ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes most of the ASU Theses and Dissertations from 2011 to present. ASU Theses and Dissertations are available in downloadable PDF format; however, a small percentage of items are under embargo. Information about the dissertations/theses includes degree information, committee members, an abstract, supporting data or media.
In addition to the electronic theses found in the ASU Digital Repository, ASU Theses and Dissertations can be found in the ASU Library Catalog.
Dissertations and Theses granted by Arizona State University are archived and made available through a joint effort of the ASU Graduate College and the ASU Libraries. For more information or questions about this collection contact or visit the Digital Repository ETD Library Guide or contact the ASU Graduate College at gradformat@asu.edu.
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Description
This study investigates the performance effects of cross-industry mergers and acquisitions (M&A) using a sample of firms listed in China’s Growth Entrepreses Market (GEM). Compared to firms listed in the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges, firms listed in the GEM are much smaller and tend to derive the majority of their revenues from a single industry. I first analyze the motives for firms listed in the GEM to engage in M&As and propose a set of factors that may influence their likelihood of M&A activities. Using data on 55 cross-industry M&As between January 1, 2012 and December 31, 2016, I find that investor generally responded positively in short-term, as indicated by the positive accumulated abonormal returns over the first five trading days following the announcements. Meanwhile, I found no evidence that investors benefited from cross-industry M&As in long-term over three years after the event. Further analysis suggests that the short-term effects of cross-industry M&As by GEM listed firms were influenced by the target firm’s market valuation, whether the M&A was paid by cash, the amount of the payment, and the degree of difference between the acquiring firm’s and the target firm’s industries. These findings have important implications for the investors and senior executives of firms listed in the GEM.
ContributorsZhou, Wei (Author) / Shen, Wei (Thesis advisor) / Yu, Xiaoyun (Thesis advisor) / Jiang, Zhan (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
As securities companies occupy an increasingly important position in the national economy, and the most valuable competitive advantage for whom is human resources; therefore, Security Industry practitioners pay close attention to the influences of securities companies' incentive mechanisms regarding to various business types.
This paper finds that asymmetry of information in business models is the motivation of the gaming for all participants, through analyzing the differences of various business models of securities brokerage services. Further, various incentive mechanisms under different circumstances result in diverse strategies of gaming. It varies development paths of securities companies. Therefore, the purpose of the paper is to theoretically deduce the most reasonable and optimal securities companies’ incentive mechanism.
This paper intends to identify the principle component factors influencing securities brokerage services via questionnaire investigations towards 75 branches under the same securities company and 13 different securities companies, respectively. In addition, based on historical data, the paper aim to explain rationales between adjustments of incentive mechanisms and market shares of securities brokerage services.Lastly, combining author’s personal experience of various incentive mechanisms and development tracks in four securities companies that hopefully presents valuable information and clues for deducing the optimal securities company incentive mechanism.
There are two critical agency relationships in securities brokerage services. One is between principals, securities companies, and agents which are directors of branches. The other is between principals, securities companies, and agents which are securities marketers or brokers. Because of such operational setup, information is highly asymmetrical between all parties. It brought prominent problems regarding agency relationship and motivation aspects.
Under the certain circumstances, implementation of Incomplete Contracting Theory with franchising models in securities companies is quite useful. Specifically, for the former relationship between securities companies and marketers, the motivation effects of sub-license franchising are better than bonus compensation structure. Fixed salaries without bonus have the worst stimulating effects in such business model. For the latter relationship between securities companies and directors of branches, the agents focus on long term residual value claim rights, since it coincides with agents’ appraisals, focusing on incremental market shares and profit drawings.
This paper finds that asymmetry of information in business models is the motivation of the gaming for all participants, through analyzing the differences of various business models of securities brokerage services. Further, various incentive mechanisms under different circumstances result in diverse strategies of gaming. It varies development paths of securities companies. Therefore, the purpose of the paper is to theoretically deduce the most reasonable and optimal securities companies’ incentive mechanism.
This paper intends to identify the principle component factors influencing securities brokerage services via questionnaire investigations towards 75 branches under the same securities company and 13 different securities companies, respectively. In addition, based on historical data, the paper aim to explain rationales between adjustments of incentive mechanisms and market shares of securities brokerage services.Lastly, combining author’s personal experience of various incentive mechanisms and development tracks in four securities companies that hopefully presents valuable information and clues for deducing the optimal securities company incentive mechanism.
There are two critical agency relationships in securities brokerage services. One is between principals, securities companies, and agents which are directors of branches. The other is between principals, securities companies, and agents which are securities marketers or brokers. Because of such operational setup, information is highly asymmetrical between all parties. It brought prominent problems regarding agency relationship and motivation aspects.
Under the certain circumstances, implementation of Incomplete Contracting Theory with franchising models in securities companies is quite useful. Specifically, for the former relationship between securities companies and marketers, the motivation effects of sub-license franchising are better than bonus compensation structure. Fixed salaries without bonus have the worst stimulating effects in such business model. For the latter relationship between securities companies and directors of branches, the agents focus on long term residual value claim rights, since it coincides with agents’ appraisals, focusing on incremental market shares and profit drawings.
ContributorsZhang, Xiangdong (Author) / Pei, Ker-Wei (Thesis advisor) / Li, Feng (Thesis advisor) / Gu, Bin (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
This study investigates the impact of a specific organizational form – partnership – on employees’ awareness of risk control and job engagement in securities companies. Given that their organizational performance relies heavily on the performance of individual employees, it is critical for securities companies in China to adopt appropriate organizational forms so that they can better captalize on their employees’ human capital to cope with the increasingly intense market competition. Partnership, as one of the few organizational forms, has been widely adopted in industries that rely on the performance of individuals, such as law, auditing, consulting, and investment banking, around the world. In the context of China’s emerging economy, it has also been adopted as an incentive system by market leaders across several industries, including Alibaba in online shopping, Vanke in real estate, and Fosun in investments. In contrast, partnership has not been adopted or implemented by securities companies in China as most of them are still state-owned enterprises.
Based on my review of the corporate governance literature and qualitative analysis of partnership adoption in China, I propose that partnership can help better alighn the interests of employees with owners in securities companies as well. Specifically, the prospect of becoming a partner in the future can improve employees’ awareness of risk control and increase their job engagement. Taking advantage of partnership adoption at a Chinese securities company as a natural field experienment, I surveyed its employees about their awareness of risk contrl and job dedication before and after the adoption. The results from 505 matched surveys showed an increase in the average scores of both awareness of risk control and job dedication after the company adopted partnership as a new organizational form. Findings of this study have important implications for organizational and incentive design for securities companies in China.
Based on my review of the corporate governance literature and qualitative analysis of partnership adoption in China, I propose that partnership can help better alighn the interests of employees with owners in securities companies as well. Specifically, the prospect of becoming a partner in the future can improve employees’ awareness of risk control and increase their job engagement. Taking advantage of partnership adoption at a Chinese securities company as a natural field experienment, I surveyed its employees about their awareness of risk contrl and job dedication before and after the adoption. The results from 505 matched surveys showed an increase in the average scores of both awareness of risk control and job dedication after the company adopted partnership as a new organizational form. Findings of this study have important implications for organizational and incentive design for securities companies in China.
ContributorsSha, Changming (Author) / Shen, Wei (Thesis advisor) / Li, Feng (Thesis advisor) / Gu, Bin (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Valuation adjustment mechanism has been widely applied in acquisitions of listed companies in China today, and is usually agreed upon future financial performance indicators of acquired companies (mostly net income). This paper examines how changes of key contents of VAM agreement affect firms’ ability to meet performance commitments from the perspective of incentive effects. Empirical results show that as the performance goals set in VAM agreement becomes higher, the incentive for management to meet performance commitments will initially increase and then decrease, so that the ratio of actual profits to promised profits for target firms will reach peak at some reasonable performance goal and then decrease. Second, as the level of the information asymmetry between buyer and seller turns higher, the incentive effect of performance goals becomes lower. Third, compared with cash-based compensation, stock-based compensation shows significantly higher incentive effects on promisors thus increasing the ability for target firms to achieve performance commitments.
ContributorsWang, Yixin (Author) / Gu, Bin (Thesis advisor) / Yu, Xiaoyun (Thesis advisor) / Jiang, Zhan (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
China's city commercial banks were reorganized by the urban credit cooperatives in the same city in the 1990s. Although they are allowed to open branches outside the registered city, the location and the number of their branches have been strictly restricted. It is fatal to them to increase the competitiveness of their branches. Based on the diversity theory and its mechanism, in this study I examined the impact of source diversity of the senior management in the branches of the city commercial bank on the branches’ productivity and their asset yield. Invoking the resource-based theory and the social capital framework, the source diversity lead to the organization resources diversity and the organization knowledge diversity. The results demonstrate that the source diversity contribute to the branches’ competitiveness advantage. Both internal trained personnel and external introduction personnel are important for the branches’ top management team. But one of the two kinds of personnel is more suitable to their middle management team.
ContributorsZhang, Xiande (Author) / Gu, Bin (Thesis advisor) / Wang, Tan (Thesis advisor) / Shen, Wei (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
With the competition of Chinese enterprises shifting from scale orientation to high-quality orientation, it is critical to enhance the level of business-finance integration. In practice, many enterprises lack the conceptual understanding of business-finance integration as well as the support of research method, which leads to the difficulty of implementing business-finance integration. This study attempts to establish the model of relationships between business-finance integration and enterprise value, analyze which process factors are worth paying attention to, and help enterprises improve the level of business-finance integration in both theory and practice.This study uses the research methods of case and empirical analysis to draw four main conclusions: (1) business-finance integration can facilitate the realization of enterprise value directly because business development has a stronger sense of purpose under the guidance of financial indicators, and financial resources are effectively allocated based on business needs; (2) business-finance integration can facilitate the realization of enterprise value through internal operations because the efficiency of operation process is increased, customer satisfaction is enhanced, and ultimately financial performance is improved; (3) business-finance integration can facilitate the realization of enterprise value through the upgrade of organizational capacity, because the internal communication, work ideology, and operational platforms are more aligned in the organization, and the enterprise value is realized under the liberation of organizational capacity; and (4) digitalization level can facilitate the integration of business and finance to play a greater role, because digitalization makes operation and management more efficient and stable.
The innovation of this study is reflected in two aspects: (1) based on the mechanism of value transmission, the model of business-finance integration and enterprise value creation is established, which enriches the theory of business-finance integration; and (2) the identification of the logical relationships among business-finance integration, operation, organization, value realization, and digitization provides a decision-making framework and basis for industry-finance integration.
ContributorsZhang, Huiqin (Author) / Shao, Benjamin (Thesis advisor) / Chen, Xin (Thesis advisor) / Hu, Yu (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2024
Description
Presently, the asset allocation of Chinese resident families and HNWIs is mainly characterized by the following two irrationalities: Firstly, high proportion of non-financial assets and the excessive reliance of families on real estate may bring many drawbacks such as over-concentration of risk and reduction of liquidity; Secondly, low holding rate and small holding scale of equity assets, and the concentration of wealth in cash and fixed-income assets may lead to difficulties in enjoying the benefits brought by rapid growth of the domestic economy. This study examines the key factors affecting the equity asset allocation of Chinese HNWIs, with the aim of providing a practical basis for HNWIs and wealth management practitioners to facilitate the inflow of capital into the capital market, thereby promoting the high-quality development of China's financial market.The study first sorts out the relevant theories and literatures in terms of asset allocation, and also compares the household asset allocation in China with that in developed countries such as America and Japan, to find out the differences and analyze the possible reasons. Subsequently, it proposes possible influencing factors through integrating related theories, and conducts questionnaire survey based on the hypotheses. Finally, multiple linear regression method is used to test the correlation between each factor and the proportion of equity asset allocation and put forward corresponding policy suggestions. The main findings of this study are as follows: First, investors' educational background is positively correlated with their proportion of equity asset allocation. The higher the education level and the deeper the background in finance, the higher their proportion of equity asset allocation. Second, retail investors who rely on their own research for investment have a higher allocation to stock assets. Third, investors with shorter average investment cycles have higher allocations to equity assets. Fourth, investors with higher investment expectations and higher maximum acceptable losses have higher equity asset allocations. Based on these, it is recommended to increase special education and training, strengthen the sharing of investment experience among HNWIs, and encourage long-term investors and professional investment advisers to increase equity asset allocation in order to realize wealth preservation and appreciation.
ContributorsLiu, Yang (Author) / Shao, Benjamin (Thesis advisor) / Wu, Fei (Thesis advisor) / Wang, Yongxiang (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2024
Description
This study focuses on China's mutual fund market and analyzes the impact of fund managers' past experience on their performance. The research results show that fund managers with management experience, including those who have held senior management positions, can significantly improve performance. This may be due to their excellent team coordination, strategic planning, and decision-making abilities. In contrast, managers with professional technical or accounting backgrounds may reduce performance, possibly because they rely too much on past investment experience, lack decision-making flexibility, and are unfamiliar with corporate management. For management-type fund managers, the postgraduate education of the fund manager and the number of award-winning funds of the fund company have a positive moderating effect on performance. However, factors such as the number of funds managed, the amount of assets under management, the number of managers and employees in the fund company, and the amount of newly issued funds may have a negative impact. These findings provide valuable references for fund managers and fund companies in improving performance, and have important implications in various aspects such as selecting fund managers, setting investment strategies, and managing the number and size of funds.
ContributorsXu, Zheng (Author) / Zhu, David (Thesis advisor) / Liang, Bing (Thesis advisor) / Yan, Hong (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2024
Description
Against the backdrop of China's rapidly expanding economy and constantly changing stock market, the dispersion of stock structure has become particularly noteworthy among listed businesses. Even though still a minority, those listed businesses without an actual controller are becoming more prevalent, and their continued growth justifies studying them as an individual group. Management, in which resides the core value of a business, has a peculiar impact on how well a company performs. This study examines the relationship between management heterogeneity and corporate performance with an emphasis on heterogeneous notable traits in the management of listed businesses without an actual controller. Generally speaking, it consists of three sections: in the first section, the mechanism with which the three heterogeneity dimensions, including gender, age, and professional background of the management, affect corporate performance, is examined; in the second section, the black box of the process through which team cooperation, a mediating variable, affects corporate performance in terms of the three heterogeneity dimensions and its mediating effect in between are analyzed; in the last section, based on the above study, a further analysis is made into the moderating effect of moderating variables such as regional cultural and habit differences in China on the mediating variable, as well as the conditions under which moderating variables can affect corporate performance and their functions. This study, covering 229 listed companies with no actual controller trading A-shares from 2016 to 2021 (A-shares are the stock shares of mainland China-based companies that trade on the two Chinese stock exchanges, the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE)), The novelty of this study lies in two aspects: First, it is the first study that introduces regional cultural and habit differences as moderating variables, and it has found that the mechanisms and moderating effects of different heterogeneity dimensions of the management on team cooperation and corporate performance are not the same. Second, it is the first that proposes and measures the concept of team cooperation and has preliminarily validated its importance to corporate performance.
ContributorsHe, Hao (Author) / Wang, Shaoqing (Thesis advisor) / Cheng, Shijun (Thesis advisor) / Qian, Cuili (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2024
Description
While the central government of China established its "dual carbon" goals, transformation of energy structure has become key component of the country's energy revolution and economic reform. Installment of the "Source-Grid-Load-Storage" (SGLS) systems is crucial for implementation of the ESG goals in domestic oilfields and uplifting of the economic efficiency for oil production. The SGLS system is a micro power grid capable of dispatching power among multiple equipment in the most efficient way but to consider multi factors including power generation, power storage, and electrical load. However, the randomness and intermittency of renewable energy power generation imposes significant challenges to the SGLS systems control, making it difficult to assess the economic benefits and therefore being undervalued by oil companies for its potential ESG benefits.To promote SGLS systems to be applied in the oilfields, this paper proposes a model to assess economic benefits of the SGLS system. Based on real data generated by sample Oilfield, an operation model designed for the SGLS system is established to access the optimal cost structure. Factors that have been built into the model include the main grid purchasing cost, dissipation cost during power transport, photovoltaic power generation cost, and energy storage cost. By calculating the optimal cost structure with the mentioned multi factors built in, the model can predict operational outcome of the SGLS system in real-time and guide on the power dispatching. Meanwhile, the model is trying to maintain the minimum requirement of energy reserve. Based on scenario testing, the economic benefits of SGLS system in oilfield production are assessed with an optimized cost approach, therefore a valuable reference for the oil industry.
This research also conducted interviews with key people in the oil industry and proposes strategies to improve the economic benefits of SGLS systems in Oilfield based on takeaways from those interviews. This could be value-adding to accelerate construction of SGLS systems and its application in the oilfields.
Meanwhile, the SGLS operational model designed in this paper as a power generation solution is innovative to the energy industry and with obvious economic benefits. Therefore, it could also be an enabler of the oil industry’s sustainable development in the long run.
ContributorsMin, Rui (Author) / Guo, Hong (Thesis advisor) / Wu, Fei (Thesis advisor) / Wu, Shin-Yi (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2024