Search results for: market acceptance

Authors: Andrea Paltrinieri, Alberto Dreassi, Stefano Miani, Alex Sclip

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The financial crises caused a collapse in prices of most asset classes, raising the attention on alternative investments such as sukuk, a smaller, fast growing but often misunderstood market. We study diversification benefits of sukuk, their correlation with other asset classes and the effects of their inclusion in investment portfolios of institutional and retail investors, through a comprehensive comparison of their risk/return profiles during and after the financial crisis. We find a beneficial performance adjusted for the specific volatility together with a lower correlation especially during the financial crisis. The distribution of sukuk returns is positively skewed and leptokurtic, with a risk/return profile similarly to high yield bonds. Overall, our results suggest that sukuk present diversification opportunities, a significant volatility-adjusted performance and lower correlations especially during the financial crisis. Our findings are relevant for a number of institutional investors. Long term investors, such as life insurers would benefit from sukuk’s protective features during financial crisis yet keeping return and growth opportunities, whereas banks would gain due to their role of placers, advisors, market makers or underwriters.

Keywords: Asset allocation, asset performance, sukuk, zero beta asset.

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Authors: A. Bodak, A. Cierniak-Emerych, M. Gableta, A. Pietroń-Pyszczek, K. Piwowar-Sulej

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Modern organizations operate under the pressure of dynamic and often unpredictable changes, both in external and internal environment. Market success, in this context, requires a particular competence in the form of flexibility, interpreted here both on the level of individuals and on the level of organization. This paper addresses the changes taking place in the sphere of employment, as observed in economic entities operating on Polish market. Based on own empirical studies, the authors focus on the progressing trend of ‘flexibilization’ of employment, particularly in the context of transformations in organizational structure, designed to facilitate the transition into management by projects and differentiation of labor forms.

Keywords: Flexibility of employment, changes in organizational structure, forms of employment, social effects of flexibility.

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Authors: Charawee Butbumrung

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This paper aimed to study the factors that relate to working behavior of employees at Pakkred Municipality, Nonthaburi Province. A questionnaire was utilized as the tool in collecting information. Descriptive statistics included frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation. Independent- sample t- test, analysis of variance and Pearson Correlation were also used. The findings of this research revealed that the majority of the respondents were female, between 25- 35 years old, married, with a Bachelor degree. The average monthly salary of respondents was between 8,001- 12,000 Baht, and having about 4-7 years of working experience. Regarding the overall working motivation factors, the findings showed that interrelationship, respect, and acceptance were ranked as highly important factors, whereas motivation, remunerations & welfare, career growth, and working conditions were ranked as moderately important factors. Also, overall working behavior was ranked as high. The hypotheses testing revealed that different genders had a different working behavior and had a different way of working as a team, which was significant at the 0.05 confidence level, Moreover, there was a difference among employees with different monthly salary in working behavior, problem- solving and decision making, which all were significant at the 0.05 confidence level. Employees with different years of working experience were found to have work working behavior both individual and as a team at the statistical significance level of 0.01 and 0.05. The result of testing the relationship between motivation in overall working revealed that interrelationship, respect and acceptance from others, career growth, and working conditions related to working behavior at a moderate level, while motivation in performing duties and remunerations and welfares related to working behavior towards the same direction at a low level, with a statistical significance of 0.01.

Keywords: Employees of Pakkred Municipality, Factors, Nonthaburi Province, Working Behavior.

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Authors: Tomasz L. Nawrocki, Danuta Szwajca

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The growing importance of reputation in building enterprise value and achieving long-term competitive advantage creates the need for its measurement and evaluation for the management purposes (effective reputation and its risk management). The paper presents practical application of self-developed corporate reputation assessment model from the viewpoint of stock market investors. The model has a pioneer character and example analysis performed for selected industry is a form of specific test for this tool. In the proposed solution, three aspects - informational, financial and development, as well as social ones - were considered. It was also assumed that the individual sub-criteria will be based on public sources of information, and as the calculation apparatus, capable of obtaining synthetic final assessment, fuzzy logic will be used. The main reason for developing this model was to fulfill the gap in the scope of synthetic measure of corporate reputation that would provide higher degree of objectivity by relying on "hard" (not from surveys) and publicly available data. It should be also noted that results obtained on the basis of proposed corporate reputation assessment method give possibilities of various internal as well as inter-branch comparisons and analysis of corporate reputation impact.

Keywords: Corporate reputation, fuzzy logic, fuzzy model, stock market investors.

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Authors: Maria E. de Boyrie, Darlene Nelson, James A. Nelson

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The history of money is described in relationship to the history of computing. With the transformation and acceptance of money as information, major challenges to the security of money have involved engineering, computer science, and management. Research opportunities and challenges are described as money continues its transformation into information.

Keywords: Electronic, information, money, risk.

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Authors: M. Susithra, R. Gnanadass

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Ancillary services are support services which are essential for humanizing and enhancing the reliability and security of the electric power system. Reactive power ancillary service is one of the important ancillary services in a restructured electricity market which determines the cost of supplying ancillary services and finding of how this cost would change with respect to operating decisions. This paper presents a new formation that can be used to minimize the Independent System Operator (ISO)’s total payment for reactive power ancillary service. The modified power flow tracing algorithm estimates the availability of reserve reactive power for ancillary service. In order to find optimum reactive power dispatch, Biogeography based optimization method (BPO) is proposed. Market Reactive Clearing Price (MRCP) is then estimated and it encourages generator companies (GENCOs) to participate in an ancillary service. Finally, optimal weighting factor and real time utilization factor of reactive power give the minimum ISO’s total payment. The effectiveness of proposed design is verified using IEEE 30 bus system.

Keywords: Biogeography based optimization method, Power flow tracing method, Reactive generation capability curve and Reactive power ancillary service.

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Authors: Farnaz G. Nezami, Mir B. Aryanezhad, Seyed J. Sadjadi

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In this paper a nonlinear model is presented to demonstrate the relation between production and marketing departments. By introducing some functions such as pricing cost and market share loss functions it will be tried to show some aspects of market modelling which has not been regarded before. The proposed model will be a constrained signomial geometric programming model. For model solving, after variables- modifications an iterative technique based on the concept of geometric mean will be introduced to solve the resulting non-standard posynomial model which can be applied to a wide variety of models in non-standard posynomial geometric programming form. At the end a numerical analysis will be presented to accredit the validity of the mentioned model.

Keywords: Geometric programming, marketing, nonlinear optimization, production.

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Authors: Jan Cernohorsky

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This article aims to assess the evolution of imperfect competition in selected banking markets, in particular in the banking markets of Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Slovenia and Croatia. Another objective is to assess the evolution of the relationship of imperfect competition and profit development in the banking markets. The article first provides an overview of literature on the topic. It then measures the degree of imperfect competition in individual markets using the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index. The commonly used indicator of total assets was chosen as an indicator. Based on this measurement, the individual banking sectors are categorized into theoretical definitions of the various types of imperfect competition - namely all surveyed banking sectors falling within the theoretical definition of monopolistic competition. Subsequently, using correlation analysis, i.e., the Pearson correlation coefficient, or the Spearman correlation coefficient, the connection between the evolution of imperfect competition and the development of the gross profit on selected banking markets was surveyed. It was found that with the exception of the banking market in Slovenia, where there is a positive correlation; there is no correlation between the evolution of imperfect competition and profit development in the selected markets. This means a recommendation for the regulators that it is not appropriate to rationalize a higher degree of regulation in granting banking licenses on the size of the profits attained in the banking market, as the relationship between the degree of concentration in the banking market and the amount of profit according to our measurements does not exist.

Keywords: Banking system, imperfect competition, profitability.

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Authors: M. Dachyar, Yudavedito

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The rising growth of the GSM cellular phone industry has tightening competition level between providers in making strategies enhancing the market shares in Indonesia. Tsel, as one of those companies, has to determine the proper strategy to sustain as well as improve the market share without reducing its operational income level. Portfolio simulation model is designed with a dynamic system approach. The result of this research is a recommendation to the company by optimizing its technological policies, services, and promotions. The tariff policies and the signal quality should not be the main focus because this company has had a large number of customers and a good infrastructural condition.

Keywords: Telecommunication industry, simulation, dynamic system, portfolio, quality services.

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Authors: Chih-Hsiang Chang

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This study provides insight into the effects of investor sentiment, excess optimism, overconfidence, the disposition effect, and herding formation on momentum profits. This study contributes to the field by providing a further examination of the relationship between psychological factors and momentum profits. The empirical results show that there is no evidence of significant momentum profits in Taiwan’s stock market. Additionally, investor sentiment in Taiwan’s stock market significantly influences its momentum profits.

Keywords: Momentum profits, psychological factors, herding formation, investor sentiment.

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Authors: Karolína Vozková, Matěj Kuc

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This paper deals with the impact of decrease in interest rates on the performance of commercial and cooperative banks in the Eurozone measured by net interest margin. The analysis was performed on balanced dataset of 268 commercial and 726 cooperative banks spanning the 2008-2015 period. We employed Fixed Effects estimation panel method. As expected, we found a negative relationship between market rates and net interest margin. Our results suggest that the impact of negative interest income differs across individual banking business models. More precisely, those cooperative banks were much more hit by the decrease of market interest rates which might be due to their ownership structure and more restrictive business regulation.

Keywords: Cooperative banks, performance, negative interest rates, risk management.

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Authors: M.R. Ebrahimi, Z. Ghofrani, M. Ehsan

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One of the major problems in liberalized power markets is loss allocation. In this paper, a different method for allocating transmission losses to pool market participants is proposed. The proposed method is fundamentally based on decomposition of loss function and current projection concept. The method has been implemented and tested on several networks and one sample summarized in the paper. The results show that the method is comprehensive and fair to allocating the energy losses of a power market to its participants.

Keywords: Transmission loss, loss allocation, current projectionconcept, loss function decomposition.

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Authors: Ilhan Keskin, Hasan Bulent Kantarcı

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In this study, one of the tools of Islamic financing known as “Sukuk” a non-interest bearing investment which has started to be implemented in Turkey and the world as a whole is discussed. In order to increase the vitality and efficiency of the economy, by taking lessons from the recent economic crisis new developments in the banking and investment sector are being expanded. The purpose of all investors is to obtain more revenue through the use of capital. The inability of traditional investment tools to meet the expectations of investors and the interest based financial system where one investor benefits at the expense of another there has been the need for a different, reliable and noninterest bearing financial market that is consistent with the Islamic rule. As a result an alternative and more reliable interest free financing tool “Sukuk” rental certificates covering people who are sensitive to Islamic rules, appeal to all segments, hidden remaining capital that contributes to the economy, reduce disparities in income distribution, common risk sharing system of profit and loss sharing has emerged. Today, for the structural countries by examining the state of the world market economy the applicability, enactment and future issues associated with this attractive kind of Islamic finance namely the “Sukuk” market has been explained.

Keywords: Islamic finance, Islamic markets, non-interest bearing, rental certificates.

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Authors: Michiko Miyamoto

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The market for "functional foods" and "foods with functional claims" that are effective in maintaining and improving health, has expanded year by year due to the entry of major food and beverage manufacturers following the introduction of the specified health food system in 1991 in Japan. To bring health claims related products or services to the market, it is necessary to let consumers to learn about these products or services; an effective marketing through advertising are important. This research proposes a framework for an effective advertisement medium for the food supplement industry by using survey data of 2,500 people.

Keywords: Functional foods, dietary supplements, marketing strategy, structural equation modeling.

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Authors: Dalin Si, Azizan Aziz, Bertrand Lasternas

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To encourage building owners to purchase electricity at the wholesale market and reduce building peak demand, this study aims to develop models that predict day-ahead hourly electricity consumption and demand using artificial neural network (ANN) and support vector machine (SVM). All prediction models are built in Python, with tool Scikit-learn and Pybrain. The input data for both consumption and demand prediction are time stamp, outdoor dry bulb temperature, relative humidity, air handling unit (AHU), supply air temperature and solar radiation. Solar radiation, which is unavailable a day-ahead, is predicted at first, and then this estimation is used as an input to predict consumption and demand. Models to predict consumption and demand are trained in both SVM and ANN, and depend on cooling or heating, weekdays or weekends. The results show that ANN is the better option for both consumption and demand prediction. It can achieve 15.50% to 20.03% coefficient of variance of root mean square error (CVRMSE) for consumption prediction and 22.89% to 32.42% CVRMSE for demand prediction, respectively. To conclude, the presented models have potential to help building owners to purchase electricity at the wholesale market, but they are not robust when used in demand response control.

Keywords: Building energy prediction, data mining, demand response, electricity market.

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Authors: Alka Obadić

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The research concentrates on the role of tourism in generating female employment and on impact of gender discrimination in tourism sector. Unfortunately, in many countries there are still some barriers to the inclusion of women at all hierarchical levels of tourism labor market. Research analysis focuses on EU countries where tourism is a main employer of women. The analysis shows that women represent over third persons employed in the non-financial business economy and almost two thirds in core tourism activities. Women's gross hourly earnings in accommodation and food services were below those of men in the European Union and only countries who recorded increase of gender pay gap from the beginning of crisis are Bulgaria and Croatia. Women in tourism industry are still overrepresented in lower status jobs with fewer opportunities for career progression and are often treated unequally.

Keywords: Employment, gender discrimination, tourism, women’s participation.

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Authors: Rhoann Kerh, Chen-Fu Chien, Kuo-Yi Lin

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In the era of rapidly increasing notebook market, consumer electronics manufacturers are facing a highly dynamic and competitive environment. In particular, the product appearance is the first part for user to distinguish the product from the product of other brands. Notebook product should differ in its appearance to engage users and contribute to the user experience (UX). The UX evaluates various product concepts to find the design for user needs; in addition, help the designer to further understand the product appearance preference of different market segment. However, few studies have been done for exploring the relationship between consumer background and the reaction of product appearance. This study aims to propose a data mining framework to capture the user’s information and the important relation between product appearance factors. The proposed framework consists of problem definition and structuring, data preparation, rules generation, and results evaluation and interpretation. An empirical study has been done in Taiwan that recruited 168 subjects from different background to experience the appearance performance of 11 different portable computers. The results assist the designers to develop product strategies based on the characteristics of consumers and the product concept that related to the UX, which help to launch the products to the right customers and increase the market shares. The results have shown the practical feasibility of the proposed framework.

Keywords: Consumers Decision Making, Product Design, Rough Set Theory, User Experience.

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Authors: Bua Srikos, Phusit Phukamchanoad, Suwaree Yordchim

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The purpose is to study the model and characteristic of participation of the suitable community to lead to develop permanent water marketing in Bang Noi Floating Market, Bangkonti District, Samutsongkhram Province. A total of 342 survey questionnaire was administered to potential respondents. The researchers interviewed the leader of the community. Appreciation Influence Control (AIC) was used to talk with 20 villagers on arena. The findings revealed that overall, most people had the middle level of the participation in developing the durable Bang Noi Floating Market, Bangkonti, Samutsongkhram Province and in aspects of gaining benefits from developing it with atmosphere and a beautiful view for tourism. For example, the landscape is beautiful with public utilities. The participation in preserving and developing Bang Noi Floating Market remains in the former way of life. The basic factor of person affects to the participation of people such as age, level of education, career, and income per month. Most participants are the original hosts that have houses and shops located in the marketing and neighbor. These people involve with the benefits and have the power to make a water marketing strategy, the major role to set the information database. It also found that the leader and the villagers play the important role in setting a five-physical database. Data include level of information such as position of village, territory of village, road, river, and premises. Information of culture consists of a two-level of information, interesting point, and Itinerary. The information occurs from presenting and practicing by the leader and villagers in the community.All of phases are presented for listening and investigating database together in both the leader and villagers in the process of participation.

Keywords: Community Participation, Sustainable Development, Encouragement Tourism.

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Authors: Naser Valipour Motlagh, Majid Aliabadi, Elnaz Rahmani, Samira Ghorbanpour

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Strawberry is one of the most favored fruits all along the world. But due to its vulnerability to microbial contamination and short life storage, there are lots of problems in industrial production and transportation of this fruit. Therefore, lots of ideas have tried to increase the storage life of strawberries especially through proper packaging. This paper works on efficient packaging as well. The primary material used is produced through simple mixing of low-density polyethylene (LDPE) and silver nanoparticles in different weight fractions of 0.5 and 1% in presence of dicumyl peroxide as a cross-linking agent. Final packages were made in a twin-screw extruder. Then, their effect on the quality maintenance of strawberry is evaluated. The SEM images of nano-silver packages show the distribution of silver nanoparticles in the packages. Total bacteria count, mold, yeast and E. coli are measured for microbial evaluation of all samples. Texture, color, appearance, odor, taste and total acceptance of various samples are evaluated by trained panelists and based on 9-point hedonic scale method. The results show a decrease in total bacteria count and mold in nano-silver packages compared to the samples packed in polyethylene packages for the same storage time. The optimum concentration of silver nanoparticles for the lowest bacteria count and mold is predicted to be around 0.5% which has attained the most acceptance from the panelist as well. Moreover, organoleptic properties of strawberry are preserved for a longer period in nano-silver packages. It can be concluded that using nano-silver particles in strawberry packages has improved the storage life and quality maintenance of the fruit.

Keywords: Antimicrobial properties, polyethylene, silver nanoparticles, strawberry.

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Authors: D. Ščeulovs, E. Gaile-Sarkane

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Latvia is the fourth in the world by means of broadband internet speed. The total number of internet users in Latvia exceeds 70% of its population. The number of active mailboxes of the local internet e-mail service Inbox.lv accounts for 68% of the population and 97.6% of the total number of internet users. The Latvian portal Draugiem.lv is a phenomenon of social media, because 58.4 % of the population and 83.5% of internet users use it. A majority of Latvian company profiles are available on social networks, the most popular being Twitter.com. These and other parameters prove the fact consumers and companies are actively using the Internet. 

However, after the authors in a number of studies analyzed how enterprises are employing the e-environment, namely, e-environment tools, they arrived to the conclusions that are not as flattering as the aforementioned statistics. There is an obvious contradiction between the statistical data and the actual studies. As a result, the authors have posed a question: Why are entrepreneurs resistant to e-tools? In order to answer this question, the authors have addressed the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). The authors analyzed each phase and determined several factors affecting the use of e-environment, reaching the main conclusion that entrepreneurs do not have a sufficient level of e-literacy (digital literacy). 

The authors employ well-established quantitative and qualitative methods of research: grouping, analysis, statistic method, factor analysis in SPSS 20  environment etc. 

The theoretical and methodological background of the research is formed by, scientific researches and publications, that from the mass media and professional literature, statistical information from legal institutions as well as information collected by the author during the survey.

Keywords: E-environment, e-environment tools, technology acceptance model, factors.

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Authors: Yerbol Sapargaliyev, Tatiana Kalganova

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Evolvable Hardware (EHW) has been regarded as adaptive system acquired by wide application market. Consumer market of any good requires diversity to satisfy consumers- preferences. Adaptation of EHW is a key technology that could provide individual approach to every particular user. This situation raises a question: how to set target for evolutionary algorithm? The existing techniques do not allow consumer to influence evolutionary process. Only designer at the moment is capable to influence the evolution. The proposed consumer-triggered evolution overcomes this problem by introducing new features to EHW that help adaptive system to obtain targets during consumer stage. Classification of EHW is given according to responsiveness, imitation of human behavior and target circuit response. Home intelligent water heating system is considered as an example.

Keywords: Actuators, consumer-triggered evolution, evolvable hardware, sensors.

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Authors: Petr Cernohorsky, Jan Voracek

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Well-developed strategic marketing planning is the essential prerequisite for establishment of the right and unique competitive advantage. Typical market, however, is a heterogeneous and decentralized structure with natural involvement of individual or group subjectivity and irrationality. These features cannot be fully expressed with one-shot rigorous formal models based on, e.g. mathematics, statistics or empirical formulas. We present an innovative solution, extending the domain of agent based computational economics towards the concept of hybrid modeling in service provider and consumer market such as telecommunications. The behavior of the market is described by two classes of agents - consumer and service provider agents - whose internal dynamics are fundamentally different. Customers are rather free multi-state structures, adjusting behavior and preferences quickly in accordance with time and changing environment. Producers, on the contrary, are traditionally structured companies with comparable internal processes and specific managerial policies. Their business momentum is higher and immediate reaction possibilities limited. This limitation underlines importance of proper strategic planning as the main process advising managers in time whether to continue with more or less the same business or whether to consider the need for future structural changes that would ensure retention of existing customers or acquisition of new ones.

Keywords: Agent-based computational economics, hybrid modeling, strategic marketing, system dynamics.

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Authors: Amina Amirat, Abdelfettah Bouri

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If price and quantity are the fundamental building blocks of any theory of market interactions, the importance of trading volume in understanding the behavior of financial markets is clear. However, while many economic models of financial markets have been developed to explain the behavior of prices -predictability, variability, and information content- far less attention has been devoted to explaining the behavior of trading volume. In this article, we hope to expand our understanding of trading volume by developing a new measure of herding behavior based on a cross sectional dispersion of volumes betas. We apply our measure to the Toronto stock exchange using monthly data from January 2000 to December 2002. Our findings show that the herd phenomenon consists of three essential components: stationary herding, intentional herding and the feedback herding.

Keywords: Herding behavior, market return, trading volume.

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Authors: Justinian Anatory, Ekael Stephen Manase

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The use of mobile phones is growing tremendously all over the world. In Tanzania there are a number of operators licensed by Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) aiming at attracting customers into their networks. So far telecommunications market competition has been very stiff. Various measures are being taken by mobile operators to survive in the market. Such measure include introducing of different air time bundles on daily, weekly and monthly at lower tariffs. Other measures include the introduction of normal tariff, tourist package and one network. Despite of all these strategies, there is a dynamic competition in the market which needs to be explored. Some influences which attract customers to choose a certain mobile operator are of particular interest. This paper is investigating if the network effects and Quality of Services (QoS) influence mobile customers in selection of their mobile network operators. Seventy seven students from high learning institutions in Dodoma Municipality in Tanzania participated in responding to prepared questionnaires. The data was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) Software. The results indicate that, network coverage does influence customers in selection of mobile operators. In addition, this paper proposes further research in some areas especially where the study came up with different findings from what the theory has in place.

Keywords: Network effects, Quality of services, Consumer Buying, mobile operators.

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Authors: Jolanta Brodowska-Szewczuk

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The article includes the results and conclusions from empirical researches that had been done. The research focuses on the impact of investments made in small and medium-sized enterprises financed from EU funds on the competitiveness of these companies. The researches includes financial results in sales revenue and net income, expenses, and many other new products/services on offer, higher quality products and services, more modern methods of production, innovation in management processes, increase in the number of customers, increase in market share, increase in profitability of production and provision of services. The main conclusions are that, companies with direct investments under this measure shall apply the modern methods of production. The consequence of this is to increase the quality of our products and services. Furthermore, both small and medium-sized enterprises have introduced new products and services. Investments were carried out, thus enabling better work organization in enterprises. Entrepreneurs would guarantee higher quality of service, which would result in better relationships with their customers, what is more, noting the rise in number of clients. More than half of the companies indicated that the investments contributed to the increase in market share. Same thing as for market reach and brand recognition of particular company. An interesting finding is that, investments in small enterprises were more effective than medium-sized enterprises.

Keywords: Competitiveness, efficiency, EU funds, small and medium-sized enterprises.

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Authors: Heeyong Noh, Sungjoo Lee

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The goal of this research is discovering the determinants of the success or failure of external cooperation in small and medium enterprises (SMEs). For this, a survey was given to 190 SMEs that experienced external cooperation within the last 3 years. A logistic regression model was used to derive organizational or strategic characteristics that significantly influence whether external collaboration of domestic SMEs is successful or not. Results suggest that research and development (R&D) features in general characteristics (both idea creation and discovering market opportunities) that focused on and emphasized indirected-market stakeholders (such as complementary companies and affiliates) and strategies in innovative strategic characteristics raise the probability of successful external cooperation. This can be used meaningfully to build a policy or strategy for inducing successful external cooperation or to understand the innovation of SMEs.

Keywords: External collaboration, Innovation strategy, Logisticregression, SMEs.

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Authors: Mohammed A. Kafaji

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This paper aims to investigate the influence of quality of education and quality of research, provided by local educational institutions, on the adoption of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in managing business operations for companies in Saudi market. A model was developed and tested using data collected from 138 Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of foreign companies in diverse business sectors. The data is analyzed and managed using multivariate approaches through standard statistical packages. The results showed that educational quality has little contribution to the ICT adoption while research quality seems to play a more prominent role. These results are analyzed in terms of business environment and market constraints and further extended to the perceived effectiveness of applied pedagogical approaches in schools and universities.

Keywords: Domestic Competition, Quality of Education, Quality of Research, ICT Adoption, Mediation.

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Authors: Maia Seturi, Tamari Todua

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Economic growth is seen as the increase in the production capacity of a country. It enables a country to produce more and more material wealth and social benefits. Today, the success of any product on the market is closely related to the issue of branding. The brand is a source of information for a user/consumer, which helps to simplify the choice of goods and reduce consumer risk. The paper studies the role of branding in order to promote Georgian tea brands. The main focus of the research is directed to consumer attitudes regarding Georgian tea brands. The methodology of the paper is based on marketing research. The findings study revealed that the majority of consumers prefer foreign tea brands. The final part of the article presents the main recommendations.

Keywords: Marketing research, customer behavior, brand, successful brand.

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Authors: M. Osipova

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Thanks to informational technologies development every sphere of economics is becoming more and more datacentralized as people are generating huge datasets containing information on any aspect of their life. Applying research of such data to human resources management allows getting scarce statistics on labor market state including salary expectations and potential employees’ typical career behavior, and this information can become a reliable basis for management decisions. The following article presents results of career behavior research based on freely accessible resume data. Information used for study is much wider than one usually uses in human resources surveys. That is why there is enough data for statistically significant results even for subgroups analysis.

Keywords: Human resources management, labor market, salary expectations, statistics, turnover.

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Authors: Kari Björn

Abstract:

Introduction of games has expanded the application area of computer-aided learning tools to wide variety of age groups of learners. Serious games engage the learners into a real-world -type of simulation and potentially enrich the learning experience. Institutional background of a Bachelor’s level engineering program in Information and Communication Technology is introduced, with detailed focus on one of its majors, Health Technology. As part of a Customer Oriented Software Application thematic semester, one particular course of “eHealth Business and Solutions” is described and reflected in a gamified framework. Learning a consistent view into vast literature of business management, strategies, marketing and finance in a very limited time enforces selection of topics relevant to the industry. Health Technology is a novel and growing industry with a growing sector in consumer wearable devices and homecare applications. The business sector is attracting new entrepreneurs and impatient investor funds. From engineering education point of view the sector is driven by miniaturizing electronics, sensors and wireless applications. However, the market is highly consumer-driven and usability, safety and data integrity requirements are extremely high. When the same technology is used in analysis or treatment of patients, very strict regulatory measures are enforced. The paper introduces a course structure using gamification as a tool to learn the most essential in a new market: customer value proposition design, followed by a market entry game. Students analyze the existing market size and pricing structure of eHealth web-service market and enter the market as a steering group of their company, competing against the legacy players and with each other. The market is growing but has its rules of demand and supply balance. New products can be developed with an R&D-investment, and targeted to market with unique quality- and price-combinations. Product cost structure can be improved by investing to enhanced production capacity. Investments can be funded optionally by foreign capital. Students make management decisions and face the dynamics of the market competition in form of income statement and balance sheet after each decision cycle. The focus of the learning outcome is to understand customer value creation to be the source of cash flow. The benefit of gamification is to enrich the learning experience on structure and meaning of financial statements. The paper describes the gamification approach and discusses outcomes after two course implementations. Along the case description of learning challenges, some unexpected misconceptions are noted. Improvements of the game or the semi-gamified teaching pedagogy are discussed. The case description serves as an additional support to new game coordinator, as well as helps to improve the method. Overall, the gamified approach has helped to engage engineering student to business studies in an energizing way.

Keywords: Engineering education, integrated curriculum, learning experience, learning outcomes.

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