Volume 11 (2016): Issue 2 (August 2016)

The purpose of this research is to examine employees’ views on adverse consequences caused by strict compliance to display rules of intrinsic labour demands as against its appropriate necessities within a call centre context. Using an interpretative phenomenological methodology for the study analysis, 25 semi-structured interviews were conducted with telephone agents working in a call centre outlet in Lagos state, Nigeria. Based on the emotional labour theory, enquires were made about general outcomes experienced from conforming to organisational rules of emotional management during customer service encounters. Findings confirmed that the adversarial impact of affective conformity tends to threaten the positive intentions of these mandatory components of service work. Thus, a proposed theoretical model emerged from the study’s interpretive accounts Based on these significant research findings, detailed practical implications were discussed on ways in which call centre businesses operating in a non-Western context can extenuate poor affective deliveries arising from mismanagement of emotional labour.

In recent years social entrepreneurship has been emerging as a viable alternative to government policies for addressing some of the society’s most pressing issues. Academics have also started to take note but only a small number of institutions of higher education offer educational opportunities for students who want to become social entrepreneurs. In this paper I show how business schools are well equipped to offer a coherent curriculum for social business entrepreneurs at a relatively low marginal cost and argue that a business-heavy curriculum is appropriate.

Recent terrorist attacks in Brussels, Paris and Istanbul, are shaking a world bewildered of daily fear of violence, while the contemporary consumer has to deal with the “new wars” emerging in the context of the current socio-economic and political context. The issue is especially thorny since, most of the times, the “enemy” the citizens must face is unknown, not only when it comes to terrorist attacks, but also when dealing with the question of the “enemy” in foods purchased for consumption (food security) or the security of personal data when accessing and using the Internet (cyber security). Consequently, this paper attempts to highlight the way in which the safety and security needs of the contemporary consumer have diversified over time, often becoming determinants of social behavior in general, and of the buying and consumption behavior, in particular.

The term “value” can be interpreted in a subjective way, depending about what we refer at. Usually the firm's value is related to the financial performance: profitability, cash flow, liquidity, solvability, etc. A corporation can create and in some cases reduce value for its stakeholders. Also, a corporation can create value for the stakeholders by simply creating jobs, paying taxes and help the population to improve their financial situation. The aim of the paper is to describe the process of value creation starting with corporate governance, continuing with stakeholders’ expectations and finishing with shareholders requests.

The Canadian transition to IFRS provides a valuable IFRS learning opportunity. The Canadian transition and implementation of IFRS provides a unique opportunity to examine the conversion of financial reporting from a similar set of financial reporting rules as U.S. GAAP in a similar economic and business environment. The implementation and adoption of IFRS is not a monolithic event. Our ability to comprehensively understand and assess IFRS requires transparent disclosures such as those mandated by IFRS 1 and disaggregation of the equity components to observe and measure the impact of IFRS as it pertains to discretionary management implementation choices, material reclassifications, and GAAP-to-GAAP differences. Comprehensive knowledge of IFRS 1, First Time Adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards is crucial to our ability to assess the transitory and future impact of IFRS. IFRS 1 sets the precedent for financial reporting under IFRS, overrides transitional provisions included in other IFRS, and prescribes detailed disclosures. This detailed “rules-based” standard permits discretionary management policy choices which have material impact on transitory reporting as well as future financial results.

Comparing the financial characteristics of firms in different countries and regions has been a popular research topic in finance. In this paper, we compare the financial characteristics of U.S. and European manufacturing firms with the MANOVA (Multivariate Analysis of Variance) method and financial ratios. Our findings indicate that the overall financial characteristics of U.S. and European manufacturing firms are significantly different. We find that U.S. manufacturing firms are more profitable and they have less liquidity and bankruptcy risks compared with European manufacturing firms. European manufacturing firms are more efficient in managing their fixed assets. However, U.S. manufacturing firms are more efficient in managing their accounts receivable and total assets. U.S. manufacturing firms are able to achieve significantly higher sales and total assets growth rates compared with European manufacturing firms.

Market positioning is not anymore just an outcome of the marketing endeavour but actually the essence of it. Organisations must develop and implement proper market positioning plans if they want to pursue an enduring existence. In this direction, an organisation must perform a brand situation analysis, its results being the starting point of a successful market positioning. This analysis entails collecting data about the brand and its competitors being performed through various qualitative and quantitative research methods. The current study focuses on the use of in-depth interviews, a very important qualitative research instrument, in collecting data necessary to build a market position in the form of inconspicuous consumer behaviour factors, such as perceptions, attitudes and motivations. The peculiarities and advantages of this tool are detailed in an analysis of the Romanian modern retail. The findings through their richness made possible configuring market positions for several companies under study. There is no doubt about the effectiveness of this tool in collecting essential data for an effective market positioning. However, in some instances an organisation might need data of quantitative nature in making market positioning decisions, situations in which the use of the indepth interview should be complemented with a survey.

Marketing is the art of delivering value whilst ethical marketing is to provide this value through what is morally right. This new era customers are well informed, more knowledgeable, less vulnerable to unethical practices and cannot be easily manipulated by marketers. Many companies are thus, moving towards ethical marketing so as to develop trust among existing and new customers. Strict regulations by the Mauritian government have further forced marketers to act ethically; whereby the advertising of alcoholic beers has been banned. Yet, indirect strategies have been adopted by marketers so as to pave their way in this competitive industry. What are they? Are customers aware about them and are they influenced? Road accidents, social violence and health problems are associated to such malpractice. This study has shed light on the above and measures have been proposed for the benefit of customers, marketers and the government. This study was connected to the ethical theories.

In a world of unprecedented (diachronic and synchronic) complexities like ours, firms are forced to deal with an increasing number of organizational paradoxes that challenge their strategic choices. Under these circumstances, ambidexterity could become a (dynamic) core competence for firms, making the ambidextrous organization an imperative for businesses more than ever before. The paper aims to explore, based on an integrative approach, the most relevant literature on the interdependencies between the two topics (strategic paradoxes and organizational ambidexterity), in order to identify the most important thesis, arguments and solutions that support the ambidextrous organization, four decades after its first introduction into the academic literature (Duncan, 1976).

Using penalty kicks in collegiate soccer matches, we test whether kickers choose where to place shots, and whether goalies choose where to dive in a way that is consistent with optimal mixed strategy play. The previous literature, studying professional soccer players, provides evidence of mixed strategy play in penalty kick scenarios. These results contrast with the evidence obtained in a lab, studying subjects who only play a game a few times and have insignificant monetary payoffs. These lab results find no evidence of mixed strategy play. The contrast between the results obtained from these very different environments makes it unclear which result generalizes to other settings. By studying college athletes, we analyze the middle ground, which is where most strategic decisions will be made. We find that college players employ optimal strategic play in some respects, but not in other respects.

This study investigates the failure and aftermath of state owned enterprises (SOEs) of an emerging economy, Bangladesh. Failure of SOEs of emerging economy has been investigated by many researchers during the last few decades. This study is an extension of previous research. Through the comparative case study, this study tries to explore the scenario of failure of SOEs, the causal factors of failure, remedial actions and aftermath in SOEs. The findings indicate that different authorities from the policy maker to the operating level employees cannot avoid the responsibilities for failure. Even proper restructuring within the ownership of government can drive the firm positively. It is expected that the comparative case study will help to make the decision for the concerned authorities of Bangladesh as well as the authorities of other countries of the world who are in the same position.

Active learning shifts the focus of instruction from what the teacher should teach or deliver to students, to what the students should be able to do with the course material. Interactive methods are modern ways of stimulating teaching, representing tools of learning which favor the interchange of ideas, experiences, and knowledge. The purpose of this paper is to present a series of active teaching methods for the accounting data as being an alternative in the process of improving the teaching and learning of the accounting process.

In developing this study we started from challenges and debates that capital markets union project engages, launched by the European Commission during 2015, both in academia and the specialists, regulators and investors. The article is structured in three parts, as follows: in the first part are highlighted theoretical and conceptual issues on the need for a union of capital markets, the second part presents empirical evidence from literature relating to this issue and in the third an econometric model is described, which aims to demonstrate the potential that Capital Markets Union may involve on increasing financing through the capital market. The contribution of this article to prior knowledge in the field consists of filling conceptual approach on the impact that Capital Markets Union will actively engage on the European financial market. The added value by our scientific approach is to highlight the complementarity between capital and banking market. Between IPO dynamics, as a representative indicator of capital market and a significant set of indicators of financial market as Stoxx Europe 600 index, the size of capital markets, changes in credit standards and key rate of the monetary policy of ECB is manifested correlations terms denoting the potential impact that Capital Markets Union will have on European financial markets.

Innovation is a concept that is more and more often used as a solution for increased competitiveness and economic development, either at organizational level or at a national one, but how is it created and what are the factors involved in the cycle education-innovation-economic and social development? This article intents to clarify the above mentioned cycle and provide an insight on what innovation means and what are its components, especially from a macroeconomic point of view. The results show how important innovation and other components like education are for the national and global economic development.

No matter of the business sector the company plays in, today leadership is essential in order to be successful, because when we speak about leadership we think about the power that is the result of the connection between a leader and his followers. Today it is important to have good managers that organize and conduct the company in order to achieve the objectives, but it is more important that the managers to be good leaders that have the power to influence other in participating for achieving companies goals.