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Distribution by Scientific Domains

Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting	50%

Selected Abstracts

Shared Services Transformation: Conceptualization and Valuation from the Perspective of Real Options

DECISION SCIENCES, Issue 3 2009
Ning Su
ABSTRACT In today's volatile global economy, where many organizations face severe pressure to downsize, the "shared services" model, in which a firm merges common functions performed by multiple units into a single service delivery organization, provides an innovative approach to make business more efficient and effective. To successfully implement shared services, firms need to strategically decide whether and how to pursue various service transformation alternatives such as simplification, standardization, consolidation, insourcing, or outsourcing. In this study, we develop the notion of real options into a unique theoretical lens for conceptualizing service organizations and their transformation in an uncertain business environment. Specifically, we view service organization as a set of strategic options that give the firm preferential access to future transformation opportunities. We create a taxonomy of these options, and introduce a decision methodology for valuing alternative shared services transformation approaches. We illustrate this methodology by applying it in a real business case to justify a global firm's decision regarding the transformation of its finance organization. [source]

Zimbabwe's Child Supplementary Feeding Programme: A Re,assessment Using Household Survey Data

DISASTERS, Issue 3 2002
Lauchlan T. Munro
In 1992,3 and 1995,6, Zimbabwe used a Child Supplementary Feeding Programme (CSFP) to combat child malnutrition during drought,induced emergencies. Previous evaluations of the CSFP relied on routine administrative data and key informant interviews and made only cursory use of available household survey data. These evaluations concluded that the CSFP was effective in preventing an increase in malnutrition among children under five, especially in 1992,3. The more,detailed analysis of household surveys provided in this article suggests that CSFP coverage was generally patchy and disappointingly low, especially in 1995,6. There is little evidence that children from poor or nutritionally vulnerable households got preferential access to supplementary feeding. The CSFP failed to feed many malnourished and nutritionally vulnerable children even in areas where the programme was operating. Household survey evidence suggests that the CSFP's impact on nutritional status was likely marginal, especially in 1995,6. [source]

Sponsor hospitality at the Olympic Games: an analysis of the implications for tourism

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TOURISM RESEARCH, Issue 5 2007
Graham Brown
Abstract The study examined the impact on tourism of sponsor hospitality programmes at the Sydney Olympic Games. With preferential access to resources accorded to Olympic sponsors, new tourism networks were created. The role of the media, interpersonal communication and implicit messages using Olympic symbols are discussed. A survey of people invited by Olympic sponsors to attend the Sydney Olympic Games found that 80% of guests had not previously visited Australia. Positive evaluations of their experience at the Olympic Games, attending events and visiting the host city, created a desire to return and to recommend the destination to others. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Looking for faces: Attention modulates early occipitotemporal object processing

PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY, Issue 3 2004
Andreas Lueschow
Abstract Looking for somebody's face in a crowd is one of the most important examples of visual search. For this goal, attention has to be directed to a well-defined perceptual category. When this categorically selective process starts is, however, still unknown. To this end, we used magnetoencephalography (MEG) recorded over right human occipitotemporal cortex to investigate the time course of attentional modulation of perceptual processes elicited by faces and by houses. The first face-distinctive MEG response was observed at 160,170 ms (M170). Nevertheless, attention did not start to modulate face processing before 190 ms. The first house-distinctive MEG activity was also found around 160,170 ms. However, house processing was not modulated by attention before 280 ms (90 ms later than face processing). Further analysis revealed that the attentional modulation of face processing is not due to later, for example, back-propagated activation of the M170 generator. Rather, subsequent stages of occipitotemporal object processing were modulated in a category-specific manner and with preferential access to face processing. [source]

Reciprocation and interchange in wild Japanese macaques: grooming, cofeeding, and agonistic support

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PRIMATOLOGY, Issue 12 2006
Raffaella Ventura
Abstract Social primates spend a significant proportion of their time exchanging grooming with their group companions. Although grooming is mainly exchanged in kind, given its hygienic and tension-reducing functions, it is still debated whether grooming also provides some social benefits, such as preferential access to resources (e.g., food or mating partners). In this study we analyzed grooming distribution among wild female Japanese macaques living in two groups on Yakushima. We tested the tendency of monkeys to reciprocate the amount of grooming received, and to direct their grooming up the hierarchy. Then we analyzed the relation of grooming to three of its possible benefits: reduced aggression, increased tolerance over food, and agonistic support against a male aggressor. The data were analyzed by means of row-wise matrix correlations. Grooming was highly reciprocated (i.e., exchanged in kind) and directed up the hierarchy in both the study groups. No significant relationship was found between grooming and aggression. Conversely, grooming favored tolerance over food, since it was positively correlated with presence on the same food patch, close proximity, and close approaches (both within 1,m) during feeding. Grooming was also positively related to agonistic support against adult males, although this relationship became nonsignificant when we controlled for kinship. Although these results are not definitive, they suggest that monkeys may derive various social benefits from grooming. This conclusion is supported by the fact that in various primate species animals tend to prefer high-ranking individuals as grooming partners. Am. J. Primatol. 68:1138,1149, 2006. © 2006 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]

Financial Liberalization and Corporate Investments: Evidence from Korean Firm Data,

ASIAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL, Issue 3 2004
Jaewoon Koo
This paper examines whether financial liberalization procedures introduced in Korea in the early 1990s succeeded in relaxing financing constraints on firms. Because external funds are more costly than internal funds in an imperfect capital market, corporate investments depend on the availability of internal funds. As financial liberalization mitigates constraints on firms, the sensitivity of investments to cash flow can be reduced. Using panel data on Korean firms, we found that cash-flow effects on investment spending decreased drastically during the liberalization period. In particular, small, non-chaebol and established firms that were severely constrained gained most from liberalization. Chaebol firms appeared to lose preferential access to credit after liberalization. [source]