I tidigare forskning finns ett samband mellan socialt stöd och reducerad stress. Även husdjur påverkar stressnivån. Denna enkätstudie tittade på om husdjur och civilstånd påverkar hälsa och stressnivå. Av de studenter som deltog i studien hade 35% husdjur. Resultatet visade inte på någon effekt på stress av att ha husdjur. Personer med partner upplevde inte mindre stress än singlar. Huruvida deltagarna bodde med sin partner eller ej spelade ingen roll för stressnivån. Husdjursantalet påverkade inte stressupplevelsen. En interaktionseffekt påvisades: Yngre singlar och äldre personer med partner upplevde mer stress än vad yngre personer med partner och äldre singlar gjorde. Studiens resultat skiljer sig från vad tidigare forskning då inga huvudeffekter av husdjur och partner kunde påvisas.

Brand contraction and Marketing constitute a new challenge in the 21st century¡¦s business development. The Smile Curve Theory provided by the founder of Acer Group, Mr. Stan Shih Z.R, who once stressed that value added manufacturing being low, the future development in Taiwan should focus on research/development and brand marketing. Due to the advancements in science technology and the keen competition among enterprises, many similar products can be found in the market. In general, branding is the motive that encourages producers to create unique products while stimulating customers to pay higher prices for what they want. Brand is an important asset to the enterprise; it not only brings profits under excellent quality control but also offers a convenient identity and enhances a company¡¦s growth. The well-known strategy of brand extension helps to reduce risks while promoting a new product in the market. However, the cost of promoting a new product into the market is higher than the cost occurred in the strategy of brand extension. For instance, the cost of promoting a new product into the market is about 50-100 million US Dollars in the American market (Brown, 1985). As a result, the advantage of applying the brand extension strategy lies in the promoting of new products and increasing the chances for success. The study aims at understanding the evaluation of brand image perception and brand extension from the viewpoint of consumers, and the study object was the package of aquatic products from Taiwan Water Corporation. The brand image perception and its image after extension constitute the independent variable. Consumers¡¦ high or low evaluation of brand image perception and the related extension were analyzed and examined to determine whether there was any significant correlation after extension. Furthermore, comparison of brand image was made between the new mineral water of Taiwan Water Corporation and others from the leading companies. The high or low brand image was sorted out in sequence and its relation ship with the brand extension evaluation was compared. Questionnaires were sent to 386 interviewees and the statistics were examined, the conclusions were drawn. Results: 1. There¡¦s significant correlation between the original brand and brand image perception after extension; if the similarity of brand extension is high, the correlation of the original brand image perception is higher than for products which have low similarity. 2. Between the original brand image perception and brand extension evaluation, the high brand image perception achieved higher brand extension evaluation than did the low brand image perception. The evaluation of brand extension with high similarity is also higher than that of brand extension with low similarity. 3. There¡¦s no interactive effect in ownership between the brand image perception and brand extension evaluation. The owner of the original brand gives a higher evaluation to brand extension with high similarity, than do non-owners. There¡¦s no significant variation between owner and non-owner to brand extension with low similarity. 4. If the similarity of brand extension is high, consumers often focus on the transferred perception of the functional image of the IT commodity. The value, function and reliability will be appreciated after brand extension. The brand extension with low similarity should emphasize the functional image and the transferred perception of the symbolized image from consumers. The fashionable image, personal style and outstanding reputation should also be formed so that a better evaluation of brand extension with low similarity can be made afterwards. Due to customers continuing to value the original brand image after brand extension of cross-classification, enterprises should treasure the influence of the original brand image and the compatible category on brand extension, as well as the variation resulting from different perceptions.

I den här uppsatsen studeras skillnaderna i lönsamhet och sysselsättning under en treårspe-riod för 71 svenska företag som var mål för förvärv under perioden 1998-2001. Syftet är att undersöka om utlandsägda företag är bättre på att generera lönsamhet och sysselsättning än företag med inhemska ägare. Resultaten visar att det finns ett samband mellan nationalitet på uppköparen och lönsamhet. Utländskt ägande har ett positivt samband till lönsamhet i allmänhet och också till de högsta lönsamhetsökningarna i tidsperioden som studerats. Företag med inhemska ägare har ett positivt samband till minskad lönsamhet vilket betyder att företag med inhemska ägare har en högre tendens att generera en lägre lönsamhet under den tidsperiod som studerats. Inga statistiskt signifikanta resultat fanns för sambandet mellan nationalitet på uppköparen och skillnad i sysselsättning. Siffrorna visar dock på ett positivt samband mellan utländskt ägande och ökad sysselsättning. Tester gjordes också för att se om det finns något samband mellan nationalitet på uppköpare och den ekonomiska prestationen på målföretaget vid tiden för uppköpet. Resultaten visar att utländska uppköpare har en tendens att köpa målföretag som har en negativ lönsamhet medan inhemska uppköpare tenderar att köpa företag med en positiv lönsamhet. / This thesis studies the changes in profitability and employment during a three-year period for 71 Swedish firms that were targets of acquisitions in the years 1998-2001. The aim is to test whether foreign-owned firms are better in generating profitability and employment than domestically-owned firms. The results show that there is a relationship between the nationality of the acquirer and profitability. Foreign ownership has a positive relationship to profitability in general and also account for the highest profitability increases in the period studied. Domestically-owned firms have a positive relationship to decreased profitability which means that the domestically-owned firms have a greater tendency to generate lower profitability than foreign-owned firms in the period studied. No statistically significant results were attained when testing the relationship between nationality of acquirer and change in employment. Nevertheless the figures show a pattern of positive relationships between foreign ownership and increased employment. Tests were made to see if there is any relationship between nationality of acquirer and the economic performance of target firms at the time of acquisition. The results show that foreign acquirers tend to acquire targets with a negative profitability while domestic investors tend to acquire firms with a positive profitability.

This study examines the interactive effects of family and minority ownership on small business debt financing. On one hand, family involvement in ownership has an influence on small firms financial decision. On the other hand, racial disparities in small business ownership make these firms experience differently in credit markets. In the context of family and minority involvements, this study measures two dimensions of small business debt financing, one for its use, a financing issue directly related to the capital structure, and the other for its cost, an agency issue related to the firms ability to borrowing and repayment. By using the unique data from the 1993, 1998, and 2003 Survey of Small Business Finances, our empirical results show significant evidence that family involvement has an impact on both the use of debt and the cost of debt financing in small businesses. That is, family ownership are negatively related to both the use of debt and the cost of debt financing, and when the firms are all non-visible minority owned, family firms have a lower level of debt and pay a lower interest rate than non-family firms. The results also show that the firm owners visible minority are positively related to the cost of debt financing, and when these firms are all family owned, visible minority owned firms pay a higher interest rate than non-visible minority owned firms. These results of our study also have important implications for both small business and family business research. For small business owners, it is important to understand the advantages and disadvantages of family as well as minority involvements to finance their businesses. And for policymakers and institutional lenders, understanding the family and minority effects also assists small businesses in obtaining debt financing.

As individuals or families hold a substantial share of a firm at the cost of less diversified portfolio, they specialize their portfolio and have better inside information. Does the market marker react to this fact and maintain higher level of asymmetric information cost for such family-controlled firms? We analyze the bid-ask spread and the probability of informed trading (PIN) of Canadian-based publicly traded firms cross-listed with NYSE/AMEX to test this notion. We find that although the market maker maintains higher average spread, he does not form higher PIN for family-controlled firms when the entire day is considered as an event period. <p>The assumption of constant arrival rates of informed and uninformed traders during the day in Easley et al (1996b) is rejected in the two periods per day analysis. In addition, the notion of information event occurrence prior to the day in Easley et al (1996b) is consistently rejected as higher (non-statistically) probability of information events is found in the afternoon (second session) in the two (three) periods per day analyses, respectively. Based on these findings, we have serious doubts about any existing findings (including ours) of PIN based on one period per day. As such, we consider the possibility of several periods per day.<p>Though it remains an empirical question to choose how many periods should be considered, we find our results using two and three periods per day to be very interesting. We consistently reject the hypothesis that the PIN is higher for family-controlled firms. Since the market maker does not need to maintain high spread for firms with very high number of uninformed traders and very low number of informed traders, we do not perceive our findings to be either surprising or contradictory to the present literature. By developing a different formulation of PIN, we also show that this is empirically less than that developed by Easley et al (1996b).

Community pharmacists are unique amongst professionals as they practice their profession in a commercial environment. This environment, where the dichotomy between the professional and business aspects of community pharmacy practice intersect, can place the professional objectives of pharmacy at odds with the business objectives. At the same time, ownership of community pharmacies is transitioning from pharmacist-owned and -operated establishments, to corporate-owned and -operated.<p>The objective of this study was to investigate whether ownership type influences the pharmacists, or in this case the pharmacy managers, organizational behaviour, role orientation and professional autonomy. Specifically, exploring whether ownership type (independent, franchise, corporate) impacts the professional, business and environmental (organizational) aspects of community pharmacy practice.<p>This study employed both quantitative and qualitative research methods. A cross-Canada, self-administered postal survey of community pharmacy managers was conducted in the spring of 2007. Contact information was obtained from individual provincial regulatory bodies across Canada and a stratified, random sample of community pharmacy managers was compiled. Items centred on professional and employer authority, manager autonomy, level of managerial control, orientation to professional and business aspects of practice and the manager role, affinity to professional and business characteristics of community pharmacy practice, and innovation. The survey was followed by semi-structured, in-depth telephone interviews with select self identified respondents from the survey portion of the study.<p>The random, stratified sample consisted of 2,000 community pharmacy managers. Of the 2,000 questionnaires mailed out, 39 were returned as undeliverable. A total of 646 responses were received, for a response rate of 32.9 percent (646/1,961); while the response rate may not be ideal, the sample size was purposely made larger to account for the possibility of a low response rate. Seven interviews were conducted following the survey.<p>Ontario, as the largest province, had the most responses with 289 (44.7%), and the majority of respondents were male (393, 60.8%). The greater part of respondents indicated their sole degree was their Bachelor of Pharmacy practice degree (499, 77.2%). A larger majority of respondents were either the pharmacy manager (398, 61.6%) or owner (215, 33.3%). Just under half of respondents practiced in independent pharmacies (44.6%), while 35.4 percent practiced in corporate pharmacies and 18.4 percent practiced in franchise pharmacies.<p>As a whole, respondents were more likely to have access to information required for making clinical rather than business decisions. One quarter (24.4%) of respondents were never or rarely willing to go against company policies to carry out their professional duties, while one third (33.4%) were often or always willing to do so. Less than one-fifth (17.4%) of respondents had to follow policies(professional and business) developed by non-professionals, while 42.6 percent had to follow policies only with regard to business practices. The majority (89.5%) agreed that it is possible to be both a good professional and a successful businessperson.<p>Fifteen distinct constructs emerged regarding (1) professional and (2) employer authority, (3) manager autonomy, (4) decision-making, (5) managerial control, (6) professional characteristics, orientation to (7) professional and (8) business aspects of the manager role, affinity to (9) professional and (10) business characteristics of community pharmacy practice, (11) connection to the employer,(12) role conflict, (13) innovation, (14) bureaucracy and (15) manager requests. The main independent variable was ownership structure: independent, franchise, or corporate. In analyzing the independent variable by the above constructs, significant differences (p < 0.05) arose for all constructs except for three related to the professional nature of practice: professional practice standards, professional orientation and professional affinity. <p>Independent and franchise respondents were more likely to agree that the employer should influence practice standards than corporate respondents (p < 0.001). When exploring the level of autonomy respondents had in their pharmacy, significant differences arose among all three respondent types (p < 0.001); respondents in independent pharmacies felt they had the highest level of autonomy followed by franchise respondents and then corporate respondents, with more than one standard deviation difference between independent and corporate respondents.<p>Significant differences also emerged among the three respondent types with regard to the amount of control the respondent had in their pharmacy (p < 0.001); independent respondents felt they had the most control followed by franchise respondents and then corporate respondents, with almost one standard deviation difference between independent and corporate respondents. With regard to business orientation and affinity to business related aspects of practice, independent and franchise respondents were significantly (p < 0.001) more likely to place higher importance on such activities than corporate respondents. Results of the interview portion of the study were used to bring a greater understanding to the survey portion of the research. <p>There were a total of seven interviews conducted, with each interview lasting between 30 and 90 minutes in length. A total of nine themes emerged from the interviews: (1) autonomy, (2) behaviour, (3) environment, (4) future, (5) human resources, (6) image, (7) incentives, (8) professional standards and (9) role as manager.<p>Finding of this study suggest that regardless of ownership structure, respondents emerge as professionally orientated and focused. Independent respondents appear to have more autonomy, control and decision-making capabilities than corporate respondents. Despite being professionally orientated and focused, corporate respondents appear cognizant of the restrictions placed on pharmacy practice in their pharmacy. On top of ownership structure, the dependent variables of age, gender, geographic region and years with employer appear to play a role in answers provided by community pharmacy managers.<p>As ownership of community pharmacy continues to transition from pharmacist controlled to corporate-owned, managers, owners and the profession must acknowledge the professional implications that may result. While this study adds to the community pharmacy practice literature, there is recognition that additional research is necessary pertaining to the dynamic nature and culture of community pharmacy practice.

Many previous studies suggest that agency costs and information asymmetry are signifi-cant factors that affect the relationship between the investment expenditures of firms and the availability of cash from internal operations. Some other studies show that dividing firms in terms of the degree of ownership concentration further explains the relationship. However, the findings of previous studies are not consistent suggesting that other firm characteristics may be affecting the results. We propose that additional attention to the nature of ownership control of firms may explain the inconsistency. In this study, we examine the investment behaviour of family-controlled firms, institu-tion-controlled firms and widely-held firms. We distinguish between these three kinds of firms as they represent different levels of market imperfection. Therefore, we expect diverse investment behaviours among the three groups. Compared with family-controlled and institution-controlled firms, widely held firms have dispersed ownership structures. The greatest weakness of a widely-held ownership structure is the lack of shareholder monitoring due to the unmatched benefit and cost of control for small shareholders. The existence of at least one large shareholder will reduce the agency costs and asymmetric information. On one hand, enhanced monitoring will decrease the waste of free cash flows by managers. On the other hand, large shareholders are willing to spend time and effort to collect more information on management performance or to estimate the firms investment projects and thus reduce the information asymmetry. Both family-controlled firms and institution-controlled firms have large shareholders. However, whether or not the shareholders are playing an active monitoring role is still an important issue. From the point of aligning the interests of managers and shareholders, the family-controlled group is superior to the institution-controlled group as family-controlled firms generally assign influential positions to family members whose focus is in line with that of the family group. Even though a non family member may be appointed as the manager, the level of monitoring is significant given the high ownership concentration by the family. On the other hand, significant family ownership may lead to agency costs of its own. The main disadvantage of owner-managers is that they may lack the expertise to manage their firms although their position in the family may make it natural for them to be the manager. Another advantage of the family-controlled firm is that the family may divert company resources for its own benefit despite the presence of a manager who may or may not be a family member. Essentially, the family and the manager can all collude to spend on perks and personal benefits at the expense of minority shareholders. Therefore, as we move from widely-held to institution-controlled the level of agency costs may decrease but as we move further into higher control, as may be suggested by family ownership, the level of agency costs may increase again. Although previous studies have noticed the influence of ownership structure, no analysis has been carried out to explore the investment behaviour of firms controlled by the three differ-ent kinds of shareholders. Our first motivation is to fill this gap. Splitting our sample into three representative groups enables us to study the financing constraints and investment behaviour of firms that are family-controlled, institution-controlled, and widely held. The focus of this study is on Canadian firms. The Canadian evidence is worth particular attention because the Canadian business environment is similar to the US business environment in terms of legal, regulatory, and market institutions but it is similar to European or Asian firms in terms of ownership structure. Therefore, a study of Canadian firms can provide a useful and rational assessment of the investment behaviour of firms that follow the ownership structures of Europe and Asia but operate in a business environment and institutional setting similar to those of the US. Further, a large number of Canadian firms have controlling shareholders and a large proportion, approximately 60%, of Canadian firms can be categorized as having concentrated ownership structure. Among the firms with concentrated ownership, over 1/3 of them can be dis-tinguished as family-controlled. This dataset provides an ideal setting to study the investment behaviours of firms according to the nature of their controllers. Our results illustrate that the intensity of investments of widely-held firms is higher than the intensity of investments of concentrated ownership firms and that the intensity of investments of widely-held firms is positively and significantly affected by the availability of funds from internal sources. In contrast, for concentrated ownership firms the intensity is positively and significantly affected by the availability of growth opportunities. These observations suggest that in comparison with the concentrated ownership firms, the widely-held firms face higher levels of financing constraints and exhibit less value maximizing behaviour. However, once we separate the family-controlled firms from the institution-controlled firms, we find that the investment expenditures of the family-controlled firms and the institution-controlled firms are not significantly different in terms of their dependence on internal cash flows or on the market-to-book ratios. We also find that widely-held firms tend to invest in projects that payoff quickly. This preference may be the result of these firms desires to ease their external funding constraints by generating funds internally.

In this thesis I will explore the relationship between Nozick’s self-ownership principle and freedom. I will defend G.A. Cohen’s critique of self-ownership and try to show how his argument that self-ownership is hostile to genuine freedom presents a problem for Nozick. I think it is clear that Nozick’s self-ownership does little to protect a meaningful sort of freedom; and a meaningful sort of freedom is exactly what Nozick aims to protect. This is true because eudaimonistic moral beliefs ought to undergird Nozick’s self-ownership thesis, and self-ownership can therefore be assessed in light of whether it actually promotes human flourishing in the relevant ways. This undergirding eudaimonism becomes clear when we see that self-ownership is intended to protect the ability of each individual to pursue and act upon her own conception of the good.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the current status and development of the private and state-owned Third-party Logistics (3PL) companies. In China, there are mainly two common kinds of ownerships, one is state ownership, and the other is private ownership. These two forms of ownerships have enormous influence in various industries. The state-owned company GREE and private company CHINATRANS are taken as the case study in this thesis. The management systems of these two companies are analyzed by interviewing their managers. Furthermore, an innovation assessment tool is used to examine the innovative performance for these two companies. The return on investment model is also used to compare on the financial problem. Based on the analysis of management, cost and innovation aspect in GREE and CHINATRANS, the pattern of different ownerships affecting 3PL companies is identified. The conclusions of this thesis are: The private Third-party Logistics companies have a more flexible management system than the state-owned Third-party Logistics companies. Moreover, the private Third-party Logistics companies have a good performance on cost management and human resource. The core-competitiveness for them shows in the grasp of the market. The state-owned Third-party Logistics companies have a strict management system; they have advantage of innovation management, especially for new technology development. Excellent service is their core competence. Nowadays, Chinese third-party logistics industry has a low ROI, but still has a large space for 3PL to improve. Through the case study of GREE and CHINATRANS, value-added services and low cost operation are effective approaches to increase ROI.

An understanding of ownership is an important aspect of child development because it helps to promote harmonious social interactions. People are typically restricted from using objects belonging to others. Respecting others’ ownership rights is necessary for socially appropriate behaviour. Because of the frequent property disputes that children engage in, it might be expected that preschoolers’ appreciation for ownership is limited and that adult input is needed to teach children about ownership rights. In three experiments, I demonstrate the opposite. Preschoolers value ownership rights more strongly than do adults and support ownership rights in property entitlement disputes between a possessor and an owner. An additional two experiments demonstrate that although children strongly value ownership rights above other principles of entitlement, they show some flexibility in their reasoning about ownership rights when provided with sufficiently compelling reasons to consider disregarding these rights. These findings show developmental differences in children’s ability to determine when ownership rights should be disregarded. Older children and adults disregard ownership rights when they are provided with compelling enough reasons do so, whereas younger children often uphold owners’ rights to the exclusion of all other factors. Together, these studies challenge the intuitive view that children learn about ownership from adult input. Rather than strengthening children’s appreciation of ownership rights, adult input may serve to teach children about situations where it is socially appropriate to disregard ownership.