July 2011
Mining enterprise and partnerships for socio-economic development
Partnerships are emerging as important for the business operations of mining enterprises in many parts of the world, particularly in the global South. During 2010, the London-based International Council on Mining and Minerals launched a global initiative which is geared to strengthen the contribution of mining to development goals and poverty reduction by promoting multi-stakeholder partnerships. The purpose...
July 2011
Market potential for probiotic nutritional supplements in India
Indian probiotic industry is evolving at a steady pace with conditions set for tremendous growth in near future. India being the largest producer of milk and having world’s highest cattle population has a distinct advantage in the probiotic field along with its booming economy. Although there are quite a number of challenges in front of domestic and foreign companies entering the Indian probiotic...
July 2011
The prevalence of impulsive, compulsive and innovative shopping behaviour in the economic retail hub of South Africa: A marketing segmentation approach
To date, research on impulsive, compulsive and innovative retail shopping behaviour motivated by the desire to obtain emotional, social and identity-related benefits, has largely been limited to Europe (Germany), Canada and western developed economies (the UK and USA). This article provides an initial analysis of the prevalence of impulsive, compulsive and innovative shopping traits of consumers in the...
July 2011
Exploring the influence of enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation on corporate performance using a modified data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach
The benefit of enterprise resource planning (ERP) system for corporate performance is almost ignored at earlier works. To advance earlier researches, this work employs financial data to explore factors of performance advance by illustrating the association between operation management and ERP installation. Atwo-stage analysis is made to achieve the aim. Firstly, input-output efficiency of a firm is...
July 2011
Money demand function with asymmetric adjustment: Evidence on Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRICs)
The long-run equilibrium relationship for the money demand function in the BRICs is investigated by the asymmetrical TAR and M-TAR cointegration tests developed by Enders and Granger (1998), Enders and Siklos (2001). Empirical results indicate that real M2 money balance, real GDP, real exchange rate and deposit rate have a long term relationship under some specific threshold value. Furthermore, we apply...
July 2011
Fuzzy MCDM approach to evaluate service strategies of customer value for global shipping carrier-based logistics service providers
The key purpose of this research is to develop a fuzzy multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) algorithm to evaluate service strategies of customer value (CV) for global shipping carrier-based logistics service providers (GSLPs) based on the shippers’ perspective in Taiwan. At first, a literature review was introduced. Subsequently, a proposed fuzzy MCDM algorithm is developed. Finally,...
July 2011
The relationships among governance and earnings management: An empirical study on non-profit hospitals in Taiwan
Sequel to the fact that the financial information of non-profit proprietary hospitals in Taiwan has been called into question, the Department of Health, Executive Yuan, (2006/2) has established guidelines regarding the financial reports of medical juridical person, stipulating that these reports must be audited by a certified public accountant (CPA) to show that reported earnings are representative. However,...
July 2011
A literature review on technology road-mapping: A case of power-line communication
Technology road-mapping (TRM) has become an important issue and has received increasing interest from both academics industry and business sectors. TRM is a powerful and flexible tool widely used in industry. Its principle use is to provide support in the form of strategic management and long-term planning of products or services for future development. The main purpose of this paper is to provide an...
July 2011
Competitive strategy orientation in Egypt and Peru
There is a dearth of empirical studies that examine the link between competitive strategy and organizational performance in developing nations. This paper addresses this gap by assessing the strategy-performance nexus in two disparate emerging economies, Egypt and Peru. Findings support the cost leadership, differentiation, and focus conceptualizations of business strategy in both nations, but no single "best...
July 2011
A two-echelon inventory model for fuzzy demand with mutual beneficial pricing approach in a supply chain
This paper develops a two-echelon inventory model with mutual beneficial pricing strategy with considering fuzzy annual demand; single vendor and multiple buyers in this model. The beneficial pricing strategy can benefit the vendor more than multiple buyers in the integrated system, when price reduction is incorporated to entice the buyers to accept the minimum total cost. Negotiation factors is very...
July 2011
The impact of inaccessibility to bank finance and lack of financial management knowledge to small, medium and micro enterprises in Buffalo City Municipality, South Africa
This study investigated the impact of inaccessibility of bank finance and lack of financial management knowledge to small, micro and medium enterprises (SMMEs) in the Buffalo City Municipality. The objectives of the study were to determine the impact of lack of financial management knowledge on access to finance, to investigate effects of lack of bank finances to the success and growth of SMMEs, to determine...
July 2011
The effect of organizational support, self efficacy, and computer anxiety on the usage intention of e-learning system in hospital
The purpose of the study is to develop the usage intention model of e-learning systems. A survey of 1071 samples of six teaching hospitals in Taiwan shows that the effects of organizational support, self efficacy, and computer anxiety on usage intention are mediated by perceived ease of use, and perceived useful. According to the statistical results, the proposed model fits very well for the samples. Besides,...
July 2011
Trust and security of electronic banking services in Saudi commercial banks: Saudis versus Non Saudis opinions
This paper reports on research conducted in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The research examines the trust and the security of electronic banking services in Saudi commercial banks. The design for the study used quantitative research methodology. Data were collected by means of questionnaires utilizing snowballing approach. 500 Questionnaires were distributed to banks’ respondents including Saudi and Non...
July 2011
Influencing factors on entrepreneurial skills of rural women in Ilam City, Iran
Development scholars believe that one of the most important requirements for development in the 21st century is entrepreneurship, and more attention to the needs of women. For this purpose, this paper is aimed at identifying factors influencing rural women in Ilam City about entrepreneurial skills, and has been undertaken using the survey method. Questionnaire is the main instrument of data collection in...
July 2011
Employee motivation: A study on some selected McDonalds in the UK
The main focus of this research is to find out the different perspectives of employees and management in respect of motivation at McDonalds through different motivational theories. The study reveals that the managers of McDonalds possess mentality, which complies more with the Taylor’s scientific theory in which, according to them, the crew members are likely to work harder when they are being pressured...
July 2011
Bank selection criteria in the banking industry: An empirical investigation from customers in Romanian cities
The present study investigates bank selection criteria of customers in Romania. A total of 248 bank customers responded to the bank selection instrument in two main cities of Romania: Bucharest and Constanta. “The number of ATM (automatic teller machines) booths” has been found to be the most important selection criteria for bank customers from Romania. This study has also shown that providing...
July 2011
Technical efficiency changes at the farm-level: A panel data analysis of rice farms in Bangladesh
This paper examines technical efficiency changes at the farm-level for rice farms in Bangladesh over a 17 year period (1987 to 2004) using nationally representative panel data. Results from the stochastic production frontier analysis indicate that technical efficiency of the rice farmers has declined from 83% to 60% over this period due to a host of farm as well as socio-economic factors. Age, education,...
July 2011
Determination of customer value measurement model RFM index weights
How to measure customer value and segment customers in order to do target marketing is a problem that many enterprises concern about. As a method of measure customer value, recency, frequency, monetary (RFM) had applied in many enterprises. Usually index weights of RFM model were determined by analytic hierarchy process (AHP) through experts' scores, this method was affected by experts' subjectivity....
July 2011
Production control systems: Literature review, classification, and insights regarding practical application
This paper was a review of the literature regarding production control systems (PCS). A classification method based on four categories (order-controlled, stock level-controlled (SLC), flow-scheduled (FS), and hybrid systems) was proposed and used to classify the twenty different systems found in the review. A brief summary of each system was presented, showing the functioning logic and insights with regard to...
July 2011
Performance comparison of mutual funds in Pakistan
This study was conducted to analyze and compare the performance of different types of mutual funds in Pakistan, and concluded that equity funds outperform income funds. These funds are further classified into broker backed and institutional backed funds for detail analysis. Findings showed that within equity funds, broker backed category shows better performance than institutional funds. On the other hand,...
July 2011
Increasing cognitive proximity investments in spatial tourism duopoly
As distance is often one of the main factors in a tourist’s decision to visit a given location, tourism companies often attempt to lower the impact of geographic distance through promotion and related efforts. The focus of this paper is on the business strategy of tourism companies in a competitive market. We examine methods to shorten geographic distance and cognitive distance within a homogenous...
July 2011
Sectoral analysis of calendar effects in Malaysia: Post financial crisis (1998-2008)
The Asian financial crisis in 1997 revealed several flaws in financial markets. As a result, various measures were taken to overcome these weaknesses in order to address the efficiency of the financial system where information was more readily available to investors. It is the intention of this paper to investigate whether the stock prices anomalies in the market still persist after the financial crisis. The...
July 2011
A research on the relation between organizational commitment and learning organization
This study basically aims to determine the relationship between learning organization and organizational commitment, and to determine whether “emotional commitment”, “normative commitment” and “continuation commitment” which are subordinate elements of organizational commitment have effects on learning organization and subordinate elements of learning organization....
July 2011
Efficiency of foreign banks: Evidence from selected (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) ASEAN countries
This study examined foreign banks efficiency in selected ASEAN countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand) for the period of 2001 to 2008 by using the parametric stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) approach. The results indicate that foreign banks originating from developed countries are more cost and profit efficient as compared to foreign banks from developing countries. The results...
July 2011
Training, motivation and teamwork improvement: The case of construction firms
A powerful human resource development system is a critical strategy for every construction companies, as in the coming years, human capital plays a significant role in order to have a successful organization. Based on a combination of literature research and questionnaire surveys, the study explores the effect of training and motivation in HRD practices on teamwork improvement in construction...
July 2011
Potential energy savings in compressed air systems in Serbia
Compressed air systems (CASs), as one of the most important energy carriers in the industry, are targeted as a field full of possibilities for energy savings. Average electricity consumption of the CASs in Serbia is estimated to be 8% of the overall electricity consumption in the industry. This data was obtained based on the share of the amount of electricity consumed in the production of compressed air in...
July 2011
Indigenous female entrepreneurship: Analytical study on access to finance for women entrepreneurs in South Africa
Research on female entrepreneurship is imperative to create a knowledge base of women’s experiences with regards to being financially excluded in South Africa. There is a realisation, however, that, while race has historically been the primary driver of economic disparities in South Africa, other forms of discrimination also prevent certain groups from accessing economic freedom and opportunities....
July 2011
A strategic reposition of the maritime industry for economic recovery and sustainability: “The Cabotage Actâ€
The Cabotage Law came into force in April, 2004 (Cabotage Act, 2003) aimed at reserving the costal shipping for Nigeria nationals. In essence, the system of maintaining domestic shipping industry is being regulated by the Cabotage Law. This involves the merchant fleet, and the protection of the environment and bio-diversity. The study is of the view that if the Cabotage Law is properly implemented; Nigeria...
July 2011
Deciphering the social costs of Social Networking Sites (SNSs) for university students
This study describes the impact of social networking sites (SNSs) on the studying habits of students; as such, multistage sampling technique was used for data collection. In the first stage, six universities (four public and two private universities) were selected as samples on simple random sampling basis, from which 1000 students were selected as the sample of the study using cluster sampling technique. Four main...
July 2011
Credit and thrifts co-operatives in Nigeria: A potential source of capital formation and employment
Unemployment is a major challenge in Nigeria and many other developing countries. There is unemployment among professionals and non-professionals alike, there is unemployment among young school graduates, experienced professionals, tradesmen, and non-skilled workers in Nigeria. The consequences of unemployment in Nigeria are grave and may be classified as social and private. They include increase in crime...
July 2011
Validating Google analytics tips for micro-firms
In today's hyper-competitive and increasingly cost-conscious business environment, making a website findable is critical to its success. Effective website traffic monitoring and benchmarking may lead to better web site strategies, and more competitive micro-firms. In this context, the aim of this article is to validate Plaza’s Google Analytics e-Metrics for micro-firms. The focus of this article is...
July 2011
An empirical study on factors that affect the transition time between CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) levels in Saudi Arabia
During recent years, software process improvement (SPI) has been more concerned by a software industry. Numerous studies have been made in development of SPI standards and models, or to identify factors that affect SPI success. However, these studies did not provide answers to questions about the factors that affect the transition time between CMMI (capability maturity model integration) levels, and...
July 2011
Identifying emotional factors for quantitative evaluation of perceived product values
The objective of this research was to identify emotional factors that affect the perceived value of products. After collecting 400 statements from consumer case studies, the authors summarized these statements into fifteen elements. Principal component analysis was then used to extract four emotional dimensions: Features (F), Association (A), Social-esteem (S), and Engagement (E). This system was called the...
July 2011
Social responsibility of small businesses in a typical rural African setting: Some insights from a South African study
This study examined the extent to which the concept of social responsibility has permeated the small business mind set of a typical rural African setting located in South African. In order to achieve the above purpose, five hypotheses focusing on social responsibility awareness, performance, focus, perceived benefits, and observable benefits were formulated and tested. The results reveal high levels of awareness and...
July 2011
The implications of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) towards the dimensions of learning organization (LO) in organizations in Southern Malaysia
The main purpose of this study was to ascertain the implications of Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) and towards the Learning Organization (LO) in organizations in Southern Malaysia and also to find out which dimensions from the independent variables (OCB) influence LO the most. Learning Organization (LO) literally means that the organization experiences continuous learning, where the...
July 2011
Core competence: What “core†you mean? - From a strategic human resource management perspective
Core competence has become the prevailing term in strategic management (SM) and human resource management (HRM) literature. However, the exact meaning of the “core” term has been ambiguous to researchers, educators, and practitioners. This article addresses the interpretations of “core” in SM and HRM literature and adopts the Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) perspective to...
July 2011
A cross-strait comparative study of efficiency of life insurance companies: An application of the input slack adjustment approach
This paper applies the three-stage approach proposed by Fried et al. (2002) to analyze the efficiency of life insurance companies in the Mainland and Taiwan areas. This approach adjusts the input slacks obtained by data envelopment analysis (DEA) via the stochastic frontier analysis (SFA). Our major empirical findings are: (1) Efficiency scores of life insurance companies in both areas are significantly...
July 2011
Empirical analysis of technological innovation capacity and competitiveness in EU-15 countries
This paper carries out an analysis of the existence and characteristics of technology innovation clusters in EU-15 countries, also studying if belonging to a group or cluster explains differences in competitiveness among countries. Based on the main Science and Technology Indicators 2009 published by Eurostat (European Commission, 2009a) in addition to competitiveness indicators used by the European...
July 2011
Students’ perceptions about institutional transformation at the University of the Free State
The importance of managing transformational change led to the need to identify some critical issues in a university context. In view of the substantial transformational change that has already taken place at the University of the Free State, it is important to consider how the students perceive transformational change. In this quantitative study, a survey using a convenience sample of students residing in...
July 2011
Are IPOs (Initial Public Offering) still outperforming the market? Evidence from Spain in the period 2000 to 2010
This paper analyzes the profitability of Spanish IPOs (initial public offering) in the period 2000 to 2010 both in absolute terms and relative to the IBEX (international business exchange (network)) in two specific moments: one in the short term, one month after the first trading day, and another one that could be considered as medium term, one year after the company goes public. The results show that 18...
July 2011
Networking and women entrepreneurs: Beyond patriarchal traditions
Entrepreneurs have changed the corridors of trade, commerce, and markets, through new goods, services and provide ways to modernization and creativeness. It is determined that forces of patriarchy, to a great extent manipulating their professional role and prohibit women to take part in economic activities independently. The study emphasized whether networking enable intended female entrepreneurs to overcome...
July 2011
Determinants of corporate hedging policies: A case of foreign exchange and interest rate derivative usage
Derivatives are mostly used by corporations to hedge their foreign exchange or interest rate risk, especially in Asian countries due to their highly volatile political and economic situation. Current study aimed to determine the factors affecting firms hedging policies of both foreign currency and interest rate derivative instruments of 105 non-financial firms listed on Karachi Stock Exchange for the period...
July 2011
A research agenda on the leaders’ political intelligence for effective change management
This paper presents a construct and model of the organizational leader’s political intelligence to conceptualize the role of political intelligence in effectively managing organizational change. Pertinent approaches to political intelligence that scholars have taken were reviewed with the aim to build a theory. Basing our model on the dimensionality of political intelligence identified in light of...
July 2011
Is innovation performance of private schools better than public schools’?
Public schools in Taiwan are bureaucratic organizations. Funds, personnel matters or regulations in private schools are more flexible. Some literatures indicate that bureaucratic organization would not lead to organizational innovation. This article selects 375 teachers in 25 public and private technical institutes and universities in Taiwan as the targets and conducts questionnaire survey. There are 335...
July 2011
Stipulation of a model to establish a valuable relationship with consumers in an e-grocery
In this research, we examine the extent of information technology and application of internet in e-commerce as a whole, and e-grocery in particular, focusing on the effective factors concerning customer values and the effects of e-grocery on consumer value in the Iranian market. This survey suggests an integrated model is designed using a combination of seven variables in shaping consumer values. The seven...
July 2011
The impact of stakeholder communication on project outcome
Project management demands exercise of nine knowledge areas; managing project scope, time, cost, quality, HR, stakeholder communication, procurement, risk and integration of all these. From July 2007 to April 2009, this study observes that in the IT industry working in Islamabad, Pakistan, the results of heterogeneous IT projects suffered from problems like scope creep, cost and schedule overrun and lack of...
July 2011
Internet related network coordinating tools and their uses amongst different classifications of business employees
Computer networks play a significant role in business management nowadays. This is especially true for Taiwanese business, which has made a considerable contribution to the global information products. Most enterprises in Taiwan rely heavily on various networking tools to coordinate the business procedures. This research adopted the viewpoints of the technology acceptance model and information richness...
July 2011
The real exchange rate and the employment market: Panel cointegration analysis of evidence from Turkey
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between real exchange rate and the employment market by using the panel cointegration analysis with datafrom Turkey which adopted a flexible exchange rate regime for the period of the study. According to the FMOLS and DOLS panel results, there is a cointegration between RER (real exchange rate) and aggregate employment. The...
July 2011
The relative strength index revisited
The relative strength index (RSI) is one of the best known and most widely used technical analysis indicators. In this paper, the study aims to empirically test the functioning of the RSI in its classic form, on a set of data and to reconfigure the indicator by also taking account of the trading volume in its calculation formula. After adjusting the RSI with the trading volume, the study will test its...
July 2011
Age cohort analysis in continued usage intention of mobile value-added services: Generation Y and Baby boomers
This study aims to investigate the effects of age on continued usage intention of mobile value-added service and its impact on personal innovativeness, perceived usefulness, confirmation and satisfaction between two mobile service user segments; Generation Y and Baby boomers. A multiple group structural equation modeling approach is utilized to assess the proposed model. This study found that personal...
July 2011
How does trade-mediated technology transfer affect interregional and intersectoral competition? Exploring multi-sectoral effects in a global trade model
In this paper, all technology transfers are embodied in trade flows within a three-region, six-traded-commodity version of the GTAP model. 4% Hicks-Neutral technical progress in heavy manufacturing in one region has uneven impacts on productivity elsewhere. Why? Destination regions’ ability to harness new technology depends on their absorptive capacity and on the structural congruence of the source and...
July 2011
Customer equity promotion based on the measurement model with four-dimensional drivers: Application to mobile communication
The theory which takes customer as an asset has been widely recognized by researchers and practitioners. They proposed lots of measurement models to measure and manage customer equity. But in the research of customer equity promotion, most methods only depend on qualitative analysis. Taking mobile communication enterprise for example, using the measurement model with four-dimensional drivers to obtain...
July 2011
Information technology and total factor productivity
This paper employs the manufacturing firm-level data of Taiwan to explore the issue of whether information technology investment brings about the Solowproductivity paradox. In order to take into account the improvement of product quality caused by information technology investment, a hedonic price index is used to deflate the information...
July 2011
Organizational culture and knowledge sharing: Empirical evidence from service organizations
This paper aims to investigate the relationship between organizational cultural elements and knowledge sharing. This is a quantitative research by nature. A questionnaire is derived from previous studies. The survey covered seven service organizations in Bangladesh. Regression was adopted to test hypotheses. Out of the four independent variables, trust, communication between staff, and leadership were found...
July 2011
The impacts of brand equity, brand attachment, product involvement and repurchase intention on bicycle users
The 15th Conference of the Parties (COP) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Copenhagen was over on 19 December 2009. Undoubtedly, people will pay more attention to global warming and green life in the future. Enhancing protection of ecology is a key point in future development of world bicycle industry. Bicycle industry in Taiwan has complete upper, middle and...
July 2011
Relationship between leadership behaviors and task performance: The mediation role of job satisfaction and the moderation role of social distance
The 15th Conference of the Parties (COP) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Copenhagen was over on 19 December 2009. Undoubtedly, people will pay more attention to global warming and green life in the future. Enhancing protection of ecology is a key point in future development of world bicycle industry. Bicycle industry in Taiwan has complete upper, middle and...
July 2011
Enhancing performance through merger and acquisition or strategic alliances? In knowledge innovation based
This paper investigates the relationships among merger and acquisition (M&A), strategic alliances and organizational performance. This paper compares the influences of M&A and strategic alliances from 1993 to 2008 on both stock price and trading volumes of underlying stock around the announcement date on Taiwan stock market. The empirical results indicate a strong relationship...
July 2011
The trend and growth implications of bank recapitalization in Nigeria
One of the major macroeconomic variables that compliment bank performances is availability of capital. Economic theories show that inadequate capital contributes to bank failures and retards economic growth. This study however, examined the trend and the growth implications of bank capitalization in Nigeria. The secondary data used for the study were processed using sample test technique for difference...
July 2011
Achieving green outsourcing performance in uncertainty
The international business environments advocate green outsourcing performance (GOP) as fundamental enablers and criteria for the competitiveness of original equipment manufacturing (OEM) firms. Few studies providing integrated competitive advantages, enablers and criteria (called measures), exist, and are suitable for practical adoption to enhance GOP. This study presents an original approach to identify the...
July 2011
An Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) evaluation of the statistical adequacy of the strategic management model
This paper attempts to confirm the adequacy of the strategic management model using the structural equation modeling (SEM) method. The model adopted the resource-based view (RBV) approach to identify competitive strength. The RBV method states that organizations with the right resources coupled with the appropriate management skills and capabilities will develop competitive strength and organizational...
July 2011
Evaluating administrative service quality of elementary schools: A case study of a remote rural area in Taiwan
The main purpose of this paper is to use the importance-performance analysis (IPA) approach to empirically evaluate the administrative service quality (ASQ) of elementary schools based upon the teachers’ perspective at a remote rural area in Taiwan. At first, the fifty preliminary ASQs of elementary schools are summarized to design a questionnaire. Then, the IPA approach in conjunction...
July 2011
Assimilating entrepreneurial orientation and market orientation dimensions in the context of women-owned small and medium sized businesses
Contemporary research exemplifies that an investment in employing an entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and market orientation (MO) strategies will assist small and medium sized businesses owned by women (WSMBs) in gaining success not only in short-term but over the longer period of time as well. Despite the significance of acquiring EO and MO to rejuvenate business performance, the distribution of EO and MO in literature...
July 2011
A profitability study on the Malaysian futures markets using a new adjustable technical analysis indicator, Adjustable Bands Z-test-statistics' (ABZ')
Financial markets all over the world generally exist in 2 conditions: trending and ranging. One of the most frustrating issues confronting market technicians daily is the critical definition when market is ranging and when the market is trending. Applying a trending algorithm to a ranging market will result in whipsaws that yield losses. To avoid some of these false entry signals, this research proposed to...
July 2011
The economic and logistic benefits of online business registration for Congolese immigrants in Cape Town
Computer has revolutionalised the ways businesses are conducted across the globe and brought about the business to business (B2B) e-commerce revolution, which accelerated the process of globalisation. B2B e-commerce has been adopted in the Europe (EU), United States of America (USA), India, New Zealand and South Africa (SA) to enhance business registration and promotions. However, this development is...
July 2011
Large shareholders, capital structure and diversification of Malaysian public listed manufacturing firms
The study examines the interaction effects of large shareholders, capital structure and diversification on a firm’s value. The findings show that diversification is non-linearly related to a firm’s value. At the lower levels of diversifications, increased diversification is found to improve firm value. However, as the number of diversifications increased, it induces a negative impact on the...
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