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The purpose of this paper is to explore board functions and their location in family firms.

Through structured induction in a four-case study of medium-sized Swedish family firms, the authors demonstrate that board functions can be located in other arenas than in the common board and suggest propositions that explain their distribution.

(1) The board is but one of several arenas where board functions are performed. (2) The functions performed by the board vary in type and emphasis. (3) The non-family directors in a family firm serve the owners, even sometimes governing them, in what the authors term “bidirectional governance”. (4) The kin strategy of the family influences their governance. (5) The utilization of a board for governance stems from the family (together with its constitution, kin strategy and governance strategy), the board composition and the business conditions of the firm.

Being a case study the findings are restricted to concepts and theoretical propositions. Using structured induction, the study is not solely inductive but still contains the subjectivity of induction.

Governance agents should have an instrumental view on the board, considering it one possible governance arena among others, thereby economizing on governance.

The institutional pressure toward active boards could paradoxically reduce the importance of the board in family firms.

The board of a family company differs in its emphasis of board functions and these functions are performed with varying emphases in different governance arenas. The authors propose the concept of kin strategy, which refers to the governance importance of the structure of the owner and observations on bi-directional governance, indicating that the board can govern the owners.

In this paper we talk about complex matrix quaternions (biquaternions) and we deal with some abstract methods in mathematical complex matrix analysis.

We introduce and investigate the complex space HC consisting of all 2 × 2 complex matrices of the form ξ=z1+iw1z2+iw2−z‾2−iw‾2z‾1+iw‾1, (z1,w1,z2,w2)∈C4.

We develop on HC a new matrix holomorphic structure for which we provide the fundamental operational calculus properties.

We give sufficient and necessary conditions in terms of Cauchy–Riemann type quaternionic differential equations for holomorphicity of a function of one complex matrix variable ξ∈HC. In particular, we show that we have a lot of holomorphic functions of one matrix quaternion variable.

The purpose is to understand how the role of quality functions might evolve amidst digitalisation and an increased focus on services. This study focuses on customer feedback and how it can function as activation triggers for developing absorptive capacity, as well as how it relates to the value creation processes.

Following a qualitative research design, the authors gathered primary data from interviews with quality managers at 17 UK and Swedish firms and triangulated it with secondary information from the firms' web pages.

The findings show that customer feedback-based activation triggers can support development of absorptive capacity in the quality function if there are established processes for acting on customer feedback. This is often the case for codified feedback, which normally concerns products. However, digitalisation offers new opportunities of engaging in value co-creation, and firms need to develop digital capabilities to manage new technologies and data analytic tools. For personalised feedback (the main category of service-related feedback), established processes are missing.

This study work contributes to knowledge about how quality functions respond to customer feedback on both products and services. It clarifies why the quality function sometimes struggles to contribute to service quality as much as to product quality. From a theory development perspective, the authors contribute to understanding customer feedback-based activation triggers, how they lead to development of absorptive capacity and their relation to value co-creation on a functional level.

This paper aims to analyze the evolution and interaction over time of the functions of a technological innovation system (TIS) based on the concept of an innovation motor.

It is a case study of the innovation system associated with the technology for producing cage-free pullets for laying eggs in Pelotas/Rio Grande do Sul (RS).

The motors proposed by the TIS approach evolve sequentially and are associated with cumulative causality mechanisms. The study's results identified two functionalities: analysis of the chain as a whole and coordination of the actors involved in the system. The study's results also identified the presence of inflection points at the beginning of each of the motors.

The absence of a more accurate detailing of the market motor in discussions of the evolution of the motors and functions of TIS cage free Pelotas.

Innovation Motors as a new guiding approach for participatory innovation initiatives in rural areas.

Application of the TIS approach in agribusiness and proposition of two new functions for motor analysis, in addition to including inflection points as activation triggers in the evolution between motors.

Earlier studies have generally shown a positive relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and the overall performance of the firm. The purpose of this paper is to understand in more detail how EO influences firm performance. It adds to the literature by distinguishing performances of different functions in a firm and by exploring how the dimensions of EO influence these functional performances and, in turn, overall firm performance.

This study examined the relationship between three dimensions of EO (innovativeness, proactiveness, risk-taking), three types of functional performances of firms (R&D performance, production performance, marketing and sales performance) and the overall performance of firms. The data are collected from 279 high-tech small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) using a postal survey. The proposed hypotheses are tested using structural equation modeling (SEM).

The results indicate that the dimensions of (EO) are related in different ways to the performance of functions in a firm. A positive relationship is observed between innovativeness and R&D performance and between proactiveness and marketing and sales performance. A negative relationship exists between risk-taking and production performance. The results also show a sequential positive relationship from R&D via production and marketing and sales to overall performance of firms. Therefore, it is concluded that the R&D, production and marketing and sales functions reinforce each other in a logic order and are complementary in their effect on overall firm performance.

The results imply that the three functions, R&D, production and marketing and sales, in a firm play different roles, both in the firm’s EO and in their contribution to overall performance. Managers can use the findings to monitor and influence the performance of different functions in a firm to increase overall firm performance.

The first contribution of this study is that it unravels (i) which dimensions of EO have an effect on the performance of separate functions in a firm, indicating that functions contribute in different ways to entrepreneurial orientation of the firm. A second contribution is assessing how the performance of these functions influence the firm’s overall performance. This paper fills a gap in the literature by exploring internal firm variables mediating the relationship between EO and overall firm performance and contributes to the discussion on the contradictory results regarding the relationship between risk-taking and firm performance.

The purpose of this study is to understand and evaluate the roles and functions of the Sharīʿah committee (SC) of Islamic banks (IBs) in Malaysia and to recommend a resetting of the scope of responsibilities to enable the SC to effectively respond to current market needs.

A Likert-type survey questionnaire was developed and distributed to all available SC members through e-mails and online surveys as well as self-administered questionnaires. At the end of the survey, 87 useable questionnaires were collected from 161 SC members, representing a 54% response rate.

This study finds that most SC members have the necessary Sharīʿah qualification, and they are mostly academics with doctoral degrees. However, there is a noticeable lack of diversity in the composition of experts in the committees. Respondents indicate that their main functions are to ensure Sharīʿah compliance of bank operations and product offerings. This is of course consistent with their stated functions as outlined in the Bank Negara Malaysia's Sharīʿah Governance Policy Document (BNM, 2019). The study finds that SCs are not involved in product development, nor responsible for financial performance. Respondents indicate three ways to enhance the role of SCs: improving banking knowledge of the members, more engagement with the board of directors (BoDs) and broadening the functions of SCs.

This study highlights two policy implications. First, there is a strategic need for IBs to consider having a diversity of expertise in the SCs while maintaining the Sharīʿah experts as core members. Second, this study recommends a reset of the scope of duties of the SC to include three new areas: risk management, product development and financial performance.

This study evaluates the current functions of the SC of IBs in Malaysia and provides suggestions for improvement in the composition of the committee and in the scope of duties of SCs based on contemporary needs.

The main purpose of this paper is to determine the discount function which better fits the individuals' preferences through the empirical analysis of the different functions used in the field of intertemporal choice.

After an in-depth revision of the existing literature and unlike most studies which only focus on exponential and hyperbolic discounting, this manuscript compares the adjustment of data to six different discount functions. To do this, the analysis is based on the usual statistical methods, and the non-linear least squares regression, through the algorithm of Gauss-Newton, in order to estimate the models' parameters; finally, the AICc method is used to compare the significance of the six proposed models.

This paper shows that the so-called q-exponential function deformed by the amount is the model which better explains the individuals' preferences on both delayed gains and losses. To the extent of the authors' knowledge, this is the first time that a function different from the general hyperbola fits better to the individuals' preferences.

This paper contributes to the search of an alternative model able to explain the individual behavior in a more realistic way.

The paper aims to build the relationship between an entire function of restricted hyper-order with its linear c-shift operator.

Standard methodology for papers in difference and shift operators and value distribution theory have been used.

The relation between an entire function of restricted hyper-order with its linear c-shift operator was found under the periphery of sharing a set of two small functions IM (ignoring multiplicities) when exponent of convergence of zeros is strictly less than its order. This research work is an improvement and extension of two previous papers.

This is an original research work.

Marx’s monetary theory is an important part of Marxist economics and an irreplaceable milestone in the intellectual history of the monetary theory. The purpose of this paper is to summarize the main content of Marx’s monetary theory from three aspects: the source and nature of money, the function of money and the historical significance of money.

Moreover, this paper also gives an extended understanding of Marx’s monetary theory from four perspectives: the endogenous credit mechanism of money, the functions of money and demands for money, the financial function of money and the economic and social functions of money.

Lastly, the present paper discusses the practical significance of Marx’s monetary theory from three perspectives, namely, the inspection of “Bitcoin” from the nature and function of money, the definition of demands and the division of supplies at the monetary level, and the prevention of systemic financial risks and the focus of financial supervision.

Marx’s monetary theory is an important part of Marxist economics and an irreplaceable milestone in the intellectual history of the monetary theory. However, for a long time, the contribution of Marx has rarely been mentioned in the intellectual history of monetary theory. Even the book, Political Economy (On Capitalism), has been only summarily concerned with the source and function of money in Marx’s monetary theory, rather than revealing Marx’s outstanding contribution in the monetary theory and the financial connotation of Marx’s monetary theory, and expounding its practical significance.

Ant Colony Optimization and Particle Swarm Optimization represent two widely used Swarm Intelligence (SI) optimization techniques. Information processing using Multiple-Valued Logic (MVL) is carried out using more than two discrete logic levels. In this paper, we compare two the SI-based algorithms in synthesizing MVL functions. A benchmark consisting of 50,000 randomly generated 2-variable 4-valued functions is used for assessing the performance of the algorithms using the benchmark. Simulation results show that the PSO outperforms the ACO technique in terms of the average number of product terms (PTs) needed. We also compare the results obtained using both ACO-MVL and PSO-MVL with those obtained using Espresso-MV logic minimizer. It is shown that on average, both of the SI-based techniques produced better results compared to those produced by Espresso-MV. We show that the SI-based techniques outperform the conventional direct-cover (DC) techniques in terms of the average number of product terms required.