The main purpose of this thesis is to analyze the influence of internal/external locus of control¡Bself-tendency achievement motivation¡Bsocial-tendency achievement motivation three personal characteristics and the willingness¡Bskill and application of interpersonal networks toward to the entrepreneurship willingness, especially focused on the labor who works in the exhibition industry. Samples collected amount to 103 showing 54 companies, 46 coming from Taipei metropolis¡B4 coming from Taichung¡B2 from Gauxion, and the remaining 2 come from other regions . By empirical analysis, we found that some personal backgrounds such as gender¡Bmarriage and academic background have a great influence on entrepreneurship willingness; On the contrary, personal characteristics and interpersonal networks have low relationship with entrepreneurship willingness, except to internal locus of control having a negative influence on entrepreneurship willingness. Thus, we suggest those following researchers to keep on studying the factors that may affect entrepreneurship willingness. Besides, since the interpersonal networks phases were first created, they still need the hard-working research to make them better and perfect.

Owing to the NASDAQ crash, the development of internet advertisement is somewhat sluggish. The ICP owners have to to find a new model to servive; thus, they plan to gain cashflow from the users. The content of financial websites is relatively uniqe, so this study will focus on the user motive and willingness-to-pay of fincial content website. The study built up the dimensions of website content/services via website observation. And then it also uses the web-based questionnaire to understand the user motive and willingness-to-pay of financial content website. The findings are as fellowed: 1. There are three main motives for the usage of financial website. They are "infornation", "interaction", and "interesting/learning" motives. The most important motive is "information". 2. The users are most willing to pay for the "analyses/reports", "alert", and "full-text database seraching". 3. The user motive is relevent to the willingness- to-pay of financial content websites.Those who are of the "interaction" motive are the most willing to pay ones. 4. Age group, education background, and items of investment are three intervening varieces of the measurement of user motive and willingness-to-pay. 5. The findings would be useful for the planning of financial content website. It also keeps the records of current situiation of the existing financial content websites.

This dissertation contains three essays on risk aversion. In the first essay, we an- alyze comparative risk aversion in a new way, through a comparative statics problem in which, for a cost, agents can shift from an initial probability distribution toward a preferred distribution. The Ross characterization arises when the original distribution is riskier than the preferred distribution and the cost is monetary, and the Arrow-Pratt characterization arises when the original distribution differs from the preferred distribution by a simple mean-preserving spread and the cost is a utility cost. Higher-order increases in risk lead to higher-order generalizations, and the com- parative statics method yields a unified approach to the problem of comparative risk attitudes. In the second essay, we analyze decisions made by a group of terrorists and a government in a zero-sum game in which the terrorists minimize a representative citizen's expected utility and the government maximizes it. The terrorists' strategy balances the probability and the severity of the attack while the government chooses the level of investment reducing the probability and/or mitigating the severity. We find that if the representative citizen is risk neutral, the terrorists' response is not associated with the government's action and the representative citizen's risk attitudes affect the strategies of the government and the terrorists. Risk aversion always in- creases equilibrium severity but does not always increase equilibrium expenditure of the government. In the last essay, we consider a situation in which an individual has to pay for a good before he realizes the state-dependent surplus of the good. This ex-ante willingness to pay is called the option price and the difference between the option price and the expected surplus is the option value. We find that the option value actually is the buying price for a fixed payment of the expected surplus, and there is a special case in which the option value equals the negative of the compensating risk premium. We also find the effects on the option price and the option value when the expected utility assumption is replaced by a rank-dependent expected utility.

This study explores explanations for Chinese elders’ willingness or lack of willingness to use institutional care. The data is drawn from a survey over intergenerational relationships and age models conducted in Zhenjiang, China, in 2007. Only the responses of interviewees aged 55 and above (310 males and 318 females) were used in this study. Using zero-order correlation and multi-nominal regression analyses, this study examined the factors associated with Chinese elders’ willingness to use institutional care. Study results reveal that Chinese elders’ confidence in availability of familial care was negatively related to their willingness to use institutional care; elders’ knowledge about and impression on elder care homes were positively associated with their willingness. Male interviewees expressed lower levels of willingness compared to female respondents. This study shows that increased knowledge about elder care institution may increase Chinese elders’ willingness to accept institutional elder care.

No description available.

This thesis puts an emphasis on the use of gaming technology as a form of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) activity, investigating its effects on interaction and willingness to communicate (WTC) in the target language (TL) of Thai English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. The study, adopted the pseudo-empirical research design with a pre-test structure, was carried out with 30 third year undergraduate students enrolled in a course of English for Information Technology 1 at a university in Thailand. The study modified an existing commercial game to better meet specific objectives of the language course. The data were collected by means of quantitative and qualitative research techniques (i.e., recordings of TL interaction in class and computer game activities, questionnaires, and interviews). The transcripts of participants’ interaction were analysed for the amount of words and turns and for the characteristics of their TL use. The questionnaire and interview responses were analysed to provide the evidence of participants’ WTC. The study found that gameplay encouraged a significant increase in the quantity of TL interaction which also contained a variety of discourse functions associated with social, collaborative interaction (e.g., greetings, requests, and questions) and covered ranges of linguistic features (e.g., use of a variety of verb forms). This provided evidence that language learners received opportunities to interact using the TL when playing games. In addition, participants’ responses to WTC questionnaires and interview questions indicated that the level of WTC appeared to be enhanced by taking part in the game, as positive perceptions of WTC, low anxiety when interacting in the TL, high self-perceived communicative competence, and high frequency of TL use, were reported. This indicated that language learners benefited from less stressful environments within the game and thus were willing to use the opportunities provided to practice and use the TL. In light of these findings, this study draws attention to the role and effectiveness of computer games in encouraging TL use for authentic communication and willingness to use the language. The study offers some suggestions for future research and concludes with implications for second/foreign language pedagogy, curriculum and CALL material design, and educational game development.

This thesis is concerned with (i) how to estimate the perceived mortality risk, (ii) how to calculate the welfare change of mortality risk reduction and (iii) whether ambiguity aversion influences subjects' treatment decision. This study is an important topic in environmental and resource economics, and the attempt to introduce ambiguity preference into the models might shed light on future research in nonmarket valuation. In this study, I estimate the economic value of reducing mortality risk relating to arsenic in drinking water employing contingent valuation in U.S. arsenic hot spots. Re-cent studies have shown that perceived risk is a more reliable variable than scientific assessments of risk when applied to interpret and predict individual's averting behavior. I am also interested in the confidence level of perceived risk, which was elicited and treated as the degree of risk ambiguity in this paper. I develop a formal parametric model to calculate the mean willingness to pay (WTP) for mortality risk reduction, and find weak evidence of ambiguity aversion.

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio University, June, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 52-55)

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2006. / Title from title screen (site viewed on Jan. 23, 2007). PDF text: 141p. : ill. (some col.) ; 2.17Mb. UMI publication number: AAT 3217537. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in microfilm and microfiche format.

Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2006. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains viii, 104 p. : col. maps. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 83-88).