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The authors of this study aim to investigate possible explanations of the prevalence of price clustering in the final offer prices of mergers and acquisitions (M&A).

The authors use final offer price in M&A deals to investigate the price clustering phenomena. The authors used regressions and logistic regressions to examine potential factors that might affect pricing strategy by looking into one-time acquirers and experienced serial acquirers.

Price clustering increases with negotiation uncertainties characterized as competitive bidding, number of bidders, challenged deals and duration. Moreover, the authors find persistent price clustering in experienced serial acquirers that are more experienced and better equipped with handling uncertainties, suggesting a preference of using round numbers regardless of levels of uncertainties. The authors' evidence shows that price clustering results from a combination of Harris' (1991) costly negotiation hypothesis where round prices may be used to lower search costs and psychological bias and preference.

The authors appear to be the first to investigate alternative theories that support M&A offer price clustering behavior, finding that both the costly negotiation and psychological bias and preference theories apply to M&A final price formation. Thus, the authors' major contribution, specific to the M&A process, is a clarification of physical and psychological factors associated with bidding and negotiation behavior. The authors are confident that the authors' study impacts conventional knowledge regarding M&A deal negotiation strategies, including bidding behavior, contract negotiation, financial analysis, management practices and risk management.

The author presents new estimates of the probability weighting functions found in rank-dependent theories of choice under risk. These estimates are unusual in two senses. First, they are free of functional form assumptions about both utility and weighting functions, and they are entirely based on binary discrete choices and not on matching or valuation tasks, though they depend on assumptions concerning the nature of probabilistic choice under risk. Second, estimated weighting functions contradict widely held priors of an inverse-s shape with fixed point well in the interior of the (0,1) interval: Instead the author usually finds populations dominated by “optimists” who uniformly overweight best outcomes in risky options. The choice pairs used here mostly do not provoke similarity-based simplifications. In a third experiment, the author shows that the presence of choice pairs that provoke similarity-based computational shortcuts does indeed flatten estimated probability weighting functions.

The purpose of this study is to identify and prioritize the critical success factors (CSFs) of knowledge management (KM) implementation through a novel hybrid model, namely, Fuzzy Delphi method (FDM), interpretive structural modeling (ISM) and revised Simos, which is one of group decision-making (GDM) approaches.

The CSFs of KM implementation were identified through a systematic literature review. FDM was adopted to determine the CSFs in the Iranian oil industry. Then, a novel hybrid model consisting of ISM and revised Simos techniques were used to classify and prioritize the CSFs.

The obtained results suggest that there are 13 CSFs of KM implementation. The result of ISM shows that the CSFs of KM implementation were classified into five levels. The result of revised Simos reveals that the “human resources management” obtained the highest priority and “leadership commitment and support” and “intellectual capital” ranked second and third, respectively.

As this research was performed in the Iranian oil industry, caution should be taken regarding the generalizability of the obtained results.

The top managers of the surveyed companies could get acquainted with CSFs of KM implementation in their organization and use a GDM technique that has various advantages to solve the relevant problems.

This paper provides a twofold contribution to expand KM and GDM literature and to the best knowledge of the authors, it is a novel hybrid GDM model of its kind.

This study aims to solve the problem of job scheduling and multi automated guided vehicle (AGV) cooperation in intelligent manufacturing workshops.

In this study, an algorithm for job scheduling and cooperative work of multiple AGVs is designed. In the first part, with the goal of minimizing the total processing time and the total power consumption, the niche multi-objective evolutionary algorithm is used to determine the processing task arrangement on different machines. In the second part, AGV is called to transport workpieces, and an improved ant colony algorithm is used to generate the initial path of AGV. In the third part, to avoid path conflicts between running AGVs, the authors propose a simple priority-based waiting strategy to avoid collisions.

The experiment shows that the solution can effectively deal with job scheduling and multiple AGV operation problems in the workshop.

In this paper, a collaborative work algorithm is proposed, which combines the job scheduling and AGV running problem to make the research results adapt to the real job environment in the workshop.

Lebanon has faced one of the most severe financial and economic crises since the end of 2019. The practices of the Lebanese banks are blamed for dangerously exposing economic agents and precipitating the current financial collapse. This paper examines the patterns of manipulation of the 10 biggest banks before and after implementing the financial engineering mechanism.

The authors apply Benford law for the first and second positions of the reports of condition and income and four out of the six aspects of the CAMELS rating system (Capital Adequacy, Assets Quality, Management expertise, Earnings Strength, Liquidity and Sensitivity to the market) by excluding Management and Sensitivity. The deviations from BL frequencies are tested using Z-statistic and Chi-square tests.

Banks seem to have manipulated their Capital Adequacy, Liquidity and Assets Quality in the pre-financial engineering and considerably in the post-financial engineering periods. Fraudulent manipulations in the banking sector can distort depositors, shareholders and regulating authorities.

This study has many implications for governmental authorities, commercial banks, depositors, businesses, accounting and auditing firms, and policymakers. The Lebanese government needs to implement corrective fiscal and monetary policies and apply amendments to the bank secrecy and capital control law. The central bank should revamp its organizational structure, improve its disclosure practices and significantly reduce its ties to the government and the political elite.

The study findings suggest that the central bank should revamp its organizational structure, improve its disclosure practices and significantly reduce its ties to the government and the political elite.

The study is the first to examine the patterns of fraudulent manipulation in the Lebanese banking industry using Benford Law (BL).

This paper aims to focus on the assessment of a domestic property's energy performance status by a domestic energy assessor (DEA), to ascertain the possible underlying reasons for variability in the results of Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs). By variability, the authors mean discrepancies in assessment between different DEAs on similar properties. This is important because the uses for the EPC have been extended beyond their original function as an asset rating system, to include themes encompassing building policy decisions, building performance and the distribution of incentives and grants. Consequently, inaccuracies in EPC reporting will have a greater impact than may have been the case at the outset.

A case study approach involving the conducting of semi-structured interviews with 20 practicing DEAs was carried out, with transcribed recordings of the interview material subjected to thematic analysis. This formed part of a wider mixed methods study.

The results identify a wide range of underlying reasons for variability driven by issues in both practice and process, including conflicts of interests, the EPC auditing process, the default inputting of missing data by RdSAP where information may not be available/discoverable by the DEA, the quality and perception of EPCs and DEA training and experience.

The sample size of 20 is by definition limiting, and it is possible that different results would have been obtained from a different sample. Although thematic saturation from the analysis of the responses on the key question of whether EPCs are considered variable does mitigate this. The respondents were all in possession of five years or more experience and of carrying out EPCs for different purposes. Less experienced DEAs may inevitably have responded to questions differently. The thematic analysis gives the researcher control over the presentation of the results, and it is noted that this creates a potential for bias. The researcher is immersed in the world of construction and property, with regular contact with DEAs and EPCs, which may influence the perspective of the results.

The research identifies risks to the accuracy of EPCs. To this end, and with the specific research findings in mind, this research may be of interest to construction professionals with respect to EPC practice and procurement, to the Accrediting Bodies who audit EPCs, to the creators of RdSAP with respect to automated EPC inputs, to academics either at face value or for use in further research and to policy makers who may wish to consider RdSAP data in future with qualifiers or margins of error, or may even look to review the EPC as the instrument of choice for some applications.

There is much literature analysing the shortcomings and nuances of RdSAP results, and the software model that generates the EPC, but only very limited literature extending the discussion about RdSAP to its operator: the DEA. At the time of writing, there is no literature focusing directly on the DEA and its role within the EPC production process. Their role is more important now, given the expanding use of EPCs, and increased reliance on EPC data.

This study aims to achieve optimum flow separation control for a road vehicle using a reverse flow fan on rear side.

A full-length reverse flow fan array (fan’s air speed is 50% of the car’s speed) is attached throughout the width of the vehicle at rear edge corner.

The reverse flow fan array positioned at rear edge of car pushes the airflow against the car’s rear window. It creates the recirculation region and alters the pressure distribution. This reduces the lift coefficient by 150%, which becomes the downforce and reduces the drag coefficient by 22%. As the car speed increases, fan speed should also be increased for effective flow control.

This active flow control method for 3D Ahmed car body has been studied computationally at low speed (40 m/s).

This design increases the downforce, thus gives better cornering speed and stability, and decreases the drag which improves fuel efficiency. It can be used for effective flow control of cars (hatchback/sedan). The findings can be applied to the bluff bodies, road vehicles, UAV and helicopter fuselage for flow separation control.

The fan array is attached on car’s rear side, which blows air against the car’s rear window. It alters the pressure distribution and aerodynamics forces favorably. But the existing high-speed fan used in a sports cars sucks the air from bottom and pushes it rearward, which increases both the traction force and drag.

The authors contrast Beckett and Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) baseball card valuations. Also, the authors contrast the Bill James statistics for winshares (WIN) and reference.com statistics for wins above replacement (WAR).

This study examines the impact of analytics on Topps 1957 baseball card values.

The authors' examination of variables that influence Topps 1957 baseball card values yields similar results for mint and very good rated cards over the early period (1982), pre-strike (1989), post-strike (1998) and recent (2009) periods. In single variable and multiple regressions, Baseball Hall of Fame (HOF) membership and New York Yankee (NYY) nostalgia coefficient are significant at the 5% level or higher for mint and very good rated cards over all reported periods. The Brooklyn Dodger (BD) parameter is significant at the 5% level or higher in single variable regressions for all reported periods and for 1982 and 1989 for multiple regressions. Reflecting a lack of nostalgia, the New York Giant card coefficients are statistically insignificant over all periods. Also, the authors see a lack of negative bias for Black-player cards. The authors observe that Black-player card coefficients are positive and sometimes statistically significant. This indicates a positive relationship between Black-player cards and prices.

This is the first study to examine the impact of WINS and WAR analytics on baseball card values.

Unfortunately, workplace incivility (WI) within the information technology (IT) sector has hardly been covered in extant literature. Therefore, through narratives, this study explored various situational and cultural attributes of WI in the Indian IT sector.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted among the IT professionals (N = 24; Males = 13, Females = 11) aged between 21 and 45 years (Mean = 31.20, SD = 6.56) working in the South Indian state of Karnataka (Bengaluru).

The narrative thematic analysis yielded the following themes: Experiences of managers' ill-treatment at the workplace, co-workers incivility: dominance in the IT sector and prevalence of gender-based interpersonal discrimination. Furthermore, many sub-themes emerged under each major theme.

Contexts and cultural attributes of WI experiences warrant reconsidering and redefining the concept's theoretical underpinnings, especially from multi-cultural contexts, i.e. India, unlike leading studies in the Western culture. Current study narratives would guide further explorations of how IT professionals wish to curtail these behaviours and suggest strategies to minimize these behaviours in the respective sector.

The findings pose an interesting question for further investigation such as: Do individuals who seek favours from co-workers, under certain conditions, invite the experiences of WI for themselves from potential favour-doer? In a first of its kind, the study also offered relevant insights into exploring whether intentional acts as uncivil behaviours are peculiar to multi-cultural contexts, such as in India.

The study aims to show the influence of selected mechanical parameters of the rotor on the maximum speed and parameters of the electric motor.

A simplified mechanical analysis of the rotor of the electric motor was conducted, determining the safety factor of the motor. An analysis of the impact of key rotor parameters (significant from the mechanical strength perspective) on the electromagnetic parameters and the safety factor of the selected high-speed electric motor was carried out. The influence of changes in the rotor’s geometrical dimensions (centrifugal force) on the electromagnetic parameters of the electric motor was shown.

The study shows the impact of changes in selected rotor parameters on electromagnetic parameters and the safety factor of a high-speed electric motor (at its required operating point of 45,000 rpm). The dependence of the safety factor as a function of the maximum motor speed was determined for the proposed rotor modifications.

The proposed modifications can be used in larger drive systems. They have practically no impact on increasing the value of the motor’s moment of inertia (they do not degrade the dynamics of the motor’s operation).

It was proposed to use a new design coefficient which is in relation to the motor’s safety coefficient. It has been shown that a minimal modification of the motor rotor allows to increase its maximum speed by several dozen per cent (while maintaining the safety factor). It has also been shown that when operating at maximum speed within the safe range, the change in the geometrical dimensions of the rotor hardly influences the change in the value of the centrifugal force.