Thesis (Ed. D.)--Washington State University, August 2009. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Sept. 10, 2009). "College of Education." Includes bibliographical references (p. 83-88).

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The focus of this paper is to explore the recruitment process for board members, and board member choices in family firms in Sweden. It was found that the board member re- cruitment process is a field with low amount of research. This is the main argument upon the construction of this study. Previous research also argue that most family businesses are small, which increase the likelihood of finding firms without an active board, or with low professionalism in the board. Through a case study, four Swedish family firms were interviewed in order to identify the board composition, board governance and board recruitment process at these firms. The firms represent different sizes, sectors, and stages of growth, being a small company with two employees and SEK 1.7m annual revenue, to a large company with 1200 employees and SEK 8bn annual revenue. These companies were then analysed through both the agency theory, and the stewardship theory, using previous research as foundation and sup- port. The findings show that the most desired board member characteristic are knowledge within the sector the firm is operating in, as well as trustworthiness. All of the interviewed com- panies saw their board as more of a function to advise the family, rather than to monitor the managers, and having extensive knowledge from the sector is of relevance when giving advice. The members of these boards were recruited using the networks of the CEO, or us- ing consultancy firms to help finding potential members. Lack of trust was identified as a potential issue in board member recruitment, as the member will gain access to valuable in- formation. This led to the obstacle of letting external members in on the board. This ob- stacle, however, is recommended to be overseen as all CEO’s that were interviewed em- phasized the benefits of recruiting external members to the board, arguing that the benefits of having external members in the board outweighs the potential costs.

This thesis discusses the design, fabrication, and testing of a high efficiency, dual band radio frequency power amplifier. While it is difficult to demonstrate an exact mode of operation for power amplifiers at radio frequencies, based on the characteristics of the transistor itself, the argument can be made that our high efficiency performance is due to an approximation to class E operation. The PA is designed around a CGH40025 transistor manufactured by Cree, Inc, which has developed a very useful nonlinear model of its transistor, which allows use of software load/source pull methods to determine optimum impedances to be presented to the gate and drain (hereafter referred to as source and load) of the transistor at each band of operation. A recent work on dual-band impedance matching is then used to design distributed element networks in order to present conjugate matches of these impedances to the transistor. This is followed by a careful layout, after which the PA is then fabricated on a low-impedance substrate using a LPKF Protomat S63 rapid prototyping machine. Measurements of gain and drain current provide values for power-added-efficiency. Simulated gains were 21 and 18 dB at 800 MHz and 1.85 GHz, respectively, with PAE around 63% for both bands. Measurements taken from the fabricated PA showed gains of 20 and 16 dB at each band, but PAE of 80% at 800 MHz and 43% at 1.85 GHz.

This essay offers a brief examination of the interaction between New Orleans Mayor Ernest "Dutch" Morial and the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans from the spring of 1980 to the late summer of 1981. Morial, the city's first African American mayor, attempted to implement several reform measures on the Sewerage and Water Board which included reduced term limits, an affirmative action policy, and a Minority Business Enterprise "set-aside" program despite opposition from a faction of white elite board members. These reforms reveal Morial's desire to confront social inequities in a post-integration southern city that were maintained in part by a fragmented government structure and conservative racial attitudes.

This thesis comprises three empirical studies. These studies can be read as though they are independent. However, all three of them revolve around investigating whether and how characteristics of directors can affect firm-level outcomes. The first study – “Does gender diversity affect firm equity risk?” – systematically investigates whether gender diversity in the boardroom influences firm equity risk. To identify the causal effect of gender on risk, I employ a dynamic model which allows for the possibilities that risk can influence the gender of appointed directors and that both director gender and risk can be influenced by other unobserved firm-level factors. The overall results in this study do not support the view that female boardroom representation influences equity risk. I also show that findings of a negative relationship between the two variables are spurious and driven by unobserved between-firm heterogeneous factors. The second study – “Spillover effects of women on boards” – introduces an alternative way of looking at boardroom gender diversity. The definition of boardroom gender diversity is broadened to include female directors who do not sit on the board but are connected to the board through male directors or “external” female influence. This is in addition to the “internal” influence of female directors inside the board. I find that when both external and internal influences of female directors are considered, there is evidence supporting a link between gender diversity and firm risk and that a plausible channel by which gender affects risk is through more effective monitoring. Male directors are less likely to exhibit absenteeism when they are exposed to both external and internal female influence. CEO turnover sensitivity increases with the proportion of male directors who are externally connected to women, when there is at least one female director inside the board. Risk also increases with the proportion of these connected men when they work on a board with at least one woman. The findings suggests that female directors can exert influence on firm-level outcomes despite their minority status in the boardroom. The third study – “Independent director reputation incentives and stock price informativeness” – examines whether the reputation incentives of independent directors increase the incorporation of firm-specific information into stock prices. I find that the proportion of directors who deem their directorships to be more important based on firm market capitalization is associated with higher firm-specific information content in stock prices. This is consistent with the argument that boards that are incentivized to protect their reputation can deter managers from withholding information. I find this relation to be stronger when other external monitoring mechanisms are weak and when there is uncertainty regarding the future prospects of the firm. I also find evidence that a channel by which directors can influence stock price informativeness is through voluntary disclosure. Additionally, the presence of directors with high reputation incentives is negatively associated with stock price crash.

Thesis (M. Ed.(Educational Management) -- University of Pretoria, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 93-98) Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Oregon State University, 1973. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the World Wide Web.