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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between firms’ entrepreneurial orientations (EOs) and the adoption of quality management (QM) practices. The role of environmental uncertainty as the moderator of the former relationship is considered.

Using theories and related empirical evidences, two research hypotheses were argued and proposed. These hypotheses were tested using data collected from a unique sample of 301 Uruguayan and Argentinean manufacturing companies with more than 20 workers assessed through personal interviews. The empirical methodology includes statistic treatment for scale validation, statistic descriptive techniques and regression analysis.

Firms’ EO is determinant for the adoption of QM practices. The environmental uncertainty strengthens the positive impact of EO on the adoption of QM practices, mainly human resource management practices.

The data come from a particular geographical context and refer to manufacturing plants. It would be interesting to extend the scope of this study to services. The collection of data from only one individual in each organization can generate a potential problem with using single-source information.

Innovative manufacturing companies that try to adopt advanced QM practices will benefit from hiring managers who are able to take risks, and to seek a long-term orientation toward being aggressive with their environment, especially in highly competitive contexts. Mustering these features may ensure perseverance in the adoption of advanced manufacturing practices, even in the presence of complex and uncertain environments.

The principal contribution of this paper is that it advances the study of the intersection between operations management and entrepreneurship, analyzing how firms’ EO affects the adoption of new methods and practices in manufacturing. Furthermore, it is important to highlight the fact that the authors use data from a unique survey of manufacturing companies from Argentina and Uruguay in the southern cone of Latin America. The authors also contribute to the open debate about the universality of QM practices.

Wrap fee programs are an increasingly popular product offered by broker‐dealers and investment managers to their clients. Wrap fee programs present unique issues under both the Investment Company Act of 1940 (“Investment Company Act”) and the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 (“Advisers Act”), the two primary bodies of law that govern the product and those who offer and manage it. The regulations and rules under those Acts applicable to wrap fee programs and related interpretive statements made by the SEC staff, however, are wide ranging and have not been provided in a single format. This article attempts to present a comprehensive discussion on the regulation of wrap fee programs, as well as the many compliance issues associated with these programs. The article is delivered in two parts. Part I, presented in this issue, addresses the regulation of wrap fee programs under the Investment Company Act. Part I also begins a review of unique issues arising under the Advisers Act, including registration requirements for wrap fee sponsors and other persons who manage or offer the product to their clients, as well as required contents for wrap fee brochures and related disclosure issues. Part II, which will be presented in the next issue, will discuss additional Advisers Act issues such as suitability, fees and advertising. It also will briefly review issues arising under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (“Exchange Act”) and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”).

This study aims to investigate the influence of socioeconomic characteristics as well as organisational profile as predictors of the organisational and career commitments of real estate employees in the employment of private estate surveying and valuation firms.

A total of 333 closed-ended questionnaires were administered on estate surveyors and valuers practicing in private real estate firms in Lagos State, Nigeria, out of which 124 (37.2%) were retrieved and found suitable for analysis. The data were analysed using frequencies, percentage, mean rating, one sample t-test and ANOVA.

The findings showed that though the male real estate employees rated a higher level of organisational commitment than their female counterparts, the female employees showed a higher level of career commitment. Besides, the results showed that across both genders and on an overall basis, there was a significant relationship between career commitment and organisational commitment. Also, while demographic factors such as age, management level and professional qualification have a statistically significant relationship with career commitment, factors relating to marital status, academic qualification, management level and firms’ year of the establishment were statistically significant with employees’ organisational commitment.

The study deepens the understanding of the influence of demographic and firms’ correlates in explaining the performance of real estate employees in Nigeria, an emerging African market, where issues of absenteeism, poor remuneration and low retention appear prevalent.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first attempt at examining the influence of demographic variables on the organisational and career commitment of real estate employees in Nigeria.

The dearth of green standards (GS) in sub-Saharan Africa is alarming and the green cost premiums (GCP) in seeking certification in emerging markets are scanty. This paper studied the Building Energy-Efficiency Code of Nigeria (BEEC) and estimated the potential GCPs associated with the various energy-efficiency ratings.

The study retrofitted 150 conventional residential bungalow and maisonette buildings using BEEC's energy-efficiency interventions and performed analytical estimating of the retrofitted designs. The mean cost premium associated with each energy-efficiency intervention is presented as well as their financial benefits and payback periods. The benefits are achievable financial-savings due to a reduction in energy consumption and savings in electricity payment estimated from the average energy demands of each building. An independent t-test was further conducted to determine the cost differential between energy-efficient design (ED) and conventional design over a five-year period.

The potential GCPs and their payback periods are actually less than feared. The study showed that less than 5% and 21% extra funding would be required to achieve 1 to 4-Star and 5-Star energy-efficiency ratings involving passive design interventions and photovoltaic systems. Passive and active design interventions produced a financial savings of $8.08/m² in electricity payment and $2.84/m² per annum in energy consumption reduction. The financial-savings ($10.92/m²) was objective to pay-off the GCPs in less than four years. The independent t-test analysis showed the cost of ED is more economical after four years into the project lifecycle.

The research provides cost benchmarks for navigating cost planning and budgetary decisions during ED implementation and births a departure point for advancing energy-efficient construction in developing markets from the rational economic decision perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of doping element on the structural, thermal properties, mechanical performance and the failure mechanism of hexagonal nano boron nitride (h-BN)-reinforced basalt fabric (BF)/epoxy composites produced by hand lay-up and vacuum bagging technique. h-BN particles doped to composite materials increased the tensile, bending and impact strength of the composite at certain rates while 1 Wt. % h- BN addition shows the highest tensile and flexural strength.

The epoxy resin was doped with h-BN nanopowder at the certain rates (0, 1, 2 and 4 Wt.%) and the epoxy: hardener ratios used in the study were selected as 80%: 20% by weight. Then, with the aid of a roller by hand lay-up method, a mixture of epoxy + hardeners containing nanoparticles and nanoparticle-free were fed onto BFs, 12 layers of each dimension 30 cm × 30 cm. The surplus epoxy resin was moved away from the composite sheets using the vacuum bagging process and left to cure at room temperature for 24 h. ASTM D3039 for tensile, D7264 for three-point bending and D256 for Izod impact test were performed for the mechanical tests. After the tensile test, the morphologies of the fracture surface were examined with a stereomicroscope and various failure mechanisms are highlighted.

In this study, a series of basalt/epoxy composites with h-BN nanopowders have been prepared to identify the effect of filler ratio on mechanical properties. It has been known from the results of mechanical experiments that the addition of h-BN improves the mechanical performance of materials at a certain rate. The tensile and flexural strengths of h-BN doped composites, increase for concentrations of 1 Wt.% h-BN, but decrease with the increasing content of it. The basalt/epoxy resin composite with higher mechanical properties could be a potential material in the automotive and aerospace industries.

The aim of this study is to contribute to literature within the context of this new combination of composites and their mechanical properties, failure mechanisms. It presents detailed characterization of each composite by using X-ray differaction (XRD), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and scanning electron microscopy.

This study aims to better understand the effects of speeches as a valuable communication tool for central banks. It extends the analysis of the effects of public speeches on jumps to determine whether individual speakers matter partly because of their name, position or institution.

This study detects intraday jumps using a robust-to-jump volatility estimator that accounts for deterministic seasonality. As a result, this study removes spurious jumps that occur when volatility is high and consider the relatively small jumps that occur when volatility is low. After identifying jumps, this study examines their reactions to senior official speeches and macroeconomic news surrounding the US and European Union (EU) financial crises.

Despite having the most influential individual speakers, this study finds that the impact of the Federal Reserve (Fed) and European Central Bank (ECB) is mitigated because the two institutions have a relatively small impact on currency jumps. This finding shows that the speaker’s name is more important than his or her institution affiliation. While the Federal Reserve Bank President and Chief Executive, as well as ECB board members, significantly reduce jump sizes, particularly during the EU crisis period, both the Fed Chairman and the ECB President increase the magnitude of the jump in both the US crisis and noncrisis periods, contributing to market instability.

The implications of the results include international portfolio management, currency derivatives pricing and hedging, risk management and market efficiency.

The findings contribute to a better understanding of the effects of senior official speech attributes on currency jumps in various economic states. The results raise questions about the speaker’s name, institution and position’s effectiveness in calming markets and reducing uncertainty.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a subgrid-scale (SGS) model for large eddy simulation (LES) of buoyancy- and thermally driven transitional and turbulent flows and further examine its performance.

Favre-filtered, non-dimensional LES equations are solved using non-dissipative, fully implicit, kinetic energy conserving, finite-volume algorithm which uses an iterative predictor-corrector approach based on pressure correction. Also, to develop a new SGS model which accounts for buoyancy, turbulent generation term in SGS viscosity is properly modified and enhanced by buoyancy production.

The proposed model has been successfully applied to turbulent Rayleigh–Bénard convection. The results show that the model is able to reproduce the complex physics of turbulent thermal convection. In comparison with the original wall-adapting local eddy-viscosity (WALE) and buoyancy-modified (BM) Smagorinsky models, turbulent diagnostics predicted by the new model are in better agreement with direct numerical simulation.

A BM variant of the WALE SGS model is newly developed and analyzed.