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Full-Text Articles in Business

Exploring Steps To Create A Regional Monetary Unit For Asean+3, Knowledge@Smu May 2007

Exploring Steps To Create A Regional Monetary Unit For Asean+3, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

As part of an initiative to move towards greater financial stability in the Asian region, a Regional Monetary Unit is being proposed for the ASEAN+3 nations. These include China, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Other countries can be added in the future. Professors Hwee Kwan Chow, Peter N. Kriz, Roberto S. Mariano and Augustine H. H. Tan, from the School of Economics at Singapore Management University, offer their views on the need for a RMU, what its benefits are and how it would work.

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Why Does Proactivity Relate To Favourable Employee Attitudes And Behaviours?, Knowledge@Smu May 2007

Why Does Proactivity Relate To Favourable Employee Attitudes And Behaviours?, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Responding to fierce global competition for talent, organisations are increasingly developing and using innovative strategies to attract, hire, and retain employees. One strategy aimed at acquiring top-notch talent has been to consider applicants’ personality traits in the hiring process. One personality trait linked to favourable employee behaviours and attitudes is employee proactivity. Integrating several different literatures, Singapore Management University associate professor of organisational behaviour Gary Greguras, and University of Akron assistant professor of psychology James Diefendorff, developed and tested a model which explicates the processes through which proactivity relates to employee job satisfaction, life satisfaction, performance, and organisational citizenship behaviours.

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Going Organic In Singapore: Kemena Enterprise Ltd And The Uob-Smu Entrepreneurship Alliance, Knowledge@Smu May 2007

Going Organic In Singapore: Kemena Enterprise Ltd And The Uob-Smu Entrepreneurship Alliance, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

According to British business research company Organic Monitor, the market across Asia for organic food is set to hit US$1 billion this year. Singapore, too, has been swept up in this organic wave. Last year, the country’s share of the Asian organic food market reached US$40 million. Kemena, a two-year-old company which supplies a range of health products in Singapore, has become the first to introduce organic infant formula into the Singapore market. The company was recently involved with the United Overseas Bank (UOB)-SMU Entrepreneurship Alliance which provides funding for small and medium-sized enterprises to hire student consultants. Knowledge@SMU interviewed …

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Learning How To Innovate: Standard Chartered Bank's Ilab@Smu Challenges Students To Bridge Technology And Business, Knowledge@Smu May 2007

Learning How To Innovate: Standard Chartered Bank's Ilab@Smu Challenges Students To Bridge Technology And Business, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

"The future of banking is in Asia and the key driver is innovation," according to a statement from Standard Chartered Bank and the Singapore Management University, which together established an innovation centre -- the Standard Chartered iLab@SMU -- in early 2006. Students can work with iLab on projects where they are exposed to a corporate environment and issues relating to managing intellectual property. As an example, several students were recently given the challenge of investigating the viability of voice biometrics authentication technology at the bank. Knowledge@SMU interviewed both the students and bank executives for their views on how the process …

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`Magic Numbers For Sales Management’: Simple Arithmetic For Sales Practitioners And Strategists, Knowledge@Smu May 2007

`Magic Numbers For Sales Management’: Simple Arithmetic For Sales Practitioners And Strategists, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Singapore Management University marketing professor John Davis has just published his third book, Magic Numbers for Sales Management. Davis has led marketing teams in several major American corporations, and is also the founder of a consulting and training company, Brand New View. Magic Numbers for Sales Management pulls together 50 of the most important sales metrics and formulae in a format that is accompanied by examples from many of today’s leading organisations. Davis spoke to Knowledge@SMU about his book as well as sales management in general.

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Responsible Branding In Asia: Are Companies Ready?, Knowledge@Smu May 2007

Responsible Branding In Asia: Are Companies Ready?, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Jorg Dietzel was born in Germany in 1961. An advertising industry veteran, he opened his own brand consultancy, Jorg Dietzel Brand Consultants, in Singapore two years ago, and teaches classes on Advertising and Strategic Brand Management at Singapore Management University's Lee Kong Chian School of Business. Dietzel talks to Knowledge@SMU about why companies in Asia need to re-brand themselves as responsible corporate citizens or face losing out to competitors.

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The Effects Of Optimal Time Of Day On Persuasion Processes In Older Adults, Carolyn C. Yoon, Pui Yee, Michelle Lee, Shai Danziger May 2007

The Effects Of Optimal Time Of Day On Persuasion Processes In Older Adults, Carolyn C. Yoon, Pui Yee, Michelle Lee, Shai Danziger

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Past research demonstrates that the majority of older adults (60 years and older) perform resource-demanding tasks better in the morning than in the afternoon or evening. The authors ask whether this time-of-day effect also impacts persuasion processes performed under relatively high involvement. The data show that the attitudes of older adults are more strongly affected by an easy-to-process criterion, picturerelatedness, at their non-optimal time of day (afternoon) and by a more-difficult-to-process criterion, argument strength, at their optimal time of day (morning). In contrast, the attitudes of younger adults are affected primarily by argument strength at both their optimal (afternoon) and …

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Who Trades On Pro Forma Earnings Information?, Nilabhra Bhattacharya, Erv Black, Ted Christensen, Rick Mergenthaler May 2007

Who Trades On Pro Forma Earnings Information?, Nilabhra Bhattacharya, Erv Black, Ted Christensen, Rick Mergenthaler

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

In recent years, many companies have emphasized adjusted‐GAAP earnings numbers in their quarterly press releases. While managers use different names to describe these nonstandard earnings metrics, the financial press frequently refers to them as “pro forma” earnings. Managers and other advocates of pro forma reporting argue that these disclosures provide a clearer picture of companies' core earnings. On the other hand, regulators, policymakers, and the financial press often allege that managers' pro forma earnings disclosures are opportunistic attempts to mislead investors. Recent evidence suggests that while many pro forma earnings disclosures are altruistically motivated, some may represent managers' attempts to …

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Machine Scheduling Performance With Maintenance And Failure, Yunsong Guo, Andrew Lim, Brian Rodrigues, Shuang Yu May 2007

Machine Scheduling Performance With Maintenance And Failure, Yunsong Guo, Andrew Lim, Brian Rodrigues, Shuang Yu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In manufacturing control, machine scheduling research has mostly dealt with problems either without maintenance or with deterministic maintenance when no failure can occur. This can be unrealistic in practical settings. In this work, an experimental model is developed to evaluate the effect of corrective and preventive maintenance schemes on scheduling performance in the presence of machine failure where the scheduling objective is to minimize schedule duration. We show that neither scheme is clearly superior, but that the applicability of each depends on several system parameters as well as the scheduling environment itself. Further, we show that parameter values can be …

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Incorporating Learning Through Doing In Entrepreneurship Education: The Case Of An University Industry Alliance In Asia, Wee Liang Tan, David B. Montgomery May 2007

Incorporating Learning Through Doing In Entrepreneurship Education: The Case Of An University Industry Alliance In Asia, Wee Liang Tan, David B. Montgomery

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

With the developments in Asia, there is little doubt that entrepreneurship education would make it way across from the West to Asia. However, the form and manner it takes may differ because of the context and the definition of entrepreneurship adopted. With the differences in Asia and development of entrepreneurship policies adopted by the Asian policymakers, entrepreneurship education has variations across Asia. This paper outlines one such development in a new university in Singapore, involving the university with an industry alliance.

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Can Training Improve The Quality Of Inferences Made By Raters In Competency Modeling? A Quasi-Experiment, Filip Lievens, Juan I. Sanchez May 2007

Can Training Improve The Quality Of Inferences Made By Raters In Competency Modeling? A Quasi-Experiment, Filip Lievens, Juan I. Sanchez

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

A quasi-experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of frame-of-reference training on the quality of competency modeling ratings made by consultants. Human resources consultants from a large consulting firm were randomly assigned to either a training or a control condition. The discriminant validity, interrater reliability, and accuracy of the competency ratings were significantly higher in the training group than in the control group. Further, the discriminant validity and interrater reliability of competency inferences were highest among an additional group of trained consultants who also had competency modeling experience. Together, these results suggest that procedural interventions such as rater training can …

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The Relationship Between Uncertainty And Desire For Feedback: A Test Of Competing Hypotheses, Filip Anseel, Filip Lievens May 2007

The Relationship Between Uncertainty And Desire For Feedback: A Test Of Competing Hypotheses, Filip Anseel, Filip Lievens

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The relationship between uncertainty and desire for feedback was investigated in 2 studies. Results of Study 1 showed support for a curvilinear relationship. People were interested in feedback at high and low levels of uncertainty, as opposed to moderate levels of uncertainty, indicating the activation of both uncertainty reduction and self-verification motives. In Study 2, the curvilinear relationship with uncertainty was replicated for indirect feedback-seeking behavior. In contrast, we found a negative relationship between direct feedback seeking and uncertainty, moderated by certainty orientation. People seemed more motivated by self-verification vs. uncertainty reduction strivings, depending on their certainty orientation. These findings …

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Modeling Architectural Strategy Using Design Structure Networks, C. Jason Woodard May 2007

Modeling Architectural Strategy Using Design Structure Networks, C. Jason Woodard

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

System architects face the formidable task of purposefully shaping an evolving space of complex designs. Their task s further complicated when they lack full control of the design process, and therefore must anticipate the behavior of other stakeholders, including the designers of component products and competing systems. This paper presents a conceptual tool called a design structure network (DSN) to help architects and design scientists reason effectively about these situations. A DSN is a graphical representation of a system’s design space. DSNs improve on existing representation schemes by providing a compact and intuitive way to express design options—the ability to …

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Do Hedge Funds Deliver Alpha? A Bayesian And Bootstrap Analysis, Robert Kosowski, Narayan Y. Naik, Melvyn Teo Apr 2007

Do Hedge Funds Deliver Alpha? A Bayesian And Bootstrap Analysis, Robert Kosowski, Narayan Y. Naik, Melvyn Teo

Research Collection BNP Paribas Hedge Fund Centre

Using a robust bootstrap procedure, we find that top hedge fund performance cannot be explained by luck, and that hedge fund performance persists at annual horizons. Moreover, we show that Bayesian measures, which help overcome the short-sample problem inherent in hedge fund returns, lead to superior performance predictability. Relative to sorting on OLS alphas, sorting on Bayesian alphas yields a 5.5 percent per year increase in the alpha of the spread between the top and bottom hedge fund deciles. Our results are robust, and relevant to investors, as they are neither confined to small funds, nor driven by incubation bias, …

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Manish Sabharwal: 'In Five Years, 25% Of The World's Workers Will Be Indian', Knowledge@Smu Apr 2007

Manish Sabharwal: 'In Five Years, 25% Of The World's Workers Will Be Indian', Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Four years ago, Manish Sabharwal headed India Life, the country's largest business process outsourcing firm in the field of human resources. Having sold India Life to Hewitt Associates in 2002, Sabharwal has now carved out another niche in the HR business as the chairman of TeamLease, a temporary staffing firm headquartered in Bangalore. With more than 450 offices all over India and 67,000 employees, the company has a good shot at becoming the country's largest employer in the private sector by the end of 2007, Sabharwal says. In an interview with India Knowledge@Wharton, he discusses the opportunities and challenges of …

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Advertisements In Your Office Building: A Look At Focus Media's Business Model, Knowledge@Smu Apr 2007

Advertisements In Your Office Building: A Look At Focus Media's Business Model, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Focus Media is the darling of investors. The company, which has placed LCD advertising screens in office buildings and other venues in some 50 cities around China, has been expanding throughout the country at a feverish rate, causing ad revenues to soar and setting share prices on a steady upward trend. Some say that the company is filling a real need in the market for advertisers trying to reach potential customers, and that the concept of advertising in confined spaces is a very good selling point. However, other observers doubt the impact and effectiveness of LCD advertising, and say there …

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As Citigroup Increases Its High-Skilled Headcount In India, Will Others Follow?, Knowledge@Smu Apr 2007

As Citigroup Increases Its High-Skilled Headcount In India, Will Others Follow?, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

On April 11, Citigroup CEO Charles Prince announced a massive restructuring program that involves cutting 17,000 jobs and moving more than 9,500 to locations in low-cost countries. Citigroup watchers expect some 8,000 jobs to head for India, including the outsourcing of select high-end back-office functions. If that phenomenon gathers momentum beyond the financial services industry, the U.S. could lose far more jobs than previously predicted across the skills and wage spectrum. India Knowledge@Wharton spoke with Wharton professors to understand this emerging trend in global job movements. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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China Forges Ahead On Financial Reform – At Its Own Pace, With Its Own Rules, Knowledge@Smu Apr 2007

China Forges Ahead On Financial Reform – At Its Own Pace, With Its Own Rules, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

China’s fast-evolving financial industry, like the country itself, defies the type of easy, sound bite-friendly synopses that foreign investors might like. It’s often unclear exactly what factors are stoking China’s remarkable economic growth engine. Or, as Winston Wenyan Ma, an investment banker who most recently worked for J.P. Morgan in New York and is the author of Investing in China – New Opportunities in a Transforming Stock Market, puts it: “The Chinese financial industry is a very complex story.” Speaking at the recent Wharton China Business Forum in Philadelphia, Ma moderated a panel on financial reform – a key ingredient …

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The Long-Term Impact Of The Feedback Environment On Job Satisfaction: A Field Study In A Belgian Context, Filip Anseel, Filip Lievens Apr 2007

The Long-Term Impact Of The Feedback Environment On Job Satisfaction: A Field Study In A Belgian Context, Filip Anseel, Filip Lievens

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study examines (1) the relationship between the feedback environment and job satisfaction and (2) the mediating role of leader-member exchange in a Belgian context. Results from a sample of 155 employees of a governmental service for employment and vocational training supported our hypotheses. A favorable supervisor feedback environment was related to higher levels of job satisfaction 5 months later, and this relationship was fully mediated by the quality of leader-member exchange. These findings highlight the usefulness of diagnosing and assessing the feedback environment for a better understanding of feedback processes and for enhancing feedback interventions in organisations.

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The Effect Of Financial Hedging On The Incentives For Corporate Diversification: The Role Of Stakeholder Firm-Specific Investments, Sonya Seongyeon Lim, Heli Wang Apr 2007

The Effect Of Financial Hedging On The Incentives For Corporate Diversification: The Role Of Stakeholder Firm-Specific Investments, Sonya Seongyeon Lim, Heli Wang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Financial hedging and corporate diversification are often considered substitutive means of risk management, implying that rapid development of financial hedging markets will yield less need for firms to manage risk through costly diversification. Building on a stakeholder-based view of risk management, we show that financial hedging and corporate diversification are more often complementary than substitutive. Financial hedging reduces a firm’s systematic risk, encouraging firm-specific investment by stakeholders. Larger firmspecific investment loads excessive idiosyncratic risk on the stakeholders, increasing the benefits of reducing idiosyncratic risk through diversification. Therefore, financial hedging can increase a firm’s incentives to manage risk through diversification.

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Do Hedge Funds Deliver Alpha? A Bayesian And Bootstrap Analysis, Robert Kosowski, Narayan Y. Naik, Melvyn Teo Apr 2007

Do Hedge Funds Deliver Alpha? A Bayesian And Bootstrap Analysis, Robert Kosowski, Narayan Y. Naik, Melvyn Teo

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Using a robust bootstrap procedure, we find that top hedge fund performance cannot be explained by luck, and that hedge fund performance persists at annual horizons. Moreover, we show that Bayesian measures, which help overcome the short-sample problem inherent in hedge fund returns, lead to superior performance predictability. Relative to sorting on OLS alphas, sorting on Bayesian alphas yields a 5.5 percent per year increase in the alpha of the spread between the top and bottom hedge fund deciles. Our results are robust, and relevant to investors, as they are neither confined to small funds, nor driven by incubation bias, …

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State-Led Transborder Industrialization In Asia: A Note On Singapore's Manufacturing Enclaves In Vietnam And China, Caroline Yeoh, Wilfred Pow Ngee How Apr 2007

State-Led Transborder Industrialization In Asia: A Note On Singapore's Manufacturing Enclaves In Vietnam And China, Caroline Yeoh, Wilfred Pow Ngee How

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Singapore-based firms to expand into the region, remain controversial. This strategic initiative is promulgated on the exportability of Singapore’s state credibility, systemic and operational efficiencies as well as technological competencies, to locations where these attributes are less distinct. We present evidence culled from surveys and interviews conducted in the Singapore-styled industrial townships in Vietnam and China. Our results suggest that, while the parks have arguably been a measured success, the advantages supposedly created by the abovementioned export of Singapore’s competencies have proven either illusionary or far less significant than originally envisioned, vis-à-vis more practical economic and competitive concerns.

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Possession, Feelings Of Ownership, And The Endowment Effect, Jochen Reb, Terry Connolly Apr 2007

Possession, Feelings Of Ownership, And The Endowment Effect, Jochen Reb, Terry Connolly

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Research in judgment and decision making generally ignores the distinction between factual and subjective feelings of ownership, tacitly assuming that the two correspond closely. The present research suggests that this assumption might be usefully reexamined. In two experiments on the endowment effect we examine the role of subjective ownership by independently manipulating factual ownership (i.e., what participants were told about ownership) and physical possession of an object. This allowed us to disentangle the effects of these two factors, which are typically confounded. We found a significant effect of possession, but not of factual ownership, on monetary valuation of the object. …

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Optimal Liquidation Strategies And Their Implications, Christopher Ting, Mitch Warachka, Yonggan Zhao Apr 2007

Optimal Liquidation Strategies And Their Implications, Christopher Ting, Mitch Warachka, Yonggan Zhao

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper studies optimal liquidation when the selling price depends on the rate of liquidation, transaction time, volume, and the asset's intrinsic value. A generic closed-form solution for maximizing the discounted liquidation proceeds is derived. To obtain financial insights, three parametric specifications that proxy for increasingly realistic market conditions are examined. In our framework, maximizing liquidation proceeds and minimizing liquidity costs are equivalent. The optimal strategies imply more rapid liquidations in less liquid markets. We also show that volatility is stochastic when market liquidity is unpredictable.

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Managing Stakeholders During It-Enabled Organizational Transformation: A Case Study Of E-Government In South Korea, Hyun Jeong Kim, Gary Pan, Shan Ling Pan Apr 2007

Managing Stakeholders During It-Enabled Organizational Transformation: A Case Study Of E-Government In South Korea, Hyun Jeong Kim, Gary Pan, Shan Ling Pan

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

The implementation of e-government is a burgeoning phenomenon across the globe. It improves and enhances the infrastructures and services provided to the citizens. However, a review of the IS literature reveals that research on the implementation of e-government is rather limited, which could be due to the general misconception of the public sectors as rigid and risk-averse establishments. The shortage of studies on e-government’s implementation presents a knowledge gap that needs to be plugged. This gap is significantly amplified by the increasing number of e-government initiatives being implemented by governments in recent years. This paper describes and analyzes South Korea’s …

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Socialization And The Business School, Stefano Harney Apr 2007

Socialization And The Business School, Stefano Harney

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

There is a new phase in the generalization of management capacities, but contrary to the assumptions of critical management educators, the investment in the business school has not been to socialize more students into this generalized management, but to seek the principle of generalization in these students themselves as part of a struggle between capital and labour. Using the insights of autonomist feminist theorists, this article attempts to analyse why critical management education has been unable to find a new object appropriate to this new generalization of management, and speculates on what the critical and political benefits might be of …

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Perk Place: The Benefits Offered By Google And Others May Be Grand, But They're All Business, Knowledge@Smu Mar 2007

Perk Place: The Benefits Offered By Google And Others May Be Grand, But They're All Business, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Free gourmet food, 24-hour gym, yoga classes, in-house doctor, on-site haircuts, dry cleaner, nutritionist, swimming pool ... .These are just some of the perks Google -- and many other organizations -- offer employees. Companies have their reasons, of course: They want to attract and retain the best knowledge-workers they can, help them work long hours by feeding them gourmet meals on-site and handling time-consuming personal chores, and show them that they are valued members of the team. But, as Wharton faculty point out, there may be a potential downside to all this largesse.

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I-Flex Solutions' Rajesh Hukku: 'No One Dreamed That $400,000 Would Become Almost $600 Million In 13 Years', Knowledge@Smu Mar 2007

I-Flex Solutions' Rajesh Hukku: 'No One Dreamed That $400,000 Would Become Almost $600 Million In 13 Years', Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

In 1992, Rajesh Hukku, then head of Citicorp Overseas Software, spun off Citicorp Information Technology Industries Ltd. (CITIL), now called i-flex solutions, from the giant financial institution. Citi had decided that software wasn't its business, but invested $400,000 in the venture. In 2005, Oracle bought out Citicorp's 42% interest for $592 million, a humongous return on Citi's investment in just 13 years. In the first of a two-part interview with India Knowledge@Wharton, Hukku spoke about i-flex's start and strategy with Ravi Aron, a senior fellow at Wharton's Mack Center for Technological Innovation.

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Online Campaigns: The New Way Marketers Can Reach Out To Chinese Consumers, Knowledge@Smu Mar 2007

Online Campaigns: The New Way Marketers Can Reach Out To Chinese Consumers, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

As the number of netizens in China continues to increase at a torrid pace -- reaching more than 140 million users by early 2007 -- companies keep searching for ways to incorporate the Internet into their marketing campaigns. Through interactive digital marketing, companies hope they can tap into the growing trend of online participation by Chinese consumers and thus influence public perception of their brands. China Knowledge@Wharton interviewed experts in the field and looked at consumer brands, like Pepsi and Samsung, that are at the forefront of efforts to engage consumers in the creative process.

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Developing Story: Global Publishing Houses See New Potential In Indian Media, Knowledge@Smu Mar 2007

Developing Story: Global Publishing Houses See New Potential In Indian Media, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Global media houses have been systematically targeting India over the past two years, encouraged primarily by burgeoning readership levels and relaxed government policies on foreign investment in the industry. At the same time, deep-pocketed advertisers are zeroing in on a young, brand-aware population's rising income and literacy levels. In addition, foreign private equity investors and publishers have set up alliances with domestic players; new mainstream newspapers and niche magazines have been launched, and regional-language publishers have increased their reach. India Knowledge@Wharton spoke to publishers and market analysts about this media boom.

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