Competitive strategies,innovation, and firm performance: an empirical study in a developing economy environment

This paper studies the relationships between competitive strategies, innovation, and firm performance within the context of Turkish manufacturing companies. The data were collected from top management of the firms via Computer Assistant Telephone Interviewing method. One hundred and forty manufacturing firms operating in various sectors including textile, automotive supply, computer and electronics provide the basis for this empirical research. In order to test our model, we employ structural equation modelling using partial least squares. The results show that competitive strategies such as cost-leadership and differentiation can lead to innovation, which, in turn, increase firm performance. Managers implement cost-leadership and differentiation strategies to take part in competitive market conditions; however, they should put additional importance on innovation that plays a significant role as a bridge between competitive strategies and firm performance.     

The Effect of Word-of-Mouth Communication on Stock Holdings and Trades: Empirical Evidence From an Emerging Market

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between investors’ satisfaction and intention and word-of-mouth communication. This study contributes to the ongoing debate on the relationship between investor behavior and word-of-mouth communication. Many studies are related to investors’ participation and individual investors’ asset allocation decisions that are instigated by their social community via word-of-mouth communication whereas this study directly investigates the relationship between investment satisfaction and intention and word-of-mouth communication. We emphasize how many factors are considered when making satisfactory investment decisions. Our results confirm the strong relationship between the satisfaction and intention of investors and word-of-mouth communication. This finding may be useful to regulators, investors and managers who seek to establish effective rules for stock holdings and trade.     

A LONGITUDINAL STUDY OF CHANGE IN THE ENGLISH NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE

This paper reports the findings of a longitudinal comparative case study of three National Health Service (NHS) hospital Trusts in England, investigating the perceptions of clinical, managerial and accounting professionals towards changing cost accounting and performance measurement practices. It incorporates both qualitative and quantitative data analysis, and is based on a contextualist understanding of change management, utilising the content‐process‐context approach (Pettigrew and Lapsley, 1994) to investigate the influence of receptive versus non‐receptive contexts on change. The analysis reveals limited success in improving performance measurement practices (the content of change) in Trusts. Nevertheless the specific context within which change was operationalised was found to be very important, with central mangers playing a key role in influencing change. The process of change indicated slow shifts in clinical‐accountant‐managerial relations, partly driven by changes in financial flows within the organisations.     

Instability in the dividend policy of the Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE) corporations: evidence from an emerging market

Dividend policy behaviour of corporations operating in emerging markets is significantly different from the widely accepted dividend policy behaviour of corporations operating in developed markets. This study provides evidence from the Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE), an emerging European stock market, and analyses empirically whether the ISE corporations follow stable cash dividend policies in a regulatory environment that imposed mandatory dividend policies. Unlike the empirical results supporting the stable dividend policy behaviour of corporations operating in developed markets, the empirical results show that the ISE corporations follow unstable cash dividend policies and the main factor that determines the amount of cash dividends is the earnings of the corporation in that year.     

Nexus between Institutional Quality and Capital Inflows at Different Stages of Economic Development

We examine the determinants of capital inflows for a global sample of countries at various stages of economic development, namely factor‐, efficiency‐, and innovation‐driven stages. We investigate the effect of institutional quality on capital inflows. The magnitude of institutional quality effect depends on the stage of economic development. Both public and private institutional qualities positively affect capital inflows in efficiency‐ and innovation‐driven countries. Specifically, corporate ethics and accountability are pull factors for capital inflows at all stages.     

The relationship between burn-out and psychological resiliency levels of special education teachers in a developing economy

The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between burn-out and psychological resiliency levels of special education teachers based on some demographic variables. 70 special education teachers working at 7 special education schools affiliated to North Cyprus Ministry of Education Primary Education Management Office and 21 schools which has special education mainstreaming room participated in this research. The Maslach Burn-Out Scale was used in this study to determine burn-out levels of special education teachers while the Psychological Resiliency Scale for Adults was used to determine their psychological resiliency levels. The study revealed a negative relationship between family cohesion (a sub-dimension of psychological resiliency) and emotional burn-out and desensitization (the sub-dimensions of burn-out), and it found no significant difference for gender in terms of both variables. The emotional burn-out score (a sub-dimension of burn-out scale) differed significantly based on the daily working hours of teachers. There is however a significant difference between “structural style” scores (the sub-dimension of psychological resiliency) based on educational status, as well as between desensitization scores of special education teachers and age.

     

Income Heterogeneity in the Voluntary Provision of Dynamic Public Goods

This paper explores the effect of income inequality on the voluntary contributions to a dynamic public good. We find that income heterogeneity has a significant impact both on contributions and welfare. The results show that the often observed decay of cooperation does not carry over to the asymmetric environment considered in this study. Our results also suggest that subjects in each income class make different contribution amounts in an absolute sense and give the same percentage of their income. Moreover, we find that contributions of individuals with the same endowment are sensitive to how heterogeneous the environment is.     

Distinguishing between stochastic and deterministic behavior in high frequency foreign exchange rate returns: Can non-linear dynamics help forecasting?

This paper investigates the dynamic properties of high frequency foreign exchange rate returns. Using hourly data for four exchanges rates, the British Pound, the Deutschemark, the Japanese Yen and Swiss Franc, we attempt to differentiate between stochastic and deterministic behavior in hourly rates of returns. While the autocorrelation coefficients and the Brock-Dechert-Scheinkman test point to the presence of some non-linear dependence, correlation dimension estimates reveal little evidence in favor of low-dimensional chaos. The analysis appears to support the view that although it is not possible to exploit deterministic non-linear dependence in exchange rate time series in order to improve short-term forecasting, non-linear stochastic models can be used for conditional volatility forecasts.     

The effects of railroad development on price convergence among the states of the USA from 1866 to 1906

This study examines the effects of the reduced transaction costs on the price behaviours in the second half of the nineteenth century, where declines in transaction costs were mainly caused by railroad development during this period. It employs a panel test introduced by Levin and Lin (1992 Levin A Lin C 1992 Unit root tests in panel data: asymptotic and finite-sample properties Discussion Paper 92-93 University of California San Diego CA ) on the convergence of wheat and corn prices using a panel of 48 US states from 1866 to 1906. The results show that, by decreasing transportation costs, railroads played an important role in price convergence among states of the USA for wheat and corn during the postbellum period.     

Life Satisfaction and Longevity: Longitudinal Evidence from the German Socio‐Economic Panel

We investigate the relationship between life satisfaction and mortality using the German Socio‐Economic Panel, which allows us to follow around 15,000 people for more than two decades. Seventeen per cent of the respondents surveyed in 1984 died between 1984 and 2007. After controlling for initial health conditions, we find that people's life satisfaction at the beginning of the survey is deeply linked to their life expectancy: a ten per cent increase in life satisfaction is connected to a four per cent decline in the probability of death in the period studied. The relationship between life satisfaction and mortality is stronger for the married and the men but life satisfaction does not matter for the women. We find some suggestive evidence that links between life satisfaction and mortality could be operating via accidents and mental health. Finally, we show that the life satisfaction measured in 1984 extends to the rest of life: people who were happier in 1984 more frequently experienced high levels of happiness in the rest of their lives. These results suggest that life satisfaction is a powerful risk‐factor for later mortality and is more predictive of mortality than a host of other variables.