Optimal versus adequate level of international reserves: evidence for Turkey

The determination of international reserve balance for emerging economies is part of the efforts to strengthen the immunity of these economies to crises. However, there is still evidence on crises even for the countries with large foreign reserves. It has usually been experienced that the countries with greatest need for reserves economize more than others on their holdings since they might underestimate the cost of crisis. In this study, the official international reserves of Turkey are tested against optimality and adequacy. During 1988–2002, the actual reserves fell short of both the optimal and the adequate levels. They are only optimal when the expected cumulative contraction is about 5.2% of real GDP under crisis. However, early evidence from emerging economies and Turkey show that crises hit more heavily. Hence, it is found that the current financial structure in Turkey such as the absence of capital controls and a highly dollarized banking system necessitates more foreign reserves for preventing any future economic and/or financial shocks.     

Inventory management effects,isolated: Evidence from the federal funds market

The federal funds market is highly competitive, has uniform information, and does not have most order-processing cost components of equity markets. Hence, it provides an opportunity to study the effect of inventory management on the bid-ask spread in an isolated fashion. Using a unique data set of daily borrowing and lending federal funds quotes posted by a large commercial bank, we find that the bank maintains a fairly constant bid-ask spread throughout a two-week reserve maintenance period. It acts similarly to a market maker facilitating flow of funds between depository institutions throughout the reserve maintenance period. The bank becomes more active toward the end of the period. In particular, on settlement Wednesday it increases the bid and ask quotes relative to the effective federal funds rate in an apparent attempt to manage its reserve inventory and satisfy its own reserve requirements.     

Examining the role of leadership,trust for school culture and policy

Quality of life relies on also the quality of working context and the group dynamic. Culture of schools, trust and leadership facilitate quality in fostering strategic policies in establishing policy and development. The aim of the research study is to examine the role of leadership, trust for school culture in regard to the perceptions of inspectors. As this research stands on qualitative nature, experiences, perceptions of research participants shape the current understanding to give insights on the role of leadership, trust. In addition, establishing school culture is a part of quality to set policy in terms of development, inspection is a moderation of encapsulating the nature of school culture. Interview was employed to gain understanding and experiences of inspectors in relation to leadership, trust for the school culture. Mission, vision of schools, principles of schools, loyalty to schools, policies, objectives of practices in schools, social interaction in schools. Thematic analysis through laddering was done that five themes were established in examining leadership, trust in the school culture. It is important that employees in the training organization act in a joint view on implementing educational objectives. This is achieved by developing positive attitudes in people and by being able to act constructively with each other. The research results revealed that the inspectors who are currently working at the Ministry of National Education have their views on the mission, vision and leadership of schools and what they think about school culture trust in schools.

     

Leadership styles and ethical decision-making in hospitality management

This study examined the ways in which hospitality leaders in Australia seek to influence others in the workplace. One hundred and thirty three hotel managers participated in this study, of which 91 provided answers to all questions. The results indicate that the prevailing leadership styles in Australia are a blend of Machiavellian and Bureaucratic styles and that variance in this choice correlates with the age of the respondent. That is, older managers are less inclined to use a utilitarian or rule-based ethical decision-making style, and more inclined to embrace a social contract or personalistic ethic approach.     

Marketing “Frankenfood”

ABSTRACT

Most visual package research in marketing to date tests only the main effects of certain visual package elements in artificially isolated experimental contexts, though, in the store, these elements are presented to the shopper in active visual circumstances. Most food packages are highly cluttered with a number of visual and text elements all competing for the shopper's limited attention; this calls into question the external validity, and therefore the usability for practitioner purposes, of these results. Given that marketers often rely on a single visual element as the sole carrier of some particular promotional message, it is critical to ascertain whether single visual elements can break through such visual clutter to effectively deliver their promotional messages to the shopper. In this study, we manipulate the level of background activity of packages while testing the ability of one visual package element—its overall shape—to affect one particular piece of package information of concern to food shoppers— appearance of size or volume. Surprisingly, our results show that the main effect of package shape type on volume perception not only remains robust under visually cluttered conditions, but that the effect is actually heightened for certain, more geometrically complex package shape types. Managerial implications are discussed.     

Why Do Firms Issue Equity after Splitting Stocks?

This paper examines the motivations of firms that conduct seasoned equity offerings (SEOs) after splitting stocks. We find no difference in equity announcement and issue period returns between these firms and other equity‐issuing firms, suggesting that firms do not split stocks to reveal information and reduce adverse selection costs at the subsequent SEO. However, because investors react positively to split announcements, firms that issue equity after splitting stocks sell new shares at a higher price and raise more funds. We also find that firms split stocks to make the subsequent SEO more marketable to individual investors who are attracted to low‐priced shares.     

Hierarchical multimodal hub location problem with time-definite deliveries

Hierarchical multimodal hub location problem is a cost-minimizing hub covering problem where two types of hubs and hub links, accounting for ground and air transportation, are to be established, while ensuring time-definite deliveries. We propose a mixed-integer programming formulation and perform a comprehensive sensitivity analysis on the Turkish network. We show that the locations of airport hubs are less sensitive to the cost parameters compared to the locations of ground hubs and it is possible to improve the service quality at not much additional cost in the resulting multimodal networks. Our methodology provides the means for a detailed trade-off analysis.     

Contracting costs and the window of opportunity for straight debt issues

We analyze whether fluctuation in economy-wide factors cause time-series variation in the contracting costs of moral hazard, adverse selection, and financial distress for a sample of straight debt issues. We find that the announcement period abnormal returns to debt issues are more negative in periods of higher interest rates and in industry downturns. When we partition the impact of each issue- and firm-specific measure of contracting costs across high and low levels of each economy-wide variable, we find that only the measures of agency cost are significant in general, and measures of financial distress become relevant for those debt issues that constitute a leverage increase for the firms.     

Skinner's Naturalism as a Paradigm for Teaching Business Ethics: A Discussion from Tourism

This paper introduces for discussion a paradigmfor teaching ethics in business courses basedon the system known as naturalistic ethics. Aform of naturalistic ethics based on the valuesystem proposed by B. F. Skinner is suggestedas a framework suitable for the multi-faceted,cross-cultural, and global nature of the moderncorporation. The relevant literature on tourismand hospitality ethics and the more recentstudies on business ethics education arereviewed. An interpretation of Skinner's systemis given, and its suitability as a frameworkfor ethics education in business courses isaddressed.     

Complex adaptive system mechanisms,adaptive management practices,and firm product innovativeness

As a fascinating concept, the mechanisms of complex adaptive system (CAS) attracted many researchers from a variety of disciplines. Nevertheless, how the mechanism‐related variables, such as strategic resonance, accreting nodes, pattern forming, and catalytic behavior of organization, impact the firm product innovativeness is rarely addressed empirically in the new product development (NPD) literature. Also, there exist limited studies on the antecedents of the mechanisms of CAS in the NPD literature. In this respect, we identified and operationalized the adaptive management practices, which involve bonding, nonlinear, and attractor behaviors of management, as antecedents of mechanisms and firm product innovativeness. By studying 235 firms, we found that (1) strategic resonance and accreting nodes are positively related to firm product innovativeness, (2) bonding, nonlinear, and attractor behaviors of management positively influence the mechanism variables, and (3) market and technology turbulence impact the adaptive management practices. We also found that mechanisms of CAS partially mediate the relationship between adaptive management practices and firm product innovativeness.