The employee satisfaction -performance link: A unit -level analysis

In this dissertation, I present an integrated model of organizational performance. Most prior research has relied extensively on testing individual linkages, often with cross-sectional data. In this dissertation, longitudinal unit-level data from 559 restaurants, collected over a one-year period, were used to test the proposed model. The model was hypothesized to begin with employee satisfaction as a key antecedent that would ultimately lead to improved financial performance. Several variables including turnover, efficiency, and guest satisfaction are proposed as mediators of the satisfaction-performance relationship. The current findings replicate and extend past research using individual-level data. The overall model adequately explained the data, but was significantly improved with an additional link from employee satisfaction to efficiency, which was not originally hypothesized. Management turnover was a strong predictor of hourly level team turnover, and both were significant predictors of efficiency. Full findings for each hypothesis are presented and practical organizational implications are given. Limitations and recommendations for future research are provided. ^

Evidence of the heterogeneous market hypothesis using wavelet multi -resolution analysis

In finance literature many economic theories and models have been proposed to explain and estimate the relationship between risk and return. Assuming risk averseness and rational behavior on part of the investor, the models are developed which are supposed to help in forming efficient portfolios that either maximize (minimize) the expected rate of return (risk) for a given level of risk (rates of return). One of the most used models to form these efficient portfolios is the Sharpe's Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM). In the development of this model it is assumed that the investors have homogeneous expectations about the future probability distribution of the rates of return. That is, every investor assumes the same values of the parameters of the probability distribution. Likewise financial volatility homogeneity is commonly assumed, where volatility is taken as investment risk which is usually measured by the variance of the rates of return. Typically the square root of the variance is used to define financial volatility, furthermore it is also often assumed that the data generating process is made of independent and identically distributed random variables. This again implies that financial volatility is measured from homogeneous time series with stationary parameters. In this dissertation, we investigate the assumptions of homogeneity of market agents and provide evidence for the case of heterogeneity in market participants' information, objectives, and expectations about the parameters of the probability distribution of prices as given by the differences in the empirical distributions corresponding to different time scales, which in this study are associated with different classes of investors, as well as demonstrate that statistical properties of the underlying data generating processes including the volatility in the rates of return are quite heterogeneous. In other words, we provide empirical evidence against the traditional views about homogeneity using non-parametric wavelet analysis on trading data, The results show heterogeneity of financial volatility at different time scales, and time-scale is one of the most important aspects in which trading behavior differs. In fact we conclude that heterogeneity as posited by the Heterogeneous Markets Hypothesis is the norm and not the exception.

When Poverty Becomes Profitable: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Microfinancial Development in Haiti

For the past thirty years, policymakers have lauded microfinance for its promises to reduce poverty and empower women in developing nations. First conceived by the Bangladeshi economist Muhammed Yunus and the bank he founded, microfinance has been hailed as a visionary project that promises to advance the economic interests of the poor by engaging them directly. Conventional studies by political scientists explore the place of microfinance in the global development architecture of international financial institutions, governments, and NGOs. Economic studies of its effectiveness are contributing to a crisis of legitimacy since they reveal that thousands of clients in developing nations continue to default on their loans due to predatory lending practices. Drawing on discourse analysis methodology, this article seeks to explain how microfinance, an industry embedded in the financialization of development, is now concerned with high financial returns for investments, not the social goals promised by its original raison d'être. Treating microfinance as a discourse, I argue that there is a fundamental tension between the short-term social goals promised by microfinance and the long-term financial objectives of sustainability of investors.

A Comparative Analysis of Corporate Finance in the United States and Japan From 1880 to 1930

This study explained the diversity of corporate financial practices in two nations. Existing studies have emphasized the reliance on equity finance in U.S. firms and bank loans in Japanese firms. In fact, patterns of corporate finance were much more complex. Financial institutions, which were created by national economic policy and regulation, affected corporate financial practices, but corporate financial practices often differed from what policymakers expected. Differences in corporate financial practices between nations also reflected differences in the mixture of industries in each nation. Many factors such as the amount of fixed capital, the process of production, the level of risk, the degree of innovation, and the importance of the industry in the national economy affected corporate financial practices. In addition, corporate financial practices within each nation differed from firm to firm due to managers’ considerations about stock ownership, which would affect their control power; corporate finance was closely related to control over management through ownership. To explain these complexities of corporate financial practices, the study linked corporate finance with the development of financial institutions in the United States and in Japan. While financial institutions affected corporate financial practices, the response of the firms to financial institutions and opportunities were diverse. The study also attempted to grasp variations in corporate financial practices by dealing with companies in three sectors: railroads, public utilities, and manufacturing. Finally, the study examined the structure of firm ownership. Contradictory to the widely held belief that U.S. firms distributed securities more widely to the public than did Japanese firms, many large American firms remained closely held, while some Japanese counterparts built publicly-held corporations.

Three Essays on the Interrelationships Among Financial Restatements, Corporate Governance, Market Microstructure and the Firm's Rate of Return

The increase in the number of financial restatements in recent years has resulted in a significant decrease in the amount of market capitalization for restated companies. Prior literature does not differentiate between single and multiple restatements announcements. This research investigates the inter-relationships among multiple financial restatements, corporate governance, market microstructure and the firm's rate of return in the form of three essays by differentiating between single and multiple restatement announcement companies. First essay examines the stock performance of companies announcing the financial restatement multiple times. The postulation is that prior research overestimates the abnormal return by not separating single restatement companies from multiple restatement companies. This study investigates how market penalizes the companies that announce restatement more than once. Differentiating the restatement announcement data based on number of restatement announcements, the results support for non persistence hypothesis that the market has no memory and negative abnormal returns obtained after each of the restatement announcements are completely random. Second essay examines the multiple restatement announcements and its perceived resultant information asymmetry around the announcement day. This study examines the pattern of information asymmetry for these announcements in terms of whether the bid-ask spread widens around the announcement day. The empirical analysis supports the hypotheses that the spread does widen not only around the first restatement announcement day but around every subsequent announcement days as well. The third essay empirically examines the financial and corporate governance characteristics of single and multiple restatement announcements companies. The analysis shows that corporate governance variables influence the occurrence of multiple restatement announcements and can distinguish multiple restatements announcement companies from single restatement announcement companies.

Prevalence of chronic pain in the UK : a systematic review and meta-analysis of population studies

Acknowledgements The authors are grateful for the input of Professor Blair Smith (University of Dundee): his counsel early in the project, and his advice and comments regarding the search strategy; and Professor Danielle van der Windt (Keele University) for helpful advice and comments. Funding The British Pain Society provided financial assistance to AF with the costs of this project. PC was partly supported by an Arthritis Research UK Primary Care Centre grant (reference: 18139).

Mellow Parenting : systematic review and meta-analysis of an intervention to promote sensitive parenting

Acknowledgements For part of the preparation period for this article, AM was supported by an NHS Research Scotland Career Research Fellowship. AM, LT, and PW have been involved in previous research into Mellow Parenting as well as other parenting programmes and have collaborated with the Mellow Parenting charity. PW has had travel and subsistence expenses reimbursed for attendance at a Mellow Parenting conference; otherwise the authors have not received financial recompense for any of these activities. We thank the Mellow Parenting charity for their advice about conducting this review.

The Impact of Carbonate Texture on the Quantification of Total Porosity by Image Analysis

Date of Acceptance: 31/08/2015 The authors would like to thank Total E&P and BG Group for project funding and support and the Industry Technology Facilitator for enabling the collaborative development (grant number 3322PSD). The authors would also like to thank Aberdeen Formation Evaluation Society and the College of Physical Sciences at the University of Aberdeen for partial financial support. Dougal Jerram, Raymi Castilla, Claude Gout, Frances Abbots and an anonymous reviewer are thanked for their constructive comments and suggestions to improve the standard of this manuscript. The authors would also like to express their gratitude toJohn Still and Colin Taylor for technical assistance in the laboratory and Nick Timms (Curtin University) and Angela Halfpenny (CSIRO) for their assistance with the full thin section scanning equipment.

Mellow Parenting : systematic review and meta-analysis of an intervention to promote sensitive parenting

Acknowledgements For part of the preparation period for this article, AM was supported by an NHS Research Scotland Career Research Fellowship. AM, LT, and PW have been involved in previous research into Mellow Parenting as well as other parenting programmes and have collaborated with the Mellow Parenting charity. PW has had travel and subsistence expenses reimbursed for attendance at a Mellow Parenting conference; otherwise the authors have not received financial recompense for any of these activities. We thank the Mellow Parenting charity for their advice about conducting this review.

The Impact of Carbonate Texture on the Quantification of Total Porosity by Image Analysis

Date of Acceptance: 31/08/2015 The authors would like to thank Total E&P and BG Group for project funding and support and the Industry Technology Facilitator for enabling the collaborative development (grant number 3322PSD). The authors would also like to thank Aberdeen Formation Evaluation Society and the College of Physical Sciences at the University of Aberdeen for partial financial support. Dougal Jerram, Raymi Castilla, Claude Gout, Frances Abbots and an anonymous reviewer are thanked for their constructive comments and suggestions to improve the standard of this manuscript. The authors would also like to express their gratitude toJohn Still and Colin Taylor for technical assistance in the laboratory and Nick Timms (Curtin University) and Angela Halfpenny (CSIRO) for their assistance with the full thin section scanning equipment.

Analysis of multiple cracking in metal/ceramic composites with lamellar microstructure

Financial support of this research by The Royal Society, UK (IE121116), The Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, UK (Trust Reference 31747) and DFG (PI 785/3-2, PI 785/1-2), Germany, is gratefully acknowledged. We thank Dr. S. Roy (KIT) for providing the microstructure images and Professor I. Tsukrov (University of New Hampshire, USA) for helpful discussions.

Uncertain natural frequency analysis of composite plates including effect of noise – A polynomial neural network approach

Acknowledgement SN and SS gratefully acknowledge the financial support from Lloyd’s Register Foundation Centre during this work.

Discrete choice experiment response rates : A meta-analysis

Funding: Verity Watson acknowledges financial support from the Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Government Health and Social Care Directorates. The funders had no role in the study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the article for publication. Acknowledgements: We thank Marjon van der Pol, Mandy Ryan and Rainer Schulz for helpful comments and suggestions throughout the project. We also thank Karen Gerard and Tim Bolt for comparing the results of our systematic review with a similar systematic review they are conducting at the same time. We would like to thank Douglas Olley for excellent research assistance.

DC fault performance and cost analysis of DC grids for connecting multiple offshore wind farms

ACKNOWLEDGMENT We are thankful to RTE for financial support of this project.

Bayesian Emulation for Sequential Modeling, Inference and Decision Analysis

The advances in three related areas of state-space modeling, sequential Bayesian learning, and decision analysis are addressed, with the statistical challenges of scalability and associated dynamic sparsity. The key theme that ties the three areas is Bayesian model emulation: solving challenging analysis/computational problems using creative model emulators. This idea defines theoretical and applied advances in non-linear, non-Gaussian state-space modeling, dynamic sparsity, decision analysis and statistical computation, across linked contexts of multivariate time series and dynamic networks studies. Examples and applications in financial time series and portfolio analysis, macroeconomics and internet studies from computational advertising demonstrate the utility of the core methodological innovations.

Chapter 1 summarizes the three areas/problems and the key idea of emulating in those areas. Chapter 2 discusses the sequential analysis of latent threshold models with use of emulating models that allows for analytical filtering to enhance the efficiency of posterior sampling. Chapter 3 examines the emulator model in decision analysis, or the synthetic model, that is equivalent to the loss function in the original minimization problem, and shows its performance in the context of sequential portfolio optimization. Chapter 4 describes the method for modeling the steaming data of counts observed on a large network that relies on emulating the whole, dependent network model by independent, conjugate sub-models customized to each set of flow. Chapter 5 reviews those advances and makes the concluding remarks.