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Merger activities and stock market prices tend to vary over time. An interesting issue is whether changes in stock market prices stimulate changes in merger activities, or vice versa. The results of this study, based on the Granger test for causality, indicate very strong causality going from stock market prices to merger activities. Increases in stock market prices, perhaps indicating a favourable economic environment, lead to increases in the number of mergers being completed.

This paper aims to investigate the presence of currency substitution in eight African countries.

This study investigates the presence of currency substitution in eight African countries – Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Tunisia and Zambia – for the period 1976 to 2005 using both regional and US dollar as anchor currencies.

The paper finds that currency substitution is prevalent in Ghana and Nigeria when CFA franc is used as an anchor currency. However, when US dollar is used as an anchor currency there is no evidence of currency substitution in Ghana, but the presence of currency substitution in Nigeria is still observed. The paper also finds the presence of currency substitution in South Africa, but not in Egypt when the US dollar is the anchor currency. For Kenya, Tunisia and Zambia there is no evidence of currency substitution irrespective of the anchor currencies considered. In the case of Morocco, no evidence of currency substitution is observed when the Egyptian pound is used as anchor currency, but there is weak evidence of currency substitution when the US dollar is considered.

This paper provides useful information on the presence of currency substitution in African countries.

This study investigates the impact of real exchange rates on the trade balances between Thailand and its major trading partners. Previous empirical evidence gave mixed results of the impact of real exchange rates on trade balances. In this study, Augmented Dicky‐Fuller and Phillips‐Perron tests for stationarity followed by the cointegration tests are implemented. All variables in the model are nonstationary but cointegrated. In cointegrating regressions, biases are introduced by simultaneity and serial correlation in the error. The specification that deals with these problems is the non‐linear specification of Stock and Watson (1989). By using this non‐linear model as modified by Reinhart (1995), the results show that the impact of real exchange rates (Thai baht/foreign currency) on trade balances is significant in most cases. Therefore, the generalized Marshall‐Lerner condition seems to hold. Furthermore, the results show that the real exchange rates play a more important role in the determination of the bilateral trade balances than other factors. Since the real exchange rate variable plays a major role in this study, the policy recommendation is to prevent exchange rate misalignment. A policy that can neutralize the changes in nominal exchange rates and relative prices should be introduced to prevent further deterioration of the trade balance.

The purpose of this paper is to conduct a five-country study of consumers’ need for uniqueness (CNFU) and examine its research and practical implications. Most studies examining CNFU have used single country or US-based samples. To promote cross-cultural research, the authors test the cross-cultural reliability and validity of the CNFU scale using data from the USA, a developed economy, Brazil, India, Thailand, and Mexico, all emerging economies.

The original CNFU scale was developed in the USA. Therefore, to cross-validate the scale, data were collected from consumers in the USA, Brazil, India, Thailand, and Mexico as these countries demonstrate important socio-economic and cultural differences. The scale was tested using confirmatory factor analysis.

The scale was estimated and validated in all five countries and the analysis reveals that the CNFU scale has sound psychometric properties. Further, the authors find that CNFU is a cross-cultural phenomenon that has a significant impact on market mavenism (MM), and this relationship is moderated by usage variety (UV).

The results indicate generality of all the scale items, and demonstrate that CNFU is a cross-cultural phenomenon. Greater nomological validity of the CNFU construct could be established by investigating its relationship with more constructs.

The authors provide empirical evidence on the cross-cultural validity of the CNFU scale; examine its effect on MM; and role of UV on the relationship between CNFU and MM.

Using the basic framework of the service profit chain, this study aims to develop an integrated model that explains the relationships among role overload (RO), customer orientation (CO), service interaction quality (IQ), customer satisfaction (CS) and sales performance.

A large-scale survey of 872 customers and 530 frontline employees across 50 branches of a major retail bank in New Zealand serves as the study setting.

The results indicate that RO has a significant negative effect on IQ. Nevertheless, CO mitigates the negative outcome of RO on IQ. IQ fully mediates the relationship between RO and CS. Additionally, the effect of IQ on branch sales is fully mediated by CS.

The cross-sectional nature of the current survey does not permit causal inferences. Thus, future studies should adopt longitudinal designs. Also, future studies should explore the roles of other variables (e.g. job crafting, work-related self-efficacy) as possible moderators.

Results suggest that service managers should create a balance between the role requirements and organizational resources to mitigate the adverse effects of employee RO. To enhance IQ and CS, bank managers should coach employees about work overload and train them in CO while prioritizing the tasks.

Empirical research pertaining to employee–customer interaction through a nested framework accommodating data from customers, employees and firm performance is scarce. This study fills in the void.

This paper presents an evolutionary journey of management thought through four phases viz. scientific management, human side, ethics and values and spirituality in management. Further, it presents three paradigms of management viz. American, Japanese and Indian in term of three key ideas viz. Kola (derived from Cola), Kaizen and Knowledge. It suggests that Indian paradigm is rooted in the spiritual view of human beings and there is a need to bring this view to management and leadership literature. This paper also makes a comparative analysis of three paradigms in terms of vision of life, influencing thinkers, dominant ethos and foundational theories. For future direction of management thinking, an integration of these three paradigms in terms of a holistic approach to corporate management is suggested.

Western business-to-business firms are under increasing competition from firms in emerging nations. As examples, Mindray in medical devices, LiuGong in earth moving equipment, Tata motors in Buses and Suzlon in Wind turbines are emerging as strong competitors in their industries. Yet despite increased competition from emerging nation firms, insufficient research has examined the growth of these firms, specifically in the areas of technology and innovation development processes. The purpose of this study is to examine how emerging nation business-to-business firms that have global ambitions achieve technology competence.

The authors examined several case studies on emerging market business-to-business firms that have moved to global markets and highlight the following five: LiuGong China (excavating products), Mindray China (medical equipment), Suzlon Energy India (wind generators), Tata Motors Buses India and BYD Auto China (batteries to electric cars). The firms are in business-to-business markets, except for BYD China that emerged as a business-to-business battery supplier but is currently in both business-to-business and business-to-consumer markets.

The authors find that firms in emerging markets that have global ambitions follow different approaches to innovation development processes from conventional theories and assumptions held by scholars and practitioners in Western developed countries. Our cases suggest that firms follow the proposed progression: domestic markets – internally developed technology; domestic markets –acquired technology; and finally to, global markets – acquired technology.

The authors contribute to research in three areas. First, they suggest that the innovation development process for emerging market firms is different from the Western world. Second, they provide a framework of innovation development process that can be tested in multiple environments. Third, this study suggests a deeper examination of the longitudinal development of business-to-business firms, an area that has received less attention.

The authors suggest that firms need to better track their competition from emerging nations because emerging nation firms can quickly acquire technology to become strong competitors.

Extant research has not examined these issues.

Concrete in structures is likely to be exposed to high temperatures during fire. The probability of its exposure to elevated temperatures is high due to natural hazards, accidents and sabotages. Therefore, the performance of concrete during and after exposure to elevated temperature is a subject of great importance and interest to the designer. Popular normal strength grades of concrete produced by Ready Mix Concrete (RMC) India, Mangalore have been used in production of test specimens (150 mm cubes), cured and tested by destructive method for gathering data on strength characteristics. Later, these test samples were subjected to elevated temperatures ranging from 100°C to 800°C, in steps of 100°C with a retention period of 2 hours. After exposure, weight losses and the residual compressive strength retention characteristics are studied. Test results indicated that weight and strength significantly reduces with an increase in temperature. Residual compressive strength prediction equations are proposed for normal strength concretes subjected to elevated temperatures.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between participatory HRM and firm performance through a series of mediators.

Primary data were collected from 569 respondents belonging to 207 organizations operating in India. Structural equation modeling and bootstrapping via PROCESS were used to analyze the hypothesized relationships between participatory HRM and firm performance.

The study has highlighted that participatory HRM in the form of self-managed teams, flexible work arrangements and empowerment results in better organizational climate, heightened affective commitment, reduced intention to leave and enhanced firm performance. Furthermore, it has been established that organizational climate, affective commitment and intention to leave serially mediate the relationship between participatory HRM and firm performance.

The study gives strong indications that adopting bundle of participatory HRM practices is beneficial for generating positive organizational climate, enhanced employee attitudes and superior firm performance.

By establishing serial mediation through organizational climate, affective commitment and employees’ intention to leave, this study brings new insights into the interpretation of underlying mechanism existing between participatory HRM and firm performance, thus uniquely contributes to the HRM and OB literature.

The purpose of this paper is to deal with the formation of performance modeling and maintenance priorities for the water flow system (WFS) of a coal-based thermal power plant.

The system consists of five subsystems, i.e. condenser, condensate extraction pump, Low Pressure Heater, deaerator and boiler feed pump. The Chapman-Kolmogorov equations are generated on the basis of transition diagram and further solved recursively to obtain the performance modeling with the help of normalizing condition using Markov approach.

Availability matrices are formed with the help of different combinations of failures and repair rates of all subsystems. The performance of all subsystems is evaluated in terms of availability level achieved in availability matrices and plots of failure rates and repair rates of various subsystems. The maintenance priorities of various subsystems of WFS are decided on the basis of repair rate.

The adoption of both performance modeling and maintenance priorities decision by the management of thermal power plant will result in the enhancement of system availability and reduction in maintenance cost.