Integration Management of Western Acquisitions in ameerica

Researchers have identified numerous reasons for employee resistance. First, a general scepticism or fear after the announcement of an M&A, also known as the 'merger syndrome', results in distrust, tension and hostility between employees and senior management (Blake and Mouton, 1985; Marks and Mirvis, 1986). Even if only very few changes are to be implemented, M&A activity has a destabilizing effect on the involved employees (Nikandrou et al., 2000). Second, differences in management styles have been found to be negatively correlated with M&A success (Datta, 1991). Third, cultural issues, both at organizational and national level, have been identified as a main success factor (Cartwright and Cooper, 1993; Morosoni et al., 1998; Amano and Suzuki, 2002). While the majority of scholars agree that organizational cultural fit positively influences integration outcomes (eg Cartwright and Cooper, 1993), they have found mixed and even contradictory results on the effects of national cultural fit (Olie, 1994; Morosoni et al., 1998). Barkema et al. (1996) argue that cross-border M&A might be more difficult, since companies have to engage in a double-layered acculturation, that is both organizational and national cultural integration.

Website: http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

The Future of Corporate Social Responsibility

Here, the voluntary and discretionary expenditures of business on social and environmental projects are seen to be more closely aligned with corporate risk management and reputation-building than with corporate strategy. After some observations about terminology and philosophical attitudes, the paper notes the growing pressure on business to undertake discretionary social and environmental expenditures and to account publicly for such activities through institutionalized annual reporting. Some recent international initiatives to foster and popularize corporate social responsibility are summarized and their features briefly assessed, as is one attempt to measure corporate social responsibility. The paper seeks to illuminate the 'hidden' issues in this increasingly popular contemporary movement. The most important of these are to identify who ultimately pays for such expenditures and who ultimately makes decisions about them. At the same time it is noted that the capabilities of private business in the social arena may sometimes exceed those of government. The paper concludes with a number of judgements about the nature and legitimacy of this contemporary development and also about its future.

Website: http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

International Expansion Strategies of Korean Venture Firms: Entry Mode Choice and Performance

This study seeks to advance the state of our theoretical as well as empirical understanding of the determinants of entry mode choice and internationalization performance of new ventures. Based on three leading theoretical perspectives — transaction costs, social networks and absorptive capacity — we develop hypotheses focusing on the role of technology-based advantage, the social networks of start-up team members and the absorptive capacity of employees in predicting entry mode choice and new venture internationalization performance. Using data on the internationalization of new Korean ventures, we find evidence that social network and absorptive capacity theories have considerable explanatory power beyond that of transaction cost theory in predicting entry mode choice and the internationalization performance of new ventures.

Website: http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

Stakeholders and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): A New Perspective on the Structure of Relationships

This paper analyses the characteristics of relationships between stakeholders and corporate social responsibility (CSR) and stakeholders. Previous researches on relationships between enterprises and stakeholders have demonstrated two characteristics, of 'restriction' and 'transaction', but they do not appear to shed much light on recent developments. This is partly due to the new trend of corporate dialogue with stakeholders, aimed either at addressing social issues or with a view to acquiring a positive perception through such dialogue; we see this process as one of 'value creation'. Stakeholder dialogue is more established in Europe, where CSR has developed most extensively, than elsewhere. Today, European enterprises are moving towards a standardized system to formalize and evaluate the value of stakeholder dialogue. Japanese opinion, however, is not always in favor of such standardization, as in Nonaka' Knowledge Creation Theory, which argues that all innovation is produced through a creative process of solving contradictions and conflicts, rather than through applying objective processes. This paper discusses the context of stakeholder dialogue and the Japanese perception of its application.

Website: http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

Counterbalancing Olympic Sponsorship Efforts

This paper provides an empirical insight into the perception and use of ambush marketing on the People's Republic of China public television network CCTV5 (the official Olympic broadcaster), by examining the commercials used by various corporations during its coverage of the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. A five-point categorization is presented to distinguish between various methods of ambushing. Despite the efforts of the Beijing government to fight ambush marketing ahead of its Olympic Games in 2008, the results demonstrate that concerns about the practice of ambush marketing in China must be taken seriously. An analysis of 40 commercial spots was carried out, based on China's 2002 Olympic Symbol Protection Law, as well as a comparison of ambush marketing on Chinese CCTV5 with nine other nations. This paper concludes with some theoretical considerations concerning general protection of Olympic sponsors and reflects on particular cultural backgrounds in China that may relate to ambush marketing.

Website: http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

Exploring the Relationship between Job Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment

The hypotheses formulated for the study were tested using correlation analysis, regression analysis, T-test and analysis of variance with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The findings of the study revealed that the joint effect of independent variables (Reward system, Job related stress, Job meaningfulness, Training, and Supervisory role) jointly and independently predicted Organizational commitment. The research also indicated that there was a significant relationship between reward system and organizational commitment. There was also a significant difference between training and organizational commitment. Based on the findings of this study it was recommended that the management should try as much as possible to give constant attention to things that can enhance job satisfaction. Also, promotion and recruitment should be based on merit, performance on the job, initiative, educational qualifications and experience.

Website:  http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

Logistic Approach to the Dependence of Efficiency of Scientific-and-Technical Projects on Resources

In the logistic equation, for the first time it has been offered the parameter r – the level of creativity inherent to a scientific team, which depends on the whole set of factors, namely: scientific level and experience of the leader and co-workers, their medium age and ambitions, and work conditions as well, including psychological climate and using the promising methods for stimulation to achieve high results. When resources are limited, at the initial stages of performing investigations it is expedient to determine the most promising and efficient direction for development and concentrate all the resources for its realization. It has been ascertained that the break in FINANCING prevents efficient using the supplied resources.

Website:  http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

Role of Indian Mutual Funds in Financial Inclusion: Public Vs Private Sector

The mutual fund organizations are taking active part in financial inclusiveness and they are promoting INVESTMENT habit among the investors. At present there are 37 Asset Management Companies (AMCs) comprise the mutual fund industry and manage assets over Rs 8075 billion. This industry has undergone spectacular growth in recent years, making this study one of extreme interest. In this context, this paper is intended to examine the role of mutual fund organization in financial inclusiveness with reference to performance through public and private sector.

Website:  http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

The Chaotic Monopoly Profit Growth Model and a Pigouvian Tax

Deterministic chaos refers to irregular or chaotic motion that is generated by nonlinear systems. The chaotic behavior is not to quantum-mechanical-like uncertainty. Chaos theory is used to prove that erratic and chaotic fluctuations can indeed arise in completely deterministic models. Chaotic systems exhibit a sensitive dependence on initial conditions. Seemingly insignificant changes in the initial conditions produce large differences in outcomes. The basic aim of this paper is to construct a relatively simple chaotic growth model of the monopoly price that is capable of generating stable equilibria, cycles, or chaos. A key hypothesis of this work is based on the idea that the coefficient μ = f (n - b - d ) plays a crucial role in explaining local stability of the monopoly profit, where, b - the coefficient of the total cost function of the monopoly firm, n - the coefficient of the inverse demand function, d - the Pigovian tax rate.

Website: http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

Linear Programming Problem and Post Optimality Analyses in Fuzzy Space: A Case Study of a Bakery Industry

This paper investigates recent techniques that have been developed for optimization of linear programming problems. In practice, there are many problems in which all decision parameters are fuzzy numbers, and such problems are usually solved by either probabilistic programming or multi objective programming methods. Unfortunately all these methods have shortcomings. In this paper, using the concept of comparison of fuzzy numbers, it is introduced a very effective method for solving these problems. With the problem assumptions, the optimal solution can still be theoretically solved using the simplex based method. To handle the fuzzy decision variables can be initially generated and then solved and improved sequentially using the fuzzy decision approach by introducing Robust’s ranking technique. The model is illustrated with a case study application. The proposed procedure was programmed and through MATLAB (R2009a) version software, the four dimensional slice diagram is represented to the application. Finally, the real case problem is presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the theoretical results, and to gain additional managerial insights for decision making.

Website: http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

An Empirical Study of Consumer Ethics: A Comparative Study of Two Firms of Faisalabad

Ethics are very important factor in today business. We have conducted this study to identify consumer ethics and their buying behavior in Particular two Organizations of Faisalabad, to study the consumer ethics we used four different dimensions. The purpose of this paper to find the situation in which consumer behaves unethically in Pakistan. And the result compares with previous consumer ethics researches. It is an exploratory research for the purpose of seeing the consumer ethics. The study shows that different consumers behave differently in term of ethical point of view. Our study shows that customers similar in terms of Machiavellianism they display. Limitation in this paper is that the study was conducted only in Faisalabad. Another problem is that time; willingness and mood of the customers also affect the responses. This is an exploratory research and the results are not claimed to be generalized. So the further research should be made on social and political problems which affect the ethical behaviors and try to generalize the results.

Website:  http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

Study on Work Place Behaviour: Role of Person-Organization Fit, Person-Job Fit

anaging the workforce effectively is cumbersome and is also one of the key success factors of any organization. While managing workforce a manager deals with many factors affecting the performance of organization including workplace behaviour. It has significant role in determining the performance of employees due to this reason now the importance of workplace behaviour is being recognized gradually. This study explored the association b/w person-organization fit (PO-fit) and organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB), person job fit (PJ-fit) and organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB), person-organization fit (PO-fit) and deviant behaviours (DB), person job fit (PJ-fit) and deviant behaviours (OCB) and the role of empowerment as moderator has been be analyzed. Responses were collected from 307 respondents, through questionnaires, from service sector of Pakistan where telecommunication and banks were taken under study. Regression analysis were use to test the hypothesis. Results showed significant positive association of PO-fit and PJ-fit with that of OCB. Relation of DB with that of PO-fit remains disconfirmed whereas unsupported with of PJ-fit. Moreover empowerment was found to moderate only between PJ-fit and OCB, but not between PO-fit and OCB. Further studies are needed to explore more about antecedent and consequences of DB and the exploring more factors that influence OCB.

Website:  http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

A Constructive Confrontation Approach to Managing Organizational Culture

The goal of this paper is to present the constructive confrontation approach to management of organizational culture. The approach provides for transformation of confrontation caused by differences between the new values of a declared organizational culture and the current values of employees in constructive process. Constructive confrontation allows for the concentration of energies and capacities of employees induced by confrontation in their productive adoption of new organizational cultural values. The approach development intends planning of organizational cultural change, and managing the adoption of new organizational cultural values by employees. Planning involves: building a structure of desired organizational values, setting the order of adoption of the new values, and determination of interrelated actions of employees generated by the new organizational values in accordance to the set order. Managing the adoption of new values involves forming a dynamic managerial team, receiving feedback on value adoption as a result of determining value adoption measure, and responding to feedback through complex and flexible use of the constructive confrontation tools.

Website: http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

Measuring the Performance of Dry Bulk Cargo Loading and Unloading

Aimed at detection and prioritization of causes of delay in dry bulk cargo loading/unloading operation at the relevant terminal of Latakia port of Syria, the present research has been conducted by use of PROMETHEE method in three stages. In the first stage, the number of lags and halts in loading/unloading operation (hereinafter referred to as L/U operation) and the involving causes during a specific period were studied. As well, brain storming cessions attended by experts from the mentioned terminal were held during which seventeen numbers of causes of delay were detected. Then, based on the criteria of determination of causes occurrence probability (occurrence frequency), the extent of causes impact on process after occurrence (severity) and probability of detection of causes before having impact on the process (detection), the causes were scored in form of a scale ranging from 1 to 10. In the second stage, using AHP method, the mentioned criteria were weighted. The criterion of occurrence probability was the most weighted (0.43) and the criterion of detection probability was the least weighted (0.26). Based on the obtained scores by each one of the causes, the matrix of decision making was formed and the mentioned causes were ranked by use of PROMETHEE method.

Website: http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

Construct Specification and Misspecification within the Application of Push-Pull-Mooring Theory of Switching Behaviour

This paper principally addresses the issue of construct specification and misspecification within the context of the application of Push-Pull-Mooring (PPM) theory of consumer switching behaviour (CSB), and what implications it has for practicing marketing researchers. Despite the prospects of the PPM framework as a dominant paradigm for current and future research, there is evidence of divergent specification of constructs for the PPM framework in empirical studies. This study addresses this problem by applying empirical guidelines to determine the correct specification for the PPM framework, and uses an empirical illustration to demonstrate the potential consequence of misspecifying the PPM constructs in business. The findings indicate that about 67% level of construct misspecification exist in available research applying the PPM model in CSB literature. Pull, Push, and Mooring effects are identified as multi-dimensional construct that should follow a first-order reflective, second-order formative specification in the application of the full model. The findings also indicate that misspecification has potentially negative consequence on the validity, content and parsimony of measurement models in the PPM framework. Recommendations for practicing researchers are discussed. The paper furthers our understanding of construct specification and misspecification in theory development in business research.

Website: http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

The Study of Contingency Components Roles in the Design of Municipals' Accounting Systems: A Case Study

Generally, the main idea of contingency view is that there is no sole best way to solve a problem or do a specific job. The best way depends on the situation. This is an applied- survey research. In this research, there are four variables, organisation structure, technology, organisation environment, and human resources as contingency components which are considered as predetermined components in designing accounting systems. This research tries to answer the question which states whether contingency components are considered in designing Municipals accounting systems in Khuzestan province (Iran)? In this research, first we received the data by sending the questionnaires manually to accountants, accountant managers and experts in 34 municipal districts and centres in Khuzestan province. Then, the data of selected samples are analysed based on single sample T- test, independent T, and Chi-Square leading to the results of this research. The findings show that the accounting systems of Khuzestan province municipals are mostly designed based on contingency components which in comparison with similar researches, are significantly contradictory. The respondents’ viewpoint about “human resources” component has not been articulated profoundly and suitably. In this research, it has been clearly found that the role that “organization structure” plays in designing accounting system is not more than that of “organization environment”.

Website: http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

Reflecting on Work Improves Job Performance

which they completed a series of brain teasers based on a "sum to ten" game. A round of problem solving included five puzzles, and participants earned a dollar for each puzzle they solved in 20 seconds or less.

After recording the results of the first problem-solving round, the researchers divided participants randomly into one of three conditions: control, reflection, and sharing.

In the control condition, participants simply completed another round of brain teasers.

Website: http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

Are Today’s Business Heroes Challenging Our Ideas About Leadership?

The overall sense of responses to our question for the month is that the leadership stars of today—Jobs, Bezos, Gates, etc.,—should not cause us to change our time-honored ideas about great leadership. Among the notions advanced were that they: (1) are special, (2) are entrepreneurs first and leaders second, (3) or represent a kind of leadership important for only one phase of the longer-term development of a business. Comments did suggest, however, that some ideas about leadership can benefit from a reexamination.

Website: http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

Politicians Benefited From Using Toxic Loans

Talk of the recent financial crisis often falls into a simplistic narrative of villainous banks, marketing toxic financial products to innocent customers who did not understand their risks. Among the storied victims are municipal governments that took out loans with initially low interest rates, only to see the rates skyrocket when the crisis hit. Many mayors cried foul, insisting that they had been hoodwinked.

Website: http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

Is Too Much Focus a Problem?

Individuals and organizations suffer from too much focus much of the time. That was the sense of the majority of responses to this month's column. Respondents didn't stop there. They described why it happens and what to do about it. In the process, they provoked a new round of questions.

Website: http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

The ABCs of Addressing Climate Change (From a Business Perspective)

Assessing probabilities and portfolio risk is how property insurance companies look at what might or might not happen to a building in a flood zone. It's how financial managers cover the possibility of unlikely but high impact events. Why would asset owners—never mind groups of citizens—not want to use a probability-based approach to resilience of physical portfolios in the face of sea level and weather fluctuations? For example, Con Ed in New York has INVESTED to elevate the number of waterproof transformers and switchgear in case the city has to face another event like Superstorm Sandy .

Website: http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

Sharpen Your Negotiation Skills

No business skill may be as important to success as negotiation. We negotiate everything: agreements with partners and vendors, in-scope/out-of-scope parameters around important projects, and our own compensation and job responsibilities, to name just a few. If we don't win (or at least draw) in business talks, our other career skills won't do us much good.

Many of us, however, approach these critical conversations woefully unprepared. Fortunately, a large number of Harvard Business School faculty research this area constantly, and their tips and strategies have been featured on Working Knowledge for a decade-and-a-half.

Here are a number of articles and working papers you might find beneficial in upping your negotiation game.

Website: http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

Starbucks Reinvented

The case chronicles the blizzard of decisions and initiatives that follow what could have been the company's death knell as the financial crisis hit home and consumers cinched their belts.

"Schultz understood that you can't lift your foot off the gas pedal when you're attempting to transform a company," Koehn says. "Severe as its financial needs may be, you also have to figure out what you will INVESTin. Schultz knew that if he waited until the company was out of the woods to invest in new products, communication channels, and ways of doing business it would be too late—Starbucks would no longer be relevant."

Website: http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

Decision Making Under Information Asymmetry: Experimental Evidence on Belief Refinements

·         Pooling behavior, in which firms make the same choice regardless of their market prospects, was widespread among experimental participants, relative to separating behavior, in which firms make the distinct choices based on their market prospects. Participants were more than three times more likely to pool than to separate.

·         Pooling behaviors were especially common among participants who reported a high level of understanding of the experimental setting, and the degree of pooling increased in later rounds of the experiment.

·         Participants who made pooling decisions were rewarded by participants playing the role of an external INVESTOR and earned significantly more in the experimental market than participants who made separating decisions.

·         Leveraging the behavioral insight that real decision makers will pool under certain circumstances can materially affect the implications of existing operations theory.

Website: http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

‘My Bad!’ How Internal Attribution and Ambiguity of Responsibility Affect Learning from Failure

This paper offers a more nuanced view of learning that provides an integrated conceptual model for understanding individual learning from failure.

Managers in organizations should think carefully about how ambiguity of responsibility is likely to play out in their context, utilizing strategies such as job design to help to limit this effect.

Upfront planning might remove possible barriers that would increase ambiguity of responsibility. Feedback could influence these ambiguity perceptions as well.

Website: http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

Better Deals Through Level II Strategies: Advance Your Interests by Helping to Solve Their Internal Problems

Many negotiators experience the effect of constituencies that must formally or informally approve an agreement.

In negotiation, Level II challenges are the other side's internal or "behind-the-table" dilemmas.

Even where Level II parties do not have formal ratification power, they may often facilitate the implementation of agreements that they like and effectively block those that they do not.

Negotiators can meet their own interests by helping the other side resolve its Level II dilemmas.

There are several categories of practical measures that negotiators can use to advance their own interests by focusing on the other side's Level II negotiations.

Website: http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

An Experimental Investigation of Network Structure and Performance in Information and Solution Spaces

Problem solving requires two important and complementary forms of search: searching for information (for the facts that may be important pieces of the puzzle) and searching for solutions (for theories that combine puzzle pieces into an answer).

The same network structure can promote or inhibit knowledge diversity, depending on whether that knowledge consists of information, or interpretations of information.

'Good' communication structures may only be good for parts of the process of collective problem solving: structures that are good now may be bad later.

Organizations might be wise to adopt different communications structures for different phases of collective problem solving.

Rather than allow the march of technology to dictate organizational performance, it is possible to imagine how technology could be harnessed to achieve different performance goals.

Website: http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

Appraisal of Students’ Perception on Population Control and Implications for Counseling

Population in terms of human beings is the number of people in a place. Therefore, population control is an attempt to control the number of people in a place to a manageable size

Website: http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

Evaluation of Students’ Perception of School Counseling and Their Attitudes toward its Programs

The instrument for data collection was Students’ Perception and Attitude Questionnaire (SPAQ) which was adopted and modified from the original one used by Uba [10]. The questionnaire made up of sixty-six items on the whole comprised three sections. Section A comprising six question was designed to elicit personal details or demographic data and sought intimation on age, sex, class, school location and parents occupational and educational attainment (use to determine Socio-economic status). Section B which dealt with perception, consists of thirty Likert type items (15 positive and 15 negative) focusing on several aspects of educational, personal-social and career guidance and counseling services. The last section, C made of thirty items (15 positive and 15 negative) concerned students attitudes towards some facets of school counseling programmes.

Website: http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

Globalization and Implications on Arab Markets: A Survey of Travel Industry Executives

Seeking to uncover the interconnection between globalization and strategic geography, the authors had previously surveyed travel executives worldwide. Extrapolating from their past research, the authors analyzed the data and projected potential business implications to Arab nations.

Website: http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

Leadership Styles and Qualifications for Emergency Medical Service Managers

The current practice of appointing Emergency Medical Service (EMS) managers purely on a medical qualification without a managerial qualification needs to be revisited. EMS by virtue of its nature of operations makes the industry dynamic and Paramedics need good leadership together with strong management so that the core objectives of EMS become easier to achieve.

Website: http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

Organisations, Individuals as Employees, Individuals as Consumers and the Relationships Between them

Organisations of all shapes and sizes face a significant number of challenges that they must meet if they are to thrive in today’s globally hypercompetitive environment. Our aim is to help them deal with some of the most critical. An organisation is a collection of individuals working together in a structured way to achieve certain goals, and this understanding is central to our research interests. We aim to provide insights on current and emergent issues related to the three interconnected themes we focus on:

● the relationship between the individual as an employee and the organisation

● the relationship between the individual as a consumer and the organisation

● the relationship between the individual and the digitalised world.

Website: http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

Variety in the Rules of Islamic Financial Institutions

Industry is believed to be constantly evolving with an estimated convergence of the practice of Islamic financial intermediation with its conceptual foundations. Consequently, the paper contrasts the risks and the regulations considered necessary in the case of the IFIs operating according to the core rules and current practice. Moreover, the paper deals with the implications of approaches to the capital adequacy, licensing requirements and reliance on MARKET discipline. This paper proposes an organization of the industry which would enable to expand in conformity with its principles and prudent risk management and ease its regulation.

Website:  http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

Perceived Entrepreneurial Competency

Entrepreneurship a global phenomenon which has given the trend of innovative business startups. The jobs are created as the economy grows. A source of profit generation, return on INVESTMENTS and potential new markets. Word Entrepreneur which is new academic discipline: first time was used by economist. The entrepreneurial learning has drifted from personality influences to the behavioral influences, motivators and cognitive learnings. Entrepreneurial intentions have been studied by various researchers. This is established by that intentions can be measured developed far before opportunity seeking.

Website:  http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

To Whom Do Business Managers Owe Service

In response to Friedman many who came from the field of philosophical ethics began to write extensively about business ethics and insisted that, on the contrary, what corporate executives ought to do is manage companies so they would benefit stakeholders. In other words, the moral responsibility of corporate managers is not to improve the bottom line but to help all those who could benefit from what the company is doing, all those who have a stake in the company's fortunes. This became the CSR movement. And today there are journals, magazines, conferences, and many books that advance the idea that the moral responsibility of corporate managers is to benefit society, not primarily the owners—shareholders, investors, stockholders—of the company.

Website: http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

Continuous Innovation and Improvement of the Supply Chain an Organisational and Methodological Approach

These performance factors need to be considered within the context of the company's business environment and should be deployed properly. Flexibility could be generated in several business capabilities, like production, its scalability, bring to market process, order processing, demand planning and business planning. Obviously this is fully dependent on the type of business and its characteristics.

Website: http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

Relationship between Earnings Quality and External Audit Quality

The concept of earnings quality is fundamental in accounting and financial economics. Yet, there are deep disagreements about how to define and measure it. The list of candidate measures is long: earnings persistence, predictability, asymmetric loss recognition, various forms of benchmark beating, smooth earnings, magnitude of accruals, income-increasing accruals, absolute value of discretionary or abnormal accruals, and the extent to which accruals map into cash flows.

Website: http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

Anti-tumour immune effect of oral administration of Lactobacillus plantarum to CT26 tumour-bearing mice

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most prevalent forms of cancer that shows a high mortality and increasing incidence. There are numerous successful treatment options for CRC, including surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and immunotherapy; however, their side effects and limitations are considerable. Probiotics may be an effective strategy for preventing and inhibiting tumour growth through stimulation of host innate and adaptive immunity. We investigated and COMPARED potential anti-tumour immune responses induced by two isolated Lactobacillus strains, Lactobacillus plantarum A and Lactobacillus rhamnosus b, by pre-inoculating mice with lactobacilli for 14 days. Subsequently, subcutaneous and orthotopic intestinal tumours were generated in the pre-inoculated mice using CT26 murine adenocarcinoma cells and were assessed for response against the tumour. Our results indicated that oral administration with L. plantarum inhibited CT26 cell growth in BALB/c mice and prolonged the survival time of tumour-bearing mice compared with mice administered L. rhamnosus. L. plantarum produced protective immunity against the challenge with CT26 cells by increasing the effector functions of CD8+ and natural killer (NK) cell infiltration into tumour tissue, up-regulation of IFN-γ (but not IL-4 or IL-17) production, and promotion of Th1-type CD4+ T differentiation. Consequently, our results suggest that L. plantarum can enhance the anti-tumour immune response and delay tumour formation

Anti-tumour immune effect of oral administration of Lactobacillus plantarum to CT26 tumour-bearing mice.

Website: http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

Effects of nitric oxide modulating activities on development of enteric nervous system mediated gut motility in chick embryo model

The enteric nervous system (ENS) arises from the enteric neural crest-derived cells (ENCCs), and many molecules and biochemical processes may be involved in its development. This study examined the effects of modulating embryonic nitric oxide (NO) activity on the intestinal motility induced by ENS. One-hundred-and-twenty fertilized chicken eggs were assigned to three main groups and incubated at 37 degrees Centigrade and 60 percent humidity. The eggs were treated with NG-nitro-Larginine methyl ester (L-NAME), sodium nitroprusside (SNP), L-arginine (L-Arg) or vehicle from days 3 (1st group), 7 (2nd group) and 10 (3rd group) of incubation and continued up to day 18. On day 19, the embryos were sacrificed, the jejunal and colorectal segments were taken and the intestinal motility was assessed using isolated organ system.

Website: http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

Picking profitable investments: The success of equal weighting in simulated venture capitalist decision making

Using computer simulation, we investigate the impact of different strategies on the financial performance of VCs. We COMPARE simple heuristics such as equal weighting and fast and frugal trees with more complex machine learning and regression models and analyze the impact of three factors: VC learning, the statistical properties of the investment environment, and the amount of information available in a business plan. We demonstrate that the performance of decision strategies and the relative quality of decision outcomes change critically between environments in which different statistical relationships hold between information contained in business plans and the likelihood of financial success. The Equal Weighting strategy is competitive with more complex investment decision strategies and its performance is robust across environments. Learning only from those plans that the simulated VC invested in, drastically reduces the VC's potential to learn from experience. Lastly, the results confirm that decision strategies differ in respect to the impact of added information on the outcomes of decisions. Finally, we discuss real-world implications for the practice of VCs and research on VC decision making.

Website: http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

Forecasting intermittent inventory demands: simple parametric methods vs. bootstrapping

Although intermittent demand items dominate service and repair parts inventories in many industries, research in forecasting such items has been limited. A critical research question is whether one should make point forecasts of the mean and variance of intermittent demand with a simple parametric method such as simple exponential smoothing or else employ some form of bootstrapping to simulate an entire distribution of demand during lead time. The aim of this work is to answer that question by evaluating the effects of forecasting on stock control performance in more than 7,000 demand series. Tradeoffs between inventory INVESTMENT and customer service show that simple parametric methods perform well, and it is questionable whether bootstrapping is worth the added complexity.

Website: http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

Decomposition of time-series by level and change

This article examines whether decomposing time series data into two parts – level and change – produces forecasts that are more accurate than those from forecasting the aggregate directly. Prior research found that, in general, decomposition reduced forecasting errors by 35%. An earlier study on decomposition into level and change found a forecast error reduction of 23%. The current study found that nowcasts consisting of a simple average of estimates from preliminary surveys and econometric models of the U.S. lodging market, improved the accuracy of final estimates of levels. Forecasts of change from an econometric model and the improved nowcasts reduced forecast errors by 29% when COMPARED to direct forecasts of the aggregate. Forecasts of change from an extrapolation model and the improved nowcasts reduced forecast errors by 45%. On average then, the error reduction for this study was 37%.

Website: http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

Golden rule of forecasting rearticulated: Forecast unto others as you would have them forecast unto you

The Golden Rule of Forecasting is a general rule that applies to all forecasting problems. The Rule was developed using logic and was tested against evidence from previously published comparison studies. The evidence suggests that a single violation of the Golden Rule is likely to increase forecast error by 44%. Some commentators argue that the Rule is not generally applicable, but do not challenge the logic or evidence provided. While further research might provide useful findings, available evidence justifies adopting the Rule now. People with no prior training in forecasting can obtain the substantial benefits of following the Golden Rule by using the Checklist to identify biased and unscientific forecasts at little cost.

Website: http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

The bias bias

In marketing and FINANCE, surprisingly simple models sometimes predict more accurately than more complex, sophisticated models. Here, we address the question of when and why simple models succeed — or fail — by framing the forecasting problem in terms of the bias–variance dilemma. Controllable error in forecasting consists of two components, the “bias” and the “variance”. We argue that the benefits of simplicity are often overlooked because of a pervasive “bias bias”: the importance of the bias component of prediction error is inflated, and the variance component of prediction error, which reflects an oversensitivity of a model to different samples from the same population, is neglected. Using the study of cognitive heuristics, we discuss how to reduce variance by ignoring weights, attributes, and dependencies between attributes, and thus make better decisions. Bias and variance, we argue, offer a more insightful perspective on the benefits of simplicity than Occam’'s razor.

Website: http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

Relative performance of methods for forecasting special events

Forecasting special events such as conflicts and epidemics is challenging because of their nature and the limited amount of historical information from which a reference base can be built. This study evaluates the performances of structured analogies, the Delphi method and interaction groups in forecasting the impact of such events. The empirical evidence reveals that the use of structured analogies leads to an average forecasting accuracy improvement of 8.4% COMPARED to unaided judgment. This improvement in accuracy is greater when the use of structured analogies is accompanied by an increase in the level of expertise, the use of more analogies, the relevance of these analogies, and the introduction of pooling analogies through interaction within experts. Furthermore, the results from group judgmental forecasting approaches were very promising; the Delphi method and interaction groups improved accuracy by 27.0% and 54.4%, respectively.

Website: http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/

Improving forecasts using equally weighted predictors

The usual procedure for developing linear models to predict any kind of target variable is to identify a subset of most important predictors and to estimate weights that provide the best possible solution for a given sample. The resulting “optimally” weighted linear composite is then used when predicting new data. This approach is useful in situations with large and reliable datasets and few predictor variables. However, a large body of analytical and empirical evidence since the 1970s shows that such optimal variable weights are of little, if any, value in situations with small and noisy datasets and a large number of predictor variables. In such situations, which are common for social science problems, including all relevant variables is more important than their weighting. These findings have yet to impact many fields. This study uses data from nine U.S. election-forecasting models whose vote-share forecasts are regularly published in academic journals to demonstrate the value of (a) weighting all predictors equally and (b) including all relevant variables in the model. Across the ten elections from 1976 to 2012, equally weighted predictors yielded a lower forecast error than regression weights for six of the nine models. On average, the error of the equal-weights models was 5% lower than the error of the original regression models. An equal-weights model that uses all 27 variables that are included in the nine models missed the final vote-share results of the ten elections on average by only 1.3 percentage points. This error is 48% lower than the error of the typical, and 29% lower than the error of the most accurate, regression model.

Website: http://www.arjonline.org/business-and-management/american-research-journal-of-business-and-management/