International Business Commons^™

Made In Oman: Promoting Manufacturing And Export In The Sultanate Of Oman, Tyler Philip Eldridge Mcwilliam

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Oman’s manufacturing sector has shown promising growth during the past decades. This paper analyzes the role of the manufacturing and export sector in economic growth and development. Then, after analyzing government policy toward manufacturing in Oman, this paper uses research gathered from companies in Rusayl to determine the biggest problems currently facing manufacturing in Oman and the effectiveness of government policy toward the sector. Problems found included excessive bureaucracy, Omanization, and transport costs. These findings were then presented to the appropriate public institutions, with their reactions documented. Recommendations for change include streamlining government services, expediting the construction of the Gulf …

The State Of The Fair Trade Movement, Jeff Goldman, Executive Director

Fair Trade Universities' National Convergence

No abstract provided.

Executive Compensation: The Role Of Shari’A Compliance, William Martin, Karen Ahmed

College of Business Faculty and Staff Works

Abstract Purpose The purpose of this paper is to illuminate issues surrounding executive compensation as it relates to current understandings of Islamic business law. Methodology We review the emerging bodies of literature in the fields of executive compensation and opinions of stock options under Shari’a law. Findings It appears that the trend in offering employee stock options as part of a Shari’a compliant compensation package is acceptable in most cases, yet because of its close association with the more problematic idea of derivative transactions, the company must be vigilant in obtaining the approval from its Shari’a Standards Board before offering …

Resume, Karen Ahmed

College of Business Faculty and Staff Works

No abstract provided.

International Trade And Women Merchants At Gbagi Textile Market, Ibadan, Mutiat Titilope Kareem-Ojo

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

This paper examines the historical background of Gbagi textile market in Ibadan and the response to international trade among women merchants at the market. It discusses the relationship between Lebanese traders in Nigeria and Yoruba women merchants at the market. In this connection, the paper explains how the presence of the Lebanese influenced textile trade. It also examines how women merchants adapted to the changes associated with international trade relations. The paper concludes by analyzing the changes that occurred in the market via the trading activities of women merchants.

Workers' Migration And Remittances In Bangladesh, Khawaja Mamun, Hiranya K. Nath

WCBT Faculty Publications

Bangladesh has sent more than 6.7 million workers to over 140 countries during a period of more than three decades since the mid-1970s. Most of these workers temporarily migrated to work in Middle East and Southeast Asia. This mass movement of temporary migrant workers has, to some extent, eased unemployment pressures on the over-burdened labor market in this highly populated country. More importantly, the remittance transfers received from these migrant workers have reached a phenomenal level of over 10 billion US dollars in 2009, approximately 12 percent of GDP in Bangladesh. This paper analyzes the trends and various other aspects …

The Impact Of Terrorism On Business, Michael D. Larobina, Richard L. Pate

WCBT Faculty Publications

Terrorism has in one form or another been a part of society throughout history. Since the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York, the world community has been more focused on terrorism than ever before in most recent modern history. Terrorism has impacted multiple levels of society across the world community. One of those levels is the business environment. A specific aim of terrorism is to disrupt and destroy ongoing businesses. Therefore, the ability of governments to disrupt and destroy terrorism is essential to the continued growth and expansion of the world economy. Terrorism will directly impact a country's ability …

Chicago Islamic Microfinance Project, Karen Ahmed, Cynthia Shawamreh

College of Business Faculty and Staff Works

No abstract provided.

Where Is Islamic Finance Going? Ethical Investment Strategies, Karen Ahmed

College of Business Faculty and Staff Works

No abstract provided.

What Does Islamic Finance Want To Be When It Grows Up?, Karen Ahmed

College of Business Faculty and Staff Works

No abstract provided.

"Islamic Banking And Finance: Moral Beliefs And Business Practices At Work", Karen Ahmed

College of Business Faculty and Staff Works

The religion of Islam has existed for 1400 years but Islamic economic theory and its financial institutions emerged as an industry only in the 1970s. Islamic financial institutions (IFIs) are designed to help Muslims conduct business internationally while simultaneously upholding traditional Islamic values related to trade finance and currency movement. The basis for their existence is the Islamic moral prohibition on charging interest—interest is a central component of capitalist banking—yet IFIs conduct billions of dollars of business annually in the world economy and the de facto Islamic banking transaction is—in most cases—virtually identical to a capitalist banking transaction. Business practices …

International Evidence On Analyst Monitoring And Earnings Management: The Roles Of Corporate Disclosure And National Culture, Soongsoo Han, Tony Kang, Gerald Lobo, Yong Keun Yoo

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We examine country-level determinants of private information search incentives, and whether analysts’ role in constraining managers’ opportunistic earnings management varies across countries. In a sample of 31,312 firm-year observations originating from 30 countries, we document that: (1) analyst coverage is negatively (positively) related to the level of corporate disclosure (how secretive the national culture is); (2) the negative association between analyst coverage and earnings management is observed in stronger investor protection countries but not in weaker investor protection countries; and (3) analyst monitoring fails to mitigate culturedriven earnings manipulations in countries with more individualistic and uncertainty-tolerant cultures. Taken together, financial …

A Narratives’ Exploration Of Non-Traditional International Assignees Locally Resident And Employed In The South Of France, Marian Crowley-Henry

Conference papers

Contemporary publications in international human resource management call for the pluralisation of international assignees beyond the widely described expatriate. This paper presents an under-explored category of international assignees: highly educated, non French, Western (first world) individuals who reside indefinitely in the South of France, maintaining their professional careers while resident in the host country. A sample of over thirty individuals meeting these criteria was interviewed in France in depth over a three year period. These individuals are not migrants as by their own descriptions they consider migrants to have to move internationally (economic migrants) while their decisions to move to …

International Knowledge Professionals: Contemporary Career Concerns And Implications, Marian Crowley-Henry

Conference papers

This study supplements existing contemporary research on knowledge workers. It takes an interpretivist approach to represent and analyse a new breed and under-researched sub-category of international assignee termed ‘bounded transnationals’ by the author. In the context of this paper these can be simply described as internationally-located knowledge professionals. This sample has committed to living indefinitely in the host country as foreign residents where they are employed under local country contracts of employment. The paper explores how the sample perceives and makes sense of careers in the context of globalisation and change.

Islamic Finance Unit Takes Bank Beyond Michigan Roots, Karen Ahmed

College of Business Faculty and Staff Works

No abstract provided.

Women’S Careers Internationally: A Qualitative Study Of Female Western Knowledge Professionals Living In The South Of France, Marian Crowley-Henry

Conference papers

This paper is founded on a qualitative PhD study researching the careers of individuals who live outside their home country on a potentially permanent basis in the South of France. It interprets the careers of the females in the sample, and the findings highlight both the personal nature of careers and the permeable career/life boundary with the females ‘morphing’ their careers over time, as circumstances dictate and opportunities facilitate. The phenomenon of ‘morphing careers’ is identified in the literature as the protean career. Specific elements from the work/life trajectory influence women’s career choices at varying points in their life and …

Control And The Protean Career: A Critical Perspective From The Multinational’S International Assignees, Marian Crowley-Henry, David Weir

Articles

Mainstream management literature and research regarding the international career has long focused on the traditional expatriate experience. In this discourse the tendency has been to outline the benefits and issues to be considered for organizations and individuals embarking on international assignments. In contrast this chapter focuses on a special group whose positioning in the structures of employment and organization is in some ways exemplary of developing trends in the global labor force. They are the highly educated permanent expatriates who remain in the host country indefinitely (that is without a pre-determined organizational option of repatriation to their initial home country). …

Migration, Trade, And Development, Federal Reserve Bank Of Dallas, The Tower Center For Political Studies, Southern Methodist University, Department Of Economics At Southern Methodist University, Jno E. Owens Foundation

eBooks

"Migration and trade are more prevalent today than ever before in the history of the world. The United States is the recipient of about one-third of the world’s migrants and accounted for a quarter of the world’s output and 13 percent of the world’s trade in 2005. But the global significance of the U.S. economy is slowly declining, and while the effects of migration and trade on the U.S. economy have been examined time and again, questions concerning the impact of migration and trade on development in low-income countries are of growing importance.

Simple, neoclassical economic models predict that prices …

A Trans-Tasman Business Elite?, Nicholas Harrigan, Shaun Goldfinch

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article examines the close relationship between the Australian and New Zealand business communities to ask whether the relationship is best characterized as simply a bi-lateral trading relationship, or whether there is evidence of the formation of a transnational business community. This article also seeks to explore the nature of Australia—New Zealand integration, and specifically the degree to which the relationship is interdependent or asymmetrical. Data are drawn from quantitative sources — including a dataset developed from the IBISWorld's Largest 2000 Enterprises in Australia and New Zealand, Who's Who in Australia, and Who's Who in Business in Australia — and …

The Protean Career: Exemplified By First World Foreign Residents In Western Europe?, Marian Crowley-Henry

Articles

This article presents findings from a qualitative study exploring the career-related motivations and experiences of a sample of 20 expatriates living and working on a permanent basis in the South of France (Sophia Antipolis) and in Germany (Munich). By virtue of their having established local links in the host country, either in having local working contracts or being installed in the area on a permanent basis (home owners; children born/being schooled in the host country), these expatriates could also be termed foreign residents in the host country. The study’s sample of highly educated workers originating from the United States of …

Literary, Historical, And Socio-Economic Dimensions Of Race And Identity In The Dominican Republic: A National Delusion?, Megan Christine Harris

Inquiry: The University of Arkansas Undergraduate Research Journal

The article discusses race, racism, and self-concept in the Dominican Republic. It explains the reasons behind the present view of race, identifies links between race and Dominican economic and political issues, and explores how the unique situation of the Dominican Republic in terms of cultural history and geography has contributed to racism toward Haitians. The article also deals with the negative self-image many Dominicans have as a result of the color of their skin and their ancestry. In conclusion, it offers suggestions on revaluating race that could be applicable to not only the Dominican Republic, but also racially-segregated groups of …

The International Protean Career: Four Women’S Narratives, Marian Crowley-Henry, David Weir

Articles

In this paper, we share individual narratives outlining the experiences of four well-educated western women following a permanent international career in the South of France. By virtue of detailed interview transcripts and contextual information regarding the specificity of the location in question, a comprehensive picture of the experiences and choices of individual women in leadership business positions on an international level is painted. Our aim is not to generalise the findings to a wider population, but to gain an insight into the depth and complexity of career issues for women in general, and particularly for women working in a foreign …

The International Protean Career: Considerations For Human Resource Management, Marian Crowley-Henry

Conference papers

This paper presents some career patterns from a research undertaking which qualitatively sampled highly educated Western foreign residents in the South of France. In the data collection, their individual career stories were relayed to the researcher from in-depth exploratory interviews. The very personal and individual nature of these careers is underlined in the research findings. The aim of this paper is to share some of the broader findings from the study, which invoke discussion on the wider concerns for career management within the HRM discipline in the future.

Labor Struggles, New Social Movements, And America's Favorite Pastime: New York Workers Take On New Era Cap Company, Victoria Carty

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

Contemporary economic globalization, which is driven and regulated primarily by multinational corporations, has a direct impact on workers' lives. Trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) tend to be controlled by corporate interests in the wealthy, industrialized nations. Those countries set the agenda to protect the interests of foreign investors and facilitate the mobility of capital, but they do little to protect the interests of labor. In response, workers in both the global North and South have been forced to rely on their own individual efforts to protect themselves against unfair labor practices. This article presents …

Cultural Diversity In Multinational Organisations, Marian Crowley-Henry

Conference papers

With the rhetoric in international management espousing the value of being able to access and capitalise on the knowledge of a workforce with international experience in order to compete globally and the need to embrace diversity (including cultural or ethnic diversity) in and across organisations, this paper discusses the findings from a qualitative research undertaking where senior and middle managers working for multinational organisations in a cross-section of industry sectors were interviewed. A total of twenty in-depth interviews were conducted with “foreign” managers based in Europe, the majority hired on local contracts. The findings presented in this paper outline the …

Personal Or Organisational Control? A Critical Perspective From The Multinational’S International Assignees, Marian Crowley-Henry, David Weir

Conference papers

This paper presents findings from a qualitative study of non-national employees of multinational organisations based in Sophia Antipolis (South of France). Here twenty-three in-depth interviews with non-nationals employed by a multinational in the area, together with contextual data regarding the particular case of Sophia Antipolis contribute to the discussion on power and control in an international, organisational context. Irrespective of the initial motivations to follow on an international career, this study highlights the tensions individuals encounter in their desire to retain their international status while seeking out a more individual, balanced, protean career, potentially beyond their current employing organisations. Extracts …

Transnational Labor Mobilizing In Two Mexican Maquiladoras: The Struggle For Democratic Globalization, Victoria Carty

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

The struggle to improve workers' rights in Mexican maquiladoras and export processing zones elsewhere in the world is central to the politics of global economic integration. State-centered development is increasingly compromised by supranational institutions and trade agreements. Meanwhile, multinational corporations are relocating at an unprecedented rate to overseas locations. Export processing zones are notorious for poor working conditions and result in a "race to the bottom." The maquila sector in Mexico is a prime example of this phenomenon. This article uses two case studies to examine ways in which grassroots organizing has successfully resisted low wages and poor working conditions …

New Social Movements And The Struggle For Worker’S Rights In The Maquila Industry, Victoria Carty

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

"Campaigns to improve worker’s rights in export processing zones (EPZs), also referred to the maquila industry in Latin America, is an important topic analytically and politically. On theoretical and practical levels, the co-existence of market economies with effective means to ensure adequate working conditions for workers is a critical question. Underlying the issue is a vigorous debate regarding how the global economy should be governed; who or what should govern it, and whose interest is should serve (Faux, 2002)."

State Of Maine Rail Transportation Plan, Maine Department Of Transportation

Maine Collection

State of Maine Rail Transportation Plan

Revised Update - Prepared by the Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Services, Augusta, Maine, 1991.

"The revised update of the State of Maine Rail Transportation Plan has been developed by the Rail Transportation Division. Bureau of Transportation Services of the Maine Department of Transportation pursuant to rules and regulations promulgated in Part 266 of Title 49 of the Code of Federal Regulation."

Ua35/11 Wku Student Honors Research Bulletin, Wku University Honors Program

WKU Administration Documents

The Western Kentucky University Student Honors Research Bulletin is dedicated to scholarly involvement and student research. These papers represent work done by students from throughout the university.

• Kesselring, Marcia. Attitudes Toward the Need for Computer Literacy
• Tuck, Janna & Karen Wiggins. Methylation and Confirmation of PGE
• Lewis, Gloria. John Donne's Attitude Toward Love
• Johnson, Linda. International Telecommunications Trade with Japan
• Sharpe, Greg. Precipitation Patterns in Bowling Green, Kentucky, 1980-1985
• Smith, Sandy. Religion and the Media: Alliance or War?
• Bell, Suzanne. Early Secret Involvement of the United States Military in Cambodia
• Scariot, Linda. Parental Divorce and Childhood Emotional Disturbances
• Daniel, Janice. …