Mixture cumulative count control chart for mixture geometric process characteristics

A statistical process control chart named the mixture cumulative count control chart (MCCC-chart) is suggested in this study, motivated by an existing control chart named cumulative count control chart (CCC-chart). The MCCC-chart is constructed based on the distribution function of a two component mixture of geometric distributions using the number of items inspected until a defective item is observed ‘n’ as plotting statistics. We have observed that the MCCC-chart has the ability to perform equivalent to the CCC-chart when number of defective items follows geometric distribution and better than the CCC-chart when the number of defective items produced by a process follows a mixture geometric model. The MCCC-chart may be considered as a generalized version of CCC-chart.     

Evaluation of risk communication for rural water supply management: a case study of a coastal area of Bangladesh

Consumption of safe drinking water is an important public health issue. In this study, we considered the risk communication topic of human health concerns related to unsafe water consumption in rural coastal areas of Bangladesh, where potable water is scarce. Our objective was to investigate the level of knowledge that rural residents had concerning safe water consumption and to evaluate the effects of risk communication on knowledge and behavior changes. We considered four rural villages of southwest coastal areas of Bangladesh as sample. This study was based on the results of a questionnaire survey administered before and after risk communication. The pre- and post-survey were conducted during August 2009 and March 2010, respectively. Data were collected from 120 women aged 18–60 years. Two format presentations, with and without water quality information, were used to convey the risk messages. In the present study, indicator bacterial (Escherichia coli) contamination levels in drinking water sources were considered as water quality information since absence of E. coli is the safety margin for the detection of disease-causing organisms. Analysis of the survey data revealed that risk communication can be vital to changes in water consumption knowledge and behavior. Overall general knowledge scores were almost same in the pre-survey for without- (mean score 3.16) and with-information (mean score 3.10) villages. However, after risk communication, there were detectable increases in the mean scores (mean scores, 3.54 and 3.64, respectively, on a 4 point scale) for both groups. Furthermore, risk communication with water quality information appears to be a more effective method of risk communication. Dissemination of risk messages was also higher in with-information villages. Seventy four percent of the participants from with-information villages reported that they had discussed the risk messages with family members and neighbors, compared to 59% of those from without-information villages. The results of this study revealed that age, education, and distance of water sources influence changes in consumption and maintenance behavior. These findings suggest that, in addition to installation of water supply facilities, there is a need to address the low levels of knowledge about safe water consumption in rural coastal communities of Bangladesh. Location specific water quality information may be more useful to convey health risk messages concerning unsafe drinking water consumption.     

An event study of price movements following realized jumps

Price jumps are mostly related to investor reactions to unexpected extreme news. We perform an event study of price movements after jumps to analyse if investors’ reactions are affected by psychological biases. We employ recent non-parametric methods based on intraday returns to separate large price movements that are related to unexpected news from those merely caused by periods of high volatility. In general, we find evidence for irrational pricing, which can be associated with investors’ optimistic behavior in a bull market and the pessimism prevailing in a bear market. Furthermore, our analysis confirms the conjecture that small firms are more subject to speculative trading than large firms.     

Corporate Social Responsibility–Oriented Compliances and SMEs Access to Global Market: Evidence from Bangladesh

The convergence of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate governance has immense impact on the participants in global supply chains. The global buyers and retailers tend to incorporate CSR in all stages of product manufacturing within their supply chains. The incorporated CSR thus creates the difficulty to small- and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises (SMEs). Incompetence in standardized CSR practices is an important issue that causes SMEs either losing their scope to access global market directly or serving as subcontractors to large enterprises. This article explores this issue by focusing on Bangladeshi SMEs under the CSR requirement of the important global buyer.     

Hotel Employees' Perception of the Statutory Minimum Wage Policy in Hong Kong

Employee compensation is one of the largest expenses for businesses. Given the labor-intensive nature of the hotel industry, hotel employees' perceptions of the statutory minimum wage (SMW) policy have become a major concern for hotel operators since the introduction of the policy in Hong Kong. This exploratory study examines these perceptions, together with hotel employees' job and compensation satisfaction and intention to leave, since the introduction of the SMW policy. A survey of 161 hotel employees in Hong Kong was carried out. Respondents demonstrated high awareness of the SMW policy but viewed its effect on the hotel industry as limited. The largest gap between the perceived importance of, and satisfaction with, a factor related to job satisfaction was found for the benefits package. As well as making a contribution to the academic literature, this study provides practical implications of the SMW policy for the hotel industry in Hong Kong and other countries considering adopting a similar measure.     

Interest rate,size and book-to-market effects in Australian financial firms

The Fama–French three-factor model (1993) has been extensively used to study the pricing of nonfinancial stocks. This study provides the first examination of the pricing of Australian financial stocks using the Fama–French framework. The four-factor model (market, size, book-to-market and momentum) augmented with the level, slope and curvature of the interest rate term structure is used to examine the pricing of Australian financial stocks. The interest rate factors have not been previously considered for pricing Australian stocks within the Fama–French framework. Consistent with US evidence, we use a system-based estimation to show that the size and book-to-market factors are not priced in the cross section of the equity returns of Australian financial stocks. Momentum and term spread are priced in the equity returns of both financial and nonfinancial stocks. These findings are robust to the inclusion of control variables such as default spread, the inflation rate and a dummy variable for the global financial crisis.     

Family Members' Projections of Each Other's Preference and Influence: A Two-Stage Conjoint Approach

Two important sources of error that may limit the accuracy of individual family members' projections of joint family preferences are: (i) misperceptions of other members' preferences, and (ii) misperceptions of other members' influence in joint family evaluations. We propose a two-stage conjoint approach to study these potential errors. Stage one compares family members' projections of each other's preferences to members' self-reported preferences. Stage two compares family members' projections of each other's influence to observed influence in joint family preferences. An empirical illustration shows that family members are relatively poor predictors of preference, but fairly accurate predictors of influence, in the area of family holiday preferences.     

Remittances and output in Bangladesh: an ARDL bounds testing approach to cointegration

Although the relationship between remittances and output is still inconclusive in literature, most studies find that remittances have a positive effect on output in the long run. Contrary to this conventional direction of causality from remittances to output, our study finds that output alone determined long-run movements in remittances in a positive direction in the Bangladesh economy over the last 35 years from 1976 to 2010. We use the autoregressive distributive lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach to cointegration to explore this long-run relationship. Surprisingly, remittances do not appear to be a long-run forcing variable to the explanation of Bangladesh’s output over the same period. While examining the channels of this output–remittance mechanism remains an area of research for the future, we hypothesize that the rise in remittances in response to increased income occurs through higher import demand and greater investment opportunities. This finding implies that Bangladeshi policymakers can influence remittances through national output in the long run.     

Antecedents of importer relationship performance in Latin America

Emerging market importers are increasingly engaging in relationships with foreign suppliers. Nevertheless, characteristics of the institutional and cultural environments of countries may affect relationship behavior. Furthermore, research on relationship marketing primarily focuses on the marketing activities of exporters from developed countries and much less attention is paid to the import side of the exchange process. Thus, the objective of this study is to empirically examine importer relationship performance in a Latin American context. This article proposes and tests a conceptual model that includes the antecedents and outcomes of trust and commitment with a survey of Chilean importers. The model uses confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to develop the construct measures and structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the model. The findings of this study contribute to a better understanding of the driving forces of trust and commitment and their influence on importing firms' performance in an emerging market context.