Search results

Mexico and Peru are both striving for economic development, and in doing so, they are trying to use management styles that will achieve their goals. This study is a comparison of selected management styles in these two countries with regard to planning, organizing, motivating, and controlling, as these companies attempt to become more competitive in the world economy.

Daniel and Titman (1997) contend that the Fama‐French three‐factor model’s ability to explain cross‐sectional variation in expected returns is a result of characteristics that firms have in common rather than any risk‐based explanation. The primary aim of the current paper is to provide out‐of‐sample tests of the characteristics versus risk factor argument. The main focus of our tests is to examine the intercept terms in Fama‐French regressions, wherein test portfolios are formed by a three‐way sorting procedure on book‐to‐market, size and factor loadings. Our main test focuses on ‘characteristic‐balanced’ portfolio returns of high minus low factor loading portfolios, for different size and book‐to‐market groups. The Fama‐French model predicts that these regression intercepts should be zero while the characteristics model predicts that they should be negative. Generally, despite the short sample period employed, our findings support a risk‐factor interpretation as opposed to a characteristics interpretation. This is particularly so for the HML loading‐based test portfolios. More specifically, we find that: the majority of test portfolios tend to reveal higher returns for higher loadings (while controlling for book‐to‐market and size characteristics); the majority of the Fama‐French regression intercepts are statistically insignificant; for the characteristic‐balanced portfolios, very few of the Fama‐French regression intercepts are significant.

The purpose of this paper is to present analysis of the feedback predictive encoder-based analog-to-digital converter (ADC).

The use of feedback predictive encoder-based ADCs presents an alternative to the traditional two-stage pipeline ADC by replacing the input estimate producing first stage of the pipeline with a predictive loop that also produces an estimate of the input signal.

The overload condition for feedback predictive encoder ADCs is dependent on input signal amplitude and frequency, system gain and filter order. The limitation on the practical usable filter order is set by limit cycle oscillation. A boundary condition is defined for determination of maximum usable filter order. In a practical implementation of the predictive encoder ADC, the time allocated to the key functions of the gain stage and loop quantizer leads to optimization of the power consumption.

A practical switched capacitor implementation of the predictive encoder-based ADC is proposed. The power consumption of key circuit blocks is investigated.

This paper presents a methodology to optimize the bandwidth of predictive encoder ADCs. The overload and stability conditions may be used to determine the maximum input signal bandwidth for a given loop quantizer. Optimization of power consumption based on the allocation of time between the gain stage and the successive approximation register ADC operation is investigated. The lower bound of power consumption for this architecture is estimated.

The monograph analyses (a) the potential impact of information technology (IT) on organisational issues that directly concern the personnel function; (b) the nature of personnel’s involvement in the decision making and activities surrounding the choice and implementation of advanced technologies, and (c) their own use of IT in developing and carrying out their own range of specialist activities. The monograph attempts to explain why personnel’s involvement is often late, peripheral and reactive. Finally, an analysis is made of whether personnel specialists – or the Human Resource Management function more generally – will play a more proactive role in relation to such technologies in the future.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

The incidence of mergers and acquisitions has proliferated throughout the world including all sectors of our society, both municipal and industrial, private and public. However, the majority (60‐80 percent) of them do not reach their intended objectives owing to the fact that the merging organizations do not realize the impact of neglecting the human resource factor. Although they properly assess and address the financial and legal issues, they continually overlook this critical factor. The present literature suggests what organizations should do to reverse these negative effects and how to properly address the human resources issues. This research seeks to test this list of suggestions, in the form of a unified model, employing the single case study method. The case in question is a newly merged health centre comprised of four well‐established hospitals. Rather than a set of hypotheses, sets of prescriptions were developed to test the model. Data from interviews and existing documents are used to support or modify the final model. The qualitative results utilized a cross‐method analysis that supported the majority of the unified model, requiring a few modifications. This research has subsequently lead to the development of a unified human resources model for the proper and successful implementation of mergers and acquisitions. The implications of these findings for all organizations, and for mergers and acquisitions theory and practice, are discussed.

March 12, 1971 Compressed air work — Breach of statutory duty — Negligence — Caisson disease in form of bone necrosis — Causation — Faulty decompression procedure and equipment — Whether risk reasonably foreseeable by employers — The Work in Compressed Air Special Regulations, 1958 (SJ. 1958,No. 61),regs. 4(1), 6,8(1), 8(2) (a), 10(1) and 10(3).

Contemporary literature reveals that, to date, the poultry livestock sector has not received sufficient research attention. This particular industry suffers from unstructured supply chain practices, lack of awareness of the implications of the sustainability concept and failure to recycle poultry wastes. The current research thus attempts to develop an integrated supply chain model in the context of poultry industry in Bangladesh. The study considers both sustainability and supply chain issues in order to incorporate them in the poultry supply chain. By placing the forward and reverse supply chains in a single framework, existing problems can be resolved to gain economic, social and environmental benefits, which will be more sustainable than the present practices.

The theoretical underpinning of this research is ‘sustainability’ and the ‘supply chain processes’ in order to examine possible improvements in the poultry production process along with waste management. The research adopts the positivist paradigm and ‘design science’ methods with the support of system dynamics (SD) and the case study methods. Initially, a mental model is developed followed by the causal loop diagram based on in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and observation techniques. The causal model helps to understand the linkages between the associated variables for each issue. Finally, the causal loop diagram is transformed into a stock and flow (quantitative) model, which is a prerequisite for SD-based simulation modelling. A decision support system (DSS) is then developed to analyse the complex decision-making process along the supply chains.

The findings reveal that integration of the supply chain can bring economic, social and environmental sustainability along with a structured production process. It is also observed that the poultry industry can apply the model outcomes in the real-life practices with minor adjustments. This present research has both theoretical and practical implications. The proposed model’s unique characteristics in mitigating the existing problems are supported by the sustainability and supply chain theories. As for practical implications, the poultry industry in Bangladesh can follow the proposed supply chain structure (as par the research model) and test various policies via simulation prior to its application. Positive outcomes of the simulation study may provide enough confidence to implement the desired changes within the industry and their supply chain networks.

The results from this study extend previous research by empirically testing the involvement based Psychological Continuum Model (PCM) segmentation procedure on sports spectators. To date, the procedure has only been verified using sports participants, although the PCM was developed with a broader range of sports consumers in mind. The validity of the procedure is confirmed using two online surveys, which gather data from spectators at both the league (n=761) and team (n=623) level. A three-step segmentation procedure then places respondents into the PCM stages - awareness, attraction, attachment and allegiance. ANOVA tests indicate that the four groups significantly differ from one another on attitudinal and behavioural measures for both league and team spectators. Findings suggest that the PCM is an appropriate framework to investigate fan development at both league and team levels. Thus sports marketers are provided with a research segmentation tool capable of helping them to better understand their heterogeneous consumer bases and thus guide marketing decisions.

This review aims to show, broadly, how the h‐index has become a subject of widespread debate, how it has spawned many variants and diverse applications since first introduced in 2005 and some of the issues in its use.

The review drew on a range of material published in 1990 or so sources published since 2005. From these sources, a number of themes were identified and discussed ranging from the h‐index's advantages to which citation database might be selected for its calculation.

The analysis shows how the h‐index has quickly established itself as a major subject of interest in the field of bibliometrics. Study of the index ranges from its mathematical underpinning to a range of variants perceived to address the indexes' shortcomings. The review illustrates how widely the index has been applied but also how care must be taken in its application.

The use of bibliometric indicators to measure research performance continues, with the h‐index as its latest addition. The use of the h‐index, its variants and many applications to which it has been put are still at the exploratory stage. The review shows the breadth and diversity of this research and the need to verify the veracity of the h‐index by more studies.