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This article provides a theoretical framework for understanding the communicative effects of product imagery on attention to the brand, specifically, the attentional effects of incorporating a picture or illustration of the product on the packaging of the product. Empirical results from a virtual reality simulation show that package pictures increase shoppers’ attention to the brand. However this effect is contingent, occurring only for low familiarity brands (private‐label brands) within product categories that offer a relatively high level of experiential benefits. These results suggest that package pictures may be especially useful for private label brands and/or lesser tier national brands whose strategic objectives are to improve consumers’ perceptions of the brand and enter the consideration set.

Considers the differences between consumer perceptions of nonmonetary promotions such as free extra product and monetary promotions such as discounts and rebates. Reports on an experiment which found that monetary promotions did not have to be as large as nonmonetary promotions to be noticed by the consumer, and that large incentives make consumers sceptical. Concludes that the decision about which type of promotion to use depends on whether a price‐conscious or a premium product market segment is being sought.

Considers the relevance for marketing practitioners of the recent research findings about the decision‐framing process. Presents an overview of recent empirical research findings and a brief description of the theoretical rationale of the research. Surmises that decision‐framing of alternatives has a substantial impact on the choice among alternatives, even when relevant objective information remains invariant.

The paper aims to present a case of integration between process engineering and the thinking process of the theory of constraints (TP‐TOC) through the analysis of an organization's processes, pointing out the complementary aspects between the two theories and their benefits for the organization.

The paper has used an Institution of Higher Education as its case study. The research has started by identifying the processes of the institution and choosing one to model according to the process engineering approach. The process was then analyzed through the elaboration of the current reality tree technique. After the analysis, the evaporating clouds technique was applied in order to breach the assumptions that were avoiding the problems to be solved. Finally, the process has been redesigned based on the results of the previous steps.

The analysis of this case contributes towards understanding and identifying the causes of the current problems in the studied processes, providing a systemic and systematic view through the proposed approach.

The paper proposes an approach that enables a systematic and systemic analysis of organizations' processes through the use of process engineering and the TP‐TOC.

Re‐examines traditional views on change management, in particular the resistance to change, and to suggest alternative views and a practical approach for better managing change. The literature on change management contains numerous prerequisites for successful change, with a predominantly negative view on the issue of resistance to change. Some authors have argued for the positive utility of resistance, but have lamented a lack of management theories which support this view. Describes a management methodology called the theory of constraints (TOC) which views resistance as a necessary and positive force, and we demonstrate how it was applied in a case study involving a bank merger. Reviews how TOC handles the various types of resistance identified in the change management literature, and posit that the TOC framework helps lead and manage change by providing practical guidance on, inter alia, situational assessment, assumption surfacing, conflict resolution, planning and implementation of successful change.

The nature and extent of our knowledge of stock market efficiency are examined. The development of “efficiency”, as a way of thinking about stock markets, is traced from Roberts (1959) and Fama (1965) onward. The early work successfully introduced competitive economic theory to the study of stock markets and paved the way for a flood of empirical research on the relation between information and stock prices. This literature irreversibly altered our views on stock market behavior. The theory and evidence of seemingly‐rational use of information lay in sharp contrast to prior beliefs. It was associated with a widespread increase in respect for stock markets, financial markets, and markets in general, at the time. Researchers began developing and using a variety of formal models of security prices. Nevertheless, “efficiency” has its limitations, both theoretically (as a way of characterizing markets) and empirically (by stretching the quality of the data, the estimation techniques used, and our knowledge of price behavior in competitive markets). Extensive evidence of anomalies suggests either that the market systematically misprices securities or that the theoretical or empirical limitations are binding, or both. The less interesting research question now is whether markets are efficient, and the more interesting question is how we can learn more about price and transactions behavior in competitive stock markets. The concept of an “efficient stock market” has stimulated both insight and controversy since Fama (1965) introduced it to the financial economics literature. As a construct, “efficiency” models the stock market in terms of the reaction of prices to the flow of information. Like all theory choices, modelling the market in this fashion involved tradeoffs. The benefits included opening the literature to an abundance of high‐quality researchable data, covering a variety of information, and the resulting insights obtained on the role of information in setting prices. The opportunity costs included temporarily closing the literature to alternative ways of viewing stock markets, for example by modelling public information as a homogenous good and thus ignoring factors such as differences in beliefs among investors, differences in information processing costs, and the “animal spirits” that might drive group behavior. The costs also included reliance on particular asset‐pricing models of how an “efficient” market would set prices. Not surprisingly, the ensuing deluge of research has produced some startling evidence, for and against the proposition that financial markets are “efficient”. Strongly‐conflicting views and puzzling anomalies remain. The early evidence seemed unexpectedly consistent with the theory. The theory, and its implications, also seemed clear at the time. After a period that seems short in retrospect, the growing body of evidence in favor of the efficient market hypothesis emerged as one of the most influential empirical areas of economics. Fama's (1970) review described a flourishing, coherent and confident literature. This research had an irreversible effect on our knowledge of and attitude toward stock markets, and financial markets generally. It coincided with an emergence of interest in, and respect for, all markets among economists and politicians, and influenced the worldwide trend toward “liberalizing” financial and other markets. The research consistently appeared to show an unbiased reaction of stock prices to public information. The property of “unbiased reaction” to public information, which formed the basis of the early definitions of “efficiency”, was seen to be an implication of rational, maximizing investor behavior in competitive securities markets (Fama 1965, p.4). Reduced to a basic level, the reasoning was that any systematicallybiased reaction to public information is costlessly publicly observable, and thus provides pure profit opportunities to be competed away. Characterizing the market in terms of its reaction to information is only one of many feasible ways of modelling stock price behavior, but it introduced economic theoryto the empirical studyof stock prices, which had received little serious attention from economists prior to that point. Despite the subsequent spate of anomalies, the early efficiency literature not only adapted standard economic theoryto provide the first formal economic insights into how stock prices behave, but it helped pave the way for an outporing of theoretical and empirical work on stock markets and capital markets in general. Subsequent empirical research was not as consistent with the theory. Evidence of “anomalous” return behavior now is widespread and well‐known. It generallytakes the form of variables (for example, size, day‐of‐the‐week, P/E ratio, market/book value ratio, rank of scaled earnings change, dividend yield) that are significantly but inexplicablyrelated to subsequent abnormal stock returns. Much of this evidence has defied rational economic explanation to date and appears to have caused many researchers to strongly qualify their views on market efficiency. Disagreement has not been not confined to the evidence. The literature has produced a variety of research designs, ranging from the “market model” of Fama, Fisher, Jensen and Roll (FFJR, 1969) to Shiller's (1981a,b) variance‐bounds tests. The very term “efficiency” has engendered controversy: there is a modest literature on precisely what efficiency means, on the role of transaction costs, and on whether efficient markets are logically feasible. Making sense of this literature requires careful definition of “efficiency” in this context and careful analysis of the type of evidence that has been offered in relation to it. This involves an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of both the theory of efficient markets, as a way of characterizing stock markets, and of the data and research designs used in testing it. Not surprisingly, a mixed conclusion emerges. While the concept of efficient markets was an audacious departure from the comparative ignorance and suspicion among economists of stock markets that preceded it, and provides valuable insights into their behavior, the concept has its limitations, in terms of both its internal logical coherence and its fit with the data. Section 1 ofthis survey sketches the development of the efficient market theory, reviewing the principal contributions in terms of their usefulness in guiding and evaluating empirical research. Section 2 addresses the limitations inherent in what is knowable about stock market efficiency, given the present state of theory about how security prices might behave in an “efficient” market. It argues that there are binding limitations in the theoryof asset pricing, some of which are known and others of which are unknown or even unknowable. These limitations must be borne in mind when choosing whether to interpret the data as evidence of: (1) market efficiency, under the maintained hypothesis that a specific research design, including a specific model of asset pricing used to benchmark price behavior, correctly describes pricing in an efficient market; or (2) the ability of our models and research designs to encapsulate how prices behave in an efficient market, under the maintained hypothesis of efficiency. Against this background, section 3 then provides an assessment of the accomplishments of the theory of stock market efficiency, including an interpretation of the evidence. It focuses on the nature and influence of the evidence and does not attempt to provide a comprehensive literature taxonomy. The final section offers conclusions. The principal conclusion is that the theory of efficient markets has irreversibly enhanced our knowledge of and respect for stock markets (and perhaps for all financial market or even for markets in general) but that, like all theories, it is fundamentally flawed.

Drawing upon survey data, we assess the current state of management development in Ireland and we identify policy, practice and structural contingencies that help to explain variations in the volume of management development activity undertaken at organizational level. The data show that the level of management development, as measured by the number of days per annum, has increased in recent years with 70 percent of managers in our sample now receiving between one and five days training per year. The mean number of days per annum in Ireland now stands at 4.5. With respect to those factors that appear to affect the level of management development activity, preliminary analysis points to the importance of policy and practice variables over structural ones. Materially, in the human resource domain, our data suggest that organizations with actual policies on personnel/human resource strategy and on management development have higher levels of management development activity and, given the recent tightening in the labor market, many were promulgating their use of developmental interventions as an aid to recruitment/retention. The existence of formal career plans and succession plans, the relative emphasis on the analysis of human resource development needs and the filling of senior and middle management posts via the internal labor market all emerged as predictors of higher levels of management development. Organizations using international experience schemes also ran a significantly higher number of days of management development interventions. In the structural characteristics domain, the data indicate that management development in indigenous companies is at similar levels to internationally owned enterprises in our sample. Here structural explanations such as total employment, sector and unionization did not emerge as being statistically significant.

Explores some of the key issues in conducting research at the organizational level, with particular reference to the Irish context. Examines the dimensions of the concept of the “learning organization” while acknowledging the contribution to our understanding of it made by the current and increasing industrial‐level research on the context and the definition of the learning organization. Emphasizes the importance of ensuring that the research design appropriately reflects the values and the experiences of those operating in these organizations and that the vocabulary of the learning organization does not surpass its empirical foundations and conceptual expression so that the rhetoric does not outstrip the reality. Concludes with an outline of difficulties commonly encountered by researchers when focusing on “the organization” as their subject, including those of access, finance or funding, and ethical, political and methodological considerations.

The purpose of this study to investigate the sensitivity of stability and insolvency of the Tunisian financial banking with respect to banks’ specific factors as well as to the macroeconomic conditions (including gross domestic product growth, inflation rate, foreign direct investment [FDI], EXRate, INT and unemp) during 2005–2014 period covering 2011 Tunisian revolution.

The variables of interest the financial institution stability which is measured by Z-score and solvency indicators that are determined by the capital adequacy ratio (CAP) and deposits to assets (DTA). This study seeks to assess the linkages among them (causality, magnitude and duration) that may shed some light on the micro-financial vulnerabilities that are associated with the macroeconomic environment and the monetary authority policy. To do so, this study considers two models: a panel vector autoregressif-X model for the tri-variate vector (Z-score, DTA, CAP) estimated by a system generalized method of moments after a forward mean-differencing and a dynamic seemingly unrelated regression model for the bi-variate vector (Z-score, DTA) estimated by 3LS.

Results say that there is a uni-directional contemporaneous negative relationship from stability to insolvency. Stability evolution can be attributed to both macroeconomic conditions and banks’ specific factors, whereas insolvency is attributed only to banks’ specific factors. Stability was found to increase when growth rate and FDI rise, whereas instability increases when interest rate rises, exchange rate depreciates and if inflation is high. Stability increases also when CAP increases. However, compared to conventional banks (CBs), Islamic banks (IBs) are found to be more solvent than CBs, and more stable post 2011 Tunisian revolution.

As fluctuation in inflation and exchange rate could lead to high interest rates and hence decreases the stability of the financial sectors, Tunisian monetary authority is advised to practice low interest rate policy.

This paper attends not only to compare the response of stability and insolvency to the effect of exogenous variables (macroeconomic and financial factors) in Tunisian banks but also to detect short run and long run feedback effects between dependent variables as well as to investigate whether IBs and CBs present evident heterogeneity of stability and insolvency evolution in relation to 2011 Tunisian revolution.