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The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of Cross-Functional Awareness (CFA) and to question how firm size influences the impact of ERP implementation strategies on CFA. Specifically, the paper questions whether size moderates the capability of the firm to achieve CFA.

The authors developed and empirically tested a conceptual framework using the partial least squares structural equation modeling approach. This study gathered data from a sample of 45 French SMEs and 55 French large firms.

The results show that ERP implementation strategies (flexibility, organizational vision, Business Process Re-Engineering, speed of implementation, and focus on core modules) have a direct positive relationship and, in large firms, an indirect relationship (via data quality improvement) with the emergence of CFA. The study also suggests that firm size moderates the resulting emergence of ERP-enabled CFA. The findings will help researchers understand the factors associated with ERP implementation and use that promote or inhibit successful use of ERP systems.

Similar to many published ERP surveys, the sample size is small. In addition, the authors examined CFA in the survey from the perspective of a single respondent per firm. Finally, there may be a cultural limitation linked to the respondents all being French firms.

The findings will promote a better understanding of the concept of CFA and its benefits amongst managers, leading to increased productivity and efficiency with ERP. In particular, they will help practitioners identify and manage the right factors during ERP implementations.

In the expanding world of Enterprise System research, this paper is significant in that it studies the effect of ERP implementation on CFA rather than investigating the factors affecting ERP implementation or the outcomes of ERP implementations. To the best of the knowledge, this is one of the few papers that theoretically articulates and empirically explores the concept of CFA, and tests the relationship between implementation strategy factors and CFA, including the moderating role of size in the context of ERP. The contribution shows that the firm size effect should be examined at the level of SMEs and larger firms separately, rather than at an overall level.

The purpose of this paper is to comprehensively review one example of academic-industry cooperation, namely, the partnership arrangements between the CFA Institute and universities around the globe. There is a scarcity of literature relating to academic-industry cooperation between the finance discipline and business.

Relevant data were hand-collected and a comprehensive analysis of individual CFA partner programs was undertaken, including the geographical distribution of the programs and program characteristics and ranking of partners programs; the motivation for and approaches of universities toward the CFA Institute partnership and program design are identified. The general findings are validated with a detailed analysis of the CFA partner postgraduate programs offered in Australian universities.

The research finds that the primary focus of cooperation between the CFA Institute and universities is the adoption of practitioner-relevant academic curriculum in universities, which should assist in setting industry educational standards. The authors observed a great diversity of partner institutions and programs around the globe, their rankings and their approach to cooperation with the CFA Institute thanks to the flexibility of their partnership arrangements. This explains the rapid growth of universities seeking formal cooperation with the CFA Institute. However, this growth has created challenges for the CFA Institute in managing and delivering value in their partnership arrangements.

Due to data limitations, the research does not provide an empirical analysis of factors driving enrollments in Australian postgraduate finance programs.

The paper serves as a guide to universities interested in engaging in cooperation with the CFA Institute. This study is also useful for the professional bodies that evaluate various models of cooperation with educational institutions.

The paper is the first, to the authors' knowledge, to examine the practical aspects of cooperation between universities and a professional body in the finance discipline. Moreover, it is the first to evaluate perceived benefits and problems universities may experience by entering into a popular CFA Institute Partner Program.

To explore the nature and potential of competitor‐focused accounting practice (CFA) in a large hotel.

Unstructured tape‐recorded interviews ranging from one to one‐and‐a‐half hours' duration were conducted with 21 senior managers representing finance, marketing, hotel operations, casino, and human resource management in a large hotel.

Levels of CFA formalised application appear limited, especially when compared with a widely held managerial perception that significant benefits could derive from applying CFA. The CFA practices noted were conducted in an unstructured and ad hoc manner. The main generic use of CFA is in connection with sensitising staff with respect to competitors’ strengths and also strategy development. The hotel shared occupancy level information with competing hotels.

The study suffers from all the limitations generally associated with a single company qualitative field study. These limitations include the degree of subjectivity that is invoked when researchers interpret qualitative field study data.

The paper clarifies the notion of “CFA” and provides an outline of CFA management issues arising in the context of a hotel. An outline is provided of those parts of a hotel operation that are most likely to be more active in CFA, together with empirically informed suggestions with respect to CFA uses in a hotel.

The paper is highly original. Despite the generally accepted importance of strategy development being informed by appropriately conducted competitor analysis, there has been a paucity of research concerned with competitor analysis in the hotel industry.

The paper investigates the suitability of the Rasch model for establishing data equivalence. The results based on a real data set are contrasted with findings from standard procedures based on CFA methods.

Sinkovics et al.'s data on technophobia was used and re‐evaluated using both classical test theory (CTT) (multiple‐group structural equations modelling) and Rasch measurement theory.

Data equivalence in particular and measurement in general cannot be addressed without reference to theory. While both procedures can be considered best practice approaches within their respective theoretical foundation of measurement, the Rasch model provides some theoretical virtues. Measurement derived from data that fit the Rasch model seems to be approximated by classical procedures reasonably well. However, the reverse is not necessarily true.

The more widespread application of Rasch models would lead to a stronger justification of measurement, in particular, in cross‐cultural studies but also whenever measures of individual respondents are of interest.

Measurement models outside the framework of CTT are still scarce exceptions in marketing research.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate selected West African currencies/US dollar exchange rates for the evidence of volatility spillover. Specifically, the paper examines West African CFA franc, Gambian dalasi and Nigerian naira exchange rates in relation to the USD, for any evidence of shock and volatility spillover.

The author employs multivariate GARCH (1,1)–BEKK model which enables the evaluation of the interaction within the volatility of two or more series because of its capability to detect volatility spillover among time series observations, as well as the persistence of volatility within each series.

The major findings of this study are as follows: there is evidence of volatility clustering in West African CFA franc, Gambian dalasi and Nigerian naira exchange rates in relation to the USD. There is evidence of bi-directional shock and volatility spillover between the Nigerian naira and West African CFA franc/USD exchange rates, and uni-directional shock spillover from the Gambian dalasi to the West African CFA franc/USD exchange rates. There is, however, no evidence of exchange rate shock and volatility spillover between Nigerian naira and Gambian dalasi.

Although considerable literature exists on the volatility of exchange rate in West Africa and comparative analysis of exchange rates volatility in few countries of West Africa, there is absence of empirical studies on exchange rate volatility spillover among countries in the region. Since containing exchange rate volatility is one of the major objectives of monetary policy, understanding the nature and direction of exchange rate volatility spillover would propel formulation exchange rate policies that would minimise exchange rate uncertainty and entrench sustainable development. In addition, the nature of exchange rate volatility spillover between West African countries would provide basis for international traders and foreign portfolio investors to develop effective strategies for hedging against exchange rate shocks that are propagated across countries by designing appropriate risk management techniques.

In 2017, the Chinese Super League (CSL), the first professional football division in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), became the highest-spending league in the international players’ transfer market, with a total spending of €377m. Moreover, the government of the PRC is backing the CSL with an ambitious football plan. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to examine the governance of the CSL by questioning the organisational viability of the league.

In addition to the relevant international literature, this study is based on 14 recent scholarly articles published in Mandarin from 2013 to 2018 to reflect the national academic debate. Moreover, website research on all CSL clubs has been conducted. The institutional analysis follows the integrative change model of Cunningham (2002) complemented by agency and bureaucracy theory.

The CSL still faces substantial governance problems caused by the divergence of goal setting, organisational inefficiencies and compliance issues. The organisational change is notably constrained by internal competitive value commitments and external power dependency.

The institutional findings on the CSL provide a starting point for empirical studies. The approach contributes to the theory of sport governance processes.

The material and insights are informative for decision makers to evaluate the competitiveness of the CSL.

This paper is the first international in-depth analysis of the governance of the CSL using the body of knowledge published in Mandarin.

New public management (NPM) techniques have been widely adopted in Australian public sector organisations. NPM stresses the concept of accountability, and the importance of reporting mechanisms. Government and semi‐government authorities provide annual reports, but the usefulness of these annual reports in assessing operational in addition to financial performance is open to question. This paper aims to ask what performance measures are important in the context of the provision of fire services.

Using content analysis, this study analyses and evaluates publicly available annual reports of fire services to determine operational and financial performance in the Australian state of Victoria, which has three different fire service organisations.

The study finds that annual reports are based on financial results, some basic performance measures and narrative describing some operational results. Stakeholders are well served by financial reports, but find difficulty in assessing operational performance trends and comparative operational performance of the three different organisations. Few operational indicators are published, despite prior problems in fire services that have lead to parliamentary enquiries. The lack of publicly available performance measures results in reduced levels of accountability to external stakeholders.

The study indicates that the lack of useful performance measures impacts negatively on the demonstration of accountability to external stakeholders. Fire services management can use this information to improve their reporting and demonstration of accountability to external shareholders such as government and the community.

The study extends the work of Carvalho et al. on the reporting practices and performance measures of Portuguese and British fire services and suggests a range of performance indicators that may be appropriate for fire services to enhance their accountability.

A major lesson of the European Monetary Union (EMU) crisis is that serious disequilibria result from regional monetary arrangements not designed to be robust to a variety of shocks. The purpose of this paper is to assess these disequilibria within the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC), West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) and Financial Community of Africa (CFA) zones.

In the assessments, monetary policy targets inflation and financial dynamics of depth, efficiency, activity and size while real sector policy targets economic performance in terms of GDP growth. The author also provides the speed of convergence and time required to achieve a 100 percent convergence.

But for financial intermediary size within the CFA zone, findings, for the most part, support only unconditional convergence. There is no form of convergence within the CEMAC zone.

The broad insignificance of conditional convergence results has substantial policy implications. Monetary and real policies, which are often homogenous for member states, are thwarted by heterogeneous structural and institutional characteristics, which give rise to different levels and patterns of financial intermediary development. Therefore, member states should work towards harmonizing cross‐country differences in structural and institutional characteristics that hamper the effectiveness of monetary policies.

The paper provides warning signs to the CFA zone in the heat of the Euro zone crises.

The aim of the research project which resulted in this work is to achieve a cost‐effective approach for instantaneous hyperspectral imaging.

This paper presents a simulation study and an experimental evaluation of a novel imaging spectroscopy technique, where multi‐channel image data are acquired instantaneously and transformed into spectra by using a statistical modelling approach. A digital colour camera equipped with an additional colour filter array was used to acquire an instantaneous single image that was demosaicked to generate a multi‐channel image. A statistical transformation approach was employed to convert this image into a hyperspectral one.

The feasibility of this method was investigated through extensive simulation and experimental tasks where promising results were obtained.

The small size of the initially acquired single instantaneous image makes this approach useful for applications where video‐rate hyperspectral imaging is required.

For the first time, a simplified prototype of this novel imaging spectroscopy technique was built and evaluated experimentally. And the results were compared with those of a more ideal simulation study. Recommendations for how to improve the prototype were also suggested as a result of the comparison between the simulation and the prototype evaluation results.

Constructing and evaluating behavioral science models is a complex process. Decisions must be made about which variables to include, which variables are related to each other, the functional forms of the relationships, and so on. The last 10 years have seen a substantial extension of the range of statistical tools available for use in the construction process. The progress in tool development has been accompanied by the publication of handbooks that introduce the methods in general terms (Arminger et al., 1995; Tinsley & Brown, 2000a). Each chapter in these handbooks cites a wide range of books and articles on specific analysis topics.