Ethical Decision Making of Future Mexican Managers

A study to measure ethical decision making of Mexican business students compared to their US counterparts. Results suggest that Mexican students’ ethical decision-making frameworks differ from those documented by Keller et al. (2007) in their study of US students. Mexican students were not found to be highly religious, but subscribed more to utilitarian, deontological and hermeneutical frameworks for their ethical values. It is suggested that multinational firms doing business in Mexico might want to schedule ethics training of managers and to have a set of standards that employees can follow.

System and Neural Network Analysis of Economic and Financial Development – A case study of Dubai and rest of UAE

The study examines the factors affecting the economic and financial development by applying Zellner’s seemingly unrelated regressions (SURE) and Neural Network techniques. It applies multivariate and neural network frameworks for analysing the GDP of Dubai and rest of UAE using data for 2001–2015. The study shows that there exists positive interdependencies between Dubai and rest of UAE economies. This signifies that the core competencies across various sectors in Dubai and rest of UAE economies need to be promoted further to have overall diversified impact on UAE economy. The positive sizable impact of the finance sector in Dubai and negative sizable impact in the rest of the UAE provide many opportunities for designing diversification programs for sustained economic development of the entire UAE economy. The small sample size, non-availability of detailed sectoral data in four of the seven emirates constrained the scope of the study for generalization to other economies in the Middle East. The study findings are crucial for identifying structural reforms, to strengthen competitiveness and accelerate private sector-led job creation for nationals, potential on further opening up foreign direct investment (FDI), improving selected areas of the business environment, and easing access to finance for start-ups and SMEs in both the economies. JEL: C32, C52, D85, N15, N25

Predicting Business Distress Using Neural Network in SME-Arab Region

The paper analyzes the financial and operational measures for Small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) business distress for predicting credit worthiness by using panel data of 110 observations from 22 SME companies for a period of 5 years (2009 – 2013). Panel logistic and Neural Network (NN) models are developed as alternative techniques for predicting the business distress. The result suggests that cash cycle, net fixed assets, and leverage ratio are key factors in making credit decisions by lenders. The logistic model overall correctly classified 70 percent while NN framework outperformed the logistic model with 93 percent overall correct classification in training phase, and 83 percent in testing phase. The study opens up potential opportunities for the lending firms to adopt advanced analytical frameworks for predicting distress behavior of business firms. Keywords: SME, Business distress, Arab region, Petrochemical sub-sectors, Logit Model, Neural Network. JEL codes: G29, G32

Factors affecting Happiness of Expatriate Academicians and Expatriate Non-Academicians in Dubai

Purpose: To determine the antecedents of happiness and compare academicians and non-academicians in selected Dubai Universities. Design/methodological/approach: Qualitative research using in-depth interviews followed by cross-sectional surveys of teaching staff and non-teaching staff from different universities in Dubai.?Findings: There is no significant relationship between knowledge sharing and happiness of academics and well as non-academics. Happiness is significantly related to the other factors.Research implications and limitations: The small sample size of the academic group and the study was targeted at the university staff in Dubai only. Practical implications: The findings of this research gives useful recommendations to Universities to improve happiness among their academic as well as non-academic staff. It will also provide recommendations for developmental purposes for the University of Dubai and the UAE’s “Happiness and Positivity program.”Originality/value: No known research studies the determinants of happiness for academics and non-academics in Dubai Universities.Paper type: Research paper

Predicting Users’ Responses of Public Utility Services - Multivariate and Neural Network Analysis - A Case Study

This research addresses the problem of predicting the user’s responses through multivariate choice (MVC) and neural network (NN) frameworks for predicting quality, quantity and overall User satisfaction of public water supply organization, BWSSB (Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board) in Bangalore - India for policy initiatives. The MVC study identifies statistically significant factors that explain users’ loyalty to express satisfaction and voice to express dissatisfaction. The MVC model correctly predicts 85% of satisfied customers across satisfaction dimensions. Wald test on 1940 responses confirms that there exits cross equation correlation across quality, quantity and overall Users’ satisfaction dimensions and thus appropriateness of MVC framework over traditional logit for predicting the user responses. NN framework outperforms the econometric model with 94% correct classification of user responses. The study opens up potential research opportunities for applying the advanced analytical frameworks for predicting user responses in various public and private settings for Policy initiatives so that the service providers could improve their service delivery.

Empirical Analysis of Joint Impact of Enterprise Risk Management and Corporate Governance on Firm Value

This paper analyzes simultaneity and endogeneity of ERM and Corporate Governance. It assesses quantitative relationship between Corporate Governance, ERM and value of the firm. The research results provide quantitative justifications for the boards to make investments in ERM and Corporate Governance initiatives for improved shareholder wealth. 3SLS-IV system modelling was applied on 2004-11 data of Gulf Cooperation Council financial institutions. Our research confirms the simultaneity and endogeneity of Corporate Governance, ERM and Firm Value determinants. Firm value is jointly and positively impacted by ERM & Corporate Governance initiatives although the impact was less significant. Unexpectedly, ERM initiative was significantly and negatively impacted by determinants such as intangibility, and profitability. Firm size was the only determinant that showed significant and positive impact on firm value. Relative to UAE the corporate governance mechanism was active in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Oman firms. Further, the existence of audit committees in the GCC firm’s boards and ERM adoption significantly positively impacted the corporate governance by 3.42% and 1.7239% respectively. Keywords: Corporate Governance, Enterprise Risk Management, Firm Value, Simultaneity, Endogeneity, Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) economies. JEL codes: C15, C21, C51, D57, F30, G21, G32, G34, K22, L21, M31, M41, N25, O16