An examination of the relationship among consumer lifestyles,ethnocentrism, knowledge structures,attitudes and behavioural tendencies: a comparative study in two CIS states

The objective of this study is to investigate ethnocentric and/or regiocentric behaviour of Azeri and Kyrgyz consumers. In particular, the study focuses on how ethnocentrism explains consumers' attitudes, intentions and actual purchasing behaviour towards products from major sourcing countries. Data for the study were collected through personal interviews in four districts of Greater Bishkek: the capital city of Kyrgyz Republic, and Baku, the capital city of Azerbaijan. Survey findings lend greater support to earlier studies conducted in the USA, Western and Eastern Europe and Japan. Non-ethnocentric Kyrgyz and Azeri consumers have significantly more favourable belief structures, attitudes, intentions and the resultant purchasing behaviour regarding imported products compared to their ethnocentric Azeri and Kyrgyz consumer counterparts. The findings of the study offer important research, public policy and managerial implications for companies, government agencies and international donor agencies alike who are either operating in the region or contemplating an entry in the future. Foreign companies may use pan-regional marketing strategies and may be able to standardise their products and marketing strategies in the region, since consumers have identical and/or very similar use behaviour and uses for the products and services.     

House Prices and Inflation

The present paper examines the long-run impact of inflation on homeowner equity by investigating the relationship between house prices and the prices of nonhousing goods and services, rather than return series and inflation rates as in previous empirical studies on the inflation hedging ability of real estate. There are two reasons for this methodological departure from prior practice: (1) while the total return on housing cannot be accurately measured, the total return on housing is fully reflected in housing prices, and (2) given that using returns or differencing a time series leads to a loss of long-run information contained in the series, valuable long-run information can be captured by using prices. Also, unlike previous related studies, we exclude housing costs from goods and services prices to avoid potential bias in estimating how inflation affects housing prices. Monthly data series are collected for existing and for new house prices as well as the consumer price index excluding housing costs for the period 1968–2000. Based on both autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) models and recursive regressions, the empirical results yield estimated Fisher coefficients that are consistently greater than one over the sample period. Thus, we infer that house prices are a stable inflation hedge in the long run.     

The Impact of Innovativeness and Development Time on New Product Performance for Small Firms

Timing is becoming a new source of competitive advantage. The business press extols the benefits of faster product development. This paper examines whether competitive advantage can be gained by reducing development time across all types of new products or whether this advantage is restricted to certain types of new products. It proposes that product innovativeness moderates the relationship between development time and initial market performance. A survey of 110 small manufacturing firms in computer related industries supports the hypothesis. The survey findings indicate that a firm must guard against over- or under-development of the new product since product innovativeness was found to influence the impact of development time on market performance. The implications for managers are: beware of bringing a new product that is too much, too early or too little, too late.     

The Distributional Properties of the Debt to Equity Ratio: Some Implications for Empirical Research

The purpose here is to assess empirically the quasi-supply side model of the firm developed in the paper by Ashton et al. (2004 ) by testing the prediction of the model that the evolution of a firm's debt to equity ratio will be compatible with a non-linear (target adjustment) process whose underlying probability density function possesses no convergent moments. Using a thirty-two-year history of the debt to equity ratio for each of ninety 'mature' United Kingdom firms, a non-parametric estimation procedure shows that the debt to equity ratio evolves in terms of a process which is largely consistent with the predictions of this model. In particular, the evolution of the debt to equity ratio is compatible with a 'long (fat) tailed' density function with no convergent moments. This has the important implication, supported by our empirical analysis, that the linear dynamic models which characterize empirical work in this area will be mis-specified and will return inconsistent and temporally unstable estimates of the target adjustment process as a consequence.     

Intraday volume and volatility relations with and without public news

This paper reexamines the dynamic relation between intraday trading volume and return volatility of large and small NYSE stocks in two partitioned samples, with and without identifiable public news. We argue that the sequential information arrival hypothesis (SIAH) can be tested only in periods containing public news. After partitioning the sample into periods with and without public news, we find bi-directional Granger-causality between volume and volatility in the presence of public information as hypothesized by the SIAH. Our analysis further suggests that return volatility is higher in the periods with public news, while trading volume is significantly higher in the no-news period; perhaps owing to the importance of private information for trading stocks. Using the sample without public news, we find evidence that volume Granger-causes volatility without feedback. These results are broadly consistent with behavioral models like the overconfidence and biased self-attribution model of [Daniel, K., Hirshleifer, D., Subrahmanyam, A., 1998. Investor psychology and security market under- and over-reactions. Journal of Finance 53, 1839–1885]. It appears that overconfident investors overrate the precision of their private news signals and therefore trade too aggressively in the absence of public news; when public news arrives, investors’ biased self-attribution triggers excessive return volatility.     

Injuries and their burden in insured construction workers in Iran, 2012

The present study used disability adjusted life years (DALY) to estimate the burden of external cause of injuries in construction workers insured in Iran in 2012. The Global Burden of Disease method (2010) was used to estimate the years of life lost due to death (YLL) and years of life lost due to disability (YLD). DALY was calculated as the sum of YLL and YLD. There were 5352 injured construction workers in Iran (11.25 individuals per 1000). Falling was the most common incidence and included 2490 individuals (46.53%). Totally, DALY was estimated 18,557 years for all age groups and both genders including 17,821 YLD (96%) and 736 YLL (4%). The DALY related to construction work is high in Iran and it has notably affected the young. Hence more preventive methods should be applied to reduce the overall burden of specific external cause of injuries especially in young and inexperienced workers.     

You May Not Reap What You Sow: How Employees’ Moral Awareness Minimizes Ethical Leadership’s Positive Impact on Workplace Deviance

Although a growing body of research has shown the positive impact of ethical leadership on workplace deviance, questions remain as to whether its benefits are consistent across all situations. In this investigation, we explore an important boundary condition of ethical leadership by exploring how employees’ moral awareness may lessen the need for ethical leadership. Drawing on substitutes for leadership theory, we suggest that when individuals already possess a heightened level of moral awareness, ethical leadership’s role in reducing deviant actions may be reduced. However, when individuals lack this strong moral disposition, ethical leadership may be instrumental in inspiring them to reduce their deviant actions. To enhance the external validity and generalizability of our findings, the current research used two large field samples of working professionals in both Turkey and the USA. Results suggest that ethical leadership’s positive influence on workplace deviance is dependent upon the individual’s moral awareness—helpful for those employees whose moral awareness is low, but not high. Thus, our investigation helps to build theory around the contingencies of ethical leadership and the specific audience for whom it may be more (or less) influential.     

Good governance,innovation, economic growth and the stock market turnover rate

This study is primarily aimed at testing the theory of good governance in the group of eight developing Islamic countries. Using a panel data regression model, we examined the data to determine the relationship between political economy and economic development of eight countries, for the period 2005 to 2014. The results show a significant positive correlation between the rule of law, corruption control with economic growth and stock market turnover rate proxy. The examination through an artificial neural network resulted in a higher determination coefficient and less average standard error. This, in turn, reveals that the fitting power and efficiency of this method is higher than the panel data regression model. Furthermore, the findings of this study suggest that the application of good governance theory calls for more inquiry.     

Experience, information asymmetry, and rational forecast bias

This study examines whether it is ever rational for analysts to post biased estimates and how information asymmetry and analyst experience factor into the decision. Using a construct where analysts wish to minimize their forecasting error, we model forecasted earnings when analysts combine private information with consensus estimates to determine the optimal forecast bias, i.e., the deviation from the consensus. We show that the analyst??s rational bias increases with information asymmetry, but is concavely related with experience. Novice analysts post estimates similar to the consensus but as they become more experienced and develop private information channels, their estimates become biased and deviated from the consensus. Highly seasoned analysts, who have superior analytical skills and valuable relationships, need not post biased forecasts.     

An Investigation of the Association between Cultural Dimensions and Variations in Perceived Use of and Compliance with Internal Auditing Standards in 19 Countries

Using a large sample of chief audit executives and internal audit managers from 19 countries, we investigate potential associations between cultural dimensions and variations in perceived use/compliance with the internal auditing standards. We find uncertainty avoidance to be inversely related to both use and compliance. We also find assertiveness and human orientation to be positively related to compliance but not to use of Standards. Among control variables, we find positive associations for the length of Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) membership, professional certification in internal auditing, and hours of continuing professional education (CPE) training on both perceived use and compliance. Finally, we find “Cost of compliance” and “Compliance not expected in my country” to be inversely related to perceived use/compliance. Implications of these findings are discussed.