The utilization of total quality management (TQM) is advocated by some experts, as a partial remedy to the ills of the healthcare industry. However, some healthcare administrators are not yet sold on TQM. Some healthcare administrators still question the impact of TQM on the operational, financial and strategic health of their institutions. They consider the investment in TQM as unjustifiable because the return on such investment in their mind is questionable. This study illustrates how the constant market share model can be utilized to show the competitive benefits of TQM. Based on the results of this study, it is concluded that the fears of some healthcare administrators are unfounded. Not only that TQM does not compromise organizational effectiveness, but it actually improves it, as it contributes to increasing market share.

This study examines the within and between sex differences on the relative importances of merchandise quality and interaction quality as drivers of behavioral loyalty (share of wallet). A sample of customers of a national retail chain serves as the study setting. The results indicate that for female customers, interaction quality and merchandise quality have equally strong total influence on share of wallet. For male customers, the total effect of merchandise quality on share of wallet is significantly stronger than the total effect of interaction quality. Across sex comparisons reveal that the total effect of interaction quality on share of wallet is stronger for female customers. However, merchandise quality exerts a stronger total influence on share of wallet for male customers. Implications of the results are discussed and avenues for future research are offered.

The current demographical situation of the Czech Republic suggests that its population is rapidly aging. It is, therefore, imperative to improve the employment rate for citizens above the age of 50. For this diploma thesis, the goal is to identify the factors that influence Czech senior citizens while deciding at which age to retire, and to recommend additional solutions to improve the employment rate for Czech citizens above the age of 50. To determine these factors, the secondary data from the SHARE database of 2011, 2013, and 2015 were analyzed. Additionally, the results of the quantitative survey are supplemented with in-depth interviews focused on the motivations of Czech seniors for remaining in the labor market. Several of the most important factors identified include the following: work satisfaction, chronic diseases, household income per person, hours worked per week, depression rate, subjectively perceived health, physical demand of the job, and level of education. Several recommendations have been proposed for the state, regions, organizations, and individuals as a result of the analyses. In particular, changes have been proposed for the pension system, the central organization supporting seniors' health, the support of seniors' education, the application of phased retirement and the bridge jobs, the job position of the intergenerational mentor, the ergonomics of the workplace, the support of active lifestyle, and the establishment of clubs.

The purpose of this study was to explore healthcare providers' awareness and perceptions of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use in providing systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) care. This phenomenolgical study was built upon existing research indicating SLE patients' need to foster better communication about CAM use. Participants were recruited from the Long Island Rheumalogical Clinic in the State of New York. Individual in-depth semistructered interviews were conducted to explore the awareness and perceptions of a purposive sample of 10 healthcare providers who care for patients with SLE. Transcripts were analyzed, and categorical themes were developed. Guided by the use of the shared decision-making model and self-efficacy theory, 5 themes emerged: varied knowledge and experiences with CAM varied, participants' personal experience and perceived effectiveness led to patient guidance and advice, perceived benefits of CAM use, participants as patient advocates, and initiatives for further research. Study findings revealed that the knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs of health care providers regarding the use of CAM shed light on the importance of health promotion to guide future research, both within and beyond CAM. Strategies are recommended to increase awareness and understanding of CAM use through proper education and advocacy. This research may lead to positive social change in that providers may use the information in this research to break down barriers to communication between patients and professionals regarding CAM usage.

Some corporate leaders lack knowledge of CSR strategies to improve corporate financial performance. Businesses increase their profit margins when the business leaders integrate social and environmental management into core business processes. Grounded in stakeholder theory, this multicase study involved an exploration of corporate social responsibility factors that contributory to improving market share and financial performance. One-on-one interviews took place, and corporate leaders of 3 Native American owned companies that have implemented successful CSR strategies to improve market share and financial performance within the Midwestern area of the United States, including Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma. Data triangulation involved the use of field observations, organizational background information, and review of archival records. Modified van Kaam method was instrumental to identifying the variation of potential structural meanings embedded within textural implications as well as to expose core themes and contexts that contribute to the apparent presence of the phenomenon. Some themes that emerged from this study included corporate social responsibility strategies, core value and views, and indications. These themes developed through efforts to identify the CSR strategies and outcomes of Native-owned gaming operations. Identifying successful CSR strategies encourages more companies to participate in socially responsible initiatives. Illustrating successful CSR efforts within Native gaming operations can transform business practices, enhance social performance, and generate positive social change in communities through transforming local Native American communities into vibrant cohesive societies for families to thrive in.

In spite of the well-accepted belief of the relationship between cash flow and stock price, there are some controversies about whether cash flow is a good value driver in terms of explaining the volatility of stock prices, when compared with other value drivers, such as earnings or dividends. Most of the previous studies that have focused on the relationship between stock price and cash flow have used cross-industries data, primarily S&P 500 index. These studies do not distinguish service industry from manufacturing industry. However, the service industry is different from manufacturing in many ways. These differences make cash play different roles in the daily operation between the service industry and the manufacturing industry. Given these factors, whether the relationship between stock price and cash flow identified in previous studies will hold in the casual theme restaurant industry is the question this study tries to answer. Therefore, a set of 20 casual theme restaurant companies are selected through the COMPUSTAT database as the sample of this study. In this study, the performance of cash flow, earnings and dividends helping to explain the stock price move will be compared and ranked under the setting of casual theme restaurants. This result will provide the management of casual theme restaurants a guideline, which explains how to maintain the stock price increase and minimize the volatility by monitoring the most important value driver of the industry. The methodology of this study will follow the traditional multiple valuation model. The logic of this model is to compare the pricing error of different value drivers and determine which one is the best. The results of this study show that operating cash flow outperformed earnings and dividends in the multiple valuation tests. This is different from the results of previous studies that earnings has the strongest explanatory power in the variance of share price. / Master of Science

1 Protection of a forced heir and his disinheritance - Abstract The protection of a forced heir is the protection of a descendant who is entitled to have the testator leave him at least a forced share of his estate. It is a traditional institute of inheritance law, which is a manifestation of the principle of familiarization and intergenerational solidarity by ensuring that the testator cannot completely neglect his descendant from his acquisition without a legal reason. The corrective, ensuring the autonomy of the testator's expression of will, is the existence of an institute of disinheritance, which the testator can use if his descendant is not worthy of the inheritance for a reason defined by law. The two institutes coexist and should be interpreted in conjunction with each other. The thesis aimed to describe the institutes, especially according to the substantive law, with the addition of the necessary context of procedural law. The aim of the thesis was also to draw attention to problematic aspects and to analyze controversial issues and vague legal concepts. The first chapter is focused on defining the basic concepts of inheritance law, which are defined from general to specific. To understand the current legislation, much attention is paid to historical developments. The second chapter, therefore,...

Share repurchases reached a decade-high level in 2019, just as US equity indices reached a historical zenith, a move in tandem that supports more than merely a correlative relation. However, this relationship moves beyond that of just a close tandem move in indices alongside share repurchases, but to the behavior of firms which began to leverage themselves in order to promote the evermore profitable strategy of large buyback programs. Those repurchases indicate an idiosyncratic and procyclical leveraging that, while much smaller in scope and less combustible by lack of derivative amplification, led to the gorging on unsustainable debt described by Hyman Minsky and experienced in the Great Financial Crisis in the banking industry. In this case, the 'Minsky moment' that may have inevitably popped the self-promotion bubble came in the form of the 'black swan' event of the coronavirus outbreak. This paper aims to historically frame the issues, with delimitation of the effect of buybacks from 2009 to early 2020 with scant reference to historical factors influencing the increased usage of share repurchase programs. The analysis within this historical scope will reflect empirical measures on the market-wide level of share buybacks and debt levels alongside the concurrent equity index acceleration....

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(農学) / 甲第20716号 / 農博第2245号 / 新制||農||1053(附属図書館) / 学位論文||H29||N5082(農学部図書室) / 京都大学大学院農学研究科生物資源経済学専攻 / (主査)教授 福井 清一, 教授 伊藤 順一, 教授 梅津 千恵子 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Agricultural Science / Kyoto University / DGAM

Chapter One: I contribute to the literature on the decline of the labor share in the United States by proposing a channel through which increasing household debt can lead to the decline of the labor share. Specifically, workers with lower net worth have lower reservation wages. Thus, workers in debt spend less time job-searching and accept lower-paying jobs. Focusing on the period between 1982 and 2016 - a time during which the labor share declined and household debt rose as a proportion of GDP - I describe a model which demonstrates that the lowering of household net worth may have caused a 12 percent decrease in mean wages, and caused the labor share to decline by 0.081 points. Since the labor share actually fell by 0.057 points in that period, the model ``over-explains'' the decline of the labor share. Chapter Two: What effect do labor-restricting policies have on how much people drive, and on carbon emissions? I model the effect of labor-restricting policies in the following way: I calibrate a model to match the United States in 2018, and also calibrate the model counterfactually to simulate what would have occurred had other policies been in effect. I compare the carbon emissions that result from the original calibration to the carbon emissions that result from the counterfactual-policy calibrations. The labor-restricting policies I consider are wage taxes, retirement mandates, and restrictions on time spent working. I find that, for all policies considered, reductions in work are associated with increases in driving but nonetheless lead to reductions in carbon emissions, due to overall declines in economic activity. Chapter Three: For the model introduced previously, I study transition paths for the following case: The model is originally in a steady-state and the agents expect the current policy regime to last forever; then they are surprised when the government announces and immediately enacts a policy change; they then expect the new policy regime to last forever. The policy changes I study are wage taxes and emissions taxes (either spent by the government or rebated). For each of these policy changes, the model economy begins in a baseline steady-state, then enters a transition lasting several periods, and eventually arrives at a new steady-state. During the transition, aggregate wealth gradually moves to its new steady-state value. Jump variables - such as aggregate consumption, driving, leisure, labor, and emissions - at first jump and then gradually move to their new steady-state values. Labor and emissions generally move in opposite directions, which apparently contradicts the idea that more work leads to more pollution. However, this contradiction is merely the temporary result of the fact that agents are spending down their aggregate wealth; thus they are consuming goods and services produced elsewhere, and are paying for labor to be done outside the model using wealth that was built up previously. / Economics