<p>Saudi Arabia is increasingly becoming one of the most attractive areas in the world for foreign investors. At the same time the country has a major influence on the economy in the Middle-East. However there exist reasons for why companies previously have been reluctant to enter this market, these reasons have mainly been related to political turbulence, foreign traditions and culture. In recent years some research has been dedicated to this area however there is still more to investigate.</p><p>The purpose of this thesis has thereby been to identify what problems Swedish companies have encountered when operating in Saudi Arabia in terms of psychic distance, asymmetric information and working towards mutual goals. Hence, what problems they have dealt with during the continuous work and to what extent they have managed to maintain their corporate culture.</p><p>The authors chose to conduct a deductive multiple case study including four Swedish companies with operations in Saudi Arabia, these were Abetong, IKEA, Oriflame and Tetra Pak. The research took a qualitative approach as four in-depth interviews were conducted with managers in suitable positions at respective company.</p><p>The findings of the thesis indicate that the companies to a great extent have been able to maintain their corporate culture, and the adaptations that were made were mainly related to women’s role in Saudi society. In terms of psychic distance, this is something that has been encountered to a certain extent by all of the companies. Challenges have mainly been faced within the areas of religion, political systems, culture and educational level whereas the economic development was generally perceived as an opportunity. As for problems with asymmetric information and working towards mutual goals, these have not been reflected to a greater extent within any of the companies. However the problems that have been encountered have been related to language barriers.</p>

Saudi Arabia is increasingly becoming one of the most attractive areas in the world for foreign investors. At the same time the country has a major influence on the economy in the Middle-East. However there exist reasons for why companies previously have been reluctant to enter this market, these reasons have mainly been related to political turbulence, foreign traditions and culture. In recent years some research has been dedicated to this area however there is still more to investigate. The purpose of this thesis has thereby been to identify what problems Swedish companies have encountered when operating in Saudi Arabia in terms of psychic distance, asymmetric information and working towards mutual goals. Hence, what problems they have dealt with during the continuous work and to what extent they have managed to maintain their corporate culture. The authors chose to conduct a deductive multiple case study including four Swedish companies with operations in Saudi Arabia, these were Abetong, IKEA, Oriflame and Tetra Pak. The research took a qualitative approach as four in-depth interviews were conducted with managers in suitable positions at respective company. The findings of the thesis indicate that the companies to a great extent have been able to maintain their corporate culture, and the adaptations that were made were mainly related to women’s role in Saudi society. In terms of psychic distance, this is something that has been encountered to a certain extent by all of the companies. Challenges have mainly been faced within the areas of religion, political systems, culture and educational level whereas the economic development was generally perceived as an opportunity. As for problems with asymmetric information and working towards mutual goals, these have not been reflected to a greater extent within any of the companies. However the problems that have been encountered have been related to language barriers.

Questa tesi è una raccolta di tre articoli riguardanti l’economia dell’informazione. Il primo articolo riguarda i possibili effetti negativi delle elezioni sul benessere degli elettori. Infatti, il controllo ottimo nei confronti di un politico dipende in modo non banale dalla relazione tra effetto disciplinante, effetto di selezione e effetto di riduzione della rendita. Il risultato è che un eccessivo controllo nei confronti di un politico può ridurre il benessere sociale. Il secondo articolo analizza un modello di competizione elettorale nel quale l’abilità del politico è sconosciuta anche al politico stesso oltre che agli elettori. L’analisi è in tempo continuo e sviluppata mediante tecniche di programmazione dinamica e di filtraggio. Le credenze sull’abilità vengono aggiornate secondo la regola di Bayes tramite l’osservazione del processo diffusivo che descrive il valore del settore pubblico. Il politico trae utilità da una rendita che è però inferiore in presenza di una scadenza elettorale. Il terzo articolo descrive una relazione principale-agente in tempo continuo dove l’output è rappresentato da un processo diffusivo il cui drift è determinato dallo sforzo dell’agente, che il principale non osserva, e dall’abilità dell’agente, che non è osservata nemmeno dall’agente stesso. Vengono analizzati sia gli incentivi espliciti dati dal contratto che gli incentivi impliciti legati ai career-concerns. L’analisi è sviluppata in tempo continuo; vengono applicate tecniche di programmazione dinamica e di filtraggio. / This thesis is a collection of three essays about information economics. The first essay studies the possible negative effects of elections on voters’ welfare. In fact, the optimal control of politicians depends on the interplay of disciplining, selection and rent-shrinking effects in a non-trivial way. We show that too much control on the politician may reduce social welfare. The second essay studies an agency model of electoral competition where the incumbent’s ability is unknown to the voters as well as to the politician herself. The analysis is developed in a continuous-time stochastic framework using dynamic programming techniques. Competence is unobservable to everyone and learned over time in a Bayesian fashion through the observation of the value of the public sector. Politicians can divert resources being in office thus reducing the economy wealth but this rent is lower (all other things the same) with an electoral constraint. The third essay describes a continuous-time principal-agent model in which the output is a diffusion process whose drift is determined by the agent’s unobserved effort and by manager’s competence (it is assumed symmetric information about it). We study separately both explicit incentives arising from the contract and implicit incentives arising from career concerns.. All the analysis is developed in a continuous-time stochastic framework; we apply dynamic programming and filtering techniques.

都市更新權利變換運作過程中的土地權利人與實施者的關係，是現代經濟活動典型的專業分工委託代理關係。土地權利人與實施者基於都市更新法制下相關的權利義務契約，執行都市更新事業，由於訊息不對稱、目標不一致與風險偏好之差異，實施者基於機會主義的決策或行動，經常不利於土地權利人的利益，於是產生代理問題、增加代理成本，雙方無法產生高度互信的基礎，而成為都市更新延宕與成效不彰的主因。本論文從土地權利人與實施者之間，於都市更新條例機制下的互動契約中，探討分析雙方之委託代理關係，並從土地權利人的角度設計監督方式，以維護土地權利人的權益，促進都市更新事業之實施。 當土地權利人與實施者，共同於一都市更新單元，組成生產團隊時，土地權利人初期擁有較強的提議與同意之控制權，隨著實施者握有超過都市更新法定之同意書門檻後，實施者掌握較強的執行控制權，土地權利人擁有較弱的監督控制權。又現行都市更新權利變換的價值分配，是實施者投入共同負擔費用，並以更新完成後之土地與建築物部分折價抵付，其餘土地及建築物則分配與原土地所有權人，因此土地權利人得到大部分的剩餘索取權。這樣的控制權與剩餘索取權分離狀態下，其權利變換價值分配模式，是否為適當的產權安排？對於都市更新參與人能否有所激勵？能否促進都市更新之推動效率？是本論文主要的探討分析重點。 此外，同一更新單元之土地權利人與實施者，具有短期且為一次性合作的特性，依現行都市更新法律規範，交易雙方以簽訂同意書做為實施都市更新事業的關鍵契約，由於契約簽定後，交易雙方所投入的特殊投資比例不相同，因而普遍引起期初契約簽署的遲疑，甚而契約簽定後，仍有權利義務不明確之爭議。本論文透過不完全契約理論的思維，探討分析土地權利人與實施者的契約關係與特殊投資關係，並建議一個新的交易契約模式，以降低雙方之機會主義行為，進而希能促進都市更新事業之推動。 / In the process of rights transformation of urban renewal, the relationships between land owners and the implementers are the typical Principal-Agent Relationship in modern economic activities. Based on the related rights and obligations under the regulations of urban renewal, land owners and the implementers execute urban renewal business. Due to the differences of asymmetric information, inconsistent goals, and risk preference, the decision-making and/or actions of implementers based on the opportunism, will often unfavorable to the benefits of land owners. Therefore, the problem of Principal-Agent Relationship arises that increases agent cost. Both sides cannot generate the foundation of highly mutual trust, and thus creates the major reason of delaying and inefficiency for urban renewal. This paper studies and analyzes the Principal-Agent Relationship of both land owners and the implementers from both sides with their interaction of contract under unban renewal regulation mechanism, and further from the land owners perspective to design ways of monitoring to protect rights and benefits of land owners, to facilitate the implementation of urban renewal business. When the land owners and the implementers organize as a「Production Team」on a very urban renewal unit, the land owners initially hold stronger control rights on both proposing step and agreement step; along the implementers hold agreement letters exceeding the official threshold of urban renewal regulations, they will control better execution rights, and the landowners hold weaker surveillance control rights. The current value allocation of rights transformation for urban renewal employs common sharing of expenses with the implementers. After deducting the common sharing of the discounted price substitute payment of the land and buildings after the rights transformation, the remaining lands and buildings shall be allocated to the original landowners according to the rights value proportion before each piece of land rights was transformed. In so doing, the land owners obtain most of the residual claim. Under such separation of the control rights and the residual claim, whether the value allocation of the rights transformation is as suitable arrangement for property rights? Will it be the incentives to the urban renewal participants? Whether it will facilitate the efficiency of urban renewal promotion? These are the main points of the analysis of this paper. Land owners and the implementers with the same Renewal Unit retain a short-term and once-for-all cooperative nature. According to the regulations of current Urban Renewal Act, both parties of the transaction by signing an agreement as the key contract of implementing urban renewal business. After signing up the contract, due to the different ratio of specific investment input by both sides of the transaction, the initial contract thus normally has been delaying or doubtfully signed. Even worse, after eventually signing the contract, there are still uncertain disputes on rights and obligations. Via the thoughts of Incomplete Contracts Theory, this paper not only analyzes the contractual relationship and the specific investment relationship of land owners and the implementers, but also recommends a new transaction contract model to decrease the opportunism behaviors of both sides, and further more, to facilitate the implement of urban renewal business.