Business Commons^™

Investing In Virtue And Frowning At Vice? Lessons From The Global Economic And Financial Crisis, Lucia Morales, Daniel Rajmil

Articles

Socially responsible mutual funds (SRMF) and the “antisocially conscious”, Vitium Global Fund Barrier Fund (formerly known as the Vice Fund, the term used in this paper) returns, volatility patterns, and causal effects are examined in this study within the context of the lessons learned from the 2008 Global Economic and Financial Crisis (GEFC). In times of a new and unprecedented crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a look back to our recent past reveals that volatility patterns on daily stock returns presented some level of predictability on prices for both types of funds. The research findings are significant as funds’ …

Subsidiary Entrepreneurial Alertness: Antecedents And Outcomes, Jennifer Dann

Doctoral

This thesis brings together concepts from both international business and entrepreneurship to develop a framework of the facilitators of subsidiary innovation and performance. This study proposes that Subsidiary Entrepreneurial Alertness (SEA) facilitates the recognition of opportunities (the origin of subsidiary initiatives). First introduced by Kirzner (1979) in the context of the individual, entrepreneurial alertness (EA) is the ability to notice an opportunity without actively searching. Similarly, to entrepreneurial alertness at the individual level, this study argues that SEA enables the subsidiary to best select opportunities based on resources available. The research further develops our conceptualisation of SEA by drawing on …

Tdabc Capabilities For Performance Measurement: A Case Study In A Manufacturing Context, Siham Rahoui, Abubakar Ali, John Crowe, Amr Mahfouz

Conference papers

Supply chain costing presents a sophisticated alternative to traditional costing allowing an accurate cost estimation and effective decision making. In exploring different techniques, TDABC was not explored extensively compared to its peers. In addition to the infancy of the technique, there is an on-going debate about the capability of the TDABC specifically in manufacturing context. The present study contributes to the debate by applying TDABC at the logistics function of a manufacturing site and assesses it capability to measure performance in the stated context.

Ex-Post Service Contract Performance Management, Brian Forbes, Malcolm Brady

Articles

This paper highlights how contract incompleteness can threaten the performance of public procurement facilities management contracts during their implementation stages, based on a multiple case study comprising five public procurement services contracts. The paper takes a principle-agent view and with the unit of analysis being the contract itself. The paper shows that contract contingencies are almost inevitable and may stem from the written contract or from the participating organisations. Written and unwritten contract management mechanisms were used in practice to deal with contingencies as they arose in the services case studies examined. The paper found that written contracts do not …

A Proposed Framework For Measuring The Effectiveness Of Social Media: A Study Of Irish Tourism, Colm Barcoe

Practitioner Journals

Over the past five years, visitations of American holidaymakers to Ireland have grown exponentially owing to the online strategies of Tourism Ireland, a Destination Marketer (DMO) with a meagre budget which is extended by their understanding of best practices to maximise their monetary allowance. This suggested framework incorporates a range of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) such as financial, marketing and operational that offer a scale of measurement from which the Irish DMO can monitor the success of each promotional campaign when targeting the US and Canada. These are presented not as final solutions but rather as suggestions based on empirical …

Performance Management: Chapter 7 In Human Resource Management, Gerard Mcmahon

Books/Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Factors Driving Key Account Manager Performance, Lesley Murphy, Joseph Coughlan

Conference papers

Key account management has been highlighted as a significant area of academic research (Leigh and Marshall 2001, Workman et al. 2003) and both managers and academics alike are of the view that suppliers need to develop long-term relationships with selected strategic customers. Despite a recent academic focus on Key Account Management, there have only been a limited number of published studies on the individual Key Account Manager (KAM) (Sengupta et al. 2000, Schultz and Evans 2002, Guenzi et al. 2007, 2009) and it remains an under-investigated research area (Guenzi et al. 2009). This paper endeavours to explain the underlying factors …

Hedging Effectiveness Under Conditions Of Asymmetry, Jim Hanly, John Cotter

Articles

We examine whether hedging effectiveness is affected by asymmetry in the return distribution by applying tail specific metrics, for example, Value at Risk, to compare the hedging effectiveness of short and long hedgers. Comparisons are applied to a number of hedging strategies including OLS, and both symmetric and asymmetric GARCH models. We apply our analysis to a dataset consisting of S&P500 index cash and futures containing symmetric and asymmetric return distributions chosen ex-post. Our findings show that asymmetry reduces out-of-sample hedging performance and that significant differences occur in hedging performance between short and long hedgers.

An Integrated Framework To Assess ‘Leanness’ Performance In Distribution Centres, Amr Mahfouz

Doctoral

The theory behind lean philosophy is to create more value with less. Effective lean management enables organisations to exceed customer expectations while reducing costs. Despite the fact that numerous practices and approaches are used in the process of implementing lean philosophy and reducing waste within supply chain systems, little effort has been directed into assessing the leanness level of distribution and its impact on overall performance. Given the vital role of distribution units within supply chains, this research aims to develop a comprehensive lean assessment framework that integrates a selected set of statistical, analytical, and mathematical techniques in order to …

Identifying The Characteristics Of Key Account Managers That Drive Performance, Lesley Murphy, Joseph Coughlan

Conference papers

A conceptual model of the factors that are linked to the performance of a Key Account Manager has been developed. There is a paucity of research in the correlation between the Key Account Manager’s personal and behavioural characteristics and their influence of the individual and organisation performance. A review of the literature underlines that the Key Account Manager can described as a strategic orchestrator or lynch pin and their key role is to coordinate activities with other members of their organisation. As a result, their individual characteristics will be tested against trust, collaboration and communication which are essential for the …

Towards Performance Measurement In Hotels:An Incremental Approach, Detta Melia, Leigh Robinson

Books / Book chapters

The overall aim of this paper was to investigate the phenomenon of performance measurement in independently owned hotels in Ireland in order to understand the role of measurement in the management of the largest component of the hotel sector. The primary objectives of this paper was to investigate the extent to which Irish hotel operators are utilising performance measurement techniques, to establish the rationale for the use of selected performance measures in independently owned hotels and to understand approaches to performance measurement in the management of independently owned hotels.

A comprehensive investigation of existing performance management and measurement activity is …

A Study Of Current Practice Of Corporate Social Responsibility (Csr) And An Examination Of The Relationship Between Csr And Financial Performance Using Structural Equation Modelling (Sem), Lorraine Sweeney

Doctoral

There has been a significant increase in interest in CSR in recent years (Gulyas, 2009; McGehee et al, 2009) and it is regarded as an important topic for research (Burton and Goldsby, 2009). Not only has this topic received academic attention but it is becoming a mainstream issue for many organisations (Renneboog et al, 2008; Nijof and Brujin, 2008). However, it has been noted that research on CSR in SMEs is quite scant (Burton and Goldsby, 2008; Cilberti et al, 2008). A second area of literature that remains unresolved is the relationship between CSR and financial performance (Park and Lee, …

Review Article Of Dynamic Supply Chain Alignment:A New Business Model For Peak Performance In Enterprise Supply Chains Across All Geographies, Edward Sweeney, Daniel Park

Reviews

No abstract provided.

Safety Performance On Three Construction Sites, Seosamh Mac Aodha

Masters

The goal of this research was to evaluate factors affecting safety performance levels on three construction sites in the border region in the Republic of Ireland. In order to achieve this goal, safety performance levels were measured using qualitative and quantitative techniques. The effect of safety training on subsequent safety-related behaviour was also analysed on two of the sites. The results showed a high number of poor work practices. These areas included: unguarded openings; working at heights; housekeeping and personal protective equipment. The results also highlighted good safety performance in the areas of plant and equipment use. The results of …

The Systems Approach To Analysing Supply Chains And Improving Their Performance, Edward Sweeney

Conference papers

One critical weakness of traditional company-wide business improvement models, which are often based on systems thinking, is that the focus is largely on a company’s internal operations and business processes. As a result of the increasingly complex global supply chains of which companies are part, improving ones own business is no guarantee of success in today’s business environment. This paper describes an extension of traditional systems approaches beyond the operations of an individual company to the complete supply chain. The result is the