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Articles 6181 - 6210 of 6934

Full-Text Articles in Business

Is Stock Price Rounded For Economic Reasons In The Chinese Market, Yan He, Chunchi Wu Sep 2006

Is Stock Price Rounded For Economic Reasons In The Chinese Market, Yan He, Chunchi Wu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper investigates whether trading and quoting prices are rounded for both economic and cultural reasons on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges in China. We find that the close, bid, and ask prices of domestic shares are rounded to the nearest 10s and 5s for economic reasons, and the last decimal point of prices clusters on 8 for cultural reasons. The cross-sectional variation in 10-cent and 5-cent rounding can be well explained by price and inverse of square root of trading volume, whereas the clustering on 8 can hardly be ascribed to economic variables. The cross-sectional variation in execution …

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The Billion-Dollar Body Parts Industry: Medical Research Alongside Greed And Corruption, Knowledge@Smu Aug 2006

The Billion-Dollar Body Parts Industry: Medical Research Alongside Greed And Corruption, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Body parts are big business in the United States. Tissue, organs, tendons, bones, joints, limbs, hands, feet, torsos, and heads culled from the dead are the cornerstones of the lucrative and important business of advancing scientific knowledge and improving medical technique. Few people, however, think to ask where the material that sustains this enormous industry comes from. Journalist Annie Cheney is a timely exception. In Body Brokers: Inside America's Underground Trade in Human Remains (Broadway), Cheney chronicles her quest to find out how human remains are procured, processed, marketed, and used. It's a complicated, detailed and disturbing tale.

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Evidence On The Relationship Between Takaful Insurance And Fundamental Perception Of Islamic Principles, Ramin Cooper Maysami, John Joseph Williams Aug 2006

Evidence On The Relationship Between Takaful Insurance And Fundamental Perception Of Islamic Principles, Ramin Cooper Maysami, John Joseph Williams

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

One of the complexities overarching the concept of Islamic insurance is anchored in the belief system pertaining to fundamental Islamic Law, while another is embedded in the role of profit within the takaful contract. The purpose of this study is to empirically explore the association between the awareness of the existence of Islamic insurance (takaful) and religious perceptions of this financial service.

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The Importance Of Issues Management In International Mergers And Acquisitions, Mark Chong Aug 2006

The Importance Of Issues Management In International Mergers And Acquisitions, Mark Chong

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Issues management is the strategic use of issues analysis and strategic responses to help organizations make adaptations needed to achieve harmony and foster mutual interests within the communities in which they operate (Heath, 1997, p. 3). It seeks to build, maintain and repair relationships with an organizationÆs stakeholders by keeping surveillance for threats and opportunities in the environment that can affect success in achieving organizational mission and goals (Heath, 2002). Accordingly, organizations modify corporate policy, shape legislation or influence public opinion to synchronize themselves with the prevailing or emerging climate of public opinion and sensitivity

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The Association Between Audit Quality And Abnormal Audit Fees, Jong-Hag Choi, Jeong-Bon Kim, Yoonseok Zang Aug 2006

The Association Between Audit Quality And Abnormal Audit Fees, Jong-Hag Choi, Jeong-Bon Kim, Yoonseok Zang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Using a sample of 9,820 firm-year observations over the 2000-2003 period, this paper examines whether, and how, audit quality proxied by unsigned discretionary accruals is associated with abnormal audit fees, i.e., actual audit fees in excess of expected, normal audit fees. The results of various regressions reveal that the association between the two is insignificant for the full sample, significantly positive for the subsample of clients with positive abnormal fees, and insignificantly negative for the subsample of clients with negative abnormal fees. The above results suggest that auditors’ incentives to compromise audit quality differ systematically for more profitable clients (with …

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Corporate Financial Policy And The Value Of Cash, Michael Faulkender, Rong Wang Aug 2006

Corporate Financial Policy And The Value Of Cash, Michael Faulkender, Rong Wang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We examine the cross-sectional variation in the marginal value of corporate cash holdings that arises from differences in corporate financial policy. We begin by providing semi-quantitative predictions for the value of an extra dollar of cash depending upon the likely use of that dollar, and derive a set of intuitive hypotheses to test empirically. By examining the variation in excess stock returns over the fiscal year, we find that the marginal value of cash declines with larger cash holdings, higher leverage, better access to capital markets, and as firms choose greater cash distribution via dividends rather than repurchases.

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Empowerment Through Choice?: A Critical Analysis Of The Effects Of Choice In Organizations, Roy Y. J. Chua, Sheena S. Iyengar Jul 2006

Empowerment Through Choice?: A Critical Analysis Of The Effects Of Choice In Organizations, Roy Y. J. Chua, Sheena S. Iyengar

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The provision of choice is one of the most common vehicles through which managers empower employees in organizations. Although past psychological and organizational research persuasively suggests that choice confers personal agency, and is thus intrinsically motivating, emerging research indicates that there could be potential pitfalls. In this chapter, we examine the various factors that could influence the effects of choice. Specifically, we examine individual-level factors such as the chooser’s socioeconomic status and cultural background. We also examine situational factors such as the content of choice and the number of choices offered. We then expand our discussion on the effect of …

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Winter Wine Tourists In Canada's Niagara Region, Carmen W. Cullen, Eugene Kaciak, Linda Bramble, Barry Wright, Alfred E. Seaman, John Joseph Williams Jul 2006

Winter Wine Tourists In Canada's Niagara Region, Carmen W. Cullen, Eugene Kaciak, Linda Bramble, Barry Wright, Alfred E. Seaman, John Joseph Williams

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This paper represents the first stage in a multi-seasonal investigation of peak, off-peak and shoulder season winery tourists in Canada’s Niagara region. The goal of the study reported here is to better understand the off-peak winery tourist – that strange creature who chooses to visit a winery in the dead of Canadian winter. Who are these people?

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Direct And Indirect Effects Of Third-Party Relationships On Interpersonal Trust, Donald L. Ferrin, Kurt T. Dirks, Pri P. Shah Jul 2006

Direct And Indirect Effects Of Third-Party Relationships On Interpersonal Trust, Donald L. Ferrin, Kurt T. Dirks, Pri P. Shah

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Past studies of the determinants of interpersonal trust have focused primarily on how trust forms in isolated dyads. Yet within organizations, trust typically develops between individuals who are embedded in a complex web of existing and potential relationships. In this article, the authors identify 3 alternative ways in which a trustor and trustee may be linked to each other via third parties: network closure (linked via social interactions with third parties), trust transferability (linked via trusted third parties), and structural equivalence (linked via the similarity of their relationships with all potential third parties within the organization). Each of these is …

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Crossing The Chasm: The Xid Technologies Story, Arcot Desai Narasimhalu, Roberto Mariani Jul 2006

Crossing The Chasm: The Xid Technologies Story, Arcot Desai Narasimhalu, Roberto Mariani

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

XID Technologies is a face processing start up company built initially around a disruptive face recognition technology. The technology innovation came from Kent Ridge Digital Labs, a publicly funded software research laboratory in Singapore. Face recognition is the least intrusive and harmless among the various biometric solutions available in the market. The basic approach to human face recognition is to identify a robust feature set that was unique enough to differentiate amongst the many millions of human faces that the system was required to verify. The technology innovation used by XID framed the problem differently and thereby overcame the challenges …

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Partnering Strategies And Performance Of Smes' International Joint Ventures, Jane Wenzhen Lu, Paul W. Beamish Jul 2006

Partnering Strategies And Performance Of Smes' International Joint Ventures, Jane Wenzhen Lu, Paul W. Beamish

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The international joint venture (IJV) is an important mode in the internationalization of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Internationalization in turn is an entrepreneurial behavior in the pursuit of growth. Partnering strategies in the formation of IJVs can have significant effects on the outcome of SMEs' international expansion. In this study, we examine the performance implications of two types of resources contributed by SMEs' IJV partners, host country knowledge and size-based resources. We develop and test three sets of hypotheses about the longevity and financial performance of a sample of 1117 international joint ventures established in 43 countries by 614 …

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Perceptions Of Corporate Social Responsibility: An Empirical Study In Singapore; Strategic Management Policy, Gilbert Yip Wei Tan, Rajah Vellan Komaran Jul 2006

Perceptions Of Corporate Social Responsibility: An Empirical Study In Singapore; Strategic Management Policy, Gilbert Yip Wei Tan, Rajah Vellan Komaran

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In Singapore, there is no doubt that there have been efforts by various local and foreign corporations to incorporate some CSR principles in their operations. Indeed, there was a national initiative modeled after the tripartite approach to industrial relations where national economic and industrial issues are collectively resolved by the government, employers and employees. Against the backdrop of this national initiative and the effort by some corporations to incorporate CSR principles, not much is really known about the state of affairs in Singapore.

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Gender Differences In Perceived Work Demands, Family Demands, And Life Stress Among Married Chinese Employees, Jaepil Choi, Chao C. Chen Jul 2006

Gender Differences In Perceived Work Demands, Family Demands, And Life Stress Among Married Chinese Employees, Jaepil Choi, Chao C. Chen

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Although gender-based division of labour and the identity theory of stress suggest that the relationship between work and family demands and life stress may vary as a function of gender, it is largely unknown whether these arguments are also valid in China. To address this gap in the existing literature, the current study investigates the gender differences in perceived work and family demands, and the effects of these perceived demands on the life stress of Chinese male and female employees. The study of 153 married Chinese employees found that Chinese women perceived a higher level of family demands than did …

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The Internationalization Of Singapore's State Enterprise Network In The Context Of Asia's Transborder Industrialization: New Evidence From Indonesia, Vietnam And China, Caroline Yeoh, Victor Sim, Genrong Meng Jun 2006

The Internationalization Of Singapore's State Enterprise Network In The Context Of Asia's Transborder Industrialization: New Evidence From Indonesia, Vietnam And China, Caroline Yeoh, Victor Sim, Genrong Meng

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

State-led, market-driven interventions have been the hallmark of the Singapore `success story’. This paper revisits Singapore’s state-enterprise strategy, in the context of the city-state’s determined efforts at internationalization, and takes a closer look at the portability of this strategy, in the framework of Regionalization21, a series of transborder industrialization experiments in Indonesia, Vietnam and China. These state-engineered projects, orchestrated to encapsulate economic space for Singapore-based firms to expand into the region, remains 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 …

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Personal Taxes, Endogenous Default, And Corporate Bond Yield Spreads, Sheen X. Liu, Howard Qi, Chunchi Wu Jun 2006

Personal Taxes, Endogenous Default, And Corporate Bond Yield Spreads, Sheen X. Liu, Howard Qi, Chunchi Wu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Term structure models have often been criticized for failing to explain satisfactorily the yield spread between corporate and Treasury bonds. A potential problem is that the personal tax effect is ignored in these models. In this paper, we employ a structural model to investigate the role of personal taxes on both debt and equity returns in capital structure decisions and assess their impact on corporate bond yield spreads. It is shown that personal taxes affect the firm's optimal capital structure, and the tax premium explains a substantial portion of yield spreads, especially for high-grade bonds. The predictive ability of the …

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Dynamics Of Trust In Guanxi Networks, Roy Y. J. Chua, Michael W. Morris Jun 2006

Dynamics Of Trust In Guanxi Networks, Roy Y. J. Chua, Michael W. Morris

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Interpersonal trust is an important element of Chinese guanxi network. In this chapter, we examine Chinese guanxi network from a trust perspective. We adopt the distinction that trust could be built on either a socio-emotional basis (affect-based trust) or an instrumental basis (cognition-based trust) and use this lens to examine cultural differences in Chinese and Western social networks. Specifically, we will discuss (a) how the two dimensions of trust are related in the Chinese versus American context, and (b) how affect-based trust is associated with different forms of social exchange in Chinese versus American social networks. Because dyadic relationships are …

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Mabs: Spreadsheet– Based Decision Support For Precision Marketing, Bert De Reyck, Zeger Degraeve Jun 2006

Mabs: Spreadsheet– Based Decision Support For Precision Marketing, Bert De Reyck, Zeger Degraeve

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In this paper, we describe a decision support system developed for automatically scheduling and optimising broadcasts of advertisements to mobile phones via SMS (Short Message Service) text messaging. The system, MABS or “Mobile Advertising Broadcast Scheduler”, is developed in Microsoft Excel with a link to Lingo, a modelling language and IP solver. It was developed for a London-based company specialized in location-sensitive precision marketing via mobile phones. The system significantly reduced the time required to schedule the broadcasts, and resulted both in increased customer response and revenues.

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Asian Market Microstructure, David K. Ding, Charlie Charoenwong Jun 2006

Asian Market Microstructure, David K. Ding, Charlie Charoenwong

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Along with the rapidly burgeoning Asian economy, the financial markets in the region have seen spectacular development during the past few decades. Several recent statistics will best illustrate their success. Net capital flows to Asia and Pacific over 1999 to 2003 constituted 40% of total flows to emerging markets and about 13.9% of the world's FDI flows. Over 90% of net capital flows to the Asia Pacific region has been in the form of equity and portfolio investment. By the end of 2004, Asia's share (including Japan) in world equity market capitalization has grown to 21%, with a total market …

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Strategic Investments In Japanese Corporations: Do Foreign Portfolio Owners Foster Underinvestment Or Appropriate Investment?, Parthiban David, Toru Yoshikawa, Murali D. R. Chari, Abdul A. Rasheed Jun 2006

Strategic Investments In Japanese Corporations: Do Foreign Portfolio Owners Foster Underinvestment Or Appropriate Investment?, Parthiban David, Toru Yoshikawa, Murali D. R. Chari, Abdul A. Rasheed

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper investigates the effect of foreign ownership on strategic investments in Japanese corporations. Foreign owners are typically portfolio investors who frequently buy and sell shares and hold diversified portfolios of small stakes in many firms. Prior research has presented two conflicting perspectives on the role of such investors: (a) their frequent trading leads to pressure for short-term returns that fosters underinvestment; (b) their active trading fosters appropriate investments. We investigated the relationship between foreign ownership and strategic investments using dynamic panel data analysis of a sample of 146 Japanese manufacturing firms from 1991 to 1997. We found that foreign …

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Designing Successful Executive Program On Creativity: Theoretical Approaches And Practical Challenges In Asia, Gilbert Tan Jun 2006

Designing Successful Executive Program On Creativity: Theoretical Approaches And Practical Challenges In Asia, Gilbert Tan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper traces the theoretical approaches of creative training to the 4 Ps of creativity research, namely, People, Process, Product and Press. It discusses some practical considerations that need to be taken into account to ensure success in creativity training programs. These considerations include: (a) accommodating individual differences; (b) addressing resistance; (c) demonstrating impact and results; (d) ensuring transfer-of-training; and (e) overcoming time and resource constraint. The paper concludes with the IDEAL tips on creativity training.

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Substitution Or Symbolic Effects? A Reexamination Of Corporate Governance And Firm Performance, Xuesong Geng, Dean Hennessy, Kimberly Bates Jun 2006

Substitution Or Symbolic Effects? A Reexamination Of Corporate Governance And Firm Performance, Xuesong Geng, Dean Hennessy, Kimberly Bates

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In this paper, we use a sample of large Canadian corporations to test the substitution hypothesis and the symbolic hypothesis. We find that the positive effect of board independence on firm performance declines as managerial ownership increases. This effect becomes non-positive when highly concentrated managerial ownership makes independent board more symbolic than effective.

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Financial Value Of Brands In Mergers And Acquisitions: Is Value In The Eye Of The Beholder?, Cem Badahir, Sundar G.Bharadwaj, Rajendra Kumar Srivastava Jun 2006

Financial Value Of Brands In Mergers And Acquisitions: Is Value In The Eye Of The Beholder?, Cem Badahir, Sundar G.Bharadwaj, Rajendra Kumar Srivastava

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Firms frequently engage in merger and acquisition deals. In these transactions, brands account for significant but differential proportions of overall transaction value. Extant marketing literature on financial value of brands focuses on drivers of financial value only within a firm. However, in a merger and acquisition context, value of brands also depends on how their new owners might leverage them in the marketplace. This study identifies and empirically tests both the target and acquirer characteristics that affect the value of target firm’s brands in mergers and acquisitions. Furthermore, the authors examine the moderating role of deal type and target firm …

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Integrated Crisis Mapping: Toward A Publics-Based, Emotion-Driven Conceptualization In Crisis Communication, Yan Jin, Pang, A., Glen Cameron Jun 2006

Integrated Crisis Mapping: Toward A Publics-Based, Emotion-Driven Conceptualization In Crisis Communication, Yan Jin, Pang, A., Glen Cameron

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Extending current situation-based conceptualizations of crisis response, this paper develops a more generic and systemic approach to understanding the role of emotions in crisis situations. Taking an integrated approach, the authors propose a public-based, emotion-driven perspective to crisis communication modeling, mapping different crisis types, and underpinning them with two continua, the organization’s involvement with the crisis issue and primary public’s coping strategy. The paper further argues that the appropriate crisis response and tools to manage a crisis should address the full range of emotions for optimal effectiveness at both strategic and tactical levels.

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Do We Stand On Common Ground? A Threat Appraisal Model For Terror Alerts Issued By The Department Of Homeland Security, Augustine Pang, Jin Yan, Glen T. Cameron Jun 2006

Do We Stand On Common Ground? A Threat Appraisal Model For Terror Alerts Issued By The Department Of Homeland Security, Augustine Pang, Jin Yan, Glen T. Cameron

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The fabric and faces of threat, and the expediency and efficiency in the communication of threat, are examined with a threat appraisal model. This model is empirically tested on an ongoing communication challenge, the issuance of terror alerts by the United States' Department of Homeland Security (DHS), focusing on how threat is appraised by both the conservative and liberal audiences. Findings showed a shared view by the DHS and conservative audiences on the levels and nature of threats; liberal audiences thought otherwise. Though there appeared to be a consensus between the conservative and liberal audiences on the efficacy of threat …

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Make, Buy, Or Ally: A Transaction Cost Theory Meta-Analysis, Inge Geyskens, Jan-Benedict E. M. Steenkamp, Nirmalya Kumar Jun 2006

Make, Buy, Or Ally: A Transaction Cost Theory Meta-Analysis, Inge Geyskens, Jan-Benedict E. M. Steenkamp, Nirmalya Kumar

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Since the publication of Williamson's Markets and Hierarchies, many empirical articles have investigated the tenets of transaction cost theory. Using meta-analytic techniques, we quantitatively synthesized and evaluated transaction cost-based empirical research on organizational boundary (make, buy, or ally) decisions. We found strong support for the theory for both make versus buy and ally versus buy decisions. However, we did not find evidence that asset specificity had stronger predictive power than uncertainty. Hierarchical and relational governance appropriately aligned with transaction dimensions both led to enhanced performance. On the basis of our meta-analysis, we provide directions for future research.

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Fashion Sense, Nirmalya Kumar, Sophie Linguri Jun 2006

Fashion Sense, Nirmalya Kumar, Sophie Linguri

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The article focuses on Zara store, which was opened in La Coruña, in Northwest Spain. The stores of Zara had a selling area of 811,100 square meters in 56 countries. Zara had become the best-known fashion brand in Spain and the flagship brand of 5.7 billion euros holding group Inditex, with sales of 3.8 billion euros in the financial year 2004. Among the keys to the success of Zara is its approach to the supply chain. Half of the garments of Zara is sourced around from third parties in low-cost manufacturing locations, including Asia. Basic collection items or wardrobe "staples," …

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Threats To The Operational Use Of Situational Judgment Tests In The College Admission Process, Michael J. Cullen, Paul R. Sackett, Filip Lievens Jun 2006

Threats To The Operational Use Of Situational Judgment Tests In The College Admission Process, Michael J. Cullen, Paul R. Sackett, Filip Lievens

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study examined the coachability of two situational judgment tests, the College Student Questionnaire (CSQ) and the Situational Judgment Inventory (SJI), developed for consideration as selection instruments in the college admission process. Strategies for raising scores on each test were generated, and undergraduates were trained in the use of the strategies using a video-based training program. Results indicated that the CSQ was susceptible to coaching. In addition, the scoring format of the CSQ was found to be easily exploited, such that trainees could increase their scores by greater than 1 SD simply by avoiding extreme responses on that test. The …

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Can Online Reviews Reveal A Product's True Quality? Empirical Findings Analytical Modeling Of Online Word-Of-Mouth Communication, Nan Hu, Paul Pavlou, Jennifer Zhang Jun 2006

Can Online Reviews Reveal A Product's True Quality? Empirical Findings Analytical Modeling Of Online Word-Of-Mouth Communication, Nan Hu, Paul Pavlou, Jennifer Zhang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

As a digital version of word-of-mouth, online review has become a major information source for consumers and has very important implications for a wide range of management activities. While some researchers focus their studies on the impact of online product review on sales, an important assumption remains unexamined, that is, can online product review reveal the true quality of the product? To test the validity of this key assumption, this paper first empirically tests the underlying distribution of online reviews with data from Amazon. The results show that 53% of the products have a bimodal and non-normal distribution. For these …

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Within And Beyond Communities Of Practice: Making Sense Of Learning Through Participation, Identity And Practice, Karen Handley, Andrew Sturdy, Robin Fincham, Timothy Adrian Robert Clark May 2006

Within And Beyond Communities Of Practice: Making Sense Of Learning Through Participation, Identity And Practice, Karen Handley, Andrew Sturdy, Robin Fincham, Timothy Adrian Robert Clark

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Situated learning theory offers a radical critique of cognitivisttheories of learning, emphasizing the relational aspects of learning withincommunities of practice in contrast to the individualist assumptions ofconventional theories. However, although many researchers have embraced thetheoretical strength of situated learning theory, conceptual issues remainundeveloped in the literature. Roberts, for example, argues in this issue thatthe notion of ‘communities of practice’– a core concept in situated learningtheory – is itself problematic. To complement her discussion, this paperexplores the communities of practice concept from several perspectives.Firstly, we consider the perspective of the individual learner, and examine theprocesses which constitute ‘situated learning’. Secondly, we …

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A Construct-Driven Investigation Of Gender Differences In A Leadership-Role Assessment Center, Neil Anderson, Filip Lievens, Karen Van Dam, Marise Born May 2006

A Construct-Driven Investigation Of Gender Differences In A Leadership-Role Assessment Center, Neil Anderson, Filip Lievens, Karen Van Dam, Marise Born

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study examined gender differences in a large-scale assessment center for officer entry in the British Army. Subgroup differences were investigated for a sample of 1,857 candidates: 1,594 men and 263 women. A construct-driven approach was chosen (a) by examining gender differences at the construct level, (b) by formulating a priori hypotheses about which constructs would be susceptible to gender effects, and (c) by using both effect size statistics and latent mean analyses to investigate gender differences in assessment center ratings. Results showed that female candidates were rated notably higher on constructs reflecting an interpersonally oriented leadership style (i.e., oral …

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