítulo 2 teve como objetivo identificar os efeitos da migração de cérebros sobre a acumulação de capital humano nos municípios brasileiros emissores de trabalhadores altamente qualificados. Para tanto, a estratégia empírica utilizada foi a mesma desenvolvida por Beine, Docquier e Rapoport (2008), que baseou-se na estimação de um modelo de modelo de convergência condicionada. Adicionalmente, um exercício contrafatual foi realizado no intuito de identificar perdas e ganhos líquidos por grupos de município, com base nos Censos Demográficos de 2000 e 2010. O estudo permitiu constatar que a taxa de emigração qualificada se relaciona inversamente com a variação no estoque de capital humano, fato que pode estar relacionado à presença de barreiras no acesso à educação no Brasil. Verificou-se que os municípios de pequeno porte apresentaram maiores perdas em termos de capital humano, especialmente, Aliança do Tocantins, Viçosa e Damolândia. Já em relação aos municípios listados com maiores ganhos, foram identificadas quatro capitais: Vitória, Aracaju, Palmas e Santos. Os demais ganhadores foram em sua maioria municípios do estado de São Paulo, embora todos de pequeno porte, com exceção de Santos. Os resultados deste ensaio sugerem que no Brasil a presença de barreiras ao ensino superior parecem bloquear um possível estímulo de investimento em educação a partir da migração de cérebros, sobretudo em municípios menores.

Diante da passagem da era industrial e com a chegada da era da informação, as organizações começaram a perceber que apenas possuir melhores equipamentos, tecnologia e mais recursos financeiros para tornarem-se competitivas, não seria mais suficiente, afinal estes recursos são facilmente conquistados e imitados também pela concorrência. Desta forma, os recursos intangíveis e de difícil imitação tendem a despertar o interesse das organizações como um diferencial para a obtenção de vantagens competitivas sustentáveis. O desafio, diante deste contexto, é entender como e quais os recursos intangíveis são de fato vantagens competitivas sustentáveis para as empresas. Nesta análise, o capital intelectual – que é formado pelo capital estrutural e o capital humano – é considerado uma das importantes fontes, para que as organizações possam obter tal vantagem competitiva. Neste sentido, este estudo busca, primeiramente, a partir de uma revisão dos conceitos de gestão estratégica, balanced scorecard, capital intelectual, capital humano e scorecard do capital humano, entender o capital humano e a execução da estratégia. Em seguida, com o propósito de verificar empiricamente esta questão, realizou-se uma investigação em seis empresas do segmento de alimentação coletiva pertencentes a um mesmo grupo empresarial. Por sua vez, o método de estudo utilizado trata-se de uma pesquisa qualitativa de caráter exploratório, do tipo estudo multicasos. A pesquisa empírica foi desenvolvida em quatro etapas: 1ª) coleta de dados secundários junto aos arquivos da empresa; 2ª) entrevistas junto aos diretores, gerentes e supervisores das empresas e; 3ª) observação participante em reuniões de planejamento estratégico, de resultados, operacionais e treinamentos promovidos pela empresa e; 4a) análise dos dados obtidos nas etapas anteriores por meio da técnica de análise de conteúdo. Como suporte à pesquisa, empregou-se a “matriz capital humano – execução da estratégia”, que foi desenvolvida com base nos conceitos teóricos de Beatty, Becker e Huselid (2005) e de Kaplan e Norton (2003; 2004), no intuito de avaliar e tabular as respostas obtidas. Os resultados obtidos com o estudo evidenciaram que os gestores pesquisados compreendem o capital humano como um importante ativo na execução da estratégia, porém a prática de valorização e de desenvolvimento deste importante ativo ainda mostra-se como um desafio para as organizações. Convém mencionar que os resultados obtidos neste estudo poderão servir, também, como base para pesquisas futuras e como informação para as empresas do segmento de serviços, em especial de alimentação coletiva. / Submitted by Ana Guimarães Pereira (agpereir@ucs.br) on 2014-11-12T13:21:54Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Vivian de Oliveira dos Santos.pdf: 2020788 bytes, checksum: 901f7ccca7cb60539f9d2acba43d024e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2014-11-12T13:21:54Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Vivian de Oliveira dos Santos.pdf: 2020788 bytes, checksum: 901f7ccca7cb60539f9d2acba43d024e (MD5) / With the passing of the industrial era and the arrival of the information era, organizations have begun to realize that just having the best equipment, technology and more financial resources to become competitive would not be enough , after all, these resources are easily conquered and imitated also by competition . Thus, intangible and hard to imitate resources tend to arouse the interest of organizations as a differential to obtain sustainable competitive advantages. The challenge within this context is to understand how and which intangible assets are indeed sustainable competitive advantages for companies. In this analysis, intellectual capital - which is formed by structural capital and human capital - is considered one of the major sources for organizations to obtain that competitive edge. Thus, this study seeks, primarily, from a review of the concepts of strategic management, balanced scorecard, intellectual capital, human capital and human capital scorecard, to understand the human capital and strategy execution. Then, in order to empirically verify this issue, we carried out an investigation in six companies in the food service segment belonging to the same business group. In turn, the study method used is in a qualitative exploratory research, the multi-case study type. The empirical research was conducted in four stages: 1 ) secondary data collection in the archives of the company; 2nd ) interviews with the directors, managers and supervisors of companies; 3rd ) participant observation in strategic planning meetings, results, operations and training and promoted by the company; 4a ) analysis of data obtained in the previous steps by the technique of content analysis. As a support for the research, we used the "matrix human capital - strategy execution ", which was developed based on the theoretical concepts of Beatty, Becker and Huselid (2005) and Kaplan and Norton (2003, 2004) in order to evaluate and tabulate the responses. The results obtained with the application of the research showed that there is an understanding by part of the managers surveyed, that human capital is an important asset in strategy execution, but the practice of recovery and development of this important asset still proves to be a challenge for organizations. It should be mentioned that the results obtained in this study may also serve as a basis for future research and as information for companies in the service sector, especially the collective power.

Globalisation has a significant impact on human resources management policies and procedures in the public service. The driving forces of globalisation have affected human resources management in a variety of ways, for example, the impact of technology demands different skills and competencies from public officials. Globalisation is defined as “the process whereby the world’s people become increasingly interconnected in all facets of their lives, culturally, economically, politically, technologically and environmentally” (Streeten, 2001:169). Kirkbride (2001:14) states that globalisation is the integration of business activities across geographical and organisation boundaries. It is the freedom to conceive, design, produce, buy, distribute and sell products and services in a manner which offers maximum benefit to the organisation without regard to the consequences for individual geographical location or organisational units. This research examines the impact of globalisation on human resources management policies and procedures in the South African public service. The main problem is that the current training and development in the South African public service do not take due cognisance of globalisation to equip public officials to interact internationally effectively and efficiently. An inability exists to adapt to the changing strategic public human resources management needs from an international perspective. The problem of lack of knowledge and understanding by public officials of globalisation results in an inability to manage and execute international human resources management trends. There is a needed skill for achieving, maintaining, enhancing and implementing cutting-edge human resources management theories and practices for globally competitive human resources management. Usually, employees are not expected to work at tasks for which they received no training. In this context, it is necessary to note that with limited training public 7 officials are often placed in positions of having to muddle through as best they can without fully understanding of what is expected of them. Enhanced and continuous training can equip them with skills and knowledge that would create an organisation that is focused on outputs and performance rather than hierarchical control of procedures and processes towards reaching goals and objectives. Once the human resources in an organisation have been properly trained and motivated, they can be utilised effectively and efficiently to perform their tasks with dedication, competence and in the spirit of the Batho Pele principles. The main function of human resources management is to manage the acquisition, training, utilisation and maintenance of a sufficient number of competent personnel responsible for community-oriented service delivery. If training is neglected, then the nature of service delivery will be poor (du Toit & van der Walt, 1991:15). The management and utilisation of human resources in a globalised setting poses a particular challenge. Van Dyk, Nel & Loedolff (1992:15) defines training as the systematic process of changing the behaviour and attitudes of people in a certain direction in order to attain the organisation’s objectives. The changing nature of public service delivery has contributed to certain inadequacies in the public service and since governments are collaborating at a global level for improved service delivery, the public service is obliged to co-operate effectively and efficiently at an international level. In order to achieve this successfully, public officials need to possess relevant and applicable skills. The objectives of the study are to determine the impact of the globalisation process on the training and development of public human resources management policies and to understand how public human resources departments in selected state departments in the South African public service are adapting to the dynamic change in the field of public human resources management. The main finding of the research indicates that the aspect of training is a key element in improving the globalisation of public human resources management. 8 Training and development are essential to ensure that the South African public service is competent to perform effectively and efficiently in the global arena. Employees need to possess the necessary skills to function at an international level. The specific purposes of training are to communicate information that is applicable to practical situations. It is expected after training, for public officials to be able to demonstrate changes in the behaviour or performance that contribute to their abilities to deal skilfully without broader global problems. This, in turn, will have a positive impact on public service delivery.

With more than $1.48 trillion in outstanding student loans and nearly five million Americans in default in 2017, student loans may pose one of the greatest threats to financial stability of individuals in the coming years. Failing to pay loans on time may result in wage garnishment and the suspension of Social Security payments. The second largest form of household debt, student loans are almost never dischargeable in bankruptcy and yet are critical for millions to make investments in human capital. This thesis utilizes the October 2017 addition of administrative data in the Beginning Postsecondary Students (BPS) to analyze factors influencing likelihood of student loan default in the United States up to 20 years post-enrollment. It applies logistic regression analysis to BPS 1996 and BPS 2004 and is able to trace the evolution of contributing factors over time.

Orientador: Alexandre Sartoris Neto / Banca: Luciana Togeiro / Banca: Marislei Nishijima / Resumo: A Educação Superior pode ser considerada uma ferramenta que possibilita ao indivíduo, através do investimento em seu Capital humano, ampliação de sua capacidade produtiva, maiores salários, proporcionando menor iniqüidade na distribuição de renda entre os indivíduos. O objetivo deste trabalho é traçar um perfil sócio-econômico do recém formado no ensino superior brasileiro com base em dados do Exame Nacional do Desempenho dos Estudantes (ENADE). Como se sabe, a escolha do curso superior no Brasil tem forte influência de fatores sociais e econômicos. Para estimar probabilidades com que um graduado seja de determinado curso, dado seu perfil, um modelo logit multinomial foi estimado. Conclui-se que quando a expectativa em relação ao curso é de ganhos futuros, homens brancos, negros e mulatos tendem a escolher cursos de exatas e engenharias. Em contrapartida, os cursos de humanas, em sua maioria, são demandados por mulheres brancas, negras e mulatas. Mesmo assim, há mulheres brancas, em certas regiões como Sudeste e Sul, que tem preferência por curso de engenharias e exatas / Abstract: Higher education can be considered a tool that enables an individual, through investment in human capital, expanding his or her production abilities, higher wages, providing less unequal distribution of income among individuals.This work aims to build a profile of the Brazilian college graduated based on data from ENADE (Student Performance National Exam). As fairly known, college career choice in Brazil is strongly affected by social and economic factors. In order to estimate the probability of choosing a career, given the student profile, a multinomial logit model will be estimated. It is possible to conclude that when the expectation is over the course of future earnings, white males, blacks and mulattoes tend choose the exact and engineering courses. In contrast, the humanities courses, mostly, are demanded by white, black and mulatto. Still, there are white women in certain regions such as Southeast and South, which has a preference for engineering courses and exact / Mestre

The aim of this study was to assess challenges in Public Appointments and Recruitment Processes in Chris Hani District Municipality: A case study of Human Resource Department in Lukhanji Local Municipality (2008-2010) of the Eastern Cape Province. There has never been a detailed research study conducted in the Chris Hani Human Resource Department, regarding the subject in question. The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa in Section 195(i) directs that Public Administration must be broadly representative of the South African people, with employment and personnel management practices based on ability, objectivity, fairness and the need to redress the imbalances of the past to achieve broad representation. The literature review explored extensively the models used in implementing recruitment and appointment processes globally. From those tested models elsewhere, it was evident that South Africa has a great Constitution and good policies regarding Local Government Human Resource Department recruitment and appointment processes not withstanding some challenges cited in the study. This assessment of challenges in the public appointments and recruitment processes in Chris Hani District Municipality assisted in the establishment of the real facts about effective and fair recruitment and appointment processes in the Local Government Human Resource Management Department to deserving communities. It became clear from the study that providing efficient and fair recruitment and appointments processes to the Local Government Human Resource Department in South Africa requires a broader advocacy agenda encompassing the development of Human Resource systems and the generation of numerous skills and expertise to deliver services to the poor people of our country.