Community-Based Mangrove Management: The Relationship between Perhutani and Cultivators in Muara Gembong, Bekasi Regency, West Java Province

Mangrove ecosystem sustainability is determined by the success of the relationship between the parties relating to its management. But it turns out in practice often arise various problems referred to as the Principal-Agent problem. The purpose of this study was to determine the problems that occur in the relationship between Perum Perhutani (principal) with Cultivators (Agent) in mangrove management in state-owned land in Muara Gembong, Bekasi Regency, and West Java Province that continues to be degraded and deforested. This research is a qualitative research with 1

Principal-Agent Agreement and Unemployed Third Country Nationals: The Role of Public and Private Employment Service Agencies in Countracting-Out Employment Case Management to Enable Young Third Country Immigrants Employment-Related Transition from Welfare to Work in Czech Republic

This purpose of this paper is to explores contracting-out of employment case management service implementation and the role of public and private employment service agencies under principal-agency agreement in Czech Republic to enable young third country immigrant employment-related transition from unemployment to all types of employment

Task delegation from AI to humans: A principal-agent perspective

Increasingly intelligent AI artifacts in human-AI systems perform tasks more autonomously as entities that guide human actions, even changing the direction of task delegation between humans and AI. It has been shown that human-AI systems achieve better results when the AI artifact takes the leading role and delegates tasks to a human rather than the other way around. This study presents phenomena, conflicts, and challenges that arise in this process, explored through the theoretical lens of principal-agent theory (PAT). The findings are derived from a systematic literature review and an exploratory interview study and are placed in the context of existing constructs of PAT. Furthermore, this article paper identifies new causes of tensions that arise specifically in AI-to-human delegation and calls for special mechanisms beyond the classical solutions of PAT. The paper thus contributes to the understanding of autonomous AI and its implications for human-AI delegation

Financial Accountability Mechanisms in Local Governments in Uganda: a case of Kabale District Local Government

The purpose of the study is to present financial accountability mechanisms in local governments, with reference to Kabale district local government. A cross-sectional research design, which used both quantitative and qualitative approaches to collect and analyze data, was adopted. Both simple random and purposive sampling techniques were used to select 117 respondents from 174 subjects. Questionnaires and personal interviews were used to collect data from respondents. Frequencies and percentages were used to analyze quantitative data, while direct quotes from interviews conducted among key informants formed the basis for qualitative analysis. Quantitative analysis was aided by software for document analysis (SPSS V 20.0). The study found out that service delivery was the most commonly used financial accountability mechanism, followed by financial reporting, expenditure control and budget. The paper therefore, concluded that service delivery is the most used mechanism of financial accountability, though the district’s local budget seemed unclear on reflecting the priorities of the local people. This paper suggests that the local government should ensure that the district’s budget demonstrates community preference; salaries and wages should be paid in accordance with the district’s approved budget; expenditures on development should always be as per the approved budget, and the mode of financial reporting, particularly on liabilities should be standardized

Re-architecting the failure analysis supply chain

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management; and, (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division; in conjunction with the Leaders for Manufacturing Program at MIT, 2007.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Includes bibliographical references.With customer satisfaction and lifecycle product quality becoming a competitive advantage, technology companies are motivated to look beyond their historical focus on forward supply chain management. Operational excellence in customer returns management, failure analysis, and closed loop corrective action is taking on an increasingly important role as companies strive to improve their business processes, policies and supply chains to achieve a world-class leadership position in their industry. In the competitive high-tech industry, companies face a number of challenges in managing customer returns and re-architecting their failure analysis supply chains to support a closed loop corrective action approach to product quality. Supporting globally distributed customers through a diverse network of outsourced manufacturing, repair, failure analysis and logistics partners increases the complexity of the supply chain architecting problem. This thesis proposes a holistic enterprise architecting approach, including governance, process, network design, organization, enabling technology, and performance management elements that should be considered when re-architecting the failure analysis supply chain. During this process, strategic decisions need to be made regarding supply chain designs that are aligned with the vision of the enterprise.(cont.) Operations managers and leaders can use data-driven, collaborative approaches supported by decision support tools like the "Decision Model for Failure Analysis Supply Chain" to align decisions with customer value and stakeholders' needs. Implementing changes based on these strategic decisions requires understanding organizational dynamics within the enterprise. An understanding of the "frame of reference" that guides decision makers can help address implementation challenges. In addition, communication, training and alignment of incentives across functional groups to encourage collaboration can allow enterprises to make strategic decisions that are successfully implemented. The strategies proposed in this thesis are intended to aid managers in making monumental changes to their "reverse" operations and exceeding customer expectations.by Tejaswini Hebalkar.S.M.M.B.A

Análise colaborativa de grandes conjuntos de séries temporais

The recent expansion of metrification on a daily basis has led to the production of massive quantities of data, and in many cases, these collected metrics are only useful for knowledge building when seen as a full sequence of data ordered by time, which constitutes a time series. To find and interpret meaningful behavioral patterns in time series, a multitude of analysis software tools have been developed. Many of the existing solutions use annotations to enable the curation of a knowledge base that is shared between a group of researchers over a network. However, these tools also lack appropriate mechanisms to handle a high number of concurrent requests and to properly store massive data sets and ontologies, as well as suitable representations for annotated data that are visually interpretable by humans and explorable by automated systems. The goal of the work presented in this dissertation is to iterate on existing time series analysis software and build a platform for the collaborative analysis of massive time series data sets, leveraging state-of-the-art technologies for querying, storing and displaying time series and annotations. A theoretical and domain-agnostic model was proposed to enable the implementation of a distributed, extensible, secure and high-performant architecture that handles various annotation proposals in simultaneous and avoids any data loss from overlapping contributions or unsanctioned changes. Analysts can share annotation projects with peers, restricting a set of collaborators to a smaller scope of analysis and to a limited catalog of annotation semantics. Annotations can express meaning not only over a segment of time, but also over a subset of the series that coexist in the same segment. A novel visual encoding for annotations is proposed, where annotations are rendered as arcs traced only over the affected series’ curves in order to reduce visual clutter. Moreover, the implementation of a full-stack prototype with a reactive web interface was described, directly following the proposed architectural and visualization model while applied to the HVAC domain. The performance of the prototype under different architectural approaches was benchmarked, and the interface was tested in its usability. Overall, the work described in this dissertation contributes with a more versatile, intuitive and scalable time series annotation platform that streamlines the knowledge-discovery workflow.A recente expansão de metrificação diária levou à produção de quantidades massivas de dados, e em muitos casos, estas métricas são úteis para a construção de conhecimento apenas quando vistas como uma sequência de dados ordenada por tempo, o que constitui uma série temporal. Para se encontrar padrões comportamentais significativos em séries temporais, uma grande variedade de software de análise foi desenvolvida. Muitas das soluções existentes utilizam anotações para permitir a curadoria de uma base de conhecimento que é compartilhada entre investigadores em rede. No entanto, estas ferramentas carecem de mecanismos apropriados para lidar com um elevado número de pedidos concorrentes e para armazenar conjuntos massivos de dados e ontologias, assim como também representações apropriadas para dados anotados que são visualmente interpretáveis por seres humanos e exploráveis por sistemas automatizados. O objetivo do trabalho apresentado nesta dissertação é iterar sobre o software de análise de séries temporais existente e construir uma plataforma para a análise colaborativa de grandes conjuntos de séries temporais, utilizando tecnologias estado-de-arte para pesquisar, armazenar e exibir séries temporais e anotações. Um modelo teórico e agnóstico quanto ao domínio foi proposto para permitir a implementação de uma arquitetura distribuída, extensível, segura e de alto desempenho que lida com várias propostas de anotação em simultâneo e evita quaisquer perdas de dados provenientes de contribuições sobrepostas ou alterações não-sancionadas. Os analistas podem compartilhar projetos de anotação com colegas, restringindo um conjunto de colaboradores a uma janela de análise mais pequena e a um catálogo limitado de semântica de anotação. As anotações podem exprimir significado não apenas sobre um intervalo de tempo, mas também sobre um subconjunto das séries que coexistem no mesmo intervalo. Uma nova codificação visual para anotações é proposta, onde as anotações são desenhadas como arcos traçados apenas sobre as curvas de séries afetadas de modo a reduzir o ruído visual. Para além disso, a implementação de um protótipo full-stack com uma interface reativa web foi descrita, seguindo diretamente o modelo de arquitetura e visualização proposto enquanto aplicado ao domínio AVAC. O desempenho do protótipo com diferentes decisões arquiteturais foi avaliado, e a interface foi testada quanto à sua usabilidade. Em geral, o trabalho descrito nesta dissertação contribui com uma abordagem mais versátil, intuitiva e escalável para uma plataforma de anotação sobre séries temporais que simplifica o fluxo de trabalho para a descoberta de conhecimento.Mestrado em Engenharia Informátic

Hegemonic and counter-hegemonic interaction as a challenge to regional organizational actorness and coherent collective security cooperation: a case of Nigeria, France and ECOWAS

This thesis examines the challenges facing the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, in manifesting actorness and in coordinating and owning West African sub-regional collective security. These issues are considered via a theoretical examination of the concepts of hegemony and counter-hegemony and an empirical assessment of their application to the West African context. The main hypothetical claim that the thesis seeks to test is that the hegemonic and counter-hegemonic interaction of Nigeria and France has undermined ECOWAS’ ability to coordinate and own sub- regional collective security.In order to undertake this analysis, the thesis takes existing theoretical frameworks of hegemony/counter-hegemony and actorness and refines and applies these to the West African context. Specifically, its framework of hegemony/counter-hegemony is tested against Nigeria and France, the two leading state actors in West African security governance, whilst the actorness framework is tested against ECOWAS. Using a grounded theory and case study approach, the thesis draws on data collected using semi- structured in-depth interviews, documentary analysis, and secondary literature. The main argument is that ECOWAS has demonstrated growing actorness in and ownership of sub- regional collective security, but that in both of these regards it is hindered by the interaction of Nigeria’s sub-regional hegemony and France’s extra-regional counter- hegemony. With particular focus on institutional penetration as a hegemonic/counter- hegemonic criterion, the thesis further argues that Nigeria’s sub-regional hegemonic influence emanates from the ECOWAS, through Abuja’s smart power approach to sub- regional collective security. On the other hand, France’s counter-hegemonic influence in African security governance emanates mainly from the UN, which limits its recognition in the sub-region, hence, its ascription as an extra-regional counter-hegemon. The thesis finds that whilst Nigeria’s hegemony enhances ECOWAS actorness and ownership of sub-regional collective security, France’s counter-hegemony remains largely state-centric and has thus undermined ECOWAS’ collective security actorness and ownership. The thesis concludes that its main hypothetical claim is proven on the basis that France’s state- centric approach has not been compatible with ECOWAS’ collective security agenda which seeks international cooperation under the leadership of ECOWAS

Utilizing principal agent and principal steward theories to assess the efficiacy of public private partnership in delivering black economic empowerment

When the African National Congress (ANC) assumed power in 1994, its main economic policy was to overturn over three Hundred (300) years of black economic exclusivity which were intensified by the institutionalization of racism through Apartheid in 1948. The new dispensation adopted the policy of Affirmative Action which had been practiced in other parts of the world and contextualized it to South Africa through Black Economic Empowerment (BEE). The policy was designed to permeate every aspect of state and the private sector, especially companies which deal with government as providers of goods and services. The new government realized that because of former Apartheid privileges the established companies contain high specialist knowledge tacitness and management acumen, which would need to be utilised to benefit the new black-owned companies and assist in their development. Through the Targeted Procurement Policy the government compelled the established companies to unbundle their work packages to accommodate, small black-owned Affirmable Business Enterprises (ABEs) as sub-contractors or Joint Venture partners. This relationship between the government and the established companies is a typical Principal Agent (PA) relationship, and has quintessentially been beset with moral hazard and adverse selection problems militated by asymmetric information favoring the established companies. The identification of the construction industry as the flagship empowerment environment was due to its peculiarities of yielding more employment for a given capital flow and the low entrance barriers advocating for its amenability for a farreaching BEE inclusiveness. However, the opportunistic behaviours of established companies indicated through strategic misrepresentation of the true BEE beneficiaries has hampered the effectiveness of the BEE implementation. It is in this context that Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) were identified as a iv suitable vehicle to provide an incubatory environment to nurture the up-andcoming black owned Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMMEs). This research uses PA theory to assess the efficacy of the PPPs in mitigating different forms of fronting which are indicative of opportunistic behaviours by established companies. The research also evaluates the effectiveness of the PPP environment in according ABEs access to complex and idiosyncratic information due to a PPP's longevity and strict monitoring regimen. A critical case is deployed in this study using the basic tenets of PA theory as lenses to study the behaviours of three major parties; the government, BEE beneficiaries and established companies. The limitations of Principal Agent theory are augmented by the introduction of Principal Steward (PS) theory to account for agent (established companies) post-contractual behavioural 'anomalies' not accommodated in the classic PA theory postulation. The observed bipolar agent character yields a new theory encompassing both the PA and PS theories demonstrative of a positive agent character transition akin to a Steward, which is yet intrinsically containing basic agent characteristics. This character transition is found to have been induced by robust PPP contractual arrangement, which in the end benefits BEE

The Influence of Corporate Governance on Managers’ Opportunistic Behaviours prior to Leveraged Buyouts in the UK

This research investigates the influence of corporate governance mechanisms on managers’ opportunistic behaviours prior to leveraged buyouts (LBOs) in the UK. The UK is, after the US, the second largest LBO market in the world, where the total deal value of LBOs rose from £458.62 million in 1997 (the initial year of the sample period) to £817.12 million in 2011 (the end year of the sample period). This 15-year period covers a significant wave of LBO activity in the UK. This research extends previous studies of corporate governance and managerial opportunism by considering management leveraged buyouts (MBOs) and third-party LBOs separately, because managers’ incentives in each setting are different. Managers’ direct involvement in MBO transactions may lead to conflicts of interests between managers, who have an incentive to try to minimise the purchase price, and shareholders, who seek to maximise their selling price. In contrast, third-party LBOs are inherently more uncertain for managers’ long-term job security, which may serve to intensify managers’ incentives to engage in opportunistic activities to prevent takeovers. This research comprises three empirical studies, which are structured to compare third-party LBOs with MBOs in relation to: the influence of managerial interests on takeover resistance and bid premiums (empirical study 1); the relationship between accounting conservatism and corporate governance (empirical study 2); and the influence of board structures and board effectiveness on takeover premiums (empirical study 3). The first empirical study finds that managerial share options are negatively related to the likelihood of takeover resistance in third-party LBOs, possibly because managers can accrue high returns from exercising options immediately after the buyout. However, as expected, managerial share options and the likelihood of bid resistance are positively related in MBOs. The research also finds that high levels of managerial share options reduce the size of takeover premiums in both MBOs and third-party LBOs. The research suggests that while managerial ownership is positively associated with takeover resistance and bid premiums in third-party LBOs, these variables are not significantly related in MBOs. The second empirical study finds that, during the year prior to the announcement of MBOs (year Y−1), managers engage in more conservative accounting, i.e. the asymmetric reporting of good and bad news, where bad news is disclosed faster than good news, possibly to reduce the perception of the firm’s value and thus depress their purchasing price. In order to identify the differences between accounting conservatism prior to MBOs and third-party LBOs, this study examines three years’ data preceding LBOs event. The research finds that managers engage in more conservative accounting in year Y−1 prior to MBOs than prior to third-party LBOs, but less conservative accounting in year Y−2. The research also finds a mean-reversion of managerial behaviours toward accounting conservatism precedes both types of LBOs. In particular, managerial behaviours shifted from less to more conservative prior to MBOs from year Y−2 to Y−1, but from more to less conservative preceding third-party LBOs from year Y−2 to Y−1 and year Y−3 to Y−1. In addition, this research suggests that the ownership characteristics and board characteristics have a greater impact on accounting conservatism in third-party LBO than in MBO firms. The investigation of the relationship between board structures and takeover premiums in third-party LBOs and MBOs in the first empirical study suggested that board structures are not significantly related to takeover premiums in either case. However, the overall impact of the board on takeover premiums is not only determined by board structures but also by its effectiveness, which encapsulates directors’ qualifications, experiences, engagement, integrity and their ability to work together. Conflating board structures with its effectiveness can be misleading. Therefore, the third empirical study extends previous research on the effects of the board by investigating the impact of board structures and board effectiveness on takeover premiums in third-party LBOs and MBOs. In particular, during the analysis, this study takes into account the potential for moderating or mediating relationships between board structures and board effectiveness. Moreover, this research extends previous studies by employing the degree of accounting conservatism as a new measure of board effectiveness. The findings suggest that board size has a moderating effect on the relationship between board effectiveness and takeover premiums in MBOs such that the relationship is more positive when board size is smaller. Moreover, the research finds that board effectiveness moderates the relationship between CEO duality and takeover premiums in MBOs such that the relationship is more negative when there is a higher level of board effectiveness