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This paper examines the determinants of corporate dividend policy in Jordan. The study uses a firm‐level panel data set of all publicly traded firms on the Amman Stock Exchange between 1989 and 2000. The study develops eight research hypotheses, which are used to represent the main theories of corporate dividends. A general‐to‐specific modeling approach is used to choose between the competing hypotheses. The study examines the determinants of the amount of dividends using Tobit specifications. The results suggest that the proportion of stocks held by insiders and state ownership significantly affect the amount of dividends paid. Size, age, and profitability of the firm seem to be determinant factors of corporate dividend policy in Jordan. The findings provide strong support for the agency costs hypothesis and are broadly consistent with the pecking order hypothesis. The results provide no support for the signaling hypothesis.

Between 1988 and 1994 ten European countries introduced or modified their regulations on insider trading. We evaluate in this article the impact of such regulatory changes on the risk, return, and some other characteristics of these ten markets. After extensive testing, we find that the evidence suggests that these regulations have had little (if any) impact on the market characteristics we examine, and briefly speculate about the reasons that justify our findings.

The purpose of this research is to develop and validate a scale to measure the perceived orientation of sport organizations toward their fans, and subsequently, to test its relationship with six outcomes based on data from the fanbases of three distinct sport teams.

Using interviews and focus groups, important elements of fans' perceptions of their relationship with sport organizations are identified. After creating items based on the results of the interviews and focus groups, EFA, CFA and SEM procedures are used to create and test a multidimensional scale of perceived fan orientation.

Using EFA and CFA procedures, an 11-item, four-dimension scale of perceived fan orientation is validated, including components measuring (1) hosting events and campaigns for fans, (2) communicating information to fans, (3) interacting with fans when requests and problems arise and (4) providing preferential treatment to fans. The SEM results provide evidence of the impact of fan orientation on multiple measured outcomes for three professional football teams.

This research is limited to three professional football teams in Turkey. However, the development of the multidimensional perceived fan orientation (PERFANOR) scale provides sport organizations' management and personnel with information about the relationship fans desire.

Sport managers, marketers and front-line staff are recommended to undertake activities to improve the relationship between the organization, team and its fans.

The principles and practices of relationship marketing and service quality often include discussions of the importance of “putting fans first,” however until now, no multidimensional scale existed in sport which measures the perceived fan orientation of a sport organization.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the need for universities to develop an entrepreneurial culture and assess higher education practitioners’ opinions of the culture of the university they are working in.

The research provides empirical data collected through a survey instrument originally used for a PhD research study; however, this paper focuses on the question set related to culture, which was based on the organisational culture model presented by Quinn in 1988.

The findings indicate that a number of respondents reported from a heterogeneous population of higher education institutes predominantly responded they were working within a hierarchy cultural type with many reporting a market cultural type. While respondents from a homogeneous group from a single university reported in the main they were working in a market-driven cultural type with the next main category being a clan culture.

The study population reported in the main that there is predominantly a market culture in UK universities. However, this research has focussed entirely on respondents working within the UK HE sector, thus, has ignored potential differences that could be present within the global HE emerging markets.

The paper strengthens understanding of the critical importance of innovation and entrepreneurship in universities. Students, scholars, HE policy makers and HE practitioners can gather a range of insights pointed at university culture and rest assured in the main they are market focussed.

Globalisation is generally defined as the “denationalisation of clusters of political, economic, and social activities” that destabilize the ability of the sovereign State to control activities on its territory, due to the rising need to find solutions for universal problems, like the pollution of the environment, on an international level. Globalisation is a complex, forceful legal and social process that take place within an integrated whole with out regard to geographical boundaries. Globalisation thus differs from international activities, which arise between and among States, and it differs from multinational activities that occur in more than one nation‐State. This does not mean that countries are not involved in the sociolegal dynamics that those transboundary process trigger. In a sense, the movements triggered by global processes promote greater economic interdependence among countries. Globalisation can be traced back to the depression preceding World War II and globalisation at that time included spreading of the capitalist economic system as a means of getting access to extended markets. The first step was to create sufficient export surplus to maintain full employment in the capitalist world and secondly establishing a globalized economy where the planet would be united in peace and wealth. The idea of interdependence among quite separate and distinct countries is a very important part of talks on globalisation and a significant side of today’s global political economy.

Currently, ubiquitous smartphones embedded with various sensors provide a convenient way to collect raw sequence data. These data bridges the gap between human activity and multiple sensors. Human activity recognition has been widely used in quite a lot of aspects in our daily life, such as medical security, personal safety, living assistance and so on.

To provide an overview, the authors survey and summarize some important technologies and involved key issues of human activity recognition, including activity categorization, feature engineering as well as typical algorithms presented in recent years. In this paper, the authors first introduce the character of embedded sensors and dsiscuss their features, as well as survey some data labeling strategies to get ground truth label. Then, following the process of human activity recognition, the authors discuss the methods and techniques of raw data preprocessing and feature extraction, and summarize some popular algorithms used in model training and activity recognizing. Third, they introduce some interesting application scenarios of human activity recognition and provide some available data sets as ground truth data to validate proposed algorithms.

The authors summarize their viewpoints on human activity recognition, discuss the main challenges and point out some potential research directions.

It is hoped that this work will serve as the steppingstone for those interested in advancing human activity recognition.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a multiple‐indicator‐multiple‐cause (MIMIC) model that assesses the relative influence of various e‐shopping web site design attributes on e‐shopping web site usage intention.

Data from a survey of 261 students are used to test the research model. Factor analysis is performed to ascertain distinct constructs. LISREL analysis of the survey data is then used to test the proposed MIMIC model.

The results showed the effect of the dimensions of content quality (CQ), transaction quality (TQ), playfulness, and security on e‐shopping web site usage. Security is identified as the most important factor in e‐shopping web site success.

The theoretical contribution is the systematic evaluation of the relative influence of the four web site design factors on web site usage intention. The degree of influence of specific factors that can motivate continuous use is identified.

This paper provides a guide for designers to make their web site relevant for organizations who desire a quality presence on the web. Additionally, the relative influence of the factors can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of web sites providing guidance for modifications and improvements.

This paper suggests that e‐shopping web sites should not include extensive entertaining components at the expense of responsiveness and useful contents. The information provided has to be informative, accurate, current, and relevant. The functionality must facilitate the completion of e‐purchases and ensure security.

One important assumption in the conventional cooperative game theory is that payoffs are assumed to be deterministic. In terms of the players’ cognitive ability of the realistic world, this is a very strict assumption. The classical game theory can find no way out when a particular game circumstance involves uncertainty, such as limited knowledge, small sample, and inadequate information, the payoff values of the game can only be described with interval grey numbers. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

In this study the concept of N-person grey games is proposed in which payoffs are represented with interval grey numbers opposed to the classical game theory. A straight forward solution methodology is submitted compatible to grey numbers. Then, a currency war between anonymous countries is handled and modeled as an N-Person grey game. A generic currency war scenario is developed to follow the proposed solution procedure thoroughly.

Based on the outcomes of this work, the authors can say that N-person grey game is an expansion of the classical N-person game under uncertain grey information and can be applied in more complex and uncertain environments, such as those seen in complicated currency warfare.

This study combines the grey system theory with the classic N-person game theory and sets up the N-person grey game with grey payoff functions. Based on the grey number operating methods, the grey linear programming algorithm is established to calculate and distribute benefits to the players. In this respect this study has the feature of being the pioneer in the N-person grey game area.

The purpose of this paper is to review and analyze how the development and utilization of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies for social responsibility are defined in the national AI strategies of the USA, Russia and China.

The notion of responsibility concerning AI is currently not legally defined by any country in the world. The authors of this research are going to use the methodology, based on Luciano Floridi’s Unified framework of five principles for AI in society, to determine how social responsibility is implemented in the AI strategies of the USA, Russia and China.

All three strategies for the development of AI in the USA, Russia and China, as evaluated in the paper, contain some or other components aimed at achieving public responsibility and responsible use of AI. The Unified framework of five principles for AI in society, developed by L. Floridi, can be used as a viable assessment tool to determine at least in general terms how social responsibility is implied and implemented in national strategic documents in the field of AI. However, authors of the paper call for further development in the field of mutually recognizable ethical models for socially beneficial AI.

This study allows us to better understand the linkages, overlaps and differences between modern philosophy of information, AI-ethics, social responsibility and government regulation. The analysis provided in this paper can serve as a basic blueprint for future attempts to define how social responsibility is understood and implied by government decision-makers.

The analysis provided in the paper, however general and empirical it may be, is a first-time example of how the Unified framework of five principles for AI in society can be applied as an assessment tool to determine social responsibility in AI-related official documents.

Artificial intelligence (AI) might change the communication profession immensely, but the academic discourse is lacking an investigation of the perspective of practitioners on this. This article addresses this research gap. It offers a literature overview and reports about an empirical study on AI in communications, presenting first insights on how professionals in the field assess the technology.

A quantitative cross-national study among 2,689 European communication practitioners investigated four research questions: RQ1 – How much do professionals know about AI and to what extent are they already using AI technologies in their everyday lives? RQ2 – How do professionals rate the impact of AI on communication management? RQ3 – Which challenges do professionals identify for implementing AI in communication management? RQ4 – Which risks do they perceive?

Communication professionals revealed a limited understanding of AI and expected the technology to impact the profession as a whole more than the way their organisations or themselves work. Lack of individual competencies and organisations struggling with different levels of competency and unclear responsibilities were identified as key challenges and risks.

The results highlight the need for communication managers to educate themselves and their teams about the technology and to identify the implementation of AI as a leadership issue.

The article offers the first cross-national quantitative study on AI in communication management. It presents valuable empirical insights on a trending topic in the discipline, highly relevant for both academics and practitioners.