published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

published_or_final_version / Urban Planning and Environmental Management / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Home ownership has been recognized by many academic researchers as the preferable tenure compared with renting. As extolled by many policy decision makers, the benefits of home owning against renting received substantial benefits which has tangible constructive profitable impacts such as capital appreciation and intangible benefits such as life contentment, social stability, security of tenure, raised self-esteem, sense of belongings, civic participation, improved physical health and better child outcomes. In fact, few studies havebeen conducted in a Chinese society whether these perceived benefits are also confessed by home owners or potential buyers. Given the strong empirical studies in Western countries, it gives particular interest to explore further and undertake research pertaining to social benefits of home ownership in Hong Kong to ascertain the benefits derived. In Hong Kong, home ownership was promoted by the government since the Long Term Housing Strategy in 1987. However, government had re-positioned its home ownership policy after the Asian Financial Crisisin 1997.Government clarified that the housing objectives would focus on provision of public rental housing to low income group and at the same time minimize its intervention in the private property market by maintaining adequate land supply to sustain an unprejudiced and steady operating atmosphere in the private property market. In fact, the housing policy was shifted from public-led to market-led approach. The Secretary for Housing, Planning and Lands released a Statement on Housing Policy with nine measures were introduced to stablilize the housing market including suspension of production and sale of HOS flats indefinitely and sale of government land can only be applied through the application list. As such, people’s aspiration for home ownership was destructed due to shortage of housing supply and the aggregate demand for home ownership had pushed up the housing price which falls outside most people’s affordability. This paper attempts to explore if social implications of home ownership would have impact on one’s willingness to become home owner by comparison between two target groups of respondents including home owner and renter. The result of the survey and individual interview indicate that home ownership not only brings individual benefits to home owners or potential buyers such as personal fulfillment, wealth accumulation and life satisfaction but also generates societal benefits of maintaining stability, supportive to government and strengthening sense of belonging to the society. It is worthwhile and justified for the Hong Kong Government to accord top priority to materialize people’s desire for home ownership of its spillover individual and social benefits. / published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

Many studies focus on the housing decisions of younger generation mainly on the households’ individual level such as affordability, house prices, income, interest rate and the relative costs of owning. However, the family financing is also another indispensable factor to affect the decision of home-owning. The home buyers save for several years to accumulate the down payment, but it will be nibbled up by the rising of home prices. Such rapid increases in house prices will make home-owning more difficult for home buyers, especially for first-time buyers. They may seek a loan from a family member to use as part of the down payment in order to achieve homeownership. Forrest and Murie (1995) noted that family support in home owning may take an important contribution in home-ownership sphere. Moreover, many scholars pointed out that family financing is particularly important where housing prices are high, financial institutions are unwilling to provide mortgage loans or requiring high-ratio of down payment and government subsidies are not available. (Barrios, Colom and Moles, 2013; Engelhardt, 1996; Engelhardt and Mayer, 1994; Forrest and Murie, 1995; Meen, 2013; Mulder and Wanger, 1998; Ost, 2012). In Hong Kong case, parents give a finance support to their children for paying the down payment can be easily found in mass media. More significantly, the number of cases for parents getting direct involvement in helping children for home owning are largely increasing. Looking at the house price was increased 15% in average annually during the period of 2010-2012. Many parents have expectations that the house price will keep rising. If you do not buy it now, then you may not possible to afford this very soon. In this paper, we will explore how importance the family support for home-owning, the kind of financing modes are adopted for the parent and the reasons for the parent to provide financing support in helping their children’s homeownership. / published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

The injection operator for a carbon dioxide sequestration project must control the reservoir and associated pore space within the project boundaries to allow for orderly development of the storage facility. A large number of interest owners within a project area is likely to make reaching unanimous agreement among all owners of pore space unlikely, and thus control of the reservoir difficult. In order to facilitate geologic sequestration of carbon dioxide on privately owned land in the United States, or on land for which the minerals or pore space are privately owned, a scheme for aggregating the ownership of pore space is needed. To allow geologic sequestration projects to move forward with less than unanimous consent of interest owners, states can employ various methods of aggregating pore space ownership. This paper examines oil and gas unitization statues and statutes creating groundwater districts to find legislative regimes useful for achieving pore space ownership aggregation. Among the approaches discussed, aggregation of pore space ownership through a unitization model is the most likely choice. Taking that one step further and setting up new unit operating agreements for enhanced oil recovery to serve as a repository for incremental geologic sequestration, and eventual full sequestration activities, provides a firm path toward reducing carbon dioxide emissions while respecting property rights. This paper also compares the few existing pore space aggregation statutes in the United States, which achieve aggregation of pore space ownership through either unitization or eminent domain. The state that appears to be the best equipped to deal with aggregation of pore space ownership is Wyoming. Wyoming has been a leader in developing legislation to deal with pore space ownership before other states. North Dakota and Utah are also very well situated to move forward with carbon sequestration activities. / text

Data from the 2001-2002 Texas A&M University Ranch to Rail Program-South were used to determine factors that influence cattle feedlot performance and profitability. Steers (n=860) were classified according to sire (SBIO) and dam (DBIO) biological groups, kill groups (KILL), and entry month (ENTRYMON). Biological groups were determined by predominant genetic make up of the sire or dam. Traits evaluated included net income (NI), feedlot average daily gain (ADG), slaughter weight (OUTWT), carcass weight (CW), fat thickness (FT), longissimus muscle area (LMA), marbling score (MS), yield grade, (YG), medicine costs (TOTMED), and carcass value (CVL). Analyses of covariance were performed to determine differences between SBIO and DBIO, KILL, and ENTRYMON, and the influence of initial feedlot weight (INWT). Sire biological type had a significant effect on NI, ADG, FT, LMA, MS, YG, and CVL. Dam biological type and KILL had significant effects on all traits excluding TOTMED. Entry month accounted for no differences. Among SBIO groups, British-sired steers exhibited greatest values for ADG (1.39 kg/d), MS (457), FT (1.45 cm), CVL ($891), and NI ($25.62). Continental-sired steers exhibited the largest LMA (97.65 cm) and lowest YG (2.51). Brahman-sired steers exhibited the lowest ADG (1.32kg/d), MS (405), CVL ($859), and NI ($-17.80). Multiple regression was performed to determine which traits had the greatest effect on CVL and NI. Independent categorical effects were SBIO, DBIO, KILL and ENTRYMON, while independent continuous effects were INWT, ADG, FT, LMA, MS and TOTMED. Both CVL and NI were influenced by CW, FT, LMA, and MS, but not by ADG, INWT, or TOTMED. Phenotypic correlation coefficients were determined among all traits. Highest correlations were present between CVL: and NI, CW, ADG, and LMA (0.80, 0.81, 0.54, and 0.49, respectively). Strong correlations were seen between ADG and CW (0.63), FT and YG (0.87) and YG and LMA (-0.51). Marbling score was moderately correlated to CVL (0.30) and NI (0.30). This study indicates that a wide variety of traits interact to determine CVL and NI in retained ownership programs, and that maximizing carcass value does not ensure increased profitability.

No description available.

More than ever, business leaders are focused on growing revenues, containing costs and providing a higher level of customer support, whilst reducing the cost of business support activities, such as information technology costs. One method of achieving these apparently contradictory goals is through the use of thin-client computing. There has certainly been a contradicting view held by many industry pundits such as Gartner and International Data Corporation on whether this is indeed the case. This dissertation is a case study that focuses on what thin-client technology's impact is on the Total Cost of Ownership in the desktop computing environment relative to the traditional use of laptops and PCs, now commonly referred to as fat-clients. The factors and elements that contribute to a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for desktop computing will be explored. This study endeavors to douse the contradictory philosophies that claim for and against a lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) in deploying thin-clients. The literature review presented outlines the contradictions in philosophies. Research will be undertaken on National Ship Chandlers, which is in the largest ship chandler in Africa. National Ship Chandlers was migrated from a fat-client to a thin-client environment in 2002. National Ship Chandlers management seeks to understand whether they have realised a lower Total Cost of Ownership as a result of the migration. In this context, this study seeks to clarify which of the computing environments, thin-clients or fat-clients yield a lower Total Cost of Ownership within an outsourced desktop environment. In so doing it may assist in bringing clarity to the ongoing feud on the contradicting philosophies and technology claims. There has been no significant academic research undertaken on the Total Cost of Ownership of thin-clients in relation to fat-clients in an outsourced desktop environment. Both qualitative and quantitative research techniques are employed. The conclusions from this will be evaluated and presented. Based on these findings recommendations will be made to National Ship Chandlers management on a strategic direction for their desktop computing environment. This study reveals that for an outsourced desktop computing environment using thin-clients, National Ship Chandlers could realise an approximate 23% saving over a fat-client implementation. This excludes the benefits that can be realised from aspects of information security, ease of the operational platform and greater system availability. Thin-client technology has provides CEOs and CIOs compelling reasons to deploy as a desktop computing architecture and will continue to grow its' market-share into the future. / Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2006.

This thesis comprises an introduction and four distinct chapters. Its central theme is the role played by the allocation of asset ownership rights in motivating asset-specific investment, when contracts are incomplete. Chapter 1 considers the debt financing of an entrepreneurial project. To encourage asset-specific investment and loan repayment, debt structure should minimise both (voluntary) strategic default and liquidation following (unavoidable) liquidity default. Liquidation incentives are critical and shown to depend crucially on creditor characteristics. In general, borrowing from multiple creditors with contrasting attributes is found optimal. The benefits of borrowing from a creditor also undertaking project trade are explored. In Chapter 2 the relationship between asset ownership and investment specificity is examined. Asset control encourages efficient, asset-specific investment by owners. However, lock-in fears lead non-owners to choose widely applicable but less effective investment. The interactions between asset ownership, firms' technology choices and workers' investments are considered. In particular, it is found that the costs and benefits of individual integration decisions are sensitive to overall industry structure. The specificity framework is extended in Chapter 3 to model a retailer's product choice. Vertical merger encourages investment in integrated supply and foreclosure of non-integrated manufacturers. An anti-competitive as opposed to an efficiency interpretation depends delicately on the trade-off between the benefits of supplier-specific investment and multi-product retailing. Where retailers compete, it is shown that vertical integration implements effective competition-reducing differentiation strategies. In Chapter 4 vertical integration, through the incentive effects of asset ownership, is shown to amount to a specialisation decision. The attractions of encouraging investment in input as opposed to final good production depend on the effectiveness of investment at each manufacturing stage, and the scale benefits of input sales to generally rivalrous downstream firms. These benefits are sensitive to downstream competitive pressures, yielding a potentially non-monotonic relationship between competition and integration.

Problem: Family-owned and –managed businesses constitute the majority of organizations worldwide. Yet, although, because of their  special enmeshment of family and business spheres, conflicts constitute a central threat to those types of organizations, not much has been done to study this phenomenon specifically in a family business context. Minding the actuality that especially the family related factors that contribute to the occurrence of role and relationship conflicts within family firms remain understudied, this thesis will take an emotional ownership perspective to examine the phenomenon from a different angle. Purpose: To advance the general understanding of role and relationship conflicts within a family business setting, the purpose of this thesis is to determine the role emotional ownership plays in regard to role and relationship conflicts within family firms. Method: This qualitative study utilizes a case study strategy including a total of six case companies and eight research respondents. Data is thereby collected from semi-structured interviews and documentary secondary data. The analysis of the empirical findings is conducted following a two-step process. First, the empirical findings of the distinct case companies are cross-analyzed. Then the emerging patterns are formulated into a general model. Conclusions: Family owners’/employees’ feelings of emotional ownership towards the firm do influence the occurrence/intensity of role and subsequent relationship conflicts within family firms. The exact nature and impact of this influence will however depend on a number of factors. Those factors include (i) the existence of rules and regulations to govern the separation of family- and work related roles within the family and the firm, (ii) family-related factors, like the existence of a “peacemaker” and/or “decider”, strong family cohesion and/or trust among the family and its members, as well as (iii) cultural factors such as “respect for the elders”.