International Diversification and the Market Value of New Product

Journal of International Management 17 (2011) 333–347 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of International Management International diversi? cation and the market value of new product introduction Chi-Feng Wang a,1, Li-Yu Chen b,? , Shao-Chi Chang c,2 a b c Department of Business Administration, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Taiwan Department of Management, Fo Guang University, Taiwan Institute of International Business, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan article info Article history: Received 11 January 2011Received in revised form 31 March 2011 Accepted 31 March 2011 Available online 2 May 2011 Keywords: International diversi? cation New product introduction Technological capability Marketing capability Event study abstract Although previous studies on international diversification are plentiful, they mainly focus on the effect of international diversification on overall firm performance, and the results are mixed. This study extends this line of research and explores the impact of international diversification on new product performance.Specifically, we ask if international diversification explains the stock market reactions to new product introduction (NPI) announcements. We find an inverted-U-shaped relationship between international diversification and the announcement returns of NPIs, revealing that the market value of NPIs initially improves and then declines with increasing international diversification. The results also show that intangible assets, such as technological and marketing capabilities, positively moderate the relationship between international diversification and the market value of NPIs.Our study not only highlights the importance of considering both sides of international diversification in affecting investors' assessments of corporate new product strategies, but also shows the possibility of internal capabilities in changing the fixed relationship between international diversification and the market value of new products.  © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction According to the theory of foreign direct investment (FDI) (Caves, 1996; Dunning, 1988; Hymer, 1976) and portfolio theory (Jacquillat and Solnik, 1978; Lessard, 1973, 1976; Solnik, 1974), international diversi? ation will lead to higher ? rm value. However, existing studies examining the impact of international diversi? cation on ? rm performance have yielded inconclusive results. The results on the relationship between international diversi? cation and ? rm performance has been found to be positive (Delios and Beamish, 1999; Grant, 1987; Rugman et al. , 2008), negative (Collins, 1990; Zaheer and Mosakowski, 1997), U-shaped (Capar and Kotabe, 2003; Gaur and Kumar, 2009; Lu and Beamish, 2001), inverted-U-shaped (Brock et al. , 2006; Garbe and Richter, 2009; Gomes and Ramaswamy, 1999; Hitt et al. 1997) and horizontal-S-shaped (Contractor et al. , 2003; Lu and Beamish, 2004; Ruigrok et al. , 2007). To better understand the in? uence of international diversi? cation, we extend this line of research by studying the impact of international diversi? cation on new product performance. Speci? cally, we test if international diversi? cation explains the stock ? Corresponding author at: Present address: Department of Management, Fo Guang University, No. 160, Linwei Rd. , Jiaosi, Yilan County 26247, Taiwan. Tel. : + 886 3 9871000 23816. E-mail addresses: [email  protected] net. tw (C. -F. Wang), [email  protected] fgu. edu. w (L. -Y. Chen), [email  protected] ncku. edu. tw (S. -C. Chang). 1 Present address: Department of Business Administration, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, No. 123, University Road, Section 3, Douliou, Yunlin 64002, Taiwan. Tel. : + 886 5 5342601Ãâ€"5245. 2 Present address: Institute of International Business, National Cheng Kung University, No. 1, University Road, 701, Tainan, Taiwan. Tel. : + 886 6 2757575Ãâ€"53506. 1075-4253/ $ – see front matter  © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10. 1016/j. intman. 2011. 03. 002 334 C. -F. Wang et al. / Journal of International Management 17 (2011) 333–347 arket responses to new product introduction (NPI) announcements. NPIs are an important dimension of innovation output. 3 Firms with the ability to introduce new products are signaled as those with the opportunity for differentiation and future earnings (Chaney et al. , 1991; Kleinschmidt and Cooper, 1991; Subramaniam and Venkatraman, 2001). In order to improve the performance of NPIs, many ? rms are engaged in international diversi? cation activities (Kogut and Zander, 1993; Peng and Wang, 2000). Previous studies have documented that international diversi? cation comes with both bene? s and costs (Contractor et al. , 2003; Lu and Beamish, 2004; Ruigrok et al. , 2007). We suggest that these bene? ts and costs might create both opportunities and challenges for ? rms to develop new products, and hence in? uence investors' assessment of the new products introduced by ? rms. International diversi? cation may have positive effects on NPIs. For example, it allows ? rms to reach outside their domestic boundaries, providing them with more opportunities to gain new ideas in terms of the types of new products that can be developed (Hitt et al. , 1997). Internationally diversi? ed ? ms also have better access to the resources resident in foreign countries that may be necessary for producing these new products (Craig and Douglas, 2000; Peng and Wang, 2000). Furthermore, international diversi? cation creates the bene? t of economies of scale by ef? ciently leveraging the initial investments on new products over a broader market base (Subramaniam and Venkatraman, 2001). In spite of the bene? cial effects of international diversi? cation, we suggest that international diversi? cation may also entail disadvantages when it comes to introducing new products. For instance, cross-nationa l distances increase the dif? ulty for internationally diversi? ed ? rms to transfer technological knowledge between countries. Differential environmental settings among countries might also constrain the ? rm's ability to absorb and apply resources towards new product development. In such cases, new products are expected to be less worthwhile for introducing ? rms with international diversi? cation activities. In addition to investigating the direct impact of international diversi? cation on the stock market reactions to NPI announcements, we postulate that investors' assessments of the value of new products may depend on a ? m's internal capabilities. Extending previous research documenting the importance of technological and marketing capabilities in determining new product success (e. g. , Cooper and Kleinschmidt, 1987; Yeoh and Roth, 1999), we argue that both marketing and technological capabilities assist in enhancing the bene? ts of international diversi? cation while simulta neously restricting its drawbacks with regard to the introduction of new products. We test our hypotheses by measuring the stock market responses to NPI announcements using the event-study methodology framework.The events of NPI announcements are collected for the period 1997–2005. Under the assumption of the ef? cient markets hypothesis (Fama, 1970), NPI announcements bring unanticipated information into ? nancial markets that may change the market value assessments of the announcing ? rms. In response to the new information, changes in stock prices occur, which represent investors' revision of their expectation with regard to the net present value of a ? rm's risk-adjusted expected cash ? ow generated by the new products, or stated differently, the investors' expectation of the wealth impact of NPIs.This paper is organized as follows: Section 2 provides the theoretical background and develops the hypotheses. Section 3 introduces the sample and methodology. The empirical res ults are presented in Section 4. Finally, Section 5 contains the discussion and concluding remarks of this study. 2. Theoretical background and hypotheses International diversi? cation has been suggested by FDI theory and portfolio theory to provide ? rms with bene? ts ranging from the ability to realize scale economies (Grant, 1987; Porter, 1986), the possibility to spread investment risks over different countries (Kim et al. 1993), the potential to arbitrage factor cost differentials across multiple locations (Kogut, 1985) and the opportunity to access resources resident in foreign countries (Hitt et al. , 1997). However, there is considerable theoretical evidence that international diversi? cation comes with both bene? ts and costs. We suggest that that these bene? ts and costs that accompany foreign expansion may create both opportunities and challenges for ? rms in terms of developing new products, and thereby affect the stock market reactions to NPI announcements.In this secti on, we review various theoretical domains in order to identify the channels through which international diversi? cation might in? uence value creation for ? rms in the context of NPIs. 2. 1. Effects of international diversi? cation International diversi? cation provides several advantages towards developing new products. First, international diversi? cation offers opportunities for ? rms to gain new and diverse ideas from a variety of perspectives (Hitt et al. , 1997). Being exposed to heterogeneous customers, technology, cultures, and competitive practices, internationally diversi? d ? rms are able to learn from the experience in foreign operations to ? nd new solutions to bettering product design and improving the quality of manufacturing know-how (Craig and Douglas, 2000). For example, the launch of a new cordless telephone by Sanyo, which had been adjusted to better meet the phone use habits of American consumers (Barkema and Vermeulen, 1998), consequently expanded the company's sales in the U. S. market. 3 Prior studies have used several ways to measure the performance of innovation, which includes R intensity (Hill and Snell, 1988; Hitt et al. 1997), number of NPIs (Cardinal and Opler, 1995; Hitt et al. , 1996) and number of patents (Francis and Smith, 1995). Though they have provided valuable insights, the measures they developed have some limitations in capturing the true value of innovation (Chaney et al. , 1991; Schankerman and Pakes, 1986). For example, R intensity is more related to the input value of innovation but does not directly measure the output value of innovation. Furthermore, numbers of NPIs or patents only measure the quantity of inventive output without considering the quality of innovation.As well, patent counts often represent a very noisy measure of the underlying value of innovation because most patents are not worth anything. The measure used in our study allows us to directly measure the wealth effect of innovation, rather than on ly considering the quantity of inventive output as has been done in prior studies. C. -F. Wang et al. / Journal of International Management 17 (2011) 333–347 335 International diversi? cation also allows ? rms to gain access to resources that may only be available in foreign markets but not frequently obtainable in the home countries to develop new products (Peng and Wang, 2000).By tapping into the technological skills and knowledge that originates from other countries, multinational ? rms may be able to successfully increase their technological strength in developing new products (Hitt et al. , 1997; Kotabe, 1990; Peng and Wang, 2000; Subramaniam and Venkatraman, 2001). Moreover, international diversi? cation provides a ? rm with a wider national network, which helps increase its ability to effectively leverage technological resources and rationalize production processes. These economies of scale can enable the ? m to obtain higher returns from new product innovations (Bartl ett and Ghoshal, 1989; Kogut, 1985). Furthermore, the broader market outlets available to new products create higher returns on the sunk costs of innovative spending (Subramaniam and Venkatraman, 2001), while cash ? ows generated from large-scale foreign operations provide ? rms with the resources needed for extra investment in new product development (Kobrin, 1991; Kotabe, 1990). Notwithstanding the above bene? ts, international diversi? cation can bring challenges to the development of new products. The ? rst challenge comes from the dif? ulty in transferring technological knowledge between countries. The more countries within which the ? rm operates, the larger geographic distance the technological know-how has to be transferred, and the less effective the ? rm will be in developing new products. Furthermore, with increasing diversi? cation, the differences in cultural, economic and technological settings among the countries increase. These differences reduce the effectiveness in assimilating and applying the technological knowledge that is critical for new product development (Chang and Wang, 2007; Hitt et al. 1997); while knowledge diversity can create greater learning value (Inkpen, 2000), differences in knowledge does not guarantee successful learning (Bowman and Helfat, 2001; Chang and Singh, 2000; Szulanski and Winter, 2002). In addition, arguments from the economic law of diminishing returns suggest that the higher degree of international diversi? cation a ? rm is involved in, the more likely it is to be entering markets whose marginal contributions are relatively minor (Contractor et al. , 2003). Beyond a certain point, after already having expanded into the most advantageous markets, the ? m is left with minor or peripheral foreign markets whose resources for and cash ? ow from new product development will exhibit diminishing returns. By drawing on various theoretical perspectives, the above discussions suggest that international diversi? cation no t only create opportunities but also impose barriers to the value creation provided by new product innovation. With moderate levels of international diversi? cation, ? rms can capitalize on valuable bene? ts of knowledge learning, resource access and production ef? ciency in producing new products.At the same time, economic pro? ts rise as the ? xed costs of new product development are spread across more markets (Kogut, 1985; Porter, 1986). However, ? rms that expand internationally beyond an optimal level may ? nd that the costs of international diversi? cation eventually exceed the bene? ts. Firms at this stage often enter countries that are more geographically and culturally dissimilar, which increases the dif? culties of transferring technological knowledge between countries. The value of new product innovation may also exhibit diminishing returns when international diversi? ation is increased beyond the optimal level. Based on the above, this study proposes a non-linear and inv erted-U-shaped relationship between international diversi? cation and the stock market reactions to NPI announcements, suggesting that the market value of NPIs is expected to improve with increasing international diversi? cation at lower levels of international diversi? cation and then decline with increasing international diversi? cation at higher levels of international diversi? cation. For these reasons, we propose our ? rst hypothesis as follows: Hypothesis 1.The relationship between international diversi? cation and the stock market reactions to NPI announcements is inverted-U-shaped, with a positive slope at lower levels of international diversi? cation and negative at higher levels of international diversi? cation. We utilize event-study methodology to capture the valuation effect of corporate new product strategies. This approach not only permits direct investigation of changes in announcing ? rms' shareholder value, but is also suited to conduct cross-sectional analysis of the strategies underlying the value creation or destruction (Reuer, 2001).Applying event-study methodology to NPIs also facilitates comparisons with previous studies on other corporate major strategic events. 4 2. 2. Interaction effects of intangible assets and international diversi? cation Although our theoretical framework should hold for all ? rms, the effect of international diversi? cation on new product performance may depend on ? rms' intangible assets. Scholars in international business have shown that multinational ? rms with greater marketing and technological capabilities may receive higher returns from international expansion (Kotabe et al. , 2002; Lu andBeamish, 2004). Other researchers also document the importance of marketing and technological capabilities in the success of new products (e. g. , Cooper and Kleinschmidt, 1987; Danneels, 2002; Krasnikov and Jayachandran, 2008; Moorman and Slotegraaf, 1999; Yeoh and Roth, 1999). We make advances in linking these two stre ams of study by investigating the moderating effect 4 Previous studies have used event-study methodology to test the wealth effect of major corporate events, such as diversi? cation (Doukas and Lang, 2003; Hoskisson et al. , 1991), divestitures (Benou et al. , 2008), alliances (Das et al. 1998; Kale et al. , 2002), regulatory change (Bowman and Navissi, 2003), NPIs (Chaney et al. , 1991; Chen, 2008; Kelm et al. , 1995), R expenditures (Szewczyk et al. , 1996), and patents (Austin, 1993). 336 C. -F. Wang et al. / Journal of International Management 17 (2011) 333–347 of internal capabilities on the association between international diversi? cation and the stock market reactions to NPI announcements. We suggest that internationally diversi? ed ? rms that have greater marketing and technological capabilities are more able to extract the bene? ts and reduce the costs of international diversi? ation, resulting in higher returns from NPI announcements. Each moderating effect is disc ussed independently below. Marketing capability is related to a ? rm's ability to acquire external knowledge through the processes of gathering, interpreting, and using market information (Day, 1994). Though international diversi? cation gives ? rms opportunities to access new knowledge, ? rms that do not have ability to identify customers' needs and to understand the factors that in? uence consumer choice behavior will not be able to achieve better targeting and positioning of its products.Therefore, ? rms that have invested in developing their marketing capability are more able to integrate the information on consumer needs in diverse markets into new product designs, and thus generate higher returns from the new products (Dutta et al. , 1999). In addition, marketing capability is re? ected in a ? rm's ability to differentiate its products from those of competitors (Kotabe et al. , 2002). A higher level of product differentiation allows a ? rm to charge higher prices for its new p roducts (Day, 1994; Yeoh and Roth, 1999). Furthermore, ? ms that spend more money on advertising and promoting their products are more likely to build successful brands, which are essential to building awareness, reducing the perceived risk that consumers associate with new products, and ? nally increasing the adoption rate of new products introduced (Chandy and Tellis, 2000; Dowling and Staelin, 1994; Sorescu et al. , 2003). This is particularly important for ? rms that are completely new to foreign customers (Helsen et al. , 1993; Srivastava et al. , 1998). Consequently, we expect that NPIs are expected to be more worthwhile for internationally diversi? d ? rms with greater marketing capabilities, leading to Hypothesis 2: Hypothesis 2. Marketing capability will positively moderate the relationship between international diversi? cation and the stock market reactions to NPI announcements. As mentioned, technological capability is also likely to moderate the effect of international d iversi? cation on new product development. Technology capability might represent a ? rm's ability to absorb external knowledge (Penner-Hahn and Shaver, 2005; Tsai, 2001). A ? rm may be able to access certain new knowledge through international diversi? ation, but without the capacity to absorb such knowledge a ? rm may not enhance its capabilities within new product innovation. Since knowledge gained from international markets is often tacit and socially complex (Zahra and Hayton, 2008), ? rms that have established a capability in a particular research skill are better able to interpret and assess the knowledge in that area. Technological capability also refers to a ? rm's ability to apply knowledge gained from foreign markets to commercial ends (Krasnikov and Jayachandran, 2008; Moorman and Slotegraaf, 1999).Kotabe et al. (2002) have stated that ? rms with greater technological capabilities are more capable of ? nding better product design solutions. The technical risks in developi ng new products are more likely to be reduced for such ? rms (Kelm et al. , 1995). Furthermore, ? rms with greater technological capability are more able to lower production costs by improving manufacturing processes. Moreover, technological capability helps ? rms to speed up the product development process and satisfy the market more quickly (Rabino and Moskowitz, 1981). Thus, ? ms that have greater technological capabilities are more likely to enhance their revenues in international markets by providing those markets with new products of better quality. Meanwhile, ? rms that leverage their technological capabilities in the greater scope of the global market may enjoy the bene? ts of economies of scale inherent in the innovation process. As a result, we expect that NPIs are more worthwhile for internationally diversi? ed ? rms with greater technological capabilities, leading to Hypothesis 3: Hypothesis 3. Technological capability will positively moderate the relationship between in ternational diversi? ation and the stock market reactions to NPI announcements. 3. Sample and methodology 3. 1. Sample design We test our hypotheses using a sample of NPI announcement events. We collect the sample data on ? rms listed on either the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) or the American Stock Exchange (AMEX) from the Dow Jones News Retrieval Service (DJNRS) database, which provides news-service articles and selected stories from the Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones News Wire, and Barron's. We use the words and phrases commonly used to describe NPIs as keys for a database search routine.Examples are â€Å"introduce,† â€Å"new product,† â€Å"unveil,† â€Å"launch,† â€Å"received approval,† â€Å"to market,† â€Å"test market,† â€Å"begin selling,† along with other pertinent words and phrases. When a repeat NPI announcement from a ? rm is found in a different publication, the announcement that has the earliest date is ch osen as it is the earliest date when the information about the NPI is publicly available (Chaney et al. , 1991; Chen, 2008; Kelm et al. , 1995). The sample period is from January 1997 to December 2005. Four criteria are used when selecting ? rms for our sample: (1) the announcing ? rms should not have other announcements ? e days before and after the initial announcement date in order to avoid any confounding events that could distort the measurement of the valuation effects; (2) daily stock return information must be available from the Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP), with a minimum of 50 daily returns in the estimation period; (3) companies' ? nancial information must be available from the COMPUSTAT ? les; and (4) since we want to test the effect of international diversi? cation, only those ? rms with foreign sales data available from the COMPUSTAT ? les are included. C. -F. Wang et al. Journal of International Management 17 (2011) 333–347 337 Following these procedures, we collect a ? nal sample comprising 3061 new product announcements made by 531 ? rms in 57 industries based on the two-digit Standard Industrial Classi? cation (SIC) codes. 5 Table 1 reports the distribution of the sample by year and industry. Our data shows no obvious cluster by time period. In 2004, there are 530 announcements, accounting for 17. 32% of the total. Observations are nearly evenly distributed through the remaining years. However, our sample shows certain levels of concentration in speci? c industries.The largest concentration comes from electrical equipment (33. 61%), computer equipment (18. 09%), electro-medical instruments (9. 38%), and business services (e. g. , computer programming and the software industry) (7. 19%). These three broad categories constitute nearly 70% of the total sample. As suggested by Chaney et al. (1991), this result is expected since neither the investment opportunities nor their valuation should be random across industries. 3. 2. Measuring the stock market responses to new product announcements We employ the event study methodology to examine the stock price responses to the announcements of NPIs. This approach has been widely used in the management, accounting, economics and ? nance disciplines to examine the impact of ? rm-speci? c events on ? rm value. The event study approach suggests that, in an ef? cient capital market, the market will adjust and result in returns different from those that are normally expected if the NPI announcement has unexpected information content (Hoskisson et al. , 1991). We use the market model suggested by Brown and Warner (1985) to estimate the abnormal returns to NPI announcements. This model captures a ? rm's stock price change after adjusting for general market-wide factors and the ? m's systematic risk (Bowman, 1983; Brown, 1989; Brown and Warner, 1980, 1985). The abnormal return for ? rm i on day t, ARit, is computed by: ARit = Rit ? E? Rit = It ? 1 ? ; where Rit is ? rm i's actual returns on day t, and It ? 1 represents the information set available to the market about the ? rm at time t ? 1. The expected return for ? rm i on day t is estimated by: E? Rit = It ? 1 ? = ? i + ? i Rmt where Rmt is the return for the market portfolio on day t, ? i is the intercept, and ? i measures the risk or sensitivity of the ? rm's returns relative to the market portfolio. We de? e Day 0 (t = 0) as the initial announcement date. We use the value-weighted CRSP Index as the proxy for the market portfolio. The parameters ? i and ? i are estimated using data for the period of 200 to 60 days before the initial announcement date. The two-day cumulative abnormal returns, CAR (? 1, 0), are estimated by summing the daily abnormal returns over the window period of days ? 1 and 0. The equally weighted cross-sectional average abnormal returns on ? event day t, ARt , is further calculated by: 1N ? ARt = ? ARit ; N i=1 where N is the total number of sample NPIs. The cumulati ve average abnormal return over the period (? , 0) is similarly de? ned. 3. 3. Measuring international diversi? cation We use the entropy index to estimate international diversi? cation. 7 The entropy measure of international diversi? cation is de? ned as ? [Pi* ln(1/Pi)], where Pi is the percentage of sales in geographic segment i, and ln(1/Pi) is the weight of each geographic segment. This measure thus considers both the number of geographic segments in which a ? rm operates and the relative importance of sales contributed by each geographic segment. 5 For the industry classi? cation, we follow Hitt et al. (1997) and use the our-digit SIC codes as the indicator of the industry or business segment that a ? rm operates. Therefore, two variables in this study, namely product diversi? cation and industry R&D intensity, are estimated basing on the four-digit SIC codes. However, for the sake of brevity, we report the sample distribution by industry on the basis of the two-digit SIC code s. 6 Other performance measures of new product strategies that are most commonly used in previous studies include return on assets, return on sales, return on equity, return on investment and pro? t margin (e. g. , Li and Atuahene-Gima, 2001; Moorman, 1995).However, these accounting measures have several limitations in measuring new product performance (Chang and Wang, 2007; Kalyanaram et al. , 1995; Pauwels et al. , 2004). For example, the differences in accounting policies across ? rms make performance comparisons dif? cult. These measures are also not risk-adjusted as they do not consider business risks associated with individual ? rms when measuring performance, and they are based on historical accounting data and thus may not adequately re? ect future expected revenue streams resulting from the new products. More importantly, these measures re? ect aggregate ? m performance, making it more dif? cult to directly link them to the effect of speci? c new product introductions. Due to these limitations we employ an event study methodology in order to examine stock price responses to announcements of NPIs. This method captures the ? rm's stock price change after adjusting for the ? rm's systematic risk (Bowman, 1983; Brown, 1989; Brown and Warner, 1980, 1985), as well as re? ects investors' expectations of a ? rm's future cash ? ow related to this new product (Chaney et al. , 1991; Chen, 2008; Chen et al. , 2002; Kelm et al. , 1995). 7 Previous studies have used several proxies of international diversi? ation. The most commonly used measures are the ratio of foreign sales to total sales (Grant, 1987; Tallman and Li, 1996), the ratio of foreign assets to total assets (Daniels and Bracker, 1989; Ramaswamy, 1995), numbers of foreign countries in which a ? rm has subsidiaries (Delios and Beamish, 1999; Tallman and Li, 1996) or a composite index encompassing these three dimensions (Gomes and Ramaswamy, 1999; Sullivan, 1994). However, these measures only capture the extent but not the distribution of international diversi? cation. In this study, we follow Hitt et al. (1997) and use the entropy measure of international diversi? ation to account for the extent of sales in global markets and their weighting. C. -F. Wang et al. / Journal of International Management 17 (2011) 333–347 338 Table 1 Distribution of new product introduction. Panel A. Sample distribution by year Year Number of announcements Percent of sample (%) 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 Total 354 279 370 313 232 247 391 530 345 3061 11. 56 9. 11 12. 08 10. 22 7. 58 8. 07 12. 77 17. 32 11. 30 100. 00 Panel B. Sample distribution by industry Two-digit SIC code Industry group 01 12 13 15 16 17 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 33 34 Agricultural production cropsCoal mining Oil and gas extraction Building construction: general contractors Heavy construction other than building construction contractors Construction: special trade contractors Food and kindred produc ts Tobacco products Textile mill products Apparel, ? nished prdcts from fabrics and similar materials Lumber and wood products, except furniture Furniture and ? xtures Paper and allied products Printing, publishing, and allied industries Chemicals and allied products Petroleum re? ning and related industries Rubber and miscellaneous plastics products Leather and leather products Primary metal industriesFabricated metal products, except machinery and transportation equipment Industrial and commercial machinery and computer equipment Electronic and other electrical equipment and components, except computer equipment Transportation equipment Measuring, analyzing, and controlling instruments; photographic, medical and optical goods Miscellaneous manufacturing industries Railroad transportation Motor freight transportation and warehousing Transportation by air Pipelines, except natural gas Transportation services Communications Electric, gas, and sanitary services Wholesale trade: durabl e goods Wholesale trade: non-durable goodsBuilding materials, hardware, garden supply, and mobile home dealers General merchandise stores Food stores Apparel and accessory stores Home furniture, furnishings, and equipment stores Eating and drinking places Miscellaneous retail Depository institutions Non-depository credit institutions Security and commodity brokers, dealers, exchanges, and services Insurance carriers Insurance agents, brokers, and service Real estate Holding and other investment of? ces Hotels, rooming houses, camps, and other lodging places Personal services 35 36 37 38 39 40 42 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 67 0 72 Number of announcements Percent of sample (%) 1 1 8 1 1 1 28 4 2 2 3 6 13 76 118 2 9 2 23 21 0. 03 0. 03 0. 26 0. 03 0. 03 0. 03 0. 91 0. 13 0. 07 0. 07 0. 10 0. 20 0. 42 2. 48 3. 85 0. 07 0. 29 0. 07 0. 75 0. 69 554 1029 18. 09 33. 61 72 287 2. 35 9. 38 41 4 2 144 1 1 120 20 19 10 2 3 3 8 6 14 13 2 18 17 34 5 3 9 6 6 1. 34 0. 13 0. 07 4. 70 0. 03 0. 03 3. 92 0. 65 0. 62 0. 33 0. 07 0. 10 0. 10 0. 26 0. 20 0. 46 0. 42 0. 07 0. 59 0. 56 1. 11 0. 16 0. 10 0. 29 0. 20 0. 20 C. -F. Wang et al. / Journal of International Management 17 (2011) 333–347 339 Table 1 (continued) Panel B. Sample distribution by industryTwo-digit SIC code Industry group 73 78 79 80 82 87 Business services Motion pictures Amusement and recreation services Health services Educational services Engineering, accounting, research, management, and related services Nonclassi? able establishments 99 Total Number of announcements Percent of sample (%) 220 13 4 2 1 10 7. 19 0. 42 0. 13 0. 07 0. 03 0. 33 36 3061 1. 18 100. 00 As data is not available at the country level, we use sales of regional markets to measure international diversity (as used by e. g. , Hirsch and Lev, 1971; Hitt et al. , 1997; Miller and Pras, 1980). Following Hitt et al. 1997), we group foreign markets into four regions based on economic and political conditions: Africa, Asia and the Paci? c, Europe, and the Americas. Although not perfect, this approach allows us to focus on between-market heterogeneity (Kim et al. , 1989). The international market sales data are from the COMPUSTAT geographic segment tapes for the ? scal year preceding the announcements. 8 3. 4. Measuring intangible assets We measure marketing capability as the average marketing intensity (the ratio of advertisement expenditures to net sales) for the three ? scal years prior to the announcements. 9 We suggest that ? ms who invest more in marketing activities are considered to have superior marketing capabilities. We measure technological capability as the average R&D intensity (the ratio of R&D expenditures to net sales) for the three ? scal years prior to the announcements. We suggest that ? rms outspending their competitors in R&D are considered to have greater technological capabilities. We scale the measures of ? rm capabilities by ? rm size in order to ensure that the capability measure does not merely re? ect higher levels of ? nancial resources of large-scaled ? rms (following Moorman and Slotegraaf, 1999). 3. 5. Other variablesOther potential variables that could affect the value of NPIs are controlled. The ? rst is ? rm size, measured by the natural logarithm of total sales of the announcing ? rm for the ? scal year preceding the announcement (following Kotabe et al. , 2002; Lu and Beamish, 2004). We next control for a ? rm's leverage ratio, measured as the ratio of total debt to total assets for the ? scal year prior to the announcement (following Chen et al. , 2002; Chen, 2008). We also control for the degree of product diversi? cation for the ? scal year preceding the announcement. Product diversi? cation is measured by the entropy index (? Pi * ln(1/Pi)], where Pi is the percentage of ? rm sales in business segment i, and ln(1/Pi) is the weight of each segment). Following Hitt et al. (1997), we de? ne business segments as those having the same four-digit SIC codes. The product-speci? c effects are also controlled. This is necessary as some researchers have suggested that high-newness products are expected to create better opportunities for product differentiation and competitive advantage (Kleinschmidt and Cooper, 1991; Meyer and Roberts, 1986), and as such, high-newness products should receive a larger market value than updates of existing products.Furthermore, scholars have argued that ? rms introducing multiple products are more competitive in the product market and seize more market share than those announcing single products. This implies that ? rms announcing multipleproducts announcers may appropriate much of the bene? ts associated with new products, and are thus expected to experience a larger increase in market value than those announcing a single product (Acs and Audretsch, 1988; Hendricks and Singhal, 1997). Moreover, researchers have documented that the ? rst to introduce a new product in the marketplac e usually enjoys ? st-mover advantages stemming from the creation of entry barriers and switching costs, and from high consumer recognition and preference to the ? rst product (Jovanovic and MacDonald, 1994; Lee et al. , 2000). Therefore, ? rst-moving ? rms are predicted to gain a higher announcement return at the time of NPIs than followers do. The aforementioned ? rms that introduce high-newness and multiple products or ? rms that are the ? rst to introduce new products are suggested to obtain sustained competitive advantage. This argument corresponds to Williamson (1999) that ? ms getting ahead of their competitors by providing multiple and new technology, products and business solutions have more opportunities to ensure lasting sales growth. We identify these product announcement types by using structural content analysis on the news content (as in Chaney et al. , 1991; Lee et al. , 2000; Firth and Narayanan, 1996). Based on the analysis of the news content, we create three dumm y variables: NEWNESS, MULTIPLE and TIME. 8 The main reason for using data one year before the announcements is to capture the most recent impact of a ? m's attributes on the market reactions to new product introductions. Several independent variables are measured by the data one year preceding the announcements, including international diversi? cation, ? rm size, debt-to-asset ratio, product diversi? cation and two industry sector dummy variables. 9 Since the values of advertising and R&D expenditures tend to ? uctuate substantially from year to year, we use the 3-year average values of advertising intensity, R&D intensity and industry R&D intensity to reduce the chance that a random and extreme value in one year disproportionately in? ences our measure of intangible assets. 340 C. -F. Wang et al. / Journal of International Management 17 (2011) 333–347 NEWNESS equals one if the product is highly innovative, and zero if it is an update or an enhancement of an existing product (as in Chaney et al. , 1991; Chen, 2008). MULTIPLE equals one for multiple-products announced simultaneously by a ? rm, and zero for single announcements (as in Chaney et al. , 1991; Chen, et al. , 2002). TIME equals one if the announcing ? rm is the ? rst mover, and zero otherwise (as in Lee et al. , 2000; Chen, 2008).Finally, we consider two industry-related factors. The ? rst is the technological opportunity of the industry in which the announcing ? rms operate. Chaney et al. (1991) asserted that the valuation effect of NPIs is higher for ? rms in more technologically based industries, as they are considered to have more innovation opportunities and greater potential for future growth. In contrast, Kelm et al. (1995) found that investors respond positively to new product announcements by ? rms in less-technology-intensive industries because new product announcements by these ? rms are relatively nexpected by investors. Technological opportunities at the industry level are measure d by the average industry R&D intensity (the average values of R&D expenditures divided by net sales for all ? rms in the same four-digit SIC industry) for the three ? scal years prior to the announcements (following Chan et al. , 1990; Kelm et al. , 1995). In addition, we control for the industry-speci? c effect with two dummy variables: MANUFACTURING and SERVICE. MANUFACTURING equals one for announcing ? rms in manufacturing industries, and zero otherwise. SERVICE equals one for announcing ? ms in service industries, and zero otherwise. This is done as several studies have argued that the effect of internationality on performance for manufacturing ? rms is different from that for service ? rms (Capar and Kotabe, 2003; Contractor et al. , 2003). We therefore separate the sample ? rms into service, manufacturing and other industries according to 2-digit SIC codes and apply two industry dummies to control for the industry-speci? c effects. Table 2 presents the means, standard deviati ons, and correlations for all variables for the sample of NPI announcements. 4. Empirical resultsTable 3 provides estimates of abnormal returns around the announcement date and the surrounding days. The results show that innovations such as NPIs are perceived by investors as value-increasing activities. For the two-day announcement period cumulative abnormal returns, CAR (? 1, 0), the new product announcers experience a positive cumulative average abnormal return of 0. 194%, signi? cant at the 1% con? dence level. No signi? cant abnormal returns are observed preceding and following the announcement period. As a result, we use CAR (? 1, 0) as the dependent variable in the following regression analysis.Our results are consistent with prior studies (e. g. , Chaney et al. , 1991; Chen, 2008; Chen et al. , 2002; Kelm et al. , 1995). Table 4 reports the regression results with the dependent variable CAR (? 1, 0). We present the results without centering the variables in the ? rst ? ve mod els, and results with centering the variables on their means in the latter ? ve models. 10 Models 1 and 6 are baseline models that include only the control variables and two measures of intangible assets. Among the control variables, leverage ratio is found to be positively associated with CAR (? 1, 0), though insigni? cant in some models.This result suggests that higher levels of debt lower the expected costs of free cash ? ow (Jensen, 1986), and new products announced by ? rms with a higher leverage ratio are therefore perceived as more worthwhile. Of the two ? rm-speci? c assets variables, both R&D and advertising intensities have a signi? cant and positive impact in most models. Moreover, industry R&D intensity is found to be signi? cantly negatively associated with CAR (? 1, 0). This result suggests that investors respond positively to new product announcements by ? rms in less technology-intensive industries because new product announcements by these ? ms are relatively unexpe cted by investors (Kelm et al. , 1995). Other control variables are not found to have signi? cant explanatory power in terms of the variation in announcement abnormal returns. In model 2 (7), we test the impact of international diversi? cation on the stock market reactions to NPI announcements by including the linear and squared terms of international diversi? cation. We ? nd our Hypothesis 1 is strongly supported, as CAR (? 1, 0) is positively related to the linear term of international diversi? cation and then negatively associated to the squared term of international diversi? cation.This result suggests an inverted-U-shaped relationship between international diversi? cation and the market value of NPIs. Models 3 (8), 4 (9) and 5 (10) test the moderating effects of intangible assets by including the interaction term of international diversi? cation and advertising intensity and the interaction term of international diversi? cation and R&D intensity. 11 Model 3 (8) tests the intera ction effect between international diversi? cation and marketing capability. The statistically signi? cant and positive coef? cient of the interaction term suggests that the market value of NPIs increases when internationally diversi? d ? rms have greater marketing capacities. Thus, Hypothesis 2 is supported. Model 4 (9) tests the interaction effect between international diversi? cation and technological capability. We also ? nd a statistically signi? cant and positive coef? cient of the interaction term. Thus, Hypothesis 3 is supported. To test the robustness of these ? ndings, we simultaneously include the interaction of international diversi? cation and advertising intensity and the interaction of international diversi? cation and R&D intensity in model 5 (10). Results remain unchanged to those in models 3 (8) and 4 (9).It is noted that the â€Å"main effects† between international diversi? cation and the abnormal returns of NPIs remain robust in all models with the additi on of the interaction terms. To gain further insights into our ? ndings, we construct Figs. 1 and 2 by drawing on the results of models 3 and 4. We use CAR (? 1, 0) as the measurement of market value of NPIs. When illustrating the impact of advertising intensity (R&D intensity) and 10 Since some variables are constructed from other variables, we follow Aiken and West (1991) by subtracting each variable from its mean value in the sample to minimize their collinearity. 11To test the robustness of our conclusion, we re-examine the regression analysis by incorporating the interaction of quadratic terms of international diversi? cation and intangible asset proxies. Our conclusions remain unchanged. Variables a Mean s. d. Min Max 1. Two-day announcementperiod abnormal return(%)a 2. International diversi? cation 3. Advertising intensity 4. R&D intensity 5. Product diversi? cation 6. Firm size b 7. Debt-to-asset ratio 8. Newness 9. Multiple 10. Time 11. Industry R&D intensity 12. Service in dustry 13. Manufacturing industry 0. 194 0. 037 ? 0. 242 0. 230 0. 653 0. 012 0. 081 0. 816 8. 541 0. 00 0. 827 0. 302 0. 359 0. 236 0. 236 0. 748 0. 424 0. 022 0. 148 0. 659 1. 860 0. 149 0. 379 0. 459 0. 480 0. 390 0. 425 0. 434 0. 000 0. 000 0. 000 0. 000 ? 0. 781 0. 000 0. 000 0. 000 0. 000 0. 000 0. 000 0. 000 1. 382 0. 317 4. 696 2. 533 12. 060 1. 099 1. 000 1. 000 1. 000 2. 334 1. 000 1. 000 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1. 000 ? 0. 033* 1. 000 0. 102*** ? 0. 071*** 1. 000 ? 0. 004 ? 0. 042** ? 0. 016 1. 000 0. 149*** 0. 092*** ? 0. 158*** 0. 399*** 1. 000 ? 0. 111*** 0. 001 ? 0. 090*** 0. 052*** 0. 075*** 1. 000 0. 036** ? 0. 002 0. 010 ? 0. 003 0. 027 ? 0. 021 1. 000 9 0. 076*** 0. 050*** 0. 015 ? 0. 024 0. 016 ? 0. 100*** 0. 33* 1. 000 The two-day period (? 1,0) abnormal return is estimated by summing up abnormal returns from the day before (day ? 1) to the announcement date (day 0). Firm size is measured by the natural logarithm of net sales. ***p b 0. 01, **pb0. 05, *pb0. 1. b 10 11 12 13 0. 045** ? 0. 022 0. 056*** 0. 039** 0. 024 ? 0. 050*** 0. 170*** ? 0. 040** 1. 000 0. 257*** ? 0. 083*** 0. 252*** ? 0. 042** ? 0. 188*** ? 0. 098*** 0. 031* 0. 039** 0. 055*** 1. 000 ? 0. 382*** 0. 000 ? 0. 137*** ? 0. 206*** ? 0. 020 0. 199*** ? 0. 007 ? 0. 147*** ? 0. 064*** ? 0. 151*** 1. 000 0. 342*** 0. 017 0. 143*** 0. 151*** ? 0. 017 ? 0. 222*** . 009 0. 147*** 0. 068*** 0. 166*** ? 0. 960*** 1. 000 C. -F. Wang et al. / Journal of International Management 17 (2011) 333–347 Table 2 Descriptive statistics and correlations. 341 342 C. -F. Wang et al. / Journal of International Management 17 (2011) 333–347 Table 3 Abnormal returns for new product introduction announcements. Event day Mean AR (%) t-statistic ? 10 ?9 ?8 ?7 ?6 ?5 ?4 ?3 ?2 ?1 0 [? 1,0] +1 +2 +3 +4 +5 +6 +7 +8 +9 + 10 ? 0. 023 ? 0. 005 0. 025 ? 0. 016 ? 0. 025 ? 0. 005 0. 047 0. 001 ? 0. 039 0. 093 0. 101 0. 194 ? 0. 038 0. 058 0. 081 ? 0. 056 0. 027 ? 0. 073 ? 0. 055 0. 053 ? 0. 025 ? 0. 054 ? 0. 4 50 0. 092 0. 471 ? 0. 309 ? 0. 477 ? 0. 099 0. 888 0. 003 ? 0. 731 1. 918* 2. 038** 2. 885*** ? 0. 756 1. 086 1. 329 ? 1. 138 0. 529 ? 1. 403 ? 1. 078 1. 118 ? 0. 471 ? 0. 972 (0. 653) (0. 927) (0. 638) (0. 758) (0. 633) (0. 921) (0. 375) (0. 998) (0. 465) (0. 055) (0. 042) (0. 004) (0. 450) (0. 278) (0. 184) (0. 255) (0. 597) (0. 161) (0. 281) (0. 264) (0. 638) (0. 331) ***p b 0. 01, **p b 0. 05. Values in parentheses are p-values. international diversi? cation on CAR (? 1, 0), we hold other control variables at the average level. If the control variables are dummy ones, we substitute these variables with their modes. 2 Both ? gures provide supportive evidence for our hypotheses. First, the relationship between international diversi? cation and the market value of NPIs is found to be inverted-U-shaped, with the slope positive at lower levels of international diversi? cation but negative at higher levels of international diversi? cation. For example, in Fig. 1, for ? rms with no mar keting capability, at the initial stage, there is a positive impact on the market value of NPIs with an increase of 0. 62% in CAR (? 1, 0) when the level of international diversi? cation increases from zero to 0. 8. Beyond this threshold of 0. , a higher level of international diversi? cation is associated with a decreasing CAR (? 1, 0). In Fig. 2, for ? rms with no technological capability, there is a positive impact on the market value of NPIs with an increase of 0. 63% in CAR (? 1, 0) when the level of international diversi? cation increases from zero to 0. 8. Beyond this point, more international diversi? cation results in lower market values of NPIs. In addition, these graphs illustrate the performance differences across ? rms with different levels of intangible assets. For example, in Fig. 1, for a ? rm with a degree of international diversi? cation of 0. and a level of marketing capability of 0. 3, there is an expected CAR (? 1, 0) that is almost 0. 89% higher than that for a ? rm at the same level of international diversi? cation but with the marketing capability of 0. 1; at a degree of international diversi? cation of 1. 2, there is an expected improvement in CAR (? 1, 0) of 3. 25% when the level of marketing capability increases from 0. 1 to 0. 3. The same procedure can be used to explain the moderating effect of technological capability. In Fig. 2, for a ? rm with a level of international diversi? cation of 0. 4 and a level of technology capability of 1. , there is an expected CAR (? 1, 0) that is 2. 09% higher than that for a ? rm at the same level of international diversi? cation but with the technological capability of 0. 4; at a degree of international diversi? cation of 1. 2, there is an expected improvement in CAR (? 1, 0) of 4. 92% when the technology capability of a ? rm increases from 0. 4 to 1. 6. 5. Discussion and conclusions This paper examines the importance of international diversi? cation in explaining the stock market reactions to NP I announcements. Using NPI announcements from the period 1997–2005, we found an inverted-U-shaped relationship between international diversi? ation and the market value of NPIs, with a slope positive at lower levels of international diversi? cation but negative at higher levels of international diversi? cation. This relationship is moderated by the intangible assets possessed by internationally diversi? ed ? rms. We ? nd that announcing ? rms with greater technological and/or marketing capabilities achieve higher abnormal returns from NPIs. The main effects of the international diversi? cation variables still hold after the inclusion of these moderating factors. In view of recent research having suggested a sigmoid performance effect of internationalization (Contractor et al. 2003; Lu and Beamish, 2004), we test our hypotheses in the framework of an S-shaped relationship by simultaneously adding linear, squared and cubed terms of international diversi? cation in the regressio n. However, our sample does not reveal the S-shaped association between international diversi? cation and the market value of NPI. 12 The equations for the graphs presented in Figs. 1 and 2 are as follows, respectively: CAR (? 1, 0) = ? 0. 0037 + 0. 0157 * ID ? 0. 0099 * ID2 ? 0. 0147 * AD + 0. 1476 * ID * AD and CAR (? 1, 0) = ? 0. 0049 + 0. 0168 * ID ? 0. 0112 * ID2 + 0. 0056 * RD + 0. 295 * ID * RD, where ID = international diversi? cation; ID2 = International diversi? cation squared; AD = advertising intensity; RD = R&D intensity. C. -F. Wang et al. / Journal of International Management 17 (2011) 333–347 343 Table 4 Regression analysis of new product introduction on international diversi? cation. Un-centered results Centered results Independent variables Model 1 Model 2 Intercept ? 0. 0005 (? 0. 072) ? 0. 0042 ? 0. 0017 ? 0. 0037 ? 0. 0009 (? 0. 591) (? 0. 233) (? 0. 525) (? 0. 122) 0. 0178 0. 0157 0. 0168 0. 0143 (3. 156)*** (2. 737)*** (2. 967)*** (2. 486)** ? 0. 0099 ? 0. 0099 ? 0. 0112 0. 0113 (? 2. 188)** (? 2. 175)** (? 2. 434)** (? 2. 455)** International diversi? cation International diversi? cation squared International diversi? cation ? Advertising intensity International diversi? cation ? R&D intensity Firm size a Debt-to-asset ratio Product diversi? cation Advertising intensity R&D intensity Newness Multiple Time Industry R&D intensity Service Manufacturing Adjusted R2 F value Number of observations a Model 3 Model 4 0. 1476 (2. 236)** ? 0. 0001 ? 0. 0002 (? 0. 336) (? 0. 484) 0. 0072 0. 0071 (1. 531) (1. 516) ? 0. 0001 0. 0000 (? 0. 069) (0. 037) 0. 0667 ? 0. 0147 (2. 100)** (? 0. 04) 0. 0090 0. 0087 (1. 878)* (1. 832)* ? 0. 0003 ? 0. 0002 (? 0. 182) (? 0. 138) 0. 0016 0. 0016 (1. 085) (1. 055) ? 0. 0007 ? 0. 0006 (? 0. 466) (? 0. 407) ? 0. 0034 ? 0. 0032 (? 1. 804)* (? 1. 686)* 0. 0020 ? 0. 0007 (0. 032) (? 1. 121) ? 0. 0005 ? 0. 0015 (? 0. 079) (? 0. 252) 0. 0051 0. 0064 2. 20*** 2. 41*** 3061 3061 Model 6 0. 0036 (0. 637) 0. 1629 (2. 458)** 0. 0295 0. 0003 (0. 676) 0. 0073 (1. 569) ? 0. 0009 (? 0. 744) 0. 0527 (1. 673)* 0. 0093 (1. 941)* ? 0. 0004 (? 0. 195) 0. 0017 (1. 141) ? 0. 0006 (? 0. 389) ? 0. 0018 (? 0. 977) ? 0. 0030 (? 0. 519) ? 0. 0012 (? 0. 218) 0. 0005 1. 15 3061 Model 5Model 7 Model 8 Model 9 0. 0022 0. 0032 0. 0030 0. 0042 (0. 392) (0. 567) (0. 517) (0. 726) 0. 0178 0. 0174 0. 0192 0. 0189 (3. 156)*** (3. 081)*** (3. 375)*** (3. 326)*** ? 0. 0099 ? 0. 0099 ? 0. 0112 ? 0. 0113 (? 2. 188)** (? 2. 175)** (? 2. 434)** (? 2. 455)** 0. 1476 (2. 236)** 0. 0333 (1. 978)** (2. 225)** ? 0. 0001 ? 0. 0002 (? 0. 257) (? 0. 410) 0. 0085 0. 0086 (1. 803)* (1. 824)* ? 0. 0001 0. 0000 (? 0. 102) (0. 012) 0. 0709 ? 0. 0185 (2. 226)** (? 0. 383) 0. 0056 0. 0049 (1. 107) (0. 971) ? 0. 0002 ? 0. 0001 (? 0. 109) (? 0. 051) 0. 0018 0. 0018 (1. 221) (1. 2061) ? 0. 0009 ? 0. 0009 (? 0. 641) (? 0. 99) ? 0. 0046 ? 0. 0046 (? 2. 341)** (? 2. 302)** ? 0. 0005 ? 0. 0016 (? 0. 082) (? 0. 265) ? 0. 0015 ? 0. 0027 (? 0. 252) (? 0. 463) 0. 0060 0. 0077 2. 33*** 2. 58*** 3061 3061 0. 1629 (2. 458)** 0. 0295 0. 0003 (0. 676) 0. 0073 (1. 569) ? 0. 0009 (? 0. 744) 0. 0527 (1. 673)* 0. 0093 (1. 941)* ? 0. 0004 (? 0. 195) 0. 0017 (1. 141) ? 0. 0006 (? 0. 389) ? 0. 0018 (? 0. 977) ? 0. 0003 (? 0. 519) ? 0. 0012 (? 0. 218) 0. 0005 1. 15 3061 Model 10 (1. 978)** ? 0. 0001 ? 0. 0002 ? 0. 0001 (? 0. 336) (? 0. 484) (? 0. 257) 0. 0072 0. 0071 0. 0085 (1. 531) (1. 516) (1. 803)* ? 0. 0001 0. 0000 ? 0. 0001 (? 0. 069) (0. 37) (? 0. 102) 0. 0667 0. 0817 0. 0709 (2. 100)** (2. 517)** (2. 226)** 0. 0090 0. 0087 0. 0249 (1. 878)* (1. 832)* (2. 659)*** ? 0. 0003 ? 0. 0002 ? 0. 0002 (? 0. 182) (? 0. 138) (? 0. 109) 0. 0016 0. 0016 0. 0018 (1. 085) (1. 055) (1. 221) ? 0. 0007 ? 0. 0006 ? 0. 0009 (? 0. 466) (? 0. 407) (? 0. 641) ? 0. 0034 ? 0. 0032 ? 0. 0046 (? 1. 804)* (? 1. 686)* (? 2. 341)** 0. 0020 ? 0. 0007 ? 0. 0005 (0. 032) (? 1. 121) (? 0. 082) ? 0. 0005 ? 0. 0015 ? 0. 0015 (? 0. 079) (? 0. 252) (? 0. 252) 0. 0051 0. 00 64 0. 0060 2. 20*** 2. 41*** 2. 33*** 3061 3061 3061 0. 0333 (2. 225)** ? 0. 0002 (? 0. 410) 0. 0086 (1. 824)*

A systems look at a construction problem

System theory, in general, is a field of study involving complex interactions between different groups or objects that work together to achieve a specific result. (O’Connor & McDermott 1997:11)In applications for management and organizations, systems theory involves the efficient communications of information. There are many different applied approaches such as the soft systems approach as well as the hard systems approach. This paper looks into the application of both approaches in a construction project.The Pre-contract SituationThe situation I will be discussing is the design of a world standard university to be provided through Descon Construction Company. The contractor (Descon) was selected after the due process, as listed out below:1.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Invitation by the university to Descon to bid for the contract2.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Identification by the university of suitable construction companies with the capability of carrying out the work from the total list o f bidders3.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Recommendation of Descon to the university4.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Descon tenders a copy of project management works and provides for complete audibility of the process5.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Assessment of Descon by the university6.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The university tenders Descon with a copy of their evaluation and review of the construction company7.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Submission of contract recommendations by Descon to the university8.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Estimation by both parties of project cost, functionality, quality and time9.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Reporting by Descon and the university of their individual assessments of the project.10.   Compromise is reached by both parties and a final project plan is developed11.   Initiation by both parties of services and agreements stipulated within the contractThe situation that arose after the university building committee’s appointment of Descon as preferred bidder, and as the parties moved in to the next stage of detailed negotiation of the services (including buildings) to be provided, was what prompted this paper. During any contract or agreement, people enter into relationships.Such relationships will result in an outcome which, in this case, was the relationship between the University and Descon, the preferred bidder. The preferred bidder will ensure that the buildings are up to standard. Descon will also be responsible for any breach of contract and any poor services provided. The university building committee, on the other hand, will pay the stipulated amount as laid down in the Contract deedMatters arisingNo doubt numerous problems will arise in any given building contract situation, and this particular situation is no different. There is the problem of expecting complaints from the client as a result of building or design specification. However, the design desired by the client can still be met as result of good managerial and interdepartmental functions within t he system or organization.It should be understood that the two organizations are separate, large systems with different interacting units that make up the whole, and as such, room is made for adjustments in order to achieve the set objectives. These organizations are a collection of separate decision making systems, each with their own identity, purpose, understanding of the environment, beliefs and values based on which their decisions are made.Figure 1 below shows the structure of relationship between the two parties, the University and Descon, involved in the design project. This shows the clear distinction between the two groups as separate entities.

Comparing and contrasting theories of object recognition

Object recognition is one of the most essential elements for the survival of all living creatures. Object recognition is considered the determination of the implication of a certain object. Object recognition is imperative given that humans and other living creatures manage to respond to the imperative features of the presented object. Assuming that present information concerning an object appears in two dimensions within the eye retina, there are many possibilities of confusing the same object with another thus substantiating visual recognition.However objects are not colour coded or labelled for us. Many objects look similar and do not contain one identifying mark or viewed in identical conditions. So why do humans have an extraordinary ability to identify a certain object regardless of its disparity in appearance. Additionally, humans can manage to take a broad view through observation of collections of objects that are not familiar. These objects are often identified from differe nt views, vantage points, sizes and locations. Objects can also be distinguished in cases where they have been partly blocked from view.Various object recognition conjectures present the subject through utilization of different perspectives thus, bringing a clear distinction to understand object recognition. In accordance to Marr and Nishihara, objects ought to be presented within the reference frame implying that it should be founded on the shape it attains. In order to describe an object based on its shape, canonical coordinate frames need to be established prior to the establishment of the form description. The appropriate collection of expressive rudiments for describing a shape is reliant on the degree of features that the shape description encapsulates.Marr and Nishihara proposed that a modular orderliness of shapes with dissimilar sizes be utilized in different degrees. This enables a portrayal at an elevated level to be stable over modifications in well detailed although sen sitive to these modifications has to be present at other degrees. Marr and Nishihara limited their arguments to objects that can be portrayed as collections of one or many generalized cones. According to these theorists, generalized cones refer to surfaces generated by repositioning a cross-section of steady shape although with inconsistent magnitude in the length of an axis.These cones can become either thicker or thinner given that their shapes get conserved. Marr puts forward the idea that it is possible to decipher the shape of an object based on their occluding contours, defined as an objects silhouette. The final point of this theory is that all the points lie in the same plane from the viewer’s point of view. However this can be problematic as some objects produce the same silhouette. The viewer will then locate the axis or axes appropriate to identify the object The approach presented by the two theorists reflected on, the coordinate frame to be used, in working out t he setback of object constancy.They asserted that an object-centered coordinate frame served better place in addressing the setback than viewer-centered coordinate structure. This is because an object-centered frame is never affected by the position or vantage points. The approach a modular, hierarchical arrangement permits for the generalization and sensitivity by permitting dissimilar levels of content in the portrayals. Description procedure necessitates the hierarchical disintegration of objects into collections of articulated components that bear own axis and focal points with the primary axis.In accordance to the conjecture of object recognition, recognition transpires in three dissimilar levels. The levels are the single-model axis where the primary stage in the model is the recognition of the principal axis of the entity or item. The other level is the component axes where the axis of every small, articulated component of the presented object, gets identified. Finally, the 3 D prototype matches where a matchup between the display of the components and a stored 3D prototypical description is carried out in order to categorize a certain object.Even though, object comparisons appear to be rapider in cases where the principal axis of the presented object appears similar to the object that it is being evaluated alongside, no compelling information has been presented to prop up the psychological actuality of the Marr and Nishihara prototype. This idea is supported by Lawson and Humphreys (1996) study in which participants identified objects that had been rotated. However in patients where there had been damage to the right hemisphere they could recognise objects presented in a particular view but not when in an unusual view, Warrington and Taylor (1978).Images of objects with a vital component obscured or the central axis foreshortened as a result of rotation produced a similar result. Humphreys and Riddoch (1984) An alternative would be to consider viewpoint dependant theories which argue that a multi views approach takes account of the appearance of object from different viewpoints and recognition is viewpoint dependant as the time and accuracy of identification of objects would vary depending on decrepancies between percept and target views. However viewpoint dependant theories do not comply to one or more of the conditions for immediate viewpoint invariance.Some work has been carried out that analyses how views learned over experience (Tarr and Pinker, 1989). It is considered that Biederman theory was an extension of the offered theory by Marr and Nishihara with the present supposition that objects comprise of fundamental primitives, known as geons. This theory was worked out in order to take care of primal identification of objects. According to the conjecture, the visual object gets identified through the fitness of the stored object depiction with geon-based data offered by the visual object.Similar to Marr and Nishihara, Biederm an argues a particular aspect of viewpoint-invariant and suggests that objects are disintegrated into smaller components on the grounds of geometrical characteristics of occluding outlines in the image given that these components are embodied with regard to well-defined concavities on the outlines. These components are regarded geometric primitives otherwise known as geons or geometric ions. These comprise shapes such as cylinders and cones. These objects are embodied as structural portrayals founded on the geometric primitives.According to Biederman 36 geons to would be required to create descriptions of all frequently viewed objects. In accordance to the conjecture, the primitives are delineated by attributes such as curvilinearity, parallelism, cotermination, symmetry and collinearity. These properties are non-accidental implying that they are not variable, under alteration and concerning the vantage or viewpoints. In this approach, recognition progresses directly from the image attributes without the precise depiction of the three dimensional manifestation. This can be substantiated by experiments where line drawing of an object becomes blocked out.In a circumstance where adequate information for the geometric ions is recognised, the object is identified effortlessly than in circumstances where the geometric ions or primitives are blocked out. The conjecture presents an analysis concerning the determination of object geons. The preliminary step is edge extraction, which presents receptiveness to disparities in surface attributes, such as viewing a wheel straight on. Creation of an objects account independent of viewpoint is an essential criteria in both Marr and Nishihara and Biederman theories.However some researchers show that there may be inconsistancies with their findings. Buthoff and Edelman (1992) found that participant inability to recognise difficult objects even when presented in a novel viewpoint and should have allowed for an object centred des cription. This indicates that there may be a viewpoint- dependant recognition (Tarr 1995). Biederman presents similar opinion to Marr and Nishihara concerning the segmentation of visual image into geometric primitives or ions. The concave components of the object outline bear significance.However, the outlasting component to the conjecture occurs in determining the edge information that an object holds that is indispensable attributes of the outstanding invariant across divergent observation angles. Invariant properties for the edges include the curvature, collection of positions that are parallel, edges ending at similar positions and points collinear to each other. The conjecture asserts that geons of visual objects are generated from the invariant properties. Foster and Gilson put forward a simple model of object recognition as an alternative with two basic terms.One reflecting the object structure the other reflecting image based features. Together they predict performance that is view-point dependant. Identifying the the number of aspects tin an object is a simple structural component. However further investigation taking account of more complex objects need to be studied. Biederman theory envisions that all intricate forms are generated from uncomplicated geometrical components regarded as geons and that pattern identification include recognition of these elements.Contrary to Biederman, Marr and Nishihara, utilizes the concepts of visual processing regarded as the computational approach. This approach seeks to delineate or outline the stages involved in pulling out constructive three-dimensional (3D) data from two dimensional depictions or representations. Thus, Marr and Nishihara conjecture seems excessively intricate from the beginning since an assortment of sketch and models are engrossed. On the contrary, Biederman conjecture appears to enfold object recognition from the basic levels to the intricate levels.Additionally, the two conjectures appear es sentially dissimilar since Marr and Nishihara conjecture propose that humans recognize objects from their constituents and the contours of these components. These two theories may be considered top-down processing since the objects that is ultimately perceived and the human knowledge of the globe is utilized to recognise at the last part of the procedure. A viewpoint-independent conjecture fundamentally denotes that objects are psychologically depicted as 3D models, therefore, forecasting that these depictions ought to be uniformly available from any position of view.However, Biederman theory barely forecasts that these depictions are available from all view positions implying that two or more structural descriptions are necessitated in order to identify a certain object. Therefore, Biederman’s theory is divergent from the other conjecture since it proposes that when humans observe an object, they are capable of recognizing such an object having viewed analogous patterns in t he precedent. Biederman’s conjecture is founded upon the recognition of object attributes and utilizing these attributes to categorize object geons and their connections.Visual memory is utilized in determining whether the offered objects appear similar to the object that has been perceived. The two theories bear an inevitable relationship since they have a basis in Marr and Nishihara theory. Although, some disparities and similarities exist between the two, a relationship still exists since they are plausible conjectures concerning 3D objection identification. However, Marr and Nishihara conjecture seems more intricate than the Biederman’s theory bearing in contemplation the concepts utilized.

Skype Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Skype - Essay Example Considering the rapid digitalization of the economies and an increasing trend towards the online market portals, it is vital for the modern businesses to resort exclusively or partially to e-marketing solutions and strategies. In fact e-marketing has redefined the ways the modern businesses are conducted. Ans. Skype being a complete e-commerce venture has an elaborate and well calibrated e-marketing strategy. A cursory perusal of the e-marketing activities undertaken by Skype reveals innovation and effectiveness at its best. The primary forte of Skype lies in its apt communication strategies and its state of the art customer relationship management (Krishnamurthy 2006). Skype has an exclusive e-marketing based advertising campaign that resorts to the regular strategies like hosting an exclusive website that enhances the awareness of the potential customers about the products offered by Skype and also connects them to these services. Skype also uses banner ads, text ads, pop-up ads and other such features (Krishnamurthy 2006). In addition Skype also uses e-mail and e-mail newsletters to disseminate information amongst the interested customers (Krishnamurthy 2006). Skype has an immaculate search engine optimization strategy. Skype extensively resorts to a personalized online customer c are that targets both the individual and corporate customers Krishnamurthy 2006). Ans. Skype is the most well known and cost effective VoIP based communication service. It enables its customers to make the regular telephonic communication to both the landline and cellular phones located anywhere in the world through the medium of the internet. In addition Skype offers other relevant services like file transfer and online conferencing. Though Skype has an effective and elaborate e-marketing strategy that advertises it’s economical and state of the art services amongst the people, the primary

Team conflict x 2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Team conflict x 2 - Essay Example Personal level conflicts arise due to temperamental differences, competitive attitude, egocentric bias etc. While in the case of peer to peer relations, personal interests get involved, in the case of boss to subordinate relations, conflicts would lead to underperformance and disobedience. Relational conflicts are easy to foresee as individual attitudes get easily noted as potential threats; failure to meet milestones in a time-bound manner is a sure sign of team conflict, arising mainly out of differences in goal interpretation and ways to achieve same. Conflicts play an important role in generating new ideas and hence all conflicts are not necessarily undesirable. A task may be performed in different ways and if a team member believes that there is scope for improvement in the way it is being done at present and hence voices his/her opinion, even though it may lead to conflict with colleagues or the team leader, such conflicts are to be assessed for the overall benefit to an organization, setting aside individual ego problems. Thus it is not appropriate to create an entirely sterile atmosphere that The issue here is the insecurity and jealousy of the team mates vis-Ã  -vis Vladimir and his superlative achievements. A reading of the case history clearly points to the fact that Vladimir is not averse to adjust himself to his work situation, his colleagues are not unappreciative of his talents and that given a helping hand, the situation can be brought under control. As the team leader, first task would be to settle the dispute before it escalates any further. I would call for a group meeting of my team in which Vladimir and his distracters take part. In the meeting, I will unequivocally condemn the incident and elaborate on the dire consequences that would follow if the issue is taken to its logical conclusion through a police complaint etc. Following this

Accounting Internship Report Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Accounting Internship Report - Essay Example To be the best accountant, one has to be acquainted with all every accounting detail in the organization in question because a single mistake could be detrimental for the whole organization in general. That is why I aimed at practicing all the accounting theory I had been taught in school to ensure that I put it to practice. The company would be appropriate in meeting my career objectives since it has a very elaborate finance department, which is very important for the well-being of the entire organization in general. The finance department works in collaborations with other departments to ensure that financial details of the organization are in order. Considering the large number of departments present in the organization, I felt that this organization would equip me with the exposure I needed to achieve my career goals. Kuwait Wind General Trading and Contracting Company are seen as an innovative and young company located in Kuwait. It is aimed at developing various business concepts in Kuwait. The company deals with various sectors in Kuwait and UAE. Some of the sectors involved include electronic games, various coffee shops, distribution of cosmetics, restaurants, and real estate. The company prioritizes its business concepts by ensuring that it develops new ideas that compete with their imagination and creativity. Their main principles entail provision of various solid services, which are customer oriented and produces rapid results. They aim at ensuring that their services are available to all their targeted customers at the highest quality possible to be in a position to meet the requirements of their customers. Cafà © les Amis which is a brand coffee shop that Kuwait Wind Company began about five years ago. It is a local shop that deals with coffee but has a French concept. So far, the coffee shop has three branches one at the airport, the second one in the discovery mall and the last one in the lobby of Mazaya tower in

Obama Housing Refinance Proposal and Program Essay

Obama Housing Refinance Proposal and Program - Essay Example According to the research findings it can therefore be said that President Obama announced a new plan to help struggling homeowners who are current on their mortgages, but underwater by refinancing. Mortgage rates are currently at historical lows and Obama would like to make refinancing into these historic rates available to more homeowners across the country. Obama anticipates providing relief to about 3.5 million people with underwater mortgages. Obama expect the average homeowner to save roughly $300-$500 a month by refinancing into these new low rates. He explained that refinancing would help free up additional money for consumers, therefore helping to stimulate the economy. Obama faces stiff opposition from Republicans in Congress on his refinancing plan, which must first pass congress. United States is known as the ‘land of opportunities’ and people from all over the world come to the country in hope of a better future. But this land of opportunities is facing some serious crisis lately. The financial crisis of 2008 has hit the country badly and has affected the majority of the population. Approximately 11 million people are suffering from serious financial watershed and they cannot even afford a proper shelter to live in. The reason for these problems in the United States and the attempts that American President Barack Obama made to ease the issues of the citizens will be discussed in this paper. The residents of the United States were mortgaged in large numbers and therefore the collapse of the housing market forced many people out on the streets. The homeowners were to pay off the amount of money that was worth more than their houses which was due to the decrease in property rates all over the country. This is where the decision maker Obama stepped in. He decided to revise the Housing Refinance Proposal that would bring out the homeowners from their misery. Previous Financing Policies The United States government is well known for their ex tra ordinary Housing Finance Policies. The housing policies of the country are considered as standards for the less developed countries. Let’s discuss briefly about the previous Financing Policies that were implemented by the United States government. The United States Housing Policy allowed residents to have tax deductable interest payments. This practice is unique because a certain amount of tax is always applied on the interest payments for loans in different parts of the world (Barth, et. al.178). The deduction of tax meant a great assistance for the house owners of the country. Furthermore, the United States government also set up an organization that would be responsible for providing securities to the loan borrowers. The organization was named as the Federal Housing Administration and the FHA was there to handle the security issues. Therefore no one was denied a loan because of absence of security or collateral. Unfortunately the policies that were devised by the US go vernment did not work even though they contained some points that were exemplary for the rest of the world. The Housing Policy of the US failed dramatically because every other person was given loans that they couldn’t afford. The assumption behind the policies was that property prices will continue to increase in future. The reason behind the failure was also the benefits provided to the borrowers. Giving loans without proper collaterals was a big mistake of US administration. Issues of the existing policies and poverty of people The policies that were set up by the US government were for the prosperity of the homeowners. US being a democratic nation, prevailing policies were not appreciated by all. Many banks austerely protested against the deduction of tax. According to their point of view, excluding the tax would not be fruitful for the banks in the long run. Also the numbers of the customers getting loans certainly increased as a result of these policies. This resulted i n more

We should provide food for the poor Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

We should provide food for the poor - Essay Example Beri beri primarily results from lack of vitamin B or thiamin. Poor people who suffer from malnutrition have a high likelihood of developing beri beri, as well as other deadly diseases such as anemia and scurvy (Karlan & Appel, 2012). Diseases increase the likelihood of nutritional deficiency; therefore, poor people are at great risk of malnutrition. In addition, poor people, especially in underdeveloped and developing countries also die as a result of problems with the land they live on and till, for instance, famine and drought are known to cause massive losses of human lives amongst poor people. Children are the most affected group of people in the event of such tough climatic conditions. To date, famine is one of the most common causes of death in underdeveloped and developing countries. Most of these deaths occur among children who often receive small food portions if any, despite the fact that they need it the most since they are still growing. During tough climatic conditions such as drought and famine, countries’ food supplies decrease substantially (Karlan & Appel, 2012). Poor people, especially those in underdeveloped countries suffer all these problems, and it is up to the privileged members of the society to assist them. It is quite possible to deter the suffering and death or poor people as a result of inadequate food and malnutrition. People should give sufficient food supplies to poor people because all human beings are entitled to lead healthy and fulfilled lives, which includes having sufficient food quantities and quality. From an ethical point of view, people should provide food to the poor since it is the morally upright thing to do. Ethical p rinciples such as utilitarian principles advocate for people to give up their interests for the wellbeing of the greatest number of people. Sacrifice, in this sense, does not mean giving to the poor more than a person can afford, but rather means giving up something of value to oneself in

Public Finance Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Public Finance - Essay Example It would also include government’s initiative and legal foundations established for such programs. The second part would be dealing with the effect of such welfare payments and programs on the labour supply decisions, and the last part would consist of the economic theory for explaining the effect of labour supply incentive of these social welfare programs, which is designed for the low income household. Empirical evidence would be also included to support such viewpoints. In order to understand the concepts of welfare payments and its relation to labour supply, firstly one needs to understand the concepts of welfare economics. Welfare economics utilises the perspectives and procedure of microeconomics, but the concepts can be exploited to derive macroeconomics assumptions. It assists in analysing and measuring social welfare, in terms of the economic society. The concept of welfare economics lays down welfare improvement framework in term of Pareto efficiency. The two convent ional approaches in welfare economics are: a) The New Welfare Economics Approach, and b) The Neoclassical Approach. Neoclassical approach was formulated by Marshall, Edgeworth, Pigou and Sidgwick. This theory assumes that utility is a scalable measure by judgement or observation. The preferences are stable and the additional consumption would increase the utility successively. This concept is also known as diminishing marginal utility. However, the new welfare economic theory is based on the studies of Parato, Kaldor and Hicks. This theory specifically explains the difference between the efficiency aspect and the distribution aspect of a discipline. The criteria of efficiency are treated with Parato’s efficiency and the compensation tests of Hicks-Kaldor. The concepts of welfare economics would be included in the study to understand the concepts of social welfare. Let us understand it with the help of utility function, which can also be derived from points on the contact curv e. So abundant utility functions can be derived from the production possibility curve, stated in figure 1. Figure 1 Figure 1 is a combined graph which would explain the efficiency between consumption and production and also include the ingredients of maximising social welfare. Each point on the curve represents the allocation of efficiency of the economic resources. It is Pareto optimum in the factor allocation, in consumption, in the interaction and in production. The curve MN represents a social utility frontier curve. Point D on the MN curve corresponds to Point C. Point D lies on the social utility frontier, as the marginal rate of substitution (MRS) of C is equal to the MRS of A. Similarly Point B corresponds to point E and both of them lie within the social utility frontier, which signifies inefficiency. This is because the MRS at C is not equal to Marginal rate of transformation (MRT) at point A. Although this was Pareto’s way of presenting the points of efficiency, bu t there is one point where the social welfare has maximized and that point can also be called as the point of bliss. This point is Z, where the MN curve is tangent to the highest possible indifference curve. After discussing welfare economics through graphical representation, the basic concepts of providing welfare payments to the low income households, would be studied. The term welfare is used to denote minimum level of social support and wellbeing for all

Fox's Book of Martyrs Religious Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Fox's Book of Martyrs Religious - Essay Example The main objective of writing this book is to attack the Roman Catholic Church and it' s hypocritical values. The writer has given detailed accounts of the corruption in the Roman Catholic Church and also the illegal or unethical ways; the Popes resorted to, to attain the position of Pope. The motive behind writing this book was to create awareness amongst the masses to rise against the tyrannical rule of the Romans. Fox himself was the victim of the unjust rule of the king and the notorious Bishop. Bishop had made an unsuccessful attempt of nabbing Fox and persecuting him. He was lucky enough to escape from his country. Being the witness of such gruesome incidents, he was provoked to write a book, and he did this with utmost dedication and sincerity. He even neglected his health and continued writing for this noble cause. The book speaks of the atrocities of Queen Mary on the Protestants and about the cruel Bishop Bonner. It was only after the accession of Queen Mary to the throne t hat the reign of terror began. For the sake of restoring the supremacy of the Roman Empire and the Roman Catholic Church, she ordered the persecution of those who protested against her power and Roman Catholicism. Hundreds of Protestants were burnt alive during her reign. It is really ironical that both the Romans and the Protestants fought in the name of God but Romans followed the unethical way and massacred those who followed the right path as directed by God. Although they shared common values, their motive was eclipsed by the vices like that of thirst for power and they adopted immoral ways to restore their supremacy. Thus this book not only deals with the tyranny of the Romans but also it speaks about the bravery of the martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the sake of their God and his Gospels. This book appeals not only to the heart but also to the head or mind of every Englishmen. The work of Fox was so appealing and so realistic that it was ordered that his work be displa yed along with the Bible in the churches and all public places where people could read the book. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, the Englishmen accepted this book as an expression of national faith, second in place to the Bible. Whenever an Englishman entered any church, he discovered for himself about the ruthless behavior of Roman Catholics and about the valor of the Martyrs. The aim of this book was not merely to glorify the Protestants and undermine the Romans, but also about the human values as a whole as suggested by the Almighty. In the first part of the book, in the early Christian days we come across the saints like St. Stephen, James The Great, St. Luke, St. Philip, St. Mathew, James The Less, St. Peter and St. Paul etc. St. Stephen was stoned to death by the murderers of Christ, just because he tried to preach the Gospels of Christ to them in a faithful manner. Immediately after the persecution of St. Stephen all those who professed their beliefs in Jesus Christ as their Lord, had to face martyrdom. After 10 years of the persecution of St. Stephen, James the Great was beheaded. He was the son of Zebede and relative of Christ. He was beheaded by Herod Agrippa, the Governor of Judea. Agrippa used the strategy of attacking the leaders of the

Local Literature Essay Example for Free

Local Literature Essay Personality is the sum of one’s personal characteristics. It is one’s identity. The teachers, more than any other professional are momentarily subjected to scrutiny to the minutest detail and observation by those they associate with. Teachers are judged more strictly than the other professionals. The personality they project determined the impressions they make upon students’ and colleagues. Their poise, bearing and manner of dressing create a stunning and attractive appearance. Their facial expression communicates a friendly and amiable disposition. Personalities may be described as authoritative, weak, dynamic, or â€Å"magnetic†. Teachers’ personality must be natural and genuine, that is, devoid of pretenses and artificiality. They must be consistent, true and authentic. (Corpuz Salandanan, 2006 p.12) In the highly complex world of human relations, it is essential that the conscientious teachers be concerned not only with how students’ interact with her but how they interact with their peers and with other adults. But concern is not enough. Little can be accomplished until students’ problems pertaining to human relations have been identified. (Salandanan, 2010 p.18) Once the teachers is more aware with the social relationships among her students’ she is in the better position to select a technique for teaching human relations. Toward this end, the teacher must first identify students’ problems pertaining to human relations. The identification such problem gives the teacher a basis for considering what techniques for improving human relations she might employ. (â€Å"Teaching techniques for improving human relations†, p.459 n.d) No single factor can contribute more to an improved student achievement than the guarantee of a quality teacher in every classroom. No amount of classroom facilities and instructional materials can produced the desired learning outcome without a teacher at the center stage. Quality is synonymous to competence, creativity and commitment, contextualized in the teaching profession. Competence highlights a teacher’s adequate knowledge, proficient skills and trustworthiness. Creativity is a kin to originality,  flexibility and innovativeness. Worthwhile values of compassion and commitment provide the fine ingredients that make teaching truly humane and enriched with a sincere feeling of accountability. Quality teachers’ can be found in our schools today. Adequately prepared through quality pre-service programs and continually motivated to grow while in the service, their competence to teach is assured. The attitudes and values that they project in and out of the classrooms, in the home and community, provide positively and satisfactorily the answer to the perennial search for quality teachers. As paragons of virtues and progressive attitudes, they truly deserve the priceless rewards, recognition and emulation of the whole nation. With full pride and confidence, every parent and community can lay upon their chests the growth and nurturance of their sons and daughters for a promising future. (â€Å"Quality teacher†, p.7-11 n.d) The teacher rightfully deserves to be enthroned at the center stage of any educational endeavor. She is the distinct ray of light that illumines the mind touches the heart and buoys aloft the spirit of the young. Every effort, initiative or enterprise aimed to educating the young needs a magic hand to provide the much-needed direction, guidance and energy throughout the educational journey. Assuming a number of roles that a leader, counselor, assistant and instructional manager, there is no task that demands more waking hours, strength and attention than the teaching-learning episode. Competent teachers produce competent students. The desire to grow and learn more and more is vital to the development of an exceptional proficiency and capability needed in the teaching profession. As a concluding statement, a definitive teacher personality is a picture of one who possesses outstanding mental, personal and social traits. Has a strong aptitude and interest in teaching the young, steep in worthwhile values and attitudes and competent in both content and teaching methodologies. The teacher with a definitive personality is bound to reach the minds and touch the hearts of the young. (Aquino, 2008 p. 35-38) Travis W. Twiford, Chair Mary E. Yakimowski-Srebnick Steven M. Janosik Louis O. Tonelson Stephen Parson (2012) â€Å"The Influence of Teaching Methods on Student Achievement on Virginia’s End of Course Standards of Learning Test for Algebra I† Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Virginia Beach, Virginia. http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-10062002-202857/unrestricted/HAASDISSERTATION.PDF SYED SHAFQAT ALI SHAH (2009) IMPACT OF TEACHER’S BEHAVIOUR ON THE ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS. University Institute of Education and Research. Rawalpindi, Pakistan. http://prr.hec.gov.pk/Thesis/293S.pdf Amy C. Thomason (2011) TEACHER PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL CHARACTERISTICS: CONTRIBUTIONS TO EMOTIONAL SUPPORT AND BEHAVIOR GUIDANCE IN EARLY CHILDHOOD CLASSROOMS. The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. North Carolina. http://libres.uncg.edu/ir/uncg/f/Thomason_uncg_0154D_10586.pdf Chang, Ya-Ching, Students’ Perceptions of Teaching Styles and Use of Learning Strategies. Masters Thesis, University of Tennessee, 2010. http://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes/782 Sylvie Marguerite Raymond (2008).Effective and Ineffective University Teaching from the Students’ and Faculty’s Perspectives: Matched or Mismatched Expectations. University of Exeter. Doctor of Education. https://ore.exeter.ac.uk/repository/bitstream/handle/10036/40767/RaymondS.pdf?sequence=1 Jeffrey Sprenger (n.d).STRESS AND COPING BEHAVIORS AMONG PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS. Health Education and Promotion. http://thescholarship.ecu.edu/bitstream/handle/10342/3548/Sprenger_ecu_0600M_10405.pdf?sequence=1 UNPUBLISHED MATERIALS Abejuela R., almeniana C., Caballero J., Gomez N., Salles M. (2007). Teaching Beliefs and Teaching Intentions of Daycare Teachers. College of Education, PamantasanngLungsodng Pasig. Acuà ±a L., Gadia M., Gaspar R., Rodrigo J., (2008). Academic achievement of selected education students involved in extracurricular activities. College of Education, PamantasanngLungsodng Pasig. Aguilar A., Basibas K., Castillo R., Cruz M., Pontiyon A., et al (2007).Non-intellective factors affecting the Academic Performance of Freshman High School Students in Mathematics at Sta. Lucia High School.School year 2006-2007.College of Education, PamantasanngLungsodng Pasig. Balle M., Feraaro L., Guinto J., Palaming I., Umali C. (2011).Level of Social Skills and Academic Achievement of Selected Grade II Pupil. College of Education, PamantasanngLungsodng Pasig. Banzuela R., Pumas M., Peckson W. (2006).Self-Conceptand Academic Performance in Mathematics of Selected Pinagbuhatan High School Freshmen.College of Education, PamantasanngLungsodng Pasig. Barreno C., Casuga M., Intalan P., Ocampo D., (2007).Motivation on Teaching among First Year Bachelor of Elementary Education Students. College of Education, PamantasanngLungsodng Pasig. Bartolome J., Borlagdatan M., Cinco A. and Tumonog L., (2013).Teaching Strategies of Secondary Mathematics Teachers in Elementary Algebra and its Relation in the Performance of the Students.College of Education, PamantasanngLungsodng Pasig. Benito G., De leon M., Baga R., (2004).Teachers morale and work motivation at Pasig Central Elementary School Pasig City.College of Education, PamantasanngLungsodng Pasig. Calià ±go J., Laguitan L., Nagales M. and Tingson S., (2006). â€Å"The Relationship between the Self-Esteem and Achievement Motivation of selected College Freshmen. College of education, PamantasanngLungsodng Pasig. Castillo A., Santos K., Beltran L., Dueà ±as J., Ibardo I. (2006).â€Å"The relationship between Students Learning Styles and their Expectation of Relationship with Faculty.College of Education, PamantasanngLungsodng Pasig. Conise C., Rivera M., Vinarao M. (2008). Attitude Towards Teaching Profession and Level of Pedagogical Knowledge among Third year and Fourth year Education Students. College of Education, PamantasanngLungsodng Pasig. Cruz L., Ruiz A., Umali M., (2012). Self-perceived difficulty and expectation of peer teacher and parents to the performance of third year geometry students.College of Education, PamantasanngLungsodng Pasig. Cruz P., Hernando M., Jimenez S. (2008). â€Å"Perception on English Teacher Quality and Use of Instructional Media among third year students of three secondary schools.College of Education, PamantasanngLungsodng Pasig. Dayandante G., Echual M., Gavileà ±o J., Mangalus S., Telmo M., (2008). Perception on the Quality of Tests Administered to selected Freshmen Students. College of Education, PamantasanngLungsodng Pasig. De Guzman J., Facistol R., Lorenzo A., Pascua J., Pelisigas R., et al (2009). Relationship of Achievement and Attitude Motivation‚ Anxiety and Aptitude in Mathematics.College of Education‚ PamantasanngLungsodng Pasig. De Leon T.‚ Delmindo K.‚ Ebot M.‚ Maà ±oso E.‚ Otayco J. (2007).â€Å"The Relationship between Trust in and Respect for Teachers and Student autonomy and Influence in the Classroom†.College of Education‚ PamantasanngLungsodng Pasig. Laurente J.‚ Lumbao J.‚ Meà ±oza R.‚ Miguel K.‚ Nicolas L.‚ et al (2010). Relationship of Teacher’s Profile‚ Instructional Materials and Instructional Methods used Teachers Teaching Styles and Mean Score in the National Achievement Test of Napico Elementary School. College of Education‚ PamantasanngLungsodng Pasig. Molar V., (2010).Teachers’ Personality and Pupils’ Learning Behavior of Grade Five at Nagpayong Elementary School S.Y. 2009-2010; an assessment. College of Education, PamantasanngLungsodng Pasig.