University of Technology, Sydney. / This overall objective of this research was to identify factors that were important in forming middle managers' attitudes toward quality and quality programs in their organisations. An underlying assumption of the research, supported by the literature, was that a middle manager's attitude toward his/her quality program could be an important indicator of behaviour toward the program e.g. resistance, willingness to be involved. Reviews of the literature on middle management, quality, attitude measurement and research more specifically related to the research topic was undertaken. The work of Ajzen (1988) was particularly useful in devising an overall theoretical framework for the research . A number of hypotheses related to the overall research question were formulated. Twenty-one organisations agreed to participate in the research. These all had a quality program. Some of the organisations were quite advanced in quality, a number had won Australian Quality Awards, others were much less advanced. Organisations were drawn from manufacturing and services in both private and public sectors. Data was collected in two main ways. Firstly, a questionnaire was designed, piloted and distributed to approximately 1100 middle managers in participating organisations. The response rate was approximately 50%. Secondly, in depth interviews were carried out with middle managers, senior managers and quality managers in a number of the participating organisations. The results generally confirm the importance of the middle management group as key to the success of a quality program. Middle managers across all of the participating organisations generally believed that the TQM approach to management was an effective one. Their views on the effectiveness of IS09000 were less positive. Middle managers generally believed that the quality programs were more likely to benefit their organisations rather than to directly benefit themselves, although quality programs did provide some opportunities for some middle managers. Middle managers generally believed that their quality programs provided both operational and strategic benefit for their organisations. Paradoxically, a widely held belief among middle managers was that quality programs did not reduce short term thinking and over-reacting to short term goals. Positive attitudes to quality in the organisation were associated particularly with the values and beliefs that middle managers held regarding: a) program support from top management, from their direct boss and from their colleagues; b) a range of program outcomes for the organisation and c) a range of program outcomes related to the individual middle manager. For middle managers actively involved in their organisations quality program the clarity of their program role was positively related to program attitudes. Training/education in quality was also significantly related to some beliefs and attitudes towards quality and quality programs. Middle managers generally believed that quality programs involved a significant increase in paper work and bureaucracy. However this was not a significant influence on their attitudes toward quality in their organisations. An important finding was that for a wide range of beliefs and attitudes related to quality no significant differences were found between the types of jobs held by middle managers. An exception was the quality specialist group who generally had significantly more positive attitudes and beliefs about quality and their quality programs than did other job categories. Middle managers seemed relatively at ease with most of the changes that were taking place as part of their programs. In particular they had relatively positive views on devolution of responsibility to lower level employees. Middle managers also seemed relatively at ease with their own performance being more tightly monitored with program implementation. The research supported the more optimistic view of middle Management that has been reported recently (e.g. Fenton-O'Creevy 1998). The notion of the middle management still had currency in all of the organisations participating in the research despite the many structural changes that had taken place.

University of Technology, Sydney. / This overall objective of this research was to identify factors that were important in forming middle managers' attitudes toward quality and quality programs in their organisations. An underlying assumption of the research, supported by the literature, was that a middle manager's attitude toward his/her quality program could be an important indicator of behaviour toward the program e.g. resistance, willingness to be involved. Reviews of the literature on middle management, quality, attitude measurement and research more specifically related to the research topic was undertaken. The work of Ajzen (1988) was particularly useful in devising an overall theoretical framework for the research . A number of hypotheses related to the overall research question were formulated. Twenty-one organisations agreed to participate in the research. These all had a quality program. Some of the organisations were quite advanced in quality, a number had won Australian Quality Awards, others were much less advanced. Organisations were drawn from manufacturing and services in both private and public sectors. Data was collected in two main ways. Firstly, a questionnaire was designed, piloted and distributed to approximately 1100 middle managers in participating organisations. The response rate was approximately 50%. Secondly, in depth interviews were carried out with middle managers, senior managers and quality managers in a number of the participating organisations. The results generally confirm the importance of the middle management group as key to the success of a quality program. Middle managers across all of the participating organisations generally believed that the TQM approach to management was an effective one. Their views on the effectiveness of IS09000 were less positive. Middle managers generally believed that the quality programs were more likely to benefit their organisations rather than to directly benefit themselves, although quality programs did provide some opportunities for some middle managers. Middle managers generally believed that their quality programs provided both operational and strategic benefit for their organisations. Paradoxically, a widely held belief among middle managers was that quality programs did not reduce short term thinking and over-reacting to short term goals. Positive attitudes to quality in the organisation were associated particularly with the values and beliefs that middle managers held regarding: a) program support from top management, from their direct boss and from their colleagues; b) a range of program outcomes for the organisation and c) a range of program outcomes related to the individual middle manager. For middle managers actively involved in their organisations quality program the clarity of their program role was positively related to program attitudes. Training/education in quality was also significantly related to some beliefs and attitudes towards quality and quality programs. Middle managers generally believed that quality programs involved a significant increase in paper work and bureaucracy. However this was not a significant influence on their attitudes toward quality in their organisations. An important finding was that for a wide range of beliefs and attitudes related to quality no significant differences were found between the types of jobs held by middle managers. An exception was the quality specialist group who generally had significantly more positive attitudes and beliefs about quality and their quality programs than did other job categories. Middle managers seemed relatively at ease with most of the changes that were taking place as part of their programs. In particular they had relatively positive views on devolution of responsibility to lower level employees. Middle managers also seemed relatively at ease with their own performance being more tightly monitored with program implementation. The research supported the more optimistic view of middle Management that has been reported recently (e.g. Fenton-O'Creevy 1998). The notion of the middle management still had currency in all of the organisations participating in the research despite the many structural changes that had taken place.

<p>The objective of this thesis is to conduct a research on Eleiko Sport AB’s internal communication from a managerial perspective. The focus of this analysis is to look at how the management and organisation are structured in Eleiko, how the members of the management team view and perceive internal communication, how the internal communication within this small organisation is organised, and which communication channels are being used and why.</p>

Abstract Since the open of domestic financial market recent years, the financial products have become more and more various. In six years, there has been 2.7 funds issued every month on average. For investors, how to choose a good fund company and an appropriate fund from plenty of new offered funds is uneasy. Particularly new offered fund has no history data to examine the performance, and also lacks the regular benchmarks like £]and Sharp ratio. This thesis uses the data of the domestic stock funds which were offered over 1 year from 1997 January 1 to 2006 December 31.The data resources is from TEJ. The study will distinguish all data from whether the prospectuses regulate the funds¡¦ stock holding percentage over 70 ¢H or not. Then we want to investigate the behavior in the first year and to discuss if the fund managers¡¦ experiment will result in the abnormal performance. The study results shows that the stock holding percentage of the domestic stock funds have been over 70¢H on average since offered 3 months, but the percentage of the funds with free investment period of 3 months is less than 60¢H. However the percentage of the funds with free investment period of 6 months would rise to be 70¢H early in the second or third month. We try to use a statistic way and set a dummy variable to test whether there is different between the performance of the funds with free period and those with limited period. The result shows that there is no fund performance difference between these two period. From the second month after the fund is offered, turnover rare is close or even over the average of one year. The average level is about 30¢H and it shows the domestic stock funds have changed stocks frequently since it is offered . The tenure of Fund managers¡¦ after domestic stock funds raised is 20 months on average from 95 months to 1 month.13¢Mof fund managers will be taken place less than half year after the fund offered, 39¢Mwill be less than 1 year. 60¢Mof the fund managers have ever managed other funds before the newly one which he manage now, but 40¢Mhave no such experiment. The statistics shows that there is no significant different between fund managers¡¦ experiment and fund¡¦s abnormal returns.

The objective of this thesis is to conduct a research on Eleiko Sport AB’s internal communication from a managerial perspective. The focus of this analysis is to look at how the management and organisation are structured in Eleiko, how the members of the management team view and perceive internal communication, how the internal communication within this small organisation is organised, and which communication channels are being used and why.

Objectives:&lt;br&gt;1. Describe patient-related and hospice-related characteristics such as gender, average length of hospice stay, primary diagnoses, average daily census, number of admissions per year, net operating revenues, inpatient unit (IPU) operating costs, and medication expenditures of hospices in Ohio and compare it with NHPCO data.&lt;br&gt;2. Identify and analyze therapeutic drug classes and medications with the most frequent utilization rates and largest percentage of expenditures in hospice care.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Method:&lt;br&gt;Hospice Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBM) employ pharmacists to provide comprehensive pharmaceutical care services for patients under hospice care and one component of pharmacist provided services include comprehensive medication review. To study the impact of pharmacist-led medication review on hospice costs and medication utilization, PBM claims data for year 2007 were obtained from five hospices in Ohio. The data included information on utilization and costs of medications, patient-related (gender, average length of hospice service, and primary diagnoses) and hospice-related (number of admissions per year, average daily census, net operating revenues, inpatient unit [IPU] operating costs and pharmacy costs) characteristics. Claims data were analyzed to identify the most frequently used therapeutic drug classes and those classes which contributed to the largest percentage of pharmacy expenditures. Prescription drug count and total cost for medications under the identified therapeutic drug classes were also obtained. For benchmarking purposes, analysis was conducted to compare patient and hospice-related data obtained from the five hospices to the 2007 NHPCO data.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Results:&lt;br&gt;The average number of admissions per hospice for the year 2007 was 627 patients. Average daily census (136 patients) and total patient days (51,350 days) in these five hospices were 1.5 times higher as compared to that of NHPCO data (90 patients and 31,300 days, respectively.). Annual drug expenditures per hospice ranged from $67,580 to $763,413 while average hospice medication cost per patient per day (PPPD) was $11.12 ($12.43 PPPD for home care and $8.5 PPPD for nursing care). Average PPPD excluding outliers such as enoxaparin was $10.72 ($12.05 PPPD for home care and $8.25 PPPD for nursing care).&lt;br&gt;Approximately 1,020 different drugs under 246 therapeutic classes were utilized in the five hospices. The most frequently utilized therapeutic class of drugs, based on prescription drug volume included analgesic-narcotics (15.6%) followed by laxatives-cathartics (7.5%), and anti-anxiety drugs (7%). Therapeutic classes contributing to the majority of drug expenditures, included analgesics-narcotics (16.5%), SSRIs (4.7%), and anti-anxiety drugs (4.5%). Medications whose frequency of use accounted for high expense included morphine sulfate (5.3% - utilization, 4.4% - expenditure), lorazepam (4.4%, 3.1%), furosemide (4%, 0.6%), methadone (3%, 0.9%), and prednisone (3.1%, 0.5%). Medications such as enoxaparin injections whose frequency of utilization was low (0.01%), contributed to 3.1% of total medication expenditure. Likewise, fentanyl and oxycodone contributed to 3.5% and 3.7%, respectively to the total medication expenditure, but their frequency of utilization was only 0.9% and 1.9%, respectively.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Conclusion:&lt;br&gt;The five hospices in Ohio utilized preferred drugs recommended by pharmacists following a medication review to identify potential drug related problems (DRPs) and encourage cost-effective drug utilization. As a result of these interventions, the utilization of expensive medications is low. Pharmacists specializing in hospice and palliative care are able to recommend preferred medications in end-of-life care thus producing cost-savings. More importantly, hospice pharmacists frequently identify DRP's which can improve patient outcomes. Hospices should consider interventions made by pharmacists and place emphasis on the utilization of cost effective drugs that can be used among terminally ill patients to provide a high level of quality care with fiscal responsibility. / Mylan School of Pharmacy and the Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences; / Pharmacy Administration; / MS; / Thesis;

Some studies have shown that managers concentrate large fractions of their wealth in the equity of their own firm. In this paper we use a unique dataset and investigate how Swedish owner-managers invest remaining wealth conditional on a major investment in their own firm. We find no[JR1] evidence that owner-managers seek diversification benefits when they invest remaining wealth. Instead some owner-managers invest remaining wealth in the industry where they already have a substantial capital investment. We conclude that some owner-managers seek to exploit their industry-specific superior information when they invest wealth not tied up in their own firms. / <p>QC 20130515</p>

My purpose is to describe and analyse how care managers experience their position as middle managers in the public sector. I have used a qualitative interview method to answer this question and also to capture my six interview persons opinion and understanding of their own position as middle managers. From my six interviews I noticed some difference in their opinions about how it is being a care manger. The results show that the role as care managers have challenges such as to intertwine their own notion how the caring of the elder should be with strict politic decisions. Other challenges are the limitation of economic recourses and reorganisations. Within the public service care mangers have opportunities to be part of the new changes with interesting comments or directives that the government would like to implement. My result can be understood with the street level bureaucracy and the difference between the concepts leadership and management. Finally I should clarify that my definition between the management and leadership was important to the respondent’s view of themselves and situations in their professional role as care managers. To have and be a manager could be understood with the help of the employment. As care manager you know what you get and can do, and also how the limitations impact them currently in difference situations.

The Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive ("AIFMD"), adopted by the European Union on 11 November 2010, has introduced a harmonized set of rules for alternative investment funds (“AIFs”) in Europe. This thesis discusses potential financial risks for the AIFs industry arising from the European regulatory reform, which started before the current financial crisis, and compares relevant European, Canadian and US rules governing AIFs. This comparative analysis is based on four main criteria: i) registration and authorization requirements, ii) general financial transparency requirements, iii) capital requirements, and iv) remuneration restrictions. The analysis of AIFs regulatory reform in Europe leads to three main conclusions. First, the AIFMD requirements are much stricter than analogue regimes in Canada and the United States. Second, as a consequence of this regulation, European AIFs may be in disadvantage. Third, the complexity of the present European institutional framework is not able to fully implement the European regulatory reform.

The Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive ("AIFMD"), adopted by the European Union on 11 November 2010, has introduced a harmonized set of rules for alternative investment funds (“AIFs”) in Europe. This thesis discusses potential financial risks for the AIFs industry arising from the European regulatory reform, which started before the current financial crisis, and compares relevant European, Canadian and US rules governing AIFs. This comparative analysis is based on four main criteria: i) registration and authorization requirements, ii) general financial transparency requirements, iii) capital requirements, and iv) remuneration restrictions. The analysis of AIFs regulatory reform in Europe leads to three main conclusions. First, the AIFMD requirements are much stricter than analogue regimes in Canada and the United States. Second, as a consequence of this regulation, European AIFs may be in disadvantage. Third, the complexity of the present European institutional framework is not able to fully implement the European regulatory reform.