Problems and challenges facing the islamic banking system in the west: The case of the UK

This study investigates the main problems, challenges, and opportunities facing Islamic banking in the United Kingdom. The study reports the results of interviews that were undertaken with senior officials of several key financial institutions who have had many years of experience in dealing with Islamic banking. Our interviews revealed that, although by strict definition Islamic banks do not currently exist in the UK, London is one of the major centers for Islamic banking and finance. It is apparent that the experience of previously established Islamic institutions, such as Al‐Baraka, has made other institutions realize that it is possible to provide Islamic banking services in the UK under nonbanking regulations. The interviews also revealed that the main problem that Islamic banking faces in the UK is heterogeneous clients and potential clients. Moreover, regulatory hurdles, competition from conventional banks, and lack of adequately qualified and trained personnel exacerbate the situation. The study concludes by identifying opportunities such as e‐banking that may have a significant impact on the future of Islamic banking in the UK. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Work Values and Preferences for Employee Involvement in the Management of Organizations

This study has 3 objectives: to develop a scale to measure preferences for involvement in management (PIM), to examine if PIM are related to work values (altruism, pride in craftsmanship, collectivism, and individualism), and to examine if PIM are affected by a bundle of work values. Data are taken from 749 participants to develop a psychometrically appealing scale for measuring PIM. Using the universalistic perspective, we predict a positive relationship between PIM and altruism, pride in craftsmanship, and collectivism, and a negative relationship between PIM and individualism. Using the synergistic perspective, we hypothesized that PIM are likely to be positively affected by a bundle of work values. Our results support the universalistic perspective because PIM are positively related to altruism, pride in craftsmanship, and collectivism, and negatively related to individualism. Our results did not support the synergistic perspective. In the final section of the paper, we outlined the implications of our results for organizational practice and public policy.     

Entry into a Foreign Market: Foreign Direct Investment versus Licensing

We compare foreign direct investment (FDI) and technology licensing as two modes of entry into a foreign market. While direct entry via FDI dissipates rents in the host country, opportunistic competition from a licensee may erode rents in the entrant's other markets. Since FDI increases competition in the host country while licensing stifles it. welfare is higher under FDI than under licensing.     

Trade, Foreign Direct Investment, and International Technology Transfer: A Survey

What role does trade play in international technology transfer?Do technologies introduced by multinational firms diffuse tolocal firms? What kinds of policies have proved successful inencouraging technology absorption from abroad and why? Usingthese questions as motivation, this article surveys the recenttrade literature on international technology transfer, payingparticular attention to the role of foreign direct investment.The literature argues that trade necessarily encourages growthonly if knowledge spillovers are international in scope. Empiricalevidence on the scope of knowledge spillovers (national versusinternational) is ambiguous. Several recent empirical plant-levelstudies have questioned earlier studies that argued that foreigndirect investment has a positive impact on the productivityof local firms. Yet at the aggregate level, evidence supportsthe view that foreign direct investment has a positive effecton economic growth in the host country.      

The Managerial Lineages of Neoliberalism

Managerialism is often depicted as a key practice of neoliberalism yet relatively little has been written by scholars of neoliberalism about the actual relationship between managerialism and neoliberalism. Usually subsumed under a functional reading of neoliberalism, managerialism has too often been understood simply as a means for neoliberal ends (i.e. to promote market rule or competition). This paper challenges this perspective on the grounds that it conflates practices that stem from two different historical lineages. As we show, managerial governance not only has a very different history than neoliberal theory, but it also rests on different principles. Its development can be traced back to the US defence sector in the 1950s and the pivotal role of the RAND Corporation. On the basis of this historical perspective, we argue for the need to analyse managerialism on its own terms and make the case for considering the rise of managerial science as a paradigmatic shift in governance. In doing so, we show how managerial governance represented a radical rupture from previous management practices and show how it profoundly reshaped how we have come to understand governance.     

Longevity challenges and leadership interventions: Strategy journeys of two Indian banks

This article studies the strategic journeys of two Indian banks in evolving socio-political and economic environments, spread across eight decades. It provides a holistic view of longevity challenges by exploring interdependencies between a firm’s internal dynamics, external environment, and its leaders. This article covers the growth of Canara Bank and Syndicate Bank in distinct phases of unrestricted, regulated, and centrally planned economic environment, and in changing socio-political scenarios. It uses within-case and across-case analysis, contextualised in these conditions, to provide rich insights about measures adopted by firms for their long-term survival and sustenance.     

Do boards know when they hire a CEO that is a good match? Evidence from initial compensation

Are CEO initial compensation packages based on variations in the expected match quality of the hiring firms? Using CEO tenure as a proxy for expected match quality, and a sample of CEO turnovers between 1992 and 2006, we find that CEOs that experience good matches, defined as tenures exceeding four years, have higher initial compensation packages. We also find evidence from exogenous switching regression models that inside CEOs receive a higher good match premium than outside CEOs. To account for economic and regulatory changes across our sample period, we divide our sample into three subsamples: 1992–1997, 1998–2002, and 2003–2006, and repeat our analyses. Even though the positive relation between expected match quality and initial compensation persists across all periods, we find that the good match premium for inside and outside CEOs does not differ in the post-2002 period. We attribute this result to increased board independence and changes in regulation (Sarbanes–Oxley) in the post-2002 sample period.     

MARKET REFORM AND FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT IN LATIN AMERICA: Evidence from an Error Correction Model

This study models dollar values of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows to conditions in seven Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela) during the 1988-1992 period. Although much research on FDI has used time series data to explain inward or outward flows, two things set this study apart. First, this study includes market reforms as independent variables. Second, this study uses newer time series econometric tools (unit root test and cointegration analysis) to correct for a spurious regression. Our model is robust, explaining 79.4 percent of variation. We found three independent variables (size of current account deficit, size of GDP, and value of privatization less FDI in privatized companies) to be significant. Although we found directional support for three other independent variables (degree of capital market liberalization, low inflation rate, and depreciation of the real exchange rate), none of these proved significant.