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A comprehensive look at how technology, health plan design and employee communication can improve workplace wellness programs.

There are numerous ways for employers to enhance their workplace wellness programs, helping to improve employee health and more effectively manage health-care costs.

There are numerous ways for employers to enhance their workplace wellness programs, helping to improve employee health and more effectively manage health-care costs.

The paper is original to Strategic HR Review.

In this paper we develop a numerical method for valuing multivariate contingent claims whose payoffs depend on more than one stochastic variables. This is achieved by mean of Gauss-Hermite Integration, applied to a recursive formulation of multidimensionalintegral to vaIue multivariate contingent claims with arbitrary payoff functions. Several examples are discussed.

This paper examines long-run consumption based asset pricing models by studying sixteen Fama-French size and book-to-market portfolios in KRX (Korea Exchange) as test assets. In our empirical implementation, we follow both models of Hansen, Heaton and Li (2008) and Parker and Julliard (2005).

Hansen, Heaton and Li (2008) used recursive utility framework. The stochastic discount factor for this model depends on the present value of expectations about future consumption growth rates. In the empirical specification for this model, we follow Malloy, Moskowiz and Vissing-Jørgensen (2008). Meanwhile, Parker and Julliard (2005) proposed a model based upon the power utility framework and explicitly considers the consumption adjustment period.

Our main results are surprisingly consistent with the results of existing literatures. By assessing both of these models, we find that the significance of the excess returns of the test assets in predicting consumption growth peaks at the horizon of 2.5 years.

These empirical results partly proves the existence of long-run consumption risk in Korean economy. We can relate stock returns to long-run consumption risk and business cycle. Specifically, the stochastic discount factor of Parker and Julliard’s model captures the financial crises in the years of 1997 and 2003. Moreover, it catches the business cycle pattern of composite leading index in Korea.

This chapter complements the one that appeared as “History of the AIB Fellows: 1975–2008” in Volume 14 of this series (International Business Scholarship: AIB Fellows on the First 50 Years and Beyond, Jean J. Boddewyn, Editor). It traces what happened under the deanship of Alan Rugman (2011–2014) who took many initiatives reported here while his death in July 2014 generated trenchant, funny, and loving comments from more than half of the AIB Fellows. The lives and contributions of many other major international business scholars who passed away from 2008 to 2014 are also evoked here: Endel Kolde, Lee Nehrt, Howard Perlmutter, Stefan Robock, John Ryans, Vern Terpstra, and Daniel Van Den Bulcke.

Based on the TQM Model developed in a previous paper published at the TQMJ, the authors have a chance to test out the model in a number of firms in Malaysia through Standards and Industrial Research Institute of Malaysia (SIRIM). Furthermore, riding on the success, SIRIM has named it as the SIRIM Green 5-S Model. As a result, the purpose of this paper is to share the experience of the “SIRIM Green 5-S Model for business sustainability and organisational development”.

Based on questionnaire survey of 81 organisations cutting across different industries in Malaysia (+2 in-depth interview), this research is to study three research questions relating to 5-S and Lean Management. RQ1: is the 5-S Practices a necessary and sufficient condition for Organisational Productivity (OP)?; RQ2: is the L5S Practices a necessary and sufficient condition for Business Growth (BG)?; and RQ3: is the SIRIM Green 5-S applicable and effective for OP and BG?

There is a ranking of effectiveness of the 5-S and L5S criteria in quality improvement. There is a strong correlation of the 5-S and L5S functions in quality improvement. How to use Green 5-S Model to improve productivity, increase sales and reduced cost. How to use Green 5-S Model to establish and maintain quality environment for OP and BG in order to provide competitiveness for business and industries of Malaysia.

Since 1993, the authors used the proprietary 5-S Checklist for training and consultancy in no less than ten countries with over 50,000 persons from around 2,000 organisatioins world-wide. On the other hand, HKSAR takes the lead in the global oil energy consumption/GPD. The experience will be shared in this paper.

Historically, the study of the world’s economy was classified into Micro-economics and Macro-economics. Perhaps, contemporary economists should learn from the universe which we are part of. Let us name this as “Uni-economics.” Many scientists have found that sunspots affect human behavior. Some research findings even relate the 11-year periodic cycle to war and peace of mankind. It is also widely known in the medical profession that sunspot radiation actually affects our human body. With all these evidence in mind, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how sunspot activities can affect business growth since 1960s when the global economy was building up fast since the Second World War.

The econometrics methodology deployed is in three steps. First, time series techniques were deployed to track down the changes of Sunspot Counts over the last 48 years on the world’s four main financial indices, i.e., S & P, FTSE, Nikkei and HSI. Second, the long run function of a particular stock price index could be specified as a natural logarithm transformation function. Finally, Granger’s co-integration methodology is deployed to test the equilibrium relationships.

This paper has harnessed a set of system and process that can ensure the long-term productivity and business growth of firms in this contemporary business world. It is predicted with 80 percent confidence that the next property depression in some affluent cities will happen in 2014/2015, with the global financial tsunami coming in 2019.

More important is how organizations can make use of the trade-wind and avoid the counter-wind from the Uni-economics phenomena for their quality, productivity and business growth, in accordance to the Deming Cycle. As recalled from the previous two oil crisis (around 1975, 1986) and the two financial tsunami (1997 and 2008), 40-year-old organizations that can still survive today must have done something good, despite all these turmoil confronting them.

There are many different views and opinions held about the value of training. Some people, of course, reach the top without any formal training whatsoever and expect others to do the same. This is all well and good if, presumably, you are able to train yourself. Most need the support of formally organized training courses or continuous learning, working on the assumption that there are always things to learn. It does not matter how old or experienced you are, there will always be a gap in your knowledge that requires attention. Beware the people who know it all as they will be the ones who have the blind spots and just cannot see trouble ahead. If these people are at the top of the organization and just happened to be in the right place at the right time, which could happen if an organization has been particluarly successful, then this could have disastrous consequences on the business. Business means change, and if you cannot cope or are not prepared to accept or adapt to this change, the end result is inevitable.