Business Commons^™

Segmentation Of Quantity Surveying Professional Services For Focus Strategy And Diversification, Michael Adesi, De-Graft Owusu-Manu, Frank Boateng

Articles

Purpose – Notwithstanding that numerous studies have focused on strategy in quantity surveying (QS) professional service firms, there is a paucity of investigation on the segmentation of QS professional services. The purpose of this study is to investigate the segmentation of QS services for diversification and a focus strategy formation.

Design/methodology/approach – This study adopts the positivist stance and quantitative approach in which a simple random sampling technique was used to select participants. In total, 110 survey questionnaires were administered to registered professional QS, out of which 79 completed questionnaires were returned for analysis.

Findings – The paper identifies three …

Derivatives Pricing With Accelerated Trinomial Trees, Conall O'Sullivan, Stephen O'Sullivan

Articles

Accelerated Trinomial Trees (ATTs) are a derivatives pricing lattice method that circumvent the restrictive time step condition inherent in standard trinomial trees and explicit finite difference methods (FDMs) in which the time step must scale with the square of the spatial step. ATTs consist of L uniform supersteps each of which contains an inner lattice/trinomial tree with N non-uniform subtime steps. Similarly to implicit FDMs, the size of the superstep in ATTs, a function of N, are constrained primarily by accuracy demands. ATTs can price options up to N times faster than standard trinomial trees (explicit FDMs). ATTs can be …

When The Human Factor Is At The Core Of The Safety Barrier, Maria Chiara Leva, Catalina Bermudez Angel, Emmanuel Plot, Marco Gattuso

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There are situation in the industry where the human actions are the main safety barriers to abnormal or accidental conditions. In order to maximize the reliability of good human and organizational barriers we need to ensure that the action-plans generated are based on a valid risk assessment of the situation to be addressed and informed by a relevant human factor analysis. This implies that the process needs to be participatory in nature, thus involving end user all the way through. In this paper we present a study in which a critical scenario of vessel overpressure was analyzed using a bowtie. …

Government Policies Must Keep Business On Tight Rein, Paul Donnelly, John Hogan, Brendan O'Rourke

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The unethical behaviour that helped create the economic and banking crisis has caught the attention of some parties.

Risk Management Trends: Currency Trading Using The Fractal Market Hypothesis, Jonathan Blackledge, Kieran Murphy

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We report on a research and development programme in financial modelling and economic security undertaken in the Information and Communications Security Research Group (ICSRG, 2011) which has led to the launch of a new company - Currency Traders Ireland Limited - funded by Enterprise Ireland. Currency Traders Ireland Limited (CTI, 2011) has a fifty year exclusive license to develop a new set of indicators for analysing currency exchange rates (Forex trading). We consider the background to the approach taken and present examples of the results obtained to date. In this ‘Introduction’, we provide a background to and brief overview of …

Subsidiaries As Learning Engines: Understanding Middle Managers’ Searching For Knowledge As Micro-Foundation, Esther Tippmann, Pamela Sharkey Scott, Vincent Mangematin

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A lot of research on MNC knowledge flows has concentrated on the organizational conditions that promote learning outcomes through a more efficient reuse of existing knowledge (cf. Gupta and Govindarajan 2000). Departing from this predominant research stream and recognising the increasingly important role of middle managers in large, distributed organizations, we investigated how subsidiary middle managers actually search for knowledge when dealing with non-routine problems and evaluated the solution outcomes in terms of generating organizational adaptation. By doing so, we contribute to several calls for more micro-level research of organizational learning processes (Felin and Foss 2005, 2009, Felin and Hesterly …

Competencies: A New Sector, Tony Kiely, Monica Brophy

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Outlines the processes involved in the development of a competency based framework for use by middle managers of three-star Irish hotels within rooms division and the food and beverage department. Secondary research provides an overview of existing generic competency models. Competency models and frameworks have been applied and customised across a broad range of industry sectors. Seeks to address the need for an innovative and fresh approach to HRM within the Irish hotel sector. The primary research is conducted among three-star hotels nation wide, giving equal representation to all regions of Ireland. Job analysis techniques are used as the basis …

Reconsidering The Management Of Marketing, John Murray, Aidan O'Driscoll

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The pace and extent of change in marketing landscape over the past decade has left many questioning the worth of marketing and its tenets. For many marketing educators it is a period of doubt and self-searching about the efficacy and role of the discipline. Yet empirical evidence reveals firms that have not only coped with these changing circumstances but have also found new and imaginative ways of winning competitive advantage. Marketing practice is adopting novel shapes and modes. In the field of management in general, new approaches to understanding and running organisations are being considered. One way of comprehending an …

The Introduction Of Programmes To Prevent Accidents At Work: A Strategic Analysis, David Jacobson, Ziene Mottiar

Articles

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