Land use response to agricultural policy and market movements on Finnish dairy-farms

Selostus: Tuki- ja hintamuutosten vaikutus maitotilojen pellon käyttöön

Russian Enterprise Restructuring - the Effect of Privatisation and Market Liberalisation on the Performance of Large Enterprises

The fundamental question in the transitional economies of the former Eastern Europe and Soviet Union has been whether privatisation and market liberalisation have had an effect on the performance of former state-owned enterprises. This study examines the effect of privatisation, capital market discipline, price liberalisation and international price exposure on the restructuring of large Russian enterprises. The performance indicators are sales, profitability, labour productivity and stock market valuations. The results do not show performance differences between state-owned and privatised enterprises. On the other hand, the expansion of the de novo private sector has been strong. New enterprises have significantly higher sales growth, profitability and labour productivity. However, the results indicate a diminishing effect of ownership. The international stock market listing has a significant positive effect on profitability, while the effect of domestic stock market listing is insignificant. The international price exposure has a significant positive increasing effect on profitability and labour productivity. International enterprises have higher profitability only when operating on price liberalised markets, however. The main results of the study are strong evidence on the positive effects of international linkages on the enterprise restructuring and the higher than expected role of new enterprises in the Russian economy.

Feasibility Study and Market Review of Small Scale Bioenergy Heating Plants in North-West Russia

The paper is focused on feasibility study and market review of small scale bioenergy heating plants in the Russian North-West region. The main focus is effective and competitive usage of low-grade wood for heating purposes in the region. As example of economical feasibility estimation it was chosen the project of reconstruction of small scale boiler plant in Leningrad region that Brofta Oy is planning to implement the nearest time. It includes calculation the payback time with and without interest, the estimation of probable investments, the evaluation of possible risks and research on the potential of small scale heating plants projects. Calculations show that the profitability of this kind of projects is high, but payback time is not very short, because of high level of initial investments. Though, the development of small scale bioenergy heating plants in the region is considered to be the best way to solve the problems of heat supply in small settlements using own biomass resources.

Country Risk and Market Reactions to Earnings Announcements: Evidence from Finnish Stock Markets

The objective of this thesis is to examine the market reaction around earnings announcements in Finnish stock markets. The aim is to find out whether the extreme market conditions during the financial crisis are reflected in stock prices as a stronger reaction. In addition to this, the purpose is to investigate how extensively Finnish listed companies report the country segmentation of revenues in their interim reports and whether the country risk is having a significant impact on perceived market reaction. The sample covers all companies listed in Helsinki stock exchange at 1.1.2010 and these companies’ interim reports from the first quarter of 2008 to last quarter of 2009. Final sample consists of 81 companies and 630 firm-quarter observations. The data sample has been divided in two parts, of which country risk sample contains 17 companies and 127 observations and comparison sample covers 66 companies and 503 observations. Research methodologies applied in this thesis are event study and cross-sectional regression analysis. Empirical results indicate that the market reaction occurs mainly during the announcement day and is slightly stronger in case of positive earnings surprises than the reactions observed in previous studies. In case of negative earnings surprises no significant differences can be observed. In case of country risk sample and negative earnings surprise market reaction is negative already in advance of the disclosure contrary to comparison sample. In case of positive surprise no differences can be observed. Country risk variable developed during this study seems to explain only minor part of the market reaction.

THE MARKETING OF SOCIAL ENTERPRISES: Understanding the concepts of marketing and market orientation of social enterprises within the context of Pakistani market

The concepts of social entrepreneurship and social enterprises have been extensively discussed in the previous two decades, yet the topic is still not matured yet. Most of the available literature is focused on defining these terms. Similarly, limited number of authors has discussed the marketing function of these enterprises or how marketing is interpreted in social entrepreneurship models. However, there is a plethora of literature on marketing entailing many different theories, amongst which the newest one is the “market orientation concept”. Market orientation is a mix of customer orientation, competitor orientation and inter-functional coordination suggesting marketing to be a part of the business philosophy. This study focuses on the marketing and market orientation of social enterprises while giving an overview of the literature of marketing and market orientation in social enterprises. This study aims to provide two basic questions, 1) what is the literature on marketing and market orientation of social enterprises while explaining the literature of social enterprises in Pakistan and 2) how these concepts are interpreted in social enterprises in Pakistani market. Key features of research methodology include case study approach while conducting thematic analysis using thematic networks. The results indicate that only a limited number of authors have discussed market orientation concept in social enterprises. The results from the interview data indicate the usage of marketing by a firm unconsciously without a specific marketing department. In addition to that, it has been found that in social enterprise world competition is tackled through a win-win approach with a view that many enterprises working for society improve the society which is the basic mission of any social enterprise. The data also showed that in Pakistani market, social enterprise concept is not legally used yet, which allows for more room for innovation. This study intends to give a new perspective to the theorists to use market orientation concept in social enterprises and also to managers to use marketing as their business philosophy in order to satisfy the stakeholders for better delivery of their businesses and as well for social good.

Market Opportunities Analysis for Logistics Solutions Provider Case Danzas Solutions

Tutkielman tavoitteena oli suunitella markkina-analyysi ja sitä käyttäen määritellä Danzasin Solutions liiketoimintayksikön mahdollisuuksia laajentaa toimintaansa Suomen terveydenhuolto/ lääke- ja elektroniikka/ telekommunikaatiosektoreilla. Danzas Solutions toimisi logistiikkaintegraattorina toimittamalla kokonaisvaltaisia logistisia ratkaisuja. Tutkimus tehtiin haastattelemalla neljää Danzasin asiakasta. Mahdollisimman laajan ja yleistettävän tuloksen saamiseksi haastateltavat valitiin logistiikan ulkoistamisasteeltaan vaihteleviksi. Tutkimus tehtiin ensin tutkimalla sekundääristä informaatiota markkinoilta ja täydentämällä sitä haastatteluista saadulla kvalitatiivisella primääri informaatiolla ja case yrityksen sisäisellä analyysillä. Painopiste tutkimuksessa oli selvittää yritysten ulkoistamiseen ja logistiikkakumppanin valintaan vaikuttavia kriteereitä. Logistiikkaintegraattorille suurimmat mahdollisuudet löytyvät elektroniikka/ telekommunikaatiosektorilta. Logistiikka tällä sektorilla on vaativaa ja yrityksillä ei ole resursseja hallita sitä itse. Terveydenhuolto/ lääkesektorilla yrityksillä on yleensä muut keinot jakeluketjun hallintaan ja ne eivät tarvitse logistiikkaintegraattorin palveluita.

Market Potential and Demand Drivers for a Special Laminating Paper: Implementation of Market Research

Tutkimuksen tavoitteena oli selvittää raaka-aineena käytettävän paloa hidastavan laminaattipaperin markkinapotentiaali sekä kysyntä Euroopassa. Näiden kehitystä arvioitiin analysoimalla kysyntään vaikuttavia tekijöitä. Tutkimusmetodologiassa yhdistyivät useat lähestymistavat, pääasiassa käytettiin kuvailevaa ja ennustavaa tutkimusotetta. Tutkimus perustui sekä primaari että sekundaaritietoon. Primaaritietoa hankittiin tuotteen käyttäjiltä, myyntiedustajilta sekä haastattelemalla tuottajayrityksen henkilökuntaa. Sekundaaritietoa kerättiin myös, mutta tutkimuksen tavoitteisiin liittyviä lähteitä ei ollut runsaasti saatavilla. Tästä syystä primaaritiedolla oli tutkimuksessa hieman tärkeämpi rooli kuin sekundaaritiedolla, mikä on yleistä teollisessa markkinatutkimuksessa. Tuotteen tulevaisuuden näkymät vaikuttavat melko hyviltä. Teoreettinen markkinapotentiaali on suuri verrattuna nykyiseen myyntimäärään, myyntimäärän kasvattaminen vaatii kuitenkin tiettyjä toimenpiteitä. Tulevaisuudessa huomiota tulisi kiinnittää tuotekuvaan, hinnoitteluun ja laadun kokonaisvaltaiseen maksimointiin. Tutkimuksessa havaittiin suuntauksia kysynnän kasvusta tulevien parin vuoden aikana. Myös teoreettinen markkinapotentiaali voisi kasvaa, koska paloa hidastavien laminaattien kysyntä vaikuttaa kasvavan Euroopassa erityisesti rakennusalalla.

Value creation and capital market valuation in the forest product industry

Tämä työ tähtää löytämään mahdollisia poikkeamia metsäteollisuusyritysten markkina-arvoissa ja tunnistaa tekijöitä jotka ovat vaikuttaneet pääomamarkkinoiden odotuksiin yritysten tulevaisuuden suorituskyvystä sekä yrityksen markkina-arvoon. Tämän työn päätavoitteena on kehittää diskontattuihin kassavirtoihin perustuva arvonmääritysmalli jolla mitataan metsäteollisuusyritysten tosiasiallista arvoa yritysten suorituskyvyn ja arvoajureiden perusteella. Lisäksi tavoitteena on löytää selittäviä tekijöitä havaituille eroille yritysten tosiasiallisesten arvojen ja markkinaperusteisten arvojen välisillä. Teoreettisessa osassa esitellään rahoitusteorian pääpiirteet arvonmäärityksen kannalta, aikasempia tutkimuksia sekä metsäteollisuuden toimialakohtaisia tekijöitä. Empiirisessä osassa kehittetään diskontattuihin kassavirtoihin perustuvaa arvonmääritymalli. Otos koostuu 32 suurimmasta Pohjoismaisesta ja Pohjoisamerikkalaisesta metsäteollisuusyrityksestä vuonna 2000. Tutkimuksen aikavälien 1991 -2000. Tulokset tukevat aikaisempia tutkimuksia jonka mukaan kasvuinvestoinnit eivät luo positiivisia odotuksia yrityksen tulevaisuuden kassavirroista. Tarkemmat löydöt ovat, että arvon luominen tutkimusajanjakson aikana ei vaikuttanut yhtä merkittävästi pääomamarkkinoiden odotuksiin yrityksen tulevaisuuden suorituskyvystä kuin mitatut tosiasialliset arvot. Tulokset viittaavat siihen, että metsäteollisuusyritysten markkina- arvot olivat keskimäärin riippuvaisempia itse yrityksestä, kuin sen toiminnasta.

Innovation process management of complex consumer products and services in new innovation paradigm – case location based business

Innovation is the word of this decade. According to innovation definitions, without positive sales impact and meaningful market share the company’s product or service has not been an innovation. Research problem of this master thesis is to find out what is the innovation process of complex new consumer products and services in new innovation paradigm. The objective is to get answers to two research questions: 1) What are the critical success factors what company should do when it is implementing the paradigm change in mass markets consumer business with complex products and services? 2) What is the process or framework one firm could follow? The research problem is looked from one company’s innovation creation process, networking and organization change management challenges point of views. Special focus is to look the research problem from an existing company perspective which is entering new business area. Innovation process management framework of complex new consumer products and services in new innovation paradigm has been created with support of several existing innovation theories. The new process framework includes the critical innovation process elements companies should take into consideration in their daily activities when they are in their new business innovation implementing process. Case company location based business implementation activities are studied via the new innovation process framework. This case study showed how important it is to manage the process, look how the target market and the competition in it is developing during company’s own innovation process, make decisions at right time and from beginning plan and implement the organization change management as one activity in the innovation process. In the end this master thesis showed that all companies need to create their own innovation process master plan with milestones and activities. One plan does not fit all, but all companies can start their planning from the new innovation process what was introduced in this master thesis.

Market linkages and volatility spillover: evidence from BRIC countries

The aim of this study is to investigate volatility spillover-effect and market integration between BRIC countries. Motivated by existing literature of market integration between developed and emerging markets, we will investigate market linkages using multivariate asymmetric GARCH BEKK model. The increasing globalization of the financial markets and consequent higher volatility transfer between markets makes it more important to understand market integration between BRIC countries. We investigate the stock market integration and volatility transfer between the BRIC countries form 1998 to 2007, using daily data. The empirical results show that there are international diversification benefits among Brazil, Russia, China and India. U.S. influence to these countries has been week, even though U.S. economy has been leading the global financial markets. From Finnish point of view, diversification benefits are robust but we find some correlation with Russia and China.

Market orientation and performance in entrepreneurial SMEs

Market orientation is the organizational culture that creates the necessary behaviors for continuous additional value for customers and thus continuous superior performance for the business. The field of market orientation has been studied repeatedly during the past two decades. Yet research has concentrated on large firms in large domestic markets creating a need for diversifying research. The master’s thesis at hand examined the general incidence of market orientation among SMEs from five different industries as well as its consequences on SME performance. The empirical part of the thesis was conducted with a web-based survey that resulted in 255 responses. The data of the survey was analyzed by statistical analysis. The incidence of market orientation varied among dimensions and market orientation did not show any direct effect on firm performance. Customer orientation was the only dimension that showed a direct (positive) effect. On the contrary, moderating effects were found which indicate that the effect of market orientation in SMEs is influenced by other factors that should receive further attention. Also industry specific differences were discovered and should be further examined.

Quantitative market and sales forecast accuracy analysis

The main objective of this master’s thesis was to quantitatively study the reliability of market and sales forecasts of a certain company by measuring bias, precision and accuracy of these forecasts by comparing forecasts against actual values. Secondly, the differences of bias, precision and accuracy between markets were explained by various macroeconomic variables and market characteristics. Accuracy and precision of the forecasts seems to vary significantly depending on the market that is being forecasted, the variable that is being forecasted, the estimation period, the length of the estimated period, the forecast horizon and the granularity of the data. High inflation, low income level and high year-on-year market volatility seems to be related with higher annual market forecast uncertainty and high year-on-year sales volatility with higher sales forecast uncertainty. When quarterly market size is forecasted, correlation between macroeconomic variables and forecast errors reduces. Uncertainty of the sales forecasts cannot be explained with macroeconomic variables. Longer forecasts are more uncertain, shorter estimated period leads to higher uncertainty, and usually more recent market forecasts are less uncertain. Sales forecasts seem to be more uncertain than market forecasts, because they incorporate both market size and market share risks. When lead time is more than one year, forecast risk seems to grow as a function of root forecast horizon. When lead time is less than year, sequential error terms are typically correlated, and therefore forecast errors are trending or mean-reverting. The bias of forecasts seems to change in cycles, and therefore the future forecasts cannot be systematically adjusted with it. The MASE cannot be used to measure whether the forecast can anticipate year-on-year volatility. Instead, we constructed a new relative accuracy measure to cope with this particular situation.

Marketing Plan of Electric Vehicle Charging Solutions to USA

The purpose of the Thesis was to evaluate the business environment of electrical vehicle charging equipment (EVSE) in USA, find the key issues of entering the US EVSE markets and to form a marketing plan for possible market entry. The external market research analyzed the environment, customers, competitors and demand of EVSEs. In the internal analysis the focus was on resources and capabilities, offering, performance, business relations and US related issues. The research about the business environment was done using already available information from market studies and seminars. In external analysis there were also two semi-structured interviews from market experts used. The internal analysis was done mostly by interviews, but also company’s internal data sources were used. The interviews were semi-constructed and included eight interviewees from each part of EVSE value chain. The research findings were analyzed using SWOT analysis, which was converted to a so called TOWS matrix for extracting strategies. As a result of the Thesis, valuable information about the US markets and their requirements for EVSEs was gained. By matching the strengths of the case company and market requirements, customer segmentation and targeting were done and a marketing plan was constructed for the case company to help their management to evaluate the feasibility of possible market entry and investments to USA.

Mutual Fund Performance and the Market Timing Ability - Finnish Evidence

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the performance of Finnish equity funds and their market timing ability. Fund performance is evaluated by using annual returns and various risk-adjusted measures, including Sharpe ratio, DDSR, SKASR, Treynor ratio and Jensen’s alpha, whereas portfolio manager’s timing ability is examined with Treynor-Mazuy model and Henriksson-Merton model. The data is collected from the Finnish fund market during the sample period from January 1997 to February 2010. Results show that Finnish equity funds have been able to outperform the market return on a risk-adjusted basis, but these results are influenced heavily by the exceptionally good performance during the IT-bubble. Market timing models show that fund managers have been, to some degree, able to time the market but not a single fund have been able to possess security selection ability and market timing ability simultaneously.

Performance of active portfolio management and the effect of stock market trend

Purpose of the study is to evaluate performance of active portfolio management and the effect of stock market trend on the performance. Theory of efficient markets states that market prices reflect all available information and that all investors share a common view of future price developments. This view gives little room for the success of active management, but the theory has been disputed – at least the level of efficiency. Behavioral finance has developed theories that identify irrational behavior patterns of investors. For example, investment decisions are not made independent of past market developments. These findings give reason to believe that also the performance of active portfolio management may depend on market developments. Performance of 16 Finnish equity funds is evaluated during the period of 2005 to 2011. In addition two sub periods are constructed, a bull market period and a bear market period. The sub periods are created by joining together the two bull market phases and the two bear market phases of the whole period. This allows for the comparison of the two different market states. Performance of the funds is measured with risk-adjusted performance by Modigliani and Modigliani (1997), abnormal return over the CAPM by Jensen (1968), and market timing by Henriksson and Merton (1981). The results suggested that in average the funds are not able to outperform the market portfolio. However, the underperformance was found to be lower than the management fees in average which suggests that portfolio managers are able to do successful investment decisions to some extent. The study revealed substantial dependence on the market trend for all of the measures. The risk-adjusted performance measure suggested that in bear markets active portfolio managers in average are able to beat the market portfolio but not in bull markets. Jensen´s alpha and the market timing model also showed striking differences between the two market states. The results of these two measures were, however, somewhat problematic and reliable conclusions about the performance could not be drawn.