The purpose of this dissertation is to explore how the economic return of a software investment can be assessed and managed. This topic has been studied in research and has been a concern for firms making software investments. In order to study this we need a model of the underlying factors affecting the economic return. Assessing and managing the return of a software investment is been argued to be difficult due to specific economic characteristics of a software investment, i.e. high degree of intangible consequences and uncertainty about the total investment cost. Given these characteristics it is has been concluded that it is difficult to derive a return function. In this dissertation we question this conclusion and propose a comprehensive model to assess and manage the intangibles and the underlying uncertainty. The model is deduced from general assumptions of the economic behavior of the firm. To develop the model we analyze the relevance of intangibles in relation to the economic purpose of making a software investment. Based on this a new way of deriving a cash flow function for a software investments is defined. Further it is analyzed how the underlying uncertainty of a software investment can be managed. The analysis uses a quantitative approach and methods from financial economics. It includes how the application of a real option and portfolio approach can reduce the uncertainty in a software investment and the role of efficient software platforms. The relation between software platforms and the opportunity to create different types of real options for future development is inferred from empirical studies. The studies in this dissertation show how a managerial view on a software investment corresponds with the overall economic goal of the firm. They also show how a strategic value of a software investment can be created, assessed and managed.

In the context of the globalization of human capital, this thesis examines the role of CEOs with international experience, known as returnee CEOs. The first essay argues that that CEOs’ international expertise is acquired at the opportunity cost of local social capital, such as political and business ties, which is more critical than expertise in transition economies with weak legal institutions. Based on the sample of 2847 CEOs appointments in China, I find that returnee CEOs are associated with inferior performance, lower market reactions to appointment announcements and an adverse regulatory environment. The negative relation disappears when social capital is acquired, regional legal institutions are strong or returnees’ international expertise is in demand. Exploiting an exogenous increase in the supply of returnee talent as a result of new provincial policies, I find the results consistent. The second essay examines the returnee CEOs in newly public entrepreneurial firms that are in transition period. I propose that returnee CEOs possess the tacit knowledge of foreign advanced legal institutions, which can help entrepreneurial firms overcome the formalization challenges they face in getting listed. The results based on 355 newly public Chinese entrepreneurial firms indicate that returnee CEOs, especially those who have returned from countries with advanced legal institutions are associated with superior post-IPO performance. In addition, foreign venture capitals (VCs) are found to strengthen the positive impact of returnee CEOs, especially when both VCs and CEOs are from countries with advanced institutions. In the third essay, I examine returnee CEOs’ managerial decision of listing location. Based on the sample of IPOs of Chinese entrepreneurial firms, I find that returnee CEOs are more likely to undertake foreign IPOs, especially for entrepreneurial firms operating in high-tech industries, until the credibility crisis of US-listed Chinese firms was triggered by Muddy Water Research in 2011. Overall, this thesis provides original evidence on the impact of international experience of CEOs and makes important implication on the benefits realization of brain gains in countries with weak legal institutions.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-15T19:32:39Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Maria Eveline Rodrigues Gomes.pdf: 1787607 bytes, checksum: 35f00ec525f72914532dac03ac84c4c9 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-01-30 / After the changes in corporate law with the Law 11.638/2007, the electric power sector, specifically the Power Transmission, had significant changes in the accounting records with respect to both revenue and infrastructure business and as the presentation of the Financial Statements and Corporate Regulatory. This study aimed to examine whether there were changes in the information used as a basis for management decisions by corporate managers Transmission of Electricity after the adoption of the ICPC-01 - Concession, which emerged after the changes in the accounting environment established by Law 11,638 / 2007. The method used was qualitative, about the objectives, the research was exploratory. The sample was composed of 15 transmitters in operation Alupar Investment Group S / A. The analysis of the object of research was conducted through the content of the answers in the questionnaire with 12 questions sent to managers Alupar Investment Group, who work directly with the transmission activity. These questions addressed the issue of managerial decision from the corporate or regulatory accounting information after adoption of ICPC-01-Concession. Therefore, responses were collected from five (05) holding managers and analyzed the contents, which were summarized factors for better understanding of the research object. It turned out that the accounting information requested most frequently for internal decision making are the regulatory and virtually no management decision is taken from corporate information. It was concluded that the adoption of ICPC-01-Concession brought no changes to the Information of the decision making of corporate managers Transmission of Electricity in Brazil, considering that there was no change in the use of information for internal analysis and business decisions and the information used for management decisions continue as before the adoption of the standard, ie, are based on regulatory statements. / Após as mudanças na legislação societária, com a Lei 11.638/2007, o setor de energia elétrica ― mais especificamente a transmissão de energia ― teve alterações significativas nos registros contábeis tanto com relação à Receita e à infraestrutura do negócio e quanto na apresentação das demonstrações Financeiras Societárias e Regulatórias. Este trabalho objetivou analisar se houve alterações nas informações utilizadas como base para tomada de decisões gerenciais pelos gestores das empresas de transmissão de energia elétrica após a adoção da ICPC-01 Contratos de Concessão, que emergiu após as mudanças no ambiente contábil estabelecidas pela Lei 11.638/2007. O método utilizado foi o qualitativo; quanto aos objetivos, a pesquisa foi exploratória. A amostra foi composta por 15 transmissoras em operação do Grupo Alupar Investimento S/A. A análise do objeto de pesquisa foi realizada através do conteúdo das respostas do questionário com 12 perguntas enviadas aos gestores do grupo Alupar Investimento, que trabalham diretamente com a atividade de transmissão. Estas perguntas abordaram a temática da decisão gerencial a partir da informação contábil societária ou regulatória após adoção da ICPC-01-Contratos de Concessão. Para tanto, foram coletadas respostas de cinco (05) gestores da holding e analisados os conteúdos, os quais foram resumidos em fatores para melhor entendimento do objeto de pesquisa. Detectou-se que a informação contábil solicitada com mais frequência para tomada de decisões internas são as regulatórias e que praticamente nenhuma decisão gerencial é tomada a partir das informações societárias. Concluiu-se que a adoção da ICPC-01-Contratos de Concessão não trouxe alterações nas informações para a tomada de decisão dos gestores das empresas de Transmissão de Energia Elétrica do Brasil, considerando-se que não houve mudança no uso da informação para análise interna do negócio e decisões e que as informações utilizadas para decisões gerenciais continuam como antes da adoção da norma, ou seja, têm como base as demonstrações regulatórias.

Cette recherche teste de manière empirique la valeur d'une marque de société pour ses actionnaires et les propriétés de la marque en réduisant les risques à un niveau corporatif. Ce processus s'opère indépendamment des récessions économiques. Les études précédentes, ayant établi une relation entre les activités de marketing et la création de la valeur pour les actionnaires, se concentrent principalement sur les marques des produits plutôt que la valeur d'une marque de société et négligent le contrôle des autres variables financières et de performance de marché. Cette recherche est fondée sur la théorie du positivisme. La théorie du positivisme postule que la seule connaissance authentique est celle basée sur l’expérience et la réalité. L’échantillonnage aléatoire des données a été choisi pour la partie quantitative de cette étude et pour la section qualitative de cette recherche, l’auteur a choisi l’échantillonnage et la technique principale de recueillir des données est l’observation.La contribution principale de cette étude à la littérature est précisément la marque commerciale, ses caractéristiques de mélange du risque et de la création de richesse pour les actionnaires, et l'utilisation des contrôles financiers et de marché, tout en vérifiant les relations entre contrôles financiers et contrôles de marché. En utilisant les données annuelles du sondage Interbrand entre 1994 et 2008, l’auteur trouve une preuve forte pour les entreprises qui possèdent une ou plusieurs marques globales très connues et la richesse pour les actionnaires. Ce résultat est cohérent avec la théorie actuelle de la marque qui postule que les efforts liés au développement d'une marque ajoutent de la valeur à l’entreprise et démontrent des caractéristiques12de variation du risque. Les résultats demeurent solides à la suite de l'analyse factorielle et de la régression multivariée. Dans la partie qualitative de la recherche, l’auteur présente des cas relativement notoires de marques corporatives – leur histoire et la raison expliquant leur succès ainsi que les différentes politiques de marque sont soulignées. Cette section peut être considérée la validation qualitative des résultats quantitatifs. Il s'agit donc d'une méthodologie de triangulation. Les cadres conceptuels et les modèles théoriques ont été monopolisés afin d’analyser davantage les cas qualitatifs de cette recherche. Cette perspective additionnelle a renforcé et mis en valeur nos résultats quantitatifs. / This research tests to analyze if solid corporate brands create wealth for shareholders; and have risk reducing properties. Previous studies that were relating marketing with the creation of shareholder value worked on product brands. This research is based on theory of positivism; positivism states that true knowledge is based on verification. Random sampling was chosen for the quantitative part of this study, and for the qualitative section of this research we chose purposive sampling. Observation is used as the main data collection technique.13The most important contribution of this research to the field of branding is precisely the focus on corporate brand, its risk reducing and creation of wealth for shareholders. Using data between 1994 and 2008, we find strong evidence that corporations that own superior corporate brands create wealth for stakeholders of companies. Later in the qualitative part of this research we went through some fairly known cases of corporate brands – their stories and how they managed to succeed were explained and some of their branding policies were highlighted. This part is seen as qualitative validation of quantitative results through triangulation method. Conceptual frameworks and theoretical models were implemented to further analyze the qualitative cases for this research; this added perspective reinforced and supported our quantitative findings.