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The aim of this paper is to understand the current state of financial development in Mexico. First, the paper introduces the Financial Development Index (FDI) which provides an overview of the situation throughout the world, and then the paper analyzes several proxies for each aspect of financial development, namely access, depth, efficiency, and stability.
This paper asks whether part-time work makes women happy. Previous research on labour supply has assumed that as workers freely choose their optimal working hours on the basis of their innate preferences and the hourly wage rate, outcome reflects preference. This paper tests this assumption by measuring the impact of changes in working-hours on life satisfaction in two countries (the UK and Germany using the German Socio-Economic Panel and the British Household Panel Survey). We find decreases in working-hours bring about positive and significant improvement on well-being for women.
As the world's two famous shopping platforms, Alibaba and Amazon
occupy the largest share of the Chinese market and the North American
market respectively. The two major e-commerce platforms have developed
rapidly this year, the Internet penetration rate has been increasing, and
international expansion has continued. Under the background of the weak
economy, the anti-globalization wave and the Sino-US trade war, will the
two largest e-commerce platforms in China and the US be affected? At the
same time, Alibaba and Amazon are expanding their territory with different
strategies and business models to diversify their incomes across the globe.
In order to explore who will win in the future electronic market, this paper
will use the SCP model to analyze the market structure of the e-commerce
industry, and analyze the different strategies and behaviors of the
enterprise from the perspectives of logistics, cloud computing, overseas
mergers and acquisitions, and new retail. In the end, compare the
performance of the company under the behavior. The study found that both
the Chinese and American e-commerce markets are oligopolistic, B2C
products are highly differentiated, and C2C products are not highly
differentiated. Capital barriers are high, political barriers are not high, and
exit barriers are low. Based on the above market structure characteristics,
Alibaba and Amazon have adopted different strategies to deal with them.
From the business model, Alibaba's platform model is more flexible, and
Amazon's self-built warehouses bring greater pressure on heavy assets
and have a greater impact on the industry. Judging from the competitive
strategy, Amazon and Alibaba are all in the overall layout of the logistics
sector and new retail strategy, and actively expand overseas. The Indian,
Southeast Asian and Australian markets have become the latest targets of
the two home appliance business platforms, and a new round of market
competition is about to begin. Who will occupy a larger share of the market,although Alibaba's current revenue and profits are not as good as Amazon,
but in terms of strategic layout and innovation ability is not inferior.
The annual demand for Christmas trees in Germany and Denmark is premised upon the seeds of Nordmann firs, which come exclusively from the Racha region in the Great Caucasus ridge of Georgia. It thus forms what is variously called a commodity chain, value chain or production network (as a phenomenon) and that can be accounted for with
different concepts including Global Commodity Chains, Global Value Chains and Global Production Networks. The analysis in the thesis is grounded in the Global production Network (GPN) approach, which in the literature also is associated with possibilities of “strategic coupling” and asks for an analysis of “value capture trajectories”. But can the promise of such as “value capture trajectory” be observed in the case of the Nordmann firGPN for the Racha region, from which the seeds of Christmas trees originate? Master thesis examines the prospects for regional development.
Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) and especially Cross-Border M&A increase steadily
worldwide the last decades and are the most preferable way of companies’ expansion. Despite
optimistic expectations, a large number of M&A frequently fail or do not meet their targets.
Most firms, which participate in M&A worldwide, do not take often seriously into account the
important impact of cultural differences (national & organisational) on M&A and the
significant role of cultural integration for the success of the M&A process and the
performance of the new company, with the result either not to proceed to a substantial cultural
integration or the initiated cultural integration to be inappropriate with the failure of M&A as
consequence. Although there is literature in this field, not all dimensions (especially above
ones) are deep researched and is not yet proposed a substantial process to effectively
diagnose, manage and integrate the national and organisational cultural differences in M&A
and a post merger concrete integration process.
Key words: Cross-Border, Mergers and Acquisitions, Culture, Integration, Success, National,
Organisational, Shareholders’ Value, Communication, Cooperation, Teams, Leadership,
Goals, processes, change.
The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to identify what constitutes an emerging market, and second, to determine whether Brazil, Russia, India, and China, commonly called the BRICs, can be rightfully classified as emerging markets. In this respect, major multilateral institutions’ country classification systems are analysed to ascertain what indicators are used to categorise countries according to their development stage and economic maturity. The paper finds that these systems lack comprehensive criteria necessary to make accurate decisions, thereby leading to somewhat arbitrary country classifications. Hence, an alternative approach which incorporates economic, political, social, and infrastructural indicators considered relevant in measuring the diverse characteristics of emerging markets is developed. This approach is applied to comparatively analyse the BRICs and qualitatively assess their degree of conformance to the criteria of emerging markets. The results reveal that Brazil, China, and India largely comply with the established criteria; Russia, however, hardly fits into the emerging market category. Moreover, the level of development varies significantly across the BRICs: whereas Brazil and Russia certainly represent the more mature BRICs, China and particularly India still have to substantially improve in order to catch up with the advanced economies. Such results have important implications for multilateral institutions and relief agencies as they provide financial and technical support to countries in need. Eventually, a comprehensive classification system that accurately categorises countries based on their distinct development stages is indispensable in order to allocate the limited resources of such organisations in the most effective way.
Every economy is subject to variations, consisting of highs and lows in interest rates, inflation, deflation or recession. Those ups and downs are normal and most of the time predictable. Nevertheless do governments and central banks cope with them differently depending on their country of origin and according to the perpetrator that triggered them. During the last 15 years three major economies suffered from illiquid markets and recessions. Primarily the Bank of Japan (BOJ) has started in the early 2000s with their Quantitative Easing Policy to fight the looming deflation and is still on going without an imminent ending to be near. The United States Federal Reserve System (FED) began in the late 2000s until 2014 with their Quantitative Easing (QE) package after the economy suffered from a severe recession caused by the global financial crisis. Last but not least, the European Central Bank (ECB) has started officially in 2015 with a QE programme and lately announced several steps to be implemented within the next years.
But what is the background of quantitative easing? Do we have to be afraid that quantitative easing does not stimulate macroeconomic activities or maybe just for a short period of time? And the most important question: What impact does quantitative easing have on the real economy?
This Bachelor Thesis describes three different approaches of each Central Bank and the impacts each policy has on the macroeconomic environment. It will give the reader an overview over three diverse systems, starting with Japan, a individual economy, completely ruled by one Central Bank in a banking based system. Continuing with the USA, based on the Federal Reserve System and 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks, which have to apply policies for all 50 States and is widely known as market-based. And closing with the European Central Bank, which has to take 19 Eurozone member states and their various economic outputs under control. Thereby the European system is widely known as a market-based system, those underlays strong influences from national governmental policies within each member country.
What are the Limitations of the Internal Control Systems which May Lead to Major Accounting Fraud
(2021)
Abstract
It is the purpose of this thesis to increase the understanding of German consumer
behaviour in the context of the Sharing Economy in the fashion industry. In particular
it was investigated why consumers participate in online sharing platforms for
clothing (OSPsC), especially in clothing libraries (CLs).
Following a thorough literature review and a qualitative preliminary study, a research
model was developed which is based on the theory of planned behaviour
(TPB). The study employs survey data, gathered from 140 Germans via an online
questionnaire. The hypotheses were tested using multiple linear regression analyses.
The findings indicate that attitude has the strongest positive influence on the intention
to use CLs. Perceived behavioural control (PBC) and control beliefs have no
significant influence, which means that the theory of reasoned action (TRA) can be
applied. Besides, the general awareness of online sharing platforms (OSPs) is quite
high. In contrast, the awareness of CLs is low, which shows that it is still a nichephenomenon
in Germany. The results revealed, that an attitude-intention gap might
exist. Even though, people have a slightly positive attitude, the intention to use CLs
is slightly negative. Furthermore, the behavioural beliefs “enjoyment of the activity”,
“macroeconomic impact” and “economic benefits” positively influence attitude.
Moreover, the results suggest that the significant influence of beliefs, as well
as the extent of the influence of attitude and subjective norm on intention, differs
depending on the business model of the CLs.
Intensifying the marketing of CLs is recommended, in order to increase peoples’
awareness and knowledge about CLs, thus, curbing the attitude-intention gap. Besides,
marketing campaigns should focus on attitude, as well as on behavioural beliefs,
because they were identified as having the most significant impact on intention.
Furthermore, it is suggested that every marketing campaign should be tailored
to the specific CL.
This paper assesses the relationship between decision util-ity and experienced utility of recreational nature visits.The former is measured as the travel cost to reach that siteas routinely used by the travel cost method (TCM), andthe latter is operationalized through visit-related subjec-tive well-being (SWB). As such, the analysis is a test ofconvergent validity by examining whetherex anteTCM-based assessment of recreational value reflecting decisionutility corresponds to statedex postSWB, reflecting expe-rienced utility. It explores to what extent utility revealedby counts of nature visits are associated with self-reported,visit-related SWB relating to that same visited site. Theanalysis uses two existing datasets providing informationon (i) 3672 recreational visits to green/blue spaces inEngland over the course of four years and (ii) 5937 recrea-tional visits to bluespace sites across 14 European coun-tries over one year. Results show a positive associationbetween travel cost and visit-related SWB while control-ling for trip frequency and a large set of covariates,suggesting convergent validity of the two utility concepts.A breakdown by travel mode suggests this relationshiponly holds for trips involving motorized transport and isnot present for habitual, chore-like walking visits to therecreational site.
With the recent wave of advancements and development in the virtual reality industry, potential uses and opportunities arise due to its unique abilities. This study is an exploratory research investigating if virtual reality technology can become a potential marketing tool in the tourism industry. A large amount of theoretical work can be found on the subject, however empirical research is lacking. To test the potential use of virtual reality as a marketing tool in the tourism industry, theoretical background is presented and qualitative interviews are conducted, which results in the creation of primary data. The results reveal that virtual reality offers numerous benefits over traditional marketing content and shows great potential as a future marketing tool in the tourism industry.
The present thesis investigates agency problems which occur within the investormanager
relationships of VC firms. The focus is on early stage companies and VCs.
Furthermore, it presents the status-quo of the structures of some selected VC
organizations in Europe and allows deep insights in the practices of the business of
VCs. The portfolio monitoring and the investor-founder relations are analyzed with
regard to the concepts of the principal-agent relationship, informational asymmetries,
moral hazard and adverse selection.
The underlying empirical approach of this thesis is based on explorative, semistructured,
qualitative expert interviews. The author conducted interviews with both
parties, investors and founders. The emerging hypotheses of these interviews allow
recommendations for action for decision makers of VCs when structuring the
organization of the respective VC to reduce specific agency costs. It is very important
for VCs to be transparent in terms of the investment focus and contact persons that are
involved in the cooperation with the respective company for example. This reduces
communication and coordination efforts ex ante and therefore, needless costs could be
avoided. Another object of study is the consideration whether a specialized or a
generalist structure is beneficial inside the investment teams of VCs. Besides, the
thesis helps entrepreneurs to develop an orientation for the work and communication
with VC-investors. Further research, especially quantitative studies are needed to
prove the findings of this thesis.
Value Creation Contributions for Private Equity Companies during the investment and Exit phase
(2020)
This Master Thesis will analyze the possibilities of Value Creation with Private Eq-uity Companies in order to generate higher values for their investments.
At the beginning it will be a literature based review to cover the current knowledge. With the help of expert interviews, this knowledge will be critically questioned in order to find improvements or give suggestions for alternative methods.
Value chain management and it's role in economic development: Rice production in Vietnam Submitted
(2015)
Abstract
Vietnam is an Asia and Pacific country, land; natural conditions are favorable for
tropical agricultural products especially for rice production. Although resources and
mobilize investment for rice production is quite large, value which Vietnam received is
not really adequate, even are considered to be very low, so that the Master’s thesis will
focus on analyzing the main causes leading to low value from that proposing solutions to
manage and enhance the value chain in the rice production, to improve the
competitiveness of products, the value which is allocated to the related object is
reasonable.
Raising sufficient capital to finance strong growth is one of the biggest challenges for startups, especially due to the difficulty of persuading equity providers to invest in an endeavor in which opportunities are accompanied by an extraordinarily high level of risk. Achieving a high valuation helps startups in receiving additional funding and satisfying existing shareholders, yet value-based management is rarely associated with the startup environment. In view of this, it is especially important to be aware which valuation methods are appropriate to value young ventures, since they are the basis of the determination of value drivers and hence of the performance of value-based management. This thesis conducts an explorative study by reviewing the shareholder value approach, as the origin of value-based management, and scrutinizing the characteristics as well as challenges of creating an informational basis for a discussion regarding the transferability of this concept to the startup environment. Beyond that, the thesis seeks to provide an approach of value-based management for startups that have not gone public yet, as much complexity comes with the absence of a publicly accessible market price. To accomplish this goal, it develops a model that carries continuously changing valuation methods based on the distinct characteristics of each business life cycle phase that a startup goes through and the preferences of the main investor groups. Derived from these methods are qualitative and quantitative value drivers that should be constantly managed to achieve a higher valuation during the financing series where the possibility for founders and investors is given to capitalize the created shareholder value. The discussion around the applicability of the shareholder value approach clearly reveals that it is possible in theory and lists various benefits for the entrepreneurs and their investors which go along with this concept. Further, the model illustrates how value-based management is shaped by a three-sided interplay of characteristics related to startups, investment criteria of investors and varying valuation methods.
Purpose – This thesis aims to investigate the impact of security, inquiry response time, type of bank, access and product diversity attributes on customer preference for internet banking services. It intends to understand the underlying logic behind how customers make their preferences.
Design/methodology/approach – Conjoint analysis was employed to investigate the attributes used in this study. Current attributes were selected after a comprehen- sive literature review on factors affecting internet banking services. Using different combinations of the respective levels of the attributes, 16 profiles were created through orthogonal design and respondents were asked to evaluate each profile. Data from a sample of 196 respondents were analyzed to reach findings.
Findings – Security was found to be the most important attribute affecting internet banking preference. Even though it might be less convenient, respondents tend to prefer higher security levels. Security attribute was followed by type of bank, ac- cess, inquiry response time and diversity of products respectively. The relative im- portance of each attribute and utility of attribute levels are presented in the results.
Practical implications – Internet banking is a major channel in the distribution of banking services. A successful digital strategy is of utmost importance to gain a competitive advantage and for long-term survival. Banks can understand how peo- ple value different attributes and findings can be used to design internet banking services. Designing aspect comes from the availability of different levels an attrib- ute can be offered. Apart from knowing the importance of an attribute, banks can use the utility values to create strategies and allocate their resources accordingly.
Originality/value – Unlike many other studies examining dimensions of internet banking services through factor analysis, the originality of this paper lies in the fact that it applies conjoint analysis to internet banking services. Respondents are pre- sented with a more realistic scenario where they have to make trade-offs. Further- more, the current study also focuses on customers’ perception of trust towards bricks-and-clicks banks and internet-only banks, providing a detailed comparison.
Abstract
The world as we know it today is characterized by a massive process of digitalization in every prospect. Communication patterns, economy and business mechanisms as well as life styles are changing towards a higher utilization of technology, digital devices and the internet. With the bust of the dot.com bubble, the previously static and company dominated web changed into an interactive playground where everybody can become a publisher of content: the Web 2.0 was born. Social media developed soon which is competing with traditional media like TV, newspaper or radio.
Marketers worldwide quickly discovered the potential of using these social media to promote their brands, products and services. Social media has the huge advantage that it is able to track and store all data of a user’s history and actions. This makes it possible to target specific customer groups and provide them customized content. Nevertheless marketing approaches differ from country to country.
Therefore this thesis discusses the potential of social media marketing (SMM) for foreign companies in China in order to improve customer relationships. With market saturation of smartphones, the best and most cost-effective way in China to do SMM is via mobile social networks as they grant the closest access to targeted audiences. For this a “9-step social media action plan” is developed. The action plan is especially suitable for small and medium sized foreign enterprises who utilize the Chinese messenger app WeChat as their first marketing tool.
Unpaid care policies in the time of right-wing populism: a comparative analysis of Poland and Turkey
(2021)
In recent years, increasing political repressions on women that result with social unrests and street protests in Poland and Turkey arouse interest around the ties between unpaid care workers and the current governments. Rising conservative, right-wing and populist discourses and their effects relating to care work made a further exploration in this field inevitable. Thus, this thesis examines the impacts of current policies on unpaid care workers in social and economic terms. The hypothesis of this study suggests that unpaid care workers in Poland and Turkey are exploited to a greater extent by familialist policies during the right-wing and populist governments. The discourses and policies of the governments are analyzed in the light of previous literature on care work. The paper also applies an assessment developed by Leitner (2003) in order to classify Poland and Turkey together with six European countries according to their ways of providing childcare and elderly care services. The study clearly shows that unpaid care workers have been socially downgraded and not remunerated mainly through familialist policies either explicitly or implicitly under the hegemony of right-wing populist parties in Poland and Turkey.
This paper give a comprehensive introduction of the universal banking system. Because of the process of competitive deregulation, both the US and the UK abandon the functional separation of financial activities which had long characterized their financial system and embrace universal banking, while Germany is the country adopts universal banking system from beginning to end. This paper wants to know the future of China’s financial system: is it a mixed operation market or a separate operation market? If it is a market of mixed operation, then which mode will China adopt? In order to solve these questions, this paper is divided in to eight chapters.
In the first two chapters, this paper gives a literature review about mixed-separate operation and universal banking. Then in the following three chapters, this paper introduces three types of universal banking in depth, represented by UK, US and Germany respectively. Each type will be given a case study. From the development path of the typical universal banks in the world, we can see why and when banks should become universal banks. In the sixth chapter, this paper shows the corporate governance of banks in these three countries and their supervisory system, both are very important to Chine’s supervisory bureau. In the seventh chapter, this paper gives a comprehensive introduction of China’s financial market in terms of legislation, corporate governance, and supervisory system etc. and in the last chapter, this paper gives recommendations to the development of universal banking in China.
In this paper, Universal banking is divided in to three types: one is “comprehensive management universal banking model”, represented by UK; one is “financial holding company model” represented by USA; the other one is “interior comprehensive management model”, represented by Germany. Universal banking is not simply "one size fits all". There is no fixed model can be replicated. The specific background such as economic environment, political environment etc. should be taken into consideration when develop a universal banking system.
Transnational Climate Change Governance Challenges and Prospects: The Case of Private Governance
(2021)
There are multiple environmental and social risks associated with climate change, which increases the severity of climate change and necessitates immediate actions to be taken. Responding to the challenge of climate change has traditionally been seen as the primary responsibility of nation-states. However, there is a surge of transnational actors consisting of non-state, sub-state actors, and private-public partnerships that claim governance responsibilities in climate change in recent years. The purpose of this thesis to identify circumstances and motivations that induced transnational climate governance practices. This research mainly focuses on private climate governance activities that are managed and regulated by the private sector and non-governmental organizations in the absence of a public authority. This thesis also aims to illuminate potentials and limitations of private climate governance mechanisms to scale up global climate action. Critical evaluation of the literature revealed that as United Nations-sponsored international climate change governance, architecture evolved from a top-down regulatory framework towards a flexible, bottom-up approach, from the Kyoto Protocol to the Paris Agreement. This process rendered intergovernmental structures and states to delegate and orchestrate greater authority to non- state actors to take climate action. In addition to this, governance deficits and governance gaps associated with the United Nations-regulated international climate governance lead non- state actors to entrepreneurially engage in governance practices due to their dissatisfaction with the intergovernmental framework. Two case studies are conducted to analyze private governance mechanisms in the form of voluntary carbon markets and carbon disclosure, which exhibit this entrepreneurial action in the absence of formal public authority. Results revealed that private climate governance practices incentivize climate action in the short-run, yet they might not accrue actual environmental progress in the long-run. In that sense, it remains puzzling whether the private governance practices can expand the scale and reach of global responses to climate change.
The Energiewende as concept and policy strategy for an energy transformation towards a renewable energy regime in Germany, has since its very beginning included many societal goals beyond the mere shift towards renewables. The decentralised dimension based on principles of energy democracy have characterise the roots of the transition, and through the distinct legislative framework in Germany, mainly by the Renewable Energy Source Act(EEG), the market landscape has reached a large degree of actor heterogeneity mainly constituted by small players. However, in recent years this decentralisation has been challenged by a variety of different policies, resulting from European Union and national legislation. This research outlines how these two governance levels have evolved with respect to the renewable energy regime and how certain policies have affected the decentralised dimension of the Energiewende. Through this policy analysis on the shifting framework, many risks for the continued existence of the renewable energy regime in Germany based on decentralised principles have arisen are being outlined. Small actors under the new market-based conditions have been strongly impacted by the shifting regime and first results of the regime change have been analysed and show the challenges. Based on those findings, the analysis has concluded that to a certain degree, mainly in the legal and policy spheres, a shift towards a more centralised renewable energy regime that favours concentrated ownership structures has occurred. The main drivers have been market-based interests pushed forward by the European Union and a decreased effort of Germany to uphold its renewable energy market design which allowed the shift towards decentralisation. However, the paper also concludes that it is yet too early to say if an overall shift towards centralisation has taken place, as the recent developments of the new regime will have to be further monitored in the coming years, and it will have to be seen how smaller market actors will continue to respond to a framework which is no longer in their favour in the long-run.