Search results

Business “rules” (for the way value is created) are rapidly evolving, necessitating transformational change. The confluence of several factors – the Internet, innovative new technologies, changing consumer preferences, intensified global competition, and the proliferation of fast‐evolving social technologies that connect people and ideas – is driving the need to change. This paper aims to investigate these issues/

The paper looks at eight new rules which have been identified through research on 100 technology start‐ups and 40 early adopter large enterprises that were then refined based on insights from technology analysts, IBM business leaders and the venture capital community.

The paper finds that these rules, referred to as Value 2.0, illustrate unique ways in which emerging technologies are enabling new value creation in an enterprise.

Corporations can use the eight rules to capitalize on new markets and business models, get closer to markets and customers and create new capabilities

The Value 2.0 proficiencies described in the article seem likely to be critical in coming years for corporations in many industries.

This paper describes an exploratory, international research collaboration that seeks to gain a deeper understanding of the development and experiences of peer leaders in higher education across different international contexts, namely the USA, Canada (CAN), Australasia (Australia and New Zealand) (ANZ), the United Kingdom (UK) and South Africa (SA).

Data are summarized and compared across each of the participating countries, providing a more global context and depth of perspective on peer leadership (PL) in higher education than is currently available in the literature.

The findings highlight some apparent differences between countries in relation to student engagement in peer leader roles and the ways in which PL is supported by higher education institutions, as well as some similarities across the different international contexts, particularly in the way peer leaders view the benefits of their involvement in PL.

These insights provide a valuable addition to the literature on PL and practical information to higher education institutions for supporting student leadership development and involvement.

Companies are now struggling to cope with the most severe recession in more than half a century. This paper aims to study how leading companies have successfully reacted to the crisis.

The researchers identified early winners in the current recession, beginning with large US‐listed companies whose stock appreciated by at least 5 percent in 2008, at a time when the S&P declined by 37 percent. They looked at best practices of 61 companies.

Winners have learned to ask, “Which strategies will allow the company to both survive in this economic transformation and, potentially, to thrive in it?”

Overall, the early winners the following: focus on value via sustainable strategies that emphasize long‐term value; exploit opportunities presented during downturns, including growing through low‐cost acquisitions and stock buy‐backs; and act quickly, with the agility to respond ahead of, or at least to keep pace with, rapid changes in the new economic environment.

As winning firms have learned, there are the three targets for leaders in the new economic environment. The article offers a how‐to guide to achieving them: leadership target no. 1: focus on value; leadership target no. 2: exploit opportunities; and leadership target no. 3: make speed a competitive advantage.

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.

This paper aims to study the roles of CEOs, board of directors and accounting/auditing firms in the adoption of tax avoidance schemas.

A cross-national analysis with data from 22 countries is used to examine the relationship between tax avoidance and the ethical qualities of the top leadership of the organizations, the firm’s profile and the tax/legal system characteristics.

The results show that the board of directors is the actor that contributes more to control tax avoidance cross-nationally, whereas the CEOs’ role to contend this practice is less relevant. The outcomes for accounting/auditing firms reveal that the stronger standards these firms have, the more tax avoidance is observed.

The methodology (cross-national analysis) and dimensions examined (role of the actors/instances of discretional power) in this inquiry offer a novel perspective to the analysis of tax avoidance, as most scholarly studies have taken a national approach and have mainly focused on studying the characteristics of the firms involved in tax avoidance.

The purpose of this study is to examine the agency problem of expropriation using dividends in politically connected firms and the relevance of institutional investors in limiting this problem. The growing presence of this group of shareholders offers a unique opportunity to test their importance in the context of dividends payments and expropriation.

This study uses the Tobit regression to test the association between political connection, institutional investors and dividend payouts. The results are also robust to the three-stage-least squares regressions method.

The study is based on a random sample of 2,458 Malaysian firms-year observations for the period of 2004-2009. The results reveal that politically connected firms have an inclination to pay lower dividends, while institutional ownership is associated with higher dividend payouts. Furthermore, the findings reveal that higher levels of institutional ownership moderates the negative relationship between politically connected firms and dividends.

The findings have an important implication to regulators as it suggests that the institutional investors can influence the dividend payouts in politically connected firms through active monitoring, thus alleviating agency problems. This also provides a positive feedback on the regulators’ governance initiatives that quest to strengthen the roles of institutional investors.

This study is the first to examine the effectiveness of the monitoring role of institutional investors in the context of expropriation by politically connected firms from the perspective of dividend payouts.

The main purpose of the study is to examine the influence of family directors on the firm performance of public listed companies (PLCs) in Malaysia. This study provides empirical evidence on the agency problems between controlling shareholders and minority interests in the concentrated ownership setting.

Samples of the study are 112 PLCs in year 2006. Two measures of firm performance are used: return on assets (ROA) and Tobin’s Q. Managerial ownership refers to the percentage shareholdings of executive directors with direct and indirect holdings. It was further categorized into family ownership and non-family ownership.

In relation to ROA, managerial ownership is found positively significant. The results also show that the positive relationship between managerial ownership is contributed by the managerial-non-family ownership. In relation to Tobin’s Q, the results show a U-shape with turning point at 31.38% for managerial ownership and 28.29% for the managerial-family ownership. The results found significant and positive relationships between managerial ownership and both measures of firm performance which indicates that managerial ownership and family ownership yield greater efficiency.

The study highlights the effects of corporate governance on ROA and Tobin’s Q are somewhat different. It provides some evidence on the need to use appropriate measure of firm performance. The significant relationship supports the argument of Chami (1999), Fama and Jensen (1983), and DeAngelo and DeAngelo (1985) and empirical evidence of Lee (2004) that family ownership enhances monitoring activities.

Differentiating the types of managerial ownership into family and non-family categories enriches our knowledge about who actually contributes to the improved performance.

This paper aims to furnish incremental insights on dividends and corporate governance (CG) by addressing the relationship between board meeting frequency and board independence with dividend payout. In particular, this study aims to investigate whether CG attributes are substitutes to control agency problem within the Malaysian context.

This paper examines panel data on a sample of 114 Malaysian firms (798 observations) for seven years from 2002 to 2008.

Based on 798 firm-year observations for the period from 2002 to 2008, the results show significant negative relationship between CG (board independence, board meeting frequency) and dividend payout. This suggests that CG and dividend payout are substitutes in reducing agency costs. Our study provides empirical evidence consistent with the “substitution argument”, indicating that firms with weak CG need to establish reputation by paying more dividends. Specifically, the findings indicate that firms with a higher proportion of independent directors and boards of director that meet more frequent pay lower dividends.

This paper provides evidence on previously untested governance characteristics in relation to how they act as substitute mechanisms with dividends for reducing agency costs. The results builds a strong case for the fresh strand of knowledge on dividends and CG which tests each CG variables to understand each of its unique relationship with dividends in line with the dividends outcome or substitute theory.

How do heretical social movements build and negotiate their collective identities? This chapter tackles this question by examining the case of an emerging social movement, the left-wing Islamists in contemporary Turkey, that cuts across the durable divide between Turkey’s left and Islam. Drawing on four months of fieldwork in Turkey, I argue that, in addition to activating the typical “us versus them” dynamic of contentious politics, the left-wing Islamists also rely on blurring the social and symbolic boundaries that govern political divides in the course of building their collective identities. Their social boundary blurring includes facilitating otherwise unlikely face-to-face conversations and mutual ties between leftists and Islamists and spearheading alliances on common grounds including anti-imperialism and labor. Their symbolic boundary blurring includes performing a synthesis of Islamist and leftist repertoires of contention and reframing Islamic discourse with a strong emphasis on social justice and oppositional fervor. The case of Turkey’s left-wing Islamists illuminates the process of boundary blurring as a key dimension of collective identity and alliance formation across divides.