No description available.

Prior researches find that advertising is the most common marketing strategy and also one of the most effective way to influence consumers¡¦ purchasing decisions. On the other hand, innovation plays an important role to enhance competitiveness of firms. However, little attention has been paid to the relationship among advertising, innovation and firm values in the existing literature. The main purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of pre-IPO advertising and innovation on the level of IPO underpricing. Furthermore, this study examines whether market states influence the impact of pre-IPO marketing expenditures and innovation on IPO underpricing levels. The empirical results show: (1) without considering market states, pre-IPO advertising expenditures significantly reduce IPO underpricing levels; (2) without considering market states, pre-IPO innovation activities significantly increase IPO underpricing levels; (2) pre-IPO innovation activities significantly increase IPO underpricing levels; (3) pre-IPO advertising expenditures cannot significantly reduce IPO underpricing levels in bull markets; and (4) pre-IPO advertising expenditures can significantly reduce IPO underpricing levels in bear and correction markets; and (5) pre-IPO innovation activities significantly increase IPO underpricing levels in bull, bear and correction markets.

Recent studies show that investing in higher American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) score firms perform significantly positive abnormal returns over time. Moreover, prior researches indicate that government intervenes such as monetary policy and market condition influence stock returns significantly. However, no previous studies examine the performance of firms with high customer satisfaction during different monetary stance and different market states. This paper investigates relation between stock market valuation of customer satisfaction and changes in monetary policy and further examines that relation under different market states. This paper finds that forming portfolio on the basis of satisfaction data has the potential to generate valuable excess returns. Furthermore, the evidence of this study shows higher ACSI portfolio performs significantly positive return under all monetary stance and market state over time. Especially, in bad macroeconomic conditions, higher ACSI portfolio consistently generates abnormal return in restrictive monetary stances and bear markets, showing that higher ACSI portfolios can persistent beat the market under different monetary policy and market conditions. The evidence of this study concludes that customer-based metrics are valuable information when forming portfolios.

Prior studies show the evidence of non-financial variables such as marketing affects investor¡¦s response to risky asset pricing, and indicate that the distribution of risky asset returns is asymmetric and non-nomality, implying using Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) method with the assumption of normal distributions may lead to unreliable estimates. This study tries to apply quantile regression to the analysis of the sample in order to avoid estimation bias. This study examines whether a firm¡¦s pre-IPO marketing expenditures affects its¡¦ initial public offering (IPO) underpricing in Japan and examine whether market states influence the existing relation between pre-IPO marketing expenditures and IPO underpricing. The empirical results shows: (1) pre-IPO marketing expenditures significantly reduce IPO underpricing levels, (2) pre-IPO marketing expenditures can reduce IPO underpricing levels following bear markets as it cannot reduce IPO underpricing levels following bull markets. Therefore, as firms decide to use marketing strategies to make their firm remarkable, and in turns without concerning for market states to reduce the degree of IPO underpricing, their objective may not be reached.

There are two inter-related themes of this thesis: Economic development and global governance. We develop a perspective of &ndash / what we call &ndash / &lsquo / Institutional International Political Economy&rsquo / (IIPE) in order to: i) assess the likelihood of developmental success on the part of the Third World countries in the twenty-first century, and ii) analyze the developmental and world-systemic implications of the so-called &lsquo / global governance model&rsquo / , which we conceptualize as an ultra-liberal capitalist project on the part of the &lsquo / commanding heights&rsquo / of the contemporary &lsquo / world-economy&rsquo / . Our IIPE-perspective relies on an &lsquo / institutionalist&rsquo / synthesis of the classic works of Karl Polanyi, Joseph Schumpeter and Fernand Braudel. In the light of this perspective, &lsquo / state-led development&rsquo / seems to be inconceivable in the face of &lsquo / governance&rsquo / , which is an attempt to disintegrate the &lsquo / institutional substance&rsquo / of the state-as-we-know-it into &lsquo / market-like processes&rsquo / . Nevertheless, &lsquo / governance&rsquo / is bound to become the victim of its own success insofar as it destroys the indispensable political institutions upon which capitalism has survived as a historical world-system in the past.

The aim of the diploma thesis is to propose and evaluate the political and credit risks management associated with the export of medical equipment to countries outside the European Union, including the short and long term analysis of financing options. Alternative solutions are based on well-known approaches of state organizations, which are experienced with the issue and commercial solutions offered by London Market in cooperation with the London insurance market. The main output is comparison of the proposed solutions and evaluation of the optimal solution according to the established criteria by Czech exporter.

After the invasion of Iraq and the destruction of Saddam regime in 2003, the US administration undertook the complete remaking of Iraq as a national-state. The initial steps of the US administration were the quasi eradication of the old Iraqi State. Then, this nation-building endeavor has been based on a federal constitution promoting an Ethno- sectarian power sharing and the attempt to transform what was once a centralized economy into a comprehensive market driven society. However, the post-2003 period had been marked by the rising of identity politics, the constant delegitimisation of the new political order and successive episode of massive violence. Obviously, the question of violence and its apex in 2006-2007, is central to understand the post-2003 period in Iraq. For the first time in Iraqi history, waves of ethno-sectarian violence seriously challenged the possibility of a common life for all the diverse components of the Iraqi society. The Iraqi nation seemed to have been consumed in an existential conflict between components and communal identifications once relatively integrated. Therefore, there is a need to render an analytical account of the aggressive rise of identity politics, the outbreak of violence and finally the episodes of civil war in 2005-2007 in Iraq. This study aims to answer these questions by tracking the different political and social processes that have been at play during the American occupation of Iraq and that lead to the events of 2005-2007. In order to do so, I will consider the dynamical relations that link political institutions, violence and self-identifications in regard to the Iraqi society and Iraq as a National State. This research is built as a case study based mostly on qualitative analysis and the collection of empirical data, interviews, and fieldwork observations as well as primary and secondary sources. I set out to identify actors and processes and determine a complex chain of reactions (a trajectory) that led to the current state of affairs in Iraq. This trajectory could be summarized in few sentences: The destruction of the old Iraqi State and the brutal implementation of Neo-liberal rationality and re- regulations policies by the US occupation ended into a dystopian economy and the creation of an "absent state" (Davis, 2011). Since its very first day, this US lead nation-building endeavor has been flawed by a complete lack of legitimacy and its substitution with coercion by the US and the New Iraqi "State" security apparatus. Meanwhile, the imposition and the institutionalization of Ethno-sectarian affiliations as a principle of political legitimacy contributed to transform the different communities of Iraq into main avenues for access and control of scarce economic and political resources. In a way, US occupation and new Iraqi elites were deflecting the political question of right following a movement similar to what Mamdani and Brown describe as a "Culturalisation of Politics" (2004, 2006). The result was a failure to establish a legitimate and functional political and economic order. This led to the rise of a System of Violence, organized around networks of violence. Within the System of Violence, Culturalisation of Politics would be translated into Culturalisation of Violence. This would contribute to the sectarianisation of space in Baghdad and other localities of Iraq, as well as "manufacturing" (Gregory, 2008) and essentialising sectarian representations and identifications within the society.

This diploma thesis deals with Czech economic diplomacy as an instrument or rather tool of the foreign policy of the Czech Republic to promote its economic interests and goals in the People´s Republic of China. Specifically, it deals with the state pro-export policy and state support of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the process of entering Chinese market. The thesis is divided into three chapters. The first chapter explores the concept of economic diplomacy and the models of the governance of economic diplomacy in the world as well as in the Czech Republic. The second chapter focuses on the realization of the Czech economic diplomacy in China, analyzes the Czech-Chinese foreign trade and the development of political and diplomatic relations between the two countries. The third chapter is devoted to the SMEs and their penetration of the Chinese market. It explains the importance of the SMEs to the Czech economy and export and defines the phases of the penetration. In this chapter, the author examines how the state supports the SMEs entering the Chinese market and whether this support covers all phases of this complex process. Finally, the author explains why SMEs are not satisfied with the state support of export and outlines possible solutions.