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Issue
1, Volume 7, January 2010
Title of the Paper:
Adoption and Use of E-Government Services: A Case Study on E-Procurement in
Malaysia
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Authors:
Maniam Kaliannan, Halimah Awang
Abstract: The edge of the Information Age, where information has become the
cutting edge of global competition, has thrust the Information and
Communication Technology (ICT) into the fore front of the national
socio-economic development. ICT has been recognized as a strategic enabling
tool to support the growth of the economy as well as enhance the quality of
life of the population. The public sector in Malaysia is going through period
of rapid change. The government’s leading role in spearheading the surge
forward into the information age has compelled the public sector to lead the
way. The Government launched the Electronic Government (e-Government)
initiative to reinvent itself to lead the country into the Information Age.
Implementation of Electronic Procurement (e-Procurement or locally known as e-Perolehan)
is regarded as one of the major milestones in government’s effort to reduce
corruption thus enhancing accountability and transparency of government
procurement. There are six procurement modules being implemented since 1999.
The aim of the government is to make all the suppliers and federal government
agencies become electronic procurement enabled users by the year 2010. This
paper looks at some of empirical findings from the survey conducted regarding
the government suppliers readiness in adopting and using the e-Procurement
system. The general findings show that the suppliers have positive perception
about information technology and the use of Internet to do their business
transactions; hence they are ready to use the e-Procurement system. Even
though there are some positive development of e-Procurement in terms of the
acceptance and usage, there are also many problems and challenges faced by
both the buyer community i.e. government, and seller community i.e. suppliers.
The paper provides some recommendations to improve the current practice to
encourage more suppliers to grab the opportunity and benefit fully from the
e-Procurement initiative in Malaysia.
Keywords:
Information and Communication Technology, e-Government, e-Procurement,
Adoption
Title of the Paper:
Information Systems in the Knowledge Based Economy
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Authors:
Aura-Mihaela Mocanu, Daniela Litan, Stefan Olaru, Adrian Munteanu
Abstract: In business we can deal with critical and urgent decisions every day
and the performance of our work depends on their quality. Due to the modern
technology and the Internet, the amount of available information has increased
considerably. In order to structure this amount of information and to create
knowledge from it, executive information systems became a must for each
competitive enterprise. The performance of an information system which could
generate complete analysis and forecasting in seconds is very important. The
most critical component for success of the modern enterprise is its ability to
take advantage of all available information - both internal and external. The
IT solutions designed to address these challenges have been developed in two
different approaches: structured data management (BI - Business Intelligence)
and unstructured content management (KM - Knowledge Management). Business
intelligence systems are helping answer questions that are mandatory in making
good and profitable decisions. Using the knowledge within an organization can
increase the competitive advantage on the market, and considering this as an
important asset can be used as a production input factor for company’s line of
business. But, behind an executive information system there is actually a data
warehouse.
Keywords:
Business intelligence, competitive intelligence, data warehouse, geographical
information system, knowledge contribution
Title of the Paper:
Turning Points in Business Process Orientation Maturity Model: An East
European Survey
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Authors:
Nikola Vlahovic, Ljubica Milanovic, Rok Skrinjar
Abstract: Companies worldwide are embracing Business Process Orientation (BPO)
in order to improve their overall performance. Over the past few years
methodologies for analyzing maturity state of BPO have been developed.
Maturity model consists of a number of stages through which companies evolve
as they increase the adoption of process oriented practices. Understanding the
transition between different stages of BPO is of utmost importance for
enabling governance and superior execution of these processes. In this paper
we present the investigation of turning points between different stages of BPO
in the business setting in transitional economies of East European countries,
specifically Croatia and Slovenia. Using an acknowledged data mining technique
of classification and regression trees (C&RT) turning points are detected
based on survey results obtained in 2008. These findings present invaluable
guidelines for any business that strives to achieve more efficient business
processes.
Keywords:
Business Process Orientation, Maturity Models, Turning Points, Datamining,
Decision Trees
Title of the Paper:
Market Index Biases and Minimum Risk Indices
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Authors:
Jordi Andreu, Salvador Torra
Abstract: Markets, in the real world, are not efficient zero-sum games where
hypotheses of the CAPM are fulfilled. Then, it is easy to conclude the market
portfolio is not located on Markowitz’s efficient frontier, and passive
investments (and indexing) are not optimal but biased. In this paper, we
define and analyze biases suffered by passive investors: the sample,
construction, efficiency and active biases and tracking error are presented.
We propose Minimum Risk Indices (MRI) as an alternative to deal with to market
index biases, and to provide investors with portfolios closer to the efficient
frontier, that is, more optimal investment possibilities. MRI (using a
Parametric Value-at-Risk Minimization approach) are calculated for three stock
markets achieving interesting results. Our indices are less risky and more
profitable than current Market Indices in the Argentinean and Spanish markets,
facing that way the Efficient Market Hypothesis. Two innovations must be
outlined: an error dimension has been included in the backtesting and the
Sharpe’s Ratio has been used to select the ‘best’ MRI.
Keywords:
Index Biases, Passive Investing, Market Indices, VaR, Portfolio Optimization,
Minimum Risk Indices
Issue
2, Volume 7, April 2010
Title of the Paper: The
Effects of Service Encounter and Experiential Value on Consumer Purchasing
Behavior
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Authors:
Hsien-Lun Wong, Mei-Chi Tsai
Abstract: This paper proposes a conceptual framework to examine the
relationship between the service encounter, the experiential value and
purchase intention. A structural equation model (SEM) is employed to validate
and test three hypotheses. The data used for model test is obtained from the
customers visiting to the beauty stores in Taiwan. A survey of researcher is
conducted with 245 valid questionnaire received. The empirical results that
three aspects of the experiential value (feel, act, relate) have significant
effects on purchasing behavior. The conclusions will be of use as a beneficial
reference for the management when deciding service strategy.
Keywords:
Service encounter, Experiential value, Purchasing behavior, Structure equation
model
Title of the Paper: A
Demand-Response Routing Model for Traffic Signal Maintenance Operations with
Time-Dependent Travel Times
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Authors:
Chao-Hua Chen, Kai-I Liao
Abstract: This study is aimed at planning traffic signal maintenance work
using a demand-response routing model with time-dependent travel times. The
routing model was able to produce timely maintenance routes for each
maintenance vehicle compatible to the daily inspection plan and randomly
revealed malfunctioning traffic signals. Three modules, the route-generating
module, the decision-support module and the time-evolution module, constituted
the model framework, and Genetic Algorithms (GAs) were used to solve for
dynamic maintenance routes. Furthermore, different service strategies with
different routing procedures based upon a case reconstructed from real world
data were designed and tested to reflect the concerns for practical
applications. Evaluation results show the routing model is flexible in
structure and feasible enough for practical applications.
Keywords:
Traffic Signal Maintenance Operations, Demand-Response Routing Model,
Time-Dependent Travel Time, Genetic Algorithms
Title of the Paper:
Impact of Change Management Implementation in a Production System – A Croatian
Experience
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Authors:
Krunoslav Skrlec, Nikola Vlahovic
Abstract: The increasing dynamics of business systems generate more frequent
changes in external and internal organizational factors and the need for
faster adjustment of business systems to these changes. This trend has greatly
increased the development of business information systems as more relevant
information becomes accessible from the targeted markets. In this paper we
analyze the production sector in the Republic of Croatia which is
insufficiently adapted to these new conditions. Each change in the business
system renders specific overall effects which, at times, may not be as
expected. The objective of this study is to point out problems that occur
while introducing changes inside a production system and the adjusting
mechanisms within the information system. In the conclusion of the paper a few
guidelines for top management based on recent survey will be presented.
Keywords:
Change management, Business information systems, Production systems,
Manufacturing, Management
Title of the Paper:
Techno-Economic Model for Policy Assessment to Optimize Spectrum Frequency
Utilization Study Case: Frequency Fee for FWA and GSM Services in Indonesia
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Authors:
Ismail, Suhono H. Supangkat, Hendrawan, Basuki Y. Iskandar
Abstract: Radio frequency spectrum is a limited resource, owned and regulated
by government. Each telecommunication providers, which use radio frequency
spectrum, has the obligation to pay frequency fee. Currently, frequency fee,
called as “Biaya Hak Spektrum Frekuensi” (BHP-F), for the cellular and fixed
wireless access (FWA) services are calculated based on the number of frequency
spectrum channel that being used (aperture based). This method is considered
obsolete for cellular and FWA services BHP-F, not only this method has
technical problem but also calculation based on aperture is hampering the
utilization of frequency spectrum. International telecommunication Union
(ITU), through ITU-R SM 2012-2 recommends about BHP-F formula based on
frequency spectrum spectral, which can promote the frequency spectrum
utilization. The policy of changing BHP-F from aperture based to spectral
based will affects in economic especially to GSM and FWA industries. The
policy also will affect to government goals to increase frequency spectrum
utilization and to have proper non-tax government income. To assessment this
policy, we need proper model. This paper will propose a techno-economic model
to evaluate the impact of the new policy. In this paper, we use cellular and
FWA services as case study.
Keywords:
Frequency Fee, cellular and fixed wireless access services, utilization,
techno-economic
Title of the Paper:
Assessing Trust in E-Commerce Website based on Ranking of Trust Attributes
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Authors:
Muhammad Rushdi Rusli, Ab. Razak Che-Hussin, Halina Mohamed Dahlan
Abstract: Trust has become one of most importance criterion in order to
establish the e-Commerce. Previous study has shown that, there are five most
important trust attributes that should be placed in an e-Commerce website.
However, consumers may not know about the trust attributes and incapable to
search the attributes manually especially for the new consumers. Besides,
there are no proper tools available that can help the consumers to search all
five trust attributes in an e-Commerce website. In order to overcome the
problem, tool that can search the trust attributes should be develop to help
the customer to assess the trustworthiness level of an e-Commerce website.
Since this study only focus on e-Commerce websites in United Kingdom (UK),
United States (US) and Malaysia, data from the websites have been collected to
create patterns using regular expressions. Observation has shown that most of
trust attributes are located in "Homepage" and "Contact us" pages. The
proposed patterns then are applied into the prototype and the practicability
of the prototype has been tested. ROC has been used to assign weight to each
attributes depending on the rank of the importance of the trust attributes to
help the customer to assess and making a decision about the trustworthiness of
an e-Commerce website. Precision, recall and f-measure have been used to
measure the performance of the prototype and the results show that the system
performs almost same result by using manual search.
Keywords:
Information Extraction, Regular Expression, e-Commerce, Trust
Title of the Paper:
Crisis of Fair Value Measurement? Some Defense of the Best of All Bad
Measurement Bases
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Authors:
Carmen Giorgiana Bonaci, Dumitru Matis, Jiri Strouhal
Abstract: Many people points towards fair value accounting for financial
instruments as being one of the major aggressors of financial crisis. We argue
that it is just another case of shooting the messenger, by proving where
things really went wrong, and who could be considered responsible within the
formed vicious cycle. The results show that fair value accounting is nothing
but a “scapegoat”, while the ones who are now asking a restriction in the
scope of fair value accounting should take more responsibility for their
actions. An objective point of view implies making a clearer distinction
between accounting and prudential concerns. Fair value cannot be considered
guilty for the actual financial crisis, but only a messenger of it, case in
which some reactions can be understood, because we all know the general
reaction towards the manager. In other words, the concept of fair value has
the role to bring us as close as possible to reality, fact that could be
realized through a correct implementation and a greater transparency, if used
properly. Concluding by Churchill words about democracy: “it is the worst
system with the exception of all others”.
Keywords:
Fair Value, Financial Crisis, Historical Costs, Accounting Measurement, Value
Relevance, Prudential Concerns
Title of the Paper: On
Reducing the Number of Existing Cycles in Connected Graphs Obtained from
Comparison Matrices
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Authors:
Sylvia Encheva
Abstract: Both classical Analytic Hierarchy Process and Analytic Network
Process appear to be somewhat laborious for application in projects with
restricted budgets. Their binary and ternary versions seem to be quite
sufficient for a reasonably small amount of alternatives and criteria.
Occurrences of ’ties’ in a ternary AHP is considered in particular in this
work. Correlations between the number of ’ties’ and the total number of cycles
in a connected graph associated with a comparison matrix are discussed.
Keywords:
Imprecision, uncertainty, consistency, multi-criteria decision-making, ternary
AHP
Title of the Paper:
Strategic Business Process Insourcing: Insights of an Action Research in the
Railway Sector
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Authors:
Marco Mosca, Flavio Tonelli, Roberto Revetria, Paolo Taticchi
Abstract: The academic literature on Business Process Outsourcing is relevant,
offering a well-structured background and very interesting case studies. By
the other hand, little research effort has been performed for Business Process
Insourcing, which in contrast to the traditional view of outsourcing, where
the outsourcer and vendor are separate players, sets the delegation of a pull
of operations to a co-shared, but stand-alone, business entity that
specializes in that operations. Thus, managers and experts, considering BPI
strategies, are claiming for rigorous methodologies to support this critical
transition in a practical way. In this paper, insights from an action
research, in relation to a BPI strategy chosen by a multinational organization
operating in the railway sector (Bombardier Transportation, BT) is reported.
According to this strategy, the creation and starting phases of an engineering
centre, co-shared by BT and Infotech (a selected Indian engineering services
vendor), namely BTECI (Bombardier Transportation Engineering Centre India),
are analyzed and reported. The knowledge contribution of this work is about
the empirical evidence of a set of methodologies and tools useful to a BPI
implementation strategy through the clear evidence of hidden problems and
potential implementation pitfalls.
Keywords:
Strategic Out-Sourcing, In-Sourcing, Action Research, Railway Sector, Case
Study
Title of the Paper:
Evaluating the Credit Management of Micro-Enterprises
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Authors:
Fennee Chong
Abstract: This study assesses the credit management of micro-enterprises in
East Malaysia. The micro- enterprises in Malaysia form 80 percent of the
Malaysian SMEs and play a significant role in the country’s development.
Similar to the micro-enterprises in the West and those in the developing
countries, securing financing and credit management remain challenging to this
group of enterprises. Other than evaluating the credit repayment practices,
this study also examined whether factors such as education level, indebtedness
as well as capacity to repay credit affects repayment performance. Findings
showed that about 59 percent of the respondents did not pay their loans on
time. Level of education attained by respondents reported a significant
predictive power over their credit management practices. A higher level of
education level attained implies better credit management. Besides, it was
also found that there was a significant gap between genders in terms of credit
management. Meanwhile, higher total liability per month was found to be
significantly associated with a higher level of loan defaults. Finally,
respondents’ financial capability, represented by household income, was proved
as not having any significant impact on the credit management of micro-
enterprises.
Keywords:
Credit management, SMEs, Micro-enterprises, Indebtedness, Financial capacity
Title of the Paper:
Conceptual Aspects of Shadow Economy
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Authors:
Irina Gabriela Radulescu, Catalin Popescu, Mirela Matei
Abstract: The paper tries to analyse the interaction between shadow and
official economy. Because there is a real interest in defining shadow
economies in economic literature the paper tries to present different point of
views regarding the shadow economy definitions. Also, there are presented in
details the illegal activities by emphasize the existent controversies about
their inclusion in national account or not. The author also presents the
causes and effects of the illegal side of global economy.
Keywords:
Shadow economy, official economy, hidden activity, tax evasion, black market,
dualism
Title of the Paper: Human
Resource Management – A Key Point for SUCCESS Project
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Authors:
Catalin Popescu, Augustin Mitu, Daniela Uta, Luminita Ion
Abstract: The theory for Human Resource Management (HRM) fallows different
aspects of the way that companies or institutions organize their human
resources (HR). This theory is also applicable for projects that have, as
partners, different public or private organizations. The particularities of
projects require a particular HRM, specific actions and different approaches
of HR. For multinational projects the activities of HRM differ in content from
the classic activities. Activities like planning and integrating HR are the
most important ones and by themselves can decide the success of a project.
Other important activities for projects’ HRM like: creating a communicational
frame that supports complex information exchange, an equitable system of
retribution for employees with different economic and social background –
start defining a new form of HRM. In the case of CIVITAS – SUCCESS HR
activities were implemented less based on existing, specific, theory and more
based on the experience of previous projects implemented within the European
Community. In the science of management most of the time theory is born out of
working experience and international projects like CIVITAS SUCCESS demands a
new approach of HRM.
Keywords:
Human resource theory, experience, specific activities, international partner,
retribution system
Issue
3, Volume 7, July 2010
Title of the Paper:
Energy Saving and the Contribution of Green Marketing to Behavioural Change
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Authors:
Arminda Do Paco, Lilia Varejao
Abstract: The consumption of energy resources has significantly increased in
over the years. One of the sectors where this increase has been most notorious
is in the domestic sector. Given the environmental and economic costs that
this tendency brings with it, it has become necessary to reduce energy
consumption. The aim of this study is to find which factors most influence the
behaviour of individuals in relation to energy saving. At the same time, an
attempt is also made to understand whether advertising campaigns seeking to
raise awareness about the need to save energy resources exert any influence
over behaviour. The results show that advertising campaigns are highlighted by
individuals in general as a good way of raising awareness about the need to
save energy resources, even though they do not point to this as the factor
that most influences their energy saving behaviour.
Keywords:
Environment, energy saving, green marketing, consumer behavior, communication
Title of the Paper: Sport
for All – Implementation Modern Methods of Performance Management
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Authors:
Dana Badau, Adina Camarda, Sorin Serbanoiu, Tudor Virgil, Dragos
Bondoc-Ionescu
Abstract: The need to evaluate performance management in sports for all, that
is the sport instructors as managers, is determined by the accurate and
optimum need of dimensioning and distributing objectives, by the method of
improvement for these staff categories and by the need to diminish risks,
which are caused by keeping or promoting incompetent persons in management
positions. It is no longer a secret for anyone that one of the most difficult
challenges managers face in contemporary organizations is performance
management. Within activities specific to sports for all, nowadays, the
evaluation of sport instructor-managers is not accomplished on the basis of
specific criteria, as the case of trainer – managers involved in performance
sport. Our purpose is to elaborate evaluation criteria for sport
instructor-managers so that their evaluation is made according to performance
management, by commeasuring and comparing results, by the
physical-intellectual potential, professional and managerial potential,
according to the objectives and requirements of the position held , therefore
being eliminated the subjectivism and hazard of evaluation.
Keywords:
Performance management, evaluation criteria, sports for all, sport instructor,
managers, efficiency, and activity optimization
Title of the Paper: The
Management of Changing the Attitudes of the Factors Involved in the Tourism
Industry
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Authors:
Adina Camarda, Plesea Doru, Dana Badau
Abstract: Acting as travel plan organizers, travel agencies can perform a
series of actions that lead to the implementation of sustainable tourism. In
the context of the entire tourist plan implementation process, travel agencies
must take into account the quality of the scenery, the architecture specific
to each area, the role played by the tourist in the environment transformation
and protection, the transportation means used, as well as all the activities
that shall be part of the marketed tourism product; these should not conflict
with any of the environment components.
Keywords:
Sustainable tourism, implementation, factors, attitudes, promotion, research
variables, selective research, environment protection
Title of the Paper:
Acceptance Level of Push Technology-based Online Shopping Widget among
Malaysians: Application of Technology Acceptance Theory
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Authors:
Lee Yean Hooi, Mohd Azam Osman, Rosnah Idrus, Tan Shiang-Yen
Abstract: Nowadays, online shopping information such as new product release,
promotion, and other news are mostly retrieved manually by prospective buyers
from individual website or webpage, which is entailed enormous efforts,
time-consuming and often lead to information overload. The tool or method used
in this scenario is known as pull-technology. As a solution, this study
proposed an online shopping widget which automatically retrieves relevant
online shopping information from various sources at single point of time based
on the concept of push technology. In relevant to this, the objective of this
paper is to investigate the acceptance level of the proposed online shopping
widget among Malaysians, through applying technology acceptance theory in
questionnaire survey. The findings of this study imply that the overall
acceptance level of Malaysians toward the proposed online shopping widget is
considered as relatively low. In addition, the result of this study also
suggested that perceived usefulness of the sidebar widget is the strongest
antecedent which led to the intention of use of the online shopping widget.
This study has provided a foundation to both practitioners (e.g. software
developers) and academicians for understanding of the acceptance level of
similar push technology-based online shopping widget, and the characteristics
the online shopping widget (especially usefulness and ease-of-use) should
incorporated in order to enhance acceptance level among prospective users.
Keywords:
Online shopping, Push technology, Technology acceptance theory, Sidebar widget
Title of the Paper:
Optimal Minmax Analysis of the Market Equilibrium by Generalizing Cobweb and
Laffer Models
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Authors:
Codruta Cornelia Dura, Ilie Mitran, Imola Driga
Abstract: Equilibrium can be described as an ideal market situation, in which
the interests of economic agents are best served, and the resources are
allocated and used based on certain criteria and at a normal level of
efficiency for every stage. Market equilibrium is derived from a problem
specific to non-cooperative game theory with zero-sum and two players. In
order to analyze market equilibrium, the main issue is to determine the
equilibrium price in different situations: knowing the functions of supply and
demand, knowing the elasticity of these functions, taking into account the
existence of income tax etc. The results presented in this paper are broad and
dwell on the well-known results for Cobweb and Laffer models. An important
advantage of these findings is that they are convenient in terms of
calculations and they have interesting economic interpretations.
Keywords:
Equilibrium price, supply-demand relation, the elasticity of the supply
function, the elasticity of the demand function, the equation of price
dynamics, the dynamic index of prices
Title of the Paper:
Application of Risk Management in Modeling International Cereal Trade
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Authors:
Costel Nistor, Mihaela-Carmen Muntean, Rozalia Nistor
Abstract: Over the last two decades, risk management in the economic activity
as well as its implications on the economic entities brought about an
explosive development of technical and methodological approaches of the
concept. This aspect occurred over a period of increase of interdependence
degree of the economic systems and acceleration of the information flow. As a
result of this process, the diversity of technical and methodological
approaches was explained strictly on a disciplinary basis, being founded on a
number of criteria varying from the commercial, financial or investment ones
up to the psycho-sociological or philosophical ones. This particular approach
of risk may induce to the economic receiver the perception of
non-systematization of the accomplished analytic constructions and of dynamics
of chaos in this new universe of economic knowledge. Any activity or economic
effort is based on a number of unknown and uncertain factors or opportunities
simply because its subject is located in the future. There are sometimes
situations where the uncertainty is too high, making it virtually impossible
because a decision or goal in itself or the way that it can achieve are not
sufficiently defined, or that risks could be totally destructive.
Keywords:
Risk, uncertainty, variable, risk cost, futures contracts, forward contracts
Title of the Paper:
Accounting for Derivatives: Hedging or Trading?
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Authors:
Jiri Strouhal, Carmen G. Bonaci, Dumitru Matis
Abstract: Paper performs an analysis of the Czech and Romanian derivatives
market through a deductive approach, starting from the macroeconomic picture
of emergent capital markets of Central and Eastern Europe, and then moving to
the specific case of Czech Republic and Romania. Findings reveal potential
sources of information asymmetry which might put the informational advantage
in the hands of some parties involved in derivatives trading. The very low
level of information reported on derivatives operations might be the signal of
an alarming situation concerning the characteristics of accounting information
that already had its way through the current crisis.
Keywords:
Hedging, Hedge Accounting, IFRS, Fair Value, Financial Derivatives, Risk
Management
Title of the Paper:
Competitiveness of Developing Regions in Romania
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Authors:
Mihaela-Carmen Muntean, Rozalia Nistor, Costel Nistor
Abstract: Emphasizing the importance of regional competitiveness has increased
in recent years increasingly more power and size. Since the first EU report on
competitiveness which reported worrying trends regarding the competitive
advantage both in global and local, to present the Community strategic
guidelines that give priority to regional competitiveness, the issue became
"headline" to European level policy formulation. Regionaldistribution of
development resources is closely linked to local capacity to effectively use
common factors appointed prominent entrepreneurship. Some regional trends are
explained by an emerging entrepreneurial potential, regardless of geography or
some other bill cliches deterministic.
Keywords:
Region, regional development, competitiveness, European Union
Title of the Paper:
Simulation of Companies Operational Activities using Computers
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Authors:
Rozalia Nistor, Costel Nistor, Mihaela-Carmen Muntean
Abstract: In this paper, we emphasize the simulation of a decision making
process applied to an international transport company from Romania. Our goal
was to establish the most efficient decision, having in view three
alternatives: acquisition of one additional truck, acquisition of two
additional trucks and the outsourcing supplementary requests of transport
services, over the trucks fleet capacity of the company, to other specialized
transport companies. In view to determine mathematically the best decision, we
applied the decision tree method, in the conditions in which the company’s
manager offered us a feasibility analysis concerning these alternatives. We
also reveal in this paper the opportunity provided by DELMS software
functions, which reduce the time involved by solving this decision problem.
Keywords:
Modeling, simulation, decision, software, optimization, efficiency, resources
Title of the Paper:
Fiscal Reforms - Romania's Integrating Actions to EMU
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Authors:
Monica Susanu
Abstract: As a direct absolute drawing rule to the public authority’s
disposal, taxes are also the main regulators and engines of the social and
economic system. However, their functions’ exacerbation by growing the fiscal
burden could lead to very negative social and economic consequences, since an
old saying predicted that “it might kill the goose with the golden eggs”. The
estimation of the fiscal burden derives from a classic index that expresses
the part of GDP that state takes as taxes and that might be relatively bigger
in the developed countries than in the developing ones, directly connected
with the whole volume of the national revenue. Associated with the fiscal
policy, the term of fiscal pressure is widely spread in the literature and
indicates the magnitude of the national revenue redistribution through taxes.
Generally, it is a specialized word that expresses the average of the fiscal
burden’s intensity as a tax-payers’ obligation to the central and local public
authority. The amplitude and dynamics of the fiscal pressure is measured and
estimated through the fiscal taxation ratio that is established by law or
fiscal regulations. It is a fiscal coefficient expressing the very share of
the national revenue taken by the state and is calculated as a percentage
ratio for tax payments/revenues to the GDP considering. There are three ratios
usually employed (low ratios, high ratios and optimum ratios) according to the
average values of the fiscal taxation ratios on relatively long term of a
certain country or group of countries, and by reference to the average ratios
existing at a given moment in the countries at the top of world economy as
well. To a certain extent, the present rise of the Romania’s economy and
social development reflects the existing global tendencies which are
materialized in what the specialists call the transitional path towards the
informational society, i.e. the society of knowledge and consciousness. As
another challenge for the country, the integrative process requires the
substantiation of a strategy that aims at gradually catching up with the
countries that have developed within normal parameters along the trajectory of
social and economic progress. Both support and motivation, the present
Romania’s struggle for integration in the European Union is actually an effort
towards its social and economic second modernity. Being permanently
interdependent with other macro-economic processes and policies, tax planning
and tax policy play an important role both in ensuring and improving the
financial stability and in sustaining an adequate environment for all economic
activities. Although their different approaches and methods, tax planning and
tax policy deal with the management of the accumulated public financial
resources, i.e., the dynamics of fiscal pressure itself. The present study
aims at analyzing the impact of fiscal reforms as reflected in the dynamics of
the fiscal pressure from the perspective of various tax ratios and also the
way it was felt against the integration in the euro zone background.
Considering the context of the global financial turbulences, the paper intends
to offer a mirror of the efforts Romania made towards the challenge that were
faced up to now and that are still to be faced in the years to come.
Keywords:
Value added tax, corporate/profit tax, personal income tax, public finance,
fiscal policy
Title of the Paper:
Reflections Concerning Some Collaborative Systems Portal-Based Approaches
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Authors:
Mihaela I. Muntean
Abstract: In the present global economy, strongly influenced by IT and
information systems evolution, the modern organizations try to face the new
economy challenges. It is certain, that the enterprise’s performance will
depend on the capacity to sustain collaborative work. It is obvious, that all
collaborative environments (workgroups, communities of practice, collaborative
enterprises) are based on knowledge and between collaboration and knowledge
management there is a strong interdependence. Effective collaboration unlocks
the potential of the collective knowledge and intellectual capital of the
organization and its networks of business partners, suppliers and customers.
At the core of true collaboration is the ability to share and catalogue
knowledge, ideas, standards, best practices, and lessons learned and to be
able to retrieve that knowledge from anywhere at any time. The evolution of
information systems in these collaborative environments led to the sudden
necessity to adopt, for maintaining the virtual activities and processes, the
latest technologies/systems, which are capable to support integrated
collaboration in business services. In these environments, portal-based IT
platforms will integrate multi-agent collaborative systems, collaborative
tools, different enterprise applications and other useful information systems.
All considerations have a strong research background, our portal-based
proposal for sustaining collaboration and knowledge management in
organizations being subject of some Romanian research projects that are
fitting in the European research demarches.
Keywords:
Collaboration, collaborative environments, knowledge management, collaborative
systems, knowledge portals
Issue
4, Volume 7, October 2010
Title of the Paper: Six
Sigma for Big Companies and SMEs: Evidences from Literature
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Authors:
Luca Cagnazzo, Paolo Taticchi
Abstract: Six Sigma (SS) methodology is nowadays one of the most used
approaches in the Quality Management field since its benefits, coming from the
improvement of the process outputs quality by identifying and removing the
causes of defects and variability in manufacturing and business processes.
Thus, literature on the SS topic is exponentially increased during last
decades; the vast number of works on the SS field represents a good
opportunity for a structured literature review of the articles, in order to
understand the evolutions of the concept, the fields of its application and
possible evolution for further studies. The literature review has been carried
out by using a chronological review of the main SS approaches developed both
for large and small companies, in order to highlight particular aspects of the
SS literature and some applications of the SS methodology. The evaluation of
the papers found in literature is carried out through a Strengths-Weaknesses
criterion. Moreover, for those treating the application of the SS methodology
into both big companies both Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs), an assessment
has been carried out based on the accordance with some milestones identified
as necessary for every SS system. Finally the paper argues the possible
further developments of the research field.
Keywords:
Six Sigma, DMAIC, Literature Review, SMEs
Title of the Paper:
Benefits, Barriers and Pitfalls Coming from the ISO 9000 Implementation: The
Impact on Business Performances
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Authors:
Luca Cagnazzo, Paolo Taticchi, Francesco Fuiano
Abstract: Total quality management is from a decade an important and useful
organizational system for increasing companies’ competitiveness, by optimizing
processes with a particular focus on the customer. Among all the
methodologies, ISO 9000 certification is one of the most common and recognized
approaches for the benefits of the companies that decide to implement it.
Several studies have been conducted in literature, presenting some important
impacts of the ISO 9000 on the companies’ performances. Due to the vast number
of works, a classification of the main impacts of ISO 9000 on the principle
business performances is needed. The findings coming from the literature
review analysis are therefore validated through a survey extended at 366
companies. The resulting information of the investigation are coherent with
those studied in literature, even if some key aspects are extremely focused on
a restricted set of impact areas. The investigation allow the author to
identify the main impacting dimensions of ISO 9000 on the performances of the
companies. Moreover the barriers and pitfalls for a successful ISO 9000
certification are presented, furnishing details for overcome these issues.
Keywords:
ISO 9000, Business Performance, Literature review, Survey
Title of the Paper:
Generalized Maximum Entropy Estimation of Spatial Panel Interaction Models
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Authors:
Rosa Bernardini Papalia
Abstract: Flow data are viewed as cross-classified data, and spatial
interaction models are reformulated as log-linear models. According to this
view, we introduce a spatial panel data model and we derive a Generalized
Maximum Entropy – based estimation formulation. The estimator we propose has
the advantage of being consistent with the underlying data generation process
and eventually with the restrictions implied by some non sample information or
by past empirical evidence by also controlling for collinearity and
endogeneity problems.
Keywords:
Maximum entropy estimation, spatial panel data models, spatial Interaction
models
Title of the Paper: A
Novel Factor Decomposition of Productivity Differentials: Evidence from
Foreign Owned and Domestic Firms in Italy
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Authors:
Rosa Bernardini Papalia, Pinuccia Calia
Abstract: Using the idea of the multidimensional generalization of the
Duncans’ index, the productivity per worker differentials across groups of
firms can be decomposed into different components attributed to differences
in: sectoral productivity, investment in human and physical capital, size and
other determinants. More specifically, for decomposing group productivity
differentials we propose an Oaxaca’s decomposition – based approach which
assumes a Reimer’s weighting scheme. An application of the decomposing method
aimed at evaluating productivity differences across foreign owned and domestic
firms in the Italian manufacturing sector is also provided.
Keywords:
Productivity, Foreign acquisitions, Oaxaca decomposition
Title of the Paper: Key
Components and Operability Evaluation of Internal Controls for Risk Assessment
Modeling in IT Audit
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Authors:
Cristian Amancei, Traian Surcel
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to present some directions to improve
the implementation methodology of an audit process, from the analysis of
tolerance to IT systems unavailability for organizations in a critical
situation caused by the materialization of IT vulnerabilities. The article
follows a series of key components of IT risk management process, proposing
practical elements for risk control, internal controls operability analysis
and aggregation of results, providing a deterministic model process. The use
of predefined questionnaires and risk matrix can help the services providers
to adapt to the market and maintain the service quality. These practical
elements can be found in the proposed IT audit questionnaire, along with a
workflow process in seven steps for the audit mission.
Keywords:
IT systems tolerance, risk areas and subareas, control evaluation, risk
assessment, IT risk, IT audit steps, audit questionnaires
Title of the Paper: The
Relationship between Unemployment Rate and the Size of the Shadow Economy. The
Case of United States
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Authors:
Adriana Anamaria Alexandru, Ion Dobre, Catalin Corneliu Ghinararu
Abstract: The paper aims to investigate the nature of the relationship between
unemployment rate(UR) and the size of the U.S.A. shadow economy(SE) measured
as % of official GDP for the period 1980-2009, using cointegration and granger
causality tests. The size of the shadow economy estimated using the MIMIC
model is decreasing over the last two periods, achieving the value of about
7.3% of official GDP at the middle of 2009. The empirical results point out
the existence of a long-run relationship between the variables and a
unidirectional causation that runs from unemployment rate to shadow economy.
We extend the classical Okun’s law, in order to estimate the relationship
between growth rate of official economy, unemployment rate and the size of the
shadow economy. The results reveal a significant direct relationship between
shadow economy and the unemployment rate and an indirect relation between
shadow economy and growth of official sector.
Keywords:
Shadow economy, unemployment rate, MIMIC model, Johansen approach, VECM,
Granger causality, Okun law
Title of the Paper:
Romanian Seaside. Website on Summer Offers
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Authors:
Mirela-Catrinel Voicu, Marilen Pirtea, Roxana Ioana Varga
Abstract: In this paper we propose a model of website for presentation of the
summer offers in Romanian Black Sea resorts. On the presented hotels, we have
the following information: hotel description, hotel facilities, hotel room
types and their amenities, facilities for children, image and video files and
the stay rate according with the stay date of start, number of nights and
meals (breakfast, lunch or dinner). On the site, the tourist can find out if
the travel agency has offers according to his preferences. These preferences
refer to the features presented above.
Keywords:
Website, travel agency, summer offers, Java, database
Title of the Paper: Local
Cuisine – Always an Important Decisional Factor in International Tourism
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Authors:
Mihaela-Carmen Muntean, Costel Nistor, Rozalia Nistor, Daniela Sarpe
Abstract: Cuisine always aroused curiosity and attention and increasingly more
people are concerned about the origin of culinary products. Thus, culinary
tourism is an important sector of cultural tourism. If in the past this type
of tourism was practiced in rural areas, more and more restaurants today the
most important European cities promote traditional dishes of the area you are
visiting. Whether you call it culinary travel, or gourmet cooking, this method
of travel and taste the finest wines and traditional dishes and appreciated
attracts many tourists, this form of tourism becoming a niche market with
great potential. Oenological tourism is a relative concept „virgin” and less
popular on our land. With the emergence and importance given lifestyle,
involved and organic cuisine, increased tourism and interest in oenology.
Keywords:
Gourmet tourism, gastronomy, oenological tourism, wine culture, Romanian
cuisine, wineries
Title of the Paper:
Tyrolean Management Can be Applied in Romanian Mountain Tourism?
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Authors:
Rozalia Nistor, Costel Nistor, Mihaela-Carmen Muntean
Abstract: Prahova Valley is a major tourist center, one of the most popular
tourist destinations in our country. This is primarily due to natural and
human resources, but also accessible area. Prahova Valley resorts meet
operating throughout the year, increasing the role of tourism in the economy.
Austria is a country wheretourism marketing is applied, with the best results.
After a thorough analysis of the problem we have identified ways that have
been successfully imposed on the tourist market using innovative marketing
techniques. In Austria, mountain tourism started from the idea that any city
can have such a status to be exploited. It shall be made known by a particular
brand, a brand quality through more investment and confidence in their
potential, these are the methods they use to policy makers to develop and
maintain a real tourism industry.
Keywords:
Tourism market, mountain tourism, tourism marketing, tourism potential,
tourism development strategies, tourism product, tourism brand
Title of the Paper: The
Place of the Public Administration and Gastronomic Heritage in the Destination
Branding and Tourism Promotion
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Authors:
Alexandra Viorica Dulau, Monica Maria Coros, Marius Emil Coros
Abstract: Romania’s tourism has already known many attempts of promoting its
potential and even of discovering, elaborating and communicating a tourist
destination brand. We believe that this industry, which seems to be affected
by the lack of international competitiveness, still has many opportunities to
benefit of. For the present research, we have taken into consideration to
discuss the relationships that may be established between the local public
administration, specialized restaurants and branded tourist destinations. In
this respect, we have built a case study aiming at revealing the way in which
public administrations, respectively public alimentation facilities contribute
to the development of Romania’s tourist industry. We have assumed that the
websites of the city-halls from county residencies and those of specialized
restaurants are equally important (yet inefficiently used) message carriers
for the tourist offers of destinations that host them. Our analysis includes a
number of 42 city-halls and of 169 Romanian restaurants that are authorized by
both the former Ministry of Tourism and today’s Ministry of Regional
Development and Tourism to provide a specialized gastronomic offer. We have
tried to identify the answers to several questions: Are city-hall websites
proper promotion tools of local tourism? Do city-hall websites promote local
gastronomy? Is Romania’s cultural heritage promoted by the websites for
specialized restaurants? Do restaurants focus on attracting foreign visitors?
Does Transylvania enjoy a better promotion of its tourist potential through
the local restaurants’ websites than the rest of the country? The findings of
our paper rely on thorough analyses of the websites of the identified
city-halls and specialized restaurants.
Keywords:
Romania, Specialized restaurants, Public administration, Websites,
(Gastronomic) tourism promotion
Title of the Paper:
Development of Port Management in the Transport Economy
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Authors:
Mihaela-Carmen Muntean, Daniela Nechita, Costel Nistor, Daniela Sarpe
Abstract: Transport has been considered as the subsystem of a technologic
system that incorporates both production and transports itself thus leading to
several important consequences, which may be identified in the steps of a
modern port developing. Setting up an effective organization is the essential
factor deriving from its managerial capacity in the competitive economy we
strive after. This capacity is not only a fundamental attribute but the
conditioning parameter and guarantor of organizations sustainability and
longevity in an effervescent environment that is continuously changing of the
competitive economy. In such a context, the present paper is an important
means of emphasizing the management importance in a separate area of the real
economy, namely the port economy. The paper presents two major issues brought
about by the current and future development of transport industry in port
activity, namely those related to port reform and defining elements of port
management in order to substantiate a viable program. Like all economic
entities in the port sector as well, management is looking for through various
objectives, enabling the port management to accomplish the intended goals, to
adopt measures and courses of actions and development which comply with the
environment in which they evolve.
Keywords:
Port, port companies, shipment, port management, port reform, port activities,
port service
Title of the Paper:
Housing Market and Financial Crisis
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Authors:
Milena Lopreite, Antonio Scarpino
Abstract: In times when the financial and economic crisis is experimented
after the Great Depression, this event has had serious consequences on the
real estate sector and consequently on very vast urban areas. The process of
the “urbanised reutilization” that has produced the contemporary city began
quickly there. The city changed in consequence of the market and it is the
same market that redefined the terms of the interventions ex-post. After
subprime loans market crash where it was thought to have endless possibilities
of growth, are we able to define the consequences that the crisis will have on
the post-contemporary cities of Europe? Is it possible to foresee sceneries or
visions of intervention and try to identify models of development without
excessive waste of resources? We can start analyzing the cases that have
before others restarted to go up the economic cycle again, and verify how this
affected the processes of transformation of the post-contemporary city.
Keywords:
Housing market, economic cycle, business, panic, animal spirits, urbanization
Title of the Paper:
Professional Tourism – Before and After Economic Crisis in the Hotel Industry
from Timisoara, Romania
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Authors:
Carmen Babaita, Marilen Pirtea, Andreia Ispas
Abstract: The economic crisis should be seen as an opportunity to find
ingenious solutions, devised at management level to increase the
competitiveness of the hotel market, according to prices and quality service.
This study synthesizes information on the concept of professional tourism and
its associated terms and how the global economic crisis has affected the
financial this valuable segment, particularly in tourism industry. The
research was conducted in two periods (before and during the economic crisis)
and targeted 13 hotels of 3 and 4 stars from the hotel market in Timisoara. We
propose a series of related research solutions regarding the tourism product
and services from the hospitality field, which is in the position of finding
new ways to attract and retain potential business customers. The research
method is quantitative and the data were collected by questionnaire. Data
interpretation was performed in SPSS, a statistical research program.
Keywords:
Business tourism, MICE sector, leisure, tourist motivation, competitiveness,
economic and financial crisis
Title of the Paper: A
Model of Decision Support System in Economy
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Authors:
Diana A. Tarnaveanu
Abstract: It is crucial to design and implement decision support systems to
assist the manager because of the diversity and the large amount of data
stocked in an organization. The concept of decision support system (DSS)
defines any information technology focused on supporting the decision process.
For a manager, informatics and the using of information technologies always
meant formalizing the routine activities, those laws of existence and
manifestation that can be described. The “casualty” fact is transformed into a
“standardized” fact, elaborating behavioral conducts possible to use depending
of the specificity of the situation occurred. The importance of interpreting
is vital, from the information dimension to the strategic one. Information
technologies are applied, separately and together, in management and decision
modeling. They offer modeling instruments being able to automate the
processes. The use of the decision and the context of decision making are two
key aspects that characterize the utility of the decision models. In the
decision making process are used data, information and knowledge corroborated
with the manifestation of reasoning stated by the intelligence and experience
of the decisional factor. Artificial intelligence proved its applicability in
management using specific technologies such as expert systems (capable of
offering the expertise in a specific knowledge domain) and decision support
systems (a system that brings together the intellectual resources of a person
with computer capabilities in order to improve the quality of the decisions).
In this paper we present a model of decision support system implemented in
tourism.
Keywords:
Information technology, axiomatization, production rules, decision support
systems, DSS
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