Improving alumni administration by self-built information system : building IMMIT connected' to enhance alumni connection

Alumni are considered as precious resource of the institutions, thus improving alumni adminis-tration is critical. In information era, alumni administration is assisted by widespread information technology, such as social network sites. This paper aims to discover if a self-built information sys-tem would enhance alumni connection in the IMMIT context, and what kind of attributes would be helpful applying to the special context. The current online alumni services at other universities and at the IMMIT host university are analyzed, and then social media is introduced. After illustrating the social capital existing in IM-MIT, the type of the self-built information system is suggested, following an interpretation of the prototype. Two research models are utilized in this article: TAM and intentional social action model. The second model is adjusted with proposed parameters. Afterwards, a survey and an interview protocol are designed under the guidance of the models. The results are analyzed in several groups, and the proposed parameters are tested. A conclusion is drawn to indicate how to improve alumni‟s intention to use and how to achieve a better-accepted design.

Pricing anomalies in the Finnish stock market

The aim of this thesis is to examine whether the pricing anomalies exists in the Finnish stock markets by comparing the performance of quantile portfolios that are formed on the basis of either individual valuation ratios, composite value measures or combined value and momentum indicators. All the research papers included in the thesis show evidence of value anomalies in the Finnish stock markets. In the first paper, the sample of stocks over the 1991-2006 period is divided into quintile portfolios based on four individual valuation ratios (i.e., E/P, EBITDA/EV, B/P, and S/P) and three hybrids of them (i.e. composite value measures). The results show the superiority of composite value measures as selection criterion for value stocks, particularly when EBITDA/EV is employed as earnings multiple. The main focus of the second paper is on the impact of the holding period length on performance of value strategies. As an extension to the first paper, two more individual ratios (i.e. CF/P and D/P) are included in the comparative analysis. The sample of stocks over 1993- 2008 period is divided into tercile portfolios based on six individual valuation ratios and three hybrids of them. The use of either dividend yield criterion or one of three composite value measures being examined results in best value portfolio performance according to all performance metrics used. Parallel to the findings of many international studies, our results from performance comparisons indicate that for the sample data employed, the yearly reformation of portfolios is not necessarily optimal in order to maximally gain from the value premium. Instead, the value investor may extend his holding period up to 5 years without any decrease in long-term portfolio performance. The same holds also for the results of the third paper that examines the applicability of data envelopment analysis (DEA) method in discriminating the undervalued stocks from overvalued ones. The fourth paper examines the added value of combining price momentum with various value strategies. Taking account of the price momentum improves the performance of value portfolios in most cases. The performance improvement is greatest for value portfolios that are formed on the basis of the 3-composite value measure which consists of D/P, B/P and EBITDA/EV ratios. The risk-adjusted performance can be enhanced further by following 130/30 long-short strategy in which the long position of value winner stocks is leveraged by 30 percentages while simultaneously selling short glamour loser stocks by the same amount. Average return of the long-short position proved to be more than double stock market average coupled with the volatility decrease. The fifth paper offers a new approach to combine value and momentum indicators into a single portfolio-formation criterion using different variants of DEA models. The results throughout the 1994-2010 sample period shows that the top-tercile portfolios outperform both the market portfolio and the corresponding bottom-tercile portfolios. In addition, the middle-tercile portfolios also outperform the comparable bottom-tercile portfolios when DEA models are used as a basis for stock classification criteria. To my knowledge, such strong performance differences have not been reported in earlier peer-reviewed studies that have employed the comparable quantile approach of dividing stocks into portfolios. Consistently with the previous literature, the division of the full sample period into bullish and bearish periods reveals that the top-quantile DEA portfolios lose far less of their value during the bearish conditions than do the corresponding bottom portfolios. The sixth paper extends the sample period employed in the fourth paper by one year (i.e. 1993- 2009) covering also the first years of the recent financial crisis. It contributes to the fourth paper by examining the impact of the stock market conditions on the main results. Consistently with the fifth paper, value portfolios lose much less of their value during bearish conditions than do stocks on average. The inclusion of a momentum criterion somewhat adds value to an investor during bullish conditions, but this added value turns to negative during bearish conditions. During bear market periods some of the value loser portfolios perform even better than their value winner counterparts. Furthermore, the results show that the recent financial crisis has reduced the added value of using combinations of momentum and value indicators as portfolio formation criteria. However, since the stock markets have historically been bullish more often than bearish, the combination of the value and momentum criteria has paid off to the investor despite the fact that its added value during bearish periods is negative, on an average.

Building a creative city brand through an international mega-event : Case: Helsinki World Design Capital 2012

In order to grow, cities are increasingly competing for attention, jobs, investments, visitors, residents and significant events. Cities need to come up with creative solutions to keep up with the competition; they ought to become creative cities. Attracting talented and diverse inhabitants is a key factor in developing a creative city, which on is characterized by openness, tolerance, vibrancy and diversity. Along the need for renewed city images city brand building has become popular. Helsinki is the World Design Capital 2012 (WDC 2012) and this mega-event presents a meaningful opportunity for the city to broadcast itself globally. The purpose of this study is to evaluate how Helsinki brands itself as a creative city through an international mega-event. The sub-aims are to: 1) Map the factors behind the creative city and their relation to the city of Helsinki, 2) Describe the city branding process, 3) Evaluate the role of the Helsinki World Design Capital 2012 mega-event in Helsinki’s creative city brand building. First, the theory discusses the concept of the creative city that has gained growing attention during the past decade. Then, the city branding process is described and the benefits of hosting a mega-event are presented. Finally, co-branding a city and a mega-event in order to generate maximum benefit from the mega-event, is reviewed. This is a qualitative research for which data was collected through three face-to-face interviews, the World Design Capital 2012 bid, Helsinki’s economic development strategy, a consulting firm’s research report on the case city and web-pages. The research reveals that Helsinki has shown interest in the creative city discussion. The terminology around the concept is however approached carefully. Helsinki fits many of the creative city characteristics and recognizes its flaws for which improvement strategies have been planned. Bottlenecks keeping the city from promoting a more open mind were mainly revealed in its organizational structures. Helsinki has no official brand strategy; nonetheless pressure to develop one is present. The World Design Capital 2012 mega-event is seen as a meaningful stepping board to strengthen Helsinki’s identity and image, and start thinking about a city brand. The brand strategies of the mega-event support the values and virtues of the city itself, which enables benefits of co-branding introduces in the theory part. Helsinki has no official brand and doesn’t call itself a creative city, however this study shows signs of the city taking steps towards building a creative city brand with the help of the Helsinki World Design Capital 2012 mega-event.

The energy efficiency of chilled beam systems in an office building at different climates

Besides the sustaining of healthy and comfortable indoor climate, the air conditioning system should also achieve for energy efficiency. The target indoor climate can be ob-tained with different systems; this study focuses on comparing the energy efficiency of different air conditioning room unit systems in different climates. The calculations are made with dynamic energy simulation software IDA ICE by comparing the indoor cli-mate and energy consumption of an office building with different systems in different climates. The aim of the study is to compare the energy efficiency of chilled beam systems to other common systems: variable air volume, fan coil and radiant ceiling systems. Besides the annual energy consumption also the sustainability of target indoor climate is compared between the simulations. Another aim is to provide conclusions to be used in the product development of the chilled beam systems’ energy efficiency. The adaptable chilled beam system and the radiant ceiling system prove to be energy efficient independent of the climate. The challenge of reliable comparison is that other systems are not able to reach the target indoor climate as well as the others. The complex calculation environment of the simulation software, made assumptions and excluding of the financial aspects complicate comparing the big picture. The results show that the development of the chilled beam systems should concentrate on energy efficient night heating, flexible demand based ventilation and capacity control and possibilities on integrating the best practices with other systems. 

The us subprime crisis and stock market integration: evidence from the BRICS

The aim of this study is to examine the level of stock market co-movement in the BRICS countries and three major industrialized countries (Japan, UK and USA). While analyzing the interdependence and integration of markets, two subsets are examined: before (2000 – 2007) and during the global financial crisis (2007-2011). Generally, interdependence across markets is likely to increase during a highly volatile period. This is problematic because if it were true, the main benefit of international diversification would be reduced at times when it is most needed. The results reveal the dominant role of the US financial markets over the examined time period. Empirical studies of this research paper indicate that cross-market linkages have become slightly stronger during the ongoing subprime crisis than before crisis. However, results also show that an investor may obtain some international diversification benefits by investing especially in the BRICS countries despite the fact of unstable economic condition and growing globalization.

Performance characteristic of moving average trading rules in the Finnish stock market

The thesis examines the profitability of DMAC trading rules in the Finnish stock market over the 1996-2012 period. It contributes to the existing technical analysis literature by comparing for the first time the performance of DMAC strategies based on individual stock trading portfolios to the performance of index trading strategies based on the trading on the index (OMX Helsinki 25) that consists of the same stocks. Besides, the market frictions including transaction costs and taxes are taken into account, and the results are reported from both institutional and individual investor’s perspective. Performance characteristic of DMAC rules are evaluated by simulating 19,900 different trading strategies in total for two non- overlapping 8-year sub-periods, and decomposing the full-sample-period performance of DMAC trading strategies into distinct bullish- and bearish-period performances. The results show that the best DMAC rules have predictive power on future price trends, and these rules are able to outperform buy-and-hold strategy. Although the performance of the DMAC strategies is highly dependent on the combination of moving average lengths, the best DMAC rules of the first sub-period have also performed well during the latter sub-period in the case of individual stock trading strategies. According to the results, the outperformance of DMAC trading rules over buy-and-hold strategy is mostly attributed to their superiority during the bearish periods, and particularly, during stock market crashes.

Puuelementtien teollisen tuotannon kehittäminen

Tavoitteena tässä diplomityössä oli selvittää puuelementtien teollisen tuotannon mahdollisuuksia ja kehityksen tilaa. Millaiset valmiudet puuelementtien valmistajilla on valmistaa rakennuttajien ja rakentajien edellyttämiä suur- ja tilaelementtejä puukerrostaloja varten, millaista tuotekehitystä ja tuotantoinvestointeja tarvitaan kaiken tämän mahdollistamiseksi, mikä on yritysten halukkuus ja resurssit investoida uuteen teknologiaan sekä kuinka voidaan parantaa tuotannon tehokkuutta. Ensin diplomityössä luotiin katsaus puukerrostalorakentamisen historiaan, nykytilaan, kerrostalojärjestelmiin, palomääräyksiin ja ruotsalaiseen puuelementtien valmistamisen kehityksen tilaan. Puuelementtien valmistukseen tutustumisen jälkeen laadittiin kyselylomake tutkimusta varten, joka lähettiin 64:lle puuelementtien valmistajalle. Tutkimukseen vastasi kaikkiaan 20 puuelementtien valmistajaa. Vastausprosentiksi muodostui 31 %. Tutkimuksen perusteella voidaan todeta puuelementtien valmistajien olevan pieniä ja keskisuuria pk-yrityksiä jotka valmistavat puuelementtejä pääasiassa pientaloteollisuudelle. Suomalaisten valmistajien automaation taso ja tekninen osaaminen ei juuri eroa ruotsalaisesta puuelementtien valmistuksesta. Suomessa puuelementtien valmistus puukerrostaloja varten ei ole vielä vakiintunutta samalla tavalla kuten Ruotsissa. Suomessa Puukerrostalokohteita lähtee liikkeelle tällä hetkellä vielä aivan liian vähän. Kilpailukyky ja tehokkuus tulevat kehittymään nopeasti kun teollinen valmistus saadaan riittävän korkealle tasolle.

Interdependence of Emerging Eastern European stock markets

One of the main developments in the global economy during the past decades has been the growth of emerging economies. Projections for their long-term growth, changes in the investment climate, corporate transparency and demography point to an increasing role for these emerging economies in the global economy. Today, emerging economies are usually considered as financial markets offering opportunities for high returns, good risk diversification and improved return-to-risk ratios. However, researchers have noted that these advantages may be in decline because of the increasing market integration. Nevertheless, it is likely that certain financial markets and specific sectors will remain partially segmented and somewhat insulated from the global economy for the year to come. This doctoral dissertation investigates several stock markets in Emerging Eastern Europe (EEE), including the ones in Russia, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Slovenia. The objective is to analyze the returns and financial risks in these emerging markets from international investor’s point of view. This study also examines the segmentation/integration of these financial markets and the possibilities to diversify and hedge financial risk. The dissertation is divided into two parts. The first includes a review of the theoretical background for the articles and a review of the literature on EEE stock markets. It includes an overview of the methodology and research design applied in the analysis and a summary of articles from the second part of this dissertation and their main findings. The second part consists of four research publications. This work contributes to studies on emerging stock markets in four ways. First, it adds to the body of research on the pricing of risk, providing new empirical evidence about partial stock market segmentation in EEE. The results suggest that the aggregate emerging market risk is a relevant driver for stock market returns and that this market risk can be used to price financial instruments and forecast their performance. Second, it contributes to the empirical research on the integration of stock markets, asset prices and exchange rates by identifying the relationships between these markets through volatility and asset pricing. The results show that certain sectors of stock markets in EEE are not as integrated as others. For example, the Polish consumer goods sector, the Hungarian telecommunications sector, and the Czech financial sector are somewhat isolated from their counterparts elsewhere in Europe. Nevertheless, an analysis of the impact of EU accession in 2004 on stock markets suggests that most of the EEE markets are becoming increasingly integrated with the global markets. Third, this thesis complements the scientific literature in the field of shock and volatility spillovers by examining the mechanism of spillover distribution among the EU and EEE countries. The results illustrate that spillovers in emerging markets are mostly from a foreign exchange to the stock markets. Moreover, the results show that the effects of external shocks on stock markets have increased after the enlargement of the EU in 2004. Finally, this study is unique because it analyzes the effects of foreign macroeconomic news on geographically closely related countries. The results suggest that the effects of macroeconomic announcements on volatility are significant and have effect that varies across markets and their sectors. Moreover, the results show that the foreign macroeconomic news releases, somewhat surprisingly, have a greater effect on the EEE markets than the local macroeconomic news. This dissertation has a number of implications for the industry and for practitioners. It analyses financial risk associated with investing in Emerging Eastern Europe. Investors may use this information to construct and optimize investment portfolios. Moreover, this dissertation provides insights for investors and portfolio managers considering asset allocation to protect value or obtain higher returns. The results have also implications for asset pricing and portfolio selection in light of macroeconomic news releases.

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.

Financial Slack and Bidding Firms’ Takeover Announcement Stock Returns – an Event Study

Despite the fact that the literature on mergers and acquisitions is extensive, relatively little effort has been made to examine the relationship between the acquiring firms’ financial slack and short-term post-takeover announcement abnormal stock returns. In this study, the case is made that the financial slack of a firm is not only an outcome of past business and financing activities but it also may affect the quality of acquisition decisions. We will hypothesize that the level of financial slack in a firm is negatively associated with the abnormal returns following acquisition announcements because slack reduces managerial discipline over the use of corporate funds and also because it may give rise to managerial self-serving behavior. In this study, financial slack is measured in terms of three financial statements ratios: leverage ratio, cash and equivalents to total assets ratio and free cash flow to total assets ratio. The data used in this paper is collected from two main sources. A list comprising 90 European acquisition announcements is retrieved from Thomson One Banker database. The stock price data and financial statements information for the respective firms is collected using Datastream. Our empirical analysis is two-fold. First, we conduct a two-sample t-test where we find that the most slack-rich firms experience lower abnormal returns than the most slack-poor firms in the event window [-1, +1], significant at 5% risk level. Second, we perform a cross sectional regression for sample firms using three financial statements ratios to explain cumulative abnormal returns (CAR). We find that leverage shows a statistically significant positive relationship with cumulative abnormal returns in event window [-1; +1] (significance 5%). Moreover, cash to total assets ratio showed a weak negative relationship with CAR (significant at 10%) in event window [-1; +1]. We conclude that our hypothesis for the inverse relationship between slack and abnormal returns receives empirical support. Based on the results of the event study we get empirical support for the hypothesis that the capital markets expect the acquisitions undertaken by slack-rich firms to more likely be driven by managerial self-serving behavior and hubris than do those undertaken by slackpoor firms, signaling possible agency problems and behavioral biases.

The Impact of European Macroeconomic News Announcements on CIVETS Stock Markets

The purpose of this research is to investigate how CIVETS (Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and South Africa) stock markets are integrated with Europe as measured by the impact of euro area (EA) scheduled macroeconomic news announcements, which are related to macroeconomic indicators that are commonly used to indicate the direction of the economy. Macroeconomic announcements used in this study can be divided into four categories; (1) prices, (2) real economy, (3) money supply and (4) business climate and consumer confidence. The data set consists of daily market data from CIVETS and scheduled macroeconomic announcements from the EA for the years 2007-2012. The econometric model used in this research is Exponential Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity (EGARCH). Empirical results show diverse impacts of macroeconomic news releases and surprises for different categories of news supporting the perception of heterogeneity among CIVETS. The analyses revealed that in general EA macroeconomic news releases and surprises affect stock market volatility in CIVETS and only in some cases asset pricing. In conclusion, all CIVETS stock markets reacted to the incoming EA macroeconomic news suggesting market integration to some extent. Thus, EA should be considered as a possible risk factor when investing in CIVETS.

The Anchoring Bias of Investors and the 52-Week High Momentum Strategy in the OMX Helsinki Stock Exchange: Psychological Approach to Market Efficiency

The behavioural finance literature expects systematic and significant deviations from efficiency to persist in securities markets due to behavioural and cognitive biases of investors. These behavioural models attempt to explain the coexistence of intermediate-term momentum and long-term reversals in stock returns based on the systematic violations of rational behaviour of investors. The study investigates the anchoring bias of investors and the profitability of the 52-week momentum strategy (GH henceforward). The relatively highly volatile OMX Helsinki stock exchange is a suitable market for examining the momentum effect, since international investors tend to realise their positions first from the furthest security markets by the time of market turbulence. Empirical data is collected from Thomson Reuters Datastream and the OMX Nordic website. The objective of the study is to provide a throughout research by formulating a self-financing GH momentum portfolio. First, the seasonality of the strategy is examined by taking the January effect into account and researching abnormal returns in long-term. The results indicate that the GH strategy is subject to significantly negative revenues in January, but the strategy is not prone to reversals in long-term. Then the predictive proxies of momentum returns are investigated in terms of acquisition prices and 52-week high statistics as anchors. The results show that the acquisition prices do not have explanatory power over the GH strategy’s abnormal returns. Finally, the efficacy of the GH strategy is examined after taking transaction costs into account, finding that the robust abnormal returns remain statistically significant despite the transaction costs. As a conclusion, the relative distance between a stock’s current price and its 52-week high statistic explains the profits of momentum investing to a high degree. The results indicate that intermediateterm momentum and long-term reversals are separate phenomena. This presents a challenge to current behavioural theories, which model these aspects of stock returns as subsequent components of how securities markets respond to relevant information.

Finnish stock market reaction to quarterly earnings announcements

This thesis examines the stock market reactions to quarterly earnings announcements. The study covers the OMX Helsinki 25 index companies for the years 2007–2010. The stock market response to quarterly earnings announcements is tested by employing the event study –methodology and daily stock returns of Finnish listed companies. The thesis provides evidence that stock prices react to earnings announcements that exceed or fall below analyst forecasts. The most liquid stocks earn higher returns around positive earnings news than less traded stocks, which supports the evidence from previous studies. This thesis finds evidence for the authorization to sell stocks short reducing the post–earnings announcement drift induced by negative earnings news. In addition, the market’s reaction to earnings announcements seems to quicken during economic turmoil.

”Du sköna sång, vårt bästa arv” - kanonisering av en sångskatt ur ett hermeneutiskt perspektiv

Songs have the power to get through to people. When lyrics are combined with a tune, the result is an entity where the first few notes of a melody can evoke emotions of recognition and belonging. A song treasury consists of such songs that are part of a canonized song tradition. The process where certain songs become part of an established song treasury is long, and many other aspects than the tune itself influence the forming of a song treasury. By examining the characteristics of a song tradition, the history of an ethnic group can be illuminated. In this study, music, pedagogy, and the sociocultural context are merged into a whole where a common song tradition, the song treasury, is in focus. The main aim of this study is to deepen the understanding of a song treasury, its development and contents. This understanding is accomplished by analyzing the musical and lyrical characteristics of 60 songs, which have been sung in schools, homes, and communities, thereby becoming popular among the Swedish-speaking Finns during the 20th century. The songs have been chosen by combining three song lists, of which two lists are closely related to school curricula. The third song list is a result of a survey on favourite songs, according to the situation around year 2000. The songs are examined in their notated versions, a number of song books and text books (n = 29) forming the empirical material. In this study, a hermeneutical approach is applied, content analysis being the method. The analysis is based on three perspectives: the sociocultural perspective, the music-pedagogical perspective, and the musico-analytical perspective. Within each perspective, two aspects are studied. This results in a hexagonal model which forms the structure of the study as a whole. The first two perspectives form the background; a historical context where nation, education, home country, and homestead are regarded as highly important. A common song repertoire is considered to be an effective means of building collective identity within ethnic groups, the common language and the cultural heritage being used as rhetorical arguments. During the early 1900s, choir festivals become an educational platform where conceptions of a common belonging are developed and strengthened through religious, patriotic, and poetical expressions. National school curricula in singing and music have similar characteristics, cultural heritage and values education being in focus. The song lyrics often describe nature and emotions, and they also appear to be personal and situated in a given time and place. Patriotic expressions and songs about music are also fairly common. The songs generally express positive attitudes, which are intensified by major tonality, rich and varied melodies with stable rhythms, and a strong tonal base. The analyzed details of the studied aspects are merged into a thick description, which results in an interpretation pattern with three dimensions: a song treasury can be considered an expression of collective identity, cultural heritage, and values education.