July 2011
Market segmentation in Malaysia by using psychographic dimensions for unit trust products
The aim of this study is to identify the values and lifestyles that best explain financial unit trust behaviours. As an exploratory study, this paper adapts the values and lifestyle scale from previous studies to the Malaysian context. Data were obtained from a questionnaire handed out to a cluster sample of 1350 customers. A factor analysis was conducted on the information obtained. Results of the...
July 2011
SMEs’ marketing skills challenges in South Africa
SMEs comprise over 90% of African business operations and contribute to over 50% of African employment and GDP. SMEs sector has shown positive signs in South Africa, Mauritius and North Africa. In South Africa, SMEs constitute 55% of all jobs. Research such as Bowler, Dawood and Page (2006) and Phakisa (2009)reveal that 40% of new business ventures fail in their first year, 60% in their second...
July 2011
The science and art of customer relationship management: A blend of business processes and technology solutions
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is recognized as crucial in the success of any business in today’s relationship era where the main aim of an organization is to retain customers. A body of recent research shows that companies that have best harnessed change in CRM architectures have realized significant strategic advantage. CRM is about creating a competitive advantage by being the best at...
July 2011
Small-scale maize farmers’ decision to participate in contract farming: Implications for integration into the marketing chain
In this study, the determinants of participation in contract farming by small-scale maize farmers were investigated. The probit model was used to estimate the coefficients in the empirical model. The results indicated that for farmers with access to information, training, farming systems, extension visits, membership in farmer organisations, and household income, and the probability of participating in...
July 2011
An investigation of teachers’ loneliness in the workplace in terms of human values they possess
The purpose of this study is to investigate teachers’ loneliness in the workplace in terms of human values they possess. The research is of the relational survey model. Teachers’ perception of human values forms the independent variables of the research model. The level of teachers’ loneliness in the workplace, on the other hand, constitutes the dependent variables of the research model. The...
July 2011
Researching the dependence between dynamic indicators of investment profitability
The paper presents the experimental research of mutual dependence between two methods of description of investment profitability: the investment's payback period and the internal rate of return based on the samples of investment programs realized in the economy of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, which represents economically the most developed area of Republic of Serbia, from 2003 to 2008. Working...
July 2011
Knowledge management as a strategic management tool at a South African enterprise
The primary aim of this article was to explore the role of a knowledge management strategy to achieve a South African technology-oriented enterprise’s business strategy. The linking between knowledge management and the business strategy was viewed as the crux for successful knowledge management in any enterprise. Knowledge plays a crucial role in the competitive nature of enterprises and hence constitutes a...
July 2011
The potential paradox of endorsers’ exterior traits: Worship at what cost?
This study applies Balance Theory and Elaboration Likelihood Model to explain consumers’ counterfeit purchase behaviors. The results find that endorsers’ exterior traits enhance not only consumers’ worship levels, but also foster consumers’ counterfeit purchase behaviors. Endorsers’ interior traits enhance only worship levels, but not counterfeit purchase behaviors. In contrast, the role of...
July 2011
Measuring competitive advantage with an asset-light valuation model
Defining competitive advantage as the ability of a firm to generate returns in excess of its synthetic normal returns; the present study develops an “asset-light” valuation model to capture intangible strategic resources, that do not appear on balance sheets and could explain abnormal returns. Three propositions are derived from the model: (1) firms emphasizing light assets over tangible assets,...
July 2011
Business-to-consumer e-commerce in Nigeria: Prospects and challenges
The growth of Internet usage in Nigeria continues to increase, recording over 90% growth rate between 2000 and 2008. While businesses in Nigeria are reported to have online access with opportunity for e-commercial activities, customers in the country however access business websites only to source for information but make purchases the traditional way. This paper aims at assessing the prospects and challenges...
July 2011
A study on exploring the relationship between customer satisfaction and loyalty in the fast food industry: With relationship inertia as a mediator
The impact of negative news on fast food industry customers is often short and weak. Therefore, this study suspects whether other important variables exist in fast food industry consumer behavior patterns to support this result. This study tries to combine variables that are related to fast food industry characteristics, such as consumption frequency, perceived price and convenience, to propose an integrated...
July 2011
Impact of international trade on employment in Turkey's manufacturing industry
Turkey abandoned import substitution industrialization strategies in foreign trade policies and started to implement export promoting strategies after a reform program started in 1980. Promoted exports brought along increasing imports. In this study, the impact of international trade on employment level in industry was investigated using an annual panel of data from 95 manufacturing industries in Turkey for...
July 2011
The mediating effect of relationship learning on the relationship between supplier development strategy and raising competence
Drawing on learning theory, this study examines the mediating role of relationship learning on the relationship between the buyer firms’ supplier development strategy and the suppliers’ improved competence from the suppliers’ perspective. A survey was conducted by collecting data from 148 exporting manufacturers in Taiwan. Three structural equation models examined the interrelationships...
July 2011
The relation between after-sales services and entrepreneurial opportunities: Case study of Iran-Khodro Company
Nowadays, increasing competition is forcing car manufacturers to pay much attention to satisfying customers, by providing strong after-sales services. After-sales services are a potential source of competitive advantage for car manufacturers. It is noteworthy to point out that after-sales services play a key role in supporting marketing activities to enhance customer loyalty, and thus to increase...
July 2011
A spiral process model of technological innovation in a developing country: The case of Samsung
This article presents a spiral process model of indigenous technological innovation capabilities (ITICs) that shows how firms in a developing country initiate, imitate, improve and make innovative technologies. Any technological innovation passes through four stages: (1) technological innovation (TI), (2) transfer of technology (imitation), (3) adaptive technological innovation (improvement), and finally (4)...
July 2011
The impact of privatization on earnings management in a developing country like Iran
One of the important reasons for privatization is increasing management performance because privatization is often associated with a change in the management of the company, on the other hand, managers in the private companies have more freedom than public companies, also in the private companies giving reward is based on performance, and then managers have enough incentive to manipulate earnings. The main...
July 2011
A novel price-pattern detection method based on time series to forecast stock market
In stock markets, many types of time series models such as statistical time series model, fuzzy time series model, and advanced time series model based on artificial intelligence algorithms were advanced by academic researchers to forecast stock price. Some drawbacks are issued for these models as follows: (1) mathematical assumptions are required for statistical time series models; (2) the forecast from...
July 2011
The influences of relationship marketing strategy and transaction cost on customer satisfaction, perceived risk, and customer loyalty
This study attempts to develop the conceptual model for explaining consumers’ preference toward retailers based on the relationship marketing strategy and transaction cost theory. Specifically, this study investigates the impacts of relationship marketing and transaction cost on customer satisfaction and perceived risk. In addition, the influences of customer satisfaction and perceived risk on customer...
July 2011
Marketing implications of Chinese tourists’ motivations to visit Penghu, Taiwan
An analysis of Chinese tourists’ motivations to visit Penghu indicates that knowledge is the most important push factor in motivating travelers to visit the island. However, novelty was not determined by this study to be a significant push factor. This stands in contrast to previous studies conducted in Hong Kong as well as in other countries, which identify novelty as the major push factor. The...
July 2011
Human development, poverty and income inequality from an Islam point of view and its implications for Islamic countries
This paper examines the impact of the various components of human capital on income inequality, and poverty in Islamic countries. The least-squares estimation technique in a multivariate linear regression was used. It must be pointed out that the inclusion of interaction terms between income and the components of human capital, yields better statistical results, as expected. Data for all variables are from...
July 2011
A study of U.S. and China’s volatility spillover effects on Hong Kong and Taiwan
Many international investors have taken interest in the Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China stock markets for diversification to explore higher returns owing to their rapid economic growth and increased link with international capital markets over the past decades. As correlation is primary component for asset risk managing, asset pricing and portfolio allocating, which are concerns for investors, it is crucial to...
July 2011
Investigating the relationship between organizational justice, psychological empowerment, job satisfaction, organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior: An empirical model
The aim of this study is to determine causal relations between organizational justice, psychological empowerment, organizational commitment, job satisfaction and OCB, by examining the mediating role of job satisfaction and organizational commitment. A sample of 378 universities' educational experts participated in the study. The data were collected by questioner and then analyzed by using path analysis...
July 2011
HRM and employee performance: A case of university teachers of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) in Pakistan
This study investigated the impact of three HR practices on the perceived performance of university teachers in AJK. Responses from113 respondents were used to analyze the impact of selected HR practices (compensation, performance evaluation, and promotion practices) on the employee’s performance. Pearson correlation and regression have been used to find the association among variables and impact of...
July 2011
Success criteria for international joint ventures: The experience of Malaysian contractors in the Middle East
The overall objective of this paper is to produce success criteria considered critical in international joint ventures (IJV), specifically between Malaysian and foreign contractors outside Malaysia. The recognition of such criteria will contribute to the identification of non-viable projects and will enable improvements to be made to the IJV and other similar economies. Data specific to the present study was...
July 2011
Assessing the sustainable performance of Chinese industrial sector
Sustainability management is a subject of growing interest in economic development, business management, and environmental management. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) has been widely used to integrate this diverse nature of sustainable performance in economy. However, existing DEA frameworks suffer from two critical limitations: First, they follow traditional radial assumptions, which may lead to difficulties...
July 2011
Modeling of next generation network deployment in developing countries
The development of next-generation networks (NGN) is a growing trend in the global telecommunications sector. Although the technological requirements are known, NGNs target a new generation of users, sources for revenue, and regulation. Telecom firms in developing countries are encountering new challenges in managing NGN deployment and often seek to draw upon experiences from developed countries. However, the...
July 2011
Predicting online consumer complaints in Northern Taiwan
In the past, consumer complaints were considered time consuming and exhaustive, especially in seeking redress or replacement; however, the situation has changed since the rapid development of internet communication systems. Recent studies show that most consumers perceive online opinions to be trustworthy, therefore, the potential impact of online communications, especially negative evaluations of companies...
July 2011
Empirical study on medicinal herbs information system (MHIS) in Malaysia
Nowadays, people are highly concerned about their health and start to recognize that herbs are one of the beneficial ingredients to spice up their life. But most of them do not know which herb can exactly benefit them or how it looks like. This paper presents the medicinal herbs information system (MHIS) design, which is a web-based application system. With this system, herb identification, herbal vocabulary...
July 2011
Relationships among unlearning, knowledge application, and new product development performance: Exploring the moderating effect of the information processing mechanism
This research aims to explore the correlations among the factors of unlearning, knowledge application and new product development performance, including a further verification on the moderating effects of information processing mechanism to “unlearning” and “knowledge application”. The verification process involves multiple factors of the information processing mechanism, such as...
July 2011
PMS in the magistrates courts of Botswana: The unintended consequences of public service change
This paper explores the implementation of public sector performance reforms in Botswana magistrate courts to improve service delivery. The authors argue that it is imperative for management to consider the possibility of the unintended outcomes in public sector reforms something that is normally ignored when introducing change. Critical realist philosophy has been adopted as a guiding paradigm for this study....
July 2011
A study on the relationship between leadership style, emotional intelligence, self-efficacy and organizational commitment：A case study of the Banking Industry in Taiwan
The purpose of this study is to analyze by means of a quantitative research method the impacts among the emotional intelligence and leadership style, self-efficacy and organizational commitment of employees in the banking industry in Taiwan. The research framework is primarily constructed based on Bandara’s Social Cognitive Theory. As a research design, the structural equation model is adopted to...
July 2011
Conspicuous consumption of the neglected majority: Low-income consumers in a Non-Western culture
While conspicuous consumption has been a topic of interest in academia for many decades, little attention has been paid to the consumption behavior of low income consumers. In rarity of such studies, this study aims to contribute to the literature by investigating the symbolic and conspicuous consumption of this neglected majority, if/how they spend their limited resources on conspicuous consumption and the...
July 2011
The application of the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM): A South African perspective
The focus of this paper is the capital asset pricing model (CAPM), with a specific emphasis on two of its main components, namely the risk-free rate and beta. The CAPM is used extensively in practice to calculate the cost of equity, which, in turn, is used to calculate the weighted average cost of capital for equity valuation and investment appraisal purposes. The aim of this paper is to investigate how well...
July 2011
Assessing Nigerian female entrepreneur’s access to finance for business start-up and growth
Research emphasis in many transition economies highlights the impact of finance for start-up and growth as the principal factor affecting women’s entry into business and their subsequent growth. The need to conduct studies specifically on Nigerian female entrepreneurs is based on the fact that very little is known about such firms, thus a better understanding is needed. The study explored Nigerian...
July 2011
Talk to me: A preliminary study of the effect of interaction with a spokes-character
This paper examines one type of marketing practice that has a strong positive effect in traditional media and a growing internet presence; the spokes-character. In this study, we tried to understand the effect of using an interactive spokes-character in communications with potential customers. The conceptual model of Garretson and Niedrich (2004) was used to develop an experiment to examine how the...
July 2011
Consumerism perception in Turkey as a developing country
The goal of this paper is to examine the marketing managers’ perceptions of consumerism in Turkey as a developing country. The major objectives of this paper are to explore the nature of managerial perception of consumerism in Turkey, to asses the impact of internatialization on consumerism, to find out the relation between the years in the business and consumerism, to see if the sector type has an...
July 2011
The examination of factors influencing residents’ perceptions and attitudes toward film induced tourism
The research is built on the model of Perdue et al. (1990) for studying residents’ support for tourism development. The purpose of the study is to understand the influence of residents’ tourism benefit sought, and socio-demographics on their perception, attitude, and development management to film induced tourism. The area of study is focused on Hengchun Town, which has been famous due to the...
July 2011
Integration SERVQUAL model and performance control matrix to improve service quality for the hot spring industry
The study addresses this deficiency by integrating the SERVQUAL model theory and the performance control matrix to establish a more comprehensive assessment model for improving specific quality attributes. The study applies this integrated measuring instrument to a Taiwanese hot spring industry, using a questionnaire survey that allows employees to assess ‘importance’ and...
July 2011
A model for measuring an ISO 9000 internal audit outcome
This paper developed a model for quantitative assessment of a quality management system internal audit findings showing their potential to contribute to the business performance. This potential is evaluated for each of four groups of company’s strategic goals according to the balanced scorecard approach and for the company as a whole (all four groups of goals included). Literature...
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