No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

This thesis introduces and discusses the notion that real options theory can be applied to investment decisions when the value lies in human capital. This approach contributes in circumventing traditional problems which arise during valuation of intangible assets. This leads to the development of HR (human resource) options, which can be defined as “investments in the human capital pool of an organization that provide the capability to respond to future contingent events” (Bhattacharya & Wright, 2005), or “real options featuring intangible assets” (A. Berk & Kaše, 2010), created through HR practices or strategies. Different HR options (i.e. compensation plans, recruitments, temporary workers) have been studied by scholars and have been shown to have an effect in different aspects of a firm (i.e. growth, flexibility, learning). The different categories of uncertainties surrounding (the valuation of) human capital are discussed; they are relevant for the case study of this thesis. The thesis focuses on recruiting as a HR option: a single recruitment is viewed as an investment project and an attempt to determine its Net Present Value is made. For this reason, a valuation model is developed with help of continuous-time stochastic processes which have been previously used for similar purposes in research. The model is then implemented in a real-world scenario, with data either taken from publicly available market indexes and from statistical processing of employee data provided by a large (500+ employees) consulting company, active across various sectors of the Swedish industry. The expected value of a single recruitment is therefore determined. Sensitivity analyses are then carried out with the intent to provide insight into how certain parameters (and, in extension, the HR processes that determine them) affect the expected value of a recruitment. A conclusion which should be kept in mind during reading is that the main objective of this paper is not the valuation part itself. Instead, it is the discussion about different parameters, the listing of uncertainties involved, and the sensitivity of the result to various HR practices, which seek to bring understanding regarding the recruitment process and HR options in general. / Denna avhandling introducerar och diskuterar uppfattningen att realoptionsteori kan tillämpas på investeringsbeslut när värdet ligger i humankapital. Detta tillvägagångssätt bidrar till att kringgå traditionella problem som uppstår vid värdering av immateriella tillgångar. Detta leder till utvecklingen av HR-alternativ, som kan definieras som "investeringar i humankapitalpoolen i en organisation som ger förmågan att svara på framtida betingade händelser" (Bhattacharya & Wright, 2005), eller "reala optioner med immateriella tillgångar” (A. Berk & Kaše, 2010), skapade genom HR-praxis eller strategier. Olika HR-alternativ (t.ex. kompensationsplaner, rekryteringar, tillfälligt anställda) har studerats av forskare och har visat sig ha en effekt i olika aspekter av ett företag (t.ex. tillväxt, flexibilitet, lärande). De olika kategorierna av osäkerheter kring (värderingen av) humankapital diskuteras; de är relevanta för fallstudien av denna avhandling. Avhandlingen fokuserar på rekrytering som ett HR-alternativ: en enstaka rekrytering ses som ett investeringsprojekt och ett försök att fastställa dess nettonuvärde görs. Av denna anledning utvecklas en värderingsmodell med hjälp av kontinuerliga stokastiska processer som tidigare använts för liknande ändamål i forskning. Modellen implementeras sedan i ett verkligt scenario, med data hämtade från allmänt tillgängliga marknadsindex och från statistisk bearbetning av personaldata från ett stort (500+ anställda) svenskt konsultföretag. Därefter bestäms förväntningsvärdet av en enstaka rekrytering. Känslighetsanalyser genomförs sedan i syfte att ge insikt i hur vissa parametrar (och i förlängningen de HR-processer som bestämmer dem) påverkar det förväntade värdet av en rekrytering. En slutsats som bör hållas i åtanke under läsningen är att huvudsyftet med denna uppsats inte är själva värderingsdelen. Istället är det diskussionen om olika parametrar, uppräkningen av inblandade osäkerheter och resultatets känslighet för olika HR-praxis, som försöker skapa förståelse för rekryteringsprocessen och HR-möjligheter i allmänhet.

Much of the literature on investment-cash flow sensitivity examines only manufacturing firms, uses capital expenditure as a measure of investment, and uses operating cash flow as a measure of internal funds. Over the last several decades, due to outsourcing, the importance of manufacturing firms in the U.S. economy and the importance of capital expenditure as the primary type of investment have declined. The introduction of the Nasdaq exchange allowed smaller, less-profitable, and more human-capital intensive firms to become public, lowering the importance of operating cash flow as the primary source of internal funds. To take into account these trends, I introduce three innovations to the prior literature. (i) I include non-manufacturing firms. (ii) I broaden the definition of investment to include R&D and SG&A (which are both investments in human capital required at the innovation and marketing stages of the product life cycle), cash investment in subsidiaries and joint ventures, and the cash used to finance acquisitions. (iii) I broaden the definition of internal funds to include cash holding available at the beginning of the year. Empirically, non-manufacturing firms are more capital intensive than non-manufacturing firms, and hence excluding these firms could understate the true investment-cash flow sensitivity. Capital expenditure understates true investment, and hence excluding other forms of investment could also understate the true investment-cash flow sensitivity. Finally, operating cash flow understates true internal funds, and excluding cash holdings could overstate the true investment-cash flow sensitivity. The net effect of my proposed changes on the sensitivity is, therefore, an empirical issue. Overall, I document that investment is highly sensitive to cash flow––it is 570% higher than what I estimate using the definitions in prior literature––and this higher sensitivity is primarily caused by broadening the definition of investment. Further, though the sensitivity declines over time, the decline is modest and, importantly, the sensitivity is still economically and statistically significant in recent years. I identify three factors that have contributed to this decline: (i) the decline in Fed Funds rate (ii) changing firm characteristics and, (iii) changing firm composition. The changing characteristics and changing composition of firms are possibly due to macro trends such as outsourcing and the introduction of Nasdaq exchange. While outsourcing reduced firms’ capital expenditure, the introduction of the Nasdaq facilitated listing of less profitable and more human-capital intensive firms. Such firms are likely to invest more in R&D and SG&A and are less reliant on operating cash flow for their investment. These macro trends altered firms’ investment and cash flow mix, specifically decreasing the investment-cash flow ratio, which, in turn, contributed to the decrease in investment-cash flow sensitivity. / Business Administration/Finance

Discussions about and interest in small businesses are important for our public debates when it comes to internationalization of trade and economics and the number of immigrant companies, i.e. companies run by people with a foreign background.To start and run a business, access to resources is a central starting point. Human capital is required, for instance, individual resources in the form of knowledge, experience, drive and ideas. Thus, it can be problematic for immigrants to establish a company in Sweden due to language difficulties, obstacles to obtaining credit and a poor social network. The networks can also act as a kind of informal business incubator or business support for immigrant entrepreneurs. In many cases, immigrants are succeeding in establishing their businesses thanks to the great help of their family, relatives and friends. This thesis focuses on examining immigrants' position in the labor market and the driving forces behind the choice to start their own businesses. I have conducted four qualitative interviews with selected respondents to construct a theory of how immigrants experience the way into the labor market and as self-employed. The results that I have presented present the immigrants' driving forces to start their own as an ambition with also a necessity for independence.

The innovative capacity of firms fundamentally relies on the organization of strategic human capital. Highly skilled and talented employees drive knowledge creation through their expertise and creativity. As such, the organization and redeployment of knowledge workers across global subsidiaries and teams is a pivotal capability underpinning firms’ competitive edge. However, firms must operate within and adhere to the macro regulatory environments in the countries where they are located. With increasingly global interconnectedness, there is also a rise in nations’ announcing changes to their immigration policies to support national interests. These changes to immigration policies may affect firms' ability to organize human resources in a way that is most conducive for their knowledge creation and innovation objectives. Firms may then respond strategically to meet their innovation objectives while protecting their knowledge from leaking to competitors in foreign or local geographies. This dissertation examines how changes to immigration policies prompt strategic responses from firms in terms of meeting their innovation objectives by reorganizing their human capital and further proposes a three-dimensional framework for an immigration policy that supports economic growth and innovation in the destination country. The first chapter lays the groundwork for the dissertation and review conceptual foundations of each of the following essays. The second chapter examines the strategic response by multinational enterprises (MNEs) when their ability to deploy knowledge workers across national boundaries is affected by restrictive immigration policies. The third chapter examines individual- and firm-level responses to an increase in employees’ bargaining power. Findings reveal that the regulation afforded greater bargaining power to ethnic inventors, leading to greater interfirm mobility, positional changes in the intrafirm collaboration network, and a change in innovation performance. Finally, the fourth essay then argues that in addition to formal human capital, foreign knowledge workers contribute unique social capital which benefits their MNE employers in terms of innovation outcomes and puts forth a comprehensive three-dimensional immigration policy framework integrating migrants’ skillsets with their bridging potential across nations, contingent on inter-state relations. By accounting for security trade-offs and variations in bilateral collaborative intent, this multidimensional perspective allows calibrated screening of talent from allied versus adversarial origins. Synthesized together, the three studies highlight how regulations pertaining to high-skilled immigration significantly disrupt organizations’ access to strategic foreign talent, necessitating trade-offs to reconfigure innovation capabilities. This dissertation contributes to strategic management and international business literature by underlining the global organization of human capital as pivotal to understanding MNE responses to external constraints on foreign talent deployment. Further, it informs immigration policy debates through a multifaceted evaluation of skillsets, bridging ties and bilateral relations that influence productive integration of foreign talent. / Business Administration/Strategic Management