Digital Commons Network^™

Building Workplace Trust In Some Cultures Is To Blur The Line Between Professional And Personal Life, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

In China and Turkey, the separation between work and personal life is not so clear cut as compared with western societies, according to a joint study by Singapore Management University professor of organisational behaviour Tan Hwee Hoon, and management professors S. Arzu Wasti and Selin Eser of Sabanci University in Turkey. The main purpose of their research was to provide insights into the impact that different cultures have on trust in the workplace.

Marketing On A Shoestring In Not-For-Profits: No Pain No Gain, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Sarah Mavrinac is the founder and president of not-for-profit financial education organisation, aidha, which started operations in January 2007 in Singapore. aidha offers training courses to women migrant workers, in particular those in domestic service. Mavrinac delivered a talk recently on “Marketing on a Shoestring -- The Challenge of Not-for-Profit Outreach", organised by the Centre for Marketing Excellence of the Lee Kong Chian School of Business, Singapore Management University.

Making Great People Decisions Is The Toughest Business Challenge Say Top Executives, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Where great people decisions are concerned, the right person in a leadership position can take an organisation to greater heights, but the wrong candidate can steer a path to disaster. Founding leader of global search firm Egon Zehnder International, Claudio Fernandez-Araoz, introduced his new book, Great People Decisions, recently at a Singapore Management University Distinguished Public Lecture, followed by a panel discussion featuring top executives in Singapore.

The Sunset Of "Quality Control" In Modern Trademark Licensing, Irene Calboli

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Historically, based on the premise that trademark protection is about consumer welfare, trademark law has allowed trademark licensing only as long as licensors control the quality of the products bearing the licensed marks. Ever since its adoption, however, this rule has been difficult to enforce because it hinges on a concept that is ambiguous and difficult to frame in a legal context: quality control. Unsurprisingly, the consequence has been inconsistent case law and much uncertainty as to what represents valid licensing. In addition, in the past decades, courts have proven increasingly reticent to strictly apply this rule and have declared …

Building Social Trust: A Human Capital Approach, Fali Huang

Research Collection School Of Economics

Much evidence suggests individuals di¤er in their predisposition to cooperate, which is essentially a component of human capital. This paper examines the role of individual cooperative tendencies and their interactions with institutions in generating social trust; it also endogenizes cooperative tendencies using a human capital investment model. Multiple equilibria and ine¢ ciencies exist due to positive externalities. An innovative …nding is that, when institutions are more e¤ective in punishing defecting behaviors, more people invest in cooperative tendencies and hence the endogenous social trust is higher, though the equilibrium cooperative tendencies are lower. This paper provides a plausible explanation for many …

Tuning Tabu Search Strategies Via Visual Diagnosis, Steven Halim, Hoong Chuin Lau

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

While designing working metaheuristics can be straightforward, tuning them to solve the underlying combinatorial optimization problem well can be tricky. Several tuning methods have been proposed but they do not address the new aspect of our proposed classification of the metaheuristic tuning problem: tuning search strategies. We propose a tuning methodology based on Visual Diagnosis and a generic tool called Visualizer for Metaheuristics Development Framework(V-MDF) to address specifically the problem of tuning search (particularly Tabu Search) strategies. Under V-MDF, we propose the use of a Distance Radar visualizer where the human and computer can collaborate to diagnose the occurrence of …

Self-Organizing Neural Architectures And Cooperative Learning In A Multiagent Environment, Dan Xiao, Ah-Hwee Tan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Temporal-Difference–Fusion Architecture for Learning, Cognition, and Navigation (TD-FALCON) is a generalization of adaptive resonance theory (a class of self-organizing neural networks) that incorporates TD methods for real-time reinforcement learning. In this paper, we investigate how a team of TD-FALCON networks may cooperate to learn and function in a dynamic multiagent environment based on minefield navigation and a predator/prey pursuit tasks. Experiments on the navigation task demonstrate that TD-FALCON agent teams are able to adapt and function well in a multiagent environment without an explicit mechanism of collaboration. In comparison, traditional Q-learning agents using gradient-descent-based feedforward neural networks, trained with the …

Multi-Order Neurons For Evolutionary Higher Order Clustering And Growth, Kiruthika Ramanathan, Sheng Uei Guan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This letter proposes to use multiorder neurons for clustering irregularly shaped data arrangements. Multiorder neurons are an evolutionary extension of the use of higher-order neurons in clustering. Higher-order neurons parametrically model complex neuron shapes by replacing the classic synaptic weight by higher-order tensors. The multiorder neuron goes one step further and eliminates two problems associated with higher-order neurons. First, it uses evolutionary algorithms to select the best neuron order for a given problem. Second, it obtains more information about the underlying data distribution by identifying the correct order for a given cluster of patterns. Empirically we observed that when the …

Nonstationary Discrete Choice: A Corrigendum And Addendum, Peter C. B. Phillips, Sainan Jin, Ling Hu

Research Collection School Of Economics

We correct the limit theory presented in an earlier paper by Hu and Phillips [2004a. Nonstationary discrete choice. Journal of Econometrics 120, 103-138] for nonstationary time series discrete choice models with multiple choices and thresholds. The new limit theory shows that, in contrast to the binary choice model with nonstationary regressors and a zero threshold where there are dual rates of convergence (n1/4 and n3/4), all parameters including the thresholds converge at the rate n3/4. The presence of nonzero thresholds therefore materially affects rates of convergence. Dual rates of convergence reappear when stationary variables are present in the system. Some …

Singapore's Exchange Rate Policy: Some Implementation Issues, Hwee Kwan Chow

Research Collection School Of Economics

Reflecting the small open nature of its economy, Singapore has adopted an exchange rate-centered monetary policy framework since 1981. The exchange rate regime in Singapore is an intermediate regime that follows the basket-band-crawl system. With this managed float system, the MAS has successfully deterred speculators from attacking the domestic currency for most of the past three decades. At the same time, the flexibility accorded by the managed float system aided Singapore in escaping from the 1997–1998 Asian crisis relatively unscathed. In order to advance our understanding of the hitherto successful operation of Singapore's exchange rate policy, we examine the following …

Long Run Covariance Matrices For Fractionally Integrated Processes, Peter C. B. Phillips, Sik Kim Chang

Research Collection School Of Economics

An asymptotic expansion is given for the autocovariance matrix of a vector of stationary long-memory processes with memory parameters d ∈ [0,½). The theory is then applied to deliver formulas for the long-run covariance matrices of multivariate time series with long memory.Phillips acknowledges partial support from a Kelly Fellowship and from the NSF under grant SES 04-142254. This may be proved directly using a Fourier integral asymptotic expansion when the spectrum of the short-memory component is analytic.

Incidental Trends And The Power Of Panel Unit Root Tests, Hyungsik Roger Moon, Benoit Perrron, Peter C. B. Phillips

Research Collection School Of Economics

The asymptotic local power of various panel unit root tests is investigated. The (Gaussian) power envelope is obtained under homogeneous and heterogeneous alternatives. The envelope is compared with the asymptotic power functions for the pooled t-test, the Ploberger and Phillips [2002. Optimal testing for unit roots in panel data. Mimeo] test, and a point optimal test in neighborhoods of unity that are of order n-1/4T-1 and n-1/2T-1, depending on whether or not incidental trends are extracted from the panel data. In the latter case, when the alternative hypothesis is homogeneous across individuals, it is shown that the point optimal test …

Japanese Corporate Governance: Structural Change And Financial Performance, Asli M. Colpan, Toru Yoshikawa, Takashi Hikino, Hiroaki Miyoshi

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper analyzes institutional and legal changes related to corporate governance and their impact on financial performance in Japan since the second half of the 1990s. We attempt to address two issues systematically: (1) how much the governance reforms of Japanese firms transformed the conventional system of alliance capitalism and managerial control; and (2) what economic outcomes those governance changes have yielded. As the Commercial Code and other legal and institutional frameworks were revised, Japanese firms experienced shifts in terms of stock ownership, corporate control and managerial organizations. Our empirical results show that the influence of new ownership composition and …

The Effects Of Entrepreneurial Growth Orientation On Organizational Change And Firm Growth, Wee Liang Tan, Thomas Menkhoff, Yue Wah Chay

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Managing growth in an enterprise as it grows beyond the startup phase is a challenge for many entrepreneurs. One key element that can help or hinder growth is the entrepreneur. Entrepreneurial growth has been linked to micro variables (motivations and psychological attributes of the entrepreneur) and macro variables. However, few studies have examined the role of the growth aspirations of the entrepreneur on the necessary elements of organization change related to growth.

This paper reports a study employing a typology of entrepreneurs based on their growth aspirations using an established dichotomous scale devised by Smith to differentiate between what he …

The Challenge Of Developing Across Borders: Singapore’S Gambit In Bangalore, India, Choong Tze Chua, Wilfred Pow Ngee How, Caroline Yeoh

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

No abstract provided.

Business Groups: An Integrated Model To Focus Future Research, Daphne W. Yiu, Yuan Lu, Garry D. Bruton, Robert E. Hoskisson

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Business groups are the primary form of managing large business organizations outside North America. This paper provides a systematic and integrative framework for understanding business groups. We argue that existing theoretical perspectives of business groups pay attention to four critical external contexts, each of which draws from a specific theoretical perspective: market conditions (transaction cost theory), social relationships (relational perspective), political factors (political economy perspective), and external monitoring mechanisms (agency theory). Business groups adapt to these external forces by deploying various internal mechanisms along two key dimensions: one focuses on the distinctive roles of the group affiliates (horizontal connectedness) and …

Knowledge Narratives And Heterogeneity In Management Consultancy And Business Services, Robin Fincham, Timothy Adrian Robert Clark, Karen Handley, Andrew Sturdy

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In the professional services, diversification into various types of business advice has implications for knowledge boundaries. This is a sector of changing jurisdictional patterns and periodic reconstruction. Firms like large law practices that feed services into corporate clients have been merging to provide global coverage (Suddaby and Greenwood, 2001; Suddaby et al., 2004). But new specialisms in areas like consulting and IT are even more dynamic. Patterns such as the growth in outsourcing and movement into management consulting accounted for stupendous growth of the global accounting firms. These changes have themselves been overtaken, as the IT and systems giants muscled …

The Validity Of Assessment Centres For The Prediction Of Supervisory Performance Ratings: A Meta-Analysis, Eran Hermelin, Filip Lievens, Ivan T. Robertson

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The current meta-analysis of the selection validity of assessment centres aims to update an earlier meta-analysis of assessment centre validity. To this end, we retrieved 26 studies and 27 validity coefficients (N=5850) relating the Overall Assessment Rating (OAR) to supervisory performance ratings. The current study obtained a corrected correlation of .28 between the OAR and supervisory job performance ratings (95% confidence interval .24 < =rho < =.32). It is further suggested that this validity estimate is likely to be conservative given that assessment centre validities tend to be affected by indirect range restriction.

Measurement Equivalence In The Conduct Of A Global Organizational Survey Across Countries In Six Cultural Regions, Alain De Beuckelaer, Filip Lievens, Gilbert Swinnen

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study examined the measurement equivalence of a global organizational survey measuring six work climate factors as administered across 25 countries (N = 31.315) in all regions of the world (West Europe, East Europe, North America, Latin America, South America, Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific). Across all countries, the survey instrument exhibited 'form equivalence' and 'metric equivalence', suggesting that respondents completed the survey using the same frame-of-reference and interpreted the rating scale intervals similarly. Schwartz's (1994, 1999, 2004) cultural value theory was then used for grouping the countries in cultural regions, and to anticipate measurement equivalence of the data from …

Creating Alternate In-Basket Forms Through Cloning: Some Preliminary Results, Filip Lievens, Frederik Anseel

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Research on constructing alternate forms of assessment center exercises is very scarce. This study examines the effectiveness of a cloning procedure (incident isomorphic approach) for developing alternate forms of a computerized in-basket. In this approach, original and alternate items are essentially similar (they are based on the same critical incident), while being superficially different (they are situated in a different context). Results showed there was no significant difference between the overall in-basket score across the alternate forms. In addition, these overall scores correlated .66, with projected estimates for the full in-basket approaching .80. Implications and limitations of the use of …

Global Analysis Of An Expectations Augmented Evolutionary Dynamics, Angelo Antoci, Antonio Gay, Massimiliano Landi, Pier Luigi Sacco

Research Collection School Of Economics

We consider a deterministic evolutionary model where players form expectations about future play. Players are not fully rational and have expectations that change over time in response to current payoffs and feedback from the past. We provide a complete characterization of the qualitative dynamics so induced for a two strategies population game, and relate our findings to standard evolutionary dynamics and equilibrium selection when agents have rational forward looking expectations.

Preventing Location-Based Identity Inference In Anonymous Spatial Queries, Panos Kalnis, Gabriel Ghinita, Kyriakos Mouratidis, Dimitris Papadias

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The increasing trend of embedding positioning capabilities (for example, GPS) in mobile devices facilitates the widespread use of location-based services. For such applications to succeed, privacy and confidentiality are essential. Existing privacy-enhancing techniques rely on encryption to safeguard communication channels, and on pseudonyms to protect user identities. Nevertheless, the query contents may disclose the physical location of the user. In this paper, we present a framework for preventing location-based identity inference of users who issue spatial queries to location-based services. We propose transformations based on the well-established K-anonymity concept to compute exact answers for range and nearest neighbor search, without …

Global Transformations And “Cosmopolitical” Social Science, Michael D. Kennedy, Camilo Leslie, Allison Nau, Atef Said, Hiro Saito

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In 2001 Siobán Harlow and Kennedy developed a graduate seminar through the International Institute around “Global Transformations.” While some had used the term before, its greatest advantage was its inclusivity: globalization, twenty-first century empires, international terrorism, the spread of infectious disease, migrations, climate change, and other themes all fit within that rubric. During a recent sociology seminar, we sought to discipline that discussion with the identification of three principal areas to guide “cosmopolitical” social science.

Norming "Moderation" In An "Iconic Target": Public Policy And The Regulation Of Religious Anxieties In Singapore, Eugene K. B. Tan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The maintenance of a “moderate mainstream” Muslim community as a bulwark against the fraying of harmonious ethnic relations has become a key governance concern post-September 11. In light of the global concern—and often paranoia—with diasporic Islam, Islamic religious institutions and civil society have been portrayed in the popular media as hotbeds of radicalism, promoters of hatred, and recruiters for a “conflict of civilization” between the Muslim world and the modern world. Having declared itself a terrorist's “iconic target,” Singapore has taken a broad-based community approach in advancing inter-religious tolerance, including a subtle initiative to include the “Muslim civil society” in …

Value Discount Of Business Groups Surrounding The Asian Financial Crisis: Evidence From Korean Chaebols, James Jinho Chang, Young Jun Cho, Won Kang, Hyun-Han Shin

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We examine the effect of business group membership on firm value in each pre-and postcrisis Korea. Consistent with prior studies, results show that group affiliated chaebol firms suffer value discount relative to non-chaebol firms in the precrisis period. However, we also find that chaebol firms experience an improvement in firm value relative to non-chaebol firms after the financial crisis. These findings imply that the value discount of business groups reported in prior studies is not an inevitable consequence of diversification, but can be alleviated or overcome by structural reforms in business practices or economic conditions.

The Association Between Audit Fees And Auditors' Opinions On Internal Control Weakness Under Section 404 Of The Sox, Jong-Hag Choi, Jeong-Bon Kim, Soo Young Kwon, Yoonseok Zang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

The Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) requires top management toestablish, maintain, and regularly evaluate the effectiveness of the internal controlover financial reporting (ICOFR), and obtain an auditor’s attestation. In this paper, weidentify 232 firms that received “Ineffective” audit opinion on the effectiveness ofICOFR due to one or more material weakness in internal control (WIC). We examinethe association between audit fees and the WIC for pre- and post-SOX period. Wefind that highly levered clients with the WIC paid greater audit fees even in the preSOXperiod and continuously paid the high fees in post-SOX period, whereas theloss-making clients with WIC paid …

Tennis, Anyone? Lessons On Innovation In A Mature Industry, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Tennis qualifies as the oldest racquet sport in the world. Since 1874, little had changed until the 1970s when the wooden racquet was phased out, followed by a succession of cutting edge designs. How did the classic tennis racquet lend itself to being so thoroughly reinvented? Wharton management professor J.M. Pennings, together with Hann E Kim, professor at the KDI School of Public Policy and Management in Korea, set out to find some answers.

Building Swift Clan Control In Complex It Projects, Cecil Eng Huang Chua, Wee Kiat Lim, Christina Soh, Siew Kien Sia

CMP Research

Clan control is often essential in complex multi-stakeholder projects for project success. Furthermore, clan control is especially important during requirements analysis which occurs at project inception. How can controllers quickly institute clan control in complex IT projects? Through the case analysis of a large IT project, we observed that clan control can be accelerated by the purposeful application of formal controls to build social capital. Our findings corroborate the notion that, properly structured, clan control can emerge quickly in a multi-stakeholder project to improve the likelihood of IT implementation success.

St Engineering: A Globalisation Success Story, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Tan Pheng Hock is president and CEO of Singapore Technologies Engineering (ST Engineering), one of the largest companies listed on the Singapore stock exchange.The global integrated engineering group has 18,000 employees with operations in 20 countries, and 100 subsidiaries serving customers in more than 70 countries. Tan was the featured speaker at the Singapore Management University's Wee Kim Wee Centre CEO Talks series recently. He spoke to Knowledge@SMU about ST Engineering’s globalisation strategy and key learnings.

Monitor Group's Go-To-Market Methodology Advocates The 'Outside-In' Approach, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

How can companies, especially those operating in end-consumer industries and saturated markets, become successful? By transforming themselves into truly marketing-led organisations, advises the Monitor Group, a global management services firm. Monitor has developed a finely tuned go-to-market approach which calls for a fundamental shift at the leadership level from an inside-out perspective to an outside-in view of the marketplace.