Vol. 2(11) November 2009
What makes people want to become self-employed? Applying
the Theory of Planned Behavior
Oghazi Pejvak*, Jung Marie-Louise, Peighambari Kaveh and Tretten Phillip
The world economy currently seems to be failing and the
effects are being felt around the globe. There are many upcoming news about rising
unemploy- ment, major corporations cutting jobs and workers who can’t seem to find
work. The current economic climate makes many people wary of spending money, which
can be bad news for those who make a living through the buying of others. Many things,
however, are not simply going to go away because the economy is rough. Some buyers
and employers may feel reticent when it comes to hiring and this could create trouble
for those who survive by self employment. But in every economic crisis, some markets
remain successful - and those who live through self employment are generally pretty
good about applying their skills where needed. Increasing self-employment is an
objective frequently seen on government agenda as small businesses are often seen
as a remedy for unemployment and pivotal for economies to grow8. This paper contributes
by specifying and testing the impact of internal factors that determine an individual’s
decision on whether to become self employed. Understanding the internal drivers
of individuals’ intentions will help to further trace the impact of external initiatives
on individual behavior. Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) has been applied on the
most well established models explaining social behavior, to test the impact of attitude,
social pressures and perceived control among Swedish men and women. Data are collected
from over 400 Swedish university students with various backgrounds. The results
provide that the strongest determinant of individuals’ intention to become self-employed
is their attitude towards being self employed. Along with the attitude, men are
mainly influenced by their perceptions of control, whereas women are affected by
their perceived pressures in their social surrounding.
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The causal relationships between Foreign Direct Investment
(FDI), Domestic Investment (DI) and Economic Growth (GDP) in North African non-oil
producing Countries: Empirical Evidence from Cointegration Analysis
Hosein Elboiashi*, Farhad Noorbakhsh, Alberto Paloni and Celine Azemar
This paper investigates the causal relationships between
foreign direct investment (FDI), domestic investment (DI) and economic growth (GDP)
in Egyptian, Moroccan and Tunisian economies. Thus, this paper applies a cointegration
time series techniques; vector error correction (VEC) model, Granger causality test
within the sample period and impulse response functions (IRFs) and variance decomposition
analysis (VDCs) over the sample period for the period from 1970 to 2006. This paper
finds that FDI affects negatively DI and growth (GDP) in the short-run and positively
in the long-run. In addition, there is uni-directional causality between FDI and
growth (GDP) in Egypt and Morocco, and bi-directional causality between FDI and
growth (GDP) in Tunisia. DI has played a great role for driving FDI into these countries
more than growth (GDP). Also, FDI is more effective than DI for promoting growth
(GDP). FDI is more effective for enhancing DI than growth (GDP). Furthermore, the
results indicate that FDI crowds-out DI in the short-run and crowds-in DI in the
long-run.
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The Management Characteristics of Korean Chaebols
vs. non-Chaebols: Differences in Leverage and its Ramifications: Myth or Reality?
Kim Hanjoon1 and Berger Paul D.2
The study investigates two prolonged controversial issues
concerning Korean Chaebols vs. non-Chaebols. The Korean Chaebol can be thought of
in a macro sense, as similar to the Japanese Keiretsu, although there are several
differences as well. One of the issues investigated is whether firms belonging to
the Chaebol in Korea have different market-value-based debt ratios (i.e. higher
“leverage”) than their counterparts not belonging to the Chaebol. If this is so,
there are several managerial implications. Results indicate that for the period
studied, firms in the Chaebol did have a higher mean leverage than their counterparts.
The other issue addressed used logistic regression analysis to determine that firms
belonging to the Chaebol appeared to possess different levels of the characteristics
in comparison with firms not belonging to the Chaebol: larger size measured by total
sales, higher sales growth rate, lower profitability and lower business risk (although
the latter difference was not statistically significant, only directional). Few
studies have focused systematically on these issues. Domestic policy-makers implementing
managerial policies in Korea or many other developing nations may take into account
the results of this study to prevent or minimize unanticipated mismanagement leading
to financial turmoil.
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Risk Management in Supply Chains
Sharma Satyendra Kumar
With increasing competition and globalization, the importance
of risk management is increasing in extended enterprises. There are evidences that
companies who excel in managing risks outperform their rivals. The ability to be
“adaptive” in Supply Chain Management (SCM) has been the subject of much discussion
as a means to deal with the increasing level of uncertainty in global supply chains.
Traditional approaches to SCM focused on the “goodness” of a plan and sought to
eliminate variability. But as more of the supply chain moved outside the direct
control of the enterprise, it was necessary to learn to live with variability. To
mange risks requires a holistic view for both of plans what is desirable and undesirable.
The objective of this paper is to view the process of risk management and analyzing
it and also to analyze the implementation issues.
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Causes, Consequences and Management of Anger in the
present Recession
Ramesh G.
With the uncertainty inherent in the business world,
there is an attempt among organisations to move into the new economy and to adjust
to the shifts in global business strategies. They have to run fast just to survive
and keeping a step ahead of the competitors. The aim to reach the top faster has
resulted over stressed employees working endlessly for the completion of jobs in
time. In many organizations, jobs have become more complex and round-the-clock working
is a common practice for professionals across all functions. When organizations
are responding more rapidly to market pressures by developing mass customization
processes, it creates and increases the pressure of employees. This work pressure
results in anger which affects their professional as well as personal lives. Ignoring
the existence and the seriousness of anger can result into serious complications
and even long-term ailments. Hence there is a desperate need to minimize such ailments,
keep damages at low and pave way for overall well being and productivity of the
employees. Anger is a deluded and an unrealistic mind. It is a momentary temptation
and madness. In a work place, anger is experienced by all. In the present complex
work environment, anger is a common human emotion felt by people more often than
they would like to admit. The causes of anger are many and varied in nature. Anger
is generally resulting from both internal things and external events. Anger is a
choice. It is a normal human behavior. However, when it gets out of control, it
leads to problems of work and personal relationship outside the job. An employee
can respond to anger in three major ways suppressing, expressing and calming. Controlling
the anger of employees at work place is not a easy task. It requires determined
commitment, honesty and tremendous inner strength of people. The anger management
strategies encompass three stages of controlling and managing anger: Management
before anger arises, at the moment of anger and after the angry event. Organizations
must choose to support the employees especially in the present recession- hit troubled
times dispel their angry feelings and motivate them for a better show of performance.
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Book-Building Mechanism in India: The Built-in Inefficiencies
Banerjee Rachna
The price of any scrip depends upon investors’ perceptions
about the company. To overcome the problem of high pricing, SEBI, in its series
of measures to streamline the capital market, introduced the book-building concept
in 1995, which was widely followed in markets in developed nations When book-building
was introduced in India, the main objective was that book-building would help ‘discover’
the right price for a public issue which in turn would eliminate unreasonable issue
pricing by greedy promoters. This article analyzes the efficiency of the book building
mechanism which is adopted by issuers for pricing of IPOs in India. There are reasons
to believe that the current book-building system is not really efficient. An analysis
of IPO issue prices and their market prices shows that there is a considerable difference
between them. Further, in most of the IPOs, the market prices are trading way below
their issue prices which indicate that book building is not an efficient mechanism
of price discovery. Besides, in the current system, investors have an illusion of
discovering the price. That is not true because the underwriting entities have already
estimated a price band for the stock in consultation with other stakeholders to
the issue. The investor’s options are severely circumscribed. The book building
method is heavily tilted against the retail investors’ right from the run-up to
determine the pricing to the allocation quota. Our observation is that the current
system of book building is neither realistic nor reflects investor sentiment towards
an IPO.
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Foreign Involvement in Local Operations
Narayan Jashwini
Based on in-depth interviews and archival data, this
paper details and analyses foreign involvement in a local-Fijian public enterprise
in terms of first, contractual relationship, second, majority ownership and third,
leadership (expatriate CEO). The first goal of this article is to give a detailed
account of what transpired in a Fijian public enterprise of Government Shipyard
and Public Slipways. The second one is to analyze the impact of foreign involvement.
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Unorganized Women Workers – HRD Perspective
Arul Kamaraj J. M.
This research deals about the women workers engaged in
match manufacturing in a particular district of Tamil Nadu, South India. Virudhunagar
is a southern district of south India. As far as the Virudhunagar district is concerned,
match making is one of the major unorganized industries. Matches are of utmost necessity
in the everyday life of human beings. This match industry adds income to the economy.
A majority of the workers in this industry are women; the production of matches
is mainly in the hands of women. The standard of living of the women workers family
depends on the earning of the women in the family. The increase in production in
such industries largely depends on their Job Satisfaction. The present study focuses
on Job Satisfaction of women workers in match industries. Already there are number
of studies undertaken to study women workers in different units. But so far no attempt
has been made to study Job Satisfaction of women workers in match industries.
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Strategies and Processes in Indian Railways – An Analysis
Selwyn Ruby1 and Thangavel N.2
Indian Railways (IR), which was declared to be heading
towards bankruptcy as per the Expert Group on Indian Railways in 2001, is today
the second largest profit making Public Sector Undertaking after ONGC. The fund
balance crossed Rs.12,000 crores in 2005-06, which had reached a low of just Rs.149
crores in 1990-2000. The total investment being planning for the eight-year time
frame (2008-2015) is tentatively in the order of Rs.350,000 crores. This confidence
is not only due to the rising trend of performance, but also due to the significant
growth in the past three years. These three years coincided with Mr. Lalu Prasad,
ex Railway Minister being at the helm of affairs of the IR, having moved into his
position on 23rd May, 2004. Railway officials called this as the ‘turnaround’ of
IR. This paper attempts a diagnosis of the ‘turnaround,’ beginning with the question
as to whether it really was a ‘turnaround’.
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