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The aim of this paper is to provide a better understanding of the motivating and hindering factors to setting up sponsored occupational pension schemes in small companies.

The study is conducted in two stages: the first stage is a qualitative study consisting of eight focus groups and the second stage is a quantitative investigation comprising a postal survey of 108 respondents. The themes that guided the focus groups were developed through a review of existing literature. Those that informed the survey design emerged from the focus group findings.

The findings suggest that the decision to adopt a pension although triggered by a number of factors cannot be divorced from the context of operation of the firm, the market environment, the stage of the company's life cycle, and the general economic conditions. The other important contextual issue that influences the decision is the management's future objectives for the firm and the management style of the owner or owners.

The limitations of this study are the over representation of certain industrial sectors in the sample from which the focus groups were formed, and the rate of response (38.6 per cent) to the survey.

The paper provides useful information on the factors affecting the setting up sponsored occupational pension schemes in small companies.

This study aims to propose a productive waqf-based financing model for the livestock sector by optimizing idle waqf land owned by Islamic boarding schools (pesantren) for livestock breeding and fattening projects. Most pesantrens are established on waqf land and are located in rural areas with great potential for implementing waqf-based livestock projects.

The authors conducted a critical review on the models of waqf-based empowerment and financing for the livestock, agriculture or agribusiness sectors. Then, a proposed model was designed focused on livestock sector by using waqf land owned by pesantren. To strengthen the proposed model, the authors held a focus group discussion (FGD) by inviting regulators, academics, practitioners/consultants in animal husbandry, waqf, pesantren and economic empowerment.

Pesantren as nazhir of waqf land can cooperate with baitul maal wat tamwil (BMT) acting as nazhir of cash waqf to form a breeders’ cooperative as the vehicle to carry out the process of producing and fattening cattle. The project is performed under a mudharaba, musharakah or ijara contract, which is supervised by pesantren and BMT.

This research is based on the Indonesian context due to it is influenced by country-specific conditions. Even so, some of the findings in this study can still be adopted by waqf asset managers in other Muslim countries, which also have potential in terms of the number of pesantren and waqf assets.

The proposed model can improve the quality of life of the poor in remote areas by fulfilling the demand for beef consumption accompanied by sustainable economic empowerment.

This research focuses on solving the problem of meeting basic needs for beef by optimizing productive waqf in the livestock sector by involving the role of pesantren, which still needs to be discovered in the literature on the use of waqf land.

Outlines a management development programme which contributes to the development of small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) by way of a detailed linking process, whereby the experience and skills of an unemployed manager are carefully matched with the business needs of a company. Describes how the programme has been running since 1983, evolving from that time, to take cognizance of: major changes in the profiles of unemployed managers; changes in the industrial structure of Northern Ireland; and paradigmatic shifts within the field of management development. Concludes, from evaluation, that both groups have benefited significantly from the programme, noting that it has aided many SMEs to overcome some of the major obstacles to growth, efficiency and competitiveness, while concurrently raising the confidence level of the unemployed manager, developing his/her competences and increasing future employment prospects. Considers that the programme model will prove beneficial to other training providers and support agencies that are considering link programmes as part of their management development provision.

Summarizes previous research on the links between share prices, accounting earnings and fundamentals (i.e. financial variables); identifies value‐relevant fundamentals used by analysts and assesses their usefulness by using principal components analysis on 1992‐1996 data for 50 French industrial firms. Finds three important factors (profitability ratios, returns/leverage and working capital/financial balance) which can be used in conjunction with two macroeconomic variables (inflation and change in real gross national product) to explain return variability.

It is argued that ethical ideology espoused by an individual provides the framework within which individuals contemplate the issues and determine the right way to behave. This paper aims to report the findings of a study designed to examine the ethical orientations of managers.

This study was conducted on a sample of 175 managers and was drawn from 12 large manufacturing organizations in the state of Punjab, India, using Forsyth's ethics position questionnaire.

It was found that the large majority of managers were situationists and only a small percentage were absolutists.

The sample in this study is restricted to large manufacturing enterprises only and reports espoused values only.

An understanding of the value orientations of managers is valuable for business representatives from other cultural contexts when working with their Indian counterparts. It is also a useful input in establishing organisational strategies for management development and training for expatriate assignments and leadership roles.

The author is of the belief that, at the present time, this is the largest study of personal ethical orientations of practising managers in the manufacturing sector in Punjab, India. It adds to the work done by various researchers into ethical beliefs and values of managers in various cultural contexts.

Co‐operation is necessary for the economic survival of destinations with a fragmented offer under conditions of global competition. Customer orientation forces the SME's to co‐operate for the development and the commercialisation of tourism services.

This study aims to identify the impact of corporate governance on performance of sugar mills. In order to study this relation, a model is constructed in which ownership structure and independent directors are taken as independent variables. Whereas firm performance is analyzed by using proxy variables such as return on asset (ROA), return on equity (ROE) and sales growth. Moreover, size of board, working capital management (WCM) and philanthropy are taken as mediating variables between governance variables and firm performance.

The data of 32 sugar mills listed at Pakistan Stock Exchange for the period of four years (i.e. 2014–2017) is used for this research. Moreover, to investigate the model, generalized least squares statistical method is used to measure the relationship between variables.

The results revealed that there is significant but positive relationship between independent directors and ROA while ownership structure and ROE have significant but negative relationship. Thus, the board of directors should make it sure that all stakeholders and organizations should increase the nonfamily ownership in firms for better corporate performance. Moreover, philanthropy and WCM mediate the relationship between corporate governance and firms' performance.

This research work will be helpful in the corporate governance, and further researchers can conduct their study by considering executive/nonexecutive director and institutional owners as governance variables.

This paper fulfills an identified need to study how Corporate Governance effect the performance of firm.

This research paper aims to develop and validate an enhanced business process improvement methodology (EBPIM) by integrating the DMAIC (define, measure, analyze, improve and control) and the comprehensive business process management (CBPM) methodologies.

A systematic literature review and analysis were conducted to prove the novelty of the research approach and identify the similarities, differences, strengths and weaknesses of the DMAIC and the CBPM methodologies. The EBPIM was proposed based on the analysis results. Then, a focus group approach was used to evaluate and validate the methodology.

The EBPIM consists of nine activities: preparation, selection, description, quantification, modeling, enactment, improvement opportunities selection, analysis and improvement and monitoring. The proposed methodology adopted the systematic and structured process of the DMAIC methodology by having one tollgate between every two activities to check the progress and authorize the team to go to the next activity. At the same time, it has the ability of the CBPM methodology to enhance the interaction between human activities and business process management systems (BPMS).

The EBPIM was evaluated and validated by a focus group of academic professors. However, the main limitation of the proposed methodology is that it is still theoretical and needs to be empirically tested. Therefore, future work will focus on testing the EBPIM in different industries and organization sizes.

From the theoretical perspective, the proposed methodology adds value to the knowledge in the scope of business processes improvement methodologies (BPIMs) by integrating the DMAIC and the CBPM methodologies. It takes advantage of and combines the strengths of the DMAIC and CBPM methodologies. From the practical perspective, the proposed methodology presents a valuable tool that can facilitate the organization’s mission to improve the areas that need improvement using a systematic improvement methodology that will effectively enhance organizational performance (OP).

The BPIMs literature analysis proved that most of the reviewed methodologies could not support all phases of the business process improvement (BPI) activities. It was concluded that integrating the DMAIC and the CBPM methodologies is a novel approach. The proposed methodology will enhance the efficiency of both methodologies, fill the gaps that may exist in both of them and lead to better results in terms of BPI.

The current research aims to analyze the literature to determine its strengths and weaknesses and extract the required information, which will be used to identify the characteristics of the highly competitive organization (HCO), define it and identify the HCO's critical success factors (CSFs). Finally, the future research agenda will be proposed.

A multiple stages research methodology was used to fulfill the research objectives. The research started with the systematic literature review (SLR). Then, focus group discussions and Pareto analysis were used to fulfill research objectives.

Eleven points were identified in the research to represent the characteristics of the HCO. Then, the HCO was defined based on the elements of these points. Moreover, the vital few CSFs to successfully implement many research scopes were identified. Then, the CSFs of the HCO was generated based on these vital few CSFs.

The main limitation of the current research is the literature sample size. A larger sample selection could enrich the generated lists with many other CSFs.

Many implications points were highlighted in this research which showed the importance of the current research for academic and practical audiences.

The SLR process showed that the reviewed literature lacked a consolidated list of the HCO characteristics and a clear definition of the HCO. Moreover, the reviewed literature lacked a unified list of the HCO CSFs. Therefore, the current research approach is novel and original.