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(2014)ThesisThe concept of model consistency is espoused as a guiding principle to balance the science and art of economic modelling. Striking a delicate balance between the theory and art of modelling is examined as a way to promote economics as a social science. This is accomplished by looking at more traditional approaches to economics, especially those encapsulated in consumer theory and the theory of the firm, and asking the question: â How can research based on these types of theory on the one hand be â scientificâ and on the other hand be responsive to â socialâ orientations such as the welfare of consumers and the profitability of firms?â A review of a diverse strand of literature shows that the significance of the methodology of model consistency has already been recognised in the macroeconomic context. However, application to the microeconomic context is rather limited. The approach is analogous to â measurement with theoryâ and may be seen as a response to the challenge that â measurement without theoryâ is as useful as â theory without measurementâ . It may also be seen as a way to address the Lucas Critique; a way to bring together theory and application, and as a good complement to experimental economics. The approach is quite suitable for consumer theory and producer theory alike. This is particularly so in a static decision-making context, where producer theory may be considered as a mirror image of consumer theory and the â atemporalâ economic problem of the firm can be analysed using similar techniques as those employed in consumer theory, especially in the single output case. Building upon the logical connection between the utility function and the single output production function, the ideas of consumer theory are carried over to the producer case through an appropriate use of duality theory. This thesis exploits the similarity between the unobservability of utility and the unobservability of â outputâ in a multi-output setting. Duality theory provides the desired rigour of economic science. The quality of its operationalisation is dependent upon the art of modelling. An appropriate mix of price index specification and statistical techniques is required to achieve the desired objectives.
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(2019)ThesisThis thesis investigates the issues facing public sector procurement projects, particularly the evolving complexities embedded within large procurement contracts where control of the fabrication process of the requested artefact rests wholly with the vendor. The purchaser normally does not get involved in the process of how the vendor constructs the artefact. Given this, it becomes crucial for the purchaser to specify the requirements clearly to reduce misinterpretation by the vendor. This thesis develops a set of techniques for requirement extraction and specification in the procurement process and provides approaches to avoid ambiguity through the application of decision theory, game theory, fuzzy logic, natural language processing, quality function deployment, and multi-criteria decision-making methods. The proposed methods are validated through four real world case studies.
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(2019)ThesisHuman rights (HRs) are increasingly perceived as a responsibility of business. However, if corporations want to address the full range of HRs demands of society—that is, if they are to respect, protect and promote HRs—they need to go beyond a defensive or negative approach focused on simply respecting HRs. They also need to respond with proactive or positive initiatives to protect and promote their stakeholders’ HRs. Hence, a critical question is whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives commonly adopted by listed corporations allow them to address this range of HRs demands of society. The primary aim of this thesis is to answer this question using Carroll’s (1979) CSR framework. I first conceptualise negative and positive HRs obligations as defensive and proactive corporate social responsiveness strategies (the second dimension of Carroll’s framework). This translates HRs obligations into business strategies for corporations. I then hypothesise and empirically test the relationships between CSR categories and defensive and proactive corporate approaches to HRs. The CSR categories used in the thesis mostly follow Carroll’s (1979) framework (discretionary, ethical and legal CSR). However, in place of Carroll’s economic CSR, I adopt instrumental CSR to include stakeholders’ values alongside shareholders’ economic interests. Political CSR is also added for an analysis of the political power of corporations. The proposed hypotheses are empirically tested using secondary longitudinal data from the Kinder, Lydenberg, Domini (KLD) and Compustat databases. The working sample includes 400 corporations during the period 1991–2015. The results show that while ethical and legal CSR may guide corporations to undertake defensive HRs approaches to respect HRs, instrumental and political CSR may allow corporations to adopt proactive HRs approaches that involve protecting and promoting HRs. The CSR categories of Carroll’s framework help to explain why corporations undertake defensive and proactive approaches to HRs and address the full range of HRs demands of society. This research contributes to both theory and practice by hypothesising and empirically testing the relationships between CSR categories and corporate HRs approaches using secondary data. A significant contribution of this thesis is to conceptualise HRs obligations as legitimate business strategies.