Boston University. University Professors Program Senior theses. / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-02

No description available.

The purpose of this investigation is to describe and document certain behavioral characteristics of the multinational corporations and to point out some of the special problems they create for economists. Theirs is a new way of organizing and controlling international business units and relatively little is known about the consequences for economics and politics. The primary area of study with which this investigation is concerned is the multinational corporations' economic power and the inability of nations to effectively control it.

U.S. multinational corporations are well known for shifting income to low tax foreign subsidiaries to avoid U.S. income tax. Yet little is known about how multinational corporations opportunistically use low tax foreign subsidiaries for financial reporting purpose. Understanding this question has implications for U.S. accounting regulators to set enforcement targets. Using worldwide consolidated financial statements, I examine the role of taxes for multinational corporations to manage earnings in foreign subsidiaries. I find that by managing earnings in low tax foreign countries, multinational corporations can reduce the effective tax rate on pretax accrual earnings by an average of 4.3%. To examine the implication of opportunistic foreign earnings management on investors' equity valuation, I find evidence that investors do not seem to overvalue foreign managed earnings compared to domestic managed earnings, though foreign earnings are on average valued higher than domestic earnings.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Changing the behaviour of firms to take environmental concerns into account is seen as unlikely without effective regulations. However, corporations are increasingly keen to represent themselves as ‘green’, including those in the world’s largest manufacturing sector: the car industry. Given rising concern for the environment and environmental sustainability since the 1990s this thesis asks: what motivates car firms to actually make environmental commitments? Answering this question has implications for whether these commitments are ‘real’ and if so whether they are occurring in response to material factors (e.g. state regulations and consumer demand) versus normative factors (e.g. social attitudes and internal company strategies). In order to answer it, the thesis applies the insights of the institutional varieties of capitalism approach to the German, United States and Japanese car industries, and specific firms within them, in respect of the environmental issue of climate change from 1990 to 2004. Empirical national data is analysed, as well the environmental reporting of individual firms and interviews with key personnel. The main findings are that what leads the car industry to see environmental issues as central to their business interests hinges on the impact of differing national institutional factors. Specifically, it is a matter of whether firms have a liberal market economy (LME) as their home base, in the case of US firms, or a coordinated market economy (CME) as their home base, in the case of German and Japanese firms. US car firms react more to the material imperatives of consumer demand and state regulations. German and Japanese firms are more mindful of normative factors for their initiatives, such as social attitudes (especially for German firms) and internal company strategies (especially for Japanese firms). They have more of a partnership approach with government. Therefore, car firms have very distinct ‘lenses’ through which they see the environmental performance of the cars they produce. As such, the thesis concludes that the variety of capitalism of nations has implications not just for the type of products that economic actors such as car firms produce, and the competitive advantages they develop, but also the way they address related issues arising as a result of their activities, including environmental issues.

Regulators only require banks to manage their short-term exchange rate risk stringently. A possible reason is that the prevailing capital-market methodology cannot determine the long-term exchange rate risk. Using the real performance of operating incomes, this paper investigates the impact of fluctuating foreign currencies on the values of Taiwanese banking institutions, and decomposes the overall exchange rate risk into short-term and long-term components. We not only overcome the deficiency of prior studies that have limited success in detecting significant currency exposure, but also measure correct economic exposure that firms are confronted with. Comparing with the capital market approach, we find the evidence of the relative strength of cash flows to detect currency exposure. After controlling for the impact of interest rates, we find that, over the time period examined, 61.54% of the sample firms have a significant currency exposure, which is larger than those documented by prior research. Our result also shows that the existence of significant long-term exchange rate risk is prevalent among Taiwanese banking institutions. Furthermore, US dollar (the currency of a nation which is Taiwan¡¦s largest exporting country) has an opposite effect as opposed to Japanese Yen (the currency of a nation which is Taiwan¡¦s largest importing partner). Our results have policy implications that banking institutions should manage long-term currency exposure.

L'auteur n'a pas fourni de résumé.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Changing the behaviour of firms to take environmental concerns into account is seen as unlikely without effective regulations. However, corporations are increasingly keen to represent themselves as ‘green’, including those in the world’s largest manufacturing sector: the car industry. Given rising concern for the environment and environmental sustainability since the 1990s this thesis asks: what motivates car firms to actually make environmental commitments? Answering this question has implications for whether these commitments are ‘real’ and if so whether they are occurring in response to material factors (e.g. state regulations and consumer demand) versus normative factors (e.g. social attitudes and internal company strategies). In order to answer it, the thesis applies the insights of the institutional varieties of capitalism approach to the German, United States and Japanese car industries, and specific firms within them, in respect of the environmental issue of climate change from 1990 to 2004. Empirical national data is analysed, as well the environmental reporting of individual firms and interviews with key personnel. The main findings are that what leads the car industry to see environmental issues as central to their business interests hinges on the impact of differing national institutional factors. Specifically, it is a matter of whether firms have a liberal market economy (LME) as their home base, in the case of US firms, or a coordinated market economy (CME) as their home base, in the case of German and Japanese firms. US car firms react more to the material imperatives of consumer demand and state regulations. German and Japanese firms are more mindful of normative factors for their initiatives, such as social attitudes (especially for German firms) and internal company strategies (especially for Japanese firms). They have more of a partnership approach with government. Therefore, car firms have very distinct ‘lenses’ through which they see the environmental performance of the cars they produce. As such, the thesis concludes that the variety of capitalism of nations has implications not just for the type of products that economic actors such as car firms produce, and the competitive advantages they develop, but also the way they address related issues arising as a result of their activities, including environmental issues.

Corporate environmental responsibility is an emerging concept in developing countries, especially ones where environmental legislation regulating business activity is not enforced. In some instances, business actors voluntarily organize a collective action to institute the adoption of environmental best practices within a given industrial sector. This is the case of the cement industry in Morocco. This research aimed to determine why and how Moroccan cement companies chose to green their industrial processes and adopt environmental best practices. Using a process tracing methodology, this research showed how the adoption of environmental best practices was induced in the cement industry. By conducting in-depth interviews with actors involved in the cement environmental program, and analyzing relevant documentation on the global Cement Sustainability Initiative (CSI), this research identified how the pressure from financial institutions and global NGOs was instrumental in inducing change. The role of governmental institutions was relegated to facilitating and coordinating the activities of these companies. This research also explores the reach of norms and regulations beyond a given country's frontiers, so that they directly influence the organizational fields of other countries. In this research, European institutions were found to be directly influencing the environmental performance of the cement industry in Morocco through the trade relations that existed between organizations in both geographical areas. / Ph. D.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the perceptions of managers in Kuwait (both Kuwaiti and non- Kuwaiti) on the effects of multinational corporations (MNCs) in Kuwait and whether these effects were beneficial. The problem motivating this study is the effects that MNCs have on the social, cultural, political, legal, economic, business, and technological environments of their host countries, especially in developing nations. This study is based on a survey of the perceptions of 1,344 managers in Kuwait on the role of MNCs in changes in Kuwait. A review of the literature on MNCs and their relationships with their host countries is provided. This review focuses on four major environmental dimensions (Social-Cultural, Political-Legal, Business-Economic, and Technological) that are affected by MNCs. The factor analysis performed for this study supports this classification of the dimensions in the environment. An English questionnaire was developed from the list of major items in each of these dimensions. An Arabic version was developed using a "double-translation method." Both the English and Arabic versions of the questionnaire were pilot tested. The instrument proved to be reliable and valid. The study utilizes a 2 x 3 block design, categorizing subjects by nationality (Kuwaiti, other Arab, others) and type of organization (public and private). Since most of the variables in the study were measured using nominal and ordinal scales, mostly non-parametric statistics were used for data analysis. The major finding from this study was that managers in Kuwait perceive positive effects of MNCs on change in Kuwait, with the exception of the cultural environment. The favorable perceptions were about the MNCs1 effects on the change in business, economic, and technological environments in Kuwait. The results of the study should be beneficial to the Kuwaiti government, MNCs doing business in Kuwait, and also to cross-cultural researchers interested in the Middle East.