International Journal of Social Sciences and Management

1-4

Authors: Muhammad Waqas, Zahoor Rehman

The concept of separate legal entity is 500 years old and it means that the corporation is separate in all spheres of its activities. It is separate from its owner, from its employees and due to this separation between the corporation and an individual the shareholders’ liability is also limited. A corporation is established through four different ways i.e. continuity, self-governance, identification persona, and specification of assets. The personhood of a corporation is evolved with the passage of time through different court judgments in which Salomon case plays the role of corner stone. The corporation can own, sell and buy property in its name. The corporation can sue and be sued in the court of law as a legal person.

8-16

Authors: Aly M Hewaidy

With the lack of empirical research in voluntary disclosure in the Middle East area, the present study aims at investigating and evaluating corporate social and environmental disclosure (CSED) practices in Kuwait. To achieve this objective, a checklist of 25 social and environmental disclosure items was developed. These items were then classified into four categories: human resources, environmental activities, community involvement and product/service related information. Using content analysis, the 25 disclosure items were applied to the annual reports of a sample of 43 companies listed in Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE). It was found that the overall disclosure level for the sample companies is 21%. The disclosure level varies by disclosure category. Product/service related information achieved the highest disclosure level (43%), while human resources disclosure comes second (25%). Little attention was given to disclosing information related to community and environment, with a disclosure level of 16% and 8% respectively. These results suggested that there is a significant scope for additional social and environmental disclosure in the annual reports of Kuwaiti companies. Issuing regulations and guidelines on CSED is needed to motivate Kuwaiti companies to improve their social and environmental disclosures.

22-30

Authors: Shri Kant Singh, Gyan Chandra Kashyap

Today India is the second largest producer of tobacco in the world and the third largest consumer. The World Health Organization predicts that tobacco deaths in India may exceed 1.5 million annually by 2020. The purpose of the present study to evaluate the pattern and correlates of tobacco use and quitting tobacco among smokers as well as users of smokeless tobacco. This study is based on the data from the Global Adult Tobacco Survey, India (2009-10). The study used the cox's proportional hazards regression model and Kaplan-meier survival analysis for computing the probability of quitting tobacco. Three level multilevel logistic regression model have been used to carry out the pattern and correlates of tobacco use. The highest percentage of young people currently using tobacco product in the North-eastern states of India. The hazard of quitting tobacco among female is 1.35 times (p<.01) higher as compared to male. The chances of quitting smokeless tobacco are less in the North-East (HR =0.484) as compared to the people from North. The odds of smoking was three times higher in 45-64 age group (OR=3.311***) compared to the age group of 15-24. Regional variation is the use of smokeless tobacco shows that results from the North-Eastern region (OR=8.748***) and Eastern region (OR= 8.184) are more likely to use smokeless tobacco in comparison to people from Northern region. This study found that the trend of use of tobacco in upward direction, whereas the probability of quitting is very low in Northeast.

38-46

Authors: Krishna Prasad Pokharel

This research analyzes the demand for non-alcoholic beverages (non-diet carbonated beverages, diet carbonated beverages, non-carbonated caloric beverages, water, and unsweetened coffee and tea) in the United States using the first difference version of the Almost Ideal Demand System model. Five expenditure shares and prices demand equations for the non-alcoholic beverages are estimated using the Iterated Seemingly Unrelated Regression (ITSUR) and Full Information Maximum Likelihood (FIML) techniques. These two estimation techniques give similar results. Most of the products exhibit the consistent sign for the own and cross price elasticities as predicted by economic theory. Based on the expenditure elasticity, non-diet beverage is a luxury good (1.632) and the remaining goods have expenditure elasticity less than, which indicates that these products are necessities. These products are not weakly separable based on the regular and adjusted Wald tests. Moreover, seasonality has a positive impact on caloric beverages and water and a negative impact on the remaining products

60-64

Authors: Seema Dey, Jyotirmoy Ghosh

Successful marriage is a dynamic growing relationship in which the personalities of both partner continue to develop to achieve personal satisfaction. The earlier the adjustments are made, the more likely is the marriage to be happy and the fewer the areas in which the couples fails to adjust, the better are the chances for happiness in the marriage. The findings of the study revealed that factors that emerged to be important for enhancing marital satisfaction were respect for emotion, attitude towards marriage, expression of love, regard for views and importance to the likings of the spouse, ignoring weaknesses of the spouse, sexual adjustment, temperament, value, taste and interest. The lower ranks of management of time, management of income, technological factors and job related factors reflect that these are not considered serious because couples are already enjoying labour saving and luxury items and frequently go for outings. With respect to conflict resolution avoidance was given higher rank in comparison to arbitration.

68-77

Authors: Rabindra Nath Pati, Selemawit Tekie

Teenage pregnancy is a burning public health and demographic problem in Ethiopia.The adolescent girls of rural regions in Ethiopia account for alarming higher proportion of teenage pregnancies and contribute serious threats to health and development interventions by the Government.Teenage pregnancies and adolescent reproductive health hazards are burning global issues which have obstructed effective implementation of agenda of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The UNICEF estimates that 80 per cent of teenage pregnancies are reported in least developed countries of the world.The multiple socio-cultural factors such as lack of parental control and guidance, gender inequality, poverty, social exclusion, peer pressure, adoption of transactional and intergenerational sex by unemployed adolescent girls in poor homes as coping mechanism, gender based sexual assault prevailing in and around schools have stimulated increased teenage pregnancies in rural regions of Ethiopia.This paper based on review of research articles and research synthesis argues that teenage pregnancies is a national concern of Ethiopia preventing a significant section of adolescent girls availing access to preparedness for adulthood, exercising reproductive rights, opportunities for skill development, education, safe sex and reproductive health.This paper is an attempt to develop framework of research hypothesis and research questions to be adopted for further research on this thematic area.In rural regions of Ethiopia, increased number of women headed families coupled with rising poverty; unemployment and family disorganization breed sexual exploitation of adolescent girls exposing them to high risk sexual transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS.The growing teenage pregnancies in the country have drastically affected achievement of agenda in Millennium Development Goals (MGDs) in term of reduction of maternal death by 75 percent by 2015.The health inequalities is a major contributing factor to deprive women of equal opportunity and availing access to reach her health potential irrespective of social status, ethnicity, gender, religion and economic status.The socio-economic conditions of family and community in rural regions of Ethiopia contribute to increasing teenage pregnancies and adolescent motherhood.These factors are inadequate opportunity in community level for positive youth development, illiteracy, poverty and limited employment opportunities.The study recommends for a comprehensive community driven approach promoting childhood interventions and adolescent development programme towards minimizing unintended teenage pregnancy and gender discrimination prevailing in rural and urban region of Ethiopia.