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The US federal procurement market is the largest procurement market in the world. Therefore, it is an attractive market for foreign companies to enter. Existing literature indicates the success factors and barriers for public procurement market entry in general, however not for the US procurement market. To get an in-depth understanding of the US federal procurement market entry process for foreign companies, an expert study was conducted, involving successful foreign companies, procurement market entry consultants, and US government officials. The findings indicate that company-specific factors and product-specific factors can be labeled as “qualifiers,” while relational factors can be labeled “winners.”

The paper seeks to identify the determinants of business failure in construction and to predict the failure likelihood of construction companies by assessing their current situation based on both company‐specific and external factors.

A conceptual model is designed based on an extensive literature survey. The analytical network process together with the Delphi method is utilised to compute the importance weights of variables on business failure through interviews and discussions with experts. The applicability of the proposed model is tested on five companies to estimate their failure likelihood by using the findings derived from the analysis.

The results suggest the importance of organisational and managerial factors, including the efficiency of the value chain at the corporate level, the appropriateness of organisational decisions, and the availability of intangible resources for the survival of construction companies.

The findings of the analysis are limited to the experiences of three professionals in the Turkish construction industry. The performance of the model is only tested in five companies. The accuracy of the model may be improved by using the diverse experiences of a larger group of experts.

The proposed tool may act as an early warning system for construction companies by estimating the level of their failure likelihood. Companies may benefit from the findings of the model to assess their current situations and take necessary action to avoid possible business failures.

The knowledge and experiences of experts are used to obtain a complete model that accommodates both external and company‐specific variables, and more importantly the inter‐relations among them. Similar models may also be developed for companies in other industries to diagnose their bankruptcy or failure likelihood.

While a strong association between Marketing Orientation development and company performance has been established, the understanding of the Marketing Orientation remains unclear since some studies have suggested a philosophical nature for Marketing Orientation and some other studies concluded that Marketing Orientation represents a behavioural notion. As a result of this antithesis, research has not proceeded in the investigation on the factors that determine the degree of Marketing Orientation development. Shows that Marketing Orientation should be conceptualised synthetically since it represents the integration of a certain culture with specific behaviour. Closely examines the major determinants of Marketing Orientation development. Although exploratory in nature, suggests that Marketing Orientation development is determined by company‐specific, as well as by market‐specific factors with the former having a facilitating effect and the latter a coercive effect.

This study aims to identify the internal and external factors affecting the financial performance of general takaful companies operating in Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, UAE, Qatar and Pakistan, using an unbalanced panel data set consisting of 53 companies.

Data were hand-collected from the official financial reports of takaful companies. Two performance measures, namely, net investment income and investment yield, are used to capture the different aspects of the takaful investment operations. Based on relevant theory and literature, these measures are related to three economic variables, namely, GDP per capita, equity returns and interest rate, and four company-specific variables, namely, company size, gross contributions, retakaful dependence and liquidity. An ordinary least squares regression model, fixed-effects model and random-effects model are estimated for both performance measures.

The study finds that company size, liquidity, retakaful dependence, GDP per capita, equity returns and interest rate are statistically significant determinants of the financial performance; company size, GDP per capita, equity returns and interest rate are positively related to performance, whereas liquidity and retakaful dependence are negatively related to performance.

In the takaful literature, studies have been directed to almost every aspect of the Shariah law governing takaful. Yet, the empirical evidence on the financial performance of global takaful is scarce. Hence, there are several aspects where this paper extends prior research and contributes to the takaful literature.

This paper aims to analyse the capital structure determining factors of Latin American and US corporations after the crisis of 2008, as a means of comparing theoretical assumptions and empirical results in markets of different efficiency levels.

The study sample comprises 1,091 companies belonging to the six largest economies in Latin America plus the USA, in the years 2009 to 2013. The authors performed a regression with data from a balanced overview, which were obtained by using the criterion of minimum weighted square.

The results demonstrated differences in determining factors of capital structure between companies from Latin America and from the USA. The pecking order theory was mostly observed in Latin American companies and the trade-off theory greater was closely aligned with US firms.

This research brings new contributions to the issue, once the differences and determinative of the debt profile in companies from different economic contexts are compared.

Este artículo analiza los factores determinantes de la estructura de capital de las corporaciones latinoamericanas y estadounidenses después de la crisis de 2008, para comparar los supuestos teóricos y los resultados empíricos en mercados de diferentes niveles de eficiencia.

La muestra del estudio comprende 1.091 empresas pertenecientes a las seis mayores economías de América Latina y Estados Unidos, entre los años 2009 y 2013. Se realizó una regresión con datos de una visión general equilibrada, que se obtuvo utilizando el criterio de cuadrado mínimo ponderado.

Los resultados muestran diferencias en los factores determinantes de la estructura de capital entre empresas de América Latina y de Estados Unidos. La Teoría de la selección jerárquica se observó principalmente en las empresas latinoamericanas y la Teoría del intercambio más cercana estaba estrechamente alineada con las firmas estadounidenses.

Esta investigación aporta nuevas contribuciones al tema, una vez que comparamos las diferencias y determinantes del perfil de la deuda en empresas de diferentes contextos económicos.

Endeudamiento, Intercambio, Asimetría de información, Selección jerárquica, Regresión agrupada

Artículo de investigación

Purpose – The main aim of this chapter is to identify the factors that motivate outward Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) from Turkey to EU countries, looking into the problem at the firm level with a marketing focus, trying to understand whether or not there are any Turkey-specific prevailing marketing-related drivers.

Design/methodology/approach – With a distinction between developed and emerging/developing countries and their MNCs’ role in world trade and FDI, the literature review focuses on micro-view motives, particularly marketing-related ones, rather than macro-view motives which are mostly studied in the literature. Based on the literature review, the importance of Turkish MNCs and their increasing role in the world trade is briefly summarized.

Looking into the problem at the firm level with a marketing focus, a series of in-depth interviews with top executives were conducted as an exploratory study in order to explore and understand the role of marketing-related motives in Outward Foreign Direct Investment (OFDI) decisions of Turkish MNCs. For this purpose, 10 in-depth interviews with 13 top executives were conducted with tailor-made questionnaires.

Findings – The analysis of interviews revealed some different OFDI drivers and motivations for the Turkish MNCs compared to the factors mentioned in the literature, as well as iterating some common motives with the OFDI literature. Parallel to the FDI literature, it is observed that the Turkish MNCs mainly started their internationalization attempts by taking somewhat less risky and smaller steps.

As a result of qualitative research, the support is provided for the theoretical perspective that micro variables are more important than macro variables for Emerging Multinationals (EMNCs), particularly for Turkish MNCs; therefore, some Turkey-specific motives were also identified.

Originality/value of chapter – Although there is a consensus in recent literature on the most persistent group of motives influencing OFDI activities of EMNCs in developed countries, the underlying marketing-related objectives which are crucial to sustain competitive advantage have not been analysed and investigated sufficiently. This study is an attempt to fill this gap by identifying the most persistent marketing-related motives and give important insights about country-specific ones encouraging Turkish EMNCs to carry out OFDI in EU.

Extant research shows that individual’s relationship with brand can be structurally similar to both interpersonal love relationship and religious relationship. A stream of consumer research states that individual can love a brand like a person loves another person. Another stream of consumer research postulates that individual can perceive brand equivalent to religion, and even substitute religion with brand. Research is scarce connecting these two different paradigms of brand relationship, given that interpersonal relationship is not necessarily as devotional as religious relationship. The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize the psychological process through which an individual can substitute his/her religion with brand. The basic theoretical premise of this substitution behaviour is the proposition that brand meanings can be perceived as equivalent to religious meanings.

This paper has conducted an integrative review of selected extant research related to individual-brand relationships, interpersonal relationships and religiosity.

This paper develops a consumer response hierarchy model showing the inter-related psychological processes through which an individual can substitute his/her religion with brand. The model forms the basis for the discussion of theoretical contributions and managerial implications.

The value of this conceptual paper lies in developing a process model for the first time in the area of consumer-brand relationship domain explaining the stage-wise psychological processes through which individual can move from mere cognitive brand satisfaction towards perceiving brand as substitute of religion.

Explores antecedents of individual influence in organizational purchasing decisions made by buying centres. Proposes a two‐step model whereby individual influence is a function of decision‐specific variables such as expertise, interest and personal stake in the decision. The decision‐specific variables are affected, in turn, by demographic characteristics and psychological traits of the individual. Proposes a new method which improves on past research; this method allows for the assessment of influence as it is manifested in buying centre decision making. The two‐step model is generally supported based on the path analysis results.

This paper aims to explore the relationship between board characteristics and firm performance for Indian companies.

Corporate governance structures of 391 Indian companies out of CNX 500 companies listed on National Stock Exchange have been studied for their impact on performance of companies. Panel data regression methodology has been used on data for five financial years from 2010 to 2014 for the selected companies. Performance measures considered are market-based measure (Tobin’s Q) and accounting-based measure (return on asset [ROA]).

The empirical findings indicate that the market-based measure (Tobin’s Q) is more impacted by corporate governance than the accounting-based measure (ROA). There is a significant positive association between board size and firm performance. Board independence is found significantly related to firm performance. Number of board meetings is found to be sending positive signal to the market creating firm value. Separation of chief executive officer and chairman of the board is found to be value-creating, and overburdened directors affect firm performance adversely.

Limitations of the study are in terms of methodology and possible omission of some variables. It is understood that the qualitative dynamics happening inside board meetings impact corporate performance. The strategic decision-making process adopted by the boards to fight competition or to increase market share is not easily available in public domain. The decision-making processes and monitoring for implementation of those decisions could impact corporate governance performance relationship. These parameters and their impact on corporate performance are not covered under the scope of the present study.

The paper adds to the emerging body of literature on corporate governance performance relationship in the Indian context by using a reasonably wider and newer data set.

The paper aims to explore the impact of institutional factors on non-financial reporting in the Baltic countries. The vast majority of research in the scientific literature references practices of sustainable disclosures in developed countries with a focus on legal factors and their effect on corporate reporting. Meanwhile, there is a lack of in-depth empirical data for identifying correlations between institutional (mandatory, normative and company-specific) factors and non-financial reporting in developing countries.

The theoretical framework of neo-institutional theory was applied to explore how the external environment affects practices of non-financial reporting in developing countries. The approach used in the paper is quantitative.

The research results reveal that if companies are likely to disclose voluntarily one of non-economic aspects in their reports, they are also likely to disclose more about the other non-economic issues. However, no significant correlations were detected between the disclosure of voluntary (non-economic) and mandatory (economic) aspects. Mandatory factors promote both – economic and non-economic reporting – while normative and company-specific factors promote non-economic reporting more.

The authors contribute to the foreign investors and practitioners by helping to better understand corporate non-financial reporting practices in post-communistic countries.

The research adds to the growing body of research on non-financial reporting practices with particular reference to the developing Baltic context. This study also contributes to scientific literature by exploring the impact of different institutional factors to non-financial reporting in developing countries.