This study uses the current laws and regulations of Mainland China as the researching objectives trying to figure out some possible methods to be the references for those who are interested in investing into Chinese market in the near future. Although PRC has agreed to release trading right after joined WTO, the detailed regulations are not very clear yet. For those foreign traders may uncarefully disobey China¡¦s laws due to misunderstand the laws or just believe people¡¦s words in the market. This may put themselves in a high risk situation. After analyzes the laws, this study designs a suitable open questionnaire to have in-depth interviews with some high level managers currently working in Mainland China to explore Taiwanese SME¡¦s activities. On the method of qualitative research, we have to concern on three creteria: A. correct description, B.criticism and analysis, C. discovery¡CThis study found: information is difficult to be collected in China market¡Bthe credit is poor of your business objects¡Bchannels and sources of goods are difficult to control and difficulty to collect money. These problems will increase the transaction cost. While to build Guangxi or relationship and establish commercial friendship in Chinese market will help you to reduce the transaction cost. China market is a rapid growing but also high competitive market. To find a proper entry model is very important topic.

To Invest in Mainland China becomes Taiwan corporations¡¦ high priority by virtue of China¡¦s vast internal consumer market, the trade liberalization after joining WTO, low labor cost, and easy communication in Chinese language. However, the special relationship between Taiwan and China induces Taiwan corporations¡¦ investment risks due to political uncertainties. The establishment of information and communication network between headquarters in Taiwan and their mainland subsidiaries enables the governance and coordination between two sides. However, bearing these special relations, it is a nontrivial question to ask any unique information infrastructure and system that Taiwan corporations adopt which may be consistent with or different from prior literatures in multi-national corporations. This thesis develops a conceptual framework to identify the relationship between the factors and IT configurations, and then proposes propositions to explain findings from three Taiwan companies, which have subsidiaries in China. This study asserts that the political uncertainties that influence the IT configuration of Taiwan companies with subsidiaries in China are common with multinational firms whose headquarter and subsidiaries have normal relationship. The major contribution of this study is to explore the factors that affect Taiwan companies¡¦ IT governing practice toward their China subsidiaries.

ABSTRACT As the progress of information technology, the trend of globalization market and dramatic market competition, human resource can be the only source of sustaining a competitive advantage for organizations. It is not all employees who possess knowledge and skills of core resources for firms. It is the fundamental work for human resource management for firms to improve employment management of human resource. Given pressures for both efficiency and flexibility, in addition to the use of internal full-time employees, firms are use external workers, such as temporary employees, contract laborers, consultant etc. The fact highlights that human resource management can be divided to make or buy decisions. It would be more efficient employment to hire at employee's characteristic. The related academic is less and lack of a systematic framework for carrying for employment management. This study, develop a human resource architecture based transaction cost economics, human capital, resource-based view and the academic of Lepak & Snell (1999). The conclusions are: 1.When human resource are both valuable and unique, firms should internally develop human resource and would rely on a commitment-based human resource configuration. 2. When human resource is valuable but not unique, firms should acquire human resource from labor market and would rely on a market-based human resource configuration.3. When human resource is not valuable and unique, firms should use contractual human resource and would rely on a compliance-based human resource configuration.4. When human resource is unique but not valuable, firms should use alliance and would rely on a collaborative-based human resource configuration.

With the coming of digital times, global competition resulted in every industry expanding their requirements in supply chain integration and enterprise resource planning. The importance of information system integration industries also increases with time. When all kind of industries continues to integrate supply chain and establish cooperative partnerships, trying to exploit cooperation to acquire more competencies in the market, we want to know whether the information system integration industries establish their cooperative relationship. Therefore, our study tried to review the actives and relationship between integrators by the systems integration service process. Through the theory¡¦s guiding, we attend to induce the factors of inter-firm cooperation in system integration industries. We use multiple case study to design our research¡Aand select three cases to study. Semi-structural interview is used to collect needed data to understand the true cooperative relationship between integrators. According to transaction cost theory, resource-base theory and social exchange theory, we propose some theoretical propositions to guiding the real cases analysis. The conclusions not only describe the real cooperation in Taiwan system integration industries, but also induce several factors of cooperative relationship between integrators, including product characteristics, transaction cost, resource, trust and guanxi. Moreover, the transaction cost is the most important element in the cooperative relationship between information system integrators.

Abstract The goals of this study are threefold: first of all, cross-country data for 1997 and 2000, extracted from¡§2002 World Development Indicator¡¨ the World Bank, are utilized to estimate transaction efficiency indicators (TEIs) for various countries. Second, this study further examines the influences of transaction efficiency on the various economic developments, including per capita real income, foreign capital inflow, and infant mortality rate. Finally, this study applies questionnaire survey approach to carry out comparison between Taiwan, China and Hong Kong in terms of transaction costs and the institutional performances. Utilizing ¡§factor analysis¡¨ to measure cross-country TEIs, this study argues that countries with better TEIs generally have higher per capita incomes and FDI net inflows, but lower infant mortality rates. And, we may suggest that Taiwan¡¦s transaction efficiency is superior to the average level of APEC memberships, East Asia and Pacific countries. China is inferior to APEC memberships East Asia, and Pacific countries in terms of degrees of transaction efficiency. The evidence from the study indicates that Hong Kong¡¦s the transaction efficiency is better and equal to developed countries¡¦ and G8 memberships¡¦ ones. In adddition, Taiwan is better than that of China but inferior to that of Hong Kong in terms of transaction efficiency. In comparison to the statistical outcomes, the empirical results of questionnaire survey also confirm that Taiwan is much better than China, but worse than Hong Kong in their stitutional performances.

Abstract By taking the advantages of the Internet technology, the online bookstores developed personalized services, such as providing information for making transaction decision which lowers the consuming cost, fastens the customer loyalty, and creates competitiveness. The purpose of setting up the service mechanism is to win back the consumer. Therefore, understood the customer¡¦s usage intention on the personalized services would benefit the online bookstores to build up their personalized service mechanism and to improve the practical values of the personalized services. ¡@¡@Utilizing Transaction Cost Theory as the extended viewpoint of Technology Acceptance Model, this thesis not only analyzed if the online bookstore¡¦s personalized services impact the consumer¡¦s transactional cost, but also investigated if the benefits arisen from the personalized services vary by other factors. By means of the analysis of the transaction cost and the investigation of the consumer¡¦s useful recognition, the usage intention of the online bookstore¡¦s personalized services can be reasoned out. In this thesis, the acceptability of the online bookstore¡¦s personalized services is realized, the possible factors that could affect the consumer¡¦s usage intention are discussed. The major findings are: the benefits of transaction cost arisen from personalized services were affected by the transactional frequency. More transactional activities, more benefits arisen from the personalized services were observed. Consumers believe that the personalized services provided by online bookstores can lower their transactional cost while their subjectiveness and need are being cared. In addition, different levels of consumer¡¦s useful recognition were obtained while the personal feelings or realizations vary with the contents of the personalized services. According to the findings, the online bookstore¡¦s personalized services are highly recognizable by consumers, especially at the fields of ¡§Purchase & Process Feedback Service¡¨ (PPFS) and ¡§One-by-one Customer Service¡¨ (OCS). The useful recognition for ¡§E-papers Service¡¨ is also sound but relatively lower than that of the others. Referring to the Technology Acceptance Model, the findings show that consumers are highly intentioned to use the online bookstore¡¦s personalized services.

In the past, firms based on economics of scale, capital intensive, mass advertisements, customers service and product quality had changed into creative excellent human resource. Human resource could truly be the only source of sustaining competitive advantage for firms. The related academic about strategic human resource management especially integrative employment and development is less for reference in Taiwan. More over, operations and practices in strategic human resource management are usually not made known to the public because of executives¡¦ hesitation. Thus, these impacts had influenced the empirical studies. Based mainly on transaction cost economics, human capital, resource based view, the purpose of research is to discover an integrated architecture for strategic human resource employment and development by examining high-technology facility industries. The thesis will share the successful experiences of applied human resource management to firms and for reference to the industries, and contribute to the construction of strategic human resource management theory.

This dissertation examines the forces that drive organizational structure and boundary decisions. Using theoretical concepts drawn from transaction cost theory and agency theory, this dissertation develops a model that draws attention to behavioral and outcome distinctions in information flow. Specifically it examines how characteristics of these different types of management information alter the organizational design outcomes predicted by the two theory bases above. The foundational arguments regarding firm boundaries and structure are based on the two contracting modes of agency theory, behavioral and outcome. The construct of information localization (IL), defined as theneed to use information within its immediate context (or conversely, the difficulty of transferring and utilizing information outside of its immediate context), is introduced and used to predict organizational design decisions. This construct represents a synthesis of prior conceptions of information characteristics and is used both to capture salient characteristics of management information and to facilitate an examination of the impacts of different information technology (IT) applications. The relationship between information localization and firm boundaries and structure is tested at the task level. The relationship of information technology with boundary and structure decisions is explained using the model and tested concurrently with the test of the information localization hypotheses. A comprehensive model is proposed and propositions to guide future research are developed. The distinction between outcome and behavioral information localization allows a more nuanced assessment of the impacts of information and information technology on the organization of work. The empirical results suggest that the impact of IT on outcome information localization is negligible for tasks with low outcome IL but increases the likelihood of outsourcing for tasks with high outcome IL. Contrary to prior findings utilizing different conceptualizations of information flow, the impact of technology on behavioral IL on autonomy showed that applications of IT may increase autonomy (decentralization of decision-making) rather than decrease it. / text

This thesis aspires to advance understanding of how actor choices relate to embedded structures of rules in communicative planning practice, using insights from the institutional literature developed in organizational science, economics, sociology and planning. Specifically, the thesis argues that a spatial institutional perspective can help planners understand the complex patterns of interaction among actors, and between actors and rules. Actors interact in the spaces created by the interplay between actor choices and rule structures: the institutional environment. The thesis comprises five papers: two case studies, a literature review and a theoretical paper. A review of the institutional literature reveals insights from other disciplines not yet fully explored in planning, including transaction cost analysis to explain individual decisions and collective action approaches to understanding micro behaviour and macro outcomes. These insights, together with the results of the case studies, suggest that planning theory needs to better understand how individual actors make choices within rule structures and based on the expected behaviour of others. To address this, the thesis offers the concept of relational rewards, which incorporates theories of social capital and communication externalities into a rational actor approach. This may provide an explanation for why self-interested actors make choices about whether or not to participate in interactive forums designed to meet communicative goals. This approach can also explain how boundedly rational actors without communicative norms may over time develop a propensity to collaborate. In a practical sense, this thesis challenges planners to think about what selective incentives they offer actors to participate in communicative planning. It encourages planners to identify and characterize the many institutional environments for planning and decisionmaking in transaction cost terms. Planning theorists and practitioners are experienced and adept in understanding and applying a spatial perspective, and can develop a spatial-institutional approach to coordinating actors both across physical space and within institutional environments. / <p>QC 20100927</p>

The role of governments in the internationalization of the firm had early recognition in prominent seminal studies in international business, such as Hymer’s thesis or the Uppsala Model, though the interaction between multinationals and governments has attracted scarce attention. As such, the main stream of economics and management studies have focused on internationalization essentially as an issue of the firm, wherein the multinationals’ interaction with the environment is limited to a business-industrial scope of suppliers, clients, and competitors. In a different direction, this thesis includes the political setting and studies the beneficial side of governments in the internationalization process of the firm. With this purpose, the present dissertation proposes a conceptual framework based on Johanson and Vahlne’s (1977) internationalization process model, complemented with Williamson’s (1975) Transaction Costs Economics, and encompassed by conceptual insights from institutional studies related to international business. Specifically, the role of governments in the internationalization process is examined through the variances of the relation between knowledge and commitment at the micro, meso, and macro level. The structure of the thesis reflects the multilevel approach, integrating one conceptual and three empirical papers, each of which dealing with a particular level of analysis. Through the aggregation of each paper’s intrinsic contribution, the dissertation’s summary offers a wide view on the internationalization phenomena, adding the political elements to the industrial-business elements of the environment. Overall, internationalization is conceptualized as a process of interaction with the business environment, whereas the public nature of political elements induces the compromise of combining activities between firms and governments. Evidence gives the ground to conclude that internationalization is not a game played just between firms, or, even, between firms and markets, but also with and within governments.