September 2011
Developing Africa: Trade barriers, liberalization and inequality in the World Trade Organisation
In terms of General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade (GATT) principles and the efforts of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), nations have been urged to eliminate or reduce trade barriers. Yet the inequality in the global trading regime has had an impact on developing countries. The majority of WTO members are developing countries, mostly from Africa. This article contributes to the debate on whether trade liberalization...
September 2011
The 2008 financial crisis: A moral crisis of capitalism
Both success and failure of free market economy could be explained through its understanding of human nature. Its great success in production comes from its principles based on “self-interested” human nature driven by animal souls and egoistic desires. The system achieves higher productivity by providing many incentives to motivate people whose goals are to maximize their interests. On the other hand, the...
September 2011
Effects of oil prices on net private saving gap: 2001 crisis in Turkey
After the liberalization of capital account in 1989 in Turkey, speculative capital inflows have significantly come for the higher interest rates induced by incremental budget deficits in Turkey. While the budget standing has got closer to balance, current account deficit problem has kept its agenda. Thus, a new potential determinant of current account, namely the gap between private savings and investment is proposed...
September 2011
Developing a public policy analytical operational model based on stakeholder identification and salience typology
The objective of this study is to develop an operational model for analysing public policy based on the typology of stakeholders. This typology, which categorised stakeholders into seven types on the basis of three stakeholder attributes (power, legitimacy and urgency), provided a useful conceptual definition and categorisation of stakeholders, but it failed to provide a practical framework for subsequent development of...
September 2011
A study of cosmetic bundle by utilizing a fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to determine preference of product attributers toward customer value
Determining the preferences of product attributes for customer value is a crucial issue driven by multiple requirements on the customers. However, arising from mental and psychological phenomena factors, people’s judgments on the importance of customer requirements is imprecise and vague. The fuzzy analysis hierarchy process (FAHP) with an extent analysis is utilized to determine preferences toward...
September 2011
The effects of environmental dynamism and team strain on product innovation: The moderating role of perceived diversity climate
Rapid changes in the technological environment have significantly increased the strain experienced by NPD teams, particularly with regards to developing innovative products that meet both technology and market demands. This study argues that environmental dynamism positively influences the level of team strain but negatively influences product innovation. Moreover, this study further argues that the effect of team...
September 2011
Factors determining growth of companies: A study on construction companies in Malaysia
Most firms in general have multiple objectives aimed to sustain and succeed in their business. In the short term, firms pay more attention to profit maximization. For the long term however, profit is no longer the prime focus because one of the objectives which may dominate the management of a firm is its growth. The objectives of this paper are to establish factors determining growth of construction companies in...
September 2011
Equilibrium analysis and Pareto improvement of a supply chain under revenue sharing contract with consignment and slotting allowances
Revenue sharing contract with consignment is prevalent in internet commerce, video rental, vending machine, and used-book merchandising. Under such a contract, the study models the decision-making of a supply channel with one manufacturer and one retailer as a Stackelberg game. The retailer, acting as the leader, offers the manufacturer a revenue sharing contract, which specifies the percentage allocation of revenue...
September 2011
Information transparency and corporate financing decision: Testing the pecking order theory
This research is mainly to study the impact of corporate information transparency on corporate financing decision. The “information disclosure and transparency ranking” survey results by the Securities and Futures Institute (SFI) were incorporated into the regression models to test the pecking order theory. The assumption was that information disclosure would lead to higher transparency, and in turn, higher...
September 2011
Efficiency and productivity of the Chinese railway system: Application of a multi-stage framework
This paper models railway operation into three processes: The production process (output/input), the consumption process (consumption/output), and the earnings process (earnings/consumption), making a unified multi-stage framework to measure the performance of Chinese railway bureaus from 1999 to 2008. Firstly, data envelopment analysis (DEA) model is employed to evaluate production efficiency, consumption...
September 2011
Evaluating the difference in employee engagement before and after business and cultural transformation interventions
Levels of engagement within an organization can have substantial and measurable impacts upon the outputs of an organization. The objective of this exploratory study was to establish, the difference between employee engagement before and after a business and culture transformation intervention in the workplace. The participants of an IT firm represented all employee levels in the organization. A pre-intervention and...
September 2011
Brazil’s image as a social representation process
The image people have regarding products’ countries of origin can influence their attitudes toward these products or brands. The aim of the present study is to analyze Brazil’s image in light of the social representation theory, considering the process of objectivation. In the literature review, concepts such as perception, projection, social representation and countries’ images were issued, in order...
September 2011
Assessing the Europeanisation of Turkey domestic politics: To what extent has candidate status transformed the military control over civilian rule in Turkey?
The relationship between the European Union (EU) and Turkey can go back to 1963, the Ankara Agreement, aiming the accession of Turkey to the European Economic Community. For more than two decades after 1963, Turkish political life has been very unstable and interrupted with military interventions. In 1987, Turkey applied for the full EU membership and a candidacy status was granted to her in 1999, in Helsinki Summit....
September 2011
Sustainability-based knowledge management performance evaluation system (SKMPES): Linking the higher learning institutes with the bottom billions
Knowledge has become one of the most invaluable resources to the organizations and their main source of sustainable competitive advantage; hence, more and more knowledge management (KM) systems and approaches are undertaken by organizations. Yet, possessing knowledge management systems and approaches alone will not guarantee organizational success. It is crucial to monitor KM practices and evaluate the performance of KM...
September 2011
Improving quality and productivity at an automotive component manufacturing organisation in Durban - South Africa
The manufacturing sector is considered to be an important industry in any country and is often plagued with a significant degree of competition. In order to cope with this competition, organisations attempt to improve their manufacturing operations by using different tools and techniques to reduce costs and improve profits. This study investigated the existing lean manufacturing tool of an automotive organisation in...
September 2011
The influence of market orientation on the commitment, trust and relational norms in the education context
Organisations are forming partnerships to enhance their capabilities to improve product quality, innovation, and market research. Researchers and managers have recognized the potential synergy in a partnership regardless of the types of relationship. The main objective of this paper is to determine the influence of market orientation on the trust-commitment-relational norms model of relationship marketing in the higher...
September 2011
Measuring Dhaka stock exchange market efficiency: A stochastic frontier analysis
This study measures the status of technical efficiency of companies in Dhaka stock exchange (DSE) for panel data using the stochastic frontier production function, incorporating technical inefficiency effect model. For this study, we used the data collected from DSE market consisting 94 companies in Bangladesh for the period of 2000 to 2008. It was observed that the inefficiency increased over the reference period and...
September 2011
The effects of environmental uncertainty and budgetary control effectiveness on propensity to create budgetary slack in public sector
This study examines the relationship among environmental uncertainty, effectiveness of budgetary control and propensity to create budgetary slack in public organizations. For this purpose, the data collected from 460 public organizations’ managers via questionnaire. Results of analyses show that negative and statistically significant relationship is found between environmental uncertainty and effectiveness of...
September 2011
The value chain of citizen relationship management (CzRM): A framework for improvement
Nowadays governments have recognized the need to improve their relationship with citizens, and to put citizens’ needs at the center of government thinking. Citizen relationship management (CzRM) is derived from the commercial concept customer relationship management (CRM). In this paper, the value chain model of CzRM is proposed, which combines a set of functionalities obtained from CRM and good governance...
September 2011
The relationship between business model and performance of manufacturing small and medium enterprises in Malaysia
Business performance has been researched previously in relation to entrepreneurial orientation, market orientation, business strategy or strategic planning, and the characteristics of the owners/managers themselves. Recent studies initiated that the firm’s business model plays significant roles in determining the firm’s performance. However, not much has been done looking at the relationship between business...
September 2011
Level of knowledge in personal finance by university freshmen business students
The objective of the study was to determine how well recent senior high school graduates understand basic consumer financial concepts and to ascertain those financial topics for which a significant proportion of students admit to not having knowledge. The sample for this research consisted of first-year degree students with a business major at the University of Cape Coast. There were 343 out of 613 business-major...
September 2011
Institutional shareholdings and corporate dividend policy in Pakistan
The present study investigates the impact of institutional ownership and growth opportunities on dividend policy based on the sample of 120 Listed Companies of Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE), Pakistan, during 2002 to 2007. The estimated results, using OLS and Tobit regression models, suggest that dividend payouts are positively affected by growth opportunities, proportion of shares held by insurance companies and...
September 2011
Financial performance in Taiwan’s ISO14001 environmental management systems (EMS)
Numerous empirical studies have examined how voluntary environmental adoption and financial performance are related in enterprises from industrialized countries; little attention has been paid to Taiwanese enterprises. This work empirically explores how ISO14001 environmental management systems (EMS) influences the financial performance of Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE) and over the counter (OTC) listed adopted companies...
September 2011
Forecasting general insurance loss reserves in Egypt
Loss reserve is one of the most important indicators that have many important and strategic decisions applications, such as rate making decisions, underwriting decisions, investment decision and corporate planning. The aim of this study is to identify the reliable time series forecasting model to forecast loss reserve estimates of Egyptian general insurance companies. Exponential smoothing model, Box-Jenkins analysis...
September 2011
Organizational knowledge management capabilities and knowledge management success (KMS) in small and medium enterprises (SMEs)
To date, organizational knowledge capabilities for implementing knowledge management in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have not been analytically examined. Previous studies have observed such capabilities from large businesses’ standpoint and have not measured the organizational knowledge capabilities’ requirements of SMEs. Secondly, there is lack of such studies in developing economies. The present...
September 2011
Analyzing business management and technology characteristics of small and medium sized architectural design firms in Turkey
Globalization affects the way business is conducted. The worldwide openness of the markets creates both opportunities and threats for local companies. To survive and prosper in the new economic system, companies will need to develop new strategies. Therefore, analyzing the business and technology characteristics of small to medium size firms is critical in order to develop strategies to facilitate their integration to...
September 2011
Factors affecting the intention to use Facebook to support problem-based learning among employees in a Taiwanese manufacturing company
This study offers an approach for understanding factors influencing employees’ acceptance and usage of Facebook as an assisted learning tool in Problem-based Learning (PBL). Based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), the objectives of this study are to explore behavioral intention and the factors (perceived usefulness (PU), perceived ease of use (PEU), social influence (SI), perceived enjoyment (PE),...
September 2011
Effects of gender on credit card usage among university students in Turkey
In recent years, much has been written about credit card usage among university students. Despite a vast number of studies, little has been written about credit card usage among university students in developing countries. This research surveyed university students in Turkey in an attempt to understand their uses of credit cards. In particular, we examined the impact of gender on credit card use. The literature on the...
September 2011
The process of formation of manufacturing in small and medium-sized enterprises in Iran
This paper investigate the process of formation of manufacturing strategy in six Iran manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Realized manufacturing strategy can be considered to be the pattern formed in the stream of actions taken within a firm’s manufacturing function. The research aims to locate the source of that stream by identifying the causal origins of strategic manufacturing actions using...
September 2011
Consumer decision-making styles: A comparison of traditional and new-type 3C malls between China and Taiwan
This paper aims to explore the differences between consumer decision-making styles (CDS) in the traditional and new-type 3C malls for cross regions (China, Taiwan) and consumers with different genders. The results indicated that the CDS of consumers purchasing 3C products varies between regions, types of malls and genders, and it shows both utilitarian and hedonic shopping styles. The practical management implications...
September 2011
Developing protototype of the nursing management information system in Puskesmas and hospital, Depok Indonesia
Communicable diseases and children’s malnutrition are of significant health concerns in Indonesia. Some obstacles of overcoming these health problems are ranging from the lack of health promotion and disease prevention, inadequate early warning system, delayed case finding, and lack of collaboration between hospital and Puskesmas in the continuation of case management. These conditions...
September 2011
An analysis of Taiwanese meat demand within domestic and imported upon entering into World Trade Organization (WTO)
For the meat demand within domestic and imported upon entering into World Trade Organization (WTO) analysis, the almost ideal demand system (AIDS) model is utilized. The empirical results show that: domestic pork was the primary choice of Taiwanese (50.14%) among the meat items; seasons have significant effect on meat consumption; Reaction of Taiwanese were sensitive for domestic pork, domestic...
September 2011
Impact of competition on telecom sector’s performance: A case study of Pakistan
This paper empirically investigates the impact of competition on the performance of telecommunication sector in Pakistan using quarterly data for the period from 1999 Q1 to 2006 Q4. In this study, performance of telecom sector (Y) is taken as dependent variable which is explained by the factors such as teledensity, number of public call offices (PCOs) per capita, number of internet connections per capita, number of...
September 2011
Improving company credit ratings by reinforcing the quality of independent directors
The independent, director-related, provisions of Taiwan’s Securities Exchange Act of 2006 was stipulated in an effort to enhance supervision efficiency and strengthen internal governance through the independence and expertise of independent directors. However, it has not been determined whether the academic expertise, professional experience, and competence of independent directors can enhance supervision...
September 2011
Financial power analysis of countries: Transmitters (adsorbents), setters and unresistants
In this study, it has been intended to conduct a performance evaluation of several countries throughout the world with respect to the ongoing process of financial integration. The initially determined 14 variables pertaining to the analyzed countries have been separated into various independent factors by the assistance of principal components analysis. The correlations among these interdependent variables within the...
September 2011
Public transport monitoring with route and dispatch management system
Nowadays, the operating scales of the public transport providers can hardly meet the market demand because of the fast expanding volume of intercity passengers, the laggard bus dispatches and proper route management systems. From the societal perspective, this paper, under the framework of a public transit network with bus service providers and users, presents an integrated busses network management system with poles...
September 2011
Perceived benefits and barriers to export involvement: Insights from non-exporters
Many governments have in place measures aimed at stimulating many of their firms to get involved in exporting. This paper aimed at investigating perceived benefits of and barriers to exporting among small and medium sized non-exporting firms in Malawi. An investigation was also made into the extent to which managers regarded the achievement of some common business goals as important to their firms. Data was collected...
September 2011
Assessment of cluster potential and decision making criterion in the textile and apparel sector using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)
In this study, the potential of specific-sector clustering and the relevant decision-making criteria are identified for 10 provinces of Turkey based on the clustering approach and using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and through one-to-one interviews and surveys administered on 2,327 firms active in the textile and apparel sector. When identifying this potential, the clustering tendencies of companies with...
September 2011
Determinants of green innovation adoption for small and medium-size enterprises (SMES)
The main purpose of this paper is to develop a model that analyzes factors influencing the adoption of green innovations for the small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs). From the perspective of technical innovation, the determinant factors consist of technological, organizational and environmental dimensions. A questionnaire survey on small and medium-size enterprises was conducted to test proposed research hypotheses....
September 2011
Mapping knowledge management authoring patterns and practices
This paper examines the literature on knowledge management (KM) in order to identify the typical authoring patterns and the focus of the content of published research. The study explores the argument that the inter-organizational level of analysis is explored less frequently than the intra-organizational level. The article reports on KM researchers and practices based on evidence from six journals ranked in the journal...
September 2011
Corporate governance issues and director compensation structure in Spanish companies
The absence or failure of some mechanisms of corporate governance facilitates to board members on the possibility of establishing a reward system more suitable to their own personal interests rather than to those of investors. Nowadays, this problem has intensified the lack of investors confidence in the members of the board of directors, whose payment levels have been criticized, especially over the last few years. In...
September 2011
The role of supply and demand analysis in substantiating the company’s business policies
This paper develops the concept that we called the theory of markets polarity, as a central element of business approach. As a theory, markets polarity proves that market develop in an unitary way irrespective of their analysis and approach level, whether it is the extent level (their capacity), the level of structure, functionality or the level of markets evolution and dynamics. In other words, any alteration of...
September 2011
An analysis of the interactive behaviors of self-learning management in a web-based Moodle e-learning platform
This study adopted quasi-experiments and semi-structure interviews to investigate students’ interactive behaviors in a situated internet-assisted learning environment. Forty senior university students participated in the study after taking a three-hour introductory energy course each week for 18 weeks with web-based cooperative learning at a Moodle learning platform. It was found that 62% of the students who have...
September 2011
The relationship between effectiveness of quality management and total factor productivity
In a large number of companies, quality management (QM) programs and standardization in the field of quality have not led to higher organizational efficiency or better performances; therefore, the goal of this work is to conduct empirical research into whether quality management factors serve as reliable and valid predictors of total factor productivity (TFP) and if so, how they influence it. The data were collected in...
September 2011
Investigation of policy and incentives on the industrial research and development in Turkey
Century are the information age, countries having advance science and technology (S and T) have continuously economic activity and competitiveness advantage. Catching this information age Turkiye, it is needed that high/advance technologies have to be used in order to catch sustainable economic growth, increase competitiveness power in international level, to get high exporting level for high/advance technologies...
September 2011
Administering social issues in Malaysia: An application of social management system
This paper discusses the need for social scientists to not only react to events, but to follow a four-step model to ensure the effectiveness of their roles. The discussion centers around the case of the Rumah Panjang KTM, one of the most badly affected areas during the ethnic clash in Kampung Medan. Adopting the PINTAS model, it is imperative that concerned social scientists follow through a four-step model to achieve...
September 2011
Wealth creation through mass capital mobilization through a cooperative enterprise model: Some lessons for transplanting the Indian experience in South Africa
The Indian experience of mass capital mobilization through cooperative movement is well-known and laudable one. The model has been very successful in mitigating poverty across rural India. This study looks into the framework of capital mobilization and how it contributed to massive economic growth of rural India, with special focus on Gujarat and Maharashtra-two pioneering provinces in co-operativization strategy. The...
September 2011
The influence of the recession on major selection for undergraduate study programme
The paper addresses the important question of how potential students absorb and store data in order to make logical and rational decisions when choosing an undergraduate program and major, and what motivates them. Quantitative research using a survey was conducted for analyzing undergraduate program selection among students who completed high school education. Based on the research findings, a qualitative...
September 2011
The influence of quality management on orientation to innovation in service firms
This article demonstrates that a context characterized by cohesion, recognition, some degree of formalization, and decentralization can create a work climate that fosters innovation, enabling service firms to adapt better to their environment. The implementation of total quality management (TQM) also influences the variables in the model. The results show that cohesion, recognition, decentralization, and...
September 2011
Social support, overseas adjustments and work performance of foreign labors in Taiwan
The study uses social support as a dependent variable to explore the relationship among social support, overseas adjustment and work performance of the foreignlabours of high technology firms at export and processing zone in Taiwan. A questionnaire survey was used and, out of a total of 518 sent questionnaires, 213 valid ones were collected for data analysis. Findings are: 1) The higher the level of social support,...
September 2011
The influence of intellectual capital and marketing innovation strategies upon marketing performance: Taking Taiwan-listed life insurance firms as an example
This study is primarily aimed at examining the impact of intellectual capital and marketing innovation strategies of life insurance companies listed in Taiwan upon marketing performance. This study also implemented an empirical survey with convenience sampling and adopted structural equation modeling (SEM) including the structural model and measurement model to confirm goodness-of-fit of the overall model. The findings...
September 2011
Detecting firms with going-concern risk based on the industry affiliation, corporate governance characteristics, and financial performance
Detecting firms with going-concern risk is precisely critical to all financial professionals. The analytical features included three aspects: the industry domain, the corporate governance characteristics, and the financial performance. An enhanced two-step analytical approach was developed in this study. First, the multivariate analysis (MA) applied to explore influential factors affected the uncertain behaviors of a...
September 2011
Developing a model for evaluating and prioritizing of new product development strategies under fuzzy environment
In the varying and uncertain environmental desires of customers, companies can not produce their current products forever. They apply different strategies to keep themselves competitive and effective in this altering environment. In this regard one of the key strategies is development of new products. New product development is one of the risky activities and is vital for survival and success of organizations. This...
September 2011
Improvement of technology business incubators’ effectiveness: An explanatory model
Governments play a basic role in making policies, programs and instruments that support the development of micro, small and medium enterprises in both developed and developing countries. This paper intends to pinpoint the influencing factors in Technology Business Incubator’s effectiveness and their explanatory model. Therefore, among 56 Technology Business Incubators in Iran, 32 active incubators were...
September 2011
Examining the effect of participation in microcredit programs on assets owned by hardcore poor households in Malaysia
This study employs a cross-sectional design with quasi-experimental approach to examine how participation in microcredit schemes affects hardcore poor household’s assets. Assets tend to be more stable over time and it is a good indicator of economic well-being; therefore, this study measures the impact of Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia’s (AIM) microcredit schemes on assets owned by hardcore poor households in...
September 2011
Transportation problem of cross-docking network with three-dimensional trucks
A significant part of price of each product is related to distribution process. Therefore, by controlling this process, a good improvement will be observed in not only net profit of related company but also customer satisfaction. Cross-docking network is considered as a useful method for achieving to these goals. In this paper, transportation problem of cross-docking network is used in order to minimize the total cost...
September 2011
Research into the costs of vehicle exhaust gases from the standpoint of using natural gas-powered buses
This paper aims at analysing the costs of motor vehicle exhaust gases with particular reference to natural gas-powered buses in intercity passenger transport in the territory of the Republic of Serbia. For defining and forecasting transport demands, expressed in the number of vehicles per day at each section of the created multimodal transport network, Transtools application is used, specially adapted for the territory...
September 2011
Brand value and relationship performance in business markets: A cross cultural glance of business services
This study aimed to explore the casual relationship and structural equation modeling between the supplier competence with purchasing value, buyer satisfaction, switching cost, brand trust, brand loyalty, relationship quality, relationship commitment and transaction performance in the buyers of Arge Talaei International Company's Product (Seed Production). The statistical sample of this study consists of buyer...
September 2011
A methodology for the exploration of supply chain architecture
The Supply Chain Management (SCM) System and artificial intelligence (AI and AIv6), while practical in theory, have not until recently been considered practical. After years of key research into information retrieval systems, we validate the construction of scheme, which embodies the unfortunate principles of supply chain activities. OCSSOM, our new approach for inventory cache coherence, is the solution to all of these...
September 2011
Leadership behavior and subordinate effectiveness of Chinese hospitality: Mediating process of loyalty
Leaders play vital roles in hospitality. However, former studies made on leaders of domestic hospitality mainly verified the leadership theories developed by western scholars, without considering the potential problems possibly brought about by cultural differences. In view of this point, our study utilizes the paternalistic leadership, an indigenous leadership style in Chinese societies. This study explored the...
September 2011
Do behavioral characteristics influence the performance of industry-university alliances? Evidence from China
Although the literature on industry-university alliances has begun to identify the factors that influence the performance of alliances, it gives relatively little concern on the behavioral characteristics of firms. This paper seeks to explore the behavioral characteristics that affect the performance of industry-university alliances. By taking a sample of 136 Chinese firms, the results indicated that several behavioral...
September 2011
A new corporate credit scoring system using semi-supervised discriminant analysis
Corporate credit scoring is important for investors and banks in risk management. However, the high dimensional data available from public financial statements make credit analysis difficult. To address the problem, dimensionality reduction is a key step to enhance scoring accuracy. By using semi-supervised discriminant analysis (SSDA) and support vector machines (SVMs), this study develops a novel system for credit...
September 2011
Business key success factors in China and the West
The study researched business key success factors (KSFs) in China and the West. Researchers reviewed 30 prior studies related to business KSFs in China and 30 prior studies related to business KSFs in the West. In addition, one focus group and one individual depth interview were conducted to further investigate business KSFs in China. Six business KSFs divided into three levels according to their importance were...
September 2011
Expected retirement age: A determinant of financial planning preparation in Malaysia
This paper examined expected retirement age cohorts as a main determinant to financial planning preparation in Malaysia. A total of 600 questionnaires were distributed with a 55.0% return rate. Five hypotheses were analysed using hierarchical and stepwise regression analysis. The results revealed that expected retirement age cohort variables made significant contribution to financial planning preparation as well as...
September 2011
Cross market value-at-risk evaluations in emerging markets
This study investigated the importance of shock and volatility dynamic transmissions in cross-market hedging and market risk evaluations. A trivariate asymmetric time-varying model is used to reveal the hidden dynamics price changes and volatility correlations among the selected Southeast Asian emerging markets after the Asian financial crisis. The results indicated that the equity markets are sharing the common...
September 2011
E-government towards service co-creation of value
This paper reviews articles in e-governments models in order to determine the importance of service aspects on co-creation of value, discuss the key issues related to the foresight methods and collaboration of co-creation of value in e-governments planning. Finally, a foresight framework of e-government towards the ‘connected government’ involving service co-creation is proposed as an integral interaction...
September 2011
Exploring human resource (HR) account managers competency in semiconductor industry
Current competency research in Asia mostly aims at building competency models for a certain job, or studies the relationship between competency and personal / organizational performance. However, ambiguities exist for the definitions and measurements of competency, while the lack of “context” in the definition so as to distinguish competency from traditional job qualifications is a serious flaw. This study...
September 2011
Systemic factors moderating effective whistle blowing: An exploratory study into a public service organisation
A review of research concerning whistle-blowing suggests that it is of benefit to society; hence, sophisticated policies have been introduced to encourage whistle blowing. However, research on conditions that lead to whistle-blowers being effective in stopping wrongdoing is still developing in industrialised countries or woefully absent in developing and less developed countries. The purpose of this paper is to use...
September 2011
Designing three dimensional property right database for Turkey
Current cadastral systems are two dimensional. Therefore, three dimensional (3D) property rights and restrictions can not be registered and their legal status not fixed in these systems. The need for 3D information is increasing day by day in vertical grown up cities. The cadastre, which was used for proposing land tax at the first time, is defined as the geographical information systems (GIS) used for modelling between...
September 2011
Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis for farming system businesses management: Case of wheat farmers of Shadervan District, Shoushtar Township, Iran
Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis indicates a framework for helping the researchers or planners to identify and priorities the business's goals, and to further identifies the strategies of achieving them. SWOT analysis is a technique to analyze the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threats of business. In all countries, farming practices have vital role to food security....
September 2011
Operational performance and benchmarking: A case study of international tourist hotels in Taipei
Operational performance evaluation and process improvement in hotels have been the focus of several studies, a number of which have used Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to evaluate the operational performance of hotels in different destinations. This study sets out to evaluate the operational efficiency of twenty-three tourist hotels in Taipei over five years (2003 to 2007) using DEA models and the cross-efficiency...
September 2011
Estate appraisal as an example of social network analysis (SNA)
In the transition to an information society, a government structure that possesses integrated, efficient, transparent and simplified business processes is a basic principle. In line with this, providing interoperability within the public sector that encompasses not only corporations and organizations but also local administrations and identifying the necessary procedures and standards for this is of significant...
September 2011
A field study concerning the effects of economic crisis on international trading companies and the measures taken
Foreign trade companies are the driving force of the economies especially in developing countries. These companies are the ones most affected by the crises caused by both internal and external factors. Rapid worldwide spread of the 2008 global crisis has produced enormous successive effects on the countries’ foreign trade rates. Considering the fact that export is the core of development worldwide, and foreign...
September 2011
Moderating effects in relationship marketing: The roles of customer expertise and price orientation
This study explains a relationship marketing model in which relationship investment (RI) influences the relationship quality (RQ), which generates customer loyalty (CL) in the life insurance industry and explores the model’s moderating effects. This study uses structural equation modeling (SEM) to examine the moderating effects and proposes that the customer’s price orientation moderates the relationship...
September 2011
Short-termism, earnings and asset prices
This study examines a simple theory in which investors with short-termism behaviors to show the influence of short-termism on the relation between earnings, returns, and return volatility, and then we examine the empirical evidences from our theory. It first illustrates how asset prices may fluctuate more than the fundamental value when investors have short-termism behaviors. The result of excess asset price volatility...
September 2011
The mediating role of trust in the relationship between e-retailer quality and customer intention of online shopping
This study aims to explore the role of trust in the relationship between e-retailer quality and customer’s intention to shop online. System quality, information quality, and service quality were applied as e-retailer quality and antecedents to affect customer trust in e-retailer, and hence, intention to shop online was motivated. Data were gathered from a sample of 325 members of e-bookstore in Taiwan and was...
September 2011
Intangible advertising and its effect on consumer choice
This study examines a new concept, “intangible advertising,” in advertising theory. Unresolved questions on advertising effectiveness and obstacles such as, TV’s high costs make it important to study various factors defining and affecting intangible advertising. Accordingly, this study builds a comprehensive theoretical model explaining the effect of intangible advertising of brand on consumer choice....
September 2011
Effect of font size and appearance in left-digit price cognition
Research has indicated that changes in price endings can result in left digit effects (for example, $3.99 versus $4.00). In this study, we report on the effects of price font size and appeared model on a nine-ending price where the leftmost digit is changed. Cognition of comparative price can be magnified or weakened depending on such factors. First, when the same font size is used for the price or the size-value...
September 2011
Branding and packaging design: Key insights on marketing milk to low-income markets in South Africa
The low-income market is a viable and highly untapped market. There is increasing interest in the poor as a market in South Africa. Yet, little is known about their shopping behaviour in retail settings. The purpose of the study on which this article reports, was to gain an understanding of the effect of pricing, brand and packaging on choice preferences of pasteurised milk by consumers sharing a living standard...
September 2011
Innovation policy and successfulness of micro and small companies in the Republic of Slovenia
The purpose of our research is to examine the state of innovation policy and its influence on the successfulness of micro and small companies in the Republic of Slovenia. The effects of particular influential variables on the success and innovation policy (frequency of introduced changes, national co-financing, financial support initiatives, promote programs and innovation planning policy) were analysed empirically on...
September 2011
A study of brand attributes: Cross-industries and implications
This study examined the model of brand attributes proposed by Keller (1993). Higher-order confirmatory factor analysis (HCFA) was utilized to confirm each dimension of brand attributes and examine measurement properties. A survey was conducted by both paper-based and online questionnaire. Levi jeans and Nokia cell phones are the two product categories. Reliability and factor analyses show that brand attributes can be...
September 2011
Can earnings’ management be a tool to affect the accuracy of earnings’ forecasts? Evidence from Taiwan
This study sets out to investigate the determinants of the accuracy of focusing primarily on earnings management whilst also effectively controlling the two major bias problems – sample-selection bias and self-selection bias – through the econometric model developed specifically for this study. Our results indicate that managers tend to engage in earnings management as a means of improving the apparent...
September 2011
Multi-dimensional leadership orientation and lecturers' work commitment: A mediating effect in leadership effectiveness among Malaysian polytechnic’s heads of department
The purpose of this study was to determine if Malaysian polytechnic’s heads of department multi-dimensional leadership orientation effects the lecturer work commitment, and a mediating effects in leadership effectiveness as perceived by the lecturers. The department heads leadership orientation was determined by the structural, human resource, political, cultural, and educational frame used based on Bolman and...
September 2011
Toward a framework of determinants of financial management and financial problems among university students
This study examines the effect of financial socialization, financial knowledge, financial attitude, and socialization agents on predicting financial management among college students. The sample comprised 2,430 students in six public and five private universities across Malaysia, which were randomly selected for the study. A self-administered questionnaire was used as the data collection method. The results indicate...
September 2011
Comparing sericulture extension models for silkworm cocoon production management in Iran
This study compares sericulture extension models from the views of extension agents and sericulturists for silkworm cocoon production management in Iran. To achieve this aim, 316 sericulturists were selected through stratified random sampling technique and 58 sericulture extension agents were studied by census. Research methodology applied in this study was a combination of...
September 2011
Are responsible tourism indicators in the event sector applicable? The case study of Gauteng province, South Africa
Tourism policies and guidelines have been created by public sector and industry organisations around the world. In South Africa the government has indicated that sustainable and responsible tourism is the key to the future development of the industry. The tourism industry is multi-sectoral and the event sector is a new and popular research field. Sustainable tourism indicators have been used by numerous researchers and...
September 2011
Using the online environment as a strategic tool in social communication campaigns: A case study regarding school dropout prevention programs in Romania
This study focuses on the influence of four attributes of website credibility, trust, expertise, design and promotion, on consumers’ perception regarding online dropout prevention campaigns. Using a total sample of 296 subjects, the study develops a multiple regression model to test the availability of families, with medium to high incomes, to financially sustain poor children in Romania to attend school....
September 2011
Relationship between leadership personality types and source of power and leadership styles among managers
The aim of this study is to indentify the relationship between power style, personality dimension and Leadership style. The sample of this study consists of 300 respondents from six selected company and were chosen by using simple random sampling. Quantitative method was used in this study and the data was collected by using questionnaire which consist of the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQx5), Rahim Power...
September 2011
Present and future value formulae for uneven cash flow based on performance of a business
Business firm's income is not constant or fixed from period to period. Because of this, a firm’s cash inflow or out flow is uneven. The decision of a firm either to invest or to borrow from creditors based on uneven cash in-flow need to have a future or a present value prediction formula. The problem to find future and present value formulae for uneven cash flow stayed unsolved for long period of time (Pandey,...
September 2011
Exchange rate volatility and stock returns for the U.S.
This study attempted to examine the effects of exchange rate volatility, using the squared residuals from the autoregressive moving average (ARMA) models, on stock returns for the U.S. for the period 1980 to 2008. Even though the core variable was exchange rate volatility, this article used several other explanatory variables to explain changes in the stock returns for the U.S. This paper found that exchange rate...
September 2011
Knowledge transfer and innovation performance of competitive knowledge communities: Case of a high-tech firm in Taiwan
This paper reported a practice on innovations attained through knowledge transfer in knowledge communities of a high-tech enterprise. In this case, leaders in advanced semiconductor packaging and testing technologies drove knowledge communities according to the company’s core abilities and organization learning strategies. Their remarkable practical knowing could be a paradigm for other high-tech companies. This...
September 2011
The impact of administration efficiency on financial reporting quality (FRQ) in small sized companies listed in the Tehran Stock Exchange: Evidence from Iran
In this study, the effect of administration efficiency (AE) on financial reporting quality (FRQ) in small size companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchanges (TSE) has been surveyed in order to evaluate financial reporting quality used from the expected cash flow from operations. To this end, we chose 80 firms (as example) from companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchanges during the period 2001 to 2008. To test the...
September 2011
Firm entrepreneurial orientation and knowledge/networking of agro-based enterprises in Malaysia: The role of technology and strategy
Resurgence in agricultural-based sectors in Malaysia has recently prompted this study to explore the multi-dimensional entrepreneurial orientation (EO) relationship to knowledge and networking among the Malaysian Bumiputera small and medium agro-based enterprises (BSMAEs). The moderating role of technology and strategy on EO-knowledge-network relationship prompted some interesting findings. Based on 615 observations of...
September 2011
Hierarchical structuring success factors of project stakeholder management in the construction organization
Stakeholder management is essential for project success. Previous studies have explored project stakeholder management process and the success factors while the practice is unsatisfactory. Few have further explored the interrelationships of the success factors, which is obstructive to the in-depth understanding of project stakeholder management. This paper employs interpretative structural modeling (ISM) to develop the...
September 2011
An application of a women-oriented agro-tourism rural development model in improving local economy
The people who reside in rural areas and live on agriculture make up the majority of the poor, and poverty is a phenomenon mainly experienced by women. In this context, tourism and agriculture are sectors that best complement each other, and the interaction between them has pushed agro-tourism to the forefront. The primary locomotives of this type of tourism are women. In this study, the importance of agro-tourism as a...
September 2011
Conceptual model for relationship between earning quality and cost of capital
In this study the relationships between cost of capital and six dimensions of earning quality are evaluated. Furthermore, we provide a conceptual model based on these relationships. Six dimensions of earning quality based on accounting information include, “Accrual quality ", " Earning variability", "Optional accrual items", "Common factor", "Earning predictability" and...
September 2011
Factors influencing the utilization of financial facilities for under pressure irrigation system
The major purpose of this study was to determine factors influencing the utilization of financial facilities provided for under pressure irrigation system by farmers. The total population for this study was 250 participants who adopted the under pressure irrigation systems and 100 respondents were selected by using random sampling methods. The result indicates that 45% of the variance in the perception of respondents...
September 2011
Effects of discount retraction on consumers’ subsequent brand choice: Moderating role of discount size
This article extends existing research on the effect of discount retraction on consumers’ subsequent brand choices by also including a new key moderator variable: discount size. The results indicate that as far as moderate discounts are concerned, the phenomenon of price salience is apparent. When high- or low-level discounts are introduced, the phenomenon of price salience is not significant and discount...
September 2011
Optimum channel strategy for air ticketing
This paper focuses on air ticketing in a duopoly market. The games with three different channel structures, including the integrated structure (selling tickets through company channels), common franchisee structure (selling tickets through a common franchisee), and decentralized franchisee structure (selling tickets through different franchisees), are modeled to explore the optimum channel strategy for airline companies...
September 2011
Microcredit’s contribution to the socio-economic development amongst rural women: A case study of Panchagarh District in Bangladesh
Rural women in Bangladesh have a lower socio-economic status compared to men. They have very limited access to income generating as well as social activities due to number of social, cultural and religious barriers. Thus, microcredit programme is intended for improving the socio-economic status of rural women in Bangladesh. In the present study, an attempt has been made to assess how microcredit programme contributes to...
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