February 2011
An analysis of factors hindering the adoption of HIV/AIDS workplace policies: The case of private sector companies in Malawi
HIV/AIDS continues to be a major development challenge particularly for countries in the Sub Saharan Africa region. Due to its magnitude, concerted efforts from various stakeholders including private sector companies are required to address this epidemic. However, there is increasing evidence around the world that companies are yet to acknowledge and respond to HIV/AIDS as a workplace issue. Hence a number of...
February 2011
An empirical investigation into difficulties associated with barter trading: A practioners’ perspective
Difficult economic and business conditions experienced in many nations over the past few years have necessitated the need to look for different ways of ensuring business success. Many firms have found that one such way is through barter trading. This paper empirically investigates the difficulties firms face in barter trading. Data was collected from 61 barter practitioners in the media industry in South...
February 2011
South African Industrial Conciliation Act of 1924 and current Affirmative Action: An analysis of labour economic history
This paper is directed towards making a comparison between the Industrial Conciliation Act (ICA) of 1924 and the current Affirmative Action (AA) in South Africa (SA), in order trace their respective impact to industrial relations in SA. First and foremost, it is necessary to give an overview of Industrial relations within the period of 1924 to 1948, and to identify three events that took place within that...
February 2011
Reward economics and organisation: The issue of effectiveness
The paper sets out to assess the relationship that exists between reward in an organization and organizational effectiveness. Organizational effectiveness is defined in terms of profitability. Guinness Nigeria Plc was taken as the case study. An instrument of questionnaire containing both open and close ended questions was used to elicit information from both the management staff and employees of Guinness...
February 2011
Factors and risks associated with integrated, conventional and sustainable agribusiness farming
A multinomial logistic regression was used to estimate the impact and risks associated with integrated, conventional and sustainable agribusiness farming. The results of the study suggested that farmers operating on conventional and sustainable agribusiness farming were more likely to be those with knowledge of technology and diversified agribusiness farming. Compared with integrated agribusiness farming,...
February 2011
An economic order quantity model with screening errors, returned cost, and shortages under quantity discounts
Previous studies on the issue of imperfect quality inventory assumed the direct cost of the product was irrelevant and the screening processes were perfect. However, in practice, the purchase price is some function of the quantity purchased and the inspection testing may fail to be perfect due to Type 1 and Type 2 errors. Thus, this paper proposes a cost-minimizing Economic Order Quantity (EOQ) model that...
February 2011
Operating strategies of banks in China: Analysis of operational and profitability efficiency
This paper conducts a comparative analysis of banks operating in China using a two-stage model, which evaluates their operational efficiency (OE) and profitability efficiency (PE). The study period spanned through 2004 to 2006 and data envelopment analysis (DEA) was used in the study’s analysis. The results showed that large and older banks are generally more efficient than small and new ones in...
February 2011
FDIs by high-tech firms from newly-industrialized economies in emerging markets: The role of resources on entry strategy
International investments by firms from Newly-Industrialized Economies (NIEs) in other less-developed emerging economies were increasingly important due to the rise of labor cost in the home economy. This paper investigated how resources of high-tech Taiwanese firms influenced their entry strategy in Mainland China. The results indicated that the parent firms’ knowledge-based and property-based...
February 2011
Providing universal postal service in developing countries
The need for faster and higher-quality communication, services and transport of goods has led to a reform of postal service activity. The goal of such reform is to provide higher-quality services at competitive prices by increasing the competition in the postal industry, and to increase the efficiency of postal operators. Liberalisation did not produce the desired results, as it was not complete and did not...
February 2011
Factors affecting customer loyalty in Pakistan
Customer loyalty always remains a prime concern for business organization. The purpose of this is to identify key factors which influence customer loyalty around the globe in general and in Pakistan in particular. This study investigates the correlation between these factors and customer loyalty through hypotheses testing. The study was carried out by taking a sample of 150 respondents. Data were collected...
February 2011
Corporate governance assessment in company board structure
There is a plethora of publications on Corporate Governance (CG) in today’s business world press. While many corporate companies have been practicing corporate governance, the justification for good corporate governance must be a greater concern rather than mere corporate transparency. Rankings in corporate governance become an important issue to oversee/judge companies who practice governance. Fuzzy...
February 2011
Cost and demand functions of electricity in Gambia from 1982 to 2007
This paper argues that an electricity demand should be estimated simultaneously with the supply. It then estimates the demand for and the supply of the electricity in the Gambia using reduced form regressions and vector error correction methods. The paper finds that systems of simultaneous equations cannot be simplified to reduced form regressions to satisfy the statistical requirements, but rather the...
February 2011
New challenges in post-crisis management: Competitive or collaborative
Many scientists tried to describe the characteristics of a network society, seen as the ultimate form of the knowledge-based society. Very few tried to explain which would be the leverages to determine the shift, and detail them on a multidimensional basis. This paper, as a step in a larger research, tries to emphasize the most common conditions which lead to the triggering of the shift above mentioned, some...
February 2011
Predicting Taiwanese adoption website members’ intentions regarding on-line dog adoptions
This study conducted an online survey of 292 Taiwanese who were members of animal adoption websites. About one-third of the respondents indicated they had adopted stray dogs while more than half expressed willingness to adopt dogs from public animal shelters. Results showed that respondents’ general intention to adopt dogs was related to their attitude toward general adoption, gender and religion. The...
February 2011
Doing well by doing good? Implementing new effective integrated CSR strategy
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) increasingly receives attention from executives, business academics, and public officials. However, whether CSR positively contributes to firm performance is inconclusive. This paper integrates and extends the extant literature about CSR and introduces a conceptual framework and propositions on how firms can accomplish some social goals effectively and still, meet the...
February 2011
Impact of Emotional Intelligence (EI) on employee’s performance in telecom sector of Pakistan
To reveal the efficacy of the emotional intelligence (EI) construct in organizational studies, this study focuses on the impact of EI on employee’s performance among telecom employees in Pakistan. The paper examines the impact of four significant aspects of EI that is self awareness, self management, social awareness and relationship management. Data was collected from five telecom companies by using...
February 2011
Environment for innovation: Gaining competitive advantage
Research has found that commitment to innovation is a key to success and in a long run can be helpful in earning a competitive advantage for the firm. However, it’s not that easy to buy it out because of the confrontational environment that is around and the many internal and external forces that influence positively and negatively and more then that there is a level of uncertainty in innovation and...
February 2011
Role of spirituality in job satisfaction and organizational commitment among faculty of institutes of higher learning in Pakistan
This study aimed at investigating whether or not job satisfaction and organizational commitment of faculty members are grounded in their spirituality. A survey-based descriptive research design was used to collect the data from faculty members of three public and five private Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in Pakistan. Stepwise regression procedure was employed to analyze the data. Spiritual...
February 2011
Relationship between cost and logistic practices in small and medium enterprises: A case study of Queretaro, Mexico
Small and medium enterprises are the main employment source throughout the world, consequently they have a great influence on national economies. For these reasons, to study the logistics of small and medium enterprises is important. The objective of this research is to understand the logistics practices of small and medium enterprises in the state of Queretaro in Mexico, and also to ascertain if a...
February 2011
Evaluating the impact of environmental factors on the international competitiveness of Small and Medium- sized Enterprises in the Western Balkans
Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) with an export potential face significant obstacles in gaining international competitiveness, due to the highly dynamic environment in which they operate. This study evaluates the impact of environmental factors on international competitiveness of the Western Balkans SMEs by identifying the key pairs of environmental factors and factors of international...
February 2011
Challenges and opportunities of Tanzanian SMEs in adapting supply chain management
Around the globe, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) have acquired a significant and pivotal position in the entire economic development process. Over the years, this sector had played a critical role in developing Tanzanian economy through creation of employment opportunities, income generation, equitable distribution of income whence contributing towards poverty alleviation. However, this sector suffers a...
February 2011
Corporate social responsibilities and stock returns: Stochastic dominance approach
Empirical studies which examine corporate social responsibility (CSR) and financial performance employed accounting and market-based indicators as performance proxies. As the ultimate goal of a typical firm is maximizing its profits, while for a typical public company, the goal is to maximize its stockholder’s wealth. Thus, based on stock returns distribution, the study employ stochastic dominance (SD)...
February 2011
Empirical analysis of organizational justice towards employee’s customer oriented behavior: A case study of Medical Institutions in Pakistan
This study empirically investigates the relationship of distributive justice, procedural justice and customer oriented behavior in the health care sector of Pakistan. To examine the data, public as well as private hospitals in Islamabad and Rawalpindi areas of Pakistan were selected. Upper, middle and lower tiers of the management were targeted so as response received covers all segmented in the sample....
February 2011
Herzberg! Can we trust you in Africa?
Information technology (IT) projects are implemented through individual team members. These projects are fairly long in duration, especially enterprise resource planning projects. The problem that IT project managers face is how to motivate the team members, particularly in an African context where a team consists of various cultures and races. This paper presents results of a quantitative research study in...
February 2011
Employee dissatisfaction with organizational change: An Empirical study of a technology services company
Employee satisfaction is one of the key factors that influences an organization’s performance and is thus critical to the organization’s success. In this paper, we report on an empirical study of employee dissatisfaction with organizational change, which resulted in huge staff turnover and hostility towards management. We examine in-depth how and why such a high level of dissatisfaction, which was...
February 2011
Impact of financial leverage on dividend policy: Empirical evidence from Karachi Stock Exchange-listed companies
This paper examines the relationship between dividend policy and financial leverage of 403 companies, listed with Karachi Stock Exchange during the period 2002 to 2008. Dividend policy, vastly followed by the companies, was tested by applying the extended model of Linter (1956) with the debt ratio of the firm, the previous year’s dividend yield as its independent variables and change in earnings as a...
February 2011
Assessing the performance of Taiwanese tour guides
This study combines analytic network process (ANP) with technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) to assess the performance of Taiwanese tour guides. Interviews of practitioners and reviewing of studies are used to collect assessment criteria. Questionnaires based on 9 point Likert scale are sent to 48 senior tour guides to obtain their opinions about the importance of...
February 2011
The interactions among stock returns, the term structure of interest rates and economic activities: Evidence from Taiwan
Both stock returns and the term structure of interest rates are rich in information, in particular, they could be used to forecast economic activities. Nevertheless, it is necessary to further clarify the relation between stock returns and the term structure of interest rates, and compare the relation of the two variables with economic activities. Our research combined various research methods of time series,...
February 2011
The analytic network process for the banking sector: An approach to evaluate the creditability of emerging industries
This paper identifies the preferable bank loan quality for reducing non-performing loans (NPL). In combination with the relevant literature and interviews with experts, this study adopts the modified Delphi method and the analytic network process (ANP) to construct an evaluation method and to determine ANP effectiveness. In this study, we apply ANP to construct an evaluation method and introduce four criteria...
February 2011
Spirituality in the workplace: Awareness of the human resources function
This study explores whether a link exists between employees’ personal/spiritual values and the values of the company where the research was undertaken. It further determines whether employees view themselves as spiritual and whether they integrate their personal/spiritual values at work. At the time of the research, the population consisted of approximately 1388 employees. A representative sample size...
February 2011
Applying six sigma to promote self-management ability in health clubs
The purpose of this study is to contribute to a better understanding of self-management ability in health clubs. A DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control[U1]) model of six sigma was introduced to define issues faced by employees when they conduct self-management and to construct an evaluation system for important factors of self-management and to analyze the reasons for poor self-management. In the...
February 2011
An alternative approach for determining production-lot size with repairable items and cost reduction delivery policy
This paper employs an alternative approach to derive the optimal lot size for economic production quantity (EPQ) model with repairable items and cost reduction delivery policy. A straightforward algebraic method is proposed here in lieu of the conventional approach with the need of applying first-order and second-order differentiations to the cost function for the proof of convexity and derivation of optimal...
February 2011
Cross national comparison of innovation efficiency and policy application
European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) proposed the revision of the innovation indicators including innovation drivers, knowledge creation and innovation and entrepreneurship describe innovation input. Application and intellectual property describe innovation output. European Commission develops the EIS as the instrument evaluates and compares the innovation performance of the member States under the Lisbon...
February 2011
Consumer satisfaction and quality management in the hospitality industry in South-East Europe
This paper examines consumers’ satisfaction and experience as a key segment of the managing of quality system of services in the hospitality industry. The research was conducted in five spas in South-East Europe, in a part of the Balkans, a region that includes Zapadnomoravska spa zone (The Republic of Serbia), from 1 August until the end of September, 2008. Measuring the quality of services was based...
February 2011
Benchmarking the efficiency of Asian container ports
In the last decade, the shipping industry and the global seaborne trade has witnessed a rapid growth due to globalization of the world economy, boom in international trade and borderless investments. As competition among international ports has intensified, the evaluation of port operational efficiency has become increasingly important to enable individual ports to reflect on its current status quo and...
February 2011
The relationship between savings and investment in Iran: Testing Feldstein's and Horioka's theory
This paper focuses on the relationship between savings and investment in Iran's economy. Based on the results of this study, there is a long-run equilibrium relationship between savings and gross domestic investment, and direct significant effect of savings on investment in the long run is stronger than that in the short run. Thus, considering Feldstein's and Horioka's theory, a hypothesis of complete...
February 2011
Constraints to credit access by new SMEs in South Africa: A supply-side analysis
The primary objective of this study is to investigate empirically the constraints to credit access by new SMEs from commercial banks and trade creditors. For this purpose an initial 52-item questionnaire was developed after a thorough review of the literature on the business environment. Exploratory factor analysis identified nine factors which included four internal and five external factors. The internal...
February 2011
The effectiveness of the International Ship and Port Facility Security Code (ISPS) in Nigeria
Over the years, acts of insecurity, lack of safety consciousness and threat of terrorism have pervaded the maritime landscape of the world economy. The obvious dishonest outlook and fraud-like tendencies which over the years, have formed the most basic characteristics of the maritime industry have never helped matters either way, but has indeed complicated the issue of high insecurity of the port industries...
February 2011
A partial least squares model for SCM strategy, willingness for external collaboration, competitive performance and relative performance: Effects of marketing and logistics performance in the palm oil industry
This research investigation is concerned with whether in the palm oil business, marketing performance and logistics performance influence supply chain management (SCM) strategy, external collaboration willingness, competitive performance and relative performance. The analysis proceeds by means of the structural equation model (SEM) so as to determine causal relationships in regard to the...
February 2011
Management ownership and corporate performance
This paper primarily used statistical methods to establish financial early-warning models that made it possible to predict in advance the probability of a company experiencing financial distress, and raised corporate performance. In the empirical analysis, there may be the first study that attempted to use financial ratios and non-financial ratios such as ratio of director and supervisor ownership stakes...
February 2011
The independent and interactive roles of motivation, opportunity, and distributive justice on bribery activities
Most of the existing literature does not clearly address what the specific motivations of firms engaging in bribery are, the topic that this study investigates. In addition, the conditions that could directly and indirectly facilitate bribery are also discussed. Moreover, the perceptions of the briber on the perceived outcomes delivered by local officials are also considered. Based on extensive surveys at...
February 2011
Moral imagination and management decision-making: An empirical study
Moral imagination is the mental ability to create or use ideas, images, discern moral aspects implanted within a situation and develop a range of possible solutions of the situation from a moral point of view. In this research, management decision makers were taken into consideration to dig out the factors that are affecting the decision-making process of management. Business industry has witnessed good and bad business...
February 2011
The relationship between interest rates and sovereign ratings: An analysis using a Markov-switching model
In this paper, the correlation between the evolution of credits’ interest rate and sovereign rating was analysed. In order to capture this view, a Markov-switching approach was engaged to model the transition probabilities of low and high volatility regimes for interest rate. Also, the official rate of inflation and the amount of domestic credit denominated in lei were used as explanatory variables. The...
February 2011
Multi-criteria optimization with multiple responses for technological innovation
This study integrated a multi-criteria response factor design and a multi-criteria optimization method to develop a new model and found the technical innovation multiple responses with multi-criteria optimization design of products and manufacturing processes. This research combined the multiple responses with the multi-criteria optimization design of products and manufacturing processes, and utilized the...
February 2011
Empirical research on the internal audit into public hospitals from Romania
This study employs a dual approach, in that it first considers a synthesis of the studies run by researchers in the field of internal audit within the public sector, ideas on this topic published into the professional literature, and regulations drawn up by national and international accounting regulators and accounting professional bodies. Secondly, it uses an empirical survey based on a questionnaire to get...
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