Third-Country Exchange Rate Volatility and Pakistan-U.S. Trade at Commodity Level

We add to the literature on the “Third-Country” effect by assessing the impact of rupee-dollar volatility on 116 U.S. industries that export to Pakistan and 53 U.S. industries that import from Pakistan. As two measures of “Third-Country” effects, we include volatility measures of rupee-yuan and dollar-yuan rates due to the increased role of China in the global economy. We find evidence of “Third-Country” effects in more than half of the industries. Among affected industries are many of the large U.S. exporting industries, but not large U.S. importing industries.     

Knowledge of three regeneration programs and application behavior among Mississippi nonindustrial private forest landowners: A two-step sample selection approach

Various public financial assistance programs are available to nonindustrial private forest (NIPF) landowners in the United States. Many landowners have limited knowledge of these programs and have not utilized them. This study employed a two-step sample selection model to examine the determinants of NIPF landowner knowledge of three regeneration programs, and conditional on their knowledge, the determinants of the application frequency to these programs since 1996. Data were collected using a phone survey of NIPF landowners in Mississippi. The survey revealed that among these qualified landowners who had clearcut in the past 10 years, about 50% knew of one or more of the programs. Their application frequencies to individual programs ranged from 0 to 5. Landowner knowledge of the programs was positively related to land size, regeneration experience, gender, and membership in forestry associations. For landowners who knew of these programs, application frequencies were higher for those that had less acreage, had lower education or income, were fully employed, were female, or had no membership in forestry organizations.     

Investment appraisal practices: A comparative study of conventional and Islamic financial institutions

This paper compares the use of capital budgeting techniques of conventional and Islamic financial institutions, using data obtained from a survey of 105 conventional and Islamic financial institutions. Our main aim is to analyze the use of capital budgeting and risk techniques by the two types of financial institutions from a comparative perspective to see whether prohibition of riba makes a difference. Standard difference-of-means tests of the mean scores methods were used to test the hypotheses of the study. The results reveal a number of important conclusions. First, discounted cash flow techniques are found to be more widely used by financial institutions, and among those techniques internal rate of return is the most common. Second, Islamic financial institutions are found to adopt traditional methods that do not comply with the principles of Islamic Sharia'a. Third, a huge gap is found between the theory base of Islamic institutions and some of the practices of those institutions. Fourth, firms' characteristics, such as size, listing status, sources of revenue and government ownership, have some impact on their decisions to adopt capital budgeting criteria, methods of estimating costs of capital and risk. Finally, the decisions to select particular capital budgeting techniques, cost of capital estimation methods, and risk assessments are partly related to the characteristics of the chief financial officers.     

It's not me,it's you: Testing a moderated mediation model of subordinate deviance and abusive supervision through the self‐regulatory perspective

Synthesizing self‐regulatory theories, we provide new insights into the antecedents of abusive supervision. We, from the perspective of supervisor's self‐regulatory resources depletion or impairment, introduce supervisor hindrance stress as an underlying mechanism of the subordinate deviance–abusive supervision relationship: this mediated relationship will be intensified at the level of high subordinate job performance. In addition, we develop a complex contingency model and propose a three‐way interaction (i.e., subordinate deviance, job performance, supervisor outcome dependence) to obtain the complete understanding of the subordinate deviance–abusive supervision relationship facilitated through the supervisors’ hindrance stress. To test our moderated moderated mediation model, we gathered time‐lagged and multisource data from a large food service company located in southern China. We collected data at two different points (i.e., Time 1 and Time 2) from supervisors and their direct reports (N = 298 responses from 68 supervisors and 298 direct reports), and findings provide support for the hypothesized moderated moderated mediation model of our study. We highlight the implications of our study for theory, research, and practice.     

Consumer acceptance of delivery drones in urban areas

The concept of drone usage for commercial purposes by retailers worldwide is still in its early stages, and unheard of in Pakistan. Moreover, research on consumer perceptions regarding commercial drones in Pakistan and around the world is very sparse. The purpose of this paper is to gauge the level of acceptability and concerns Pakistani consumers may have in accepting the drone delivery technology. This study offers new insights that retailers and delivery companies can use to penetrate target markets in early stages. The authors have executed a quantitative analysis through the means of a survey. A sample of middle‐ and upper class residents of two cities in Pakistan was selected on which purposive sampling technique was applied. A total of 307 responses were collected and these responses were analysed in SPSS. Various analysis techniques were applied including Cronbach’s alpha, the Pearson correlation analysis, regression analysis and cluster analysis. The results show that consumers in Pakistan perceive privacy issues as a primary concern in relation to drone delivery. The results also throw light on the profile of consumer segments that can be targeted by retailers who may desire to use the drone delivery technology in the near future. Using these findings, retailers using the drone delivery mechanism can address consumer’s fears and ambiguities. Retailers can resolve consumer concerns by designing pro‐privacy parameters in the initial service design stage and the infrastructure deployment of drones.     

Accountable to Whom? Rethinking the Role of Corporations in Political CSR

According to Palazzo and Scherer, the changing role of business corporations in society requires that we take new measures to integrate these organizations into society-wide processes of democratic governance. We argue that their model of integration has a fundamental problem. Instead of treating business corporations as agents that must be held accountable to the democratic reasoning of affected parties, it treats corporations as agents who can hold others accountable. In our terminology, it treats business corporations as “supervising authorities” rather than “functionaries.” The result is that Palazzo and Scherer’s model does not actually address the democratic deficit that it is meant to solve. In order to fix the problem, we advocate removing business corporations from any policymaking role in political CSR and limiting participation to political NGOs and other groups that meet the standards we set out for a politically representative organization (PRO).     

Can a path to peace promote export growth? Evidence from Pakistan and its trading partners

Quality & Quantity - This study has investigated the connection between peace and performance of Pakistan’s export sector. The interstates conflicts, terrorist activities and war elements...     

Analysis of capacity constraints on the backlog bullwhip effect in the two-tier supply chain: a Taguchi approach

This paper investigates the impact of capacity constraints and safety stock on the backlog bullwhip effect in a model of a two-tier supply chain. One of the most commonly applied methodologies to study the various aspects of the Beer Game model is the control theoretic technique. It is clear that these control theoretic models are linear and cannot deal with non-linearities, such as capacity constraints. Thereafter, simulation experiments together with Taguchi design of experiments are performed to study non-linear impacts of capacity constraints in a two-tier supply chain. This research gives supply chain operations’ managers and designers a practical way to develop a trade-off between capacity and safety stock at different echelons and to take better decisions about their capacity and safety stocks. Future work should investigate the total cost implications of capacity constraints and safety stocks in a multi-echelon supply chain.     

Resort hotel service performance (RESERVE) – an instrument to measure tourists’ perceived service performance of resort hotels

Based upon a rigorous psychometric process of scale development through preliminary qualitative studies and a subsequent survey in the resort hotel setting, the authors propose the RESERVE scale as a comprehensive instrument for assessing resort hotel service performance. The proposed scale conceptualizes resort hotel service performance as a second-order, three-dimensional construct that assesses tourists' perceptions of setting, audience, and actors. The data supports the dimensional structure of RESERVE, providing empirical evidence for the scale's validity. The paper concludes with a discussion of implications and future research directions.     

Trade implications of the Euro in EMU countries: a panel gravity analysis

In this paper, we study the intra-EMU and intra-Eurozone trade effects of the euro adoption on 29 European Economic and Monetary Union countries (including 17 Eurozone economies and Iceland) from the period 1994 through 2011. We employ a generalized gravity model that controls for an extended set of trade theory and policy variables. The gravity model is estimated using the robust panel data techniques that includes times effects, besides country-specific effects. The various econometric specifications of the gravity equation, on the whole dataset of 29 economies, yield positive and significant impact (to be around 14 %) of the euro currency adoption on bilateral trade flows. Next, euro effect on bilateral trade and exports on a smaller dataset is estimated. The estimated results suggest that bilateral trade and exports increase by 20.81 and 18.57 %, respectively, when both the countries belong to the Eurozone. This effect is larger than the one obtained when only one of the two trading partners uses the euro as its currency. In addition, the validity of the assumptions of Heckscher–Ohlin (H–O) theory are checked for the countries under study. The estimated results reject the H–O theory in favor of Modern Trade theories. However, the low value of the coefficient on respective variable suggests that, over the period, the type of trade among these countries has transited from inter-industry trade to horizontal intra-industry trade. This suggests that these developed European economies are on the path of economic convergence via intra-industry trade.