Perceptions of instructors and administrators of English language on their professional development needs

The present study aims at investigating the professional development needs of instructors and administrators of English language in public universities in North Iraq. The study also attempts to evaluate the professional development of universities’ instructors in improving their personal and professional career while teaching English as a foreign language. Professional development provides teachers with more knowledge, skills, and experiences either personally or professionally throughout the process of teaching. In this study, qualitative research methods were used. There were forty participants involved in this study including English language and literature instructors, heads of departments, assistant heads of departments, and coordinators employed in the 9 public universities of North Iraq. The results showed that there are still no actual tendencies of professional development as a program to be implemented as a continual process of teaching and learning, and there is a lack of professional development opportunities in public universities in North Iraq. The participants also provided significant suggestions on their professional development needs.

     

Spatial Inequality,Polarization and its Dimensions in Iran: New Empirical Evidence

This paper analyses the extent and dynamics of inequality amongst the provinces of Iran. It reviews theoretical propositions for possible convergence and divergence and argues that, while the evidence from the more developed countries supports the case of convergence, the empirical evidence for developing countries is ambiguous at best. Straight and population weighted measures of inequality are used to see the evolvement of inequality amongst the provinces of Iran with respect to two indicators of income and consumption with a rural and urban break up. Polarization in distribution depicts a disturbing picture for urban areas and this is traced around a few proposed dimensions. The results reveal a close cluster of the provinces in Iran drifting behind the rest of the provinces.     

Quality signaling through ex-ante voluntary information disclosure in entrepreneurial networks: evidence from franchising

This paper examines antecedents of ex-ante voluntary information disclosures for standardized contracts in entrepreneurial networks. Entrepreneurs (e.g., franchisors) may make such disclosures to prospective business partners in order to signal profitability of partnering, attract financial and managerial resources, and develop their entrepreneurial networks. In practice, only a fraction of franchisors make financial performance representations (FPRs), an ex-ante voluntary information disclosure to prospective franchisees. We address gaps in the signaling, voluntary information disclosure, franchising, entrepreneurship, and small- and medium-enterprise (SME) literatures. We draw on signaling theory to develop a theoretical framework and investigate factors that influence a franchisor’s disclosure decision. We evaluate hypotheses from our theoretical framework through econometric analyses of multi-sector panel data for the US franchising industry. We estimate a logit model and use lagged independent variables to address our dichotomous independent variable and potential endogeneity, respectively. Our results support the view that firms signal their quality through FPRs to attract potential business partners and expand their entrepreneurial networks. Beyond the extant literature, we find that rigorous partner qualification is another driver of voluntary information disclosure in franchising. Our findings also provide empirical support for the complementary role played by multiple quality signaling mechanisms used by franchisors and yield public policy implications for franchising.     

Is International Trade More Beneficial to Lower Income Economies? An Empirical Inquiry

Does the effect of international trade on income growth depend on the economy’s level of development? More specifically, is trade more beneficial to lower income economies? Does trade contribute to a smaller international income inequality? The present paper seeks to answer these questions by employing the empirical model of Frankel and Romer (1999 ), which shows trade increases income growth in a cross section of 150 countries. We find evidence in support of the hypothesis that international trade benefits the lower income economies more than it benefits the higher income economies. This finding is robust in the presence of control variables including distance from the equator and institutional quality.     

A comprehensive look at luxury brand marketing research from 2000 to 2016: a bibliometric study and content analysis

The purpose of this study is to examine how scholarly research on luxury brand marketing has evolved in the twenty-first century. This literature review focuses on 242 articles related to luxury marketing. The contributions of these articles are thoroughly analyzed, combining qualitative interpretations with bibliometric citation analysis that uses a social network of referrals. This study identifies the most influential universities, research outlets, and scholars in the recent evolution of luxury marketing research. The study also identifies current and future research streams, geographic scope, and underlying research methodologies, and it reveals the most frequently used theories and prominent constructs in luxury marketing research. There are few studies that have examined the literature review of the luxury marketing discipline. No previous research has investigated luxury branding by means of a bibliometric analysis and qualitative assessment within such a large scope. Building on the results of this analysis, researchers can target their studies precisely and, thus, increase the contributions of their empirical research.

     

Causes and Remedies of the Japan's Long‐lasting Recession: Lessons for China

Japan has suffered from sluggish economic growth and recession since the early 1990s. In this paper, we analyze the causes of the prolonged slowdown of the Japanese economy (the lost decade). Economics Nobel laureate Paul Krugman has argued that Japan's lost decade is an example of a liquidity trap. However, our empirical analysis shows that stagnation of the Japanese economy comes from its vertical IS curve rather than a horizontal LM curve, so the Japanese economy has been facing structural problems rather than a temporary downturn. The vertical IS curve is caused by an insensitivity of investment to a lower interest rate partly because of the decline of sales due to the aging population and firms not wanting to invest. The structural problems come from the aging demographic, which is often neglected by scholars and policy‐makers, and also from the allocation of transfers from the central government to local governments, and the unwillingness of Japanese banks to lend money to startup businesses and small and medium enterprises (SMEs), mainly because of Basel capital requirements. Many countries, like China, are expected to face similar issues, particularly given the aging population. The present paper will address why the Japanese economy has been trapped in a prolonged slowdown and provide some remedies for revitalizing the economy.     

Adjustment in General Equilibrium: Some Industrial Evidence

The link between output changes and factor-mix adjustments in general equilibrium is examined for each of nine industries using pooled data from 12 developed countries over the years 1970–85. Specifications of the Stolper-Samuelson theorem and the specific-factors model of production are built on the assumptions and structure of theory with each industry isolated in turn. In their simplest version with only capital and labor input, these competitive general-equilibrium models explain a good deal of the observed variations in industrial factor mixes. The specific-factors model performs better.     

Front-Country Campers' Constraints,Negotiation, and Pro-Environment Behavioral Intention: An Extension to the Theory of Planned Behavior

The theory of planned behavior (TPB) has been successfully tested in leisure and outdoor recreation studies over the last few decades. However, the inclusion of new predictors to improve the theory's predictive power has been encouraged. Utilizing leisure constraints approach, we extended the TPB by adding constraints to the theory. The literature also suggested that individuals employ cognitive and behavioural negotiation strategies to overcome their constraints. Therefore, the influence of negotiation through the constraints was also explored in this study. A sample of 1,009 front-country campers was analyzed to test the proposed extension to the TPB. Results of structural equation modeling confirmed a strong, negative indirect association between constraints and intention. Negotiation was positively and indirectly associated with intention. The proposed extension to the TPB was capable of capturing 84% of variation in intention. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.