Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Macroeconomic Determinants Of Corporate Performance And Failure: Evidence From An Emerging Market The Case Of Jordan, Rami Zeitun, Gary Tian, Steve Keen

Gary Tian

This study investigates the impact of aggregate economic risk on a company’s performance and failure in a panel estimation using 167 Jordanian companies during 1989-2003. Our finding shows that unanticipated changes in interest rate negatively and significantly affect firms’ performance measured by ROA, which suggests that an interest rate rise increases the cost of borrowing and then further negatively affects a firm’s profit. We also found that both the production manufacturing index and Islamic credit facilities positively and significantly affect a firm’s performance. The positive and significant impact of Islamic credit facilities reflects the importance and the significance of the …

Performance Analysis Of Stfc Mb-Ofdm Uwb In Wban Channels, Miftadi Sudjai, Le Chung Tran, Farzad Safaei

Professor Farzad Safaei

This paper investigates the performance of the space-time-frequency coded (STFC) multiband orthogonal frequency division multiplexing ultra-wideband (MBOFDM UWB) system over wireless body area network (WBAN) channels, using the Alamouti code. Different MIMO configurations and different modulations are used for comparison. The effect of body directions is also assessed by simulation in this paper. Simulation results show that the proposed STFC MB-OFDM UWB system provides a significantly better BER performance, compared to the conventional MB-OFDM system, even from a reasonably low Eb/No range. The simulations also confirm that the body direction affects the system performance significantly due to the availability of …

Effect Of Gallium Doping And Ball Milling Process On The Thermoelectric Performance Of N-Type Zno, Priyanka Jood, Germanas Peleckis, Xiaolin Wang, S X. Dou

Shi Xue Dou

We report a systematic investigation of the thermoelectric properties of n-type Ga-doped ZnO synthesized using different ball milling conditions. Samples fabricated by the high-energy ball milling resulted in a highly dense layered structure with randomly distributed voids. These samples measured the lowest room temperature thermal conductivity, i.e., 27 W/mK due to increased phonon scattering. Furthermore, the Ga:ZnO system showed a metal–semiconductor transition above 300 K with transition temperature decreasing with increasing doping level. Measurement of the activation energy revealed the presence of one donor level around 3.9–7.8 meV and a deeper donor level around 15.4–18.1 meV below the conduction band …

Disproportional Ownership Structure And Pay-Performance Relationship: Evidence From China's Listed Firms, Jerry Cao, Xiaofei Pan, Gary G. Tian

Xiaofei Pan

This paper examines the impact of disproportional ownership structure on the pay-performance relationship in China’s listed firms. We find that the cash flow rights of the ultimate controlling shareholder have a positive effect on this relationship while a divergence between the control rights and cash flow rights has a significantly negative effect. By dividing our sample into state owned enterprises (SOE), state assets management bureaus (SAMB), and privately controlled firms, we find that cash flow rights in SOE controlled firms have a significant impact on accounting based pay performance and cash flow rights in privately controlled firms also affect the …

Because I Am Not Here, Selected Second Life-Based Art Case Studies. Subjectivity, Autoempathy And Virtual World Aesthetics, Francisco Gerardo Toledo Ramírez

Francisco Gerardo Toledo Ramírez

Second Life is a virtual world accessible through the Internet in which users create objects and spaces, and interact socially through 3D avatars. Certain artists use the platform as a medium for art creation, using the aesthetic, spatial, temporal and technological features of SL as raw material. Code and scripts applied to animate and manipulate objects, avatars and spaces are important in this sense. These artists, their avatars and artwork in SL are at the centre of my research questions: what does virtual existence mean and what is its purpose when stemming from aesthetic exchange in SL?

Through a qualitative …

An Assessment Of The Research Performance Of Commerce Faculties In Australia, Abbas Valadkhani, Simon Ville

Simon Ville

There is a growing policy focus in Australian higher education on quantitative research performance assessment. However, most of the analysis has addressed aggregate performance at the institutional level, an approach inconsistent with recent policy emphasis on diversity among universities, and one that ignores performance variations across disciplines. We use cluster analysis to classify one of the ten broad fields of education, that is, management and commerce. Using averaged and available data for 2000-2004 on various research measures, partial rankings are provided. Factor analysis is utilised to generate full-multidimensional rankings within the resulting clusters. Our results show that low total research …

Enhanced Performance Of Dye Sensitized Solar Cells Utilizing Platinum Electrodeposit Counter Electrodes, Attila J. Mozer, George Tsekouras, Gordon G. Wallace

Gordon Wallace

Enhanced performance was observed for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) utilizing counter electrodes based on Pt electrodeposits compared to counter electrodes based on sputtered Pt. Scanning electron microscopy of Pt electrodeposits revealed that the use of an initial cathodic overpotential pulse followed by steady electrodeposition at a mild cathodic potential yielded ∼40nm particles, compared to ∼600nm particles when no such pulse was used. Cyclic voltammetry and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) of electrode materials suggested that Pt electrodeposits would give enhanced performance as DSSC counter electrodes compared to sputtered Pt, and this was confirmed by device testing. EIS characterization of DSSCs under …

Leadership Styles And Company Performance: The Experience Of Owner-Managers Of Smes, Palli Mulla K A Chandrakumara, Anura De Zoysa, Athula S. Manawaduge

Anil Chandrakumara

Leadership styles of owner-managers were explored in the context of a developingcountry in South Asia with a view to examining their impact on financial performanceof SMEs. It was justified that the study has both theoretical and contextualsignificance. Data were collected from 204 companies in Sri Lanka by adopting mixedmethodologies that consisted of both qualitative and qualitative approaches.Descriptive statistics and correlation coefficient were used in the analysis. The findingsrevealed that the existence of three main leadership styles in the sample, namely;entrepreneurial, managerial, and mix of both entrepreneurial and managerialleaderships. The analysis indicated that 60 percent of firms had increased financialperformance, while …

Performance Audit: A Case Of Indian R&D Unit, Parulian Silaen, Shyam S. Bhati

Parulian Silaen

The purpose of this paper is to study the outcome of performance audit of anIndian research and development organisation, NIB and explore the utility of performanceaudit tools in determining the causes which lead to the failure of this particular organisation.A set of control tools developed by Silaen and Williams (2009) for the study of Research andDevelopment organisation are applied in this case. The elements of the tools developed bySilaen and Williams (2009) consist of dimensions and value of representation. Fourdimensions of control tools are given as directional, bureaucratic, scientific and financial.Three values of representation are given as external, internal and …

Performance Of Body Mass Index In Predicting Diabetes And Hypertension In The Eastern Province Of Saudi Arabia, Ali M. Almajwal, Nadira A. Al-Baghli, Marijka J. Batterham, Peter G. Williams, Khalid A. Al-Turki, Aqeel J. Al-Ghamdi

Dr Marijka Batterham

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: BMI is the most widely used measure to diagnose obesity but its accuracy and usefulness in Saudi subjects is unknown. This study aimed to assess the validity of standard BMI cut-point values in the Saudi population. SUBJECTS/ METHODS: 197,681 adults participated in a cross-sectional study to detect diabetes and hypertension in the Saudi Eastern province in 2004/5, with blood pressure, fasting blood sugar, height and weight measurements taken. Sensitivities, specificities, areas under the curves, predictive values, likelihood ratios, false positive, false negatives and total misclassification ratios were calculated for various BMI values determined from receiver operating characteristic …

Race Matters: Whether We Know It, Or Like It, Or Not: Implicit Racial Attitudes And Their Effect On Accounting-Based, Balanced Scorecard Performance Evaluations, David R. Upton, Cecil E. Arrington

Ed Arrington

One of the dominant themes in critical accounting theory over the past two decades has to do with the relation between the construction of human identities and accounting discourse and practices. Though with strong antecedents in Marxist –inspired critique of ideology, genealogical studies (e.g., Miller & O’Leary, 19XX), deconstructive studies (e.g., Shearer & Arrington, 19XX), and critical-rational studies (e.g., Power & Laughlin, 19XX) are examples of different theoretical and methodological ways to probe the constructive force of accounting over human identity and subjectivity. This paper offers a fourth approach grounded in social-cognitive concerns with ways in which implicit attitudes, or …

Are School Superintendents Rewarded For “Performance”?, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Richard P. Chaykowski, Randy Ann Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] This chapter presents analyses of the compensation and mobility of school superintendents in New York State during the 1978-79 to 1982-83 period. The focus is on school superintendents because they are the chief operating officers of school districts, their salaries are determined through individual "negotiations" with school boards, and their salary data were made available to us. In contrast, school principals' salary data were not available to us. Especially in large districts, principals tend to be members of a union and their salary increases negotiated collectively, which limits the likelihood of observing individual principals' salaries being related to measures …

Executive Compensation, Board Characteristics And Firm Performance In China: The Impact Of Compensation Committee, Yuqing Zhu, Gary G. Tian, Shiguang Ma

Shiguang Ma

The independent directors of a board can impact CEO payperformancemore effectively if a compensation committeeprovides information and assist them in designing relevantexecutive pay schemes. On the basis of this idea, we developed andtested the hypotheses that Chinese firms with a compensationcommittee have a closer CEO pay link with performance when alarger proportion of independent directors serves on the board. Wefocused primarily on the effect of a compensation committee onCEO pay-performance relation as a consequence of its help for theboard and found that board independence produces a strongerrelationship between executive compensation and firmperformance in Chinese listed firms. This association is more …

Executive Compensation In Municipalities, Gerald S. Goldstein, Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] In this paper we are concerned with the salaries of three important municipal officials; city-managers, police chiefs, and fire chiefs. We present a model that relates the salaries of these officials to a set of explanatory variables, the most important being measures associated with job performance. Two of these measures of performance are developed in the study. Further, the influence of the city-manager form of government on the incentive structure facing police chiefs and fire chiefs, and the interdependence betwen the salaries of police chiefs and fire chiefs is investigated. The model is tested using cross-section data for 1967.

The Relationship Between Driving Anxiety And Driving Skill: A Review Of Human Factors And Anxiety-Performance Theories To Clarify Future Research Needs, Joanne Taylor, Frank P. Deane, John Podd

Frank Deane

This article examines theory and identifies gaps in research related to the role of driving skills in driving anxiety. Increasingly, investigators have examined the clinical features of driving anxiety and the more severe situation of driving fear and phobia, but the possible involvement of driving skills has been neglected. This is surprising given the potential implications for skills training and remediation in the assessment and treatment of some of those who experience driving anxiety, fear, and phobia. The largest body of relevant research comes from the driving and human factors literature on the relationship between anxiety and driving performance. The …

Officer Performance And Compensation In Local Building Trades Unions, Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] This paper presents estimates of the relationship between the performance and compensation of local building trades union leaders. A growing literature has revived the common-sense notion that organizations should structure the compensation of both their employees and their executives so as to encourage them to take actions consistent with the goals of the organizations. One way to minimize the probability that executives will take actions contrary to the organization's goals is to tie their compensation to measures of their organization's performance.

The Incentive Effects Of Tournaments Revisited: Evidence From The European Pga Tour, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Michael L. Bognanno

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

This analysis of data from the 1987 European Men's Professional Golf Association (PGA) Tour strongly supports the hypothesis that the level and structure of prizes in PGA tournaments influence players' performance. Specifically, players' performance appears to vary positively with both the total money prizes awarded in a tournament and the marginal return to effort in the final round of play (a value that varies among players largely depending on how the prize money is allocated among finishers of different ranks). The authors suggest that these results, together with the similar results of their earlier study of the 1984 U.S. Men's …

Do Teachers’ Race, Gender, And Ethnicity Matter? Evidence From The National Education Longitudinal Study Of 1988, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Daniel D. Goldhaber, Dominic J. Brewer

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Using data from the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS), the authors find that the match between teachers' race, gender, and ethnicity and those of their students had little association with how much the students learned, but in several instances it seems to have been a significant determinant of teachers' subjective evaluations of their students. For example, test scores of white female students in mathematics and science did not increase more rapidly when the teacher was a white woman than when the teacher was a white man, but white female teachers evaluated their white female students more highly than …

Board Composition, Board Activity And Ownership Concentration, The Impact On Firm Performance, Shiguang Ma, Gary Tian

Gary Tian

This paper provides a parallel investigation on the impact of board composition, board activity and ownership concentration on the performance of listed Chinese firms. We find that independent directors enhance firm performance effectively than other board factors. The frequency of shareholder meetings, rather than board meetings, is positively associated with firm value. Tradable share ownership concentration has a positive and linear relationship with firm value, while state and total share ownership concentration represent U(V) shapes. Importantly, companies with the highest levels of both total share and tradable share ownership concentration have a greater firm values than companies with the highest …

Disproportional Ownership Structure And Pay–Performance Relationship: Evidence From China's Listed Firms, Jerry Cao, Xiaofei Pan, Gary Tian

Xiaofei Pan

This paper examines the impact of ownership structure on executive compensation in China's listed firms. We find that the cash flow rights of ultimate controlling shareholders have a positive effect on the pay–performance relationship, while a divergence between control rights and cash flow rights has a significantly negative effect on the pay–performance relationship. We divide our sample based on ultimate controlling shareholders' type into state owned enterprises (SOE), state assets management bureaus (SAMB), and privately controlled firms. We find that in SOE controlled firms cash flow rights have a significant impact on accounting based pay–performance relationship. In privately controlled firms, …

Managerial Compensation, Ownership Structure And Firm Performance In China's Listed Firms, Xiaofei Pan, Gary G. Tian, Shiguang Ma, Aelee Jun, Qingliang Tang

Aelee Jun

This paper investigates managerial compensation and its relationship with firm performance in China's listed firms. In China, the largest shareholder dominates other shareholders, controls the firm and therefore exercises substantial impacts on manager compensation. After controlling for other firm and industry characteristics, we find that manager remuneration is greater and pay-performance relation is stronger for privately-controlled firms than for state-controlled firms. We also document that state-controlled firms exercise performance-based manager incentive schemes, which is contrary to evidence found in some earlier studies. Our results also indicate that top executives in firms with a foreign ownership are more highly compensated, relative …

Social Capital Renewal And The Academic Performance Of International Students In Australia, Frank V. Neri, Simon Ville

Simon Ville

Many believe that social capital fosters the accumulation of human capital. Yet international university students arrive in their host country generally denuded of social capital and confronted by unfamiliar cultural and educational institutions. This study investigates how, and to what extent, international students renew their social networks, and whether such investments are positively associated with academic performance. We adopt a social capital framework and conduct a survey of international students at a typical Australian university in order to categorise and measure investments in social capital renewal, and test a multivariate model of academic performance that includes social capital variables, amongst …

Integrating Tertiary Literacy Into The Curriculum: Effects On Performance And Retention, Gregory R. Hampton, Janice Skillen, Alice W. Russell, Sharon A. Robinson, Louise Rodgerson, Neil Trivitt

Sharon Robinson

Tertiary literacy instruction and assessment were introduced into two first year biology subjects as part of a collaboration between Biological Sciences and Learning Development staff at the University of Wollongong. In both subjects, the project focussed on scientific report assessment items based on aspects of the practical curriculum. The project involved production and use of a web site giving instruction in report writing and general guidance on scientific writing, marking schemes using explicit criteria including literacy based criteria, a peer marking tutorial, and marking and feedback using the schemes. The results from assessments in the second subject, which included the …

Board Composition, Board Activity And Ownership Concentration, The Impact On Firm Performance, Shiguang Ma, Gary Tian

Shiguang Ma

This paper provides a parallel investigation on the impact of board composition, board activity and ownership concentration on the performance of listed Chinese firms. We find that independent directors enhance firm performance effectively than other board factors. The frequency of shareholder meetings, rather than board meetings, is positively associated with firm value. Tradable share ownership concentration has a positive and linear relationship with firm value, while state and total share ownership concentration represent U(V) shapes. Importantly, companies with the highest levels of both total share and tradable share ownership concentration have a greater firm values than companies with the highest …

Managerial Compensation, Ownership Structure And Firm Performance In China's Listed Firms, Xiaofei Pan, Gary G. Tian, Shiguang Ma, Aelee Jun, Qingliang Tang

Shiguang Ma

This paper investigates managerial compensation and its relationship with firm performance in China's listed firms. In China, the largest shareholder dominates other shareholders, controls the firm and therefore exercises substantial impacts on manager compensation. After controlling for other firm and industry characteristics, we find that manager remuneration is greater and pay-performance relation is stronger for privately-controlled firms than for state-controlled firms. We also document that state-controlled firms exercise performance-based manager incentive schemes, which is contrary to evidence found in some earlier studies. Our results also indicate that top executives in firms with a foreign ownership are more highly compensated, relative …

Work Teams, Bradford S. Bell, Steve W. J. Kozlowski

Bradford S Bell

[Excerpt] Teams serve as the basic building blocks of modern organizations and represent a critical means by which work is accomplished in today's world. Therefore, significant research during the past few decades has been focused on understanding work team effectiveness. This entry looks at the history of this research and what it says about team types, team composition, team development, team processes, and team effectiveness.

Active Learning: Effects Of Core Training Design Elements On Self-Regulatory Processes, Learning, And Adaptability, Bradford S. Bell, Steve W. J. Kozlowski

Bradford S Bell

This research describes a comprehensive examination of the cognitive, motivational, and emotional processes underlying active learning approaches, their effects on learning and transfer, and the core training design elements (exploration, training frame, emotion-control) and individual differences (cognitive ability, trait goal orientation, trait anxiety) that shape these processes. Participants (N = 350) were trained to operate a complex computer-based simulation. Exploratory learning and error-encouragement framing had a positive effect on adaptive transfer performance and interacted with cognitive ability and dispositional goal orientation to influence trainees’ metacognition and state goal orientation. Trainees who received the emotion-control strategy had lower levels of state …

Adaptive Guidance: Enhancing Self-Regulation, Knowledge, And Performance In Technology-Based Training, Bradford S. Bell, Steve W. J. Kozlowski

Bradford S Bell

Considerable research has examined the effects of giving trainees control over their learning (Steinberg, 1977, 1989; Williams, 1993). The most consistent finding of this research has been that trainees do not make good instructional use of the control they are given. Yet, today’s technologically based training systems often provide individuals with significant control over their learning (Brown, 2001). This creates a dilemma that must be addressed if technology is going to be used to create more effective training systems. The current study extended past research that has examined the effects of providing trainees with some form of advisement or guidance …

Goal Orientation And Ability: Interactive Effects On Self-Efficacy, Performance, And Knowledge, Bradford S. Bell, Steve W.J. Kozlowski

Bradford S Bell

This study examined the direct relationship of goal orientation – and the interaction of goal orientation and cognitive ability -- with self-efficacy, performance, and knowledge in a learning context. The current paper argues that whether a particular type of goal orientation is adaptive or not adaptive depends on individuals' cognitive ability. Results indicated that the direct associations of learning and performance orientations were consistent with previous research. Learning orientation was positively related to self-efficacy, performance, and knowledge, while performance orientation was negatively related to only one outcome, performance. The interactions between goal orientation and ability also supported several hypotheses. As …

A Typology Of Virtual Teams: Implications For Effective Leadership, Bradford S. Bell, Steve W. J. Kozlowski

Bradford S Bell

As the nature of work in today's organizations becomes more complex, dynamic, and global, there has been an increasing emphasis on far-flung, distributed, virtual teams as organizing units of work. Despite their growing prevalence, relatively little is known about this new form of work unit. The purpose of this paper is to present a theoretical framework to focus research toward understanding virtual teams and, in particular, to identify implications for effective leadership. Specifically, we focus on delineating the dimensions of a typology to characterize different types of virtual teams. First, we distinguish virtual teams from conventional teams to identify where …