Ph.D. theses Titler
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How, Why and by WhomLind, Manya Jaura (Frederiksberg, 2016)[Flere oplysninger][Færre oplysninger]
Resume: Capability development can be defined as deliberate firm-level investment involving a search and learning process aimed at modifying or enhancing existing capabilities. Increasingly, firms are relocating advanced services to offshore locations resulting in the challenge of capability development in the offshore unit. Guided by the research question – what drives or impedes capability development in an offshoring context – the purpose of this thesis is to investigate how an idiosyncratic offshoring context affects capability development. The thesis consists of three papers using various datasets and qualitative methods that investigate capability development in an offshoring context. The first paper investigates how capability development takes place for a service-provider firm at the activity level. The second paper examines the transition made by a captive offshore unit, from performing standardized activities to R&D activities. The third paper examines capability development at the cluster level, and examines how spillovers from firms contribute to the emergence and evolution of clusters. Overall, this thesis argues that capability development is a path dependent process, and the offshoring context complicates the identification of capabilities lacking, the resources required to develop these capabilities and the alignment of supporting organizational processes. Captive offshore units and local service providers often perform back-office or standardized tasks that have been disaggregated from the value chain. In these cases, capability development presents a challenge, as firms need to take deliberate actions in order to develop capabilities, and identify the external linkages they must form to aid the capability development process. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/9368 Filer i denne post: 1
Manya Jaura Lind.pdf (2.756Mb) -
Berg, Petter (Frederiksberg, 2012)[Flere oplysninger][Færre oplysninger]
Resume: During the last ten years there has been a rigorous debate on how to improve anti-cartel enforcement in Europe. Introducing private enforcements systems, like in the US, was early in the process regarded as one of the most important steps for significant improvements. In contrast to public enforcement, private enforcement relies on adequate compensation to customers harmed by a cartel. But cartel damages are hard to calculate and the European Commission has therefore presented a draft guideline on how to quantify harm to assist courts and claimants. The focus in the guidance is on price effects, but cartels are also likely to cause other types of damage, such as efficiency effects. For example, a Swedish committee investigating cartels in the 1950’s stated that ”A monopolist or a cartel can charge too high prices in relation to its costs. A cartel determines prices after the least efficient firm in the cartel, and hence protects it” (SOU 1951:27). This statement reflects an early awareness that pricing and efficiency effects from cartels are deeply related, and jointly determines the harm for consumers. This thesis aims at re-joining the discussion of cartel prices and efficiencies for the purpose of determining cartel damages. It will focus on the issue outlined above, i.e. cartel behaviour and the harm caused by cartels when a cartel consists of members that are not symmetric in costs. Cost asymmetries can be both exogenous and endogenous to cartel formation, but rather than discussing why asymmetries arise, I will in the four chapters focus on the effect the asymmetries have on cartel prices and hence consumer harm. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8407 Filer i denne post: 1
Petter_Berg.pdf (1.385Mb) -
An Empirical Investigation from a Dyad PerspectiveWeber, Oliver Jacob (Frederiksberg, 2010)[Flere oplysninger][Færre oplysninger]
Resume: In line with the concept of long-term relationships, as opposed to discrete exchanges, gaining acceptance amongst marketing researchers (e.g. Wilson, 1995; Ganesan, 1994; and Dwyer et al., 1987), the prevalent literature has increasingly emphasised the importance of cooperation between companies. As described in Selnes (1998), the objective of long-term relationships is to establish, maintain and enhance relations with trading partners at a profit. It is a dynamic process, whose success depends on the ability of companies to provide one another with episodes of value on a continuous basis. Definable as, “...similar or complementary coordinated action taken by firms in interdependent relationships to achieve mutual outcomes or singular outcomes with reciprocation over time” (Anderson and Narus, 1990, p. 45), cooperation between companies is viewed as an important foundation to the success of long-term relationships (Eriksson and Sharma, 2003). A joint effort based on coordination of activities thus permits companies to attain outcomes of mutual value otherwise not possible, e.g. exchange efficiency (Cannon and Perreault, 1999), decreased environmental uncertainty (Buvik and Grønhaug, 2000), and management of dependencies (Stern and El-Ansary, 1992).... URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8059 Filer i denne post: 1
Oliver_Jacob_Weber.pdf (3.917Mb) -
An Organizational Discourse Study of Public Managers’ Struggles with Collaboration across the Daycare AreaPlotnikof, Mie (Frederiksberg, 2015)[Flere oplysninger][Færre oplysninger]
Resume: This doctoral study explores problematics of managing and organizing collaborative governance from an organizational discourse perspective. Collaborative governance is a public management practice developing currently with the aim of engaging stakeholders to address and co-create potential solutions to complex public problems, such as policy and service innovation. This is seen as a potential shift between new public management (NPM) and new public governance (NPG) discourses in the governance literature. Pursuing collaborative governance in practice is not taken to be an easy task, as it involves changes from hierarchical organizing towards interorganizational collaboration in networks and partnerships. The literature therefore discusses both the potentials and problems, and conceptualizes their issues in organizational models of design and implementation issues, and new managerial roles. These issues are approached as managerial challenges and unfolded in terms of paradoxes, socially dynamic tensions and power relations – especially by one stream of studies. They stress the need to understand challenges of collaborative governance practice by approaching the emerging social interactions and power relations; however, the theorization of communication and discursive aspects to do so is underdeveloped. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/9185 Filer i denne post: 1
Mie Plotnikof.pdf (4.290Mb) -
Assembeling and Negotiating the Content of a WorkforceMarfelt, Mikkel Mouritz (Frederiksberg, 2016)[Flere oplysninger][Færre oplysninger]
Resume: Due to advancements in technology and the expansion of companies onto a global level, organizations have become increasingly aware of the need to understand and manage diverse workforces; that is, the need to understand and manage differences among employees across borders (such as geographical, cultural, professional, etc.). This PhD dissertation studies this phenomenon, ‘a diverse workforce’, in a large Scandinavian pharmaceutical company. The dissertation follows the Diverse and Global Workforce (DGW) project, a ‘headquarter centric’ and strategic corporate initiative to address the rapid global expansion of the company workforce. In academia, the phenomenon has been studied widely for the last three decades under the overarching research field ‘workforce diversity’. While workforce diversity research has contributed to a better understanding of the concept of diversity in work-related situations, the role of ‘workforce’ in this equation is often assumed, reducing the problematic of workforce diversity to a need to understand the concept of ‘diversity in the workforce’. This perception is not without its problems and has led to a focus on the concept of diversity at the expense of understanding the role of the workforce as something other than a simple container of ‘people engaged in or available for work’. And so, even though the ‘workforce’ was foundational to forming workforce diversity research and its related fields (such as diversity management, diversity at work, diversity in the workplace, etc.), discussions about the role of the workforce have become a peripheral debate, while discussions on the role of diversity have become central. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/9285 Filer i denne post: 1
Mikkel_M_Markfelt.pdf (4.846Mb) -
A Neo-Institutional Understanding of Change Processes within the Business Press - The Case Sudy of Financial TimesKrogh-Meibom, Frederikke (Frederiksberg, 2008)[Flere oplysninger][Færre oplysninger]
Resume: This dissertation examines dynamic processes between human actors and technology that encourage institutional change displayed as the emergence of new work practices. The research design is a micro-level analysis of a case study, conducted in 2002 in London at Financial Times under the headline of the co-evolution of institutions and technology. The study seeks to contribute to neo-institutional theory with a more profound understanding of how institutional embedded actors generate new institutional work practices when they interact with new technology. Two work practices have been studied; the work practice of surveillance and the work practice of publishing. These have been observed and studied as they were unfolding themselves at ft.com at Financial Times. The actions of journalists working at ft.com has been the empirical locus of the micro dynamic processes of changes of otherwise well defined and taken-for-granted institutionalized work practices The findings specify how the micro-dynamic mechanisms of change of work practices is related to the interaction of human actors with new technology. The study of how individual human actors institute changes to established work practices through a process of endogenization of technology is the basis for a better understanding of institutional change and its relation to human actors and their use of new technology. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7740 Filer i denne post: 1
Frederikke_K_Meibom.pdf (1.912Mb) -
An eye-tracking and key-logging studySjørup, Annette Camilla (Frederiksberg, 2013)[Flere oplysninger][Færre oplysninger]
Resume: This thesis, titled Cognitive effort in metaphor translation – an eye-tracking and key-logging study, is an empirical investigation of professional translators’ cognitive effort during metaphor translation. Metaphors are defined as expressions in which one concept is used to characterise another concept, such as Peter is a wolf in which the characteristics of the wolf are used to define Peter. As a point of departure, the thesis adopts the direct access view of metaphors in which metaphors are regarded as unambiguous expressions which are interpreted as metaphors directly. Metaphors have primarily been researched in monolingual studies such as Glucksberg (2001) and Inhoff et al. (1984), who investigated how metaphors are processed and the cognitive effort required for this processing compared with literal expressions. The conclusion to their studies was that metaphors were not more cognitively effortful to process than literal expressions and that they were not necessarily more ambiguous either. Dagut (1987) and Newmark (1985, 1988) discussed metaphors from a translation perspective in which they regarded metaphors as a particular translation problem. Trim (2007) argued that the translatability of metaphors was related to their language-specific saliency. Neither Dagut, Newmark or Trim was empirical in his methodology, and the purpose of this thesis was to bridge the gap between the empirical methodology used in metaphor comprehension research and the more qualitative methodology used in metaphor translation research. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8698 Filer i denne post: 1
Annette_Camilla_Sjørup.pdf (2.263Mb) -
In search of micro-foundationsKnudsen, Line Gry (Frederiksberg, 2009)[Flere oplysninger][Færre oplysninger]
Resume: The aim of this thesis is to improve the understanding of how collaborative R&D capabilities come about and how they are jointly determined by individual and organizational level factors. I argue that despite the fact that a surge of interest in inter-organizational collaboration has been witnessed in research fields as diverse as strategic management, economics, sociology, and organization theory, we know very little about the micro-foundations of collaborative R&D capabilities. Processes going on internally in collaborating firms are treated like a ‘black box’ in many strands of research. How, we may ask, does openness towards external knowledge sources lead to enhanced R&D performance? What are the internal organizational mechanisms that facilitate the collaborative processes? How are specific collaborative capabilities developed to ensure collaborative success, and—most importantly—what is their composition in terms of organizational and individual level factors? In this thesis these and related questions are addressed by means of empirical as well as theoretical analyses. It is argued that studies of strategic alliances and R&D collaborations have suffered from being mainly conducted on large datasets and with little attention to individual level factors that may be key drivers of alliance success. The case-study methodology is emphasized as a useful complementary method as it entails the option of learning from the employees engaged in the formation and operation of collaborative arrangements. Three narrative studies are undertaken with the aim of identifying the micro-foundations of collaborative R&D capability in the firms. This is done to provide an explorative overview of the determinants rather than to evaluate the degree to which the capabilities have been implemented successfully leading to better performance. The objective is thus to challenge the existing theories in the field of strategic alliances and to qualify them by joining theoretical knowledge about firm level benefits of R&D alliances with theories on individual level work motivation, and behaviors in connection to R&D collaboration. The study is focused on knowledge intensive firms (as distinct from ‘supplier dominated firms’, ‘specialized equipment suppliers’ or ‘scale intensive firms’). It is stressed that even core knowledge used in the various R&D or innovation processes does not necessarily need to stem from sources internal to the firm, but is likely to originate externally. R&D collaboration has become an important means to foster opportunities to learn, and to access, transfer and utilize knowledge to create innovative solutions But very high failure rates are shown and between fifty and seventy percent of all alliances do not justify the expectations. This vindicates a better understanding of collaborative R&D capabilities. A study of the micro-foundations of these capabilities is both timely and warranted. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7925 Filer i denne post: 1
Line_Gry_Knudsen_1.pdf (1.469Mb) -
Understanding Preparation and PlanningLindholst, Morten (Frederiksberg, 2015)[Flere oplysninger][Færre oplysninger]
Resume: Most scholars agree that engaging in preparation and planning is key to a negotiation’s effectiveness but research has largely focused solely on what happens at the negotiation table, rather than in preparation for it. This thesis addresses the balance by clarifying which preparation and planning activities are undertaken to conduct a complex business negotiation. It examines not only what activities are conducted, but also by whom, and when. One important question for both practitioners and researchers alike is the extent to which practitioners follow the recommendations of what is an extensive and highly varied literature on negotiation preparation. A review of the literature enabled a comprehensive activity checklist to be developed which, coupled with a number of propositions about how preparation could be expected to be conducted, formed the foundation for the data collection and analysis. The bulk of research into negotiation uses data drawn from populations in experimental design settings. However, this study follows a qualitative research design, which has multiple sources of inquiry and which draws upon data grounded in a large global, industrial company and, thereby, contributes to the limited selection of negotiation research that is conducted outside of university settings. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/9198 Filer i denne post: 1
Morten Lindholst.pdf (2.950Mb) -
An Everyday PerspectiveChristensen, Elizabeth Benedict (Frederiksberg, 2016)[Flere oplysninger][Færre oplysninger]
Resume: In this dissertation, I qualitatively explore the everyday lived experiences of thirty-three 1.5 generation undocumented youth (1.5GUY) in the United States. Specifically, I examine how 1.5GUY experience and cope with sense of belonging (SofB) in their everyday lives in relation to their undocumented legal status (ULS). These youth, who have migrated at or before the age of twelve, have grown up and been socialized in the United States. Due to the Supreme Court Case, Plyler v. Doe (1982), primary and secondary (K- 12) educational access has been extended to all children, regardless of legal immigration status. Because the 1.5GUY have the opportunity to participate in everyday social, educational, and cultural life even despite their ULS, their experiences of belonging are relatively privileged in relation to their second generation undocumented contemporaries. However, their opportunity for participation parity is temporary, decreasing, and comes to an abrupt end during their transitions to adulthood, when the need for legal status becomes increasingly more salient in everyday life. In my exploratory and phenomenological study, I analyze narratives constructed through semistructured interviews with 1.5GUY and supplement this material with data from participant observation. In my examination, I focus on the relationship between ULS and SofB in everyday life, and especially the relationship between emotions, experiences, and performances. I analyze empirical material for the presence of emotions and experiences related to SofB, for example attachment, comfort, inclusion, participation, identification, safety, and community and conversely, insecurity, instability, uncertainty, doubt, compromised identity, and exclusion that may influence SofB. I am interested in the banalities of everyday scenarios—actions, interactions, and locations—that shape the 1.5GUY’s SofB. To capture the dynamics and diversity of experiences, emotions, and coping strategies related to SofB, I incorporate theories of identity, recognition, and citizenship, and related concepts such as the right to the city, participation parity, and coming out. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/9319 Filer i denne post: 1
Elizabeth Benedict Christensen.pdf (2.187Mb) -
A field study of a pharmaceutical companyBrogaard-Kay, Jacob (Frederiksberg, 2015)[Flere oplysninger][Færre oplysninger]
Resume: This PhD thesis studies performance management (PM) in complex organizational settings. In both academia and practice, PM as a subject has received increased attention over the past couple of decades. In academia, it has been studied across several research paradigms and disciplines, through empirical cases, structured experiments and philosophical investigations. In practice, the subject is typically “owned” by Human Resource (HR) departments of large-scale international organizations. Typically, employees in all hierarchical positions of such organizations become acquainted with a PM system via the responsibility given to them at the beginning of the year for achieving a set of goals by yearend. A recurrent idea is that there should be a clear link between the organization’s overall strategies and the sub-goals of each division, department, line managers and employees. However, this thesis studies closely how PM practices do not merely produce tangible outcomes and clear links between predefined goals and outcomes. Instead, it shows how PM systems and practices are constituted through endless interactions and relations between devices, texts, humans and events. Based on this way of studying the world, this thesis illustrates how PM practices play different roles in shaping the organizing of work in sometimes surprising ways. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/9188 Filer i denne post: 1
Jacob Brogaard-Kay.pdf (4.911Mb) -
Kaspersen, Mia (Frederiksberg, 2013)[Flere oplysninger][Færre oplysninger]
Resume: The overall purpose of this thesis is to examine how and why internal processes, systems, and structures influence the construction of social and environmental reports. The three papers that are included in this thesis approach this research objective from three different but interrelated perspectives. Each of these perspectives is an essential aspect of reporting practices. By conducting case studies and including organisational members who participate in social and environmental reporting (SER) processes (Adams and Whelan, 2009; Farneti and Guthrie, 2009), this thesis strives to contribute to increased knowledge regarding organisational reporting behaviours and the construction of SER (Laine, 2009; Parker, 2007; Thomson and Bebbington, 2005; Adams, 2004; Gray, 2005; Adams and Larrinaga-González, 2007; Tilt, 2006; O'Dwyer, 2005b; Spence and Rinaldi, 2012; O'Dwyer et al., 2011; Tregidga et al., 2012b). Thus, by attempting to ‘look inside organisations’ and by emphasising the role of the organisational context, the three articles of this thesis provide insights into details regarding 1) the reporting environment and audit trail; 2) the role of stakeholder engagement in SER; and 3) why certain impacts of organisational activities are included (or excluded) in social and environmental reports. The three papers addressing these topics have been motivated by an aspiration to establish a more nuanced understanding of the current state of SER. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8667 Filer i denne post: 1
Mia_Kaspersen_Summary.pdf (1.332Mb) -
Palm Oil in Southeast Asia in Global Perspective (1880s–1970s)Giacomin, Valeria (Frederiksberg, 2016)[Flere oplysninger][Færre oplysninger]
Resume: This dissertation examines the case of the palm oil cluster in Malaysia and Indonesia, today one of the largest agricultural clusters in the world. My analysis focuses on the evolution of the cluster from the 1880s to the 1970s in order to understand how it helped these two countries to integrate into the global economy in both colonial and post-colonial times. The study is based on empirical material drawn from five UK archives and background research using secondary sources, interviews, and archive visits to Malaysia and Singapore. The dissertation comprises three articles, each discussing a major under-researched topic in the cluster literature – the emergence of clusters, their governance and institutional change, and competition between rival cluster locations – through the case of the Southeast Asian palm oil cluster. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/9381 Filer i denne post: 1
Valeria Giacomin.pdf (6.399Mb) -
Articulations of Social and Natural Order in Mass Mediated Representations of BiotechnologyHorst, Maja (København, 2003)[Flere oplysninger][Færre oplysninger]
Resume: Afhandlingen undersøger massemedierede kontroverser om bioteknologi som politiske uenigheder ved at analysere argumenters konstruktion af problemer og løsninger. Det hævdes at ethvert argument i kontroverserne altid implicit artiku-lerer en eller anden bestemt forestilling om den sociale (og naturlige) orden og om, hvordan denne orden opretholdes eller kritiseres. En sådan forestilling er afgørende for at argumentet kan fungere som argument, dvs. som en menings-fuld sammenkædning af et problem og en mulig problemløsning. Kontroverser-ne om bioteknologi handler derfor ikke kun om teknologi og forskning, men er grundlæggende uenigheder om, hvilken rolle forskningen skal spille i samfun-det, og om social organisering i al almindelighed. En analyse af mønstre i disse argumenter kan derfor belyse de diskursive mulighedsbetingelser for regulering af bioteknologi i Danmark. Afhandlingens teoretiske grundlag er en relationel ontologi formuleret på bag-grund af den franske filosof og videnssociolog Bruno Latour, der giver anled-ning til at formulere en forståelse af offentlig meningsdannelse som en konstant produktion af italesættelse i netværk. For at kunne analysere denne strøm af ita-lesættelse inddrager afhandlingen den britisk-amerikanske antropolog Mary Douglas’ kulturteori som et analysestrategisk redskab. Det empiriske materiale udgøres af dagbladsartikler fra Politiken, Jyllandsposten, Information og Ekstra Bladet. På baggrund af en række søgeord er der udvalgt 1575 artikler i perioden 1. august 1997 – 31. december 2001, der omhandler sundhedsrelateret biotekno-logi. En foreløbig indholdsanalyse af disse artikler er dokumenteret i et bilag til afhandlingen. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7130 Filer i denne post: 1
maja_ horst.pdf (2.424Mb) -
Medarbejderes kommunikative handlekraftJuul Christiansen, Tanja (Frederiksberg, 2010)[Flere oplysninger][Færre oplysninger]
Resume: Organizational identity has traditionally been understood as a fixed product that can be identified and communicated to employees. Organizational identity formation should, however, be understood as a reflexive process. There is not just one organizational identity but several, and the construction of these identities takes place in a continuing process among several participants. Yet, in many organizations management aims at a conventional identity formation in the official internal identity communication, when communicating identity to employees with the ambition of creating a monolithic organization of devoted employees. This kind of conventional identity formation has several implications. Firstly, it creates a gap between the official and the unofficial identity formation. Secondly, it runs the risk of making the organization appear untrustworthy. Thirdly, it may lead to a homogenous work force, which seems contradictory to the strive for innovation and creativeness that also characterizes contemporary organizations. Finally, its inherent aim of social control seems morally questionable. Thus, organizations could beneficially strive for a higher degree of reflexiveness by letting more voices be part of the official identity formation. The empirically-based research on how to facilitate such reflexivity is, however, sparse. In order to address this gap in the literature, this PhD dissertation explores how to affect rhetorical agency at work by implementing internal employee blogs in organizations.... URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8173 Filer i denne post: 1
Tanja_J_Christansen.pdf (1.757Mb) -
[Flere oplysninger][Færre oplysninger]
Resume: This thesis is the product of my PhD studies at the Department of International Economics and Management at Copenhagen Business School and consists of four essays - one literature review and three empirical studies - on different aspects of the corporate governance of banks. The four essays are self-contained and can be read independently. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7683 Filer i denne post: 1
illduara_busta.pdf (1.773Mb) -
The Norwegian maritime sectorWallevik, Kristin (Frederiksberg, 2009)[Flere oplysninger][Færre oplysninger]
Resume: The four papers in this thesis investigate corporate governance in family firms from different angles, with emphasis on industry and industry networks. I divide the industry networks into social and commercial networks, where social networks are measured by interlocking boards and commercial networks by investments in other firms in the same industry. Focus is on the governance structures in family firms, how industry and networks may be determinants of family ownership, and the effect of family ownership and strong industry networks on financial performance in certain industries (such as the maritime industry). Two of the papers are theoretical papers and two are empirical papers. The empirical papers are based on the same hand-collected dataset comprising 167 Norwegian listed companies from 1996-2005. The first paper - “Corporate Governance in Family firms” comprises a survey of the corporate governance literature on family firms, paying attention to the unique issues in the governance of these firms. I discuss different forms of ownership and how different agency contexts and business environments may suit family ownership better than other ownership structures. I also discuss how firms can reap the benefits of family ownership, by using a relational governance model, if there is an atmosphere of positive relationships, trust and shared visions. A relational governance model focuses on the social capital embedded in personal relations between owners, managers and board members. A contractual governance model, however, focuses on finding the optimal incentives in the relations between owners and managers, in addition to having greater focus on the monitoring role of the board. These two models may complement and supplement each other in a governance structure. The question is how these different governance models affect firms’ operations, decision-making, and competitiveness. The second paper - “The Effect of Industry Networks on Family Ownership” deals with possible effects of industry networks on the prevalence of family firms in different industries. I discuss how various networks can be determinants of family ownership, in addition to elements like incentives, monitoring, and altruism, as well as firm, industry and nation specific factors. I also discuss whether family firms can gain more from these industry networks than other firms due to a higher degree of ”thick trust”, strong owner-manager relations and the use of a relational governance structure. This paper proposes that strong social and commercial networks affect the number of family firms in an industry, as a result of the social capital embedded in these relations. Paper three - “Social and Commercial Networks as Determinants of Family Ownership - The Norwegian Shipping Industry” is an empirical paper testing whether industry networks are among the determinants of family ownership in the Norwegian shipping industry. The overall question is why family ownership is more prevalent in some industries, and which elements that influence this ownership structure. I focus on industry effects such as the number of firms in an industry and the social and commercial industry networks between firms. These are potential determinants of family ownership. I find that both industry and various industry networks have a significant and positive effect on family ownership in the shipping industry. The fourth paper - “Family Ownership, Networks and Financial Performance” takes up the question whether family ownership and various networks affect financial performance, measured by Tobin’s q and ROA lagged, or not. Earlier studies come to different conclusions regarding the relationship between family ownership and firm performance, which may be due to differences in the agency context of the studies. I add industry and industry networks as central variables to disentangle some of the contextual factors in this relationship. This paper argues that it is not necessarily the family ownership that affects performance, but how this ownership is used in a strategic manner. Establishing and using networks are seemingly a means of operation in some industries, sometimes with a positive effect on performance. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7901 Filer i denne post: 1
Kristin_Wallevik.pdf (3.039Mb) -
Webber, Stuart (Frederiksberg, 2012)[Flere oplysninger][Færre oplysninger]
Resume: This dissertation analyzes ways in which Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) shift profits from one country to another to reduce their income tax expense. This is an important topic for a number of reasons. From a country’s perspective, its income tax rates and policies can have a significant impact upon its tax revenue, economic competitiveness, and the vibrancy of its economy. From the MNE’s perspective, income tax rates and policies determine a firm’s tax obligations, and thus affect net income and enterprise value. The dissertation examines several ways in which MNEs shift profits to reduce income taxes, and consists of five chapters. The introductory chapter reviews the economic evidence demonstrating firms shift profits from one country to another in response to tax rates. In the past two decades a number of economic studies have shown firms use tax and accounting techniques to shift reported profits to low tax jurisdictions, and that chapter reviews key articles that have demonstrated this. The second paper explains how MNEs finance international investments to shift interest income to low-tax jurisdictions. It reviews government tax policies in a number of countries that have been enacted to limit interest income shifting, and recommends an approach to control this activity. The third paper examines tax efficient supply chains, in which tax departments and supply chain organizations collaborate to site business operations to achieve supply chain objectives and reduce tax obligations. The fourth chapter analyzes how some U.S.-headquartered firms have moved their corporate headquarters from the U.S. to tax havens, to reduce their tax expense and avoid U.S. international tax policies. The fifth and final chapter examines new U.S. tax regulations that propose to value intellectual property transfers in the same way outside investors would, which the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) calls its “investor model.” It also makes recommendations concerning how the investor model can be improved. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8457 Filer i denne post: 1
Stuart_Webber.pdf (1.230Mb) -
A Critical Case Study of the Mobile Telecommunications IndustryAzizi, Sameer (Frederiksberg, 2017)[Flere oplysninger][Færre oplysninger]
Resume: This doctoral dissertation examines the business-development relations in Afghanistan by focusing on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and other related practices from corporations in the Afghan mobile telecommunications industry. More concretely, the study aims to explore the characteristics and drivers of the various CSR practices in the Afghan mobile telecommunications industry in order to critically assess the relationship between CSR and development in such context. The thesis highlights that the national context of Afghanistan in combination with the global mobile telecommunications industry provides a relevant empirical focus that can enrich the theoretical debates about CSR in developing countries. The study thereby stresses on the importance of context, and integrates both the societal and corporate dimensions to study CSR by corporations in the Afghan mobile telecommunications industry. The study draws from the political governance literature on ‘Areas of Limited Statehood’ (ALS) to conceptualize the national context of Afghanistan, and to problematize the assumptions and claims of the CSR literature by focusing particularly on the neo-institutional, the political and the developmentoriented debates on CSR. The empirical data for the study is based on an intensive case study of four large and foreignowned mobile telecommunications operators in Afghanistan. The case study includes qualitative data from various sources including interviews and observations during fieldwork in Afghanistan, and a study of secondary data from the corporations, Afghan state institutions, civil society and other relevant actors. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/9466 Filer i denne post: 1
Sameer Azizi.pdf (7.453Mb) -
How Material Practices and their Symbolic and Physical Meanings Form a Colonising LogicLauesen, Linne Marie (Frederiksberg, 2014)[Flere oplysninger][Færre oplysninger]
Resume: This PhD thesis is the outcome of three-year doctoral study of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and stakeholder engagement in the water sector. This study contributes to new knowledge about water companies formed as hybrid organisations in the aftermath of the new public management (NPM) era worldwide. Today we see different hybrid organisations of water companies around the world that have either been fully privatised or quasi-privatised. Quasiprivatisation in Denmark means that water utilities are still perceived as natural monopolies, which has not made them into for-profit driven companies. Instead a simulated market and state regulation has been introduces with annual, national benchmarking to set a price cap as an upper limit for the consumer-price of water. Similar systems are seen in fully privatised water companies in the United Kingdom, the United States, and partially in South Africa. However, here the water companies are typically owned by private companies and not established as municipalityowned limited liabilities1 as in Denmark and elsewhere in Scandinavia. This PhD thesis proposes new models and principles and corporate social responsibility and stakeholder engagement of these water companies. The findings of the study suggest a new definition of a colonising logic of CSR competing and coexisting with the regulators’ colonising logic of NPM. Through the study and definition of these logics as colonising the water sector this PhD theisis provides an understand of new perspectives of how CSR is enacted through stakeholder engagement and how the logic of CSR frames the top managers’ claim: ”We are CSR!” (Interview B, March 2011) and the consequences of this logic. Both the logic of CSR and the logic of NPM is found to be based on the materials that the water companies are organised around, namely water. Water is perceived as a natural good that should ideally be free and plentiful for all citizens around the world. However, the competition between the two colonising logics stems from another material, namely the money or price that providing clean and pure water for all are allowed to cost the citizens. Through the dialectical interaction of these in terms of material practices between producing water and infrastructure to distribute it and collecting money as a payment for it and the regulation of this, this PhD thesis proposes a new definition of the role of materials and material practices underlying several institutional logics such as the institutional logic of capitalism, state, democracy, family, religion/science, profession, and corporation (Friedland & Alford, 1991; Thornton et al., 2012; Friedland, 2013). URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8896 Filer i denne post: 1
Linne_Marie_Lauesen.pdf (8.076Mb)