bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Strategic corporate governance stakeholder complexities in strategic decision implementation (sdi): The shipbuilding industry in Abu Dhabi
Authors: Zaabi Mohammed Al , Pech Robert
Published: July 2015

This paper explores the complexity of SDI and the conflicting roles of government as the main client, partner and stakeholder in the naval shipbuilding industry in two main shipyards in United Arab Emirates’ capital, Abu Dhabi. This industry was recently established in this highly Westernized part of the Middle East, and constructs naval vessels under the auspices of Abu Dhabi government. The industry envisaged developing private clients in the future, but before achieving this, some issues identified in this study need to be resolved to the mutual satisfaction of the industry and the clients. The literature indicates that strategic decisions taken by one partner in the enterprise can lead to problems that are difficult to resolve. Hence, to gain an in-depth understanding of the complexities, an explorative qualitative research with a case-study approach was carried out over a period of two years in order to track progress in this industry. It was found that government collaboration can lead to many challenges in strategy implementation within the industry itself due to a lack of communication and coordination between the two. The main managerial actors were interviewed to obtain a sense of their involvement and their individual perception of control in the implementation process to the outcomes of which they were wedded, and the extent to which they felt they were successful. To provide specific focus, this article focuses exclusively on the impact of government salaries and policies on shipbuilding strategy and implementation within two shipyards. Strategy appears easier to formulate than to implement. It was found that there were contradictions in strategies as devised by the industry and the policies which the government wished it to implement. The article makes recommendations about three prime ways in which the industry and its main sponsors, now and in the future, may more harmoniously collaborate to attain mutual success. Reciprocal communication lies at the core of the solution. The article is limited by its constraint of using only two cases, and the findings are indicative of a greater need to examine similar policy, formulation, and implementation issues in Abu Dhabi specifically, and between industry/client generally wherever such a situation may occur.
Financial literacy, financial Management practices, and retirement confidence among Women working in government Agencies: A mediation model
Authors: Sabri* Mohamad Fazli , Juen Teo Tze , Othman Mohd. Amim , Rahim Husniyah Abdul
Published: July 2015

With longer life expectancies, women live more years in retirement and are at greater risk for outliving their assets. Women earn less than men in nearly all occupations. Lower earnings over the course of their careers jeopardize women’s retirement security. With income that is only a fraction of men’s, women are more likely to live in poverty and depend on Social Security to make ends meet. An enjoyable retirement experience brings gratification and proper and careful retirement planning during the pre-retirement stage is essential in order to achieve this dream. Concerns regarding the retirement experience of pre-retirees are growing globally. Numerous discussions on factors affecting retirement confidence can be found in academia. The present study employed structural equation modeling in the attempt to examine the mediating role of financial management practices on the relation between financial literacy and retirement confidence. A mediation model was tested on a sample of Malaysian working women. The sample consisted of 626 of working women in goverment agencies which was selected through multi stage sampling technique. Five states in Malaysia will be randomly selected in the first stage. At the second stage, a random sampling of the government agencies were identified in urban areas based on a listing of the departments from the government websites. Data were collected through self-administered questionnaires. Of the 626 participants, the mean age was 36.06 years (SD= 9.855). As for marital status, the majority of the participants (73.0%) were married. The results show the effect of financial literacy on retirement confidence is purely indirect, fully mediated by financial management practices. The present study used bootstrapping to further test the mediating effect. The paper also finds the direct impact of financial literacy on retirement confidence was less after controlling for financial management practices and there is significant indirect relation was found between financial literacy and retirement confidence. Clearly, financial management practices significantly mediated the relation between financial literacy and retirement confidence. Significant relations were found between financial literacy, financial management practices, and retirement confidence. Earlier analysis revealed that the relation between financial literacy and retirement confidence is spurious, as the relation is fully mediated by financial management practices. The findings of the present study have practical implications on developing effective financial literacy training programmes. There is no doubt that financial literacy training is essential in building retirement confidence. However, future training should include elements that can encourage healthy financial management practices.
Volatility and co-movement: an analysis of stock markets behavior of selected emerging and developed countries
Authors: Khandaker Sarod , Islam Silvia Zia
Published: July 2015

Financial markets around the world suffer significantly during the GFC and European debt crisis. Although the GFC is over, but the after-effect is still visible in most of the developed and emerging countries and stock markets remained volatile. In this paper, we analyse historical stock market volatility and co-movement behavior of three emerging markets and three developed economies from January 2001 to December 2012. We investigate whether the stock market volatilities and co-movement behaviors are correlated and affected by the GFC during the observation period. Our analysis of stock market behavior and co-movement analysis includes the standard historical volatility model and R-square estimates. We use the standard historical volatility model followed by Jones et al. (1998), Andersen and Bollerslev (1997) and Andersen and Bollerslev (1998); and the R-square metrics were suggested by Morck et al. (2000), Khandaker and Heaney (2009) and Alves et al. (2010). The selection criteria for the developed economies include geographical location, availability of stock return data and size of the equity market; and emerging markets are taken from the emerging Asian markets based on their recent market performance, growth rate and market capitalisation. We find evidence that the sample of emerging markets, exhibits higher stock market volatility during the sample period and these volatilities increases during the GFC. There is also evidence that the sample emerging countries exhibit a higher level of stock market co-movement behavior, and these markets were highly synchronous during the GFC. For example, China exhibits higher stock return co-movement behavior and, this behavior increase during the GFC. Further, we do not find any evidence of a statistically significant correlation coefficient between the volatility measures and stock return co-movement measures for our sample developed countries. However, these measures are statistically significant for the emerging country group. The example includes China and Malaysia. Our result provides evidence that stock market co-movement behavior or the R-squared matrix captures somewhat different aspects of stock market behavior other than the stock market volatility for the developed economies. Therefore, it is concluded that both these market models capture somewhat different aspects of stock market behavior and should be carefully used.
Financial sustainability of union digital center in Bangladesh
Authors: Faroqi Gofran
Published: July 2015

This paper examines the financial sustainability of the Union Digital Centers (UDC) in Bangladesh in terms of entrepreneur’s monthly income. In order to mobilise additional resources and harness efficiency gains for providing rural people with digital information and services and generating entrepreneurship the government have engaged home grown youths under public-private partnership (PPP) in the project. Contrary to the expectation, many entrepreneurs earn vary minimum and are forced to depart the venture leaving behind the promise of the telecenter disrupted. In the context of precipitating dropouts from limited income understanding and predicting a sustained level of income attain significance. This study aims to identify factors that have influence on the variability of entrepreneur’s income. For collecting data from involved partners it surveyed 538 entrepreneurs online and interviewed other management stakeholders. Since all entrepreneurs could not be reached through the internet 19 of them are interviewed in-depth along with relevant management officials and local representative of the UP from 16 UDCs of 4 districts. It defines the sustained income as 5001 (USD 65) and above Bangladeshi Taka per month and predicted it using the binary logistic regression. It ascertains the major enablers of sustained income and the interrelationship among them that evolve from the interplay of partners. The study finds that most UDCs are somewhat reasonably supported with the basic ICT equipment, while others are adorned with advanced equipment, to provide a range of services including certificates, e-government and commercial type. However, the level of equipment and services across centers varies depending on the extent of assistance from the government, the UP and the entrepreneurship of the private partner. The scale of inputs from public partners and the entrepreneur’s investment have been found to be associated with the number of people including disadvantaged visiting these centers for services. All these variables are associated with the income of the entrepreneur with different magnitudes. The hypothesis that partnership components such as infrastructure and service inputs, entrepreneurial capacity along with people’s participation all have a significant part in explaining the monthly sustained income is tested using the binary model and found to be partially supported. The author argues that some of the inputs still could not make any significant contribution due to the lack of effective involvement of relevant partners. But to ensure financial sustainability of all UDCs and to prevent the dropouts of entrepreneur’s the increase in units of these factors can play a significant role.
Factors essential for longevity among Dow Jones index organisations: QCA analysis
Authors: Sheheryar Khan Malik Muhammad
Published: July 2015

Organisational longevity paves the way towards phenomenal changes and creates linkages with strategy depending on the organisation. The primary aim of this research study is to identify the vital factors of organisational longevity and to determine the priorities attributed to those factors by companies in their formal documentation. The research has developed a model based on previous established models like the Mckinsey 7S Model, Weisbord’s Six Box Model, the Nadler-Tushman Congruence Model, Jay Galbraith’s Star Model, Burke-Litwin Model of Organisational Performance and Change and Four Theoretical Frameworks of Bolman and Deal (on Leadership). Based on this model, the following factors have been identified; resources, organisational culture, organisational systems, innovative capability and strategy. Factors responsible for longevity have been tested among two groups of companies by first applying content analysis, followed by a Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). The longevity group consists of companies which were in the Dow Jones Index on Jun 1 1986 and are still present in the index. The fallen out group consists of companies which were in the Dow Jones Index on Jun 1 1986 but they subsequently fell out of the Dow Jones Index. QCA analysis uses truth tables to represent and analyse causal complexities and assess the differences in the existing data. The QCA analysis shows that the main drivers of longevity are “resources” and “innovation”. This means that companies tend to sustain for long periods if its organisational resources are effectively managed and at the same time, an environment of innovative capabilities is created within the organisation. Further, the underlying conditions which support these main drivers are a combination of “strategy” and “culture”. This means that one of the two factors, strategy and culture, may be present as a support for the main drivers. When there is prevalence of cultural environment, emphasis on strategy is not necessary and vice versa. Lastly, the absence of longevity in an organisation is explained when either the resources are not effectively managed, or “Innovative capabilities” are not duly enhanced as per the need.
Comparing customer satisfaction with China mobile and China telecom services: An empirical study
Authors: Chong Siong Choy , Yen Teoh Wendy Ming , Qi Ye
Published: July 2015

This paper aims to examine and compare customer satisfaction towards China Mobile and China Telecom’s services. The literature suggests factors such as customer services, price, network quality, and product diversity influence customers’ satisfaction with telecommunications organizations. This study employs the judgment sampling method, which is limited to specific people who can provide the desired information since the respondents are confined to customers who subscribed to the services of either China Mobile or China Telecom. A self-reporting questionnaire was developed and disseminated to 500 respondents in which 472 completed copies were returned. The results indicate that all of the influencing factors are significantly and positively correlated with overall satisfaction of China Mobile and China Telecom’s customers. However, satisfaction seems to be higher among China Mobile’s customers in terms of product diversity, while better customer service is recorded among China Telecom’s customers. The findings suggest that the telecommunications service providers should develop appropriate strategies based on their strengths in satisfying their customers as well as overcoming their weaknesses by learning from each other. With network quality and customer service identified as the major factors influencing customer satisfaction, strategies should be formulated along these two areas. Both telecommunications service providers cannot ignore the importance of product diversity and pricing as these factors scored strong correlations with customer satisfaction. China Mobile, which seems to possess the advantage of product diversity, can further enhance its offerings to attract younger users. China Telecom, on the other hand, can take the opportunity to determine what it needs to offer to be on par with China Mobile as it is evident that customers are more satisfied with the latter’s services. This paper focuses on a small sample size and that by using the outcome instead of process approach to test the model might raise the issue of generalizability in which future studies should address. Nevertheless, this study has advanced knowledge for it has provided information on the current state of customer satisfaction with the People’s Republic of China’s telecommunications organizations. It has confirmed the factors which significantly influence customer satisfaction with both China Mobile and China Telecom which are beneficial to the telecommunications service providers as they craft strategies towards increased mobile service use in the future.
Unlocking the black box of the conceptual relationship between HRM system and organizational performance
Authors: Almutawa Zeyad , Muenjohn Nuttawuth , Zhang Jiaying
Published: July 2015

Despite the promising relationship that has been reported between HRM and Organization Performance (OP) in the last two decades, it is found that good HRM system and practices do not directly lead to better organization performance. However, questions remain about what factors mediate the HRM-OP relationship, which is commonly referred to as the “black box”. The aim of this paper, therefore, is to develop and propose a conceptual model that captures the mediating effects of organizational factors such as “AMO” (skills and Abilities, Motivation, and Opportunity to participate), employees’ attitudes, and employees’ behaviors on the relationship between the HRM system and organizational performance. The proposed model intends to integrate both the content and the process approach to HRM. The paper, as a part of a project, uses an operationalization method to develop a theory-based model. The model development process involves a large amount of review of the literature in the field of HRM and OP. Analysis of the key concepts is conducted. The potential association and relationship among the factors are identified through integration of the findings in the mainstream literature. In the second stage of the project, the proposed model will be empirically tested by quantitative method. A questionnaire survey will be carried out to collect primary data using random sampling method. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) technique will be utilized for data analysis. Validity and reliability tests will be performed. Drawing on literature review, this paper supports the assertion that the impact of HRM on OP is indirect. Such impacts are achieved through its impacts on employees. Based on the operationalization, a conceptual framework is presented to represent the mediating effects of the factors on the relationship between the HRM system and organizational performance. The proposed framework argues that employees’ AMO, attitudes and behavior should be sequentially considered as the mediating factors in the HRM-OP relationship. Moreover, shared perceptions among employees (strong climate) towards the HRM system should have a significant moderating effect on the HRM-AMO relationship. It is expected that the findings from this paper and project can partially unlock the “black box” in the HRM-OP relationship. The proposed framework can help organizations realize that good HRM policy does not directly lead to expected OP. Policies and systems should be in place to monitor whether and how HRM system help achieve OP through its influences on employees.
The economic impact of international remittances on household consumption and investment in Pakistan
Authors: Yousafzai Tufail Khan
Published: July 2015

During the last decade there has been a phenomenal increase in the flow of international remittances received by the developing countries in general, and Pakistan in particular. In 2013, officially recorded remittances to Pakistan amounted to US $14.6 billion and were six times more than the official development assistance received. In order to investigate how the receipt of international remittances affects the average and marginal spending behaviour of households, this paper uses nationally representative household income and expenditure survey data for Pakistan to analyse households’ consumption behaviour on five different categories of goods: food, education, health, non-durables and durables. Understanding that the decision of a household member to migrate and remit money may not be taken at random and to control for endogeneity, a two-stage Heckman model is used to address the selection in unobservable heterogeneity. Two findings emerge. First, expenditure share on food for households that receive remittances would have been more if the households had not been receiving remittances. Similarly, less spending on the other four categories of education, health, non-durables and durables is predicted for remittances- receiving households had they not been receiving remittances. Second, households that receive remittances spend less at the margin on food and durables and more on education, health and non-durables. At the mean, compared to households that do not receive remittances, the households receiving remittances spend, at the margin, 10 per cent and 4 per cent less on consumption of food and durables, respectively. Moreover, the respective marginal increase in spending on education and health is 26 per cent and 6 per cent more for a remittances-receiving household than for a non-receiving household. Finally, the households receiving remittances spend, at the margin, 14 per cent more on non-durables (which includes their spending on housing, and is thus akin to investment in physical capital) than the households with no remittances. A key policy feature of these results is the likely positive impact of remittances on economic development. Remittances provide an alternative way to finance development by the way of increased spending on human capital or education as well as physical capital. Remittances-receiving households appear to look at the remittance earnings as a transitory income and therefore tend to spend remittances more on investment than consumption. This finding lends support to the permanent income hypothesis.
Gender equality in education and economic growth in selected Southern African countries
Authors: Licumba Elsa Alexandra , Dzator Janet , Zhang James Xiaohe
Published: July 2015

Poverty reduction remains a big challenge in the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) region, and economic growth is seen as a key ingredient to reduce poverty rates. Therefore, the region has been making significant commitments to embrace a more inclusive growth approach through the creation of the SADC Gender Unit as well as the regional Protocol on Gender. The aim of these interventions is to promote sustainable economic growth and reduce poverty rates. However, the attempts at testing for a positive and significant contribution of gender equality in education on economic growth have generated mixed results. Furthermore, as the empirical evidence comes from various parts of the world, only very little attention has been devoted to the SADC region. This research aims to fill this gap in literature. Hence this study examines the impact of gender equality in education on economic growth on a panel data of five Southern African countries between 1970 and 2010. The number of panels was restricted by data availability and a set of regression equation have been carried out for the sample, using Stata software Version 12. In this analysis, gender equality in education is measured by the ratio of girls to boys in primary enrolment, and economic growth is measured by real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita at 2005 constant prices. To account for the possible endogeneity of the gender equality variable, the instrumental variable (IV) techniques are used. Gender equality in education is instrumented by religion as it tested to be a powerful instrument. The evidence presented in this analysis suggests that there is a positive and significant effect of gender equality in education on economic growth in the region at 1% and 10% significance levels. We have also tested the sensitivity of our results to changes in the model specification. The dependent variable was re-specified to per capita GDP at purchasing power parity as opposed to real GDP per capita. In addition a time-trend variable was added to the existing explanatory variable. Gender equality in education remains positive and significant at the 1% significance level. These results indicate that the effects of gender equality in education to be positive significant and robust to changes in specification. This result advocates some policy adjustment in education planning within the region to ensure the retention of girl students, as well as raising education quality, to stimulate economic growth. Reducing gender inequality in education will not only promote growth but also help to d advance other valuable development goals.
Forecasting carbon emission and industrial production using VECM: The case of Bangladesh
Authors: Murad Md. Wahid , Abdullah ABM , Boyle Stephen , Amaro Carmen Reaiche
Published: July 2015

It is widely argued that industrial production contributes to the global greenhouse gas emissions, particularly carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions in any countries whether industrialized or developing. This is mainly due to the industrial processes that combine scarce resources to produce tangible goods and intangible services. The industrial processes emit large amounts of CO 2 because of the two reasons. First, many manufacturing facilities directly use fossil fuels to create heat and steam needed at various stages of production. Second, energy intensive activities at the manufacturing facilities use more electricity than any other sector so the energy that they use is responsible for vast amounts of CO 2 emissions. Therefore, the per capita emissions in the industrialized countries are typically as much as ten times the average in the developing countries. Apparently, vast industrial activities are primarily thought to be responsible for such carbon emissions. There have been conducted a considerable number of studies forecasting industrial production and carbon emissions for the industrialized countries but no studies have thus far looked into this issue for the developing countries, most of which are primarily agriculture dependent. This study is thus an effort to forecast and analyze the causality and long run association between CO 2 emissions and industrial production using Vector Error Correction Model (VECM). Other econometric techniques, such as unit root test and Granger causality test have also been used to achieve the objective in a comprehensive and convincing way. The empirical results reveal for Bangladesh that there is no Granger causality between industrial production and CO 2 emission in any direction. The results from VECM reveal for Bangladesh that any disequilibrium between CO 2 emission and industrial production could take approximately 54 years to converge to the long-run equilibrium. But the adjustment rate for the country’s industrial production is positive, as it should be, as well as relatively faster at the rate of 83 percent a year. So any disequilibrium will be corrected mostly by the adjustment in the country’s industrial production. The study concludes that the current CO 2 emissions in Bangladesh are below the equilibrium level, which is an advantageous situation for the country. Therefore, it is expected that the Bangladesh’s industrial sector will not face stricter CO 2 emission controlling policies and regulations in the near future.
Managing complex business relationships: Small business and stakeholder salience
Authors: Westrenius* Annika , Barnes* Lisa
Published: July 2015

All business depends on the environment in which it operates and the existence of suppliers, customers and owners. Collectively, these and other groups which interact with the organisation, and whose needs and concerns must be considered, are known as stakeholders. Most research on stakeholder relationships has focused on large, publicly-owned corporations, and little appeared to be known about identity, dynamics, motivation and operations of stakeholder relationships in small business. Stakeholder theory, although mainly focused on large publicly owned corporations, is also highly relevant for small business and is the focus of this study. Two research questions were developed; “Who are the stakeholders in Australian small business?” (RQ1) and “How can relationships between Australian small business and stakeholders be defined?” (RQ2). A multiple-case study approach, where the same process of investigation is repeated in each case, was used to facilitate the understanding of ‘who’ and ‘how’ of stakeholder relationships in context and to allow cross-case comparison, analytical generalisation and formulation of theory. Cases were purposively selected according to potential for yielding insights and understanding into the identity of stakeholders in Australian small business. The interviewees were the key decision maker of a small business with fewer than 20 employees. In six of the eight cases, the interviewee was the owner-manager of the business. All cases were located in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Data collection was by way of face-to-face, interviews that followed a semi-structured interview instrument. It was found that stakeholders of small business can be readily identified and typically include owner-managers, customers, employees, suppliers, family, community and government. These stakeholders can also be ranked and measured in terms of their salience (the combination of urgency, legitimacy and power). In small business, where the key decision maker is typically the owner-manager, the interests of the manager thus align that of the owner, putting into play a mutuality principle and encouraging responsiveness to stakeholders as a strategy to enhance financial performance. This sets small business apart from large business and therefore has implications for policy that aims to support the economically and socially important small business sector.
Mining and other industry contributions to employment leakage in Australia’s Northern Territory
Authors: Blackwell Boyd , Fischer Andy , McFarlane Jim , Dollery Brian
Published: July 2015

Leakage of employment income is a pressing issue in the economic development of regional and remote communities. It can draw income away from regional economies but also inject new revenue from outside. Using Australian Bureau of Statistics 2011 census employment data by place of usual residence and place of work, we identify for all 17 Local Government Areas (LGAs) of the Northern Territory (NT), workers commuting out of and into each LGA. Using summary graphs and geospatial visualizations we find that while there is substantial leakage out of most LGAs there are also gains from those leaving an LGA to work and then returning home with their income. Overall, for most LGAs and all remote LGAs there is net leakage. In contrast, Wagait, Palmerston, Litchfield and Alice Springs experience net gains from work commuting. Core-Periphery staples theory (Carson 2011) helps explain these net gaining LGAs, but cannot be used to consistently explain net leakage or net gain for population centers and nearby periphery LGAs. Darwin, including parts of Unincorporated NT, together act as a net leakage core to surrounding commuter LGAs such as Palmerston, Litchfield and Wagait. Katherine also acts as a net leakage core for surrounding peripheral LGAs despite receiving some offsetting employment income gains through mining. In addition to Katherine, Mining and the supporting Construction industry are also delivering net employment income gains to the core centers of Darwin, Palmerston, and Litchfield from periphery and typically remote LGAs. For remote mining commuters, these core centers offer preferred places to live. In contrast to Darwin and Katherine, Alice Springs acts as an employment income sink drawing on net employment gains from periphery remote LGAs. Our geospatial visualizations also help to identify the leakage vulnerability of remote LGAs dependent on mining like Central Desert and East Arnhem. Of all the remote LGAs, East Arnhem has the highest average net leakage of income across the most diversified distribution of industries, primarily derived from mining and its supporting construction and upstream manufacturing industries. Combined, these factors make East Arnhem particularly vulnerable to mining related downturns. Also, Alice Springs and Coomalie are highly vulnerable to commuting in Business Services and Public and Personal Services respectively. However, these vulnerabilities also cloak hidden flexibilities to deal with job losses during downturns. Undertaking our analysis for a number of census years could help decision makers build scenarios for future economic development and employment.
Sustaining development and poverty reduction: Promoting growth where it counts
Authors: Dzator Janet , Chen Rui
Published: July 2015

Under the MDGs, poverty has been reduced but not eradicated. The post-2015 development plan is firming towards poverty eradication not merely to reduce it. One of the most widely held beliefs in development economics is that rapid and sustained economic growth is necessary for lifting living standards which in turn is necessary if poverty is to be eradicated. Debates on poverty alleviation and eradication have tended to focus on the best means of achieving or accelerating growth rates. This approach is reflective of the ‘trickle down’ theory which dominated development thinking in the 1950s and 1960s. More recently, the development community has shifted its focus from fostering any economic growth per se to achieving ‘shared growth’ – growth with a maximum pay-off in terms of poverty reduction. The increasing focus on the relevance of inclusive growth highlights the need to understand sectoral contribution to growth to provide insight into the formulation of sustainable national and global growth policies. We examine the relationship between the sectoral composition of economic growth and poverty reduction for the period 1987 to 2006 at a regional level for a cross section of developing countries. We used pooled cross section data with observation over time because of data limitations. Panel data estimation was employed because the characteristics of the data constitute that of panel data. It is necessary to highlight that the panel data set is unbalanced and unevenly spaced, with missing values arising in different years for different countries. While unbalanced panel estimations are able to be carried out with the econometric software at hand, many limitations arise, particularly concerning diagnostic testing. We provide a comparison of the estimated sectoral GDP elasticities of poverty and present evidence that growth in services is twice as effective as growth in both agriculture and industry in reducing absolute poverty. However, these results vary substantially across different income levels and across geographic regions. We maintain that while non-agricultural growth may induce substantial poverty declines by transitioning those marginally below the poverty line, it may fail to target those living in extreme or chronic poverty. Thus, if meaningful poverty reduction is to take place and become self-sustaining, broad-based growth in agriculture and rural economy still appears to be essential to poverty reduction policies. We argue that such a result warrants the attention of post-2015 development agencies and policy makers given the interrelationship between drivers of economic growth, job creation and poverty reduction.
The business use of Twitter by Australian listed companies
Authors: Xiong Feng , MacKenzie Kim
Published: July 2015

The rapid rise of the business use of social media platform Twitter by organisations around the world, highlights the need for understanding the degree to which the new communication tool has been adopted, and how it is being used for business purposes. US researchers Case and King (2011) and Heaps (2009) provided important early insight into the business use of Twitter, however, their research was limited to a small sample of listed companies from limited industry sectors in the US. Our study builds on these prior research by extending the research to an Australian context and explores the business use of Twitter by the top 100 Australian ASX (Australian Securities Exchange) listed corporations in 2013. The study used general online search methods to identify that 60 Australian companies (60%) from a variety of industry sectors had adopted the business use of Twitter. A thematic template approach was developed based on the combination of prior research and results from a test pilot analysis. The final template consisted of 11 different business communication purposes. This framework was used to examine the content of the business ‘tweets’ from the 60 companies in order to identify the degree to which Twitter was being used for different business communication purposes, and if industry sectors differed in their business use. The study found that companies had adopted the use of Twitter for a variety of business purposes which differed at the industry level. ‘Corporate Promotion’, ‘Market News’ and ‘Customer Service Enquiries’ were the most popular business purposes for using Twitter. While Consumer Discretionary companies emphasised the use of Twitter for ‘Customer Service Enquiries’, companies from Industrials, Energy and Materials industries were more likely to disclose ‘Financial Reporting’ and ‘Potential Financial Information’. The findings in this paper endorse the validity of the use of Twitter for business communication purposes for all types of organisations, by providing evidence of the number of ASX firms who had adopted the platform, the different industries they represent, and the broad range of business communication purposes being explored. The findings provide normative guidelines for corporations yet to adopt Twitter, or for those seeking to understand how early adopter firms have leveraged a social media technology, in order to reach and communicate with 21st Century audiences.
Do the FDI inflows affect domestic investment?: Issues before India and South Asia
Authors: Sunny Dolly
Published: July 2015

South Asian countries are characterised with varied pattern of FDI inflows, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Domestic Investment. It is interesting to have an analysis of these factors for evaluating the impact of FDI on domestic investment and GDP. FDI has an important role in promoting growth by accelerating domestic investment in the host country. Many a times it is observed that FDI in host countries deviate much from the expected role of promotion of domestic investment by displacing domestic investment. South Asia, with an annual average of 6.7 percent increase in real GDP over the past decade, holds the world’s third largest position in terms of GDP. However, South Asia’s FDI inflows as a share of GDP is observed to be the lowest among all developing regions. A detailed analysis is performed with the help of methodology used by Agosin and Mayor (2000) to measure the impact of FDI in this paper. The beneficial/harmful effect of FDI are termed as crowding in/out effects. For this purpose, panel data analysis is performed for the years ranging from 2003 to 2013. The World Bank data of 2005 base year is put to use. Three variables such as FDI inflows to GDP ratio, Growth of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Domestic Investment (DINV) are considered for Seemingly Unrelated time series analysis for India and for the Seemingly Unrelated panel data analysis for South Asian countries. The results obtained highlight important findings with regard to FDI in bringing about crowding in and crowding out impacts of FDI. It also brought to light the compatibility between domestic investment and Foreign Direct Investment in India and South Asia. The SUR results for the entire South Asian region indicate Crowding Out effect of FDI Inflows as it can be observed from the β LT value which is −7.023. This implies that additional one dollar of FDI displaces roughly seven dollars of domestic investment from the South Asian countries. The SUR time series analysis performed individually for India indicates that India too shows mild crowding out impact of FDI in its economy. In the past decade, though South Asia witnessed an increase in FDI inflows, it resulted in the displacement of domestic investment, which is a great cause of worry. FDI policies have to be instrumental in preventing the entry of harmful type of FDI inflows and in promoting the entry of the right type of FDI into South Asia.
Investigating social and environmental disclosure practices by listed Indian textile firms
Authors: Nurhayati Ratna , Taylor Grantley , Tower Greg
Published: July 2015

Using legitimacy theory, this study investigates the extent of social and environmental disclosure (SED) of Indian textile firms over the 2010-2012 period and the factors that explain such disclosure practices. Firm-level characteristics and corporate governance variables are incorporated as key predictors for these important disclosures. This study reveals a relatively low extent of 13.57% of SED in annual reports of Indian textile firms. This finding of low overall voluntary disclosure is largely consistent with the previous studies particularly in the emerging economies setting. The results show that firm size, international brand, audit committee independence, CEO duality, profitability, international certification obtained and year of reporting are statistically significant factors in explaining the variation in extent of SED. Potential concern may arise from such a lack corporate communication related to social or environmental activities and risks as it may lead to questions whether firms domiciled in India and their international brand-name affiliations have been transparent and accountable regarding their production and supply activities. The theoretical contribution of this study is the successful testing of legitimacy theory in the context of an emerging economy. This study highlights the influence of international exposures such as brand development and corporate governance attributes have on the SED communication practices. The dearth of social and environmental disclosure by Indian textile firms has implications for foreign purchasers of branded products as international companies have been implicated in sub-optimal social or environmental practices or incidents. Such international brand-name companies may be responsible for such breaches and face significant adverse publicity if negative social or environmental impacts or breaches of rules or regulations are found subsequent to the supply of these textile products. Significant negative media publicity may have unfavourable consequences on the reputation of these firms and their directors as well as their long-term financial performance. Firms with branded textile products likely use disclosure as an important means to promote an image of them being forward thinking socially and environmentally responsible entities for preserving their legitimacy status. This research offers empirical evidence in regard to social and environmental (SED) practices that may assist regulatory bodies to introduce more focused and effective non-financial disclosure guidelines and regulations.
Leadership, design process, and team performance: A comparison between the Japanese and Australian R&D teams
Authors: Muenjohn Nuttawuth , Chhetri Prem , Suzumura Yusuke , Ishikawa Jun
Published: July 2015

Background: Design-oriented innovations can build long-term competitive advantage for businesses. Creative and innovative designs can lead to superior business performance and better team satisfaction. Public and private firms hence are strategically focusing on creative designs and innovations through an enormous investment in research and development (R&D). However, there has been little empirical research that defines the concept of design leadership and establishes its role in shaping design process. This study therefore aims to: a) examine the nature of design leadership, design process, team performance and satisfaction as perceived by Australian and Japanese R&D teams; and b) compare the perceptions of Australian and Japanese R&D teams toward the four variables. Research Methodology: This study implemented a quantitative survey targeting managers or supervisors of R&D teams in Japan and Australia. The survey contained 18 items capturing four components of Design leadership; namely ‘envisioning the future’ (5 items), ‘directing design investment’ (4 items), ‘manifesting strategic intent’ (4 items) and ‘creating and nurturing an environment of innovation’ (5 items). Design process was measured by three key stages namely; ‘idea generation’ (3 items), ‘design development’ (4 items) and ‘evaluation of design’ (4 items). 600 questionnaires were distributed with 165 questionnaires returned, representing approximately 27.5% response rate. Key dimensions of design leadership were extracted using the reliability test of Cronbach alpha. Statistical analyses were carried out to test the difference in design leadership between Australian and Japanese R&D teams. Research Results: The results show that Australian respondents perceived that their leaders exhibit higher levels of design leadership as compared to Japanese respondents. Design leaders from Australian firms are more likely to embed leadership in various stages of design process and thus help enhance team performance and satisfaction. However, the Japanese respondents perceived design development dimension as the most important stage in the design process. They perceived the process of bringing the idea into actual prototype of the design is critical to the success of design process. Implications: Significant differences found in design leadership between Australian and Japanese R&D teams provide evidence base for devising strategies to improve design process in shaping firm’s strategic intent. Managers can be trained in design leadership to help enhance team performance and satisfaction.
“Minsky Moment” and financial fragility : The case of China
Authors: Qi Chaoying , Juniper James , Zhang James Xiaohe
Published: July 2015

The high GDP growth rate in China has been falling considerably since 2011 and has never got back to the previous amazing double digit number thereafter. Being accompanied by a series of worrisome signs, including booming housing prices and increasing local government debt risk, this situation leads to some pessimistic views concerning the approaching of China’s “Minsky Moment”. However, disagreeing voices exist as well. This paper attempts to assess this controversy from applying Minsky theory. We argue that the heavy debt of local governments may be the main cause for provoking financial fragilities and dragging China into the “Minsky Moment”. We also examine the reasons, size and structure of local governments’ debt, and offer policy recommendations. While Minsky himself and his followers often focus on merely the microeconomic units of banks or firms, we extend the analysis to all the economic sectors including households, firms, foreign sectors, financial institute and government. Both Minsky’s original threefold and Vercelli (2011)’s sixfold taxonomies are applied with empirical data collected from China’s official sources. The calculated results of liquidity ratio and solvency ratio for each economic sector demonstrate that financial institute can be seen as speculative borrowers, while both households and central government are hedge borrowers. However, local governments are in heavy debt. Theoretically, this situation would provoke financial fragility in China, for example, via increasing the non-performing loans. Data analysis indicates that China was not immune to the global financial crisis though it has been less affected from the worldwide recession. In other words, it was nearly in a “Minsky Moment”, while the timely policy adjustment rescued the economy from collapse. Although local government debt situation is now under control and the policy adjustment is on the right track when several local governments are allowed to issue their own bonds, the Chinese economy may still face a risk of approaching the “Minsky Moment”. Additionally, the problems provoked by this trail policy are asking for an urgent need for a fiscal system reform. We thus suggest that more attention should be paid to improving and reforming Chinese fiscal system, particularly to the reforms of the fiscal relationship between central and local governments, the legal framework for local government debt management, expansion of channels for local revenues and readjustments of the tax system.