Vol. 5(4) April 2012
Research Articles:
The Impact, Risks and Benefits of Interest-Only Mortgages
on the American Housing Market
Guarino Arthur S.
Homeownership has been a dream for many Americans for decades. But due the sharply
rising home prices in the early part of the 2000’s, many Americans were searching
for ways to purchase a new home while banks and finance firms were introducing mortgages
that could make their dream a reality. One such type of mortgage was the interest-only
mortgage that presented home buyers with a creative way to finance their purchase
and possibly get a bigger home than they anticipated. However, interest-only mortgages
have risks and benefits that buyers needed to evaluate in order to decide whether
it was right for them. Interest-only mortgages have also had a long term impact
on the home foreclosure crisis that is still having huge ramifications on the American
macro-economy and probably will for years to come.
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Challenges of Managing an Organizational Change
Singh Satyendra Kumar
Organizational change has become necessity for survival, growth and prosperity of
the organizations in the present competitive and changing business environment.
Business environment comprises of various elements such as customers, suppliers,
competitors, governments, shareholders, creditors and communities. Since these elements
are dynamic, organizations must change to keep pace with their environment. Organizational
change is the movement of an organization away from its present state towards a
desired future state to increase its efficiency and effectiveness. Managing the
organizational change is one of the most challenging tasks because of the resistance
by the people of the organization to the change effort. .
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Organization’s Top Management and Other System Users’ Perceptions towards Data
Quality Performance and Expectations
Hongjiang Xu
Across all levels in an organization, from CEO, executives, middle management to
day-to-day operators, everyone relies on high quality information for decision making.
This paper proposes frameworks for testing the alignment of organization’s top management
and other system users’ perceptions towards and data quality for ensuring the effectiveness
and efficiency of data quality management. The frameworks not only have contributions
to the theory but also have implications for organization’s top management and practitioners
in the fields.
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A Study on Community Perception about the Impact of Cultural and Heritage Tourism
in Rajasthan
Rathore Nisha
The world of business calls for a high caliber of style, appreciation for diversity
and an understanding of cultures. Leaders, Managers, Employees and Super-visors
in business operate within environments characterized by multinational corporations,
inter-national partnerships, workforce diversity, different organization culture
and all the other hallmarks and hurdles of globalization. Increasingly, successful
leaders, managers, employees and supervisors will be those who are knowledgeable
about the values of collaboration; who know how to build partnerships and joint
ventures, have the ability to design and lead effective teams; the ability to work
in teams and the skills to lead and supervise the workers of the 21st century in
a team setting environment.
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Case Study:
The Influencing of Contingency Factors on the Performance of
R and D in the Research Units at the Iraqi Universities:
A Conceptual Framework
Al-Temimi Suhail A.*, Amran Azlan and Yahya Sofri
Based on the framework of the study, this research aims to show the influence of
the contingency factors on the performance of R and D activities in research units.
The research uses environmental uncertainty as a moderate variable to reflect the
effect of 5 contingency variables (strategy, organizational structure, size, financial
support and regulations) on the performance of R and D. To determine the performance
of R and D the study used Sveiby’s theory Intangible Assets Monitor (IAM) through
the four dimensions (growth, renewal, stability/risk and efficiency). That is, it
has been uniquely used by other studies; especially, in developing countries. The
study is based on survey mail technique; a number of mails were sent to 276 research
units in the Iraqi universities to collect the required data.
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High Impact Scales in Marketing: A Mathematical Equation for Evaluating the
Impact of Popular Scales
Sehgal Pooja* and Mahim Sagar
Decision making in any industry is heavily dependent on the availability of right
measures and the appropriate tools arriving at the right measures. Scale development,
therefore, is a very critical part of understanding and building knowledge in any
subject. Marketing instruments are often used in research without sufficient evidence
of their reliability. Often new scales are developed for each single instance of
study or application. Conflict and disagreement on the basic definition of the construct,
further leads to little agreement about which pre-existing scale to use, or does
a situation warrant the creation of a new scale altogether. Study of popular marketing
scales, their limitations and potential research directions to overcome those is
the object of this study.
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A Study of Export and Import problems faced by the Mumbai based Importers and
Exporters
Shinde Govind P.
Foreign trade has been considered as the most important factor of economic relations
between two countries and on which the development of these countries depends and
it plays a significant role in the development of the country. The study was conducted
basically on the problems of exporters and importers of the Mumbai region. The problems
are categoriesed under Domestic Problems, Problems related to Government services,
Financial Problems and Management problems. Further these problems are categorized
according to the commodities and the data have been collected on exporter’s problems
from 239 sample units and importers problems from 220 sample units, which are divided
in 10 categories named as Automobiles and Accessories, Chemicals, Fertilizers, Dyes
and Related Products, Building and Material, Computer and Accessories, Cosmetics
and Beauty Products, Gems and Jewellery and Precious Stones, Consumer Durables and
Home Appliances, Beverages, Agricultural and Marine, Apparel.
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Indian Consumer’s Perception of Spanish Fashion Brand Zara
Hemantha Y.
In the Indian context, Luxury Retailing is the buzzword used in the retail chains
across various metros in the nation. There is a gradual changes happening in the
current retail business which is reflected in the minds of consumers. The perception
towards the retail buying is changing over time as it is giving way for the foreign
brand entering the Indian market. This research addresses about the Spanish brand
Zara which is a successful company which has pioneered in Just In Time philosophy
and a good example for many Apparel Retailer’s across the globe. Keeping the secondary
research and industry reports about the Zara’s model it is an attempt to understand
the various factors of consumer’s buying behavior of this brand besides studying
the existing model of Zara.
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Online Banner Advertising:
A study of Consumer Responses to Various Factors
Haq Zia-ul
This study explores the role of the celebrity endorsement in consumer attitude formation
and behavioral intention on the Web. The purpose of this paper is to identify how
the various factors and interactivity influence attitude toward the target ads and
click-through intention. The findings indicate that the celebrity factor of the
online advertising possibly plays not only the role of leverage as causal effect
when consumers form their attitude toward the banner advertising, but also that
theses factors indirectly influence click-through intention.
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Short Communication:
“Manager” or “Damager”? - Strategic and Tactical Initiatives
for the Young Marketing Executive
Framarz Byramjee
In any organization/firm, marketing people {balancing supply and demand} feature
as primary liaisons for working, planning, information-sharing and feedbacks between
the operational functions.
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