Closed-loop supply chains (CLSCs) that integrate the activities for reclaiming residual values in postconsumer products with the traditional forward supply chain activities are important from financial and environmental perspectives. This thesis develops models and analyses on three topics novel to the field of CLSC research with a goal of advancing knowledge about effective decision-makings in CLSCs. In the first part of the thesis, we study joint control of stochastic forward and stochastic reverse material flows in CLSCs. With an application to a CLSC where postconsumer products are collected for warranty service purposes, we demonstrate that the benefit of coordinating two production activities could be significant. We develop a model that can be used to obtain an effective inventory control policy for coordinating forward and reverse material flows. Through Monte Carlo simulation and global sensitivity analysis, we identify major influential factors that affect system's warranty cost savings performance. The results indicate that joint control of forward and reverse material flows greatly improves warranty cost savings performance as well as system's robustness to uncertainties. The second part of the thesis develops a differential game model for characterizing decentralized time-varying competitive decision-making in a CLSC. The differential game model is particularly useful for studying time-varying interactive decision-making in CLSCs that involve many stakeholders who pursue different objectives in forward and reverse production activities. We identify optimal prices and production strategies that evolve over time under fluctuating market demand. Also, the model provides a quantitative scheme that can be used to obtain an efficient apportionment of product recovery processes. The third part of the thesis describes the relationship among consumers' risk-aversion, product cannibalization of new products by remanufactured products, and growth of CLSCs through price optimization models. Whereas price is one of the most effective variables for managing market demand, previous CLSC research has mainly focused on operational problems without paying much attention on the interface between CLSCs and markets. We develop models that jointly determine optimal prices in forward and reverse channels considering consumers' willingness-to-pay (WTP) for remanufactured products, consumers' willingness-to-accept (WTA) for a buyback price, and consumers' risk aversion to uncertain quality perceptions. The results show that consumers' active participation in CLSC is an important factor for the viability and growth of a CLSC. Also, we show that companies can benefit from product remanufacturing although it may be accompanied by production cannibalization.

The federal government is often criticized for performance that fails to meet the public's expectations. Its traditional pay system receives much of the blame for rewarding seniority instead of performance. While everyone agrees that performance matters, they don't always agree on the best way to improve it. My research investigates human resource management strategies designed to motivate better performance and productivity. Specifically, I examine the credibility and feasibility of implementing pay for performance throughout the federal government and identify ways that managers can promote greater productivity through human capital investment. I conduct an extensive review of work motivation theories and synthesize findings from previous academic and government studies in order to develop models that are tailored to the federal workplace. I test these models using federal survey data from the Merit Principles Surveys of 2000 and 2005. A variety of attitudes, perceptions, expectations, and work environment factors are expected to influence job performance. Findings reveal that pay for performance belief and success are greatly affected by performance management, fair treatment in all personnel matters, supervisory fairness in decision-making, and organizational culture. Further results indicate that managers can markedly improve productivity by ensuring employees are highly engaged in their work, delivering effective performance management, providing a supportive organizational culture, and giving employees adequate resources and training. With federal agencies constantly striving to improve performance and productivity, these findings have practical implications for government as they suggest ways that public managers can achieve better performance and greater productivity through increased work motivation.

Syfte: Det är idag få större investeringar som företag gör utan att göra någon form av investeringskalkylering. Därför är det ett problem att det idag inte finns något enkelt sätt att kalkylera på en investering i kompetensutveckling inom IT-området. Studien undersöker därför: Om det på ett trovärdigt sätt är möjligt att mäta ROI (Return on Investment) på en sådan investering? Hur en sådan mätning genomförs? Är det i så fall möjligt standardisera sättet att mäta? Förutom ROI beräknas återbetalningstiden (Pay-Back) för respektive grupp: IT-användare, IT-tekniker samt systemutvecklare. Metod: Studien har genomförts som en kvantitativ studie (webbenkätundersökning). ROI har beräknats och övriga svar verbalt diskuterats. Data har även presenterats i diagramform. Resultat & slutsats: ROI är möjligt att beräkna för denna typ av investeringar och för tidsperioden ett år beräknats ROI baserat på medelvärdet till 87 % för IT-användare, 67 % för systemutvecklare och 41 % för IT-tekniker. Detta motsvarar en genomsnittlig återbetalningstid på 0,53 år för IT-användare, 0,60 år för systemutvecklare och 0,71 år för IT-tekniker. Spridningen i ROI och återbetalningstid för olika grupperna beror på skillnader i enkätsvar samt skillnad i investeringsstorlek. Om ROI beräknas på medianen istället för medelvärdet blir ROI lägre. Det finns osäkerhetsfaktorer som inte går att ta hänsyn till i denna typ av generella beräkningar. Förslag till fortsatt forskning: Upprepning av studien samt en jämförande studie där datainsamling sker på annat sätt skulle vara intressant. Denna studie har endast samlat in data på ett sätt. Uppsatsens bidrag: Uppsatsen bör vara intressant för organisationer som arbetar med kompetensutveckling samt enskilda individer. / Aim: There are currently few investments that firms do without making any investment calculation. Det därför är ett problem att det idag inte finns något enkelt sätt att kalkylera på en investering i kompetensutveckling inom IT-området . It’s therefore a problem that there is no simple way to calculate on an investment in skills development in the IT field. Studien undersöker därför: The study is examining if: There is a credible way to measure ROI (Return on Investment) on such an investment? How is it done? Is it possible to standardize the way to measure? In addition to ROI estimated Pay-Back are calculated for each group: IT-users, IT-professionals and system developers. Method: The study was conducted as a quantitative study (web survey). ROI was calculated, and other verbal responses discussed. Data are also presented in graph form. Result & Conclusions: ROI is possible to calculate for this type of investment and for the time period of one year ROI is calculated to 87% of IT users, 67% for system designers and 41% of IT professionals. The Pay-Back time is calculated to 0,53 years for IT users, 0,60 years for system designers and 0,71 years for IT professionals. The difference of ROI and Pay-Back for different groups is due to differences in survey responses and the difference in investment size. If ROI is calculated on the median instead of average ROI is lower. There are uncertainties that can not be taken into account in this type of general computing. Suggestions for future research: Repetition of the study together with a comparative study with data collection by other means. Denna studie har endast samlat in data på ett sätt. Contribution of the thesis: The essay should be interesting for organizations working on skills development.

<p>In the ever so increasingly competitive business climate of the 21^st century, human resources are vital for corporate success. Employees need proper incentives to perform in goal-oriented manners. Incentive systems, especially Chief Executive Officer [CEO] remunerations, have been a popular topic since the 1990s, and this tendency has increased both during the 2002-2003 corporate scandal era, as well as the financial crisis which sparked in 2007. The recent tendency appears to lean towards companies cutting their executive bonuses as well as criticism and suspiciousness towards large bonus payments. While remuneration policies within the banking industry have been thoroughly debated and researched, another financial industry that is left largely untouched are the insurance companies. The focus of this research is therefore CEO remuneration in European insurance companies.</p><p>This descriptive study, of annual reports of stock-listed insurance companies, uses a purposive cluster sample to explore quantitative trends in CEO remunerations. In addition, a content analysis of five randomly selected companies out of the sample provides a deeper, complementary understanding of the justifications of the trends. The research questions are: <em>What trends on CEO remuneration can be found over the years 2005-2009 in annual reports of European insurance companies, concerning total remuneration, fixed salary and short-term bonus? What justifications do companies make for the remunerations</em><em> over the years 2005-2009</em><em>? </em></p><p>The quantitative part of the research inductively tests the assumption that CEO remuneration has decreased during the past few years 2008 and/ or 2009 due to the impact of the financial crisis. The content analysis part of the research deductively tests if agency theory concerns and issues concerning attraction and retention play a role in determining remuneration policies.<em></em></p><p>From this research, it is concluded that short-term variable pay is largely performance-based. Still, many other aspects serve as input factors when determining compensation levels. Based on the content analysis, it is revealed that interest alignment and attraction- and retention-issues are important determinants of remunerations. Subjective factors such as discretionary judgements also play a crucial role. The quantitative trends found in this study show that total remunerations have decreased markedly in 2008, and more vaguely in 2009. The financial crisis has had an impact on especially the short-term variable part of salaries, but also on base salary levels. Although not all companies that were investigated in the content analysis explicitly mention it in their annual reports, over the years 2005-2009, all of them become more concerned about remuneration policies and business risk factors. Over the investigated years, these companies also become more attentive to creating proactive and sophisticated value creating remuneration policies that are in line with international standards, in order to act legitimate towards stakeholders.</p>

In the ever so increasingly competitive business climate of the 21st century, human resources are vital for corporate success. Employees need proper incentives to perform in goal-oriented manners. Incentive systems, especially Chief Executive Officer [CEO] remunerations, have been a popular topic since the 1990s, and this tendency has increased both during the 2002-2003 corporate scandal era, as well as the financial crisis which sparked in 2007. The recent tendency appears to lean towards companies cutting their executive bonuses as well as criticism and suspiciousness towards large bonus payments. While remuneration policies within the banking industry have been thoroughly debated and researched, another financial industry that is left largely untouched are the insurance companies. The focus of this research is therefore CEO remuneration in European insurance companies. This descriptive study, of annual reports of stock-listed insurance companies, uses a purposive cluster sample to explore quantitative trends in CEO remunerations. In addition, a content analysis of five randomly selected companies out of the sample provides a deeper, complementary understanding of the justifications of the trends. The research questions are: What trends on CEO remuneration can be found over the years 2005-2009 in annual reports of European insurance companies, concerning total remuneration, fixed salary and short-term bonus? What justifications do companies make for the remunerations over the years 2005-2009? The quantitative part of the research inductively tests the assumption that CEO remuneration has decreased during the past few years 2008 and/ or 2009 due to the impact of the financial crisis. The content analysis part of the research deductively tests if agency theory concerns and issues concerning attraction and retention play a role in determining remuneration policies. From this research, it is concluded that short-term variable pay is largely performance-based. Still, many other aspects serve as input factors when determining compensation levels. Based on the content analysis, it is revealed that interest alignment and attraction- and retention-issues are important determinants of remunerations. Subjective factors such as discretionary judgements also play a crucial role. The quantitative trends found in this study show that total remunerations have decreased markedly in 2008, and more vaguely in 2009. The financial crisis has had an impact on especially the short-term variable part of salaries, but also on base salary levels. Although not all companies that were investigated in the content analysis explicitly mention it in their annual reports, over the years 2005-2009, all of them become more concerned about remuneration policies and business risk factors. Over the investigated years, these companies also become more attentive to creating proactive and sophisticated value creating remuneration policies that are in line with international standards, in order to act legitimate towards stakeholders.

abstract: In two independent and thematically connected chapters, I investigate consumers' willingness to pay a price premium in response to product development that entails prosocial attributes (PATs), those that allude to the reduction of negative externalities to benefit society, and to an innovative participatory pricing design called 'Pay-What-You-Want' (PWYW) pricing, a mechanism that relinquishes the determination of payments in exchange for private goods to the consumers themselves partly relying on their prosocial preferences to drive positive payments. First, I propose a novel statistical approach built on the choice based contingent valuation technique to estimate incremental willingness to pay (IWTP) for PATs that accounts for consumer heterogeneity, dependence in the decision making processes, and incentive compatibility. I validate the approach by estimating IWTP for a variety of PATs and contrast the theoretical and managerial benefits of using the proposed approach over extant techniques used in the literature for this purpose. Second, I propose a general and flexible statistical modeling framework for estimating PWYW payments that exceed zero. It relies on the joint estimation of three types of consumer decision processes namely, the consumer propensity to default to an explicit price recommendation, the propensity to pay a least legitimate price, and the payment of a freely-chosen non-zero payment. Of particular interest is the model's ability to account for a wide variety of design constraints such as the setting of price bounds, explicit price recommendations, and the provision of a menu of discrete prices to choose from. I validate the approach by estimating PWYW payments for a variety of products such as music licenses, snacks, and sports tickets. I specifically examine and report the differential impact of three managerially controllable variables namely, 'payment anonymity', 'information on payment recipients' and 'information of product value/quality'. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Business Administration 2016

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento CientÃfico e TecnolÃgico / FundaÃÃo de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Cearà / O objetivo geral deste trabalho foi analisar o grau de sustentabilidade do PerÃmetro Irrigado Baixo AcaraÃ, de acordo com a capacidade de pagamento e a disposiÃÃo a pagar dos seus irrigantes. Foram utilizados dados secundÃrios e dados primÃrios, atravÃs da aplicaÃÃo de questionÃrios e realizaÃÃo de oficina. A metodologia empregada para anÃlise da capacidade de pagamento foi o levantamento das caracterÃsticas socioeconÃmicas dos irrigantes e o modelo conceitual bÃsico denominado de âmÃtodo residualâ. Para anÃlise da alocaÃÃo eficiente dos fatores de produÃÃo, utilizou-se a funÃÃo de produÃÃo do tipo Cobb-Douglas. Para anÃlise da disposiÃÃo a pagar, aplicaram-se questionÃrios. Em relaÃÃo à capacidade de pagamento, 21 irrigantes (61,76%) mostraram-se sem capacidade de pagamento e trÃs (8,82%) nÃo apresentaram disposiÃÃo a pagar. A funÃÃo de produÃÃo apresentou um coeficiente de determinaÃÃo de 71%, mostrando que 71% da variaÃÃo na produÃÃo podem ser explicados pelas variÃveis incluÃdas no modelo. Apesar das hipÃteses do modelo clÃssico terem sido testadas e todas terem sido atendidas, a estatÃstica t dos coeficientes estimados nÃo mostrou significÃncia, exceto para os insumos. Jà a funÃÃo polinomial, tendo a Ãgua como Ãnico fator variÃvel, indicou que a maioria dos produtores està usando Ãgua para produzir de forma racional. Os irrigantes indicaram pontos positivos do PerÃmetro Irrigado, com destaque para a oportunidade de terem um negÃcio prÃprio e a busca por uma melhor qualidade de vida, enquanto entre os pontos negativos do PerÃmetro, os mais apontados foram o acesso a serviÃos bÃsicos, a falta de organizaÃÃo dos produtores e a falta de assistÃncia tÃcnica. Conclui-se que os irrigantes do PerÃmetro Irrigado Baixo AcaraÃ, em geral, nÃo apresentaram, capacidade de pagamento no perÃodo estudado, enquanto, individualmente, a maior parte nÃo apresentou capacidade de pagamento. Apesar da qualidade da infraestrutra do PerÃmetro e de os irrigantes terem disposiÃÃo a pagar pela Ãgua que utilizam, ainda nÃo tÃm capacidade de pagamento pelo uso da Ãgua, dado que estÃo desorganizados e nÃo alcanÃam bons nÃveis de produÃÃo e de comercializaÃÃo. Por consequÃncia, o PerÃmetro nÃo mostra um nÃvel de sustentabilidade aceitÃvel. A desorganizaÃÃo dos irrigantes nÃo permite estabelecer estratÃgias que levem a um melhor desempenho dos irrigantes do PerÃmetro Irrigado Baixo Acaraà / The objective of this study was to analyze the degree of sustainability of the Irrigated Perimeter Baixo Acaraà according to capacity to pay and willingness to pay of it irrigants. It was used secondary data and primary data from public institutions and the application of questionnaires and conduct of participative research. The methodology used for analysis of capacity to pay was through the removal of the socioeconomic characteristics of irrigant and the basic conceptual model called the "residual method". For analysis of the efficient allocation of production factors built up to the production function of Cobb-Douglas type. For analysis of the willingness to pay, questionnaires were applied. In relation to ability to pay, 21 irrigant (61.76%) proved to be without capacity to pay and three (8.82%) showed no willingness to pay. The production function showed a determination coefficient of 71%, showing that 71% of the variation in production can be explained by the variables included in the model. Despite the assumptions of the classical model have been tested and all have been met, the t statistic of the estimated coefficients were not significant, except for the inputs. The polynomial function having water as the only variable factor indicated that the majority of producers are using water to produce a rational way. The irrigant showed positive points of the Irrigated Perimeter, with emphasis on the opportunity to have their own business and search for a better quality of life, while among the negative points of the perimeter, the most mentioned were access to basic services, lack of organization producers and the lack of technical assistance. It is concluded that irrigants of the Irrigated Perimeter Baixo Acaraà do not generally presented, capacity to pay during the period studied, while individually, most showed no capacity to pay. Despite the of perimeter infrastructure quality and the fact of irrigants to have willingness to pay for water they use, they donât have capacity to pay for water use, as they are disorganized and do not reach good levels of production and marketing. Consequently, the perimeter does not show an acceptable level of sustainability. The disorganization of irrigants does not permit to establish strategies that lead to better performance of irrigants in the Irrigated Perimeter Baixo AcaraÃ

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This thesis is concerned with different incomes of men and women in the professional category of scientists and intellectual workers and aims to describe the reasons and the degree of income inequality between men and women in this category and in the conditions of the Czech Republic. The theoretical resources of the thesis are a compilation of facts and opinions of the authors and scientists who are engaged in the area of (gender) income inequality. The chapters gradually reveal the state of gender inequality in selected regions of the world - the U.S.A, Asia and Europe, including the legislative framework. The following chapter is based on available statistical information reflects the situation in the Czech Republic. The theoretical part ends with a description of the indicators of income inequality. Practical part of this thesis works with SILC2009 data for the category of scientific and intellectual workers in terms of dependent variables affecting the amount of income for both sexes and compares the results against each other. For complete the overall view on the topic of gender income inequality was made research of respondents' awareness of the issue

For the first time ever, mobile payments in Sweden have overtaken cash as the preferred method of payment when it comes to monthly payments. With cashless payments growing in Sweden and all over the world it is clear that mobile payment methods are going to increase in our everyday lives. As elders tend to have more difficulties learning and understanding software, it is not unlikely that this will affect the adoption of mobile payment methods. As cash is rapidly disappearing as a payment method in Sweden it is important to gain insight into which factors affect the acceptance of mobile payment methods among senior citizens, as they are the most frequent users of cash today. This is a qualitative case study where five seniors have been interviewed about their opinions on mobile payments based on a theoretical model of mobile adoption consisting of eleven variables. The interviews came to center around the Swedish mobile payment application Swish as it was the only mobile payment service that the participants were aware of and had experience using. The study’s goal is to gain knowledge of what variables are of importance to the senior consumers when deciding whether or not to adopt a mobile payment system. The main findings of the study are that the variables: social influence, attractiveness of alternatives and trust are the variables that have been seen to affect the senior citizens' adoption of mobile payment the most.