This study examines whether product market competition constrains managers’ real earnings management behavior. Using four different competition measures based on industry concentration and market size, we find that firms facing higher product market competition conduct lower levels of real earnings management. We also find that this negative effect is more pronounced in industries with higher litigation risk. The findings support the argument that product market competition serves as an efficient...

Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) is acknowledged to be the second largest regional cooperation association after European Union. However, unluckily, the region exhibits highly varied and unmatched exchange rate arrangements, though the growing interdependence of East Asian economies calls for ensuring intra-regional macroeconomic stability particularly with reference to monetary policy and exchange rate coordination. The study has explored whether the real effective exchange rate misalignments...

The recent global financial crisis has brought profound transformation to the traditional way of management in the advertising industry. Almost all regions were impacted by the recession; the Arab Gulf was no exception. There are a number of major trends that are not just taking place, but shaping the face and future of the advertising industry in this rapidly growing and yet-untapped region: diversification, specialization, adoption of integrated approaches, and mainstreaming of social media. Under...

Lack of guidelines for selecting focus groups as the appropriate method and planning for research projects was identified as a major quality challenge in South Africa, with implications for the misuse of focus groups, thus rendering research quality control difficult. The study sought to uncover the challenges that impede the quality of focus group research planning, and choice of method thereof, and to develop a set of guidelines for redress by stakeholder organisations. A guiding framework was...

Vietnam is a developing country with a population of approximately 90 million (11/2013). The availability of electronic banking (e-banking) over ten years ago in Vietnam marked a significant development for society in general and for banking in particular. Research attention has so far focused on the development and implementation of e-banking applications in Vietnam. However, there is at present very little research about customer trust in Vietnamese e-banking. Most research about e-banking in Vietnam...

Using household panel data for Australia, sourced from HILDA, we test whether the hypothesis of constant relative risk aversion in wealth, controlling for various sociodemographic variables. Our measure of risk is based on the proportion of variance of the optimal household portfolio rather than the proportion of risky assets in the portfolio. Based on this measure, we apply a first differences model across three survey waves spanning 2002 to 2010. We find strong evidence that Australian households...

Past researches have demonstrated the effectiveness of theory of reasoned action (TRA) model to predict consumers’ purchase intention. However, many researches scarcely use a psychosocial perspective to predict consumers’ purchase intention. Hence, this study extends existing research by incorporating personal moral norms to gain a better understanding of consumers’ purchase intention for ‘socially responsible’ products in the Malaysian marketplace. Results from 178 respondents indicated...

This study contributes to the relatively under-explored research area of partner selection based on their attributions with narrowly confined to the perspective of home country firms. The findings of this study show that task-related and partner-related criteria are both positively related to trust and commitment to international joint ventures, but the result concerning task-related criteria repudiates the existing views that less developed hosting country firms select foreign partners based on...

There appears to be a dearth of scholarly research, particulary in emerging markets such as South Africa, comparing the relative performance of franchised outlets to corporate owned stores and explaining this through a cause-effect analysis. This study aimed to ascertain insights into consumer perceptions of franchised and corporate owned stores within the South African supermarket sector, and probe the function of store image, trust and satisfaction in determining loyalty to a particular format...

Emotions play a crucial role in service provider (employees) and customer interactions. Understanding of emotional labour will help the organizations to manage employee-customer relationship better. First objective is to find whether the knowledge of emotional labour in service sectors particularly in hotels and call centers, will help the organizations to manage their employees effectively and thus nurture positive employee-customer interactions. Second is to examine whether the nature of interaction...