Mutual fund characteristics, managerial attributes, and fund performance

This study provides a comprehensive examination of recent mutual fund performance by analyzing a large set of both mutual funds and fund attributes in an effort to link performance to fund-specific characteristics. The results indicate that the hypothesized relationships between performance and the explanatory variables are generally upheld. After taking into consideration general market conditions and fund investment objective, the characteristic variables that relate to fund popularity, growth, cost, and management also explain performance. Finally, after controlling for survivorship and benchmark error as well as fund-specific factors, the results refute the performance persistence phenomenon.     

Careers in public sector science: orientations and implications

There is consensus that the world of science is changing (Ziman, 1994; see for example Nowotny et al., 2002). The environment in which scientists work is typified now as increasingly dynamic, managerialist and commercialised. This paper focuses on how scientists within different organisational and national contexts understand and enact their careers in the face of such changes. Based on empirical work in the UK and New Zealand, this paper introduces four career orientations evident in the career accounts of these participants. The categories are further analysed in terms of the key drivers to career: science, the organisation and the individual. Implications for career management are discussed in each section. In conclusion, the paper makes two related contributions. First, the evidence presented poses a challenge to highly individualised notions of the career actor central to current career thinking, instead revealing scientists' continued attachment to old institutional arrangements alongside new and emerging ways of understanding career. Second, with reference to the issue of career management of research scientists, the study highlights the need for those involved in management to look beyond employing organisations to other life interests, and science itself. It argues the need for those involved in career management to recognise the variety of legitimate ways to run a scientific career.     

Has Advertising Lost Its Meaning? Views of UK and US Millennials

The findings of a study of Millennials in USA and the UK—an increasingly important and digitally savvy segment of consumers—reveal that they see advertising as Companies promoting a product or service to people through media. Their perception is simple and all-encompassing with no evidence that they distinguish between different types of media or different types of communication. Some variation between the views of Millennials in the two countries is also identified, although this is less than expected. The findings contribute to an important and continuing debate among academics and marketing practitioners over how advertising should be defined in today’s multichannel environment. The findings are also compared with other recent definitions of advertising, and their implications are discussed.     

A Perspective‐Based Understanding of Project Success

Answering the call for alternative approaches to researching project management, we explore the evaluation of project success from a subjectivist perspective. An in‐depth, longitudinal case study of information systems development in a large manufacturing company was used to investigate how various project stakeholders subjectively perceived the project outcome and what evaluation criteria they drew on in doing so. A conceptual framework is developed for understanding and analyzing evaluations of project success, both formal and informal. The framework highlights how different stakeholder perspectives influence the perceived outcome(s) of a project, and how project evaluations may differ between stakeholders and across time.     

Maximizing your return on people

Though most traditional HR performance metrics don't predict organizational performance, alternatives simply have not existed--until now. During the past ten years, researchers Laurie Bassi and Daniel McMurrer have worked to develop a system that allows executives to assess human capital management (HCM) and to use those metrics both to predict organizational performance and to guide organizations' investments in people. The new framework is based on a core set of HCM drivers that fall into five major categories: leadership practices, employee engagement, knowledge accessibility, workforce optimization, and organizational learning capacity. By employing rigorously designed surveys to score a company on the range of HCM practices across the five categories, it's possible to benchmark organizational HCM capabilities, identify HCM strengths and weaknesses, and link improvements or back-sliding in specific HCM practices with improvements or shortcomings in organizational performance. The process requires determining a "maturity" score for each practice, based on a scale of 1 (low) to 5 (high). Over time, evolving maturity scores from multiple surveys can reveal progress in each of the HCM practices and help a company decide where to focus improvement efforts that will have a direct impact on performance. The authors draw from their work with American Standard, South Carolina's Beaufort County School District, and a bevy of financial firms to show how improving HCM scores led to increased sales, safety, academic test scores, and stock returns. Bassi and McMurrer urge HR departments to move beyond the usual metrics and begin using HCM measurement tools to gauge how well people are managed and developed throughout the organization. In this new role, according to the authors, HR can take on strategic responsibility and ensure that superior human capital management becomes central to the organization's culture.     

国际市场进入模式的选择决策模型研究

经济的全球化和信息的迅速发展为企业的国际化经营创造了良好的条件。企业的国际化经营又在很大程度上依赖于国际市场进入的模式。基于国际市场进入模式对于企业经营发展的重要性,本文分析了国际市场进入模式的主要影响因素,并在此基础上构建一个较为全面的国际市场进入模式综合决策模型。在具体操作层面上,拟采用模糊数学的工具提出国际市场进入模式的识别模式,为企业的国际化经营的实施提供战略指导。     

战略资产与持续竞争优势的建立

从战略资产的角度，研究了企业持续竞争优势的构建模式，阐述了战略资产的内涵和开发模式，并为企业寻求持续竞争优势提供建议。     

民营银行并购国有银行的动机、成本与风险探析

当前,在世界范围内特别是在发展中国家,掀起了一股民营银行并购国有银行的浪潮。这种并购容易产生现金流风险、信息不对称风险、政策诱导性风险、管理效率风险、并购失败风险。民营银行应通过以下措施和方法将风险消除,从而实现并购成功:结合银行实际,选用适合自身发展的并购方式;努力消除信息不对称;优化决策程序;妥善处理好与政府的关系。