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ISSN 1556-6757 |
SJI |
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Volume
1, Issue 2, 2007
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This paper investigates the
awareness , self-reported
current usage of yield
management (YM), as a new
technology, in a number of
service organizations in the
United Arab Emirates (UAE),
perceived usefulness of using
yield management and to explore
to what extent the conditions
necessary for the adoption of YM
exist in non-users
organizations. A sample of 77
individuals from hotels,
airlines, and restaurants in the
emirates of Abu Dhabi, Dubai,
Ras Al-Khaimah, and the city of
Al-Ain was used. The results
show that the majority of
respondents are aware of YM and
use it at least moderately. The
sources of acquiring knowledge
in YM for those who are aware of
YM were as follows: practice,
training, and reading books and
journals. The results also show
that respondents perceive that
the use of YM influences
efficiency, sales,
profitability; improves
productivity, competitive
advantage, capacity utilization
and reduces costs. Results also
show that about 53 percent of
the users have been using YM for
five years or more and that the
conditions required for the
adoption of YM exist to some
extent for most of the non-users
organizations. Limitations,
implications, and lines of
future research are discussed.
Full Article
Dean Frear
Abstract
Female business ownership is an
important segment of business.
Rural female entrepreneurs are
an integral part of this sector.
Research is lacking regarding
the demographic characteristics
of rural female entrepreneurs.
Typical issues analyzed in the
literature include gender,
personal characteristics such as
education, experience, age,
marital status, children,
motivation, founding strategies,
initial capital, investment
process, networks, inhibiting
reasons, international, and
public policy issues. This
research developed a demographic
profile revealing
characteristics of the rural
female entrepreneur.
Full Article
Ruey-Shin Chen, Chung-Ching
Chiu,Jaw-Ching Chiang, Chih-Hung
Tsai
Abstract
Many Customer-to-Customer (C2C)
online auction providers still
do not have a good understanding
of Customer-to-Customer trade in
Taiwan. The Customer-to-Customer
online auction providers still
do not have a good understanding
of Customer-to-Customer trade
behavior and are unable to
provide satisfied and effective
outcomes for an online auction
trade. It is difficult to
propose a standard trade
strategy without a basic
understanding of current trade
capacity and of the critical
gaps in customer’s
tradeevaluation. The purpose of
this survey article is to
address these behaviors in the
literature and to provide an
overview of the current state
in Taiwan. Using qualitative
data collected from customers,
this study provides insight into
what can be done to build
effective Customer-to-Customer
online auction trade in Taiwan.
Keywords:
Online Auction, Trust,
Decision-Making, Web-based
Auction
Full Artiicle
Flexibility is one the most
highly appreciated norms of
today's workplace. Amongst the
push for broadening this trend
in the employment relationship,
an important question that
arises is the effects it can
have on employees’ perception
and how it can affect their
commitment to the
organization. This paper
examines the issue of employment
flexibility and the various
forms it
takes in the working
environment. Equally, there is
an attempt to ascertain how
people in the
workforce perceive the call for
flexibility and how this affects
their commitment levels towards
Leadership Practices: A
Comparison Between Chile And The
United States
Leopoldo Arias-Bolzmann, Stanley
J. Stough, Chellappan Somarajan,
Leonardo Garcia-Polo
Abstract
Leadership is a key element in
the successful execution of any
strategic plan. It is important
to
recognize differing perceptions
concerning performance of
leadership practices across
cultures. This study compares
leadership practices between the
USA and Chile, using the LPI-Self
questionnaire developed by
Kouzes & Posner (1993) as the
instrument for data collection.
The results of the study show
that significant differences do
exist among MBA respondents in
the respective countries with
Chilean respondents scoring
higher than USA respondents on
all practice dimensions. The
results are of value in
understanding how leadership
differences impact strategic
execution within an
organization.
Full Article
Masood A. Badri
Abstract
Industrial location is an
increasingly important decision
facing both national and
international firms. Given that
no operational measures of the
critical factors affecting a
firm's industrial location
decision exist, this paper
develops an instrument for the
critical factors. The developed
instrument, consisting of 14
dimensions, passed through a
stringent empirical validation
test, and is based on extensive
literature search and
psychometric principles. A total
of 95 items were retained for
the instrument. The main
objective of the paper is to
describe the methodology used in
the development process. The
paper provides a detailed
presentation of how content and
construct validity are assured.
The process of identifying the
fourteen critical factors
utilized judgments by the
authors and a group of
industrial location
professionals. A total of 2125
executives of industrial firms
from all over the world
participated in the study (23
countries). The general critical
factors of industrial location
are transportation, labor, raw
materials, markets, industrial
sites, utilities, government
attitude, tax structure,
climate, and community. In
addition, for international
location considerations, four
general factors are identified:
political situation of foreign
countries, global competition
and survival, government
regulations, and economic
factors.
Full Article
Optimal Quarterly Sales Targets
for a Mobile Phone Company with
Exogenous Yearly Targets
Nasreddine Saadouli
Abstract
This paper
considers the problem of
determining short-term
(quarterly) sales targets for a
regional division given yearly
quotas exogenously imposed by
the corporate parent’s
headquarters. In an increasingly
complex and dynamic economic
environment, this problem arises
in the attempt to balance the
global factors such as corporate
budgets, supply and aggregate
demand with the division’s
shorter term issues and the
regional market’s specific
characteristics and attributes.
The problem is modeled as a
linear program to determine the
optimal quarterly allocation of
a range of products to maximize
the revenue while satisfying
the yearly quotas and the short
term demand constraints for each
product in the range. The linear
program is solved for a
real-life case. The results
indicate the existence of such
an optimal allocation and
provide further insight into the
problem for the division’s
marketing management. Future
research paths which include the
combined short-term price-quota
determination and the stochastic
demand-price instances conclude
the exposition.
Full Article
Abstract
Although a growing body of
research is developing to
address the different e-business
practices
in the electronic marketplace,
e-tailing strategies have only
been investigated as part of the
study
of general e-business
strategies. However, researchers
recognize that innovative and
unique
modes of e-tailing operations
have emerged in recent years.
Therefore, this paper introduces
an
organizing framework that
categorizes the strategies of e-tailers
on three levels of interaction:
product, process, and
partnership. The framework also
addresses the perceptions and
preferences of customers in
relation to e-tailing
strategies. Based on the
proposed framework,
research opportunities and
lessons for practitioners are
suggested. Full Article
Entrepreneurs interested in
tapping auto related business
opportunities are provided
information about how automotive
behaviors and the gender roles
of masculinity and femininity
(expected sex-related behaviors)
interrelate. Automotive
maintenance activities and use
of technical features were
surveyed. A MANOVA was conducted
with the results indicating that
the inspection of air filters
and the use of turn signals,
seat belts, and overdrive are
related to
masculinity/femininity, while
other maintenance behaviors and
automotive feature usage may not
be. Frequencies for performing
automotive behaviors were
reported for men and women,
revealing significant
differences. This knowledge may
be relevant for auto-related
entrepreneurs.
Full Article
Institutions and Development:
Are Some More Critical Than
Others? A Cross-Section
Empirical Analysis of 54
Countries
Bertram C. I. Okpokwasili
Abstract
Strong institutions are often
mentioned as the factors that
would lift Africa from
under-development. But given the
resource constraints of African
countries, policy makers would
have to prioritize which
institution or institutions to
commit scarce resources to. An
aggregative measure of many
institutions would not be very
useful for their policy
decisions, and some questions
would still linger. First, what
is the relative importance of
one institution to another?
Second, do institutions exert
equal impact on comprehensive
development as they do on
economic growth? The
contribution of this paper is in
addressing these two issues. We
find that in assessing the
importance of institutions on
development, it makes a
difference whether one addresses
economic growth or comprehensive
development. Using data from
1985 to 2004, for 54 countries,
32 of them from Sub-Sahara
Africa, government effectiveness
seems to be the institution
whose improvement would have the
most overall impact. Its impact
on growth and
development is strong, but its
superiority is in comprehensive
development.
Full Article
Abstract
While previous advertising and
marketing literature has looked
at specific elements
of creativity in marketing
communication, in reality
creativity is a
multi-dimensional
phenomenon. By reviewing
articles from other disciplines,
this essay will examine
creativity not from the
perspective of individual
process or potential but rather
as an
end product. From this
viewpoint, a general theory of
creativity will be established
utilizing a socio-cultural
model, one that requires
interaction between three
subsystems:
creator, domain, and field.
Full Article
Abstract
This paper examines M2 money
targeting, the stability of real
M2 money demand, and the effects
of deviations of actual real M2
growth rates from targets on
real GDP growth and inflation
rate on the Nigerian economy
since the introduction of the
Structural Adjustment Program
(SAP) in 1986. We employ
cointegration vector error
correction methodology using
quarterly data from 1986:1 to
2001:4. Our results indicate
that a long-run relationship
exists between the real broad
money supply, real GDP,
inflation rate, domestic
interest rate, foreign interest
rate, and expected exchange
rate. Furthermore, both the
CUSUM and CUSUMSQ tests confirm
the stability of the short- and
long run parameters of the real
money demand function. The
stability of the real money
demand function supports the
choice of M2 as an intermediate
target as Central Bank of
Nigeria (CBN) attempts to manage
inflation and stimulate economic
activity in Nigeria. Our
empirical analysis showed that
the CBN was not strongly
committed to its annual M2 money
growth targets, but more
importantly, the deviations from
M2 target growth rates impacted
real GDP growth rate and
inflation rate adversely during
the period.
Full Article
Financial Crises, Panic and Contagion: Evidence from a Cross-Country
Comparison Using Two Time Frames
Cinzia Balit
Moussalli
Abstract
Rapid
growth in Asian nations during
the period 1994 to 1996 first
attracted massive capital
inflows, which were soon
followed by a loss of confidence
and even greater capital
outflows. Most of the countries
that operated under a fixed
exchange rate system were unable
to maintain their peg due to
speculative attacks against
their currencies, and ultimately
lost much of their reserves.
While the effect of contagion
spread the crisis over a large
number of developing nations,
the question needs to be asked:
Why were some countries less
affected than others? This study
will analyze the Asian currency
crisis by looking into the
extent to which it affected 32
nations in three different
regions of the globe. The study
is particularly important in
light of the recent volatility
of the stock market in the US
and around the world. It will
shed some light into the
combination of factors that are
likely to cause another
financial crisis.
Full Article
Cross-functional Teams and
Informal Social Networks: A Case
Study of Project Development and
Performance in a
Multidisciplinary Science and
Technology National Laboratory
Mario A. Rivera
and Max M. Valdez
Abstract
The present study focuses on a
single cross-functional project
team in a multidisciplinary
science and technology national
laboratory in the United States,
with particular emphasis on the
contribution of team-member
networks to project success.
Semi-structured interviews were
conducted with members of the
subject team and with project
stakeholders to identify how
this factor, namely network-embeddedness,
along with other organizational
and individual variables, had an
impact on team productivity and
success. The study’s findings
indicate that, while there is
growing emphasis on the use of
cross-functional teams in this
laboratory as elsewhere,
customary institutional support
mechanisms fail to sustain
teamwork when they are not
specifically aimed at the
utilization of networks to
generate knowledge and other
resources. Management support
for team networking, on the
basis of conscious awareness of
the importance of networks,
determines the extent to which
network engagement may influence
group performance.
Full Article
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