NHH Brage (Norges Handelshøyskole)
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The role of brand sustainability and self-brand image congruity in developing brand trust and brand loyalty : A study on luxury brands for Generation consumers
Get PDFGeneration Z consumers are forecasted to become the most influential generation in the next
years for the purchase of luxury goods. Understanding their needs and behaviors is becoming
more and more crucial for luxury companies, in order to be able to attract and retain them as
customers. On one side, Gen Z seems to particularly search for meanings behind the
purchase of luxury goods, looking at the brand image and symbolic interpretation of brands.
On the other side, they are extremely concerned about the environment and for this reason
they require brands to take serious actions in terms of sustainability. Therefore, this thesis is
focused in understanding the impacts of a brand's sustainability attributes on the creation of
self-image congruity between the customer and the brand, as well as on the creation of brand
trust, and consequently in the building of brand loyalty.
In order to explore these themes, an online survey has been conducted directed to this target
and focused on the fragrances sector. In the scope of this study, respondents were randomly
exposed to one scenario about the brand Guerlain, leader in the luxury fragrances sector, in
which a core or peripheral sustainability attribute was presented. Through the survey, it was
possible to measure the self-image congruity perception of consumers, as well as their trust
towards the brand and their propension to be loyal.
Findings showed that self-brand congruity impacts both brand trust and brand loyalty, and
that also brand trust influences the loyalty towards the brand. Moreover, other factors have
been found to influence the creation of brand loyalty, which are the consumer product
involvement, the perceived functional quality, the brand attitude and the environmental
consciousness of consumers. Lastly, it was possible to observe that Generation Z consumers
are extremely environmental conscious.
This thesis provides insights and confirmation about Generation Z's attitudes and behaviors
towards luxury brands. Therefore, managers of luxury companies should carefully focus on
the symbolic meaning they are conveying, in order to transmit meaningful values to the
consumers, also in terms of sustainability, to be able in the end to target and keep them as
customers.nhhma
Fostering Sustainable Innovation: Exploring the role of Leadership Dynamics in Business Model Experimentation : A Qualitative Case Study about Norwegian startups in the Energy Sector
Get PDFLeadership plays a critical role in achieving sustainable innovation within the energy sector.
Research to date has focused on individual leadership functions and traits displaying that the
unique set of skills of individual leaders allows them to act as change agents for innovation.
Yet innovation is a process that involves collective leadership. To date, research on how such
collective forms of multiple individuals work together remains to be explored. Therefore, this
study examines how collective forms of leadership influence the process of business model
experimentation to facilitate sustainable innovation. Leadership is likely to be highly dynamic
and can take different forms of collective forms during the process of experimenting with the
business model. The findings demonstrate that leadership functions and decision-making
processes become increasingly more collaborative and informal, involving input from multiple
people. Leadership shifts from a formalized individual function to informal collective
approach as the startups grow in size over time. Interestingly, startups that engage in business
model experimentation experience a shift back to elapsed phases of leadership. As more
people join the startup and experimentation is elevated, leadership becomes formalized during
business model experimentation, rather than being spread out over multiple people in a
collective form. This study aims to shed light on the significance of collective leadership and
business model experimentation fostering sustainable innovation, providing valuable insights
for practitioners and academics.nhhma
Managing Cross-Functional Collaboration : An exploratory case study examining cross-functional collaboration between sustainability manager and marketing department
Get PDFSustainability has become increasingly important in our society, with new regulations and
trends emerging regularly. In response, several firms have hired sustainability managers to
meet present and future needs regarding sustainability. Greenwashing is a risk faced by
marketing departments when communicating sustainability. However, collaborating with a
sustainability manager can help the marketing department navigate the complex world of
sustainability while effectively communicating sustainability to consumers.
Our thesis explores the nature of collaboration between a firm's sustainability manager and
marketing department, and examines what can be done to promote efficient collaboration
between the two. We conducted 12 semi-structured interviews with sustainability managers
across different Nordic firms and our research was guided by four themes from existing
literature: management support, shared goals and values, shared information, and team
training.
After analysing the data, we discovered four key elements that might impact the crossfunctional
collaboration between the sustainability manager and the marketing department.
These four elements are top management support, joint projects, common language, and giving
training a purpose. Our research found that these elements can enhance collaboration between
the sustainability manager and the marketing department, and that top management support
could be particularly critical for enabling cross-functional collaboration. Implementing these
elements can enhance cross-functional collaboration and increase the likelihood of success.nhhma
Financing of Start-ups : An Empirical Study of Debt Financing in Norwegian Start-ups
Get PDFThe main goal of this thesis is to identify factors which determine the debt levels of Norwegian
start-ups and how debt financing develops as firms mature. This is achieved by analysing a
dataset consisting of 100.381 observations on 18.923 individual start-up firms from eight
different industries.
Our findings show that there are significant differences in debt ratios between industries,
however, the development of debt ratios follows the same trend across industries. As start-ups
mature, they tend to tend to take on more interest-bearing debt. Nonetheless, prefer utilizing
retained earnings which results in declining debt ratios over time.
Results from our regression analysis indicate that both the asset size- and structure
significantly impact the accessibility of long-term debt for Norwegian start-ups. Furthermore,
profitable firms tend to favour internal financing given by the negative relationship between
Return on Average Assets (ROAA) and both the long- and short-term debt ratio. However, our
results also reveal that start-ups prefer to finance growth with external debt. This is evidenced
by both Growth Sales and Growth Opportunity being positively correlated with long-term
interest-bearing debt ratio (LTDR), whereas short-term interest-bearing debt ratio (STDR) is
positively correlated with Growth Sales but negatively affected by increased Growth
Opportunity. Indicating that start-ups prefer using long-term interest-bearing debt to finance
future growth opportunities.
When investigating whether the initial capital structure has any impact on the development of
debt financing, our findings support the Financial Growth Cycle theory but contradict earlier
empiricism. Based on our findings, the initial capital structure appears inconsequential as all
debt ratios revert towards an overall mean over time. The difference being highly initial debtfinanced
start-ups appear more mature and less informational opaque than their counterparts
at commencement.nhhma
The Kelly Criterion : An empricial study of the growth optimal Kelly portfolio, backtested on the Oslo Stock Exchange
Get PDFThis study analyzes the performance of the growth optimal Kelly portfolio on the Norwegian
stock market from February 2003 through December 2022. To measure the strategy’s alpha,
we employ the Capital Asset Pricing Model, Fama French’s three-factor model and Carhart’s
four-factor model. The Kelly portfolio generates a higher annual growth rate than the
benchmark, and consequently a higher ending wealth level. Our results indicate that the
strategy generates an annualized alpha of 16.8%, significant on a 1% level. However, the
models show very poor explanatory power, prohibiting us from drawing a meaningful
conclusion. Furthermore, when accounting for transaction costs, the portfolio no longer
achieves a higher wealth level than the benchmark, and the corresponding alpha is only
significant on a 10% level, indicating that the strategy is unable to generate risk-adjusted
excess returns in the real world.nhhma
Derivative Usage and Firm Value : Evidence for Norwegian Non-financial Firms
Get PDFUsing derivative usage data from 185 firms listed on the Oslo Exchange during the 2007
to 2021 time period, we find a positive correlation between derivative usage and firm
value. However, the significance varies across derivative types and firm value quantile
distributions. The derivative instruments exhibit varying associations with firm values
that are mostly positive, though interest rate cap derivatives generally show negative
associations. Also, there are dynamic associations between derivative usage and firm value
over different time intervals. These results are robust to dynamic difference-in-difference
estimations, an econometric framework that reduces potential endogeneity problems and
explains causality. We conclude that derivative usage has, in general, a positive lagged
impact on firm value for Norwegian-listed firms that are exposed to the relevant risks.nhhma
Innføringen av DSP i Norge : En oppgave om hvordan digitale sentralbankpenger vil påvirke norske banker
Get PDFNorges Bank er i en utredningsfase for å undersøke digitale sentralbankpenger, forkortet som
DSP. Denne oppgaven utforsker og illustrerer mulige implikasjoner og risikomomenter ved
en eventuell innføring av DSP i Norge. Vi tar utgangspunkt i at Norges Bank vurderer
friksjoner for DSP, og at det enda ikke er konsensus for hvordan disse skal utformes. Ved å
spesifikt undersøke DSP sin påvirkning på norske banker ønsker vi å finne ut hvilke momenter
som er spesielt relevante med tanke på uønskede negative eksternaliteter.
Gjennom en kostnadsanalyse bruker vi sensitivitetsberegninger for å finne ut hvordan DSP
kan medføre en økning i banker sine finansieringskostnader. Vi har sett på den direkte
kostnaden av å erstatte reduksjon av bankinnskudd, og den indirekte kostnaden av å
konkurrere mot rente på DSP. Det mest utslagsgivende for resultatene var ikke den initiale
reduksjonen av bankinnskudd, men DSP sine rentebetingelser. Med en høy rente vil DSP
konkurrere mot bankinnskudd som verdioppbevaring, og banker blir nødt til å øke sine
innskuddsrenter for å motvirke videre reduksjon av bankinnskudd. Dette vil påvirke banker av
ulike størrelser forskjellig. Mindre banker har høyere grad av innskuddsfinansiering og vil
svekke sin relative konkurranseevne mot større banker. Ved tilstrekkelig økning i
finansieringskostnader kan banker bli nødt til å justere opp sine utlånsrenter, dette vil gå ut
over publikum sine lånebetingelser.
Ved å ta for oss et scenario av en finanskrise der DSP er tilgjengelig undersøker vi hvordan
dette kan føre til økt finansiell ustabilitet. DSP vil kunne redusere terskelen for at et løp mot
en individuell bank utvikler seg til et løp mot banksystemet som helhet. Videre illustrerer vi
hvordan banker kan imøtekomme etterspørselssjokk etter DSP ved å trekke av sine
sentralbankreserver, og gjennom lån fra sentralbanken. Vi finner at DSP hovedsakelig vil
kunne medføre finansiell ustabilitet i tilfellet banker går tom for sin likviditetsbuffer av
verdipapirer for å stille sikkerhet for lån av sentralbanken.
Basert på funnene fra analysene mener vi momenter som er viktige å vurdere for DSP sin
utforming er dens rentebetingelser og evne til å være ubegrenset.nhhma
Computational issues in parameter estimation for hidden Markov models with template model builder
Get PDFA popular way to estimate the parameters of a hidden Markov model (HMM) is direct numerical maximization (DNM) of the (log-)likelihood function. The advantages of employing the TMB [Kristensen K, Nielsen A, Berg C, et al. TMB: automatic differentiation and Laplace approximation. J Stat Softw Articles. 2016;70(5):1–21] framework in R for this purpose were illustrated recently [Bacri T, Berentsen GD, Bulla J, et al. A gentle tutorial on accelerated parameter and confidence interval estimation for hidden Markov models using template model builder. Biom J. 2022 Oct;64(7):1260–1288]. In this paper, we present extensions of these results in two directions. First, we present a practical way to obtain uncertainty estimates in form of confidence intervals (CIs) for the so-called smoothing probabilities at moderate computational and programming effort via TMB. Our approach thus permits to avoid computer-intensive bootstrap methods. By means of several examples, we illustrate patterns present for the derived CIs. Secondly, we investigate the performance of popular optimizers available in R when estimating HMMs via DNM. Hereby, our focus lies on the potential benefits of employing TMB. Investigated criteria via a number of simulation studies are convergence speed, accuracy, and the impact of (poor) initial values. Our findings suggest that all optimizers considered benefit in terms of speed from using the gradient supplied by TMB. When supplying both gradient and Hessian from TMB, the number of iterations reduces, suggesting a more efficient convergence to the maximum of the log-likelihood. Last, we briefly point out potential advantages of a hybrid approach.Computational issues in parameter estimation for hidden Markov models with template model builderpublishedVersionpublishedVersio
