In this thesis current questions regarding the functionality of liberalized electricity markets are studied addressing different topics of interest in two main directions: market power and competition policy on electricity wholesale markets, and network investments and incentive regulation. The former is studied based on the case of the German electricity market with respect to ex-post market power analysis and ex-ante remedy development. First an optimization model is designed to obtain the competitive benchmark which can be compared to the observed market outcomes between 2004 and 2006. In a second step the horizontal breaking up of dominant firms (divestiture) is simulated applying equilibrium techniques (the classical Cournot approach and the Supply Function Equilibrium approach). The later issue of transmission capacity investment is addressed by highlighting the complexity of network investments in electricity markets and by analyzing a regulatory mechanism with a two part tariff approach. The technical characteristics of power flows are combined with economic criteria and tested for different network settings.

Workplace accidents and injuries are a growing problem for organizations in Sweden as well as in many other countries. As a consequence, improving workplace safety has become an area of increasing concern for employers and politicians as well as researchers. The aim of this thesis was to contribute to an increased understanding of how leadership and management practices can influence safety in organizations. In Study I, three leadership styles were investigated to determine their relative importance for different safety outcomes. A leadership style specifically emphasizing safety was found to contribute the most to employee safety behaviors; transformational leadership was found to be positive for safety behaviors only when it also involved a safety focus; and a transactional leadership style (management-by-exception active) was shown to be slightly negatively related to workplace safety. Study II examined the role of leader communication approaches for patient safety and the mechanisms involved in this relationship. Support was found for a model showing that one-way communication of safety values and leader feedback communication were both related to increased patient safety through the mediation of different employee safety behaviors (safety compliance and organizational citizen behaviors). Study III explored whether and in what ways the use of staff bonus systems may compromise safety in high-risk organizations. The three investigated systems were all found to provide limited incentives for any behavioral change. However, the results indicate that design characteristics such as clearly defined and communicated bonus goals, which are perceived as closely linked to performance and which aim at improved safety, are imperative for the influence that bonus programs have on safety. Group-directed goals also appeared to be more advantageous than corporate- or individual-level goals. The thesis highlights the importance of actively emphasizing and communicating safety-related issues, both through leadership and in managerial practices, for the achievement of enhanced workplace safety. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 1: Manuscript.</p>

In the ever so increasingly competitive business climate of the 21st century, human resources are vital for corporate success. Employees need proper incentives to perform in goal-oriented manners. Incentive systems, especially Chief Executive Officer [CEO] remunerations, have been a popular topic since the 1990s, and this tendency has increased both during the 2002-2003 corporate scandal era, as well as the financial crisis which sparked in 2007. The recent tendency appears to lean towards companies cutting their executive bonuses as well as criticism and suspiciousness towards large bonus payments. While remuneration policies within the banking industry have been thoroughly debated and researched, another financial industry that is left largely untouched are the insurance companies. The focus of this research is therefore CEO remuneration in European insurance companies. This descriptive study, of annual reports of stock-listed insurance companies, uses a purposive cluster sample to explore quantitative trends in CEO remunerations. In addition, a content analysis of five randomly selected companies out of the sample provides a deeper, complementary understanding of the justifications of the trends. The research questions are: What trends on CEO remuneration can be found over the years 2005-2009 in annual reports of European insurance companies, concerning total remuneration, fixed salary and short-term bonus? What justifications do companies make for the remunerations over the years 2005-2009? The quantitative part of the research inductively tests the assumption that CEO remuneration has decreased during the past few years 2008 and/ or 2009 due to the impact of the financial crisis. The content analysis part of the research deductively tests if agency theory concerns and issues concerning attraction and retention play a role in determining remuneration policies. From this research, it is concluded that short-term variable pay is largely performance-based. Still, many other aspects serve as input factors when determining compensation levels. Based on the content analysis, it is revealed that interest alignment and attraction- and retention-issues are important determinants of remunerations. Subjective factors such as discretionary judgements also play a crucial role. The quantitative trends found in this study show that total remunerations have decreased markedly in 2008, and more vaguely in 2009. The financial crisis has had an impact on especially the short-term variable part of salaries, but also on base salary levels. Although not all companies that were investigated in the content analysis explicitly mention it in their annual reports, over the years 2005-2009, all of them become more concerned about remuneration policies and business risk factors. Over the investigated years, these companies also become more attentive to creating proactive and sophisticated value creating remuneration policies that are in line with international standards, in order to act legitimate towards stakeholders.

No description available.

Operant acquisition, operant expression, and decision-making differentially rely on brain areas that are differentially affected by antipsychotic and other dopaminergic drugs. The purpose of this thesis was to test if the known differential pharmacological and location of action of antipsychotic and other dopaminergic drugs predict the drug effects on operant acquisition, operant expression, and decision-making. Clozapine and to a lesser extent, risperidone but not metoclopramide or haloperidol affect the prefrontal cortex (PFC); haloperidol, metoclopramide, and to a lesser extent, risperidone affect the dorsolateral striatum (DLS). We used amphetamine as a broadly-acting indirect dopamine (DA), serotonin (5-HT), and norepinephrine agonist. We found that all antagonists altered operant acquisition and expression, but in different ways. The DA D2-like receptor antagonists blunted reinforcement impact during operant acquisition and induced an extinction-like decline in expression whereas the atypical antipsychotics with high PFC 5-HT-2A affinity maintained inactive lever presses during acquisition, but produced tolerance in expression. Curiously, risperidone and metoclopramide, but not clozapine or haloperidol, more potently suppressed lever pressing in acquisition than expression. In contrast, amphetamine suppressed operant expression, but not acquisition, at a dose range that increased locomotion and induced conditioned place preference. Amphetamine decreased sensitivity to reward presentation and inactive lever pressing during operant acquisition, but had the opposite effects during expression. A very different pattern was found in the rodent gambling task (rGT), a model of the 4- choice (deck) Iowa Gambling Task used in humans. The rGT puts small, immediate rewards that are advantageous in the long-term due to generally fewer and shorter associated penalties in conflict with large, immediate rewards that are disadvantageous in the long-term due to generally more and longer associated penalties. Two antipsychotics (risperidone, haloperidol) but not the anti-emetic (metoclopramide) enhanced performance by shifting preferences towards advantageous options, but the antipsychotic that induces PFC Fos (clozapine) impaired performance. Amphetamine decreased discrimination among different decks in the rGT. These data demonstrate the differential effects of clinically relevant drugs on decision-making and different stages of operant learning. The differential effects on operant responding and decision-making of different antipsychotic drugs provide important information regarding their therapeutic and side-effect profiles. / Thesis (Ph.D, Psychology) -- Queen's University, 2013-03-14 16:12:57.629

Syftet med denna studie är att öka förståelsen för vad som motiverar volontärer och vad de har för förhoppningar och förväntningar när de kommer för att arbeta på en musikfestival, och hur denna grupp människor passar in i mallen som motivationsteoretiker målat upp för vad människor motiveras av och hur vi motiverar arbetskraft. Vi insåg under vårt arbete med musikfestivalvolontärer att det finns mycket lite kunskap om gruppen samt om hur man på bästa sätt arbetar mot volontärer på en festival. Vad som speciellt intresserade oss var upptäckten av hur många av de volontärer som anmält sig med sedan valde att oanmält inte dyka upp till festivalen eller att avbryta arbetet under festivalens gång. Studien försöker att belysa detta ämne och bidra till mer kunskap inom detta fält och ytterligare en upptäckt vi gjort är att den förutspådda skillnaden mellan arbetsledaren och volontärers attityder inte är så stor. Det finns en högre medvetenhet om volontärernas situation hos arbetledare än vad som initialt observerats, men att denna kunskap allt för sällan kan omvandlas till handling. Vi har alltså undersökt volontärers motivation och arbetsledares attityder för att förstå vad bortfallet av ideell arbetskraft under festivaler beror på, både före och under genomförandet. Denna uppsats är riktad mot personer som har ett intresse av fenomenet motivation hos ideell arbetskraft. / The purpose of this study is to increase understanding of what motivates volunteers and what their hopes and expectations are when they come to work at a music festival. We want to examine how motivation theories can be applied on this group of people and by that grasp how volunteers get motivated. During our work with music festivals we realized that there is very little knowledge about the volunteers and how to best work with volunteers at a festival. One thing that particularly captured our interest was the discovery of how many of the volunteers who signed up to work at the festival and then totaly unannounced chose not to show up at the festival at all or to suspend their work during the festival. This study attempts to shed light on this topic and contribute to more knowledge in this field, further more we also discovered that the difference between the supervisor and the volunteers’ attitude was not as great as we predicted. We found out that the supervisors’ awareness of the volunteers’ situation is a greater than initially observed, but that this knowledge infrequently converts into action. We have examined the volunteers’ motivation and the supervisor's attitudes in order to understand what is causing the loss of volunteers during festivals, both before and during implementation. This paper is directed at people who have an interest in the phenomenon motivation of nonprofit workers.

Lietuvoje skiriamas per mažas dėmesys atvykstamąjam dalykiniui turizmui (verslo turistui). Atvykstamasis turizmas labiau orientuotas į pažintinį turizmą, o dalykinis turizmas labiau suvokiamas kaip konferencijų ir verslo susitikimų kelionės. Atvykstamojo dalykinio turizmo paslaugų plėtros galimybės suprantamos kaip konferencijų bei skatinamųjų kelionių, renginių pasiūlymų parengimas kaip galutinis produktas. Darbo tikslas - nustatyti atvykstamojo dalykinio turizmo plėtros galimybes ir parengti atvykstamojo dalykinio turizmo paslaugų plėtros galimybių kaip galutinio turizmo produkto siūlymus. Tyrimo objektas: Lietuvos turizmo įmonės, teikiančios atvykstamojo turizmo paslaugas ir Vokietijos įvairių sričių įmonės. Tyrimo metodai: Tyrimas vykdomas remiantis sistemine literatūrine analize, antrinių empirinių duomenų analize, pirminių duomenų rezultatų rinkimu ir aprašymu, ankstesnių tyrimų išvadomis, pateikiant apibendrinimus. Praktinių tyrimų atliktos analizės dėka buvo parengtas atvykstamojo dalykinio turizmo paslaugų produktas - paketas, kuris suprantamas kaip atvykstamojo dalykinio turizmo paslaugų plėtros galimybė. Atlikus praktinę analizę, pastebėta, kad Vokietijos įmonės į dalykines keliones įtraukia aktyvias sporto turizmo – komandos formavimo papildomas pramogas, o kelionės truka 2 - 3 dienas. Darbuotojų motyvacija – instrumentas išplėsti dalykinio turizmo paslaugas. Tam kad motyvuoti darbuotojus, rengiamos išvykos, kelionės, renginiai kartu derinant konsultacinių įmonių... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / In Lithuania, too little attention is paid to incoming business tourism. Incoming tourism is more oriented towards cognitive tourism, and business tourism is perceived as conference and business meeting travel. The expansion possibilities of incoming business tourism services are understood as the preparation of the offer of conference, incentive travel, and corporate event services as the end-product. The aim of the work: To identify the expansion possibilities of incoming business tourism and prepare suggestions of the expansion possibilities of incoming business tourism as the end-product. The object of research: Lithuanian tourism companies offering incoming tourism services, German companies working in various spheres. The methods of research: the research has been carried out as a systematic analysis of literature and secondary empiric data, collection and description of primary data results, and reference to the conclusions of previous research while supplying generalisations. Through the analysis of practical investigations, the product of incoming business tourism services has been prepared – a package which is understood as a possibility for the expansion of incoming business tourism services. After completing the practical part, it has been noticed that German companies combine business travel with additional active sport tourism – team building services, and the prevailing length of business trips is 2-3 days. Employee motivation is a tool for business tourism... [to full text]

本研究主要探討高階經理人之選擇權與公司績效之關聯性，研究發現，公司發給高階經理人之選擇權價值與Tobin’s Q呈正向關係。為區分誘因調整（the incentive alignment perspective）與利益榨取（the rent extraction perspective）兩觀點，本研究將選擇權預測值分為經濟因素、公司治理與殘值三部分。研究結果顯示依據經濟因素所預測出之選擇權價值與Tobin’s Q呈正向關係，其符合誘因調整觀點，即發放選擇權可減少代理問題。而依公司治理所預測出之選擇權價值，則與Tobin’s Q 呈負向關係，此亦與利益榨取觀點相符，即當公司治理較差時，發給高階經理人之選擇權往往較股東最適程度為高。此外，本研究亦發現選擇權與Tobin’s Q有一非線性關係。 / This study examines the association between employee stock options (ESOs) and future firm performance (Tobin’s Q). The evidence shows that the value of ESOs granted to CEOs in the current and past five years are positively associated with Tobin’s Q. To test the incentive alignment perspective and the rent extraction perspective, this study predicts the value of ESOs granted to CEOs due to economic determinants, governance quality and residual value. I find that the predicted component of ESO grants due to economic determinants are positively related with Tobin’s Q, consistent with the incentive alignment perspective that ESOs are granted to reduce the agency problem. Further, the predicted component of ESO grants attributable to the governance factors are negatively associated with Tobin’s Q, indicating that for firms with poor governance, the actual level of incentives executives receive may go well beyond the optimal level for shareholders. The negative association is consistent with the rent extraction perspective. Moreover, this study also finds a non-linear association between the Tobin’s Q and the ESO grant values.

Univ., Diss.--Göteborg, 2007. / Enth. 3 Beitr.

Background: Today’s organizations operate in a competitive and dynamic business environment in which the attainment of economic, social and environmental sustainability targets has become crucial for firms. Supply chain collaboration is considered as a strategic issue for the fulfillment of these targets. Thus, studies on supply chain collaboration for sustainability have increased, especially for manufacturing firms. However, there is a lack of research of the perspective of logistics service providers in this context, requesting scientific investigations. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to explore vertical supply chain collaboration between logistics service providers and their partners with regards to improving economic, environmental and social sustainability at logistics service providers. Method: Within this multiple case study and a deductive research approach, qualitative data from three logistics service providers is gathered by conducting interviews and analyzed. Firstly, each individual case is investigated by using an explanation building, and thereafter compared and generalized by means of a cross-case analysis. Findings and Conclusion: Considering the improvement of sustainability at logistics service providers, the research reveals that economic, environmental and social sustainability can be improved by vertical supply chain collaboration jointly conducted by logistics service providers and their key suppliers as well as key customers. However, strong interdependencies between the three sustainability dimensions are noticeable as they overlap in-between. Besides, the findings indicate that the executed vertical supply chain collaboration practices mostly have the potential to improve economic sustainability at logistics service providers. Environmental and social sustainability are less improved or sometimes even negatively affected.