International Journal of Business and Economic Development

The author revisits his work on the culturally derived accounting orientations of the BRIC countries, based on Geert Hofstedes work on cultural dimensions (Hofstede, 1980) and the hypothetical derivation of four related cultural accounting dimensions (professionalism, uniformity, conservatism, and secrecy) by S. J. Gray. (Gray, 1988) (Borker, 2012a) The study is updated and re-evaluated through the application of the authors more recently developed tools for quantifying the degree of IFRS orientation -- the Composite IFRS Orientation Index and the Expanded IFRS Orientation Index. (Borker, 2014b) The study goes beyond the inputs considered in the previous BRIC analysis to include important socio-cultural factors such as corruption, political risk, educational level and business regulatory climate. These factors are considered as attributes of a new proposed fifth cultural accounting dimension beyond Greys original four, designated as stewardship.

Objective: Over a period of fifty years, the ratio of female participation in the labor force of Saudi Arabia is extremely low. This exposition is an effort to examine the affiliation among female fertility and labor supply in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Methods: The data for this research was gathered through a questionnaire circulated between the employed and unemployed females in Jeddah; situated in the western region. Results: By implementing the binary logistic deterioration, factors which were related to fertility did not illustrate numerical implication on the likelihood of females taking part in the labor market. However, factors which were associated with, education, husbands income, age and family income had major considerable impact on female taking part in the Saudi labor market. Conclusion: It has been concluded that there is higher affiliation present between fertility and female labor supply.

This article reexamines the pollution heaven hypothesis, using measureable environmental indicators to quantify the laxity of pollution control enforcements. The article examines the impact of pollution control enforcements on FDI inflow in industries across the spectrum as well as individual industries. The study was done on a global platform with separate groups of ASEAN countries and domestically within Thailand. Data from the World Bank, UNCTAD and Thailand’s Board of Investment between years 2008 to 2013 were used with panel data regression. Mixed results were obtained; low levels of pollution control enforcements significantly attract FDI inflow to ASEAN countries and East Asia Pacific Region, while in the cases of Europe, Central Asia and Latin America no significant result was found. For Thailand, as a host country, firm-level evaluation procedures using pollution intensity value together with laxity of pollution control enforcements were evaluated. Foreign investors from various countries consider that low levels of pollution control enforcements in Thailand reflected significantly and attracted their investment decisions.

This article is about the effects of good practice achievement on stakeholder acceptance. The study examines the relationship between good practice achievement and stakeholder acceptance, where corporate image is taken as a mediator. The samples were 486 chief executive officers (CEO) who participated in the national agro processing industry of Thailand. The ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analysis was employed for data analysis. The findings show that good practice achievement, in which consists of fairness, transparency, accountability, responsibility, consistency, and independent, have the positive effect on corporate image significantly (p<0.1). Interestingly, corporate image mediates the relationship between good practice achievement and stakeholder acceptance significantly (p<0.05). Therefore, a key decision for managers in all levels and functions is to focus on good practice achievement that improves and develops corporate image and boost stakeholder acceptance.

Sustainable urban development (SUD) is influenced by social, cultural, economic and environmental sustainability (ES) of developing and developed countries. Our paper will focus on the challenges confront the developing countries in sustainable urban development an application will be on Egypt, which will clarify current situation and future challenge will assess the impact of sustainable development on developing country to propose some possible directions for the future .A new solution of improving sustainability of developing cities (SDC) should be found.

Despite substantial evidence that economic growth is influenced by taxation, the impact of Section 179 on GDP is unclear. Section 179 of the Internal Revenue Code enacted in 1958 has operated for several decades in the United States. In addition, in late 2010, two congressional acts affecting Section 179 have been passed, i.e. The Tax Relief Act of 2010 and The Small Business Jobs Act of 2010. The essence of these adoptions is to provide incentives for corporate as well as individual taxpayers. However, there are concerns as to the degree of economic growth these adoptions will provide. This research is therefore focused on showing the correlation between these Section 179 deductions, depreciation and economic growth as the Section 179 figures are debated and changed annually. The study suggests that annual increments of capital depreciation deductions will aid corporate growth as well as other variables that affect economic growth in the United States. However, the benefits for small business are lower than for corporations.

This study investigated a number of large UK companies strategies in reducing emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) in their supply chain operations. In-depth interviews were conducted with logistics/supply chain (SC) managers across different sectors. The research identified the main CO2 reduction strategies, and examined these in the light of existing literature in the research domain. One of the key findings was that there was a strong tension between cost reduction (identified as the major driver for reducing CO2) and lack of resources (the main barrier). It was also found that most CO2 reduction strategies had started only fairly recently, and so far, were mainly operational and tactical in nature. This study makes an empirical contribution to a better understanding of how companies form their CO2 reduction strategies in response to environmental pressures. It has implications for policy makers in terms of how to motivate logistics/SC managers to implement strategies to reduce the environmental impact of CO2 emissions in their business operations. Therefore, it is recommended that logistics/SC managers develop and implement practical initiatives and strategies to reduce CO2 emissions, and to embed these into corporate strategy.

Armenia is a landlocked country which gained its independence about 24 years ago. A big portion of population (44.2%) is still involved in agriculture and mostly consists of smallholder farmers. More than 20% of Armenias GDP comes from agriculture. The government considers organic agriculture as a priority area in the countrys agro-food policy as well as part of sustainable development. However, organic farming is still on its early stages of development just like in other Eastern European, Caucasian and Central Asian countries. Yet, the country already has an organic certification body which is recognized both in the US and the EU, organic supermarket in the capital city and a growing demand for organic products. Those smallholder farmers and especially the organic producers face difficulties accessing markets, gathering necessary information, meeting quality control and food safety requirements, certifying their production as organic or fair trade, accessing credits and so on. Researchers believe that smallholder agriculture can play an important role in reducing global poverty as a vast number of worlds poor are rural households that are involved in agriculture. Armenian smallholders are no exception and they face most of the same challenges and problems that peasants from other parts of the world do. This paper studies one of the ways that these challenges can be overcome, that is, collective action which has proved to be successful in many cases. Although collective action can be very useful and helpful for smallholder farmers and there is even a small successful example from the organic sector in Armenia, it is not a panacea. Organizing a collective action is not an easy task and its success depends on many factors such as small group size, clearly defined boundaries, shared norms, past successful experiences and others.

The objective of the study is to investigate the Impact of Motivational Factors such as extrinsic, intrinsic rewards and social motivational on employee commitment and performance enhancement in profit oriented firms with a focus on selected Brewery Manufacturing firms in Nigeria. Data for this research is obtained from both primary and secondary sources. The sample size for the study is 280 from six (6) Brewery firms. Multiple Regression test was used in testing the two (2) formulated hypotheses. The study findings revealed that motivational factors such as Intrinsic, extrinsic and social motivation have a good relationship with employee commitment and performance enhancement in profit oriented firms especially Brewery manufacturing companies. Other findings were that lack of motivational incentives will lead to employee frustration in these companies. The study recommends that adequate and consistent provision of intrinsic, extrinsic and social motivational incentive packages to staff to facilitate employee commitment and high performance attainment is important at all times. The study also recommended that, establishing organizational objectives and goals by companies is a good starting point by management to know the essential motivational incentives that should be granted to employees for productivity attainment.