R&D spending, stock market valuation & profitability : The effect of mergers and acquisitions in technology-intensive industries

Firms pursue growth internally via research & development activities and externally through mer-gers and acquisitions. There is a trade-off between them, and optimal allocation is crucial to company’s long-term profitability and competitiveness. This study investigates the relationship between mergers & acquisition and research & development. More specifically, the aim is to examine how these strategic decisions affect stock market valuation and long-term profitability of the acquiring firm in technology-driven industries. A sample of 401 US technology acquirer between 2010-2018 is constructed to test the linkage between M&As and R&D on stock market valuation and profitability. Previous studies report the positive effect of technology mergers to acquiring firm’s valuation and profitability. Hence, the first hypothesis states that acquiring a technology firm increases the current market valuation of technology acquirer’s R&D spending. Second hypothesis continues by examining whether M&As strengthen the linkage between acquirer’s current R&D spending and its future profitability. The stock market response towards R&D spending is found to be positive after M&As. That indi-cates that investors expect the merger to intensify the R&D activities of the acquiring firm lead-ing to better performance in future. However, the expectations are not always fulfilled since the acquirer’s R&D spending in the year of the M&A is not reflected more strongly in its future profit-ability than in other years. It is also found that the overall R&D spending of the acquirer decreas-es after M&As. These results illustrate the shift from so called scale deals to scope deals, where the mergers are motivated by access to new markets or product lines. It is suggested that due to more complex nature of the scope deals the post-merger integration problems may be pro-nounced

A Turn in Teaching and Learning : The Transnational Classroom in an International Setting

Peer reviewe

If your parents didn’t vote, chances are you won’t either – unless you move up the social ladder

You are less likely to vote if your parents didn’t go to the polls. But new research by Hannu Lahtinen, Heikki Hiilamo and Hanna Wass suggest this effect is at least partly overcome if you move up the social ladder yourself. The more social mobility a society can achieve, the smaller the gaps in turnout between social classes

A tale of two professions in elections : Party choice among diaconal and social workers

Peer reviewe

Marketing channels for start-up companies in the service industry : a case study of Akretus AB

Det blir svårare och svårare för företag att nå ut till potentiella kunder genom traditionell marknadsföring. Samtidigt som potentiella kunder är alltmer kritiska till marknadsföring blir också de tillvägagångssätt som finns tillgängliga för företag att marknadsföra sig via allt fler, vilket försvårar företagens val av marknadsföring för just sina tjänster eller produkter. I denna problematik finner vi kommunikationskanaler som kan ses som en mängd klart definierade tillvägagångssätt som företag kan använda sig av för att nå ut med ett budskap till potentiella kunder. Sett till relationsmarknadsföring så är kommunikationskanaler den del som möjliggör påbörjandet av en relation mellan företag och kund. Att identifiera vilken eller vilka av kommunikationskanaler som lämpar sig bäst för det specifika företagets situation kan hjälpa till att förbättra företagets marknadsföringsarbete i tids-, effektivitets- och kostnadsperspektiv. Syftet med denna studie är således att identifiera vilka kommunikationskanaler som är lämpligast för ett startupföretag i servicesektorn att använda sig av. Eftersom valet av kommunikationskanaler är en stor utmaning siktar den empiriska studien på att ge ett underlag för vilka kanaler som är lämpligast ur ett kundperspektiv. Studien genomförs med semistrukturerade intervjuer med några av fallföretagets nuvarande kunder i syfte att ge en bild av vilka kommunikationskanaler de använder sig av, samt vilka åsikter och värderingar de har i avseende till de olika kanalerna. De slutsatser som studien visar på är att kunder sätter ett värde på vilka kommunikationskanaler ett företag väljer att använda sig av och att det väger in i beslutet på om en relation med företaget ska inledas eller inte. Studien visar också att en högre tillit ges till vissa kanaler samtidigt som tjänstens storlek och omfattning har en inverkan på hur mycket vikt detta ges i beslutet.It is getting harder and harder for companies to reach potential customers through traditional marketing means. Potential customers and consumers are constantly bombarded by targeted marketing and are growing resistant towards it. At the same time the amount of methods available to companies to market themselves are growing, this adds to the challenge company’s face when choosing how to market their services or products. It is in this dilemma we find communication channels which can be viewed as transport routes through which companies can communicate and reach out with their message to potential customers. In relationship marketing communication channels is what makes it possible for a relationship to begin between a company and a customer. Identifying which communication channels that best suits a company’s specific situation can be a great help in optimising their marketing work measured in time, effectiveness and cost-perspectives. The purpose of this paper is to find a base for which communication channels that are best suited to be used by a start-up company that sells services. Because the choice of which communication channels to use is a big challenge, this empirical study aims to find a ground for which channels that are the best from a customer’s point of view. Therefore empirical data is collected from interviews with customers at a company chosen for this study. The findings of this study shows that customers value which communication channels a company uses and weighs that into the decision to begin a relationship with the company or not. The study also shows that customers have higher trust in some channels over others and considers this into the decision as well. The size and extent of the service in question also affects how much weight the customer puts on the trust factor of the channel when making the decision

From Generation to Generation : The Role of Grandparents in the Intergenerational Transmission of (Non-)Voting

The literature on the reproduction of political participation across generations has focused almost exclusively on parental effects. Yet, other family members may plausibly play an important role as well. This study explores the role of grandparents in the intergenerational transmission of the propensity to vote. Grandparental effects are theorized in terms of both social learning and status transmission. The analysis takes advantage of a unique dataset that links official turnout data for grandparents, parents, and adult grandchildren with demographic and socioeconomic information from administrative sources. Even controlling for a variety of status-related characteristics, grandchildren are significantly less likely to vote when their grandparents are non-voters. The association between grandparental turnout and the turnout of their adult grandchildren is only partly explained by the mediating effect of parental turnout. Having non-voting grandparents appears to reinforce the effect of having parents who do not vote and may even offset the effects of having parents who are both voters. These results suggest that it is time to take the role of grandparents seriously if we want to understand how political disadvantage is transmitted across generations.Peer reviewe

Sibling similarities and the importance of parental socioeconomic position in electoral participation

Peer reviewe

TKI-AINEISTOJEN AVARUUS — 3AMKIN AINEISTONHALLINNAN KÄYTÄNNÖT JA OSAAMINEN

Tiedontuotannon vastuullisuuden lisääminen on tällä hetkellä yksi eurooppalaisen tutkimus- ja innovaatiopolitiikan keskeisiä pyrkimyksiä. Käytännössä tämä näkyy muun muassa siinä, että tutkimuksessa kerättävien aineistojen hallintaan kiinnitetään aiempaa enemmän huomiota. Monet rahoittajat edellyttävätkin hankehakemuksilta tutkimusaineiston tallentamista, jatkokäyttöä ja mahdollista jakamista pohtivaa aineistonhallintasuunnitelmaa. Ammattikorkeakouluissa aineistojen tallentamisen, jakamisen ja hyödyntämisen käytännöt ovat vasta kehittymässä

Informaatiolukutaidon monet kasvot

Lokakuussa järjestetyssä European Conference on Information Literacy (ECIL) tapahtumassa Istanbulissa oli hyvin innostava ilmapiiri. Kansainvälistä keskustelua leimasi vahvasti tarve määrittää IL uudelleen ja laajemmin, jotta se olisi käyttökelpoisempi työkalu uusissa toimintaympäristöissä. Esitysten yksi keskeinen viesti oli tarve kehittää informaatiolukutaitoa (IL) vastaamaan paremmin yhä nopeammin muuttuvaa tieto- ja teknologiaympäristöä. Kuvaamme tässä artikkelissa konferenssin innoittamina erilaisia näkökulmia IL:oon. Keskeinen kysymys on, pysyvätkö IL standardit muutoksen perässä

Children's disclosures of sexual abuse in a population-based sample

Most previous studies on disclosing child sexual abuse (CSA) have either been retrospective or focused on children who already have disclosed. The present study aimed to explore the overall CSA disclosure rate and factors associated with disclosing to adults in a large population-based sample. A representative sample of 11,364 sixth and ninth graders participated in the Finnish Child Victim Survey conceming experiences of violence, including CSA. CSA was defined as having sexual experiences with a person at least five years older at the time of the experience. Within this sample, the CSA prevalence was 2.4%. Children reporting CSA experiences also answered questions regarding disclosure, the disclosure recipient, and potential reasons for not disclosing. The results indicate that most of the children (80%) had disclosed to someone, usually a friend (48%). However, only 26% had disclosed to adults, and even fewer had reported their experiences to authorities (12%). The most common reason for non-disclosing was that the experience was not considered serious enough for reporting (41%), and half of the children having CSA experiences did not self-label their experiences as sexual abuse. Relatively few children reported lacking the courage to disclose (14%). Logistic regression analyses showed that the perpetrator's age, the age of the victim at the time of abuse, and having no experiences of emotional abuse by the mother were associated with disclosing to an adult. The results contribute to understanding the factors underlying children's disclosure patterns in a population-based sample and highlight the need for age-appropriate safety education for children and adolescents.Peer reviewe