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This paper aims to examine whether CEO/chair dual roles influence board monitoring-audit fees nexus. The impact of corporate governance on audit fees literature is lacking in the banking sector, which is subject to different regulations and reporting requirements to other sectors. The level and quality of external audit services are important not only to shareholders and customers but also for regulators’ reputations and public confidence.

Examining a sample of the US national commercial banks, this study fills the gap by empirically examining whether the attributes of internal corporate governance mechanisms, proxied by boards of directors and audit committee characteristics, are related to audit fees. We introduce two interaction variables to understand whether chief executive officer (CEO)/chair dual roles influence the relationships between board independence and audit fees on the one hand and between the audit committee and audit fees on the other hand.

We find that audit fees are positively associated with board independence, board size, CEO/chair dual role and audit committee financial experts. The results of the interaction variables indicate that boards with higher independence and more effective audit committees tend to demand higher audit quality, and consequently, pay higher audit fees to protect shareholders’ interests from potential power abuse by CEOs who also chair boards.

This study contributes to the literature by providing extensive understanding of the influence on audit fees of the independence of the board of directors and the effectiveness of the audit committees. The authors first examine the impact of each individual governance variable separately and then introduce two interaction variables. This study provides policymakers with insights into the existing relationships between audit fees and the banking sector governance structure.

This paper seeks to reconcile two very different views existing in the literature concerning how exchange and demand affect the magnitude of commodity values. Traditionally, value is considered to be created in production and subsequently realized in exchange. An alternative monetary approach posits that exchange itself contributes to the determination of commodity values. Proponents of each view claim that significant parts of Marx’s theory of value are compromised if their interpretation of the role of exchange is not adopted. Drawing on the work of Rosdolsky and Roberts, I argue that it is necessary to distinguish between the effects of exchange and demand. Exchange acts to reduce concrete, private labor to abstract social labor, while demand affects the magnitude of labor considered “socially necessary” in the sense of being expended in accordance with existing social need. I identify a new category of exchange value – the market-price of production – and use it to explain how changes in demand act to redistribute value across industries by affecting the magnitude of abstract labor considered to be socially necessary. In this way the major claim of the two approaches to exchange are reconciled. The magnitude of value is fully determined in production. At the same time monetary exchange effects, or brings about, a social division of labor by reducing concrete, private labor to abstract social labor and by distributing value according to social need as expressed by effective demand.

While staffing agencies are gaining importance in work relationships with the highly skilled workforce, their work relations with highly skilled independent contractors have not been investigated yet. Staffing agencies as labor market intermediaries charge a fee to help independent contractors as well as client organizations to create contracts for services while independent contractors remain self-employed. Besides their growing relevance, their exact role remains unclear. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of staffing agencies in work relationships with highly skilled independent contractors.

The authors applied a mixed-methods design comprising a qualitative interview study with independent contractors and staffing agencies’ representatives (n=29) coupled with a quantitative survey of staffing agencies (n=81).

The analysis shows that staffing agencies are important actors in work relationships with highly skilled independent contractors. However, the relationships can be differentiated into rather standardized ones on the one hand and individualized relations on the other hand. This seems to correspond with differences between sectors.

First, the authors discuss staffing agencies as new intermediaries and highlight their relevance in the negotiation of working conditions. Second, the authors emphasize variations of the role of staffing agencies in triadic work relationships of highly skilled independent contractors in relation to specificities of sectors. Third, the study also adds on organizational support theory and related research.

The terms “inventory” and “stock” are usually seen as being synonymous and are used to describe materials which can be identified at various stages of the transformation process in organisations. It is customary to divide inventory into three categories:

Key components of the logistics mix are described in an effort to create an understanding of the total logistics concept. Chapters include an introduction to logistics; the strategic role of logistics, customer service levels, channel relationships, facilities location, transport, inventory management, materials handling, interface with production, purchasing and materials management, estimating demand, order processing, systems performance, leadership and team building, business resource management.

Overview All organisations are, in one sense or another, involved in operations; an activity implying transformation or transfer. The major portion of the body of knowledge concerning operations relates to production in manufacturing industry but, increasingly, similar problems are to be found confronting managers in service industry. It is only in the last decade or so that new technology, involving, in particular, the computer, has encouraged an integrated view to be taken of the total business. This has led to greater recognition being given to the strategic potential of the operations function. In order to provide greater insight into operations a number of classifications have been proposed. One of these, which places operations into categories termed factory, job shop, mass service and professional service, is examined. The elements of operations management are introduced under the headings of product, plant, process, procedures and people.

Extant literature reveals that the personality variable, core self-evaluation (CSE) which represents an employee’s self-assessment of himself has rarely been researched with respect to sales employees. The purpose of this paper is to identify the role of personality variable, core self-evaluation (CSE), in the relationship between demands and work – family enrichment. In this study, CSE has been treated as a moderating variable in the relationship between demands and work-family enrichment. This paper also aims to validate the CSE scale developed by Jugde et al. (2003) in Indian context.

Data were collected through structured questionnaires from 330 sales employees belonging to firms from some of the major sectors of Indian industry namely, Manufacturing, IT, FMCG, Pharmaceuticals and Financial Services. The study first validated the CSE scale in the Indian context using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Further, moderated regression analysis (MRA) was used to test the model.

The present research supported the 12-item CSE scale in the Indian context. Also, results of MRA suggested that, irrespective of higher work demands, sales employees having higher CSE experience higher levels of work to family enrichment (WFE). In addition, higher CSE employees tend to experience higher levels of FWE at the family front.

In an emerging economy such as India wherein sales professionals are facing a lot of work demands, organizations should invest in their frontline employees to be able to deliver value for money to the customers and thereby gain competitive advantage. With this realization, managers should acquire and retain frontline employees with positive core self-evaluation. Therefore, organizations should select and try to retain candidates with positive core self-evaluations.

Corporates should focus on nurturing sales employees’ positive CSE to make sure that their employees can contentedly adjust to various challenging work situations. In addition practices like job transitions, empowerment, enrichment and rewarding employees for their desired performance might be some of the interventions which positively impact core self-evaluations.

This study contributes to work – family literature by addressing the role of CSE in achieving WFE and FWE among sales employees in Indian context.

Supply chain management is built on the principles of partnerships and the development and use of the connections that exist between the links of the chain to provide information that will increase the efficiency of all members in the chain. Success stories abound describing lower costs, shorter lead times and increased customer service. Collaborative forecasting applies supply chain management concepts to the forecasting function and uses available information and technology to force a shift from independent, forecasted demand to dependent, known demand. Eventually, the future of forecasting may evolve to the point where forecasting is not even necessary. Demand information will be supplied completely by supply chain partners and the need to predict demand will be eliminated.

Inventory management is an extremely important function to any business, since inadequacies in control can result in serious problems. If inventories are managed in an inefficient manner, it is likely that delays in production, dissatisfied customers, or curtailment of working capital will result.