The purpose of this research was to develop a new process to bond silicon (Si) chips to low carbon steel substrates using pure tin (Sn) without any flux.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this research was to develop a new process to bond silicon (Si) chips to low carbon steel substrates using pure tin (Sn) without any flux.
Design/methodology/approach
Iron (Fe) substrates were first electroplated with a Sn layer, followed by a thin silver (Ag) layer that inhibits Sn oxidation thereafter. It is this Ag capping layer that makes the fluxless feature possible. Fluxless processes are more environmentally friendly and more likely to produce joints without voids. The Si chips were deposited with Cr/Au dual layer structure. The bonding process was performed at 240°C in vacuum. The Sn joint thickness was controlled by spacers during the bonding. Scanning electron microscopy images on cross sections exhibited quality joints without visible voids. Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy analysis was used to detect joint compositions.
Findings
It was revealed that the Sn layer was bonded to a Si chip at the Cr–Sn interface and to the Fe substrate by forming an FeSn2 intermetallic compound (IMC). The IMC is only 1.1 to 1.5 µm in thickness. Thin IMC is highly preferred because IMC deforms a little in accommodating the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) mismatch between Si and Fe. Shear test results showed that the fracture forces of the samples passed the military criteria by a wide margin.
Originality/value
This new fluxless bonding process on Fe should make Fe or low carbon steel a more likely choice of materials in optical modules and electronic packages.
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Chui Zi Ong, Rasidah Mohd-Rashid, Waqas Mehmood and Ahmad Hakimi Tajuddin
This paper aimed to explore the effect of a regulatory change pertaining to earnings forecasts disclosure from a mandatory to a voluntary regime on the valuation of Malaysian…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aimed to explore the effect of a regulatory change pertaining to earnings forecasts disclosure from a mandatory to a voluntary regime on the valuation of Malaysian initial public offerings (IPOs).
Design/methodology/approach
The study employed ordinary least square (OLS) regression and quantile regression to analyse the impact of disclosure of earnings forecasts regulation on the valuation of IPOs which comprised 458 IPOs reported for the period 2000–2017 on Bursa Malaysia.
Findings
This paper revealed that the regulatory change in forecasted earnings disclosure from a mandatory to a voluntary regime, effective from 1 February 2008, had a negative impact on the valuation of IPOs. The regime change did not improve the transparency of firms issuing IPOs. In fact, the absence of forecasted earnings information in most IPO prospectuses caused ex ante uncertainties to increase. Voluntary disclosure, however, had a significant positive relationship with the valuation of the IPOs issued during the global financial crisis period (2008–2010). Firms concealed their poor qualities by excluding forecasted earnings information from their prospectuses in order to have a fair valuation.
Practical implications
The findings may be used by policymakers as guidance in improving the existing regulation regarding the disclosure of forecasted earnings.
Originality/value
This paper provides new insight on the effect of a regulatory change pertaining to earnings forecasts disclosure from a mandatory to a voluntary regime on the valuation of Malaysian IPOs. It also provides evidence that the regulatory change of earnings forecast disclosure affects the IPOs' values listed during the global financial crisis period.
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Cristiana Cardi and Camilla Mazzoli
This paper aims to study how primary and secondary market investors react to intangibles information disclosed in Italian IPOs. Previous literature on intangibles information…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to study how primary and secondary market investors react to intangibles information disclosed in Italian IPOs. Previous literature on intangibles information disclosure as a determinant of IPO underpricing has reported inconsistent results; moreover, an area that has remained unexplored is to what extent different categories of market investors react to such information disclosure.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on a sample of firms listed on the Italian Stock Exchange, the authors use factor analysis to uncover the most relevant intangible assets disclosed in IPO prospectuses; this information is then included in a series of regressions which read into the reaction of primary and secondary market investors by means of price variations.
Findings
Primary market investors are found to be more sensitive to information regarding the company’s attitude towards its human capital and to that describing its innovation capacity in terms of IT and R&D investment. Secondary market investors are more sensitive to strategic alliances, research and development and future plans.
Research limitations/implications
The findings can be generalized, but the empirical evidence would be more relevant if tested in different geographical contexts (i.e. Europe and/or the USA).
Practical implications
The empirical results could help firms be more selective in their disclosure, thus possibly soothing management’s concerns regarding an overly extensive, and therefore risky, dissemination of non-financial information and avoiding them to incur unnecessary costs.
Social implications
Being aware of how the stock market reacts to the information disclosed is crucial in determining new regulations and accounting standards.
Originality/value
The authors introduce an unbiased categorization of intangibles variables that supplants the multiple classifications proposed in the literature, and the authors set apart the reaction of primary and secondary market IPO investors to the intangible information disclosure.
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This lesson plan uses Amelia to Zora as an anchor book for an extended unit to discuss women’s contributions to the modern world. The lesson plan provides an annotated…
Abstract
This lesson plan uses Amelia to Zora as an anchor book for an extended unit to discuss women’s contributions to the modern world. The lesson plan provides an annotated bibliography of biographies about the women profiles in the book as well as women selected by the instructor and students. The lesson plan is recommended for use in grades 5 and above and emphasizes social interaction among students in the whole process.
Sylvia Ping-Ping Chin, Eric Tsui and Chien-Sing Lee
Guidelines for the design of knowledge-based e-learning usability systems are absent from the current recognized set of usability design heuristics and from an established…
Abstract
Purpose
Guidelines for the design of knowledge-based e-learning usability systems are absent from the current recognized set of usability design heuristics and from an established evaluation methodology of e-learning system developments. Such systems can help Web designers and instructional designers design for different user needs and decide which properties are of a higher priority, thus meriting more design and development efforts. The authors aim to help students develop higher-order thinking skills, such as application, evaluation and syntheses of knowledge.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors applied Merrill ' s first principles of instruction and usability properties as pedagogical and usability design guidelines, knowledge management (KM) and hierarchical task analysis as methodological knowledge bases. The authors proposed a KM e-learning usability framework which frames our mapping of Web usability attributes to e-learning usability properties. The authors aim to investigate whether adopting Merrill ' s first principles of instruction and usability properties as knowledge-based guidelines/design factors would help learners develop higher-order thinking skills and whether this design would result in positive technology acceptance. The authors also developed a method matrix to map the selected methods of cognitive engineering to its potential uses in the KM e-learning usability framework of this paper and mapped e-learning usability tools with components in the KM e-learning usability system.
Findings
Findings indicated that our design effectively helped learners to demonstrate higher-order thinking skills and positive technology acceptance, promising indications toward the design and development of knowledge-based usability frameworks and systems.
Research/limitations/implications
The sample size of this paper is small. Hence, conclusions are not generalizable at this moment.
Originality/Value
The authors’ contributions are twofold: First, the authors proposed a KM e-learning usability framework, which frames the mapping of KM processes to e-learning principles and usability properties. Second, the authors proposed a method matrix which maps the selected methods of cognitive engineering to its potential uses in their KM e-learning usability framework. Based on these mappings and focusing on the usability properties navigation and learning support, the authors used ICT/Web2.0 tools to present/visualize information more clearly and more sensibly/manageably to students, to help trigger new knowledge and develop higher-order thinking skills, such as application, evaluation and syntheses of knowledge and articulate information from different perspectives throughout the KM life cycle.
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The purpose of this paper is to report the results of a matched sample comparison group study of elements of organizational culture that enable knowledge processes to drive…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to report the results of a matched sample comparison group study of elements of organizational culture that enable knowledge processes to drive superior firm performance.
Design/methodology/approach
A matched sample comparison group approach was used to compare firm performance among matched pairs of public companies. Companies demonstrating high levels of trust (benchmark group) were matched with firms of similar size in the same industries demonstrating lower levels of trust (control group).
Findings
The benchmark group generated significantly superior value, operating performance, and had higher average annual growth rates than matching firms in the control group. Firms with higher relative levels of trust embedded in the organizational culture are more likely to outperform similar firms with lower levels of trust.
Research limitations/implications
The findings are based on surveys and financial performance of companies with securities traded on stock exchanges in the USA and may not represent other organizational forms, other geographic, economic, or cultural environments.
Practical implications
This study begins to identify a link between knowledge management, organizational learning, and knowledge creation (collectively knowledge processes) with firm performance.
Social implications
Identifying elements of organizational culture that link knowledge processes with firm performance is essential to developing a leadership model that reinforces enabling cultural attributes.
Originality/value
Many researchers have identified a lack of empirical research linking knowledge processes with firm performance. This study begins to fill the research gap with evidence that elements of organizational culture, specifically trust, enable firms to convert knowledge and learning initiatives into tangible performance recognized by financial markets.
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Gavin L. Fox, Jeffery S. Smith, J. Joseph Cronin and Michael Brusco
This research aims to utilize a social network analysis approach to examine the effect of organizational position within a network of strategic partnerships on innovation as…
Abstract
Purpose
This research aims to utilize a social network analysis approach to examine the effect of organizational position within a network of strategic partnerships on innovation as measured by perceptions of industry analysts. Specifically, the purpose of the paper is to examine how network characteristics such as degree centrality (being centrally located in a network), between centrality (being positioned as an intermediary), and closeness centrality (having a short average distance to all other firms in the network) affect the innovation ranking of the focal firm.
Design/methodology/approach
Data for 563 firms are generated from three distinct data sources (SDC Platinum: Alliances and Joint Ventures, COMPUSTAT, and Fortune's America's Most Admired Companies) and analyzed via social network analysis and linear regression.
Findings
The network characteristics of degree centrality and between centrality positively relate to industry perceptions or innovativeness whereas closeness centrality had no significant effect. Additionally, there were no discernable differences in innovativeness when comparing manufacturing firms to service organizations.
Research limitations/implications
Insignificant findings related to closeness centrality and the good/service differential may be attributable to the data sources, in that, the information is limited to firms within the respective sources. This data limitation may limit the potential of examining the effect of all network characteristics. Additionally, some included companies participate in multiple industries (i.e., have multiple SIC codes), which may serve as the blurring of any differences between good and service firms.
Practical implications
The results highlight the importance of considering strategic partnerships that establish configurations of partnership webs when pursuing innovation activities. Specifically, the findings suggest that firms should seek numerous strategic partnerships (high degree centrality) and attempt to broker information or control the extent to which partners collaborate (high between centrality). These results provide insights for firms seeking to establish new supply‐chain relationships in order to enhance their level of innovation.
Originality/value
This research provides a unique empirical examination of the impact of network positional characteristics on the innovativeness of a focal firm.
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Angela Hsiang‐Ling Chen, Xiaoli Wang, Jason Zu‐Hsu Lee and Chun‐Yuan Fu
This paper aims to explore the relationship of various financial and non‐financial factors to corporate value and how these factors can be used for the purpose of firm valuation…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the relationship of various financial and non‐financial factors to corporate value and how these factors can be used for the purpose of firm valuation. The focus is placed on a developing high‐tech industry.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors collect and compare data from companies within the time window of 1997 through 2010. The techniques of stepwise regression and back‐propagation neural network (BPNN) are applied to analyze this data, where the variables of operating profit margin, ROE, ROA, net income ratio, Tobin's Q and stock price are chosen to indicate firm value.
Findings
Each firm value variable appears to have a different set of estimator variables consisting of financial and non‐financial factors. The estimator variable in the set that has a high influence relative to the others tends to be financial factor. However, certain non‐financial factors appear to be considered as an estimator variable for different firm value variables more often than financial factors such as employee productivity, wealth created per employee, revenue growth rate, management expense per employee, R&D expense to management expense ratio, and R&D expenditure to total assets ratio. Further, the incorporation of BPNN shows an improvement of the result of the regression method in terms of overall estimation error, especially for operating profit margin.
Originality/value
The authors' investigation highlights the importance of the use of non‐financial factors for firm valuation in developing biotech industries. The result can be helpful for investors who seek to examine information variables and indicators for the opportunity presented by the above industries. In addition, the significant estimation improvement by incorporating the BNPP method into the commonly used regression method suggests the beneficial use of BPNN in refining the traditional methods in the field.
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This paper aims to analyze and give directions for advancing research in stock market volatility highlighting its features, structural breaks and emerging developments. This study…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to analyze and give directions for advancing research in stock market volatility highlighting its features, structural breaks and emerging developments. This study offers a platform to research the benchmark studies to know the research gap and give directions for extending future research.
Design/methodology/approach
The author has performed the literature review, and, reference checking as per the snowballing approach. Firstly, the author has started with outlining and simplifying the significance of the subject area, the review illustrating the various elements along with the research gaps and emphasizing the finding.
Findings
This work summarizes the studies covering the volatility, its properties and structural breaks on various aspects such as techniques applied, subareas and the markets. From the review’s analysis, no study has clarified the supremacy of any model because of the different market conditions, nature of data and methodological aspects. The outcome of this research work has delivered further magnitude to research the benchmark studies for the upcoming work on stock market volatility. This paper has also proposed the hybrid volatility models combining artificial intelligence with econometric techniques to detect noise, sudden changes and chaotic information easily.
Research limitations/implications
The author has taken the research papers from the scholarly journal published in the English language only and the author may also consider other nonscholarly or other language journals.
Originality/value
To the best of the author’s knowledge, this research work highlights an updated and more comprehensive framework examining the properties and demonstrating the contemporary developments in the field of stock market volatility.
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Pooja Kumari and Chandra Sekhar Mishra
This paper aims to examine the impact of the intangible intensity of the firm on the relevance of research and development (R&D) information to determine equity values in India…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the impact of the intangible intensity of the firm on the relevance of research and development (R&D) information to determine equity values in India. Additionally, the study compares the association of input information on R&D investment (the reported R&D cost) and output information on R&D investment (patent count) with equity values. Further, the study also examines the operational nature of the firm and patent count, which is the better proxy to measure the intangible intensity of the firm.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors compared the explanatory power of R&D information between intangible and non-intangible intensive firms. To estimate the value relevance of R&D information, the authors followed the statistical model based on the theoretical framework of the residual income model.
Findings
The results indicate that there is a significant moderating impact of the intangible intensity of the firm on the relevance of R&D information to determine equity values in India over the 25 years study period (from 1991 to 2016). Further, in India, the study finds that the input information of R&D outlay is more relevant than output information on R&D outlay to determine equity values, irrespective of the proxy measure of intangible intensity. Moreover, the study finds that the operational nature of the firm is a better proxy of the intangible intensity of the firm compared to patent counts.
Research limitations/implications
In this study, pooled cross-sectional data were used for analysis. In the future, longitudinal and panel data can be used for more insightful results.
Practical implications
The findings of the study provide direction to investors and creditors to find the intrinsic value of the investments in internally developed intangible assets, which will reduce the asymmetry between the market value and accounting value of equity.
Originality/value
The paper offers insights into the impact of intangible intensity on the relevance quality of R&D information in an emerging country.