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This article analyses value preferences and basic cultural behavioural patterns in two fairly diverse countries/societies: Britain and Yugoslavia. It is, from the very outset, assumed that both countries are undergoing a period of significant social changes, both political and social. The UK is introducing the policy of devolution with significant constitutional changes pending, while the Yugoslav society is recovering from the conflict in the area, economic slowdowns and is searching for its new identity. Due to long‐standing British interests in the Balkans, the attractiveness of a virtually unpenetrated Yugoslav market and the vast opportunities for investment pending the solution of political crises in the Balkans, it is expected that British investors, companies and entrepreneurs will be interested in establishing business links in Yugoslavia, and therefore it is more than useful to analyse basic cultural patterns of both societies, expressed through public opinion polls and informal exchange of opinions (used only in anecdotal manner). It is concluded that although both societies are shaped in the dominant European manner, there are also many differences between them, but none of them so significant as to pose an obstacle to a successful business co‐operation.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether, and to what extent, specific personality traits drive investors’ trading behaviour.

This study investigates these assumptions in an innovative way by employing an integrated model and using structural equation modelling analysis to examine them simultaneously as they would occur in the complex real world environment.

The results provide strong evidence that these personality traits influence investors’ trading behaviour and stock trading performance. The most powerful relationships are found to be those between over-confidence and stock trading volume, frequency and performance.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge there is no any similar study. This paper is the authors’ original unpublished work and it has not been submitted to any other journal for reviews.

This paper aims to examine the tensions between global and local corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives developed by multinationals managing subsidiaries in different emergent countries. Multinationals carry out a wide array of political activities (Boddewyn and Brewer, 1994; Hillman and Hitt, 1999; Rehbein and Schuler, 1995) supporting their economic objectives, even though the political landscape and the institutional environment may vary significantly in the different countries in which they are located (Luo, 2006). This can raise issues related to the management of cross-border political imperatives as well as the coordination of political activities among multinational companies and their subsidiaries.

Based on a documentary research, this paper analyses the key challenges facing the non-market and CSR strategies of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) a world leading, research-based pharmaceutical and health-care company.

The paper further looks at the way in which GSK deploys its global non-market strategies and manages their alignment with local CSR initiatives in emerging markets, particularly in China.

Further research is required to address the question of international CSR mediation and moderation of this imbalance between pressures for global consistency and local responsiveness. More specifically, in-depth case studies designed to target local managers, as well as their counterparts from the MNE headquarters, should allow us to more effectively analyse and capture the perceived biases with regard to the way the CSR agenda is set at the central level, in light of its global strategy and to the needs and demands of their local host countries’ stakeholders.

This exploratory research based on secondary data allows an interesting base for analysis of the synergies between CSR, non-market strategies and international strategic management which provide a promising base for continuing research.

Since the early 1980s when the term ‘emerging markets’ was first coined by the IMF and World Bank to describe the performance in countries with changing institutional framework, the theory has failed to produce a coherent and systemic theory. Overtime the term became generic, initially including developing countries (mainly in Asia and Latin America), but later covering the former socialist countries/economies (labelled as transitional countries), and some ‘developed’ countries that did not have extensive experience of capital market development (mainly due to having a bank‐based financial system).

The purpose of this paper is to perform an exploratory study of depositary receipts (DRs). In addition to the geographical analysis it test several hypothesis linked to various DRs’ issues.

Using the publicly available The Bank of New York's (now The Bank of New York Mellon) database, descriptive statistics and logit analysis were applied.

It is evident that smaller firms issue DRs in lower level programs apparently due to the considerable cost barriers; firms with larger capital expenditure plans prefer to issue under level III or Rule 144A DR programs and higher quality firms, proxied by lower leverage, are likely to make higher‐level DR issues.

The database is updated quite frequently and departures from enclosed findings are likely to occur in the years to come.

Management interested in issuing DRs may become acquainted with the pattern exercised by both small and large companies, or by companies with specific capital structures. In this manner the listing demonstrates less uncertainty as long as it is possible for managers to ascertain and compare own companies’ features.

The paper adds to the current literature regarding in‐depth analysis of the DRs market.

The paper seeks to discuss the process of performance management and measurement system‐building in the public sector in a transitional country, with particular reference to Serbia.

A short description of the general legal framework within which the local governments in Serbia operate is given, followed by a discussion of the usual, and to some extent well‐known, problems of performance management system‐building and implementation.

The detailed interviews with a number of mayors and senior local Civil Servants pointed out that a number of issues, believed to have been resolved in the Western countries, have emerged as being problematic in the policy implementation process in the region.

This paper not only analyses the stages in the system‐building process, but also tries to explain why “measurement revolutions” may fail in a constantly changing transitional environment.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between beta and returns in the Athens stock exchange (ASE), taking into account the difference between positive and negative market excess returns' yields.

The data were taken from DataStream database and the sample period consists of 12 years divided into four six‐year periods such that the test periods do not overlap. Regression analysis is applied, using both the traditional (unconditional) test procedure and the conditional approach.

The estimation of return and beta without differentiating positive and negative market excess returns produces a flat unconditional relationship between return and beta. However, when using the conditional capital asset pricing model (CAPM) and cross‐sectional regression analysis, the evidence tends to support the significant positive relationship in up market and a significant negative relationship in down market.

The small number of listed companies in the ASE led to the inclusion of the financial and insurance companies in the sample, and to the formation of a small number of portfolios. The same research methodology could be applied to individual stocks of the ASE and with the exclusion of all financial companies.

The results tend to support the existence of a conditional CAPM relation between risk and realized return trade‐off.

Focuses on business investments by Singaporean Chinese in Mainland China vis‐à‐vis the impact of the knowledge of the Chinese language, culture etc. on business success. The literature has shown four critical factors namely culture, guanxi, negotiation and communication as important facilitators for business investments in China. Chinese language, however, further moderates their influence on business investments. To explore the association between the Chinese language and the four critical factors, a sample t‐test was conducted. Additionally, the profile of Singaporean business investors in Mainland China was surveyed. The research provices insights for Singaporean and global business investors who are looking at Mainland China as a potential business opportunity.

This article questions the validity of regression models when high correlations exist between independent variables and presents the application of VAR as an alternative technique through the comparison of two groups of selected stocks that represent components of Dow Jones and S&P 500 indices, respectively. The results indicate that panel regressions face serious specification problems, while the impulse response function underlines that the shock to the volume innovation has a mostly positive impact on the volatility in both S&P and Dow Jones sample, but the tendency cannot be easily accounted for. The positive impact of volatility shocks on the inter market depth is rather unexpected, but it may be associated with an increase in volume that does not enormously enhance the spread up to the point where it will be too costly for market‐makers to trade, and accordingly, quickly narrows the spread to absorb new liquidity influx in the market. In the Granger causality tests Dow Jones stocks with comparatively larger average volume depth values and price levels provide slightly stronger relations between analyzed variables compared to the stocks included in the S&P sample.

The purpose of this paper is to present a procedure for finding the efficient frontier, i.e. a non‐decreasing curve representing the set of Pareto‐optimal or non‐dominated portfolios, when the standard Markowitz' classical mean‐variance model is enriched with additional constraints.

The mean‐variance portfolio optimization model is extended to include integer constraints that limit a portfolio to have a specified number of assets, and to impose limits on the proportion of the portfolio held in a given asset. Optimization‐based procedures run into difficulties in this framework and this motivates the investigation of heuristic algorithms to find acceptable solutions.

The problem is solved by a greedy randomized adaptive search procedure (GRASP), enhanced by a learning mechanism and a bias function for determining the next element to be introduced in the solution.

This is believed to be the first time, a GRASP for finding the efficient frontier for this class of portfolio selection problems is used.