Organizational Analysis

A growing number of universities are offering curricula that are labeled as Services Sciences and/or Services Engineering or that are actually oriented to Services Sciences. We here review their contents, by a specific taxonomy of competences, founded on a Delphi research. A key of Services Sciences and/or Services Engineering curricula is the overlap between a service oriented concept of IT and the organizational analysis of business processes. To better exemplify a real world approach we analyze the case of University of Pavia that launched a Master of Science Curriculum in 2006. First in Europe, it integrates a strong background on enterprise systems with a practice of a model driven approach to the design and implementation of business processes and related IT services.

PurposeAlthough organizations change on a regular basis, much of what we know about the impacts of organizational change can best be described as macro‐level information. Only recently have scholars begun to examine the impact of organizational change at the level of the individual employee (i.e. micro level). The purpose of this paper is to assess the importance of a supervisor's support for a change initiative in relation to employee job satisfaction and job involvement.Design/methodology/approachThis research made use of archival data. Police officers (n=88) were randomly selected from across the USA to complete phone interviews meant to assess, in part, supervisor support for a change from traditional policing to community policing, job satisfaction, and job involvement.FindingsWhile supervisor support for the change initiative was found to be related to job satisfaction and job involvement, job satisfaction mediated the supervisor support‐job involvement relationship.Resear...

Purpose This study aims to analyze how leadership influenced corporate responsible behavior in a complex multinational organization with ethical principles imposed by concrete actions on regulatory, environmental and international labor issues. Increasing functional specialization, multinational diversity and business acquisitions challenged the core values and called for more formal enforcement. Core values executed through investment in positive economic externalities enhanced the reputation and facilitated sustainable collaborative solutions. Design/methodology/approach This single-case study collects evidence from experienced multinational executives for practitioner-based theory building. The information is interpreted against prevailing theory to gain deeper insights for practice. Observed phenomena are discussed in various managerial audiences and cross-checked against documents, news articles, books and involved external stakeholders. The case material and executive narrativ...

Az intézmény egy személyközpontú nevelési programmal működő budapesti általános iskola, illetve hozzákapcsolt óvoda. Az intézmény alapítványi fenntartású. Az odajáróknak tandíjat kell fizetniük. Ezeknek következtében nem feltétlenül a környéken élők gyermekei járnak oda, inkább a koncepció dominál, mint a térbeli közelség.

In this paper I would like to point out the role of japanese media while investigating, uncovering and mediating (not only political) scandals. I will mention, how scandal mediations in Japan reflect the japanese mediascape, journalistic norms and also the overall societal value system. While giving numerous examples of scandal mediations in the past, I will emphasize the role of non-elite, semi-mainstream tabloids (shúkanshi), representing the main platform for initiating the process of making (real or imagined) social defects known to japanese public. Finally, I will propose a structural model for scandal mediation process, consisting of transgression leak to media, scandal processing, transgression leak to public and the climax.

Purpose -Outward foreign direct investment (FDI) of firms from Brazil, Russia, India and China has increased significantly during the last few years. Despite this trend, comprehensive research on the specific determinants and antecedents of outward FDI from BRIC countries is still underrepresented. The purpose of this paper is to give a more comprehensive understanding of outward FDI from BRIC countries. Design/methodology/approach -Based on an exploratory approach, case studies of eight companies were conducted. Both a within-case and a cross-case approach were conducted. Findings -The findings reveal the relevance of determinants on the country, industry and firm level. Gaining access to new markets is of utmost importance for all firms. Additionally, most companies seek to obtain access to technological resources and management know-how, therefore emphasizing the availability of these resources in the target countries. While the internationalization of Brazilian and Indian companies is primarily driven by economic motives, many Chinese and Russian firms also receive substantial political support from their governments to invest abroad, especially in strategically important industries. On the firm-level, the strength of firm-specific resources is highlighted. BRIC country firms possess specific strengths that help them to enter both developing as well as developed countries and to pursue their internationalization strategy. Originality/value -The aim of this study is to systematically analyze the determinants of FDI of firms from BRIC countries. While previous studies in this context are based on internationalization theories which were at least implicitly focused on FDI of firms from developed markets, the authors use a more emic approach and look for specific determinants of outward FDI of firms originating in BRIC countries.

Armour Garments Company (AGC) was a manufacturer of high quality undershirts in the Philippines established on 1954. For ten years, it has been a flourishing enterprise having only 25 workers at its onset and accumulating up to 250 workers by the year 1967. The bulk of its products were sold to wholesalers in Divisoria and in turn are distributed all over the country. In the mid 60’s, more undershirt factories opened and threatened the market share of AGC but the company was quite confident with its reputation as a high quality manufacturer of undershirts. Then in 1970, the fashion trend of the country change as it is wont to do. It became “unfashionable” to wear undershirts and this furthered the declining sales of AGC.
The company decided to introduce a new brand, “Blossom”, which was of the same quality with its “Armor” and “Marca Troca” brands but are cheaper. Unfortunately “Blossom” was undermining the sales of its sister brands so the company decided to discontinue its production. With the failure of the marketability of its traditional products, AGC decided to venture into ready-to-wear business. They introduced a polo shirt line, jeans and printed shirts but the results were unfavorable.

Armour Garments Company has been known for its high quality undergarments since 1954. It is the undergarments sold to wholesalers in Divisoria and has continuously grown in terms of profit and size in its first ten years. Their products are of top quality, being twice as durable as other brands, and are one of the pioneers in the undershirt industry.
The undershirt manufacturing isn’t complicated. People wear undershirts almost every day, and the business has its seasonal peaks in June and December yearly. However, the company’s market is very limited. Their machines are not flexible, thus, they are only able to manufacture undershirts for males. Also, the company only manufactures white undershirts. As time passed, the preferences of the market changed. More competitors have risen, and later, wearing undershirts were no longer fashionable. The wholesalers in Divisoria have no loyalty to brands, they are only concerned with the length of credit terms and lower product costs. All these, combined, threatened the stable grounds where the company stood. The company deteriorated, and would have to make adjustments to cope with the changes in the environment.
AGC introduced a new brand, “Blossom”, which was of the same quality with the traditional brand but were cheaper. Unfortunately, the new brand had bigger sales than the older brands so AGC discontinued its production. AGC also tried to introduce polo shirt lines, jeans and printed shirts but the products just didn’t cut to the line.

Carla Santos is the manager of Venus Boutiques, a string of specialty shops selling a selected line of ladies’ bags, beauty products and ladies’ wear. She went on a three week business trip outside the country and when she returned, a problem was presented to her in one of her three stores.
One of Santos’ store managers is Ms. Glo Martines who didn’t get to graduate in college but she was very hard working and responsible. She had just been a manager for ten months and previously worked as a clerk in the shops for over two years. Martines’ diligence was what prompted Santos to promote her to manager when Santos wanted to have managers for each of the stores.
When Santos went back from the business trip, there were complaints about Ms. Martines’ attitude towards the sales clerks of her store. Three of the four clerks complained that Martines favored the other clerk, as she is one of her distant relations. Irma, the errant sales clerk would be late for work but Martines would sign her time record on time and her performance ratings were always “excellent” even though her performance was not exceptional. The other employees also complained that there were times that Irma was allowed to leave early and Martines would vouch for her.
Santos decided to visit the store and talk to Martines. She laid out the complaints about her and Martines bowed down in shame. The store manager neither concurred nor denied the accusations, choosing not to look into her boss’ eyes.

Purpose -The purpose of this study is to propose a typology of culture and to present a hybrid model to be used as the base in organizational behavior and cross-cultural management research. Design/methodology/approach -This study provides a conceptual analysis and general review of the literature to clarify and to classify the usage of culture models and cultural orientations to reduce confusion concerning cultural studies. Findings -The first part of the proposed typology covers only the concept of organizational culture which has been examined around qualitative and cognitive approaches. While the second part is related to the use of socio-cultural dimensions, the third part of the proposed typology covers universal cultural orientations (patterns) framework only. The outcome of this study is the presentation of a hybrid model which provides a comprehensive methodological framework for conducting culture research. Practical implications -The typology of culture developed in this study would be of help for researchers designing their studies on the subject of culture, socio-cultural dimensions and cultural patternings from more appropriate theoretical perspectives and methods. Originality/value -The theoretical framework in this study provides insight in selecting more suitable culture models to examine the subject in managerial organizational studies.

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine how maternity doctors deal with anxieties generated through their interactions with patients. Design/methodology/approach – The authors juxtapose two critical stories, collected as part of a large mixed method field study of leadership and patient care in three UK hospitals. The study of “organizational stories” is particularly relevant in health care

Emotional intelligence is a relatively new topic in the field of leadership concerns. Developed by psychologists in the 80s, it was later connected with management and leadership disciplines when research revealed how much influences the act of leadership and decision the possession or lack of emotional skills. Our article aims to reveal the overwhelming economic potential of these human qualities unjustly ignored, while providing a synopsis of emotional competencies whose presence in the leadership is one of the most important resources of a company.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview and synthesis of the extant literature in entrepreneurship by utilizing an uncommon and unique lens. The lens focuses on studies that explore the effects of formal (social institutions) and informal (national culture) institutional factors on entrepreneurship at the national level. Design/methodology/approach -The design is a narrative literature overview of research published in peer reviewed journals in business and related fields from 1980 to 2009. North's classification of formal and informal institutions provides the structural framework. The overview includes salient published articles that empirically assessed the effect of at least one variable of the institutional context on entrepreneurship. The paper is organized as follows. After setting the context, legitimacy, and validity of contextual research in the entrepreneurship field in general, it reviews relevant research, focusing on the formal and informal institutional factors that affect entrepreneurship. Findings -The review highlights the complex nature of entrepreneurship. Both formal and informal institutional factors affect entrepreneurship at multiple levels.

Purpose – Focusing primarily on Italian and European football, the research performs extended analyses at both the club and federation levels, compares between financial and sport achievements, and identifies correlations and discrepancies between the two. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – The paper studies managerial systems and strategic directions across clubs and countries and links them to financial and sport performance. The research is primarily secondary-data and literature review based and uses multiple sources to ensure validity and reliability of the findings. Findings – Solutions to the diachronic problems of football cannot be addressed through isolated actions, nor by isolated clubs, or even federations; but through systemic changes that affect, at club and federation levels: the organisational structure; the financial control mechanisms; and the very social essence of football. Research limitations/implications – The research is lim...

3P derives from the three very important categories / areas in defining a reform process of the national security intelligence analysis, namely : – Process (the analysis activity, with his entire set of methods or means, internal procedures and standards, but also, with its variou s types of organization); – Product (the results of the analysis activity, the p roducts which are sent to beneficiaries / users and the feedback or the requests for inform ation from the intelligence consumers); – Personnel (the intelligence analyst, as well as the process of its selection and training). Why these three P? I must confess that the idea of trying to define the analysis activity, and implicitly, the main parts of a reform in this important area for the activity of each intelligence service came following some discussion I had with colleagues, experts and intelligence analysts. I worked, as co-author, to a paper (presented within an international forum) concerning the evolution of intelligenc...

If today's organizations are not able to adopt themselves with environmental changes, they will lose the competition. In such a condition, organizations are in need of leaders who are capable of turning their companies into one having more ability to progress and even to survive in those situations. Transformational leaders guide organization from present to the future and apply suitable changes to support the organization's objectives. Besides, knowledge management is a crucial influential factor in helping organizations survive and gain success in such a competitive environment and in this Information Age. Also, considering the fact that leaders play the role of a sample for others, their leadership style is directly influential in organization's tendency and manner of facing processes and steps of knowledge management. Therefore, this article intends to find the relationship between transformational leadership and knowledge management in Alvan Sabet Company. For this purpose, having done a revision of the existing literature on the field, we established five main hypotheses and four sub-hypotheses. To test the research hypotheses we have used questionnaires having been distributed among the population. The population of this research includes all the experts and masters of Alvan Sabet Co. totally being 47 in number. Regarding limitation in population size we have used census method in this research. We've made use of descriptive statistics technique to analyze demographic variables and to investigate the hypotheses, we have used Pearson Solidarity Test and Spearman. The result shows that the correlation between the transformational leadership style and knowledge management has been 0.784 which is considerably high.

Purpose -This article aims to present the findings from data gathered from 1,160 individuals who participated over the course of five years in a series of workshops, university courses and business dialogue sessions on the subject of personal and professional excellence. Design/methodology/approach -Data were gathered from dialogue sessions and workshops with LA-based workforce members, and classroom sessions in higher business education. The shift from general management teaching to focused self-management dialogues was explained, emerged themes from five years of data gathering were examined and the themes and keywords were visualized and results noted. Findings -The paper finds that in today's rapidly changing world of work, people are seeking ways to reinvent themselves in order to become more resilient. The findings listed in this paper are not exhaustive but should rather be used as a pragmatic tool for further research on the topic. Research limitations/implications -The population used for data was large, yet geographically limited, as it consisted of members of the Los Angeles workforce and business and management students in Los Angeles. The themes to be formed could have been named differently, as the clustering process was done by the author and not the audience. It is suggested that future research should concentrate on applying this study among other geographical and cultural audiences for a greater foundation in findings and for capturing additional, possibly deviating, perspectives. Practical implications -Four main themes are presented as a result of the analysis of the collected data: right action, right thinking, right mindfulness, and right connection, along with 20 keywords. Personal and professional excellence is not a one-time achievement, but a continuous effort in which multiple aspects need to be addressed at the same time. It could be seen as an ongoing paradigm renewal. Originality/value -The paper tailors a model for personal and professional excellence in the twenty-first century AD to a model that was developed in the twenty-fifth century BC.

The main objective of this research is to fill the gap of Public Management studies with regards to the Kurds’ issues and in particular, the position and efforts of Fedkom, in the context of transnationalism and diaspora, concerning the main discourses of self-rule, specifically in the Kurdish regions of Iraq. Additionally, due to the absence of studies about the functions of Kurdish diaspora organizations in the Netherlands, this research will particularly be interesting to conclude whether Fedkom, the largest Kurdish diaspora organization in the Netherlands, has been able to realize their desire in participating in the reform and empowerment of the Kurdish Region through the possibilities they have in their host countries according to their objectives.

In a U.S. invested enterprise in China, the receptivity of Chinese employees to a participative work environment was examined. Structural equation analysis indicated support for a model in which job satisfaction mediates the relationships between elements of a participative work environment (i.e., tasks performed, the relationships individuals had with their work groups, and the nature of the decision making processes) and employee willingness to cooperate with co-workers and intention to quit. Task interdependence also had a direct relationship with willingness to cooperate.

Questa è la traduzione di un saggio breve di P. S. Adler sul caso significativo della NUMMI, la joint-venture fra Toyota e General Motors sul suolo americano. La commistione del modello giapponese e l'influenza sindacale hanno dato vita a un caso organizzativo singolare estremamente efficace, come viene presentato dall'autore.

This article presents an original needs-based partial theory of human injustice and shows its relationship to existing theories of human need and human liberation. The theory is based on an original typology of three social structural sources of human injustice, a partial theorization of the mechanisms of human injustice, and a needs-based theorization of the nature of human injustice, as experienced by individuals. This article makes a sociological contribution to normative social theory by clarifying the relationship of human injustice to human needs, human rights, and human liberation. The theory contends that human injustice is produced when oppression, mechanistic dehumanization, and exploitation create systematic inequality in opportunities to address human needs, leading to wrongful need deprivation and the resulting serious harm. In one longer sentence, this needs-based theory of the sources, mechanisms, and nature of human injustice contends that three distinct social syste...

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to propose to test a research model to gain a better understanding of the connection between perceived support, trust, satisfaction, intention to quit and citizenship at the organizational level. Design/methodology/approach -A total of 355 white-collar employees were recruited among alumni of a business school in France. Structural equation modeling was used to test the predicted relationships. Findings -Except for the relation between perceived organizational support (POS) and intention to leave, study results showed strong support in favour of the different hypothetical relations in the research model. Research limitations/implications -The results are based on a single sample and a transversal research design. For these reasons, the data should be approached with caution. Practical implications -The paper highlights the importance of considering trust over and above organizational efforts directed at supporting employees through a show of appreciation for their contribution and concern for their well-being. Originality/value -This paper provides data that lead to a better understanding of the relationship between POS, trust and satisfaction for the purpose of predicting outcomes such as intention to leave an organization and citizenship behaviour towards an organization.

ENGLISH (French below):
This paper investigates the main features of media scandal in contemporary Japan. This is important because it can add a fresh interdisciplinary direction in the fields of media studies, journalism, and Japanese philology. Furthermore, the sources from the mainstream media, semi-mainstream tabloids and foreign press were examined vie the lens of neofunctionalism where scandal is approached as a social performance between ritual (motivated expressive behavior) and strategy (conscious strategic action). Moreover, this research illuminates the logic behind the scandal mediation process in Japan, including the performances of both the journalists and the non-media actors, who become decisive for the development of every media scandal. In other words, the social drama of a scandal (and its construction as media event) represents a heterogeneous assemblage of various associated actors that together form a complex " scandal network " depending on their ideological and commercial leanings.

Cet article aborde des traits essentiels des affaires médiatiques dans le Japon contemporain. Il s'agit d'une étude interdisciplinaire qui enrichit non seulement le discours des sciences de médias et du journalisme, mais aussi la pholologie japonaise. L'inspiration théorique s'appuie sur la conception néo-fonctionnaliste du scandale en tant que performance sociale située à la limite du « rituel » (la conduite expressive à la motivation socioculturelle) et de la « stratégie » (une action stratégique délibéreée).

Purpose
The aim of this paper is to move towards a holistic model of organizational interpretation under uncertainty. This paper makes a series of novel conceptual propositions regarding the associations between state, effect and response uncertainty, and the organizational interpretation process.

Methodology
This conceptual paper extends existing conceptual work by distinguishing between general and issue-specific scanning and linking the interpretation process to three different types of perceived uncertainty: state, effect and response uncertainty.

Findings
It is proposed that environmental scanning leads to lower state and effect uncertainty, i.e. less uncertainty regarding the estimation of probabilities of events occurring in the external environment of the organization and of their consequences. It is further proposed that scanning leads to higher levels of perceived control over events and that the actual interpretation of events, in opportunity/threat terms, drives irregular issue-specific scanning and organizational reactions to such events.

Research implications
The paper suggests a way to test links between organizational interpretation and uncertainty that might help explain and untangle some of the conflicting empirical results found in the extant literature. The paper illustrates how the literature could benefit from re-conceptualizing the perceived environmental uncertainty construct to take into account different types of uncertainty.

Practical implications
For practitioners this paper emphasizes the importance of environmental scanning and how scanning practices can lead to general alertness, to more positive event interpretations, and how interpretations form responses to opportunities in the environment.

Originality
This paper extends on existing work by linking the interpretation process to three different types of uncertainty (state, effect and response uncertainty) with several novel and testable propositions. The paper also differentiates clearly general (regular) scanning from issue-specific (irregular) scanning. Finally, the paper provides a unifying view, piecing together in one picture elements that have so far been dispersed in the literature.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to propose to test a research model to gain a better understanding of the connection between perceived support, trust, satisfaction, intention to quit and citizenship at the organizational level. Design/methodology/approach -A total of 355 white-collar employees were recruited among alumni of a business school in France. Structural equation modeling was used to test the predicted relationships. Findings -Except for the relation between perceived organizational support (POS) and intention to leave, study results showed strong support in favour of the different hypothetical relations in the research model. Research limitations/implications -The results are based on a single sample and a transversal research design. For these reasons, the data should be approached with caution. Practical implications -The paper highlights the importance of considering trust over and above organizational efforts directed at supporting employees through a show of appreciation for their contribution and concern for their well-being. Originality/value -This paper provides data that lead to a better understanding of the relationship between POS, trust and satisfaction for the purpose of predicting outcomes such as intention to leave an organization and citizenship behaviour towards an organization.

Background: Dedicated and motivated health workers (HWs) play a major role in delivering efficient and effective health services that improve patients' experience of health care. Growing interest in HW motivation has led to a global focus on pay for performance strategies, but less attention has been paid to nurturing intrinsic motivation. Workplace trust relationships involve fair treatment and respectful interactions between individuals. Such relationships enable cooperation among HWs and their colleagues, supervisors, managers and patients and may act as a source of intrinsic motivation. This paper presents findings from a qualitative systematic review of empirical studies providing evidence on HW motivation, to consider what these studies suggest about the possible influence of workplace trust relationships over motivation. Methods: Five electronic databases were searched for articles reporting research findings about HW motivation for various cadres published in the 10-year period 2003 to 2013 and with available full free text in the English language. Data extraction involved consideration of the links between trust relationships and motivation, by identifying how studies directly or indirectly mention and discuss relevant factors.

Emotional intelligence (El) has been embraced by many practitioners and academicians without clear empirical support for the construct. In this rejoinder and extension of an earlier comment, I highlight the importance of using methodologically defensible scientific criteria for conducting or evaluating research. I review literature demonstrating that El models are beset with problems concerning their validity and show that support for the El construct may be based more on tangential speculation than on empirical findings. Although I find some common positions with El researchers such as Prati et al., I underline contradictions and inconsistencies which may cast doubt on the necessity of El for understanding and predicting leadership effectiveness.

Traditional ethnographies do not offer the best approach to studying contemporary organizations, where organizing happens simultaneously in many places. This paper reviews some alternatives, while acknowledging the debt of organization studies to the fields of anthropology and ethnology. The text ends with a discussion of various ways of reporting field studies.

This article draws on institutional and ecological perspectives on work and organizations to develop a workplace level model of variation in voluntary counselor turnover rates across privately funded substance abuse treatment centers in the United States. Results show that participatory management structures reduce turnover rates principally by promoting organizational commitment. The analysis also tests hypotheses regarding the effects on turnover rates of other relevant theoretic domains of treatment center structure and organization. We discuss theoretical implications of the findings and suggest directions for future research.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to examine and compare the validity of different operationalizations of cultural and institutional distance. Design/methodology/approach -First, a review of the theoretical background for Hofstede's, Schwartz's, Trompenaars's, and Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness' (GLOBE) cultural frameworks is provided, as well as the institutional environment. Then, the validity of each framework is assessed by evaluating how well each framework groups countries into appropriate clusters, and finally comparisons between the different frameworks are drawn. Findings -It was found that the cultural distance (CD) constructs based on Hofstede and Trompenaars have strong convergent validity. CD constructs based on Schwartz and GLOBE are found to have the weakest validity. The institutional distance (ID) constructs are conceptualized to be broader than the traditional CD constructs. However, high correlations indicate a strong overlap between ID and CD. Additionally, the ID constructs are highly correlated with factors related to economic development, potentially limiting their usefulness. Originality/value -Both researchers and practitioners can choose from a variety of CD/ID frameworks to fill their needs; however, variance in the performance between frameworks may lead to faulty conclusions. In response to this need to accurately capture cross-cultural differences, the validity of nine different operationalizations of CD/ID have been examined. Contrary to popular belief, the traditional CD construct based on Hofstede is shown to compare favorably with other frameworks and calls for the abandonment of this index may be premature.

Purpose -The primary goal of this study is to conduct an empirical comparison of corporate social orientation (CSO) values held by US and Japanese students. The study also aims to test the stability of CSO with an exploratory assessment of the impact of international exposure on these values. Design/methodology/approach -A total of 806 respondents were surveyed in the USA and Japan regarding their expectations of business organizations, their demographic attributes, and their level of international exposure. The survey results were compared using descriptive statistics, MANOVA and ANOVA. Findings -The results support the assertion that CSO varies across individualistic and collectivistic cultures. Statistically significant differences were found between US and Japanese respondents in the relative ratings allocated to the four dimensions of CSO (economic, legal, ethical, and discretionary expectations). Results also indicate that CSO is a fairly stable set of values. International exposure was not found to have a statistically significant impact on CSO ratings. Research limitations/implications -This study offers support for the variability of CSO across students in different cultures. It also suggests that further studies are needed to fully assess the impact of people's experiences on their CSO. Based on the differences identified, managers in these settings can expect to have their performance evaluated differently by customers, investors, regulators, and other groups. Originality/value -This study presents the first comparison of CSOs between the USA and Japan. The study also presents a preliminary test of the relationship between people's international exposure and CSO.

Purpose -Over the last few years, the wine industry has been undergoing a process of accelerated change, consequent to the constantly changing wine geography, both from the demand and the supply sides. This research is based on the 2011 work of Rossi et al. and aims to develop a preliminary prescriptive strategic branding framework for the Campania (Italy) wine firms. Design/methodology/approach -The research focuses on branding strategies and financial performance. It is based on extensive secondary data; the research is exploratory in nature, and it is a theoretical research. Findings -The paper achieves four main objectives: to understand the industry's local and international competitive situation; to identify the role and potentialities of branding in competitive terms; to identify the underlying factors of consumer behavior in relation to wine branding; and to develop a preliminary prescriptive strategic branding framework for the Campania wine firms, with generic application and value.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of loan officers’ overconfidence on risk-taking decision and solvency performance measured by z-scores in the context of Islamic and conventional microfinance institutions (MFIs). Design/methodology/approach A random effect generalized least square regression was applied to examine the effect of overconfidence on credit risk-taking. The data set covers 326 conventional MFIs and 57 Islamic MFIs in six different regions over the period of 2005–2015. Findings Overconfidence proxies have shown through high loan growth, low-interest margin and loan loss provision reveal negative consequences on risk-exposures for both MFIs averagely. The loan officer’s overconfidence is significantly and positively related to the risk-taking decision, and thus, a lower loan portfolio quality. Besides, loan officers’ risk-taking behaviour harms these institutions’ solvency performance. Originality/value This paper makes an initial attempt to e...

Purpose -The aim of the study was to test the relationship of emotional intelligence (EI) to the appraisal, coping and outcomes of workplace demands. Design/methodology/approach -An online survey was used to collect data. Respondents included 157 professional staff including salaried staff, line managers, senior managers, managing directors and chief executive officers. Findings -Emotional intelligence was found to comprise three factors: emotional self management (ESM), the ability to understand others' emotions (UOE) and the use of emotions in decision making.

Purpose -This paper builds on the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations (COSO) Report, which examined US Accounting and Auditing Enforcement Releases (AAERs). The purpose of this paper is to provide valuable insights into the characteristics and realities of financial statement fraud in the post-Enron regulatory environment. Design/methodology/approach -This paper analyses a sample of AAERs from 2002 to 2005. It also provides case studies of an additional five high-profile case studies from that period. Findings -This paper finds evidence of changes in Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) enforcement activities since the COSO Report. Specifically, it is found that enforcement activities have increased substantially post-Enron and the companies subject to AAERs are, on average, much larger, more profitable and the frauds are more substantial than those exhibited in the COSO Report. These findings suggest that the SEC has become more aggressive at pursuing larger companies for financial statement fraud in the post-Enron environment. Research limitations/implications -This paper relies on AAERs as the source of analysis of financial statement fraud, its findings must be viewed in light of the limitations of using these documents. Specifically, the prevailing prosecutions agenda of the US SEC may be reflected in these results. Practical implications -The study findings are of great practical relevance to accounting regulators and practitioners as they provide valuable insights into the nature and characteristics of financial statement fraud. Originality/value -The paper provides empirical evidence concerning the changing face of financial statement fraud enforcement and provides a more in-depth comparison of fraud than possible with most previous studies that have tended to focus on quantitative measures. This is possible because the present investigation utilises qualitative data from AAERs to supplement quantitative findings. Its originality is also due to the use of institutional theory which is not commonly applied in the corporate governance field.