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The purpose of this research is to develop and validate a scale to measure the perceived orientation of sport organizations toward their fans, and subsequently, to test its relationship with six outcomes based on data from the fanbases of three distinct sport teams.

Using interviews and focus groups, important elements of fans' perceptions of their relationship with sport organizations are identified. After creating items based on the results of the interviews and focus groups, EFA, CFA and SEM procedures are used to create and test a multidimensional scale of perceived fan orientation.

Using EFA and CFA procedures, an 11-item, four-dimension scale of perceived fan orientation is validated, including components measuring (1) hosting events and campaigns for fans, (2) communicating information to fans, (3) interacting with fans when requests and problems arise and (4) providing preferential treatment to fans. The SEM results provide evidence of the impact of fan orientation on multiple measured outcomes for three professional football teams.

This research is limited to three professional football teams in Turkey. However, the development of the multidimensional perceived fan orientation (PERFANOR) scale provides sport organizations' management and personnel with information about the relationship fans desire.

Sport managers, marketers and front-line staff are recommended to undertake activities to improve the relationship between the organization, team and its fans.

The principles and practices of relationship marketing and service quality often include discussions of the importance of “putting fans first,” however until now, no multidimensional scale existed in sport which measures the perceived fan orientation of a sport organization.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the need for universities to develop an entrepreneurial culture and assess higher education practitioners’ opinions of the culture of the university they are working in.

The research provides empirical data collected through a survey instrument originally used for a PhD research study; however, this paper focuses on the question set related to culture, which was based on the organisational culture model presented by Quinn in 1988.

The findings indicate that a number of respondents reported from a heterogeneous population of higher education institutes predominantly responded they were working within a hierarchy cultural type with many reporting a market cultural type. While respondents from a homogeneous group from a single university reported in the main they were working in a market-driven cultural type with the next main category being a clan culture.

The study population reported in the main that there is predominantly a market culture in UK universities. However, this research has focussed entirely on respondents working within the UK HE sector, thus, has ignored potential differences that could be present within the global HE emerging markets.

The paper strengthens understanding of the critical importance of innovation and entrepreneurship in universities. Students, scholars, HE policy makers and HE practitioners can gather a range of insights pointed at university culture and rest assured in the main they are market focussed.

One important assumption in the conventional cooperative game theory is that payoffs are assumed to be deterministic. In terms of the players’ cognitive ability of the realistic world, this is a very strict assumption. The classical game theory can find no way out when a particular game circumstance involves uncertainty, such as limited knowledge, small sample, and inadequate information, the payoff values of the game can only be described with interval grey numbers. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

In this study the concept of N-person grey games is proposed in which payoffs are represented with interval grey numbers opposed to the classical game theory. A straight forward solution methodology is submitted compatible to grey numbers. Then, a currency war between anonymous countries is handled and modeled as an N-Person grey game. A generic currency war scenario is developed to follow the proposed solution procedure thoroughly.

Based on the outcomes of this work, the authors can say that N-person grey game is an expansion of the classical N-person game under uncertain grey information and can be applied in more complex and uncertain environments, such as those seen in complicated currency warfare.

This study combines the grey system theory with the classic N-person game theory and sets up the N-person grey game with grey payoff functions. Based on the grey number operating methods, the grey linear programming algorithm is established to calculate and distribute benefits to the players. In this respect this study has the feature of being the pioneer in the N-person grey game area.

This paper aims to examine the hypotheses of main international theories (realism, liberalism and constructivism) and the development of these theories toward the behavior of foreign policy of small states in the developing world. The theories of international relations, especially the realistic theory, face a theoretical debate and a fundamental criticism. The hypotheses of these theories are not able to explain the external behavior of some small states, especially those in the developing world such as Qatar. In particular, these small states do not have the elements of physical power through which they can play this role. However, they are based on the internal determinants (such as political leadership and the variable of perception) and non-physical dimensions of power to play an effective and influential external role.

This topic sheds light on the hypotheses of theories of main international relations, which explain the behavior of foreign policy of small states. This is due to the increased number of such states after the disintegration of Soviet Union, the practice of some countries an effective foreign role and the transformation of the concept of power from the hard power to soft power, and then to smart power

The theories of international relations, especially the realistic theory, face a theoretical debate and a fundamental criticism. The hypotheses of these theories are not able to explain the external behavior of some small states, especially those in the developing world such as Qatar. In particular, these small states do not have the elements of physical power through which they can play this role. However, they are based on the internal determinants (such as political leadership and the variable of perception) and non-physical dimensions of power to play an effective and influential external role.

The importance of the study comes from its interest in small countries in general and the Qatar situation in particular. The small country emerged as a player independent of the Gulf Cooperation Council, unlike what prevailed before, which led to the discussion of a regional role for Qatar despite its small power compared to the strength and size of other factions in the region such as Turkey, Israel and Iran.

Religious scripts strongly encourage acts of philantrophy and benevolence that contribute to achievement of social harmony and similarly condemn interest out of money. The views paying attention to economic reasons fail to offer a plausible counter argument to this contradiction. Almost all studies since the inception of Islam have, rather than considering the dynamic social and economic realities of the time, attempted to justify the views on the ban. Thus, this study aims to provide clear aspect on Abrahamic religion’s approach on the issue.

This paper seeks to analyze how the Abrahamic religions approach the issue of interest. For the sake chronology, the Judaic approach will be first analyzed, referring to the main arguments that served as basis for the lift of the ban. Subsequent to the rational arguments raised in the Christian tradition that justified the ban, the reasons for the removal of the ban that changed the attitude of the church will be examined. Finally, based on its original sources, the approach of Islam will be evaluated and the current popular arguments will be discussed.

A review of the interest issue in the Abrahamic religions in a historical context reveals that there are visible similarities between the arguments that served as basis of the discussions. Christian scholars were able to justify the ban with reference to strong arguments; however, in reference to the conditions that the economy arguably dictated, the ban has been gradually lifted. A similar process has taken place among Islamic scholars as well. Those who adopt an economic perspective fail to consider the chief principles in Abrahamic religions that promote the practice of benevolence.

This paper seeks to analyze how the Abrahamic religions approach the issue of interest from a broader perspective. To this end, the authors offer a general framework of the notion of interest and present the approaches of Abrahamic religions to the concept through reference to popular arguments.

The purpose of this paper is to summarize the progress in grey system research during 2000-2015, so as to present some important new concepts, models, methods and a new framework of grey system theory.

The new thinking, new models and new methods of grey system theory and their applications are presented in this paper. It includes algorithm rules of grey numbers based on the “kernel” and the degree of greyness of grey numbers, the concept of general grey numbers, the synthesis axiom of degree of greyness of grey numbers and their operations; the general form of buffer operators of grey sequence operators; the four basic models of grey model GM(1,1), such as even GM, original difference GM, even difference GM, discrete GM and the suitable sequence type of each basic model, and suitable range of most used grey forecasting models; the similarity degree of grey incidences, the closeness degree of grey incidences and the three-dimensional absolute degree of grey incidence of grey incidence analysis models; the grey cluster model based on center-point and end-point mixed triangular whitenization functions; the multi-attribute intelligent grey target decision model, the two stages decision model with grey synthetic measure of grey decision models; grey game models, grey input-output models of grey combined models; and the problems of robust stability for grey stochastic time-delay systems of neutral type, distributed-delay type and neutral distributed-delay type of grey control, etc. And the new framework of grey system theory is given as well.

The problems which remain for further studying are discussed at the end of each section. The reader could know the general picture of research and developing trend of grey system theory from this paper.

A lot of successful practical applications of the new models to solve various problems have been found in many different areas of natural science, social science and engineering, including spaceflight, civil aviation, information, metallurgy, machinery, petroleum, chemical industry, electrical power, electronics, light industries, energy resources, transportation, medicine, health, agriculture, forestry, geography, hydrology, seismology, meteorology, environment protection, architecture, behavioral science, management science, law, education, military science, etc. These practical applications have brought forward definite and noticeable social and economic benefits. It demonstrates a wide range of applicability of grey system theory, especially in the situation where the available information is incomplete and the collected data are inaccurate.

The reader is given a general picture of grey systems theory as a new model system and a new framework for studying problems where partial information is known; especially for uncertain systems with few data points and poor information. The problems remaining for further studying are identified at the end of each section.

The purpose of this study is to examine how and to what extent customer-provider service touchpoints impact business customer perceptions and outcomes in the context of long-term business-to-business (B2B) service relationships. To this end, the authors will assess the chain of effect path for different service touchpoints between business customers and service providers – and the long-term impact both on customer perceptions and financial, behavioral and relational outcomes.

Enabled by a five-year panel data set, seemingly unrelated regression model methodology is applied to test the proposed conceptual framework. Data are obtained for a sample of 2,175 B2B insurance service companies between 2013 and 2017.

Study results shed light on the significance of the sales force in B2B settings, as one of several key service touchpoints – together with firm expertise, service reliability and excellence – driving robust relationships, profitability and cross-buying. Firm-initiated contacts and tangible touchpoints are proven to be ineffective – even damaging in some instances – in terms of driving business customer perceptions.

The paper delivers empirical evidence providing insight on how service touchpoints and business customer perceptions have a long-term impact on customer outcomes. This has yet to be addressed in B2B service settings – despite being of vital interest to marketers, as the longitudinal approach of the research aids service firms in gaining a better understanding of company-customer touchpoints and the extent to which different factors have a decisive, lasting impact on B2B customer outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of credit risk components on the performance of credit risk management and the growth in non-performing assets (NPAs) of commercial banks in India.

The data are obtained from primary and secondary sources. The primary data are collected by administering questionnaire among risk managers of Indian banks. The secondary data on NPAs of Indian banks are from annual reports and Prowess database compiled by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy. Multiple linear regression is used to estimate the models for the study.

The results suggest that the identification of credit risk significantly affects the credit risk performance. The results are robust as credit risk identification is negatively related to annual growth in NPAs or loans. There is evidence in support of a priori expectation of better credit risk performance of private banks compared to that of government banks.

The study has implications for Indian banks suffering from a high level of losses due to bad loans. In addition, it will have implications for the implementation of new Basel Accord norms (Basel III) by the Reserve Bank of India.

The high and rising level of NPAs will have adverse consequences for credit flow in the economy in the absence of appropriate intervention by government and central bank in the form of changes in institutional and regulatory infrastructure. The problems in banking and financial services sector will lead to lower industrial and aggregate economic growth, and lower (or negative) growth in employment.

There is little evidence on credit risk management practices of Indian banks, and its relationship with credit risk performance and NPA growth. The need for an effective risk management system to manage credit risk assumes importance and urgency in the context of high and rising NPAs of Indian banks, and the consequences for the Indian economy.

This paper aims to investigate the link between a sustainable supply chain and companies’ financial performance (FP) and provide empirical evidence about the relationship between these two constructs. This link is an important, but still unclear, subject.

Multivariate measures of sustainable supply chain performance and companies’ FP are used for Granger causality tests on a large, diverse sample of 3,900 companies in a time frame of eight years (2004-2011).

Results indicate general bidirectional causality between sustainable supply chain performance and companies’ margins and revenue. However, the link between firms’ profitability and sustainable supply chain performance is unidirectional. In addition, the recent financial crisis altered this link between the studied constructs. Finally, a wide diversity in relationship patterns between sustainable supply chain performance and companies’ FP emerges when the full sample is divided into different geographical regions and economic sectors as specified by the Global Industry Classification Standard system.

This research makes recommendations for improving several processes, such as stakeholder evaluation of the sustainable supply chain performance of companies worldwide and manager testing of environmental policy outcomes.

Building on the mostly qualitative literature on sustainable supply chain performance and companies’ FP, this research provides quantitative evidence of the gaps between these constructs. This research contributes to the discussions of supply chain management, environmental practices and the drivers of companies’ environmental and financial success.