Tolga Umut Kuzubas, Burak Saltoğlu, Ayberk Sert and Ayhan Yüksel
The purpose of this paper is to provide an in-depth performance evaluation of funds offered by the Turkish pension system.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide an in-depth performance evaluation of funds offered by the Turkish pension system.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper compares aggregate fund index returns with the corresponding asset class returns, estimates a factor model to decompose excess returns to factor exposures, i.e., β return and excess return originating from residual α and analyzes persistence of fund returns using migration tables and Fama–MacBeth regressions and tests for market timing ability.
Findings
Majority of pension funds are unable to generate excess returns. Majority of funds are unable to generate a positive α and fund returns are predominantly driven factor exposures. There is evidence for slight persistence in returns, mainly due to factor exposures and funds do not exhibit market timing ability.
Originality/value
In this paper, the authors perform an in-depth analysis of pension fund performance for the Turkish pension fund system. The authors identify weaknesses and strengths of the pension fund industry and provide policy recommendations for a better design of pension fund system.
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Erhan Atay and Jane Lai Yee Terpstra-Tong
Taking the deadliest mine accident in Turkey’s history as a case of corporate social irresponsibility (CSI), this study aims to examine the adequacy of Campbell’s (2007) model to…
Abstract
Purpose
Taking the deadliest mine accident in Turkey’s history as a case of corporate social irresponsibility (CSI), this study aims to examine the adequacy of Campbell’s (2007) model to explain firms’ CSI behaviour.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors applied a case study research method and collected secondary data in both English and Turkish from multiple sources between 2010 and 2017.
Findings
The authors found seven of the eight propositions in Campbell’s framework applicable. The only condition that did not fit the authors’ case was financial pressure. The authors concluded that top management’s greed and lack of conscience significantly contributed to their gross negligence of safety measures and employee welfare. Their exploitative human resource practices, supported by low employee voice culture, added to the vulnerability of the mining workers.
Research limitations/implications
The authors depended on secondary data in developing and analysing the case. The authors had no primary data collected directly from the participants involved in the accident. Moreover, relying on a single case to challenge an established framework may not achieve the necessary rigour, although an in-depth case study is likely to produce a good story.
Practical implications
To prevent mining accidents from happening, Turkey needs to strengthen all three types of institutions (legal and regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive) related to mining safety. As coal mining is harmful to the environment and public health, regulators and policymakers need to consider their dependence on coal mining as a source of energy and actively seek to adopt other clean energy alternatives.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the under-researched field of CSI by applying a dual economic and institutional perspective and refining it with the authors’ data.
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Ibrahim Nandom Yakubu, Ayhan Kapusuzoglu and Nildag Basak Ceylan
This study seeks to investigate whether firms’ capital structure decisions are congruent with the assumptions underpinning the traditional trade-off theory and the pecking order…
Abstract
This study seeks to investigate whether firms’ capital structure decisions are congruent with the assumptions underpinning the traditional trade-off theory and the pecking order theory in Ghana. Using a sample of listed firms, the dynamic system generalized method of moments (GMM) technique is applied on a balanced panel data spanning 2008–2016. The findings reveal that the financing decisions of Ghanaian firms adhere to the pecking order theory, given the established relationship between leverage and profitability, firm age, as well as firm size. The study also shows that tax does not matter for corporate leverage, departing from the tax proposition of the traditional trade-off theory. However, the negative effect of growth opportunities and risk on debt corroborates the trade-off theory. Consequently, it is postulated that the trade-off theory and the pecking order theory are not discordant in predicting firms’ capital structure decisions in Ghana.
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Samet Hacilar, Ayhan Kapusuzoglu and Nildag Basak Ceylan
The main purpose of this study is to measure financial literacy of individual pension system customers in Ankara and to find out factors affecting financial literacy while…
Abstract
The main purpose of this study is to measure financial literacy of individual pension system customers in Ankara and to find out factors affecting financial literacy while acquiring additional information on financial decisions of individual pension system customers. The results show that the self-financial knowledge evaluation of individual pension system customers and their financial literacy are not compatible. Besides, the financial literacy levels of the customers who make their investment themselves and customers who leave investment decision to the individual pension system company are found not to be statistically significant although self-investors believe they have higher financial knowledge. In addition to this, the effects of financial literacy level in terms of renewable energy investments are also evaluated. Individuals with an increasing level of financial literacy may turn to renewable energy sources and investments because of their low-cost and high-return potential.
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Ayyuce Memis Karatas, Emin Karatas, Ayhan Kapusuzoglu and Nildag Basak Ceylan
This chapter presents an overview of the Bitcoin and its impacts on the environment and economics from the viewpoint of carrying out a systematic analysis of the literature…
Abstract
This chapter presents an overview of the Bitcoin and its impacts on the environment and economics from the viewpoint of carrying out a systematic analysis of the literature related to the environmental and economic effect of digital currency. It is aimed to summarize and critically examine the points of view regarding Bitcoin mining, considering its effects on global warming and the social environment, employing peer-reviewed data associated through literatures. As a result, this study provides the chance to analyze the set of knowledge regarding the effects of the Bitcoin mining procedure on the ecosystem in regard to energy use and CO2 emissions regarding unit root tests and causality test based on nonlinear models. The results show that there exists a nonlinear causal relationship between statistics on Bitcoin mining and the CO2 emissions. The results also imply that Bitcoin remains to be a tool utilized in the economic environment for a range of objectives despite high energy consumption and some negative environmental impact within the scope of renewable energy; hence, authorities would take Bitcoin mining impacts into account to reduce CO2 emissions.
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Dipika Pramanik, Samar Chandra Mondal and Anupam Haldar
In recent years, determining the effective and suitable supplier in the supply chain management (SCM) has become a key strategic consideration to the success of any manufacturing…
Abstract
Purpose
In recent years, determining the effective and suitable supplier in the supply chain management (SCM) has become a key strategic consideration to the success of any manufacturing organization in terms of business intelligence (BI), as many quantitative and qualitative critical factors are measured from big data. In today’s competitive business scenario, the main purpose of this study is to determine suitable and sustainable suppliers during supplier selection process is to reduce the risk of investment along with maximize overall value to the customer and develop closeness and long-term relationships between customers and suppliers to build a resilient SCM to mitigate uncertainty for automotive organizations.
Design/methodology/approach
As these types of decisions generally involve more than a few criteria and often necessary to compromise among possibly conflicting factors, the multiple-criteria decision-making becomes a useful approach to solve this kind of problem. Considering both tangible and intangible criteria, the aim of this paper is the presentation of a new integrated fuzzy analytic hierarchy process and fuzzy additive ratio assessment method with fuzzy entropy using linguistic values to solve the supplier selection problem to build the resilient SCM under uncertain data. Fuzzy entropy is used to obtain the entropy weights of the criteria.
Findings
Organizations gather massive amounts of information known as BD on the basis of historical records of uncertainties from several internal and external sources to manage uncertainty to improve the overall performance of organizations using BI strategy for analyzing and making effective decision to support the managements of automotive manufacturing organizations in an information system.
Research limitations/implications
Although this study tries to represent a full analysis on suitable and resilient global supplier selection under various types of uncertainty, still there are some improvements that can be made in the future by developing a more refined and more sophisticated approach to further enhance the performance of the proposed scheme to calculate overall rating scores of the alternatives.
Originality/value
The novelty of this paper is to propose a framework of BI in SCM to determine a suitable and resilient global supplier where all the meaningful information, relevant knowledge and visualization retrieved by analyzing the huge and complex set of data or data streams, i.e. BD based on decision-making, to develop any manufacturing organizational performance worldwide.
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The purpose of this research is to determine the competitive advantages of higher education institutions (HEIs) and create a new methodology to rank universities according to the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this research is to determine the competitive advantages of higher education institutions (HEIs) and create a new methodology to rank universities according to the competitive advantages.
Design/methodology/approach
The research determines the competitive advantages of HEIs by analysing expert opinions through a semi-structured interview form, matches codes and themes to performance indicators using Saldana's two-cycle coding methods, evaluates content validity through Lawshe and reveals the item weights of the ranking with analytical hierarchy process (AHP). Simple additive weighting (SAW) and Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity (TOPSIS) methods were used for ranking universities.
Findings
Seven dimensions stand out in regard to what should be considered while ranking HEIs: research and publication, education, management, infrastructure, financial resources, human resources and social and economic contribution. Under the 7 dimensions, 69 indicators were determined.
Practical implications
The research provides a scientific reference point where HEIs can compare themselves with other HEIs regarding where they are in the sector, especially in terms of competitive advantages.
Originality/value
Although there are many different ranking methods that rank universities in the national and international literature, almost all these methods are largely based on the outputs of the university such as the number of publications, the number of patents, the number of projects, etc. A framework which ranks universities by considering different aspects of the institution, such as management, human resources and financial resources, has not been developed yet. In this respect, this research aims to fill this gap in the literature.