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Corporations with multiple national and international sites rely on telecommunication services such as public switched telephone network (PSTN) to deal with their customers and with vendors. Over the last few years, the cost of using PSTN for telecommunication has increased, thus adding considerable cost to business. The infrastructure of the internet is well placed now, and the continued growth of information technologies have made it cost effective to route voice calls over the internet, known as voice over internet protocol (VoIP). The purpose of this paper is to advance research, strategies and a predictive decision model that analyzes the cost of routing voice‐based traffic either via VoIP network or PSTN. This predictive decision model is based on the beta‐binomial distribution, and it computes the cost differential in tariff with respect to choice of routing the voice traffic between the VoIP network and the PSTN.

A call supported by the PSTN involves the establishment of an end‐to‐end circuit that is maintained for the duration of the call. A call supported by VoIP technology, by contrast, involves the transmission of many individual packets over an IP network. The cost of a VoIP call thus depends in part on the number and size of the packets that must be transmitted, i.e. the bandwidth required.

Great savings are realized when optimal number of calls would be routed through CCS vendors, as determined by the VoIP allocation model. The available bandwidth on the internet is capable of supporting VoIP at much cheaper rate than the expensive PSTN. Business could still buy into PSTN service if they require secured telecommunication services.

The paper tackles one of the most critical problems of minimizing the burden and costs of telecommunications by PSTN and VoIP.

Applies Kirzner’s concept of entrepreneurship to explain the economic success of Hong Kong. The city economy possesses neither natural resources, nor sophisticated technologies, and yet it has successfully developed into one of the most prosperous economies in East Asia. This study argues that Hong Kong’s industrial dynamism relies mainly on a large number of adaptive entrepreneurs who are constantly alert to opportunities, maintain a high degree of flexibility in their production and respond rapidly to change. In the textile and garment industry, firms survived by pursuing a product imitation strategy, operating at a small‐scale, extensively utilizing subcontracting networks, producing customer label garments as well as performing spatial arbitrageurship. Employing these adaptive entrepreneurial strategies, Hong Kong manufacturers have learnt from foreign firms and imitated their products. By selling improved commodities at lower prices, they have competed against the original suppliers from the western advanced countries. Furthermore, to exploit new profit opportunities, Hong Kong’s entrepreneurs have shifted their production activities from one product to another, from one industry to another, from higher cost to lower cost regions, from traditional fishing and agriculture into manufacturing, and then to finance and other services. Their efforts have brought about structural transformation in the economy and enabled Hong Kong to catch up with early industrialized nations.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on through‐silicon via (TSV), with a new concept that every chip or interposer could have two surfaces with circuits. Emphasis is placed on the 3D IC integration, especially the interposer (both active and passive) technologies and their roadmaps. The origin of 3D integration is also briefly presented.

This design addresses the electronic packaging of 3D IC integration with a passive TSV interposer for high‐power, high‐performance, high pin‐count, ultra fine‐pitch, small real‐estate, and low‐cost applications. To achieve this, the design uses chip‐to‐chip interconnections through a passive TSV interposer in a 3D IC integration system‐in‐package (SiP) format with excellent thermal management.

A generic, low‐cost and thermal‐enhanced 3D IC integration SiP with a passive interposer has been proposed for high‐performance applications. Also, the origin of 3D integration and the overview and outlook of 3D Si integration and 3D IC integration have been presented and discussed. Some important results and recommendations are summarized: the TSV/redistribution layer (RDL)/integrated passive devices passive interposer, which supports the high‐power chips on top and low‐power chips at its bottom, is the gut and workhorse of the current 3D IC integration design; with the passive interposer, it is not necessary to “dig” holes on the active chips. In fact, try to avoid making TSVs in the active chips; the passive interposer provides flexible coupling for whatever chips are available and/or necessary, and enhances the functionality and possibly the routings (shorter); with the passive interposer, the TSV manufacturing cost is lower because the requirement of TSV manufacturing yield is too high (>99.99 percent) for the active chips to bear additional costs due to TSV manufacturing yield loss; with the passive interposer, wafer thinning and thin‐wafer handling costs (for the interposer) are lower because these are not needed for the active chips and thus adds no cost due to yield loss; with the current designs, all the chips are bare; the packaging cost for individual chips is eliminated; more than 90 percent of heat from the 3D IC integration SiP is dissipated from the backside of high‐power chips using a thermal interface material and heat spreader/sink; the appearance and footprint of current 3D IC integration SiP designs are very attractive to integrated device manufactures, original equipment manufactures, and electronics manufacturing services (EMS) because they are standard packages; and underfills between the copper‐filled TSV interposer and the high‐ and low‐power chips are recommended to reduce creep damage of the lead‐free microbump solder joints and prolong their lives.

The paper's findings will be very useful to the electronic industry.

Essays on social responsibility call the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) “by far the world’s largest corporate responsibility initiative”. The authors look at two avenues to encourage responsible business behavior. First, at law, where law is not the answer and, second, at the UNGC. This paper aims to increase awareness of the UNGC, an umbrella organization supporting corporate good conduct.

The goal is to make corporations socially responsible. Law by nature addresses misconduct. The UNGC is more positive, encouraging responsible behavior in ten areas. The UNGC could be more effective. The authors suggest that social media and management education can help the UNGC positively impact corporate behavior.

The UNGC represents a significant opportunity. If the UNGC lives up to its potential, corporate misconduct may be lessened and corporate good behavior could be publicized, rewarded and increased.

The time has come to let readers start thinking about the UNGC and its goals. This can help bring greater social responsibility in tomorrow’s businesses.

This chapter model the factors behind the instability of exchange rate by using exchange market pressure (EMP) index. The authors focus first to construct the EMP and then secondly, test the interrelationship between EMP, real gross domestic product, money supply (M2), consumer price index, trade openness and share price using quarterly data in selected East Asian countries. The empirical results of this study explicitly indicate that EMP is determined by the states of other variables in most of the studied countries. Planning on the macrolevel is essential when managing and ensuring continuous monitoring of the exchange rate condition. This would translate into positive macroeconomic welfare and economic growth sustainability.