There is a need to learn more about how managers use accounting information. This thesis investigates how managers make use of business reports; as they are one of the ways managers receive information. Previous research was found to broadly correspond to four important aspects affecting how managers make use of business reports; aggregation, timeliness, flexibility and dimensions. A case study was conducted at NCC Construction. The main findings from this study are that managers have the possibility to view information in the reports at their desired level of specificity and they are not concerned about the issue of timeliness. Furthermore they are satisfied with flexibility in reports, but wish for more capabilities and do not desire non-financial information in reports. Therefore the four aspects are found to no longer be a hindrance to managers in their use of business reports as much as could be expected from previous studies. Technological developments and business practices are found to have changed managerial work. Reporting has become faster and is more accurately reflecting the real world operations, making business reports more useful to managers.

This thesis explores some of the processes involved in the transformation of a university as it moved from a conventional collegial style of decision-making towards a more corporate one. Much of the mainstream literature in higher education management tends to polarise these styles as ideological opposites and as either good or bad. The themes which arise in this work include the tension which exists between collegial and managerial values, co-evolution of these values through processes of interaction within the organisation and the modulation of these processes by changing power relations. For centuries, universities were administered by academics who reached senior positions following election by their colleagues and who behaved as ‘first among equals’. Ideally, the community of scholars made progress following decisions which were reached by consensus. While such processes were appropriate in times when stability, budgetary certainty and the absence of competition prevailed, their shortcomings became increasingly obvious in the past quarter-century when the external environment for universities became progressively more hostile and competitive. Universities responded to the new requirements for accountability, revenue generation and competitive positioning within a market system by reforming their approach to many aspects of the running of their organisations. I argue that in importing a way of thinking which is largely based on cybernetic control systems, inadequate account has been taken of the importance of human interaction in the generation of strategy. While mention is made in the mainstream higher education management literature of the importance of collegial processes in implementing strategy at the academic coalface, and regret is expressed for the ‘lost art of conversation’, there has been little previously written about the microscopic details of the daily interaction which constitute strategising in universities. My argument is based on a series of reflexive narratives which describe my experience of organisational change and on a study of relevant literature. In addition to mainstream literature on higher education management, I have drawn on the work of Stacey, Griffin and Shaw and their perspective of complex responsive processes of relating as a way of understanding how organisations change. I conclude that collegial and managerial values can only evolve through processes of interaction between participants in university life and that this interaction often will involve tension, anxiety and conflict. I further conclude that the conversations which constitute such interaction can be facilitated by those with the power to do so, to provide real opportunity for the emergence of novelty.

Although total quality management (TQM) has been so widely adopted, its theoretical underpinnings remain relatively unexplored as compared to other management theories. A frequently pointed out research gap is on the cultural side of TQM as a human-oriented management philosophy. TQM is known to begin mainly in Japan and the United States. However, the cultural values of the Japanese and the American people are very different. In Japan, the importance of group harmony is stressed, while the Americans mainly value individual creativity and achievements. Even so, companies in these different cultures have succeeded in implementing TQM and have achieved world class performance. It is reasonable to believe that when TQM, as a culture-free system itself, is being implemented in a particular cultural setting, it must accommodate to a certain extent the local culture. That is to say, Japanese-style TQM is obviously different from American-style TQM and a culture-specific TQM indeed exists. As TQM and ISO 9000 have recently become some of the hottest managerial issues in mainland China and the overseas Chinese regions, this empirical study is concerned with the influence of Chinese cultural values on TQM. In particular, the operations of ISO 9000 certified companies in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan and the cultural values of their Chinese managers were analyzed. Grounded on sociological and psychological theories, quantitative (structural equation modeling) and qualitative (case studies and interviews) research methods were employed to devise a general theoretical model of cultural ii influence on TQM. Furthermore, using Chinese cultural values as a case, the specificities of a Chinese-style TQM were uncovered. The study has not only contributed its modest share towards the theoretical development of TQM but has also paved way for understanding indigenous managerial psychology from a different perspective.

The study of leadership is one of those disciplines that invoke fierce debate among scholars and at the centre of the leadership debate lies the many approaches to the discipline that are employed by scholars and these approaches have led to different definitions of the discipline such as the trait theory of leadership, the behavioural theory of leadership and the contingent theory of leadership. This study was undertaken for two main reasons. Firstly, to investigate the leadership behaviour of deputy directors of the Department of Agriculture and secondly, to establish how those leadership behaviour of deputy directors impacted on the employee morale of their subordinates. The study was conducted within the public administration environment and it was conducted using the leadership behaviour theory whose main assumption is that leadership is a relationship between the leader and the followers and as such, the behaviour of the leader has direct impact on the morale of the followers. The key leadership behaviour that were used for the study came from the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) survey instrument that was developed by Kouzes and Posner (2002) and five key factors were identified as central to the study of leadership behaviour for the purpose of this study. Firstly, leaders are expected to act exemplary (model the way) by ensuring that what they say is what they do. Secondly, leaders are expected to inspire a shared vision so that their followers are able to assimilate the vision being pursued. Thirdly, leaders are expected to challenge the existing institutional processes and systems so that all resources can be directed towards the realisation of the new vision. Fourthly, leaders are expected to enable their followers to act by creating an environment that is conducive to effective service delivery and fifthly, leaders are expected to encourage their followers to endure where challenges seem overwhelming so that followers should not be discouraged and give up. Since the study was conducted within the public administration environment, its main purpose was to discover how frequently do deputy directors engage in those five factors. The study yielded mixed results where in some of the factors, deputy directors engaged frequently whereas in the other factors, they had infrequent engagement. The participants to this study were grouped into three categories: deputy directors (as leaders being evaluated), and directors and subordinates (as observers). The study used the Likert scale where the data was interpreted by means of graphs. / Public Administration and Management

The practice of training evaluation has not kept pace with prescription, and evaluations being being done are frequently negligent of appropriate controls needed to draw valid conclusions. A comparison was made of training outcomes contrasting results obtained using carefully controlled scientific approaches with those from a more popular less scientific approach. The research design involved the collection and analysis of data from a single organizations managerial training program. , Three different methods of training evaluation were studied: an "immediate reaction" rating sheet, a self-report participant survey, and a similar survey completed by t he participants' subordinates. Bo th surv ey r e sul t s showed no signif icant c hang es in on-the-job behavior six weeks after training. In contrast the "immediate reaction" ratings were positive, implying the training program was a "success." Conclusions w ere drawn concerning the validity of methods compared.

Aim: The aim of our research is to explore and narrate the post-merger effects on employees' motivation and effective managerial role for the motivation management in the staff in Post-Merger Phase. Methodology: The research is qualitative and covers both, the managerial and employees’ approach through application of Herzberg (1966) motivational theory to assess certain changes in employees’ motivation level during the Post-Merger phase. Primary data is sourced from face to face interviews of respondents and narrated in empirical findings. Analysis and conclusion are derived on the basis of the State of Art theories. Conclusion: Merger affects the employees’ motivations by ignoring their motivational factors, communication and information sharing management. Managerial role is important to answer the employees’ job insecurities and maintain the level of their motivation effectively. Optimum employees-organization relationship can be secured through effective information and communication management for the success of corporate objectives and employees’ satisfaction. Contribution: The research greatly contributes towards knowledge in management studies and relevant information is useful for business management students, managers, and Merger implementing management about certain aspects of consequential organizational changes and motivational factors of the workforce. The repeated research to periodically observe the staff's motivation and effective managerial implements can enhance in-depth knowledge of potential effective remedies especially for new and possibly merging organizations. Through such kind of research works, Merger failure rate can be reduced and overcome gradually that result due to employee’s diminishing motivations at workplace and management's’ failure to take cognizance of Post-Merger changes in employee’s behaviour

This dissertation studies internal and external factors affecting firm outcomes. The first two chapters explore the sources of variation in managerial skill within an Indian life insurance firm. The existing literature has investigated the association between managerial productivity and management practices across firms, but has largely overlooked how individual traits and skills affect managerial performance. Intra-firm variation in managerial productivity allows us to study managerial skill without the confounded effects of variation in management practices. The third chapter models how external technological change affects competition between media firms, and what that implies for information availability in a society. For the first two chapters, I use a novel dataset drawn from a life insurance firm in India, with 211 managers, each leading a sales team of insurance agents. Chapter 1 studies the sources of large variation in performance across teams. I find that the performance of newly recruited agents is positively correlated with the managers' past team productivity index. I also observe that when agents move across teams in the firm's internal labor market, there is no change in the output of such agents, except when they join the team of a high performing manager (in the top decile of team performance). This allows me to infer that most managers differ from along their recruiting skill, whereas the high performers are able to provide some form of managerial contribution to productivity such as training, supervision or guidance. Chapter 2 examines the dynamics of managerial skills in this firm. I distinguish between internally-hired managers who were working previously as agents in the firm, and externally-hired managers, who joined the firm directly as managers. I find that the teams of internally-hired managers are 14% more productive, but that the teams of externally-hired managers catch up in a span of six to seven years. Among different mechanisms, I find evidence that the managers differ in the recruitment of good workers and also in the contribution to the output of their workers. Further, I find evidence that the externally-hired managers learn how to recruit good workers. This is the first study to show evidence supporting learning-by-doing on part of managers. The third chapter, co-authored with Benjamin Ogden, develops a model of endogenous media polarization- or, product differentiation among news sources- to study how this affects political outcomes. We show that under internet-based technology, where users provide additional values when they are served their preferred content, media firms would have an incentive to skew their content, leading to divergence. However, the degree of divergence will depend on the distribution of audience. Under reasonable restrictions on the distribution of voters, informed political choices are implemented. The model demonstrates why increasing media polarization does not necessarily lead to incorrect political outcomes and may in fact create conditions for correct policy choice.

India is becoming an important country in economic scene worldwide and will be the most populated country by 2050. With its fast-economic development, women’s place in society does not evolve at the same speed. The aim of this paper is to investigate the presence of gender inequalities in the accession to managerial occupation in the Indian labor market. A lot of studies have been conducted in European and North American countries, but there is not much about Asian countries. For this study, we used data from 2011 and find evidence of gender discrimination against women in their accession to managerial occupations and in terms of remuneration. This paper adds more literature about the gender gap in the Indian labor market and offers some tracks to solve India inequality issues on the labor market. Also, limitations regarding our work will be discussed.

Outsourcing has become a significant factor in the U.S. economy over the past two decades. Annual report disclosures made by a firm related to outsourcing are voluntary disclosures. Understanding the determinants and firm performance implications of initial outsourcing annual report disclosures is important to capital market providers, standards developers, and to the firms themselves. I identify and study firms making initial voluntary disclosures of outsourcing in their annual reports on Form 10-K between 1993 and 2003 after they make non-annual report related public disclosures. Specifically, I investigate if determinants of the initial annual report disclosure decision and subsequent performance are associated with the initial disclosure. This study contends managers disclose information related to outsourcing in their annual reports to reduce information asymmetry and to minimize agency costs. I hypothesize and develop a firm-related variable commonly used in agency theory to test this assertion. Signaling theory and voluntary disclosure theory also explain the determinants for firm voluntary outsourcing annual report disclosures. I develop several hypotheses defining determinants potentially associated with the likelihood of initial annual report outsourcing disclosure decisions, and test these determinants using a conditional logistic regression model and a matched-pair group of firms making public outsourcing disclosures but not making annual report disclosure. Using signaling theory, I also develop hypotheses testing if the initial outsourcing annual report disclosure sends a signal regarding future firm performance--specifically testing firm performance measures related to profitability and cash flow. I test these hypotheses using OLS models and the same matched-pair group of firms. I find firms with high levels of debt, high total cost ratios, and high returns on assets are more likely to make initial annual report outsourcing disclosure. / I also find firms may signal improvements in future levels of profitability when making the initial annual report outsourcing disclosure. / by Ronald F. Premuroso. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2008. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, FL : 2008 Mode of access: World Wide Web.

The inequality of the labour market has long been a discussed and studied topic and today we know that women earn less than their comparable male colleagues. Many studies have been conducted to find out if there is a glass ceiling effect for women in the labour market but most of these have used wages as their outcome variable. We wanted to see if women in the labour market face a glass ceiling when looking at the probability of holding a managerial position. We also wanted to see if there was any difference in the glass ceiling when comparing different countries so we studied the glass ceiling in Sweden, France and Great Britain. In order to study the glass ceiling, we use two separate probit regressions. The variable of interest in the first regression is the gender variable while in the other it is also an interaction term that shows the difference in the gender gaps between the private and public sector. The results show that there seems to be a glass ceiling effect in both France and Great Britain since the gender gap increases further up in the workplace hierarchy while the results for Sweden show that there is a gender gap throughout the workplace hierarchy. We also find that the gaps differ in the public and the private sector indicating that where you work can affect the probability of holding a managerial position.