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Insurance frauds deeply affect insurance companies, policyholders, and the insurance industry as a whole. The cost of fraudulent damage affects the profitability of companies, and has negative effects on the society in terms of moral values. Increases in insurance costs can lead to increases in the premiums paid by policyholders, each family, and, ultimately, all of the insured. Recently, new legal regulations related to this issue have been performed in Turkey and higher institutions have been created. A regulation issued by the Under-secretariat of the Treasury, on June 1, 2011, defines insurance fraud as aggravated fraud. Insurance fraud in Turkey usually takes the form of intentional misrepresentations of facts to the insurance company to get the company to pay for something not actually covered by the policy. Studies examined the insurance industry in terms of the concept of financial crime, and inclusion of the concept of financial crime in insurance regulations was proposed since financial crimes have an important place in the current problems of the industry. In addition, it is seen that insurance frauds have changed over time as a result of studies.

A decision support system (DSS) is a flexible, interactive, computerized approach intended to support administrators in their decision making activities and which is capable of providing direct, personal support for complex, managerial decisions. This paper presents an overview of DSS's major characteristics which can integrate the intellectual resources of individuals with the capabilities of the computer to improve the quality of decisions. Following a discussion of its capabilities, the various components of a DSS (database, model base, hardware and user‐system interface) are examined as well as the development tools needed. Examples of the applications of DSSs in two universities provide insight into the benefits a DSS can bring to educational administration. Finally, the paper considers various development and implementation issues pertaining to a decision support system in academic administration.

The impact of e‐business on export management companies (EMCs) has been debated for some time and several reasons for their survival have been forwarded. Based upon the resource‐based perspective of the firm, this study provides a far more fundamental reason for the survival of the well‐established EMCs‐their market‐based assets. Furthermore, this study analyzes the impact of e‐business proliferation on the well‐established EMCs transaction creating and physical fulfillment exporting services and their efficiency and effectiveness.

Explores the application of expert systems in the field of services marketing. Describes the basics of the technology along with several hypothetical systems. Concludes with a brief examination of costs versus benefits, system design and implementation issues, together with the potential for other artificial intelligence technologies to contribute to the management of services marketing. Notes that advanced applications such as expert systems will dramatically change the competitive landscape of the future.

Following the article in our March issue where PA Management Consultants examined a new approach to employee motivation, Dr. Philip Grant asks another question — How much employee motivation is desirable? Employee motivation can be too high — costing an organization more than it is worth and actually leading to output decline. Dr. Grant is a management consultant and the Head of the Department of Business Administration at Husson College in Bangor, Maine.

In this study, senior executives with electronic data interchange (EDI) experience explained the factors their firms considered when deciding to use EDI. The majority of their comments focused on the operational (i.e., internal) benefits they are receiving from EDI. Most of the firms that participated in the study have moved from an operational mindset regarding EDI and noted external/competitive benefits as they electronically link to customers and suppliers. The executives acknowledged power inequities between their large firms and the trading partners with whom they use EDI. Although EDI is a mature technology, when classified by innovation adoption and diffusion theory, it provides adopting firms significant benefits.

The purpose of this paper is to explore whether brand community characteristics (perceived personalization and familiarity among members) affect brand community engagement through customer-to-customer (C2C) interaction.

A survey questionnaire was distributed to members of online brand communities to test the research hypotheses.

The findings showed that the relationships among the brand community constructs are significant. C2C interaction mediates the relations between the characteristic variables and brand community engagement. Furthermore, the findings revealed that brand community trust moderates the effects of perceived personalization on the quality of C2C interaction and on brand community engagement. It also moderates the relations between perceived familiarity among community members and each of brand community engagement and the quality of C2C interaction.

Marketers should utilize a brand community’s C2C interaction for its marketing strategies. Moreover, managing brand communities by focussing on perceived personalized service and the familiarity of members can also ultimately increase community engagement by enhancing the quality of C2C communication.

This study argues that firms need to manage online brand communities intuitively in order to increase members’ community engagement. To do so, they need to allocate spaces in which C2C communication can actively occur within brand communities, for example, in a discussion forum.

This study aims to present a very recent literature review on tourism demand forecasting based on 50 relevant articles published between 2013 and June 2016.

For searching the literature, the 50 most relevant articles according to Google Scholar ranking were selected and collected. Then, each of the articles were scrutinized according to three main dimensions: the method or technique used for analyzing data; the location of the study; and the covered timeframe.

The most widely used modeling technique continues to be time series, confirming a trend identified prior to 2011. Nevertheless, artificial intelligence techniques, and most notably neural networks, are clearly becoming more used in recent years for tourism forecasting. This is a relevant subject for journals related to other social sciences, such as Economics, and also tourism data constitute an excellent source for developing novel modeling techniques.

The present literature review offers recent insights on tourism forecasting scientific literature, providing evidences on current trends and revealing interesting research gaps.

The purpose of this study was to identify the influence of organizational strategy, structure, process and culture on organizational effectiveness and the possible mediating role of business intelligence (BI) systems among them.

Sample data for this study were collected from 225 organizational units in Bangladesh and analyzed using the partial least squares method, a statistical analysis technique based on the structural equation modeling.

The results revealed that organizational factors, such as organizational strategy, structure, process, and culture positively affect both BI systems’ effectiveness and organizational effectiveness. Furthermore, BI systems’ effectiveness partially mediates the impact of organizational strategy, structure, process and culture on organizational effectiveness.

BI systems are context-specific and can influence organizational effectiveness. Dearth in research on the influence of organizational factors to BI systems motivates this study to contribute in BI systems literature by proposing a theoretical model and investigating the mediating role of BI systems among various organizational factors and organizational effectiveness.

This study aims to better understand the Islamic consumption incentives because the spectacular flourishing of the halal market in different places around the world has grown the interest in understanding and deciphering the mechanisms behind its development.

Through an exploratory study of some Tunisia-based Islamic groups’ purchasing behavior, this paper investigates factors leading to the purchasing of halal goods (Islamic consumption).

Findings show that the Islamic consumer is more of an Islamist than simply a Muslim. In addition, findings show that halal consumption is not merely related to religious affiliations but also the product of numerous cultural, social and psychological factors.

In addition to Islamism and Islamic activism, this paper puts in evidence the role of some post-structural factors such as identity, nostalgia and hedonism in relation to the buying intention of halal products and services.