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This study attempts to discover effective strategies for mobile commerce applications (apps) to grow their consumer base by releasing app strategic updates. Drawing on the landscape search model from strategy research, this study conceptualizes mobile app update strategy as three interdependent decisions, i.e. what business elements are changed in an app strategic update, how substantial the changes are and when strategic updates are released relative to the competitive environment.

Using a field data set of 1,500 strategic updates of seven rival apps in the mobile travel market, this study integrated fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) with econometric analysis to analyze how app strategic update decisions interdependently influence app performance.

This study identified three effective and one ineffective mobile app update strategies from the mixed-method analysis, which verified the complex interdependency of app strategic update decisions. A general takeaway from these strategies is that a complex strategy problem on the mobile platform must be solved with respect to the constraints and capabilities of mobile technology.

This study moves beyond a linear view of the relationship between app update frequency and app performance and provides a holistic view of how and why app strategic update decisions mutually influence one another in their impact on app performance. This work makes contributions by identifying interdependency as a conceptual bridge between strategy and mobile app literature and developing an empirically testable version of the landscape search model.

In this study, the authors explore the boundaryless careers of faculty and adopt the intelligent career framework to examine success factors for academic careers.

The authors conducted a field study of 36 researchers in the management information systems field from 22 institutions in the US, Australia and Canada. The authors selected the participants representing four strata of researchers: luminaries (high expertise status and high citizenship behavior), experts (high expertise status but low leadership roles), statesmen (low expertise status but high leadership) and journeymen (low expertise status and low leadership). Data regarding the participants' experience of social relationships and social resources as well as entrepreneurial motivations were collected and analyzed.

Results show that faculty who “know-why”, “know-how”, and “know with whom” possess socially valued resources and are successful in advancing their careers. They establish high social status and exercise power within their networks to mobilize resources that promote their careers. On the other hand, faculty who fall short of these competencies impose social closure on themselves and do not strive to exploit resources available through their contacts. The study advances a number of theoretical propositions to guide future research on boundaryless intelligent careers.

Social relationships and social resources do not substitute individual competence, leadership and entrepreneurial motivations; individuals need to develop competence valued by their professional communities and exploit available opportunities and assume leadership roles in order to effectively establish instrumental relationships and mobilize social resources to achieve career advancement.

In this study, we attempt to extend career development research through an examination of the bidirectional relationship between know-why, know-how and know-who in academia.

Considers the implications for budgeting and performance measurement of the emphasis on strategic management of human and information resources to obtain global competitive advantage. Summarizes relevant research, noting increasing use of economic value added, non‐financial measures and the balanced scorecard; and explaining Simons’ (1995) “levers of control” framework. Illustrates how this can be applied to the budgeting process, stressing the importance of interactive control systems which capture an integrated set of critical performance measures, and uses Skandia (insurance, Sweden) as an example. Lists the ten non‐financial performance metrics identified by Ernst & Young (1997) as important to investors and discusses the ten differences between budgeting in a traditional as opposed to a balanced scorecard environment put forward by Govindarajan and Shank (1992). Concludes that the need for multinationals to be flexible means that control and measurement systems must be aligned with strategic goals, taking account of national cultures, investors’ expectations and demands for employee empowerment.

management practices in a Russian Multinational Company (RMC). The paper is motivated by the lack of empirical evidence on financial management practices outside the Western World (especially from Russia and from other Commonwealth of Independent States). Data for the analysis are gathered from documents and in‐depth interviews with finance managers in the company. The findings of the paper suggest that the company implemented an international cash management system reminiscent of international cash management discussed in the Western literature. For example, techniques such as netting, leading and lagging, re‐invoicing center and cash flow planning are used in the company. Thus, our conclusion is that financial management techniques are likely to be the same in Russia as in the Western world. However, differences are likely to be found in the ways in which these techniques are implemented and used in practice due to differences in environmental conditions. For example, the company did not use any of the sophisticated cash management models discussed in the literature. Our research has implications for understanding financial management practices outside the Western World, especially in Russia.

Discusses arbitrage pricing theory as a multifactor model for explaining rates of return on securities; and the use of principal components analysis to reduce the number of variables studies. Applies these ideas to returns on treasury bills and government bonds for 1,000 business days ending in March 1997 to obtain a set of three endogenous factors for the term structure of interest rates, forecasts returns for one‐day and 30‐day horizons and produces a time series of the forecast errors for eight short‐term interest rates. Compares the results with those from a single factor autoregessive forecasting model and finds that although their accuracy is similar for short horizons, the multifactor model is superior for longer horizons and shorter time to maturity.

Financial institutions that are marketing tax‐sheltered plans claim that the implied rates of return of tax‐sheltered strategies are superior to those rates of return realized from taxable plans. The purpose of our paper is to investigate that claim. To accomplish our purpose, we have developed a model to determine, under different assumptions of various tax rates, the incremental benefits and the implied rates of returns of tax‐deferred investments over the taxable investments. When the model is applied, the results show that tax‐deferred investments are not always superior. Consequently, investors may not have a choice but to select portfolios at the lower end of the efficient frontier.

Outlines some research on the effects of risk on portfolios for retirement planning and puts forward a method to help individuals “increase their chances of not outliving their retirement portfolios”. Uses numerical examples to show how calculations of the savings needed to achieve specific retirement incomes may prove inaccurate, and how regular portfolio assessment can be used to make any necessary adjustments during the accumulation and/or the retirement stage.

Outlines Warren and Shelton’s system for modelling a firm’s operations as a set of simultaneous equations, its limitations and the addition of Monte Carlo simulation into it by Coats and Chesser. Develops these ideas further and applies the new simulation model to a Greek clothing firm to test its effectiveness. Considers other possible applications, e.g. forecasting, calculating the cost of capital and valuation.

Several papers have investigated the use of foreign exchange (FX) derivatives but evidence on the use of international cash management meth ods to hedge FX is scarce. This paper contributes to the existing evidence by considering the use of international cash management systems to hedge foreign exchange (FX) risks using a sample of French and UK companies. We find that matching, netting and pricing policies are the most commonly used techniques in both the UK and French samples al though there is evidence of greater use of all cash management techniques in the UK. We also consider whether the theoretical explanations of hedging determine the use of cash management techniques for FX hedging, and if there are differences between the UK and French samples. We find support for the theoretical prediction that FX hedgers have higher levels of financial distress, and that these firms tend to be larger, more international and less liquid. We find little support for the under investment theory. The extent of internationalisation appears to play no role in the decision of French firms to use cash management techniques to manage FX risk, and the use of all cash management techniques were lower than in UK firms. These latter findings may be explained by the reduction in FX risk facing French firms following the introduction of the euro.

This paper reviews experience with credit union demutualisation to date in the light of increasing discussion about whether demutualisation is a likely (or inevitable) future stage in the evolutionary process. It is argued that the credit union industry faces an inherent demutualisation bias which emerges as the sector develops maturity. Contributing factors include the emergence of professional management pursuing personal objectives, together with the economic realities of technological change, financial liberalisation, increased competition, and prudential regulation based on minimum capital requirements. Demutualisation incentives may partially reflect the unsuitability of the mutual form of governance in larger, more sophisticated financial institutions, but there is also a significant risk of demutualisation based on wealth expropriation motives. Alternative policies and strategies which might avoid this demutualisation bias are examined.