Abstract: This paper presents results of primary quantitative research on viral advertising with focus on popularity and willingness to share viral video among Czech Internet population. It starts with brief theoretical debate on viral advertising, which is used for the comparison of the results. For purpose of collecting data, online questionnaire survey was given to 384 respondents. Statistics utilized in this research included frequency, percentage, correlation and Pearson’s Chi-square test. Data was evaluated using SPSS software. The research analysis disclosed high popularity of viral advertising video among Czech Internet population but implies lower willingness to share it. Significant relationship between likability of viral video technique and age of the viewer was found.
Abstract: After recession that began in 2007 in the United States and subsequently spilled over the Europe we could expect recovery of economic growth. According to the last estimation of economic progress of European countries, this recovery is not strong enough. Among others, it will depend on economic policy, where and in which way, the economic indicators will proceed. Economic theories postulate that the economic subjects prefer stably, continual economic policy without repeated and strong fluctuations. This policy is perceived as support of economic growth. Mostly in crises period, when the government must cope with consequences of recession, the economic policy becomes unpredictable for many subjects and economic policy uncertainty grows, which have negative influence on economic growth. The aim of this paper is to use panel regression to prove or disprove this hypothesis on the example of five largest European economies in the period 2008–2012.
Abstract: The continued rise of e-commerce is the main driver of the rapid growth of global online purchase. Consumers can nearly buy everything they want at one occasion through online shopping. The purchase behavior models which focus on single product category are insufficient to describe online shopping behavior. Therefore, analysis of multi-category purchase gets more and more popular. For example, market basket analysis explores customers’ buying tendency of the association between product categories. The information derived from market basket analysis facilitates to make cross-selling strategies and product recommendation system.
To detect the association between different product categories, we use the market basket analysis with the multidimensional scaling technique to build an associated map which describes how likely multiple product categories are bought at the same time. Besides, we also build an inter-purchase time model for associated products to describe how likely a product will be bought after its associated product is bought. We classify inter-purchase time behaviors of multi-category products into nine types, and use a mixture regression model to integrate those behaviors under our assumptions of purchase sequences. Our sample data is from comScore which provides a panelist-label database that captures detailed browsing and buying behavior of internet users across the United States. Finding the inter-purchase time from books to movie is shorter than the inter-purchase time from movies to books. According to the model analysis and empirical results, this research finally proposes the applications and recommendations in the management.
Abstract: In recent years, the intellectual capital reporting in higher education institutions has been acquiring progressive importance worldwide. Intellectual capital approaches becomes critical at universities, mainly due to the fact that knowledge is the main output as well as input in these institutions. Universities produce knowledge, either through scientific and technical research (the results of investigation, publications, etc.) or through teaching (students trained and productive relationships with their stakeholders). The purpose of the present paper is to identify the intangible elements about which university stakeholders demand most information. The results of a study done at Spanish universities are used to see which groups of universities have stakeholders who are more proactive to the disclosure of intellectual capital.
Abstract: It is a critical time to upgrade technology and increase value added with manufacturing skills developing and management strategies that will highly satisfy the customers need in the precision machinery global market. In recent years, the supply side, each precision machinery manufacturers in each country are facing the pressures of price reducing from the demand side voices that pushes the high-end precision machinery manufacturers adopts low-cost and high-quality strategy to retrieve the market. Because of the trend of the global market, the manufacturers must take price reducing strategies and upgrade technology of low-end machinery for differentiations to consolidate the market.By using six key success factors (KSFs), customer perceived value, customer satisfaction, customer service, product design, product effectiveness and machine structure quality are causal conditions to explore the impact of competitive advantage of the enterprise, such as overall profitability and product pricing power. This research uses key success paths (KSPs) approach and f/s QCA software to explore various combinations of causal relationships, so as to fully understand the performance level of KSFs and business objectives in order to achieve competitive advantage. In this study, the combination of a causal relationships, are called Key Success Paths (KSPs). The key success paths guide the enterprise to achieve the specific outcomes of business. The findings of this study indicate that there are thirteen KSPs to achieve the overall profitability, sixteen KSPs to achieve the product pricing power and seventeen KSPs to achieve both overall profitability and pricing power of the enterprise. The KSPs provide the directions of resources integration and allocation, improve utilization efficiency of limited resources to realize the continuous vision of the enterprise.
Abstract: Leather industry is the most important traditional
industry to provide the leather products in the world for thousand
years. The fierce global competitive environment and common
awareness of global carbon reduction make livestock supply quantities
falling, salt and wet blue leather material reduces and the price
skyrockets significantly. Exchange rate fluctuation led sales revenue
decreasing which due to the differences of export exchanges and
compresses the overall profitability of leather industry. This paper
applies activity-based benefit assessment approach to build up fitness
fur input mixed model, fur is Wet Blue, which concerned with four key
factors: the output rate of wet blue, unit cost of wet blue, yield rate and
grade level of Wet Blue to achieve the low cost strategy under given
unit price of leather product condition of the company. The research
findings indicate that applying this model may improve the input cost
structure, decrease numbers of leather product inventories and to raise
the competitive advantages of the enterprise in the future.
Abstract: This study adopts deterrence theory as well as social identities as moderators, and explores their moderating affects on online toxic disinhibition. Survey and Experimental methodologies are applied to test the research model and four hypotheses are developed in this study. The controllability of identity positively influenced the behavior of toxic disinhibition both in experimental and control groups while the fluidity of the identity did not have significant influences on online disinhibition. Punishment certainty, punishment severity as well as social identity negatively moderated the relation between the controllability of the identity and the toxic disinhibition. The result of this study shows that internet users hide their real identities when they behave inappropriately on internet, but once they acknowledge that the inappropriate behavior will be found and punished severely, the inappropriate behavior then will be weakened.
Abstract: This study is conducted with the objective to prove how the distorted distribution of welfare affects the quality of school-age children lives differently in the case ofan urban community in Bangkok. 334 samples are households from Suan Oi and Ratchapatubtim communities. The study of sample communities found the difference between two communityareasthatare close. The people of Suan Oi community are economically better off people than the people of the Ratchapatubtim community. They share the benefits of using most services except the welfare of a child’s education.The resulting analysis of the variability in quality of life of the school age children indicate that heads of the households are women looking for quality of life benefits when the compulsory school age is less.A study of the two communities suggests that the inequality in incomedistribution currently affects the quality of life of school-age children.
Abstract: The concept of competitiveness is currently very
frequently used term. However, the interpretation of its essence is
different. In this paper, one of the many concepts of competitiveness
will be analyzed and that is macroeconomic competitiveness, which
is understood as a process, which is based on the productivity growth
through the growth of key macroeconomic indicators such as
standards of living and employment, where all of these variables
must have a sustainable basis. Given the competition is a relative
quantity it must be constantly compared with the development of
competitiveness in other economies or regions. And this comparison
method is also used in the article that compares the macrocompetitiveness
of selected economies of the European Economic
Area – the Czech Republic, Poland, Austria, Switzerland and
Germany. The aim of the paper is to verify the hypothesis concerning
the direct correlation between the size of the economy and its
competitiveness.
Abstract: Game addiction has become an extremely important topic in psychology researchers, particularly in understanding and explaining why individuals become addicted (to video games). In previous studies, effect of online game addiction on social responsibilities, health problems, government action, and the behaviors of individuals to purchase and the causes of making individuals addicted on the video games has been discussed. Extending these concepts in marketing, it could be argued than the phenomenon could enlighten and extending our understanding on consumer loyalty. This study took the Grounded Theory approach, and found that motivation, satisfaction, fulfillments, exploration and achievements to be part of the important elements that builds consumer loyalty.
Abstract: Management is required to understand all information security risks within an organization, and to make decisions on which information security risks should be treated in what level by allocating how much amount of cost. However, such decision-making is not usually easy, because various measures for risk treatment must be selected with the suitable application levels. In addition, some measures may have objectives conflicting with each other. It also makes the selection difficult. Moreover, risks generally have trends and it also should be considered in risk treatment. Therefore, this paper provides the extension of the model proposed in the previous study. The original model supports the selection of measures by applying a combination of weighted average method and goal programming method for multi-objective analysis to find an optimal solution. The extended model includes the notion of weights to the risks, and the larger weight means the priority of the risk.
Abstract: Economic growth always correlate positively with the
magnitude of the unemployment rate. This is caused by labor which
one of important variable to keep growth in the real sector of the
region. Meanwhile, the economic structure in districts of Jember
showed an increase of economic activity began to shift towards the
industrial sector and some other economic sectors, so they have an
affects to considerations for policy makers to increase economic
growth in Jember as an autonomous region in East Java Province. At
the fact, SMEs is among the factors driving economic growth in the
region. This is shown by the high amount of SMEs. However,
employment in the sector grew slightly slowed. It is caused by a lack
of productivity in SMEs. Through the analysis of the transformation of
economic structure theory, and the theory of Triple Helix using
descriptive analytical method Location Quotient and Shift - Share,
found that the results of the economic structure in Jember slowly
shifting from the agricultural sector to the industrial sector, because it
is dominated by trade sector, hotel and restaurant sector. In addition,
SMEs is the potential sector of economic growth in Jember. While to
maximizing role and functions of the institution's Research and
Development Center of SMEs, there are three points to be known, that
are Business Landscape, Business Architecture and Value Added.
Abstract: This study investigates the reliability of management earnings forecasts with reference to these two ingredients: verifiability and neutrality. Specifically, we examine the biasedness (or accuracy) of management earnings forecasts and company specific characteristics that can be associated with accuracy. Based on sample of 102 IPO prospectuses published for admission on NYSE Euronext Paris from 2002 to 2010, we found that these forecasts are on average optimistic and two of the five test variables, earnings variability and financial leverage are significant in explaining ex post bias. Acknowledging the possibility that the bias is the result of the managers’ forecasting behavior, we then examine whether managers decide to under-predict, over-predict or forecast accurately for self-serving purposes. Explicitly, we examine the role of financial distress, operating performance, ownership by insiders and the economy state in influencing managers’ forecasting preferences. We find that managers of distressed firms seem to over-predict future earnings. We also find that when managers are given more stock options, they tend to under-predict future earnings. Finally, we conclude that the management earnings forecasts are affected by an intentional bias due to managers’ forecasting preferences.
Abstract: The problem of estimating a proportion has important
applications in the field of economics, and in general, in many areas
such as social sciences. A common application in economics is
the estimation of the headcount index. In this paper, we define the
general headcount index as a proportion. Furthermore, we introduce
a new quantitative method for estimating the headcount index. In
particular, we suggest to use the logistic regression estimator for the
problem of estimating the headcount index. Assuming a real data set,
results derived from Monte Carlo simulation studies indicate that the
logistic regression estimator can be more accurate than the traditional
estimator of the headcount index.
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to assess the influence of several indicators determining innovativeness of countries' economies by applying selected soft computing methods. Such methods enable us to identify correlations between indicators for period 2006-2010. The main attention in the paper is focused on selecting proper computer tools for solving this problem. As a tool supporting identification, the X-means clustering algorithm, the Apriori rules generation algorithm as well as Self-Organizing Feature Maps (SOMs) have been selected. The paper has rather a rudimentary character. We briefly describe usefulness of the selected approaches and indicate some challenges for further research.
Abstract: Business Processes (BPs) are the key instrument to
understand how companies operate at an organizational level, taking
an as-is view of the workflow, and how to address their issues by
identifying a to-be model. In last year’s, the BP Model and Notation
(BPMN) has become a de-facto standard for modeling processes.
However, this standard does not incorporate explicitly the Problem-
Solving (PS) knowledge in the Process Modeling (PM) results. Thus,
such knowledge cannot be shared or reused. To narrow this gap is
today a challenging research area. In this paper we present a
framework able to capture the PS knowledge and to improve a
workflow. This framework extends the BPMN specification by
incorporating new general-purpose elements. A pilot scenario is also
presented and discussed.
Abstract: The article explores the impact of normative institutional factors on the development of sustainability reporting. The vast majority of research in the scientific literature focuses on mandatory institutional factors, i.e. how public institutions and market regulators affect sustainability reporting. Meanwhile, there is lack of empirical data for the impact of normative institutional factors. The effect of normative factors in this paper is based on the role of non-governmental organizations (NGO) and institutional theory. The case of Global Compact Local Network in the developing country was examined. The research results revealed that in the absence of regulated factors, companies were not active with regard to social disclosures; they presented non-systemized social information of a descriptive nature. Only 10% of sustainability reports were prepared using the GRI methodology. None of the reports were assured by third parties.
Abstract: The primary purpose of this study is to understand the differences in the relationship between working capital management efficiency, working capital investment decisions and working capital finance decisions and the profitability of firms within the context of two African developing economies, Kenya and Nigeria. The study finds that there is a significant difference in the relationship between the firm’s profitability and the working capital variables which suggests different challenges for working capital management in each of these countries.
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to explore the economic circumstances in which the selective credit policy, the least used instrument of four types of instruments on disposal to central banks, should be used. The most significant example includes the use of selective credit policies in response to the emergence of the global financial crisis by the FED. Specifics of the potential use of selective credit policies as the instigator of economic growth in Croatia, a small open economy, are determined by high euroization of financial system, fixed exchange rate and long-term trend growth of external debt that is related to the need to maintain high levels of foreign reserves. In such conditions, the classic forms of selective credit policies are unsuitable for the introduction. Several alternative approaches to implement selective credit policies are examined in this paper. Also, thorough analysis of distribution of selective monetary policy loans among economic sectors in Croatia is conducted in order to minimize the risk of investing funds and maximize the return, in order to influence the GDP growth.
Abstract: The objective is to identify the contributions from the introduction of the computerized system deal within the Accounting Department of Brazilian Navy Financial Directorship and its possible effects on the budgetary and financial harvest of Brazilian Navy. The relevance lies in the fact that the management process is responsible for the continuous improvement of organizational performance through higher levels of quality in their activities. Improvements in organizational processes have direct effects on crops cost, quality, reliability, flexibility and speed. The method of study of this research is the case study. The choice of case study attended, among other demands, a need for greater flexibility to study processes related to a computerized system. The sources of evidence were used literature, documentary and direct observation. Direct observation was made by monitoring the implementation of the computerized system in the Division of Management Analysis. The main findings of the study point to the fact that the computerized system may contribute significantly to the standardization of information. There was improvement of internal processes in the division of management analysis, made possible the consolidation of a standard management and performance analysis that contribute to global homogeneity in the treatment of information essential to the process of decision making. This study has limitations related to the fact the search result be subject exclusively to the case studied, and it is impossible to generalize to other organs of government.