Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 137-140). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2003. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 77-82). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 84-89).

With the increasing call for accountability of significant marketing communication spending, quantifying and measuring the contribution of marketing communication to market performance is increasingly a requirement for sustainability in all management practices. In addition, the resource-based view (RBV) suggests that a firm's marketing communication creates intangible market-based assets and that these assets strengthen a firm's market and financial performance. Recent developments of the market-based assets theory focus on corporate reputation as an intangible market-based asset, suggesting that a favorable reputation is an intangible asset that increases a firm's performance. This study examined the effect of advertising and publicity on corporate reputation and market performance and hypothesized that a firm's advertising and publicity generated favorable corporate reputations and high levels of sales revenues in certain firms. Hypotheses were tested by a time-series analysis using the panel data of 18 companies over a 21-year period from 1985 to 2005. The results indicated that advertising and publicity have significant effects on corporate reputation for certain companies. Other variables, such as a firm's dividend yield to investors, market value, diversification, and profitability were significantly related to assessments of corporate reputation for certain companies, but the direction of the relationship varied from company to company. For example, as expected, low dividend yields induce high assessments of corporate reputation for certain companies. A firm's current market value also affects assessments of a firm's reputation. More diversified companies yield lower corporate reputations for certain companies. Regarding the relationship between marketing communication and sales revenues, advertising and publicity have significant effects on sales revenues for some companies. A firm's R&D expenditures, the focus of the firm, and firm size also showed a significant positive relevance to sales revenues for certain companies. / text

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Business / Master / Master of Philosophy

No description available.

To make profits in such a world, unit costs must be reduced to the minimum possible and consistent with acceptable quality. To do this firms are endeavouring to combine lean production with the maximisation of economies of scale, that is, to achieve the lowest possible long run average cost curve and the lowest point on that curve. The process of consolidation and globalisation can be seen as driven by the latter whilst initiatives such as internet procurement, tendering, and production systems, the former. The automotive industry of the early 21st century, barely one hundred years old, reaches into the lives of almost everybody on the planet. The business of making these vehicles is the largest manufacturing sector in the world, a core part of the leading industrial nations and of growing significance elsewhere. The automotive industry is huge by almost any measure, complex, and always rapidly changing. In recent years the environmental consequences of auto mobility have thrust the industry into the heart of the debate over wealth generation and sustainability. "An industry's key success factors are those things that most affect the industry members ability to prosper in the marketplace - the particular strategy elements, product attributes, resources, competencies, competitive capabilities, and business outcomes that spell the difference between profit and loss, and ultimately between competitiveness and failure" (Thompson and Strickland:2003). This paper examines the future strategic focus that a local South African automotive firm ought to adopt to ensure competitive success in the harsh global auto industry. Smiths Manufacturing is on its way to becoming a world class company, limited in terms of local market size and firm infrastructure, yet astute in terms of systems, products and technology. Although Smiths is currently experiencing success and plans for short term growth, indications are that the whole strategic focus is being diminished in retaining its competitiveness in lieu of expansion and operations. Throughout this research thesis it will be observed that Smiths is competitive, but its competitive advantage is not increasing relatively. Smiths has to do something unique, and this unique competitive differential advantage can be induced on the soft side, i.e. Smith's social capital-people. / Thesis (MBA)-University of Natal, Durban, 2003.

A synthetic hypothesis is constructed to account for the pattern of manufacturing profitability. The explanatory role of labour shortage, growing openness, union bargaining power and exchange rate changes is confirmed. Set in the context of institutional and policy changes, these factors provide a more satisfying description of the determinants of profitability than previous, frequently monocausal, explanations.

The primary objective of this dissertation is to show that corporate governance affects the value relevance of earnings in the presence of earnings management. The role of corporate governance is to reduce the divergence of interests between shareholders and managers. The role of corporate governance is more useful when managers have an incentive to deviate from shareholders’ interests. One example of management’s deviation from shareholders’ interests is the management of earnings through the use of accounting accruals. Corporate governance is likely to reduce the incidence of earnings management. Corporate governance is also likely to improve investors’ perception of the reliability of a firm’s performance, as measured by the earnings, in situations of earnings management. That is, corporate governance will be value relevant when earnings management exists. The results of this research support these propositions.In this thesis, the value relevance of earnings is measured using the earnings response coefficient. Earnings management is measured using the magnitude of abnormal accruals as estimated by the modified Jones (Dechow et al., 1995) model. A review of the corporate governance literature revealed nine attributes that were expected to impact on shareholders’ perception of earnings reliability due to their role in enhancing the integrity of the financial reporting process. The nine attributes represent three categories of corporate governance: 1) organisational monitoring; 2) incentive alignment; and 3) governance structure.Although not all corporate governance attributes suggested in the literature impact on investors’ perception of a firm’s performance, the primary proposition that corporate governance affects this perception when earnings are managed is supported. The primary contribution of the study is finding evidence supporting the moderating effect of earnings management on the relationship between corporate governance and the value relevance of earnings. These results validate Hutchinson and Gul’s (2004) claim that the role of corporate governance attributes in firm performance should be evaluated in concurrence with a firm’s organisational environment. Future research should control for corporate governance and earnings management, as indicators of earnings reliability, when using returns-earnings regressions to address a research question.

Thesis (M.S.)--Oregon State University, 2010. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 17-19). Also available on the World Wide Web.