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There has been a lot of discussion and controversy surrounding the issue of corporate leadership, the value of the company and the level of executive remuneration. Clearly, there has been great discontent over expectations versus delivered results. The core aim of this article is a targeted examination of the board of directors and corporate strategy with its hit‐or‐miss approach. It is a look at corporate governance and its key stakeholders and what it can mean in the risk management context. The latest International Accounting Standards and the new Basel II banking regulations are examined in passing. This is a review of the haphazard progress in corporate governance and an explanation of some suggestions for risk analysis and management control mechanisms.

The author suggests that methods for rating investment risk are flawed. He suggests a risk analysis, management and projects (RAMP) approach. Number‐crunching will produce better results than listening to analysts.

The strategic management literature emphasizes the concept of business intelligence (BI) as an essential competitive tool. Yet the sustainability of the firms’ competitive advantage provided by BI capability is not well researched. To fill this gap, this study attempts to develop a model for successful BI deployment and empirically examines the association between BI deployment and sustainable competitive advantage. Taking the telecommunications industry in Malaysia as a case example, the research particularly focuses on the influencing perceptions held by telecommunications decision makers and executives on factors that impact successful BI deployment. The research further investigates the relationship between successful BI deployment and sustainable competitive advantage of the telecommunications organizations. Another important aim of this study is to determine the effect of moderating factors such as organization culture, business strategy, and use of BI tools on BI deployment and the sustainability of firm’s competitive advantage.

This research uses combination of resource-based theory and diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory to examine BI success and its relationship with firm’s sustainability. The research adopts the positivist paradigm and a two-phase sequential mixed method consisting of qualitative and quantitative approaches are employed. A tentative research model is developed first based on extensive literature review. The chapter presents a qualitative field study to fine tune the initial research model. Findings from the qualitative method are also used to develop measures and instruments for the next phase of quantitative method. The study includes a survey study with sample of business analysts and decision makers in telecommunications firms and is analyzed by partial least square-based structural equation modeling.

The findings reveal that some internal resources of the organizations such as BI governance and the perceptions of BI’s characteristics influence the successful deployment of BI. Organizations that practice good BI governance with strong moral and financial support from upper management have an opportunity to realize the dream of having successful BI initiatives in place. The scope of BI governance includes providing sufficient support and commitment in BI funding and implementation, laying out proper BI infrastructure and staffing and establishing a corporate-wide policy and procedures regarding BI. The perceptions about the characteristics of BI such as its relative advantage, complexity, compatibility, and observability are also significant in ensuring BI success. The most important results of this study indicated that with BI successfully deployed, executives would use the knowledge provided for their necessary actions in sustaining the organizations’ competitive advantage in terms of economics, social, and environmental issues.

This study contributes significantly to the existing literature that will assist future BI researchers especially in achieving sustainable competitive advantage. In particular, the model will help practitioners to consider the resources that they are likely to consider when deploying BI. Finally, the applications of this study can be extended through further adaptation in other industries and various geographic contexts.

In this extract from his new book, Handling Investment Risk, the author examines operational risk and, with case studies ranging across Nigerian fraud, the split capital trusts scandal, Chase Manhattan in Russia and Deutsche Morgan Grenfell in 1996, shows how to deal with all the issues involved.

Investigates risk and the difference e‐commerce has had on global markets and, in particular, how Western experts managed to get wrong the prospects for the future with regard to banks in Russia and Indonesia. Posits that analysing risk can be done in four different ways: identifying risk factors; evaluating likelihood and effect; prioritizing and budgeting; and planning. Uses two case studies for extra emphasis – BT‐UK versus Vodafone; and Eurasia Mining plc (UK), operating in Russia and gives good advice in the aftermath of these. Closes in stating that risk‐seeking is a factor of modern operational risk and it is a recipe for disaster.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the key factors influencing mobile shopping adoption intention and actual usage in the backdrop of the moderating effect of gender and age.

The study identifies eight independent variables including two relatively new variables, i.e. perceived regulatory support (PRS) and perceived benefits, and proposes an integrated framework to understand mobile shopping behavior. A total of 304 mobile device users were surveyed using a comprehensive questionnaire. The collected data were utilized to analyze the hypothesized relationships through structural equation modeling.

The results indicated that all the factors considered in the framework were significant in predicting mobile shopping behavioral intention (BI) except for PRS. Demographic variables such as age and gender moderate the effect of factors such as perceived critical mass, personal innovativeness and hedonic motivation on mobile shopping BI.

The small sample sizes and a possibility to include new variables other than consumer-centric factors are some of the limitations of this study.

The findings of this paper are of significant use for mobile shopping app developers, mobile payment gateway providers and other institutions involved in facilitation and provision of such mobile shopping services to develop suitable strategies to encourage adoption of mobile devices as a medium of online shopping.

The study is first of its kind in India and integrates variables from different areas of technology adoption along with two new variables, i.e PRS and perceived benefits to understand mobile shopping behavior.

The purpose of this research is to explore how current implementation of KM practices, KM processes and KM-centred strategies among Malaysian R&D firms contribute to improving their knowledge quality. In addition, the KM practices investigated are supported by ways of how the R&D firms are motivated to share knowledge and what are the constraints inhibiting such sharing.

A total of 320 questionnaires were disseminated to Malaysian R&D firms and the response rate was 47 per cent. Descriptive analysis such as percentage, mean values and indexes were used to analyse the data.

Overall, the findings reflect the nature of R&D firms as knowledge-intensive organisations. KM practices show that there is a very high tendency of implementation of knowledge exploration and knowledge exploitation activities. In all, 90 per cent of more firms have implemented the three KM processes with constructing new knowledge appears to be the most implemented process. Knowledge-centred culture scores the highest overall mean, followed by leadership and HR practices.

This study provides an identification of KM practices that serves as a starting point for R&D managers to determine the gaps and appropriate actions to collectively achieve the desired R&D results and national innovation.

This study serves as a careful examination in exploring the extent to which KM practices, KM processes and KM-centred strategies are implemented in improving the knowledge quality in the Malaysian R&D firms. It helps R&D firms to frame their KM activities to drive the capability of creating and retaining a greater value onto their core business competencies.

Brief introduction on the importance and the need for plastic analysis methods were presented in the beginning section of this review. The plastic method for analysis was considered to be the more advanced method of analysis because of its ability to represent the true behaviour of the steel structures. Then in the following section, a literature analysis has been carried out on the previous investigations done on steel plates, steel beams and steel frames by other authors. The behaviour of them under different types of loading were presented and are under the investigation of innovative new analysis methods.

Structure member connections also have the potential for plastic failure. In this study, the authors have highlighted a few topics to be discussed. The three topics in this study are T-end plate connections to a square hollow section, semi-rigid connections and cold-formed steel storage racks with spine bracings using speed-lock connections. Connection is one of the important parts of a structure that ensures the integrity of the structure. Finally, in this technical paper, the authors introduce some topics related to seismic action. Application of the Theory of Plastic Mechanism Control in seismic design is studied in the beginning. At the end, its in-depth application for moment resisting frames-eccentrically braced frames dual systems is investigated.

When this study involves the design of a plastic structure, the design criteria must involve the ultimate load rather than the yield stress. As the steel behaves in the plastic range, it means the capacity of the steel has reached the ultimate load. Ultimate load design and load factor design are the methods in the range of plastic analysis. After the steel capacity has reached beyond the yield stress, it fulfills the requirement in this method. The plastic analysis method offers a consistent and logical approach to structural analysis. It provides an economical solution in terms of steel weight, as the sections designed using this method are smaller compared with elastic design methods.

The plastic method is the primary approach used in the analysis and design of statically indeterminate frame structures.

First, this study aims to investigate the effects of quality perceptions (i.e. system quality, information quality and service quality) and perceived ubiquity on engineers’ perceived benefits and perceived user-friendly of mobile knowledge management systems (MKMS). Second, it aims to examine the influence of perceived benefits and perceived user-friendly on MKMS adoption intention.

Quantitative empirical research using an integrated technology acceptance model and information systems success model was used, among semiconductors engineers in Malaysia. There were only 375 usable responses collected, which are at a response rate of 59.52%. The partial least squares version 3.0 was used to analyze the valid data collected.

The results suggest that service quality plays an important role that would increase the engineers’ perception of MKMS benefits and its user-friendliness. Intention to adopt MKMS was found to be strongly predicted by perceived MKMS benefits as compared to perceived user-friendly.

The findings are valuable for managers, engineers, knowledge management (KM) practitioners, MKMS developers and mobile device producers to enhance MKMS adoption intention.

Despite KM has been well accepted and established in the management science and practice area of study, yet it is still neglected in a “mobile” context. Accordingly, this paper contributes to the research gap.