Dividend payout determinants for Australian Multinational and Domestic Corporations

I investigate the determinants of dividend payments for Australian Multinational Corporations (MCs) and Domestic Corporations (DCs). Six measures of dividend payout ratios are investigated, and five international factors are employed in addition to traditional factors. I find: MCs pay significantly less regular cash, special cash, total dividends and net dividends relative to DCs; the degree of foreign involvement is important in determining special cash and net dividend payments; MCs are more active than DCs in dividend increasing activities; and MCs are significantly less likely to be a dividend payer relative to DCs due to tax disadvantages coupled with unfavourable foreign risk exposures.     

An Empirical Alternative to Sidani and Thornberry’s (2009) ‘Current Arab Work Ethic’: Examining the Multidimensional Work Ethic Profile in an Arab Context

While the concept of work ethic has been discussed in the Arab context (Sidani and Thornberry in J Bus Eth 91(1):35–49, 2009), the significant conceptual and methodological limitations of the existing work ethic and work value research elucidate the need for a more robust investigation of the multidimensional work ethic construct in the Arab context. Multidimensionality of the work ethic concept has gained considerable attention in recent years as researchers attempt to move away from the religiously labeled Islamic and Protestant work ethic conceptualizations. The current study examines the Arab work ethic through the use of the multidimensional work ethic profile (MWEP) on a sample of future business leaders in the United Arab Emirates. A total of 484 business students completed an Arabic version of the MWEP short form. The results show that centrality of work and hard work are the highest scoring work ethics followed by self-reliance, wasted time, and leisure. There are significant differences in work ethic dimensions across gender and categories of family breadwinner. No significant differences in work ethic dimensions are observed across categories of nationality and work preference groups. The findings are discussed in relation to the unique insight they offer on the nature of work ethic in an Arab context.     

Credit Constraints,Technology Choice and Exports: A Firm‐level Study for Latin American Countries

In this paper, constraints on technology choice and credit access are introduced into a firm‐level trade model in a dynamic setting in order to explain factors that limit benefits to a firm from trade liberalization. Theoretical analysis shows that firms face credit constraints depending on their initial productivity and the cost of credit. As a result, credit‐constrained firms may not be able to cross the minimum productivity threshold needed to enter and compete in a foreign market. Empirical analysis using firm‐level panel data for six Latin American countries confirms that financial constraints negatively influence firms' export and investment decisions.     

Integrating sustainability practices into islamic corporate governance for sustainable firm performance: from the lens of agency and stakeholder theories

Quality & Quantity - While the literature indicates that Islamic Corporate Governance (ICG) practices enhance firm performance, there is scant research on how sustainability practices affect...     

Evolution of entrepreneurship and organizational configurations at Zildjian, 1623�C2010

This work uses a case-based research approach and Siggelkow’s (Acad Manag J 47:125–159, 2002) four-phase organizational configuration model to analyze Zildjian’s evolutionary growth and entrepreneurial initiatives in the global music industry. Zildjian is a unique and well-respected cymbal manufacturer that originated out of Turkey in 1623 and continues to be a major force in the music instruments sector. Turkey was a growing market during the periods of 1700 and 1800 that helped Zildjian to become an increasingly successful company. This also led to creating 13 generations of a successful family business. The work discusses Zildjian’s 387-year family genealogy and its growth within the domains of entrepreneurship, organizational configurations, and strategic inertia. The work finds that behind Zildjian’s marvelous expansion and well-known cymbals, there is a tightly knit family firm that continues to operate like an entrepreneurial venture, dealing with thousands of artists, musicians, educators, orchestras, and bands worldwide. As of 2011, the company may not be a large multinational corporation but its business model is a classic addition to the international entrepreneurship literature. Staunchly traditional in its family business, Zildjian thrives as a privately held company and protects its closely guarded metallurgical formula. The significance of this work lies in its unique methodology within the evolution of Zildjian’s entrepreneurial growth and organizational configurations.     

Dynamic spillover effects among tourism,economic growth and macro-finance risk factors

Portuguese Economic Journal - This paper examines spillover effects among international tourism growth, economic growth and a group of major macroeconomic and financial variables in the US. The...     

Foreign direct investments in developing countries: The openness hypothesis and policy implications

A cross-sectional time series model was estimated to explain the influence of the openness of an economy and political instability on gross inflow of foreign direct investments into developing countries. Results indicate positive relation between the openness of developing economies and the inflow of foreign direct investments and negative relation between political instability and the inflow of foreign direct investments. Research findings and policy implications are presented.     

Intraday trading volume and international spillover effects

The objective of this paper is to explore whether lagged trading activity in one market contributes to the return and volatility process in other markets, using 5-min concurrent data from German and British equity market. Our results lend support to our initial premise that if international investors have access to the same information set as domestic traders, then after observing foreign trading activity, market makers adjust prices to reflect their expectation of the security value, conditional upon all available information, including prior trades. Our findings clearly indicate that intraday trading volume contains predictive power for cross-border return and volatility processes. Moreover, these volume effects are found to be asymmetric in the sense that the impact of positive volume changes upon foreign stock market volatility is greater than is the impact of negative changes.