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This study attempts to segment the Swiss travel market based on holiday activities. It is based on data of the 2001 travel market in Switzerland. Cluster and discriminant analysis have been employed in order to segment the data and to explain the differences between the clusters. Hereby, five activity‐clusters could be defined, each representing a set of holiday activities most likely to be exercised. The analysis of the five clusters revealed that two demographic profile variables “occupation” and “size of household” did explain the affiliation to a certain cluster. The same could be found for the following travel profile variables: “destination and duration of the trip”, “total number of participants from a household and “type of trip”. Further research will be necessary to find out if the clusters identified really do fulfil the needed criteria for market segments in order to be used by companies in the travel industry.

This article describes the contribution of the international business school to anchor ethical behavior maxims in the heads of the economic decision makers. Successful management training means that knowledge is not only obtained, but that the learning processes and the key qualifications which can be reached are located in the center of the globally aligned education. The management Andragogik – the science of knowledge transfer to adults – has proven itself as a goal‐oriented training form. Against this background the article presents the six constitutive elements of a successful international business school and discusses the role and the influence of the associated stakeholders: students and promoters, partner universities, members of the faculty and, last but not least, the enterprises of the economy in their triple role as idealistic sponsors of the international business school, as active members of the advisory board and as future employers of the graduates.

This article proposes a strategy to make the testing step easier, generating user acceptance tests (UATs) in an automatic way from requirements artifacts.

This strategy is based on two modeling frameworks: scenarios and task/method paradigm. Scenarios are a requirement artifact used to describe business processes and requirements, and task/method paradigm is a modeling paradigm coming from the artificial intelligence field. The proposed strategy is composed of four steps. In the first step, scenarios are described through a semantic wiki website. Then scenarios are automatically translated into a task/method model (step two). In the third step, the task/method model obtained in step two is executed in order to produce and store all possible achievements of tasks and thus scenarios. The stored achievements are saved in a data structure called execution tree (ET). Finally, from this ET (step four), the UATs are generated.

The feasibility of this strategy is shown through a case study coming from the agriculture production systems field.

Generally, test design approaches deal with a small number of variables describing one specific situation where a decision table or workflow is used to design tests. The proposed approach can deal with many variables because the authors rely on scenarios that can be composed in order to obtain a tree with all the testing paths that can arise from their description.

The purpose of this study is to add to the understanding of humility‐based economic development and entrepreneurship among the Amish – a religious group – in the USA, whose culture values asceticism, frugality, thrift and work, as well as humility.

The paper presents an ethnographic research study.

Amish adults teach their young that work is pleasurable. In order to maintain their values, the Amish try to avoid close contact with people who do not hold the same traditions. Furthermore, due to religious discrimination in the past, the Amish often exhibit a mistrust of outsiders. The primary motive of self‐employment among the Amish is neither profit nor prestige, but rather the maintenance of cultural values, separately from mainstream society such as to emphasise humility over pride. Self‐employment is perceived as much a social activity as an economic activity, and very importantly, it is compatible with religious beliefs.

Given the choice, the Amish prefer not to work for enterprises in mainstream society. These people prefer to be self‐employed or to work amongst themselves, as it is their belief that a community of believers is the context for life.

This research paper reports on an ethnographic research study that reveals the reasons why Amish people in Lancaster County choose self‐employment as a means of livelihood, the changing nature of their enterprises, and the causal variables explaining why there is a shift from farm‐based self‐employment on family farms, to non‐land‐based entrepreneurship.

In a cylinder for an internal combustion engine having an exhaust port and passage, a heat insulating lining which forms a unitary part of the structure of the exhaust passage, said unitary part being integrally united with the material of the cylinder.

Social trading platforms are considered to be amongst the major innovations in online trading. The purpose of this article is to analyze the trading activity of traders on social trading networks by taking a behavioral approach. Additionally, the authors investigate the factors that influence the irrational part of trading activity derived from the key characteristics of these platforms, i.e. those dealing with social interaction.

The investigation utilizes an extensive set of trading data from two major platforms in Germany to study the trading behavior. The authors apply a fixed effects two-stage least squares (2SLS) approach to quantify the relationship between trading activity and performance and define overconfidence as the part of trading activity that is irrationally motivated and results in negative returns.

The results provide evidence for the negative relationship between overconfidence and return on social trading platforms. The authors find that the number of followers and some platform-specific features significantly affect the trading behavior of the traders.

The authors contribute to the existing literature by exploring how the novel social interaction characteristics of online trading impact trading activity by giving rise to a new dimension of overconfidence. In addition, the authors evidence that the different frameworks of the platforms motivate heterogenous behavioral responses by the signalers. Finally, the authors refine existing studies by applying a distinct methodology for modeling overconfidence.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on corporate financial performance (CFP) using Zakat as a measure for CSR.

The study examines a sample of 107 non-financial firms listed on the Saudi Arabia stock market over a ten-year period from 2004 to 2013. The authors use the generalized method of moments framework developed by Arellano and Bover (1995) and Blundell and Bond (1998). In addition, for comparison purpose and as a robustness check, the present study uses other panel data techniques including fixed effects model, random effects model (and pooled ordinary least squares.

The results reveal that there is a strong positive relationship between CSR (Zakat) and CFP. This suggests that Zakat contribute positively to both firm’s profitability and value and can be considered as a win-win strategy to maximize returns and improve performance while considering the society as a whole. The results are robust to alternative econometric estimation methods.

The companies in Islamic economies can effectively and efficiently implement the basic Shari’a Law of paying Zakat, as a successful measure to implement CSR program, thus benefiting the society by narrowing the gap between the haves and have-nots, that, in turn, leads the company to achieve successfully its short-term as well as long-term goals and enhances the value of the firm in the market. Moreover, corporations are generally encouraged to adopt CSR because of its perceived benefits to both macro- and micro-performances.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first empirical study attempting to examine CSR-CFP relationship within Saudi context employing Zakat as a proxy for CSR. Additionally, the paper provides support for the stakeholder theory from an Islamic perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to review the insights provided by behavioral finance studies conducted in the last decade (2006-2015) examining behavioral variables in financial decision making.

The literature review assesses 623 qualitative and quantitative studies published in various international refereed journals and identifies possible scope of future work.

The paper identifies stock market anomalies which contradict rational agents of modern portfolio theory at an aggregate level and behavioral mediators, influencing the financial decision making at an investor level. The paper also attempts to classify different dimensions of risk as professed by the investor.

The authors synthesize the contribution made by behavioral finance studies in extending the knowledge of financial market and investor behavior.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has several dimensions that are inherently unobservable or measured with errors. Due to measurement errors of CSR proxies, regression analysis seems inappropriate for investigating the relationship between CSR and firm value. Accounting for CSR measurement errors, the purpose of this paper is to use a latent variable analysis to examine whether CSR affects firm value.

This study applies a latent variable model that directly takes into account the measurement errors of CSR proxies. Moreover, the inclusion of firm-fixed effects in the model controls for time-invariant unobservable firm-specific characteristics that may drive both CSR and firm value. CSR is measured by environmental, social, and corporate governance activities.

Based on data of US firms between 2002 and 2014, this study finds conflicting evidence of a direct association between each CSR proxy and firm value. When all CSR proxies are incorporated into a latent variable model, CSR significantly positively impacts firm value. Therefore, CSR strategies based on a single measure of CSR or the equal weighting of CSR measures tend to underestimate the influence of CSR on firm value.

Corporate managers should enhance firm value by simultaneously engaging in environmental, social, and corporate governance activities because there is a synergistic effect with firm value. Furthermore, investors who downplay CSR factors in firm valuation can lead to significant errors in making equity investment choices.

This study presents a novel examination of the price-earnings ratio in the CSR valuation by using the latent variable model with firm-fixed effects.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the financial aspects of high vs low-ranked firms in the Corporate Responsibility Index in Egypt, and to construct a Z-score model to discriminate between high- and low-ranked firms in the Corporate Responsibility Index.

This study empirically examines a comprehensive list of financial ratios for 24 firms listed in EGX30 for four fiscal years, 2007-2010. The authors calculate 90 financial ratios to provide better insights and evaluation of the firms’ financial performance. The ordinary least square regression method and discriminant analysis are utilized to explain differences between the low- and high-ranked firms regarding their corporate social governance index.

The results show that corporate governance and corporate social responsibility (CSR) are positively related to the firms’ financial performance in terms of sales turnover and customer loyalty. This suggests that in the long run, the market mechanism should be able to provide additional resources to those companies that are better at maximizing a widely defined bottom line of their social governance. The results also show that highly ranked firms are characterized financially by: strong bargaining power with suppliers; financing growth in fixed assets using debt mainly.

The study contributes to the literature in terms of providing practical insights on the financial strategies that help support effective CG and CSR in Egypt. In addition, this study offers a unique quantitative attempt to measure and examine the benefits of incorporation of socioeconomics into business practices.