International Journal of Management and Business Research
Volume:3 Issue: 2, 2013

The purpose of this study is to extend the existing knowledge of inter-firm knowledge transfer research and provide a deeper understanding of knowledge transfer practice in an alliance context, as well as the reasons for such a practice. This study reports on relevant results derived from semi-structured interviews with 16 top managers in a Chinese international joint venture (IJV) formed by two automobile companies, one in China and the other in the USA, conducting interactive cooperation and inter-firm knowledge transfer practices. It was found that the partners in this alliance brought together their complementary capabilities in automotive technology and management expertise to build an independent organization with its own board of directors and staff members to facilitate knowledge sharing and alliance learning. This consisted of these three elements: (1) Contracts and agreements that clearly articulated each member’s objectives and responsibilities involved in alliance knowledge transfer; (2) Inter-organizational knowledge transfer involving a set of communication and interacting knowledge procedures, such as identification, contribution and development; (3) Partnership evolution at the interfaces between the participating firms. These findings raise an important question of how to ensure satisfaction for inter-partner interactions and knowledge exchanges in the Chinese automotive industry context. Based on literature review tangible facts and interview interpretations, this paper provides a deeper understanding of the organizational activities involving cooperation and the dynamic knowledge transfer routines, which is a significant extension of past static cross-sectional conceptualisations. This paper proposes an inter-firm knowledge transfer and cooperative learning process emphasizing that the issue of sharing knowledge in IJVs and bringing IJVs into profitability requires partner companies to engage in inter-partner learning to benefit from the transfer of knowledge. A key implication for the firms, therefore, is the critical ability to deal effectively and efficiently with the transfer of knowledge resources and gaining a competitive advantage consequently.

The aim of this essay is to attempt to explain the impact of religion and family structure on consumer decision-making style within a Muslim country. This paper wants to demonstrate how and why husbands/wives with Eastern culture and Islamic norms use different decision-making styles. Design/methodology/approach: Literature reviews on consumer decision-making, religion and family structure served to develop conceptual arguments. Findings- Family structure (which is male-dominate or traditional, in-transition, modern or joint decision-making and/in post modern families) and religion, which are expressed as sources leading the behaviors of individuals in all their life periods and dimensions, should be included as determinant dimensions in consumer decision making styles. Research limitations/implications- This paper doesn`t include children as an effective family member and also considers one religion (Islam), therefore, arguments presented in this paper will be limited. Originality/value: Demonstration of CDMS and family structure could be useful for both researchers and marketing practitioners. Moreover, these items determine the decision-making process of the consumer.

This research compared ratings of task performance and contextual performance from three different sources: self, peer, and supervisor. Participants were service industry employees in the service industries in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. A Sample of 146 employees and 40 supervisors from the service industries provided ratings of task performance and contextual performance. The results indicated that there were significant differences in the mean ratings across the two sources. Self-ratings and peer-ratings of task and contextual performance are not significantly different, but self-rating and supervisor-ratings of task and contextual performance are significantly different. Peer-ratings are significantly different from supervisor ratings of task performance, but not significantly different of contextual performance. Using MTMM matrix, there is a convergence for self-rating and peer-ratings of task and contextual performance. I also find strong method effects, indicating that ratings from different sources provide different information. Using raters from different levels may also help to develop consensus, eliminate bias, and perhaps in turn lead to general acceptance by ratee. Practitioner considering the use of self-rating should be aware that there is liable to be much disagreement.

This paper explores the effectiveness of financial literacy programs. It further seeks to establish the relationship between financial literacy and certain demographic characteristics. This study adopted a correlational research design as the framework to examine the relationship between variables without determining cause and effect. Data were randomly collected from 235 petty traders in Kumasi central market, Ghana. The paper found that promoting and preserving public confidence in the financial sector would take much longer time than envisioned by Bank of Ghana (BoG) if the challenge posed by inadequate financial literacy is not tackled. Age and work experience were positively related to financial literacy. Also, mother’s education was positively correlated with respondents’ financial literacy. The findings also indicate that traders with high level of education display higher financial literacy level than non-educated ones. The study recommends that policy makers should also make sure that customers easily get access to the bank’s activities related to financial education as the study has indicated that the banks’ activities are not accessible.

Logistics outsourcing has been at the top of the management agenda during recent decades. The selection of the proper service supplier is the key to success in logistic outsourcing Firms could select the right supplier by applying appropriate methods and selection criteria. In this paper a new framework is proposed on the basis of weighted additive fuzzy programming approach and linear programming in evaluation and selection of logistic outsourcing service supplier. In Proposed model linguistic value is expressed as trapezoidal fuzzy numbers and weight of each criterion is obtained based on the distance of each factor between fuzzy positive and negative ideal rating.

Effective academic leadership is a complicated issue to investigate because of its intangibility and potential consequences. In addition, it plays an essential role in the success of institutions as well as being an important factor in improving quality performance of faculty members, administrators and qualified alumni. In this study mixed methods was used to develop a model of Islamic Azad University (IAU) effective academic leadership in Iran. Qualitative approach involved content analysis through identifying, categorizing and verifying the constructs of effective academic leadership dimensions, its barriers and its challenges. Open-ended questions and in-depth interviews with IAU academic leaders in managerial positions were performed. Quantitative approach was conducted in form of a nationwide survey and analyzing the quantitative data by using descriptive statistics to determine the perceptions and preferences of faculty members regarding organizational culture at IAU branches in Iran. Then, a draft model in the multilevel pie diagram was developed by merging the results through developing procedures. After that, the model was proposed to IAU and international experts for validation. The key results of this study based on theoretical framework and analyzing the qualitative and quantitative data, showed that IAU effective academic leadership dimensions could be categorized into three scopes of setting direction, developing organization and developing people in three levels of administration (central office level, branch level and faculty level) while, the barriers to effective academic leadership were proved to be centralization and bureaucratic hierarchy structure, budget deficiency in some branches, ineffective networking in communication, and social, political and cultural intervention, insufficient high qualified and merit human resource.

The study objects for investigating the possibility of activating both audit committee and board of directors for restricting the practices of earnings management phenomenon. To achieve this objective, a questionnaire had been developed and self-administered for a selected sample consists of 123 auditors working in Jordan based on the simple random sampling method. The study first hypothesis is that audit committee can be activated in a form to restrict earnings management practices; the second hypothesis takes that boards of directors can be activated in a form that restricts earnings management practices. The third hypothesis states that activating both of audit committees and boards of directors together will restrict the practices of earnings management. One sample t-test, in addition to descriptive statistics had been used in data analysis and hypotheses testing. The finding of the present study show that audit committee, boards of directors, and both of audit committee and board of directors together can be activated to restrict earnings management practices.