Journal of Business and Management Research

8

Authors: Hafedh Ibrahim

The variance based approach to structural equation modeling (VBSEM) has been widely adopted in business research field, consumer behavior, marketing, management, tourism research. The use of VBSEM in the field of E-business is also growing. Nevertheless, questions still exist among some researchers concerning whether and how VBSEM should be used. To deal with these questions, our research offers an empirical guideline for using VBSEM and employs example from the E-business literature to make obvious how the explicit points in this guideline can be applied. The foremost contribution of this research is to present an empirical guideline for evaluating and using VBSEM that is tailored to the E-business field.

11

Authors: Meriem Jouirou , Mohamed Bechir Chenguel

Our study attempts to highlight the level of voluntary disclosure of Tunisian companies and subsequently raise the impact of several determinants on this disclosure. Our sample consists of annual reports of listed Tunisian firms relative to the year 2007. The empirical results showed that the size of the company (as measured by the number of employees), the independence of the board of directors and audit firm size have a positive and significant influence on the level of disclosure, while the age of the firm, and contrary to our hypothesis, has a negative influence on the level of disclosure. We have not been able to establish a relationship between the level of voluntary disclosure and leverage, as well as the ownership concentration and type of industry.

4

Authors: Adrika Gajendra , Avani Himnish

The current research has been carried out to realize different factors effect on project developpment. Half of the total population is represented by Women but in industry and other entrepreneurial activities, they are in few numbers. After analyzing the data it was found that most of the individuals entered into the market around the age of 37 and above. This gives an impression that individuals by the age of thirties become independent of their close environment responsibilities and left with no work. Almost every person opted for the project related to beauty-parlor and law. Educational background of the individual also seems to be quite impressive, as most of them have completed their educations up to graduation. Most of them have found to be doing household works before starting their projects. The type of project which most of them are running is of shop. This can be mainly due to the reason as before entering into project they were indulged in their household works. Most of them sell their products on the small stage. This shows that they are gradually stepping forward and try to spread their project so that it can flourish. The reason which majority of them has given to start a project was social factors. They need stimuli and support from their environment, social circles and most importantly the government.

9

Authors: Mohamed Bechir Chenguel

The objective of our work is to test the presence of the contagion phenomenon caused by the mortgage American said "subprimes"crisis. First, we are going to present the effect of contagion, a literature review, and in a second part an empirical investigation on the phenomenon of crisis contagion: we applied an correlation analysis as well as an estimation of a model to error correction (asymmetric) not linear (ECM) to measure the contagion between the markets of developed countries and the emergent countries. Estimation exercises shows that there is pure contagion cases and the other interdependence contagion cases. Furthermore we found that United States are the country source of contagion during the financial crisis of subprimes. We notice the existence of the contagion in other stock market country (French, Canadian, German, British, Brazilian, Indian, Chinese, Italian and Russia). This result means that the contagion of the American financial crisis is begun with the developed countries and waq propagated in emerging countries.

7

Authors: Emily James , Sarah Jack, Rebecca Mitchell

The study was conducted on 358 attendees at a major wine festival in Australia. A positive relationship between quality perception and overall satisfaction constructs exists. New insight to event knowledge is provided through the first time and repeat visitor dynamic as predictor of actual buying behaviour. Higher percentage of repeat visitors correlates with higher likelihood of buying. Overall satisfaction is a stronger predictor of buying behaviour than any individual service quality dimension and of these quality dimensions overall. Repeat visitors, 35 years and older, are the highest yielding visitor group from a financial viewpoint. First time visitors are more short term oriented in their planning when making the final decision to attend the event.

10

Authors: Alain Milgrom

We look at three suppositions usually held in the company image documentation: (i) reputation ratings of owners and investors are generally representative of all stakeholders; (ii) stakeholders will generally provide a higher reputation rating to firms that emphasize corporate social responsibility versus firms that do not; and (iii) profitability is the primary criterion of importance to all stakeholders when rating a firm’s reputation. Using an exploratory in-class exercise, our results suggest that: there are significant differences among stakeholder groups in their reputation ratings; firms that emphasize corporate social responsibility are not rated more highly across all stakeholder groups; and for all stakeholder groups, the ethicality criterion explained more of the variance in firms’ reputation ratings than the profitability criterion.

6

Authors: Anis Gnichi

The business administration revolves around "say" and "do". Ways of doing things and ways of saying what is being done are closely correlated to represent, lead and govern managerial action. Better representation assumes that the words and deeds are better together. This dialectic implements simultaneously discourses and practices, those that we adopt and those that we appear or we will try to hide. Today, these ways of saying and doing are subject of a meditative attention from policy makers, who regard interests to reconcile, managerial conduct to regulate and business performance to improve. It involves underlying concepts to re-question beyond Darwin and Darwinism. Indeed, the current post-crisis requires a different view, a bold and creative approach that disciplinary, cognitive and behavioral approaches in corporate governance no longer know how to follow. It is necessary to identify paths to be covered to generate value and therefore identifying the weak points of speeches and practices.

11

Authors: Marc Durlberg

The purpose of this paper is to consider the social and psychological roles played by possession. When consumers buy brands they are not just concerned with their functional capabilities. They are also interested in the brand’s personality, which they may consider appropriate for certain situations. They look to brands to enable them to communicate something about themselves and also to understand the people around them better. The chapter focuses on consumer rather than organizational brands, reflecting the greater emphasis placed on brand personality and symbolism in consumer marketing. This does not necessarily mean they are inappropriate in business to business markets, rather that they are not as frequently employed. We open the paper by considering the added values from the images surrounding brands. We then address the symbolic role played by brands, where less emphasis is placed on what brands do for consumers and more on what they mean for consumers. Different symbolic roles for brands are identified, along with a consideration of the criteria necessary for brands to be effective communication devices. We draw on self-concept theory to explain how consumers seek brands with images that match their own self-image. A model of the way consumers select brands is presented, which shows how consumers choose brands to project images appropriate for different situations. We then examine how personal values influence brand selection and show the importance of brand personification as a means enabling consumers to judge brands easily. Different brand personalities give rise to different types of relationships and we explore these relationships. Finally, we review the way that semiotics, the scientific study of signs, can contribute to brand effectiveness.