International diversification with frontier markets

We provide an analysis of frontier market equities with respect to world market integration and diversification. Principal component results reveal that frontier markets exhibit low levels of integration. In contrast with developed and emerging markets, frontier markets offer no indication of increasing integration through time. Furthermore, individual frontier market countries do not exhibit consistent rates of changing integration. Structural break tests identify breakpoints in integration, as well as integration dynamics across countries. We show that frontier markets have low integration with the world market and thereby offer significant diversification benefits.     

Higher knowledge for higher aspirations

With escalating expectations and opportunities for HR professionals to add greater value comes the mandate for greater knowledge about the fundamental driving forces of business. Business leaders and employees increasingly assume that HR professionals have foundational knowledge of HR concepts and practices. But to create competitive advantage from that knowledge, HR professionals must be fully versant about external business realities that directly or indirectly influence how to apply that knowledge. We examine four of the most central categories of external business knowledge: advancements in technology, the causes and effects of economic and regulatory turbulence, the dynamics of business globalization, and changes in population demographics. With knowledge about these fundamental business drivers and their supporting data, HR professionals will be more able to make credible and accurate strategic contributions to business discussions and to proactively build more centrally relevant HR practices. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

In Perspectives

Social enterprises are, at heart, businesses that offer economically sustainable business solutions to social problems.¹ (DTI, 2003)     

An Exploratory Study of the Effect on Forecast Accuracy of Using Different Geographic Segment Data Sources

The specific research question this study investigates is whether or not model-based earnings forecasts utilizing COMPUSTAT's country specific geographic segment data produce more accurate earnings forecasts than model-based forecasts utilizing data from actual geographic segment footnotes. This study compares the accuracy of earnings forecasts from models using the geographic segment information in actual geographic segment footnotes to the accuracy of earnings forecasts from models using the geographic segment information in the COMPUSTAT business segment tape. Evidence collected in this study indicates that geographic segment data provided in the COMPUSTAT business segment data base appears to make it possible to more accurately predict sales than does the geographic segment data provided in the same companies' actual geographic segment footnote.     

Intervention or Persuasion? Strategies for Turnaround of Poorly-Performing Councils

This article provides early results from a long-term evaluation of the turnaround strategies by poorly-performing local authorities in England. The history and theory behind central government interventions into local government is reviewed, focusing on the Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA). The journeys taken by 10 local authorities, after being labelled as 'poor' or 'weak', are described and these responses are located within the literature on theories of turnaround and public sector service improvement. The authors conclude by setting out a research agenda for the future.     

What is the Value of Luxury? A Cross‐Cultural Consumer Perspective

International luxury businesses are challenged by the identification and satisfaction of the common needs and desires of global market segments. Although luxury goods have become available to a wider range of consumers, the traditional conspicuous consumption model has been transformed into a new experiential luxury sensibility that is marked by a change in the way that consumers define luxury. Based on an empirical study in collaboration with American, European, and Asian researchers, the results provide evidence that consumers in various parts of the world purchase or wish to purchase luxury products for varied reasons but that such consumers generally possess similar values. Regardless of their countries of origin, the basic motivational drivers of luxury consumers are similar among the financial, functional, personal, and social dimensions of luxury value perceptions, although the relative importance of these dimensions varies.     

Cross-sectional performance and investor sentiment in a multiple risk factor model

Economists have long recognized the importance of information veracity in valuing risky securities. Market participants concerned about the credibility of information measures may require additional compensation to entice them to hold stocks with less transparent information. These same securities are expected to display greater sensitivities to measures of market sentiment. We find that investor sentiment sensitivities increase directly with multiple measures of opacity in the cross-section. Next we examine the extent to which sentiment sensitivities are priced in an asset pricing context. Using the Jha et al. (2009) model of conditional performance evaluation, we find an inverse relation between ex ante known investor sentiment and the marginal performance of opaque stocks. In contrast, translucent stocks exhibit relatively little variability in performance across levels of sentiment.     

The miners and new technology

In this article the authors develop a theoretical framework for the analysis of issues raised by the new technology and report on research undertaken for the NUM into automation in coal mining. Alternative strategies are introduced which may be considered by the NUM to cope with new technology in the pits.