An experimental investigation of the Egyptian consumers’ attitudes towards surrealism in advertising

This study investigates Egyptian consumers’ attitudes towards surrealism in advertising held by a sample of 976 participants. An experimental approach was taken to establish the interaction between Surreal advertisements and product category attitudes. This interaction was found to be statistically significant. A 2 × 2 anova was conducted to evaluate the effect of sex on attitudes towards surrealism in advertising. The results indicated a significant interaction between advertisement type and sex. However, the impact of surrealism in advertisements on persuasion, as measured by consumers’ attitudes towards the advertisement and brand, was not found to be moderated by consumers’ social class/income. These results lend strong support to the advertisement adaptation hypothesis and suggest that advertisements produced in one country cannot be standardized or directly translated for use in another, particularly if they are culturally different.     

Gender diversity and earnings management: the case of female directors with financial background

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting - Past evidence generally suggests that the presence of female directors on corporate boards tends to improve earnings quality due to these...     

Business strategies and annual report readability

This study investigates the association between firm-level business strategy and the readability of narrative disclosures in annual reports. As business strategy affects the information environment and financial performance of firms, we expect the readability of narrative disclosures to vary with the particular business strategy that a firm pursues. In accord with this expectation, we find that firms with prospector-type business strategies produce less readable narratives, while those with defender-type business strategies produce more readable narratives. We also document that the association between strategy and readability is partially mediated by organisational performance, although the mediation effect is rather modest. These findings are robust when subjected to a series of sensitivity tests.     

Location-allocation problem for intra-transportation system in a big company by using meta-heuristic algorithm

This paper presents the location-allocation problem of parking facilities in Mobarakeh Steel Company. The aim is to find the optimal location for the parking facilities and allocate travels between departments to each parking facility. To optimize the cost and facing the transportation demands of all departments, a mathematical model is designed and solved by a commercial software package. Also, the number of vehicles allocated to each parking facility is determined. A hybrid meta-heuristic algorithm combining a genetic algorithm with parallel simulated annealing is developed which can be used even in more complicated structure of the problem. The results show that this hybrid algorithm is highly efficient in solving this kind of problems.     

Money laundering and audit fees

We investigate the association between state-level money laundering sentences and audit fees in the US. Money laundering measures a broad category of offenses involving financial transactions using funds or monetary instruments gained through criminal activities and tax evasion. We find that firms headquartered in US states with high rates of money laundering sentences pay more audit fees. Our results suggest that auditors incorporate, as a fee premium, the higher risks involved when clients operate in those states. Our result remains robust to alternative specifications of money laundering proxies, and to the inclusion of a number of firm-level and state-level control variables. We also conduct two-stage least squares and propensity score matching analysis to mitigate the endogeneity problem that might arise from omitted variables, reverse causality, or model misspecification problems.     

Firm life cycle,corporate risk‐taking and investor sentiment

This study investigates the corporate risk‐taking and the performance consequences at different stages of the firm life cycle. We find that risk‐taking is higher in the introduction and decline stages of the life cycle, but lower in the growth and mature stages. We also find that risk‐taking during introduction and decline stage (growth and maturity stage) affects future performance adversely (positively). We also document that managerial risk‐taking propensities increase during periods of high investor sentiment and firms in different life cycle stages respond to sentiment differently. Collectively, these results suggest that the firm life cycle has explanatory power for corporate risk‐taking behaviour.     

Using Analytic Hierarchy/Network Process (AHP/ANP) in Developing Countries: Shortcomings and Suggestions

This article intends to shed light on the problems arising in the benefit–cost (BC) analyses through the analytic hierarchy/network process (AHP/ANP) in developing countries when analysts may encounter lack of data, deficient databases, defective information, and, more important, the lack of groups of specialists with considerable expertise. In this article, through a comparison between the AHP/ANP and conventional engineering economy techniques, the major concerns that may be encountered are theoretically addressed. Then, through a real case project appraisal, the specific developing country-related issues that can distort the AHP/ANP results from the BC analysis are demonstrated.     

When liquidity risk becomes a systemic issue: Empirical evidence of bank behaviour

This article provides empirical evidence of behavioural responses by banks in the recent crisis. Using firm-specific balance sheet data, we construct aggregate indicators of systemic risk. Measures of size and herding show that balance sheet adjustments have been pro-cyclical in the crisis, while responses became increasingly dependent across banks and concentrated on certain market segments. Banks reacted less according to a pecking order, as an indication of reduced flexibility in their risk management opportunities. The behavioural indicators are useful tools for monetary and macro prudential analyses and can contribute to the micro foundations of financial stability models.