The focus of this study is to evaluate the impact of corporate ownership structure on the overall performance of stock exchanges. This study distinguishes in particular mutual versus demutualized ownership. London Stock Exchange and Hong Kong Stock Exchange are chosen as study cases, because London Stock Exchange is one of the world leading stock exchanges and Hong Kong Stock Exchange is definitely one of the most important emerging market stock exchanges. That is why the results obtained by comparing these two stock exchanges could serve as good indicator in understanding the effects of demutualization process on the whole stock exchange sector and retain the subtle differences in micro-behavior of the stock exchanges undergone the same transformation. In this paper the simple descriptive statistics is used as the method of analysis, in association to a profound review of the literature in this area. The data illuminate the fact that demutualized stock exchanges hold a stronger operating performance and a better performance in term of shareholder’s return than mutual exchanges. The result is generally in line with the basic theories in the area of corporate governance and empirical studies in this specific area like Aggarwal (2006), Mendiola and O’Hara (2003) and Hart and Moore (1996).

Geographically dispersed organizations are becoming increasingly common, however, the organizational culture is often weaker in this type of organization due to geographical distances. One important aspect of the organizational culture is the organizational values, and if shared by all organizational members they can benefit the company on many levels, for example by increasing motivation and communication. If employees, on the other hand, fail to interpret the organizational values it may lead to decreased working moral and overall dissatisfaction. In family businesses it is the values of the family that constitute the organizational values, and these may be difficult to communicate to non-family employees, because family businesses often rely on informal communication.   The purpose of this thesis is to describe how non-family employees interpret the organizational values of a family business, as well as to increase the understanding of whether geographical distance affects their interpretation. In this thesis we have conducted a qualitative case study, in which ten semi-structured interviews were made in a geographically dispersed family business. We have assumed an employee perspective and have, thus, interviewed non-family employees on the different geographical locations of this family business.   The findings from the empirical data showed that the case studied organization does not have any formally written organizational values and the non-family employees have as a result interpreted the values slightly differently. The employees state the organizational values in general terms, which would make them applicable to any organization, or even society at large.   In the analysis we compare the theoretical framework and the empirical findings in order to present conclusions for the organization being studied. The analysis will be divided into themes; organizational structure, organizational culture and values as well as the relation between the non-family employees and the family business.   We were able to conclude that informal communication is not sufficient in order to efficiently communicate the organizational values in a geographically dispersed organization. Nevertheless, the geographical distance for each workplace respectively could not be identified as the only influencing factor that affects the employees’ interpretation of the organizational values. The organizational structure emerged as a contributing factor. The non-family employees’ interpretations were broad and general in terms of the organizational values. One of our recommendations is for the organization to write down the organizational values and distribute them throughout the organization, which will enable the organizational values to be correctly interpreted by all organizational members.

ABSTRACT Title: Services Marketing in a Cross-Cultural Environment – The Case of Elekta in Russia Level: Final assignment for Master Degree in Business Administration Authors: Alena Bazyleva and Maria Zaytseva Supervisor: Dr. Maria Fregidou-Malama Aim: The aim of this research is to investigate how the products and services of the Swedish company Elekta are marketed in Russia, a country with cultural environment different from Sweden. For this purpose such aspects of marketing strategy as adaptation/standardization, trust and network development, which help to decrease the influence of intangibility and heterogeneity of services, are examined. Method: In present research explanatory applied type of study was used to describe services marketing process. Combination of induction and deduction methods, and qualitative methods of research were used. Case study of Swedish company Elekta was chosen as the research area. Primary data was collected through survey by means of semi-structured interviews and open questionnaires. Secondary data was collected from sources such as relevant books, scientific articles, company brochure, and websites of company and its clients. Results and conclusion: The research reveals that trust, network building, balance of adaptation and standardization strategies, employed by Elekta company, help to overcome heterogeneity and intangibility of its services in Russian market. It has also been found that the image of Sweden as a country of origin plays an important role in trust establishment in Russia, but in a sense that it is a foreign country, not Sweden in particular. Moreover, it is suggested, that organizational structure of international company, matrix structure in this particular case study, favours the development and effectiveness of the discussed variables. In spite of such characteristics of Russian market as high bureaucracy, corruption, “blat” network, unstable laws, etc., this market is considered to be a promising emerging market for international business. Russian national culture displays large power distance, high uncertainty avoidance, collectivist and feminine values, which influence the whole society and the business sphere as well. Suggestions for future research: It would be beneficial for future research to expand the range of complementing studies, examining the cases of Elekta in different countries and emerging markets in particular. In addition, in order to develop international services marketing theory, it is necessary to include other services industries in the scope of research. Furthermore, getting feedback from the patients, who experienced treatment on Elekta equipment, can contribute to the future research. Contribution of the thesis: The modification and adaptation of the theoretical framework of Fregidou-Malama and Hyder (2011) made by authors of this study contributes to the theory of international services marketing process. In addition, as there is lack of research in this area for health care sector, this study can be valuable addition to this research area. Research of the case of Elekta in Russia complements the range of studies on international services marketing process in health care sector with the cases of Elekta company in different countries: Egypt, China, the Philippines, Brazil, Hong Kong. Besides, current research has certain practical value: it is beneficial for international companies expanding into emerging markets in general and in Russian market in particular. This research may help to increase awareness about Elekta treatment solutions. Key words: Elekta, Gamma Knife, Russia, Services Marketing, Services characteristics, Network, Trust, Adaptation, Standardization, Culture, Organizational structure.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the life cycle stages of the chosen gazelles in Sweden and identify their effectiveness related to the stages. Furthermore, we study whether the given characteristic of the gazelle companies correspond to the suggested characteristics of the given theoretical framework. Gazelles, as the outstanding performers of both financial profits and job creators of our society, they are always struggling to sustain growth and satisfy market needs in order to maintain their prestigious status. Therefore, it is critical for them to access their abilities as well as constraints of the current organizational structures and we seek the solutions to these problems through the organizational life cycle theory perspective. Our study focuses on the Dagens Industri’s gazelle award winners that are carefully evaluated by the strict criteria it provides. Also, we revisit the various previous studies in the field of the organizational life cycle and effectiveness in order to provide the foundation for our analysis. In order to serve our purpose, we study 26 gazelles from Sweden in dept by reviewing their annual reports and official websites and provide the reader with quantities data research that are self-administrated concerning the different attributes of the life cycle stages and effectiveness. In conclusion, we find that the majority of the Swedish gazelle companies we have studied correspond to the second stage of the life cycle model which focuses on human relations model as an effectiveness area. However, these firms demonstrate unique effectiveness that genuine SMEs do not have, such as high focus on R&D and harmony between flexibility and control in their organizational structure.

Intresset i denna studie låg i huruvida organisationsstruktur påverkar den interna kommunikationen. Studien utfördes i samarbete med Region Halland. Avgränsningen gjordes till HR-verksamheten centralt, personalchefer och förvaltningschefer, där syftet med undersökningen var att beskriva och analysera upplevelsen av kommunikationen däremellan. Alla organisationer behöver kommunikation för att existera, det är kommunikation som utgör grunden och framgången för en organisation (Falkheimer & Heide, 2007 15-33). Genom kvalitativa samtalsintervjuer och inläsning på teorier om kommunikation besvarades nedanstående frågeställningar:   Hur sker kommunikationen mellan HR-verksamheten centralt, personalcheferna och förvaltningscheferna? Hur påverkar organisationsstrukturen kommunikationen och hur upplever medarbetarna att organisationsstrukturen påverkar kommunikationen? Går det att identifiera eventuella kommunikationsproblem och i så fall vilka? Vad upplevs som effektiv kommunikation och vad upplevs fungera bra idag? Vem upplevs ha ansvar för att information skall nå fram till den eller de som är tänkt?   Resultatet visade bland annat en upplevd otydlighet gällande information, svårighet med samordning, problematik kring förvaltningarnas storlek samt resurser på varje enskild enhet och svårighet att se organisationen ur ett helhetsperspektiv.

After the implementation of national health insurance, the health care industry has entered into a new era. The public not only ask the hospital for medical technology and expertise, but also more focus on the quality of care. The quality of health care has become a successful key factor for hospital management. The biggest problem of quality management faced by a hospital is that no one can clearly describe the organizational structure, business process, and information system which are related with the medical quality management. Provided that no one could completely describe the quality management system, neither a tool to represent and analyze the quality management system, it is impossible to achieve a nice and sound quality management throughout the hospital. This research uses a quality management model as an example, introducing service-oriented medical quality management model (SOMQMM) to corporate restructuring and process improvements. Service-oriented management model, using the service-oriented theory and method, is able to effectively describe the organizational structure, business process, and information system all in one. ontribution of this research is through the structure-behavior coalescence (SBC) service-oriented theory and method to create a new management tool and quality management model. From this model, we can clearly describe how we can do better quality of care for the medical industry, and integrate the quality management to the organizational structure and business process. Hence, provide the dynamic quality of information system to the manager as the basis for adjustment and management.

Electricity construction is required for a country¡¦s fundamental economic development. It provides the needed power and plays an important role in modern society. In order to develop sufficient electricity, Taiwan government has launched a construction project in the whole country starting from the year of 2004. The thermal power station is the major source of electricity in Taiwan and will take long time to construct. Based on the guidelines of Executive Yuan¡¥s Public Construction Commission, the construction shall focus on material management system; coordinate, monitor and examine the project; review by routine and check on site; integrate technology and experts from the production field to raise the execution effect and process quality. Alteration of thermal power station consists of generating set and supportive equipment. The construction methodology will determine if the construction can or not be completed on time. With reference by managerial and operational scopes of some enterprises, this thesis sets up Architecture-Oriented Thermal Power Station Alteration Affairs Management Model, abbreviated as AOTPSAAMM, to describe the whole picture for the thermal power station alteration project and further to achieve the aims on controlling schedule and raising knowledge management. AOTPSAAMM contains the architecture of thermal power station alteration construction. It not only describes the coalescence of organizational structure and organizational behavior in enterprise value chains, but also integrates with technology application systems. With duplicating and expanding capabilities, AOTPSAAMM will easily apply to other generating electricity system and create contemporary enterprise excellences.

In the recent years, the financial tendency in Taiwan towards merging banks into financial holding companies. Traditional banking services, i.e. deposit saving and loan, have been replaced by the most popular consumer financial products such as cash card and credit card. In order to adapt to the rapid changing financial trends, a more flexible and accurate information system will be an imperative for the management levels. The mainframe systems, the most popular system in the banking industry, have been challenged by the open systems of client-server architecture. This research is to explore the critical success factors of the multi-sections collaboration in a system reengineering project. This exploratory study adopts case study method. It takes in-depth interviews with fourteen IT supervisors and executives from the case-study bank. After summarizing and analyzing the related factors, the conclusions are as followed. 1. Set up checkpoints in the project development process, and review the utilization of resources including human resources, cost and programming quality. 2. At least, there is a team member who masters the system to be replaced and the network system in order to fully understand the merit and defect of the replaced system. 3. For IT professionals who are already provided with banking related knowledge and information technology, they need a charismatic project leader. 4. Except for traditional communication of interpersonal behaviors, leaders can adopt new technology such as wide-band conference or distant VOD (voice on demand) to reinforce the communications among members who are located in different places. 5. Avoid conflicts and direct them to cooperation. Discover the events and problems that cause the conflicts and target on problem solving levels. 6. In the internal organizational structure levels, divide and adjust them into well-structured divisions or sections. As for the external levels, project departments should be set up for these specific projects. 7. Leaders should present the project plans and steps to all the involving IT staff before the project initiates, in order to bring all the project members with participation and responsibility.

For decades, the scope of an enterprise becomes huge day by day. In order to adapt to the rapid changing environments, it is necessary that an enterprise considers the re-engineering of organizational structures and functional processes altogether. The enterprise's administrators, while re-enginerring enterprises, need an applicable business architecture to be the Model. While setting up the business architecture, we must dialyse such factors as organizational structures, functional processes, etc. to build up the most suitable strategy. While re-enginerring enterprises, a better result comes out if organizational structures and functional processes are considered altogether. Currently, business re-engineerings adopted by an enterprise belong to process-oriented business re-engineerings. Process-oriented business re-engineerings focus mainly on an enterprise¡¦s functional processes and neglect the relationship between organizational structures and functional processes. The achievement is always not so good as expected. Embracing organizational structures and functional processes in concert and harmony, it has offered and organized advantages received after business re-engineering, the best shared practice and experience. This research probes into architecture-oriented business re-engineerings. This research leads business re-engineering and starts from the process-oriented business re-engineering that most enterprises choose now. And from ¡§organizational structures and functional processes in concert and harmony,¡§ it carries on business re-engineering necessary terms to succeed in to prove, still lies in: ¡§organizational structures and functional processes in concert and harmony,¡¨ ¡§tactics architecture of globality,¡¨ ¡§carry on the re-engineering to the cardinal or key architecture,¡¨ ¡§trans-departmental architecture re-engineering groups,¡¨ ¡§comprehensible enterprise architecture perspective,¡¨ ¡§understanding and analysing business architecture,¡¨ etc. This is exactly one of the elements that architecture-oriented business re-engineering needs too. It is expected that it can lead to an important reference that the business re-engineering requires. According to the above conclusion, we find that an enterprise can be benefited by the contribution of this research. It also provides administrators or executives many suggestions that support implementing business re-engineering of an enterprise. Key Words: Business Architecture, Architecture-Oriented Business Re-engineering, Process-Oriented Business Re-engineering, Organizational Structure, Functional Porcesss

Abstract An important milestone in the history of management thought to consider how managers control the organization's relationship with its external environment in the 1960s late. Historically, management theory has used a narrow and parochial concept of environment that emphasizes political, economic, social, and technological aspects to the virtual exclusion of the natural environment. Therefore, the history of scholarship focusing on the management of organizations in the natural environment is relatively brief, compared to that in other environment-oriented academic fields. The researches on business and green issues have sprouted since the middle of 1990s. However, these researches only discuss the responding strategies adopted by businesses sector because of stricter regulations. The specialties of the researches conducted were based on understanding ¡§What companies do¡¨ rather than ¡§Why do they do it¡¨? Base on the explanations above, this study tries to answer the three research topics: 1. Organization response to the environmental issues what is the green management to be adopted? 2. What are the factors to influence the green management? 3. How does green management impact on organizational performance? By structural equation modeling, the purpose of this study, therefore, attempts to present a framework that synthesizes the factors of institutional environment, technical environment, stakeholders, organizational structure and environmental performance and then explore these relationships with four industries in Taiwan's manufacturers. In 235 valid samples, this study finds that, in respect of green management, clean product operation is higher than proactive administrative management and green marketing activities. Green management has apparently positive correlation with the factors of institutional environment, technical environment and stakeholders. This study also finds that, the factor of organizational structure apparently positive effect managerial and operational performance. Green management apparently positive effect managerial and operational performance. Managerial performance has apparently positive influence on operational performance.