Business Commons^™

Three Essays On Hedge Fund Fee Structure, Return Smoothing And Gross Performance, Shuang Feng

Open Access Dissertations

Hedge funds feature special compensation structure compared to traditional investments. Previous studies mainly focus on the provisions and incentive structure of hedge fund contract, such as 2/20, hurdle rates, and high-water mark. The first essay develops an algorithm to empirically estimate the monthly fees, fund flows and gross asset values of individual hedge funds. We find that management fee is a major component in the dollar amount of hedge fund total fees, and fund flow is more important in determining the change in fund size compared to net returns, especially when fund is shrinking in size. We also find that …

Three Essays On Hedge Fund Fee Contracts, Managerial Incentives And Risk Taking Behaviors, Gong Zhan

Open Access Dissertations

Essay One

Under the principal-agent framework, we study and compare different compensation schemes commonly adopted by hedge fund and mutual fund managers. We find that the option-like performance fee structure prevalent among hedge funds is suboptimal to the symmetric performance fee structure. However, the use of high water mark (HWM) mitigates the suboptimality, though to a very limited extent. Bothour theoretical models and simulation results show that HWM will induce more managerial efforts only when a fund is slightly under the water but it will unfavorably dampen incentives when a fund is too deep under the water and when the …

What Do We Do Now? The Role Of Absorptive Capacity And Consulting Service Firms In The Internalization Of New Knowledge Within Organizations, Sudhir Nair

Open Access Dissertations

The impact of knowledge on firm performance has been seen as one explanation of firm performance heterogeneity, which is a central question in the area of Strategic Management. However, there has been surprisingly limited research into the role of new knowledge internalization within firms. Further, the ubiquitous role of external knowledge providers, especially those that explicitly exist to provide knowledge to firms (Consulting Service Firms) has been negligibly studied. Specifically this dissertation looked at how firms first understand new knowledge and suggested that firms differ in their ability to discern the impact of this new knowledge based on the absorptive …

The Impact Of Online Influence Strategies On Consumer Response And Privacy Expectations, Jason Aaron Gabisch

Open Access Dissertations

Identifying effective strategies for encouraging individuals to disclose their personal information on the Internet is important for marketers. In today's informationbased economy, access to consumer data is imperative for organizations in conducting marketing activities. However, the extant privacy literature has found conflicting results regarding the effectiveness of safety cues (e.g., privacy policies) and rewards (e.g., discounts) for encouraging consumers to provide their personal information to Web sites (Andrade et al. 2002). There is also scant research on the implications of compensating consumers for their information, and its subsequent impact on privacy control expectations.

This dissertation consists of two essays that …

Becoming A Young Professional: The Social Organization Of Career, Emily T. Porschitz

Open Access Dissertations

While careers are often conceptualized as individual paths through occupations - propelled by internal drive and (for the lucky ones) passion - this research takes a more social and political perspective, understanding careers as coordinated by forces external to people and their immediate local settings. In particular this study uncovers ways that imperatives and activities associated with contemporary regional economic development have uneven consequences for young workers depending on socioeconomic status.

For this dissertation I undertook a three-year longitudinal study of a much publicized initiative by top administrators of a state university to entice more college students to remain in …

Pricing And Preserving Unique Ecosystems: The Case Of The Galapagos Islands, Ceasar Viteri Mejia

Open Access Dissertations

This study contributes to the discussion of managing tourism to a protected area in a developing country (Galapagos, Ecuador). The first part of the analysis provides quantitative data about preferences of tourists and potential impacts on park revenues from price discrimination. It uses the data from a choice experiment survey conducted in the summer of 2009 in which these four attributes of a tour of the Galapagos were described: tour length, depth of naturalist experience, level of protection of Galapagos from invasive species, and price of the tour. On average the Galapagos tourist would be willing to pay slightly more …

Unintended Consequences Of Lowering Disclosure Thresholds: Proposed Changes To Sfas No. 5, Kirsten Fanning

Open Access Dissertations

Recently, investors have asserted that firms' loss contingency disclosures are not adequate to allow them to assess the likelihood of material losses due to litigation (i.e., litigation risk), and a debate has developed over whether the threshold for disclosure should be lowered to provide investors with more information relating to litigation. Using an experiment, I investigate two unintended consequences of lowering a disclosure threshold, as the FASB has recently proposed. First, I find that adding low probability lawsuits to the disclosure of reasonably possible lawsuits lowers prospective investors' perceptions of litigation risk relating to the disclosure, even though more lawsuits …

An Investigation Into Managers' Language Use In Earnings Press Releases, Tracey Jean Riley

Open Access Dissertations

For years, researchers have examined financial data in corporate earnings announcements and their influence on market participants. More recently, a body of research has been developing recognizing the impact of narrative disclosures and managers' deliberate language choices. However, no prior studies have investigated those language choices of managers which are likely unintentional in composing such narratives; language choices which, as previous research has revealed, escape conscious access. Using an empirically-grounded model which systematically classifies different predicates, I examined whether managers use systematic patterns of language when construing the earnings press release in a likely unintentional effort to channel or direct …