How Ethical Leadership Shapes Employees’ Job Performance: The Mediating Roles of Goal Congruence and Psychological Capital

Drawing from research on ethical leadership, psychological capital, and social learning theory, this study investigated the mediating effects of goal congruence and psychological capital in the link between supervisors’ ethical leadership style and followers’ in-role job performance. Data captured from 171 employees and 24 supervisors showed that ethical leadership has a positive effect on followers’ in-role job performance, yet this effect is explained through the role of psychological capital and follower–leader goal congruence, providing evidence of mediation. These findings have significant implications for research and practice.     

Profiling the Fuzzy Latent Structure of Multidimensional Poverty: Toward Valuable Insights for Poverty Policymakers

Abstract

Several multidimensional poverty indices have been proposed, and have been extensively studied in the literature. On the other hand, the need for aggregation of poverty indicators into one multidimensional index has been questioned. It has been argued even so that this aggregation can be misleading for political targeting strategies. Subsequently, some researchers have advocated that the use of the latent class analysis would address these issues. However, this setting does not allow to take into account the fuzzy nature of the latent poverty concept. The contribution here is to use the Grade-of-Membership (GoM) model to profile the fuzzy latent structure of multidimensional poverty, for a more realistic handling of this phenomenon. The application of the GoM methodology to multivariate poverty data for the Tunisian case reveals four most prevalent multidimensional poverty profiles. The results emphasize the role played by contextual effects. Indeed, the rural cluster is suffering more intense deprivation and groups in the central and coastal regions have a more comfortable status in comparison with the group of households residing in inland regions. A thorough analysis of these patterns is put forward in this research, giving valuable insights to policy makers.     

The governance,risk-taking,and performance of Islamic banks

We examine whether the difference in governance structures influences the risk taking and performance of Islamic banks compared to conventional banks. Using a sample of 52 Islamic banks and 104 conventional banks in 14 countries for the period from 2005 to 2013, we conclude that the governance structure in Islamic banks plays a crucial role in risk taking as well as financial performance that is distinct from conventional banks. Particularly, we show that the governance structure in Islamic banks allows them to take higher risks and achieve better performance because of product complexities and transaction mechanisms. However, Islamic banks maintain a higher capitalization compared to conventional banks. These results support the research on Islamic investment and risk taking. Our results add a new dimension to the governance research that could be a valuable source of knowledge for policy makers and regulators in the financial services sector.     

Does prestigious board membership matter? Evidence from New Zealand

This study investigates whether ‘prestigious’ multiple board membership is positively associated with firm performance. We employ Resource Dependency theory to explain why performance outcomes may be improved by the presence of ‘prestigious’ multiple directorships. Our analysis relies on extensive hand‐collected data on New Zealand company directorships. The results support the contention that ‘prestigious’ multiple directorships are related to better accounting and market performance. Conclusions reflect upon how Resource Dependency theory informs this phenomenon and how ‘prestigious’ board members may be a valuable resource for firms. We also reveal how these findings expose a new avenue for board governance research.     

Synthesis of Complex Criteria Decision Making: A Case Towards a Consensus Agreement for a Middle East Conflict Resolution

The title of this paper reflects both the process and the outcome of the current undertaking. Frustrated with the current state of the Middle East but encouraged by earlier attempts at modeling complex problems, the authors participated in a panel discussion assembled to address the conflict and propose a possible road-map to peace. However, the participants of this project did not come to a single course of action that will result in peace in the Middle East but did reach a consensus agreement about a resolution that needs to be managed. This paper explores the process, the outcome and the factors that influence the decision as well as potential pitfalls. The Analytic Network Process (ANP), a well known multicriteria decision making approach, applied frequently in recent years to examine conflicts around the world, is used in this analysis. It provides a framework for synthesizing judgments on the diverse aspects of the problem represented in the structure of the decision. It pieces together these judgments in a holistic and logical way.     

CONSTRAINED OPTIMIZATION WITH RESPECT TO STOCHASTIC DOMINANCE: APPLICATION TO PORTFOLIO INSURANCE

We are concerned with a classic portfolio optimization problem where the admissible strategies must dominate a floor process on every intermediate date (American guarantee). We transform the problem into a martingale, whose aim is to dominate an obstacle, or equivalently its Snell envelope. The optimization is performed with respect to the concave stochastic ordering on the terminal value, so that we do not impose any explicit specification of the agent's utility function. A key tool is the representation of the supermartingale obstacle in terms of a running supremum process. This is illustrated within the paper by an explicit example based on the geometric Brownian motion.     

Using partial least square discriminant analysis to distinguish between Islamic and conventional banks in the MENA region

The deterioration of bank profitability poses a threat not only to the interests of consumers and internal staff members but also affects investors who may equally suffer from significant financial losses. It is important to establish an effective system which assists investors in their investment choices. In prior literature, traditional models have been developed, but achieved short‐term performances such as logistic regression and discriminant analysis. This paper applies a partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS‐DA) to distinguish between conventional and Islamic banks in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region based on the financial information for the period 2005–2011. This method can successfully identify the non‐linearity and correlations between financial indicators. The results demonstrate superior performance of the proposed method. On one hand, our model can select all financial ratios to distinguish between banks and at the same time identify the most important variables in the distinction process. On the other hand, the proposed model has high levels in terms of accuracy and stability.     

PUBLIC EDUCATION EXPENDITURES, HUMAN CAPITAL INVESTMENT AND INTERGENERATIONAL MOBILITY: A TWO-STAGE EDUCATION MODEL

We show in this paper that, depending on the initial distribution of material wealth and that of individuals' abilities, economies converge in the long run towards different proportions of the skilled workforce and different levels of average wealth. We also show that the growth process raises net economic mobility, the long-run proportion of the skilled population and the long-run levels of wealth held by both rich and poor dynasties. Unless the income tax rate is too high, the increase in total public funds is associated, in the long run, with higher net mobility, a larger fraction of the skilled workers and higher levels of wealth of all the dynasties. In addition, the reallocation of public expenditures from basic to advanced education can result in lower mobility, a lower long-run size of the skilled workforce, and a lower long-run level of wealth held by rich dynasties, if the transfer of resources comes at the expense of excessively lowering the quality of education at the basic schooling level.