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The aim of this paper is to see how NOT to manage an acquisition through the case study of one of the worst M&As in recent years: Emporiki Bank’s by Crédit Agricole. Although the role of the banks is to manage risk, the acquisition of Emporiki by Crédit Agricole shows how easy it is, when ill prepared, to make one mistake after another and get trapped without a way out. It can even cause to take such desperate decisions as in this case sell an entire bank for one single euro.

General review.

The paper shows that being a very successful bank does not guarantee in any way good M&As, especially in an unknown market. Preparation, understanding of the whole situation and reactivity is key for a successful M&A. Without it, the consequences can be disastrous.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

Assesses the 1995‐1998 performance of 17 equity mutual funds operating in the Greek financial market, explains the calculations involved and reviews relevant research. Ranks the funds by daily, weekly, monthly and total return for the period and compares them with the general Athens Stock Exchange index. Goes on to rank them by total risk, coefficient of variation and systematic risk before applying Treynor’s index, Sharpe’s index and Jensen’s approach. Presents the results in detail and summarizes the main findings.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute further insights into how organizations can diagnose if they have middle managers who are able to reach their objectives, to be outstanding in the competitive environment that they belong to, that is to give new roles and initiatives, using a qualitative approach.

In this management research, the critical incident technique through semi‐structured interviews is used to identify the critical job requirements which are indicated through the difference between doing the job correctly and doing it incorrectly or efficiently and inefficiently. The events of critical incidents could be coded for various characteristics or competences, which seem to be relevant to the particular middle managers' job. After that, they were grouped into five teams for the easiest assessment and the annotation of the findings, i.e. competences directed on management job, on integrity, on personal effectiveness and performance, on people and on specialized knowledge.

Qualitative evidence was found for managerial competences, values and the way these competences are related to effectiveness and job satisfaction.

Future research should explore how these results can be linked to contextual elements and to business performance.

This study contributes to increased managerial competence awareness, which is important for intrapersonal development and interpersonal cooperation.

This is one of a few studies that have centered on the middle managers only of the organizational chart and compared their different skills, needs and requests. It provides relevant insights into a thorough understanding of middle managers' competences, which are 21 in total. These 21 areas are divided into five main categories/clusters.

The field for Intellectual Capital (IC) and the related philosophy of Knowledge Management (KM) has arisen recently to an interesting research object worldwide. Researchers round the globe presented interesting realistic contributions to the “intellectual” matter like Tobin’s “q”, Intangible Assets Monitor ‐IAM or “Skandia Navigator”. Increasingly the metrication of the intellectual intangibility, the visualization of the invisible intellectual brain power or the calculation of the intellectual potentiality provoked many “serious” researchers to fight like the hero of La Mancha “again wind, light and sound”. A. Pulic “VAIC™ – Value Added Intellectual Capital Method” is one way to bridge the distance from “tacit to ex plicit” because it helps to understand the metrics of intangibility. In the present research the data (published balance sheet and profit/loss account information) of seventeen main Greek banks for the period 1996 to 1999 is analyzed. The focus is put on the used human capital (HC) and physical capital (CA) of the Greek banking sector and their impact on firms’ value added (VA) based performance is discussed. The predictive (regression analysis) impact on the “intellectual” value added (VA) based performance confirms the existence of value added (VA) based performance differences among the various banks – always due to their potential of intellectual and physical capital.

This paper explores some institutional aspects of the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE) and investigates the time‐series properties of three major ASE stock indices. The results depict that future returns on these indices are difficult to predict. However, volatility in these indices can be predictable using the GARCH models. Various models for predicting volatility patterns are presented.

The aim of this paper is to examine the productivity of the Greek banking sector for the time period 2004‐2006.

Standard ratio measures of bank financial performance have been used as output measures in a data envelopment analysis model in combination with efficiency ratios’ analysis.

The Greek banking efficiency remains relatively constant throughout the period under observation, while, on average, big banks perform better than medium and small ones.

Profit and loss accounts as well as balance sheet accounts of each bank are used for examining bank efficiency.

A positive relationship between bank size and performance is observed. More specifically, it is suggested that large total assets gives a bank the ability to achieve higher efficiency levels; thus, a merger of two small banks will probably increase their efficiency and competitiveness in the long term.

Greek banks are at a crossroad and faced with the dilemma of expanding their operations internationally or staying at home. The current financial crisis has made this dilemma stronger. The paper's findings suggest that probably the best solution for the Greek banks to overcome their current problem is to merge.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the efficiency of individual branches of a large Greek bank through the application of both goal programming (GP) and data envelopment analysis (DEA).

The paper employs a particular least absolute deviations (LAD) technique (i.e. a special case of GP/constrained regression) and DEA as two performance measurement methods. The performance evaluation by means of GP is assessed utilizing two alternative conceptual (parametric functional form‐loglinear) models: one focusing on transaction and one on production efficiency. The DEA assessment using the transaction efficiency model is performed under the specifications of constant or variable returns to scale.

The two methods do provide confirmation of each other's findings. The results support the main claim that there is a strong relationship between the rankings obtained by GP and DEA. Moreover, the GP results indicate that there is a relationship between bank branch transaction and production efficiency.

The results may be of interest to stakeholder groups such as bank shareholders, managers, and regulatory authorities.

The paper is believed to be the first to examine the application of GP and DEA to measure the efficient use of resources of bank branches in Greece in terms of location (urban‐rural).

The purpose of this study is to identify how different Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) influence property management. The study is based on two basic accounting principles for the valuation of assets: fair value and historical cost. The study focuses on land and buildings as a main part of the total fixed assets of a company. It uses the framework of the Greek real estate market as an experimental setting where the principles of historic cost and fair value accounting can be compared.

The topic is approached using an integration of fixed assets into four main portfolio categories: own used; investments; held for sale assets; and inventories. According to this framework the study examines the accounting treatments under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), US GAAP and Greek GAAP for each portfolio transaction and analyses the impact of accounting entries to equity and profit and loss account.

The study results to a comparative analysis of the different studied GAAP and tries to establish a purchase price allocation method for property acquisition.

The contribution of this article is that it surveys principles, literature and practice about the above issues from a critical perspective, and presents a way to managing and monitoring real estate investments, using logical decision trees, from an accounting point of view.

The purpose of the paper is to examine the law relating to different types of guarantee schemes and the circumstances in which they are used to safeguard against default risks in international commercial practice. Different types of guarantee schemes are used in different contexts, often depending on which types and the purpose they have been sought.

The paper was undertaken by evaluating secondary data sources, empirical examples and case law to underscore the pitfalls commercial parties need to always bear in mind with regard to guarantees and factoring and their usage in international commercial practice.

The paper articulates the law relating to different types of guarantees and how they are harnessed to provide security against default risks in international commercial practice. By the very nature of guarantees, they tend to be in high demand in times of economic uncertainties when banks and other financial institutions find it less prudent to lend to borrowers without ensuring some form of security against potential defaults.

There are many different types of guarantee schemes clients can always opt for, but some of them are never written about as much. There is therefore limited data available to inform policy decisions by those who seek to use them. Lack of adequate information on any financial produces, leave alone guarantees, is not good for businesses and the public in terms of how to safeguard against risks inherent in usage and practice of guarantees. In this similar respect, there were not enough data available to evaluate the varied context in which guarantees are used.

There are limited data available on guarantees, and because they are speciality products, the way they are used in practice can never be overlooked. It was necessary to publish this paper not only to address the foregoing need but also to discuss different types of guarantees and enhance understanding on their usage and practice. The paper articulates the law relating to guarantees and what guarantors need to always bear in mind before they accept to sign contracts of guarantees.

Guarantees are important for markets to operate efficiently. Their usage and practice has wide implications for various stakeholders such as banks, businesses, economies, governments and people, especially where contracts relating to them are not constituted and executed properly. Defaults on borrowed loans can lead banks not to lend money to businesses and subsequently choke them of a source on which many depend.

This is the first paper that articulates the close relationship between guarantees, factoring and trusts. The paper has articulated the varied contexts in which each of the foregoing speciality products is harnessed in practice. Although this paper was written largely by reviewing and internalizing secondary data sources, it was done in a distinctive way to underscore the objectives it was written to achieve.

This study aims to investigate the association between intellectual capital (IC) and bank efficiency of Taiwanese bank branches.

This study manually collects sample data from 107 non-public financial reports of the bank branches of Taiwan Business Bank Company Limited. As this study concerns bank branches, this study uses questionnaires related to IC to measure the implementation of IC at branch level. This study employs data envelopment analysis (DEA) models (BCC, EBM and BootBCC) to identify bank branches' efficiency. This study uses partial least square-based structural equation modeling analysis to assess the impact of IC and bank efficiency.

Result reveals that relational capital (RC) significantly and negatively impacts bank efficiency. Findings also imply that human capital (HC) and structural capital (SC) do not contribute to bank efficiency in Taiwan.

Spending effort in building relationships with customers diverts banks' resources. More inputs that are used may not be converted to outputs immediately. Bank branches should focus on enhancing their service quality to attract customers to use the facilities provided by branches.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this empirical study is the first to examine the association between IC and bank branches' efficiency in Taiwan by integrating primary and secondary data. For IC components, this study conducts a survey by designing the questionnaires related to IC to assess the implementation of IC at bank branches in Taiwan. In terms of efficiency, this study uses bank financial data and DEA models to identify bank branches' efficiency.