Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Capital budgeting decision tools'

Investeringar är grunden i ett företag och därmed är investeringsprocessen ett intressant fenomen att titta närmare på. Efter att ha studerat litteratur och tidigare forskning, som tar upp problematiken i investeringsprocessen, framkom att beslutsfattarens roll är en väsentlig del vid investeringsprocessen. Studien behandlar både beslutfattarens bakgrund och val som påverkar investeringsbeslutfattande i restaurangsbranschen, beslutfattarens bakgrund och val behandlas som påverkande respektive förklarande faktorer. Studien syftar på att ta reda på om och i vilken omfattning belutfattarens bakgrund påverkar sina val i investeringsprocessen. Genom att tillämpa en kvantitativ metod i form av en enkätundersökning lyftes beslutsfattarens bakgrund och investeringsprocess fram. Utifrån enkätundersökningen gjordes en statistisk analys för att hitta eventuella samband mellan de påverkande samt förklarande faktorerna. Resultatet av enkätundersökningen och statistiska analysen visade att det fanns starka samband mellan faktorer såsom kön, ålder, investeringsrutin, kalkylanvändning, utbildningstyp och utbildningsnivå. Detta bekräftar tidigare forskning och teorier om beteendeinriktad investeringsbeslutfattande.

The United Kingdom Tax system is not neutral with respect to a Company’s investment and financing decisions, that is incentives and disincentives to invest in particular projects or use particular types of financing arise through the imposition of taxation. Such biases may increase or decrease the value of capital projects, and if a company is to be certain of making accurate investment decisions the incremental tax flows arising due to the project must be included in the evaluation. The tax flows arising through the acceptance of a project may differ depending on the company's or group's tax profile, and therefore the overall tax position of the company or group must be considered. The thesis explains the legislation relating to the taxation of corporate groups and suggests that because the tax system is so complicated, a computerised model is probably necessary. The author's computerised model is developed and tested in the thesis, comparing evaluations conducted using the procedures and assumptions of groups in the surveys, with those of the simulation model. It is shown that both understatements and overstatements occur through incorrectly allowing for taxation. The results of two empirical surveys are presented. The first, a postal survey, discusses the methods used by companies to incorporate tax in their project appraisals, and the second, based on interviews, provides a review of the whole capital budgeting process.

The capital budgeting process is conducted in a dynamic, uncertain environment. In each period of the process, a manager has only estimated values for system parameters, project costs, and project returns. The manager must consider project firm's capital among interdependencies the available in allocating the projects. After completing the allocation process in one period, the chosen projects are funded until the end of the next period. These projects are then considered along with new projects and the process is repeated again. The capital budgeting decision in one period is therefore only one of a long sequence of such decisions, all of which are made in a dynamic, uncertain environment. The algorithm presented in this study models the dynamic environment of uncertainty. The algorithm utilizes a future worth of net return criterion in conducting the decision. Available projects may be estimated as discrete point estimates or as combinations of continuous functions. All projects under consideration need not have the same life; unequal-lived projects may be considered. After the optimal combination of projects is identified, four sensitivity analyses may be run to analyze the effect of any uncertainty in that period. The dynamic environment may then be analyzed by simulating the environment which would be faced when the decision is made .again at the end of the next period. Any of the system parameters and estimates of the continuing projects may be altered in that period to reflect the changes in the last period's estimates. An example is provided to illustrate the workings of the algorithm.
M.S.

This study is located in the rather young area of international entrepreneurship research. Despite the vast literature in Western countries exploring the nexuses on entrepreneurship-national culture and entrepreneurship-decision making, we know very little about how bounded rationality and national culture affect the entrepreneur’s capital budgeting decision making in emerging economies. Past research on small business and capital budgeting shows a predominance of quantitative approaches to identify which capital budgeting techniques were used and why they are used. Through qualitative interviews with 20 Mexican and 20 Canadian participants, this study looks at how Mexican and Canadian entrepreneurs approach capital budgeting decisions in small businesses in the food sector industry. This study confirms that capital budgeting decisions are taken under conditions of bounded rationality, but also suggests that context affects how bounded rationality is used. For instance, Mexican entrepreneurs rely more on “gut feeling”, while Canadian entrepreneurs tend to combine intuition with business plans. The differences observed for both national samples are further discussed through a Hofstedian and a GLOBE lens. I argue that national culture affects how capital budgeting decisions are made throughout the decision making process (planning, identifying, evaluating, selecting and authorizing) and also that national culture plays a role for who influences the entrepreneurs’ decisions. By contextualizing capital budgeting decisions and using a constructivist logic of discovery, this study provides insights into entrepreneurs’ capital budgeting decision making in small businesses and suggests that national cultural differences play a valuable part in understanding this important aspect of entrepreneurial activity. This thesis also adds to our understanding of entrepreneurs in emerging economies.

I denna uppsats studeras investeringsprocesser i det divisionaliserade företaget Södra Skogsägarna ekonomisk förening. Studiens syfte är att beskriva och förklara företagets investeringsprocesser och i vilken utsträckning dessa processer är standardiserade. I studien analyseras dessa investeringsprocesser utifrån befintlig teori. Studien visar att investeringsprocesser initieras i den operativa verksamheten för att sedan drivas fram i den operativa verksamheten och i ledningen på enhetsnivå. Beslut fattas på alla nivåer i företaget efter investeringars storlek. Vidare visar studien att det både finns stora likheter och skillnader mellan divisionernas investeringsprocesser. Likheter har ofta sin grund i företagets investeringsinstruktioner medan skillnader ofta har sin grund i divisionernas olika egenskaper och förutsättningar.
This essay studies the capital resource allocation process in the divisionalized company Södra Skogsägarna ekonomisk förening. The study aims to describe and explain the company's capital resource allocation processes and to describe and explain to what extent these processes are standardized. The study analyzes these processes using existing theory on the subject. The study shows that the capital resource allocation process is initiated by the operational levels of the firm and then integrated by the operational levels and the business unit management. Decisions are made at all levels of the company based on the capital expenditure. The study also shows that there are both major similarities and differences between the divisions’ capital resource allocation processes. The similarities are often a result of the company's capital budgeting manual while the differences often due to the different characteristics and environments of the divisions.

Purpose - Healthcare (HC) is a globally expensive investment, suffering from service quality, due to medical errors caused by physicians’ poor decisions making (DM). Current published literature: (1) encourages clinical DM research to reduce diagnostic errors and (2) stresses on the dearth of means for practitioners’ knowledge shared DM; this research focuses on knowledge sharing for improving medical DM quality through physicians’ social capital (SC) in a virtual community of practice (VCoP). Physicians join a virtual community (VC) to share clinical practice knowledge to aid medical DM. This study aims to assess the effect of physicians’ SC on medical DM and assess the mediating role of knowledge sharing quality, between physicians’ SC and medical DM quality since research lacks to investigate the impact of knowledge management (KM) tools in a HC context. VCoP is a KM tool and medical DM quality is a HC topic of this study. Design/methodology/approach – This positivist, quantitative research utilizes non-experimental survey to empirically assess its conceptual framework. After attaining an ethical approval, from Brunel Business School Research Ethics Committee, online survey was pre-tested and pilot tested for clarity and validity. 10 non-physician Ph.D. academics voluntarily participated during the survey’s pre-test phase. The survey was amendment for its pilot study phase; conducted in “plastic surgery yahoo group” VC. 31 physician VC members voluntarily participated. Again, the survey was amended and distributed for main data collection from 204 voluntary SurveyMonkey’s VC’s physician members. Findings – Data was analysed using SPSS 20 and LISREL 8.80 by means of confirmatory factor analysis and Structural Equation Modeling. Empirical findings supported this study’s four main hypotheses as well as supported this study’s initially proposed conceptual framework. Originality/value – This study customized the Honeycomb framework to establish a definition of professional physicians; HC VCs followed by identifying 51 VCs from social networking platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. This study also fulfilled its aim and hence proposed a structurally fit conceptual framework.

The purpose of this project is to describe and explain the foreign investment decision process in the uncertain and turbulent environment of transition economy. By getting an in-depth understanding of how decision-making works in the environment of transition economy, the study intends to contribute to the development of business administration theory in the area of foreign investment decision-making, particularly its application in the turbulent and uncertain world. Theoretical ‘blocks’, elaborated on the basis of literature study, include the following concepts: the framework of transition economy; initial motivation (or reasons) of companies to make foreign direct investments (FDI); investigation of the investment climate and information collection methods; project evaluation and investment decision criteria; risk assessment factors and risk reduction measures. Transition economy is defined in the study as ‘a non-planned, non-market economy’ where the new emerging market institutions coexist with the bureaucracy and hierarchy inherited from the old administrative system. Investment projects, therefore, should probably be seen as being under institutional influence from both the local (i.e. transition economy) and the Western investor’s home country environments. The empirical data presented in the paper also shows that it is necessary to establish the relevant economic, legal, political and social institutions in order to attract FDI. The study further includes the analysis of the main components and features of transition economies and their influence on FDI decision-making. One of the results of the study is that FDI decision-making in transition economies is largely consistent with different theoretical approaches suggested in the literature. On the other hand, the empirical support obtained for different theoretical approaches is often questionable and opened to alternative interpretations. The presented project suggests that theoretical perspectives do not preclude each other, but rather have a complimentary character. The study attempts to contribute to the mainstream FDI theories through a firm-level approach based on the case studies. Two in-depth case studies are presented in the paper: Ericsson’s direct investments in Russia and Vattenfall’s investments in the Baltic countries. A formal questionnaire based on the parameters of theoretical ‘blocks’ was created and 25 top executives from Ericsson and Vattenfall who participated in FDI decision-making were surveyed. The empirical investigation took place during the period 1997 - 1998 with partial updating of the cases during the year 2000.  The study shows that where companies confront stable environments, investment decision routines and procedures will be less necessary and important than where market uncertainty is high. The strong appreciation of the local business partners for properly done investment calculations increases the importance of capital budgeting in transition economies more than in developed market economies. Besides, traditional investment appraisal methods provide managers with an ‘objective’ or ‘materialistic’ feedback for the decision-making in the rapidly changing uncertain environment. On the other hand, the study emphasises the importance of strategy over financial techniques and argues that FDI decisions in transition economies should be based on methods consistent with the company’s long-term objectives. In case of permanent changes, new approaches as well as better co-ordination of traditional techniques with strategic, political, historical, geographical and cultural issues are required. Ericsson’ s direct investments in Russia are presented in the paper in connection with other factors: the company’s historical involvement in Russia, marketing strategy, human resource development, privatisation and restructuring of the telecommunication sector in Russia, etc. Nordic Electric Power Co-operation (Nordel), the EU’ s decision in 1996 to create an internal electricity market in Europe, Baltic ring study, future plans to privatise the energy companies in the Baltic countries, etc., are the framework to present the second case. An application of project evaluation and risk assessment techniques for broader and more complicated environments shows that investment decision-making is probably as much, if not more, a social, political and cultural technology as an economic one. The study argues then that the rational choice decision-making model often co-exists with alternative models elaborated in social science - limited rationality, political and garbage can. According to the empirical data, the investment decisions are largely based on intuition, business experience and judgement, personal contacts with representatives from the local country, and these investment criteria are inevitable and acceptable in a situation of total chaos and permanent change. The right chosen partner, for example, is one of the major criteria for the success of the investment project in a transition economy. One of the outcomes of this study is that the revitalised form of investment decision-making will differ rather markedly from much of what has gone before: less emphasis on the quantitative aspects of capital budgeting, more on the qualitative aspects of companies and investment environment. The project also argues that determinants, approaches and criteria of investment activity in transition economies are largely consistent with patterns observed in other parts of the world. A few specific environmental conditions of transition economies, however, are shown in the study to affect the pattern of FDI decision-making. The level of turbulence is still different compared to the developed market economies due to uncertainties and unpredictibilities associated with environment of transition economies. Other major differences are the large power distance with authoritarian leadership, strong hierarchy and bureaucracy as well as the vital role of personal contacts in transition economies. It is not clear, however, if these features of transition economies should be seen as inherited from the past communist system or as an alternative way to organise the economic actors through networks, a way that is natural and appropriate for the majority of Asian societies.

Syftet med uppsatsen är att analysera hur de specifika variablerna samverkar i investeringsanalysen bakom strategiska investeringar vid beslutsfattandet. Studien är inriktad mot den dominerande företagssektorn små och medelstora företag, vidare görs en jämförelse mellan yngre och mognare företag. För att analysera detta har en kvantitativ datainsamlingsmetod använts i form av en enkätundersökning. Forskningsfilosofin som är applicerad är deduktiv, för att på så sätt kunna dra generaliseringar i slutsatserna utifrån den empiriska analysen och fullfölja studiens syfte. Studien är baserad utifrån beslutsteori där hantering av risk och osäkerhet har en central roll. Inom området för beslutsfaktorer tillämpas även den situationsanpassade teorin. Intressentteorin och den neoklassiska ekonomiska teorin har även använts som bas.Resultatet uppvisar att det finns ett flertal samband mellan de specifika variablerna, SME-företagens livscykelstadier och investeringsanalysen. Vidare har markanta skillnader identifierats vid investeringsanalysen mellan de yngre och mognare företagen. I analysen illustreras detta med hjälp av statistiska analystabeller.Denna studie skiljer sig från tidigare forskning i ett flertal aspekter. Studien har identifierat ett gap mellan de praktiska tillämpningarna och teorin. Dessutom har studien ett extra brett omfång gentemot tidigare forskning. För att utöver detta även skapa en djupare insikt över företagets attityder och tillämpning av diverse metoder har undersökningen även jämfört yngre och mognare företags förhållningsätt i investeringsanalysen. Denna uppsats kan vara av värde för landets välfärd genom att öka förståelsen för SME-företagens förhållande i samband med strategiska investeringar.
The purpose of this paper is to analyse how specific variables interact the investment analysis behind the investments, in the decision-making process. This study is focused on small and medium sized enterprises where a comparison will be made between young and mature enterprises. To examine this, a quantitative data collection method has been adopted, with the use of a questionnaire survey. A deductive research philosophy has been applied for this study in order to draw general conclusions based on the empirical analysis and fulfil the purpose of this study. This study is based on decision theory where the management of risk and uncertainty play a central role. In the area of decision factors the contingency-theory is also applied. The stakeholder theory and the neoclassical economic theory have also been used as a base.The findings show that there are numerous links between the specific variables, SME business lifecycle stages and the investment analysis. Furthermore, clear differences have been identified in the investment analysis between the young and the more mature enterprises. The analysis is illustrated by means of statistical analysis tables.This research differs from previous studies in several aspects. The study has identified a gap between the practical applications and theory. Moreover, the study has an extra wide range over previous research. To go beyond and create a deeper understanding of the enterprises attitude and application of various methods in their continuous development, the study also compared younger and more mature enterprises approaches to the investment analysis. This paper can be useful for the country's welfare by increasing the understanding of SMEs relationship in the context of strategic investments.

In the last decades the population living in cities has substantially increased. According to the United Nations, by 2050 two thirds of the world population will be living in urban areas. Demographic pressure, through influx of residents or internal growth results in expansion and densification of urban areas and goes hand in hand with increased imperviousness, putting pressure on the provision of urban green. Urban green offers a range of direct and indirect benefits to the urban ecosystem. Green in the city reduces rainwater runoff and flooding risk while improving water quality; it improves air quality, provides natural cooling and contributes to reducing the urban heat island effect. Being the main source of contact with nature, urban green has also been shown to contribute to the physical and psychological wellbeing of urban citizens. The environmental concern for urban nature and re-naturing of cities are thus at the heart of developing more «ecological approaches to sustainable urban design and planning». In the framework of this research, it implies: understanding the (spatial) distribution of green space in relation to the built-up area of the city at different scale levels – the benefits they provide, their quality and proximity for urban residents – and; how to develop diagnostic, analytical and projective capabilities aimed at improving their (urban green) provision to address a host of sustainability challenges related to climate change, demographic growth and densification of the urban area. The research focuses on the development of evidence-based frameworks for planning that incorporate citizens’ needs and that are built on an interdisciplinary foundation. With this scope and focus, this study contributes to the development of a more ecological framework for sustainable urban design and planning aimed at integrating nature in the city more effectively and in an evidence-based way. The first part of the research focuses on the development of a spatially explicit tool for green space quality and proximity assessment reflecting user’s perception. Application of the model in the Brussels context reveals that user’s perception of qualities of urban green spaces such as naturalness and spaciousness can be linked to green space characteristics as described by available GIS-based data. As such GIS-based modelling allows for an extrapolation of questionnaire-based quality assessments for a selection of parks to other public green spaces. Analysis of the proximity of urban green spaces based on user’s perception shows spatial inequalities in green space provision, with less than 50% of Brussels’ citizens having good access to small (residential and play green) and to large green spaces (city and metropolitan green). By coupling multi-scale proximity assessment with quality assessment of green spaces, it is demonstrated that nearly two third of the Brussels population has no access to high quality public green spaces. Through collaborative research by design workshops involving different stakeholders, indicators produced by the quality-proximity model are used to indicate and tackle problem areas. Three alternative scenarios for public green space development are defined. The scenario analysis demonstrates that actions to provide low-income neighborhoods with a good accessibility to public green spaces will require creative solutions, dealing with complex property and management issues, and levels of investment that go well beyond the cost of regular green space development. The second part of the study presents a GIS- and design-based approach to assess potential land cover change for the Brussels-Capital Region anticipating expected population growth. The methodology proposed can be used to assess the impact of spatial policies and the implementation of building codes on future urban land cover. By studying the everyday processes for parcel infill and densification, and by defining a densification process based on the principles of sustainable urban design (e.g. walkable and high-density urban areas near mobility hubs, compact building typologies, preserving valuable natural areas, creative approaches to increasing the provision of urban green (green roofs, bioswales, etc.) space for water and floodscapes, etc.), two land use evolution scenarios are formulated; a business-as-usual and a sustainable scenario. One of the main conclusions of the case study on the Brussels-Capital Region is that densification can be deployed as a vehicle for positive land cover change and greening of the city.
Doctorat en Art de bâtir et urbanisme (Architecture)
info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This study investigates what three large, multinational hospitality companies do in practice when evaluating and making IT investment decisions. This study was launched in an attempt to 1) learn more about how multinational hospitality companies evaluate, prioritize, and select IT investments in the context of hotel GDS; 2) call attention to an important and costly topic in hopes of improving current practices; and 3) fill a noticeable literary void so that future researchers on IT and hotel GDS would have a foundation and starting point. The perennial question of any business is "How does an organization add value?" Value can be defined from many different perspectives and may result from tangible and intangible factors. Principal stakeholders include shareholders (investors), customers, and employees. Shareholders typically measure value in terms of economic return on their investment based upon some level of perceived risk. For customers, value is assessed in terms of a price-value relationship; that is, how much they received in terms of product and services for the price they paid. For employees, value is measured by salary and by the intrinsic rewards of the job. Yet, one of the most elusive questions with respect to information technology is "How can value be measured?" Hospitality executives are being pressured daily to invest more in information technology (IT) - especially in the area of hotel global distribution systems (GDS), which have become the cornerstone of a hotel firm's IT infrastructure and portfolio. There are a number of sweeping changes on the horizon impacting hotel GDSs and requiring the development of a well-crafted strategy for global distribution systems. These broad changes include bypass theories to remove airline GDSs and travel agents, the introduction of new and emerging player, and innovative approaches to pricing and promotion. Many of these developments offer promise to hoteliers, but they also threaten their control over their customer relationships and their inventory and add to the complexity and cost of distribution. Selecting the appropriate distribution channels is paramount to success and important if hotel firms are to grow top-line revenue and control overhead; yet the number of choices facing hotel executives is overwhelming. They are also at a loss for measuring value derived from IT. One of the greatest issues plaguing the advancement of technology in the hospitality industry is the difficulty in calculating return on investment. Until recently, most technology investment decisions have been considered using a support or utility mentality that stems from a manufacturing paradigm. Under such thinking, business cases could be built around an application or technology's ability to reduce costs or create labor savings. However, management's attitudes towards technology have been shifting in recent years. The more technologically savvy hospitality companies are looking to IT to build strategic and competitive advantages. These types of investments yield results over time, and seldom in the short-run. This is problematic among owners and investors who demand more immediate results. Moreover, it is difficult to quantify and calculate the tangible benefits of technology when it is used for strategic purposes. Today's financial models are inadequate for estimating the financial benefits for most of the technology projects under consideration today. While the hospitality industry has disciplined models and sufficient history to determine the financial gains or success of opening a new property in a given city, it lacks the same rigorous models and historical data for technology, especially since each technology project is unique. Although this problem is not specific to the hospitality industry, it is particularly problematic since the industry tends to be technologically conservative and unwilling to adopt new technology applications based on the promises of its long-term merits if it cannot quantify the results and calculate a defined payback period. When uncertainty surrounds the investment, when the timing of the cash flows is unpredictable, and when the investment is perceived as risky, owners and investors will most likely channel their investment capital to projects with more certain returns and minimal risk. Thus, under this thinking, technology will always take a back seat to other organizational priorities and initiatives. Efforts must be made to change this thinking and to develop financial models that can accurately predict and capture the financial benefits derived from technology. Given the present predicament and difficulties surrounding the current tools, techniques, and measures, executives are faced with an important choice. They can 1) continue to use the present methods despite their shortcomings, 2) dispense with ROI, cost-benefit, and discounted cash flow analyses altogether for IT projects, or 3) develop new methods, tools, and measures that can accommodate the complexities of IT and quantify the intangibles. This study is a call to action in favor of the latter because the measures determine not only which projects will be accepted but also how their success will be evaluated. Having a rigid evaluation process forces executives to identify a project's potential contribution and align the project's objectives with the firm's strategic goals and objectives. Using the co-alignment principle as its theoretical underpinning, this study employs a multiple-case design to investigate the resource allocation processes used with respect to information technology and global distribution systems. It looks at how three leading, multinational hospitality firms address IT project/investment evaluation and decision-making, the measures they use, and the frustrations they encounter. These frustrations include problems that arise from a hotel firm's fragmented ownership as well as from hotel executives' inability to measure the results of IT through definitive cause-and-effect relationships. The results of the study provide affirmation of the co-alignment principle and document linkages and co-alignment between strategy and IT. Clearly, decisions involving IT and hotel GDSs require multivariate measures, multidimensional perspectives, and multidisciplinary involvement. However, research from the marketing discipline is noticeably absent in this area. This study concludes that because IT plays an important enabling role for marketing initiatives and is redefining the supply chain of a hotel firm, marketing researchers can no longer stand on the sidelines. This study also identifies three important constructs, or classes of variables (context, process, and project), the variables comprising each, and their influences on the evaluation and decision-making processes. These findings add to the understanding of IT evaluation, measurement, and decision-making in the context of hotel GDS. This study clarifies the intangible aspects in hopes that useful measures can be developed in subsequent research to quantify and evaluate these costs and benefits. Finally, this study provides a series of prescriptions or recommendations gleaned from the three companies that were the focus of this study in hopes that they will lead to the development of best practices in the hospitality industry.
Ph. D.

博士
國立中正大學
企業管理系研究所
105
Top Managers have a decisive influence on capital budgeting decision, so the management quality is crucial to the capital budgeting decision. The corporate performance is accumulated by the performance of a series of capital investment. This study attempts to explore the relationship among management quality, capital budgeting decision and corporate performance. We referred to the variables that have been developed by Chemmanur and Paeglis (2005) to evaluate the management quality, and use common factor analysis to divide the characteristic variables of the management quality into TPCC (Team Professional Core Competence) and TCFO (Team Cooperation and Financial Orientation). In this study, we extract each factor score of each dimension and analysis the relevance among management quality, capital budgeting decision, and corporate performance. We also examine the mediation effect of management quality. The results of this study showed that management quality and capital budgeting decision were positively correlated with corporate performance. The other finding indicated that management quality was the moderator variable between capital budgeting decision and corporate performance. The samples of the study were taken from the Taiwanese-listed manufacturing and services companies excluding banking firms. The study period is from 2006 to 2011, a total of 3917 data.

碩士
開南大學
會計學系
103
This study empirically examines capital budgeting methods. Based on the discounted cash flow model, aims to study the middle size and small size businesses from Taiwan. A total of 80 questionnaires were distributed. Among them 68 valid questionnaires were received and the response rate of this survey is 85%. This study seeks to know whether the strategy is valid and profitable. The conclusion of this research are summarized as following：1. DCF methods are more important than nonfinancial measures in capital budgeting.2.There is a high correlation between DCF mothods and nonfinancial measures. and 3.There is a high correlation between DCF and capital budgeting mode by Multiple Regression.

In researching Capital Budgeting, special emphasis is employed to the Decision Making proposal presented by Maintenance Management. This study attempts to reveal the Capital Budgeting Techniques used by Toyota South Africa's Maintenance Departments. It interrogates if these techniques are correctly administered, and whether or not an appropriate decision is made. An indepth study of Capital Budgeting theory is done where among others, the following topics are discussed: The Capital Budgeting Process; The Techniques used in Capital Budgeting; Types of Projects; Funding and Risk. The detail of the theory is intended to be as an educator to those oblivious to the standards set out by scholars on these relevant topics. A questionnaire type survey was conducted, where the respondents answered pertinent questions, that adds value to this study. The unique feature of this study is that the sample size of thirty-five, is equivalent to the population of respondents within the company. A holistic picture of only the relevant information is gathered and interpreted, where both graphical and tabular representation is used to explain the findings. What is evident from the survey is that there is a lack of knowledge in the Maintenance Departments with regards to the usage of Capital Budgeting Techniques. The results prove that much guesswork goes into the proposal, as Gut-Feel and Discretion are key components of the decision. This anomaly is due to the finding that the Maintenance Management has not received relevant type training for this facet of their jobs. The recommendation to Management is that training and education be made available to these relevant people. Furthermore, it is proposed that the human resource department maps out the future career path opportunity and expectations that the employer has from the employee. In doing this type of succession planning, the company is assured of the best quality management at all times.
Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2006.

碩士
國立中正大學
企業管理研究所
102
Enterprises have confronted an increasing global competition and impact since 20 century; therefore, successful marketing strategies and investment plans count on the survival and development of a company, and also can further bring forth competitiveness enhancement and enterprisevalue maximization. The decision making, with great consequence for capital investment, is meant to be considerably cautious. Nevertheless, according to the domestic research demonstration, most companies are stilldependent upon a simple and crude method to make capital budget inpractice . It’s evidently against theoretical study . The aquaculture to fishery industry ratio of annual production value inTaiwan is increasing year by year. Traditional concrete or soil pond farmingis progressively being replaced by intensive aquaculture farm technology,and it also focus on enhancing disease prevention. For this reason,high-tech aquaculture biology plants arise spontaneously, and from smallholder farmer to corporation, they make a large investment on expanding farm scale, upgrading technique and equipment to expect to gain a considerable margin of profit and reward. However, the budget plan is commonly created by a basic and inconsiderable method, ex: Payback Period Method. Such a decision model is excessively subjective, and lots of influencing factors (ex: time value of money) are all left aside. This research attempts to investigate capital budgeting decision for aquaculture industry applications, and the analysis methods will be in accordance with six decision criterion of capital budgeting, including Payback Period Method (PP), Average Accounting Return (AAR), Net Present Value(NPV), Internal Return Rate(IRR),Profitability Index Method(PI), and Modified Internal Rate of Return(MIRR). In the last subject,we investigate how to make an assessment and decision while capital budgeting is incompatible. In short, I deeply hope to find the means to make efficient capital budget for aquaculture industry through this research.

碩士
國立交通大學
經營管理研究所
88
Abstract Since biologic technology industry has the character of huge investment, long term project, high investment risk, and always has the uncertainty during the investment period to make the operating process uncertainly, so biology technology companies must elaborately evaluate their investment projects before the stage of building a plant and operating a company, and then alter their decisions in future operation under realistic conditions. Traditional discounted-cash-flow(DCF) approaches to the appraisal of capital investment projects, such as the standard net-present-value(NPV) rule, cannot properly capture management’s flexibility to adapt and revise later decisions in respone to unexpected market developments. Traditional DCF approaches make implicit assumptions concerning an “expected scenario” of cash flows and presume management’s passive commitment to a certain static “operating strategy” However, in the actual marketplace , which is characterized by change, uncertanity and competitive interactions the realization of cash flows will probably differ from what management expected at the outset. As new information arrives and uncertainty about market conditions and future cash flows is gradually resolved, management may have valuable flexibility to alter its initial operating strategyin order to capitalize on favorable future opportunities or to react so as to mitigate losses. An options approach to capital budgeting has the potential to conceptualize and quantify the value of options from active management and strategic interactions.This value is typically manifest as a collection of “real options” embedded in capital-investment opportunities. This study applies the real option model to evaluate the real value of capital-investment for biologic technology company.Using the Log-Transformed Binomial Lattice Approach(Trigeorgis ,1991) to deal with the nature of option interactions and the valuation of projects involving mutiple real options In this study ,we find: 1. When we consider three options (abandon, contract, expand) in capital budgeting analysis, each expanded (strategic) NPV is large than static NPV. That is: each managerial flexibility is valuable and shows: the true value of capital-investment. 2.From the formula ”Option value (premium) = expanded (strategic) NPV-Static (passive) NPV”, we know that traditional static(passive) NPV should not be scapped; rather, it should be seen as a critical and necessary input to an options-based “expanded NPV” framework. 3.If there are more options embedded in an investment project, the capital-investment opportunities are more valuable. So it is very important for a biologic technology company that holding the wide range of management flexibility. 4. The value of a prior option would be altered if followed by subsequent options because it would effectively be written on a higher underlying asset(first —order interaction). While the exercise of prior real options may alter the underlying asset itself,and hence the value of subsequent options on it(second-order interaction).So the combined value of a collection of real options may differ from the sum of separate option values. 5.If the two options are of opposite types and have a given finite time separation, the joint probability well be small, and so will be the degree of interaction. If the two options are of the same type for a given finite time separation, the joint probability will be large, and so will be the degree of interaction. 6.With other factors held constant, the total project value increases significantly with gross underlying asset value. 7.The option to abandon and the option to contract decline as riskless interest rate rises,and increase as project volatility rises. 8.The option to expand increase as riskless interest rate rises,and increase as project volatility rises.

碩士
國立中山大學
資訊管理研究所
82
Decision performance could be affected by uncertainties, such as ambiguous probabilities, was previously pointed out by various researchers. Furthermore, researchers stated that any theory of decision weights must account for the effects of ambiguity or vagueness about probabilities. However, in the traditional models of engineering economy or capital budgeting, some handle uncertainties with probabilities while others even neglect them totally. In the traditional approach, probabilities and/or other variables are treated as if they are certain and suitable. Therefore, decisions based on computations of these model are suspect because omission of uncertainties may significantly affect decision performance. Using an analytic approach, we develop a new mechanism for taking uncertainties into account. It formally integrates certainty factors with the traditional models of engineering or capital budgeting to provide additional information for evaluating the decision processes. This new approach not only possesses the properties of the traditional approach, but also endeavors to overcome shortcomings of the traditional approach. An example is provided to illustrate the processes and results of the traditional and new approaches.

博士
國立臺灣海洋大學
航運管理學系
94
This thesis studies the fuzzy capital cost and fuzzy capital budgeting in earning management of airlines. The main research focuses on the decision making of aircraft purchasing in aspects of financial plan by airlines. The thesis develops a new optimal capital planning decision method based on fuzzy capital cost and fuzzy capital budgeting under fuzzy economic scenario. We compare the fuzzy method with traditional methods in the thesis. For airlines, the cost of aircraft will affect their net profit. Airlines have to do a profound estimation about their net profit ratio. The thesis is focused on representing the cost, investment and earning in fuzzy context. The computational methods of fuzzy weighted average cost of capital and fuzzy modified internal rate of return are the base of fuzzy capital budgeting proposed in this study. By utilizing the method proposed, the airlines decision-maker can handle earning ratio and risk control more accurately.

Companies and organizations must make decisions concerning capital budgeting. Capital budgeting is a decision-making process that determines whether a firm should purchase equipment to be used on a long-term basis. The initial investment in the equipment is predicted to be returned through revenue gained by the use of the equipment over its lifetime. However, there is inherent risk associated with these investment decisions. Therefore, potential purchasers must decide whether the risk involved with investing in the equipment is justified. This dissertation addresses risk-based technology assessment for capital equipment acquisition decisions in small firms. Technology assessment, here, is concerned with understanding the uncertainty associated with assessing the value predicted in the capital budgeting process. When analyzing the risk for a given technology, we assign a probability law to its net present value. Our primary research contribution is providing an analytical framework together with a computational strategy to support capital equipment budgeting in firms where the value of candidate technologies can represent nearly all the firm’s value. Since small firms typically have limited budgets, spending for technology is always a difficult budgeting decision. The organization’s administration must decide which, if any, among the available technologies will be best for their operation. The process for acquiring technology in many small firms can be filled with challenges. Most important among them is that capital budgeting is typically a “one-off” decision. These decisions are difficult since the candidate technologies may not have operational data available. Thus, decision makers need some means to predict how the proposed technology (e.g., equipment or machinery) will be used. Hence, firms should follow techniques and procedures based on appropriate normative principles and well-established theory. Senior company executives and/or governance boards are often authorized to approve capital equipment purchases. However, these company leaders may not have adequate expertise in the operations of candidate technologies or may lack the understanding necessary to determine how new technologies may impact other company operations. Appropriate financial evaluation measures and selection criteria that incorporate risk are critical to making sound, quantitative acquisition decisions. The research reported here offers an analytical framework for comparing different technology alternatives in capital budgeting decisions. Comparison is based on the expected net present value and the risk (i.e., probability law on net present value) associated with each decision alternative. To this end, the operational characteristics of each technology alternative are connected to their potential revenue and cost streams. The framework is embedded within a computational architecture that can be customized to account for operations and technologies in specific application scenarios. One major barrier addressed by this research is overcoming the fact that new technologies typically have no historical operational data. Therefore, characterizing the uncertainty of operations (e.g., distribution of the equipment lifetime) can be very difficult. Discrete- event simulation is used to generate potential revenue and cost estimates. We demonstrate the tractability and practicality of the analytical framework and computational architecture via a healthcare technology assessment decision. Data extracted from a published journal article detailing a hospital’s technology assessment decision are used to find the risk of the medical technology using the computational architecture developed. Widely-available, no-cost software tools are employed. Results of the health care example suggest that the financial analysis in the original technology assessment was in- adequate and simplistic. Small firms may find this research particularly beneficial because potential investments can be a significant portion of a small firm’s value.

博士
國立東華大學
企業管理學系
94
This article is based on organizational slack and resource-based view of firm to explore the issues concerning the relationships between decision-making capabilities of capital budgeting and corporation performance of companies. Therefore, we applied both case study and quantitative research method desired to test the relationship of the critical and corporation performance. In the case study, we visited 3 cases. Qualitative research was searched about data of companies listed in TSE & OTC. One hundred and sixty-two questionnaires were gained while eight hundred and forty ones were sent. The return rate was 18.3% for valid questionnaires excluding 8 invalid ones. The result of empirical analysis shows that capability of managerial flexibility, available slack, potential slack and innovativeness of entrepreneurship influenced corporation performance of capital budgeting positively.

Internal audit departments strive to control risk within an organization. To do this they choose specific audit areas to include in an audit plan. In order to select areas, they usually focus on those areas with the highest risk. Even though high risk areas are considered, there are various other restrictions such as resource constraints (in terms of funds, manpower and hours) that must also be considered. In some cases, management might also have special requirements. Traditionally this area selection process is conducted using manual processes and requires significant decision maker experience. This makes it difficult to take all possibilities into consideration while also catering for all resource constraints and special management requirements. In this study, mathematical techniques used in capital budgeting problems are explored to solve the IT audit area selection problem. A DSS is developed which implements some of these mathematical techniques such as a linear programming model, greedy heuristic, improved greedy heuristic and evolutionary heuristic. The DSS also implements extensions to the standard capital budgeting model to make provision for special management requirements. The performance of the mathematical techniques in the DSS is tested by applying different decision rules to each of the techniques and comparing those results. The DSS, empirical experiments and results are also presented in this research study. Results have shown that in most cases a binary 0-1 model outperformed the other techniques. Internal audit management should therefore consider this model to assist with the construction of an IT internal audit plan.
MSc (Computer Science), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

The Aviation Industry in South Africa is considered to be a budding industry with an expected growth rate of 14% for each of the next three years. Considering that, plenty investment and expansion possibilities are probably available in this industry. Nonetheless, given the current economic situation, challenges may exist that necessitates the development of a decision framework. The aim of this framework should thus be to assist with informed decision-making; whether to invest in, or utilize opportunities that may occur within a given prospective “high” growth situation. In the light of all of this, a specific aviation entity desires to exploit possible business opportunities that may occur. Provided the relative high growth situation in the Aviation Industry, as mentioned above, the entity has a specific need for a decision tool which could determine whether to invest in new projects or not. In order to meet this need, a decision framework has been developed during this study. Considering the emphasis currently placed on wealth creation in the business environment, it is considered appropriate to utilize the value-based management approach in this study, with specific reference to capital budgeting techniques in developing a decision framework. Data for the study has been obtained from the participating aviation entity, who was considering investment in a specific project, given the previously referred to prospective high growth situation in the Aviation Industry. The decision framework or model was developed using Microsoft Excel as the development platform. Based on the input data, as received from the aviation entity, the results from the decision model indicated that the considered project was indeed financially viable.
MBA, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

碩士
東海大學
國際貿易學系
93
Abstracts: There is lots of literatures reviewed corporate finance; they propose factors that affect the optimal capital budgeting decision. From the theory of Efficiency Market Hypothesis, lots of literatures find that the efficiency of capital market would affect corporate investment decision. Then, Durnev, Morck, and Yeung(2004) directly examined stock price whether it reflect firm-specific information or not and found that it would affect the efficiency of optimal capital budgeting decision. However, after The Capital Structure proposed by Modigliani and Miller in 1958, it caused researchers to emphasize on financing constraint that affect corporate investment decision. Especially, lots of literatures indicate that the most of the capital of corporate investment came from debt financing. According to this evidence, we shouldn’t neglect to consider financing constraint that affected investment decision. Therefore, this article examined firm-specific stock return variation and financing constraint simultaneously in the model of optimal capital budgeting to observe the efficiency of the optimal capital budgeting in an integrated point of view. The result of this examine discovers that financing constraint affect capital budgeting of Taiwan’s corporate more than the factor of the efficiency of stock price on average. Second, we apply three attributes (i.e. the concentration, liquidity, and whether it is a traditional industry or not) to cluster industries, and we find that these attributes could clearly distinguish the role of firm-specific stock price information and financing constraint in the capital budgeting decision. Keyword: Efficiency Market Hypothesis, Capital Structure, Financial Constraint

碩士
國立臺灣大學
企業管理碩士專班
101
In this thesis, capital budgeting model will be used to examine the pricing decision of a sale-leaseback transaction on a hypothetical build-operate-transfer (BOT) resort in Penghu. Penghu Islands are made of more than 90 different islands that is only 50 km away from Taiwan and 140 km from China. With its strategic location and fast growing tourist population, Penghu is sought to be the Phuket and Bali of Taiwan. This thesis intends to examine the informational impediments when using capital budgeting model to analyze the pricing decision for a sale-leaseback transaction. Based on the capital budgeting of a hypothetical BOT resort using financial assumption, this thesis was able to identify some information impediments with capital budgeting. The Penghu case in this thesis obtains the superficies of the land, or the land-use-right, through a BOT tender from the government. Moreover, after completion of the resort development, the land-use-right and its buildings will be entrusted to a “real estate trust” then transfer (sale-off) to a third party financial institution and leased back for operation with annual leaseback rents. A careful analysis before making the sales-leaseback decision helps company L to increase firm value. However, informational impediments increase the difficulty of the uncertainty of the results of capital budgeting analysis. This paper intends to summarize the information impediments in the process of finding “indifferent sale price” using capital budgeting method comparing the Penghu BOT hotel project’s financial performances in two different operations: sale-leaseback approach and standard approach.

The proposition of this dissertation is that superior capital budgeting solutions can be attained by not only analyzing projects individually but rather as part of a portfolio of projects that has the objective of maximizing the company’s range of multiple objectives, not only the economic benefit. The dissertation starts with a detailed study of current techniques and an assessment of flaws and shortcomings. This study concludes with the requirements that any new approach or model must address in order to improve on the current practices. Based on these requirements, a new model is developed based on the portfolio approach that integrates all the assumptions, constraints, project and variable interrelationships. An important feature of the model is that it selects its portfolio of capital projects in such a way that it optimizes support for the company’s multiple objectives, not only the economic objective. The dissertation concludes with the application of this model to a hypothetical case. It is concluded that, by developing and using this model, a company can improve the analysis required before capital budgets are finalized.
Dissertation (MEng (Industrial Engineering))--University of Pretoria, 2006.
Industrial and Systems Engineering
unrestricted