This thesis is a collection of three essays on hedge funds with contributions to the empirical understanding of their fees, and their voluntary disclosure of returns and assets under management, using a large consolidation of widely-employed publicly available hedge fund databases. First, time-series variation in reported fees is analysed using fund launches within hedge fund management companies, and conditioning fees at launch on fund family characteristics. Larger and better performing fund families launch high fee funds. Funds with high management fees at launch do not perform any differently from low fee funds, though funds with high incentive fees marginally outperform. An interval regression technique is proposed to overcome the discrete nature of reported fees. Secondly, the reliability of voluntary disclosures of financial information is analysed with a different measure of time-variation --- tracking changes to statements of historical performance recorded at different points in time. This uncovers evidence that historical returns are routinely revised. These revisions are not merely random or corrections of earlier mistakes; they are partly forecastable by fund characteristics. Moreover, funds that revise their performance histories, significantly and predictably underperform those that have never revised. Finally, the availability, and timing, of the selective disclosure of assets under management by funds is examined. More than a third of funds have asset records falling short of returns published. There is evidence of strategic disclosure by funds --- asset reporting drying up after times of fund stress, such as poor performance or outflows. Furthermore, investors should take heed of the greater propensity for shortfall funds to trigger fraud performance flags. These results suggest that unreliable disclosures: constitute a valuable source of information for current and potential investors; have implications for researchers; and, exhort market regulators to include assets, not just returns, in the debate around mandatory disclosure by financial institutions.

In my diploma thesis I have described several management theories and concepts used in practice and illustrated them with examples from the practice. The theory does not always coincide fully with the praxis, there are rather some common points. Both the company I write about and its management system are very specific, therefore it is a very interesting example, but not generally predicative. I would be glad if this thesis could also serve as a well- arranged material for the people in our company. In the theoretical part I have treated the management theory first in general and then several particular theories or concepts which I examined more deeply. These are the manager theory, the motivation theory, critical success factors, management by objectives, knowledge management. The empirical part concerns the practical use of these theories the company of my interest. The whole thesis is thematically wide, but the extent is limited here. Therefore it does not contain whole descriptions of the theories, but rather insights and some chosen elements. Also the empirical part does not fully examine the function system of the company and the work in it, but chooses the elements corresponding with the theoretical concepts described instead.

Title: Management of Physical Education and Sport Field of Study - Students' Motivation and Studying Satisfaction. Objectives: The aim of this thesis is to identify current students and graduates ' main motives for initiating the study of Management of Physical Education and Sport, Charles University in Prague. The work maps whether the students are satisfied with their choice of study and detect whether the expectations they had before studying were met. Another aim of the thesis is to develop recommendations for increasing students' satisfaction with the field of study and to propose recommendations which may lead to the improvement of the current situation on the Faculty of Physical Education and Sport. Methods: The thesis uses the method of questioning and group discussion method. The questioning method was applied on a sample of respondents comprising of all the current students of Management of Physical Education and Sport, Charles University in Prague and the graduates in this field. Group discussion method was applied to a selected sample of eight students from the researched field of study. Results: Using the research methods motives that prompted students, respectively graduates to study a field Management of Physical Education and Sport on Charles University in Prague were identified....

Made available in DSpace on 2016-12-23T14:07:28Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DissertacaoMestradoRodrigoBonfaDrago.pdf: 3999277 bytes, checksum: b9b03d58f60a9f3c894c805a35a87dcc (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006-04-12 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / The increasing complexity in the networks and applications with the new demands for distributed information technology (IT) services has changed the way systems are managed. The focus has moved from device-oriented management to service-oriented management. Currently, small and large companies demand an IT infrastructure to support their business, and such infrasctructure has to be monitored. Quantitative metrics should be measured and used to get a feedback about the IT environment functionalities. This work proposes a web-based network service management system that use open standards and free software to help the practice of Service Level Management (SLM) at IT environments. A metric here named Service Availability Index - is presented as a way to measure the IT environment system functionalities. To validate the prototype developed for the system proposed, a case study is presented and the main results are analyzed. / Devido ao crescimento da complexidade das redes e aplicações e à necessidade de serviços de TI (Tecnologia da Informação) distribuídos, houve uma mudança na forma pela qual os sistemas são gerenciados. O foco moveu-se da gerência orientada a dispositivos para a gerência orientada a serviços. Atualmente, pequenas e grandes organizações precisam de uma infra-estrutura de TI para suportar seus negócios, e esta infra-estrutura deve ser monitorada a fim de garantir o seu bom funcionamento. Métricas quantitativas devem ser medidas e utilizadas para se obter um feedback a respeito do funcionamento do ambiente de TI. Este trabalho propõe um sistema de gerência de serviços de rede, baseado em web, que utiliza padrões abertos e software livre, para ajudar na prática do Gerenciamento de Nível de Serviço (SLM Service Level Management) em ambientes de TI. Uma métrica aqui chamada de Índice de Disponibilidade de Sistema - IDS é considerada como uma maneira de medir a funcionalidade dos sistemas de ambientes de TI. A fim de validar o protótipo desenvolvido para o sistema proposto, um estudo de caso é apresentado e os principais resultados são analisados.

This diploma thesis examines risk identification, risk assessment, and risk management of existing and potential problems and opportunities at film festival's organization, using Kepner-Tregoe's methodology of Rational Processes. In the opening chapters the term risk is defined, and the Kepner-Tregoe's methodology introduced. The extensive part of the thesis focuses on application of thesis methodology on real problems and opportunities from the author's experience with organizing film festivals both in the Czech republic, and abroad. The aim of this research and application is to find a suitable methodology that can be applied to specific conditions of such a type of cultural organization.

The main topic of the diploma thesis “Marketing mix of a sports facility” is a detailed analysis related to a marketing strategy of the company that offers services in the area of sports and physical training. The theoretical part is devoted to the general basis that is essential for further elaboration of following practical sections. The analytical part deals with analysis of the current situation within the sport facility. On the basis of the conclusions from analytical part, the specific recommendations are presented to be implemented in the analysed company in order to significantly strengthen its overall marketing strategy.

Per molte aziende, ristrutturazione e riduzione dei costi sono al centro dell’agenda strategica. Come sottolinea anche la recente letteratura, la crisi economica scoppiata nel 2008, e tuttora in atto, sta esercitando una forte pressione sulle modalità di funzionamento dei sistemi di controllo in generale e di cost management più in particolare. Il presente lavoro di tesi si pone l’obiettivo di comprendere come si originano e si sviluppano i processi di innovazione nei sistemi di cost management in contesti aziendali caratterizzati da fenomeni di cambiamento e quali sono le condizioni di efficacia nell’implementazione di tali interventi. Per perseguire tale obiettivo, vengono analizzati tre casi, riletti alla luce di un modello neoistituzionalista di cambiamento aziendale. Contrariamente alla tradizionale predilezione della letteratura scientifica per un approccio meramente tecnico al tema dei sistemi di cost management, la tesi dimostra come un’efficace gestione degli stessi richieda la comprensione dell’esito dell’interrelazione di variabili ambientali e istituzionali esterne e dinamiche organizzative e istituzionali interne. / For many organizations, restructuring and cost management are key issues in their strategic agenda. As highlighted by the recent literature on management accounting, the current economic crisis is putting enormous pressure on the functioning of cost management systems in most organizations in the world. The main objective of this research is to analyze the relationship between management accounting change (i.e., cost management initiatives) and organizational change. The thesis relies on qualitative data collected through three longitudinal case studies. The analysis draws on a neo-institutional framework which integrates the insights of recent neo-institutional works in accounting. Our findings show that cost management systems cannot be considered only as technical mechanisms. In fact, an effective implementation of cost management initiatives requires the comprehension of the complex interrelationships between competitive and institutional variables and intraorganizational dynamics.

A pervasive critique argues that the educational and social background of senior managers, determined largely by recruitment policies and practices, was an important contributor to the relative economic decline of Britain. The current thesis argues that this critique, even in nuanced form, suffers from serious flaws. For example, long term results of recruitment are confused with information on recruitment processes. In fact, corporate performance can only be judged by understanding the challenges that faced companies, and the limits of the options available to them. The objective of the work, then, is to outline the steps sensible recruiters should have taken to secure their needs for bright young entrants, and to describe and measure what in fact happened. Key findings are that: the criteria used by companies to define high-flier entrants – intelligence, certain personal skills, and signs of character - have remained fundamentally unchanged even if emphasis has moved. Business pursued these attributes through proxies, the most important of which was that of educational qualifications. Business was rightly slow, until the 1950s, to recruit graduate entrants because most bright young people did not attend university. Although British peculiarity in terms of non-vocationalism has been exaggerated, a lesser focus on ‘relevant’ qualifications for non-technical positions was not an economic disadvantage. Proxies for personal qualities were less robust but, over time, were replaced by better direct measurement of individual qualities. The solution found in Britain to bring educated young people together with employers through regional and national recruitment institutions, including the graduate milkround, has proven highly successful. The selection of entrants has been approached at least as well as abroad, and notably unreliable tools were avoided. Business obtained an ever growing proportion of young talent, and did so by integrating educated young people from new social strata to an extent unmatched abroad.

Univ., Diss.--Zugl.: Würzburg, 2004. / Literaturverz. S. 212 - 237.

Thesis (Ph. D.) -- Universiteit Leiden, 2004. / Added thesis title page inserted. Includes bibliographical references (p. [175]-183).