January 2012
The role of human resource development practitioners in solving ethical concerns in mentoring
There are many benefits of mentoring relationships which were documented in previous researches. These mentoring relationships however, may become dysfunctional. In this paper, some of the common ethical issues in the mentoring process which are grouped into three related classes namely: power, access and cultural replication were considered. They are considered in terms of how human resource development (HRD) can take...
January 2012
The impact of green learning orientation on proactive environmental innovation capability and firm performance
Previous studies have devoted significant attention to exploring the impact of organizational learning on innovation capability and performance. However, few studies have investigated the specific outcomes concerning green innovation or environmental management. This study attempts to fill the existing research gap by proposing a novel construct - green learning orientation - and providing a research framework to...
January 2012
The relative reality of accounting for web-based transactions
This paper explores the accounting methods used for web-based sales transactions in multiple cases in South Africa. Exploratory descriptive research is warranted, as little research had been done on the accounting of sales and web-based sales transactions. Information was gathered using structured interviews, transaction trail data collected from web-based transactions and a content analysis of the websites of the cases...
January 2012
Should inter-organizational relationships in agribusiness be guided by consumer or by stakeholders?
The importance of the Stakeholders Theory as an emerging concept for organizations, in relation to consumers, is presented. There is a wide interdependence between the commodity system approach (CSA), filière, alliance and network approaches in relation to the theoretical domain of stakeholders. The objective of this article is to propose a framework including the Stakeholders Theory in the...
January 2012
Governance and income determinants of poverty reduction: A cross-country analysis of Sub-Saharan African countries
This paper using cross-sectional data on 39 Sub-Saharan African countries examines how political and economic governance affect the most recent data on poverty for the period of 2000 – 2007. For this period, the paper finds that the average percentages of population living on less than $1.25 a day and on less than $2.00 a day are 50 and 70, respectively in Sub-Saharan Africa. It finds that these percentages can be...
January 2012
Strategic planning for computer science security of networks and systems in SMEs
The strategic planning adapted in the computer science security is observed in many senses as a military strategy, which takes advantage of their forces to operate the vulnerabilities of the organizations, attackers or competitors. The need of the companies and organizations to continuously be adapting against the technological changes of the computer science takes to formulated key questions: what type of security and...
January 2012
Inventory model with stock dependent selling rate
After studying the maximization of the profit of an inventory model where the selling rate is dependent on stock, we generalized the demand from a ramp type demand to an arbitrary positive demand and then examined the solution structure to locate the optimal solution. Our findings are an extension of several previous papers. Consequently, we can provide a reasonable explanation for the unsolved phenomenon that appears...
January 2012
Comparing the efficiency of Islamic versus conventional banking: through data envelopment analysis (DEA) model
The purpose of this study is to compare the efficiency of Islamic banks and conventional banks under loan base approach and income base approach. Also, it aims to investigate the economies of scales for both banking streams. Further, we investigated the effect of banks specific factors on efficiency, like size of banks, total liabilities of banks, total profit of banks, total markup revenue, total non-markup revenue,...
January 2012
Relational capital and performance of tea manufacturing firms
The focus of this article is to examine the impact of relational capital components on the performance of tea manufacturing firms in Uganda. It aims at disclosing the composition of relational capital components that associate with performance. A study was carried out on 59 managers representing 17 tea manufacturing firms in Uganda. A correlation matrix and multiple regression models were used to test the...
January 2012
The effect of life cycles on diversification of financing sources for SMEs: Evidence from Argentina
We examined the effects of life cycle approaches on the capital structure of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and tested the implications of these approaches using a sample of firms from Bahia Blanca (Argentina). We analysed the relationships between the diversification of financing sources and a set of variables from models of the financial growth cycle, the life-cycle of the owner-manager, and the life-cycle of the...
January 2012
Rural entrepreneurship in the Western Cape: Challenges and opportunities
Rural entrepreneurs in the Western Cape Province of South Africa were surveyed in order to explore the challenges and opportunities that they are facing. The methodology used in this study involved a combination of quantitative and descriptive research. The study consisted of a sample of 160 rural entrepreneurs. Based on the results of the study, rural entrepreneurs in the Western Cape still face challenges such as lack...
January 2012
Factors affecting instructors’ willingness and expectation of future participation in farmer internet literacy training
This study explores temporary instructor’s willingness and performance expectation of future participation in Farmers internet literacy training (FILT). Specifically, the relationships among enthusiasm for teaching, teaching performance, and self-efficacy of temporary instructors hired to teach in FILT are examined. The study investigated 80 valid samples. The study results, based on temporary instructors’...
January 2012
The impact of government spending on poverty reduction: Evidence from Pakistan 1972 to 2008
This study aims at assessing the impact of government spending in various sectors of the economy on poverty reduction. Time series annual data for the period 1972 to 2008 has been used for analyzing the long-run impact of government spending in education, health, economic and community services, budget deficit and law and order on poverty reduction by using recent econometric development. The results show that...
January 2012
Taxonomy of cost of quality (COQ) across the enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation phases
Companies declare that quality or customer satisfaction is their top priority in order to keep and attract more business in an increasingly competitive marketplace. The cost of quality (COQ) is a tool which can help determine the optimal level of quality investment. COQ analysis enables organizations to identify measure and control the consequences of poor quality. This study attempts to identify the COQ elements across...
January 2012
Fuzzy automata based on Atanassov fuzzy sets and applications on consumers’ advertising involvement
Fuzzy automata are regarded as an important device in fuzzy systems due to the advantage of powerful mathematical computation. This dynamic machine has been applied in various fields, such as pattern recognition, controller design, etc. However, most of the applications pertain to the engineering. Considering higher-order sets with imprecision, this paper makes use of Atanassov fuzzy sets and proposes the Atanassov...
January 2012
Determination of manufacturing strategy using interpretive structural modeling
The interpretive structural modeling (ISM) methodology was applied as a tool for determination of optimal manufacturing strategy. For this purpose, a group of experts who had agreement to each other in their objectives and decisions about manufacturing strategy determination was selected and an algorithm containing seven steps was proposed. In the first step, improvable manufacturing capabilities of company (elements)...
January 2012
Long memory, structural breaks and mean shifts in the inflation rates in Nigeria
This paper deals with the analysis of the inflation rate in Nigeria. We use long range dependence techniques based on fractional integration or I(d) models, incorporating structural breaks in the model. The results indicate that inflation in Nigeria displays long memory behaviour, with an order of integration of about 0.3 in spite of the existence of breaks at different periods. Including the growth rate of money (M1)...
January 2012
Real estate investment in seismically active regions: Feasibility assessment and decision making
Lots of major cities worldwide are located in the seismically active regions. Due to natural disasters, the profits of real estate investment in these regions may be corroded. This study proposed a reliability-based decision making process for real estate investment in seismically active regions. Based on the Monte Carlosimulation technique with net present value (NPV)...
January 2012
Research on the procedure joint process and synthesized performance evaluation of logistics service supply chain
The study of the procedure joint process of logistics service supply chain (LSSC) can help evaluate the synthesized performance scientifically as well as understand the coordination process systematically from microcosmic viewpoint. This paper systematically analyzes the three aspects of the joint procedure, namely: before, during, and after. Before the procedure joint, the paper investigates four essential mechanism...
January 2012
Employees’ adjustment in the car industry: The case of Iran
Employees’ adjustment to person-environment (P-E) fit continues to be a major concern for many organizations and countries, particularly in developing ones. This interview study examines the reasons behind 29 employees’ maladjustment to the work environment of the Center for Researches and Innovation of the second biggest car industry in Iran. The results show that high and unrealistic expectations of the...
January 2012
Investigating the effects of information technology on the capabilities and performance of the supply chain of dairy companies in Fars province: A multiple case study
Nowadays all organizations are somehow exposed to information technology revolutions and the applicable aspects of information technology are evident in all supply fields from the relationship with suppliers and producers to the relationship with the customers. In other words, the application of information technology is influential in the improvement of the supply chain. In this study, the effect of information...
January 2012
The factors causing failure of foreign enterprises resource planning (ERP) systems in Pakistan
The purpose of this paper is to examine the causes and reasons of failure of foreign enterprises resource planning (ERP) system’s adoption in Pakistan. ERP integrates all the resources (hardware, software, man power, product and process) of an organization and provides a link to each department for smooth flow of data, information, knowledge, resulting in increased productivity and efficient processes. The paper...
January 2012
Software release planning challenges in software development: An empirical study
Software development is a complicated process and requires careful planning to produce high quality software. In large software development projects, release planning may involve a lot of unique challenges. Due to time, budget and some other constraints, potentially there are many problems that may possibly occur. Subsequently, project managers have been trying to identify and understand release planning, challenges and...
January 2012
Retail sales forecast analysis of general hospitals in Daejeon, Korea, using the Huff model
This paper seeks to develop a sales estimation model to forecast the demand for general hospitals in small and medium-sized cities. We focus on deriving the parameter λ in the Huff model, which is used in sales forecasting. When opening new hospitals in cities, actual sales can be calculated on the basis of a demand forecast. Currently, many researchers in Korea use the Huff model to estimate the sales of retail...
January 2012
What determines leverage in Pakistan? A panel data analysis
Most of the chemical sector firms in Pakistan have foreign ownership or collaboration with foreign companies. It may be hypothesized that the leverage behavior of such firms is likely to be in line with the results of international studies of leverage generally carried out in developed economies. But there are a number of factors which differentiate developed economies from the developing ones. Hence, we identify an...
January 2012
Leather and leather products industry in Turkey: Marketing developments
Leather industry covers many disciplines as sub-industries and it has played a driving role for the exports of Turkey for many years with the internal harmony of those sub-industries. However, the leather industry’s production orientedness seriously impacts sectoral development especially during the outbreaks of global crises. The augmentation of competition in the leather industry after 1995, rising barriers in...
January 2012
An analysis of correlation between organizational justice and job satisfaction
This study was an attempt to explore the relationship between organizational justice, encompassed by three components: (distributive justice, procedural justice and interactional justice) job satisfaction, that is employees’ perceptions of workplace justice. This study, indeed, investigated the relationship among these justice measures in the Iranian environment. The data were collected through the distribution of...
January 2012
Development of “entrepreneur role-playing game†educational program and evaluation of its implementation effect from the viewpoint of cognitive apprenticeship theory
This study aims to develop an entrepreneur education program and evaluate its instructional effects from the viewpoint of “cognitive apprenticeship model”. In order to accomplish this purpose, this study samples 40 participating students from a case school as subjects, adopts methods of participation and observation, in-depth interviews, writing learning journal; and analyzes data using ATLAS.ti software...
January 2012
Factors that may mediate the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational innovation
The purpose of this study is to explore the excellent vocational high school teachers’ perceptions regarding organizational factors; these were related to the organization of the school and how this affected organizational innovation. Findings of this study provided the evidence that, there is a partial mediator effect on support for innovation and organizational learning in the relationship between...
January 2012
Regulation of microfinance service provider in China and Bangladesh: An approach to strengthening the regulatory environment
This paper compared the regulatory framework of microfinance service providers (MSPs) in China and Bangladesh. Formal MSPs were regulated under the banking legislation and supervised by central banks in both countries. The regulators had paid special attention to newly established financial entities-microcredit companies (MCCs) village/township banks (VTBs), and lending companies (LCs) in China considering their...
January 2012
Productivity and relative prices in the industries sector of Iran
Productivity is one of the most important factor among factors affecting rate ofgrowth and its promotion is one of the main goals of countries. According to the country's fifth development plan; it is predicted that 33.3% of annual economic growth will be provided by improving productivity. Therefore, identifying factors promoting productivity are very important. This paper...
January 2012
Key performance indicators for information technology (IT) operational management of financial industry in Taiwan
This paper used CobiT version 4.1, as published by the information systems audit and control association (ISACA), to investigate key performance indicators for IT operational management; IT managers in the financial industry were emphasized. This study enlisted the help of practicing experts in creating a summary of practical experience. The study illustrates the experts’ consensus regarding the six most important...
January 2012
The wealth of information from quarterly financial reports in Malaysia
This study aimed to contribute to the Bursa Malaysia and other professional bodies in Malaysia by developing a quarterly report disclosure checklist, for the preparation of quarterly reports. In addition, it also examined the wealth of information of quarterly financial reports in Malaysia in terms of share price performance at the time of disclosure. Specifically, this study examined whether the level of disclosure of...
January 2012
Product placement in South Africa: Piercing through the packaging
This exploratory study investigates the role that product placement plays in integrated marketing communications. As the merits of product placement are debated in the scholarly literature, practitioners are pushing boundaries in promoting their wares through using this technique. Our study considers television and cinema audiences in South Africa. Results reveal that these consumers are open to the idea of product...
January 2012
A research on impact of the capital structure and financing cost of small and medium sized enterprises (SME) on growth
Purpose of this study is to compile data on general features, capital structures, dividend policies, financial characteristics of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in Turkey and views of managers of them on the impact of these features on their growth, and to transform these data into knowledge, besides provision of recommendations. Sample of study is formed by 34 SMEs in various sectors in Istanbul. Descriptive...
January 2012
Subscriber behavior in adopting 3G value-added services
Third generation (3G) mobile services have not performed as much as they were expected to do a decade ago due to limited exemplary handset capacity, overlooking subscriber behavior and so on. This paper examined customers’ behavioral intention of adopting 3G value-added services, particularly, the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) models. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was...
January 2012
Operating leverage and systematic risk
The aim of this paper is to study the effect of operating leverage in the systematic risk of listed companies in Tehran Stock Exchange. In this study, operating leverage (OL) as independent variable and systematic risk (β) as the dependent variable are considered. SIG ≤ 0.05 means H0 hypothesis is rejected; otherwise there is no adequate reason for rejecting H0. For testing the hypothesis of this...
January 2012
Focusing resources for customer loyalty: An application to the Chilean banking industry
A model is proposed that should enable banking industry executives to better focus resources on loyalty programs by determining which factors are most valued by customers in their decisions to stay with their present bank. The model factors include intangibles drawn from concepts of intellectual capital that influence customers’ perceptions of image, service quality, satisfaction and loyalty. A structural equation...
January 2012
The relationship between organizational justice and organizational efficacy in higher education institutes
The purpose of this study is to survey the relationship between organizational justice and organizational efficacy in higher education institutes in Iran. The research methodology used is mapping studies research tools comprising the standard questionnaires of organizational justice. Niehoff-Morfen and Pearsons organizational efficacy also confirm its validity and their reliability was measured by Cronbach test as 81...
January 2012
The fascination with management gurus: An exploratory argument
This conceptual paper investigates our fascination with management gurus; those who dictate opinion on how organizations should be managed. By revisiting Plato, it is obvious that these views are subjective representations of reality. Furthermore, it is argued that the flaw lies with those who follow, rather than with the gurus. It is not the intention to discredit any of the big names in management opinion, but rather...
January 2012
Eastern perspective of corporate social responsibility: An exploratory study
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is an emerging trend in the eastern world. The West has vast research in this area but less work has been done in the east. This research aims to find the purposes and results of CSR in the east. Society improvements, customer and competition are taken as the purposes from the literature to check it in eastern society. Gaining reputation, profitability, differentiation and exploring...
January 2012
Identifying and overcoming constraints to recovering agricultural loan: The case of Bangladesh Krishi (agricultural) Bank
The study aims to investigate agricultural loan disbursement and recovery problems faced by Bangladesh Krishi (agricultural) Bank and suggest measures to overcome these problems. Survey data were collected from 90 bank officials entrusted with the responsibility of disbursing and recovering loans. Secondary data were also used for this purpose. The findings indicated that to the extent that a reporting system allowing...
January 2012
Debt financing to new small ventures in South Africa: The impact of collateral, ethics and the legal system
The purpose of the study on which this article is based was to ascertain to what extent collateral, ethics and the legal system impact on the availability of bank and trade credit to new SMEs in South Africa. Focusing on both commercial banks (using collateral) and trade creditors (unsecured), this study created a unique opportunity to assess the impact of collateral on the importance of ethical behavior and the...
January 2012
Determinant of the asymmetric alliances in Taiwan-based semiconductor (SC) firms: Influences of technological network position and dyadic firm resources
This study examines the effect of network-based technology position and dyadic firm attributes on the formation of asymmetric alliances from the perspective of Social Network Analysis (SNA) approach. Drawing on data from 141 Taiwan-based semiconductor (SC) firms, which formed inter-firm alliances during 1998-2002, this study finds that most small- and medium-sized firms in the sample are keenly interested in forming...
January 2012
Implementation of balanced scorecard (BSC) in small, auto-parts manufacturing companies: Sahand Khodro Company of Tabriz
Nowadays, many organizations are mainly concerned about codification and implementation of strategies which ensure their success and survival in ever-changing, complex environmental circumstances. Balanced scorecard (BSC) provides a means for organizations to codify and execute strategies in different aspects of the organization and manage their strategic performance. In order to implement the BSC in Sahand Khodro...
January 2012
Measuring the financing and business performance of the information technology industry
Information technology (IT) firms are facing ever-increasing competition and challenges in today’s globalized economy, and especially, firms in the advanced emerging market need to focus on improving their performance in order to remain highly competitive to survive. According to the business process of firms and IFRS (international financial reporting standards), this study applies an alternative data...
January 2012
New evidence on determinants of corporate effective tax rates
This article attempts to explain the different levels of effective tax rates across firms and by means of quantile regression method, this article detect the variation in the sensitivity of firms’ effective tax rates (ETRs) to return on assets, capital intensity, inventory intensity, leverage and firm size across the major quantiles of the ETR distribution. The key empirical results show that not all large firms...
January 2012
Application of stochastic model in identifying consumption abnormal decline customers
The goal many enterprises pursue is estimating the future revenue in order to develop market targets. This paper describes a new Gamma-Gamma Model to estimate revenue for a future time unit. A stochastic model has a large inaccuracy when used to forecast individual future purchases of a customer, however, the prediction error is small for the sum of all the customers’ future purchases which reflects...
January 2012
Factors responsible for rural household participation in institutional credit programs in Pakistan
Institutional credit plays a pivotal role in increasing farm production and improving the socioeconomic life of farmers. However, procuring credit from formal lending institutions is not easy. A number of pre-conditions are to be fulfilled to qualify for the institutional credit. This paper explores the factors that account for a household’s participation in formal agricultural credit programs. The study was...
January 2012
Performance comparison of artificial neural network (ANN) and support vector machines (SVM) models for the stock selection problem: An application on the Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE) - 30 index in Turkey
Support vector machines (SVM) and artificial neural networks (ANN) are machine learning methods that find a wide range of applications both in the field of engineering and social sciences. Recently, studies especially in the field of finance for the classification and estimation make it necessary to use these methods often in this area. In this study, different SVM and ANN models for the problem of stocks selection...
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