Volatility-managed portfolios offer mixed returns in an international setting based on ex-ante information. The results of this paper further strengthen the theory that the variability of excess returns from volatility-management are more dependent on underlying investor strategy rather than differences of global markets. We find that momentum strategies, as measured by the winners-minus-losers, are universally (except Japan) benefitted from volatility-management with an excess return between 6.96% and 14.28% annually across different regions/cross-sections garnered by the managed portfolio controlled against the Fama and French (2015) five-factor model. Value and profitability factors show mixed results with the beneficial performance in about half of the examined regions respectively. We prove that these relationships are robust through periods of market-wide crashes (Dotcom-bubble and financial crises of 2007/2008), tighter leverage constraints (≤1, ≤1.5) show however that the excess returns are dampened, concluding that access to leverage is a fundamental aspect of employing volatility-management to most portfolios. The results of this research paper expand previous literature of volatility-management by broadening the strategy to global markets.

This paper investigates the impact of diversification and the financial crisis on firm performance in India.The dataset of this paper is focused on Indian publicly listed firms between 2006 and 2012. By analyzingaccounting-based and market-based measures of firm performance, this study tries to explain the factorsthat influences the costs and benefits of diversified firms compared to non-diversified firms. This studyfound that diversified firms have on average a higher firm performance than non-diversified firms.During the global financial crisis, the performance of both diversified and non-diversified firms in Indiadeteriorated caused by a meltdown of global economic activities. This study does not find evidence thatdiversified firms perform relatively better than non-diversified firms during crisis times. Diversification isexpected to be more beneficial in the absence of well-developed and integrated capital markets due theeffects of “more money” and “smarter money”, arising from an increased efficiency of the internalcapital market. The analysis gives an impression that the total number of diversified firms increased afterthe crisis.

The literature reveals that, behavioural finance lends some support to the methodologies of both fundamental and technical analysis. Behavioural Finance supports the concept of investment behaviour being grounded in two dimensions, viz., the dimensions of emotion and rationality. The evidence, presented in the literature suggests that fundamental analysis is grounded in the rational investor, while technical analysis is an attempt to model the behavioural side of investing through trend following, charting and the use of indicators (e.g., momentum, stochastic, etc.). Typically large investment houses tend to use both technical and fundamental analysis; technical analysis appears to be used primarily for timing, while fundamental analysis is used to establish intrinsic or fair value of the share under focus – thus making it easy to establish whether the share is cheap or expensive.

The 2008 financial crisis that led to the collapse of companies and economic recession in most countries has also increased the concern for transparency, accountability and regulatory oversight and once more put corporate governance and board effectiveness on the front burner of big business issues all over the world. The board is seen as a key player in governance of companies and there is need for a better understanding of how this body works. Majority of the research work in these areas has been in developed economies and not much work has been done in the area of board effectiveness in the emerging markets of Africa. This thesis examines the relationship between key board characteristics and board effectiveness. It also explored the impact of certain mediators on this relationship. Unlike most studies on board which focus on firm performance and mostly in developed markets, this study was conducted in an emerging market and the focus was on board effectiveness. Based on the work done by other researchers in developed economies the researcher developed a theoretical framework and a set of hypotheses to examine the relationship between board characteristics and board effectiveness and the impact of certain mediators on this relationship. Board characteristics considered in this research include board size, CEO duality, board independence, and board diversity. In addition, the impact of board human capital on board effectiveness was also considered. Additionally, the researcher examined if the relationships between board characteristics and board effectiveness will be affected by organization type, ownership, age and size. The empirical examination of the hypotheses developed from the theoretical framework presented in this study show that board characteristics, apart from professional human capital, do not have any significant impact on board effectiveness. Board professional human capital was found to have a positive relationship with board operations and board cohesiveness and also with board effectiveness. The results show that in Nigeria, board diversity and human capital are the most important board structural factors that impact board effectiveness. They also show that board processes of operations, cohesiveness and decision making have significant impact on board effectiveness. Finally the results show that board process factors are more important than board structural factors in determining board effectiveness. The study shows that these relationships were not significantly affected by organization type, ownership, age or size. The study contributes to understanding of board effectiveness in an emerging market where board roles and processes are still developing; by examining both traditional variables such as board size, CEO duality, board independence and other organizational attributes such as board job related diversity and board professional human capital variables. In addition, this is the first study to examine board effectiveness in publicly quoted companies in Nigeria. The study will also contribute to better governance practices in Nigeria, where lack of good governance has been blamed for the slow economic development and growth. The theoretical framework and the findings of this thesis are expected to stimulate scholars for further research into identifying the characteristics that boards must possess if they are to be active and effective. They should also stimulate practitioners and scholars of strategy, organizational behaviour and corporate governance to examine boards and their activities from many perspectives, particularly from the process side.

ABSTRACT Small and Medium Size Enterprise (SMEs) have long been recognised as the major drivers of economic activities due to their entrepreneurial traits of being innovative which lead to job creation, sustaining economic growth, export expansion, and efficient allocation of resources in line with their competitive goals and their respective country’s objectives. In their pursuit as major economic drivers in their respective economies, SMEs are barely exposed to hostile environments triggering fierce competition from Multinational Corporations. This has entailed that SMEs need to enhance their capabilities in such environments to sustain their competitive advantage by reconfiguring their internal and external competences and resources in response to changing environments. Surprisingly, literature on how SMEs develop dynamic capabilities in such markets is limited and inconsistent. Therefore, this thesis explores how SMEs develop dynamic capabilities in emerging markets specifically in African markets.   The central purpose of the study is to explore how SMEs in emerging markets such as Africa develop dynamic capabilities to compete alongside MNCs. Building on prior researches which conceptually suggested that market orientation, learning orientation, and entrepreneurial orientation in separate cases, enables SMEs to build dynamic capabilities in dynamic environments, this study explored this viewpoint through a qualitative case study data. Comparative multiple case studies are developed in order to have a holistic understanding of how SMEs across sectors develop dynamic capabilities. The study employs empirical data collected through the use of semi-structured interviews in which samples are purposively selected from 10 firms from separate industries in Africa, in which five were drawn from Cameroon and other five drawn from Zambia. The study follows a qualitative-deductive approach.   Findings indicate that SMEs develop dynamic capabilities in emerging market principally through the lenses of market orientation and learning orientation. While entrepreneurial orientation is found lacking the potential to enable SMEs build-up the required dynamic capabilities due to the fact that it places huge demand on SMEs who are short of adequate financial resources to meet up with the contingencies of being fully entrepreneurial. That is to say, market orientation and learning orientation other than entrepreneurial orientation are the enablers of dynamic capabilities in emerging market. The findings contribute to existing literature by building an empirically-grounded synthesis of the constructs of market orientation, learning orientation and entrepreneurial orientation involved in the development of dynamic capabilities which validates earlier claims on the development of dynamic capabilities in dynamic environment. Second, the results contribute to theory by advancing an original model which brings together all standalone models in the field of dynamic capabilities development into one, thereby harmonising the polarisation of facts. Furthermore, the findings bear potential for researchers and entrepreneurs intending to invest in emerging markets such as Africa.   To improve on this study, we suggest undertaking a related cross-comparative case study on similar grounds which takes into account homogeneity and age parameters at industry level from two or more countries. We believe this might provide an additional explanation on how SMEs in emerging markets develop dynamic capability and may also shed more light on whether age of a firm has an effect on the build-up of dynamic capabilities.

Drawing on recent discussions of relational embeddedness and socio-technical agencement, this thesis analyses the relationship between stock trading and lay investors’ daily lives, including their social relations, activities, events, devices, places, work and ways of thinking. Taiwan’s stock market provides an appropriate location for investigation because of the dominance of lay investors in the market and the high proportion of Taiwan’s adult population who engage in stock trading. The data were obtained from three main sets of sources: in-depth interviews, document analysis and ethnographic observation. I argue that lay market actors are not only framed by the market’s mechanisms, but also by daily-life structures. The Taiwan Stock Exchange, as an electronic, anonymous financial market, has been a challenge to the embeddedness approach due to the absence of direct interaction between the parties to transactions. This study presents another aspect of socio-economic relationships in the market: the role of financial-market activity in wider social interactions. Like taking part in any popular social activity, lay investors’ social ties are maintained and expended by engaging in stock trading. Social relations and stock trading are woven together and form a largely seamless whole, part of lay investors’ daily life. The socio-technical agencements of lay investors contain distinctive features: diversity, bricolage, use of non-professional ‘devices’, action in non-financial places, everyday means of controlling market risk and association with everyday events. The differences between the agencements of lay investors and professional practitioners produce an asymmetry of calculative capabilities between market actors. Superior calculative capabilities tend to give an advantage to professional practitioners in the market, but these strengths are constrained by political and economic factors. This study sheds light on micro social factors, which are comparable with economic, institutional and psychological explanations, in accounting for lay investors’ behaviours in financial markets. The analysis also suggests the compatibility of the three important social science approaches to economic agents: Granovetter’s embeddedness, Zelizer’s relational work and Callon’s agencement.

The aim of this thesis is to understand the phenomena of the high growth and rapid internationalisation of firms from emerging markets. It explores the applicability of international entrepreneurship theory to the context of the emerging market enterprises in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. It integrates the literature of strategic entrepreneurship and that of portfolio entrepreneurship with the literature of international entrepreneurship to provide a closer fit of applicability in that context. The main research questions of this thesis focus on: why, where, and how do some emerging market enterprises grow fast and internationalise early and rapidly? Particular attention is paid to entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial teams and the entrepreneurial process in the discovery, evaluation, and exploitation of new business opportunities. Despite the strength of the international entrepreneurship theory in identifying the sources of rapid internationalisation for small and medium enterprises from developed markets, it has been criticized for failing to address the same phenomena for firms from emerging markets. This thesis explores why, where, and how the MENA region emerging market firms have attained their spectacular performance over the last few years up to 2008, and contributes to filling the theoretical gap in the literature. This exploratory study suggests that the entrepreneurial and management processes of international business opportunities play an important role in achieving the high growth and rapid internationalisation of firms from emerging markets. A multiple case study strategy was adopted, and qualitative data was collected through interviews with entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial team members in the research site of the emerging markets of the MENA region. Other interviews with financial experts, staff of international financial institutions, and international analysts in specialized publications were conducted in order to achieve triangulation and bias minimization. Guided by a newly formulated conceptual theoretical framework, data was explored and thematically analysed by coding into different categories to enhance the understanding of the processes that underlined the entrepreneurial strategies associated with the rapid internationalisation and high growth of the theoretically sampled case companies. Resource orchestration, innovativeness, entrepreneurial leadership and international diversification were found to be crucial elements employed by lead entrepreneurs and their entrepreneurial team members through utilising human and social capital of networks and knowledge throughout the internationalisation process. The findings revealed that integrating the concepts of strategic entrepreneurship and portfolio entrepreneurship with international entrepreneurship produced a coherent approach to the application of those theories to understanding the behaviour of multinational enterprises from the MENA region. However, other valuable themes emerged from the findings. Chief among those are: strategically targeting hostile markets with inefficient institutional competencies and insufficient infrastructure, thus benefiting from a no competition status. Networking internally with entrepreneurial team members and international churning were other key elements revealed by the findings that explained the interactions and processes which enhanced the companies’ rapid internal growth, A recommendation for management practice is made for firms to encourage internal networking with entrepreneurial teams’ members thus enhancing trust and supporting intrapreneurs’ initiatives in identifying and exploiting new international opportunities. A mainstream policy recommendation for emerging markets is to strengthen the private sector performance with government incentives of a financial (tax reductions, banking facilities) and non-financial (political reform, education and health services) nature to encourage such entrepreneurial activities. In addition to its contribution to the theoretical understanding of high growth and rapid internationalisation from emerging markets, the findings of this thesis accentuate the impact of the pattern of internationalisation into antagonistic environments with scarce infrastructure as a strategic entrepreneurship process of deployment of dynamic capabilities to craft unique competitive advantages thus achieving and sustaining high growth and performance in new international markets. This thesis is also unique in compiling the first dataset for MENA region enterprises with similar attributes of high growth and rapid internationalisation.

When a cloud user allocates a cluster to execute a map-reduce workload, the user must determine the number and type of virtual machine instances to minimize the workload's financial cost. The cloud user may rent on-demand instances at a fixed price or spot instances at a variable price to execute the workload. Although the cloud user may bid on spot virtual machine instances at a reduced rate, the spot market auction may delay the workload's start or terminate the spot instances before the workload completes. The cloud user requires a forecast for the workload's financial cost and completion time to analyze the trade-offs between on-demand and spot instances. While existing estimation tools predict map-reduce workloads' completion times and costs, these tools do not provide spot instance estimates because a spot market auction determines the instance's start time and duration. The ephemeral spot instances impact execution time estimates because the spot market auction forces the map-reduce workloads to use different storage strategies to persist data after the spot instances terminate. The spot market also reduces the existing tools' completion time and cost estimate accuracy because the tool must factor in spot instance wait times and early terminations. This dissertation updated an existing tool to forecast map-reduce workload's monetary cost and completion time based on spot market historical traces. The enhanced estimation tool includes three new enhancements over existing tools. First, the estimation tool models the impact to the execution from new storage strategies. Second, the enhanced tool calculates additional execution time from early spot instance termination. Finally, the enhance tool predicts the workloads wait time and early termination probabilities from historic traces. Based on two historical Amazon EC2 spot market traces, the enhancements reduce the average completion time prediction error by 96% and the average monetary cost prediction error by 99% over existing tools.

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration