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Our thesis researches the Halloween effects in the Swedish stock market from a sector perspective. The notion Halloween effect refers to higher returns during the period November until April than the period May until October. The anomaly has been confirmed by previous researchers in Sweden among other countries. There has not been any definite explanation for this anomaly. The majority of explanations base on the assumption that the anomaly is a market wide and induced by changes in investment behavior. However, previous research has shown that the Halloween effect could be limited to certain sectors which experience significantly higher returns during winter months than the summer months. The sectors that exhibited the high Halloween effect tend to be heavy industry sectors while consumer oriented sectors tend to outperform during summer periods. In our study we research the Swedish sectors to test whether the findings of previous researches are true for other market as well. Our result indicates that the Halloween effect is present in a few sectors and not market wide. The findings thus support previous research that the Halloween effect is sector specific. The sectors that exhibited the highest Halloween effect were sectors in heavy industry.

Despite significant regulatory and academic interest in sell-side analyst forecasts and an extensive literature demonstrating the impact of teamwork in general, we lack evidence of the effect of teamwork on analyst forecasts. In 2005 analyst teams issued nearly three-fourths of analyst reports for a sample of 89 large, heavily followed companies. Over a twelve-year period 86 of those companies had more reports issued by analyst teams than by individual analysts. Using a hand-collected sample of more than 17,000 analyst reports, I document that forecasts issued by analyst teams systematically differ from the forecasts of individual analysts in ways predicted by team literature. I find that prior to the year 2000 analyst teams issue forecasts that are less accurate and more biased than forecasts issued by individual analysts. Beginning in 2000, the relative benefit of analyst teamwork strengthens, consistent with changes due to Regulation Fair Disclosure, brokerage closures, and other regulatory interventions. In addition I find that, within company-year, team-issued forecasts are less pessimistically biased but not less optimistically biased than the forecasts issued by individual analysts. Lastly, the benefits of teamwork vary with the size of the team and over the life of the team, following an inverted u-shaped pattern. My results inform regulators as they consider factors that impact analyst forecast accuracy and bias.

Abstract This research is based on the Taiwan Stock Index. We can use the technical analysis of K-line which may reveal the signal of buying or selling in actual operation. It can help the investors to deciside the timing to buy or sell. The above method is a kind of stock index in actual testing analysis during the period from 1993 to 2002. The conclusions of our research are the following: 1. The signal of buying or selling can create good return according to the theory of K-line during the research period and it sometimes can offers higher return than the interest rate offered by the bank. It is a reliable method for most of the investors. 2. The signal of up or down can't be judged according to the theory of K-line during the period of stagnancy. We must judge the market and predict the future after the ending of stagnancy of K-line in order to obtain the best point of buying or selling.

Given the increasingly competitive environment characterizing many industries, customer service, specifically, post-sales technical support, has evolved as a key source of differentiation and profits. Against this backdrop, firms are looking to cross-sell products during customer service provision to generate revenue and transition their customer service operations from cost centers to profit centers. However, in the context of customer service, customers are contacting the firm about a product failure and not a purchase need, making cross-selling during customer service provision a challenging task. Essays 1 and 2 investigate which factors affect cross-sell outcomes in the customer service context. Essay 1 addresses the following questions: Do characteristics of the customer, customer service agent, and cross-sell offer influence cross-sell revenues? Cross-sell revenues are defined as the sales generated per customer in the customer service context. Using data on the cross-sell transactions of 6782 customers of a computer systems firm who contacted the firm for technical support, Essay 1 demonstrates that for risk-averse customers and customers who accept cross-sell goods (versus services) as the cross-sell offer, cross-sell revenues increase. However, when risk-averse customers accept a good (versus service) as the cross-sell offer, cross-sell revenues decrease. Surprisingly, for customers who own focal products with high functionality, cross-sell revenues decrease, and this effect becomes more negative as the customer service agent’s resolution ability increases. Essay 2 investigates cross-selling during customer service in an intercultural context and addressees the following question: What influences the likelihood of a cross-sell purchase during customer service by a customer in country X[subscript s] from a customer service agent in Country Y[subscript j]? Multinational firms offshore their customer service operations to a set of low-cost countries to reduce costs and gain access to specialized skills. Customer service agents in these countries provide technical problem resolution services to customers in a different set of countries, creating a cultural dyad between customers and customer service agents. Currently, such firms are asking their offshored customer service agents to cross-sell during customer service provision. Using data from a computer systems firm of 117,721 customer service encounters during which a cross-sell product was pitched, of which 3.6% resulted in a purchase, Essay 2 demonstrates both positive and negative effects of cultural distance on the likelihood of a customer making a cross-sell purchase during customer service. Specifically, Essay 2 shows that cultural distance (1) weakens the negative effect of agent resolution ability, (2) strengthens the positive effect of risk aversion, and (3) weakens the positive effect of failure severity on cross-sell purchase likelihood. I use the findings from both Essays 1 and 2 to generate implications for managers on how to improve cross-selling outcomes in their customer service operations. / text

Punk-musiken har fått kritik för att låta smutsig eller skräpig. Men enligt många punkfantaster är det så det ska låta, annars är det inte punk. Vad är det som gör att punken låter skräpigt, och varför? Vissa punkband som växer i popularitet får kritik om att inte längre vara punk när de byter sound, de blir mainstream enligt en del av fantasterna. Vad har soundet för betydelse för vad som är punk och inte? Syftet med undersökningen är att få en djupare förståelse för punkens sound. Dessutom undersöks vad soundet har för betydelse för skillnaden mellan vad som är "riktig punk" och vad som är mainstream. Tidigare forskning tar upp kulturella och tekniska aspekter som påverkar och formar punkens sound, såsom; DIY-kulturen, inspelningsmetod i studio, tekniska begränsningar, och producentrollens påverkan på soundet. Även skillnaden mellan riktig punk och mainstreampunk beskrivs. Teoriavsnittet tar upp teorier om begreppet "noise" och hur det används för att förklara hur individer uppfattar ljudideal. Gullös (2010) tredimensionella modell för musikproduktion används för att förklara producenters beteenden och ageranden under produktion. Kvalitativa intervjuer har använts som metod för att studera respondenternas resonemang och tankar kring punkens sound på ett djupare och friare sätt. Resultatet av intervjuerna genomgår sedan en analytisk fas där teori tillämpas för att uppnå svar på forskningsfrågorna. Analysen visar att punkens rötter är det som formar punkens sound, dvs; tekniska begränsningar och enkla inspelningsmetoder, vilket tillhör en äldre tid som många fantaster gärna förhåller sig till. Hur man förhåller sig till rötterna beror på hur viktiga de är för individen. Punken utvecklas likt all annan musik, och det gör även människans uppfattning av musik som därav skapar nya sorters sound hos punken. Bandet själva styr vilket sound de vill ha. Punkband som ändrar sound kan ibland ses som mainstream då fansen inte längre känner igen soundet eller genren. Det finns ingredienser som behövs för att punk ska vara punk, dock är det individuellt om vad man relaterar till och ser som punk, alltså finns det mer än bara punkens sound som avgör om vad som är riktig punk eller mainstream.

Studien undersöker om den svenska aktiemarknaden i regel presterar sämre mellan månaderna maj och september enligt den så kallade “ sell-in-may-and-go-away- effekten”. Vi använder den logaritmerade avkastningen för det svenska indexet OMXS30 som delas upp i olika perioder; maj till september, samt oktober till april. Avkastningen för dessa perioder jämförs genom att använda en regressionsmodell. Resultatet från undersökningen visar att effekten är positiv, samt signifikant på en-procentsnivå mellan 1986 till 2017 för OMXS30 iSverige. Studien tittar även på sell-in-may-and-go-away- effektens utveckling, och finner indikationer för att effekten avtar efter publiceringen av Bouman & Jacobsens undersökningav effekten år 2002. Indikationen på att effekten avtar kan betyda en högre grad av rationalitet hos investerare samt en mer effektiv marknad allt eftersom sell-in-may-and-go-away- effekten blir mer allmänt känd. Resultatet för att effekten skulle vara avtagande är dock inte statistisk signifikant och därmed inte heller statistiskt säkerställd.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Structural economic changes in many countries, together with unprecedented developments in the business environment, have significantly affected the value creation processes of firms and the way business is conducted. The traditional financial reporting model is inadequate as a consequence of these developments, and intellectual capital (IC) information has gained importance for investment decision making. Empirical capital markets research demonstrates the value-relevance and predictive ability of certain types of IC information. The use of IC information by capital market participants is a topic that has begun to gain attention from contemporary researchers, but for which scant empirical evidence exists. Much of the research in this area relies on the literature about the use of non-financial information (NFI), which is inadequate in its examination of certain types of IC information. Therefore, the main aim of this thesis is to examine the use and communication of IC information by sell-side analysts. Sell-side analysts are of particular interest because they are capital market intermediaries and sophisticated processors of corporate information. The reports they produce provide an opportunity to examine their use and communication of IC information. The specific objectives of this thesis are to examine: the extent and types of IC information used by sell-side analysts in initiating coverage reports produced by them; how IC information is used and communicated in these reports; and factors that may influence the use of IC information by sell-side analysts. In order to address these research objectives a content analysis of IC references in 64 initiating coverage reports written on an equivalent number of S&P/ASX 200/300 companies is performed. The content analysis identifies and measures IC references by topic, evidence (discursive, monetary, numerical, or visual), news-tenor (positive, neutral or negative) and time orientation (forward-looking, past-oriented or non-time-specific). The findings indicate that Australian sell-side analysts appreciate the importance of IC in firm valuation, and thus are not ambivalent about the use of IC information in general. However, the findings suggest that their communication of IC information is inconsistent and unsystematic, and inadequate in relation to certain types of IC. This highlights the need for undertaking work at a policy level to educate and train sell-side analysts to deal with IC information, and the development of better models and guidelines for analysing and communicating IC information. On how IC information is used, this thesis finds that sell-side analysts have varying uses of IC information. It was found that IC is predominantly communicated discursively, positively, and in a past-oriented manner; and in doing so IC is used as a tool to further the sell-side analysts’ agenda for the company analysed. Further, the results highlight that the type of investment recommendation in analyst reports impacts on the evidence, news tenor, and time-orientation of IC communicated. These findings alert future researchers to the wider role played by IC beyond its use in forecasts and valuations. Also, the findings indicate inter-sectoral differences in the use of IC information in analyst reports, highlighting the need to improve IC reporting practices of firms by including additional information on industry-specific IC value drivers. Further, it was found that sell-side analysts emphasise IC information in analyst reports for companies from high IC-intensive sectors compared to those from low IC-intensive sectors. Similarly, it was found that analyst reports on risky companies contain significantly more IC information than analyst reports on less risky companies. Contrary to expectations, the extent of IC information is not found to vary with firm size and firm profitability. Also, the results support that the extent of certain types of IC information differs between types of analysts’ investment recommendations. More generally, the findings of this thesis suggest that the corporate reporting process could be improved by including additional types of IC information and providing this information more effectively in a manner that enables users to visualise the interrelationships between resources (both tangible and intangible) and outcomes. This study calls for standards or guidelines for intellectual capital reporting (ICR) in Australia and the expansion of the role of auditing and assurance services to enhance reliability of firm provided IC information in a bid to improve the use of IC information in company analysis by sell-side analysts.

The thesis deals with selling stock photography via Internet. It is concerned with the specifics of the Internet environment and its implications for selling intangible assets. Further, the thesis follows the process of selling photography. It shortly discusses protection of copyright connected with photography. The last part analyses selected Czech and foreign providers of photography.