Ethical orientations of managers in Malaysia

In view of the heightened societal attention to the ethical aspects of business behaviour, there has been, in recent years, a great deal of discussion regarding individual and organisational factors influencing managerial decision making. The main focus of this paper is on understanding the attitudes of managers toward ethical dimension of their choices and judgments, as also the forces that pressurise, provide them with opportunities, or contribute to shaping their intentions, for ethical or unethical actions. Findings reported here are based on a questionnaire-survey of 381 managers from 41 commercial organisations in Malaysia.Dr. J. L. Gupta is Professor at National Institute of Bank Management (NIBM), Pune, India. He has authored two books on management and has published several research articles on the subject of Leadership and Ethics. His teaching and research interests lie in the areas of Organisational Behaviour and Human Resource Development.Mohamed Sulaiman is Professor of Management at University of Science Malaysia (USM), Penang. He has authored several research monographs and published articles in reputed business journals. His teaching and research interests lie in the areas of Corporate Policy and Strategic Management, Organisation Design and Marketing. Dr Mohamed Sulaiman is currently the Dean of School of Management, USM.     

Applying Case-Based Reasoning to the Accounting Domain

Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) is rapidly emerging as a rich and powerful artificial intelligence approach that can overcome some inherent weaknesses of traditional expert system technology. Several successful CBR systems have been developed in a variety of fields and CBR applications are beginning to emerge in accounting research and practice as well. As sophisticated and user-friendly CBR shells emerge, CBR is more likely to be used to solve complex, real-world problems. This paper provides a broad overview of case-based systems and the principles on which the field is founded. Accounting applications of case-based reasoning and future research issues are identified.     

Diffusing knowledge-based core competencies for leveraging innovation strategies: Modelling outsourcing to knowledge process organizations (KPOs) in pharmaceutical networks

As pharmaceutical firms try to market their products and reduce costs, vertically integrated structures hamper innovation processes. Yet, pharmaceutical firms must innovate to compete. Outsourcing knowledge intensive activities to knowledge process organizations (KPOs) serves to reduce innovation process obstacles. Grounded in diffusion theory and strategic management literature, this conceptual paper explores four interrelated strategic concepts: core competencies, economies of scale and scope, knowledge sharing, and learning. This paper claims that (a) accumulated core competencies of multinational pharmaceutical companies (MPCs) erode over time and these companies become dependent on KPOs (b) MPCs must understand how KPOs manage core competencies (c) economies of scope benefit KPOs enabling them to sustain competitive advantages for their MPC partners, meanwhile the benefits from economies of both scale and scope shift from MPCs to KPOs (d) KPOs need to monitor their rate of learning to remain competitive. The paper identifies implications for industrial managers and directions for future research.     

Congruence between technology and compensation systems: implications for strategy implementation

This paper examines the interactive relationship between the use of integrated manufacturing and compensation practices in predicting several aspects of plant performance in the concrete pipe industry. We predicted that compensation practices reinforcing collective effort, teamwork, and flexibility (team incentives and skill-based pay) enhance the effectiveness of integrated manufacturing systems (total quality management and advanced manufacturing technology), while practices inhibiting cooperation and teamwork among employees (individual incentives and seniority-based pay) impede it. Results provide moderate support for the congruence model across several measures of plant effectiveness (labor hours per ton, lost-time accidents, perceptual performance, and customer satisfaction). Implications of the research are addressed. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An exact test for a column of the covariance matrix based on a single observation

In this paper, we derive an exact test for a column of the covariance matrix. The test statistic is calculated by using a single observation. The exact distributions of the test statistic are derived under both the null and alternative hypotheses. We also obtain an analytical expression of the power function of the test for the equality of a column of the covariance matrix to a given vector. It is shown that the information contained in a single vector is large enough to ensure a good performance of the test. Moreover, the suggested test can be applied for time-dependent multivariate Gaussian processes.     

Optimal pricing and advertising strategy for introducing a new business product with threat of competitive entry

The problem of optimal joint pricing and advertising decision making for a new product facing potential competitive entry has received inadequate attention. We propose a model that attempts to find the optimal price-advertising frontier in the face of potential competitive entry that maximizes total discounted profits for pre- and post-entry periods. We find that a firm would charge the price that equates price elasticity to marginal revenue product of advertising (as predicted by [Dorfman, R. and Steiner, P.O. (1954), Optimal Advertising and Optimal Quality, American Economic Review, 44(5), 826-836.]) only when the potential effects of pricing and advertising on its market share are not considered. Under optimal conditions, aware that market share is subject to erosion, the firm charges a somewhat lower price than the profit maximizing price, and sets an advertisement expense that is somewhat higher than the profit-maximizing advertising level as predicted by Cournot's monopolistic setting. We illustrate the applicability of our model using business product examples taken from several industries including operating systems, software, pharmaceutical, and telephone switching. Directions for future research with implications for B2B managers (for example, the possible effects of preannouncement to forestall competitive entry) are discussed.     

Machine Learning Predictions of Housing Market Synchronization across US States: The Role of Uncertainty

The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics - We analyze the role of macroeconomic uncertainty in predicting synchronization in housing price movements across all the United States (US) states...     

Monotonicity of the (reversed) hazard rate of the (maximum) minimum in bivariate distributions

It is well known that in the case of independent random variables, the (reversed) hazard rate of the (maximum) minimum of two random variables is the sum of the individual (reversed) hazard rates and hence the onotonicity of the (reversed) hazard rate of the marginals is preserved by the monotonicity of the (reversed) hazard rate of the (maximum) minimum. However, for the bivariate distributions this property is not always preserved. In this paper, we study the monotonicity of the (reversed) hazard rate of the (maximum) minimum for two well known families of bivariate distributions viz the Farlie-Gumbel-Morgenstern (FGM) and Sarmanov family. In case of the FGM family, we obtain the (reversed) hazard rate of the (maximum) minimum and provide several examples in some of which the (reversed) hazard rate is monotonic and in others it is non-monotonic. In the case of Sarmanov family the (reversed) hazard rate of the (maximum) minimum may not be expressed in a compact form in general. We consider some examples to illustrate the procedureResearch of the second author is supported by a grant from Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and the research of the other two authors is partially supported by a travel grant from the Canadian American Center of the University of Maine