Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Response of Fresh Food Suppliers to Sustainable Supply Chain Management of Large European Retailers

This article analyses new supply chain management (SCM) strategies of the largest retail distribution chains in Europe within the context of differing sustainability concepts and approaches. An analysis is carried out of the strategic plans of such retailers, as well as recent developments in the sector. We begin by identifying the priority actions of retailers and then evaluating, by means of a survey, how small horticultural marketing firms (mainly cooperatives) in southeast Spain respond to the needs of these retailers. Subsequently, an analysis is carried out on these small marketing firm exporters to identify the relative weight which they assign to the variables assessed, while also considering the existing relationships between said weighted variables and business profits. Our results show that retailers tend to establish more simplified supply chains (that is, shorter and more vertical), essentially demonstrating their interpretation of a sustainable supply chain. In contrast, horticultural marketing firms have concentrated more on tactical and operational issues, thereby neglecting environmental, social and logistics management. Thus, their success rate in meeting the sustainability demands of their customers can be considered medium-low, requiring a more proactive attitude. Improved and collaborative relations, and the integration of sustainability concepts between suppliers (marketing firms) and their clients could contribute to successfully meeting sustainability demands. From the point of view of the consumer, close supplier–retail relationships have solved food safety issues, but the implementation of sustainability in other supply chain activities and processes is a pending issue. We propose strategic approximation and collaboration to bridge the gap between the varying sustainability demands in the supplier–retail relationship within perishable supply chains. Although this article specifically addresses fresh vegetable supply chains, the results may be extrapolated to other agri-food chains with a similar structure.
Impact of SMEs strategy on loyalty: the hairdresser case

Purpose This study aims to propose a theoretical framework and provide empirical evidence on the most successful marketing strategies for obtaining behavioural loyalty in small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Design/methodology/approach The data are based on 475 telephone surveys conducted among Spanish hairdressers. The authors have used ordinary least squares to estimate the empirical model. Findings Pricing, services and communication (Web page and in-store communication) are the main drivers of customer loyalty. SMEs have to be cautious with the use of social networks to avoid damaging loyalty. In addition, those positioned at high-price segments should pay more attention to communication on the Web, and all companies should find a balance between in-store communication and the sale of products for use at home. Research limitations/implications Further research should try to replicate the findings with data from consumers and firms. Practical implications Service managers need to understand the optimal strategy to succeed in the market. The key insights of this study could also apply to other sectors, such as health, personal care and wellness services. Originality/value Previous research focussed mainly on large companies, while the role of loyalty in the success of SMEs has been poorly studied, with focus only on the antecedents and the measurement of loyalty. This study contributes to the previous research by analysing the effect of the strategy (price, range of services, communication, size and location) in the achievement of loyalty in SMEs.
Decision-Making on Working Capital Management, Based on Industry Differences

The effect of working capital components on profitability has conflicting empirical evidence, which is mostly data-driven. This paper aims to provide additional insight to this end, especially focusing on the neglected aspect of industry differentiation. The analysis implements a panel regression methodology on a dataset of 300 observations from firms in Cyprus, adjusting for control variables and considering industry differences. Overall, the present study illustrates that industry differences warrant in-depth examination for decision-making regarding working capital management policies. The findings show that the cash conversion cycle and its components have an effect on profitability, but the sign and level of significance vary according to the industry sector: results in the merged sample differ from the results by industry sector. For example, the cash conversion cycle has a positive effect on the consumer goods sector and a negative effect in the industrials sector. Additionally, management of creditors and suppliers is as important as the management of debtors, especially for consumer goods and industrials. Managers should aim for the optimal level of the working capital components, while simultaneously adjusting their strategies based on their industry sector, to boost firm profitability.
Empirical Linkages between Recruitment, Affective Commitment, Relational Contract and Productivity in Organizations in Lusaka-Zambia

The aim of this research was to empirically establish the relationship between recruitment, affective commitment, relational contract and productivity in selected Lusaka based organizations in Zambia. The Organizational Commitment Theory, Relational Theory of Contract, and Social Exchange Theory guided the conceptualization of the research on the assumption that, recruitment or engagement of employees encapsulates in a perceived relational trust between the employer and the employee; In other words, each party to the contractual agreement on employment engagement know their respective roles. From the conceptual postulation, the following hypotheses emerged: there is a relationship between recruitment and productivity; there is a relationship between recruitment and affective commitment; there is a relationship between recruitment and relational contract, there is a relationship between affective commitment and productivity; and finally, there is a relationship between relational contract and productivity. The methodology was a cross-sectional descriptive survey. A Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) utilizing latent variables and partial least-squares (LVPLS) was employed for the analysis. The results indicated that, there is a relationship between recruitment and productivity, affective commitment and relational contract. Contrary, there is no relationship between relational contract and affective commitment on productivity. The conclusion was that, there is a relationship between recruitment, affective commitment and relational contract.
Comparison of Conservatism in Islamic And Conventional Banks in Indonesia And Malaysia

Malaysia and Indonesia are two of the ten countries with the largest total assets of Islamic financial markets in the world. The religiosity of a company can influences one of the qualities of accounting. The accounting quality of a company can be measured from accounting conservatism. This study aims to determine the comparison of conservatism between Islamic banks and conventional banks. The samples are Islamic banks and conventional banks in Indonesia and Malaysia from 2013 to 2017. The samples are 13 Islamic banks and 45 conventional banks so that the total sample is 290 observations. Data analysis using pooled least square regression. The result showed that conventional banks in Indonesia tend to be more conservative compared to sharia banks and sharia banks in Malaysia tend to be more conservative compared to conventional banks. Furthermore, changes in non-performing loans and changes in loan charge-offs have positive effect on conservatism.
Does Auditor Involvement Expedite SEC Comment Letter Resolution?

The remediation of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) comment letters can impose significant costs on companies. This study examines whether auditor involvement in the SEC comment letter process expedites comment letter resolution. Such a finding would indicate that auditors add value outside of the annual financial statement audit. We measure auditor involvement by identifying whether the audit partner is copied on SEC correspondence. First, we document that auditor involvement is more likely when the SEC’s comment letter relates to one or more accounting issues. Then, we show that comment letters that copy the partner, especially a partner with greater experience, have reduced time to resolution. In particular, we provide evidence suggesting that copying the audit partner reduces the amount of time it takes the company to respond to a SEC comment letter and copying a more experienced partner reduces the SEC’s response time to the company. We also find that copying more experienced partners is associated with clearer responses to the SEC and shorter times to reach full resolution. Our findings indicate that auditors often add value outside of the financial statement audit, while likewise expanding the understanding of the relationship between partner attributes and financial reporting outcomes.
Corporate governance and family firm performance during the Global Financial Crisis

We investigate the impact of corporate governance on accounting and market performance relationships of family firms during the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). We expect the monitoring aspects of corporate governance to complement the long‐term orientation of family firms, improving the value relevance of accounting and market performance during times of exogenous financial shocks such as the GFC. We find that the family‐firm value is more sensitive to book value than earnings changes. We also find better corporate governance, irrespective of whether it is a family firm or non‐family firm, is associated with better accounting and market performance during the GFC.
Equity Unit Trust Funds Flow and Stock Market Returns

This study sought to evaluate the relationship between equity unit trust fund flows measured as purchases and sales and the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) stock market return. The study employed Vector Autoregressive model and tested for Granger causality using monthly data for the period starting January 2010 to December 2017. The granger causality results showed that equity fund sales contain information that can explain stock market return and stock market return contain information that can explain equity fund purchases thus unidirectional causality. Impulse response results showed that equity fund purchases have a predominantly positive relationship with NSE stock market return and NSE stock market return have a positive relationship with equity fund purchases. This implies that an increase in stock market return will lead equity fund managers to purchase more securities and as the equity fund purchases increase, the demand for those stocks will increase causing the stock prices to increase and consequently increase stock market return. In contrast, equity fund sales are predominantly negatively related with stock market return and stock market return is also negatively related to equity funds sales. As the stock market return increase, the equity fund managers will decrease their sales. As the sales increase, the supply for those stocks will increase causing a decrease in prices and consequently a decrease in stock market return. Equity fund sales explain the variation in stock market return more than equity fund purchases while stock market return is a determinant of equity fund purchases and equity fund sales.
The Evaluation of Competitiveness Performance For Developing Eight Countries by Grey TOPSIS

The World Economic Forum has developed the Global Competitiveness Index to measure the countries' competitiveness and rank the countries according to their level of competition. This index is calculated separately for each country starting from 2007 considering the 12 indicators. In this study, a new ranking has been obtained for 8 countries (D-8) developed with TOPSIS-G method by using the annual Global Competitiveness Index data published by the World Economic Forum over the period of 2007 to 2017. The relationship between the ranking of TOPSIS-G and observed ranking was investigated by Spearman-Rank correlation coefficient and Kendall Tau nonparametric correlation coefficients. As a result, it was determined that the ranking found with TOPSIS-G method was strongly related to the annual published rankings. In addition, the new ranking is less affected by competing rankings over the years. While the country with the highest level of competitiveness with Topsis-G method is Malaysia, Turkey is third. Pakistan is the lowest competitiveness country.
Between State and Market: Hukou, Nonstandard Employment, and Bad Jobs in Urban China

Abstract China’s household registration system (hukou) has long divided urban and rural populations—economically, socially, and spatially. Economic reforms since the late-1970s, however, have led to increased opportunities for rural migrants in urban labor markets. But how are rural migrants being incorporated into urban employment? Drawing on Tilly’s relational inequality perspective, this article examines the relationship between hukou and job quality—paying particular attention to (1) nonstandard employment and (2) ownership sector. Compared to urban hukou workers, we find that rural hukou holders are more likely to be sorted into jobs with nonstandard employment relations—jobs with fewer benefits. Hence, a significant portion of the urban-rural gap in job quality is attributed to categorically linked sorting into nonstandard employment net of human capital. Further analyses reveal significant differences between sectors. These results highlight the durable and enduring nature of hukou as a significant basis of stratification in contemporary urban China.
FACTORS INFLUENCING CONSUMER PREFERENCES ON NATURAL AND NON-NATURAL COSMETICS IN TURKEY

The individual consumer has a set of preferences and values whose determination is outside the realm of economics. Consumer makes decisions by allocating their scarce income across all possible goods in order to obtain the greatest satisfaction. Formally, consumers maximize their utility subject to budget constraint. Natural and organic cosmetics create a global trendsetter with its market growth. The changing values of the society are the primal reason why cosmetics go green. Today’s consumers prefer to avoid toxic ingredients by using natural and organic cosmetics. The two largest markets for pure natural and organic cosmetics are in North America and Europe and The Turkish market is one of the most exciting and dynamic markets in Europe at present. In this study it is examined the factors influencing consumer preferences on Natural and Non- Natural Cosmetics Products in Turkey
AODV vs. OLSR: An Analytical Approach to Study Black Hole Attack

A MANET (Mobile Ad-Hoc Network) is a temporary network consisting of wireless mobile nodes having no centralized administration and access point. An efficient and dynamic routing protocol is needed that can adapt to dynamically changing network topology and should be energy efficient and bandwidth efficient. But these protocols are not suitable due to resource constraints. There is an increasing threat of malicious nodes attacks on the Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANET). One of these attacks is Black Hole Attack, which grasps all data packets of network. It’s an analogy to the black hole in the universe in which things disappear. In this paper Ad-Hoc On Demand Distance Vector(AODV) and Optimized Link State Routing((OLSR) protocols are analyzed to validate which protocol is more vulnerable to Black hole attack and how much. The impact of Black hole attack on the performance of Manet is evaluated on the basis of throughput and end to end delay and it was observed that AODV is more susceptible to attack than OLSR. The measurements were carried on Simulating in Network Simulation Tool (NS2).
Innovative Behavior And Emotional Intelligence Of Managers In Managing A Catering Business

The main problem of SME Catering family business in Makassar City is low competitiveness which has an impact on financial performance. This study investigates the causes of low competitiveness through the role of the manager's innovative behavior and emotional intelligence. Sampling uses purposive sampling by setting the owner and manager as respondents. Data was transformed from the score to scale data through SolAnd 1.9 software application and data analysis using WarpPLS 3.0. This study found that Catering's financial performance is good because ownership is increasing. The more catering ownerships are the better innovation of managers and better financial performance. Although innovative managers are good, the emotional intelligence of managers is still low, financial performance is also low. The catering business is vulnerable to the risk of raw materials. Therefore, managers who are able to innovate and have personal qualities to work are needed indeed the competitiveness of this business increases.
A Practical Approach for Determining the Competitive Advantages of a Business

If a business is to enjoy a competitive advantage over the long-term it must be one which competitors find that expensive to copy. What will be offered to the marketplace that is unique and valuable is the competitive advantage. The purpose of this paper is helping businesses to answer the questions of “where are we? ” and “what are our differential advantages? ” in an effective way. This requires using practical and beneficial techniques during the comprehensive internal and comparison analysis. Internal analysis begins with a history of the business and assesses its conformity to overall goals, target groups and general strategies, etc. After identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the business, we then compare them with the key factors in the market development phases (early development, growth, maturity and decline stages), capacities of main competitors (their objectives, strengths and weaknesses, and strategic approaches), and the industry’s success factors (such as costs, relationships, knowledge and structure sources of success determinants), for identifying competitive advantages. For determination of the competitive advantages and so through comparison, using comparison worksheets would be very practical and beneficial. In short, this paper helps businesses to find out their competitive advantages by offering them totally new practical and effective analysis techniques.
Earning Quality, Information Asymmetry and Cost of Equity Capital in Manufacturing Companies

This study examines the direct and indirect impacts of earnings quality on cost of equity capital by using path analysis. The population in this study are manufacturing companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange 20142016.Selected research samples were 108 manufacturing companies with purposive sampling technique. The results found that earnings quality had a significant negative effect on information asymmetry. Information asymmetry has a positive effect on the cost of equity capital. The test results also prove that information asymmetry has a role as a mediating variable. However, this study failed to find the direct effect of earnings quality on the cost of equity capital. Keywords—earnings quality; information asymmetry; cost of equitycapital; mediating
Empirical Evidence on the Relationship between Audit Probability and Internal Revenue Service Budget Levels

Despite a large literature on tax avoidance strategies by individuals and the IRS ability to curb them, how the agency’s audit/examination activities respond to tax expenditures within the individual taxation context is not well understood. We hypothesize that IRS audit probability of individual tax returns will positively respond to the magnitude of different tax expenditure drivers if the agency has a shot at curtailing them. We find that while the probability of IRS audit increases as the agency’s budget on enforcement activities increases, tax expenditures do not appear to prompt IRS enforcement activities in many of the tax expenditures drivers.
Attitudes of Auto-rickshaw Drivers Towards Oral Health Care, Barriers of Dental Service Utilization in Vikarabad, Telangana, India

Introduction: Regular home oral care and yearly dental checkup are the best means for saving one’s teeth. There are some working classes such as road transport drivers who work tirelessly behind the wheels, commuting to different places without adequate food, rest, and sleep. Objectives: To assess their oral health knowledge, oral hygiene practices, tobacco habit and the barriers in dental service utilization. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on the autorickshaw drivers at the auto-stands in and around Vikarabad. A pilot study was done, and the sample size was estimated as 200. A 16 item pretested, self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data, and collected data were subjected to statistical analysis using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 21.0. Results: Among 200 male participants, mean age was found to be 32 years. 79.5% knew that tobacco consumption causes cancer. 56.5% had a tobacco-related habit. Of them, 45.1% were not willing to quit. 55.0% did not visit the dental hospital as they did not experience any dental problem. Conclusion: The present study concluded that though majority of auto-drivers have knowledge that tobacco causes cancer, 45.1% of them were not willing to quit. This necessitates more extensive and effective cessation programmes in them.
Does Limited Liability Matter: An Analysis of California Firms, 1920-1940

In 1931, California became the last U.S. state to adopt limited liability for stockholders. Prior to that, from its inception as a state in 1849, stockholders of California corporations faced pro rata unlimited liability. California’s unique liability rule during 1849-1931 provides a natural experiment for testing whether stockholders’ liability rules “matter. ” Using a small sample of publicly traded California firms and a corresponding sample of benchmark companies, we find that California firms realized annual excess returns that were approximately nine percentage points higher than other companies during the 1920s, which is consistent with the view that unlimited liability increases the expected returns on equity. We also find that excess returns for California firms were approximately -12% in October 1929, which suggests that the 1929 stock market crash put the personal assets of stockholders of California firms at risk We find that share turnover was significantly lower for California firms than other firms during the period California had unlimited liability, but not so after California adopted limited liability. Finally, we find weaker evidence that California firms had more leverage, lower asset risk, and less growth as compared with other firms during the period it had unlimited liability. Overall, the results suggest that rules regarding stockholders’ liability matter for the pricing of securities, share turnover, and various corporate policies.