The purpose of this study is determining differences at the beginning and end of semester perceptions of students who take first time accounting courses. The reason for doing the research is providing recommendations for enhancing success at accounting courses. The research was done first grade students of business administration and economics departments of Akdeniz University Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences. For getting the aim a survey is used two times at the beginning and end of period. With the consequences of 164 surveys evaluations, excluding some of the dimensions of accounting courses, the perceptions about accounting courses at the beginningaremorenegativethantheperceptionsattheendofperiod.

In audit firms, the auditing activities, operating periods and hourly rates of the auditors differ as regards to their status. Under normal circumstances, task planning in auditing is made by taking the professional judgment of a responsible auditor into account besides the qualitative characteristics of the auditors. However, it can also be made by means of a mathematical model assuming that auditors with the same title have similar characteristics. By this way, labor costs are minimized. In this context, the aim of this study is to make a task planning by assigning auditors to auditing activities through a linear programming model in a way to minimize the costs. Linear programming model is one of the methods used in solving optimization problems. The model which is set with various assumptions has been analysed through WINQSB packaged software called “Linear and Integer Programming”. As a result of the modelling study, the number of hours and the kind of auditing activity in which the auditors are supposed to carry out have been specified and thus the most optimum cost has been found out.

In 1986, Nigeria introduced a structural adjustment programme (SAP) and one of the policy implications of the programme was the deregulation of the economy. And so the banking sector was also deregulated. This led to sudden increase in the number of banks. However, distress soon hit the financial sector of the economy. In order to avoid the bitter consequences of bank failure, the government established the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) to augment the regulatory power of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) as a watch dog over banks and ensure stable, safe and sound system of the banking sector. Various attempts aimed at revamping the banking sector, ranging from recapitalization to outright liquidation failed.In July 2004, a new method aimed at salvaging the banking sector was announced by the CBN. This method includes banking sector reform and bank consolidation. The main thrust of this study is to examine the impact of consolidation on Nigeria economy. To achieve this, SPSS Version 19 econometric software package regression method was adopted. The ordinary least squares (OLS) analytical technique was applied to estimate the empirical relationship between the dependent and independent variables. The study also carried out chow test in order to determine the structural stability of the regression. The study revealed that Nigeria bank consolidation has not impacted significantly on Nigeria’s economic growth under the study period. The study therefore recommended that banking regulations such as bank consolidation needs to be a component of total reform framework of monetary authority to ensure effectiveness in Nigeria banking sector performance.

The study examines Lesotho’s demand for holding international reserves and assesses the country’s reserve adequacy position over the period 1981-2012. The results from the standard reserve adequacy benchmarks reveal that Lesotho generally has sufficient stock of foreign reserves to satisfy the minimum adequacy requirements, with the level of reserves in other periods being relatively higher than what is required. Furthermore, the estimates of Lesotho’s reserve demand function from the cointegration analysis suggest that the long-term reserve demand policies for Lesotho are positively related to average propensity to import, economic growth and export volatility while negatively associated with exchange rate volatility and opportunity cost of holding reserves. The former finding confirms that the precautionary motive plays a significant role in determining Lesotho’s demand for holding international reserves, while the latter indicates that reserve accumulation in Lesotho is based on profitability considerations. The results also show that although the demand for foreign reserves increased in the years of democracy, the country sometimes uses part its international reserves to finance government infrastructure projects.

The Nigerian University administration is a collection of specialized academic faculties established by law, financed by private and public funds, and staffed by professionals in various disciplines for the purpose of achieving their overall goal (teaching, research, and community service) of service delivery. Since good work ethics represents a critical determinant of effectiveness and productivity vis-à-vis service delivery in all formal organizations, this paper utilizes the “person-situation” theoretical model to assess the level of service delivery in selected public universities in the South-south geo-political region of Nigeria. The present investigation adopted the survey research design. Six hundred and sixty (660) academic and non-academic staff and three hundred (300) students were purposively and randomly sampled respectively. The instrument used for data collection was titled: “good work ethics and service delivery questionnaire”. Data was analyzed using population t-test, multiple regression and Pearson product moment correlation. The study revealed that almost all the public universities under consideration have witnessed poor service delivery in terms of delay in the release of students’ results, delay in the preparation of transcript, failure to adhere to time-tables (crash programme) – leading to frustration by students. The overall consequences of this have been the poor rating of these universities. It was recommended among other things that effort should be made to address the poor work ethics (in terms of initiative, dedication, high standard of responsibility, loyalty, accountability, and self-discipline) among staff and students in the selected universities with a view to strengthening its performance index and therefore service delivery.

The increasing of internet users affecting the choice of browsers and for now, desktop users still dominate the usage. The research’s goal is to analyze the well-known browser such as Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Opera, and Safari from the Indonesian customer point of view. The variables used in the analysis are the speed to display HTML, the speed of executing ECMA Script, the browser security, the need of hardware resource, and the general feature of each browser. We distribute questionnaire to 400 users of the five browsers in Indonesia. The multivariate statistics of multidimensional scaling used to process the data. The research found that Mozilla Firefox is the best browser on speed criteria when displaying the HTML and general feature, as the Google Chrome win the heart of Indonesian users on the speed criteria when executing ECMA Script. As usual, the Apple Safari excels on the security and the hardware resources consumption (KHR1). The Internet Explorer considered the best on the hardware resources consumption criteria.

Multinational corporations as the primary holders of foreign direct investments have a significant impact on the national economy with a well-developed and prepared institutional infrastructure, but they have even stronger impact on the transition economies and developing countries. Expanding into new markets, multinational corporations create new jobs; therefore unions have an important role in protecting employees' rights and their representation towards employers. The role of unions in the lives of all employees is even more noticeable because the situation on the labor market is extremely unfavourable and in many countries employees' rights are threatened. But researches also show that the proportion of union membership in the developed countries is decreasing, and also in developing countries and this trend has not bypassed Croatia. The aim of this paper is to investigate the role of unions in the subsidiaries of multinational corporations in Croatia. In more than half of the analyzed subsidiaries of multinational corporations we identified one hundred percent coverage of employees by collective agreements. We analyzed the most common reasons for joining the union and evaluated the relationship between unions and human resource management departments.

Escalating competition among destinations has become more obvious. Shopping for handicrafts is one of important activities in tourism. Handicraft industry is a low technology, labor intensive, and run dominantly by small medium enterprises (SMEs). Handicraft industry is one of creative industries sector in Indonesia that promises to accelerate the growth of the Indonesian economy. To remain competitive, understanding on the competitive nature of handicrafts market need to be continuously monitored and adjusted to SMEs strategies. Using partial least squares path modeling on a cross-sectional sample of 54 SMEs owners in Bantul Yogyakarta, this study examines relationships among factors of destination competitiveness with clusters competitiveness and socio-economic welfare. The predictors assessed include given resources, created resources, related-supporting factors, demand conditions and strategy-structure-rivalry. Results indicate that supporting factors and strategy-structure-rivalry are not significantly impact on cluster competitiveness. The new final model was found that clusters competitiveness mediates the relationships between three destination competitiveness factors and socio-economic welfare. This study enriches theories on destination competitiveness, particularly in assessing clusters as the object of the study. The results are also important for policymakers in strengthening destination competitiveness strategy.

The aim of this study is to explain accounting policies of lessor and lessee companies in financial leasing transactions. In this study, we provide a comprehensive literature review, as well as real life application obtained from an anonymous leasing company. For this purpose, financial leasing transactions examined according to TAS 17 and accounting records indicated for lessor and lessee companies.

It is know that portfolio theory is accepted as keystone of finance. In this paper, Maki (2012) cointegration test that allow more than two structural breaks is used in order to analyze integration of Turkey and some OECD countries stock market. Moreover, Carrion-i Sylvestre (2009) unit root test that both allow more than two structural breaks and determine endogenously structural breaks is used in determining stationary level of series. As a result of this study, in the interval period from 1990 to 2013, investors can make portfolio diversification with investing Borsa İstanbul and only Netherland Stock Market according to achieved findings. Whereby, investors will be able to minimize their risks.

Bank Payment Obligation (BPO), has been developed as a new payment method to enable the exporters to access to interntaional market under the leadership of Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) that is a system which provides electronic fund transfer among the banks all around the world. International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) has supported this payment method by issuing Uniform Rules for Bank Payment Obligations (URBPO) in April 2013. The aim of this paper is to analyze familiarness of Bank Payment Obligation (BPO), as an example of innovation in international trade.

Information technology has made it necessary for accountants to acquire new certain skills such as utilizing and controlling the IT systems. In training standards for accountancy, it is specified that accountants should have key roles in the assessment, design and management of systems. The objective of this study is to reveal to what extent the students that are the prospective accounting professionals of the future utilize information technologies in their accounting class during their license study, and their opinions in this respect. In the study, a survey was applied to students attending the business administration license program at state universities in seven geographical regions of Turkey. 1000 questionnaires were randomly submitted to universities by post. 500 students responded. 464 questionnaires were found to be appropriate for analysis. The survey has revealed that the attending students believe in the strict necessity of employing projectors and accounting software in the accounting classes. The students suggest that mostly the presentation software and social networks are used in accounting classes as the technological class material. It was observed that, despite the high rate of ownership, students do not exploit technology to prepare for their accounting classes and exams. Students argue that teaching assistants delivering accounting lectures should keep up with new educational technologies, and students do not advocate the use of remote educational tools for the accounting classes. It was observed that students are uncertain about whether the use of technology enhances the success and interest in accounting classes, flourishes the student interest and eases understanding.

In order to compare the performances of the banks listed on Istanbul Stock Exchange Banks Index; efficiency values of the banks selected from the mentioned index are calculated by Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) based on their financial ratios for each year of 2010- 2013 period. The estimated efficiency rates are compared amongst themselves as a result of the analyses applied. Additionally; the efficiency changes of the banks in each term is calculated via Malmquist Index to determine the improvement or decline in the course of time.

The purposes of this study are; to find out the profiles of stock investors in Usak city, to determine the demographic and socio-economic factors which are affecting investors decision and to find out whether the investors behave rationally or not in their investment decisions. In order to get data for these purposes, the questionnaire is applied to stock investors. Then, obtained data were analyzed with one way anova test by using SPSS.18 statistical package program. According to results of the study; stock investors in Uşak have similar characteristics with the overall stock investors in Turkey. Investors in Uşak can’t behave rationally as they don’t have enough information on investment in stock exchange. Moreover, it is revealed that demographic and socio-economic factors such as age, gender, occupation, education level, family population and income, influenced the decisions of stock investment. It is suggested that the findings of the study may support policy makers to increase the quantity of investors and their trading volume through to take better decisions in Uşak which is not known as a major province about the issue.

Current EU regulations allow 5% of feed for organic poultry to come from non-organic pro- duction. This is due to concerns about a 100% organic diet meeting the requirements for specific amino acids such as methionine. This exception is due to end on 31st December 2017. While this may match consumer expectations, protein sourced from global organic production may have a negative impact on perceptions of organic poultry in other ways. Soybean is a commonly used ingredient in poultry feed but soybean production has negative environmental and social impacts. Consumers may also prefer organic poultry to have been fed on locally produced feed and, indeed, this would be in line with organic principles. Preliminary feasibility feed trials were carried out during a summer and a winter season using organic broilers in the UK to test three 100% organic feeds: a control diet with globally sourced ingredients including soybean expeller, a diet based on locally sourced (i.e. within Europe) organic ingredients, and a diet based on locally sourced organic ingredients and algae (a good source of methionine). The results of the summer feed trial showed that there were no significant differences in broiler weight gains. In the winter feed trial differences were found. There was a significant difference (P = 0.034) in weight gain between the local feed (lower weight gain) and the local feed with algae but no significant difference between the control diet with soybean and the two local diets. These preliminary feed trials indicate that there is no significant impact on broiler performance or animal welfare parameters when replacing soybean with European protein sources, possibly including algae, suggesting that, although the research is still at a very early stage, such feeds may be a viable option for 100% organic poultry feed in the future.

Over the last years, stakeholders’ pressures over sustainability issues have increased dramatically. Organizations have to demonstrate the inclusion of social and environmental concerns in their operative and strategic decisions processes. For this reason, companies report their sustainability performance in non-financial documents, signaling to markets and stakeholders the outcomes of their CSR policies. As non-financial reporting is a voluntary activity, there is not a common and enforced standard of reporting rules: as a result, the level of disclosure varies from one report to another. Sound and material reporting, with a higher level of disclosure, is a costly activity, requiring large investments in terms of time and resources. Therefore, CSR managers have to determine the grade of disclosure of non-financial reports by evaluating their costs and benefits. The aim of this is paper is to determine whether the market remunerates this investment and if it rewards higher levels of disclosure, providing both managerial and academic implications. This paper analyzes the outcomes on companies’ market value determined by non-financial disclosures strategies in GRI referenced reports, juxtaposing a partial disclosure stance against a full disclosure stance, through a 2 years longitudinal study of the 2012 Fortune Global 500 companies. Results show that while the issuance of a GRI referenced report with partial disclosure (C and B GRI Application Levels) causes a positive effect on market capitalization, a full disclosure stance (A and A+ GRI Application Levels) has a negative effect on market value in the period of analysis. This output suggests that there is an optimum level of disclosure perceived by the market, opening a debate over the quality of disclosure and its ability to satisfy stakeholders’ informative needs.

In the past decade formal corporate governance codes, laws and practices have started to focus on responsible board behavior and transparency in the boardroom. Negative board dynamics have been observed as contributing to business performance issues, damaging corporate behaviors and negative signals to stakeholders. This paper provides an integrated view on board dynamics combining the key theories and concepts from the practical corporate governance literature, the behavioral economics and the neurosciences fields into a comprehensive board dynamics framework. The aim is to help board members/advisors/governance committees to develop better board evaluation practices, by studying new evaluation techniques and theoretical insights into board dynamics. The “fill-out-the-form” board evaluation practices are slowly changing and new trends aim to create long-term value from board governance.

This paper aims at investigating the reasons why the environmental variable and issues - such as sustainability, social responsibility and all those behaviours that can be attributed to the general definition of Green Economy - , are generally covering a more and more marked and growing influence on the contemporary economy and, in particular, entrepreneurial behaviour. Our intention is to underline how the integration between business ethics and value creation has become inescapable for the business realities, not only to withstand the competition, but also to ensure the survival itself. After a general overview, it has been decided to focus the analysis on the impact that these issues have on a sector such as agri-food in general and wine in particular, which, paradoxically, are the ones that for long time have shown little sensitive towards the above-mentioned issues. The objective of this work was to highlight the importance for contemporary business realities, to pursue the integration of the social and corporate strategies, including environmental performance, economic results and competitive enterprise. The set of human activities, technological progress and the uncontrolled exploitation of resources has led to heavy imbalances in the terrestrial ecosystem, risking compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. One possible solution is, therefore, represented by the sustainable development and the desire to pursue economic growth compatible with social equity. In this context, sustainability, lived in the past as more ethical than economic, is gaining importance and a much more concrete profile, designed to produce economic returns as well as on image.

It is almost impossible to imagine a company that does not innovate in today's market. Some companies say they compete on quality and not innovation, but they also innovate, especially in the form of process innovation aiming at enhancing quality. The aim of this paper is to present how the key set of selected organisational factors, company’s organisation, strategy, and processes, learning and links, influences innovation. In this respect, the key set of organisational factors has been measured on Croatian companies. In field research we used a questionnaire developed by Tidd et al. (2005) which was further developed to include measurable parts of innovation. The questionnaire is validated by factor analysis, but the influence of latent variables on innovation outcome, such as the number of innovations, revenues from innovation and length of time for new product launch, was researched by structural equation modelling. The research results showed that the set of strategy and learning factors has a significant influence on the number of innovations in companies (radical or modified). At first glance it might seem as though big companies have more resources and are thus in a privileged position to innovate, but researches show that the companies that are able to mobilise their employees, their knowledge and expertise in delivering new products or services, obtain better innovation results. The research results clearly indicate the relationship between company’s higher innovativeness and higher innovation results.

One of the biggest questions battling governments is performance of Electric Utilities, as they are one of the biggest resources and largest State Owned Enterprises. This issue became more important as electricity market has been liberalized and fully opened. Before market liberalization state owned Electric Utilities operated in monopoly market where competition was not possible. Therefore, due to market liberalisation existing companies have to be more competitive than before in order to grow and survive new competition from EU countries. Paper analyses performance of State Owned Electric Utilities from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia and Croatia. Measuring the success of the State Owned Electric Utilities is based on the analysis of financial statements for period from 2008 to 2012, using indicators of profitability. Electricity market in Slovenia and Croatia have been fully opened in analyzed period while electricity market in Bosnia has been closed. The results reveal that State Owned Electric Utilities operating in opened market have better performance and are more competitive than State Owned Electric Utilities which operate in closed market. The broad conclusion that emerges from the results is that market opening and new competition entering markets has pushed companies to improve their governance practices and performance in order to survive on the market.

Small-and-medium size enterprises (SMES) are considered to be a key to economic development, and market completion. Small businesses are also a crucial source of innovative potential and job creation. In the aftermath of the recent economic crisis many countries experience high unemployment rates. A strong small business sector can provide employment opportunities and contribute to economic growth and speedy recovery. Though the creation of small firms and self-employment is ostensibly encouraged in formal government policies, in practice small businesses are affected by multitude of barriers, both formal and informal. This study explores the relationship between the level of formal barriers such as taxation, accounting requirements as well as other relevant regulations, and the likelihood of small business creation and survival in Lithuania. It uses statistical data, legal documents, and experts’ evaluations to determine the regulatory burden experienced by small businesses. The results of the research indicate that regulatory requirements are significant factors in small business formation and performance. Findings of the paper contribute to a better understanding of how entrepreneurship happens and how policy makers could shape their policies to effectively encourage small business formation and sustain their operations medium and long-term.

Ownership structure with the reference to the comparative studies worldwide, types, forms and patterns identified in companies as well as the logic behind the behavior of different owners constitutes an important theme in management studies. Research reveals the crucial importance of the ownership patterns with the reference to the shareholder identity and concentration of shares for the standards of corporate governance including control and monitoring mechanisms, transparency, board work. Corporate governance literature indicates that certain shareholder types may have impact on the adoption of pyramidal structures, dual class shares, board independence, structure of executive compensation and disclosure.

This paper focuses on the specific type of listed companies which remain under the control of the founder. The goal of the paper is to identify the corporate governance mechanisms adopted by founders in listed companies with respect to the way they exert control. It investigates whether founders tend to increase the control over companies via use of ownership mechanisms adopting dual class shares and pyramidal structures and via dominating the board lowering the number of independent directors. Using the hand collected data of a sample of 100 companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange the paper addresses the gap in the literature of the unique form of ownership characterized by the control of the founders (first generation) who need to confront the entrepreneurial spirit and significant dominance in management and governance in the company with the features of listed companies in which ownership and control is shared among investors.

The practice of using and distributing economic resources in contemporary national economies reflects insufficient effectiveness of their running including human resources management. The continuous trend of their (these resources) unreasonable using indicates that: on the one hand the abilities of workers are realized lower than possible level on the other hand the available potential of human capital is limited to perform certain labor functions. The aim of the article is to elaborate the concept of human resources corporate developing on the basis of staff assessment methods synthesizing the aspects of theory marginal productivity and modern methods of effective human resources management. The author’s idea, which the concept is based on, proposes continuous stage-by-stage corporate training on an employer’s or manager’s initiative and personal learning from the position of employee him/herself. The application of classic and innovative approaches in staff management oriented on labor productivity growth, optional combining professional abilities of a worker in a team as well as effective methods of staff assessment by recruiting and using labor force further the achievement of staff match and settlement of arising contradictions. The presented article will be of use to scholars, post-graduate students, doctoral candidates, human resource managers and persons who are interested in problems of labor performance growth.

a recession context, characterized from a slowing down of the productive activity and from an increment of the unemployment rate, regional development policies of local authorities should consider initiatives apt to stimulate enterprise creation. This paper focuses on the role of academic spin-offs in generating entrepreneurial opportunities for regional development. After an introduction about the importance of networks among universities for technology transfer and development of academic spin-offs and definition of relevant literature on entrepreneurship and processes of identification, evaluation and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities to create new business, the paper moves to the analysis of the enabling conditions for promoting the birth of new academic spin-offs. In particular, we investigate how business innovation could take place from patents and research at the university level, in order to contribute to the economic development of a region. Academic spin offs represents an important mechanism for technology transfer from universities and research institutions to the real economy. The paper highlights the results obtained in Apulia Region, which started in 2007 a network called “Rete ILO Apulia” (where ILO stands for Industrial Liaison Office), with the aim of putting together the efforts of Apulia universities and research institutes (ENEA and CNR), providing them a set of resources and capabilities for technological transfer and entrepreneurial innovation. This project has financed the birth of several spin-offs academic from 2007 to 2012, which have been examined at the end of the paper. The main hypothesis of the paper is that the sustainable growth of academic spin offs in this region contributed to the development of the Apulia area and entrepreneurial innovation.

The corporate governance foremost is determined by the expected competitive advantage-oriented changes as well as by the modern and effective management techniques that stimulate the sustainable growth. The complex evaluation of the efficiency of corporation performance may be also indicated as prerogative when reasoning the strategic business decisions and corporate strategy in general. The research aims to generalize the major principles for evaluation of a whole of financial indicators and to construct the adequate assessment models. The framework for complex assessment according to essential financial indicators, identified for a particular corporation and oriented essentially to the multiple criteria evaluation methodology, is presented below. For certain companies from the selected industry (their target group), as basic evaluation criteria, such indicators as profitability, asset and investments return, leverage and liquidity levels, as well as cash flows equilibrium, dividend yield - may be accepted. It is expedient to detail and purposeful group these indicators. For these purposes, Simple Additive Weighting (SAW) method of quantitative evaluation by multiple criteria is suggested. According to the adequate evaluation models, an overall index is determined with respect to the significance of the primary indicators, estimated by expert way. In this assessment process, both the primary criteria (i.e. financial indicators) and the indexes of their groups are also covered. The complex assessment of financial indicators reflecting corporate governance effectiveness is presented for Lithuanian corporation case to illustrate the application of the analytical research results. Such quantitative assessment process is particularly relevant under conditions of dynamic changes of the surrounding macro factors affecting corporate strategy. It is characterized by adaptability (according to the whole of evaluation criteria for an assessment in specific conditions); and it is applicable to the complex investigation of the quality and effectiveness of corporate governance. The algorithmic procedures of proposed assessment process may be incorporated into business management and strategic decisions support system.

Various research fields, like organic agricultural research, are dedicated to solving real-world problems and contributing to sustainable development. Therefore, systems research and the application of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches are increasingly endorsed. However, research performance depends not only on self-conception, but also on framework conditions of the scientific system, which are not always of benefit to such research fields. Recently, science and its framework conditions have been under increasing scrutiny as regards their ability to serve societal benefit. This provides opportunities for (organic) agricultural research to engage in the development of a research system that will serve its needs. This article focuses on possible strategies for facilitating a balanced research evaluation that recognises scientific quality as well as societal relevance and applicability. These strategies are (a) to strengthen the general support for evaluation beyond scientific impact, and (b) to provide accessible data for such evaluations. Synergies of interest are found between open access movements and research communities focusing on global challenges and sustainability. As both are committed to increasing the societal benefit of science, they may support evaluation criteria such as knowledge production and dissemination tailored to societal needs, and the use of open access. Additional synergies exist between all those who scrutinise current research evaluation systems for their ability to serve scientific quality, which is also a precondition for societal benefit. Here, digital communication technologies provide opportunities to increase effectiveness, transparency, fairness and plurality in the dissemination of scientific results, quality assurance and reputation. Furthermore, funders may support transdisciplinary approaches and open access and improve data availability for evaluation beyond scientific impact. If they begin to use current research information systems that include societal impact data while reducing the requirements for narrative reports, documentation burdens on researchers may be relieved, with the funders themselves acting as data providers for researchers, institutions and tailored dissemination beyond academia.