Social capital and tacit knowledge sharing in organisational projects in Malaysian ICT companies

An increasing number of organisational researchers have turned to social capital theory in an attempt to better understand the impetus for knowledge sharing at the individual and organisational level. This thesis extends that research by investigating the impact of social capital on knowledge sharing at the group-level in the organisational project context. The objective of the thesis is to investigate the importance of social capital in fostering tacit knowledge sharing among the team members of a project. The analytical focus is on the Nahapiet and Ghoshal framework of social capital but also includes elements of other scholars' work. In brief, social capital is defined as an asset that is embedded in the network of relationships possessed by an individual or social unit. It is argued that the main dimensions of social capital that are of relevance to knowledge sharing are structural, cognitive, and relational because these, among other things, foster the exchange and combination of knowledge and resources among the team members. Empirically, the study is based on the grounded theory method. Data were collected from five projects in large, medium, and small ICT companies in Malaysia. Underpinned by the constant comparative method, data were derived from 55 interviews, and observations. The data were analysed using open, axial, and selective coding. The analysis also involved counting frequency occurrence from the coding generated by grounded theory to find the important items and categories under social capital dimensions and knowledge sharing, and for further explaining sub-groups within the data. The analysis shows that the most important dimension for tacit knowledge sharing is structural capital. Most importantly, the findings also suggest that structural capital is a prerequisite of cognitive capital and relational capital at the group-level in an organisational project. It also found that in a project context, relational capital is hard to realise because it requires time and frequent interactions among the team members. The findings from quantitative analysis show that frequent meetings and interactions, relationship, positions, shared visions, shared objectives, and collaboration are among the factors that foster the sharing of tacit knowledge among the team members. In conclusion, the present study adds to the existing literature on social capital in two main ways. Firstly, it distinguishes the dimensions of social capital and identifies that structural capital is the most important dimension in social capital and it is a prerequisite of cognitive and relational capital in a project context. Secondly, it identifies the causal sequence in the dimension of social capital suggesting avenues for further theoretical and empirical work in this emerging area of inquiry.

Investement appraisal in a deregulated electricity market

This thesis analyses the impact of deregulation on the theory and practice of investment decision making in the electricity sector and appraises the likely effects on its long term future inefficiency. Part I describes the market and its shortcomings in promoting an optimal generation margin and plant mix and in reducing prices through competition. A full size operational model is developed to simulate hour by hour operation of the market and analyse its features. A relationship is established between the SMP and plant mix and between the LOLP and plant margin and it is shown bow a theoretical optimum can be derived when the combined LOLP payments and the capital costs of additional generation reach a minimum. A comparison of prices against an idealised bulk supply tariff is used to show how energy prices have risen some 12% in excess of what might have occurred under the CEGB regime. This part concludes with proposals to improve the marlmodel proposed. An empirical relationship is developed between profit and capacity and this is used to develop the theory to illustrate how companies interact. 1bree different economic models are developed to represent different market conditions and these are tested against the actual investment decisions since deregulation to demonstrate their appropriateness. It is shown that the current market mechanisms could lead to suboptimal investment. Part 3 discusses the essential role of transmission in enabling competition and reviews worldwide practices illustrating little consensus on charging for its use. Basic costing principles are described and a new model is developed to demonstrate bow a generator may strike supply agreements either side of an interconnector to influence prices so as to maximise his income. The optimal pricing strategy for the transmitter is also derived and consumer response is simulated .The concept of transmission uplift is developed and the operational model is extended to include transmission constraints and then used to establish monthly incremental transmission constraint cost functions. It is shown how these can be used to appraise investment options and optimally plan outages. Part 4 concludes by discussing the regulatory framework and its limitations in improving efficiency or encouraging the optimum levels of investment. The principal findings of the thesis are reviewed and potential market improvement are described. This part concludes with a discussion of alternative market structures and likely future developments.

A new fuzzy additive model for determining the common set of weights in Data Envelopment Analysis

The main advantage of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is that it does not require any priori weights for inputs and outputs and allows individual DMUs to evaluate their efficiencies with the input and output weights that are only most favorable weights for calculating their efficiency. It can be argued that if DMUs are experiencing similar circumstances, then the pricing of inputs and outputs should apply uniformly across all DMUs. That is using of different weights for DMUs makes their efficiencies unable to be compared and not possible to rank them on the same basis. This is a significant drawback of DEA; however literature observed many solutions including the use of common set of weights (CSW). Besides, the conventional DEA methods require accurate measurement of both the inputs and outputs; however, crisp input and output data may not relevant be available in real world applications. This paper develops a new model for the calculation of CSW in fuzzy environments using fuzzy DEA. Further, a numerical example is used to show the validity and efficacy of the proposed model and to compare the results with previous models available in the literature.

Wealth effects of mergers and acquisitions for US firms: using alternative pricing models

This empirical study employs a different methodology to examine the change in wealth associated with mergers and acquisitions (M&As) for US firms. Specifically, we employ the standard CAPM, the Fama-French three-factor model and the Carhart four-factor models within the OLS and GJR-GARCH estimation methods to test the behaviour of the cumulative abnormal returns (CARs). Whilst the standard CAPM captures the variability of stock returns with the overall market, the Fama-French factors capture the risk factors that are important to investors. Additionally, augmenting the Fama-French three-factor model with the Carhart momentum factor to generate the four-factor captures additional pricing elements that may affect stock returns. Traditionally, estimates of abnormal returns (ARs) in M&As situations rely on the standard OLS estimation method. However, the standard OLS will provide inefficient estimates of the ARs if the data contain ARCH and asymmetric effects. To minimise this problem of estimation efficiency we re-estimated the ARs using GJR-GARCH estimation method. We find that there is variation in the results both as regards the choice models and estimation methods. Besides these variations in the estimated models and the choice of estimation methods, we also tested whether the ARs are affected by the degree of liquidity of the stocks and the size of the firm. We document significant positive post-announcement cumulative ARs (CARs) for target firm shareholders under both the OLS and GJR-GARCH methods across all three methodologies. However, post-event CARs for acquiring firm shareholders were insignificant for both sets of estimation methods under the three methodologies. The GJR-GARCH method seems to generate larger CARs than those of the OLS method. Using both market capitalization and trading volume as a measure of liquidity and the size of the firm, we observed strong return continuations in the medium firms relative to small and large firms for target shareholders. We consistently observed market efficiency in small and large firm. This implies that target firms for small and large firms overreact to new information resulting in a more efficient market. For acquirer firms, our measure of liquidity captures strong return continuations for small firms under the OLS estimates for both CAPM and Fama-French three-factor models, whilst under the GJR-GARCH estimates only for Carhart model. Post-announcement bootstrapping simulated CARs confirmed our earlier results.

Whither human capital? The woeful tale of transition to tertiary education in India

In this article, we examine the issue of high dropout rates in India which has adverse implications for human capital formation and hence for the country's long-term growth potential. Using the 2004–2005 National Sample Survey (NSS) employment–unemployment data, we estimate transition probabilities of moving from a number of different educational levels to higher educational levels using a sequential logit model. Our results suggest that the overall probability of reaching tertiary education is very low. Further, even by the woeful overall standards, women are significantly worse off, particularly in rural areas.

Forms of capital, mixed embeddedness and Somali enterprise

What form is small business activity taking among new migrants in the UK? This question is addressed by examining the case of Somalis in the English city of Leicester.We apply a novel synthesis of the Nee and Sanders' (2001) `forms of capital' model with the `mixed embeddedness' approach (Rath, 2000) to enterprises established by newly arrived immigrant communities, combining agency and structure perspectives. Data are drawn from business-owners (and workers) themselves, rather than community representatives. Face-to-face in-depth interviews were held with 25 business owners and 25 employees/`helpers', supplemented by 3 focus group encounters with different segments of the Somali business population.The findings indicate that a reliance solely on social capital explanations is not sufficient. An adequate understanding of business dynamics requires an appreciation of how Somalis mobilize different forms of capital within a given political, social and economic context.

The impact of privatisation and regulation on the water and sewerage industry in England and Wales:a translog cost function approach

After the ten Regional Water Authorities (RWAs) of England and Wales were privatized in November 1989, the successor Water and Sewerage Companies (WASCs) faced a new regulatory regime that was designed to promote economic efficiency while simultaneously improving drinking water and environmental quality. As legally mandated quality improvements necessitated a costly capital investment programme, the industry's economic regulator, the Office of Water Services (Ofwat), implemented a retail price index (RPI)+K pricing system, which was designed to compensate the WASCs for their capital investment programme while also encouraging gains in economic efficiency. In order to analyse jointly the impact of privatization, as well as the impact of increasingly stringent economic and environmental regulation on the WASCs' economic performance, this paper estimates a translog multiple output cost function model for the period 1985–1999. Given the significant costs associated with water quality improvements, the model is augmented to include the impact of drinking water quality and environmental quality on total costs. The model is then employed to determine the extent of scale and scope economies in the water and sewerage industry, as well as the impact of privatization and economic regulation on economic efficiency.

Entrepreneurship, social capital, and institutions:social and commercial entrepreneurship across nations

We model and test the relationship between social and commercial entrepreneurship drawing on social capital theory. We propose that the country prevalence rate of social entrepreneurship is an indicator of constructible nation-level social capital and enhances the likelihood of individual commercial entry. We further posit that both social and commercial entrepreneurial entry is facilitated by certain formal institutions, namely strong property rights and (low) government activism, albeit the latter impacts each of these types of entrepreneurship differently. We apply bivariate discrete choice multilevel modeling to population-representative samples in 47 countries and find support for these hypotheses. © 2013 Baylor University.

Classical and technological convergence:beyond the Solow-Swann model

Recent investigations into cross-country convergence follow Mankiw, Romer, and Weil (1992) in using a log-linear approximation to the Swan-Solow growth model to specify regressions. These studies tend to assume a common and exogenous technology. In contrast, the technology catch-up literature endogenises the growth of technology. The use of capital stock data renders the approximations and over-identification of the Mankiw model unnecessary and enables us, using dynamic panel estimation, to estimate the separate contributions of diminishing returns and technology transfer to the rate of conditional convergence. We find that both effects are important.

An Information Model for Pension Fund Management

In this paper the issues of Ukrainian new three-level pension system are discussed. First, the paper presents the mathematical model that allows calculating the optimal size of contributions to the non-state pension fund. Next, the non-state pension fund chooses an Asset Management Company. To do so it is proposed to use an approach based on Kohonen networks to classify asset management companies that work in Ukrainian market. Further, when the asset management company is chosen, it receives the pension contributions of the participants of the non-pension fund. Asset Management Company has to invest these contributions profitably. This paper proposes an approach for choosing the most profitable investment project using decision trees. The new pension system has been lawfully ratified only four years ago and is still developing, that is why this paper is very important.

Option Pricing by Branching Process

2000 Mathematics Subject Classification: 60J80, 62P05.

Oligopoly Model of a Debit Card Network

JEL Classification: G21, L13.

Sharing of value in business relationships:a theoretical model

This paper explores the sharing of value in business transactions. Although there is an increased usage of the terminology of value in marketing (such concepts as value based selling and pricing), as well as in purchasing (value-based purchasing), the definition of the term is still vague. In order to better understand the definition of value, the author’s argue that it is important to understand the sharing of value, in general and the element of power for the sharing of value in particular. The aim of this paper is to add to this debate and this requires us to critique the current models. The key process that the analysis of power will help to explain is the division of the available revenue stream flowing up the chain from the buyer's customers. If the buyer and supplier do not cooperate, then power will be key in the sharing of that money flow. If buyers and suppliers fully cooperate, they may be able to reduce their costs and/or increase the quality of the sales offering the buyer makes to their customer.

Towards a multilevel model of the high performance work systems–workplace safety relationship

Human Resource (HR) systems and practices generally referred to as High Performance Work Practices (HPWPs), (Huselid, 1995) (sometimes termed High Commitment Work Practices or High Involvement Work Practices) have attracted much research attention in past decades. Although many conceptualizations of the construct have been proposed, there is general agreement that HPWPs encompass a bundle or set of HR practices including sophisticated staffing, intensive training and development, incentive-based compensation, performance management, initiatives aimed at increasing employee participation and involvement, job safety and security, and work design (e.g. Pfeffer, 1998). It is argued that these practices either directly and indirectly influence the extent to which employees’ knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics are utilized in the organization. Research spanning nearly 20 years has provided considerable empirical evidence for relationships between HPWPs and various measures of performance including increased productivity, improved customer service, and reduced turnover (e.g. Guthrie, 2001; Belt & Giles, 2009). With the exception of a few papers (e.g., Laursen &Foss, 2003), this literature appears to lack focus on how HPWPs influence or foster more innovative-related attitudes and behaviours, extra role behaviors, and performance. This situation exists despite the vast evidence demonstrating the importance of innovation, proactivity, and creativity in its various forms to individual, group, and organizational performance outcomes. Several pertinent issues arise when considering HPWPs and their relationship to innovation and performance outcomes. At a broad level is the issue of which HPWPs are related to which innovation-related variables. Another issue not well identified in research relates to employees’ perceptions of HPWPs: does an employee actually perceive the HPWP –outcomes relationship? No matter how well HPWPs are designed, if they are not perceived and experienced by employees to be effective or worthwhile then their likely success in achieving positive outcomes is limited. At another level, research needs to consider the mechanisms through which HPWPs influence –innovation and performance. The research question here relates to what possible mediating variables are important to the success or failure of HPWPs in impacting innovative behaviours and attitudes and what are the potential process considerations? These questions call for theory refinement and the development of more comprehensive models of the HPWP-innovation/performance relationship that include intermediate linkages and boundary conditions (Ferris, Hochwarter, Buckley, Harrell-Cook, & Frink, 1999). While there are many calls for this type of research to be made a high priority, to date, researchers have made few inroads into answering these questions. This symposium brings together researchers from Australia, Europe, Asia and Africa to examine these various questions relating to the HPWP-innovation-performance relationship. Each paper discusses a HPWP and potential variables that can facilitate or hinder the effects of these practices on innovation- and performance- related outcomes. The first paper by Johnston and Becker explores the HPWPs in relation to work design in a disaster response organization that shifts quickly from business as usual to rapid response. The researchers examine how the enactment of the organizational response is devolved to groups and individuals. Moreover, they assess motivational characteristics that exist in dual work designs (normal operations and periods of disaster activation) and the implications for innovation. The second paper by Jørgensen reports the results of an investigation into training and development practices and innovative work behaviors (IWBs) in Danish organizations. Research on how to design and implement training and development initiatives to support IWBs and innovation in general is surprisingly scant and often vague. This research investigates the mechanisms by which training and development initiatives influence employee behaviors associated with innovation, and provides insights into how training and development can be used effectively by firms to attract and retain valuable human capital in knowledge-intensive firms. The next two papers in this symposium consider the role of employee perceptions of HPWPs and their relationships to innovation-related variables and performance. First, Bish and Newton examine perceptions of the characteristics and awareness of occupational health and safety (OHS) practices and their relationship to individual level adaptability and proactivity in an Australian public service organization. The authors explore the role of perceived supportive and visionary leadership and its impact on the OHS policy-adaptability/proactivity relationship. The study highlights the positive main effects of awareness and characteristics of OHS polices, and supportive and visionary leadership on individual adaptability and proactivity. It also highlights the important moderating effects of leadership in the OHS policy-adaptability/proactivity relationship. Okhawere and Davis present a conceptual model developed for a Nigerian study in the safety-critical oil and gas industry that takes a multi-level approach to the HPWP-safety relationship. Adopting a social exchange perspective, they propose that at the organizational level, organizational climate for safety mediates the relationship between enacted HPWS’s and organizational safety performance (prescribed and extra role performance). At the individual level, the experience of HPWP impacts on individual behaviors and attitudes in organizations, here operationalized as safety knowledge, skills and motivation, and these influence individual safety performance. However these latter relationships are moderated by organizational climate for safety. A positive organizational climate for safety strengthens the relationship between individual safety behaviors and attitudes and individual-level safety performance, therefore suggesting a cross-level boundary condition. The model includes both safety performance (behaviors) and organizational level safety outcomes, operationalized as accidents, injuries, and fatalities. The final paper of this symposium by Zhang and Liu explores leader development and relationship between transformational leadership and employee creativity and innovation in China. The authors further develop a model that incorporates the effects of extrinsic motivation (pay for performance: PFP) and employee collectivism in the leader-employee creativity relationship. The papers’ contributions include the incorporation of a PFP effect on creativity as moderator, rather than predictor in most studies; the exploration of the PFP effect from both fairness and strength perspectives; the advancement of knowledge on the impact of collectivism on the leader- employee creativity link. Last, this is the first study to examine three-way interactional effects among leader-member exchange (LMX), PFP and collectivism, thus, enriches our understanding of promoting employee creativity. In conclusion, this symposium draws upon the findings of four empirical studies and one conceptual study to provide an insight into understanding how different variables facilitate or potentially hinder the influence various HPWPs on innovation and performance. We will propose a number of questions for further consideration and discussion. The symposium will address the Conference Theme of ‘Capitalism in Question' by highlighting how HPWPs can promote financial health and performance of organizations while maintaining a high level of regard and respect for employees and organizational stakeholders. Furthermore, the focus on different countries and cultures explores the overall research question in relation to different modes or stages of development of capitalism.

The calculation of dynamic ecological footprint on the basis of the dynamic input-output model

The Leontief input-output model is widely used to determine the ecological footprint of consumption in a region or a country. It is able to capture spillover environmental effects along the supply change, thus its popularity is increasing in ecology related economic research. These studies are static and the dynamic investigations are neglected. The dynamic Leontief model makes it possible to involve the capital and inventory investment in the footprint calculation that projects future growth of GDP and environmental impacts. We show a new calculation method to determine the effect of capital accumulation on ecological footprint. Keywords: Dynamic Leontief model, Dynamic ecological footprint, Environmental management, Allocation method