Accounting & Marketing

The necessary precursor to high levels of student achievement is deep engagement in learning, and the teacher’s own engagement is the key to achieving that. Work engagement may be defined as a positive, fulfilling, work-related psychological state characterized by the dimensions of vigor, dedication, and absorption. This research has been carried out to analyze the impact of Appetite for Change and Knowledge Deployment (two of the seven components of Organizational Intelligence) on work engagement among a sample of 141 secondary school teachers in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India in March and April 2013. The measurement instruments used in this study were the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale and Albrecht Organizational Intelligence questionnaire (2003). The method of this research is descriptive correlation. The outcome of the research showed that there is a positive and significant relationship between the two components: Appetite for Change and Knowledge Deployment, and teachers’ work engagement. In addition, the reliability of the UWES-9 was investigated by using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient which was high (alpha=.86 overall) and the results showed that teachers’ level of work engagement is generally high (overall M=5.40 on the 7-point scale).

This paper is centered on theory of conservatism and value relevance of accounting information in the Nigeria stock ex-change (NSE) and other related literatures. It reviews the relevance of conservatism and value relevance of accounting information and their comparisons. While there have been a number of studies on this topic in the developed countries not much has been explored in Nigeria. Value relevance has been criticized by extant literature and also that conservatism in accounting as one reason for the observed decrease in value relevance. One of such recommendation was that the financial reporting council and other allied bodies should ensure clarity and provide rules with probably less discretionary tendencies for management to manipulate. The overall aim is to improve credibility of financial information. In order to ascertain the impact of conservatism on value relevance of accounting information, secondary source of data collection, statistical instruments like regression and correlation were used in the analysis of data collected. It was discovered among others that there is the existence of a significant inverse relationship between Market-based conservatism (BMCONA) and Earnings per share (EPS) used as a proxy for stock returns for the pooled OLS, fixed and random effects model. The results suggest that higher conservative practices by companies will affect the informativeness of financial estimates and declines in stock returns may be seen as an outcome of the markets assessment of disclosure credibility. In concluding this study, some recommendations were made. One of such recommendation was that the financial reporting council and other allied bodies should ensure clarity and provide rules with probably less discretionary tendencies for management to manipulate. The overall aim is to improve credibility of financial information.

The Semantic Organization Model (SOM) relates on-line communication efforts to realized brand position, focusing on consumers’ social media actions as evidenced by their real time on-line behavior. As such, the model employs an actionable framework from which marketers can diagnose positioning problems and take profitable actions. As well, the model guides strategic managerial planning effort on the basis of on-line social activity. In this article, we present a model that purports to explain how consumers’ existing semantic structure guides their interpretation of on-line reviews, posts, and other comments. In addition, we discuss how consumer connection to such communications can be represented in the form of what we refer to as endurance scores.

Female entrepreneurship is considered as an important tool in enabling female empowerment and emancipation. The main objective of this study is to investigate female undergraduate students’ attitudes toward the perceptions of entrepreneurship (Comparison Ethiopian Public and Private Universities). In the light of recent world events, this has become a crucial area to study and understand – especially with respect to, attitudes toward entrepreneur, motivations, constraints and consequences. The reason why final year female undergraduates are chosen for the current study is because they are at a period in their career development where they consider different career routes and are therefore, a potential source of future female entrepreneurs. For research design; cross-sectional, descriptive and inferential designs study were used in the study. In the study both primary and secondary data were used. Pertaining to data analysis the researchers had used both qualitative and quantitative data analysis techniques mainly descriptive analysis using percentages, tables and graphs deployed. While for inferential statistics distribution based analysis for nominal data type like chi-square, and multi-regression were used to test the statistically significant difference (independency) of variables, impacts of independent variables on dependent variable. As per output of these findings, there were different barriers that affect female undergraduates for not entering into entrepreneurship. The major barriers expected were, the responsibility of running a business too difficult, lack of ability to know how to access business information, difficulty to obtain the finance necessary and lack of a good business idea as an inhibitor to entrepreneurship, lack of experience to run a business and lack of the business skills required to run their own business. Therefore, in order to change their worries from different barriers, entrepreneurship subject and training on entrepreneurs’ successful characteristics are highly needed.

This paper looks at the effects of Sarbanes-Oxley on the practice known as Earnings Management. Using earnings as reported in quarterly corporate filings, I employ a test of discontinuity used by DeGeorge, Patel and Zeckhauser to estimate the discontinuity in reported earnings per share (EPS) following a major accounting reform resulting from Sarbanes-Oxley. I find that the previous discontinuities found in the literature in reported EPS at 0¢ and 1¢ disappear after the accounting reform. Using a standard market model on security prices, I also find that short-term abnormal returns to reporting 1¢ EPS decrease following this reform, which could indicate positive shortterm returns to Earnings Management.

In many technology-based and service industries, firms offer “add-on” products to consumers who are purchasing (or have already purchased) a base product. For instance, electronic retailers usually offer a wide range of accessories (e.g. carrying cases, memory cards, keyboards, lenses) to consumers who purchase digital cameras or notebook computers. In the airline industry, service add-ons often include additional baggage allowance, alcoholic beverages, movies and gaming consoles, often sold separately.