In the face of growing competition in modern business environment as a result of globalisation and development in information and communication technology, firms are required to gain and sustain competitive advantage. This study therefore investigated the effect of brand awareness, brand association, brand loyalty, perceived quality, and other proprietary brand assets on competitive advantage in alcoholic beverage products and producers in Kabale District Uganda. The study employed descriptive and multiple regression analyses. The estimates from the multiple regression model indicated that brand equity has significant effect on competitive advantage among alcoholic beverages products and producers. This is evident in the statistical significance of the brand awareness, brand loyalty, and perceived quality variables at the 5% significant. We conclude therefore that brand equity has positive and significant predictive effect on competitive advantage. Hence, firms could enhance competitive advantage by paying attention to brand equity variables.
Traditionally, the internet platform has always been viewed as a one-sided network, imposing neutral network pricing between the subscribers and the content providers. This paper aims at analysing a situation that deviates from net neutrality and thereby studying the competitive outcomes when price discrimination is followed. The characteristics of internet platform as a two-sided market are initially reviewed followed by the analysis of the existing pricing mechanism of the internet service providers. The analysis throws light on the benefits accrued by the stakeholders, namely internet service provider, application provider and subscriber. With this understanding of the internet platform, the current issues of regulating net neutrality and ways of introducing price discrimination are briefly discussed. Building on seminal literature works, the central tenet of the article focuses on introducing a price discriminatory mechanism in a duopoly market condition that increases the overall stakeholders' value.
Pursuing underpinnings of managerial cognition, researchers have been exploring cognitive capability in organisations. Although such investigations have largely focused on managerial decision making, few studies have explored the cognitive capability as a needed capability for strategic alliances' partners. In this article, the cognitive capability is considered as a key capability in alliances' partner selection, and relationships between psychological underpinnings of cognitive capability and alliance performance are studied in different time frames of alliances' endurance. Using OLS regression analysis on data from 115 international alliances, the empirical models comprised of perception, attention, problem-solving, communication and social cognition are designed to explain the role of cognitive capability in performance of strategic alliances. Results provide a clear understanding of the importance of cognitive capability in alliances' partner selection and show how these psychological underpinnings fuel alliances' performance in short/medium-term and long-term.
The paper aims to investigate the impact of corporate governance, based on the board, on the bank's financial performance. We complete previous literature by analysing the case of an emerging context. Specifically, our sample includes eleven banks listed on the Tunisian stock exchange, during six years (2008–2013). The empirical results suggest that there is a negative effect of foreign directors and administrators representing the state. In addition, there is a positive effect of the following variables: independence of directors, audit quality and duality on bank performance. However, board diversity doesn't seem to have any substantial effect on Tunisian bank performance.
In this paper, we empirically investigate the impact of economic growth on environmental degradation in developed European economies during the period of study from 1985 to 2015. For the econometric methodology, we utilise the Cobb-Douglas production function. From the cointegration tests of Kao and Fisher, we confirm the existence of a cointegration relationship between the economic growth and pollution. Also, we confirm the hypothesis of basic CEK which assumes the presence of a bidirectional relationship between economic growth and CO2 emissions in developed European countries during the period of study (1985–2015). In addition, we find that there is a two-way causal relationship among energy consumption and pollution in developed European countries.
The European Union (EU) member states fight climate change through the greenhouse gas emissions reduction (mitigation measures) and prepare for the unavoidable effects which have already been triggered (adaptation measures). By 2050, the EU aims to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 80%-95% compared with 1990 levels. New objectives up to 2030 provide for a 40% reduction of GHG emissions and an increase of 27% for renewables and energy efficiency. The aim of this work is twofold. Firstly, we present the inventory data of the greenhouse gas emissions, final energy consumption, share of renewable energy, ISO 14001, EMAS and ISO 50001 certifications in 2015 for the EU-28 member states. Then, we identify the current level achieved by the EU and by individual countries compared to the 2020 targets. Secondly, we find a correspondence between the increasing number of certified companies and the good results relating to the mitigation measures. The regulatory obligations and the growing awareness about climate change led companies to voluntarily adopting systems of environmental management and/or energy management, because they generate a series of benefits such as the improving of image return, revenues and levels of competitiveness.
Identifying valuable technological inventions in a timely manner for further development and commercialisation has important strategic implications for organisations to maximise social welfare and return on investments. Building upon the advantages that social network approach can predict performance in short investigation periods, this study develops a conceptual and novel framework to predict patent value through analysing patent citations network structural indicators. Our proposed approach helps alleviate truncation problems suffered by existing patent evaluation methods. Testable propositions are also offered. This study contributes to patent economics literature and research fields that would benefit from a more accurate measure of valuable technological inventions. The proposed approach also has practical and commercial values to research institutes and industrial firms.
The importance of ECB monetary policy surprises in explaining movements in Euro area sovereign yield spreads is explored using daily data for ten countries for 2011-2015. The unanticipated component of the monetary policy is extracted by using changes in the three-month Euribor futures rate immediately after the ECB meetings. Our results show that monetary policy surprises from the ECB, when significant, exert a strong influence on yield spread returns and volatilities. The effects of ECB news announcement surprises on the debt markets differ substantially across PIIGS and non-PIIGS countries. It is important to note that the persistence of volatility is clear across all samples and it shown by the significance and the positive sign of associated coefficients.
This research seeks to examine the quality of service of the three main telecommunications operators (Zain, Orange and Umniah) in Jordan for year 2016 in terms of network, distribution, marketing and sales quality using qualitative data from semi-structured one-to-one interviews with a representative sample of the biggest wholesalers and sub-dealers across Jordan (n = 4,600), and qualitative interviews with key stakeholders (sub-dealers recruited from across the country). The core objective of this research was to examine the performance of the three operators in Jordan. It was found that the national telecommunications market is intensely competitive, and the three predominant operators have varying quality of service in numerous areas. Zain and Orange draw on their international leverage and capital to maintain market share, but the best technical and customer support value is offered by the later market entrant, Umniah, in terms of higher speed internet and better customer service. All firms benefit from high-quality human resources, and face similar challenges in terms of inhibitive taxes on prepaid tariffs and the stringent regulation of the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission.
The aim of this paper is to make contractual decisions visible for transaction cost analysis, and to formulate an applicable approach to evaluating decisions about distribution contracts. The term 'transaction attractiveness' is offered by the authors as a general criterion of choice. The authors offer a framework for the analysis of transaction attractiveness on the basis of evaluation of the return on transaction costs (ROTC) index. The transaction attractiveness method includes the evaluation of the indexes of transaction costs, the indexes of general financial performance, and ROTC index. The methodology presented in the paper is based on a generalisation of the ideas about the transactions and transaction costs of the firm and specified for the accounting system of Ukraine (Western Europe). The factual implementation of the framework was provided at the Ukrainian enterprise and positively affected decisions of the distribution systems.
In this paper, we empirically investigate the causal nexus between economic growth (GDP), CO2 emissions (environmental degradation), financial development and trade openness by using the ordinary least squares technique for a yearly panel data of 40 European economies, during the period of study from 1985 to 2014. To examine this causal link, we utilise the Cobb-Douglas production function. The empirical findings point to a bidirectional Granger causal linkage among GDP and pollution, GDP and financial sector development, GDP and trade openness, financial sector development and trade openness and trade openness and pollution in the case of European economies. From the causal link between GDP and environmental pollutants, we validate the existence of the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis. Also, we confirm the feedback suggestion of the bidirectional causality among trade openness and financial sector development. Besides, we find the neutrality hypothesis linking carbon emissions and financial sector development inflows. Finally, we find the presence of the bidirectional nexus between GDP and financial sector development and amongst GDP and trade openness in the European economies.
The purpose of this paper is to measure systemic risk of US financial institutions during and following the period of the subprime crisis. So, we estimated the systemic risk of a sample composed by 90 US financial institutions during the period from 2 January 2007 to 31 December 2014. We employ the SRISK as a measure of systemic risk. We estimate the systemic risk for each year. Based on the SRISK estimated, we try to present a classification of US financial institutions and we present the decomposition of systemic risk. The empirical results found that the total systemic risk supported by the US financial institutions is very high. In addition, the contribution of each institution in the risk of the financial system in the USA is very important. After the decomposition of systemic risk, we show that the institutions that take on more debt, contribute positively and highly to systemic risk.
Technological changes in green energy technologies play an important role in the context of climate change as they contribute to a reduction of technology costs and lead to an increasing market penetration of emission reducing technologies. This paper highlights numerous motivations and necessities related to the introduction of green energy policies. Policy intervention has been an effective tool to incentivise innovation, in particular of the renewable energy technologies: the policy instruments are decisive for the development and innovation of renewable energies, as has been demonstrated by the German case. Germany's renewable energy industry is among the most innovative in the world: the renewable energy sector was aided especially by the Renewable Energy Sources Act that promotes renewable energy mainly by stipulating feed-in tariffs that grid operators must pay for renewable energy fed into the power grid. This law has created a surge in the investments in renewable energy technologies, particularly wind power. For other countries, Germany can be an example to follow.
The SCM is a subject of great actuality, because it became a way to increase the competitiveness, reducing uncertainty and enhancing the service provided to the customer. The objective of this paper is to go over again the main literature on the 'supply chain management', following a path that will take us to the modern definition and try to make a personal definition. Subsequently analyse the main theories dwelling on the latest evolution. Finally, a brief summary of the historical growth of the supply chain management and conclude with the development of competition in the supply chain management and creation of new capabilities, the target is to give a definition of new asset, created in supply chain competition, and the 'hidden capabilities'.
In only a few ten years payment systems have undergone an incredible evolution passing from a physical transfer of cash to transactions exchanging money as digital data. Mobile payment (m-payment) refers to one type of electronic payment, performed through mobile devices, such as mobile phones, smartphones, and tablets. To ensure trust and avoid frauds severe security requirements must be imposed. In addition, interoperability and privacy requirements, as well as speed of execution and ease-of-use are mandatory requirements, too. Several technical solutions have been proposed, associated to generally incompatible business models. From the end-users point of view, the result of an m-payment transaction is just one transfer of money from customer to merchant. However, to get this simple result, m-payments use a plethora of sophisticated technologies, including SMS, NFC, high-frequency sound waves, and software apps. The heterogeneity of m-payment systems and economic models is an important challenge for their diffusion in the next years. Having described the main requirements, technical characteristics and different business models of m-payment, this paper underlines relationship of technological and business approach to m-payment systems.
In this paper, the evolutionary transition towards all-IP networks is described and the necessity for entrepreneurial QoS differentiations is shown. Challenges resulting from the full migration to all-IP service provision are specified and the relevance of traffic services endowed with either deterministic or stochastic QoS guarantees is explained. An incentive compatible price and QoS differentiation scheme for the Generalized DiffServ architecture is presented. Policy implications criticising the recent introduction of network neutrality regulations in the USA and Europe by means of a two-tiered traffic regulation are derived.
The paper examines air traffic patterns among US domestic scheduled airlines in January 2006 and January 2011, using data on carrier schedules. The author classifies carriers into nine groups. The 25 largest airports are organised into a scheme for hub classification based on the carrier groups serving the airports and their allocated flight frequencies. Counts, sums, percentage shares and changes in these calculations between 2006 and 2011 are presented in a small number of tables. The author then draws inferences from the patterns emerging from this analysis.
Although the concept of public-private partnership has been adopted in most countries in the world, relatively little attention has been paid to the ways PPP has been implemented and how the national political, legislative and administrative context affect the success of public-private partnerships. This paper compares the PPP experience of the three post-communist countries - the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland - with that of Finland. It shows that although PPP was equally alien to the countries' political and administrative systems, Finland has managed to implement PPPs without any serious problems while in the three transitive countries the same process produced numerous major failures and controversies. Several factors behind this contrast are identified including political and institutional stability, different nature of regulatory frameworks and established managerial practices. In the end, important lessons are drawn from the cases for both the most developed and transitive countries implementing PPPs.
