Search results

The purpose of this paper is to explore how practical wisdom rooted in Buddhism can help modern managers make decisions in contemporary business organizations.

The paper suggests a model explaining how individual level Buddhist beliefs in Dependent Origination are reflected in behavior of individual through mindfulness, compassion and expansion of self. The model also explores the consequences of above mentioned behavior in terms of individual, group and organizational level decision making, respectively.

The paper develops propositions which demonstrate the possibility of applying the practical wisdom of Buddhism into the individual, group and organizational decision-making processes. The paper proposes an integrative model and suggests initiatives that can be taken in business organizations and business schools for applying the practical wisdom gleaned from the Buddhist traditions.

The paper brought the core concepts of Buddhism as the main point of application in the decision-making process in management. However, this approach is perhaps difficult to grasp for the readers who may not be as conversant with that tradition.

Rich eastern traditions have remained underexplored in contemporary business literature. This paper examines the potential contributions from the Buddhist heritage in the crucial decision-making domain in management.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight how the new transdiscipline of ecological economics (EE) provides a very useful supporting scientific base for Buddhist traditions and their provision of practical wisdom for economics and management.

The key relevant theoretical and methodological features of EE are explained and related to the Buddhist world view. The strong consistencies between the two perspectives are highlighted. The complementary nature of the practical philosophy of Buddhism and the guiding paradigm of EE can contribute to change in contemporary management approaches aligned with sustainable and welfare-enhancing economic systems.

EE provides a very appropriate scientific base to complement and broaden the positive contribution of Buddhist traditions to sustainable economic systems and consistent management practices.

Despite some very clear parallels and complementarities, the mutual benefits of integrating and strengthening the cross-over between Buddhism and the influential new “sustainability science” of EE are yet to be realised. This paper is focused on this goal. The potential interplay promises significant benefits for both perspectives – EE needs more development of its sustainability ethical basis, and Buddhist perspectives would be enhanced by support from a highly consistent and influential scientific paradigm in a world where secular market economics continues to prevail.

The tax burden, defined as the ratio of the collected taxes in a particular period against the total product, is commonly used to determine the effect of fiscal and tax policies on the socioeconomic structure. The purpose of this study is to examine how the changes in some macroeconomic indicators affect the tax burden.

System generalized method of moments approach is used for 34 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) members in the period of 1993-2016.

Based on the research findings, variables such as income per capita, foreign trading volume, the capacity of employment, unemployment and economic share of industry sector effect tax burden in a statistically significant and positive direction. The reason that lies behind the positive effect of unemployment on tax burden is the fact that the sense of social state is not abandoned. Thus, it is predicted that the state will increase public transfer expenditures in the short term due to unemployment, this increase will impose a financial burden on the public sector both in the medium and long term and finally, there will be an increase in the tax burden.

Results in the literature suggest that there are many reasons for increasing tax burden such as socio-economic development, financial and organizational structure and the globalization process. However, according to this study, it seems that gross domestic product per capita, the size of the industry sector, openness, employment capacity and unemployment rate also have a positive and significant effect on tax burden in the long run. Ultimately, these results demonstrate that tax burden, one of the most important indicators of the public sector size in the sample of the states and period in hand, is influenced positively by all independent variables and increases slightly but surely. These results suggest that the tax state is still a determinative factor in the socioeconomic field within its taxation tools.

I. The Background: Theories of Property The institution of property is one of the oldest in human experience. Because of the many approaches to the study of the origins of society and the functions of its various structures, the idea of property has been investigated from numerous points of view. In this subject, many disciplines of modern scholarship converge, each beginning with a consideration of some aspect of existent society, and then, to a greater or lesser degree, looking back into the origins of the institution in question.

This paper seeks to explore an alternative direction to break the theoretical impasse in CSR.

The study employs ancient insights from the core of Buddhist teaching, featuring the Four Noble Truths and the concept of “me” and “mine”, for the modern application of CSR by investigating the crux of major related theories.

The Noble Truths emphasize that suffering should be eradicated at its root. The Buddhist model of CSR suggests that beyond doing good such as supporting philanthropy and avoiding evil as mitigating the impact of corporate malpractice, which are consistent with major CSR theories, it is also crucial to purify the hearts of stakeholders from the “self” and “what belongs to self”, the genesis of suffering. Detachment is the key.

The shift from an institutional to an individual level, more specifically the transformation from a mindset of over‐consumption to one of conscious consumption, is an alternative direction to the progress of theory and practice in CSR.

Defiled by greed and profitability, consumers and investors, who provide income and funding to an organization and define its business practice, are of the highest priority among all stakeholders to start the change according to the Buddhist model of CSR.

This paper takes Buddhism as timeless insight, rather than a religious belief, to propose an alternative model and direction to development of CSR in theory and practice.

It is well established in academic literature that self‐tender offers and corporate dividends can be used independently to effectively signal firm value. It is unclear, however, whether these two forms of earnings distributions can be used simultaneously. This paper is an empirical examination of the relationship between dutch auction repurchases and corporate dividend policy. This research indicates that a substantial number of firms choose to repurchase their shares in the form of dutch auctions between dividend payments. Because signalling is a likely motivation for both repurchases and cash dividends, these two events may not be independent of each other. The results of this study confirm positive stock market reaction to repurchase announcements and that firm prediction errors are significantly related to signaling variables.

This paper outlines the thinking of financial theorists on issues most relevant to those influencing financial decision‐making within a firm. While the review is not comprehensive, it does provide a foundation for understanding what is included in the modern theory of corporate finance. Perhaps more importantly, the reader should gain an appreciation for what is financial “myth” and what is financial “trust.” The paper concludes with a section on managerial implications.

Using a meta-regression analysis, we quantitatively review the empirical literature on the relation between effective tax rate (ETR) and firm size. Accounting literature offers two competing theories on this relation: The political cost theory, suggesting a positive size-ETR relation, and the political power theory, suggesting a negative size-ETR relation. Using a unique data set of 56 studies that do not show a clear tendency towards either of the two theories, we contribute to the discussion on the size-ETR relation in three ways: First, applying meta-regression analysis on a US meta-data set, we provide evidence supporting the political cost theory. Second, our analysis reveals factors that are possible sources of variation and bias in previous empirical studies; these findings can improve future empirical and analytical models. Third, we extend our analysis to a cross-country meta-data set; this extension enables us to investigate explanations for the two competing theories in more detail. We find that Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory, a transparency index and a corruption index explain variation in the size-ETR relation. Independent of the two theories, we also find that tax planning aspects potentially affect the size-ETR relation. To our knowledge, these explanations have not yet been investigated in our research context.

In the tinplate food container it is to be desired that tin is the sacrificial member of the couple, conferring protection to the steel base while corroding at a slow rate itself. This is the case in many food products, including a large group of acid food products typified by the acid fruits. This is an important pack in this country, large quantities being packed and exported each year. Special attention will be given to corrosion in the acid fruit packs under various headings.

The aim of this paper is to study the effect of heat treatment temperature and time on the corrosion behavior of ductile iron in 0.5 M NaCl and 0.5 M H₂SO₄.

Ductile iron samples of known composition were austenized at temperatures 800°C and 850°C, and austempered at 300°C and 350°C for periods of 30, 45 and 60 min to convert them to austempered ductile iron (ADI). The corrosion behavior of these ADI samples in 0.5 M NaCl and H₂SO₄ was measured using the conventional weight loss method. The metallographic examination of the samples was carried out to study the morphology of their corroded surfaces.

Ductile iron is susceptible to corrosion in both acidic and chloride media, while attack by acid media is mainly at the grain boundaries, that from the chloride is pitting. The corrosion behavior of the material is affected by the compositional structures of the materials as well as the austempering temperature and time it was subjected to.

Ductile iron has the potential to replace costlier materials in many engineering and structural applications.

The results revealed that the corrosion of ADI in both acidic and chloride media were strongly dependent on the structure of the material, which in turn was affected by the austempering temperature and time.