The Journal of American Academy

Financial Performance and Financial Management of Founding and Non-Founding CEO’S

Dr. Terrance Jalbert, University of Hawaii at Hilo, HI

Mercedes Jalbert, The Institute for Business and Finance Research, HI

Dr. Kimberly Furumo, University of Hawaii at Hilo, HI

ABSTRACT

CEO’s extensively influence the operation and performance of firms. This paper is an exploratory study that examines the extent that CEO characteristics impact firm performance. Specifically, we examine management and performance differences between founder and non-founder CEO’s of publicly traded firms. We use a large dataset of annual Forbes CEO data, combined with Compustat data, covering the time period 1997 to 2006. Or results show that founder managed firms differ from other firms with respect to several variables including institutional ownership, inside ownership, total compensation, returns earned and capital structure. Several studies examine how founding CEO’s differ from other CEO’s. These studies generally find that firms led by founding CEO’s use different management practices and achieve better market performance than other firms. These findings leave open two questions. First, are there additional patterns between founder and non-founder CEO managed firms that can be identified? Second, are these patterns changing in light of recent changes such as the Sarbanes Oxley Act that impact firms and CEO’s. The exploratory nature of this study allows us to identify areas were founder and non-founder managed firms are managed differently. We also provide insights about performance as well as the relationship between CEO pay and firm performance. In addition, we confirm the results of earlier studies using more recent data. Wiersema and Bantel (1992) established that demographic attributes of CEOs affected firm performance and management decisions including youth, tenure, educational level, and functional background.

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China’s Influence on the Future of Global Business Culture in the 21st Century

Dr. Jose Aníbal Torres, Keuka College and Southern New Hampshire University

ABSTRACT

China’s rise to international economic prominence began with socio-political, economic and cultural reforms late 1978 and into 1979 under the leadership of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. These changes led China’s economy to unprecedented growth for the following three decades; after 1979. Today, China enjoys being recognized as the second largest economy in the world. However, while China’s economy realized an average growth of 9.7% over three decades, questions arise as to whether China can continue its economic growth of the past three decades. Further, challenging the global economic culture of the 21st century is the growth that has been witnessed by the BRIC nations, including an impressive economic growth opportunity from South Africa. That is, the 21st century is witnessing a global change in economic power, from a decrease in the developed nations, and an increase from the developing, emerging, economies. China’s future challenges as surmounted by a shift in the demographics, and arguably, the increase in their middle class; to potentially the largest middle class in the world. China’s rise in Asia, to hegemonic status, and global economic prominence has brought additional challenges, or opportunities, that must be addresses. These challenges focus on the need to develop a sustainable infrastructure, controls, and effective global leadership to sustain economic growth. Researchers project that China’s economy will slow down at a rate of 5 or 6 to 8%; with a higher percentage between the current years until 2015. And from 2016 to 2025 China’s growth is projected to decline to the range of 5 to 7%. While these rates suggests decreases in comparison to China’s past economic growth, they are competitive on a global scale and focus on the development of the new challenges that China is beginning to face.

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The Effect of the Use of Online Advertising and Online Retailing on Marketing Strategy for Products

Dr. Mary Werner, Jacksonville University, Jacksonville, Florida

ABSTRACT

The onset of online advertising and online retailing has dramatically changed the marketing of products. Both these areas are part of the online marketing arena; online advertising being a method of promotion that is internet based and online retailing a way to distribute a product that is internet based. Both online advertising and online retailing appear to have been accepted as an integral part of marketing strategy that is necessary for companies to use if companies want to be able to survive and prosper in the marketplace. However, in terms of marketing strategy it was also noted that since both online advertising and online retailing are internet based, there is some common ground there that tends to blur the lines of distinction between the two areas. There are also challenges with respect to the two areas. Therefore, although online advertising and online retailing appear to have become common ways to promote and distribute a product, issues such as security and effectiveness have resulted in some companies moving away from the use of online advertising and online retailing. Research in the future should continue to offer approaches to resolve these issues. The introduction of the electronic means of doing business has had a tremendous impact on the nature of how the marketing of products takes place. All aspects of marketing have been affected. The marketing mix, which summarizes the basic activities involved in marketing a product, involves the identification of a target market or group of customers and then designing an appropriate product, price, promotion approach and distribution (place) approach, had been dramatically affected and forever changed with the development and evolution of e-commerce.

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An Examination of the Relationship Between Teaching Presence, Social Presence, Learner Motivation, and

Self-Reported Learning Among Online MBA Students

Dr. Herbert Pollard, King College

Dr. Randall Blevins, King College

Dr. Mary Connor, King College

Dr. Lorrie McGovern, Saint Leo University

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between the Teaching and Social presences of the Community of Inquiry (COI) framework, learner motivation, and self-reported learning. The study surveyed 1472 online MBA students; 270 students completed the survey. Study results found that teaching presence, social presence, and learner motivation, collectively, were significant predictors of self-reported learning. Online education has grown at a dramatic rate (Shea, Vickers, & Hayes, 2010). Educational institutions have expanded online delivery to provide greater student access and to satisfy market demands. At the same time, this accelerated growth has raised questions about student learning outcomes (Patterson & McFadden, 2009). Despite an increase in research, questions regarding student learning continue (Simmering, Posey, & Piccoli, 2009). The COI framework describes that learning occurs through the interaction of teaching and social presence (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000). Shea and Bidjerano (2010) suggested that a more complete understanding of the role of the learner might enhance the COI model. This study examined the impact of learner motivation on the association between the teaching and social presences and self-reported learning. The study found that teaching presence, social presence, and learner motivation, collectively, were significant predictors of self-reported learning. The CIO framework has been presented as a model for understanding learning (Rourke & Kanuka, 2009; Swan & Ice, 2010). Questions have been raised regarding the COI model’s linkage to learning (Annand, 2011; Rourke & Kanuka, 2009).

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Can Motivational Priming Change How Much Consumers Eat?

Dr. Cynthia Webster, Mississippi State University, Starkville, MS

ABSTRACT

The purpose of the research reported here utilized regulatory focus theory to determine the extent to which promotion and prevention priming of a consumer’s goals or motivation significantly affects their food portion size behavior. In Study 1, consumers’ motivations were primed explicitly; results supported regulatory focus theory in that a promotion prime led to an increase in food portion size behavior, and a prevention prime caused a decrease in food portion size behavior. In Study 2, consumers’ motivations were primed moderately. When primed moderately, regulatory focus theory was supported only for promotion-oriented consumers in that a promotion prime led to an increase in food portion size behavior and a prevention prime led to a decrease in food portion size behavior. With nearly 25% of the world’s population either overweight or obese, food consumption practices have been characterized as a global health crisis (Mishra, Mishra, and Masters 2012). In industrialized countries, the percentage is even greater and has been steadily increasing over time. In 2010, about 69% of the U.S. population was overweight with almost 36% of adults and 17% of adolescents considered obese (Ogden et al. 2012). Although such factors as genetics, food and beverage type, and sedentary lifestyles are well-acknowledged causes of obesity, research shows that the key cause of obesity is simply the amount of food consumed on a regular basis (e.g., Wansink 2006). Indeed, over the past two decades, the amount of a single food item consumed in a single eating occasion, known as a food portion size, has increased significantly. Unsurprisingly, studies have shown that consumers eat more when they are confronted with larger portion sizes (Dodson and Gerstner 2010). For most consumers, these larger portion sizes eventually become a consumption norm—that is, the amount of food a consumer is accustomed to eating.

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Salient User Beliefs for a Protective Technology: Conceptualization and Measurement Development

Dr. Janis Warner, Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, Texas

ABSTRACT

There is an ever increasing need to better manage and encourage users’ behavior to safeguard information assets as the growth of the Internet, cloud computing, online shopping, social media, wireless technologies, as well as many other technologies increase the user’s role in IT security. With the recent identification of the “protective” category for IT security technologies, there is a need to understand associated “protective technologies” user behavior. Identifying and understanding the salient user beliefs regarding IT security is a foundational step as those salient beliefs will likely guide user intentions and behaviors. This study conceptualizes and develops valid measures of salient user beliefs towards a target IT security behavior. The conceptual framework uses the qualitative interview approach advocated in the prominent Theory of Planned Behavior to identify salient user beliefs regarding a specific IT security artifact – anti-spyware. Once salient beliefs are identified, psychometrically sound measurements are developed through a systematic process which includes a pilot study, exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. “In practice, information security is compromised on a daily basis … [with] estimates of economic damage into the tens, if not hundreds of billions of dollars per year” (United Nations, 2005, p. xiii). Information systems security becomes increasingly complex as organizations open their information technologies (IT) to share their information and data assets more effectively with employees, partners and customers. Internal user practices (Wade, 2004) are being targeted as some of the most important aspects in protecting an organization’s sensitive information assets. Recent research on internal users has provided evidence regarding a significant lack of awareness of IT security requirements and/or and continued risky behavior (Spears & Barki, 2010; Hu and Dinev, 2005).

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Personality, Intentionality, and the Structure of Support Networks

Dr. Cathleen McGrath, Loyola Marymount University, CA

Dr. Deone Zell, California State University, Northridge, CA

Dr. Charles M. Vance, Loyola Marymount University, CA

ABSTRACT

Support networks are a type of social network comprised of key persons that individual can turn to for advice, information or support. The structure of support networks plays a key role in their effectiveness, especially from a resource perspective. The structure of social networks can be the function of innate personality traits or conscious intentions. This study examines the impact of personality and intentionality on four structural aspects of support networks in the context of career planning. In so doing it bridges two disciplines (social network theory and personality theory) that have remained relatively disparate due to different theoretical underpinnings. Two questionnaires were administered to 653 business students in a university setting. One measured personality using the Big Five framework while the other examined aspects of students’ support networks. Findings show that after controlling for age, gender, ethnicity, and academic performance, three personality traits – extroversion, agreeableness and openness – significantly influence network structure. Extroversion leads to larger and more diverse networks, and stronger ties. Agreeableness leads to denser networks, while openness to experience leads to sparser ones. Findings also suggest that consciously putting one’s mind to the task of networking results in increased network size, regardless of personality. The paper concludes with a discussion of findings, practical implications, and directions for future research. Support networks are a type of social network comprised of key people that one can turn to for advice, information, or emotional support. The structure of social networks plays a key role in their effectiveness, particularly from a resource perspective (Brass, 1984). For example, networks that are large, diverse, rich in weak ties to casual acquaintances, and that contain “structural holes” between diverse groups lead to a range of positive outcomes including access to novel sources of information (Granovetter, 1973), the discovery of new jobs (Granovetter, 1995), fruitful inventions (Burt, 1992; Obstfeld, 2005), and more successful careers (Burt, 1992).

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Wolf in Sheep’s Clothes: The Dark Side of Charismatic Leaders and Supportive Followers in Crisis Situations.

Dr. Debra Y. Hunter, Troy University, Atlanta, Georgia

ABSTRACT

Does he who makes himself a sheep stand to be eaten by wolves? One might question the susceptibility of followers of one suburban Atlanta congregation. Despite allegations of inappropriate behavior and endorsements with gambling organizations, one mega church pastor in Atlanta, Georgia has maintained the support of his powerhouse congregation. How do you explain such loyal support to a pastoral leader during a crisis when the character and integrity of the leader is challenged? This literature review has integrated self –identity theory with two types of charismatic relationships—personalized and socialized in an attempt to understand the motivation of followers. We contend that the relationship the follower establishes with the leader will determine whether the follower will be influenced or loyal to the leader. The type of relationship formed will be based upon the individual’s self concept identity. Followers forming a personalized relationship may be more prone to the blind faith accompanied by the unquestionable behavior of the leader more readily than those forming a socialized relationship. Support of the leader during a crisis event when one’s character and integrity are challenged would be expected of this group more than followers forming a socialized relationship with the leader. The research propositions presented in this paper need to be tested empirically to determine the validity of the propositions presented. “I have three rocks, and I haven’t thrown the first one yet,” declared the leader of a prominent Bishop as he stood in front of a suburban Atlanta congregation of 150 to 25,0000-member church with a $50 million cathedral and parishioners that include famous athletes, well known politicians and entertainers. This statement was made in response to allegations of four young men who alleged that the Bishop adopted them as “spiritual sons” and later used his authority to seduce them with expensive automobiles, jewelry, electronics and lavish trips in exchange for sex that was justified by scriptures from the Bible.

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Indirect Consumer Attitude Measurement, Brand Transgression, and the Consumer-Brand Relationship

Dr. Ross B. Steinman, Widener University, Chester, Pennsylvania

ABSTRACT

This research examines how people respond to a brand transgression using both indirect and explicit consumer attitude measures. Participants were randomly assigned to transgression conditions and then instructed to complete various consumer measures. The author found that brand transgression had an immediate negative impact on consumer relationship when using explicit measures; this effect was not present when using indirect measures. However, the indirect measures added to the prediction of consumer behavior. This suggests that indirect measures can be used to better understand the consumer-brand relationship, especially after a brand violates trust with the consumer. Marketing implications are discussed. Indirect measures of consumer attitudes are used to assess attitudes without directly asking individuals to report on the attitudinal object of interest; this circumvents many of the issues associated with explicit, or traditional, self-report, attitude instruments (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995). One such measure is the Breadth-based Adjective Rating Task (Karpinski, Steinberg, Versek & Alloy, 2007). The Breadth-based Adjective Rating Task is based upon the premise that people tend to describe expectancy consistent information with abstract traits and expectancy inconsistent information with concrete traits. The abstraction bias is quantified by having participants rate how well trait adjectives, known to vary by breadth and valence, describe a consumer attitude object (Karpinski et al., 2007); Steinman & Karpinski, 2009a). If people have positive attitudes and expectancies of a consumer object then they tend to describe that object with broad positive and narrow negative traits. Conversely, if people have negative attitudes and expectancies of a consumer object then they tend to describe that object with narrow positive and broad negative traits.

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A Rank Ordered Discrepancy Assessment of Commodity Association Member’s Perceptions of

Product Value and Breed Performance Data

Dr. Roger D. Hanagriff, Texas A&M University, TX

Dr. Ryan D. Rhoades, Texas A&M University-Kingsville, TX

ABSTRACT

The objectives of this study were to demographically describe this beef breed association’s membership and to determine membership’s rank order of the breed performance traits and well as association measured and reported data. Results are derived from 282 member survey responses from a census of all 527 active association members, which is a 53% response rate. Respondents were mostly: from Texas (48.7%), over 45 years of age (79.4%), have less than 50 head (50.0%), earning less than 40% of their income on the ranch (86%), and describe their ranch as a Seedstock enterprise (52%). This study finds that members are utilizing the breed characteristics they find important in their business and marketing decisions and little discrepancy between the importance of breed characteristics and use of those items can be found. However, there are rankings of high use and importance variables such as docility, maternal, weaning weights, yearling birth weights, body condition score and yearling weights. These contrast the lower valued or used areas of rib eye area, hot carcass weight and intramuscular fat. Research has indicated that consumers are increasingly interested in branded products that offer product attributes aligned with their demand preferences (Howard and Allen 2006, Velasquez, Eastman, and Masiunas 2005, Patterson et al. 1999, Adelaja, Brumfield, and Lininger 1990). As these consumer preferences increase, the associated commodity groups also create stronger alliances that assist their producers in building stronger genetics, improved supply chain control and marketability. Commodity associations have long attempted to support their associated industries in a variety of manners. This business association sometimes acts as an individual business with a focus to gain profits and reduce risk. According to Pascale et al. (2000), firms must be proactive in managing uncertainty to create long-term value because uncertainty has upside potential as well as a downside exposure.

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Job Role Change and Leadership Development

Dr. John T. Byrd, Bellarmine University, Louisville, KY

Joseph C. Thornton, Bellarmine University, Louisville, KY

ABSTRACT

This article describes the results of a study that assesses the philosophical orientation and values of a group of individuals being developed for a new work role. The new role requires leadership skills. The group involved in the training consists of assembly line employees who were selected to participate in an organizational change program because of the launch of a new product. The new role required greater competency in the use of interpersonal skills. Previous observations of employees trained in this new position resulted in the initiation of this research intended to identify and measure attributes leading to successful performance. Employees that are involved in change in their work roles in complex organizations often experience adjustment problems. Without training in the new job adjustment issues can create insurmountable problems.. An example of how training can be helpful with the use of cognitive continuum theory can be applied to leadership training was explained in an earlier article (Kutschera & Byrd, 2005). In that situation, similar to the circumstances at this organization, a communication model was utilized as part of an interpersonal skills training program to discuss the content of the new leadership role when making decisions. By framing and reframing issues, the “leaders in training” became sensitive to different cognitive predispositions as well as to different modes of processing information. This awareness increased the potential for flexibility in their new leadership role. Because of using the CCT and the Communications Model as part of that leadership development program, interest developed in gaining greater understanding of the trainee’s philosophical orientation and values before the beginning of the program. Because of this interest, formal research was added as a component of the program.

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Toward Using IT to Target Service Innovation to the Appropriate Segment:

A Significant Application of Information Technology

Dr. C. M. Ehrman, Jerusalem College of Technology, Israel

ABSTRACT

The objective of this paper is to serve as awake up call to small "family run" businesses, in which the owners feel that their knowledge of their consumer market is sufficient to successfully promote service innovation. They feel that there is no need for primary data to analyze their market. In this paper it is shown that different markets segments have different priorities when selecting a provider of a service. An illustration is provided using primary data for providers of catering services. In the field of food catering, it is not uncommon to find families that have been in this service for generations. In terms of providing innovations, the general attitude of the family decision maker is that we know the market and information technology (IT) is unnecessary. In order to illustrate the necessity of IT, a given firm has been selected (Osher Brothers Inc.). The owners were interviewed and they insist that they know the market "inside out." This paper is devoted toward promoting the use of IT. It may be a good strategy to select the business segment in the service industry that is extremely reluctant to use IT, and demonstrate the error s that can come about without using any IT. Problem: Decision Makers in small family run businesses often feel that they "Know" their market and their customers and there is no need for IT. They know the USP (Unique Selling Proposition, a term coined by Rosser Reaves) that works and it will maintain or increase their market share. This paper focuses on the service area and innovations that the Decision Makers feel will succeed based on generations of success providing service for their clientele. The catering industry will be our service industry.

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Leadership Practices: A Comparison Between Chile And Peru

Dr. Leopoldo Arias-Bolzmann, Professor, Universidad Adolfo Ibanez, Chile

Dr. Stanley Stough, Professor, Retired, Universidad Adolfo Ibanez, Chile

ABSTRACT

In a globalized world, leadership is a key factor that countries should consider to measure its competitiveness. It is important that everybody knows that effective leadership can be used as a competitive business advantage. The study that follows compares leadership practices between Chile and Peru, using as the instrument for data collection the LPI-Self questionnaire developed by Kouzes & Posner in 1993. The results of the study show that significant differences do not exist among MBA respondents in the respective countries on any practice dimensions. The results are of value in understanding how leadership differences or similarities impact on strategic execution within an organization. This study uses the neocharismatic, visionary approach to leadership developed by Kouzes and Posner (1993 & 1995) and their Leadership Practices Inventory-Self (LPI-Self) instrument (Kouzes & Posner, 1993) for data collection. The instrument contains 30 items, six for each of the five practices describe above. Each behavior is rated on a 10-point Likert scale. Research has shown that the more frequently an individual is perceived as doing the behaviors, the more likely that person will be identified as an effective leader. The LPI is a well-designed instrument in its simplicity and its power. It is easily understandable and provides a clear roadmap on how best to proceed in more fully developing leadership behaviors. The LPI provides both valid and reliable assessments of respondent leadership behavior and skill. It is one of the most widely used leadership inventories for both individual feedback and leadership research purposes.

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Emerging Economies: Stock Markets After the Financial Crisis

Dr. Lucy Amigo Dobano, University of Vigo, Vigo, Spain

ABSTRACT

Latin-American stock markets have been characterised by strong unevenness and high volatilities owed, mainly due to their high political risk and high needs of financing. The aim of this paper is focused on the analysis of the possible relationship of causality between fluctuations in the principal Latin-American stock markets since the financial crisis originated in the United States in September, 2007. To achieve the proposed aim, the sample period ranges from the year 2007 to 2011 with daily data, considering the stock exchange indices of some of the most significant emerging economies, Chile, Mexico and Brazil, as well as an analysis of relations of integration that incorporates the stock market of Latin American values rooted in Madrid - LATIBEX - and some indicators of the most developed economies, the IBEX 35, DAX and DOW JONES, which are a special interest to managers in the international diversification of portfolios. In a first approach, different methodologies are applied to the indices in order to extract possible simultaneous relationships among them. Subsequently, a VAR model is considered following the procedure of Johansen (1988) and Johansen and Juselius (1990) to detect the existence or not of long term relationships. The findings provide evidence that returns profits are due to idiosyncratic risk and investors’ under-reaction to stock market-specific information. The high inflation rates experienced by Latin American economies in the period ranging from the late eighties to the early nineties resulted in enormous imbalances in the evolution of their stock markets. In general, the period from the late eighties to December 1992 can be described as a boom in Latin American stock markets, a cycle that culminated with the great fall in 1992. From then on, the situation has been one of instability marked by three important shocks.

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Is Market Orientation an Advantage for Business Performance?

Dr. Richard Murphy, Jacksonville University, FL

Dr. Mohamad Sepehri, Jacksonville University, FL

Dr. Mary Werner, Jacksonville University, FL

ABSTRACT

Many organizations focused mainly on the product without much concern for customer wants and needs when practicing marketing for many decades. Eventually organizations saw the need to take a market orientation approach which involves a focus on customer satisfaction. This is an examination of this market orientation philosophy with respect to the effectiveness of market orientation’s advantage related to business performance. The conceptualization and development of market orientation is examined and the movement into the overall organizational culture expressed. Business performance is defined and examined and the market orientation and business performance relationship examined. Generally, a relationship between market orientation and positive business performance is established with respect to many aspects of business performance. The evolution of the practice of marketing from being focused on product development without much regard for customer satisfaction to one of a focus on market orientation, which involves the practice of all marketing activities based on concern for customer satisfaction, has taken place. This evolution seems to have taken place out of necessity. Competition increased in the marketplace and a focus on customer satisfaction became necessary for any organization to effectively compete in the marketplace. Organizations seem to operate under the presumption that the market orientation is an advantage with respect to business performance. However, an examination of this assumption, and in particular, which aspects of business performance are affected by an organization’s market orientation seems warranted. That is what this study does in order to present information to businesses so that they may practice marketing in the way that is most optimal for their organization. The marketing concept, as the discipline’s primary theoretical paradigm, developed in the literature with emphasis on definition and analysis. Prior to the 1950’s, marketing was seen as a departmental function focused on products, rather than on customers, and on convincing “prospects that they needed what the firm was producing” (Webster, 1988, p. 31).

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Enhancing the Impact of Study Abroad on Business Education Through International Field Learning

Dr. Charles M. Vance, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA

Dr. Gary Sibeck, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA

Dr. Alan Hogenauer, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA

ABSTRACT

This paper examines strengths and limitations of current commonly-used experiential approaches for enhancing international business education, and proposes a new hybrid cost-effective approach combining a form of international internship with traditional study abroad, and utilizing flexible distance-based technologies. This paper also examines how this multifaceted approach provides a very valuable experiential learning alternative option that business schools may consider in enhancing the flexibility and impact of their international curricular offerings and improving student learning outcomes related to the development of important global competencies. Organizations today are placing a premium on global competence—a dynamic set of skills that promote work performance success across international boundaries international competencies—as they seek to succeed in an increasingly globally-integrated marketplace (Billing et al., 2010). These firms recognize that global competence among their professional staff translates into increased cross-cultural sensitivity and relationship-building capability, and greater creativity, and stronger problem solving skills. Other clear benefits to those possessing global competence include more effective personal adjustment to foreign surroundings, greater ability to build and lead multinational teams, improved ability to cope with rapid change and uncertainty, and enhanced ability to adjust and respond to differing political and economic environments (Bird et al., 2010). Particular individual competencies often associated with a global mindset and characteristics of global leadership career success include cross-cultural sensitivity and self-awareness, cross-cultural negotiations, emotional intelligence, openness to new perspectives and influences, inquisitiveness, managing uncertainty and complexity in international business environments, self-management, and international adjustment and adaptability (Vance and Paik, 2011). The old maxim that "experience is the best teacher" is still true today, and is increasingly serving as a guide for multinational firms in the effective development of global competencies within their workforce (Ng, Van Dyne and Ang, 2009).

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Eliminating Degeneracy in the Transportation Problem

Dr. Norman E. Pence, Professor, Metropolitan State University of Denver, Denver, CO

Dr. Joseph S. Morrell, Professor, Metropolitan State University of Denver, Denver, CO

ABSTRACT

This paper discusses the transportation problem from the perspective of pedagogy in teaching quantitative methods to business majors. A technique is presented which eliminates degeneracy in the process of finding initial feasible solutions. The rationale for using this technique and the resulting advantage to the student is discussed. The classical transportation problem (Hizer & Render, 1996) is usually presented in a course in quantitative methods in business. Any of the five above algorithms can cause the transportation problem to degenerate. A shipment is a transfer of units from one shipping point to one demand point. Degeneracy occurs when the number of shipments is less than “the number of shipping points plus the number of demand points minus one.” The Modified Distribution Method (MODI) for determining the optimal solution to transportation problem requires the number of shipments to be equal to “the number of shipping points plus the number of demand points minus one.” If the initial starting feasible solution degenerates, it is not possible to use the MODI method to determine the optimal solution. When the transportation problem degenerates in the process of finding an initial feasible solution, students are faced with the following dilemma: Where do I place the zero that will result in a system of equations that will generate numerical values for the “row values” and the “column values” needed to determine an optimal solution? The placement of the zero is not arbitrary. It must be a zero shipment that will result in a system of equations that can be solved for all the” row values” and “column values”. The “row values” and “column values” are used by the modified distribution technique (MODI) or the stepping-stone algorithm to find the optimal shipping assignment. The technique presented in this paper prevents degeneracy and eliminates the decision for the student of where to place the zero.

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Say on Pay-Dodd Frank Act Effect on Corporate Governance and External Auditor’s Potential Responsibilities

Dr. Michael Ulinski, Pace University, Pleasantville, NY

Dr. Roy J. Girasa, Pace University, Pleasantville, NY

ABSTRACT

The researchers reviewed recent shareholder reactions to provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act related to its Say on Pay mandates. While shareholder Say on Pay votes are not binding on corporate compensation, implications effecting corporate governance are explored for negative shareholder votes on pay. Board of director removal, shareholder lawsuits and external auditor expanded scrutiny may be in the offering. Independent auditors may have to consider extended audit procedures including integration of Enterprise Risk Management concepts to assure compliance with laws and regulations. Expanded audit procedures would be required for the possibility of client illegal act and the auditor’s assessment of the entity’s ability to continue as a going concern. Conclusions are drawn and recommendations for further study are made. The financial crisis of 2007 that continues to reverberate to this day inevitably led to the focus of blame on a wide variety of alleged culprits whose greed led to negligent and wrongful acts that brought about the greatest downturn of the economy since the Great Depression. Among the most egregious behavior that was highlighted was that of executive compensation. Almost daily media reports show that many executives received extraordinary compensation while their companies’ earnings were suffering significant losses. Whereas the ratio of executive pay to the average worker was relatively modest a half Century ago, the ratio became almost obscene in the disparity especially when compared to that in other countries. Although the figures vary widely, often based on ideological perceptions, it appears that the ratio gathered by the Economic Policy Institute and cited by The Economist publication(1) has credibility. According to the author, U.S. CEO Compensation ratio to the average worker has varied substantially during the past two decades. From a high of 383.4%- 411.3% which factors in options granted and options realized in 2000, the current figure is approximately 231% including options realized.(2)

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European Subsidies As a Factor Increasing the Competitiveness of Companies in the Czech Republic

Milan Sedlacek, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic

Dr. Petr Suchanek, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic

ABSTRACT

The article deals with the question if subsidies from the European funds have influenced competitiveness of the industrial companies in the Czech Republic. The primary research was carried out on the sample of 144 enterprises which answered several questions and provided financial statements from the past five accounting periods. These data were used as an input for financial analysis, cluster analysis and particular univariate and bivariate analyses to divide the companies into three clusters according their financial performance and evaluate the impact of the subsidy on their competitiveness. The conclusion gives evidence about different companies’ attitude to European subsidies and sum up the influence of this enormous financial support on their competitiveness. Czech Republic is a member of the European Union since the year 2004. Czech enterprises have from this moment unique opportunity to raise their competitiveness drawing the subsidies from European funds. The total financial support was during the previous programming period 2004 - 2006 more than €2.6 billion (The Ministry of Regional Development 1, 2011) and the actual programming period 2007 - 2013 offer even €26 billion (The Ministry of Regional Development 2, 2011). Significant part of these subsidies is allocated for private sector or more precisely for raising the competitiveness of industrial enterprises. This is the reason for the carried out research which should answer several important questions: “Do European Union and European subsidies matter? How important are they for the company competitiveness and what is the subjective opinion of company’s management on these external factors? “

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The Financial Crisis 2009 – 2011. How Companies in Mexico Perceived the

Crisis and Their Related Marketing Strategies

Dr. Hyun Sook Lee, National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico City

ABSTRACT

Based on the result of the field survey performed during September 27 to October 31 of 2011, three hypotheses were tested. Hypotheses 1 and 2 were accepted, but Hypothesis 3 was not accepted. The survey results provided us with data to determine that most companies in Mexico perceived the financial crisis of 2009 – 2010 negatively, but the recovery of 2011 positively, just as in most countries. As their survival strategies, quality or services improvement strategy was an important factor, although other strategies also were included in the analysis. Most companies combined several strategies in fact. Also, it is evident from our results that some successful companies didn´t depend on only Government´s supportive actions/efficient strategy but their own capability to overcome financial crisis. Companies and their suppliers, marketing intermediaries, customers, competitors, and publics all operate in a macroenvironment of forces and trends that shape opportunities and pose threats (Kotler, 2003, p. 161). The changing and uncertain marketing environment deeply affects the company. Instead of changing slowly and predictably, the environment can produce major surprises and shocks (Kotler & Armstrong, 1991, p. 56). In an economic crisis, business enterprises can no longer rely on conventional marketing strategies to improve performance. There is greater need for companies to maximize the return on their marketing and sales investments. (Incentive strategies , 1999, p. 1). New balances caused by economic crisis change the market conditions and imply mandatory changes in marketing activities and strategies of the enterprises. Economic crises have effects on long-term plans and programs of the enterprises just as on their strategies.

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Assessment Formats in Accounting: The Used and Abused

Dennis C. Stovall, Grand Valley State University, Grand Rapids, Michigan

ABSTRACT

Professors have always wondered what testing format is the most effective in assessing a student’s grasp for the information presented in their course. The trends in assessment are in constant fluctuation and are linked primarily to an individual professor’s opinion. With the recent format changes in professional assessments, such as the Certified Public Accountant Examination, which now consists of 80% multiple choice, an important question arises. What format is the most effective in assessing a student’s understanding in a course (Kuechler, 2011)? Professors first must account for the level and type of information being presented in each individual course. Then, they must seek the questioning formats which are realistic for both the course content as well as the desired grading time. Professors then are able to use their own discretion as to the proper method of assessing their students. The results conclude that some methods are more effective in courses where time efficiency takes precedence over a thorough assessment, such as the formats multiple choice, true/false, and matching. Other courses, whose main objective is to thoroughly assess the student’s knowledge in a discipline, may prefer the methods short answer, essay and interpretive exercise. All methods of assessment, when implemented in the proper individual situation, may result in the greatest overall benefit. A format can only be a supplement to the questions created. No method can transform the questions intrinsic value, but may only detract or enhance it. The style of questioning have been categorized into Multiple Choice (MC), Short Answer (SA), True/False (TF), Matching (M), Essay (ES), and Interpretive Exercise (IE). Studies have various conclusions as to the appropriate format for testing students. The variances are mainly due to variables specific to each course. The main objective is to use the information that coincides with the philosophy of a professor’s class as well as that of the institution.

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Taking Charge: Challenges for Nonprofit Executive Successors

Dr. Joseph C. Santora, EPNC School of International Management, Paris, France

Dr. James C. Sarros, Monash University Caulfield, Victoria, Australia

Dr. Mark Esposito, Grenoble Graduate School of Business, Grenoble, France

ABSTRACT

The aim of this case study is to offer nonprofit executive directors and boards of directors’ lessons about challenges successors face when replacing long-term founders of nonprofit organizations. We begin with a brief profile of the organization, the founder, and the successor. Next, we compare and contrast the founder and successor on five leadership factors. We then present some challenges facing the successor as she began to “take charge” of the organization. Implications for leadership are offered to readers. Finally, we conclude our paper with the limitations of the study and suggestions for future research. Organizational life for a newly appointed nonprofit leader is extremely difficult today filled as it is with numerous personal and organizational ambiguities, and daunting leadership and managerial challenges (Gilmore and Ronchi, 1995; Watkins, 2009). These challenges include, but are not limited to, dealing with staff, securing funding from foundations, responding to board demands, and other internal and external organizational issues (e.g., Adams, 2010; Dym, Egmont, and Watkins, 2011; Gilmore, 1988; Hinden and Tebbe, 2003; Paull and Redmond, 2011; Smith and Moschel, 1993). In particular, a major challenge for new nonprofit leaders is devising an appropriate strategy to deal with the possible disruption of dysfunctional organizational damage caused when charismatic nonprofit founders decide to remain in the organization they launched. These leaders may continue to take an active hands-on role post-retirement in order to add self-perceived value to the organization through their varied work history and experiences. While opinion varies on whether founders should remain active in organizations post-retirement, such actions are nevertheless often part of life in nonprofit organizations (e.g., Gilmore and Brown, 1985/86; Leach, 2009; Linnell, 2004). “Letting go” often creates some very serious problems for founders (see Adams, 2005; Kets de Vries, 2003, Lewis, 2005) who have given their “heart and soul” to their start-up organizations. In this case study, we focus on the disruptive impact a founder had on his successor, the staff, and the organization.

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Financial Sector Taxation: FTT as an Own Resource of EU Budget?

Danuse Nerudova, Assoc. Professor, Mendel University, Brno, Czech Republic

ABSTRACT

The financial crises which have spread from United States to the Europe in 2008 have initiated the discussion about the possible taxation of the financial sector. The aim of the financial sector taxation on global level was to find a tool, which could help to regulate the financial sector as well as to collect back the public money invested into the sector during the crisis. European Union added into the discussion third dimension – possible “new European own source” of EU budget. Even though the Commission was at the beginning considering the introduction of financial activities tax, finally it has concluded that in order to fulfil the objectives set at the beginning, financial transaction tax seems to be preferred option. The Commission has set three aims. Firstly, financial transaction tax should ensure the contribution of the financial sector to the public finances. Secondly, the introduction of financial transaction tax should help to limit undesirable market behaviour and finally, the implementation should avoid distortions on the internal market. Even though financial transaction tax appears to have potential for raising significant revenues from financial sector, in the other hand it is connected with the risk of negative effects on the GDP growth and decrease in the market volume. In order to eliminate those negative effects, the proposed FTT comprise certain avoidance strategies. The aim of the paper is to research the possibility of financial sector taxation, to discuss the proposal of the European Union on the introduction of financial transaction tax on EU level and to research, whether this type of the tax could be suitable candidate on EU tax as an own resource of EU budget. The discussion about the possible taxation of the financial sector has started in the European Union as a result of the financial crisis which has spread to the Europe from the United States in 2008.

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The Stock Market Reaction to the U.S. Quantitative Easing Announcement:

Evidence of the Emerging Stock Market

Dr. Yaowaluk Techarongrojwong, Assumption University, Thailand

ABSTRACT

The previous studies have extensively examined the impact of the U.S. conventional monetary policy announcement on stock returns in other countries. The impact of the U.S. unconventional monetary policy announcement on stock return in developing countries, especially in the firm level analysis, is relatively unexplored. This paper investigates the effect of the quantitative easing announcement in the U.S. on stock return in Thailand by using the event study approach. The announcements on November 25, 2008 and November 3, 2010 were examined with 653 firm-announcement observations. Several findings are noted. First, the quantitative easing announcements in the U.S. give a negative impact on the stock return in Thailand. Second, the negative abnormal return is also visible on the day prior to the announcement day, which disappears after a few days and becomes statistically significant and positive within a week. Third, the capital intensive industries respond to the quantitative easing announcement in the U.S. with the largest magnitude among the eight industry sectors. The subprime crisis in late 2007 made the U.S. economy sluggish (Dodd, 2007). The U.S. economic recovery has not been fully achievable until present. In normal time, the Central Bank influences the economy by using the conventional monetary policy which includes open market operation, direct borrowing through the discount window and reserve requirements (Meulendyke, 1998; Nakornthab, 2009). The conventional monetary policy seems ineffective as the Federal Reserve maintained a low policy rate (0.0-0.25%) from December 16, 2008. The unconventional monetary policy is a new solution that the Federal Reserve is implementing. One of the chosen monetary policy tools is Quantitative Easing (Q.E.). The Q.E. is an increment the size of the Central Bank’s balance sheet by using the newly created money to purchase securities from the commercial banking and private sectors.

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Commercial Arbitration and other Alternative Dispute Resolution

in the Middle East and in the West

Dr. Khodr Fakih, Lebanese American University, Beirut, Lebanon

ABSTRACT

Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) is a general term that describes a variety of processes used by parties to resolve dispute. ADR is a method and process that falls outside the court system. In other words, ADR methods replace certain lawsuits that ignore particular problems such as conduct-in-hostility, or waste of time/money. This paper will identify different types of ADR. In addition, it will address the similarities and differences between ADR types apply in the Arabic regions and the in the west. Alternative Dispute Resolution helps litigants find solutions without court procedures because they are less formal and adversarial than government judicial processes. In addition, ADR are non-compulsory systems, since litigants must consent to such methods in settling dispute. Based on various readings, modern regulations categorize ADR within two contexts. The first context operates within a friendly environment, whereby the outcome is non-obligatory. While, the second context is antagonistic, expensive, with binding characteristics. Indeed, ADR methods are recognized in Middle Eastern (Islamic) countries, which apply Shariah and modern law as well as in Western states. It should be noted that some ADR methods are widely known, while others are rarely used. For example, mediation, conciliation, and arbitration are well-mentioned in the Quran and Sunnah. On the other hand, facilitation and negotiation are applied, but are not mentioned in these sources. This is because facilitation and negotiation are employed within the context of conciliation, in order to achieve resolution among the various parties.

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A Confirmatory Factor Analysis of Identifying Predictors of Innovative Behaviors

Chertchom Prajak, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand

Dr. Anuntavoranich Pongpun, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand

ABSTRACT

Innovator is the prime driver in today business. Steven Paul Jobs is a good example for this phrase. However, the characteristics of innovator are still in a chaos. Thus, this paper applied a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) by LISREL to uncover the nature of innovator and to examine the relationship between factors that affected the individual innovative capacity in Thai firm. Moreover, the study was to propose and test an extended model of the current model of the antecedents of individual innovation developed by Farr, Sin, and Tesluk (2003) cited in Hammond, et al. (2011) with the addition of new exploratory factors in predicting innovative behaviors from interviewing with 9 innovators of National Innovation Agency (NIA), Thailand, as well as confirmed testimonies and opinions by 29 experts and questionnaire surveying with 430 managers from Thai firms especially in manufacturing sector. Factor analysis was used to describe variability among observed determinants in terms of a potentially lower number of unobserved determinants and CFA was applied to indicate how the variables are linked to each other. The result demonstrates the eight required competencies of an innovator in manufacturing sector and the top three most important competency domains are “creative, Intellectual: Buddhi Carita(the doctrine of Buddhism ), and teamwork. National Innovation Agency (NIA), Thailand and Chulalongkorn Business School (CBS) jointly conducted a survey research on “Situation of the demand of human resources for innovation project development of the private sector in Thailand”. The researcher collected data from 300 companies and 73% of them are in manufacturing sectors. They found that Thai firms are highly paying their attention to the topic of innovation. Additionally, research stated that 72.01% of surveyed firms urgently required innovative employees. (NIA, 2011)

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Government Instability and Nigeria’s Vision 20-20-20: SMEs Development Perspective

Azende Terungwa, Benue State University, Makurdi, Nigeria

ABSTRACT

This study empirically evaluates the performance of the Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) Equity Investment Scheme in Nigeria (SMEEIS), and the performance of banks after the Banks Consolidation exercise in Nigeria with emphasis on financing of SMEs. Secondary data of total credit to SMEs as percentage of banks total credit for a period from 1993–2010 were made available. Paired sample t-test was used as a technique to test the significance of bank loans before and after the introduction of both SMEEIS and Bank Consolidations. The result shows that there was no significance difference between the loans disbursed by banks to SMEs before and after the birth of these two government programs which were introduced by different administrations. The major recommendations are that; there should be in place a succession plan for policies regarding the development of SMEs. This should be backed up by a legislation shall compel the succeeding administration to continue the implementation of workable policies. Secondary, both the government and the banking sector should mutually agree on a credit guaranteed scheme strategy that will incorporate a risk-sharing arrangement as a way of encouraging the banks to channel funds to the SMEs sub sector for their growth and development which would translate into the national economic growth and sustainable economic development of Nigeria. In trying to put Nigerian economy on the fast lane to industrialization, all arms are on deck to enhance economic development. Specifically, the present administration of Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan is of the vision that, by the year 2020, Nigeria would be one among the first 20 largest economies of the world otherwise popularly called Vision 20-20-20. This is achievable if it is premised on a sound and committed economic policy implementation in the country. It must be emphasized that it is while attending to small matters that bigger things are created (Sule, 1986).

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The Impact of Internal Control to E-commerce Activities on the Quality of

Accounting Information in the Banks Operating in Jordan

Dr. Jamal Adel Al-Sharairi, Al Al-Bayt University, Amman, Jordan

ABSTRACT

The study aims to identify the impact of Security and protection, legislation and laws on the quality of accounting information in banks operating in Jordan, which are (22) banks. A questionnaire was designed by the two researchers and distributed for this purpose on the internal auditors in banks and non-executive committees emanating from the Board of Directors who have direct contact with internal audit in each bank, the number of questionnaires distributed were (150) questionnaires, (120) suitable questionnaires were recovered for analysis, with the rate of recovery reached (80%). The questionnaire data was analyzed using the (SPSS) and a number of statistical techniques through descriptive statistics, arithmetic means, standard deviations and percentages, the study hypotheses were tested by multiple regression tests. The study found that there was no significant impact for the combined independent variables (Security and protection , legislation and laws) on the quality of accounting information, but there is a statistically significant impact of Security and protection on the quality of its own accounting information. The study recommends the interest of existing and decision-makers in banks operating in Jordan to raise the level of legislation and laws in order to positively affect the quality of accounting information in those banks. Due to the need for accounting information which is constantly growing, especially after the emergence of companies diversified large, thus increasing the burden of information on banks, so that the assembly, operation and data processing methods can produce different information that meets the needs of its users from outside and within the economic units, and this requires a system of internal control to e-commerce activities with high efficiency, especially in the commercial banks as the incubator for companies capital sectors, and the leading commercial banks in the use of electronic commerce and assumed a lot of business.

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Improving Student Mentoring through Meditation

Dr. Robert McKeage, University of Scranton, Scranton, PA

Dr. LenTischler, University of Scranton, Scranton, PA

Dr. Jerry Biberman, University of Scranton, Scranton, PA

ABSTRACT

This article follows up a theoretical paper in which a model was presented on improving mentoring through self-awareness. This paper tests the model. Improvements were noted in the mentoring process for college students by using guided meditation to increase the protégé’s level of self-awareness related to the mentoring process. The purpose of this paper is to examine the application of a theoretical model of increasing self-awareness using guided meditation, to improve the mentoring process. The term “mentor” can trace its roots back to Greek mythology. Homer, in the Odyssey, wrote about Mentor (actually Athena, in disguise) as the “faithful and wise” friend of Ulysses, King of Ithaca. Before starting out on his 10-year journey, Ulysses entrusted Mentor to act as a teacher to his son Telemachus. From this beginning, the term “mentor” has been defined as “as a relationship between an older, more experienced mentor and a younger, less experienced protégé for the purpose of helping and developing the protégé’s career.” (Ragins and Kram 2007 p. 5) The success of mentoring has been well documented in the literature. Most of the research on mentoring has focused on the career outcomes of the protégé, with usually positive outcomes (Noe et al., 2002; Ragins, 1999) Qualitative reviews and a meta-analysis by Allen, et al. (2004) revealed that individuals who were mentored received more promotions and higher salaries than their non-mentored colleagues (Allen et al., 2004). This research also showed that mentored individuals reported higher levels of job satisfactions, career advancement, and higher expectations for advancement than did individuals without a mentor. Organizations are looking to mentoring as a guide to help nurture valuable members and for assistance in retention. Employees who are mentored in organizations report significantly higher levels of engagement (Sange & Srivasatava, 2012). Organizations that have higher levels of engagement show higher levels of productivity, lower turnover, higher total shareholder returns, and better financial performance (Baumruk, 2006).

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The Long-Run Performance of IPOs in Taiwan Market

Jr-Jung Chiou, National Taiwan University, Taiwan, R.O.C.

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the long run stock price behavior of initial public offerings in Taiwan. The sample is comprised of 331 firms listed in Taiwan Stock Exchange with full three-year data and 441 firms listed in OTC market with full three-year data for the period from 1999 to 2011. The empirical test displays evidence of outperformance when we use CARs and BHARs as a measure of long-run performance. No matter which measure is used, we find that IPOs significantly outperform the market Index. Besides, concerning market conditions of going public date, going public during bullish periods did worse in the long run. Deciding to go public is one of the important events in firm’s life. This decision involves great impact in raising capital and creates many opportunities in the future and is facilitated through the initial public offerings (IPOs) procedure. After going public, firms have a new source of capital and access to new investments and growth opportunities, especially important in the growth stage in the life cycle. Since firms have various ways to raise capital and will not no longer depends on a few ones. Thus, IPO firms experience lower cost of capital and higher liquidity. In general, there is more benefit than drawback for firms to going public. For investors, they concern the stock price behavior of IPO firms and two interesting phenomena are well documented in literatures. The first anomaly is the initial underpricing; that is, the IPO firms tend to be underpricing in a sense of existence of short-run excess return. Second, the long-run performance of IPOs is negative returns adjusted to the market benchmark. Prior studies have investigated IPOs market, especially in the United States, but also in many other countries and financial markets.

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Effective Use of Humor in Teaching College-Level Business Courses: Assessing an Instructor’s Humor Quotient

Dr. James H. Browne, University of Texas at Tyler, TX

ABSTRACT

Postsecondary and adult education constitutes a key industrial sector in the US economy. Recent statistics on trends in postsecondary education show that hundreds of billions of dollars is spent annually by public institutions of higher education (Desrochers and Wellman, 2011). Much attention has been focused on the use of effective learning principles in teaching adults. Also, research findings are available about the use of humor in teaching university-level business courses such as accounting, business ethics, and many other business courses. However, there is need for a self-assessment instrument that provides trainers and college professors with feedback as to their use of humor as an effective principle of learning. This paper explains the concept of a learning principle and reviews various learning principles. The use of humor in teaching adults is introduced for consideration as a principle of learning. The various functions of humor within the context of teaching adults are discussed. A self-assessment instrument for determining one's "Humor Quotient" is presented for diagnostic and developmental purposes. Lastly, suggestions are offered for developing a teaching style that integrates humor as a learning principle in college courses. "I learned allot and had fun too because of the professor's vast knowledge and great sense of humor." Who of us in higher education would not want this student declarative to describe our college teaching? Those of us in higher education, no doubt, would contend that we attempt to maximize student learning of the disciplinary content in which we teach. Yet, how many of us place a strong emphasis on the "humorous" aspect of learning? Humor, and the outward manifestations of humor (i.e., laughter and the smile), should be better understood by those of us in the field of higher education. The everyday phenomenon of humor is taken for granted by most of us in higher education.

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Business Incubation Accelerator Tool for 21^st Century

Dr. Hanadi Mubarak AL-Mubaraki, Kuwait University, Kuwait

Emhamad Hamad, Nottingham Trent University, U.K

ABSTRACT

Business incubation programs are designed to accelerate the successful development of entrepreneurial companies through an array of business support resources and services, developed by incubator management. The purpose of the paper is to explore, investigate and identify the business incubators as effective tool for the economic development. The identification based on the best practice of business incubation process in successful implementation of case studies. Methodology/approach: The research methodologies adopted in this research study are desk-research and case study of 10 incubator organisations in the international countries. Findings: The findings of this study indicate the business incubators as an effective and innovative tool in supporting the graduated companies. Practical implications: The empirical results highlight some implications for successfully developing and implementing best practice of business incubation program. Originality/value: This study makes a contribution to knowledge about the of business incubation. Incubators fosters technological innovation and industrial renewal (Allen and Rahman, 1985; Similor and Gill, 1986; Allen, and McCluskey, 1990; Mian,1996; Al-Mubaraki and Busler ,2011a). In addition, it is supporting regional development through job creation (Allen, and Levine, 1986; Mian,1997; Thierstein and Wilhelm, 2001; Roper,1999). The structure and functions of an incubator depends on local and national needs. Well-structured business incubators will provide all the resources and services needed to enable the survival and growth of small businesses. Despite the different types of business incubators, their processes and services are generally similar (United Nations Industrial Development Organization, 1999, 85). In addition, critical to the definition of an incubator is the provision of management guidance, consulting tailored ,technical assistance to young growing companies.

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The Pivotal Importance of Leadership, Knowledge Sharing and Organization Culture

Dr. Michael Ba Banutu-Gomez, Professor, Rowan University, Glassboro, NJ

ABSTRACT

Many business owners or individuals, who work for an organization, have gained the knowledge, skills and abilities needed to share and expose their expertise in a specific field of interest. Leadership is one of those words, which have many definitions, with tons of examples and scenarios within it. In this paper, leadership is defined and also recognized for its importance. We then discuss the advantages of leadership and what happens to an organization if leadership doesn’t exist. The next topic discussed what knowledge sharing is, its importance’s and the advantages and disadvantages of it. The last topic, focused on the definition of organizational culture and its importance. Upon completing this assignment it was quite clear, thousands of articles, journals, textbooks, websites and author titled books would come up in the search engine pertaining to leadership. Degree and non-degree holders have their share of intellect when it comes to leadership, organizational culture, and knowledge sharing. It seems that everyone has something to say about what the definition of each means and the qualifications and essentials needed to be declared as a leader or what an organization should have to be successful. Instead, it is best for the reader to take knowledge from each source and combine the information with what you feel is best for you, the success of your business or within a company that you work for. It’s a huge relief to know that typing in the word; “leadership” in your search engine, in a matter of seconds comes up with over 7 billion items that incorporates leadership in it. It is amazing to find that a lot of people had something to say about these topics listed in this paper, and all of the contributing writers and authors of many articles and books are all correct. A lot of strategies have been implemented because of their inputs, which is a job well done and deserves an encore. Throughout an organization, professional use or even in the personal lives of many, the word leadership plays a significant role in everyday lives and the tasks at hand.

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Illegal Corporate Behavior: A Theory on Administrative Authority’s Confidence Bias

Sheng-Jung Shiau, Hsin Sheng College of Medical Care and Management and Department of Finance, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Taiwan (ROC)

Chun-An Li, Department of Finance, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Taiwan (ROC)

ABSTRACT

An extensive body of literature discusses illegal corporate behavior. Different from previous documents, our study focuses on the psychological perspectives of subjective self-confidence and bias of the CEO and the board, including the mindset of excessive self-confidence and a lack of self-confidence. Our theoretical model shows that if the CEO and the board possess no subjective confidence bias, illegal corporate behavior is present in a perfect illegal profit zone when the cost and profit of illegal actions are considered. Within this zone, adequately increasing the illegal level of the project can create a higher illegal risk premium for the corporate that encourages its own engagement in illegal activity. Our study also demonstrates that the relationship between the perfect illegal profit zone and the scale and growth rate of a corporate is a descending one. Our study further extends the model to the subjective perception of self-confidence bias of corporate administrative authorities. The findings suggest that illegal corporate behavior only takes place when the board is more optimistic than the CEO about the success rate of such behavior. Furthermore, we classified the self-confidence level of the CEO into different categories, and the result suggests that when the CEO is extremely lacking in self-confidence, illegal behavior will not exist in the corporate. When the CEO has extremely excessive self-confidence, illegal corporate behavior will definitely be exposed. When the CEO lacks self-confidence, adequately increasing the illegal level of the project’s extra illegal risk premium will be incurred more easily. Lastly, when the CEO has excessive self-confidence, illegal corporate behavior is more likely to be exposed. In recent years, many illegal corporate behaviors have been evidenced around the world. Much-publicized examples of companies performing these illegal behaviors are Enron, WorldCom, Xerox, and so on. Of all of these illegalities, the minor ones have resulted in significant financial losses for investors, while illegal behavior by major players ended up with the global financial crisis or tsunami.

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Indirect Measures of Assessing the Bachelor of Science Major in Accountancy Program at National University

Dr. Consolacion L. Fajardo, National University, San Diego, California

ABSTRACT

This study will analyze the results of two indirect measures used in the assessment of the Bachelor Science, Major in Accountancy program for academic year 2009-2010 at National University. This will include analysis of the monthly students’ self-assessment of learning on three items: (1) I gained significant knowledge about this subject, (2) My ability to think critically about topics in this class has improved, and (3) I can apply what I learned in this course beyond the classroom. In addition, it will analyze results of the Alumni Survey conducted by Office of Institutional Research and Assessment (OIRA) in 2010 to determine how well the program learning outcomes prepare graduates for entry into the accounting profession specifically on the questions: (1) Do graduates get employment after graduation? (2) How important is your degree from National University in helping you with professional advancement? Universities and colleges have accelerated the move to work out program modifications for the improvement of the quality and assessment of learning in the face of pressure from various sectors. Business educators are integrating a variety of active learning strategies to enhance learning and the application of skills and knowledge to real-world situations. Educators are also experimenting with new assessment techniques to meet assurance of learning standards (Weldy & Turnipseed, 2010) National University was founded in 1971 and is the second-largest, private, nonprofit institution of higher learning in California and the 16th largest in the United States. Currently, National University offers 99 undergraduate and graduate degrees. National University is committed to accessibility and offers programs at 27 campuses in California, one in Henderson, Nevada, as well as online. Its mission is to make lifelong learning accessible, challenging, and relevant to a diverse student population.

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The Study of Creating a Performance Model of Products Related to the Starting of One’s Own Coffee Shop

Dr. Jiung-Bin Chin, Department of Hospitality Management, Hungkuang University, Taichung, Taiwan

ABSTRACT

Because the coffee culture entered into the Taiwan market and with a very wide range of customer groups, today, many people love the taste and brew various types of coffee drinks by themselves; moreover, many people want to engage in the business of coffee shop as well as many other reasons, which thus brought up the motivation of this study. The study hopes to create a complete set of operational performance model of products related to coffee shops. Initially, this study conducts interviews with experts in four different fields - coffee shop operators, coffee shop staff, performance evaluation scholars, and coffee shop consumers in order to develop key performance indicators which impact the operation of coffee shop, including three inputs of cost, innovation, and total preferences score as well as an output of product prices. And then the study uses Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to conduct projection analysis of inputs and outputs on 31 products covering three categories of innovative drinks, flavored tea and coffee drinks, as well as analyzes the pros and cons and proceeds ranking of these products. In the end, the study will propose the recommendations. In recent years, since the coffee culture entered in the Taiwan market, many people can come into contact with such a trendy coffee drinking, and thus many people think that drinking coffee is indispensable in life and some people think it is a habit, or maybe an attitude. Perhaps, people just want to taste the coffee, or they just want to show their taste in lifestyle. Therefore, everyone has different opinions in drinking coffee. Plus the power of today's mass media and business marketing, there are many large and small coffee shops opened in different styles. Thus, coffee shops can be seen everywhere in Taiwan. Whether it is canned coffee drinks in the convenience stores, chain coffee shops, or independent exquisite cafes, they all represent a different segment in the coffee market.

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Beyond Compliance: Making the Most of Academic Program Reviews

William F. Martin, Psy.D, MPH, MA, MS, DePaul University, Chicago, Illinois

ABSTRACT

Accountability is increasing in all sectors of the economy including higher education. As diverse stakeholders question the relevance, cost, and value of degree programs including business degree programs at the undergraduate and graduate level, then it becomes critical for administrators to make the most of accreditation and program reviews. In this article, a process will be described to approach accreditation and program reviews as a path to continuously improving the quality and effectiveness of a concentration within a MBA program. Business administration educators are required by accrediting bodies and government agencies to assess the quality of their degree programs. These requests can be viewed from two perspectives. One perspective is to comply with the requirement. The other perspective discussed here is to go beyond compliance. This perspective embraces the spirit of continuous quality improvement (CQI). This paper describes how at a large Midwestern private University an administrative request imposed by the Illinois Board of Higher Education (IBHE) resulted in going beyond compliance. This review focused upon uncovering to improve the degree program. Given the assault on higher education from numerous fronts including high costs (Ensign & Korn, 2012), choking college debt even among households with annual incomes of $94,535 to $205,335 (Simon & Barry, 2012), questionable relevance (Warhurst, 2011), declining rate of return (White, Miles, & White, 2010), sustainability of the business model of MBA programs (Thomas & Peters, 2012) and vanishing value (Saba et al, 2011), it is critical that degree programs be continuously evaluated for improvement.

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Internet Mediated Live Communication with Web Vendor Sales Representative:

An Empirical Study on Embarrassing Products

Dr. Pimmanee Rattanawicha, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand

ABSTRACT

Internet has become an important media for businesses to communicate with their customers. With the advancement of technology and high speed of Internet, web vendors can provide different channels for the customers to live communicate with their sales representatives via Internet in an e-business environment. The increased use of these online sales representatives on websites is the obvious evidence of how important to provide the quality support for customers. This research has three main objectives. The first one is to analyze factors associating with Thai Internet users’ (1) decision to choose a preferred Internet mediated channel of live communication (text chat, audio chat or video chat), and (2) decision to choose a preferred gender of an online sales representative when they want to contact with web vendor. The second objective is to explore products and their degrees of embarrassment felt by Thai users. And the last objective is to examine whether Thai Internet users’ (1) decision to choose a preferred Internet mediated channel of live communication, and (2) decision to choose a preferred gender of an online sales representative differ when products of their interests change from general (or non-embarrassing) products to embarrassing ones. The statistical analysis based on data collected from 500 Internet users in Thailand reveals that an Internet user’s age, gender, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and usage experience of text chat as well as Internet shopping experience seem to have associations with his/her decision to choose a preferred channel of live communication. It is also found that a Thai user’s decision to choose a preferred gender of an online sales representative associates significantly with his/her gender.

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Teaching XBRL

Roberta J. Cable, Ph.D., CMA, Professor, Pace University, Pleasantville, NY

Patricia Healy, CPA, CMA, Associate Professor, Pace University, Pleasantville, NY

ABSTRACT

eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) is a language used for the electronic communication of financial information. In 2009, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recognized the importance of this language when it mandated XBRL financial reporting of U.S. publically traded companies to be phased in during a three-year period. Today, all U.S. publically traded companies have to file with the SEC using XBRL. We believe that graduating accounting majors who are familiar with XBRL will be at a competitive advantage when they seek employment. The purpose of this research was to determine to what extent, if any, undergraduate AIS students were exposed to XBRL. XBRL primarily has been taught in Accounting Information Systems (AIS) courses and AIS is typically a required course of undergraduate accounting majors. We reviewed AIS textbooks and course syllabi. We found that faculty who used textbooks with significant to moderate coverage of XBRL were more likely to assign this topic to their students. Faculty who used textbooks with very limited coverage of XBRL did not expose their students to this topic. Most importantly, based upon the syllabi review, only approximately one third of the faculty included XBRL in their courses as an objective, a topic or an assignment. eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) is a language used for the electronic communication of financial information. It is a standardized way to translate financial data into a format that computers can read and understand. Typically, financial information is treated as a block of text in a document or a webpage. XBRL provides identifying tags for individual items of data and these tags enable automated processing of financial information. Software is able to recognize data formatted with XBRL tags and this allows for storage and exchange of information. This process enables users to manipulate tagged data into a variety of formats that provide better information for analysis.

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A Quality Analysis of Lean Six Sigma and the Effects on the Management Firm

Sohail Ahmed, UiTM Shah Alam

Quality is one of the principal key themes found in management decision making. Time, innovation, cost reduction and efficiency are other key success factors for successful management. All of these themes are customer-driven. Customers expect a high level of quality.1 Organizations should respond speedily and timely to all customer requests. Innovation creates products, services, and processes that will meet the needs of each customer. Customers face continuous pressure by organizations to reduce the cost of their products or services. Managers should continue to invest in sufficient resources that promote customer satisfaction in order to attract and to retain a customer base which will ultimately increase the orgnaization’s profits. Six Sigma is a quality improvement methodology that can help management with most of these themes. It is the latest method in a progression of an integrated quality plan series.2 Innovation in the process or to realize improvement for every process is a part of Six Sigma strategy.3 Many companies throughout the world have emphasized quality as an important strategic dimension because a quality focus reduces costs and increases customer satisfaction.4 Companies that have applied Six Sigma system have achieved success through innovation activities, such as financial outcomes, because of cost reduction by process improvement5. Without ongoing continuous improvement, your cost of quality (COQ) will be between 20 and 35% of the revenue stream of the product’s selling price.6 Six Sigma through its affect on the cost of quality (COQ) can also help to promote cost reduction.7 But Six Sigma alone cannot dramatically improve process speed or reduced cost and invested capital. Lean provides tools for analyzing the process flow and the delay times at each activity of a process.

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Business Ethical Orientations Among Management Students: A Comparative Study of Two Countries

Dr. Razali Mat Zin, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Saudi Arabia

ABSTRACT

This research is intended to investigate the impact of culture on the ethical attitudes of business managers in Saudi Arabia and Malaysia. Adopting Hofstede’s cultural typology, this study examines the relationship between his five cultural dimensions—individualism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity and long term orientation – and management students ethical attitudes and various demographic and organizational variables. This study will use primary data collected from a selected sample of undergraduate students in business management who are studying in two universities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and two other universities in Malaysia. The findings showed that there are significant differences between the Saudi and Malaysian business students views in all the attitudinal statements about business ethics except on the item, “export unsafe products. There has been considerable debate regarding the effectiveness of business ethics instruction (Arlow & Ulrich, 1980; Beekum, 1996; Braxton, 2004; Razali, 2006). In addition, the AACSB (Barnett & Karson, 2004) states that, "students should have a background of economic and legal environment as it pertains to profit and/or non-profit organizations along with ethical considerations and social and political influences as they affect such organizations." This new trend is also relevant and applicable in the context of higher learning institutions in developing countries such as Malaysia and Saudi Arabia. Universities in Malaysia and Saudi Arabia should give serious attention about inculcating the right ethical value orientations among their students as part of the preparation before they join the workforce in the real world.The purpose of this research is to investigate and compare the impact of national cultures on the ethical attitudes of undergraduate business management students in Saudi Arabia and Malaysian universities.

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The Age of Internal Audit Function and Internal Audit’s Contribution to Financial Statement Audit: Implications on Audit Fees

Dr. Zulkifflee Mohamed, Universiti Tun Abdul Razak (Unirazak), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

ABSTRACT

The internal audit (IA) function has become well recognised as one of the key governance mechanisms the role of which has evolved over time. Despite its earlier role as the company’s ‘watch-dog’ for the organisation, the changes in the business complexity and globalization have significantly changed the scope and the nature of IA processes. The roles of IA have expanded and now it is typically encompass a consulting role, including risk management, control assurance and compliance work. Depending upon the assessment of external auditors on the quality of the IA, professional standards permit the contribution of internal auditors to financial statement audit. Yet, the economic effect of this nexus remains unclear. On one hand, the substitution view propounds that a more active IA function would encourage external auditors’ reliance on such a function, reduce duplication of audit work leading to potential cost savings and lower audit fees. By contrast, the complementary controls perspective suggests greater investment in IA activities will be associated with higher audit fees. As such, this study aims to examine two aspects of IA quality namely IA competency and IA contribution to financial statement audits. Consistent with substitution view, this study predicts a negative relationship between one of the competency aspects of IA which is the age of the IA function (years) and audit fees. Second, this study tests whether the contribution of internal auditors to financial statement audit reduces audit fees. Data analysis is based on a cross-sectional regression model with observations of 73 public-listed firms in Malaysia which include publicly available data matched with survey responses from their internal and external auditors. The results of the study suggest that the competency of IA namely the age of the IA function (years) is associated with lower audit fees.

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Retaining Valuable Employees in the Public Sector: The Case of Egyptian Pharmacists

Dr. Dina Metwally, Helwan University, Egypt

ABSTRACT

Employees might leave their organizations for personal or organizational reasons. Whether employees leave because of personal or organizational reasons, cost of turnover makes it a necessity for managers to give a high attention to employees’ retention. This study investigates causes of pharmacists’ turnover in a public sector organization in Egypt. High turnover level of Egyptian pharmacists in the public sector is influenced by the public sector practices and policies. The paper suggests a new career path strategy that overcomes dissatisfaction factors to retain and attract talented pharmacists to the public sector. A great deal of research has been conducted to link employees’ attitudes with work outcomes. Research has focused on studying job satisfaction as the key attitude related to employees` behavior such as job performance and turnover (e.g. Shore & Martin, 1989; Carter et al, 2003; Long & Thean, 2011). It is argued that general attitudes toward the organization may have a great impact on the decision to stay with the organization than more specific attitudes toward the job (Mitchell et al, 2001). Cost of turnover makes it a necessity for managers to give high attention to employees’ retention. Avoiding high cost of employees` turnover requires managers to focus on improving employees` satisfaction, reducing turnover, improving quality and cutting costs (Waldman et al, 2004; Jones & Gates, 2007). For the purpose of this study, job satisfaction is defined as the positive emotions an employee has toward his/her job (Locke, 1976). Specifically, job satisfaction is defined as "the extent to which people like (satisfaction) or dislike (dissatisfaction) their jobs" (Spector, 1997, p. 2).

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The Applicable of Relational Factors to Determine the Performance of International Joint Venture (IJVs) in

Thailand Small and Medium Enterprise (SMEs): A Conceptual Framework for Future Research

Dr. Wanida Wadeecharoen, University, Bangkok, Thailand

Dr. Athiwat Kanjanavanikul, Thonburi, University, Bangkok, Thailand

Dr. Sombat Teekasap, Eastern Asian University, Bangkok, Thailand

ABSTRACT

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the form of International Joint Ventures (IJVs) are performing as the important actor towards Thailand economic. Since IJV has been representing as a preferable strategic entry mode used by Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) to enter in ASEAN region particularly in Thailand, the number of SME IJV obviously has seen an increasing of 45 projects from 2009 integrated to a total of 298 IJV projects in 2010. The major player in SME IJVs comes from Japan, US, EU and ASEAN regions, respectively. This is because of unity characteristic of SME IJV can access to a large volumes of capital resources, technology transfer, managerial management and market networks. With these words Thailand SME could be enhanced of competitive advantage in global market through the usage of IJV. Although, the usage of IJV in Thailand has no sign to decrease, however, the failure rate of IJV can be as high as 25 percent from the total industrial sectors report by Board of Thailand Investment (BOI: 2011). Moreover, the antecedent of successful SME IJV is unpredictable. In doing so, inter-partner relationship problem has been identified as a possible factor causing the high failure rate of IJV. Thus, this study is an attempt to highlight the important of relational factors in the form of relationship marketing orientation (RMO) concept comprise with bounding, empathy, reciprocity and trust with the linkage of SME IJV performance in Thailand. Based on this concept, relational factors are implicit to be important predictors to determine the successful of IJV SME in Thailand.

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What does the Implementation of IFRS for SME bring for Viticulture

Dr. Hana Bohusova, Mendel University, Brno, Czech Republic

Dr. Patrik Svoboda, Mendel University, Brno, Czech Republic

ABSTRACT

Agricultural activity is largely different from other activities that the entities perform in order to achieve profit. Unlike other business activities, agriculture is significantly dependent on natural climatic conditions, and therefore a particular specialization of agricultural produce depends on geographic location. Agricultural producers use every form of business organization, from small farms to large publicly held corporations. Although most entrepreneurs working in agriculture are small and medium enterprises, the specifics of agriculture are significantly reflected in the financial reporting intended primarily for large corporations traded on the capital markets. A special activity within the scope of agriculture is wine industry. Due to the industry and product characteristics, wine industry need, in order to present useful financial statements, the special accounting treatment. The aim of this paper is to review the possibilities of implementation of the provisions relating to agriculture in the frame of IFRS for SMEs into practice of entities whose object of activity is wine growing and production of wine and to recommend appropriate application in practice. There are designed specific treatments for wine industry in this paper. Farming is important for the EU's natural environment. According to the European Commission (2012) rural areas represent 91% of the territory of 27 European Union Member States and are home to more than 56% of its population. Agriculture and forestry has still crucial importance for land use and management of natural resources in rural areas of the EU and as a platform for economic diversification in rural areas. Agricultural activity is largely different from other activities that the entities perform in order to achieve profit. Agricultural production is significantly dependent on natural climatic conditions, and therefore a particular specialization of agricultural produce depends on geographic location.

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The Defects of Chinese Food Safety Supervision Based on Game

Zefeng Dong, Tianjin University of Science and Technology, Tianjin, PRC

ABSTRACT

In 2009, a new act, the Food Safety Law, reformed the Chinese food safety supervision system, but a four-year practice has already proven that the current system still has big defects. This paper focuses on the organizational structure of the supervisory system and suggests that it is the main reason why a great number of food safety accidents are still occurring. Firstly this paper concludes that the system distributes the responsibilities according to the different links of food supply chain, which is one of essential defects of the system. Another defect is the two-level supervision system: the superior level, national organizations, and the lower level, local agents, have not direct connection and close “principal-agent” relationship, because the local agents are totally under the administration of local governments. On this base, the two-level supervision system, this paper sets up a dynamic game with incomplete information and deduces its perfect Bayesian equilibrium. Finally, this paper concludes that a thought of superior level supervisors to avoid negative influence and monitoring cost leads them to select not to inspect the lower level while the market condition is superficially good; the superior level prefers to ignore the anticipated risk while the lower level shows sensitivity to it; the asymmetric punishment to the grey income effect the decision of lower level, the market condition and essentially the information transmission. In China, a series of food safety scandals continuously occurred in the last several years, which considerably crashed consumers’ confidence on the food made in China, and also exposed many corrigible drawbacks in the Chinese food safety supervisory system. In February 28^th, 2009, a new act, the Chinese Food Safety Law, enforced and then the reform was implemented and the current supervisory system was thus built (see http://www.gov.cn/flfg/2009-02/28/content_1246367.htm).

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Towards A Theory of Macromarketing in Emerging Economies

Dr. Akins T. Ogungbure, Troy University, Atlanta, GA

Dr. Rodney J. Oudan, Worcester State University, Worcester, MA

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper is to address the importance of the theory of macromarketing in promoting economic development in developing countries. This paper has argued that macromarketing is important to emerging markets. The study considered the applicability of macromarketing concepts to the problem of economic development. General theories of macromarketing were discussed and a model was developed. Theory can provide description of relationships between variables, enable prediction of important outcomes, and provide explanation of why variables are related in certain ways. Macromarketing is often viewed as creating an efficient system for exchange processes from producers to consumers while accomplishing the objectives of society. This paper proposes a theory of macromarketing based on the understanding, explanation and management of the relationship between marketing and society. The marketing literature reviewed shows that insufficient attention to marketing thought and methodology exists when addressing the problems of economic growth that face developing countries. Macromarketing studies marketing within the context of the entire economic system, with special emphasis on aggregate performance. Bartels and Jenkins (1977) assign the broadest definition to macromarketing, indicating that it refers to marketing in general – the marketing process in its entirety, and the aggregate mechanism of institutions performing it. Fisk (1981) posits that macromarketing should be viewed as social process: (1) as a life-support system provisioning technology, (2) as a focus on quality and quantity of life-goals served by marketing, (3) as a technology for mobilizing and allocating resources, (4) and as a discipline concerned about the consequences of marketing, i.e., the spillover effects of marketing for those who may not seek or be aware of the intended or unintended activities of marketers. Macromarketing is typically seen as the purview of marketers interested in examining the interactions among markets, marketing, and society.

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How Ambidexterity and Leadership Behaviors Affect Firm Performance: The Role of Market Turbulence

Dr. Pınar Comez, Istanbul, Turkey

ABSTRACT

In this study, the impacts of ambidexterity and leadership behaviors on innovative firm performance are investigated by using data collected from manufacturing organizations in the Marmara area, a major industrial region of Turkey. Survey respondents are mid- and top-level managers (n=224). This study further examines the role of market turbulence on these interactions by including market turbulence as a control variable in the research model. It was found that ambidexterity and leadership behaviors affect innovative firm performance, and the role of the market turbulence was found to be significant. Today, modern business life is becoming increasingly more complex, due in part to the rising uncertainty and dynamism of environmental conditions and the increasing intensity of competition. Consequently, organizations must compulsorily find new ways to adapt and integrate their internal structure within the framework of continually changing market conditions. Firms that effectively exploit their capabilities and their competitive advantage and gain and internalize new information more quickly will be one step ahead of their competitors. Dess and Origer (1987) suggest that firms operating in dynamic and complex environments must effectively implement (corporate) strategies that will place them at a competitive advantage in their respective marketplace. In particular, the results of exploitive activities related to firm performance can be seen in the short-term while those results related to explorative activities are generally realized over the long-term (Wang and Rafiq, 2009).

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The Second Order Confirmatory Factor Analysis of A New Product Success Measurement

Model: An Empirical Study of Thai Consumer Product Industries

Suchart Tripopsakul, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand

Dr. Wilert Puriwat, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand

Dr. Suphakant Phimoltares, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand

Dr. Achara Chandrachai, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand

ABSTRACT

Measuring new product success is the complicated task since it is a multidimensionality and multi level of analysis. Previous studies attempt to identify the effective indicators for measuring new product success. The propose of this study in to develop a new product success measurement model for consumer product industries in Thailand. According to member firms of Food Processing Industry club in February 2011, 227 companies were chosen as a research sample. Structural equation modeling (SEM) and the second order factor analysis (CFA) were utilized to test our proposing model. The research shows that the model of new product success measurement in consumer product industries consisted 3 main components (Financial, Market, and Customer based performance) and 9 indicators were fitted with the empirical data, determined from the Chi-square values = 46.224, and not statistical significance (p = 0.873) at zero degrees of freedom (df = 24) indicated that model not different from the empirical data. Goodness of fit index (GFI = 0.917), and Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA = 0.038). The result shows that Financial-based performance has the highest priority for measuring new product success in consumer product industries in Thailand. The second priority dimension is Market-based performance, and Customer-based performance is the third priority dimension. New product development (NPD) is the most critical strategy for firms (de Brentani, 1986; Barcey and Benson, 1987; Urban and Hauser, 1993; Griffin, 1997; Cooper, 2000). In order to prosper in their business and gain more competitive advantage beyond the competitors, firms need successful new products to attract prospective customers and also retain existing customers.

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Financial and Real Sector Interactions in Nigeria

Dr. Oluyele Akinkugbe, University of Namibia, Namibia

Babatunde I. Ekundayo, Univerity of Ibadan, Nigeria

ABSTRACT

The literature—theoretical and empirical—on need for a clear understanding of the complex interrelationships that exist between financial and real sectors of economies continues to grow in the last three decades. Without doubt, an in-depth knowledge of these relationships promotes better policy formulation—monetary, fiscal and trade. It also enhances the regulatory and supervisory framework for the financial sector, for sake of promoting sustainable real sector growth trajectories. However, empirical evidence and theoretical debates on the relationship between financial sector development and economic growth remains inconclusive. In this paper, we contribute to the debate by examining the interaction between the financial and real sectors in Nigeria. Time series data on selected variables for the period 1970 to 2010 is used. Results of our analyses confirm strong interactions between the financial and real sector variables in Nigeria over the study period. We conclude by recommending that measures to check observed excesses and lapses in Nigeria’s financial sector that tend to inhibit real sector growth, and overall economic development be put in place. The debate over the interaction between the financial and real sectors cannot be over accentuated. Some argued that financial development act as a catalyst for real sector development (Levine, Loayza and Beck 2000; Calderon and Liu, 2003; Neusser and Kugler, 1998); the other line of thought opined that real sector development spur development in the financial sector. The proponents of this line of reasoning include: Robinson (1952), Gurley and Shaw (1967), and Jung (1986), among many others.

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Effects of Audio Feedback and Download Status Display on Perception of Delay: An Exploration into Thai Downloaders

Dr. Chatpong Tangmanee, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand

Pawarat Nontasil, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand

ABSTRACT

To cope with delay during download, information providers often seek techniques to keep downloaders informed. Two of the widely-accepted techniques are (1) presenting audio signal as feedback when the download is over or (2) displaying a download status. Yet, a literature review could not locate any empirical work addressing an effect of audio feedback and that of download status display as well as their interaction effects on Thai downloaders’ perception of delay. This study hopes to fill this void. A field experiment on an actual information provider with 2,160 participants yield that (1) the effect of each of the two variables on the downloaders’ perceived delay were not significant but (2) the interaction effect of both variables on this perception were statistically significant a 0.05 level. In addition to extending insight into concepts of human-computer interaction’s feedback presentation in the Thai context, practitioners could apply the findings in order to offer services on which downloaders perceive least delay. Given the drastic increase of online content, it is inevitable to have a large volume of complaint on delay, especially during download sessions. Consequently, researchers have to examine (1) delay in the online context together with reaction to such delay and (2) solutions to deal successfully with the delay. Shneiderman (1984) is among the pioneers in investigating information system delay. Indeed, he and other scholars (Miller, 1968; Nielsen, 1993) have stated based on their experiments that (1) if an information system could display results within 0.1 second, users would perceive no delay and aware of the system’s true interactivity, (2) if the information system could display results within 1.0 second, users start noticing the delay but their “flow of thought” has not been interrupted (Nah, 2003, p. 2213).

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Member: Association of American Publishers (AAP), Professional / Scholarly Publishing, New York